History of Karunjie Station
Historically, Home Valley Station has been in existence as a pastoral lease since 1957, however it has not been settled as a working
cattle station for all of this time. In fact, locals who knew the country and its characters from this time would say those who have
tried make Home Valley viable over the past 20 years have solely been interested in running it down as a tax dodge. Pastoralists of the
day would also add that Home Valley was well known as a "poddy dodger's*" corner (*a cattle rustler, one who steals unbranded calves)
much like its neighbour Out Station, Durack River Station. Hence, the history we have selected to focus on is that of Karunjie Station.
Providing a glimpse of the pastoral industry in Western Australia and that of Karunjie Station (Pentecost Downs) is the story of David William Rust (1892-1992). Born in Scotland, David Rust emigrated as a young man and enlisted in the 10th Light Horse Regiment when Australia entered the Great War. On his return from service overseas, he worked in the pastoral industry before taking on his own cattle station, Karunjie - which adjoins Durack River Station to the East and sits Southwest of Home Valley Station.
He died in 1992 without descendents and his personal items and photo collection was donated to the Battye Library by Elizabeth Durack. From the start of his tenure of managing the cattle operation throughout the 1960's Mr. Rust employed mostly native workers of the region, building a close bond with tribal elders and their families. He smoked a home-made clay pipe and kept a tea towel with a Scottish motif which no doubt reminded him of his origins. Other items handed into the Battye Library from Mr. Rust's collection included an address book, letterbooks, postcards, detailed lists of his employees, a bushman's first aid kit and a sketch by Elizabeth Durack of Bill Lavery and the Station secretary.
Some of the 51 images have been provided by the Battye Library for use on our website, please enjoy!
Karunjie Station is owned by the Indigenous Land Corporation. Its tourism services are now cared for by Home Valley Station managers. Simply ask your hosts at Home Valley Station for more information about Karunjie Station when visiting Home Valley. While most of the structures have either been partly or completely destroyed by floods and termites, our tour guides can certainly point out some frail but still existing structures and places of interest when you are touring this area.
Today and the future, combining the management of Home Valley Station, Durack River Station and Karunjie Station makes for a diversification success story!
The ILC and Indigenous-held pastoral leases in WA. By Allan Padgett, Manager, Western Division, Indigenous Land Corporation.
The Indigenous Land Corporation (ILC) is an Australian Government statutory authority with national responsibilities to assist Indigenous peoples to acquire land and to manage Indigenous-held land. Thus, the ILC has two major statutory functions - land acquisition and land management - and consequently has a substantial intersection with WA's pastoral estate.
The ILC has bought ten pastoral leases in WA and is on the verge of acquiring an eleventh. Of these ten, only three have been divested to Indigenous ownership, leaving seven under the direct management of the ILC. The divested properties - including Cardabia and Mulgul Stations - are both within the "Remediation Program", itself a result of a long, hard introspection in relation to all properties acquired nationally from 1995 to early 2001. This process led to a decision by the ILC Board to focus on sustainability (in both environmental and economic terms), willingness, capacity development, governance, property management planning and active partnerships with government and private enterprise in the pursuit of measurable and durable benefits to people.
An outcome intrinsic to this review was that access to ILC assistance is by way of application, along one of the four benefit streams identified in our governing legislation - cultural, social, environmental or economic. In February 2004, the Board issued a revised National Indigenous Land Strategy which makes allowance for "Strategic Investments", an ILC-driven process where the organisation itself decides there is merit in a particular land acquisition or land management project, and "Joint Arrangements", which can be undertaken with government and/or non-government organisations. Significant social and cultural benefits must be demonstrated as being achievable through this process. A key outcome is the generation of wealth through ongoing employment. The Board has instigated a contract period of three years between acquisition and divestment where the title-holding body must demonstrate its capacity against an agreed and detailed work plan. The latter is driven by mutual obligation and characterised by capacity development and demonstrated, ongoing commitment.
What does this mean for ILC pastoral leases?
