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Mixed emotions for WA farmer rescued by One Nation Senator Rod Culleton
27 August 2016
Colin Bettles
SEVERAL rotting, weather-beaten straw bales - some would say hay bales - sit idly, parked at the side of the road in the front yard of Bruce Dixon’s sheep and grain farm at Cuballing in WA.
The once golden straw bundles are now frayed and decayed and increasingly captured by a dark grey complexion that dulls their exterior coating, like gathering storm clouds.
On the surface, these common farm packages seem obsolete and meaningless but to Mr Dixon they’re like mercenary warriors taking a well-deserved rest, after claiming a strategic victory in a long-running battle against adversity.
The discarded bundles of straw are a stark reminder of tense events on Black Friday in March last year when an unusual band of rural characters staged an unconventional protest that helped resuscitate his agricultural livelihood.
And the chief antagonist, who thought outside the square, along with other desperate and street-wise farmers, to take action in fighting back against a common enemy - rampaging banks - is now WA’s newest federal Senator; One Nation’s Rod Culleton.
Mr Culleton was elected to be a lawmaker at the July 2 federal poll and has pledged to push for a Royal Commission into banking; especially debt-lending and farm foreclosures like on his property at Williams in 2013.
But ironically, he’s also starring down theft charges relating to a $27,000 hire car that was obstructed by those straw bales on Mr Dixon’s farm on March 13 last year when two bank-appointed receivers arrived to kick-start foreclose proceedings.
That charge may have a say in whether he’s ultimately eligible to sit in the Senate along with lingering question marks on other legal matters, including insolvency due to ongoing creditor proceedings around a liquidated company.
But for now, back to Mr Dixon, and the place where he and his family have been producing sheep and grains, on their farm property located about 200kms south-east of Perth since 1950.
The 65-year old describes himself as someone who likes to mind his own business and his only real community involvement as paying the local shire rates.
His 30-year old son Simon Dixon is responsible for managing the cropping side of the family farming business growing canola, hay, lupins and barley.
Like WA’s newly elected One Nation Senator, Mr Dixon also attributes the start of his financial headaches to ANZ Bank’s takeover of the Landmark rural loans book and what seemed like a solid decision to expand his farm enterprise, nearly a decade ago.
In 2008 he had high equity levels and borrowed $3 million at the peak of the market to buy more property nearby and increase the farm’s earning potential.
Mr Dixon said the family paid “top dollar” for their land acquisition but within a couple of months of borrowing that $3m and signing the deal, Landmark wanted half of it back.
He said he’s been on medication for anxiety ever since that first surprise “attack” by the ANZ in recalling the $1.5m.
“I’m not really a very strong person - I go to pieces easy,” he said. “It didn’t seem right that after just three months of giving me the loan they wanted half of it back. “I couldn’t work it out.”
Mr Dixon said the bank wanted the money repaid because the loan’s equity value was too low.
He said the Global Financial Crisis struck around that time and land values subsequently halved, while 2010 was also a bad year for farm earnings and land prices, due to drought.
“A lot of shonky things sort of went on but you don’t realise the bank’s aim is to default you eventually after they’ve drained you of all your resources,” he said.
Mr Dixon said he first came into contact with Mr Culleton in early 2015 when 60 Minutes was in the process of filming for a controversial program covering foreclosures issues and the mistreatment of farmers by banks.
That episode broadcast in April last year also covered a dramatic exchange between local police and the new owners of Mr Culleton’s foreclosed farm property at Williams.
Mr Dixon said in February last year he and Mr Culleton and another farmer with a similar history of angst towards the banks - Frank Bertola - discussed plans to pursue the next chapter of their protest movement.
“We went to the Williams pub and sat around talking, not realising my farm was next on the chopping block,” he said.
On that fateful day when the two RSM Bird Cameron receivers had their car barricaded in, Mr Culleton and Mr Bertola were heading home from Perth and another farmer Greg Kenny was heading in the opposite direction.
But Mr Dixon said the three men changed direction, met at Wandering, then headed out to his Cuballing farm.
It’s alleged that after Mr Culleton, Mr Bertola and Mr Kenny arrived at the Dixon property - while Mr Dixon was inside the farm house dealing with the receivers, having defaulted on his loan just the day before - the bales were placed around the receivers’ car.
