DROUGHT AND RESPONSE

TO DROUGHT IN

SOUTH WEST QUEENSLAND

BY

M. J. CAPELL

A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS (HONOURS) IN THE SCHOOL OF SOCIOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES

SYDNEY

1985 ii

7h.e dom.e o/. /2if..enc.e wa/2 de.void o/. af.f. /.u11.nitu11..e, .ev.en o/. a th11.on.e. So h.e R.egan puf.f.ing f.og/2 tog.eth.e.11., /2ma/2hing /2tick/2, c11.umtf.ing /2c11.ut, and wa/2 tuif.ding th.ei11. /.i11./2t /.i11..e.

Sympathy, R11.if.f.ianc.e, wa11.mth did not, how.ev.e.11., immediat.efy f.eap only a 11.ath.e.11. di/2appointing /.f.am.e·. It wa/2 a v.e11.y human /.i11..e.

(Patrick White, 1971:191). iii

ABSTRACT

This study is about a people's response to the impact of a natural hazard a prolonged drought in south west Queensland. The focus is on people in different class and status group situations in the Paroo Shire, a wool growing centre.

The data was gathered from: local people attached to the wool industry graziers, shearers, station employees; and people employed by government and private enterprise bureaucracies. Old people, children and women also contribute their subjective experience of drought in a semi-arid region of

Australia. iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

1 DROUGHT RESPONSE IN TWENTIETH 1 CENTURY AUSTRALIA

2 AUSTRALIAN STUDIES AND PERSPECTIVES 12 ON DROUGHT AND DISASTER

3 THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES AND 49 RESEARCH STRATEGIES

4 HISTORY, POLITY, ECONOMY AND 77 DROUGHT

5 THE EXPERIENCE OF DROUGHT: 107 IMPRESSIONS ON THE AGED, CHILDREN AND WOMEN OF PAROO SHIRE

6 THE GRAZIERS 134

7 BURGESSES, EMPLOYEES, ABORIGINALS 159

8 THE SPIRALISTS 197

9 RESPONSES TO DROUGHT 214

BIBLIOGRAPHY 254

APPENDIX

1:1 QUEENSLAND AREA AND POPULATION 264

2:1 QUEENSLAND LOCAL AUTHORITIES 265

3:1 LIST OF RESPONDENTS 266

3:2 INTERVIEW SCHEDULES 272

3:3 FIELD RESEARCH 288

3:4 MEDIA SEARCH 289

4:1 DROUGHT FREQUENCY 1964 - 1980 291 V

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A deep appreciation for assistance in answering

my many questions is extended to people in varied

walks of life in the bush and in the city, to

people who spend their day out in the open under

the western skies, and to those whose day is

spent in various types of city buildings. Each

gave me their interest and their time displaying

a kindness and warmth that is human and universal, and recognizes no rural - urban dichotomy.

I wish to thank people in the School of

Sociology in the University of New South Wales who were helpful, sharing their knowledge and

expertise in field research. To Frances Lovejoy my first tutor and to Ann Daniel who finally

enabled me to extricate myself from 'inside the whale', I extend a warm thank you for their unstinting

patience.

I needed time to leave the outback station

to travel to the city and the weeks I planned

to spend away often extended to months. For

allowing me this time by coping alone on 'Yerinan'

station I owe my deep appreciation to my husband

Jim. He also provided background knowledge of

various subject areas as veterinarian and grazier.

Jim also performed the task essential when field vi

research is undertaken by a lone researcher allowing a perspective of social situations from the view­ point of the opposite gender.

Liza-Jane my young daughter graduated to high school in the months following the break of the drought despite the changes in school venue my studies imposed upon her, from a schoolroom at a station homestead where she was the only pupil, to a city schoolroom. I thank her, and my other children, Peter, Genevieve and Susan for their support and enthusiasm.

Jan Noble and Marie McKenzie typed this report and shared with me their sense of humour and patience, to Jan and Marie and to the many librarians who helped me along the way and who also displayed these qualities, I extend a sincere thank you. 1

CHAPTER 1:

DROUGHT RESPONSE IN TWENTIETH CENTURY

AUSTRALIA

A prolonged drought extending over a wide area of the eastern States of Australia between

the years 1979 and 1983 brought to public attention the impact of drought on people who live in the inland regions. Various Government officials, people engaged in agriculture and economics and others professing an interest in politics or religion were called upon by the media to address problems associated with drought. My concern is to discover and understand how people of a remote wool growing centre in south west Queensland respond to drought.

An official 'drought declaration' was made in August 1979 for western Paroo Shire. This was

fallowed a few months later by drought declaration applying to the remainder of the Shire area.

Drought was extensive and prolonged, the declarations were not lifted until June 1983.

The Paroo Shire lies in the Warrego region

in the semi-arid pastoral zone. The Shire has

a low density population there are 2 691 people

in an area of 47 617 square kilometres (see Appendix 2

1 : 1 ) . The people who live in the rural region and in three small hamlets Wyandra, Eulo and

Yowah number 1 064 and there are 1 627 people in the service centre of Cunnamulla (Australian

Bureau of Statistics 1981).

Drought declaration is the responsibility of the Queensland Department of Primary Industries.

Immediately drought is declared 'core arrangements' funded by government are introduced. These are based on the government policy to save the agricultural resources and in the Paroo Shire the administration of drought relief schemes is directed toward clearing the agricultural lands of surplus stock in a bid to save the land resource. The State Government subsidies of most relevance in the Paroo include freight costs as sheep and cattle are transported out of the drought stricken region and drought bonds that allow a taxation spread of income from stock sold due to drought (Sturgess, 1975; Stock

Inspector - Cunnamulla).

As drought deepened further government concessions were quickly introduced. In 1980, transport rebates were increased and concessions were extended to cover droving costs and small business carry -on loans were also added to the 3

list of drought relief schemes. These concessions were expected to benefit everyone in the local

co mm unity by means of a f 1 ow - on effect as they

indirectly boosted the local economy. But the

grazier was perceived as the major beneficiary.

Comments recorded from media reports expressed

the view that small businesses in rural townships were forgotten.

The discussions of drought relief schemes were chiefly addressed to the problems of graziers and small business people. Little attention was given to other groups found women, children,

the aged, the station employees or the shearing

team work force. As I spoke to people in varied walks of life I found that each group in each

social° division told a different story their

subjective experience of drought was different

from others. An examination of these different

experiences in the different phases of drought

appeared to offer the most fruitful approach

to a field of social inquiry that has been given

little attention by sociologists in their studies

of Australian communities.

Drought declaration brought a local awareness

of climatic conditions as they influenced agricultural

work. However, more serious fears were expressed 4

for the weather pattern appeared to be in a process of change. The months between October 1979 and

March 1980, were dry months and this was the

third successive summer to pass without beneficial rainfall. While winter rain is important it is summer rain that provides the bulk of stock feed, more than 90 per cent of the vegetation growth in south west Queensland (Queensland Department of Primary Industries, Charleville). As 'old timers' of the bush spoke of the successive dry summers they could not recall a weather pattern of this nature. A search of the official rainfall charts dating bacl~ over the past century confirmed their observations and also showed that never before had three successive dry summers been experienced in the history of the local wool growing industry (Queensland Bureau of Meteorology, 1980).

Studies carried out in other countries have

set each drought in its · particular cultural environment. These studies show people of very different cultures surviving drought primarily

by means of strategies developed and handed on

over generations. Weber emphasized the divergent

ways people respond to climatic change and prompted

my interpretation of the 'subjective meaning'

of drought. My orientation was set by the

observation: 5

In cases where, through such factors as climatic changes •.• there has been an absolute decrease in the means of subsistence, human groups have adapted themselves in widely differing ways according to the structure of interest and to the ways in which non-economic factors have been involved (Weber, 1964:167).

Also there will most typically be a fall in the standard of living and an 'absolute decrease in population' (1964:167).

The immediate prospect presented to people of the Paroo was at least some minor change in their lifestyle when their economic activities were restricted by prolonged drought. But a more profound consequence considered and expressed was that the continuity of the grazing world as known, was becoming increasingly problematic.

This was a very serious problem for western people who have no alternative industrial activity to turn to for employment. The Paroo Shire is a single industry grazing centre remote from the differentiated employment market of the densely populated coastal cities. It lies more than

800 kilometres west from Brisbane and 1 100 kilometres from Sydney. If the grazing industry failed then a significant proportion of the population may have no choice other than to move away. 6

Empirical research was designed to take advantage of a time when drought gave impetus to ·social change. The rains failed, the countryside dried up, vegetation withered and the last of the grass blew away in hot summer winds. This had a profound impact on people who live close to nature. The research focuses on which of

"the widely differing ways" possible are selected by local people and different interest groups of local people as an adaption to damaging 'climatic change'.

The interpretation to be given is based on participant observation, interview and case studies and on data collected· from diverse sources: agricultural reports, media accounts and a literature search.

For many Australians, as Bowman describes

'the traditional extremes are Sydney or the bush';

there is a tendency to think in terms of 'the city or an undifferentiated countryside' (1981: ix). This is simplistic and incorrect.

Careful observation readily discerns "natural

types" in the local culture who each have at

their disposal different resources for surviving

drought and the hard times associated with the

recent history of wool growing in south west

Queensland. These groups give a f OCUS to the 7

questions I wish to answer about social organization, social change, adaptive capacities and survival techniques.

The graziers have much to lose during a drought and more so should grazing no longer retain its position as the focus of economic activities. Skills, their capital investment and a rural way of life are firmly enmeshed in the local society. On the other hand the shearers and station workers have a high degree of mobility, they have no fixed capital investment in land to hold them to this particular locality, al though there are many old ties to kinship and friendship networks that are thought about deeply should they weigh the personal cost of leaving the region.

The local people who have lived in this world all their lives identify strongly with a bush life and have forged an emotional investment in the land. Continuous interaction with people they know establishes their identities and removal would entail making their way in a different and strange social environment. Old people have a vast knowledge of the bush lifestyle and considerable experience in handling drought situations, their commonsense knowledge is called upon and it is possible in drought years their experience confers greater prestige. Soc i a 1 i sat i on o f the children takes place during a period when there 8

is much to learn about controlling a situation that will occur again in their lifetime for they live in a world where less severe droughts are commonplace.

The women of the Shire find drought a time when everything is harder: there is more work to do as the dust-storms roll in and penetrate every corner of the house; income suffers as local industry fails to generate spending power; and employment is more difficult to find.

Business people in the service centre, the township of Cunnamulla and the small hamlets of Eulo and Wyandra, have a different set of problems as their businesses experience a flow- on effect when the local economy falters.

A group who work locally, but whose wages and salaries are paid by government and private enterprise organizations, suffer no drop in income, however, their experience of drought is different again. A number of these organization employees are senior officials who have gained a wide knowledge of social processes that deeply affect the lives of the permanent residents of employment opportunities available during a time of recession in Australia and hard times in the local economy, of government resources allocated to different 9

groups and of drought associated social problems.

These people work in such occupational pursuits as bank manager, minister of religion, union representative, school teacher, government and private enterprise officials of various capacities.

Drought was not defined as a 'disaster' in sociological terms (that is in terms of its social impact on · the people of Paroo Shire).

Attempts to define 'disaster' characterized the early field of disaster research. Such an interpretation of 'disaster' or 'natural hazard' as yet requires 'sustained efforts' (Kreps, 1984:310).

However, 4 core properties are analytically separable:

Disasters are (a) evenl/2 that can be designated in time and space, which have (b) impacl/2 on

(c) /2ocial unil/2 who (d) ~e/2pond (Kreps, 1984:311).

My study focuses on 'social units' as people of a remote society, who respond or adapt to the impact of drought. The questions I ask are directed to discovering the response of different groups of local people to the impact of drought and the resources that enable them to survive.

This report divides into four areas. The first section introduces the topic and examines the literature relevant to my study. The first section examines important Australian· community 10

studies that bear on an account of the people in the Paroo Shire, their activities and the meanings invested in them these have prompted my interpretation. Then this section continues by examining research on disaster experiences within Australian society and beyond. It notes studies carried out by agriculturalists, economists and geographers that indicate socio-economic conditions prevailing in rural areas of Australia and particularly in the Paroo Shire. The section also briefly examines works of two Australian writers who express very different perceptions of drought in the Australian bush setting. The section concludes by discussing theoretical perspectives that guided this interpretation of response to drought.

The second section introduces the people of the Paroo Shire, briefly records the history of the local wool growing industry and describes the polity and economy as they have bearing on my research topic.

The third section reports my findings and examines these to record the subjective experience of drought for people in the different status groups I examine. As research is focused on the people of Paroo Shire I examine matters that 11

occur beyond its bounds only as they are found to influence their responses to drought. The final. chapter presents a summary of my research and analyses.

Australian community studies offered a sound foundation on which to build my interpretation of a people's response to drought. I turn to these reports as they had bearing on my own research. 12

CHAPTER 2:

AUSTRALIAN STUDIES AND PERSPECTIVES

ON DROUGHT AND DISASTER

Australian Studies

AustraLian community studies, 'those empirical investigations of particular places called community studies' (Wild, 1981:9), are diverse. There are accounts of mining towns, agricultural centres and towns located on the fringe of the city.

Each contributes in providing a valid and persuasive way of ordering data generated during empirical research.

Studies of small communities have proliferated in recent years and together these studies display a methodological pluralism: there is not one method, but many. Bell and Newby point out that this trend is commonly found, for when they examined community studies of Great Britain and the United

States the variety of approaches discovered led them to give to their book the title 'Community

Studies' (1975:13).

As research in the social sciences has become more sophisticated so the nature of community studies has changed. The studies may be broadly divided into two waves: the first carried out around the time of the Second World War and the 13

later wave emerging during the 1960s (Oxley,

1978:11). The contrast between the two periods is exemplified most readily when the approach

to research undertaken in two different mining

towns is compared and contrasted. The earlier work Coaliown - A Social Su/lvey ot Ce/2/2nock New South

Wale/2, by Walker (1945) has been described by

Wild (1981) as 'a rather sketchy and superficial account of mining life in wartime Cessnock' (Wild,

1981:99). In contrast Claire Williams' study

Opencui: 7he Wo/lking an

Mining 7own (1981) is sharply focused: on conflictual relationships between mine management and the mine' s 'blue collar' working class, on the political policy dictated by a capitalist society as Williams found them in an inland Queensland mining centre. Opencut is a place where 'the social relations of production comprise the structure of a system which penetrates the experiences of everyday iife' (Williams, 1981:17). The exploitive

relationships that result from a capitalist system of production and patriarchy are accepted by

both male and female as naturally prescribed

limits to 'his-her actions' (Williams 1981:18).

In the world of the home and family women are

confined to the traditional female roles the

responsibility for home and family welfare.

Under the capitalist system these arrangements

leave the role of 'bread-winner' to the male 14

and it follows that he is free to work the long hours that shift work entails. The division of labour along gender lines enables expensive modern machinery to be operated around the clock.

The centre of Opencut in inland Queensland shows a population readily accepting the role of women as homemakers, rather than as paid employees.

This study has important implications for research in a wool growing centre where industrial relations have deep roots in the mining industrial relations that came into being during the later decades of the nineteenth century.

In his historical account of Broken Hill's early days Si£ve~, Sin and Si~penny Ale (1978),

Brian Kennedy recalls the period during the late nineteenth century when miners and shearers joined together in union ideals and solidarity in the

Australian outback. The mine workers from Broken

Hill joined forces with the shearers to prevent

'scabs' from the south from working the shearing sheds, in the great shearers' strikes of the early

1890s. During this period unionists camped at the fringes of the township of Cunnamulla and at any time up to 400 men were there (Blake,

1979). These studies demonstrate that small isolated communities are very distant from any notion of 'classless society'. 15

As the approach to community study has changed so have the perceptions of the world that researchers

bring to their work: Walker (1945) saw a classless society in Coaltown whereas Williams' approach reflects an understanding of structural inequalities within the mining centre; she is cognizant of the power and control by absentee mine ownership over each facet of life in Opencut.

Walker in passing acknowledges the impact of drought on isolated centres in the Australian hinterland. He found that the business people of Cessnock 'have to face strikes, just as other towns are affected by droughts' (1945:57).

Although there are vast dissimilarities in lifestyle, economic position and cultural outlook among the different status groups found in the outback, the members of all of them as rural people share a common view and attitude, distancing themselves socially as well as geographically from the heavily populated urban centres. This is expressed by Gruen:

Although there are many widely divergent communities in the Australian countryside, farm owner and farm labourers - despite class differences - show important simil- arities of outlook, that is, their 'country' 16

way of life has a strong influence upon their attitudes (Gruen, 1975:340).

Bowman remarks that the study of small isolated communities extends the knowledge and understanding of Australian society in all its variety. Bowman presents a collection of case studies of communities as different as an 'Aboriginal community' on the fringe 0f the pastoral area in the outback, a provincial centre on the border of New South

Wales and Victoria and small single industry agricultural centres and mining towns. Bowman's

'case studies' underline the vulnerability of small centres to 'external economic forces' (1981:ix).

Wild's book B~ad/2iow: A Study o/.

Cla/2/2 and Powe~ (1978a), is set in a small prestigious community not far from Sydney. Bradstow is a place beloved of the rich who commute there at weekends or retire there. The local graziers are no longer as prosperous as they were in the past. However, the local economy is boosted by money brought in from outside by members of the upper status groups many of whom hold substantial business interests elsewhere. Bradstow is very different from Cunnamulla where there are no weekend commuters and where the graziers own and work their own pastoral stations. Wild stresses the importance of 'status attributes' in the 17

social organization of everyday life, for a concern with 'consumption patterns' seems 'to have blinded many contemporary observers to the fact that

there remain vast differences in the distribution of economic, social and political power' (Wild,

1978a:205).

To understand social interaction in the everyday life of small towns in inland Australia it is important to recognize the core status groups from which much social interaction takes

place. Wild describes six core status groups found in Bradstow, each distinguished from the other by 'social characteristics, including forms of behaviour, attitudes to the status system,

networks of association, typical paths of social

careers, and style of li v'ing' (Wild, 1978a:66).

In my study observation of responses typical

of different status groups provides a way of

ordering and interpreting social action during

the years of drought. For instance shared status

involves shared values and coping mechanisms

thus shearers have a particular style of life,

they have their own "shearers' pub", their own

level of prestige in the community and their

own circle from which they draw a way of looking

at the world built on union traditions and the

ethos of mateship. Their solidarity allows them

to control a specific type of work. 18

Oxley's study Mat2/2hip ~n Local O~ganization

(1978) implies that 'egalitarianism' is an ideology that eases social relationships between people located at different (that is unequal) points of the social structure:

I have noted the presence of some higher­ stratum townspeople who are particularly thorough in symbolizing commitment to egalitarian norms. They are often regular drinkers in the mixed-stratum groups at club and hotel bars. They have many lower-stratum acquaintances. They express approval of the supposedly lower-stratum virtues and mock pretentiousness.-.• many of the leaders are people of this type­ people who are assuredly of the higher strata but who make the fact far from obvious (Oxley, 1978:210).

In the 'Two Towns' Kandos and Rylstone

- a form of egalitarianism permits social interaction at public functions to run more smoothly in a social situation where 'Jack', while not as highly placed in the social order as his 'master', may be addressed as if he were. Oxley suggests that

'egalitarianism as a force, is probably on the decline' as it does not fit well with the suburban house and Australian affluence (Oxley 1978:27-

28).

Distanced from heavily populated urban 19

centres and from differentiated employment markets the Paroo Shire appears to be a society where opposite values obtain: where there is less regard for the middle class occupational pursuits and where the 'typical' house well-kept and located in a metropolitan suburb, has little appeal.

Oxley's 'egalitarian group' seems to have its counterpart among the shearing team work force.

While the members may subscribe to a view of the footloose male, who will look out for his mate and who enjoys a less restricted lifestyle, they are governed by codes of conduct and traditions solidified over more than a century of a lifestyle associated with the wool growing industry. The shearing team groups appear to have a culture which according to popular myth is the 'typical

Australian' (see Ward, 1977).

I draw my use of the term 'burgess' from

Oxley's study, to group together 'local business people whose economic advancement requires that they stay put' (1978:69). I also use the term

'spiralist' following Oxley's description of the t rans i en t , 'organization' men and women, as it offers a single term for these people who have 'much in common socially' (1978:219). In contrast to the burgesses their advancement requires that they move on to other centres (Oxley, 1978:69). 20

Technological advance provides a stimulus to social change as explained in the Mallee town study Social St~uctu~e, and Pe~~onaLity ~n a Ru~aL

Community (0eser and Emery, 1954). As modern methods of agriculture were introduced in the wheat growing industry wheat farms were enlarged to enable full use of the new and expensive agricultural machin.ery. Jobs were lost on the land as the less labour-intensive methods of product ion were introduced. Farm labourers left the district and a number of small farmers who could not afford to expand their holdings obtained off-farm employment. Al though the study focus,

'the psychological investigation of children', results in a lack of 'sociological detail found· in other community studies' there are nevertheless descriptions of 'general apathy and political manipulation' that have their 'genesis in the wider societal structure.s of class, status and political power' (Wild, 1981:107).

A recent study analyses the response of

people who perceive themselves under threat from

forces generated both from within and beyond

a community. Wild's Heathcote (1983) study exp-

lains types of relationships that emerged when

the Victorian Government proposed putting a toxic

wastes dump in a recreation area (the Dargile

Forest) in Mcivor Shire. The study began as 21

an attempt to understand social processes that emerged when people of different walks of life in a rural centre expressed a moral concern for the preservation of a traditional way of life.

The community relationships that developed during a time of stress became transformed into highly charged feelings of 'communion'.

The study examines local council action in the framework of 'society' relationships as

Wild describes how local government has changed.

Whereas 120 years ago council relationships and decision-making were based on traditional processes more responsive to the local populat~on, 'local government has become increasingly bureaucratised this century', that is more dependent on rational

legal structures (Wild, 1983:16). The income council receives has increased, local government has more prestige and council outlook reflects the conservatism of the middle class, middle age, male councillor (Wild, 1983: 17). The Heathcote study reports that councillors are an elitist group becoming more politically and socially distanced from their electorate.

There is a process inherent in rationalization

the irrational protest against impersonalization and against the '"iron cage" of life, a protest

based on appeals to tradition or to sentiment' 22

(Wild, 1983:18). A protest taking this form emerged among sections of the population in the

Mcivor Shire as a direct result of the threat to the taken for granted world.

Council inaction followed the inability to break from immersion in 'a true societal structure', from relationships based on rational legal processes. Councillors wished to antagonize neither State Government nor local people and so they did nothing other than attempt to obtain a 'trade-off' in State Government benefits, should the toxic wastes dump be located in their Shire.

The inaction of Council further strengthened the commitment of the local committee formed to def end the Dargile Forest, it gave the protest group a solidarity that otherwise may not have developed so vibrantly. The emotional response so generated may be interpreted as relationships of 'communion'. These relationships were so effervescent that they gave concern to leaders in the Heathcote Citizens Action Committee.

Once the issue was resolved favourably for the protest group the phenomenon of communion faded away. It was short lived and with no new issue posing a threat it did not regenerate. 23

Wild's study describes three ideal-type relationships 'society, community and communion', working in concert in a rural Shire. This network of relationships was not evident in a continuum, as in the ideal type 9emein/2chatt 9 e/2eLf../2 chatl drawn by Tonnies. Wild argues that his conceptual framework is useful in 'helping us to understand the nature of changing relationships in many different social situations' (1983:16). The focus of the Heathcote study was the 'changing relationships between formal local government and resident politics' (1983:16). The study suggests that very different types of relationships emerge when a community faces a threat to the continuity of its social organization and economic resources. The Heathcote study is helpful in making sense of relationships that emerge when drought conditions place an enormous stress on the socio-economic resources of Paroo Shire.

There are two other studies that bear on my own because they also address the subject

'community'. The first study is Bryson and Thompson's

An Au/2l.11.a.f..ian Newlon: Lite and Leade.11./2hip .J..n a Wo.11.king-c.f..a/2/2 S u.B..u.11.£.. (1972). Newtown, a suburb of Melbourne planned by the Housing Commission, is very different from a long established grazing centre there are no third and fourth generations of family, indeed the study subject ( the pro bl ems 24

of families in a new housing development), leads the researchers to exclude the aged people from the survey. Older people live in a special housing area and their study would require a very different type of focus and questionnaire. The study began when leaders of Newtown formed a so-called Civic

Group to probe the possibility of establishing

'community' as they perceived it. However they conceptualized 'community' as a way of promoting group ac ti vi ty, while ignoring the 'traditional basis' of community (1972:12).

Heathcote shows how elusive a sense of community may be. Community is not to be artifically farced.

Community is given, but thought about only when a social order undergoes some form of duress.

It is, a 'social order' encompassing relationships based on inherent traditions, values and beliefs that are meaningful to those who belong. 'Communion' relationships are emotionally based. They concern feelings and may develop only after 'community'.

Some American sociologists side-step the conceptual difficulties of defining 'community' and 'communion' by using terms such as 'social units' and their 'spheres or functions' (see

Kreps, 1984:314). 25

Huber's study t~om Pa/2ta to Pavlova (1977) also discovers the conceptual difficulties that confront the social scientist who addresses the subject of community relationships. The study began as a result of the author's interest in discovering 'community' among Italian women in the inner Sydney suburb of Leichhardt. Huber was forced to focus on one Italian regional group, the Trevisani, as she found little interaction between Italians of different regional backgrounds.

Huber followed the Trevisani to Griffith in the

Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area, in south west New

South Wales. But her study focus one ethnic group, the Trevisani, necessarily constrains her search for community.

In the final pages Huber discusses the impact of an important political election in Griffith.

A political candidate, Al Grassby, during the election period united different cultural groups so bridging the gap between the Italian population and the Australian. The election provided a stimulus to social change in a way similar to drought conditions when distinctive status groups

become aware of themselves as part of a world where traditions and values are shared.

t~om Pa/2ta to Pavlova also brings to light

another area of social inquiry relevant to drought 26

drought mitigation through the introduction of irrigation schemes. The early failure of many of the original Australian settlers to satisfactorily work their farms in the Murrumbidgee

Irrigation Area was the result of social planning limited to the technical and engineering aspects of the irrigation scheme. The result was a chain migration process as families from Italy with the extensive family labour resources needed to successfully work the irrigation farms replaced the original irrigation scheme settlers.

Each study presents information about the way it began, for example Wild said that his study of Bradstow followed ten or twelve years of interest in 'different cultures, especially at a localized level, and in social inequality'

(Wild, 1978a:ix). Oxley (1978) had a long standing interest in relationships of the kind he associates with egalitarianism. Williams in Opencut intended to examine working class relationships in a Queensland mining town. In the small, face-to-face society her movements were highly visible and she was forced to mix only with members of the group who were the focus of her study. In Bradstow,

Wild had to play many parts to gather data from different social gr0ups.

Bowman's book Beyond the City (1981) offers 27

insight to the different cultural orientations of groups of people found in the variety of communities scattered across the Australian hinterland. Whyalla exemplifies this. It is isolated, far from the capital city of Adelaide.

The population includes a core group of 'old' residents, British migrants, and migrants from northern European countries. Campbell and Kriegler discovered groups who had little social contact with groups of social origin different from their own. While older residents liked to think of

Whyalla as a 'community', the researchers found no indication of these relationships.

The Australian community studies offer a sociologically meaningful way of ordering data generated in the study of drought. They suggest types of relationships and identify different social processes and groups found in Australian society.

Australian Rural Studies

In this section I examine studies that have bearing on people who live in the Paroo Shire.

They offer an overview of the response in wool growing regions in Queensland to the massive social changes that have taken place over the past twenty years as the station work force has been reduced. One study indicates the strong 28

ties of tradition that draw farmers to a particular type of agriculture, another shows the way one person may influence people at all levels of the social structure, in the Paroo Shire. The other studies I refer to give an overview of traits characteristic of the Paroo Shire graziers and socio-economic forces that have influenced the Paroo Shire wool growing industry over the past two decades.

According to Gibb (an agricultural officer) one local businessman in Cunnamulla conceived the idea of the Cunnamulla and District Annual

Show. This show has been a popular event on the social calendar since it was established in 1954. The local businessman talked about the proposed show and influenced government officials, graziers, local council, station employees and others in the community to support his idea.

The show provides entertainment, it is a 'unifying' force in the district. It also improves the wool product by offering local competition (Gibb,

1969:13-17).

R iethmuller carried out a study in three different agricultural regions in southern Queensland.

The Paroo Shire, together with the Bulloo and

Quilpie Shires comprising the western region 29

were compared and contrasted with two regions located to the east, in heavier rainfall areas.

The study focused on factors contributing to the economic success of farming enterprises.

The more we stern a gr i c u 1 t u r a 1 i s t s be 1 i eve d that hard work, frugal living habits, 'luck' (and luck with the seasons) were the most significant elements in success. These agriculturalists were more

'group centred' than farmers in the eastern regions.

Rie thmuller suggests that the higher level of group centredness in the western families may be due to the lack of variety in leisure-time activities. They are geographically distanced from the variety of social life that more heavily populated town centres offer and they lack such amenities as television reception. He also found that western agriculturalists showed a markedly higher recognition of the valuable role that a father or a grandfather had played in the development of the family agricultural enterprise

(1975).

Riethmuller' s study was set in the later years of the 1960s and the early 1970s when drought progressed from severe to very severe. At this time synthetic fibres challenged wool in the world fibre market and inflationary trends in the wider economy of Australia were seriously affecting the pastoral industries. Wool growing 30

families in the Paroo Shire were no longer able to afford farm labour as in previous years and the workforce on the stations dropped significantly:

'The area showing the largest relative decline in the hired workforce over the years 1964 to 1973 was the Bulloo Shire (46.72 per cent) followed by the Paroo Shire (46.43 per cent) and the Quilpie Shire (45.29 per cent). All three depend almost exclusively on the grazing industry (1975:34).

The Bulloo Shire and the Quilpie Shire are located to the west and north west of Paroo (see Appendix

2: 1) •

The hired work force employed on the grazing properties in the Paroo Shire fell from an average of 2.55 in 1964 to 1.51 in 1973 (1975:34). The total Shire population fell from 4 101 in 1961 to 3 310 in 1971, a decline of 791 people or

19.3 per cent. At the time of my study the population had dropped to 2 691 in 1981 (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 1981). The net migration from the Paroo Shire between the years 1961 to 1971 is based on the following figures: the absolute population change 791; the natural increase of 1 052; and the total net migration 1 843.

This results in a net movement of population away from the Shire of 44.9 per cent between 31

1961 and 1971.

Riethmuller found grazing families prepared to make considerable effort to remain on the land. Their lifestyle changed markedly as did their expenditure patterns. Furthermore fewer demands were made by other family members who moved away as the 'farm firm' could not provide for them. His study offers background detail of station employees and grazing families who have survived difficult years. The work illustrates that adaptive procedures initially employed by both graziers and station employees to cope with drought, are based on a sound knowledge of ways of coping with extremely difficult economic conditions and social change. His study also underlines the importance of family and friendship networks in the lives of people of the west.

Crouch and Chamala studied ·wool growers in central Queensland between the years 1968-

1970, a time when the region was gripped by drought.

The station employees were leaving the land and a number of the graziers interviewed subsequently

left wool growing. The researchers found that major reasons governing decisions to leave were

the inability to provide an adequate education

for children or to maintain a satisfactory standard

of living (1974). 32

These studies indicate that leaving the

land whether the person is a farm labourer or

a station owner, has been the reality for many

people of the west over the past two decades.

Although there is little possibility of any

alternative industry to wool growing in the Paroo

Shire, it is important to realize that

agriculturalists have a particular attachment

to their own industry and occupation. According

to Williamson (1975) agriculturalists immured

in a particular type of agriculture for generations

develop an attachment to a particular type of

agricultural activity. Williamson studied dairy

farming activities in New South Wales and he

found that when dairying faced severe economic stress a number of dairy farmers changed to beef

cattle raising. For those who made this change

it was like taking a frightening leap into the

dark. Their fears were well founded as cattle

prices plunged, during 1974. Of much relevance

to my study of people in a wool growing world

is Williamson's suggestion that while the basic

activity and values of dairy farmers as

agriculturalists did not change, there was much

stress associated with the change in 'habit',

as beef cattle raising required a different kind

of lifestyle (Williamson, 1975: Volume III).

