ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
Member for New England, Barnaby Joyce, has added a parcel of good country to his vast property portfolio this week as he looks to secure a spread out near Lithgow, in the New South Wales depression belt.
Mr Joyce told The Advocate he’s always looking for bargains and good investments and saw the unrelenting spread of Sydney as a good enough reason to get in while the country around Lithgow is still affordable.
“Oh, no reason,” explained Joyce.
“I just like it out there. Any Central West boy knows that Lithgow and Lake Wallace, it’s the Lake Como of New South Wales. It’s Australian Tuscany out there. And it’s still quite cheap. It’s a rough block, out near the bloody power station! Nobody blood wants it! [laughs] Yeah, I’ll probably just put some old wethers on it,”
“But yeah, mate. No real reason, just like the country.”
Mr Joyce said he doesn’t expect “lightning to strike twice” after a previous investment of his out near Gwabegar just happened to border the Inland Rail Project.
“That was just a spot of good luck, wasn’t it? Not much out at Gah-Wee-Bee-Gah! [sic]” he laughed.
“Apparently there’s a fuckload of gas under it, too. Apparently the ‘G’ in ‘Gwabegar’ is silent, too. Who cares? But I will remind you that I bought that well before that was all known. It happens to a lot of farmers, you know. One day, you’re pushing cows up a lane, the next you’re eating prawns in Yamba in all of November because they’ve found gas under your farm.”
More to come.
