The Country 26/03/25: Graham Mourie talks to Jamie Mackay

The former All Blacks captain is a leading figure in NZ Agribusiness, and yesterday, he was re-elected as a director of the QEII National Trust for a third term. Today, we talk about what he brings to the role and his corporate dairy farming career with Southern Pastures, and we pay tribute to Grizz Wyllie.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
News out yesterday that the Q two National Trust has
elected Marie Taylor the former All Black Captain Graham Murray
to serve as directors on the Q two board for
the next three years. No surprise to see Graham Murray
re elected for his third term. Graham, just before we
talk about the q E two, that you're involved with
the Trust and also Southern Pastures, would be remissive me

(00:22):
not to ask you, as a former All Black captain,
about Gris Wiley, who passed away in the weekend. Now,
I'm a bit of a student of the game, loved
the history of the game, and I realized that you
were a young pretender to his throne in your early days,
and I don't want to paint Gris as a saint.
I reckon he would have belted the hell out of here.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Yeah, well, I was probably you know, I was lucky.
I played off the back of the lineout. I know
that I think we played during your All Blacks against
the All Blacks and Thaneden and Grizz was working his
way along the line out, trying to teach the young guys.
You know, they shouldn't have Acudi by the turning up,
And I was actually getting further and further into the
middle of the field I think as the game went

(01:05):
on at the lineups. But yeah, I mean, obviously Gris
was he was a good player, But you're right. I
mean I think he definitely had a reputation as an
enforcer and you know, not someone you'd want to be
spending too much time trying to socialize on on the field.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
I understand you pulled a bit of a quick one
on him during an Auckland on not Auckland Wellington you
were playing for at the time, Canterbury game.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Yeah, I was probably a bit stupid at the time.
I was pretty young, and I think Canterbury were We
just won the Ramfrey Shield actually, and from South Canterbury
on the Tuesday and played Mid Canterburry. As the old days,
you played four games a week, played Mid Canterbury on
the Thursday and we played Canterbury on the Saturday. And
it was a pretty tight game. I think Grims was

(01:57):
heading off down the field from the back of a
line out and I sidled up alongside him. He can't
quite see me, I'm sure, and said, Griz, pass it
to me, and he gave me the ball and we
turned around and I ran a few meters and passed
the two Mark Sayers who scored under the post far
end and for another time. I spent the rest of

(02:18):
the game trying to avoid him.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
Gone but never forgotten gris Riley rest.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
You know she was a servant of the game, that's
for sure.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
Yeah, and absolutely great records as a coach of Canterbury
and the All Blacks. Okay, so I don't think he
would be surprised being re elected. Marie Taylor's the other
one that's going to serve. She's got a good CV
as well. But tell me, what do you bring to
the q E two National Trust?

Speaker 2 (02:43):
Ah, I yes, I guess passion for the for the trust. Really,
I think I had set up my first comminance back
in the eighties when I was on my home farm.
I think I set up the covenant on the home
farm to protect at a bite they eggs of bush
on that and I didn't want to see anything happen
to it when I moved on, so I set up

(03:04):
a covenant then, and I've set up a couple of
more covenants on my exit and my current farm in Taraniki,
and then obviously with the Southern pastures. We've we've also
been involved in setting up covenants because you know, I
think if you look back at the history of New Zealand,
you know it was basically a bottleist's paradise really initially

(03:30):
and probably eighty or ninety percent covered in forest. And
over the years from the early early Mary settlers and others,
you know, we've we've lost it. And I think QUI
too is actually the one private organization which is actually
protecting enough. You know, a lot of lead that's there's
small land and que two colonists and there is a

(03:52):
number of the national parks in New Zealand.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
Yeah, and we protected in perpetuity. The land use can
never change. I'm lucky to have a covenant in the South.
I think it's a wonderful institution. And I see you
got some more funding from the government. The best thing
they could do, Graham Murray, to save the planet is
give you guys heaps more money. I hope you're still
petitioning them for more.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
Yeah. I think we were very happy. I mean we've
obviously I think probably the history of that is that
Chewy two hadn't had any funding increase for ten years
and obviously things had changed a lot over that ten years.
And mid also in that time we had protected covenant
at another over a thousand more properties, so that obviously

(04:37):
brings costs because each of those properties is inspected by
one of our guys out in the field, one of
our field workers every two years and just giving them
support and advice on how the covenants need to be maintained.
So yeah, so yeah, really great. I think Tama Potucker

(04:58):
down at the Bluebrigs conference took a society and we
went to one of the convenents and he announced that
they were giving us some more money and that's going
to go for another three years. So I guess we've
had a stay of execution, if you want to call
it that, And you're very grateful for that, and you're
really impressed with time, with his understanding of what we do,

(05:20):
and now the whole thing works.

Speaker 1 (05:22):
Let me just finish briefly on your farming interests. You're
the director in charge of farming for Southern Pastures. It's
an institutional, a dairy fund. You're running. How many farms,
Graham Murray.

Speaker 2 (05:35):
We've got eighteen farms in about sixteen thousand cares at
the moment, so a.

Speaker 1 (05:41):
Lot of those, as I understand that are in mid
Canterbury under irrigation. But do you have it have farms
in the North Island. How are they firing with the dry.

Speaker 2 (05:49):
Yeah, we've got nine farms in the central North Island
and again it's been pretty tough up there. I think,
you know, just for most North Island farmers time times
has time's gone on. It's sort of spread around the
place and it's so we you know, we definitely made

(06:09):
sure we've got their calls off after pregnancy test and
that I would say it is going to be a
reasonably short year for a many many of the North
Island farmers this year at Dairy Farmers particularly.

Speaker 1 (06:20):
You're Openaki's most famous son, I think, am I say
right and saying that Cray Murray, But.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
Anyhow, I think Peter Snell's oh he got you there, well,
he was there before me and I always you know,
I guess the one thing that I take a bit
of pride at actually is watching the All Blacks today
because obviously coached Smiley Barrett and his brother, so they

(06:47):
they were there and obviously had those young Barrett boys
who four of them have actually played super rugby from
one family and it's amazing. So they are actually young
young leads running around the side of the field. When
I was coaching Openaki and leader Coastal.

Speaker 1 (07:04):
Well well Smiley had a wee bit at Griswili and
them too when it came to the lineouts. But anyway,
I won't go there. I just I just want to
finish by asking you about the Openaki dairy farm, the
home farm. I think you've still got it. I was
talking to Smiley as Fate would have it on Friday
Show and we're talking about the drought and he was
saying his father was telling him, you know, it hasn't

(07:26):
been that dry since the seventies. What are your memories.

Speaker 2 (07:29):
Yeah, definitely, I think fifty years ago, since sort of
seventy four seventy five that I remember that. And I
mean obviously in those days you probably didn't carry the
supplement that and have access to other fees that farmers
have dairy farmers have these days. So yeah, definitely, probably

(07:49):
the seventies there were two or three pretty pretty major droughts,
but definitely again in Taranaka, I think the home farm
there we're hanging in there. It would be a shorter season.
I think probably, in fact, they've got it. They've got
a bit. I think we've got to wear the station
got a kilometer from the farm and there was about

(08:11):
sixty mills of rain over the last week on three days.
So very fortunately get that, maybe just in time, but
you never know these days.

Speaker 1 (08:18):
Graham Murray, I could chat to you all day, but
I'm out of time. Thanks for yours today, and congratulations
on being re elected as a director to the Q
two National Trust. The institution's doing wonderful work protecting some
of our best land and perpetuity. Thanks for your time.

Speaker 2 (08:35):
Thank you very much. Great have a good day.