Williamson argues that an understanding of the

personal loss to agriculturalists should adverse 33

circumstances force them to change their lifestyle must be considered by geographers and others associated with agricultural research and policy.

Disaster as a Sociological Phenomenon

Disaster 'is a vague term that has defied simple interpretation' (Kreps, 1984:311). But its ·impact is most visible as it may result in

'considerable harm to people and the physical environment' (1984:311). Each report on disaster confirms this. Drought affects a social order slowly; there is a gradual awareness that things are changing.

When a disaster is talked about in everyday conversation the picture that comes to mind is of a sharp and violent eruption that splinters the reality of everyday life. The majority of disaster studies take place in the aftermath of events of this nature. Drought is different, it develops slowly to calamitous proportions, no-one is aware of its onset, and no-one can predict when drought will end.

Drought may well be the most destructive

(in monetary terms) of any of the more sudden calamities Australia experiences (Wettenhall,

1975:42). After drought, it is most likely that 34

bushfires take the largest economic toll of all the devastating natural phenomena in Australia (1975:42).

Drought is a factor in bushfire in the

'dryness of vegetation' (1975:44). The

'Commonwealth includes bushfire and drought within its own definition of natural disaster' and 'drought relief' has taken the 'lion's share' of Commonwealth Government aid to the mainland States (1975:49).

Wettenhall distinguishes between 'natural disasters' and 'man-made' disasters and argues that in general usage 'disaster' seems to carry the 'connotation of suddenness' (1975:1).

But 'drought is a constant threat, a major ••. disrupter of social patterns on a significant scale' (1975:40).

Drought has been drawn into the field of 'natural hazard' mitigation programmes

(Minor, 1980:20). And it has been included as one of the most serious and extensive natural hazards that society in Queensland faces

(Oliver, 1980:24). 35

A problem for the social scientist is the lack of a decisive point in the time sequence of drought when it can be defined as a disaster in terms of its destructive potential. Drought and other natural hazards, tend to be looked at through 'engineering' and 'technical eyes'

(Wettenhall, 1975:280).

As Wettenhall points out the Australian

States, despite their long concern with providing pension schemes for the needy or their work with deprived children, 'have largely been content to leave other forms of relief and welfare work to charitable bodies, I like 'the churches and voluntary agencies like the Red

Cross' (1975:275).

Official social welfare administration is 'dominated by forms and form-filling' and the 'routinization of procedures' often 'triumphs over humanistic concerns' (1975:275). When drought declaration is made the core arrangements set in motion focus largely on preserving the agricultural lands but, as in other disasters in Australia (bushfires, floods, cyclones), there is little concern with drought 36

or disaster as a 'social phenomenon' (see Wettenhall, 1975:283).

Students of disaster have observed distinctive patterns of response among social groups and by individuals. In the aftermath of the Appalachians Mountains' disaster in the

United States of America, Erikson distin- guished two facets of 'trauma' associated with the event that devastated a mountain community.

Erikson distinguished between 'individual trauma' and 'collective trauma' (Erikson,

1976: 153). 'Individual trauma' is defined as a 'blow to the psyche that breaks through one's defenses so suddenly and with such brutal force that one cannot react to it effectively'. Erikson found that people feel numbed and alone, afraid and very vulnerable

(Erikson, 1976:153-154).

Collective trauma differs. Erikson describes 'collective trauma' as 'a blow to the basic tissues of social life that damages the bonds attaching people together 37

and impairs the prevailing sense of communality' .

People become slowly aware of the impact, it does not have the suddenness of individual trauma: 'But it is a form of shock' (1976:154).

Collective trauma brings a gradual awareness that things have changed and that the community no longer exists as a source of support (Erikson,

1976:154). Erikson suggests that although the two types of trauma are closely connected, they are distinct in the sense that each may develop in the absence of the other

(1976:154).

In a similar fashion Barton describes

'The norms of altruistic sharing, mutual identification and social closeness which so frequently appear in the disaster struck community' (1969:301).

Wettenhall also described this phenomenon in the aftermath of the bushfires in Hobart,

Tasmania. The "disaster syndrome" affected people in both the immediate vicinity and those who were more distanced from the experience

people in private homes: in business houses and in the bureaucracies and the university of Hobart. Wettenhall found a 'somewhat hushed, passive and semi-stunned 38

condition that has been described as "the disaster syndrome"'. It was rarely self-centred, and there was often a considerable degree of 'altruism in it ' • Everyone was aware of their 'col lee ti ve predicament' (1975:84).

Most of the disaster reports examined .describe a loss of life, a loss of housing and social dislocation for many people in the community, but there is little mention of unemployment a major human calamity during drought. The unemployed stand to lose their identity. Each of these are losses that may be described in Erikson's terms as a 'measure of one's substance as a person and as a provider, truly the furniture of self'

(1976:176). In places where people live close to nature, in small isolated communities, the bi o graph y o f an ind iv id u a 1 and hi s , or her id en t i t y is confused with the 'structure housing them' and the world of nature about them (1976:176).

To change to another lifestyle is to leave behind the evidence of who one is and where one belongs in the world. Faced with this situation people who live close to nature, who rely heavily upon the world about them may begin to lose faith in the natural order of things and in the social order as well (1976:177). 39

Phenomena associated with the 'disaster

syndrome' tending to appear for a short while,

during the aftermath, have something of the character

of ' co mm union ' ( see Wi 1 d , 19 8 3 : 13 ) • But disasters

do not leave 'the world scattered with utopian

communities' , eventually helping activities wane

and 'normal antagonisms revive' (Barton, 1969: 301).

These phenomena are described also as 'fine qualities

of cohesiveness, initiative and self-help' (Wettenhall

1975:269). Each of these authors explains that

these feelings of close relationship are short-

lived. Unless other motivations or a new stimulus

emerges 'the behaviour evoked by the disaster

will gradually be reduced' (Barton, 1969:302).

People need one another, they need people

who have shared the same experience to talk with

and in so doing they reconstruct the reality

of everyday life together. The network of

relationships forged during the impact phase

of disaster have been termed the therapeutic

community. Traumatic neuroses do follow a disaster

and in some cases immediate active intervention

is necessary for recovery. But both approaches

are complementary people do need to talk with

one another and there are people who will need

extra help (Milne, 1980:121-122). 40

The studies explain that during a disaster

the people involved have much to lose at the

one extreme there is life itself. But there

are degrees of loss and these are largely ignored

in the Australian post-disaster period. The

loss of the 'furnishings of self' of who one

is, of one's place in the world is a very deep

loss. This type of loss may be experienced by

those who are unemployed and who are forced to

move away during drought time.

Drought as a trans-cultural phenomenon

The search of disaster literature found

studies focused upon people of very different

cultures from the developing nations to the

highly industrialized western nations. The disasters

examined range from man made calamities such

as those associated with war, to the terrible

natural disasters that human beings confront.

Drought visibly reaches the magnitude of a disaster

in marginal climates where people of the developing

nations exist with such a fine balance between

adequate food supplies and famine. Under these

conditions millions of people face starvation

during drought time for drought is severe in marginal climates where 'rainfall is limited'

and farming is hazardous (Allan, 1974:153). 41

Studies of drought stricken societies stress that drought associated problems can be resolved only by the full development of a nation together with the experience and knowledge of traditional methods of coping (Baker, 1974:177; McKerrow,

1979). They show a growing awareness that drought is not a discrete regional or national phenomenon, somewhat separate from the wider problems associated with political policy, the economy and social development (Rao, 1974:299; Holy, 1980:71).

'In short, the treatment of drought as a discrete phenomenon' separate from the wider problems of the political economy and social development, runs the extreme risk of 'being little more than stop-gap relief' (Watts, 1977:265). Kreps' examination of studies of hazards and disasters suggests a close relationship between technological and natural hazards (1984:310). For 'there are both benefits and risks associated with the development of technology'

(Kreps, 1984:310).

Morren examined drought response in Great

Britian during the years 1975-1976. He explained how the approach to drought has changed over the centuries from the response of a small group of people in ancient Britian, to the centralised control and political response of a modern society. 42

The drought response of government was conditioned by increasing unemployment and the needs of secondary industry were given priority. Had drought been seen as a social problem then domestic needs might have been favoured; had drought been viewed as an agricultural problem then agricultural needs would have been given more consideration.

Instead water was directed to industrial purposes and the a;Llowances for domestic purposes and agriculture were severely cut. Some farmers were forced off their land (Morren, 1980:48).

Turton studied 'response' to drought by the Mursi people of south western Ethiopia. The

Mursi, a primitive tribal group, live in the lower valley of the River Omo. The climate is marginal, rainfall patterns are highly irregular and every two or three years insufficient for the growth of crops. Ideologically the Mursi people are committed to 'growth' to increase both the population and the size of cattle herds

(1977:282). Through 'kinship and affinal ties' the Mursi find the resources to survive periodic drought. Those without kinship resources extending over a wide area of their lands have the least chance of survival.

Turton employed the conce-pt of 'response' 43

in his subjective method of studying a primitive society. He listened to what people had to say and observed their behaviour. He assumed that people who live in a marginal environment have adapted their social organization in some way to exploit it. If something goes really awry in their system of exploitation then he would expect to find social changes as well (1977:284).

There is a vast difference between the social organization of the Mursi people and the population of the Paroo Shire; there is also a vast difference between the method of handling drought in Great

Britian (Morren, 1980) and the method of handling drought in outback Australia where drought is very different in character as it does not last for just one year and cause serious social disruption in that time. But the term response in the sense used by both Morren and Turton covers a broad field of social inquiry. Studies of drought stricken societies suggest that account must be taken not only of the economic impact of drought in a modern society but also of the traditional orientations

to social organization in a dry country that have

long enabled people to survive. 44

Australian Literature Perspectives on Inland

Australia and Drought

Drought and response to drought have stimulated different interpretations of social action in

Australian literary fiction. Two writers serve to illustrate the diversity of these accounts.

Patrick White views the wider societal processes of social organization and social life in Australian society, whereas Henry Lawson d~aws vivid pictures of everyday reality in the bush during drought time.

In Vo.J/2 1 White uses the physical character of inland Australia as the setting for a 'desert journey' a type of journey which Toop argues, has been established in literary circles as a focus not only on a 'geographical place' but also upon a 'spiritual state'. The desert is a symbolic place where a few stubborn people are challenged to find the inner resources they possess. The journey is essentially away from society to a spiritual place where the things

1 a man finds' are governed by the personal qualities he brings (Toop, 1973:293-294). Voss' jour.ney into the interior of Australia, is, above all a journey to an unknown place where Australians may hope to reach their fullest physical and mental potential and to find there the essence 45

of their being (1973:293-294).

In 7he 7~ee ot ~an, White employs myth and imagery to link the narrative of his story to wider social processes inherent in Australian society. Drought kills the flowers in Stan and

Amy Parker's garden and dust fills the vase in the house where Amy Parker had always kept flowers in the 'spring and summer of her youth'. Drought is likened to a season such as autumn, but at a deeper level drought becomes a season of change when the world must be viewed in a different way.

Stan and Amy Parker would go out from their house to search for signs of change in the weather

'watched by their own lean cows' as if they expected a revelation from humans similar to that 'which men expected from the sky' (White, 1975:297).

Whife uses myth and imagery to 'break through the flat lineality of the written word' (Toop,

1973:510), to provide patterns of cultural ideals, rather than to draw finely detailed cameos of everyday reality. There is a feeling that when people cannot control nature they have to search beyond everyday reality to explore the deeper meanings of life. 46

In 'The Hypnotized Township' a story set in the Paroo Shire township of Cunnamulla, Lawson said that it is the 'detail' that counts. He finds explicit changes in the attitude of people towards each other when drought is on the land.

His narrative takes place:

in the good seasons when competition was keen and men's hearts were hard - not as it is in times of drought, when there is no competition,and men's hearts are soft, and there is all kindness and goodwill between them (Lawson, 1979:332).

Lawson found people, in different walks of life, struggling within the difficult social and physical environment of the bush. He saw the loneliness of women and this is clearly expressed in "Water

Them Geraniums" (1979), an account of a pioneer woman's experience of drought, in an isolated bark hut in the bush.

Lawson was a 'Realist with a soul', singing the clarion call of 'universal ma teship' (Broomfield,

1930:39-40). He saw the singular character of bush religion in "Shall We Gather at the River?" a story of the way a bush parson, Peter M' Laughlan, faced drought in the bush, in a practical way. 47

M'Laughlan gave a religious outlook on life to the station people by helping them pull dying cattle out of a bog during 'one terrible drought', when the land was 'as bare as your hand for hundreds of miles, and the heat like the breath of a furnace'

(Lawson, 1979:246-247).

Lawson presents factual descriptions of life in the bush. White's approach is different.

Each author contributes to an understanding of

Australian people experiencing drought. For

Lawson the reality is immediate and the response is harsh and courageous. Dro.ught, in White's work assumes a deeper symbolic meaning to prompt a · growth in human comprehension. For both the experience of drought must be translated into social and cultural systems.

So little is written about the perceptions of drought by women, Henry Lawson and Patrick

White address this. They see women struggling with drought in everyday life in the bush or

becoming introspective, looking out on a strange world and observing social change in long familiar

surroundings.

The literature search offered little contribution 48

to factual knowledge about drought impact, the resources different groups have at their disposal and the response mechanisms they employ in order to survive drought in outback Australia~ However, the search discovered concepts and perspectives necessary for a sociological interpretation of social organization and response measures.

In the next chapter I shall discuss the theoretical perspectives that guide my research and present an account of the strategies necessary to gather data on a people's response to drought. 49

CHAPTER 3:

THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES AND RESEARCH STRATEGIES

As I commenced my field research towards the end of the dry summer of 1979-1980, I found people in different class situations and status groups responding to drought in widely varying ways. The drought itself caused relatively little concern compared to the response of people as they discussed the change in weather patterns, over three consecutive dry summers. 'Old timers' said that this type of climatic pattern had never been experienced in their living memories. In reponse to the onset of drought graziers implemented drought management strategies handed down through generations of people who had lived and worked in the pastoral zone of south west Queensland.

Business people in the township appeared to be less affected by the onset of drought. The stock movements brought increased trade as buyers came in from other regions, boosting local spending in the township. The carriers were busy taking sheep away from the drought stricken region.

As I listened to different groups of people and observed their behaviour I became aware that the experience of each occupational group was 50

different. Weber stressed the divergent ways peoples may adapt, these adaptions are influenced by their relationship to the 'structure of interest' and by other 'non - economic factors' (1964:167).

So I was concerned with the response typical of groups differently located in the social structure of Paroo Shire. Their structural location was largely defined in terms of status group and class affiliations. This needs further elucidation.

Class situation is determined by property differences related to ownership and control of property or the marketability of goods and services (Weber, 1974:182). There is an upper class in the Shire that is tied to the Australian upper class consisting of a 'small privileged minority of property owners and entrepreneurs'

(Wild, 1978b:42). These people own and control woo 1 growing enterprises. The middle class is composed of the 'propertyless, non-manual or. white­ collar workers whose market capacity arises from educational and technical qualifications' (Wild,

1978b:52-53). And 'propertyless' following

Wild's directive, refers to 'the lack of income­ producing property' (1978b:53); this characterizes the working class who are the 'property less manual workers' (Wild, 1978b:59). Their relationship to the market place lies in their capacity to 51

sell labour in return for wages. The male work force

engaged in agricultural activities has been rapidly

falling during the past fifteen years (Riethmuller,

1975; Montague, 1977). In the Paroo Shire one

in four of the work force are employed by Federal,

State or Local Government bodies. The trend towards

the growth of the bureaucratic structure is a global trend not one confined to Australian society.

Nonetheless capitalist societies still remain

predominantly working class 'in that over 50 per cent of their workforces are engaged in manual labour' (Wild, 1978b:59). In a wool growing centre in Queensland past conflict, between shearers and graziers, colour class relationships (Montague,

1978). The class lines have been etched by conflict

that has erupted periodically in the great

shearers strikes of the 1890s and 1956 and more

recently in the Wide-combs issue of 1983.

In this study class affiliations often coincide with status groups, but analytically they are

distinctive. The configuration of status groups

is envisaged in Weberian terms. These groups

are identified by a commonly shared style of

life and conduct in as much as these provide

a foundation for social interaction and prestige

devolving from the shared lifestyles, customs

and values. Status group members are recognizable 52

by a shared style of dress, forms of behaviour and by attendance at different group meeting places, such as the 'shearer's pub I • Status group membership is particularly important during drought time when opportunities for employment are decreasing: 'For all practical purposes, stratification by status goes hand in hand with a monopolization of ideal and material goods or opportunities, in a manner we have come to know as typical' (Weber, 1974:190).

Status groups in the Shire occupy different levels of prestige in the social hierarchy.

At the top of the social order are the graziers.

As Weber points out the prestige of status group membership rests on 'distance and exclusiveness'

(Weber, 1974:190-191).

I could observe differences in status group orientations towards material objects: the grazing family occupy a position that depends upon ownership of land, their lifestyle demands that they stay in the one place, caring for the sheep and their property throughout the year. On the other hand the lifestyle of a shearer demands that he move from place to place and there are social pressures emanating from within a shearer's status group that insist that he does not own 'income producing property'. 53

The shearer wears a special style of dress when he is working, a singlet in a dark colour that is low-cut in the arms and trousers designed to allow freedom of movement as he bends over the sheep on the shearing board. He wears moccasins and can be seen entering the shed with his water- bag and a towel. Within the shearing teams the shearer occupies the highest position. He has the right to vote on issues that affect the team and from the shearers the union representative for a particular 'shed' is elected; he may present the case for the team when contentious issues arise. Every facet of workplace interaction between shearer and grazier is governed by legally endorsed union directives (Gruen, 1975). A grazier can have his shed banned or he may be fined if he does not comply with union requirements.

The shearers have the right to shear sheep in the sheds and may exclude anyone they consider unsuitable, such as shearers who use wide combs or who are 'scabs', that is people who have shorn sheep during a strike. As Weber wrote: 'With an increased inclosure of the status group, the conventional preferential opportunities for special employment grow into a legal monopoly of special offices for the members' (1974:191).

The difference between the lifestyle of 54

the shearer and that of a grazier is most marked in the prossession or lack of possession of certain goods as 'objects for m_onopoliza tion by stat us groups'. These include estates and special trades.

The monopolization occurs positively when the status group is exclusively entitled to own and manage them and negatively when, as a means of retaining a special style of life, the 'status group must not own and manage them' (Weber, 1974:191).

A shearer who has a business elsewhere, may come

to the homestead and request that his business interests be kept hidden from the rest of the

team. Should he be needed for a business call a message may then be given discretely.

A special significance of lifestyle is that

status groups are the bearers of particular

conventions (1974:191), the 'typical trait'

of hard work is one such convention, commonly

observed among the shearers whose work is physically

stressful. Among the graziers 'hard work' is

valued as a criterion for the successful running

of a Paroo Shire grazing enterprise (Riethmuller,

1975). Failure to come through the long drought

may be perceived as the inability to work hard

or a failure to observe thrift in personal spending

patterns. Consumption patterns are a measure

of status group affiliation for both grazier 55

and shearer. The shearer is expected to work

hard and to 'live hard' and this style of life

does not fit readily into the pattern of stability

and continuity that has become an accepted part

of the approach to life of a grazing family.

The station worker spends much of his or

her time alone in the bush. This type of work

is mainly the preserve of the male although not

entirely. As the station hand population has

dropped over recent years so continuity in employment

has suffered. The station worker today faces

the prospect of short term employment, even in

the good seasons. During a drought the lack

of continuity in employment reaches a critical

stage. The response among families in this social

situation is to evolve a lifestyle that allows women and c,h i 1 d r en t o live in town during the

years when children are in need of education

and once these years are over husband and wife

team once more live out on the station. When work on a particular station runs out an attempt

is made to find employment in the Shire to enable

continuity in a lifestyle spent among friendship

and kinship networks. Scattered as they are

in different places in the Shire, the station

workers do not have the opportunity to forge

a closely knit status group relationship with 56

fellow station workers as do shearing team workers.

In day-to-day work life the station employee

deals directly with the owner of the property;

this pattern of interaction is in direct contrast

to the impersonality of interaction between the members of the large shearing teams and the grazier.

The town business people in the shops and offices do not have the same experience of

drought as the station work force. The carriers who take stock away are more likely to see only

those stock considered to be in a suitable condition

to travel and the itinerant shearers also are

called upon only when sheep are in suitable shearing

condition. If shearing must be done, to give

sheep 'a better chance' to survive, local shearers

are called in and shearing is carried out at

a slower pace, better suited to the handling

of weakened sheep. The impact of drought remains

relatively hidden, even from those groups who

live in the Shire, but are more distanced from

the actual day-to-day tasks that constitute the

care of the flocks during drought time. The attitudes towards drought of the more distanced groups burgesses and spiralists are important

if a more rounded picture of the response to

drought is to be drawn. For in the business places

of the town policies are made that deeply affect 57

everyone who lives through the drought years.

The burgesses carry out business activities

in a conservative manner, their economic interest

lies in staying put these include 'shopkeepers,

garage-owners, contractors, and so on' (Oxley,

1978:69). I have included the 'professionals'

such as the doctor, solicitor and the pharmacist

in this status group as each of these had ties

to town business other than their own professional

calling. They are few in number and mix with

town business people or the graziers.

At the time my study began the doctor held an interest in a local air-charter service, the

solicitor was kin to town business and to grazing

families and the pharmacist referred to himself

in the context of other town business people

as: "We watch the weather as closely as the

graziers do". Oxley observed a group response to stress

in his community study. He remarked 'Rylstone

was faring better than Kandos' and during a period

of general recession: 'The shops seemed prosperous

in their modest way ••• Rylstone retailers, having

always done business in a moq.est way, were not

hit as hard .•. ' (Oxley, 1978:xiv). The ethos

of the burgesses in the tiny western township

appears as a conservative style of life flowing 58

into their business practices. Their goal is to survive drought and the market fluctuations inherent in their role of providing service to an industry that in recent years has been notoriously uncertain (Riethmuller 1975). There were 10 empty shops and faded lettering on the hoardings above these business premises told of more prosperous years during the 1950s.

The style of life of the spiralists is

'necessarily associated with moving on to other towns teachers, bank-managers, policemen, and so on' (Oxley, 1978:69). They live in the

Shire for only a few years, their ages range from the early twenties to the forties. Older burgesses remark on the social life they have lost now that the spiralists are "younger than we are". The spiralists have common interests based on their transient status. Their ritual farewells are frequent events in the social calendar of Cunnamulla, as members of this status group move on to other towns in the course of their progress in a bureaucratic hierarchy.

Among the spiralists are officials who head local government departments such as the Queensland

Department of Primary Industries; or the Clerk of Courts who has a wide knowledge of local affairs related to a specialised occupational 59

orientation. The response to drought of local people cannot be understood unless it is placed in the context of the rational-legal processes that so affect their lives. It is important to take account of both points of view, the knowledge of the traditional approaches to drought found among permanent, local residents and the knowledge of the 'experts' who administer policies of both government and private enterprise organizations.

I observed earlier that the 'old timers' have a role to play during drought as they interpret the weather patterns in the perspective of their own biography. Cherry Russell's study offers a background understanding of the process of aging in Australian society. Russell approaches the subject of aging from the perspective of the 'symbolic interactionist'. This view is based on the understanding that 'human beings construct their realities in a process of interaction with other human beings' and the focus of her inquiry is 'action (which arises out of meanings which define social reality) rather than on behaviour'

(1981:64). Russell employs 'integration' as an analytical construct. This approach subsumes two distinct concepts, 'meaning and control'

(1981:65). Russell's study differs vastly from my own, it centres on a group of middle class people in the Sydney Metropolitan Area, a group 60

who upon retirement, have left their work place and therefore an integral part of their identity, behind them. Moreover her study is located in a heavily populated urban region where the social environment is different.

From the Paroo Shire aged I attempt· to find the way 'human "knowledge"' of drought is

'transmitted' to the younger generations (see

Berger and Luckmann, 1975:15). In the world of the Paroo the contribution of father and grandfather is highly esteemed (Riethmuller,

1975:241). The aged in Russell's study did not want to see themselves as old (1981:7). In the

Paroo Shire an old shearer, or an old bushman has not lost an identity, as he might, if forced to leave the environment where his work experience counted.

Berger and Luckmann argue that a world that is established by one generation remains 'transparent' until it is 'transmitted' to their children, then 'The objectivity' of the now institutionalised world '"thickens" and "hardens", not only for the children, but (by a mirror effect) for the parents as well' . The '"There we go again"' changes now to '"This is how these things are done"' (1975:76-77). The world handed down through generations becomes more real, even if only because 61

by telling children how "things are done" often enough 'one believes it oneself' (1975:77).

The children's view of drought is significant, they are learning about their world at a time when the world about them is changing.

The groups I have discussed form the major focus of my inquiry for 'A person's own evaluation of his positions in the class and status systems are fundamental determinants of his attitudes and behaviour' (Wild, 1978a:119). There are people who. are extremely difficult to reach, people who have bush skills and knowledge, rather than formal training. These people were questioned to discover how drought affects their lives; they are the survivors of the droving and mustering tradition. Whereas in the past they would have warranted mention as a status group today they no longer exist in this sense. They have taken up other occupations or have moved away; in any case, their own lifestyle with its signs and symbols and conventions has all but disappeared.

Each status group examined has a different experience to those of other generations who coped with the technical problems of the work demanded in drought time. Weber suggests that 'climatic change' stimt!lates 'the increasing rationalization of economic activities' (1964:167), that 'on the whole' the 'rationalization' of economic processes 62

is the more frequent response to climatic change.

Weber's theory guided my study and I examine the modern technological resources that have an impact on the response of people in the Shire today.

Drought provides an opportunity to study facets of social life that might not ordinarily be observed, to take cognizance. of the meaning of their world to the people who inhabit it, to allow them to tell their own story of the problems and difficulties that they face during a stressful time and to record the means they employ to survive:

Both nature and society very often expose individuals (or higher level units) to the same stimulus, such as earthquakes, wars, social policies, elections, etc. These natural experiments can be exploited ••• (Galtung, 1979:529).

During the initial stages of research, as

I approached respondents, I felt as if I carried with me the plausibility of the 'intellectual' who proclaims a crisis to people who doubt its existence, something akin to the intellectual in the situation explained by Berger and Kellner. 63

The authors argue that 'all proclamations of a state of crisis should be greeted with scepticism', as indeed any such description of drought at that time, would have been. Most people are concerned only with the 'age-old crises of personal existence they 'live their lives' with little reference to crises as proclaimed by intellectuals.

This was probably so during the 'last days of the Roman Empire' and it is little comfort to the 'intellectuals' to be 'rehabilitated post- humously' (1982:143). The common perception of drought as a 'norm' of life in the outback nevertheless made the initial stages of research more difficult.

A central problem suggested in the literature of 'disaster' experiences is the difficulty in deciding when a drought may reach such serious dimensions that the community is no longer able to provide for the needs of a ~ignificant proportion of the population, to the extent that these people are forced to rely on government assistance or

to move away. An initial reluctance on the

part of respondents to appear to be other than

resourceful, resiliant and self-reliant, as an ethos of bush life in Queensland demands (see

Pender, 1980:170), indicated that a later comparison 64

of their attitudes with those expressed in the earlier stages of research would be fruitful.

When I interviewed respondents at a later stage in 1982 and the early months of 1983, they talked more freely about unemployment. In a similar way initially praying for rain was little mentioned but by late 1982 this had changed. At the later stage of the drought people were responding to their situation, rather than adapting. They were reflecting more deeply on the world about them and on their place in it.

At the onset of drought people were simply adapting to the situation in a way that had been handed down to them from the people who had experienced drought before, adaptive strategies scarcely had to be thought about, they were part of the way of life in the outback. Weber has said that people 'adapt' themselves to climatic change (1964:167).

Mead suggests that human beings respond to social situations that confront them, that responses or reactions follow after 'organising, implicitly testing, and finally selecting is carried OU t; 1 response would be impossible if it had to be immediate (Mead,

1974:99). 65

Turton (1977) used the term 'response' when

he studied drought in south western Ethiopia

and Morren (1980) employed 'response' as a conceptual

tool to examine drought in Great Britain. Furthermore

Kreps sees 'response' as one of ~our core properties' of disaster (1984:311). Following the directives of these authors the questions I asked were addressed

to discovering the response of different groups of people to drought in the Paroo Shire.

My research assumed a 'qualitative' approach, necessarily sacrificing generality, so that the

finer shades of meaning in social life might

be found (Moser and Kalton, 1973:2). Participant observation was the primary strategy. This was

complemented by formal and informal interviews, media reports were perused; and attitudinal

changes were tracked as individuals as members

of particular status groups and as participants

at social events altered their way of coping with their world as the drought dragged on.

The research continued over three years.

It seemed appropriate to reach different groups,

rather than to focus on one particular group

or process. The social phenomena to be observed

and interpreted determined the method: 'It

would be considered alarming if a scientist's 66

results were the product of his methods of research rather than the phenomena under study' (Bell and Newby, 1975:54).

The people of this grazing centre seem to share a mode of thinking, knowing and doing a

'distinctive style of life and thought' that is a particular 'culture' (see Erikson, 1976:79).

Nevertheless ideological orientations remain important as they are valued by particular groups.

Ideology is envisaged as 'ideas serving as weapons for social interests' (Berger and Luckmann, 1975:18).

Wild's 'ideal type' constructs: 'community, communion and society' have assisted my sociological interpretation of data found when a community is under stress (Wild, 1983).

Wild explains that, 'Perhaps the most confusing aspect of the community society dichotomy' is that community is used to explain not merely

'relationships of tradition' but 'also relationships of emotion developed through common experience and emphasising a sense of belonging'. Relationships of tradition are 'community' and relationships of emotion are 'communion'. Society relationships are characterized by formal rationality, they are based on purposive action concerned with

'specific means' used to obtain desired goals 67

(Wild, 1983:12-13). 'Society' is characterized by individualism contracts, laws and empirical knowledge are the core of societal relationships.

Community, communion and society are closely intertwined, yet analytically distinctive. 'The trichotomous model of community, communion and society recalls Weber's tripartite division of charisma, tradition and rational legality as archetypes of human experience' (1983:14). Wild also argues that 'both society and communion' are concerned with the experiences of the individual whereas 'community is primarily concerned with an interdependent social group'. Therefore society comes closer to communion than does community

(1983:14).

My study focus on different groups includes the 'spiralists' who are bureaucrats. The term bureaucracy denotes 'administration in the hands of appointed officials with specialist qualifications who possess the necessary technical knowledge'

(Wild, 1983:15).

Oxley's study also offers a valid way of ordering data that concerns social relationships. The term 'egalitarianism' explains social interaction between people placed at different levels of the social structure. Oxley observes the way 68

some 'higher-stratum townspeople' are adept in 'symbolizing commitment to egalitarian norms' in the company of their lower-stratum acquaintances.

Community leaders by means of egalitarian relationships are able to bridge the social distance between disparate status groups (1978:210).

Oxley's work also indicates the way an 'egalitarian group' looks out on the world. The egalitarian group norms, values and attitude closely resemble the shearers' world outlook re.corded earlier.

The Aboriginal people as a distinct cultural group are included in my study. However, as they now live in town they are largely included as part of the general status group categories.

My interest in the study of drought and

the response of different groups came about because

I lived on a sheep station in the Paroo Shire.

As a local resident I had access to people I

may not otherwise have been successful in reaching

people of different walks of life and age

groups including shearers, itinerant workers

and the 'old timers'. Participant observation

was the main approach. People in the Paroo lived

with drought and spoke of it constantly, I shared

that experience and each person I spoke to provided

me with further knowledge of drought and their

particular experience of it. 69

Participant observation was supplemented

by data generated in other ways interviews

(see Appendix 3), a search of the records, of historical works and of local state and national

papers, journals, periodicals, literary fiction

and various 1 iterature given me in the course

of my research by respondents.

Whenever possible I cross-checked data gained

from one source with that of another. For instance,

if a respondent mentioned that he or she experienced

no unemployment I carefully cross-checked this with information from an employer or mentions

in the media. The reluctance of people to admit

unemployment during the earlier stages of drought

came to light as I compared their responses with

those recorded later.

