Lives and Livelihoods

Outstanding achievements by outstanding Individuals

Tony and Julie Searle

Melaleuca Station was big on natural beauty but was going nowhere as a pastoral enterprise when it came up for sale in 1992. Apart from an unfinished homestead and a smattering of broken down infrastructure, 95 per cent of the property was a tangled mess of impenetrable Mimosa weed, making it useless for cattle grazing.

But then came a rescue package combining the financial clout of its new owners, the Northern Territory’s pioneering Paspaley pearling family, and the technical and management skills of a self-taught floodplain grazing specialist, Tony Searle.

Today, this 300 sq km chunk of Northern Territory floodplain country serves a two-pronged role as a breathtaking private VIP wilderness retreat for its owners and a flourishing export cattle back-grounding enterprise.

An intensive 12-year Mimosa clearing campaign has systematically reclaimed much of the floodplains, and 4000 cattle or more can now graze on the native grasses there when the annual floodwaters recede. The reclamation program still has at least five years to go, but Melaleuca is already a showcase of what can be achieved with the right vision, mindset, approach and backup resources.

The owners have given Tony Searle ‘carte blanche’ to try whatever he believes is necessary to clean up Melaleuca for conservation purposes and also achieve profitable grazing levels. Tony hails from rural stock, as a Queensland cane farmer’s son who was just 15 when he left home to take up work as a jackeroo in the Kimberley. He’s learnt a lot about the vagaries of the northern cattle industry since then and has no qualms about trying unconventional methods if he thinks they’ll help him meet his goals. He’s proving at Melaleuca that this approach works.

Melaleuca Station is 200 km east of Darwin on the Mary River floodplains and shares a western border with the world heritage-listed Kakadu National Park. It lies in the Top End’s monsoon belt, which means a near-guaranteed annual rainfall of between 750mm and 1800mm, mostly from December to April when the ‘wet’ is in full swing. The property is 50 percent floodplain and 50 percent timbered upland country, including dense rainforest - and at the height of the wet season, more than 50 percent of its lowlands are covered in up to two metres of water.

The station is typical of the handful of small-scale stock grazing enterprises that reach out to the coast along the Top End floodplains. Pastoral operations here are generally on a smaller scale than those in major regional cattle production areas like the VRD (Victoria River District), Barkly Tablelands and Central Australia. But their location within the monsoonal belt makes them ideal for intensive cattle grazing on native and introduced pastures during a six-month window of opportunity each dry season. The cattle numbers are drastically reduced before each wet season inundation, when the grassy open flats are transformed into a massive lake stretching from the horizon to within 500 metres of the station homestead.

Melaleuca specializes in back-grounding - or fattening - Brahman and Brahman-cross cattle . The animals are sold into Northern Australia’s thriving export trade, which sees more than 240,000 head of mainly Bos indicus cattle shipped out each year through the Port of Darwin. The cattle go mainly to South East Asian markets where the demand for fresh meat continues to grow in tandem with burgeoning economies and comsumer demands for high grade fresh beef.

The bulk of the station’s seasonal stock is either acquired through trading or agisted for other Territory-wide stations. The property also runs a Brahman breeder herd of 1000, and keeps ‘a couple of hundred’ buffalo - ‘because they’re a legendary Territory icon and the VIP guests love to see them grazing near the billabongs’.

Melaleuca was part of the old Point Stuart Station until Point Stuart was subdivided into buffalo development blocks in the early 1980s. The envisaged buffalo industry never really took off. Huge numbers of feral water buffalo grazed, wallowed and trampled across the Mary River floodplains around the 1960s, providing a ready-made harvest for Point Stuart, which processed the meat at its local Jimmys Creek Abattoir. Most that remained in the late 1970s were destroyed as part of the Australian Government’s controversial BTEC (Brucellosis and Tuberculosis Eradication Campaign) before the Point Stuart land was carved up for re-sale.

When Melaleuca’s first owner, renowned bushman Rod Ansell, decided to sell up in 1992, Paspaley Pearls Properties Pty Ltd snapped up the station as a prized parcel of wilderness within easy access of Darwin. The property incorporated outstanding wetlands and wildlife attractions, including internationally significant Saltwater Crocodile and Barramundi breeding grounds and a recorded 211 native bird species. The owners saw that with a concerted reclamation and conservation effort, it could become the perfect retreat for the directors and visiting international clients. Many VIP guests have since marveled at the spectacle of big flocks of Brolgas mingled with tens of thousands of waterfowl drinking at the station billabongs and free-ranging buffalo and brumbies grazing on the grassy banks.

The owners also saw the potential for a profitable pastoral venture if the mammoth environmental hurdles could be overcome. A year after taking over the property, they approached Tony Searle, who at the time was managing neighbouring Opium Creek Station for the Sultan of Brunei. While at Opium Creek and other Top End cattle stations, Tony had built up an enormous knowledge of what worked and didn’t work in northern wetlands grazing and was a specialist in back-grounding stock for the export trade.