After seeing the vehicle’s pathway was blocked, local police were called out to the scene and tense vision of the subsequent exchange - including secretly-filmed talks between Mr Dixon and the receivers about the vexed farm foreclosure process - was used in the emotion-charged 60 Minutes broadcast.
After a police investigation of the incident, charges were laid against Mr Culleton and were due to be heard in the Magistrates Court at Perth this week.
However, he succeeded in having the legal matter delayed until next month, allowing him to attend Senate orientation this week in Canberra alongside other new Senators like One Nation leader and founder Pauline Hanson and Justice Party Senator for Victoria Derryn Hinch.
Mr Culleton has said he’s only been charged by WA police due to being viewed as the ring-leader during the incident on Mr Dixon’s farm.
But it’s alleged that Mr Culleton intended to take the receivers’ hire car to keep for himself by attempting to have a key cut and putting a security register claim over it; allegations that the new Senator rejects.
It's also alleged that after the hay bale protest, the vehicle was moved from its original parking spot on Mr Dixon‘s farm to a more secure place several hundred metres away behind a hay stack, which the police eventually discovered using an air patrol.
But before police located the receivers’ car, Mr Culleton allegedly went to Edwards Holden in Katanning to try and obtain a key.
But Mr Culleton said he only made an inquiry about obtaining a key to try and move the vehicle for its “safe being”, when inquiring about getting another key, for another vehicle.
“To me there’s nothing in that,” he said. “Getting a key cut at a locksmith will never let you steal a car; you have to go to a dealer and get all the electronics on the key. “I just made inquiries - that’s all that was.”
Mr Culleton claims that the car was impounded on the day to stop the receivers driving it in stubble during a dangerous fire ban situation.
Mr Culleton said he believed a fire ban was in place due to his view of the threat associated with the weather conditions, being very hot and windy.
He said the receivers were driving around in stubble in a vehicle with a catalytic converter attached and there “could have been a big fire”.
Mr Culleton said by putting the straw bales around the receivers’ vehicle to block it on that day, it helped to save Mr Dixon’s farm and turn his life around.
He says he’s also helped other farmers facing similar situations and is motivated to enter politics to hold a Royal Commission into banking practices - especially to expose issues with the sale of the Landmark loans book to the ANZ Bank.
As for Mr Dixon, he said following the incident with the two receivers and the 60 Minutes broadcast, he heard very little news from his bank but suffered ongoing anxiety from post-traumatic stress disorder.
He said every time a car came up the road or down his farm’s driveway it made him anxious and he feared the worst. On one occasion he called his son in a state of panic but the driver turned out to be a wool buyer.
Mr Dixon said he finally reached settlement with the ANZ Bank on June 30 this year and can now keep the parts of his farm that haven’t yet been sold-off - but a gag-order limits him from revealing the full financial details.
“We still have a reasonable amount of debt and can continue farming,” he said. “Whether it was 60 Minutes or media pressure, the bank eventually came to the party.
“I would have liked to have pushed them further but it’s a bit like a question on a quiz show and you’ve got a million dollars in your pocket - do you risk it all on the next question?
“I decided to call it quits after five years of stress. “I’d reached the point where my mind could not focus so we took the offer so I can get on with my life. “I’ve basically lost five years of my life.”
ANZ has declined to comment on the matter apart from saying any outstanding issues with Mr Dixon’s finances have been resolved.
Mr Dixon said he’d also given Mr Culleton more than $100,000 since first meeting him that’s gone towards advice on “tactics” to help manage his banking dispute and related legal issues on his farm foreclosure.
He said there was never any written agreement between the two men but he believed money was also going towards fighting a common cause, with other aggrieved farmers, on legal issues connected with the Landmark loans book.
“We just voluntarily gave him (Mr Culleton) money, when he requested it, thinking that most of it was going to go to support a class action but ANZ circumnavigated the class action by settling privately with most of the people who were going to be in it,” he said.
“There was other stuff that we gave money for, which was meant to pay for his lawyers or to pay to get machinery out of hock - so it was to help him directly. “We gave the money basically as a friend and I still regard him as a friend.”
Mr Dixon said he didn’t have any hatred towards Mr Culleton. “I know he’s taken a lot of money but I gave it to him freely and we’re still here, on the farm,” he said.
