#34: Creating your own slice of paradise with Brad Inglis from Sturt Plains Brahmans

Welcome to Episode 34 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 Brad Inglis from Sturt Plain. Succession has been a big topic this season and today we chat about what its like coming into a family business and working through the process.

Throughout this Episode we also chat about.
- Coming into a family business
- Heading North
- Importance of Brahmans in Northern Australia
- Animal husbandry and how it can benefit your business.

You can find out more about Brad and Sturt Plains Brahmans below.
Sturt Plains Brahmans | Facebook

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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: Thank you very much for jumping on the place to call home podcast. Look to kick us off. And for those that don't know you, can you tell us a bit about yourself? Where do you, where are you from? What do you do? And throw in a few family stats. 

Brad Inglis: Yeah, Brad English from Sturt playing station where 360 kilometers South of Catherine on the Stuart highway.

Both sides of the highway where probably a, uh, end of a succession plan story with a long running family business, the Northern Territory, uh, cattle business the Dyer family is my in laws and my partner, Lisa, we run a thousand square kilometre subdivided block off the original Hayfield lease.

And I've got two kids, Jed and Charlie, they're six and nine and yeah, that's us. 

Sam Fryer: Definitely sound like you got a bit on at the moment, Brad, that time of life with those kids that age. [00:01:00] And have you had a pretty good season to start you off for the year? 

Brad Inglis: Unbelievable, mate. Yeah, we would, I've never seen, oh, well, it's as good as I've seen anyway.

And it's, it's fairly, fairly, fairly broad all the way across the territory. It's it's good to see everyone get a bit of a break 

Sam Fryer: and you don't originally come from the territory. You've had a bit of a bit of a tree change. Where did you originally grow up and go to school? 

Brad Inglis: Well, I grew up in Southern Sydney Engadine, a little town South of Sydney.

Went to a public school there, uh, went to year 10 and yeah, it was a bit of a change from here, mate. 

Sam Fryer: And You also, what did you do, get up to after school? You did a plumbing apprenticeship, is that right? 

Brad Inglis: Yes, that's right. I, I, I didn't get, oh, I sort of got asked to leave school. I it just wasn't for me, mate.

Yeah, my, my dad was a worker and I don't know. My sister's quite academic, but [00:02:00] Yeah, I don't know. It just wasn't for me. I just really loved being out and about and doing stuff playing footy. Just, yeah, couldn't sit still and then did the, got asked to leave pretty well. Started a plumbing apprenticeship and looking back, it's one of the best things I ever did.

Not so much for the skills I learned, but the people I learned and people I work with and the work ethic they taught me, even though it's you know, it's a bit different to what I'm doing now, but the fellas that I did work for and the, and the, you know, the backbone they made you get and, and yeah, it was looking back, never regret it.

Sam Fryer: So like, were you, like, did you finish your apprenticeship in plumbing or, and did you start contracting or working for someone around Sydney or what was your path there? Like, how did, how did you end up going from a Sydney boy with a plumbing apprenticeship to on cattle stations and even eventually the territory?

What was that path like? 

Brad Inglis: [00:03:00] I had a few rural ties through friends I knew or relatives. Mum, my mum was from Central West New South Wales and that's where they currently retired. On a little place, but I had some friends up around Deer and Bandy, that Bollon area that were like horsemen, cattlemen, camp draft fellows, drover fellows.

And I just. Ended up going out as a, like, you know, a young teenager, like, probably 13, 14 or something like that, 15, when I was doing my apprenticeship and then it became, I don't know, I just got a real interest in it. I did a few radios and that, that was sort of while I was doing my trade, trying to juggle that with playing footy and it came a bit too much.

You know, I just got a passion. I think the blokes that I knew and mates with still or one passed away, but they were, I don't know. I just, I think I just met the right blokes that bit of interest in a bit of, I don't [00:04:00] know, like growing up where I did wasn't, we had, you know, we lived on in like a back of our house, went down to a river and it was bush.

It wasn't too in a city per se, but. Yeah, I really, I just got that bug, mate. I got that bug of being out in the bush and got that bug for, for understanding animals, I suppose. And it's it's stuck with me ever since. 

Sam Fryer: And what made you move up to the NT? Did you go there young or how, how old were you when you first headed North?

Brad Inglis: Ah, just about 20. So I finished my apprenticeship. That was a, given the last sort of 18 months, I got into your feet a little bit. And yeah, I don't know, growing up and I think it was sort of, yeah, the, yeah, I don't know that that was pretty hard for me the last 12 months to finish it. Yeah. Credit to my dad who sort of steered me in the right direction.

Even though sometimes I was yeah, I don't know. It was a funny age, mate. You look back and you think to yourself, God, you're a peanut [00:05:00] sometimes. But nah, I give him credit to my dad. He's one of my best mates. And yeah, looking back, it was, it was tough, but I did finish it and then it was, yeah, I was about 20 and then came up and yeah, I had some, I just threw that deer and bandy sort of area, a couple of blokes, knew some people up here and it just sort of took off from there.

