Bourke riding on goats’ back

Mr Hegarty is a farmer on about 14,000 hectares and his wife is the publican, so he plays himself down as “the husband of a publican in Bourke”. Mr Hegarty is optimistic about a proposal for a new meatworks opening in Bourke - he says it will be the town’s saving grace since drought devastated the local economy and the town’s population dipped dramatically from 3500 to 2100.

“Without goats Bourke would be next to nothing, the whole western division would be next to nothing,” he says. “For the past 23 or 24 years goats have been good, you can pay a bill, bit of drinking silver. It’s never been fantastic money, but now it’s over the top, you can make a real good living.

“If you’re getting a few goats you’re on clover, but for the average bloke it’s still a sideline, they’ve still got their domestic livestock, but the goats are subsidising these operations.” That’s backed up by Wally Nielsen, off “Ballycastle”, who says it costs about $12 and about three musters a year to get sheep through a season.

“Yeah, there’s still a living in sheep, but it can be lean, there’s not much drenching goes on out here, so that’s a saving,” Mr Hegarty says.

When the previous meatworks was operational in Bourke 20 years ago, Mr Hegarty worked there and all the goats were exported to Taiwan. “They all go to America now,” he said.

The new meatworks now proposed Mr Hegarty described as “pretty bloody critical for Bourke”. “Poor old Bourke has suffered a fair few losses in the past 10 or 15 years,” he said.

He said the new meatworks would “get the place buzzing again”.

“I think the organisers of the goat industry have done a marvellous job getting an industry going and it’s built up a hell of a momentum, now it’s just a question of keeping up supply.”

He said people had now committed to harvesting goats and a program to keep numbers steady.