Major subject areas such as employment,

government response, · social change in the Paroo

Shire, policies of private enterprise organizations

and religious response to the severe drought

conditions were elucidated as I approached the

appropriate organization official to extend my

knowledge of a subject. In this way I aimed

to reduce the likelihood of incorporating into

the research process the 'idiosyncracies of the 70

individual researcher' (Wild, 1981:56; Bell and Newby, 1975:66-67). _Cross-checking observed phenomena with data obtained from a different source is a precaution to aid 'internal consistency' in the data collection and analysis process (see

Wild, 1981:56).

There was relatively little difficulty in locating people from the township population, the spiralists, the township employees or the town business proprietors. However, I found it considerably more difficult to interview the

'peripheral' groups in the grazing industry.

I had to be patient and wait for an oppropriate moment and then conduct an informal interview wherever I could: whilst sitting on the steps of a shearing shed; in the kitchen or on the veranda of the shearing quarters; beside a dam or tank; beneath a shady tree; at the races; in a 'pub'; or leaning over the bonnet of a car.

While the drought was not perceived by local people as a 'disaster' nevertheless studies of disasters and particularly those focused on natural disaster in Australia (see Wettenhall,

1975; Reid, 1980), allowed me to analyse and / l

interpret social organization and social change in the light of other social investigations of communities undergoing periods of extreme stress.

Disasters have 'four core dimensions' these are described as events, impacts, people (as social groups, families or individuals), and response

(see Kreps, 1984:309-312). I propose to give a brief description of the event and the impact upon the population. However, my focus is on the response of status groups and their subjective experience in a drought-stricken world.

The event examined seemed so much larger than everyday life. It allowed a study based on data generated in a discrete moment in the

'flow of human experience' (Erikson 1976:12).

At such times traditional methods of doing sociology seem rather inadequate and as Erikson found in the aftermath of the Appalachian disaster it often became extremely difficult to carry out my social research in the 'cool and measured way most sociological research is done' when the event I was attempting to understand 'seemed so much larger than the professional lens through which I was looking' (1976:12). 72

Two research problems were of particular

significance as I examined people under stress:

a tendency towards empathy with the respondents made this type of study more difficult; and

the role of onlooker required the dual role of

'stranger and friend' to continue as in some kind of 'dialectical relationship' (Bell and Newby,

1975:70). However, there are research processes

that lessen the tension in these situations and at the same time assist research and interpretation: keeping a diary and taking copious field notes and at the same moment relating these to the

'body of empirical knowledge' (Berger and Kellner,

1982:52-53). These strategies helped me to record

the breadth and complexity of response.

In order to avoid being 'captured' by a

particular group, as in the case of a political meeting, I used an inf or man t to gather data

(see Bell and Newby, 1975:69); and in those

areas of social space where females are excluded

from conversation my husband monitored the

attitudinal changes. From his observations and

my own field notes I could discern the approximate

time when drought was no longer referred to as

subject matter for a joke. 73

Field research was very time consuming because when a person is approached on any topic in the

Paroo, the subject matter is by convention, never addressed initially as it might be in a business conversation, in a city environment, where much of the communication takes place between total strangers. The vast distances and the sparsely scattered population added their own set of difficulties.

A further problem in the field research process was the need to be a 'Jack' or a Jill­ of-all-trades, to know, in Bell and Newby' s words, something of 'stratification, politics, religion, deviance, housing, education and so on' (1977:61).

I also required background knowled.ge of soil, vegetation, drought management strategies, trade unionism, social welfare policies, local government,

Aboriginal culture and the Australian economy generally.

I regarded spiralists as central informants and before I approached an interview I carefully compiled a questionnaire leaving the questions open ended if possible, to allow my respondents to expand on subjects important to them. 74

Of all people 'children come closest to having no more knowledge than is in the common culture' of a society (Phillips, 1972:63). In view of this I asked a librarian at a Sydney high school to compile a list of Australian literary works that she would give children if they requested library material on drought.

I supple!Ilented this bibliography with secondary source material found in the libraries of Sydney and Macquarie universities. These written reports enabled me to understand the way drought was perceived in literary fiction.

The literature search included examining case studies based on the structure and development of community (Bowman, 1981); population mobility and social change (Burnley et al 1980); field research in Australian community studies (Wild,

1981); and studies exploring social change in

Aboriginal society (Stevens, 1975; Rowley, 1972).

Various reports were sent to me by government and semi-government departments and by some of my respondents. My interview structure and schedules were guided by proposals advocated by Riley (1963),

Atkinson (1971), and Goode & Hatt (1952). 75

A constant source of background knowledge of drought time in Australian society during the years 1979-1983 was found by monitoring radio broadcasts, mainly the ABC radio stations 4QS

St George and 4QW Toowoomba; there is no television reception available on the sheep station. Also

The Mulga Line periodical, published by the Queensland

Department of Primary Industries, in Charleville, allowed the progress of drought and the changes this brought to the life of people in south west

Queensland to be examined and charted as drought extended its grip on the eastern states.

As the study progressed I observed changes in lifestyle and patterns of behaviour. At this point the questions I asked and the responses obtained could be better focused on the subject of the thesis. The response to drought of different social groups in the Shire became more apparent and readily articulated, and attitude changes between groups in different class and status group situations could be more readily tracked.

The next chapter begins by recording the more significant events that have influenced the development of the grazing industry in the

Paroo Shire. It then looks 76

at the response of local government to natural disaster and tells something of the character of the people who live in a dry country and of drought. I I

CHAPTER 4:

HISTORY, POLITY, ECONOMY AND DROUGHT

The settlement of Queensland began with the establishment of a penal colony at Moreton Bay, in the year 1823 (Holthouse, 1974: 7). The early years of the colony and the development of the pastoral industry have been recorded elsewhere (see Peel, 1975), but it was the thirty years following 1860, that cast the mould for the development of Australian rural areas and the wool growing industry in Parco Shire. During this period, Australian State governments implemented policies based on the call to 'unlock the land' (Miller and Jinks,

1973:31; Peel, 1975:51-56; Gruen, 1975:358). These policies were a legal development of the idea that too many people were denied the right to hold land in their own interest (Gruen, 1975:358). The large squatter holdings in Parco Shire were subdivided following the

Crown Lands Act of 1884, in Queensland. This had a profound influence on the settlement pattern of the

Parco Shire (Blake, 1979:26).

Drought has a long history in Australia. At the time the 'young Commonwealth was still feeling its feet' the continent was stricken by a severe drought 78

that reduced the national sheep flock - from 106 million

in 1895, to 72 million in 19010 It fell further to

53 million in 1902 (Jones, 1961:288).

The nature of the wool growing industry required

a particular type of settlement pattern and work force.

Sheep runs were scattered over vast areas of the inland,

station homesteads were distanced from one another, and

there was need only for a sparsely settled population,

and for few townso The isolated lifestyle appealed

more to single men than to married men with families.

There were few employment opportunities for females,

and few of the social amenities that appealed to women

(Blainey, 1967:136) o Each of these factors favoured

the development of a masculine societyo

Land ballots were promptly introduced as there were always more applicants than units of land available

under the sub-division schemes. Following the two

World wars, there were further land resumptions to

establish ex-servicemen as farmers. After the First

World War 37,000 ex-servicemen throughout Australia

were settled. The result was disastrous - within eight

years one of every three soldier settlers had walked

off the lando The major reasons for settlement failures

were tabled in Federal Parliament as: 'inadequate

farm size, unsuitable settlers and unprofitable farm

prices in the years after settlement' (Gruen, 1975:358). 79

Soldier settlement, after the Second World war, was more successful, although less than 10,000 service­ men throughout Australia, were settled. More generous land areas were allocated, and there were profitable markets for agricultural products during the 1950'so

These soldier settlers were in a better position to meet their financial commitments and become established as farmers. In the Paroo Shire, soldier settlement was followed by the wool boom years, and the settlers were well established before low wool prices and frequent droughts hit them in the 1960's (Gibb, 1969).

There were 37,000 applicants classified as 'suitable' soldier settlers, following World War II. Land allocations were made by ballot, and about 25 per cent of the applicants were successfulo Perhaps a belief in 'luck' that is characteristic of the wool grower in the Paroo

Shire (Riethmuller, 1975), has some foundation in the experience of a number of present day grazing families who were successful in a land ballot.

Gruen's work illustratas the presence of different sub-groups among grazing families, those who are descendants of the original squatters and newcomers, who are either soldier settlers and their descendants, or families who have obtained land by means of public land ballot or private land purchase. 80

Settlement,during the years that followed the

Second World War, was not undertaken with the same

'carefree abandon' that followed the First World War

(Gruen, 1975:358). Australian policy makers and administrators were learning to understand the nature of rural land in Australia, and the dry country that resists close settlement patterns.

Politicians and political issues have little part in conversation among males in the rural areas, the conversation is more likely to centre on topics of

'tangible local issues' such as droughts, harvest, pests, markets for stock and produce, but the 'things people take for granted are as important and probably more basic than the things they discuss' (Gruen, 1975:

34 2) 0 Labor is identified as an "urban" party and this, perhaps, is one reason for the rural labourers' traditional opposition to strike action. This may also be a counterweight to their failure to express job dissatisfaction through a protest Labor vote

(Gruen, 1975:349). The face-to-face work relationship between the farm labourer and the grazier is entirely different to the relationship found when a large shearing team is working the shearing sheds - in this case there is a marked 'lack of sympathy, understanding and, above all, lack of community interest' (197 5: 356).

Conflictual relationships have led to union rulings that dictate every facet of shearing team employment, and any 'ambiguity is likely to lead to friction between 81

the two parties' the shearers and the grazier

(1975:357).

The Australian Union Movement gained momentum during the 1880's but, with the onset of a recession and wage reductions, labour unrest reached a crisis period in the 1890's, and industrial unrest spread throughout the outback regions. There were 'strikes and lockouts in the Queensland sheds' and in many cases, shearing was delayed. But with the high level of unemployment generally, there were always 'non-unionists prepared to do the work, and the strikers were defeated'

(Peel, 1975:56).

Camped on a site outside the township of Cunnamulla, were up to 400 unionists prepared to defend the shearers' rights against the threat of outside 'scab' labour.

The government sent in support for local police and a shed was fired in the district (Blake, 1979), as a number of graziers attempted to employ non-union labour. The outcome of these confrontations was the formation of two organizations influential in the relationships between shearer and grazier today, the Australian Workers'

Union and the United Graziers' Association. Peel suggests that the strikes were not in vain, as the new century brought 'the development of the arbitration syst~m and a steady improvement in wages and conditions of employment'

(Peel, 1975:56). o,:.

The Crown Lands Act of 1884, heralded the era of the land speculator, who viewed the land merely as a means to make a quick profit. One local station in the Parco had seven different owners in the 20 years following sub-division (Blake, 1979:26).

Land speculators were seen 'at their best, or perhaps worst' in the pastoral zones during the 1880's

(Peel, 1975:55). There were two approaches to land holdings, on the one hand the speculator, and on the other the settler who wanted to build a lifestyle for himself and his family, as graziers in the Warrego region (Blake, 1979).

One of the better known early pastoralists thought to have influenced drought and property management in the district, was James Tyson. He rose from poverty to become one of the richest men in Australia. He owned 'Tinnenburra' station, which stretched beyond the New South Wales border. According to local opinion,

'luck' followed Tyson as he bought drought-stricken land, and the drought broke shortly after. Tyson's personal living habits were frugal - he believed in a simple style of life and hard work. This was his response to drought (Historical Record Books). These traits are considered important by graziers today

(Riethmuller, 1975).

The history of the wool iridustry is marked by occupational groups that have played an important role for a short space of time, and then disappeared. The early shepherds on the isolated stations are the first to come to mind. Similarly, in the Parco Shire, the bullocky, the waggon drivers and the Cobb and Co. coachmen, have each made their contribution. The drover began his era during the 1880's (Peel, 1975:55).

This drought has all but put an end to his role in the local wool industry, and the occupation of the rnusterer on horseback began to decline when the motor-cycle was introduced during the 1960's. When people face drought, the history of status groups in the Shire, their rise and decline, brings a consciousness that the local grazing world is continually in the process of change.

Drought was more severe in the Shire when the sheep and cattle relied on surface water in the dry years. From the late 1870's onwards, the water resources of The Great Artesian Basin have changed this, and today 600 bores water the region (Queensland Water

Resources Commission). The opening of the railway line, in 1898, allowed stock to be transported more rapidly.

The corning of the railway was followed shortly after­ wards by freight rebates on transport of drought- stricken stock. Government intervention and more modern methods of transport have radically altered drought management over the past centuryo

In the past decade, the Shire has experienced more 84

dry seasons than good (see Appendix 4:1) and droughts have come to be accepted as part of a normal cycle of weather patterns. Only twelve months before the present drought declaration, a similar drought declaration was made - this was lifted 6 months later.

Drought

It is difficult for people more distanced from a drought-stricken region to understand the experiences of rural people, as they cope with drought. As Campbell remarks: 'Most Australians can read about 1,000,000 head of cattle and 13,000,000 sheep dying in a drought, and the loss escapes our emotions and our feelings'

(Campbell, 1968:VII). There is 'a great lack of sociological knowledge about the effects of drought on pastoral communities' in the Australian outback (Moule,

1973:310), for as White, the Australian author, comments through his literary character Voss, most Australians

'huddle' on the coast (White, 1971:11). This pastoral world is far removed from universities and other institutions of higher education, and a drought does not ordinarily coincide with a research project in the social sciences, yet drought deserves attention, for there is always a drought somewhere in Australia

(Campbell, 1968:17).

It has been said that 'drought is essentially a 85

conflict between nature and the grazier' (Campbell,

1968:40). This under-estimates the impact of drought.

The media took a broader view, discussing problems that beset other social groups. Typical of this perspective was discovered in a radio report stating that drought associated problems were widespread.

They were complicated by the general recession in the national economy, and the associated unemployment. A further difficulty developed: there was a drop in the price of wool. At this stage of drought, prayer was mentioned more frequently: 'It's almost a prayer.

All I want is a job' (ABC Radio 1002.82). The grazier has immediate control over the stock (The Mulga Line,

August, 1980:4), however the effects of drought flow to each sector of society.

A bore-drilling contractor described Cunnamulla as "a typical western Queensland town". The town housing is a mixture of old and newer styles of architecture; there are high-set Queensland timber houses side by side with low-set, modern timber and fibro dwellings. There are few brick buildings. The

Great Artesian Basin supplies water for the gardens, and most of the water needed for domestic purposes.

Cunnamulla is an outback town, a part of that most

'peculiarly Australian variety of rural life' (Gruen,

1975:353). The 'outback' has no geographical boundary.

However, local people refer to places three or four hundred kilometres further east as the 'inside'. One 00

hundred kilometres to the west, the sheep areas end in the 'real outback' that is in the cattle country, for it is difficult to run flocks of sheep beyond the dingo barrier fence, for fear of 'dog' attacks.

The country surrounding the township is flat.

There are few hills of any note, and the Warrego River winds its way through the outskirts of Cunnamulla. The bed of the river was dry during the drought, and the waterhole near the township fell to a record low l~vel.

Black-soil mitchell grass plains are interspersed with long, low sandhills. This gives way suddenly to the mulga country, where the bright red earth disappears beneath the thick scrub. Open bore drains snake out over the countryside, supplying most of the water for stock. Other bores are capped, and watering troughs supply the needs of stock.

People live in a region where there is a remarkable wild life: kangaroos, emus and other bird-life of varying kinds, foxes and pigs. There are vast flat plains, distant horizons and very blue and, more often, cloudless skies, during drought. The night skies are bright with stars, as there are no electric lights to dim them, or clouds to hide them.

In the dry years, as the grass and the ground- 87

vegetation blew away, the trees threw long, unbroken shadows across the ground. Upton describes the outback during drought as a land of stick, stone and sorrow, but also a time when the cool, clear air can be bracing and make one glad to be alive (Upton, 1938:202-203).

The wild life changes appeared as a social change in the animal kingdom. Huge pelicans came to settle on the dams, apparently from drier regions where there was little water. The foxes disappeared and, initially, those predators, the crows and the pigs, fattenedo But by 1982, scarcely a pig was found, although circling crows still told of an animal dyingo

The grey and red kangaroos became thin and fewer in number, and different varieties of kangaroos appeared.

They came from other regions to seek the bore watero

They would string out in hundreds along the bore drains and, if there was a 'lucky' storm, they would sense where it fell and eat out new shoots of vegetation before the sheep could find themo The kangaroo shooters left the district, or found other types of work. The drought had already made vast inroads into the local kangaroo market, before the meat scandal broke in 1981.

Emus walked south, their migration commenced late in 1980, and I observed them in small groups walking down the highway, as if they understood the changing climatic patterns, as humans did not. There were no 88

reports of newly laid emu eggs found in 1982. The bird life thinned out eventually and, over the summer months of 1982-83, thousands of trees died. The mailman remarked that he could see homesteads for a greater distance, before he reached themo

The stressed physical environment had a profound effect on the population, particularly on station people who live closer to nature, and were surrounded with drought. Native trees around the homesteads were watered to save the most precious - a shady tree or a child's tree-house. The trees surviving no longer served as wind-breaks around the houses, as their leaves fell.

On the stations, everyday life changed: in the mulga country graziers and station-hands cut scrub for stock - they worked long hours alone in the bush. Where there was no mulga scrub, on the black soil country, windfall was precious to the surviving sheep. During

1980, graziers and station-hands, who were cutting scrub, would tell of their narrow escapes, as they learned to use the hand-saws - by 1982, they were expert.

Wettenhall, in the aftermath of a bushfire disaster in Tasmania, found the:

'somewhat hushed, passive and semi­ stunned condition that has been described as the "disaster syndrome". It was rarely self-centred, and there was often considerable altruism in it: (1975:84). It was as if everyone was aware of their 'collective predicament'. This lasted a few weeks, and people found it hard to put their minds to anything else (1975:84).

After two years of drought, the people in the

Parco Shire no longer joked about drought. These more subdued attitudes suggested patterns of behaviour observed in the 'disaster syndrome'. The people were not 'passiye' - they still attempted to save what they could of the trees and the animal population. But they were somewhat stunned by the prolonged impact of drought on their worldo

Local Government

In his Message to ratepayers (1982) the· Chairman of Parco Shire Council stressed consensus and unity.

But wool production has been political, since the struggle for recognition of unionism and for legislation on wages and conditions, that graziers would have to obey. On the first level, the class divisions in the Shire between property owner and the property-less, are deep and long-

standing a There are also various social divisions, the most sharply drawn are between Aboriginal and white, between town and rural, and the old residents and the transient work force: spiralists or itinerant workers in the shearing industry.

The councillors in the Parco Shire Local Government JV

Area are elected by the 'ordinary parliamentary franchise'

(see Miller and Jinks, 1973). Council is a small body composed of seven persons: three councillors representing the first (or town) Division, and three councillors elected from each of three rural Divisions. The Chairman is elected by the electorate at large, and his relations with Council may develop along the lines of 'those between the President of the United States and Congress'

(see Miller and Jinks, 169-170). The Chairman has the casting vote on tied issues. He told me, ~I vote with my conscience for the good of all". The Chairman's view is 'universal', whereas the councillors, as representatives of their own Divisions, necessarily have a more 'parochial' view (see Miller and Jinks,

1973 :170) 0

Councils provide basic requirements as 'local roads, health, building, planning and garbage authorities'

(Miller and Jinks, 1973:170). In a geographically isolated Shire, special services are necessary, and

Council exercises its optional powers to provide such amenities as a hostel for rural school-children, fifteen pensioner's units, thirty houses and a swimming pool.

One councillor described Council role in relation to the needs of residents as a "fairy godmother" as it prepared grounds for fetes and the local show, and provided areas for sports and leisure.

Due to the immense land area of the Paroo Shire 91

(47,671 square kilometres), Council meets annually

the heavy costs of maintaining an extensive road system.

There are 2,948 kilometres of road of which 414 kilo- metres are sealed (Blake, 1979:11). Road maintenance

caused much comment during the droughto On the one hand, roads became rock-hard beneath a heavily sand­ coated surface, making repair and maintenance difficult.

Graziers complained that Council-maintained access roads were becoming increasingly difficult to useo A grazier said that more money should be spent on roads, and less on the towno

Senator Collard, National Party Senator for

Queensland, told local residents, during a visit to

south-west Queensland in July, 1982, that, "The major

issue facing the residents of south-west Queensland

is the funding, construction and maintenance of roads"

(The Cunnamulla watchman, July 28, 1982:3). The

Senator added that National roads were the responsibility of Federal Government, where~s arterial roads and local

roads were the problems of State and Local Government.

He continued that there was always a shortage of money,

and money available had to be spent fairly.

The Senator also visited local projects, such as

hospitals and, because the western people were very

'community minded', he watched the Diamond Shears

competition at Longreach (The Cunnamulla Watchman,

July 28, 1982:3). 92

Until 1979, Council also supplied local electricity.

Council has a history of celebrating locally significant

events, such as the opening of the railway late in the

last century; the switching on of the Cunnamulla

electricity supply in 1926; and in 1982, when the Council

swimming pool developed a fault, the Council promised

to re-open it in time for Christmas Day.

These special projects are often the focus for

conflict in Council. A councillor ·said that there was

much debate about how the funds should be made available

for swimming pool repairs. One rural councillor suggested

that some houses should be sold - this was contested by others.

Local government councils in Australia are largely

'confined to their own policies, conceived within the

framework of the State Local Government Act' (Miller and

Jinks , 19 7 3 : 1 7 0 ) • The State Government plays a relatively

smaller role in the everyday financial resources of the

Paroo - ratepayers provide the major source or finance.

Local Government finance is a 'thorny topic' (Miller

and Jinks, 1973:171). The Unimproved Capital Value

provides the base from which the Council rate is

struck. When I carried out my investigation, the urban

rateable property value in the Paroo Shire was $199,000.

The rural rateable property value was $7,316,000

(Statistical Survey, 1981/82, Department of Local 93

Government, Queensland). The 1982-83 urban general rate was struck at 18.4 cents in the dollar; and the rural general rate was struck at ll.95cents in the dollar. The figures showed an increase in rate charges of 7 per cent over the previous financial year. By far, the greater portion of Council rates was paid by the rural property owners.

The Chairman, in his Message to ratepayers (1982), said that the rate increase was due to inflation running between 13 and 15 per cent, increased costs of fuel, wages and basic road building materials. The Chairman continued:

"I believe the great majority of ratepayers will see such an increase as reasonable and essential if Council is to continue to maintain a high level of services to the community •••• (Chairman's Message, 1982).

The Message also mentioned youth unemployment, and it was hoped that a proposal to set up a local construction gang would improve this situation. The Chairman said that Council would endeavour to improve its efficiency while, at the same time, remain sensitive to the needs of all residents of the Shire. The Message concluded:

"Council enjoys an excellent relationship with the residents and ratepayers •••• and as Chairman of the Shire for the past 21 years I am proud of the high level of co­ operation which exists in this regard (Chairman's Message, 1982).

The Chairman's Message couched the legitimacy of the rate increases in an appeal to 'community' in

Wild's (1983) terms, that is to tradition and group 94

interdependence in relationships between ratepayers

and other Shire residents.

Data collected at that time indicate little

general consensus of opinion favouring the increase,

A Councillor representing the rural Division, responsible

for more than one-quarter of the Shire's rate income, was pleased with the increase only in so far as an

increase of 12 per cent had been suggested in Council~

In comparison to the rate increase that might have been struck by Council, 7 per cent represented a win in

Council debate.

The mailman said that, as he delivered the rate notices, the people on the stations were already aware of their content. As 1982 had been a year of record low rainfall, since official (or station) records had been kept, the grazing families were annoyed about the increase in a year when they had received no incomeo

Townspeople also expressed their concern about the increase. At that time business people were borrowing from the banks to remain afloat, and they would have to borrow the money to pay the rates. Working-

class people,who owned their own homes and who relied on shearing teamwork or station.work to provide an income, were experiencing prolonged periods of unemployment.

The Chairman's reference to 'community' relationships 95

had two immediate effects. In the first place, it

discouraged protest. To protest would seem to place

an individual in a minority position against the 'great

majority'. In the second place, the western regions

favour the development of a social structure particularly

conscious of group solidarity (Riethmuller, 1975).

There are strong social pressures to conform. The

Chairman astutely called on these traditions and social

mores to gain the end required, viewed as the continuation of Council function. The Chairman's Message suggests

that he saw his role as one of dispersing conflict

that might upset the local "rules of the game" as far

as his own group interest was concerned, i.e. as Chairman of local Council.

A deeper consequence of the focus on rates, as

a political issue at that particular moment of serious

socio-economic stress, was that social issues that

might have been raised, were not. Rates offered a

relatively "safe" issue to publicise: 'Power may be,

and often is, exercised by confining the scope of

decision-making to relatively "safe" issues' (Bachrach

and Baratz, 1974:6)4 To understand the nature of

important issues, it is necessary to analyse the

'"mobilization of bias" in the community': that is, the

'dominant values and political myths, rituals, and

institutional practices which tend to favour the vested

interests of one or more groups, relative to others'

(1974:11). In the case of the rates issue, both the

grazing sector, as an interest group, and Council, also 96

as an interest group, were favoured. There were groups whose problems stemmed from forces far more widespread than the payment or non-payment of rates in a remote local government area. The loss of jobs among the unskilled work force is one such issue.

Max Weber stated that a period of climatic change

'stimulates the increasing rationalization of economic production' (1964:167). Those in the social order most severely affected by modernisation of the pastoral industry in the Shire are persons who relied on horse work as drovers and mustererso Modern methods of transport had taken over many of their more labour- intensive work roles. The motor cycle was used increasingly for mustering, and road trains took the stock away from the region. The problem of finding alternative employment for this group of bushmen could have been raised as a political issue. It was an

'important' issue in that it would have necessitated a close examination of the effects of rationalisation in the means of production on a most vulnerable group, the 'unskilled', in terms of a differentiated employment market9 Drought only hastened a process already in motion, the movement out of the pastoral industry of a status group of skilled bushmen. A proportion of this group were Aboriginal people (Regional Director,

Aboriginal Affairs). 97

Local Council attempted to continue to provide

'amenity' services by providing the hostel for rural children, pensioners' cottages, some housing for residents, by assisting in the organization of charity and sporting events, and providing library facilities. But, as Miller and Jinks point out, local councils in Australia have been 'surrounded by a narrow "property mentality", a frame of reference which admits of nothing but services to property' (1973:175). The wider social issues are largely ignored.

Wild explains the structure and functions of local government in Australia - in different terms 'Local government has become increasingly bureaucratised •••• showing a growing dependence on rational-legal structures' at the expense of 'local democracy and accountability'

(Wild, 1983:16).

Councils are becoming an elitist group representin~

'only a narrow range of interests' (Wild, 1983:17).

The vested interests of privileged groups in the Shire are favoured by the Council in the 'institutional practice' of holding Council meetings on the third

Thursday of each month at 9.30am. This practice permits only those with flexible work schedules to attend regularly. The Councillors are all business people or graziers, that is, people who are free at this time to attend. The timing of Council meetings prevents 98

those who are in the paid or unpaid work force, from attending. These include office workers, shop assistants, labourers and working-class people in general, and those charged with the care and education of young childreno

As a home-supervisor to a correspondence school child,

I could not attend Council meetings.

Participant observation allowed an understanding and knowledge of the problems that caused most tension among people of the electorate. I relied on informants to record the Council meetingso I also searched local written records of meetings, and recorded Council action, as perceived by respondents in my inquiry. My own situation underlines the view expressed above, that institutional practices of Council contribute to the fact that it is an elitist groupa

As Miller and Jinks point out, some of the major problems for Council lie in its relationship with central authoritieso Councils are 'under the surveillance of a Department of Local Government'a This body 'makes

Ordinances under the Local Government Act'. The

Department checks their elections, money raising activities, accounts and general administration. Council borrowings also have to 'fit in with Federal and State loan requirements' (1973:173)0

The Chairman told me, "Whoever wins at election 99

time is 'boss' for the next three years". I wrote to the Minister for Local Government, Mr. Hinze, requesting information concerning drought in the Parco Shire, and the way drought affected State Government in its relation- ships with the Shire Council. The Director of Local

Government wrote in reply to my communication that the

Parco Shire was only one of approximately 50 of the one hundred and thirty four Local Government Areas in

Queensland drought declared at that time. The Director said that the Parco Shire must adjust its expenditure annually to meet the resources available among its ratepayers (18 January, 1983).

The communication also outlined drought relief schemes then operative in Queensland in relation to the Parco Shire grazing and business sector. The

Director enclosed a copy of the Statistical Survey,

1981/82, Local Government. The communication continued that, according to the Statistical report, Local

Government had made cut-backs on its expenditure in that financial year. The survey gave no indication of special consideration given to the Local Government by State Government due to the prolonged drought (18.1.83).

The Chairman of the Parco Shire Council said that special grants were available to Council in accord with the procedures and conditions governing special 100

purpose grantso He mentioned grants for projects that would employ particular groups such as Aboriginal people or youth. The relationships between Local

Government and the State Government were tied to bureaucratic procedure and 'societal' relationships

(see Wild, 1983) o The means to obtain special grants were to work within the bureaucratic framework - the contracts and regulations and rules of logic that governed such grantso

There were a variety of complex elements that affected decision-making in relation to drought. Those groups who may have raised the key issues in local and central government where political decision-making is carried out, each had different values to preserve and different pressure groups to take into consideration.

They had widely differing backgrounds from the Council

Chairman in the isolated grazing region to the politicians and administrators in the Government offices of Brisbane, or Canberrao

The Chairman, while overtly denying conflict in his electorate between and among the widely varying groups, nevertheless demonstrated that he was all too aware of it when he stressed the need to consider the needs of all residents of the Shire, and stressed

'community' relationships and consensus. 101

The Chairman is also the owner and proprietor of the local newspaper, The Cunnamulla Watchman.

Australian papers, argue Miller and Jinks, are largely

'showy, frivolous and superficial' (1973:25). The mentionsof drought and drought-related problems were certainly superficial. The announcement of general drought in the Shire was made only on page 5 of The

Cunnamulla Watchman (December 19, 1979) o Graziers were mentioned, in relation to drought, as experiencing a

'trying time'. When I phoned Council to request an interview the Chairman made an appointment for me at his newspaper office - the newspaper, obviously, was an important part of his identity.

The Chairman/newspaper proprietor was unsympathetic

to people complaining about the drought: "When you

live in a dry country you expect drought," he said.

Drought was now easier to handleo When he was young,

the axemen felled trees to feed stock. He believed that many people had lost the ability to work hard. He had

advertised for a person to deliver messages for him in

town, and had received no replies.

Political issues were written in - or out - of

the newspaper, published weekly. The Chairman said

that, if he published something controversial that

upset a particular group, readers would phone in and 102

complain. He intended to change this - to publish what he saw as important. In a scrutiny of the local paper over the years dating from 1960 to 1985, I found no indication of a radical change from the time of the interview, 1981. The Chairman had owned the newspaper,

"About as long as I've been on Council," since 1941.

Newspapers 'must include general and "popular" material in order to sell sufficient copies' among a relatively small population (Miller and Jinks, 1973:26).

Furthermore, the 'parochialism' of the local paper means that issues are discussed in relation to their effect on local people. If a locally powerful pressure group was the target for criticism, publishing the item might lose custom, and the Chairman spoke, as newspaper proprietor, when he said that the paper made little profit. He wondered why he kept it going.

There is a conflict of roles inherent in the dual nature of pursuits as Chairman of Council, representative of all, and newspaper proprietor with a small potential for circulation, sensitive economically to criticism of his paper. But country newspapers are no longer radical, and the local paper in Cunnamulla was described by one respondent as, "The three minutes of silence". Four town readers informed me that they bought the paper for the television programme, rather than for insights into local affairs. The only station available on television is the ABC. Reception is 103

available only to a few grazing stations. Two graziers

said they took the papers to learn of local events.

Upon retirement, announced for 1985, the Chairman had held this office for 24 years. The Historical records show a Chairman of the Parco Shire who had held office for 21 years until 1951. In between these two, was another Chairman, who held office for nine years.

These Chairmen were not newspapermen - one was a publican.

The data suggests that power to raise or suppress political issues is not the central element in gaining and holding the leading position in local government in the Shire.

Personal contact with the electorate, and an ability to contain and disperse the conflict between the varying factions within the social order, may be a more significant factor.

Pender, a shire clerk from Ingham, Queensland, presented a paper explaining the role of Local Government in natural disasters, at a seminar held in Queensland.

