#32: Taking over the reins with Hamish Brett from Brett Cattle Company.

Welcome to Episode 32 of A Place To Call Home Podcast.

G'day and welcome to another episode of A Place to Call Home podcast, on today's episode we chat to Hamish Brett from Brett Cattle Company. This was a great conversation, and we covered a wide range of topics.

Throughout this Episode we chat about.
- Working in a family business
- Going away to become  a Vet
- Starting his own vet clinic
- Working through the Live export ban
- Starting the succession conversation
- How succession can affect a family dynamic
- Working through family tragedy
- Life after a succession process
- The role Brahmans play in the Northern Beef Industry

You can find out more about Hamish and Brett Cattle Company below
Brett Cattle Company (@brettcattlecompany) • Instagram photos and videos
Brett Cattle Company | Baines NT | Facebook

If you enjoyed the episode, please share with your friends and family.

For more information check out our socials
A Place To Call Home | Hughenden QLD | Facebook
A Place To Call Home 🏡 Agriculture 🐮 Podcast 🎤 (@aplacetocallhomepodcast) • Instagram photos and videos
https://www.linkedin.com/company/a-place-to-call-home-podcast/
https://www.aplacetocallhome.com.au

This episode is brought to you by,
Australian Brahman Breeders Association
Australian Brahman Breeders Association
Australian Brahman Breeders' Association Limited | Rockhampton QLD | Facebook

Transcript

Sam Fryer: [00:00:00] Hamish, thank you very much for jumping on the place to call home podcast. Um, can you tell us a bit about yourself, where you're at and what do you get up to? 

Hamish Brett: Yeah. G'day Sam. Um, Oh, we've, we live in the Northern territory, mate. Um, we have our own Waterloo, Waterloo station in the East Kimberley region.

Western BRD region. Um, we've also got another station close to Catherine, Willaroo station and an export depot sort of 90 K south of Darwin. Um, yeah. And then apparently we've just got a little block in Cuninara on the river and we're just trying to convert it into hay production. So that's, that's where you find, find me now, Sam.

Yeah. 

Sam Fryer: Definitely got a bit on Haymish and you, you also run a vet clinic as well. That's right? 

Hamish Brett: Yeah, that's correct. I, I Sort of, yeah, I used to do a lot of preg testing and spaying and all that sort of stuff. [00:01:00] Um, create the territory money for a company and then then I got into the live export industry and and then branched out of sort of the the preg testing side of it because the export side got too too, um, too busy.

So, yeah, I've been doing that for and worked in there for 13 14 years for a number of number of exporters. 

Sam Fryer: Hamish, where did you grow up? Where are you originally from? 

Hamish Brett: I was born in Scone in New South Wales, but mum and dad used to buy places, do them up, sell them and then buy another place, a bigger place, do it up, sell it.

So yeah, we've traveled, I think we've moved 11, 12 times in my lifetime. Um, which, and yeah, moved in and then went to North Queensland. And then from North Queensland, Charters Towers region, we sort of came over to Waterloo and family purchased it in 2004, I think it was. 

Sam Fryer: Where'd you go [00:02:00] to school at?

Hamish Brett: I went to prep school at Tudor house, which was at Mitagong Moss fire region in New South Wales. Bought it there for three years and then went on to the King school for six years in Sydney. 

Sam Fryer: Amy, you've de, you're definitely a well traveled man. Between your family and yourself, you've covered a lot of country. And after finishing up at King School, what did you get up to? Where'd you go? 

Hamish Brett: Uh, I went to Ag College General to Ag College and then, and did a diploma of beef.

Beef and crop for two years there and then, and then went home and work, work for mom and dad at Charterstown. 

Sam Fryer: Hamish, was it around this time once you came home, you decided to start studying vet and what, what was the driver behind you going away and studying?

Hamish Brett: Um, my brother and I were at home and dad, dad was pretty hard on us. Like he'd make us, he'd make us work. And Dougal, my brother, [00:03:00] he, he went and did his chopper license and started up a pretty very successful chopper business based at Charters Towers with us, um, and I was sort of the bloke doing all the work at home and I was talking to a, to a friend down at, down at the Ecker of all places and he said he was going to try to get into VET and I thought, well, if, if you think you can get into VET, I reckon I can get into VET and, and, um, so yeah, that's sort of put the cogs in motion and, um, I had a yarn to mum, mum and dad about it and daddy wasn't too impressed with it because he was going to lose another worker.

