Kangaruined

The kangaroo may be the internationally recognised symbol for Australia, adorning everything from Qantas airlines to the country’s coinage, but people will still tell you that these giant marsupials can be an absolute menace. You may be shocked to learn that you can legally shoot wild kangaroos here, both for commercial and non-commercial purposes (if not being used for their meat and skins, there are strict documents to support killings for “damage mitigation”, “the provision of meat for pest animal control programs” and “recreational hunting”), but the real danger is during their rampant mating seasons (that’s springtime and early summer), when kangaroos can often get a little too close for comfort.

Like in 2003, when New South Wales resident John Crouch, while holidaying in Queensland, was forced to kill a wild kangaroo with an axe when, for no apparent reasons, the creature attacked his wife. They can grow to an incredible size: Crouch’s encounter was with a kangaroo two metres tall. In the wild, away from the close proximity of humans and the security afforded by captivity, kangaroos are known to gather in packs, becoming scarily muscular and really quite fierce. In more built up areas, they are notorious for feeding on marshland near the roadside and can cause untold havoc on the dimly lit highways. Earlier this year, a female driver in the outback of the Northern Territory hit a kangaroo so severely that not only was her car promptly disqualified, but she also found herself in the grossly unfortunate situation of being stranded in some of the most inhospitable terrain with limited means of rescue. It is small wonder that Rolf Harris sang about tying them down.

We travelled to Woodgate, some 20km south of Bundaberg, with the intention of catching a glimpse of these unique creatures in their natural habitat, and sure enough we managed to see this one, and many more besides, merely a few metres from our car. There is something so rewarding about spontaneously catching sight of creatures in the wild, particularly an animal so alien to any other culture. Just remember to keep your seatbelt on.


I wanted to start this week by talking about the Hypervision Optical Measuring System, which is a fantastic machine but, granted, is hardly the sort of conversation starter that will get you noticed at parties. If indeed you have already raised your eyebrows at the mere mention of this, then clearly you are someone well versed in the world of laser optics, but for the rest of us, this expensive machine is single-handedly responsible for why farmhands may be finding it hard to get work in the Bundaberg area. And here’s why.

An OMS can not only distinguish between various types of freshly picked produce, but can also utilise this information to separate vast quantities into different sizes, colour and quality. At the farm where I am currently employed, hundreds of thousands of locally picked grape tomatoes are fed into one of these machines on a continuing daily basis, where each tomato is individually scanned and differentiated in increments of mere microns. It is the centrepiece of a large refrigerated warehouse, permanently set at a chilly temperature between 10 and 12 degrees. Using laser optics, it takes the OMS a thousand to a million points per second to detect the correct grade of a single tomato, a job that could take a team of manual labourers weeks to perform, and at some considerable expense to the farmer. But despite this astonishingly efficient technology, the kangaroo item took the lead, but that’s mainly because it had a better pun.

But still, this doesn’t fully disengage those workers who are willing to manually separate fruit for a living, something which - unless there is some form of devious sexual thrill to be derived from frisking through small red tomatoes that I’m not yet aware of - is ultimately a thankless and monotonous task. I work with six graders whose job it is to pick out inadequate tomatoes prior to being placed into small punnets, which are then weighed, labelled and stacked for shipment to supermarkets across the country and beyond, to locations as far flung as Darwin, Sydney, Tasmania and New Zealand. They work in what is deridingly called the ‘dog box’. On a busy day, we are personally responsible for the shipment of somewhere in the region of 22,000 punnets, and each item of fruit has had to meet the regimentally high standards of each individual grader. That’s just a little something to think about when you next find yourself in the fruit aisle at Tesco’s.

The staff are kept in check by Crystal, the farmhouse matron who appears to have trained at the Heinrich Himmler school for workplace motivation. When she is not berating the workers or threatening them with the sack, she is offering remarkably confounding advice. For example, I was once told to hurry up while grading, but take my time in doing so. Her passive aggression is the schoolroom equivalent of asking to borrow a pencil, and then punching you in the arm for taking too long.

Much more amiable is the 17 year old Joel, who I have talked about before. For someone so cheerful, he is strangely bemused by Owen, one of the older workers who looks a bit like Richard Dreyfus and has the sensible, compassionate demeanour of a TV handyman. “I don’t understand people who are happy all the time,” he says, which is agreeable, especially when your job is to look at fruit all day.

He also possesses a remarkable turn of phrase. I once asked Joel if he feels lucky. “If it wasn’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.” On skydiving, he asks simply, “Why would I jump out of a plane if there was nothing wrong with it?” Baring in mind that he dropped out of school two years ago, it is still sometimes difficult to see how there is nearly a ten year age gap between us.

Our good friend Julie sums up the job like this: “It is the only prison camp where they let you out at night.” There is certainly an almost military edge to proceedings, with all staffers required to wear a uniform of white lab coats, latex gloves and, for an extra swipe at any last remaining dignity, a hairnet. A friend once asked me whether I also had to wear a beard net. These do exist, by the way, and would essentially mean that I would be spending a typical shift of 10 to 12 hours with a bag covering my entire head.