Local government is 'assessor, initiator, co-ordinator' and provider of services. Should a region be declared a 'Disaster Area under State Emergency provisions' new avenues are opened. These arrangements are carried out with the co-ordination of both local and State

Government resources (1980:170-171). Pender suggests

that residents in the small inland towns of Queensland

cope better with disaster than people living in the more densely populated areas. The residents of a small

town live in places where they are known, and where 104

they have family and friendship networks to call on for support, and they are expected to be resilient and resourceful.

This ethos reflects the attitude of the Chairman, as he attempted to explain to me the situation of western people during drought. He said that the people are accustomed to drought and, in the past, they survived drought by hard physical labour. He cited the work productivity of the axemen, implying that, if people cannot cope, perhaps it is due to the fact that they no longer know how to work hard.

The issues raised - roads and rates - are not the most 'important' issues. The key issues were the product of forces far deeper and more widely based than the local droughto They stem from structural inequalities in society, noteably those following upon the rationalisation of the means of production reflected locally in y6uth unemployment and the unemployment of the most socio-economically disadvantaged - the person unskilled in a differentiated employment market.

The unskilled rural labourers had two choices, neither of which was very palatable. They could stay and face long periods of unemployment, or they could

leave and face the poor prospects for work in a more

densely populated area where the prevailing worldwide 105

recession had pushed the Queensland unemployment rate to a new high of 6.8 per cent (ABC radio reports -

October, 1982). The Chairman expressed the values of his group~ the middle-class bureaucratic group of

Councillors and small business proprietors.

The Premier of Queensland, Mr. Joh Bjelke-Petersen, visited the Shire in February, 1983. He deplored the drought conditions and said that something would have to be done about the rates. His visit was viewed locally as a normal scheduled visit, as the Premier visits each local government area in Queensland between elections.

The Premier's recommendation to address the issue of rates suggests that the 'property' mentality prevailed when he was confronted with the drought conditions.

There was no public mention that the area might be declared a 'disaster area' and beco~e eligible for special concessions under the State Emergency provisions.

The Chairman gave no indication that he considered that a special purpose grant might be forthcoming under

State Emergency provisions.

Despite sharp class divisions and social divisions, the Council continued to function, averting conflict by enlisting the aid of values that were central in the minds of local people in that time of crisis for the local wool industry, 1982. This is observed readily 106

in the call to understand that consensus of opinion, tradition and group interdependence, prevailed. But, largely Council action in relation to drought problems was constrained by the bureaucratic structure of Council itself, and the 'society' relationships that tie local government to central government. Council requests for assistance must conform to the prevailing "rules of the game" for special purpose grants.

The next section begins the report of the different ways people responded. The old people have long experienced drought in their world, and I commence with their storyo 107

CHAPTER 5:

THE EXPERIENCE OF DROUGHT: IMPRESSIONS ON THE

AGED, CHILDREN AND WOMEN OF PAROO SHIRE

The Aged

Aristotle said long ago that the 'old salt' expects to be rescued from a stormy sea, he has

'hope' , for he has weathered many a storm before

(Aristotle, 1974:95). The 'old salt's' hope in survival is different in kind to that of the person who is inexperienced in the situation.

In a similar way the 'old timers' of the bush have experienced drought before and they have seen the rain and the re-growth that follows.

They see drought, not entirely in the present, they place it in the perspective of their lives.

The response of the old people allows an understanding of the way 'human "knowledge" (of drought) is developed, transmitted and maintained' (Berger and Luckmann 1975:15), in Paroo Shire.

The aged people placed drought in the context of the long seqsonal cycles of 'dry' times in the bush setting of the semi-arid regions. They recalled past droughts and the different type of social organization and technological approach. They invariably mentioned the 193Os 108

drought accompanied by the depression years.

People over sixty-five years of age comprise

7 .3 per cent of the population in the Shire compared with a national figure of 9.8 per cent of the Australian

population in this age-group (Australian Bureau

of Statistics, 1981). The rel a ti vel y lower proportion

of elderly in the Shire is partly due to the harsh

climate, distance from other centres and the fewer

social amenities that fail to attract people of

retirement age to live in this part of the bush.

When a grazing family move off the land usually

they move to the 'inside' regions and a son or a

daughter take over the station. The age of children

or the illness of one or other partner was a significant

factor in a decision to move. If a woman has grown

up in the Shire she tends to retire there remaining

close to family and friends, othe·rwise she will

leave the area upon retirement. Dempsey explains

that old people remain in an isolated country town

for the security of neighbours, friends and relatives

and for the social stimulus it provides. Social

interaction in a small rural society may provide

a 'source of identity' (1981:291).

There are few wealthy retired people, only

34 persons or 1. 8 per cent of the population recorded

incomes of more than $26 000 in 1981

(Australian Bureau of Statistics); older homes. 109

furnishings and cars testify to the lack of wealth, or the reluctance of those who have wealth to so display it. There are things of value individually subtle differences in the lifestyle of the aged during drought time, that have little relationship to material objects such as housing decorations, that 'old timers' stand to lose.

Wild found that the 'middle-stratum aged' seek '"a sense of belonging''' and express a desire to be with '"people of our own kind"'. Each class category of the aged segregate themselves within

'class - and status-based residential areas' (1978b:167-

168). There has been an increase in the 'white - collar', non-manual' occupational group boosted by the increased participation of women in the paid work force. The growth in the 'white-collar 1 work force has taken place 'at the expense of rural occupations' (1978b: 167).

The Paroo Shire middle-stratum group are mainly transient organization people - the spiralists described elsewhere. They do not retire in the region. The aged of the Shire whom I interviewed were, with four exceptions (a photographer, a clerical worker, and two people who were retired burgesses), either

the upper-stratum graziers or 'propertyless manual workers'.

The Paroo is a place where the middle class

career employees have few opportunities for advancement. 110

People seeking career employment leave at an early stage in their life cycle. As Wild states 'the upper-stratum aged often migrate, but usually only seasonally' (1978b:164-165). The poor aged prefer to stay rather than to become one of the many aged poor 'concentrated in increasingly fewer inner suburbs of large cities' (Wild, 1978b:162). They prefer to remain in a place where they are not socially segregated from people of different stratum-levels and age groupings. And although retired graziers who hand on their property to their children may make a complete break with the homestead as their central home, their ties remain and they return to help when necessary.

A young working class townsman had just begun to learn shearing when drought was declared. As a 'learner' shearer he had little priority for the limited shearing team work. He attempted to take station work but found the two types of work did not coincide and he became mostly unemployed. When

I asked him about the drought I learned of the problems of the older men in the town. He said that (in

1981), there were no property sitting jobs to do and the men sat around town when normally they would have been out in the bush 'property sitting', while people were away. The quality of life suffered for these older people who had spent a lifetime on the stations. 111

Each elderly person appeared to see the drought in a slightly different perspective depending on individuality and personality. If they were gregarious they would talk about the social life they had experienced in their youth on the stations, during drought time when there were many hands to do the work. Then social life was spent together as the only way to get to town was to walk or ride a horse. If the aged person were a bushman he would talk about the vegetation, the types of trees sheep would eat and one 'old timer' who knew I was studying drought came to the station to tell me everything I should know about it

- he described every tree in terms of its potential to feed stock and then he went on his way, convinced that I knew everything there was to know about drought, everything that should be transmitted as "knowledge" of this subject.

One old station worker came through with the mailman, he was a pensioner who had been difficult to reach for he lived in town with his family only part of the time, the remainder of the time he spent on stations in the bush where he had previously worked. He talked about the past, about his wife, now dead and his family.

He said that he had not realized how hard it was for his wife rearing their six children in

the bush on the stations. He was silent for 112

a long time and then he said suddenly: "It will

rain again, you know". He left the house and

went outside to wait until the mailman was ready

to leave. His parting words were almost a religious

statement, the 'hope' that Aristotle understood.

A woman pensioner who lived in one of the

Council pensioners' cottages described the contrasts

in the weather cycles. She first came to the

region when there was rain and a flood. She was held up while creeks and rivers went down

and she said: II It hasn't rained since". In

her experience of an English childhood when she

awoke almost every day to rain, the brief hour

or two of rainfall, that the west generally

experiences, would not be regarded as 'rain',

particularly during drought time when ten minutes

of rainfall is so unusual. She found great beauty

in drought and captured it on film, photographing

a 'go-by-storm' which had passed over, leaving

'about ten' drops of rain and a magnificent cloudy

sky with a rainbow that was the subject of her

photograph. She saw drought in the perspective

of her own life-experiences, an English childhood

and her own work as a photographer.

An old bushman was concerned about the increase

in petrol prices and he was experiencing difficulty 113

meeting the rising cost. He was concerned that

he would not be able to afford to take the car

out of town into the bush where, in the good

years, trapping foxes had earned him the money

to pay the costs. There was no fox-hunting,

for there were no foxes.

The older women have a social life that

largely centres on group participation in different

types of activity. They assist at varied functions

earning money for their particular cause, they work at fetes, weddings and so forth and are

the stable congregation of the Churches.

Among the aged I found former workers in

the shearing teams. They are distinguishable

by their particular stance and gait, the result

of years spent bending over sheep in the wool

sheds; they are broad-shouldered and stooped

and the status group preference for loose-fitting

clothing remains apparent.

One of my respondents had four generations

of his family living in the Shire and he was

attached by family to different status groups

station workers, graziers and townspeople.

He spoke of the different impact of drought on

each generation commenting that: "Every drought

is the worst". He had drawn a 'block' , in a 114

land ballot, but it had proved too small and

he had exchanged it for another, larger block.

He lost that in the drought and the depression

years. Then he turned to rural station work

to provide an income. He told of the way droughts

of the past were managed, when bullock teams

kept bore drains running before these teams were

replaced by the tractor. In the depression years

station people rarely went to town, perhaps only every three months. There were plenty of hands

to do the gardening and every station had a very

good vegetable garden, which is not always the case now.

As the drought progressed, 'old timers' were called upon by radio broadcasters to recall

their experiences. They had not lost their identity

as bush people, as they may have in a different

social milieu.

The older people respond to drought in

reference to a life's experience. In this way

knowledge of drought strategies are 'transmitted'

to the younger generations. The story of their

experiences tells of the increasing 'rationalization'

of the economic activities that Weber suggests

gains momentum during periods of climatic change

(1964:167). Two 'old timers' said that today's

generation had a working life during drought 115

time that was much easier, they could use the chain-saw or a bulldozer to cut scrub for stock, whereas in their youth they used the axe. The modern methods of transport also meant that there were not the numbers of horses to feed as there were in the depression years.

Response to drought by older people develops a feeling of 'hope' in kind with an 'old salt's' hope that a storm will end. This "knowledge" is passed on to the other generations. The experiences they share are highly valued and a major community resource handed down to others who will face drought.

R iethmuller (1975) found that an awareness of the role played by the generations who have worked the land before them was very marked among

the grazing families in south west Queensland.

A significant part of the graziers' ability to

succeed in a region that is prone to frequent

drought is training in survival skills passed

down through the generations. In the next section

I report on my examination of the youngest of

these, the children of the Shire.

The Children

Drought creeps up slowly, the land becomes

dry and showers of rain are few. Children grow 116

out of raincoats that have not been replaced and rain shoes. In 1980 a sudden fall of rain on the roof of the schoolroom sent all the children

scurrying outside. The Head Mistress said that

she had never experienced rainfall prompted class

pandemonium in a city school. The children thought of rainfall as a time of celebration no matter where they were.

Teaching in a drought stricken shire in south west Queensland was certainly different for her and she gave children in grades seven and eight a project she thought would capture their interest, the subject was drought. Of ten children, all but one was sympathetic to the theme. The imaginative response she had wanted came through and each child presented the project according to ability, which ranged widely from excellent down. She found that children

in their final years of primary school were well aware that drought was very much a par~ of their world.

Changes came slowly in the lifestyle of

the children. The Head Mistress observed that

children were not leaving the school or the town

because of drought, rather the effect of drought

was noticed when during 1980, few children took

holidays away. The Head Mistress was concerned 117

about this because children would find it di ff ic ult to be employed locally when they left school and they needed a trip away to benefit from a knowledge of other places. Children were so isolated in this region and they were being more tightly moulded into their own small world.

She said that they would be disadvantaged later in life as they left the Shire to find work.

The Head Mistress hired a bus for ten days and took the older children to the city.

She found they knew little of the conventions of walking down a crowded city street rather they marched ahead as people were forced to leave the footpath, to make room for them. The crowds were strange and during drought time particularly, there is little need to inove aside for others to pass on the footways of the Paroo Shire.

The children live in a world where a crowd of

700 at a football match will cause a mention by a radio sport commentator.

As the drought deepened and work opportunities lessened a clergyman remarked that when 11 dad II was at home all day, instead of at work, the changes in everyday life did little for the family.

The union representative said that shearing was a type of work that a father usually did not want his child to follow. This was unlike mining 118

where a father and son often were found working

in the same area. Shearing work was physically hard and very insecure. The drought forced people

to face the problem of their childrens' future in local employment and presented a dilemma for western parents in a society that values family and group centredness (Riethmuller, 1975). Local employment lacks the continuity of a career job,

and to take this type of employment a child must leave the region • As there is a 'round trip' of 1 600 kilometres to Brisbane, children come home infrequently, this is why families are known to move away as a family unit when children seek employment in fields other than those associated with the wool growing industry (social workers).

Children who live in the rural hinterland

leave home to attend boarding school upon reaching the age when they need high school education.

In the later years of primary school they occasionally

board in town, at the Council owned and operated

hostel. There were approximately 20 children

at the hostel in 1982, from there they attend

either the Catholic convent school or the State

school.

Education has never been readily accesslLle

to either town or country children. The levels 119

that children in more heavily populated urban

regions take for granted, the higher years of eleven and twelve, were · introduced only in the final months of drought, commencing in the school

year 1983. Until then Cunnamulla State school educated children through to the year 10 level.

The new courses allow children entry to almost any tertiary course upon obtaining the necessary standards. The courses excluded are science courses such as veterinary science, medicine, dentistry and pharmacy. Five subjects were made available and a sixth could be taken by correspondence.

A transition year eleven course was also

introduced to bridge the gap between school and

employment. This course is directed towards

teaching children the skills required in the

local pastoral industry. A councillor expressed

the concern felt by a number of townspeople that

boarding school government allowances would be

lost as their children would now live close to

a high school. Furthermore, children would not

have the competition in the local school to enable

them to reach the standards required by tertiary

institutions.

The history of State education in the Shire

dates back to 1879, when the number of town children

was sufficient for a local school (Historical 120

Society Records). For the first 80 years the school years available were primary levels.

During the 1950s the first years of high school became available. Little more than a century following the introduction of a government school the local children have the advantage of the high school years available to children in other, more heavily populated regions. As employment opportunities decreased during the years of drought, the action of the Education Department opened new avenues for the children that appear to be of most benefit to the working class town children.

Grazing families and burgesses usually send their children away to school.

Drought made very little difference to the day of the school teacher in the township. Salaries remained the same and as a teacher explained, he could not see . the drought from the schoolroom.

Another teacher said that as she drove to and from the town she could not understand the effects of the drought on the local station people and it was not until she came out to a station and helped lift weakened stock out of bore drains and tanks that she realized the extent of the drought. She said she missed this when just driving down highways. A third teacher commented that on her first trip to the Shire she found 121

the smell of dead stock, kangaroos and pigs permeated her car and she could not remove it. She wanted to turn back to the city.

The itinerant teachers who are employed to travel to each property at least once a term to help children who take lessons by correspondence, and the station children and their home-supervisors, find a different relationship to drought. As the itinerant teacher said: "You step outside the schoolroom and there is drought, all around you. The parents are involved in it and so are all the family". As he visited the stations during the first year of drought three families had rearranged the family work to cope with the economic uncertainty. A governess, whose wages are lower than a station worker, was employed when a station worker left. This freed a wife from teaching and allowed her time to do the work on the station. This was an initial arrangement, he did not find it in later years. His report suggests that station families adapt quickly to drought conditions employing methods that they have taken in other droughts, that have contributed to family survival on the land.

Drought considerably increases the station work as checking stock requires miles of travel along bore drains or between tanks. There are 122

more horses to feed when the ground is so bare and trees and scrub are usually cut at some stage.

If a garden still remains also requires extra care and when "dad" is away with the stock on agistment, the family left behind take on many of these chores. As I listened to women comparing their experiences of drought I realized that correspondence school papers are often done without a building in sight, let alone a schoolroom.

The drought was mentioned each day on Charleville

School of the Air. The teacher defined the world for the children, pointing out that the land might not off er them employment in the future and: "Perhaps some children might want to become architects, vets or solicitors or something else".

If there were storms each child was asked if they had received rain on their station. The teacher also reminded the children <;>f a different cultural way of living in the world, of a time when drought strategies were different:

Did anyone have a good rainfall overnight - Nicky? Some rain, Miss Blue. Vicky? Some rain, not much, Miss Blue. Peter? Seventy-five points, Miss Blue. That's pretty good. Michelle, how much rain did you have? One hundred and twenty points, Miss Blue. 123

Well, I think dad must be pretty happy today. I suppose he got that dam filled. The people north of Charleville have done much better than those around Cunnamulla. The teacher added: Here in Charleville the clouds are not as thick as they could be. But of course, if we had too much rain we'd get a flood and that might be as bad as a drought. However, it wouldn't hurt to do a bit of a rain dance (School of the Air, 17th October 1980).

Station children were socialised into the world of drought as they learned methods of approaching droughts in the future. Two local children spent part of the Christmas holidays out in the 'long paddock' with their father as he took stock along the road hoping it would rain before he reached home or that he could find agistment for the· sheep on the way.

The itinerant teacher said that four families, over a period of a month, mentioned ways to cut the educational costs of children. In Queensland, high school begins in year 8 and often a child will attend 'prep' school in the one or two years preceding this. Alternatives available included keeping children home longer, until year 7 or

8; bringing children home earlier to help out, or to find off-farm employment; and postponing tertiary education until the drought ended. 124

I spoke to two graziers who, as children of past droughts, were brought home from school early. Each regretted having left school, both at the time and at present when they were locked into a type of work that was non-profitable and hard. Furthermore, they could not envisage a future for their children in the wool industry.

A more optomistic response came from one of my respondents, a grazier, who felt that his lifestyle was worth the effort he made to survive drought.

As the grazing families live and work together and spend their leisure time with one another, they become more close-knit, each meal is taken together, there is not a different train to catch, or a different work place to dash off to and

I found that visitors from other regions commented upon these aspects of station life in the outback.

During drought when there was more to do at home and less holidays taken away these patterns of family centred life appeared to be strengthened

(Parents - Interview).

I observed a change in the atmosphere at a number of local events, they were different, as if Henry Lawson's observation that there is more goodwill between people in Cunnamulla during drought time was being enacted. At the Annual

Show, the Lizard Races and other events of the 125

Opal Festival week and at the film 'The Man from

Snowy River' the noise level was high as people from different status groups were observed talking together about the particular event and drought.

During 1982, I found social segregation at each public event less apparent among people of different stratum - levels of the local society.

A number of events were cancelled, these included the rodeo, the sheep dog trials at the

Show, the children's pony club muster and pony club trail rides. The audience attending the film 'The Man from Snowy River' packed the theatre on two nights and this was discussed by the business people as they attempted to remember who attended and who did not. When I spoke to people who had not attended the local theatre in years they remarked that in the ordinary course of events they would have seen the film while they were on holidays. According to reports given me the

Annual Show and local fetes showed no drop in attendance numbers during the years of drought.

Children play a role in the high attendance at these events as they urge their parents to take them.

One event not so well attended in 1982, was the annual sports muster, a two day programme 126

organised by the Charleville School of the Air.

I asked the Head Mistress why the attendance

numbers had dropped and she said that grazing

families did not want to leave their stock and

travel so far away. As the distance from Cunnamulla

is little more than 200 kilometres, the people

from the Paroo Shire were well represented but

fewer children from more distant places were there. This is the one time of the year when children from the varying grades meet classmates whom they hear daily on the school broadcasts.

It is an important event on the school calendar

but the care of stock was placed first during this more severe phase of drought.

Children learn to appreciate the joy of

rainfall during drought time in a dry country.

While they have less opportunity to learn about

the world beyond the bounds of the Shire the

children of families in all walks of life gain

knowledge and understanding of the problems of

living and surviving in a harsh physical environment.

Town children are more distanced from the

physical impact of prolonged drought. Rural

children confront a world in the grip of drought

each day. A ten year old girl said:

In drought time the poor little sheep are so weak they can't get over the bore drains. 127

If they move they fall down and you can lift them up with one finger. Walking around is like walking on a desert, the grass is crumbling under my feet. The kangaroos are all dying and there are not many birds. Dad is getting so upset, everyone can feel the tension.

Women and their Response to Drought

Lawson described the everyday world of women in the bush during drought time as they attempt to maintain order in their life and to soften the harsh world by growing flowers. White sees women looking beyond the everyday world of drought to the meaning of change in their lives. Drought is a time for reflection. Both writers offer an insight to the pat terns of behaviour I ob served.

I found women carrying out the traditional family roles and others attempting to come to terms with the conditions of employment in the world of the market place. Drought induced a locally depressed employment market and this was further complicated by changes in technology that currently replace much of the work allocated to women, such as office work. Modern processing machines increasingly centralise office work in the capital cities and in some cases office work is cut by up to 50 per cent (Rubenstein,

1980:23). In Cunnamulla two office managers, employed by national private enterprise organizations, 128

said that from the year 1980 much of the local office work was sent to their Head Office in

Sydney or Brisbane. Previously in these two firms, five women were employed, in 1980 the numbers were reduced to two. A townswoman commented on the loss of a job each time a business was taken over by another as she knew the employees affected.

At the onset of drought five large, national wool firm organizations were represented by an office in the town, by 1982 only two were left.

The employment situation for school-leavers became so difficult that when seven of this age-group were asked where they hoped to find employment, it was found that five had applied for the one local job advertised. Females upon leaving school waited months to find employment, a number left the Shire taking up positions in Charleville,

Toowoomba and Brisbane.

Although farm wives had more off-farm work experience than their husbands, as a young grazier' s wife pointed out, her type of specialized work was not available locally. She had worked in a laboratory in a large hospital prior to marriage.

Moreover family commitments and the distance from town (more than 60 kilometres) would prevent , . her taking outside work. Her husband was away with his sheep on agistment for more than a year and she was left alone to manage the station. 129

During this time she had her first child. She fed stock, carried out repairs such as mending the broken telephone line and she carried out all the other tasks necessary to keep the station operating until the drought broke~

Drought made everything harder for women.

This woman strove to keep the dust out of the house, or to clean away the remains of a dust storm. Others altered housekeeping standards and often dust covered everything for days after a dust storm. Dust was so thick at times that it blotted out the pattern on the vinyl or the linoleum in many station kitchens.

Tasks that had been shared earlier by husband and wife such as taking the children to and from boarding school, now fell entirely to women.

These journeys involved distances of up to

2 000 kilometres. I found two fathers who cared for younger children staying at home. To some degree the segregation of male and female roles on the stations diminished. Yet I found people still verbally subscribing to the division of labour along gender lines. The union repre sen ta ti ve told me that when jobs are in short supply during a drought males should have preference over females.

This attitude was endorsed by a townswoman.

Women of the spiralist status group found employment 130

opportunities decreased, they were usually passed

over and had little chance of finding local work at this time. There are 374 women employed of a total female population of 1 280. Of these

391 are under 15 years of age. There are 377 women of employable age outside the labour force.

In Cunnamulla the 15-19 year old maies and females are equally recruited into the labour force; there are 46 males and 43 female young workers.

But the 20-24 year old groups are dissimilar:

70 males and 28 females (Australian Bureau of

Statistics, 1981). The employment of women increases slightly in the 35 to 45 year age group, however, the figures indicate that despite the traditional belief that women should have the role of home.maker and males the role of bread-winner, that local women do take employment when available. At the local hospital nurses and domestic staff with one exemption, are married. Permanent teachers are married.

As I interviewed the senior officials in

state and national organizations I found that

in all but one case, males hold the senior positions.

The exception was that of Head Mistress at the

convent primary school where the senior post

was held by a nun. 131

The drought forced station women to think through their life on the land. There was little doubt about the importance of seeing the drought years out before leaving and a woman expressed her feelings about this but could not explain why her commitment was so strong, apart from the immediate thought that there was little alternative at present. She saw her stay in terms of a 30 year period in the family history:

"It is important to stay, if we can. I don't know why, but it is important".

When I questioned two women one a grazier in her own right and the other the wife of a grazier, the grazier said that she had taken ouside work to pay the bills as: "The station can't pay them". The other woman said, "What kind of drought? I've had all sorts of droughts in my life. Well, I suppose you mean the lack of rain now. My garden is a major problem.

When I plant things they must grow down because they don't grow Up II•

Women of both town and country persevered with pot-plants, they held more meaning for women when the countryside was burned dry and their gardens were dying. In Lawson's story of the bush life of women, 'Water Them Geraniums', Mrs.

Spicer grew a straggly geranium near her door, 132

softening the world of Australia's inland during drought time. The feelings expressed about their plants were similar to those found in Lawson's character as women challenged the drought perceiving in the growth of the plant a sign that the land could come to life again. The florist shop, opened during the drought time, recorded a steady trade throughout the dry years.

Women found a strange world as the drought lasted so long. It is difficult to explain the feeling for plant life during the dry years in the west, it is as if a different cultural orientation is needed to understand this phenomenon. Plant life becomes a symbol of the hope that women share in the future of their lifestyle and family.

Among the women whom I observed and interviewed,

I found that left alone to run stations they received the support of other women who telephoned them often and arranged to meet them at different times or to travel to town with them, perhaps staying overnight when a woman was advanced in pregnancy. Detailed examination of female support networks in outback regions lies beyond the scope of this study but these resources do warrant a later investigation. 133

The grazing families are a key social group in the wool industry. Their experience of drought is discussed in the following pages. 134

CHAPTER 6:

THE GRAZIERS

There are 236 grazing properties in the

Paroo Shire (Lands Department officer interview) and these are located on two distinctive geographical areas described as the black soil or mitchell grass plains and the red mulga country (Gibb,

1969). The properties range in size from

20 000 to 40 000 acres on the mitchell grass plains and from 40 000 to 70 000 acres on the mulga country.

The questions I address are of the following kinds: what is the response of graziers to the impact of drought; how does it affect their lifestyle and their family.

The graziers are aware that things are changing for them, empty homesteads scattered over the country record the time when there were more neighbours. For instance, along a stretch of the Widgeegoara Creek near a mail road there were once six families who received mail each week, now there are only three. There is a process taking place described by a stock and station agent as 'neighbour buying out neighbour'. The 135

sub-divisions of land were often shown to be too small in the past and property enlargement is now all~ed under the Queensland Land legislation.

Moving away from the land has been the reality for grazing families, particularly in recent years. I found graziers' thinking about this and weighing the costs of their decision to remain.

Station families have been caught in a 'web of change' (Riethmuller, 1975:11). They have survived by resourceful management and restructuring their work and spending patterns. As the rural work force has decreased since the 1950s station families now provide the major source of labour: the woman grazier whom I interviewed employed one permanent station hand whereas in the 1950s there were up to 10 people employed on this station; and a male grazier was forced to do without the permanent station hand he had employed prior to the drought. He recalled the 1950s when there were 4 station hands employed by his family.

The local wool industry has also weathered the effects of repeated droughts in recent years, increased costs related to the modern forms of technology such as the electricity supplies connected to the Paroo Shire sheep stations during the

1970s and the rising cost of goods due to the impact of inflation on the Australian economy. 136

Despite this the local wool growers have adapted and survived.

To continue in the grazing industry required commitment to the type of work and the way of life. And family continuity on the land provided a strong motivation and commitment passed down through the generations. As a son of a grazier of school-leaving age pointed out "I could live in the city and take up a different type of work

if I had to. But I want to come home when

I leave school". He accepted the challenge of wool growing at a time when drought allowed him an experience of the difficulties that he would confront in the future.

The stereotype model of the grazier wearing the traditional wide-brimmed hat, brown trousers and elastic-side boots comes most readily to mind, but at some stage in the family life cycle women are called upon to take the entrepreneurial role to ensure that a property remains in the hands of a family. This may occur if a woman is widowed or if her husband is ill and unable to work the property, or if she has inherited a property in her own right. The woman grazier whom I interviewed runs her station, she does much of the work and makes all the decisions. 137

The commitment to the grazing industry colours local events and the Annual Show reflects the local culture of a wool growing world in sheep dog trials, shearing competitions, and horse events. In 1981 and 1982 Show events needing animals were largely cancelled , yet there was no fall in gate numbers (Show President - interview).

Grazing families stayed close to home throughout the dry years and as a grazier who was a soldier settler explained: "We need to go out and we go to local events".

One popular local hotel uses objects from the wool growing world for decoration: there is a fountain in the court-yard in the shape of a bore drain and wool stencils showing the names of local stations decorate the walls.

These objects are symbolic of the sheep and wool industry that pervades the atmosphere of the town. The wool industry is rich in traditions that are thought about when the social order is threatened by prolonged drought.

A major resource for the graziers to lessen the impact of drought are the core arrangements

for drought relief set in motion by government organizations when drought declaration is made

(see Sturgess, 1975:451-453; Drought relief

for Primary Producers, 1980-83; 7he. f1uf.ga Line., 1980-83). 138

As they discussed drought strategies two graziers said that they aimed to retain a nucleus flock of ewes and rams for breeding purposes,

"once drought breaks". If no summer rain is recorded by the beginning of April, surplus stock are sold. Drought strategies rely heavily on traditions and experiences that have been institutionalized as responses to drought. as they have been developed and passed on from one generation to the other ( grazier, 30 years of age).

It is impossible to store adequate supplies of grain, to grow grain locally, or to transport fodder supplies economically over the vast distances to the remote pastoral zone. At the present time there is no known method for local provision of stock feed to carry through the bad seasons.

These wool growers live in a region where 'large fodder reserves are uneconomic' (Sturgess, 1975:452).

At a meeting of graziers held late in 1982, the local sheep and wool officer commented that it is only economical to feed sheep grain during the la§lt week of drought.

His comment caused laughter at a meeting that had until that stage, 139

been conducted on a sombre note, as graziers who were present were very much concerned with attempting to bring their grazing enterprise through this most critical stage of drought.

Government subsidized drought mitigation schemes included: transport concessions for stock, fodder and water; feed subsidies for grain; and loans for various purposes. In October

1982, a subsidy for scrub cutting was allowed.

As this had been the chief method of feeding stock on the mulga country since 1979, it was a most welcome concession. However, enormous costs in labour, fuel and machinery had already been incurred. The subsidy on scrub cutting was made after the Federal and Queensland Governments realized that the grain subsidy was useless in the remote regions and followed a deputation of local graziers to Canberra. The belated introduction of this scheme suggests that government policy takes a broad view and that the special needs of particular regions might be given more consideration in future droughts.

My respondents also indicated that once drought strategies were implemented there was little room to turn back, sheep would cease to forage once they were fed by scrub cutting; and agisted stock incurred considerable cost at a time when stock prices were falling. To 140

sell stock at that stage brought an immediate economic loss.

7he ~ulga Line articles affirmed that graziers faced severe psychological stress by the end of 1982. It was stressful to shear sheep hundreds of kilometres from home in strange surroundings, to watch the weather each day hoping for rain, to watch the sheep and cattle getting thinner or dying or to know that a debt to financial organizations was increasing. Three local graziers mentioned sheep too valuable to be sold without considerable emotional as well as financial stress

these are the stud sheep "that take years to breed" (old established grazier interview), or the "ewes that let me get started again" (grazier

30 years of age).

The grazing families appeared to have a different relationship to the land than the squatters who frequently over-grazed the pastoral regions (see

Peel, 1975:43), and this world was familiar, it was home. Empirical research discovered great care for the land when cutting scrub, I found mentions of only two cases where trees had been cut straight across, rather than lopped. Lopping,

properly carried out allows for regeneration of trees in the aftermath of drought (Lands Department

Officer Queensland Department of Primary 141

Industries). It was not socially acceptable to destroy the land or the vegetation.

When the people live and work so close to nature a prolonged drought has a profound effect on their lives. A grazier's daughter remarked that few lambs were born. Most of these did not survive the later stages of drought. The goal of the graziers gradually became maintenance of their flocks, rather than growth. This was foreign to the way of grazing in a well known sheep breeding region.