But mum was the one behind it and she made me get on a bus and go down to, down to Brisbane and have, have some meetings with the dean of the vet school. And yeah, they, they, they never let me in the first, first year and because of my marks. Um, and then they. I kept persisting and going down again, and, and eventually got the Dean's assistant, and she knew a [00:04:00] lady in Bachelor of Arts, and she said, look, we'll get you in there, you've got to do your math, physics, chemistry, which were prerequisites of that.

Of which I hadn't done at school. I'd only done maths in the beer garden at school, so. And the only thing I knew of in chemistry with H2O was water. So, um, it was a big learning curve, but eventually upgraded through Bachelor of Art. Um, and yeah, two years later I was, I was doing my, my vet degree at Brisbane, St Lucia.

Sam Fryer: What was that like moving away from home after being home and working in the family business and then going away to uni? How did you go? How did you go about that transition?

Hamish Brett: Yeah, as soon as the exams were over, Sam, I was, if I had an exam that, that afternoon, I'd be in the car at three o'clock next morning heading home to get back during holidays and all that sort of stuff. Um, yeah, it was, it was, it was good. [00:05:00] There's a lot of fun down there, but, um, Cost you a lot of money too.

Um, yeah, and, and it was a big learning curve and it was the vet side of it. It was, it was, it was a pretty full on course. Yeah. You have to, you have to do a fair bit of work for 

Sam Fryer: it. 

Hamish Brett: So I was glad when it was over, put it that way. 

Sam Fryer: So definitely couldn't take the bush out of the kid anyway, by the time they set you down there.

Hamish Brett: No, no, I was, I was not, I was known for the quicker skinner of dogs down there anyway. It's a. Because we weren't allowed caterpillars, greyhound dogs at the start. We had to skin them and pull all their muscles and everything else apart. Everyone, everyone wanted to be in my team because I was the quickest at skinning them.

But yeah, got that from skinning dingoes, I suppose. And Charters Towers. 

Sam Fryer: Useful skill. ish. Um, yeah. You might need to fill in a few blanks here for me, but you came, did you come back home and [00:06:00] worked as a vet in the area before going away to Darwin or what was that, what was that like, those steps towards heading towards Darwin and eventually setting up your own vet clinic?

Hamish Brett: Um, in my final year, I wanna. Scholarship with the sort of ag department and they placed five people with in, in areas of where there was shortage of vet supplies or vet supply, vet people shortage of, um, and I ended up going with Ed Butterworth, Northwest Vet Clinic at Mount Isa. So I, I was, I worked for Ed for a year and yeah, he taught me a lot of how to preg test and everything else.

So, and then after that year, I, I always wanted to sort of do, vet 40% and be at home 60%. So that's, that's when I went home and, and yeah, branched out from there. And gotta start with AA company at brunette. Um. Preg testing [00:07:00] and segregating a heap of heifers and then they, after that, they said, oh, you want to do the whole herd?

And I said, yep. And then Eva and Anthony, Lagoon Manager, came down and saw me at the same time. He said, you want to do our house as well? And I said, yeah, I'd love to. And they, AA, kick started me into that sort of stuff. And I used to live down there and backwards and forwards, obviously. And then we did a fair few of their other places over that, over the next fair few years.

And then, and then I, and then I was at home, obviously based at home and Georgia and I, Georgia, I'd met Georgia and then, um, yeah, we left home and went up to Darwin. That's 

Sam Fryer: a bloody big adventure. A bit of a, bit of a jump around there. Definitely covering a bit of country Hamish. Look, I'll probably come back to that, what you got up to in Darwin, the vet clinic, but [00:08:00] just to set the scene a bit more, because we are going to delve into a bit of succession discussion later on, and I just want to give all the listeners a bit of a background of your fam, of your family and the situation that was there.

So, Um, can you give us a bit of a background of your family operation up to the point of being at Charters Towers there? 

Hamish Brett: So, Sam, we, yeah, we lived Charters Towers. We had a place on the north side, Mount Iwini, it was called, and we used to have cattle on adjustment up, up at Georgetown as well. Um, yeah, we'd run that, and then, and then we ended up selling Mount Iwini and buying a place on the southern side of Charters Towers called Tamus, on the Cape River there, and we had, yeah, we had, it was a smaller block, and we sort of had cattle there, then we had cattle on adjustment throughout, sort of, on the coastal side of Rockhampton.