As a final note, I would like to add that it is a sobering thought to know that if you were to die tomorrow, it would be to absolutely no consequence to the synchronised procedure of working life down at the farm, other than it might cause a slight upset to their rota system. And, even more tragically, when it comes to identifying the body, you will almost certainly be wearing a hairnet.


AU Tube: Understanding Australian TV
‘Miracles’ (ABC1)

Occasionally you catch a show that just boggles your brain, and this new ‘extraordinary stories’ series does just that. The format reminds me of the BBC’s ‘999’ which featured the dramatic tones of Michael Buerk and a roster of amateur reconstructions which, by comparison to this, now look like quite trivial if undoubtedly horrific stories of misfortune. ‘999’ was a terrifying show which made a kid stuck down a well look like some kind of hostage takeover situation, and never failed to give me nightmares. ‘Miracles’ focuses instead on such unfathomable acts of human survival that, despite its title of biblical proportions, couldn’t really be called anything else.

Tonight focuses on Polish-born paraglider Ewa Wisnierska, who in 2007 was practicing in New South Wales for an upcoming competition when the weather down south took an unexpected turn for the worst. Recorded footage on the day shows fellow paragliders observing large, ominous looking clouds appearing before them and promptly gliding to the ground. But the incoming storm would prove too quick for some, and before Wisnierska could find time to react, she would find herself caught up in fierce winds and, in a freakish incident appropriately called ‘cloud suck’, lifted between two cumulonimbus clouds. Wisnierska was now, quite literally, in the eye of the storm, climbing upwards at a rate 20 metres per second to an altitude of (get this) 32,600 feet. That’s nearly 10km off the ground.

While up there, she passes out from hypoxia (caused by a lack of oxygen) and drifts, high above the storm, just below the earth’s stratosphere where the temperate reaches a startling -50 degrees. It is here where she hovers for somewhere within the region of 30 to 45 minutes, before her glider collapses and she falls unconsciously to the ground at a speed of 200km an hour.

Now for the miracle. Not only does the wing of her glider spontaneously reopen, but she summarily regains consciousness due to the increase in oxygen. Despite being covered in ice, she then manages to somehow muster enough energy to navigate herself away from the plight of the storm and land safely, some three and a half hours after taking off. Her superhuman survival is made all the more poignant when we learn of Chinese pilot He Zhongpin, who was only 500 metres away from Wisnierska when he was also sucked into the cloud, only to be struck by lightening and killed instantly.

Jungle Fever

What most people know about the koala is that it’s not a bear but a marsupial, like a possum or a kangaroo, characterised by its pouch for housing their joeys. It was the colonialists who spotted a similarity to bears, which surely begs the question as to whether they had ever seen a bear close up or just far, far away. Because koala’s are small, tree dwelling fur-balls who, rather boringly, sleep for up to 18 hours a day. Then they invariably eat eucalyptus leaves for their remaining five to six hours of the day, before falling asleep again. These guys turn sloth into an art form.

You can hold a koala at the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary, on the border of Queensland and New South Wales, near the beaches on the Gold Coast. The place is a bit like Jurassic Park, shepherding tourists on a miniature train through giant birdcages, animal themed adventure parks and seats fashion from giant plastic crocodiles. Audio guides blurt out information from speakers hidden amongst the bushes. I’m not completely sold on the idea, especially considering the number of, say, lorikeets and parrots you can see just walking down the streets. In fact, head up to North Queensland and you can see most of these animals, albeit outside of their cages and not quite in such a family friendly environment: crocodiles aren’t penned in to makeshift fences but free to devour lagoon-dwelling tourists; tall red kangaroos leap into passing vehicles; a small wallaby, grazing in the bush, might suddenly find itself grappled into the talons of a passing eagle. Yes, Queensland is a wild place. This glorified zoo sanitises danger, like a visitors room at a high security prison, only with better coffee.

Having said that, the Australians are fierce on conservationism, and the sanctuary are currently raising money for their wildlife hospital appeal. It costs $600,000 a year to run the hospital, treating up to 30 animals a day, and they’re planning to build a new one to meet up with the increasing demand of troubled wildlife. The effects of their work can be seen across the park, like their wedge-tailed eagles, who can no longer fly after being rescued from a roadside accident. They’re one of the largest birds of prey in the world with a wingspan of over 7ft, but they would have otherwise been discarded due to their injuries. The sanctuary also provide homes for a number of endangered species which, tragically, will undoubtedly die out during our lifetime. A disheartening thought, especially considering the tree-kangaroo, which is a small, auburn coloured creature with an elongated tail and an astoundingly blasé approach to heights. They can survive a fall of around 60ft, which is quite baffling, but they can’t quite counter the growing effects of habitat loss from deforestation.