He and his family agreed to move next door, mindful of the challenges ahead and the long-term commitment they would have to give to turn things around. Wife Julie sees the wisdom in Tony’s quip that he has ‘two lifetimes of work left in him yet at Melaleuca’ before he retires to his 200 acre ‘sit down block’ in Queensland’s Hervey Bay-Maryborough district.

“He’s very passionate about his Mimosa project so he won’t be happy until he’s got that battle won,” she says. Julie also came from a Queensland cane farming family and looks forward to moving back that way one day when the couple’s work in the Territory is done. She’s accompanied Tony from station to station across Northern Australia for the past 30 years and has always been comfortable with bush life - though she admits to crying her eyes out once because she felt homesick. Julie has played the key role in educating their daughters, Laurie and Sally, through Katherine School of the Air for the primary levels then Darwin-based secondary correspondence lessons, and she’s always kept the station bookwork in top shape.

She also happens to whip up the best scones in the country, according to visiting cattle buyers. She pinched the recipe from Sally who recently moved from Melaleuca to Katherine with husband Luke and their two young daughters. The young couple runs a rural contracting business mainly based on fencing, building sheds and maintaining watering systems. Luke is also an invaluable spare pair of hands around the station, especially at mustering time or when things slow down and the workers take a break after the last of the market-bound stock have been trucked out to the Noonamah or Berrimah export holding yards near Darwin.

When the Searles arrived in 1996, Mimosa pigra was choking out 10,000 hectares - or 95 percent - of the Melaleuca floodplain.

“The place was pretty run-down when we got there, mainly because of the Mimosa” Tony says. “There was a bit of fencing and other infrastructure and a basic station homestead with tin roof, cement floor and partly-finished rock and cypress walls in place. We were able to build on what was there and we’re now living comfortably in that original homestead. But the Mimosa was the big problem. It had just about completely overrun the place and it was obvious from the start that if we wanted to eventually run a viable cattle grazing venture here, we had to get the Mimosa under control so we could give the native grasses a chance to grow again.”

He came up with an unconventional - yet ‘systematic and strategic approach’ using the prevailing climatic conditions to turn the tide on Mimosa. Some authorities said it wouldn’t work - but 12 years later, large tracts of the infested floodplain have been reclaimed and can sustain 4000 to 6000 head of cattle on nutritious open grasslands in the dry season. The remaining infested land is now being targeted as part of Melaleuca’s ongoing assault, which has become a model for controlling large-scale floodplain infestations of one of the most despised noxious weeds to infiltrate northern Australia.

More than $3 million has been spent so far on the Melaleuca Mimosa program, mostly by the Paspaley family, with backing from the National Landcare Program (NLP) and various Australian and Northern Territory Government agencies. The program is linked with a major ongoing initiative by landholders, industry and the NLP to control infestations of this thorny woody weed on a group of northern floodplain pastoral properties. It is fully back by the NT Cattlemen’s Association, whose executive director, Stuart Kenny, says the reclamation of valuable grazing land on properties like Melaleuca is good news for the health and future growth of the northern pastoral industry.

Melaleuca’s year-by-year approach has seen a mix of aerial spraying, burning, revegetation and follow-up maintenance under different climatic conditions, to reclaim new areas and keep already-cleared plots free of the noxious weed. Two station employees work full time on the Mimosa control program throughout each dry season. It’s a painstaking but critical battle.

The regime tackles the Mimosa infestation one plot at a time, with the plot selected 12 months ahead and its boundary sprayed in the early wet season to create a 100 metre perimeter of dead mimosa plants. It’s then a case of chaining the plot perimeter, spraying, burning by incendiary dropped from a helicopter, waiting for wet season floods to inundate and kill any new seedlings then, when the dry sets in, chaining the entire plot and re-spraying again to make sure no plants escape the onslaught.

Nearly two years after the first clearing fires are lit, the main revegetation work begins. As the floodwaters recede, the station workers spread selected grass seeds and plant runners that will have time to establish before the next wet season arrives. A helicopter-mounted GPS (global positioning system) has mapped Melaleuca each year since 1995 and has found no evidence of Mimosa spread beyond the original infestation.

“We’ve cleared 5000 hectares so far in the first 12 years and have returned it to valuable grazing land. I reckon another five years will see us break the back of the problem,” Tony says. “In the early stages, our aim was to return the entire area of infestation to cattle production in five years. However, it soon became evident that only regular maintenance would keep cleared areas free of Mimosa and this placed budgetary and time constraints on progress. We now expect it could take about 15 years to bring the entire 10,000 hectares of affected land into full production.

“We’ve learnt some important lessons along the way, like needing to operate strictly within our budget of finance, labour and resources, clearing only as much area as we can manage in subsequent years, and taking advantage of seasonal conditions to maximise the effectiveness of our spraying, burning and revegetation regimes. Perhaps most importantly, we recognize that this issue can’t be got rid of overnight so we have to be prepared to keep plugging away systematically over a long timeframe to win the war against Mimosa and achieve lasting results.”