Um, for a number of years, and then the prices started going up and, and Dougal was doing [00:09:00] his, he was doing his, um, his flying and I was trying to get into vets and yeah, we, we, we got approached and we put her on the market and at the time we got a, we got a, um, um, the best price per acre going forward. Um, so we sold that and then we put all our cattle on adjustment everywhere and we lived in chartered cows.

Dougal and I lived in chartered cows, um, looking after them. Transcription by CastingWords And then, and then, yeah, I can remember I was, I think it was in my third year of uni at uni and we're looking at places in the country life, what you're doing, I saw a little ad, a little black and white ad and it was X number of cattle for X amount of land thrown in and I rang dad and showed him and he sort of read the same thing and he got his agent and they were on the plane the next day and yeah, came up and had a look at Waterloo.

Um, Went from [00:10:00] there. 

Sam Fryer: Was that a big jump for you guys? Like, you know, you hear this story, a lot of people going across to the territory and the opportunity that that happens, but was it a big step up for you guys as a family? 

Hamish Brett: It was, it was Sam, because to be honest, mate, it's always thought the territory, cause you only hear of Uluru or the Rock and Alice Springs and Otisora's or Desert, but, um, yeah, no, it's, it's, um, it's, it's a lot similar to Charters has been.

But it's just bigger and you just have more, you have to look after more staff and have more staff. And, um, yeah, probably the distance to get stuff in and out is, is a bit of a burden, but, um, it is a big step, but it's a good step. Yeah. 

Sam Fryer: Um, and what, what year was that when you guys moved across there to Waterloo?

Hamish Brett: I'm pretty sure it was, [00:11:00] we took over August, August or September 2004. Yeah. So we've been over here for 20 years. Yeah. Oh three or four it was. Yeah. 

Sam Fryer: And since that time, have you always been involved in the family while building your, um, while building your vet clinic? And, and along this time also, I know in the middle there we had the live export collapse, which I really want to hit on next, but how were you still, were you still heavily involved in your family's business during that period?

Hamish Brett: Yeah. Yep. So when we, um, I was obviously in my third year of vet when we bought Waterloo. Um, and we had, our company was Brett Cattle Company where mum and dad owned a third, Dougal owned a third, and I owned a third. Um, that's how mum and dad had set it up. So, um, yeah, we've pretty well, I've, I've finished my vet school off [00:12:00] and then obviously holidays or anything else, I was heavily involved up here.

Um, and yeah, it was just, uh, pretty well the year after that I left, did that year at Mount Isa and then, and then we moved, then I moved. Back to, back to Waterloo, like my older brother, he was running it, um, as such. And I was just sort of filling in the gap. Yeah. Can 

Sam Fryer: you, can you walk us through a bit of, as I mentioned before, when the live export ban came through and for those that aren't aware and really don't know much about the Northern beef industry, how much did that affect the Northern beef industry with the live export collapse?

Hamish Brett: Sam, it's, it's, we, we still see the effect today. Like it was. Problem up here mate is we're very isolated. We've only got pretty well one market. We do have other markets, but it costs us a lot [00:13:00] of money to get them to those markets. So we're, we're all heavily 99 percent rely on the live export industry. So when the government banned it that year was, was panic stations for everyone because everyone had all their sale cattle ready to go.

Um, Some hadn't even sold any for that matter and for you for your whole trade just to be shut down like that it was Yeah, pretty unforgiving and and even now my like you we see Indonesia They've branched into a lot of buffalo meat from India, which is taking a massive massive Numbers of live export that we should be Sending them.

Um, they don't need them anymore and and and I suppose it's a cheaper alternative for them for them to put into their back so balls, but um, and even with the government with the new [00:14:00] minister or the new Minister bloke that's getting in end of the year in indonesia. He said we we can't rely on australia for live export We've got to help start relying on other countries.

So and that's all stemmed from the live exports been 

Sam Fryer: And like you said, for you guys, that's your, really your one market is that live export. And, you know, I remember when it went around and when the, when it all got announced, I remember just some of the sad stories that you hear of people, um, you know, businesses under the pump, just going through hell just to try and get through that period.