For pastoral leases, what all this means is that the ILC now focuses on building the capacity of people to properly manage their pastoral lease business, with a view to enhancing productivity, rangeland management, individual and group skills, identifying diversification options and undertaking property management planning. The Board has recently committed to increasing tourism opportunities and has instituted a four-member expert, external advisory panel to assist in this regard. As a practical example, significant funds are currently being invested in Home Valley to encourage greater visitor usage through improved and more welcoming facilities, and to increase the scope of activities available to travellers. Infrastructure upgrades are being assisted through short-term fencing contracts with employment and training provided for inmates from Wyndham Regional Prison, and with the Wyndham CDEP workforce in a partnership with Joorook Ngarni Aboriginal Corporation. The ILC's Business Enterprise Committee has decided to focus on a tourism enterprise to service visitors to the area and to work with traditional owners to establish jobs and training opportunities. A Shared Responsibility Agreement is being considered in order to bind Australian and Western Australian Government agencies into a coordinated provision of capacity development.
Practical examples
Karunjie and Durack River Stations provide examples of how the Remediation Program works in practical terms. Members of Nyaliga Aboriginal Corporation are working closely with the ILC to identify and institute a small, manageable and viable cattle enterprise. This is being assisted through participation in the 2005 muster, training, mentoring and upgrading the cattle herd using stock from Roebuck Plains. Kimberley Group Training has been contracted by the ILC to provide "work ready" and occupational health and safety training for Nyaliga Aboriginal Corporation members who will be working on the muster. There are also plans for the construction of two sets of permanent cattle yards on Karunjie and near Jack's Waterhole. It is likely that small-scale tourism investment will occur, including at Jack's Waterhole where previous facilities were washed away completely in the 2003 floods. Planning a muster at Durack River Station. Meanwhile, the businesses at Roebuck Plains Station and Myroodah Station continue to prosper, with approximately 21,000 head of cattle on the former and 14,000 on the latter. The ILC has a policy to employ local Aboriginal people as much as possible, and to enhance their capacity to manage cattle and the business through formal training programs and on-site mentoring.
Work on other Indigenous pastoral leases in WA
The ILC is involved with many land management projects on Indigenous-held pastoral leases in WA, other than those acquired and/or held by the ILC, including for example a fencing project to protect remnant biodiversity at Jabbadar Pool on Peedamulla Station; joint funding with FarmBis of a Grazing for Profit course at Lake Argyle for Kimberley Indigenous pastoral leaseholders; a group-based planning exercise for Pinjin Station; and purchase of a water pump for Frazier Downs.
Projects in the pipeline include a joint weed management program for WA's only Prickly Acacia infestation, located in the floodplains to the north of Home Valley Station.
Indigenous management support
In May 2005, the Board decided to extend for another five years a program which has proved successful in improving cattle businesses on Kimberley pastoral leases over the past two to three years. This project, the Kimberley Indigenous Management Support Service, provides direct services to Aboriginal-owned pastoral leases and works to increase the profitability and sustainability of these businesses through improved animal husbandry, herd management, livestock marketing, and the adoption of effective business management and planning systems. This joint ILC - Department of Agriculture project employs six officers on a full-time basis, including two Indigenous trainees. The KIMSS was joint winner of a Premier's Award for Excellence in 2004, and was recognised by the United Nations at an international conference in Cardiff as being unique in the world in its approach to generating capacity, sustainable operations, effective governance and wealth, and therefore, ultimately, independence.
Indigenous training In 2004, the ILC conducted a Scoping Study for the proposed Roebuck Plains Indigenous Pastoralists Training Centre. The ILC is currently working closely with the Rubibi traditional owners, Australian and Western Australian Government agencies, peak bodies, the Kimberley Land Council, and the PGA's Kimberley Division, to bring together a first class facility that is sure to add, over time, considerable value to the management of Kimberley pastoral leases through development of skills and enhanced pastoral management practice among Aboriginal people. The facility is expected to take students from other regions and to include a proportion of non-Indigenous students. The WA Department of Education and Training and the Australian Government's Department of Education, Science and Training are expected to play leading roles in the development of the training centre.
ILC interacting with pastoral industry
Meanwhile, the ILC is a member of the Western Australian Pastoralists and Graziers Association and a member of the Pastoral Committee, and regularly attends State and Regional conferences. The ILC enjoys its relationship with members, particularly through the Pastoral Committee, where frank and open discussion enables issues to be debated and solutions proposed. The ILC is keen to work closely with pastoral leaseholders throughout the rangelands to build better relationships and develop a common understanding of ongoing issues in relation to management of pastoral leases in WA, and to jointly seek solutions to these. The ILC aims to generate substantially improved business and land management practices on Indigenous-held pastoral leases, and to foster and facilitate exchange between Indigenous landholders and others who see benefits in working together in a catchment, landscape, enterprise and good neighbourly sense. It remains clear to the ILC that while we have made and will continue to make substantial progress, there is a long road ahead. We welcome our partnerships with Indigenous landholders, the Pastoral Lands Board, the Department of Agriculture, the Pastoralists and Graziers Association and others, in determining a best practice pathway for all Indigenous-held pastoral leases throughout Western Australia.