Melaleuca Station’s cattle operations focus on either trading or agistment, depending on likely conditions and market forces. “It’s a matter of looking into a crystal ball to decide if it’s worth agisting or trading,” Tony says. “When we agist, the cattle are trucked in over hundreds of kilometres, from as far away as the VRD, Elliott, the Sturt Plateau near Daly Waters, and Borroloola in the Gulf. We’ve negotiated with a Mataranka station to take their cattle during this coming season. The good access we have to our property is very attractive for stations from outlying areas wanting to get their cattle into the export markets.”

In a normal season, the cattle go onto the floodplain around June-July and come off around December-January. Mustering takes place twice a year, with the stockmen working mainly on quad bikes but also using horses or bringing in choppers if the conditions call for them.

Despite the successes, Tony Seale reckons the environment and dramatic seasonal changes make the Mary River floodplains one of the most difficult areas in Australia in which to raise cattle. The answer, he says, is to adjust to and capitalize on what you’ve got available.

“Because we’re on floodplain country where 50 percent of the property can be underwater every year, we have to reduce our breeder numbers every 12 months. And we just manage as a wet season grazing operation with about 2000 head on the upland pastures, but this just maintains their condition and doesn’t fatten them. In comparison, the cattle put on significant condition in the dry season, when we have a 20-26 week long window of growing time. We can put 100 kg in this time - or 4 kg a week on our cattle, and we achieve this most of the time, depending on the length of the season.

“We generally work on the water receding on the floodplain in June or July and generally work on bringing the cattle off in December or January. If we had the floodplain pastures available all year round, we’d be laughing.

Frustrations of the four-legged variety also present themselves. Marauding wild dogs recently left five new calves dead in one paddock, feral pigs destroy the native pastures - and then there’s the crocs!

Melaleuca takes in much of the Mary River system, which harbors the world’s largest concentration of the Saltwater Crocodile, Crocodylus porosus. “They’re never far away and they cause us plenty of headaches,” says Tony. “There are thousands and thousands of them in the river system and they take their toll by attacking stock drinking on the water’s edge. They were particularly bad last year. When you see one of your top herd bulls floating down the river with a croc chomping it up, it’s pretty distressing. But I guess we can’t complain. We moved into their lounge room. They didn’t move into ours!

“We and the other property holders laid 1080 baits through the whole district recently, with Parks and Wildlife supplying the chemical. We got rid of the wild dogs that had been killing our calves - but such measures have to be maintained every year. They’ve been in their hundreds through the district at times and they can have a big impact on our stock. At the same time, we can’t kill them all off because that will cause an explosion in feral pigs, which are a food source for the dogs - and if we kill off too many pigs, the dogs revert to attacking our calves. We have to keep the numbers balanced.”

Aside from its cattle operations, Melaleuca is a photographer’s paradise, especially at dawn and dusk when the mirror-like billabongs are alive with their incredible mass of birdlife. There’s been talk of perhaps introducing a tourist venture in the future to allow paying guests to experience the property’s exceptional wetlands habitat, big crocs in the wild and excellent barramundi fishing. For the time being, the issue remains on the table and the owners, their guests and station staff have the place all to themselves.

Tony Searle has been exposed to many changes and challenges during his 12 years at Melaleuca - and nearly 30 altogether in Australia’s northern cattle industry. Positives include huge improvements in the quality of stock being trucked into back-grounding properties or direct to export markets.

He believes one big challenge ahead is for beef producers and researchers to work out how to avoid excessive weight loss in animals between the time they leave the paddock and arrive at the wharf. “With today’s technology and research projects, pastoralists have a greater opportunity to make more advanced management decisions and utilise technological advances,” he says.

“Industry initiatives, like Meat and Livestock Australia’s EDGEnetwork Grazing Land Management workshops, help keep pastoralists up-to-date with the latest research outcomes and best bet management decisions. Developing regional producer groups to work together and share knowledge is essential if we are to remain productive in an ever increasing competitive global market.

“For a profitable and sustainable future, we must take a holistic approach to property management and be able to breed stock efficiently. It is more about the amount of kilos out the farm gate – not the number of head. By utilising improvements in genetics, animal nutrition and grazing land management, we are establishing the backbone for a better product that will remain competitive in the future markets. 

“Change is driven by the need to be profitable and sustainable in changing market conditions. Past history is also a major driver of change. Without acknowledging the past ways and the mistakes made, we cannot make the most of opportunities in the future.”

Despite the environmental and climatic challenges of floodplain grazing, hungry crocs and marauding ferals, the systems in place are working well on Melaleuca Station. The owners are happy and their tireless manager optimistic about the future. “All the signs point to bigger times ahead for northern Australia’s cattle export industry,” he says. “Asia is a growing economy and will always need food - and there’s no better or cheaper option than good old Aussie beef.”

Source: Kerry Sharp