Only two stations (owned by a family company) fed sheep grain during 1982-83. Trucks roared along an access road through the station where

I lived carrying grain to these stations from the company stations in the more eastern grain belt of Queensland. This was a different approach to drought than that of other grazing enterprises in the Shire. It held the character of gambling, of a big business enterprise. It was very different to the style of drought management in the Paroo where graziers stay close to their flocks and rely on cutting scrub, windfall from the trees, or taking sheep to agistment areas. 142

It is not clear which drought strategy cost the government more - the cost of the grain feeding subsidies used by the larger enterprise where grain and also the cost of transport was subsidized

or the family farming arrangements of the Paroo.

This deserves close examination for drought costs everyone money. Drought relief arrangements could be examined in depth by economists before the eastern states face another widespread drought.

This was not being done in 1984, when the drought had been over for a year (personal communication

- Director, Queensland Drought Secretariat).

There are fixed costs that graziers meet each year and there are others that permit some flexibility. The fixed costs include rates and leasehold rents; loan repayments; interest repayments; a level of maintenance costs - including fuel and machinery, costs associated with water supplies and animal husbandry, electricity, family living costs, insurance and education (soldier settler's family).

I found some flexibility in education expenses, as observed in the previous chapter, children may be kept home longer or brought home from

school earlier. But a basic amount required

to meet fixed costs must be met even though the

grazing enterprise may be unprofitable. 143

Costs that my respondents said were cut included wages, entertainment, holidays, personal i terns of expenditure including household furnishings and maintenance and stock and land improvements.

The result was a general decline in living standards however, this was relative to the significant others in the community, to other graziers in a neighbouring area. The personal impact of these economies was therefore diminished. One grazier commented on this, "We are all in the same situation". One response was a gradual group closure as graziers drew together in the face of a common threat.

Drought problems escalated as a recession in the wider Australian economy affected opportunities for alternative employment beyond the Shire.

There was a rising level of unemployment throughout

Australia, 6.7 per cent of the work force were unemployed, and a mining company (The Broken

Hi 11 Proprietary Company) retrenched many employees at the New South Wales Wollongong and Newcastle

plants. Hundreds of people over the age of twenty-five years were being retrenched daily

(June Barton, Morning Extra, ABC : 17.9.82).

At all times during this widespread drought, agistment for stock from the Shire was expensive and difficult to find. The Sheep Officer at the 144

local Primary Industries Department, late in

1982, told a meeting of graziers in Cunnamulla, to draw up a contract for agistment as mere neighbourliness among rural people could not be depended upon. While most stock were agisted with people who were very helpful and who put themselves out considerably to assist others, the sheep officer recalled 6 cases where this had not been so.

One grazier assessed drought with the logic of a scientist and conceded that his station was drought stricken only after he had looked up 100 years of family weather charts and found that in 1980, he had recorded less rain (144 mm) than any year mentioned. The lowest annual rainfall on the station where I lived was 63 mm in 1982. Rain came in small, useless falls as it did on a majority of the properties in the Shire during this year (Queensland Department of Primary Industries).

Interaction with a neighbour aimed to maintain the continuity of favourable relationships.

This was important even though serious problems often arose when water stopped running because a neighbour turned off or re-directed the water

flowing down the bore drains, presenting a cr~sis

for weakened sheep. But drought generated grievances 145

were of secondary importance to 'good neighbour' relationships because drought is viewed as but one part of a long term cycle of good times and bad. In remote regions neighbours are always there and must help in any emergency or be called upon for help (grazier - interview).

I found only one instance when a loss of prestige was reported as a result of a change in employment. A young grazier took up shearing and he remarked that when he was shearing in a team at IX Is I property the family did not talk to him whereas: "In town, I always drink with them". Status group solidarity among graziers was strengthened by the paper published monthly

7he.. fluf_ga Li..n.e.., which discussed different aspects of drought, the best methods of stock and land care and the social and psychological impact of prolonged drought years. An itinerant teacher commented that among the station people whom she met on her weekly tour of grazing families, during 1982, there was "No fun left in most people", and they apeared "gloomy". She said two families she visited had changed very much they were "Just quiet and preoccupied".

Grazing families appeared to make a considerable effort to overcome feelings of isolation when there was less time and money to engage in social 146

activities. One grazier said he came to town at weekends: "To talk and talk about all I've thought about all week long, when I'm on my own all day. Then, all I can do is think".

The drought was often seen in the context of a lifetime on the land and as a middle-aged grazier expressed this, II I came home from school to push scrub in a paddock and now 20 years later, I am pushing scrub in the same paddock again". The regeneration of the mulga over the years between had been so good that he could scarcely get his machinery into the paddock to begin.

By 1982 a number of properties had closed down and these figures would increase rapidly if drought did not break in 1983 (stock inspector).

People had to rely more on local activities as they could not leave the stations other than for short periods perhaps a few days only.

At the 1982 Lizard Races at Eulo, in September, when there had been no relief rain in winter and the grazing stations faced another dry summer an elderly woman observed that the crowd had increased that year, rather than fallen, because:

"People are not going away and they have to go out so they go to local events". 147

At this stage of drought I found expression of a commonly shared bush identity, as people in different walks of life faced a similar threat

the dried up land. The Shire roads fell into a state of disrepair as graders could no longer handle the deep bed of silt, sand and dust that topped the sun-baked, rock-hard surface beneath.

Repair and maintenance work on the stations had to wait and these included fencing, building and road-making and repairs of a general nature.

The lack of alternative employment also affected everyone and people were more aware of · their common dependence on nature to provide the rainfall for pasture growth and the growth of the wool industry.

In 1982 my respondents who were graziers far from home, with their sheep on agistment, reported a new set of problems dingo attacks on the sheep in a newly found agistment area.

The pastures and water were excellent and at last they had felt that their sheep were safe for a while, then sheep were found attacked by the dingo. In their weakened state they were easy prey. But no experience is entirely new for in the days of Australia's First Fleeter's:

'five ewes and a lamb were killed by dogs'

(Blainey, 1967:41). At that time, when the 148

Australian colony was newly founded, the entire

European society felt the disaster keenly as people lived in an environment that was closely attuned to nature.

I found little indication of a carefree gambling attitude in the response of the graziers, but rather my informants reported that each management strategy was carefully thought about and discussed. But LUCK did play its part.

There were 'lucky' storms resulting in so

60 mm of rainfall over sections of sheep stations that were in "a 1 ucky storm pa th". These storms were reported to stop at a neighbour's fence.

One respondent, who had sheep on agistment, said he had never caught a 'lucky' storm, while a Paroo Shire grazier who had sheep in the same region told me of the lucky storms he had caught on the· agistment area. The less fortunate grazier eventually took his sheep out into the 'long paddock', grazing them along country roads. Grazing families shared one common perspective of drought, expressed by a respondent as: "I hate to see

the animals in the paddock, with their ribs showing".

The belief in their lifestyle expressed

implicitly and explicitly by the graziers was 149

observed in the Australian Broadcasting Commission's radio programme 'What Price a Mate' (September,

1982), in the statement that "Bushmanship is a creed". A father said of his children whom he had taken on his droving travels: "They're learning what to do in future droughts". He said that drought was a time for preparation before the children's turn in a family cycle of property. management. Children learned skills that would be useful later. The grazier took two children, his 14 year old daughter and his six year old son with him droving along the road.

Agistment had run out and he walked the sheep towards home (about 400 kilometres), hoping for rainfall on his paddocks before he reached them.

Fortunately he found a place to agist the sheep as rain had not yet fallen on his station (December

1982).

Bushmanship as a skilled craft is developed during drought when these families exploit their own physical resources to survive. Bushmanship is a highly skilled craft and the training skills contribute to the continuity of the family on the land. As he became heavily swamped in debt this also was perceived as a positive advantage for this grazier who said that a Brisbane bank had invited him . to dinner: 150

II I never had such good treatment when I was solvent. And my wool firm looks after me just as well now".

Station children watched the effect of drought on the animals and one child expressed his feelings about this saying "I hate drought, it is a terrible way for a sheep to die with no food".

Graziers trained in the traditions of the bush, of drought management and control appeared to have a common-sense understanding and a practical approach to the conditions. This differed markedly from the response of organization officials who implemented the policies of their bureaucracies for, by September 1982, official doubts about the administration of the various drought relief schemes were being expressed on the radio.

Some Australian States were reported to be failing to oversee the drought relief schemes as thoroughly as necessary and abuse of them was possible

(ABC radio, 16.9.82).

In local conversation drought relief schemes were not a popular subject and people were disinclined to discuss drought relief loans distinguishing them either as a 'hand-out' to 151

graziers, or as a sign that they were broke, depending on the social situation of. the observer.

To become eligible for a primary producers drought relief loan 'Applicants should have used up all liquid assets and all normal credit limits'.

Also, 'They must be considered to be able to carry on (their agricultural enterprise) successfully taking into account the additional assistance requested' (Drought Relief for Primary Producers,

Queensland Department of Primary Industries,

November, 1982:13).

Comments were made in both city and rural areas that graziers were receiving "All that drought relief money". A local burgess commented about "Whinging cockies who get government relief when others receive none". The loan applications had to be accompanied by a statement from the applicant's bank manager and stock and station agent, to the effect that the applicant had been refused a loan by their organization.

It is apparent that banks and wool firms have first priority over interest paid devolving from graziers who fall into debt due to drought. 152

Difficulties ascribed mainly to drought were compounded when wool prices dropped as a result of a world wide economic recession.

A radio report I monitored stated that the Wool

Corporation bought back many lots of wool in mid September, 1982 (ABC radio, 17.9.82). The local wool growing industry is tied to the world market trade and changes in the world market demand for wool products are felt very quickly in this remote wool growing centre in the pastoral zone. If it was true once that Australia rode on the back of the sheep it remains true for

Cunnamulla and the people in the local wool growing industry (Blake, 1979).

The number of homesteads needing a coat of paint had surprised me when I first came to live in the region in late 1977. I also discovered that buildings around the homesteads needed repair, as did fences and gates. The situation improved very little if at all during the years of drought.

The houses of two respondents have had a much needed coat of paint as much to preserve the timber as to preserve a 'gracious lifestyle'.

During the years of drought although there was 153

possibly less money to spare for repairs a hardware store employee reported that trade did not fall as graziers were repairing rather than replacing items.

As the drought happened at a time when the Australian economy was heading into recession there was an underlying awareness that if local industry failed there were few alternative occupations to turn to. Of particular significance was the loss of employment in the mining industry during 1982. Survival became more imperative because graziers had skills that were not marketable in the wider economy particularly in a time of recession. One grazier sold out intending to find employment in the mining industry.

After a few months spent driving heavy machinery he was retrenched. This experience was reported also by people of other occupational groups who had traditionally relied on mining as an alternative source of employment when drought affected the grazing industry.

The policy subsidizing the shooting of

stock 'in such poor condition due to drought

that they are unsaleable and probably .unsaveable'

was not popular in the Shire. This policy is

contradictory to the grazier's ethos of sheep

care and few reports were given to me of graziers 154

who had applied this strategy in their response to drought (information source - stock inspector). The subsidy was termed the 'On-Property Slaughter

Subsidy Scheme', it came into operation on 25

October, 1982. The subsidy amount was $10 per head for the slaughter of cattle and $1 per head for the slaughter of sheep (Queensland

Department of Primary Industries). Two graziers told me that sheep that lasted through drought were different, stronger certainly, but also the feeling for them was different and they should be left alive to die in their own way and time. And as one grazier explained "You can't really tell which sheep will survive.

They're the sheep needed and they deserve every chance because of the effort they have made".

As I learned that grazing families were working hard for years with little immediate financial return, I ask.ed how they saw their role and their life on the land. During 1982, when drought was in its worst phase, the graziers whom I asked expressed a bemused puzzlement about staying on the land. There were positive advantages as each grazing family responded to the impact of an event that placed them in a situation similar to others. They felt part of a group effort aiming towards an important goal. This positive result has been remarked upon by other students of stress induced by natural 155

hazards (Kreps 1984). The positive response is doubtless reinforced by the knowledge that wool makes an important contribution to the Australian economy. Even in times of severe economic stress it remains a nationally important agricultural commodity, it accounted for 21 per cent of the gross value of all agricultural commodities in the period 1971 to 1974 when drought and other problems beset the wool industry in many parts of Queensland. Wool has been heavily involved in a product-cost squeeze in recent years (Cochrane.

1978:48-49). I found graziers committed to their industry despite low returns. One grazier said,

"I feel as if I'm making a contribution, I'm producing something that is useful".

During the initial stages of my research when I had asked a respondent (whose family had a century long .association with the wool industry), for his response to drought, he had said little.

But a few weeks later he presented me with two books, both were written by Laurens van der Post:

A Siol'ly Like. the. IJ.i.n.d (1972) and A ta/l Ott Pf.ace.

(1978). Both were journey stories employing myth and imagery to expand the theme of a station boy coming to adulthood on a property in the

South African semi-arid regions. They told the story of youth and adulthood during a time of intense social change. The story is akin to the journey of Voss (1971) described by Toop 156

as a journey away from civilization to a spiritual

state and a place of growth (1973:293-294).

The theme of continuity and human growth

emerged in my study of the wool growing families

as they did in the stories. As the grazier gave me the books, he said: "Those are two books

I would give my children to read if I had to

give them my philosophy of life". The stories

gained meaning as the drought progressed and

I observed members of this f ami 1 y hand ling drought as they worked from dawn until beyond dusk.

The woman grazier on this station said she preferred

to work long hours rather than let the dust,

the drought, or the banks take over.

Droughts were not new; local people had

experienced them before. What was new was the

duration the more than three consecutive summers without beneficial rainfall. The rains failed

in the summers of 1977-78, 1978-79, 1979-80,

1980-81 and 1981-82. The summer of 1982-83

was the most fierce and damaging; local stock

were saved only at the last moment by rainfall

on the 21 March 1983. Had rain not fallen then

perhaps it might have been "al 1 over" as the

local sheep officer had forecast.

The results of my examination indicate that

during the years of drought graziers relied largely 157

upon their own resources and upon neighbours and increasingly on local community events for social life. Drought time appeared to bring different occupational groups together at public events. But most significantly, people were conscious that they each played a part in a pastoral world.

The grazing families made a contribution towards keeping alive an image that Australians have of themselves, as people who live in a dry continent and as a people who export the largest quantity of wool in the world. They are also aware that there is an inclination by some, to treat this fact with 'levity' (van Dugteren,

1978).

Once drought had ended graziers had discovered the limits of their own resources and those of their sheep and cattle. Each were tested. They discussed the strategies they used and thought about ways of approaching future droughts.

They discussed drought relief policies and one voiced the opinion that other forms of relief might be discarded and only low interest loans allowed "to get going again in a good season".

This is controversial few people had applied for this type of loan when the time limit for application expired (Agricultural Bank Officer). 158

Sheep were few and too expensive to replace at the time, September 1983.

The response to drought of burgesses, employees and Aboriginals is presented in the next chapter.

I begin with the story of the way small business proprietors survive the dry seasons. 159

CHAPTER 7:

BURGESSES, EMPLOYEES, ABORIGINALS

The Burgesses

The business houses of the Parco Shire are mainly family owned. The Shire Chairman who owns the local paper said that family ownership allows the small businesses to survive hard times. The work force "tighten their belts" and no staff are retrenched, but merely not replaced if they leaveo

The business people do not 'think big'. There are no large chain stores to compete with - they are all small businesses that operate in a conservative fashiono

My use of the term 'burgess' following Oxley, describes local business people who are shopkeepers, contractors, garage proprietors, and so on. Their economic interests tie them to the region and require them to stay put (1978:69). Professional people such as the town's solicitor, doctor, pharmacist, and the dentist are, as I mentioned earlier, included among the burgesses, because they mix socially with the local business people and the spiralists, and because it is often difficult to separate their local business interests from their professional interests.

There are approximately 33 family owned and operated businesses in the township of Cunnarnullao 160

Small businesses are also located at Wyandra and Eulo, although the Australian Bureau of Statistics defines the two places as rural because of the low density population and housing. The small businesses are actively associated with primary production, as they are located in centres surrounded by the grazing hinterland.

Each small business would qualify as a business actively associated with the rural industry. This is important during drought for one of the requirements of

'Drought Relief Loans for Small Businesses' is that

'business be actively associated with primary production'.

To avail themselves of government subsidized loans to small businesses, applicants must meet conditions similar to those mandatory for agricultural enterprises. An important condition is that normal avenues for obtaining finance must be unavailable. Applicants must accompany their loan applications with letters from their normal finance organizations, stating that they have been refused a loan (Drought Relief Assistance for Primary Producers,

November - 1982:15).

The growth of small wool growing towns in the

Australian pastoral zone is explained by Blainey (1967) as emerging as a result of the distance between the stations themselves and the vast areas of land required for wool growing. These pastoral areas could not be settled as closely as regions with a higher rainfall that 161

allowed smaller, mixed farm enterprises and, therefore,

closer settlement patterns (Blainey, 1967:136-137) o In

a sense, the small towns became islands in the agricultural

hinterland.

The cultural orientations of Cunnamulla grew from

the interests of single men who were largely employed in

the wool industry (see Blainey, 1967:137). The business

area of Cunnamulla has seven hotels for the town population of less than 1,650 people, and these and other types of

small businesses rely on the patronage of the itinerant workers in the shearing industry. Trade is boosted by

the country people and by the people associated with the wool trade, such as buyers who come in from other centres.

The onset of drought may boost, rather than slow the

activities of small businesses. For instance, as excess

stock are sold during the initial impact of drought, buyers come in and, when stock are sold, they must be

transported from the Shire. Stock and station agents,

carriers and so forth, are engaged in these business

operations. But, as drought conditions continue, a

general flow-on from the depressed agricultural activity

is felt by the local business enterprises.

When there was little shearing during 1982, one

hotel-keeper told me: "We're having a drought too".

His normally lively hotel was then practically empty.

The hotel proprietor said he missed the school teachers 162

when they went away for their Christmas holidays - there were only nine persons listed as teachers at the 1981 census (Australian Bureau of Statistics). His report indicates the impact of drought and the inroads it made into the social life of Cunnamulla.

The history of drought and associated economic hardship for western people appears to have resulted in a type of business enterprise that can tenaciously survive ihe drought years. The newspaper proprietor, who is also

Chairman of Council, described the conditions that small businesses were experiencing as a period of stagnation:

"Business is slow, any slower and it would stop". He said that small businesses cope with drought, they are accustomed to it. They can do this readily, because they are family businesses.

Something of the biography of the newspaper proprietor is recalled in the passage from the work of Encel:

Others (self-made men) found that the depression years of the 1930 1 s were a stimulus to find new ways of making a living. It was during this period that skilled tradesmen, out of work or on short time, went into business on their own in order to make a living •••• (Encel, 1972:403).

The newspaper proprietor said he had left the employ of his father during a bad drought, when there was no money and only the hard work of chopping trees with an axe to feed stock. He had taken the first job he could find. He remarked on the skill of the old axemen and spoke of their 163

considerable expertisea He said an observer could tell who had cut a particular tree by the marks left on the stump, so refined was their skillo The experience had clearly left a strong impression upon his outlook and upon his attitude to drought. The present was placed in the context of this period in his past life: "People have it much easier now in drought - they have modern machinery to help them".

I could see how, as a leading burgess and a leader in the local government, his outlook could permeate the business sector engendering confidence. He remarked:

"We are accustomed to droughts, they are a normal part of life". It was then 1981, and drought had been declared for almost two yearsa He expected local people to be

'resourceful and resilient'a Another local government official in the Queensland rural centre at Ingham, expressed the same confidence in the people of small centres in

Queensland (Pender, 1980) a These responses suggest that to designate drought as a 'disaster' would not accord with an ethos of resourcefulness that these community leaders profess.

The editor's newspaper empire is small, yet the depression years prompted him to accept the challenge and the stimulus of change, to find a new way to make a living and eventually to buy the newspaper businessa He is locally powerful, both as Local Government Chairman and as newspaper editor. As Chairman in a Queensland 164

rural area, he is elected by popular vote, his position,

therefore, leads to a view of the whole Local Government

situation, whereas councillors each represent his or her

own Ward (Miller and Jinks, 1973:170). The 'ideal' type

local government Chairman, in this relationship to Council

and to the people, is altruistic, never favouring one

interest over another" However, a person in this position

could also use power to further his own ends (1973:170).

In other words, some locally significant issues may be

suppressed, played down, or shelved (Bachrach and Baratz,

1974:18) 0

The Chairman's role is pivotal, when there is a

tied vote in Council (Interview - Chairman) o He told me of an issue that had recently been discussed in Council.

There were sufficient funds available to construct one

road, either to a tourist centre or to a rural leisure

centre - this was put to vote in Council, and the vote was

tied. The Chairman said that, when an issue is tied, he has the casting vote and: "On tied issues I vote with my

conscience for the good of the community as a whole"

(Interview - Chairman). He voted to fund the road to the

Opal Fields, hoping to attract tourists and local business.

His decisions were frequently mentioned and were the subject

of controversy among people speaking in their own private

groups.

The Chairman will have held the office of Chairman

for twenty four years when he retires in 1985. As the 165

Chairman argued, business was stagnant and badly in need of a boost. His vote allowed Council to favour the business sector on this issue. Local business is felt to be neglected in major government assisted drought relief schemes but, in this case, a small concession was made to help them to survive drought. The issue of the roads was tied along rural/town lines (Chairman).

In this study I stress that different groups respond to drought in differing ways. However, there is one event, the annual Show, that brings these disparate groups together, according to Gibb, who suggests that the Show Society was primarily the idea of one man, 'a primary produce agent', who generated public interest by talking about his proposal.

He was a friend of the Land Commissioner who was much interested in the district and 'probably had a lot to do with acquiring the land for the showground' (1969:14).

Gibb's study describes the influence that one businessman may have in the Paroo Shire, and the interest in the Show by people from different walks of life who join together to assist in the annual presentation of the evento The

Show is held each May, and it is frequently washed out by raino When the drought was in its worst year, 1982, it was not washed out - no rain fell. The business people face the hazards of nature, and they have developed the resources to survive.

The Shire Chairman told me of the influence two women were able to command when they wanted to find a 166

suitable event that would have a local cultural flavour,

and that would boost business in the hamlet of Eulo.

They proposed a colourful event, now held annually, as a

major feature of the Eulo and Cunnamulla Opal Festival

each August-Septembero The Lizard Races bring visitors

from interstate, as well as other parts of Queensland,

and attracts comment over the ABC radio (interview -

Chairman).

An article in the press identifies a sensitive

area in rural-town relationships during drought: 'Small

town businesses are left literally high and dry' (The

National Times, April 20-26, 1980:49). The report suggests

that agriculturalists have access to drought relief schemes, whereas small businesses may be forgotteno My findings

suggest, however, that small businesses in the Parco, have

methods of survival at their disposal - they are not

entirely powerlesso These small businesses have a history

of survival strategies; if the owners wanted a different

approach to their trade, they could mo.ve away, for local

businesses can be sold and local families wait for years

until they can purchase a business enterprise (Stock and

Station Agent).

A number of small businesses are operated in such

a way that, when business is slow, their workforce can

move out to other areas. An electrician did this, and he

told me that he was rarely at home during week days as he 167

had to work so far from home. The distances travelled

to and from each job generally entailed a trip of more

than six hundred kilometres. The Carrier's work came

to be dominated by forms and form-filling as the bureau­

cratic processes necessary for government freight subsidies

required individual carrying receipts. The carrier said:

"I've got plenty of work, plenty of pap~r work too, for

the government. It is giving me a headache". The government concessions for various types of drought aid

required documents such as statutory declarations, letters

from agents and banks, as well as application forms and receipts.

I found mentions in The Mulga Line (1980-83), requesting applicants for drought relief funds to fill

in the appropriate form correctly as inaccuracy would delay payment~ The routinization of procedure, the

emphasis on forms and form-filling, characterizes the

administration of government relief policies in times of

natural disaster, such as bushfire (see Wettenhall, 1975:

275), or drought.

Oxley commented on the conS erv.ative style of business that characterized Rylstone traders and enabled

them to survive economic stress better than retailers

in the township of Kandos, who had 'been encouraged to

think bigger and maybe not so carefully' (Oxley, 1978:

XIV) • The modest way of conducting business and advertising

arrangements may be appreciated more fully when one 168

method of advertising is explained" About 130 kilometres south of the township of Cunnamulla, near where the Shire boundary meets the New South Wales border, during the drought, a sign advertising a local hotel was propped up on the side of the road against a tree; it appeared to be attracting the attention of nobody for there was not a fence, let alone a building, in sight. It appeared to be symbolic of an approach to business where salesman- ship and advertising are very low keya This response to generating business in drought time was thoroughly in accord with business practice"

One hotel family, who owned and operated the "shearers' pub" where the shearers traditionally drink, attempted to attract additional custom during the drought by installing a disco to attract younger peoplea One shoe store opened during these years - there had been no shore store in the town until then; only two businesses closed in the shopping centre, and an accountant and a solicitor left.

The exodus of these professionals was by their account due to processes of centralisation, rather than to drought conditions; the solicitor who bought the law practice comes in to the district on a regular basis from a central office located elsewhere, and another solicitor comes in to the district every two weeks from his Charleville office a

A bank officer informed me, during 1982, that town businesses were reaching a critical stage and a few might 169

not survive if the drought continued beyond 19830 A

contractor also said that firm 'Y' had always paid accounts promptly, but now it was months behind. A pharmacist mused: "I come out on to my step at the front of the shop and I watch the sky as closely as the graziers do". Town business was extremely slowo

The Shire identifies with facets of Australian life that are steeped in tradition. Wool growing is but one aspect of this, the other is the attachment to horsemanship. As Blainey points out: 'Possibly no country in the world worshipped the horse with the same fierce veneration as Australia in the nineteenth century'

(Blainey, 1967:122) o Droving under contract offered a number of families a freer lifestyle lived closer to the land and to natureo For an indeterminate number of people in the Shire the loss of the horse population during this drought, meant the loss of a livelihood.

As an Aboriginal respondent told me, in the days gone by, he did a "bit of drovin' and a bit of horse-breakin'" and made: "Some money to get along". This has endedo The exodus of contract drovers and musterers may, to some extent, account for the exodus of 200 Aboriginal people from the Shire, between the years 1976 and 1981 (Australian

Bureau of Statistics). This too had its effect on business in the towno

The small businesses in the Shire survived largely because they are conservatively managed and operated 170

family businesses. The burgesses have the potential

to become locally influential and to command a measure of local power to further their interestsa This is affirmed by the continuing success of the Annual Show and the Lizard Races and the development of the tourist centreo Local influence is a major resource in surviving droughto Local business is also tied closely to rational-

legal processes of administration during drought, to the demarids of book-keeping and form-filling, required by the various government drought subsidy schemes. The mixture of modern ways and old in town business came to light during the drought, as I observed the carrier doing his paper-work, and noted the sign advertising the hotel trade, propped against a tree, kilometres from nowhereo

The next section examines the response of people who are employees in the Shirea They are attached to lif~ in the outback, not by property, but rather by an emotional investment they have forged in the land, their friendship and kinship networks, their lifestyle and

their occupationso Their very different occupational roles establish their identity, telling them who they

are and, in the following pages, I shall report on

their subjective experience of droughta

Employees

The employees may be separated into three groups: 171

shearing workers, station employees and employees working

in the township. As the years of drought progressed

and the economic impact of drought conditions made

inroads into employment opportunities, employees began to speak more freely about their difficulties. Unemployment no longer seemed to them to reflect on their skills.

These were no longer in question, unemployment was clearly perceived to result from the locally depressed wool growing industry.

The shearing teams are characterized by a male work- force. Little has changed since the days of the early

Australian shearing industry in the pastoral areas that

Blainey described when sheep owners largely employed single men (Blainey, 1967:137). According to a shearing contractor, employees in the industry are mainly single men. He said if I looked at the marital status of the team workforce I would find that, in eight cases out of ten, they were single. His view was supported by shearers. One of these said that he had given up his family to come to the bush: "Well, that's the way things worked out". Another said that shearing work and married life do not suit one another, and a third commented that the cause of his marital problems were the long periods he spent away from home shearing, when his children were young.

Shearing team workers denied there were problems

in their industry at first. They were extremely reluctant 172

to admit their periodic bouts of unemployment during

1981. One shearer said that he was fully employed whereas, upon enquiring of his employer, I was told that he was a 'top shearer' with a high priority for the available work, yet the contractor could find him only three or four days of work per week.

Little is known about these workers - the 'bushmen' that poets and others wrote of at the turn of the century, of their 'present-day lives, attitudes or aspirations'

(Gruen, 1975:356). They are a 'periphery' group, very difficult to reach. I had to await an opportunity to talk to them when they were away from the rest of the team. There are sub-groups within the shearing team workforce, who each have their own method of drought survival. There are local shearers who live in the region, there are 'true' shearers who follow the wool clip wherever it leads them, and there are the 'part-timers' who have other economic interests, whose survival does not depend upon the shearing industry alone.

The Australian Workers' Union representative spoke mainly of the 'true' shearers, when he said:

It takes a special kind of man to work the sheds, one who is prepared to leave home and family and follow his trade. He is independent, won't be put down, and he feels he is doing the grazier a favour by shearing his sheepo 173

Oxley describes an egalitarian group 'like all

other enduring groups' as one where each member may be

evaluated unequallyo The group perceives a struggle

against the outside world, has its heroes to respect and its cowards to despise - those who respect 'supposedly

collective virtues' are honoured, while those who do not, are despised (Oxley, 1978:50). The shearing union representative, as he described shearers, mentioned character traits that Oxley remarked upon. The union representative said that the ·'true shearer' followed his trade wherever it led him, and depended solely on it for a living. There was a solidarity between a shearer and his mates and: "You could sleep next to a murderer and not know it but, if he was a 'scab', everyone would know".

I could distinguish the 'true' shearers from others.

They are recognizable by the 'furnishings of self' that typify them: a flashy car, perhaps a portable refrigerator, a certain style of dress and an attitude that clearly places their shearing world before other commitments.

The part-time shearers have other economic interests and will attempt to keep these hidden from the others in the

team when a big shed is runningo A part-time shearer had an interest in a real estate agency, and he was a

shearer for part of each year, not only for the money he earned, but also because he wrote poetry for a magazine

and needed the company of shearers and visits to the

bush to provide him with ideas. He came to the homestead 174

to telephone his office, and requested that the other

shearers not be told. This situation occurred again when a farmer came to the homestead to telephone home

to find out how things were on the farm. Each was willing to talk about their other businesses, provided

the information did not reach the shearing team at the

time. Another informant told me that he had a share in a car hire business.

After the first 18 months of drought I found only 'true shearers' and locals - eventually there were only local shearers. The itinerant shearers did not come in to the area, and the local work was reserved for those who lived in the district.

One local shearer who had always worked with one

'mate' had a list of properties where he crutched, or shore the stragglers left over at shearing, the rams or

the lambs. He said this work fell to one-quarter of his former load, so he took other work, station sitting

and build~ng and repair work of various kinds. From a

fully employed worker, he reached a stage when he was

often without a job. He had enjoyed an affluent life

and he had a lot to lose - money, identity, and a way

of life that satisfied him. In a similar way to other

shearers, he was reluctant to discuss unemployment

until a later stage of the drought, when it was apparent

that unemployment was widespread in his industry. 175

A young man who lived in town found it difficult to have a "foot in both camps" as he explained. If a shearing team wanted him, he had to be ready to work immediately. Station work was usually taken for two or three weeks. After he had been forced to refuse a job in shearing several times, because of station work commitments, he had not been asked again.

Relationships between grazier and shearer d~ffer according to the way a shearing is arranged. Broadly, shearing falls into several distinctive patterns: a large-scale shearing when the shearing contractor is a spiralist who is employed by a national shearing contract firm, such as Grazcos; a shearing carried out by a local contractor; and a 'station shearing' when the family do much of the shed work and cook for the team.

In the first case, relationships have the character of contractual relationships, or 'societal' relationships in Wild's sense (1983). These are based on rational- legal processes - rules and regulations, laid down by the arbitration tribunals, which are rigidly observed.

Any infringement is likely to cause a work stoppage, a go-slow, or a 'slow down' in Weber's terms - limiting work effort (1974:184); or the intervention of a union representative.

In the second case, a shearing by a local contractor, the atmosphere is different and relation- 176

ships tend towards the traditional. Although 'society' relationships form the basis of industrial interaction, when the contractor is a local, relationships are less impersonal and characterized by more flexibility.

