STUART Andrews once said the reality of selling Tarwyn Park to a Korean state-owned coal mine company would not hit until he walked out the gate.
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On Monday the removalist truck left the Bylong property between Denman and Mudgee with his family possessions. On July 31 he will walk away from Tarwyn Park for good, past the place where Melbourne Cup winner Rain Lover was buried after spending his final cranky years on the property’s lush hectares.
The leaving has come much earlier than Mr Andrews expected.
The sale in 2014 included an eight year lease with regular renewal, allowing Mr Andrews to continue using and teaching father Peter’s natural sequence farming methods that directly challenge several centuries of Australian land management.
“I put my hand out to say I want to make this work. For three years we made a stand against mining, but I knew we couldn’t hold them out forever because they have the law on their side so we sold. I thought if this has to go ahead let’s do it the best we possibly can. Let’s make this a case study to show mining and agriculture can co-exist,” Mr Andrews said.
By December 2015 Korean energy company Kepco said it needed the Tarwyn Park floodplain portion of the Andrews property for its controversial coal mine project, and the lease was not renewed.
On Wednesday Mr Andrews said it was clear mining and agriculture could not co-exist in Bylong Valley where Kepco has so far spent more than $600 million to establish a new coal mine, including $400 million to Anglo American in 2010 for the mining lease and coal asset.
“They keep talking about mining and agriculture co-existing when they have no intention of doing that,” Mr Andrews said.
The Kepco move on Tarwyn Park is particularly devastating given Rio Tinto’s sale of its Queensland Blair Athol mine on Monday to a former manager for $1 as thermal coal prices continue to flatline, and the Korean Government in June raising serious questions about whether the Bylong mine will ever go ahead.
In 2015 Bylong resident Craig Shaw said the Kepco proposal was a line in the sand for Australians.
“If we’re going to make a stand in terms of whether we value agricultural land in this country, then it should be here,” he said.
A NSW mining and petroleum gateway panel in 2014 found the mine would have significant impacts on “highly productive alluvial groundwater for decades” and would disturb 2667 hectares of land, with direct impacts on 401 hectares of verified prime agricultural land and nearly 2000 hectares of verified equine land.
Mr Shaw said the removalist truck leaving Tarwyn Park on Monday after 40 years of being worked by Peter and Stuart Andrews was “a sad, sad day”.
“All those hopes and dreams. All that pain and hard work. All that learning. All that giving. All that joy and all those tears,” he said.
“Some of Australia’s best, and best known, horses have clopped their hooves on the floors of the Tarwyn Park stables and have run races that have thrilled millions: Herioc, Hall Mark, Rain Lover, and dozens and dozens more.
“The last official day of occupancy of Tarwyn is July 31. In the meantime the spirits of so many - humans and animals – will have the place largely to themselves before, if they get approval, Kepco starts digging an open cut pit next to the main driveway and erecting infrastructure and haul roads.”
Mr Andrews is aware of moves to have the stables heritage listed, but said “I don’t know if people really give a s...”.
He knows some people have and will criticise him for selling the property, but said a sale was inevitable once Kepco made it clear it needed the property.
‘‘The mining companies are just doing what the rules say they’re allowed to do. It’s the politicians who don’t understand the impacts, on the environment and families and communities, and they don’t care,’’ he said.
He remembers Rain Lover, the horse that thrilled Australia when it won the Melbourne Cup in 1968, and won again in 1969.
“Rain Lover came here with us when we came to Tarwyn Park in 1974,” Mr Andrews said.
“He was a strong willed old bugger like Dad.”
The champion is buried at the front gate.
“The coal pit will encompass it at some point,” Mr Andrews said.
Kepco declined to respond to questions about mining on the Tarwyn Park land. A spokesperson said the project was designed to “avoid and minimise direct impacts to local heritage wherever possible”.
“The Tarwyn Park homestead and horse stables will remain,” the spokesperson said.
