THE SOUND OF RAIN

I am pleasantly awake as rain falls in the Megalong Valley, the romantic sound of water on an iron roof almost drowning out Tom's far less than romantic snoring. I wonder what deep human responses are activated by the sound of rain. It's probably regional. In Welsh valleys it would be more like ... Gareth ... it's raining ... better drag the goats out of the bog .. but in drought stricken Australia, unless swimming in floods, rain is God, the future, life itself. It is nature's prerogative than belies the fashionable conceit that all choices lie with us.

The water that is falling here, as beautiful as it sounds, is a dollar down payment on the national debt. The Megalong, like much of New South Wales and Queensland, is in dire drought. But It's a drought that dares not speak its name, well not with the imminent release of the INXS mini-drama anyway.

My friend Ben is a farmer's son from Narromine. We spoke recently and his reaction to my year long tour was a farmer's one, that I would witness terrible tragedy and despair out bush. He told me a story that you might have all heard. I hadn't and I can't shift it from my mind.

It ranks with other stories I have heard over the past year. Like Pete from Strathalbyn in the Adelaide Hills who runs a support group for farmers and who fields frantic calls from women at midnight to say their husband has a gun to his head. Or Broady from Booborowie who explained that if he got one cent for the wheat that creates a loaf of bread he would make a living, but he doesn't.

Broady from Booborowie

Ben's story has a resonance that should sound across the country. A Queensland farmer took his 400 cattle to the trail head to be transported to market. They were in such poor condition the driver refused to take them because too many would die on the way. The farmer shot the cattle and then himself.

The tragedy enacted in some lonely place speaks of the pain of losing farms that have been in families for generations, of depression, of battling drought and globalization and the unkindest of all beasts, the market. It shouts of the final straw. There is also an act of compassion embedded in it, that he shot the beasts before himself lest they have to endure the slow death that besets much of rural Australia.

The rain is still falling here but the subsoil will be as dry as powder. So too will the problems that lie under whatever drought relief is dispensed by government to farmers. At the core of much of rural people's conversation is a red hot anger masking unrestrained grief that Australia is losing its food bowl, and that food is seen as just another commodity subject to the same market forces as digital phones or disposable nappies. They know it is much more.

Last year I met a farmer from South Africa who fell in love with an Alice Springs girl and now manages a massive property in Central Australia. He said .. I am a Boer and that means farmer ... It wasn't an occupation but a calling to produce food.

I will try my best to listen and report stories from the heartland of Australia over the coming year.  For the moment though, I am enjoying the good rains falling here in the Megalong Valley, especially so as Tommie has drifted off into a rain-induced and thankfully silent dream.

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Send your thoughts and stories to swag@electronicswagman.com.au or call Raymond on 0414 929768. If you wish to speak to Tommie just leave a message.