The third type of shearing is one where the station family and one or two shearers, or perhaps more, work together, and the relationships verge towards a vertical type of traditional relationship. By the end of the drought, the shearing contractors told me that much of the shearing work was carried out this wayo I cross- checked this information in the course of field research.

This method of shearing meant that sheep could be brought in slowly, and the whole operation might string out for weeks, but the weakened sheep were not put to any undue stresso This method was less expensive at a time when the sheep grew little woolo

I wondered whether the regulations governing the sheep numbers at a shearing were strictly adhered too

In this case, before a major shearing commences, a contract has to be drawn up stating the 'maximum' and

'minimum' numbers of sheep. If there are sheep beyond the numbers stipulated, then a new contract must be drawn up and a new team engaged. The shearers shear only the maximum stipulated, then leave the station. If there are too few sheep, that is if the numbers fall below the minimum stipulated, then the shearers must be paid up to the minimum. I learned from my respondents 177

that discretion was used in marginal cases to allow shearing to carry on, despite the fact that sheep numbers were not assessable beforehand, as they normally would be.

Data gathered from the shearing team workers suggested a growing tendency towards traditional relation­ ships where the participants see themselves as part of the one world and the shearing relationships alter to meet the contingencies of the situationo There appeared to be a recognition of the general need - of the shearers to work while they could - and a growing awareness that sheep stand a better chance of survival if they are shorn promptlyo

The station workers, husband and wife, lost their job as the drought deepened. They said that they had received five months notice: "If the drought doesn't break". The drought did not end, and they left for the south. The male respondent said: "I walked out of a drought and out of a job once before. Now I'm doing it again".

Apart from the manager or overseer jobs on the stations, station work, for the most part, was short term, unless the job was scrub-cutting, which was likely to run for a longer period. Short term employment entailed helping at specific tasks, such as repairs and maintenance, mustering, property-sitting, when a grazier was away with his agisted sheep, and so forth. There has been a marked change in the industry over the past 178

century, since the time when station hands performed most of the work on the stations and were employed on a permanent basis. Station workers now survive by moving from station to station as employment becomes availableo The drought provided an impetus to the geographic mobility, now characteristic of their life­ style.

Droving has long been the means of taking stock away from drought-stricken regions in the Paroo Shire

(Historical Society Records), but is now replaced by carriers using modern methods of transport. To add to the stressed employment situation for the drover, there was virtually nowhere in the Shire to agist horseso

By 1981, the droving families were desperately attempting to find agistment and by 1982 they had all but packed up and left, taking their horses with themo Legal regulations require that stock on the road must always have a pre-defined destination which they are expected to move towards, whether it is home, the sale yards or an agistment location. As I listened to a drover telling his life story, I learned of the skills drovers possessed in keeping out of trouble with the authorities, and keeping the stock alive. Their era in the Shire is over, hastened by this drought.

Children leaving school, as they faced months of unemployment before they found work, turned to the government to help them over a stressful time. 179

Rationalization processes characterized the government

approach to the growing economic problems of the west, and the associated unemployment" At the end of each school year, the ABC radio 4QS and 4QW, would broadcast the date and time when a Social Welfare officer would be in a western town to answer the enquiries of people of the remote regions. Each morning the ABC radio also broadcast employment available in southern Queensland.

There were courses available to unemployed youth, including a short course in leatherwork skills. One Aboriginal respondent said that it was unfair that Aboriginal youth were paid to attend the course, whereas others were not.

He referred to an issue that gave rise to friction among the unemployed that came about when an unemployed

Aboriginal family received more income from social benefits than non-Aboriginal families" As Bowman remarks,

'Remoteness produces its own strains and opportunities' (1981:XXVII).

People in a remote community are thrown together, they perceive themselves as occupants of the one world, and people of different stratum positions can readily observe those who are more advantaged by different government organizations. This produces conflict. It was apparent when graziers were perceived to receive drought relief

funds that others did not. It was also apparent when

unemployed Aboriginal people received benefits that others

in a similar economic situation in the employment market,

did not receive (Participant observation). 180

The lack of differentiated employment is crucial to the opportunities for employment during drought in the outbacko In order to take advantage of the few employment openings, one of my respondents learned special skills, such as driving a truck and heavy machinery to qualify for Council employmento The mailman also took unemployed people with him on the mail run to the stations to help them meet potential employers. In the last resort, the unemployed fall back on social welfare serviceso

They do not face drought in an unstable and uncertain political, economic and social climate that is familiar in the developing nationso

These events that were affecting human lives were not officially recognized as a disaster, in terms of social impact and dislocation of peoples. But as Erikson,

(1976) argues, not all disasters are sudden events, other happenings can produce the same damaging effects to humans.

Even though their onset may not be dramatic and sudden, there are events in life that result in a condition that may be classified as 'trauma'. These events could be defined in a broader sense if any kind of event that could be shown to produce 'trauma' on a large scale, was viewed as a disaster (Erikson, 1976:254). He includes 'spoilage of natural resources' in the 'whole galaxy of other miseries' that may result in widespread trauma of the nature of a disaster (1976:255) o

There is a view that, in Australia, disasters are 181

bigger and more widespread than is recognized in existing planning for communities by government organizationso

Drought may well be the most destructive disaster, 'in monetary terms, than any of the more sudden calamaties' experienced from time to time (Wettenhall, 1975:42) o

Certain core arrangements are set in motion once drought declaration is made, they relate to transport, water and so forth; there is a pre-conditioning of parts of the bureaucracy to act in appropriate ways, even as disaster escalateso If a disaster culture grows 'unreflectingly or unsystematically' it may lead to wrong decisions being taken, the wrong button being pressed (1975:276) o Social science disciplines can complement the 'engineering/ technical iyes' , the perception from which disaster schemes at present appear to originate. The post-impact phase - the rehabilitation and recovery of the suffering community - needs longer term programmes (1975:280) o

My data concerning people who left the region necessarily stopped once they had disappeared from the local sceneo I did hear, eventually, what happened to most of them, but the point is that people in small towns

are on the whole perceived as more able to cope as they know one another, help more often and, therefore, have more local resources (Pender, 1980:171) o On the other hand, there is a growing awareness of the needs of people

in the days and weeks following their unemployment, removal

from a district, change in lifestyle or whatever form of 182

change it has been necessary to make (Wettenhall, 1975:

283; Oliver, 1980:8-19; Oliver, 1980:27-28; Quinnell,

1980:90-91) and that these needs are not considered when

a response to a calamitous event is characterized by routinization, rather than a response that recognizes the needs of the different groups affectedo As Kearney

(1980:189) points out, 'The two great resources of any community' are human resources and material resources and a natural disaster devastates both. Kearney was speaking at a seminar held to discuss the effects of natural disaster in Queensland, 1980.

The drought was never officially declared~ 'natural disaster', but clearly it did provide the impetus for change in the lives of people in different pursuits in life in the Shire, between 1980 and 1983.

Aboriginal people

It is believed that Aboriginal people first settled in the region known today as the Paroo Shire at least

20,000 years ago, when the climate and vegetation and animal life were very different, and when rivers such as the Warrego and the Paroo, and the Widgeegoara Creek, would have been constantly flowing" The Aboriginal people adapted their way of life to allow them to cope with

such changes as were necessary. In time the land dried out to become part of the semi-arid region of inland

Australia, and the rivers and creeks stopped flowing. 183

Since the coming of the white people, little more

than a century ago, the local Aboriginal people have

once more adapted their lifestyle. At the present time,

all Aboriginal people, as residents of the Shire, live

in the township of Cunnamulla or in the hamlets of Eulo or Wyandra. In one century, Aboriginal people have become part of a twentieth century European society. They are no longer members of a hunting and gathering societyo

The coming of European settlement had a 'cataclysmic' effect on the Aboriginal way of life, forged over many generations. Fire-stick farming, a method of intervention in the geophysical environment used by Aboriginals to make the land use more productive for their purposes, was a factor in precipitating the collapse of Aboriginal society.

The vast open grasslands the Aboriginals produced by this method of adapting their environment, were to prove excellent for sheep and cattle grazing (Blake, 1979:13).

Still to be found are various reminders of a cultural way of living in the world that is peculiarly Aboriginal such as stone arrangements, Aboriginal camp sites and stone factories, where tools were produced to meet the simple technology of the tribal group. Families remain who have long lived in the region. Most of the Aboriginal people in the district can trace their ancestry back to one of five tribal groups: the Badjari, the Moroware,

the Koamu, the Kalali and the Maranganji tribal groups

(Blake, 1979:16; Aboriginal social worker). 184

The land was taken from the Aboriginal by force;

there was no formal treaty drawn up between the two opposing cultures. Local historical records state that

'Shootings, rape and poisonings' were not unknown in this region as the land was settled (Blake, 1979).

Several severe influenza epidemics claimed their toll of lives on a people with little immunity to diseases introduced by Europeans.

Politically Aboriginals were Australia's most neglected, disadvantaged group. Only in 1967, was a constitutional amendment approved, allowing Aboriginals to be counted in the Australian census (Miller and Jinks,

1973:6).

Blake (1979) argues that three major movements have brought the Aboriginal people to their present way of life within the township of Cunnamulla. With the coming of white settlement, the Aboriginal people camped near the large stationso When these enormous land holdings were sub-divided, that is from the late 1880's onwards, families moved to town and lived on Aboriginal reserves at either Eulo or Cunnamulla. The decline of the pastoral industry in the late 1950's heralded the end of this era; and 'The granting of the award wages to Aboriginals in 1967 only hastened the exodus of Aboriginals' from station work and the 'pastoral industry' (Blake, 1979:18).

The last big corroboree in the district was held 185

about the year 1910 (Blake, 1979) o The common stock of knowledge, important for a role in life as a member of a nomadic tribal group, had to change to meet the requirements of roles needed in the pastoral industryo

Berger and Luckmann argue that 'By virtue of the roles' they play, an 'individual is inducted into specific areas of socially objectivated knowledge' o This applies not only in the narrow 'cognitive sense' but also to the acquisition of knowledge of 'norms, values and even emotions' (1975:94)0

No longer were the norms, values or emotions necessary to life as a hunter and gatherer laid down by tribal elders and institutionalised at the corroboree.

A new political, economic and social order swept away much of the Aboriginal game plan for living. Always adaptable, the Aboriginal people came to terms with the new cultural perspective. The clashes told of in local historical records, as the land was settled, demonstrate that the new ways were not accepted without 'violence' or 'outrage' (see Blake, 1979:1710 One local Aboriginal leader to whom I spoke, expressed his view of the situation, stating that Aboriginal people now live as the European doeso There is no difference between the opportunities open to Aboriginal people and those open to other people of the local society (Aboriginal social worker). While his statement does not accord with my own research findings, nevertheless it has some basis in fact. 186

Settlement in the township has not been easy for most of the Aboriginal people, according to personal

reports I received, and to data gathered in a search of

the historical recordso The unskilled Aboriginal labourer,

newly arrived in town from the sheep station and skilled in bushcraft, found it hard to find work as an unskilled labourero There was little work offering during the late 1960's, when the general movement away from the rural areas took placeo There was only an occasional vacancy on the Council road gang or employment as a fettler in the Railways. Housing was also difficult to find, and the result was sub-standard living on the reserves

(Blake, 1979). Water supplies were a problem and two

Aboriginal people told me that a permanent water supply was not made available to the reserveo Each informant remarked on the sub-standard living conditions.

In 1969, the poor conditions on the Aboriginal reserve in Cunnamulla were shown to nationwide audiences on an ABC Four Corners television programme. This programme caused considerable controversy, and provoked government, particularly State and Federal, into action.

In the following decade, the Queensland State Government provided 27 houses for Aboriginal people and provided flats for others to live in. The Federal Government

funded the Aboriginal Co-operative Society which constructed

fourteen houseso The reserve was demolished in the year

1976.

According to local historian Blake, who also was 187

Pastor of the Uniting Church and, in this capacity, had close contact with the different groups living in the

Shire, the incidence of sickness and disease dropped markedly following the move to town. The Government funded an Aboriginal health team,which also contributed to the fall in the incidence of disease (Blake, 1979:18).

Aboriginal policy is largely the responsibility of

State Government: 'Policy has moved from "protection" to "assimilation" and, more recently, to a pattern of integration that may allow vestiges of Aboriginal culture to survive' (Miller and Jinks, 1973:7).

The ideology of the Queensland Government that dominates Aboriginal affairs was explained by Premier

Joh Bjelke-Petersen in a report I read in The Cunnamulla

Watchmano The Premier stated that the policy of the

Queensland Government was to 'integrate Aborigines and

(Torres Strait) Islanders into the mainstream of the community' (September 9, 1981:6) o The article continued that, unlike Labor policy, the National-Liberal coalition did not favour 'separate development' (of the Aboriginal cultural way of life).

Ideologically, the shift in perspective that the

Aboriginal people have been forced to undertake began with their movement away from the simple technology and complex religious organization of tribal life to the 188

paternalistic influence of life on the stations. In a

Federal Government report entitled 'The Australian

Aborigines' it was stated that, when Aboriginal people

first moved to the stations in inland Australia, 'Aboriginals were almost totally dependent on the restraint of individual pioneers' (Australian Information Service, Canberra,

1981:5). In support of this observation, I found two of my respondents who were grazi~rs, who spoke highly of the Aboriginal people who had lived on stations that had been owned by their families for several generations.

Contact was still maintained between members of these

Aboriginal and white families, although the drought and modern technology had brought an end to their connections centering on droving and mustering work. In a similar way, two Aboriginal respondents mentioned station families they had worked for in the past and whom they regarded as friends that they could turn to should they need help •

The ideological ori~tations of the Queensland

Government, expressed by the Premier, governs the administration of policy toward the Aboriginal today.

Caught in a movement towards integration into the main­

stream of white society, the Aboriginal people in

Cunnamulla are no longer dependent upon their own resources,

or upon the goodwill of a station owner. Their resource

base is tied firmly to the employment market place. In

the last resort, they fall back on government funded

social service payments, as do other unemployed persons.

Aboriginal people in their tribal life-style had a 189

highly organized religious approach to living that contrasted markedly to their simple technological requirements a Over the years of drought, frequent reference was made to the rain dance, a ritual that brought rain to their parched land during drought timea

I asked an Aboriginal woman about these beliefsa She no longer subscribed to thema She said that she knew when it would rain as the ants ran up the walla Her own religious commitment was to Christianity, and she and her family attended church services on a regular basis a Her major concern during drought time was to see that her children were employed locally. Both the respondent and her husband were locally employed in permanent positions. The 'norms and values' of contemporary society had at least overtly replaced those held by her ancestors a century ago. Other Aboriginal people had not the religious commitment she expressed but, for every Aboriginal family, life is very different now that they are townspeople.

The question of Aboriginal Land Rights in Queensland was brought to nationwide attention during my research perioda Aboriginal sympathisers were planning to bring the Land Rights' issues before an international audience at the forthcoming Commonwealth Games. In July 1982, a meeting was held in Cunnamulla, the Spokesman was Frank

Brennan, Advisor to Queensland Catholic Bishops, on the proposed Land Rights legislationa The issue was presented

in the following waya In March 1982, the Premier of 190

Queensland announced a proposal to 'give Aboriginal

communities title' over reserve land in the form of

'deeds of grant in trust'. Amidst much controversy,

Parliament legislated for this (The Cunnamulla watchman,

July 28, 1982:2) o The Aboriginal people requested

'inalienable' freehold of their lands. They would not accept the government's proposed legislation. Under

Part XI of the Land Act the Governor in Council may cancel a deed at any time. The land could be taken over for public purposes and· 'The usual purposes include air-strips, cemeteries, sea-ports, and scenic purposes, to name a few-' (Frank Brennan, The Cunnamulla Watchman,

July 28, 1982:2) o

The issue would be resolved only if Aboriginal people were given legal security and local autonomy over reserve land, or if Aboriginal people 'on the outskirts of country towns or in such towns are given land and provided with homes' (The Cunnamulla Watchman, 28 July,

1982:2).

As I observed the people at the meeting and recorded

their questions, it became apparent that they expressed

the need to ascertain that their own homes would not be placed at risk by the Land Rights issueo Reassured on

this point, they showed little inclination to join the

protest marches to be organized in Brisbane during the

Commonwealth Games in September/October, 1982. 191

The attitudes expressed indicated that Aboriginal people had adapted to their relatively new situation, as town dwellers, and they were not to be drawn into issues that did not immediately concern them.

The government ideological commitment to integration of the Aboriginal people is reflected in the government commitment to the provision of low interest loans for housing for the Aboriginal people. The Bank Manager mentioned these loans to me, and said he would be glad to be able to qualify for a loan at such a low interest rate (4 per cent). This was a special benefit that non-

Aboriginal people had no access to.

Government allowances to Aboriginal people, not available to others, include special allowances for schooling, educational courses available to Aboriginal youth, allowances to employers who train Aboriginal youth, and special family allowances. Both Aboriginal and non-

Aboriginal working class people commented upon the inequity of a situation where families, whom they perceived as in a similar situation in relation to the means of production, were not eligible for similar government allowances.

In a face-to-face society, where families are known to one another, this inequitable situation provides, if not overt conflict, at least a source of potential conflict.

The Area Officer, Roma, Queensland, a spokesperson 192

for the Department of Aboriginal Affairs, in a personal communication to me, said that the Department's policy towards Aboriginal people was to identify needs in consultation with and, as determined by, the Aboriginal people concerned. He noted a high unemployment rate among the Aboriginal people. His figures suggest an unemployment rate in excess of fifty per cento

The Australian Bureau of Statistics census figures

(June, 1981) show an Aboriginal population in the Paroo

Shire of 394, of these 197 were male and 197 were female.

The Department of Aboriginal Affairs conducted a survey of Aboriginal people in the Paroo Shire in January 1981.

They show an Aboriginal population of 511 and, of these,

47 people were in regular employment and sixty two were looking for employmento Included in these figures were

110 children at Primary School, 60 at Secondary School and 16 attending Pre-School. The Area Officer said that, allowing for infants and the disabled, an unemployment figure of higher than 20 per cent was indicatedo In arriving at an unemployment figure of higher than 50 per cent, I have taken account of infants, the disabled invalid and women with families, and a conservative estimate of the figures suggestsa much higher level of unemployment than claimed by the Area Officer.

The Area Officer suggested that while unemployment may be drought related, nevertheless improved technology, in particular the mechanisation of aspects of station 193

work, that previously employed Aboriginal labour, may also have contributed.

Both the social welfare officer and the Area Officer agreed that many young people and several families had moved recently to Brisbane and Toowoomba where there were more job opportunities for those with educational and work skills. The social welfare worker said that families with female children were most likely to move away because there was little employment available for the daughters of the household locally. Two of my respondents supported these views. They each told me of families who had moved to the coastal regions because of employment difficulties.

One son worked as a railway fettler north of Brisbane.

During a visit home he told me that his family would move back if there was work available. He enjoyed mustering and station work generally.

I asked another respondent, who had worked as a drover in the past, how drought affected him personally.

He said that there were no rabbits to trap. The drought conditions thinned out the wildlife that have long provided a supplement to the economic resources of local peopleo

The movement from reserve life to town life did not pass without protesto The Aboriginal social worker

said that in 1981 a group of local Aboriginal people returned to the reserve area" Immediately the local

Council drew up plans to provide amenities, such as a 194

water supply and washing and toilet facilities. Local

Government in the Shire responded quickly to Aboriginal requests. The social worker said that the group who wanted to return to the reserve, were a minority. Never- theless, he had to argue for some time to influence the outcome, which eventually resulted in a vote against a move back to the reserve and its inferior housing conditions.

In 1982, the reserves in Queensland were home for half of the State's population of 58,000 Aboriginal people (Frank Brennan, The Cunnamulla watchman, July 28,

1982:2). In 1982, the itinerant school teacher in the

Parco Shire said that, during his visits to children on the stations, he found no Aboriginal children. All

Aboriginal children now live in town.

The Aboriginal families have adapted to the social forces generated by the Queensland Government's ideological orientation towards integration policies. However, my data suggest that, although the Aboriginal people overtly adapt to the roles ascribed to them in this social order where they now live and work, old ties and ideological commitments to the land and their people, have not been eroded by the changes that have been forced upon themo

The protest movement planning a move back to the reserve, clearly indicates this.

Aboriginal people have 'suffered severely from 195

white settlement' (Miller and Jinks, 1973:6). They have been of little 'political consequence in the past'

(1973:7). But this is changing, the movement to the township, following pressure from the media in 1969, is one example, and a sensitivity to the Aboriginal protest movement to the reserve, is another, where pressure group influence gained government response. In the first case,

Federal and State Government provided homes and health services; in the second case, Local Government quickly set about providing amenities in the reserve.

The granting of award wages to Aboriginal people was a major step forward in recognizing the vast inequity that underpinned Aboriginal/White relationshipso But this only hastened the exodus of the Aboriginal people from the pastoral industry. The main impetus came from changing forms of technology replacing labour intensive work, formerly carried out by Aboriginals in the pastoral industry.

Drought time in the western society left the unskilled work force a victim to the critical unemployment situation.

Among Aboriginal families, females are the most dis- advantaged in the search for employment. Families with female children are more likely to move away. Those

Aboriginals who have work may remain while the unemployed or those with higher educational skills, tend to leave.

Throughout the research process, I followed different 196

subject areas as they emerged: employment, religion,

social policies, social conflict, scientific and

technological approaches to drought, by asking the

'experts', the senior officials in bureaucracies. The report of these inquiries will be presented in the

following chapter. 197

CHAPTER 8:

THE SPIRALISTS

The spiralists are transient organization people whose occupational interest requires that they move on to other centres in their progress up the career ladder (Oxley, 1978:219). They have a common experience as transient residents of the Shire and as people who have specialised training for their career. Their roles have a distinctive specialist orientation and invariably

I found they addressed the subject of drought from this perspective: as employment officer, banker, stock and station agent, stock ins- pector, clergyman and so forth. I include clergymen in this status group following Goffman's reference to them as organiz?tion 'team' members who are frequently transferred (1974:209-10), and also because of self-1nclusion in a 'transient' group for as a clergyman said, "We are outsiders, they are local people". The clergy in the Paroo Shire rarely remain more than four years and often only one or two years at the time of the field research.

The spiralists whom I interviewed were almost

invariably male; they held senior positions

in the local branches of their organizations.

The one exception was a nun who was Head Mistress 198

of the local Catholic convent. They were bureaucrats,

their work life ordered by the rules of the bureaucracy

that employed them. But after they had lived a year or more in the Shire, during the drought,

they came to appreciate the way local people

coped; they began to apprehend drought in the

light of their recent experience of the local

socio-economic conditions in the community and

their observation of people in different walks of

life and the efforts they made to survive. Goffman described this process when he wrote of 'team' members and 'Dramaturgical Loyalty' (197 4 :

207 - 210). Goffman found that officials

such as bank officers and the clergy have been

'routinely shifted' to prevent them forming 'strong

personal ties' with particular clients and to

limit their favouring the interests of friends

before the 'interests of the social establishment'

they represent (1974: 209-210). The spiralists may be grouped in terms of a 'population of social

units' that engage in similar domains (i.e.,

spheres or functions of social action (Kreps,

1984: 314 and 316). They administer policy on

behalf of their own particular organization.

They are the 'experts'.

The role of the spiralist was crucial in

particular situations, such as when drought

declaration was made. The stock inspector examines

a property when an application is presented for 199

individual drought declaration. He has guidelines to follow which are set down by the Queensland

Department of Primary Industries, Drought Secretariat

(Personal Communication Director). I found that if the spiralist was new to the region he was more likely to make an assessment according to the guidelines given him by his organization.

To obtain drought declaration of a property sale stock had to be seen to be losing condition due to the impact of drought. A stock inspector who has spent some time in the region may realize that sale stock have been given favoured t rea tmen t by the grazier. He may make an assessment taking into account also the condition of stock remaining and their potential to survive until the next anticipated rains.

The drought declaration of individual properties and the Shire itself, caused a local stock inspector much concern during 1979. As a result of the more widely expressed concern by stock inspectors throughout Queensland as the drought became wide­ spread, the Queensland Drought Secretariat requested that stock inspectors consult with local people also by means of a Local Drought Committee.

This policy, explained in 1982, was designed to diminish the weight of responsibility borne by the individual stock inspector, when he was called upon to make area and individual property 200

drought declarations (Personal communication,

Queensland Drought Secretariat Director).

After a time in the Shire the stock inspector learned the particular characteristics of local grazing people. He knew who may try to take advantage of the drought relief schemes and he also recognized that there were people who looked upon drought relief as something only to be acquired when all else failed to halt the devastation on their property.

I flew over the region with a stock inspector who was clearly affected by the loss of weakened sheep following shearing on one station. Every care had been taken, scrub had been cut for the sheep but a sudden cold snap and a frost had resulted in the death of thousands. He recalled the time he flew over the same area with three politicians apparently to view the drought conditions, one fell asleep, another read the paper and only one was interested in the drought. This response gives some substance to the view that rural interests and values are decreasing in importance in the Australian political sphere

(Bolton, 1978:17).

The stock inspector became personally involved in the drought stricken world and far removed 201

from the impersonality required in his role of bureaucrat and 'team' member. He learned the strengths and weaknesses also of those above him in the official heirarchy. The drought brought the role conflict inherent in his occupation as local official and administrator of the policies of centralised government to a heightened level of consciousness.

An official attempt was made to decrease this conflict and diffuse local antagonisms by enlisting the participation of local people in the formation of a Local Drought Committee. The head of the committee was to be the stock inspector, assisted by the Lands

Department officer. Two local graziers were also committee members. The function of the Local Drought

Commit tee was to provide local representation on problems related to drought declarations. (Director,

Drought Secretariat, Qu~ensland).

The Shire in the grip of this prolonged drought was one of the most severely affected Local Government regions in Queensland between the years 1979-1983.

The partial drought declaration of the Shire was made on the 6th August, 1979, when the area west of the Warrego River was declared drought stricken.

The remainder of the region was declared drought stricken o~ the 17th December, 1979. Part of the

Murweh Shire immediately adjoining the northern boundary of the Paroo, was drought declared on the 20 2

12th November, 1979. These adjoining regions were

drought declared for a longer period than any other

in Queensland (7h£ ~ulga Lin£, October 1983).

Under the Natural Disaster Relief Arrangements

the Queensland Government must initially spend an annual base rate of $4 000 000 in drought relief measures before the Commonwealth Government provides assistance on the basis of $3 to each one dollar

provided by State Government. Drought is costly

to Government. In the year 1982-83 Commonwealth and State Government expenditure on freight subsidies was $45.8 million; stock slaughter and disposal cost $1.3 million; repayable carry-on loans cost

$129.3 million; and the assistance components of carry-

on loans was $12.9 million dollars. The water cartage,

repayable loans and other drought measures cost

$8.8 million (National Farmers Federation Drought

Relief Policy Queensland Drought Secretariat

Director).

Drought scheme subsidies are listed in pamphlets, papers and in 7h£ ~ulga Lin£. This literature is

supplied by the Queensland Department of Primary

Industries; these and changes in policies over

the period of drought are shown. They give detailed

information on the complex drought relief schemes

that the stock inspector deals with: he is expected

to take account of each change and his occupational

role becomes highly focused on forms and form-filling. 203

The sheep numbers in the Paroo Shire fell from 1 213 400 in June 1979, to 450 000 in November

1983, when all the sheep of the Shire away on agistment, were finally home. The sheep population fell to one-third of the total numbers at the onset of drought in 1979 ( Sheep and Wool Officer, Queensland Department of Primary Industries). The figures underscore problems experienced by different groups during drought time: the spiralists who implemented the policies of their different organizations; the graziers who watched the sheep numbers fall; the shearers and the station hands who faced increasing unemployment; and the women and the children on the stations who assisted with the increased work-load when the male station work force were away with the agisted sheep.

During the drought policies taken by government departments appeared to address drought as a State

rather than a regional problem. One example of this is the grain subsidy scheme that assisted the agricultural industries close to sources of grain supply. The government eventually introduced a scrub feeding subsidy for remote areas in October

1982, because it was impractical for producers in

these remote areas to make use of the Commonwealth

Fodder scheme (Drought Secretariat Director).

The Director of the Agricultural Research

Laboratory in Charleville, expressed a view that

was also put forward by the Shire Chairman that 204

the western regions were forgotten. The research

Director's staff were transferred and not replaced.

He said that the south west region, between the years 1972-80, recorded an eight year average gross production of $110 515 000 from the grazing industry.

The entire region that he is responsible for recorded an 8 year average gross production of $236 976 000 in grazing (Research Director personal communication;

7h€ ~ulga Lin€, April, 1982). The Director felt that the income produced by the grazing activities in south west Queensland justified his claim for increased research expenditure in this region.

Local people are aware of the dual nature of the organization official's role. When they receive a favourable response to a request the remark is made: "He' 11 be transferred". Both the stock inspector and the research Director appeared to be sympathetic to local people and to their difficulties in a remote area.

As unemployment was a serious problem for many of the people whom I interviewed, I approached the Director of the Commonwealth Employment Service for his department's policies. I could not find official records of the levels of unemployment in the Shire during 1980 and 1981. The Australian

Bureau of Statistics records gave figures only for the southern regions of Queensland and these included places like Toowoomba and other more closely settled towns. They were of little use for my purposes. 205

The Commonwealth Employment Service Director was not permitted to give local unemployment figures.

However, he did outline the measures taken by the government to relieve local unemployment. He had circulated knowledge of government subsidized employment schemes to all employers in the western region; he had sent out a survey to all propoerty managers requesting details of employment needs; and he had conducted a weekly programme through the Flying

Doctor Radio Base informing people of the west of the employment available on the grazing stations.

These broadcasts brought no immediate 'talk-back' but he monitored the open sessions when people talked to others from different properties and he heard western people discuss his programme. The survey of employment needs resulted in an 18 per cent response.

It gave valuable information of the type of work experience needed and six people were placed as a result. The employment officer was pleased with this result and this may indicate how few employment opportunities were available to station workers at the time. The Commonwealth Employment Service does not place workers in the shearing teams. This type of rural employment is left to private enterprise

to the shearing contractors (Commonwealth Employment

Service Director).

An unofficial unemployment figure given me was considerably lower than I had anticipated.

A clergyman explained that the west was no place to be poor and the unemployed moved away unless 206 they had family resources to fall back on. His organization assisted two families each week as they travelled through Charleville from various places in south west Queensland. In Cunnamulla, the Aboriginal Social Welfare Officer said that he had assisted three hundred families over the two year period between 1979 and 1981. There were as many non-Aboriginal families, as Aboriginal families, who sought his help and the majority of people who came for assistance were mothers with younger children.

He said: "A mother in need for her children is a mother, I do what I can to help. I sometimes receive the money back".

As the itinerant work force and the station work force became fewer in the west the teachers, for a brief period, appeared to hold centre stage in the public forum of the township. Two teachers commented that they felt they lacked privacy, that everything they did was noticed and became possible material for comment at school. This experience was different to earlier experiences during training or when they worked in more heavily populated centres.

I observed teachers at local events or at a leisure time meeting place, the local hotel that they often patronized, where, even though there might only be three or four teachers, they held centre stage, as the only occupational group present. They had, for a brief time, replaced the itinerant shearing team workers who have long been central figures. 207

When I approached a local bank manager, concerned to find how local business was surviving the drought years, he also offered information on the changing social character of the Shire.

He said that business was sound in comparison with other towns in drought stricken regions:

"There are no bounced cheques and I suppose that is because there are no itinerant farm workers.

There is a settled population".

The bank manager did mention a subject that was not a popular topic of conversation even as the drought approached its worst phase. drought relief schemes. He said that drought relief cost everyone money, that the banks lost interest when the graziers could obtain low interest loans. A few months later, just before the break of the drought, he was more favourably disposed to these loans as he now understood the inroads the drought had made on the local economy and the impact on the way of life of people in the west. He had observed at the earlier interview that the letters required to accompany applications for lower interest loans, which state that the bank will no longer lend money to an applicant - a burgess or a grazier -were not given lightly. At the later stage he said that business people were applying for these loans and he felt that in the circumstances they were necessary. His 208

attitude towards enabling access to low interest

government loans had changed as he became aware

of the impact of drought on the community.

The Clerk of Courts remarked on the quieter

town. He had been stationed in Cunnamulla during

the early 1970s when it was impossible to walk

along a particular stretch of road without being

'picked' for a fight. Now it was different.