And it was greatly affected the whole of Northern Australia. Um, and you guys have been heavily involved with that conversation, um, for the Northern Territory and right across really Northern Australia. But can you just go into a bit of detail about your involvement with being the spokesperson about that?

Hamish Brett: Yeah, there was a, um, [00:15:00] there are a number of the NCCA organised with a number of producers and, and people heavily involved in the industry. And they got, got a number of people together who wanted to be in it, um, to put this class action against. The government and they needed they needed a family front and we were already in it.

So they Approached obviously Dougal and Emily and then we had to talk about it family wise and said well We're going to dirty all our air all our dirty laundry. So, um For a good cause so we we said yeah We'll we'll help you out with that regard and that's sort of how we we became a lead litigant sam.

Um, for that reason alone and and And it was, it was mainly to educate the public as well. And it's just not corporations up here or that sort of stuff. There's actually a lot of people and families that, that it's hurt. And. And then I think [00:16:00] it went a long way, but it still hasn't finished yet. No. 

Sam Fryer: And I think it's good to keep highlighting it too, because a lot of people might've forgotten about it.

Um, and, and, you know, certainly a lot of us that went through it didn't don't forget. But also a lot of people weren't quite aware, it's like you said, they just have that thought in their head where it's, it is just corporations and big companies and they forget about the family aspect and touching on family.

One of the big things I'm trying to touch on this season is succession. It is a tough topic. It's a tough conversation to have, and it's been really interesting hearing from different people and how they've gone about it. And for you guys, when did you first start having a bit of a conversation around succession of your business?

Hamish Brett: Damn, it would have been, it would have been back when, when we were chartered powers, like Dougal and I, we never had wage, we were, we were always working at home and, and mum and dad with their, their accountant at the time said righto, well, let's [00:17:00] form a company and, and you can all have a third each. Um, that's sort of where it started.

Maybe we sort of left it at that. Um, then when my brother, when it really ramped up, obviously it was when my brother got killed in a, uh, Helicopter accident, um, that turned, turned, turned everything upside down. And I had to take a bigger step back into the company because at that time I was doing my vet side and just too concerned about it all.

Um, and yeah, that's, that's when it came in because I had Sam, I had Dougal's wife, Emily and her kids. And, and we, we originally, we, we'd sort of talk to her and she said, yeah, no, she'll stay. And do her part and that was going to be all good and then a couple of weeks later, I think she just, yeah, just realized that she didn't want to be there.

So. We had to, um, [00:18:00] scramble pretty heavily to, to, um, try and sort Emily out because she, she, she wanted to get a payout and, um, yeah, that's pretty well where our succession plan came from Sam and it, and it happened over two years. Two years, mate, it took us to pretty well sign off with them, Emily and the kids, um, and Jay.

And that's, that's how, that's how it all started. 

Sam Fryer: Hamish, I appreciate you sharing the insight and also sharing the story about your brother. Can you just, for those that aren't aware, can you give us a bit of a background of what happened with Dougal and the tragic passing of him? 

Hamish Brett: Yeah, yeah. No, it was just a normal day.

Mustering. Dougal, I think, was around picking up fences and all that sort of stuff. And he pulled up to a 44, um, which we [00:19:00] used out in the paddocks for fuel. And, yeah, pumped it. Pretty sure he pumped it dry. And obviously in a bit of a hurry or something and never checked water in the fuel. And probably got about 200 metres in the air.

And yeah, crashed. Yeah. So, and then he, cause we're, cause we're where we are, we're pretty isolated. So it took us a fair while to get the RFDS down, the care flight down. So, and we eventually got him into Timber Creek in another helicopter and flew him out of there, but he died on his way to Darwin. Yeah.

Sam Fryer: Thank you for sharing Hamish. Um, no, I appreciate that. And I think it's, it's interesting because at the time, like you mentioned, Dougal was, well, he was running or he was in charge of, of Brett Cuddleco, is that right? And you had at the time stepped out, were, um, [00:20:00] building up your own veterinary clinic. Is that right? 

Hamish Brett: Yeah, no, Sam, like with succession planning, mate, like it's, it's fine in a family, but then your family grows up.