Sam Fryer: It certainly is a funny age in the young twenties. I think you, especially young man going up, like you think you're going to take on the world do you get a few reality checks along the way, which are always pretty good at a young age for that. But it definitely is. And I think 20 years old heading into a stock camp.

In the NT is probably the best place for someone that age and, and, and it seemed like you thrived in that situation and, and when you headed up North then and who were you, did you head up and where did you work at when you first headed into the territory? 

Brad Inglis: First work for Consolidated Pastoral Company and when Ken Warriner was running it and yeah, I went over to Avern, which is just sort of [00:06:00] west of Catherine a few hours.

Yeah. And worked there. It was great. Great people. Became, like, lifelong friends with a sort of a fella, head stockman fella. And then, yeah, he ended up starting at Newcastle Waters. And I went down there and worked with him for two or three years. And it was there the best time of my life.

Sam Fryer: Now, you, I think you mentioned on the phone that you met, that you met Lisa pretty early. Is that right? And then, and then she went away and came back or what was, how did that, how did that relationship kick off? 

Brad Inglis: Yeah, I was Oh yeah, I knew, I knew Lisa, I was great mates with her eldest brother who owned a helicopter mustering company, Helimuster NT.

Nick Dyer, absolute bloody champion and great mates with him. And yeah, we were just, cause we're out in the stock camp all the time. Like we were, we camped out from March to December, come in for the old camp draft and try not get [00:07:00] locked up or radio and, and let loose, but honestly, yeah. And then she went away overseas for a while.

And later, like, down the track, later down the track, yeah, it's sort of, I was just breaking in some horses there in Catherine, one wet season, sort of in between work, looking after a friend's place and yeah, she just crossed paths again and, yeah, lucky enough to yeah, fall in the situation we are and it's I don't, I sort of don't I sort of got to pinch myself every day because I wake up every day enjoying life and enjoying what we do and my family and my kids and Lace especially and it's fantastic.

Sam Fryer: That's awesome. It's I always, it was always a bit of a love story in all my episodes. So it's good to hear yours, Brad. Thanks for sharing it. And I think it's it's an interesting one. Cause the biggest thing I've been chatting about this season is succession. And you're going to come from a different angle, which I reckon is really [00:08:00] important.

And one, I haven't really talked about a lot and I've touched on it. I think only once or twice on the previous episodes, but it's this, Of coming into a family business where you're not brought up in, you know, you weren't raised in that situation. And it can be pretty confronting when you die and entering into a family business of, of your partners.

What was it initially like when you and Lisa got together and you're coming in, where did you start off working in, in, for her family? First up, or what was that situation? 

Brad Inglis: Yep. We, we Lisa and I one of the my mother in law and a brother were, were running a property. And I, we went there and just went there as a, it's probably a head stockman, I suppose.

We, we just mustered the property for that year. Yeah, it was, mate, it was it was very, very, uh, just to try and, like, they've been a successful business for a long time, been through all the hard times. 1974, [00:09:00] um, my in laws were great people, JD passed away a couple of years ago. Great man. You know, and it was just hard to, I'd say something from my experience and it was, they're pretty good.

They're pretty willing to take it on board. But you know, I found it really once Lisa and I, in the early days, it was okay. They're just mastering doing the, doing the bulk of the work and like, as in the hands on stuff out in the paddock. And that was okay. , like, like it was a difficult To end of that year, we the middle brother who, great bloke, he was running the property, he wanted to go away for a couple of years, so, we, the parents wanted to get a manager in, or the family decided to get a manager in, so Lisa and I, uh, went away for a couple of years.

At [00:10:00] the time, we wanted to put our hand up and have a crack, but, yeah, they decided to get a manager in, which was hard on, on, on us. On my mother in law just to manage that and manage, you know, the different sort of way of doing things. I suppose we went away for two years and looking back, it was the best thing Two years we could have had had some friends and staff follow us wherever we went.

It was went for, worked on a place west of Catherine for 12 months for John and Kate McLaughlin, who were still long time great friends. You know, John was an interesting character, great bloke, I got on with him you know he was just happy to see his cows get treated, treated how he wanted them and a bit of respect and a bit of care, um, great people, great friends still today.

Then, there wasn't much of a role there for Leith as [00:11:00] in, you know, she was in the camp, wah wah wah, do a few weaners, that was about it and then, I used to work for it Newcastle Waters. Brett Kraft, great bloke, best manager I've ever worked for, he rang and said he was up at Tipperary at the time and said, what are you doing?

I want you to hear, and we're like, oh yeah, whatever. So, I went up there and did what we did, Lisa got to run the stud there and help crafty and we jumped at it, you know, and Interesting place, big staff, you know, HR manager trying to tell me to talk to people nicely and you can't talk to people like that and, you know, young blokes that wouldn't get out of bed, you know, I'm a bit old school, but it was hard for me to sort of adjust to a bigger, bigger place with the, yeah, all the management, all the rules and regulations, all that kind of stuff, but it was pretty fun 12 months, mate.