They have Tasmanian devils there, too, although being expert scavengers, they’re quite hard to spot. These dog-like, meat-eating animals were considered a pest and hunted into the 1940s, but now face an even larger threat to their existence: the devil facial tumour disease, a form of cancer which only effect these little creatures and, as yet, has no known cure. But the sanctuary are working on this, which is just as well: the disease has allegedly caused a 50% decline in numbers and, since 2009, the Tasmanian devil has been placed on the world’s most endangered species list, something which increases every single day.

From July 2008, it became compulsory for those migrants under the age of 30 who were wishing to extend their work visas to Australia to undergo three months (88 days) of specified regional employment. The initiative, in theory, helps local businesses with an affordable and constant stream of labour to help meet the high demands of peak seasons, especially on farms where, in northern Queensland, everything from cherry tomatoes to figs, grapes, peppers, bananas, macadamia nuts and sugar cane all thrive in lush, abundant fields. Crops are harvested in huge numbers, or intensively farmed inside greenhouses promising fresh produce all year round, and once picked they are then packed and shipped to outlets across the continent. Here, in Bundaberg, the city relies on the land for the majority of its employment: from the many local farms which surround the region and the coastline, to the huge sugar plantations which help to produce the region’s best known export, rum.

But not everyone is in agreement that the new visa scheme works, particularly the backpackers themselves, who often feel exploited and forced to work in somewhat undesirable conditions. I’ve heard stories of terrible living quarters, where suffering employees are too scared to complain unless they lose their minimum wage, to anecdotal evidence of workers dying of dehydration in sheds where, during the sizzling summer months, temperatures can reach over 50 degrees. But the farmers aren’t happy, either, and who can blame them: those under 30 and looking for a second year in Australia are usually university educated or gap year students whose history of manual labour was when they once worked part time on the cash desk at Dixons. They don’t want to be there, which only acts to frustrate the land owners even more. I’ve spent this week working intermittently on the Marcon family plantation, where capsicums and courgettes are picked, priced and packaged for shipment to locations like Sydney and Melbourne, and the motto here seems to be, “however fast you think you’re working, work faster.”

It’s repetitive, draining at times, but the husband and wife who run the farm are adamant that they will not be employing backpackers. The workforce is predominantly made up of locals from the Bundaberg area, both male and female, young and old, creating a communal atmosphere and hard work ethic that I’m sure is lacking on the other farms. Alan, 17, works here full time, along with many of his co-workers, and when he’s not lifting crates of green peppers he’s surfing or riding his BMX. He is following in a family tradition which has forever been a staple of the lives of the people in northern Queensland, steeped in a respect for the land and the fortunes that it brings. So it’s small wonder that when I tell Alan that I’m from England, he replies, “English, eh? Well, we don’t get many backpackers here.” The Marcons have set a precedent in which I’m sure many other local farmers will follow if migration into the country continues to increase.

For further evidence of Australian’s stern conservationism, just look at Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s decision to take Japan to the International Court of Justice for their continued whaling in the Antarctic, whose seas have long since been declared as a whale sanctuary. In their defence, the Japanese are allegedly hunting for ‘scientific’ purposes, rather than commercial. Quite what ‘scientific’ reasons these are will be made clear when the countries meet in The Hague, although justifying the deaths of over 2,000 whales a year won’t be easy: unless these scientific reasons extend to building a giant Frankenstein’s sea monster for some kind of covert military operation, reanimated with the head of a dolphin, the tail of a thousand tuna fish and all fashioned out of condemned orca bits.

That’s a disturbing image, but Japan are keen to defend the barbaric practice on traditional hunting lines, while ordinary Australians think that the mammals should just be given a break. The fact that the decision was one of Rudd’s 2007 campaign promises has met with some derision from the local press, who see its fulfilment as a piece of savvy politicising considering that Rudd will be fighting for re-election later in the year. And what if Australia lose the battle in court? It’s unlikely, but embarrassing nonetheless.


AU Tube: Understanding Australian TV
‘State of Origin: New South Wales v. Queensland’ (Win TV)

Wednesday saw the first of three big ‘football’ (read: rugby) matches between these two giant states of Rugby League, which is disproportionately popular here on the east coast, to the extent where normally placid and well-meaning Australians lose their minds for 80 minutes, screaming at the television and shouting obscenities. I know this to be true after watching the game in a house in Queensland, where every crunching tackle and physical exertion is met with a loud and patriotic yelp. The State of Origin games are a big deal, where every year rugby players forgo their club colours in favour of the state from which they were born, thus creating an almost tribal encounter which seems to garner more national pride (and division in equal measure) than when they play for the national team. So you would think that they could come up with more flattering names for the sides: NSW are the Cockroaches, QLD are called the Cane Toads.

But Queensland are clearly the better team, which helps, winning albeit not particularly comfortably, just like they have done for the previous four years. It was a great game, and I don’t even particularly follow rugby, but it is a shame that commercial station Win TV (or Channel 9) seem so eager to promote Ford’s half year sale that they even show their adverts during the game. Granted, this only happens when play stops after a try, but such trigger happy commercialism reminds me of watching TV in America, which is perhaps the closest equivalent to looking after a hyperactive child.