Providing a glimpse of the pastoral industry in Western Australia and that of Karunjie Station (Pentecost Downs) is the story of David William Rust (1892-1992). Born in Scotland, David Rust emigrated as a young man and enlisted in the 10th Light Horse Regiment when Australia entered the Great War. On his return from service overseas, he worked in the pastoral industry before taking on his own cattle station, Karunjie - which adjoins Durack River Station to the East and sits Southwest of Home Valley Station.
He died in 1992 without descendents and his personal items and photo collection was donated to the Battye Library by Elizabeth Durack. From the start of his tenure of managing the cattle operation throughout the 1960's Mr. Rust employed mostly native workers of the region, building a close bond with tribal elders and their families. He smoked a home-made clay pipe and kept a tea towel with a Scottish motif which no doubt reminded him of his origins. Other items handed into the Battye Library from Mr. Rust's collection included an address book, letterbooks, postcards, detailed lists of his employees, a bushman's first aid kit and a sketch by Elizabeth Durack of Bill Lavery and the Station secretary.
Some of the 51 images have been provided by the Battye Library for use on our website, please enjoy!
Karunjie Station is owned by the Indigenous Land Corporation. Its tourism services are now cared for by Home Valley Station managers. Simply ask your hosts at Home Valley Station for more information about Karunjie Station when visiting Home Valley. While most of the structures have either been partly or completely destroyed by floods and termites, our tour guides can certainly point out some frail but still existing structures and places of interest when you are touring this area.
Today and the future, combining the management of Home Valley Station, Durack River Station and Karunjie Station makes for a diversification success story!
The ILC and Indigenous-held pastoral leases in WA. By Allan Padgett, Manager, Western Division, Indigenous Land Corporation.
The Indigenous Land Corporation (ILC) is an Australian Government statutory authority with national responsibilities to assist Indigenous peoples to acquire land and to manage Indigenous-held land. Thus, the ILC has two major statutory functions - land acquisition and land management - and consequently has a substantial intersection with WA's pastoral estate.
The ILC has bought ten pastoral leases in WA and is on the verge of acquiring an eleventh. Of these ten, only three have been divested to Indigenous ownership, leaving seven under the direct management of the ILC. The divested properties - including Cardabia and Mulgul Stations - are both within the "Remediation Program", itself a result of a long, hard introspection in relation to all properties acquired nationally from 1995 to early 2001. This process led to a decision by the ILC Board to focus on sustainability (in both environmental and economic terms), willingness, capacity development, governance, property management planning and active partnerships with government and private enterprise in the pursuit of measurable and durable benefits to people.
An outcome intrinsic to this review was that access to ILC assistance is by way of application, along one of the four benefit streams identified in our governing legislation - cultural, social, environmental or economic. In February 2004, the Board issued a revised National Indigenous Land Strategy which makes allowance for "Strategic Investments", an ILC-driven process where the organisation itself decides there is merit in a particular land acquisition or land management project, and "Joint Arrangements", which can be undertaken with government and/or non-government organisations. Significant social and cultural benefits must be demonstrated as being achievable through this process. A key outcome is the generation of wealth through ongoing employment. The Board has instigated a contract period of three years between acquisition and divestment where the title-holding body must demonstrate its capacity against an agreed and detailed work plan. The latter is driven by mutual obligation and characterised by capacity development and demonstrated, ongoing commitment.
What does this mean for ILC pastoral leases?
For pastoral leases, what all this means is that the ILC now focuses on building the capacity of people to properly manage their pastoral lease business, with a view to enhancing productivity, rangeland management, individual and group skills, identifying diversification options and undertaking property management planning. The Board has recently committed to increasing tourism opportunities and has instituted a four-member expert, external advisory panel to assist in this regard. As a practical example, significant funds are currently being invested in Home Valley to encourage greater visitor usage through improved and more welcoming facilities, and to increase the scope of activities available to travellers. Infrastructure upgrades are being assisted through short-term fencing contracts with employment and training provided for inmates from Wyndham Regional Prison, and with the Wyndham CDEP workforce in a partnership with Joorook Ngarni Aboriginal Corporation. The ILC's Business Enterprise Committee has decided to focus on a tourism enterprise to service visitors to the area and to work with traditional owners to establish jobs and training opportunities. A Shared Responsibility Agreement is being considered in order to bind Australian and Western Australian Government agencies into a coordinated provision of capacity development.