And then yeah, we, you know, end of that year, the manager at the family property left or was leaving, end [00:12:00] of his tenure. And then we, we put our hands up to, to the family to come back and have a crack, what we proved ourselves for two years, running, running places, operations for other people. And yeah, I think that's, and that for Lisa's growth and say something different was pretty cool.

The two years that we had a great time. 

Sam Fryer: How much did that benefit you? Going away and how much did it benefit Lisa going away and I suppose seeing how the people operate proving that you can do it. How much did it benefit you at a personal level and professional level? 

Brad Inglis: Yeah, huge mate. It was, it was huge.

There was some times there, um, you know, that sort of upset us, upset us both. Like we have high, high morals I suppose when it comes to animals and, and how they should be treated, how they should be handled, how they should be, you know, a bit of respect. So it was, it was interesting, [00:13:00] but for Lisa's growth, like she even said, you know, like we talk about it even still today, you know, this time and that time when we did this and when we did that and just different styles of mustering, different styles of, Um, country, it was like, I remember a horse with near shit trying to cross the creek because where we are, there's no creeks or anything, so yeah, it was just, yeah, it was great.

And as a couple, I suppose, we grew up pretty bloody, I don't know, I explain myself, I was I don't know, bit, bit, bit bully, I suppose, not bully is in a bad bully, but is a bit headstrong and a bit, you know, You know, I knew what I had to do it, what I wanted to do, when I wanted to do it, and I probably went into the whole family thing, not like that, but it's hard to explain, but yeah, I think looking back as a couple, you know, it benefited us as a couple.

To go back into this [00:14:00] family situational hugely. 

Sam Fryer: And where was it at when you did come back, you come back after being away for a couple of years, where was the business at, at that stage? And what position were you guys at with it? 

Brad Inglis: Yup. So Lisa and I managed the whole operation. I think Hayfield's about 4, 000, 000 square kilometers.

So. We, we ran the whole operation with, with Lisa's mum still involved and, and but we had a whole day to day management. So that was pretty huge from the grading to the boards, to the mustering, to the weaning, to the sales. We had a few loyal staff that followed us, followed us there. I was sort of running the camp and doing everything and with Lisa and yeah, and One of the brothers wanted to come back, which was fine.

But yeah, we're still, we were sort of opposite ends of the scale. And so we sort of, [00:15:00] we're still great, we're great mates today. But we yeah, we, we sort of couldn't keep working together. So we, we put a proposal to the family, uh, to start a separate business unit under the same company down where we currently are now.

There was. 500 square kilometres that was totally undeveloped. There was no boundary fence, eastern side, there was nothing at all. So we split off on a map, you know, put the business proposal to the family. There was a quite a bit of doubt, quite a bit of, um, questioning that, you know, gave Lisa a lot of doubt because she respected her, her family and especially her parents so much.

But I could just say, and Lisa's elder, [00:16:00] Elle's brother, who owns a helicopter company, he was, he was fantastic. He just knew it would work and yeah, I don't know, we just tried to set it up so it was low cost, low input. Yeah, and that was, I'm probably going off the question a bit, but, 

Sam Fryer: no, it's, it's, it's.

It's interesting Brad, you can certainly see it in something that's come up a fair bit with people through when you start touching on succession is, is a couple of things. It's either the communication aspect and the different values that people have comes into play a lot with a lot of conflict within families or like not really, they might not see eye to eye on things and decide to go separate ways or do something different.

And the other one is also, I reckon is a big believe with the next generation of trying to Make something of themselves or create something to put their name to something and leave a legacy of their own in, in, in, in a family environment, which is pretty difficult at times. And that sounds like where you guys were at, you're having a bit of internal conflict, which happens in nearly all families.

[00:17:00] And also that trying to make an impact of yourself in the business. And just to take a back a step before you guys came back, what made you want to come back into the business after being away and, and managing these blocks? What was the driver for you guys wanting to come back into it? 

Brad Inglis: It's Lisa's home.

It's where she's born. Um, yeah. And probably the potential that Lisa and I really probably spoke about every day. And You know, I love this area mate. I spent a few years at Newcastle Waters, which is next door. And I always just, I don't know, a lot of people drive through here and think, Oh, yeah, all this bloody landscape and Bulwadi and all that.

And then there's just outside of the timberline, there's this beautiful open black soil plain that people get here and just freak out, you know. And I think, I think, [00:18:00] I think together, like Lisa and I lived and worked with each other. Every day since we've been together pretty well, and I don't know, I think I got her passion for, for this property and this area and the cattle, like her mum and dad have bought high grade Brahman bulls ever since BTEC.

And, and the, the, the passion I have and the passion that ours is, that's, you know, we absolutely love it. We, and I just, I think we talked about it all the time. I imagine if we could do that, imagine, imagine what if we could do with that area, you know, you could do this, you could do that. But, but down, down to it, mate, it's in Lisa's heart.