“When we lent him the money, I had the feeling that we’d never see it again but you put that into the perspective that you’re going to keep your farm.”
Mr Dixon said he’d also given $70,000 to another organisation that was claiming to be fighting the banks over farm foreclosures and other people “who have done nothing”.
Mr Culleton said he did not believe there was any ill feeling between him and Mr Dixon over any monetary issues. He said he and other farmers had done “extensive work, as a team” to fight back against the banks.
“At no stage have I ever, ever, ever held a gun to anyone’s head and never have I put my own interests first,” he said. “I have always acted in the best interests of all the growers in relation to how the banks treat growers in relation to force majeure.”
Mr Bertola said he first met Mr Culleton outside the Supreme Court in WA while there on mediation with the ANZ Bank over the foreclosure of his farm at Bremer Bay, where for 43 years he had produced coarse grains, sheep and wool and raised 11 children.
Mr Bertola lived with Mr Culleton for about three months after losing his farm and claims to be a former business associate. While they once shared a common enemy they have now fallen out.
“Rodney said ‘we’ll get your farm back for you, I’ll fight for you and we’ll get our farms back’,” he said. “Rodney saw this great big bloody cash flow - he was going to be the king of the class action and was promoting he was going to collect $2000 a month.
“But at the end of the day the bloke hasn’t got a clue. “I chose a legal direction and could see we were going nowhere but into trouble by following Rodney Culleton and boy did he go crook.”
Earlier this month Mr Bertola was imprisoned for breaching a restraining order taken out by Mr Culleton’s wife against him and another associate on rural banking matters Bruce Bell.
Mr Bertola said Mr Culleton’s election to the federal Senate was “an absolute disaster”. “He doesn’t represent farmers’ interests – he’s a Rodney Culleton interest,” he said.
But Mr Culleton said his record spoke for itself with Mr Dixon winning both of his farms back from the bank which was largely attributed to the events involving the receivers and the straw bales in March last year, as covered by the 60 Minutes program.
“The truth comes out in the end,” he said. “It’s like a dag in a bale of crutchings - it will always float to the top when you open it up.”
Culleton election sparks community backlash
Colin Bettles
25 August 2016
http://www.theland.com.au/story/4121177/culleton-election-sparks-community-backlash/?cs=4963
MENTION the name Rod Culleton in and around the small town of Williams in WA’s south-east Wheatbelt and it’s unlikely to invoke a glowing response, never mind a vote to support his new political career in Canberra, representing farmers.
Mr Culleton was elected 11th for the WA Senate at the July 2 federal election for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party which captured about 52,500 votes, or just under 4 per cent of the State’s total.
But that result has upset and shocked some people in the Senator’s former home farming district, about 200kms south-east of Perth.
Several of them are now determined to challenge the validity of his election by lodging a dispute in the Court of Disputed Returns and making legal inquiries.
Bruce Dixon farms at Cuballing near Williams and says he handed Mr Culleton more than $100,000 since they first met in February 2015, to aid his fight against the ANZ Bank to retain his farm, after he defaulted on his loan in March last year.
Mr Dixon said the Culleton name invoked strong feelings amongst the local farming and business community due to historical debts linked to the family’s agricultural business interests.
“A lot of farmers got burnt because they (Culletons) went around buying a heap of wool and then the farmers never got paid for it,” he said.
“I don’t know where the money went, or whether the wool got sold but Rodney’s got a version of what happened and it’s to do with the wool reserve price scheme and wool stockpile, in the 1990’s.”
Mr Dixon said the local community believed Mr Culleton’s election to the Senate was “a joke”. “People can’t believe that he’s actually got in there and they’re saying ‘what’s going wrong with this country if Rodney Culleton got in’,” he said.
“He was elected by a lot of people who don’t know his background (but) this could be happening everywhere.”
Local farmer and Shire of Wagin President Phillip Blight said Mr Culleton’s election had left a bitter taste in the mouths of many local farmers and their families and the general community.
He said Mr Culleton had been a director of several companies over the last 20 years which had failed, leaving substantial debts to small enterprises, wool growers, grain-growers, small mechanical operations in the towns from Williams to Lake King and beyond.