Practical examples
Karunjie and Durack River Stations provide examples of how the Remediation Program works in practical terms. Members of Nyaliga Aboriginal Corporation are working closely with the ILC to identify and institute a small, manageable and viable cattle enterprise. This is being assisted through participation in the 2005 muster, training, mentoring and upgrading the cattle herd using stock from Roebuck Plains. Kimberley Group Training has been contracted by the ILC to provide "work ready" and occupational health and safety training for Nyaliga Aboriginal Corporation members who will be working on the muster. There are also plans for the construction of two sets of permanent cattle yards on Karunjie and near Jack's Waterhole. It is likely that small-scale tourism investment will occur, including at Jack's Waterhole where previous facilities were washed away completely in the 2003 floods. Planning a muster at Durack River Station. Meanwhile, the businesses at Roebuck Plains Station and Myroodah Station continue to prosper, with approximately 21,000 head of cattle on the former and 14,000 on the latter. The ILC has a policy to employ local Aboriginal people as much as possible, and to enhance their capacity to manage cattle and the business through formal training programs and on-site mentoring.
Work on other Indigenous pastoral leases in WA
The ILC is involved with many land management projects on Indigenous-held pastoral leases in WA, other than those acquired and/or held by the ILC, including for example a fencing project to protect remnant biodiversity at Jabbadar Pool on Peedamulla Station; joint funding with FarmBis of a Grazing for Profit course at Lake Argyle for Kimberley Indigenous pastoral leaseholders; a group-based planning exercise for Pinjin Station; and purchase of a water pump for Frazier Downs.
Projects in the pipeline include a joint weed management program for WA's only Prickly Acacia infestation, located in the floodplains to the north of Home Valley Station.
Indigenous management support
In May 2005, the Board decided to extend for another five years a program which has proved successful in improving cattle businesses on Kimberley pastoral leases over the past two to three years. This project, the Kimberley Indigenous Management Support Service, provides direct services to Aboriginal-owned pastoral leases and works to increase the profitability and sustainability of these businesses through improved animal husbandry, herd management, livestock marketing, and the adoption of effective business management and planning systems. This joint ILC - Department of Agriculture project employs six officers on a full-time basis, including two Indigenous trainees. The KIMSS was joint winner of a Premier's Award for Excellence in 2004, and was recognised by the United Nations at an international conference in Cardiff as being unique in the world in its approach to generating capacity, sustainable operations, effective governance and wealth, and therefore, ultimately, independence.
Indigenous training In 2004, the ILC conducted a Scoping Study for the proposed Roebuck Plains Indigenous Pastoralists Training Centre. The ILC is currently working closely with the Rubibi traditional owners, Australian and Western Australian Government agencies, peak bodies, the Kimberley Land Council, and the PGA's Kimberley Division, to bring together a first class facility that is sure to add, over time, considerable value to the management of Kimberley pastoral leases through development of skills and enhanced pastoral management practice among Aboriginal people. The facility is expected to take students from other regions and to include a proportion of non-Indigenous students. The WA Department of Education and Training and the Australian Government's Department of Education, Science and Training are expected to play leading roles in the development of the training centre.
ILC interacting with pastoral industry
Meanwhile, the ILC is a member of the Western Australian Pastoralists and Graziers Association and a member of the Pastoral Committee, and regularly attends State and Regional conferences. The ILC enjoys its relationship with members, particularly through the Pastoral Committee, where frank and open discussion enables issues to be debated and solutions proposed. The ILC is keen to work closely with pastoral leaseholders throughout the rangelands to build better relationships and develop a common understanding of ongoing issues in relation to management of pastoral leases in WA, and to jointly seek solutions to these. The ILC aims to generate substantially improved business and land management practices on Indigenous-held pastoral leases, and to foster and facilitate exchange between Indigenous landholders and others who see benefits in working together in a catchment, landscape, enterprise and good neighbourly sense. It remains clear to the ILC that while we have made and will continue to make substantial progress, there is a long road ahead. We welcome our partnerships with Indigenous landholders, the Pastoral Lands Board, the Department of Agriculture, the Pastoralists and Graziers Association and others, in determining a best practice pathway for all Indigenous-held pastoral leases throughout Western Australia.