And yeah, I think it's bloody sort of, I've caught the bug, I think. 

Sam Fryer: Did you use someone outside to go through that process when you put this business proposal to the family and split off that section of the property? Did you use like an [00:19:00] outside mediator or someone like that to help you navigate that process in the business?

Brad Inglis: No, not really.

Lisa's mum is a very, very intelligent woman. You know, you know, it's fair to say that if it wasn't for Val that they wouldn't be through all the hard times and, but they were supportive. There was always that doubt, which, which hovered over Lisa's mind all the time. And I had reassurance, reassurance that.

You know, but no, we didn't mate. It was just probably once we sort of got into the succession later on that there was a third party that came in to mediate and to help them and structure things. 

Sam Fryer: So touching on that succession, when, when did that come into play? Is this after you guys come up with a business proposal or when did succession start coming up as a conversation in the family?

Brad Inglis: Yeah, probably, you [00:20:00] know, they're probably the early stages, I think. Looking back, I think, you know, maybe the family was just Lisa might marry someone and move somewhere or I think that was the original, you know, but to have the baby daughter come back and want to be involved is. As much as anybody in which is fair enough, I think through a little bit of a spanner in the works, but not in a negative way, but you know, oh, shit.

Right. How do we do this? You know, so credit to her family and her mom and dad, especially for structuring how they have and the fairness and the, you know, just there was no, none of that. It was all to be equal and, and and yeah, so. The succession, probably once we started to prove ourselves, succession got a bit fair dinkum.

Sam Fryer: Yep. 

Brad Inglis: I think there was always that thing, oh, well, if it doesn't work, it's probably a good spot to have a outstation or a, or a wiener camp or something like that. There was [00:21:00] always those sort of comments and we sort of deflated Lisa a little bit. Like, there was always that question of doubt straight up.

Not always, there was a lot of positivity. I shouldn't be so negative, but yeah, there was there was always that in, in the back of Lisa's mind. We're always. Probably more of a glasses high fool kind of guy, you know, I was just. I could see it, I could see that it would work. And I'm no businessman mate, but when it comes to cows and calves, I, I try and think I know what I'm doing.

To a point. Yeah. Yeah, to make, to make it viable. So, yeah, once we started to prove ourselves and, Made people go, oh shit, they're going alright. Oh, this is working. That's where succession got a bit fair dinkum. And then, yeah, we sort of, yeah, there's always the conversations of like, yeah, we all could stay together.

There's six, eight grandkids. 

Sam Fryer: Yeah, 

Brad Inglis: three, two brothers and a sister [00:22:00] with, they've got wives and I don't know, we don't want to have 10, 000 cows. We don't want to have a huge, we'd rather have 3000 cows run, you know, we'd rather just be Mickey Mouse. So I think that's where we were sort of thinking, you know, we could stay together.

We could do this, do that, but you're always thinking. Oh, they've done this or they've done that, or, you know, why are they doing this or why are they doing that? And we're just about at the end of the session pretty well now, it's pretty well finalised and mate, I feel better, um, I think we're all, I can definitely feel more positivity amongst everyone and it's it's a bit of a relief mate, it's pretty shit there at times hey?

Sam Fryer: Did you, and you mentioned that you did bring in someone or who did you bring in to help with the process of succession? 

Brad Inglis: A long time family accountant, um, and He's more of an advisor now, semi retired, but a great bloke [00:23:00] great friend. And then our accountants in Adelaide and, uh, yeah, obviously you had to get everything valued going through the subdivision process, which is an absolute nightmare because, um, the costs, all that, but yeah, it, it's, I think, I think my mother in law kept a fair eye check on them all and, and.

She was absolutely fantastic through it all, mate, to give her credit. 

Sam Fryer: And how much did it help bringing in an outsider to help with the process? 

Brad Inglis: Yeah, I don't think, I don't, we couldn't have done it. In house. No way. 

Sam Fryer: Yeah. 

Brad Inglis: Not, not from like the taxation and you know, all the nitty gritty stuff, but Yeah. I, I think and, and yeah, all the, all the, all that stuff that we didn't think about pretty well.

All the taxation stuff, all the, you know, oh, what are, what are words? Are there bloody, [00:24:00] you know, all the, all the little things that, yeah, we'll just split it up. That's easy, but there's a lot more to it. And, and you know, and, and to keep Lisa's mum. She wants to be involved. She doesn't want to, she doesn't want to just sit down and do nothing.

She's an active person. She's active in her mind. She's active everywhere. And to have her involved, so the structure of all that kind of stuff. And yeah, it was, but even just to have a yarn to someone, you know, there was sometimes at least, and I just needed to talk to, to our advisor and, you know, he was pretty cool dude, mate.

He yeah, he's, he's pretty good. Just to have a yarn to even, you know.