And your sons and daughters have husbands and wives and, and a lot of the time the family dynamics changes. And, and in our, in our, in our family it did change, like I, like I used to be very close to my brother before he was married and, and I, I've, he drifted away from me and I probably drifted away from him too when he got married.

And, and that sort of started the, um, probably us not getting on as best we should. And, and then when I got my wife, um. We were sort of regarded as a bit of the enemy, as the enemy, and, and, and in the end, in the end, my father said to me, he said, oh, look, your, your vet business is costing our business too much [00:21:00] money, of which it wasn't, but I'll let him go with it, and he said, oh, it's best you, you, you go and do your own thing and, and paddle your own boat for a while, so, so, yeah, I started properly just going, doing the vet side, and then all the money that I was making out of it, I was keeping, um, whereas it used to just go into the family.

Um, , dad ended up saying, Oh, well, I think you and Georgia need to get off Waterloo and go and go and do your own thing. So, George and I, we, we moved to Darwin. We, we weren't doing.

We weren't doing any vet work. Oh, we're doing vet work, but no export work. And I rang up an exporter that I'd done a bit of work for. And I said, look, if I move to Darwin, is there any chance I can get some work off? And he said, mate, if you move to Darwin, I'll give you work, all our work. So that was very handy.

So we went up there and then another exporter realized I was up there and he said, [00:22:00] Here's a Christmas present. You can do all our work as well and I've sort of got going from there. So we're lucky. 

Sam Fryer: And that's how you built, obviously, you kept building the Vet Clinic outside of the family business and the success that you had there.

Is, or has it helped later on with this transition and I'm kind of going to go forward, but one thing I've talked about with a lot of people that have gone through succession and stuff like that, it's been interesting when they have gone outside of the family business, they build a successful business on the outside and come back in to help or buy into that family's business or buy out siblings.

Has that been the case? Has it helped with this transition through succession?

Hamish Brett: Sammy, if, if, if, if I, if I hadn't have done vet and had a, had a good business game, I don't know why we wouldn't have, we wouldn't have water learned today. 

Sam Fryer: Yeah. 

Hamish Brett: Um, it's helped [00:23:00] me out massively. My wife and I had helped us out to, um, buy it back. Um, cause when, when we, when, when Dougal died and Emily wanted out, we sort of, um, we weren't in the best position to be honest, that we were in a, we were in a.

With a bank that was charging us a lot of interest. And, and, um, yeah, we're, we're, we're in a pretty bad way, to be honest. And, and with the help of some good, good accountants and friends of mine, we sort of sold everything we had to that we didn't need. Um, kept the bedside going and just ran it lean, lean and mean.

And in the meantime, the cattle prices started to slowly go up and we ended up trading ourself out of it. And the, and we, during that time too, we were talking to a. One of the top four banks and we said, right, how can, how can we [00:24:00] get to you to bank us? And, um, and they said, right, we've got to be, you've got to have your debt at X amount and your succession plan.

You've got to have, you can be the only, you and George are the only two people on the title. We said, we're not doing family stuff. So that really kick started the succession as well. So, um, yeah, 12, 18 months later, we're at that position where we could, Go to that other bank and, um, yeah, the rest, the rest is sort of history.

Sam Fryer: Hey Mitch, you mentioned through this that you had obviously two years there where you worked out, um, following on from your brother's death. I worked out the planning and the succession of the business. Did you bring in any other outside mediators outside from your, like the team that you do have with your company?

Did you bring in like a specialist in succession along this time? 

Hamish Brett: We, we've got a really good accountant firm down in Adelaide. And [00:25:00] we, he, we were approached when it happened, we had a, we had a friend, um, and he used to be an accountant as well and he was affiliated with this accountancy firm and, and we just got talking one, one time I think it was at the NTCA before all this has sort of happened and, and they were the, they were the two, two men that helped, helped, helped Georgia and I and mum and dad out for months.

And when they took over all our books and yeah, did the succession planning as well. You definitely, you definitely need someone. I know that you definitely need someone. And then Emily had her side too. Like she had her lawyers on her side, looking after her, her slice of the pie. And, and, and in the end we came to an agreement and, and it was, it was a good agreement.

You know what I mean? It was fair. It was reasonable on both sides. Um, and we could all walk away and with our heads held high that Everyone has sort of got the [00:26:00] best outcome 

Sam Fryer: with that. You did say how much they help and so, and how important they are at helping. From your point of view, how much did they help keeping that emotion out of the conversation?

