Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The electorate of Wright is an extraordinary, resilient electorate. Recently, we have suffered floods, but outside that we have also suffered drought. Whilst we have had our times of suffering, there are some operators in the business sector, and particularly in the agricultural sector or with links to that sector, who have excelled beyond expectations with reference to where they grade themselves in the sector. We have members of our dairy farm community doing it extremely tough who are now using technology to try to embrace far greater profits. We have in our electorate dairy farms that are fully robotic, using tags on the necks of beasts that come in freely. Lasers look at the fingerprint of the teat, because every cow is different. They assess the milk content of the cow through previous data, do a calculation and give that beast a rationed portion to optimise its performance.

We have robotics in our nurseries planting seedlings at Pohlmans over in the Lockyer Valley, producing seedlings and delivering to most of the major hardware chains up and down the eastern seaboard—a business that you would drive past and not know they had the linkages to the Australian economy of which we are very proud. We have cattlemen investing in new breeds of cattle, and I bring your attention to the UltraBlack and none other than Euan Murdoch at Nindooinbah. Euan used to be the main shareholder of Herron Pharmaceuticals, a company that all Australians would have a thorough understanding of. He is now investing his money into the cattle sector, developing a hybrid black beast that is conducive to Queensland conditions and Northern Australia. A funny email went round recently from Euan about the performance of these UltraBlacks. The email went something along the lines that a person had bought an UltraBlack and taken it home and the bull was not performing. He was most disappointed with it, so he got the vet out. The vet said, 'What I want you to do is give it one of these tablets once a week for the next two weeks and assess the bull's performance.' The vet came back in two weeks and the breeder said: 'The bull is working outstandingly. It's worked all of this paddock. In fact, it's broken the fences to my northern boundary and it's gone and worked all my next-door neighbour's cattle and broken fences to the south and gone and worked all the southern cattle.' The vet said to the grazier, 'What did you do?' And he said, 'I gave them one of these tablets once a day.' The vet returned a week later, and the grazier said, ' I don't know what was in those tablets but they taste a little bit like peppermint.'

On closing, I would like to bring your attention to a man of landscape, Terry Nolan. Nolan's Transport has over 200 trailers running produce out of the Lockyer Valley, which was devastated by the floods. As you remember, for most of our growing areas in Queensland—St George with melons and onions; Myall, watermelons again; in the Lockyer Valley, a lot of the brassicas; and the Fassifern Valley—Nolan's would be the lead operator for transport. They are celebrating 150 years of service. I send my humble thanks for their contribution not only to the electorate but also to this nation for what they do for employment and their contribution to the local community. Terry and Daphne are fifth generation, I believe, or maybe more, and their sons Flea—and I do not know why we call him Flea, but that is what we call him—and Darren will most professionally take that business through for another 150 years.

Terry is not feeling 100 per cent at the moment. I think that he is suffering from cancer and I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge his contribution and share that with the nation. As Australians and as members of this House, it is important that we bring people to task when they let the country down but, equally, praise those that have made a contribution to this nation. We offer him a speedy recovery and I extend best wishes to him and his family.