Sam Fryer: One of the, one of the things that I mentioned on the podcast is like the change in family dynamics, like the relationships between everyone through succession, you know, sometimes they're positive, sometimes they're negative.

Did you guys see much of that throughout the journey? 

Brad Inglis: At times it was, I'd say [00:25:00] frustrating when there was sort of a bit of lack of clarity, I suppose, very sometimes. Yeah, there was negativity for sure in the outcome of it all, which has been a good result. I can see a massive, uh, it's still, yeah, there's definitely more positivity than there was before we started secession, mate, and which is a great result.

And I think it's a load off everyone's chest and mind and we can move forward and Yeah, but yeah, definitely. It was a little bit of resentment for sure. And, you know, each couple struggled probably, uh, you know, especially the, you know, I feel sorry for [00:26:00] the people coming in like my brother in law's wife.

You know, it's pretty tough and yeah, you always got that cloud over you like, and I've had people put shit on me, mate. Oh, yeah, married into this, married into that, and I'm like, I'm not married yet. You know, being engaged 15 years, been too busy working and, and I don't know. Yeah, I, I, I definitely, there was some times there, mate.

I didn't want to even, yeah, see him or talk to him. But now it's like, probably seen him, seen each other more in the last, buddy, you Wilder than we ever have, which is, and it feels good. 

Sam Fryer: It's, it is a funny one. Like I even know personally that like we're, we're still in the midst of it. And Like how much it's changed the way we operate as a family.

And I just, the biggest thing I want is just to get through it, like to get over it, to get past it, because I, cause you hear this story all the time. It's like, you know, when you're in it or people that are still working out, they don't know what's going on. It's so much tension. There's so much fiction.

And then almost it's like a bubble. [00:27:00] It's like everyone kind of, all right, that's done and dusted. But let's you know, whatever happens, it might be some resentment or something afterwards, but at least it's done. Like we know what's going on, but when you're in this gray area and you don't know what's going on.

It almost, that's what causes a lot of friction with families. And it's frustrating to see, especially when families are really close and they, and they do start falling apart a bit and, you know, so, so with you guys, so going from where you were at the start and to ending now, where you are with the subdivided, the block that you guys split up, did you think you'd ever end up in this situation when, when you first started out?

Brad Inglis: Oh, no, no, no, not at all mate. That's a good question. Um, not really mate. When we first started out, I like We just loved our horses and cows mate. We didn't, we weren't thinking of kids. We weren't thinking of anything. We were just, we were just having an absolute [00:28:00] ball with some great people. And yeah, I think Lisa's mum and dad never really over capitalized anything, which to their credit, you see a lot of people in the last 30 years who have spent a lot of money here and there, you know what I mean?

So they, Yeah, how they operated, man. Yeah. And that's, I think, I think once Lisa and I got, I don't know, two or three years in that's where the conversations are like, oh, you know, the potential for home without going mad. Like I said before, that's. Yeah, I think that's where we sort of started to think, Oh, before that, not at all, mate.

Nah, shit. 

Sam Fryer: Yeah. 

Brad Inglis: But he I was happy just chasing cows around, mate, to be honest. I loved it. [00:29:00] 

Sam Fryer: Well, it's been a bit of a tough journey and succession is a tough journey for any family that goes through it. You are, well, you're nearly on the other side, like you mentioned. You've nearly all wrapped up the succession process.

Reflecting on that, What are some of the things that could have helped you at the start of the journey when you first started kicking off the session conversations with the family that you guys could have done or you yourself could have done? Oh,

Brad Inglis: probably probably sat back and, Oh, I don't know. Probably sat back and listened a bit more mate. I,

I was I don't know, not angry at all, but I, I don't know. I just had Lisa's back and yeah, I just struggled with the some, I struggled probably, I don't know, keeping cool a little bit and [00:30:00] yeah, looking back, but that's growth as you get older, I suppose you get wiser and you, I don't know if I think I struggled with saying, not saying hang on.

I struggled with, yeah. When something I didn't think was right, I couldn't sit there and, uh, I couldn't, I couldn't, it'd just dwell on me, mate, and I couldn't, I don't know, I grew up with a few old blokes, mate, but my dad especially, like, I don't know, have a bit of a backbone and, you know, something's not right, say it, you know what I mean, like, and I, I, I did struggle with that and looking back, I should have, should have probably you know, kept it in my mind a little bit more and, you know, dealt with it.

That makes sense. 

Sam Fryer: I certainly does. Sometimes the word you, you can't take a word back once it's put out there in the world. And especially in those type of meetings like that, you sometimes I know I've done it where I've said something and [00:31:00] then five minutes later I was like, I could have just swallowed that word, that sentence.

And he did not mean to say that one. But Brad, I'm going to change angle a bit because I like, I appreciate you sharing it. It's a tough one talking about succession, but I think it's, it's important to hear it From, especially from, like you said, like, you know, you've, you've come into, into a family and there's lots of people out there that are in the same situation.

But going past that, what are you up to these days? What's the, what does it look like for you at, at Sturt Plains there? 