Um, along the signs, I know it would have been a bit taxing on everyone due to circumstances that went on, but bringing in that specialist team, did they help keep that emotion out? And did you go away to like, did you go down to South Australia to have these conversations? Or did you have them on property or what was the process?

Hamish Brett: No, we, we, we'd, um, we'd have them in, oh, they're in Kununurra, the lawyers, At Emily's lawyers or, or at home, but they'd always come up obviously before it for the initial big talk with the lawyers and all that with Emily's lawyers, obviously, um, they were good mother, let's see any boards. So, [00:27:00] if, if we went on off on a tangent or something or said, oh, it's not fair, then they'd pull us back in the lawn and say, well, come on, you got to think about that.

Your brother's kids and your nieces and nephews and everything like that. And that's where it became good because everyone got a good outcome with it. Um, and everyone got looked after, I suppose. And George and I were the ones that really, we were the ones that had the massive debt. And yeah, everything on our shoulders from then on.

But lucky for us, it sort of worked out a couple of years later. We could sort of get ahead. But, um, yeah, you definitely, definitely need a sounding board anyway outside your family to bring you back into reality, I suppose you could say. 

Sam Fryer: Ish. Thank you for being so open, um, and honest in this conversation.

I think it, I think it's important, and we chatted over the, [00:28:00] about this on the phone, how. No matter the scale of the operation, when it comes to dealing with family and business, it can be bloody tough at it. That's why it's so important to bring out an outside mediator and, and, you know, you've guys have had to face some incredible circumstances and devastating circumstances that have really forced your hand while the journey was tough.

Um, you know, you are on the other side, you've, you've made it through. Reflecting back, what could have been a couple of things you would have changed or done differently to help the process to where you are today?

Hamish Brett: Uh, Sam, I definitely know with my kids, mate, when George and I retire and, and, And have our assets given to our children, the succession planning will definitely have been done by then. Um, yeah, it's, it's, it's tough. Like it is tough on everyone. Like no one wants to talk about it. [00:29:00] Um, cause I don't want to upset their family members, but inevitably you're going to, um, yeah, it's, it's, it's hard and it takes longer than what you think.

It's not just a sit down talk and we'll do this, this, and this, cause it doesn't happen. There's always other things that come into play. Um, To try and get it properly right, but that'd be the big one might have the succession planning done before giving stuff to your kids. You know what I mean? As easy as you can anyway, and as fair as you can.

Sam Fryer: Hamish, it's, it's been a bit of a bit of a ride for you and your family. Um, and you know, like I said, we made it through the succession process. What is the situation day with Brett Cattlecoe and the Vet Clinic? Where, where are you at and what are you up to? 

Hamish Brett: Oh, the vegetable cleaning mate, we're still, we're still doing a lot of export work.

Um, [00:30:00] I've sort of got young kids now, so being away from them is a, is a, is a bit hard. I don't like it. I don't like it. Um, so I'm sort of, yeah, clearly pulling back on the vet side of it, to be honest. And I've got, cause I've got too much going on with Willowroo and Wardaloo and trying to look after them and trying to run them properly.

And, and, and then they're, that's who we are. We're producers. Um, and that's our bread and butter to be honest. So yeah, I know I need to spend more time, more time on the place than off them. So yeah, that's going forward, mate. We'll, we'll, um, Yeah, either try and try and get another vet to step in and keep running them or or yeah Or just just retire from that sort of work.

Um, but we'll we'll see what happens then. It's always hard But you know, it's always good to have that off farm income Yeah coming in to pay some [00:31:00] some bill Yeah, but it comes at a price too. 

Sam Fryer: And Tom, I don't think, I think time's one of those things. We never have enough of it for what we want to do. No, 

Hamish Brett: no, that's it.

Sam Fryer: Hamish, I heard you also have a restaurant or open up a restaurant. Is that correct? Is that the right? And, um, if so, how did you go about that and how did that add value to your business?