“It concerns me that this person is now likely to be a member of the Senate,” he said. “It questions the authenticity of the Australian Senate to make sound decisions, based on the needs of all Australians.”
Mr Blight said in the first instance many people didn’t think or believe Mr Culleton would actually be elected to the Senate.
He said locals who knew Mr Culleton’s business history failed to take action towards educating the wider public during the election campaign, “and now they’re very disappointed in themselves”.
“For me personally, I’m disappointed that I did not speak up too,” he said. “As for the bigger picture, in a very tightly balanced Senate, Australia’s future is held in the hands of a few members and with Rodney Culleton being one of them, that’s very scary.
“That would be the sentiment of most people in this area. “Most people will roll their eyes and walk away; they don’t want to be involved with him in any way.”
Asked about the community anger, Mr Culleton said many growers and locals were “staunch” National and Liberal party supporters, as he once was, and his election for One Nation was “a real culture shock” especially beating the Nationals by 20,000 votes.
What certain people may be saying is reflecting back to when I was involved in my father’s business in the wool industry,” he said.
“It was a very successful business that operated and gave farmers a service for 25-30 years unblemished and then employed 21 people in the town and was a big player in the private side of the wool buying.
“My father became a victim in his business through force majeure in the early 1990’s (when) the government shut down the wool floor price.
“It wasn’t through my father’s non-ability to be a good business man; it was through government stepping in and we’re seeing it now in the dairy industry. “Overnight people are looking to walk off their farms.”
Mr Culleton said Mr Blight had a farm handed to him “but has not been a real go getter”. “I had to buy every acre I had,” he said.
He said Mr Blight may have been a creditor for one or two bales of crutchings and “nothing that would be life changing” and his father’s business was taken to a creditors’ vote and farmers involved in that process chose to wind-up the company.
“Everything was done according to the law,” he said. “We haven’t done anything (wrong) and it was a decision that weighed heavily on my father. “They are not creditors - they chose for it to be wound up and it closed the files.
“They had the call and Phil Blight put personality before anything else.” Mr Blight said his family had farmed in Wagin for about 110 years and the business was also in his blood.
But he said Mr Culleton had only farmed for about 15 to 20 years and to therefore badge himself as a farmer for One Nation, now representing farmers in Canberra was, “demeaning to the term, in the utmost”.
“Australia has a very strong banking system that withstood the global financial crisis magnificently,” he said of Mr Culleton’s election claims to hold a Royal Commission into bank lending issues impacting farmers like Mr Dixon, stemming from the 2010 sale of the Landmark rural loans book to the ANZ Bank.
“We have a set of rules that work for the majority of people and when you take a loan from a bank you have to meet the terms of the contract. “It's hard to fault the bank if you fail to meet those terms.”
Mr Blight said “technicality” he voted for Mr Culleton but placed him last at number 79 on the WA Senate ballot. “He got my 79th preference out of 79,” he said.
“I voted deliberately below the line to ensure he was last on my voting ticket and I know one other person who did the same; my wife.
“But I want to ask the question; how many people in Australia know they that divorced their voting rights by voting above the line and blew it by electing people like Rod Culleton.”
Mr Blight said he regarded Mr Culleton as a friend until the day he visited the family farm’s shearing shed and offered to buy his wool for Culletons, but left no cheque.
“Then two days later on my 40th birthday my wife called and asked if I got the money off Rod Culleton and I said, ‘no why’s that?’ and she said she’d heard that his business had just gone into administration – and here I am today.
“He fleeced me of that $3100 and 20 years later, I’m still cranky. “I was busting my ass to survive and that’s what he did to me; he was a mate. “It’s disgusting.”
Mr Culleton has also taken out a defamation claim seeking $250,000 for alleged personal reputational damage from social media “attacks” linked to the 60 Minutes program that covered foreclosure issues on his farm and Mr Dixon’s property.
The legal action was filed in March this year in the WA Supreme Court against 18 individuals over comments posted on the Channel Nine 60 Minutes Facebook page, in April 2015.
Most of the defendants are located in the Williams agricultural district - with others also based in Queensland and Victoria - but several of them have declined to comment on the matter to Fairfax Agricultural Media
Mr Culleton has said he wants an apology for the “attacks”. The story Culleton election sparks community backlash first appeared on Farm Weekly.