Brad Inglis: Mate, we, yeah, so we're just high grade Brahmin, grade Brahmins. Run, you know, two and a half, three thousand cows sort of varies up and down a little bit. We breed bulls, commercial bulls.

We also run a selling and dipping facility because we're right on the tick line. So we've got a main set of yards. He's a kilometre off the highway, Stuart Highway, and we yeah, we dip and spell a lot of other people's cattle, so that takes up our time, and yeah, [00:32:00] just, yeah, keen to, little bit more development, not too much like, you know, we come here in 2013, came here in 2013, we camped in a caravan for seven months with a sat phone for 18 months.

A civil contractor in Catherine, who passed away now, Rob Suffren, absolute legend. He give us a big camp trailer to live in and, you know, we had, Lisa's dad bought a D4E in 1979 and we cleared the little area here that Lisa's brother flew me over and said, that's where I'd build a house. And Nick Dyer pointed it out and we're four kilometres off the highway and yeah.

Yeah, I'm sick of putting pickets and bloody doing fences, I'll tell you, but it's been a bit of a journey and every now and then we pull out the book and have a look back through them photos where we camped in the scrub and sitting on a little D4E clearing all this area and doing the road and it sort of makes you think to yourself, we haven't done too bad.

Sam Fryer: [00:33:00] He said, so they have it. It's good to reflect too. I think you kind of forget how much you do or can get done until you start looking back at photos and see the changes over time that go on. And look Brad, you're, you're very passionate about as animal husbandry, and especially we were talking earlier on the phone about changing this paradigm.

People have of like the wild North. I'd almost say like people think they can head up North for a, for a Bull catching, which still hap, which still happens in this, there's nothing wrong with that, but I think there's parts of the North and Northern Australia that operate a very good business that, that, you know, they're very, very well run businesses that are very organized and, and, you know, they either rotationally graze or they have good animal management and stuff like that.

And I don't think that's showcased enough. So can you expand a bit more on, on how you guys are helping change this view of others and what you guys are doing to change that paradigm? 

Brad Inglis: Yeah, so, um, [00:34:00] fortunately, I think, like I said earlier, I think I just work for the, a few right people who just help me understand animals, I suppose.

Not that I know, I don't, by no means we're perfect, but you know, everyone talks about running a business and efficiency and productivity and all this sort of stuff. That's fantastic. But luckily enough where we are, we don't have any surface water, so we control our waters, we trap our cattle, we walk, we don't have a bike, we don't use an air helicopter, nothing wrong with helicopters.

But when I took Lisa away from them a couple of years, I was seeing these paddocks getting mustered and I'm like, ugh, this is This is all and all I think about mate is the count calf. I don't think about, you think about, you know, this or that or chopper hours or whatever. All I want to do is make sure that little calf stays with its mum [00:35:00] and simple shit to a lot of people.

So, we do that. We don't have any other company. We walk. We're not in a rush. We take our time. I try and educate these young people to say. Yeah. How good's that cow? Like they come through the draft, mothered up to a point. That's what I try and achieve, mate. I, you know, there's so much talk about bull selection and regarding more waters and, and, you know, what breed you should have and all that kind of stuff.

But when it's the basic fundamentals of, Animal husbandry, especially stockmanship and in cattle, no one really talks about the poor old cow, do they always talk about the horse or their horse, their mind of their horse or their mind of their dog or their staff mind or this or that, but I don't have too many conversations where someone talks about the psychology of a cow, the mum, the female and, I think there's so much more [00:36:00] productivity to be going in Northern Australia through the basic management, whether it's mustering practices or nutritionally, you can talk about dingoes eating your calves all day, but mate, I think, I think, uh, mustering practices, You know, everyone's, you know, I've got my brother in law in a helicopter company, mate, isn't it?

There's some, even they think, I don't know why more people aren't doing what you're doing. And it seems to be this big rush mentality, this big harvest sort of, kind of style, which not everyone, there's some fantastic operators up here. Don't get me wrong, but I'm talking across the board. And we, from where we started mate, to where we've set this place up, we haven't over capitalised, we've just made it easy.

So I can have three or four staff permanently, we do the whole lot, we dip 50 or 60, 000 out of other people's, and staff getting staff is hard to do mate, it's, it's [00:37:00] really difficult. Like for an example, I, We had cattle in the yards the other day, just a little mob, and a girl that had worked, she's a great girl, she worked on some place that all got wagyu's and crossbreds and all was fine, that's fine if you're Mark Savarese, and the first thing she did was get in that yard, hand up on the top row, and her eyes are as big as they go, she goes, every time I saw a Brahmin they'd try and kill me, and the first thing I think, this poor girl has gone to work somewhere, and I'd hate to think how they're handling cattle, and what are they, what are we teaching these kids?

You know, all we're teaching them is, is fear and stress and, you know, no one's, no one's learning, I don't know how to understand a cow, it's all seems to be a bit, oh, I don't know what the word is, but a bit, a bit crazy, mate, it's carnage almost, some, some places and this rush, rush stuff and you know what gets the blame?