Hamish Brett: Sam, we, yeah, we, we, we opened up a restaurant, mate, or we took over one. And, um, gave it a crack for a couple of years. We sort of bought it and then a month later, COVID hit. So we sort of battling against it for the last two years, three years. And, um, and then to be honest, we've. We've, we shut it down end of September last year because the, [00:32:00] um, because of the crime, crime in Darwin and we were getting broken in, I think we got broken into and smashed glass, planes and windows 13 times in two weeks and it was, and then I was, my head manager bloke got smacked over there with a bottle, um, and George and I, we'd had enough of it to be honest, we just said no, no more, we're just, we're Um, we'll just go back, stick back to our roots.

So Sam, it's, it's, yeah, it's, it's on the market for sale or we'll lease it out. Um, at this stage. So yeah, we'll just, we'll just go back to our core business with that one, mate. So yeah, 

Sam Fryer: it's always good to hear. And thank you for sharing that because. I think everyone has some ideas, whether it's boxed beef or doing something like this, and it's always interesting to hear the wins and the losses of it.

Um, and you know, it's terribly sad to hear that about Darwin, but I have heard that the crime is, it's pretty bad there. We were there last year and we got, we got warned [00:33:00] to not go wandering in certain parts of the town at night. So, um, yeah, is it really as bad as they make out to be?

Hamish Brett: Yeah, it's them, it is mate, it is, it's um, the kids today and even the older people mate are just out of control.

They just don't, just don't seem to, seem to, they don't get pulled up for stealing. Like the other night there was four Indigenous went into a bottle and, Build a bloody Woolworths trolley up with Grog and took Grog with them and just walk straight out. No one cared. Um, so how do you stop it?

Like we need a government that's tougher on them because everyone's had enough. And there's so many businesses up here that have just shut down for the, for the meantime. Cause it's, it's not worth being open. 

Sam Fryer: That's devastating. Um, look, I'm going to change angle again, once more on you before we finish up this podcast, but, um, look, I know you're a passionate [00:34:00] Brahman man, and I'm going to give you a bit of a chance to plug them for a bit if you want.

But what makes Brahman the breed of choice for you?

Hamish Brett: Brahman's, Brahman's, um, we're up Northern Australia, mate. I don't think you'd get anything better. There's a, They're adaptable. When things are tough, you can throw a bit of lick at them and they'll eat anything on the ground from leaves to sticks to anything. They'll survive. Um, they're easy to educate and they're just a beautiful animal.

Really. I love looking at grey Brahmans in a green paddock. Or even a brown one. Um, and yeah, we we've had Brahmins for 30 odd years and, and there are a lot of, a lot of corporates up here going, putting Wagyu or Black Angus influence into their herds and, and yeah, I, I just, I just can't make myself do it yet.

Not that I [00:35:00] won't, not that I will, but I just, I've been getting, we've been buying. I've been doing Camley genetics for years now, and I've turned Waterloo herd around into a pretty handy herd of cows. And, and yeah, um, yeah, I don't think I want to change. 

Sam Fryer: There's, you are right. There's nothing better than seeing a mob of like beautiful Brahmin heifers on a green paddock.

Um, no matter where you are, you can't beat it. Hamish, you would have done a few courses in your time. Have you done any that really have stood out for you and helped you in your businesses?

Hamish Brett: They, um, To be honest, I haven't, mate. I've, I've obviously done VET and all that other stuff, but I've learned more, really, mate. And, I like listening. I don't say much at times, but I just listen, take it in, use what I want, um, disregard, if I don't agree with it, I disregard it, but [00:36:00] yeah, and just talk to people who, uh, Who are go getters in, in, in the industry and have got ahead and are doing, doing good things, you know, like learn off them,

Sam Fryer: What would be your one piece of advice for the next generation on their land ownership journey or life in general? 

Hamish Brett: If you work hard, success will follow. 

Sam Fryer: Yeah. 

Hamish Brett: You know what I mean? Yeah. I think if you, like, I mean, we, Georgia and I put in massive days, me being away with the vet side of it, building up a bit of equity in that to get hold of Waterloo, you know, if we, if I hadn't have done that, it'd be, we obviously, as I said before, we wouldn't have had a chance of the bank backing, backing us into buying the whole of Waterloo.

Um, 

Sam Fryer: hamish, thank you very much for your time this afternoon. I appreciate it. It was a bit of phone tag going on to you. [00:37:00] I know you've got a bid on, so I appreciate you putting a couple of minutes aside here and having a yarn to us. 

Hamish Brett: Yeah, no worries, Sam,