He recalled old families who had left the area whom he had known during his earlier stay. He

said that for every 10 people who leave there

is possibly one job lost.

The Clerk of Courts also remarked on the

social change that the drought conditions had'

brought to the Yowah Opal Fields, a small, remote

mining centre beyond Eulo. Prior to the drought

the population consisted mostly of miners, now

there were fewer miners but a larger population.

I asked a Eulo miner why there was a drop in

the miner population and he explained that miners

had worked the fields during the week and on

the three days each two weeks, allowed free under

the mining regulations, they had taken jobs to

supplement their income from sales of opals.

Now there was no part-time work and the miners

had left the field.

The union representative recalled the days 209

during the early 1970s, when one hundred shearers attended the monthly meetings of the Cunnamulla branch of the Australian Workers' Union. He said that now there would be 6 shearers living in the area. I found 12 shearers in Cunnamulla.

As a result of the declining numbers he had moved his office to Charleville, where I interviewed him. He had been a local shearer in Cunnamulla and he expressed antagonism towards the idea of drought aid for graziers. He said that following the bad drought and the falling prices of wool

(during the late 1960s and the early 1970s) the graziers had been given a 'hand out' from the government, in the form of a loan at a time when many shearers did not have their train fare out of town. The shearers could not sell their houses, they just closed their doors and left. He pointed out that the conditions in the shearing quarters were not as good as those in large-scale mining centres and when the good seasons came again then the shearers would press for better quarters.

He shared a sense of 'time' in kind with that of the grazing families, viewing the past in the traditions and values of unionism, solidarity and mateship as he recalled the origins of the

Union Movement during the 1880s and the 1890s.

He spoke of the present as a waiting time, until the good seasons came again, and go.od seasons were the future in the long seasonal cycles of 210

good years and bad.

The clergymen provided an overview of social problems during drought time. When I interviewed a priest, during the first year of research, he had p 1 aced drought in the c on text o f the in e qua 1 i t i e s in Australian society. According to this view drought resulted in unemployment it resulted in difficult times for graziers and other workers and so essentially drought was a problem for the work force. The most disadvantaged, the people without work, were not seriously affected by drought, their problems were deeper, they were social problems of a more permanent nature.

As the years of drought passed he came to view drought as disruptive of family life when a formerly employed person was at home all day.

He said this did nothing for family life and produced tensions additional to the actual unemployment.

Of the three clergymen I interviewed none found a numerical increase in their church congregations as a result of drought. There were apparently strong social pressures not to attend, a grazier said, "As I never go any other time (to church), it might seem hypocritical". Few people other than 'regulars' attended a combined church service for rain, in December 1982, when rain was desperately 211

needed. At this time, however, rainfall and prayers were frequently mentioned. A young grazier reported: "When I was out on the run, I saw a big, thick cloud coming over and I prayed and prayed that everyone would get some rain and did it come down!" He was one of the fortunate few to benefit from that storm.

There were different views of drought in a Biblical sense, it was seen either as a testing time or as the result of something evil the people had done. A radio report recorded as I was travelling to Sydney, reminded me that my objectivity as a social scientist in relation to my subject matter, was in peril. I heard a Sydney radio announcer comment: "Well, it's been raining folks.

We've had rain everywhere except where it's needed out in the country. They must have done something awfully bad out there". The station faded out as suddenly as it had appeared. I could not trace the announcer again to telephone the station to request anexplanation.

One young station hand late in 1982, spent a day out in a paddock amid the burned off pastures, dead and dying trees and weakened or dead stock.

He came home that night and asked the grazier

for an explanation of drought: "You must feel

you have done something wrong". He would not 212

let the matter rest until the grazier took out the Book of Job and they both went through it for an hour or more. Then the grazier said:

"Look, all that happened to Job. And God loved him". The answer indicates a perception of drought as a testing time similar to the perception of the protagonist Voss, in White's story. Voss set out on a journey to the interior of Australia, to find himself (1971). This view of drought as a time of physical and mental trial may be traced back to the world's first heroic legend,

7he. E.p..ic o/. (j..ilgame.-1h (c.3 000 B.C.), when King

Gilgamesh fought drought in the 'form of the

Bull of Heaven' (Heathcote, 1973:17).

The Paroo Shire forms part of the Catholic

Diocese of Toowoomba and the Bishop of Toowoomba, in a radio broadcast, said that as he travelled throughout the region, he saw sheep scratching on the side of the road for feed, it was a "terrible" sight. He continued commenting on the deep spirituality of the rural people, that leads them to pray during a time of drought (ABC radio,

2.9.80). I flew over agricultural land, drought stricken, as most of the eastern states were in February, 1983, as I looked down on the barren earth below I saw the word RAIN ploughed in a paddock in letters perhaps 40 feet high. I wondered 213

to whom it was addressed. Despite the fact that there was no increased church attendance it became apparent· that bush people had found their own way of praying for rainfall.

The outback is linked to the modern city ways and a study of the impact of drought and the response of different groups in a local society must take account of the people employed by the various organizations that so influence the lives of people in remote areas of Australia. Each of the spiralists offered a specialist's overview of aspects of social change taking place from the perspective of their particular field of knowledge.

In the next chapter I shall discuss the way people in different status groups survived the drought. 214

CHAPTER 9:

RESPONSES TO DROUGHT

When I commenced my study in March, 1980, the

Parco Shire had been drought declared by The Department of Primary Industries, Queensland, for four months. As

I became a listener to the many stories people had to tell, I realized that each person's perception of drought was different. My search of the literature discovered that Max Weber had observed this long before, and his perspective of adaption to climatic change laid the foundation for my social inquiryo He said that adaption takes place in a variety of ways according to both the structure of material interest and to non-economic factors involved. He also argued that overall there will be a rationalization of the means of production (Weber,

1964).

Iriitially, the drought was not perceived as a disaster but regarded as part of the seasonal cycles of the western division weather pattern in a semi-arid region that is prone to long dry times, and the much shorter wet seasons. The three successive dry summers from 1977-78 onwards caused more comment. Drought crept up slowly, it did not have the suddenness of a sharp and violent eruption, a picture that comes most readily to mind when a disaster is thought about. 215

Drought is, however, considered to reach the proportions of a natural disaster on the Australian mainland states. It poses a constant threat and disrupts

social patterns on a significant scale (Wettenhall, 1975) Q

Drought is one of the most severe and extensive natural hazards that people confront in the State of Queensland.

(Oliver, 1980).

Government attempts to solve the problems associated with drought tend to regard drought through 'engineering and technical' perspectives (Wettenhall, 1975:280).

The problem for the social scientist is to discover the point in the time sequence of drought when drought conditions stimulate major socio-economic disruption to a significant proportion of the people's suffering under the impact of severe and prolonged drought. Max Weber's perception of the ways people may respond to damaging climatic change allowed an approach to this problem. By classifying people in a remote wool growing centre into appropriate class and status groupings, I would draw up a typology of behaviour and observe changes as they occurred.

The work of sociology takes place as an 'enterprise within the 11 republic of scholars"' (Berger and Kellner,

1982:121). Williams (1981) conducted a recent study sharply focused on the conflict relationships between mine management and the mining blue-collar working 216

class in a centre located in the Queensland hinterland.

In Opencut, a Capitalist system of production and patriarchy was accepted by both male and female, under­ pinning relationships to the means of production that prescribed limits to human action (1981:18). The male is expected to be the family breadwinner and the female is ascribed her role in the family domestic sphere.

This division of labour along gender lines is readily accepted by persons of each gender.

The study describes relationships that have deep roots in the sheep and wool production industries of

Queensland. The population of the Paroo Shire readily accepts the ethos of a masculine society allocating domestic tasks and lesser paid employment to females.

This approach to paid employment work was endorsed by a union representative and a townswoman.

Class divisions are woven into the fabric of

Queensland society. In the Parco Shire they have erupted violently from time to time as when miners and shearers joined forces during the late 19th century to promote the cause of unionism (Kennedy, 1978).

Unionists camped on the fringes of the township of

Cunnamulla and a shed was fired (Blake, 1979) o

Despite class differences farm owner and farm labourer share important similarities in outlook and 217

their country way of life strongly influences their attitudes (Gruen, 1975:340). Each group I examined displayed an awareness of the vulnerability they shared with people of different stratum group levels in the remote rural social order to 'external economic forces'

(see Bowman, 1981:IX), generated beyond the bounds of the Shire. Parco Shire people are also aware of the contribution the sheep and w~ol industry has provided as a massive resource base for.the Australian economy.

Wool has contributed billions of dollars in export earnings over the past one hundred and fifty years.

There are inherent traditions associated with this great industry. Drought stimulates a general awareness of the contribution that has been made and, hand in hand with this consciousness, goes a consciousness of the social and physical distance between the Shire and the

Capital cities where the power bases lieo

The Shire Chairman expressed the view that the west may be forgotten when political decisions are made. The Research Director in the Agricultural Research

Centre in Charleville expressed a similar viewpointo

The funding for research staff to study the needs of agriculture in the west was insufficient, despite the enormous financial contribution the region had made to the Australian economy generally. 218

Class position provides a basis for the provision of drought relief schemes. The agricultural Research

Director, the Stock Inspector and the Director of the

Drought Secretariat in Brisbane, each reported that drought relief schemes were designed to protect the land

and animal resources. It followed that drought relief

schemes were directed towards those with property and capital investment in agricultural land and stock, and business people who service agricultural industry.

There are no alternative sources of financial support to boost the local economy, other than government assistance. Property owners receive drought relief designed to allow them to carry out their grazing activities until drought breaking rains have generated the growth of vegetation adequate for stock feed. The station owners receive assistance initially to transport drought stricken stock away from the region. Then, as drought becomes more severe, they may be eligible for various other forms of assistance, particularly carry-on

loans at lower than normal bank interest rate. As bank

interest rates climbed during the early years of the

1980's this concession became increasingly significant.

The working class have no special drought relief

concessions available to them. They rely on unemployment

benefits to carry them over. These are not supplemented

in any way because of the drought conditions and the

subsequent depressed employment market. 219

Immediate relief must be sought from voluntary agencies such as the churches (see Wettenhall, 1975).

Agencies,such as the St. Vincent de Paul Society, provided immediate assistance in the western r~gion.

The Aboriginal social worker provided immediate aid from funds designed for Aboriginal people in need. He said that he had assisted up to three families each week, as they passed through the region in the first years of drought. Financial support was given to as many non-Aboriginal as Aboriginal families. The person who requested the assistance was more often a female - a mother with a young family.

The question arose - who benefits from the stimulus drought provides to economic activity in this isolated centre. Opinions on this subject varied. A local businessman informed me that graziers benefit - they received drought assistance that business people did not.

This is a simplistic accounting of drought relief given to the property owning class, but it was an opinipn endorsed by others. The Australian Workers' Union representative said that, during the 1970's, when the shearing industry in the Paroo Shire region was in difficulty, shearers received nothing. They could not sell their houses, and they just closed the door of their homes and left. At the same time, property owning wool growers received a handout in the form of a low interest loan to allow them to carry on their grazing enterprises. 220

In the late 1960's and the early 1970's, the wool

industry suffered from the inroads of synthetics on the

world fibre market, the influence of inflation in the

economy and drought of varying severity (see Riethmuller,

1975). At this time also, the number of shearers

attending monthly meetings of the Cunnamulla branch of

the Australian Workers' Union fell so much that the local

office was closed, and the activities of the union branch were transferred to the Charleville office.

Class divisions and long held animosities between

the two classes - the property owners and the propertyless,

colour perceptions of drought relief schemes. Each

interest group appeared to hold a different perspective

of the drought relief schemes.

A bank manager said that banks lose money during

drought, if property owners can receive low interest

loans from the Agricultural BanK. The banks lose custom.

The preservation of the Capitalist system of free enter-

prise permeates everyday activity and thought. Graziers

and small business proprietors must make a request to a

bank, as well as a wool firm or other institution that

normally provides them with finance and be refused such

finance, before loans are made available through the

Agricultural Bank. Interest at a lower rate, or at the

current bank rate is charged. 221

Class based economic relationships and 'societal' relationships (in Wild's (1983) sense of this term)

formed the basis of drought relief distributiono

Assistance given to the upper class of property owners reinforced old conflicts.

As the drought extended to wide areas of Queensland, and became extensive and prolonged, status group affiliations within the Shire became more clearly drawn and of increased importance in the allocation of available employment. Status attributes remain important in

Australian society. A concern with 'consumption patterns' seems to blind 'many contemporary observers to the fact that there remain vast differences in the distribution of economic, social and political power' (Wild, 1978a:205).

The grazier gained as certain functions of farm work were favoured by a subsidy, particularly the concessions allowed on the transport of drought stricken stock away from the area to agistment regions, or for sale. In the last resort, lower interest rate loans were available to enable grazing enterprises to continue operating.

But, in the meantime, different forms of assistance were made available, such as increased subsidies on transport of stock, water, fodder, and droving costs.

But, in drought time, the financial organizations

appeared to have much to gain as the farm debt increased and interest repayments grew along with the rural debt. 222

The 'loss' the bank manager referred to came about when lower interest repayments made available through the Agricultural Bank loans to agriculturalists and small businesses servicing the agricultural industry, were more attractive to borrowers. When the Agricultural

Bank lends to the agricultural sector, the private banks necessarily lose custom. The graziers perceived drought as an economic climate favourable to lending institutions as they (the graziers) had to borrow heavily to survive.

The bank manager and the graziers each have a different perspective of the situation.

Inherent in the issue of Agricultural Bank loans is the conflict of interests when graziers have to request a loan, and be refused, by both their bank and wool firm, before they can apply for a cheaper loan.

While this conflict was unresolved at the beginning of the drought, by the end of the drought, from the late months of 1982 onwards, bank managers and managers of other financial organizations were looking more sympathetically at the situation of graziers and small business people. This is an issue that would have benefited by local public airing, but the deep class schisms in a wool growing society inhibited such public discussion.

The economic base of wool growing enterprises in 223

the western region depends on the growth of natural pastures. The scrub-cutting subsidy was introduced late in October 1982, when drought conditions had reduced local pastures to bare, desolate earth. Fodder subsidies used to purchase grain for stock were of limited use in the western divisions, distanced as they are from grain-producing centres, and fodder subsidies are of limited use in a region where the distances are vast (see Sturgess, 1975). The introduction of the scrub-feeding subsidy followed the deputation of local graziers, members of the local branch of the Australian

Graziers' Association, to Canberra. A locally powerful interest group was able to convey its needs through appropriate Government channels, and have the graziers' request granted.

In Bradstow, Wild described six core status groups each distinctive, and each incorporating particular

'social characteristics', including ways of behaviour, attitudes, 'networks of association, typical paths of social.careers' and lifestyle (see Wild, 1978a:66).

Two major status groups with a long history of conflict, shearers and graziers, displayed a solidarity working within the interaction mechanisms of their particular groups. The study by Gibb (1969) of the development of the Cunnamulla Show Society demonstrates how different groups in the Shire may choose to work together to promote a common cause: the annual presentation of 224

the local showo Oxley describes an egalitarian model that may facilitate social interaction at 'mixed' events (see Oxley, 1978:210). The social mechanisms that facilitated social action between mixed groups were set in motion, and the later phases of drought found shearers and graziers working together in relative harmony, despite a long history of conflict, to promote a common good - the continuity of the wool growing world.

Relationships between shearers and graziers, as they worked on the stations, changed from the 'society' relationships (see Wild, 1983) based on regulations and rules of logic that characterised shearing in the good seasons. Traditional practices emerged whereby shearing teams and grazing families worked side by side.

Shearing proceeded at a slower pace to allow weakened sheep a greater chance to survive. Station families performed much of the work, other than the actual shearing itself. Employers gave work preference to local people, and itinerant shearers did not come into the region.

The absence of the itinerant workers gave the town a quieter atmosphere. Local teachers replaced shearers, as the most visible transient group. A publican remarked that his business was suffering drought alsoo Oxley remarked that 'egalitarianism' as a social 'force is probably on th~ decline' as it does not fit well with an urban Australia and contemporary affluence (Oxley, 1978: 225

27-28). People in the west have a tradition of working together for a common good (Gibb, 1969), and the social force of egalitarianism permitted shearers and graziers, groups with opposing beliefs and values, to work in closer harmony for the survival of the wool industry during an economic climate that was far from affluent.

Participant observation of shearing/grazing relationships was also supplemented by the comments of members of the shearing teams and the shearing contractor who remarked that he now (1982) had less work to do, because most shearing was carried out by the method of 'station shearing'. This approach was less expensive and allowed shearing to proceed at a slower paceo

Drought stimulated a social change in the Parco

Shire from the conflict of the shearing world in the good seasons to the relative quiet of a rural setting where there were no itinerant agricultural workers.

Both grazier and shearer were more prepared to shelve differences and get the work of shearing over as smoothly as possible.

The spiralists offered valuable and 'expert' knowledge of events taking place. Nevertheless, they see themselves as outsiders but, as they live in the region for a time, they experience an enculturation into the local way of life, customs and values. This has been observed by Goffman (1974) who wrote of 226

'Dramaturgical Loyalty' by officials towards the organization that employs them. Goffman observed a conflict of interests over the loyalty the official owes to his employer and to client. This is apparent when an official makes friends among clients. When this happens, an official is often transferred to prevent favouring a client's interests over the interests of the employer.

This pattern of events is acknowledged by local people in the Paroo Shire. If local requests are favoured this frequently elicits the comment that the official will be transferred.

The Director of the Agricultural Research Laboratory expressed the view that the needs of the western agriculturalist were less favoured than those of agriculturalists nearer the coast. He said that the staffing levels of research laboratories in the dairying industry, for example, were higher than in his own laboratory, despite the greater monetary contribution to the Queensland economy of the western grazing enter- prises. The role conflict in his employment situation was clearly expressed, as he criticized government policy that favoured agricultural industries closer to Brisbane.

The Commonwealth Employment Officer also showed an awareness of the problems of employees in the remote regions of western Queensland. He applied innovative methods to attempt to reach people looking for jobs. He 227

arranged to broadcast employment openings over the

Charleville Flying Doctor Service. As each official comes to know the peculiar problems that western people face during a prolonged drought, he or she is likely to be transferred out of the region, and much of this valuable, first-hand knowledge of the situation, is lost.

Upward and geographic mobility of the organization official inherent in modern bureaucratic organization favours the processes found in 'society' relationships where decision-making is based on the impersonal contact of the centralised agency with western people, both physically and socially distanced.

The west is no place to be poor and unemployed.

According to a clergyman and the Aboriginal social worker, the poor move on, because there are more facilities available in the more hiJhly populated regions. The unemployed who remain face problems that may be disruptive of family life. A local clergyman observed this although, at a first interview, he had stipulated that drought caused disruption to the life of the person who was in the work force and, therefore, posed problems for the advantaged people in the Shire. His views changed as he lived in the Shire throughout the drought years. He came to see drought as a stimulus to social problems, particularly when the formerly employed faced prolonged periods of unemployment.

Although employment by individual status group members 228

was taken in any type of industrial activity that had a vacancy, by 1981 status group affiliations appeared to be in a process of becoming more firmly drawn. A young man who was learning shearing had a low priority for available work in the industry. He attempted to take short-term employment on the stations, but this adaption was unsatisfactory as work preference was given to those who remained with the shearing industry and could be available when there was work. He changed his occupational pursuit - he learned to drive heavy machinery to qualify for Council employment.

The status group of shearers had the monopoly on shearing work. To avail oneself of this, a worker had to remain within the industry, despite frequent periods of unemployment.

Drought placed stress on the economic base of the social system in general. The burgesses survived because of their conservative style of business but, as the drought spread widely and the economy continued to decline, they were forced into debt. In October, 1982, a bank manager said that a number of small business owners were availing themselves of the low interest loans applicable to small businesses, primarily engaged in servicing primary production.

The business people, particularly, felt the loss of 229

spending power generated in the good seasons by shearing team workers, stock movements, and the wool clip sales that are traditionally relied upon to boost the town economy. The full economic impact of drought was not felt immediately by owners of small businesses, as it was for those who worked on the stations - graziers and station hands.

The miners left the Yowah Opal Fields largely unworked they could not be registered as miners and, at the same time, draw unemployment benefits. They could not find part-time employment to enable them to continue as miners.

As Weber remarked, for practical purposes, stratification, according to status group affiliation, goes hand in hand with a 'monopolisation of ideal and material goods or opportunities, in a manner we have come to know as typical' (Weber, 1974:190). Different employment orientations and different orientations towards material objects had a marked influence upon the varying ways members of each status group were found to typically respond to the conditions inherent in the prolonged dry seasons.

Ownership or non-ownership of income producing property was a significant element in decisions takeno

Graziers stayed close to their sheep, other family members minded the station property and stock. Shearers were 230

classified into three sub-groups: part-time shearers,

'true shearers', and local shearers, who have settled

permanently in the region and whose family and friend­

ship networks have deep roots in the local social order.

The part-time shearers and the 'true shearers' were tied

to the industry itself, rather than the place. They did

not come in - the local shearers remained in the region.

There is an ethos of 'hard work' in the Queensland

hinterland that recognizes the resourceful, resilient

and self-reliant person as a person who is able to cope when a calamity strikes {Pender, 1980:170-171). The

shearers who remained throughout at first were reluctant

to admit periods of unemployment but, as they came to

realize that their work skills were not in question, they began to speak more freely about the problems they were

facing in the employment place.

Town businesses are largely run by families, they did

not replace staff who left. They contained the drop in

numbers of employees within their own conservative style of

business operation.

The spiralists were drawn to acknowledge the conflict

in their roles as administrators. They had a secure,

unchanged income, but they empathised with others who did

not. They could be transferred away, eventually leaving

the practical everyday activities associated with a 231

drought-stricken world, to others who must remain through- out.

The behaviour of old people reflected the experience of those who have anticipated such bad seasonso They had weathered such a 'storm' before. They appeared to allay panic, passed on a 'hope' in kind with an old salt's hope in the end of the storm at sea (see Aristotle, 1974:95).

They held respected places in the local social order, as they passed on the human store of knowledge that has become institutionalised as a method of coping over generations. Their presence in the society was evidence that drought years can be challenged, and that the wool industry can survive.

The aged had experienced drought in the depression years of the 1930's, and survived by hard physical labour.

A number of the old people to whom I spoke recalled the expertise of the axemen. Old timers were called upon to comment on the unusually long dry seasons, and they experienced a higher level of prestige as their opinions, their knowledge of the climate and methods of coping, were probed. Old timers said that modern technology had taken the backbreaking work out of drought and had made drought more manageable. They had fought drought in the scrub by cutting down trees to provide sheep with feed. Their youth was a time of hard physical labour and the axework was still vivid in memory. 232

Cherry Russell studied a group of old people who live a very different lifestyle i~ a social milieu that distances them from day to day market place activity.

Russell focused on 'action ••• rather than on behaviour'.

She studied the interaction of old people with each other and with different social groups. She applied the term

'integration' as an analytical construct, an approach that subsumed two distinct concepts 'meaning and control'

(1981:64-65). Within this focus the prestige levels of elderly people became subsumed in a quest for visible indications of action that demonstrated how old people were able to retain control of their lives and to mix harmoniously with different generations, family or acquaintances. Russell's study showed aged people living in a middle class suburb of Sydney.

My approach to the study of old people differs from

Russell's. I observed the behaviour and attitudes of the older generations in a dialectical relationship with the subjective meaning invested in the social order. This approach offered important insights towards an under­ standing of the way bush people survive drought and the reasons they have chosen to remain. The meaning and values of the bush way of life emerged as each old person spoke of drought as they knew and understood the subject. The aged were pleased to have their years of living and experience of bushcraft recognized and drawn upon.

Old people remained because their identity was bound 233

up in this world. They had made the decision to remain in a place where they experienced a sense of belonging, despite the periodic hardship and disappointments of a land where human beings continually are brought face to face with the caprices of nature.

The aged, whom I interviewed, were mainly members of the upper class, property owners or working class. As bushmen or women, they have a vast experience of bush life and drought. The typical response of oid people was to predict in the early phases of drought that a long drought might be expected, a statement in kind with Berger and

Luckmann's words '"There we go again"' (1975:76-77). Old timers in the summer of 1979-80 were concerned that this was the third dry summer, a phenomenon never experienced in their living memorieso This caused more comment than the declaration of drought for the whole of the Shire area in December, 1979.

At a later stage, they recalled 'how things are done'

(see Berger and Luckmann, 1975:77). Their knowledge is valued and their efforts are recognized by later generations (see Riethmuller, 1975) a

Elderly bush folk were often difficult to reach, they were accustomed to living alone, and a number of those whom I wished to interview, rarely went to towno

They each provided a unique perspective on drought, according to the subject matter that they considered most 234

valuable, and that should be passed on to others.

One 'old timer' , aware that I was studying drought, came to the station where I lived and described the vegetation in terms of its capacity to feed stock. Another passed on the 'hope' in kind with that of the Aristotelian

'old salt'. He said it was very hard for women on the land during drought, but vehemently stated that "It will rain again." A woman who was a photographer before retire­ ment, expressed the sense of beauty she found in the dry landscape. Another, a pensioner, saw the way the inflation in the price of petroleum products, together with local influences, made inroads into the quality of life of the pensioners. He could not afford to run his car out into the bush to camp as he liked to do several times each year, because he could not hunt foxes to pay the expenses.

Within the physical boundaries of the Shire the variety of wildlife was dying off, moving out or changing. More­ over fuel prices were rising more rapidly than his income could contain. He was losing control over this aspect of living expenses, but the circumstances contributed towards a loss in the quality of his life, rather than of his identity.

One old timer placed drought in a more manageable perspective: "Every drought is the worst". This was a simple statement of fact about life's challenge in a semi- arid region. This response typified the outlook of the 235

aged.

As the socialisation of children took place over

the drought years, they understood the world as a place

where rainfall was precious. Rainy days took on a meaning

for them that was different to that of people who live in

higher rainfall regions nearer the coast, where rainfall

is taken for granted, viewed perhaps as an interruption

to activities that, otherwise, have little relevance to

the weather patterns: going to school or work; playing

sport; or looking out upon a rainy day from the window of

an office, factory or schoolroom. City life, insulated

from drought's most devastating impact, continues not- withstanding rainfall. In a Cunnamulla schoolroom, rain-

fall in drought time, caused pandemonium in the classroom.

As family life altared to meet the contingencies

of station life,of family life in the township, so the

experience of children altered. Less holidays were taken

away and the children became more closely tied to the

isolation of their bush world. The intervention of

bureaucratic organization diminished the impact of

geographical isolation. One teacher took older children

on a holiday to the city to teach them about a different

lifestyle. The Education Department rescheduled the

class range available at the local high school to enable

children to study at higher levels. Neither of these

opportunities were brought about by the drought conditions

alone, but were part of the general processes taking place 236

to improve the standards of education among children in outlying rural regions.

Drought conditions generated a heightened awareness that employment in the sheep industry and in the wool growing centre in various capacities, was chancy and insecure. Families were forced to face this problem. A number of the group suffering most seriously from socio­ economic disadvantage, the Aboriginal people, moved away. The Aboriginal people do not suffer from starvation during drought time, as marginal groups do in climates where 'rainfall is limited' and agricultural pursuits are hazardous (Allan, 1974:153) o However, as each study of drought stricken society suggests, drought is not a

'discrete phenomenon' separate from the wider problems of the political economy and social development (Rao,

1974:299; Holy, 1980:71).

As rationalisation of the means of production takes place during periods of climatic change, it must be under­ stood that 'there are both benefits and risks associated with the development of technology' (Kreps, 1984:310).

Drought conditions severely affected the Aboriginal in the process of being 'inducted into specific areas of socially objectivated knowledge' for a new life in the township (see Berger and Luckmann, 1975:94).

An analysis of data about the children's response 237

suggests that children are caught up in family adaptive

strategies that have been passed on as tried and successful

methods of response. A rationalization of station work

and station family economic commitments was rapidly set

in motion. Family members undertook the maximum load of

station work. During drought, children may attend boarding

school for shorter periods of time, or provide extra labour

for farm chores when necessaryo

The world was redefined for station children by a

teacher on the School of the Air, who suggested that they

might need to look beyond the bounds of their bush world

to find pursuits in life other than agricultural work.

At the same time, children learned how to adapt to and

manage droughts of the future in the socialisation

processes generated within the family circleo They

discovered methods of coping with drought while, at the

same time, learned of other options. These were invaluable

experiences as a basis for decision making about their

future life as adults. But drought did strengthen a

commitment to family life. Parents commented upon this

aspect as a favourable outcome of drought time, as they

faced the 'age-old crises of personal existence' (Berger and Kellner, 1982:143).

Womens' response to drought was conditioned by the

socio-economic conditions inherent in a class society and

a paternalistic ideology that permeates the masculine 238

world of the outback. They resolved the conflict inherent

in their life situation in relation to drought by carrying out their traditional family roles, whilst attempting to come to terms with the drop in family income that most local families necessarily experienced. There were external forces working to make female employment more difficult to obtain: modernisation, centralisation and the growth of technology diminished the local work opportunities available to women. They subscribed verbally to the directives of a masculine society: that males and single women should have first preference for employment over married women. But, at the same time, both married and single women continued to provide a major prop to the paid employment market.

While school leavers faced months of waiting for employment, a highly trained married woman found her type of employment unavailable locally. Other rural women found the distance between the sheep station and the town too great to travel daily, or family commitments too heavy, to allow them to take paid employment.

The wives of spiralists found employment harder to locate as work preference was given to single women or local women who would remain throughout the drought years.

Senior positions in the Shire were with two exceptions: headmistress of the local convent school and woman councillor, all held by males. 239

Women alone on stations were assisted by the support of women in similar situations. Drought made everything harder for women and, not least, because at times dust penetrated every corner of the home. Among station families, the segregation of male/female roles diminished as women performed much of the station work formerly carried out by males.

As the knowledge of a subject held by children offers no more knowledge of that subject than is found in the common cultural perspective (Phillips, 1972:63) to under­ stand a common Australian perception of drought, I drew up and examined a list of literary writings that would be provided school children who wished to explore this topic. The list led me to examine the writings of Henry

Lawson and Patrick White. Each present a different interpretation of the way drought stimulates social forces inherent in the social organization and lifestyle of

Australians.

White saw the Australian hinterland as a place of challenge and spiritual growth. He made the interior a setting for a desert journey in his book (Voss (1971), and in the book The Tree of Man (1975), a feeling emerged that, when nature cannot be controlled by human inter­ vention, people will search beyond the confines of every­ day reality to explore the deeper meanings of life.

White's characters, Stan and Arny Parker, explored the 240

skies for a sign of rain, watched by their lean cows, as

if they would receive an answer to the age-old questions of life's purpose. In similar style in the drought-

stricken Parco Shire, a woman grazier expressed the view

that she would not attend a special church service arranged to pray for rain, as she considered that it would seem hypocritical, as she attended church at no other time.

Throughout the drought years, attitudes and behaviour remained (however subtly) ordered by social pressures that prescribed limits to human behaviour. But women did think deeply about their place and role in the universe.

The deep commitment to the land could not be readily explained by them. I learned that the commitment was viewed in a time sequence - a thirty year contribution in the life cycle of a station familyo

Much of the behaviour I observed centred around the attempts to grow pot plants. This activity appeared to hold more meaning when the countryside was dried out and barren. The pot plants and flowers appeared as symbols of hope in the future re-growth of the countryside, and the continuity of the family and the rural society.

Henry Lawson offered insights into the day to day

activity I observed - the changing attitudes of people in

different walks of life, the commitment of women to

softening the harshness of the dry seasons in the outback, 241

and the gradual change from an economy centred on growth and competitiveness to the greater concern for the neighbour alone or the local unemployed station hand or shearer.

Wild's study Heathcote (1983) described three ideal­ type relationships 'society, community and communion'.

These relationships do not occur in a continuum as in the ideal-type Gemeinschaft-Gesellschaft drawn by Tonnies

(Wild, 1983:16). Changes in the most dominant form may take place during a period when a social order undergoes change, due to stress. In Heathcote community relation- ships emerged as a reaction to stress generated from sources both beyond and within the Mcivor Shire. Wild explains that his model is useful in explaining and under­ standing 'the nature of changing relationships in many different social situations' (1983: 16).