The poor old [00:38:00] ramen cow, mate, and, you know, I don't know, and, and, and end of that day, she said to me, she goes, And like, they were like, the first 10 minutes, they were on edge, they were shitting themselves. And after that, they're like, we've never seen cattle get handled like this. And I go, it's enjoyable, isn't it?

And it's enjoyable for me, it's enjoyable for you, it's enjoyable, more importantly, for that cow and calf. And, and, and across Northern Australia, like I said, mate, the old Brahman, it gets, it gets the brunt of it all, just through, and it's like, yeah, people, you get it, you get a horse off someone, oh, it's mad, but I guarantee you that person pretty well stuffed that horse up 

Sam Fryer: prior, 

Brad Inglis: so, yeah, anyway, I could go on all day about it, I'm pretty passionate about it, but when I see someone like that gal go, we've never handled cattle like that, and I think it's, you know, But that gives me a kick, mate.

I really, really enjoyed. And I, I don't know, I love seeing [00:39:00] people work here for a while and then they might leave or go do something else and they, they ring me and the first thing they do and I know the poor buggers because they, they go somewhere and it's a bit harder and it's a bit faster and it's a bit this and that and they hate it.

And it's good because you're giving these people these passion for these animals. Whether it's a horse or whether it's a cow, but yeah, it's I don't know. It could be more, more done in that area, I reckon, hey, like, and that's why I've seen it. Yeah, I know. When I was younger, if you disrespected something, you'd, you'd, I don't know, get a churn up, but yeah, I don't know.

I love, I love my cows, our cows. Lace is the same mate and it's really enjoyable. 

Sam Fryer: I think it's, I dunno, I'm, I'm not, I'm not too, I'm only 30, 34, 35, turning 35 this year. But I, when I first went out to work, I worked at a place called Boomera. The manager there is Fred [00:40:00] Sheppard and he was incredible with how we work cattle and how slow, patient, easy.

Like, you know, we'd pull up at a water, wait for everything to mother up. You know, before we've walked them on and every, and, and really you talk to some people that go out, they don't have that wisdom that's really taught to them by the managers or head stockman. Like, you know, there's that, I know when I was working in territory there, there was, The much younger, a lot of the people that were running the camps or managing the places that were kicking around.

And I think that, that lack of wisdom that we, that was, that was pretty evident in the way that was going on in some of these places, on some of the camps that you see, like when I first left school, I was, I went up there to Boomer and it was like Fred or Donnie Turner were always with us. These two legends of that area.

And we'd spend that much time at the same thing. You've got to have respect your cattle, respect your horse. Like, they were like the two things cause that we just had, So much respectful and so much time for, I think there's a missing gap in a lot of places where they are trying to just punch the numbers through [00:41:00] and they do kind of lose that animal husbandry.

Like that's what animal husbandry gets lost in the process because they're so busy trying to punch the numbers and get them through without focusing on the welfare of the animals that they're using. And it's sad to see because Like to hear a story like you said about that girl, that's, you don't want, you don't want to hear that because, you know, it's not, most of the time it is not the animal, it's, it's the environment that she's, she's in that's caused that problem.

Yeah, 

Brad Inglis: that's it. I'll listen to a bit of a brief podcast about it was one of them pretty popular ones of Beef Central and, you know, and the push of the Wagyu or the push of the Angus in the north, so much more productive and, and mate, I don't know. And that's the problem. What do I say? And I know this might sound a bit funny to some people, but these land values in the last 10 to 15 years have attracted.

[00:42:00] Investors, investors attract consultants, which aren't all bad. Don't get me wrong. There's some good ones, but a lot of these businesses are run from Brisbane or Sydney or Melbourne, right? They get this balance sheet, they get these weaning percentages and that, and the first thing they do is go, it's got to be the bulls.

They don't think of overstocking. They don't think of management. They don't think of how that place is mustered. And all these places put more and more and more whitelers in. Make it harder and harder to muster for a baby calf, right? We get a paddock, we look at a paddock, the first thing I do with that paddock is like, how am I going to get those cows to a yard with four or five people?

And just so easy for the calf. And, you know, people until, like our accountancy, they sat us down and were like, we can't understand because they're from Adelaide. We can't understand how this little place here operates the way it does. We've got some bigger [00:43:00] clients with big numbers. And we just can't work it out and they wanted to go for a drive just to see what was different.

It's not rocket science, mate. It's like when we, when we walk, you know, we'll mother up, like you said, cut out this baby calf. It's not going to do 16 or 

Sam Fryer: 18 Ks. 

Brad Inglis: And by the end of the day, I say to them young people, I say, right, there's 12, 000 cars back there. Happy as Larry. They're right. They're going back to water.

