The Country 17/07/25: Chris Russell talks to Jamie Mackay

Our Australian correspondent comments on the big SBW v Paul Gallen fight and a prominent cotton farmer being sent to jail for water fraud. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
He's our assie correspondent Chris Russell. Lots to chat about today,
but I want to start with the big story of
the day across the Tasman. It was last night's big story.
Didn't stay up and watch it after my bedtime on
a school night. But Gallon versus Sonny Bell. Chris, I
know you watched it. What a good scrap Well in
terms of the lead up anyhow, yeah it.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Was, and sort of I was a better say old
dog versus young dog, but he's not that young, you know, SBW.
But certainly you know it was an interesting fight, split decision.
I thought that if it went to the full length,
but Gallan may well get up on points, you know,
if sunny Bill was going to win, that he need
to knock him out early. And that didn't happen. And

(00:41):
the thing that surprised I think the experts here, which
I wouldn't classify myself as one, but the experts were
saying that the judges probably scored the body punching techniques
of Gallon much higher than a lot of them would have.
They didn't really put as much under that, but clearly
judges thought counted and rather than the good clean you

(01:03):
uppercuts and so on.

Speaker 3 (01:04):
That sunny Bill should have got in and didn't.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
So anyway, at the end of the day, split decision.
They shook hands at the end. I hope that goal
pulls out of this.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
I listened to him commentating on rugby league a lot,
and he's a good commentator.

Speaker 3 (01:16):
He needs to just say, okay, the body's getting too
old now forty four.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
I think he's officially done that. Yeah, I'm like you.
I enjoys his commentary around rugby league. Right, Let's get
on to farming. A prominent cotton farmer has been sent
to jail for nine years for water saving fraud.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Yeah, so this is an interesting story and obviously not
good for his family. But you know, people sort of
haven't sort of saw a lot of this with politics
and the Murray Darling scheme, you know, his politics, and
therefore farmers that sort of scrap around the edges of
it shouldn't be penalized. Well, this guy took advantage of
a whole lot of incentives the government book out for

(01:57):
redoing the irrigation schemes up in the headwaters of the
Murray Darling system in southern Queensland in order to improve
water efficiency, the idea of being able to put more
water into the environment. So there were a lot of
schemes about and you could get a down payment up
front of up to seven hundred and fifty thousand when
you started one of these schemes once is approved. He
had a whole bunch of them approved. But then he

(02:19):
got involved in also and I don't have to say
allegedly anymore, because's now been proven creating false invoices for
things that were done, or changing invoices so that they
looked as though they were to do with that scheme,
and we got to about eight million dollars and the
judges said, okay, we need an example here. So he's
been sent to jail for nine years, with a minimum

(02:40):
of three and a half years. This is a guy
who was a real leader in the industry, John Norman,
and he was seen, as they've been, you know, the
future of cotton farming. He controlled about eighteen thousand hectares
of land, so quite big stories. And he's off to
jail now. And I think people will say, well, okay,
this water is serious. We can't go rigging the gates

(03:02):
and thinking we can just get around the scheme.

Speaker 3 (03:05):
Of playing lip service to it.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
And that's a good thing because the city population needs
to be sure that while we're arguing that more water
should be going to be usefully used rather than wasted.
On the other hand, neither can you cheat the system
and basically become a criminal.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
And water is a very precious commodity in Australia. New
South Wales farmers in a green drought. Australia great place
to holiday. I wouldn't want to farm there, Chris Chris
Russell are from Australia, the other side of the ditch.
Thanks for your time, good luck and that first Lions
test this weekend.

Speaker 2 (03:39):
You might need it absolutely, Jamie