As I stated earlier, relationships of tradition are community. These may be followed by relationships of communion based on emotion. Relationships of 'society' are characterised by rational-legal processes. In Heathcote these were found in the relationships of local Council to both local people and State Government.

My study focus - people in a drought-stricken world - did not permit a focus on a single political issue, as in the case of the Heathcote problem. But particular events offered an opportunity to explore the nature of 242

social change taking place. Three events provided data from which to analyse the subject: the annual show, the

Lizard Races in the Opal Festival week, and a film 'The

Man From Snowy River'.

These gatherings allowed an opportunity to observe the social interaction of different status groups, as each was a public event. During 1982, social segregation within Paroo, diminished. The film 'The Man From Snowy

River' packed the local picture theatre on two successive nights, as unheard of occurrence. The subject matter was popular - the story of a legendary horseman. But people questioned said that ordinarily they would have viewed the film while they were away on holidays. The people of the

Shire in this phase of drought relied more on local events for leisure opportunities. At this time also, the region had become more 'settled' to use a bank manager's expression.

The itinerant workers had not appeared, and work available was reserved largely for local people.

Respondents reporting on other local events such as the fetes and the annual show, said that attendance numbers remained unchanged throughout the drought years. At the show and at the 1982 Lizard Races ~espondents commented upon the different atmosphere. It was as if everyone was aware of their collective predicament. I observed a general mixing among people whom I knew were of widely different social standing. 243

The general awareness of a threat to a way of life the prolonged drought presented was brought more visibly to notice when events, requiring animals, were cancelled, including the local rodeo, the sheep dog trials, pony club trail rides and the pony club muster.

Community is given, but thought about only when a social order undergoes some form of duress. As Bryson and Thompson (1972) explained, it cannot be forced upon a newly formed society of people.

The prevailing relationships of community are derived from commonly shared traditions, values and beliefs, that are meaningful.

During 1982, a moral concern for the welfare of others of different stratum groups emerged and social relationships had clearly changed from those of the good season when competitiveness prevailed over goodwill.

Henry Lawson had also observed an attitudinal change in the township of Cunnamulla, when drought is upon the land.

Possibly because there was no key political issue to focus upon, relationships of the kind described by Wild as

'communion', of emotion, did not appear. But the more probable explanation is that relationships of community are primarily concerned with an interdependent social group (see Wild, 1983:14), whereas relationships of communion are evidenced by emotion and individuality.

In a place where social pressures to conform are strongly 244

evident and people are expected to be resilient, a slow-moving calamity, as posed by a prolonged drought, does not allow for the effervescent emotional response that Wild found in Heathcote.

The deep schisms of a Capitalist and a class society remained. But as the Union representative pointed out, industrial conflict was set aside until the good seasons returned and there were many lambs to shear. During the summer of 1982-83, drought had reached the stage where it had stimulated the disruption of socio-economic patterns to a significant degree.

As Weber wrote,on the whole the more frequent response to damaging climatic change is the 'increasing rationalization of economic activities' (1964:167).

Modern transport has largely replaced the musterers, and the drought hastened this process. Electricity was connected to most of the homesteads in the Shire just prior to the drought, in the late 1970's. These changes have made it possible to save hours of labour, both in the domestic and the economic spheres of station life.

The people who remained reflected on the changes about them, on those who had left the region, and the apparent fragility of their world. Abandoned homesteads and workers' cottages brought these changes to a heightened level of consciousness.

During 1982, a teacher reported that there was not 245

much fun left in most station people. At this time, I also recorded questions concerned with the meaning of drought: was it so severe because people had done something very wrong? Prayer was mentioned more often in 1982 and the early months of 1983.

Drought had ceased to be subject matter for a joke.

At the onset of drought, the people did not see the drought as a state of crisis (see Berger and Kellner,

1982:143) 0

The Shire Chairman had not perceived drought as a

'disaster' when I first interviewed him in 1981. This attitude had changed by late 1982. Although the Chairman was aware of the impact of drought on the lives of the residents in the Shire, on people in different class and status group positions, he raised rate increases as an important political issue, while ignoring deeper social problems far more widespread in origin than local drought.

He stressed 'community' relationships in the Chairman's

Message to the ratepayers (1982). This had the immediate effect of dispersing conflict that might have escalated, as drought conditions were extremely severe.

Massive social change was evident by late 1982.

The town was quieter, the itinerant workers had not come in; business in town was suffering the economic effect of the years of drought and business people were borrowing from the banks to survive. Graziers were staying close to home, they were not taking holidays. People in each different social group depended more on local events for leisure and entertainment, and there was an increased inter-group mixing at public events; industrial conflict diminished as shearers and station people worked together when there were sheep to be shorna Apart from the spiralists, who have a secure income paid by the organization that employs them, every group in the social system suffered economic loss to some degree.

Although 'disaste~' is a vague term requiring as yet a sustained effort to adequately define it for the purposes of social inquiry (see Kreps, 1984), there are distinctive patterns of behaviour that have been observed in the aftermath of major disasters of the world. Wettenhall writes of an awareness of a 'collective predicament'

(1975:84). He observed a 'somewhat hushed, passive and semi-stunned condition that has been described as the

"disaster syndrome"'a It was rarely self-centred, and

'there was often a considerable degree of altruism in it

(1975:84) 0 In the wake of the tragic Tasmanian bushfire disaster, people even in the more distanced business houses and bureaucracies of Hobart, found it hard to put their minds to anything else.

Drought has no sudden impact, there is no clear-cut beginning or end to it. Drought is not broken by one heavy fall of rain, there must be appropriate follow-up rain to carry on the re-growth of vegetationa There is 247

always a considerable amount of stress whilst waiting to

see if the follow-up rain will fall in time.

Drought is included in the Commonwealth's definition of natural disaster. It takes a major share of Commonwealth

Government aid to the mainland states (Wettenhall, 1975:

49) 0

When an isolated centre in Queensland is hit by a serious disaster, there are special emergency services made available by the State Government through the Local

Government Authority that controls the disaster area

(Pender, 1980). No such assistance was forthcoming, as there was no loss of life, homes, or broken communication systemso Clearly, the methods of interpreting drought as a social disaster need different guidelines to those appropriate for disasters that have a sudden, violent impact.

By observing behavioural changes and by listening to people as they discuss the drought, and noting changing attitudes and social patterns, it may be possible in the future to determine a point in time when drought has reached such magnitude that special concessions need to be made available to all social groups in the area, assistance aimed to help the people displaced by lack of employment or those suffering undue physical and emotional

stress due to the conditions. 248

Erikson, in the wake of the Appalachians Mountains

disaster, distinguished two facets of trauma. In the

first instance, he defined 'individual trauma' where

people feel numbed and alone, afraid and very vulnerable

(1976:153-154).

The second facet of trauma is 'collective trauma' where observation may be made of a 'blow to the basic

tissues of social life' damaging bonds that attach people

together and 'impairing the prevailing sense of

communality'. People become slowly aware of the impact,

it does not have the suddenness of individual trauma

'but it is a form of shock' (Erikson, 1976:154).

As I listened to my respondents, I found people in

each social division experiencing situations that held

elements of a traumatic nature. Aboriginal people, the

newest social group in the township, were also the most

vulnerable to unemployment. The high level of unemployment

among this group emphasises this. Old people stood to

lose a quality of their lifestyle as they remained in

town, when they had long association with camping out in

the bush. Children experienced a strange world where

family life was disrupted because the family bread-winner

was unemployed, or away with the stock on agistment.

Women, unemployed or alone on the stations, were exposed

to trauma inherent in their situation. The graziers had

to watch the stock weaken, and some of them die, and they

had to take on crippling debts. The shearers and station 249

hands faced frequent periods of unemployment and the

trauma associated with looking for worko The town business people had to tighten their belts or go into debt to survive. The spiralists who empathized with their clients might be penalized in their work promotion or requested to move away prematurely.

For those who left the region, a new lifestyle had to be forged in a strange world where they were unknown.

They were exposed to the trauma of losing the 'measure of one's substance as a person and as a provider, truly the furniture of self' (Erikson, 1976:176).

Erikson argues that people exposed to this kind of trauma may begin to lose faith in the natural order of things, and in the social order. (Barton (1969) uses the term 'mutual identification' to describe one facet of behavioural patterns found in a community stricken by disaster. Other writers on the post-disaster phase have found that it is important that people remain with others who have shared a similar experience.

I found no indication of any attempt by government bureaucracies to discover whether people were suffering stress on a scale significant enough to require that special assistance be given them or to assist them to re­ establish a new lifestyle should they choose to leave the region~ 250

Bachrach and Baratz argue that 'power may be, and often is, exercised by confining the scope of decision- making to relatively "safe" issues' (1974:6). The Senator for the National Party, a political representative of

Federal Government, said that roads were the main problem facing western people. The time of the announcement was

July, 1982. Furthermore, there was no indication of any special concessions beyond those oriented towards saving the land and the animal resource, and the local service industry in the communication from the Director of Local

Government in Queensland in January, 1983. The Shire

Chairman is a local leader, and he also qualified as one of the 'aged' who have survived drought and who pass on knowledge of the situation to the younger generations.

As a community leader, he expressed the view that people perhaps had lost the knowledge of the way to work hard and, this lack of ability rather than severe drought, may be the major contributing factor to hardship. The ethos of western life demands that people be resourceful and resilient. The Chairman has been a community leader, in

Council, since 1941.

As Bacharach and Baratz argue, when studying community, it is necessary to understand the nature of the

'"mobilization of bias"~from within the community as well as 'dominant values and political myths, rituals, and institutional practices which tend to favour the vested interests of one or more groups, relative to others' 251

(1974:11). Each government saw the drought situation in relation to its own group interests and values"

The western region was sparsely populated, distanced from the offices of centralised power in Brisbane or

Canberra and, as an agricultural centre, it was perceived as one of many drought-stricken rural areas, and not subject to special consideration. Had either Federal or State Government officials examined the situation in the Paroo Shire closely, they could have understood that the region was drought declared for a longer period of time than any other Shire in Queensland. The politicians preferred to focus on "safe" issues such as roads or rates, allowing the real issues to remain hidden.

The Shire Chairman constrained by his own conservative views - that disadvantage and unemployment were in some way the fault of the person concerned - had little recourse other than to call to the mind of the electorate values that were central at the time, the moral concern for others in the community, the consensus of opinion and co­ operation that existed. In the light of the comments by officials from both State and Federal Government had the

Council confronted the centralised government agencies with the various social problems, that were evident at the time, they would have been given little sympathy.

Furthermore, it appeared to be essential that officials of Local Government be aware of the nature of special purpose grants, in relation to their own special problems 252

in their Local Government area, and be prepared to avail themselves of them. While not the central issue, roads were relatively important. They provide valuable employment opportunities to the unskilled labourer in time of drought.

A close examination of the psychological effects of prolonged exposure to the particular problems drought presents to each group, remains to be carried out. This could offer a fruitful contribution to the general welfare of people who live in the driest, inhabited continent in the world.

A qualitative study necessarily sacrifices the generality that a quantitative analysis permits (Moser and Kalton, 1973:2)0 However, the qualitative approach allowed a broader range of matters to be examined than would have been possible, had I directed my inquiries towards one particular group such as the working class or women or Aboriginal people.

At the onset of drought, the long established methods of coping in such a situation, were proceeded with - drought was not considered out of the ordinary in the semi-arid region. As Mead, suggests, responses or reactions follow after 'organizing, implicitly testing, and finally selecting is carried out' (1974:99). As the drought became mere prolonged, people in different social groups responded to the conditions of their human 253

existence by thinking more deeply about the world about them, their own special relationship to others in the

Shire, and the reason for remaining.

Weber's theory offered a useful foundation on which to build the study of people experiencing a period of climatic change when the usual summer rains failed for six consecutive yearso The people of the west, with their vast store of knowledge of drought, contributed the data that enabled the story of drought to be recorded in all its variety. Although members of each group provided experiences that were uniquely their own, they each subscribed to their one commonly understood and valued destiny, as people of the Australian pastoral zone, of the sheep runs scattered over vast distances, and the small isolated wool business centresa

Drought brought a common sense of identity. It stimulated the emergence of relationships of 'community'.

As Lawson remarked in his story of Cunnamulla, in the dry seasons of drought years there is more goodwill shown by people to each other. 254

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Year Book, Queensland (1982) No. 42, Australian Bureau of Statistics. 26 4

APPENDIX 1 1

Queensland Area and Po pulati on

TO RRES STRAIT •s ... QUEENSLAND (:,t Thu rsdoy Is .

Reftr1nc1 to Co11to11rs Ul\dt r 155metrffl

Seal• of 1(1lom1trn ~-0 50 100 200 lOO GULF OF

Reef

Queensland: Total area 1,727,000 square kilometres representing 22% of Australia's area. Eastern Standard time is observed throughout the year 10 hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time.

Urban Centres with a population of

100,000 and o ve r shown as [!) Brisbane 40,000 to 99,999 • Townsville 15,000 to 39,000 :; Cairns

4,000 to 14,999 0 Bowen under 4,000 • Cunnamulla

Sourc e: Queensland Year Book, 1982 . 265

APPENDIX 2: 1

Queensland Local Authorities

Paroo Shire South - West

Source: Queensland Year Book, 1982:64 266

APPENDIX 3:1

List of Respondents

Informants selected according to their status group affiliation were interviewed extensively to determine group, and individual response to drought.

These respondents and the perspectives they emphasised are listed here.

Male 'old timer' - knowledge of the methods of feeding

stock

Woman pensioner - a perspective of drought in a dry

country

Male former station manager - knowledge of the long

seasonal weather cycles and experience of severe

drought in the past

Male former station worker - a knowledge of technological

and social change and drought

Male pensioner - fox hunter and bushman

Woman who lives in the township - a wide knowledge of

local voluntary associations and of the local

people and their response to hard times

Males - (2) retired shearers

Male - former station owner and station employee who

lost a property in the depression years

Male and female burgess (2) - knowledge of people in

a dry country. 267

Children

Children (6) aged between 5 and 15 years, three male

and three female children of town and rural

families. These children were followed through

as case studies. 30 other children gave me their

reaction to drought providing amplification of

comment made by the 6 case studies that formed the

core of this investigation.

Parents (4) townspeople - who have children of school

and post-school ages; these parents were

burgesses with four children and town employees

with three childreno

Parents (4) country people - graziers and station

employees; their children's ages ranged from

infancy to 25 years.

Women

Townswomen (3) one burgess; one domestic service; and

one housewife - womens' employment and family

life in drought.

Nuns (2) from the local convent; education and future

employment; perspectives on drought.

Graziers (4) drought experience

Station Employees (2) one a Jillaroo and one a part­

time shearers' cook; women in the outback. 268

Burgesses

Newspaper owner and editor - a wide knowledge of people

in the region. He is locally powerful as Shire

Chairman, and provided information about the

response of local business people to drought and

the Local Governmento

Hotel proprietors (2) - a view of social change,

business activity, local employment, sub-groups

in the town social milieu and methods employed to

survive drought.

Electrician - contract worko A perspective of drought.

Contract Mailman - an overview of the impact of drought

in the town and ruial areaso

Carrier - changes in work patterns and knowledge of the

stock movements in the region.

Solicitor - knowledge of the impact of drought on business

activities.

Accountant - knowledge of the drop in local business

as a result of the depressed economic climateo

Pharmacist - business, the impact of drought on the

lives of people in the regiono

Employees

Aboriginal employed by a mail contractor part-time -

a wide knowledge of the movement of working

class people as they left the region in search of

employment.

Teenagers (2) - one employed in office work; and one

seeking employmento Youth and drought. 269

Shearing team workers (nine) including 2 females who

were shearers' cooks - knowledge of employment

alternatives taken during drought years; the

shearers' lifestyleo

Station ·hands (2) - a knowledge of local employment

opportunities and the pattern of change in their

lifestyle during a time of increasing unemployment.

Married couple - station employeeso A knowledge of

past drought in their industry and information

about their present experience of drought.

Overseer for a shearing contractor - a knowledge of the

life of shearers and their employment patterns

during drought.

Shearer - knowledge of local conditions and the

alternative types of work that could be taken.

Spiral is ts

Stock inspector (3) - Drought, government response,

political policy, a drought experience of the

Primary Industries Offices.

Agricultural Research Director and a research assistant -

knowledge of government policy, land degradation,

the response to drought by people who live in

different geographical areas.

Clergymen (3) - Catholic, Uniting Church and Church of

Englando Social problems during a time of change;

drought and prayeri church assistance - st. Vincent

de Paul Society. 270

Commonwealth Employment Service Director - unemployment

and the government response and knowledge of the

social impact of drought in the south west region

of Queensland.

Teachers (7) - School of the Air, State and Catholic

teachers and the itinerant teachers (both male

and female). A knowledge of childrens' response

to drought and the way their future opportunities

for employment might be affected.

Bank Officers (2) - knowledge of the local economy and

government and private enterprise response to

drought and social change.

Clerk of Courts - wide knowledge of people, local

politics and social change.

Police Officer in Charge - Cunnamulla. Knowledge of

social deviance during drought.

Australian Workers' Union representative - an under-

standing of unionism and the ideological base that

guides the response of unionists to drought. A

perspective of the wool growing industry that

offered a broad view of the present conditions

placed in the context of the good years and the

bad. Information about the response of the union

to women and employment in the shearing industry.

Queensland Water Resources Commission (2 Officers) - a

knowledge of the water resources in the Shire.

Social Welfare Officer - Aboriginal. A wide knowledge

of local people, social problems and organizational

response. 271

wool firm managers (2) - a knowledge of shearing

and the work force employed in this industry.

Graziers

Grazier (6) - one female, one male, from each type

of family background - a long-established family,

a soldier settler family and a family ~hat has

recently (during the 1970's) purchased land in

the Shire. Drought experiences. Son and

daughter of grazing family - aged 15 - 18 years,

during the time of the study. Perspective of

droughto

Children of grazing families - two females and two

males between the ages of five years and 15 years.

Perspective of drought.

Woman wife and young mother - perspective of life alone

caretaking a-station while sheep are on agistment~ 272

APPENDIX 3:2

Interview Schedules

When requesting interviews, I followed these guidelines: I gave a brief summary, stating the name of the university through which my study was being organized and, if necessary, produced an official identity cardo I mentioned the reasons I had requested an interview with a particular respondent. These referred to such matters as residence in the drought area, expert knowledge of a particular area of inquiry, simply having a rural background, and/or demonstrating an interest in the subject that might prove of significance in further study. These interests included an understanding of drought as a recurring phenomenon in the bush.

As I was so closely involved in the study, I could not lay claim to the precept of the 'ideal detachment of the scientist' (see Bell and Newby, 1975:55). However, as a participant observer, I tried to have my subjects take me for granted. I endeavoured to 'think almost as they think' (see Madge, 1971:131). Participant observation is valuable if carefully done; it minimizes dependence on the declared views of others (see Bell and Newby,

1975:55) 0

Special problems encountered in the research process 273

included those of ethics, role playing and alienation

(see Bell and Newby, 1975:71 and Galtung, 1973:154-157).

The people whom I observed were aware of my study and my interest in their attitudes through the drought years.

Alienation was minimized as I stayed within my accustomed roles as station wife and sociologist. I had to accept the attendant restrictions that these roles placed upon my inquiryo In a case where access to social space was denied a female, I endeavoured to have another monitor the social situation for me - my husband filled this role.

Responses to drought conditions, as expressed at the political meetings I could not attend, were reported to me.

I often came upon data inadvertently or unexpectedly.

If this were the case, I would listen carefully to attitudes or study behaviour and, as soon as possible,

I would make a detailed, written account of my observations.

This frequently occurred at informal gatherings or if a visitor suddenly arrived at the homesteado In other cases, a phone call might be made to the station where I lived, requesting information about animal care that had bearing on my research. My husband was frequently called upon for advice of this nature because of his former occupational role as veterinary surgeon.

When I first went into the field I felt that a formal schedule of interviews should be drawn upo As I began asking people in different class situations, of 274

different gender, age or occupation groups, "What effect does drought have on your lifestyle?" I found the orientations to this subject matter so different, and the knowledge I required to pursue each subject area so specific to the respondent's life situation, that I realized that a single questionnaire would not elicit the data I required.

The_majority of my respondents are people highly skilled in bushcraft, but many of them had received very little formal education in the schoolroom. Although I realized that the task of interviewing each case study would be very time consuming and costly, not least in terms of physical effort, in a region where the distances are so vast, I concluded that this was the only approach that would reach many people with an extensive knowledge of drought in the Parco Shireo

There were experts in the town work force who had little connection with drought, for example the worker at the Electricity Department whose wage or salary remains the same and who lives in the region for a short time. On the other hand, the clergymen, the stock inspector or the Clerk of Courts, hold positions that are closely related to people as they experience the effects of a tightened economyo The women at home were very conscious of the weather, particularly as dust storms blanketed the environment of town and countryside with red grito But the experience of each group of women 275

was different, the townswoman possibly has a husband at home for a greater length of time, because of an employment shortage during drought periods, whereas the station wife may spend months alone with the children on the station if her husband takes the sheep away on agistmento

Goode and Hatt (1952) state that 'A random sample is one which is so drawn that the researcher, from all pertinent points of view, has no reason to believe a bias will result' (1952:214) o The authors argue that, unfortunately, people do not exist in such nicely divided patterns, 'Some are easier to locate than others, and some may refuse to respond'o There are few lists available

'which guarantee a complete definition of the universe'.

I had considered, for example, a list of the shearing teams from the Australian Workers' Union. But I realized that shearers could fail to leave a forwarding address when they moved on, as their shearing team work demanded.

I had official letters for the shearers who had given our station address, and there was no possibility of locating themo The bushmen were not interested in filling out a formal questionnaire, and the opinions given on this subject varied from: "A waste of time" or "I'm not very good at filling out forms"o The most productive way to proceed with my data collection was by a method incorporating detailed case studies, informal interview and formal interview and participant observation. 276

When formal interviews were to be carried out, I phoned the respondent for an appointment initially or, if I was unknown to the person whom I wished to interview,

I would find an occasion to be introduced and request the interview in persono I pre-tested questions when possible, and worded each question as simply as I could, and in a straightforward manner. I allowed open-ended questions, as far as it was feasible to do so, in order to allow a respondent to expand on a particular aspect of the drought inquiryo

I carried out my 'homework' before I interviewed each person with knowledge of a specialist kind, such as learning as much as possible about soil and vegetation degradation in the area during drought time, before I approached the Research Director of Agriculture in the western regiono Each question was related to a specific section of my study, and I attempted to place questions in a logical sequence so that each question and reply could lead logically to the· next. A search of the relevant literature, monitoring radio commentaries on drought, and reading the newspapers, allowed me to anticipate matters that were currently being thought about and discussed by my respondentso

Throughout my questioning of respondents, I attempted at all times to keep my questions open and uncommitted - rather than load them positively or negatively. I would 277

ask: "What affect does the drought have on your lifestyle?" rather than: "Does the drought affect your lifestyle very much?". The first question pre- supposes effect. However, the respondent has to think about what these effects are. I began each interview with a more general question, placing the questions focused on the more sociologically significant aspect of my inquiry after this.

The study setting and the sample frame was drawn from a population of a local government area that may be considered 'truly rural'. The closest centres to

Cunnamulla are Charleville located 202 kilometres to the north, and Bourke 260 kilometres south.

Interviews were structured according to specific interests and expertise of the different specialists.

Appropriate schedules are outlined as follows:

Questionnaire Guidelines

I found it more productive to listen as

some respondents were more articulate

than othersa An aged person decides which

facts are more relevant than others. The

views offered by open-ended questions

allowed the aged to offer opinions they

perceived as useful:

What effect does drought have on people in

the Paroo Shire?

How do you see drought in the perspective

of your own life? 278

Could you expand on the subject of drought

from your own store of knowledge?

Children

I watched and listened, prompted rather than

questioned, otherwise the children might

have been tempted to supply me with what they

considered to be the "right" answer.

I asked what effect does drought have on you,

on your family life?

What are your feelings and thoughts about

drought?

Women

What effect does drought have on your life­

style?

What type of employment experience have you?

What options are open to you in finding

employment?

Would you consider a change in lifestyle -

leaving the Shire?

Why do you live here?

How does drought affect family members?

Burgesses

What effect does drought have on you -

your business?

How do you perceive drought relief schemes

in relation to your business interests? 279

What difference does drought make to the

conduct of your business?

How long have you owned the business?

Does drought affect your opportunity to

sell out if you wish?

Is there growth in any area - in sales of

certain products at present?

Is there any alteration in the debt structure

What is the effect of drought upon ditferent

groups - townspeople, young, old, womens'

employment, the rural people, Aboriginal

people, station workers, shearers, contractor:

Spiralists

In a broad sense I observed changing

attitudes a Whenever possible, I interviewed

spiralists more than oncea Then, points of

interest I had examined earlier in a more

structured interview could be expanded upon.

The second interview in general, was

unstructured and informal, although the guide·

lines had already been set down as I wrote

up the report of the first interview.

Stock Inspectors

What effect doe$ drought have on the

station people and the land/stock?

What drought strategies are taken? 280

How closely related to the needs of the

people do you see drought policies?

What attitudes do politicians/higher

government officials express towards

drought problems?

Are government policies particularly

helpful to agriculturalists in this

region/others? What changes are possible

or probable?

How would you respond to the idea of

unfair advantage being taken of drought

relief schemes? Could you expand on this?

How much of your time is spent checking

drought relief claims?

Is drought as severe in other Shires in

Queensland?

Are local graziers staying on the properties

closing them down?

Are they leaving the industry/region?

On what criteria - or guidelines - do you

recommend drought declaration/lifting

drought declaration?

After the drought

When was 'drought declaration' lifted?

As stock inspector, do you notify the

Queensland Department of Primary Industries

of the condition of the pastures in this

region in relation to drought declarations/

drought relief schemes? 281

What are the views of government

officials on drought relief schemes -

locally/in Brisbane?

What are the official views on drought

policies adopted?

What changes will be made in future

droughts?

Were you required to make a submission

on the effectiveness of each drought

relief scheme?

What are the proposed changes that will

be likely to be effected in future

droughts?

How much did drought cost the governments -

both Federal and State?

Is there a breakdown on drought relief

figures to discover who received more

and/or which agricultural and business

enterprises required or received less?

Bank Officer

How is drought affecting groups in the

area financially - business people,

graziers, shearers, station hands, the

town working class, others?

How does this district compare with

others in relation to economic stability

during drought time? 282

What qualifications are required by

graziers and business people to obtain

low interest loans?

Have you opinions on this subject. Would

you be willing to expand on this topic?

Will town businesses survive this drought?

How well are station owners surviving

the economic impact of drought?

How does the bank officially view low

interest loans?

Perhaps you might have ideas on the

subject of drought that may be relevant

to my inquiry.

Clergymen

How does drought affect people's prayers?

Do people ask you to pray for rain -

frequently/infrequently?

Is there an increased church attendance?

How is drought affecting people -

individuals, certain groups, financially,

home life?

What are your own views on drought?

Why is there a drought?

Could you comment about the social

aspects of drought?

School Teachers

What effect does drought have on you -

in your work life/social life? 283

What effect does drought have on

children, their families, holidays,

education?

Do families move away because of drought?

How do children see drought?

What is their response to rainfall?

Could you comment about the world of

drought as you see it, and as your

pupils see it?

Is there any aspect of the drought

situation that you would like to expand

upon?

The Clerk of Courts

What effect does drought have on

different groups in the Shire?

You lived in the town at an earlier

period. Could you compare the two

periods, and give me an indication of

the social changes, if any, you have

found?

In your work you deal with many

aspects of town life such as the

legislation governing miners, the new

car registrations, the cases that come

before the local court. Could you

explain what the effects of drought

are in each of these subject areas?

Are there any particular observations

that you feel are relevant in allowing 284

me to understand the effects of drought

on the different social groups?

Aboriginal Social Worker

What are the effects of drought on the

Aboriginal people?

What concessions must be made to people

undergoing hardship at this time?

Could you expand further on any subject

that you feel needs further discussion?

Aboriginal people

What effect does drought have on

Aboriginal people?

How does town living affect Aboriginal

culture?

Can you expand on the subject of drought

in relation to the effect on Aboriginal

lifestyle?

Shire Chairman and Councillor

How long have you served on Council?

How long have you lived in the Shire?

What effect does the drought have on

the local economy/business?

What options are open to Council during

drought time?

What special funds are available?

How does drought affect the finances of

Council? 285

How does drought affect the decision­

making processes in Council?

What are your views of drought in

relation to Council policy?

How do state and federal governments

respond to local government needs in a

drought time?

How do you see the relationships of

different groups in the Shire towards one

another?

How has the response to drought changed

over the years? Are new methods of

technology influencing the impact of

drought?

would you care to expand on any aspect of

drought in the Paroo Shire?

Shearers and Station Hands

What effect does drought have on your

lifestyle /family?

How does drought affect employment in

the shearing industry?

Are there alternative sources of

employment open to you other than

shearing? If so, is there a special

difficulty in carrying out one or other

type of work?

How long have you worked in the industry?

Would you consider changing your type

of employment? 286

Under what circumstances would you

consider it necessary to change your

lifestyle?

Could you expand on any aspect of the

subject that is important to you?

Town Working Class

What effect does drought have on your

lifestyle?

What effect does drought have on

employment opportunities?

What effect does drought have on family

life?

Could you expand on your experience of

drought - the present drought/past

drought?

Graziers

What type of drought strategies are

employed by you?

What effect does drought have on family

life/on the grazing enterprise?

What effect does drought have on childrens

education?

How did drought affect your schooling?

What forms of drought relief are most

effective?

Which members of the family can you

call upon for assistance: financially,

with labour, with agistment for stock?

How long has your family been on the land? 287

Other formal interviews were undertakeno These included interviews with the union representative in the Charleville branch of the Australian Workers' Union, the Commonwealth Employment Services Director, members of the Queensland Water Resources Commission, two additional stock inspectors, one sheep and wool office, and the Land's Commissioner. Each respondent was asked the questions central to their employment orientation.

These focused on shearing team employment, general opportunities for employment, the provision of water for stock during drought, the social impact of drought in a rural region, the measures taken by government to address the problems involved and the impact on soil and vegetationo

Much of the information taken from these interviews concerned the spec~alist functions of the official. The information was primarily of a technical nature, necessary for my own purposes of research. However, it is not possible to include each guideline. The questions asked in the early stages of drought on the subjects of interest to these respondents necessarily changed as drought deepened and the employment, land and stock situation, became critical. APPENDIX 3:3

Field Research

Participant observation was crucial to my discovery of data that would record social organization and social change during drought, the responses made by different groups and the personal impact of drought~

My field notes recorded the setting of an event, the participants, the stratum mixing found and the stage of the drought, as these were relevant to the subject matter I was examining, such as the experience of drought when there was a respite following winter rains during 1981. 289

APPENDIX 3:4

Media Search

I constantly monitored the media for subject matter relevant to my inquiryo There are no daily

papers in the region where I lived, and no television

reception a For much of the time during the day the

ABC was the only radio station I could receive" In

such a remote setting it was essential, when studying

the impact of local drought, to place it in the

context of drought, recession and other problems that were being widely discussed, as their impact was felt

in the socio-economic environment of Queensland. For

if the wool growing industry could no longer provide

for most of its work force, then alternatives had to be found, and this subject was of deep concern to a

number of my respondents in various pursuits in life.

The media discussions brought to the attention

of my respondents thought on subjects varying as widely as political policy, the economic impact of

drought, drought and the agricultural sciences and

new methods of technology, the reports of 'old timers' who had knowledge and experience of the 1930's drought,

which also was accompanied by the great depression

years. These reports were heard by my respondents and

raised subjects which they invariably discussed when I conducted my interviews. It became apparent that it was essential to monitor media reports regularly to enable me to ask the appropriate questions and to understand subject matter of interest to my respondents in the temporal sequence of drought. 291

APPENDIX 4: 1 Drought Frequency 1964

1980

1978

1976

J 1974

1972

1970

1968

1966

1964

~ ~ A 0 < 0:: ~ 0 0 ::,.: ::c: H 0 ~ p., 0 u u J:;r.. 0 0:: ~ IX) 0:: < H === 0:: H :::E:: p.,< < ~ Cl) :::, :::, IX) IX) H < :::E:: O' E-t

Source of Information: Charleville Property Manager's School. Charleville Pastoral Laboratory - 7th and 8th April, 1981.

Summary of Papers QDPI.