And if you're walking along today and you had 15 grand in your back pocket, would you just throw it on the ground? No? No way, I wouldn't do that. I said, neither do I. And I don't know. Every calf matters to me, mate, whether it's a cow, Whether it's a I don't know, just a caring thing or what, but it's also in me pocket because that mindset of that cow is pretty bloody important, I believe, whether it's reconception, whether it's mothering up, [00:44:00] whether it's, You know, that in the paddock, happy, happy and going forward.

And yeah, we had a, we had a bag tour come here last year, come out and they got out of the ball. I hadn't weaned there yet. They're pretty big weaners and cows are good. And these people from, it was so good. These people from all around the East Coast, Central Queensland, everywhere got out of this bus.

And they, the look on their face, mate, they were, they could not believe it. And, and, and for Northern Australia. I don't know. This, this, that's what I've sold cattle and they go, Oh no mate, we're not going to buy territory cattle. There it is. There that you go. Oh, you're just trying to change that, trying to change that stigma and show people that, you know, you can be successful and just with a bit of basic, basic stockmanship and nutrition cause.

Sam Fryer: So moving forward, Brad, what would and touching on the breed there, like you [00:45:00] mentioned, why Brahmins? What makes Brahmin the breed of choice for you? 

Brad Inglis: I think I just like in my early days, I think, you know, I just worked for them a couple of blokes who are passionate about it and bred, bred like cattle, stud cattle.

And I just made, I don't know, I've walked different cattle, I've mustered different cattle and where we are, it's the market, definitely, probably number one. But I'll tell you what, you walk a nice mob of educated Brahmin cattle, doesn't matter if they're weaners, doesn't matter if they're cows, doesn't matter what it is.

It's a pretty cool day. You can, you can cover some country and just their mindset and their forage ability. They'll, they'll live in areas that, and do well. And yeah, I just, and they're smart, mate. And I sort of try and that's what I try and say to people. See, see that [00:46:00] these cows are a lot smarter than you are.

They know exactly what's going on and they're just a beautiful animal mate and and they're getting better and better and better. Probably, they're funny. The Brahmins are so one end of the other. There's like, you know, you get something that's out of the hills with a bit of a long ear and they call it a Brahmin.

Where have you got some beautiful cattle at the other end and you've got, yeah, it's a, it's a funny, it's a funny thing, mate, but I'm, you know, I just want to let, I don't know, there's some good operators around and yeah, I, this whole stigma of Brahmans aren't productive and Brahmans aren't this and Brahmans aren't that, I say to them people, have a look at what you're doing first, that's my opinion and, you know, we're, we're proving it.

Sam Fryer: Brad, I appreciate your time today and I always wrap up the podcast interview with a couple of questions. So I've got three questions I always wrap up with. And the first one is, have [00:47:00] you done any courses that you'd recommend people out there to have a crack at? 

Brad Inglis: I'll probably just did a bit of a horse, horse school years ago and ended up going and living there at times with Jeff and Vicki Turnby from Townsville.

They are, they are fantastic people. Yeah, it's just what they taught me. Probably more in life than, than than, than horses. I still do this today, but it all relates mate, it all relates to cattle and just how they were and how they worked people, how they got around people, how they, you know, everyone's different and that probably looking back and every now and then I just think about them.

They're fantastic people. 

Sam Fryer: Have you had any mentors that have helped you along your journey? 

Brad Inglis: Not, not really mentors mate. Probably. Probably a few old fellows that [00:48:00] they're just, you know, I really respected what they did and how they did it. You know, some come across real cranky blokes that no one reckon they're all arseholes or this or that or, but when you get to know them, they're pretty good.

Like, you know, there's a couple of blokes there, like Brett Crafters at Newcastle, he's a great mate, still is. Gavin Ode who managed Wave Hill for 18 years. I expect what he did there and the herd that he built, it was a pretty amazing herd of cattle. Yeah, not really, a few old fellas, that's about it, me dad's, me dad's up there.

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

Brad Inglis: Go and have a couple, cup of tea with some old blokes. And listen to them and learn from them. And listen to try and get some yarns out of them. Some of them don't want to open up, but if you humbug them enough, they'll, they'll do it mate.

Because you know, it puts you [00:49:00] in, puts you back in on your ass a little bit when you, when you sort of listen to some of the stories and how they did it and what they had to go through. Yeah, and, and I don't know, get rid of the quad bikes with bull bars and p caps, get a, get a saddle and a bridle and a horse plate.

I don't know. Those, like you said, mate, these skills are dying and, and, and, and I think we need to have some, you know, clean cut young fellas and get a haircut, I reckon. And I'm fair dinkum, but I, I, I'm, I'm, I don't know, we need, we need some people coming through this industry that, that are going to improve it and, yeah. Animal welfare is a huge, huge thing, mate. And you know, everyone can say they're doing a great job, but there's so much more to be done, I think. 

Sam Fryer: Brad, thank you very much for your time today. It's been a good yarn and I've got a fair bit out of it too. So I appreciate it. And thank you very much.

Brad Inglis: Cheers, mate. Thank you.