The Country 22/08/25: Chris Russell talks to Jamie Mackay

Our Australian correspondent talks cotton, coffee and footy.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Here's our Australian correspondent of long standing Chris Russell and
all the years I've known him, which is more than
thirty now, he's well and truly been on the losing
end when it comes to the All Blacks up against
the Wallabies. I've lost count of how many bottles of
wine he owes me and has never paid me. Chris Russell,
do you think you're a bit of a chance this year?

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Look? I hesitate to be over confident about that. I've
done that before. I remember seeing this to Robbie Dean's
on a plane one year and him promising me that
I'd get some of those bottles of wines back when
I told him that how many I've lost because he
hadn't performed yet and I never did. But you know,
we have had a fantastic game last weekend. Joe Schmidt

(00:41):
has done a fantastic job. We've got a side that
seems to be disciplined and we're ranked number six in
the world now, which just sneaks us into the World
Cup thing where he don't have another big side in
your group. If we beat them in Cape Town on
this weekend, then we will come up to number three.
In the world. Then we've got Argentina and then we've

(01:02):
got Eden Park. So look one, one life at a
time here. But I'm as excited as I've been in
recent years.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
Chris, you've poked the beer resci Erasthmus not too pleased.
He's brought back the bomb squad, although at sea level
it should favor Australia relatively compared to the High Vault.
But I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for a second
Wallaby one. But good luck you're going well. You've got
a great coach a kei we talk.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
To have got a great coach. He's really I'm so
sorry he's moving on. But hopefully les Kiss is looking
on from the sideline, saying he's got a big act
to follow. He's got a bat after Bradman and hopefully
he's up to the path.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
Tell me about this new cotton gin in Northern West
Australia or Western Australia.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
Well, I think I've spoken to you before how cotton
looks like making a comeback in the Ord River and
up in the north of Western Australia. When the Order
of a scheme was first started up up there where
they trapped the waters of the Ord with this massive
lake argyle. It failed because the insects just love that
tropical climate. And the old bowl weavil, you know, they

(02:09):
were having to spray that crop with this horrible endo sulfon,
which is an organochlorine chemical, twice a day, whereas at
the worst down here they only sprayed about every ten days.
But since the advent of this BT cotton where they
actually put the genes of a poisonous protein into the leaf,
poisonous to bowl weevils, that is, and therefore they don't

(02:30):
need to do any spraying, it's made a real comeback.
And the other thing that's happened up there is that
the pastoral leash rules in the Northern Territory say that
they can't use underground water for growing crops. They can
only use it for producing stop feed. And somehow they've
conned the Northern Theratory government in being convinced that they're
growing cotton for the seed and not for the cotton,

(02:52):
which is the ludicrous idea, but nothing there's nothing wrong
with a seed, of course, but the money is in
the cotton. But nonetheless they're doing it growing the cotton,
and on the Order River as well, not just on
the past releases. So they've now built at last the
cotton gin in Cannanara, sixty million dollar operation. Cotton gins
are expensive and they've been looking for one for ages,

(03:14):
but they could never guarantee the supply of cotton. So
I want to buy it or build it. They've now
built this cotton gin. It means instead of sending the
cotton either sending it full of its trash and everything
the China or selling it over to the East Coast,
which is also very expensive, they can now gin it
up there and produce the cotton and then just ship
the cotton out. So it is a massive, a massive

(03:38):
change from the North up there. They reckon it will
generate more than a thousand jobs in Cannanaro the next decade,
and fingers crossed that it'll be successful and we'll have
a whole new business that last will make some really
good money out of that amazing Ord River scheme up there.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
Okay, I've only got time for one more story. Unfortunately,
Australian coffee comes into its own as global coffee price
as spike, and I wasn't aware Chris learning something every
day when I chat to you that you had a
coffee industry.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
Coffee industry has been a boutique industry up in North
Queensland on the Athen Tablelands for some time, Jamie, and
at last I think with coffee prices from overseas going
from six dollars a kilo to twenty dollars a kilo
as the Brazilian market collapsed and various other disasters have
taken over the coffee industry overseas. Now it's becoming more

(04:31):
mainstream and more coffee shops in Australia are now selling
Australian coffee, which is fine coffee. It was just expensive.
So it's another little boutique industry which will certainly grow
into something a bit more substantial up there. I hope
it carries on, people get a taste for it and
we're able to support our own crops.

Speaker 1 (04:48):
Jomie Well, Chris Russell, I've learned a lot about cotton
and coffee. Good luck to the Wallabies and Cape Town.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
No worries, thanks Jomie,