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Australian Story - Season 31 Episode 13 - An Accidental Leader Rob Armstrong
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00:15Hello. Most Australians live in cities and so it can be hard to imagine sometimes just
00:22how tough life can be for the farming communities who put food on our tables.
00:28Victorian farmer Rob Armstrong had more than enough going on managing his own property
00:33and never dreamed that he'd become a political activist on the side. But when his state government
00:40proposed a levy that was set to hit volunteer country firefighters, a childhood trauma propelled
00:47him out of his comfort zone.
01:02Farming's hard but the most reason it is so hard is you are just at the mercy of the gods.
01:08Every time you walk outside you look up, that's your life. What's coming out of that sky?
01:15Snow, hail, fires, floods, whether you make any money or not.
01:25That's how we're going to do it.
01:27I don't think Rob knows how to be anything other than a farmer but I think the drought has really
01:32worn Rob down. It's relentless. You don't have a good day.
01:43You're alive. Lambing last year would have been the toughest lambing I've ever had in my entire life.
01:53Because I was losing lambs that I shouldn't have been losing because we're in the drought.
01:59I nearly cried. I thought, I don't know if I can keep doing this.
02:03He didn't make it.
02:07Bugger!
02:08He has a very strong sense of right and wrong. If he does anything, he does it 110%.
02:15If he believes in anything, he believes in it 110%. But I never would have imagined him getting
02:21involved in political sort of issues.
02:24So what really has changed my life is the emergency services levy that the government
02:30announced in December 24. And I thought, this is just not on. I've got to do something about this.
02:38Let him tell his story. A big round of applause for Rob. Make your way up. Away you go fella.
02:45And if this government refuses to listen, we will stop the food from leaving the farms.
02:51I think I've become an accidental leader. Not something that I'd planned, but it just happened.
03:01And I'm glad it's happened. And I'm glad that I'm out there fighting for other people.
03:33It's extremely important for Rob to be part of the CFA,
03:36the Country Fire Authority, and to volunteer with them.
03:40Well, I can get them.
03:41Yeah, if you want, yeah.
03:42I've got plenty of water.
03:43Let's get those little bits. Yeah, see that?
03:45Yeah, there's one in front of me too.
03:47Yeah, yeah.
03:47The people in those fire uniforms fighting the fires out here aren't paid firemen.
03:54They're farmers and local community people.
03:58So I became a volunteer because we all did it. But then as I got older, I think that actually
04:04there was a little hidden dark secret in the background that's actually really
04:10probably motivated me to be a really good volunteer was because of my past.
04:16He was always on the fire trucks, but it was never brought up.
04:20We never spoke about it and we never asked about it, ever.
04:26It's a wacky story. Like, it's hard to believe. Like, it's sad, but it's also very interesting
04:32because it's a real story. It's the truth.
04:42I was born on a farm in a little place called Yalaipura. Born and bred a farmer.
04:49I suppose in a lot of ways we probably didn't know anything different. We sort of
04:53came home from school and we worked on the farm like everybody did. And it was sort of just
04:59ingrained in you that you'd carry on farming. The place I'm on now, we're running about 1300 acres.
05:10Which is wheat, barley, canola, and this year will be beans. And we'll also run about 2000 sheep.
05:19In a little place called Langologan in Victoria, in the heart of the western district.
05:29So that's Mavie in the front. This sheep, Roggie, he's quite remarkable. He swallowed a
05:38teat off a bottle when he was little. We never saw it come out the other side.
05:44God, he's ugly though. Like, he's a really ugly sheep.
05:47He's not. He's beautiful. He's really ugly.
05:50Yeah, you've upset him.
05:52I think there's a lot of things that make us an unlikely couple.
05:55There's an age difference, a city country person difference.
06:00Who doesn't love a milkshake?
06:02But I think we're both very strange in our own way and in the same ways in some respects,
06:07which makes us totally perfect for each other.
06:10This is Charlie. He's our friendly 40-year-old cockatoo that wants to kill me.
06:16But I think he just doesn't understand you or know you or something.
06:21There wasn't any intensive care unit or outpatients before me.
06:27I think everything just went straight to the morgue.
06:29Yep, pretty much. Straight to the morgue.
06:33I think he really does love what the animals have brought to his life.
06:38Rob would be totally heartbroken if something happened to any of the animals,
06:42despite anything that he tells anyone else.
06:45Absolutely heartbroken.
06:50So I grew up in Melbourne, miles away from any farmland or farm animals.
07:01My whole family is really into the beach and surfing.
07:05And I just always really liked things to do with animals and in particular like farm animals.
07:13Yeah, I did everything you're supposed to do in Melbourne, had the big career, had the house.
07:17It just didn't really feel right, which is what led me to go searching for some kind of property.
07:26The first time I've actually ever spoke to Sunny was when she rung me and she wanted to talk to
07:30me
07:30about buying some land somewhere in rural Victoria.
07:35And I said, yeah, I'm happy to help you find somewhere.
07:39And then we found this farm and we both thought, this is a great place to buy.
07:46And so we decided to buy that together.
07:48There was sort of no expectation of it being a romantic relationship from that point.
07:57Certainly not, particularly with this guy that wouldn't even let his dog inside.
08:01It was bloody beautiful.
08:03We'll go 50-50 in this farm. 50-50 the loan, 50-50 the business, and we'll run it as
08:11a business.
08:12See, aren't you glad I got you into getting a coffee?
08:15He was a bit of a grumpy old farmer, I think, at that point.
08:18I think I realised over time that he could be fun if you really pulled it out of him.
08:23Are you eating that, Rob? It's supposed to be for the cows.
08:27Well, it's actually not that bad.
08:28I really loved her work ethics. Like, she's a gritty little lady.
08:34We should give this a go. So we did. And we've never looked back.
08:39And she moved in and she thought, oh, this is going to be great.
08:42And I said, well, I've got four daughters and there's possibly grandchildren
08:48that could be coming to stay. And she said, oh, well, that's what it's going to have to be, I
08:55suppose.
08:56Looking for someone who loves farm animals more than life itself.
09:03Please, inquire within.
09:07Sunny said to me the other day, because I said we should go on a holiday,
09:11and she actually said to me, Rob, I feel like I'm a holiday all the time,
09:17living here. And I thought, that's a great way to feel in life.
09:30But we desperately need more rain. A lot more.
09:34If we don't get good rains in the next month, we'll be in a lot of trouble.
09:41We have been in drought for two years now.
09:44And for a city person, that's a lot.
09:47I think to kind of get your head around and understand.
09:51Very stressful for Rob.
09:54All it is now is instead of a brown drought, it's a green drought.
09:58Well, it means it looks like you're not in a drought because you've got grass.
10:02But really, you haven't really got much grass.
10:05But the other real big issue is the money.
10:09In a drought, you really wonder where your money's going to come from
10:12and how you're going to survive.
10:14I reckon the best words to describe being in a drought,
10:19it is demoralising.
10:23Why don't you fucking rain to solve this problem?
10:26Rob's somebody that really likes to fix things and work out the solution and find the answer.
10:32And he can't make it rain.
10:38Victorian households will be slugged an extra $60 a year on average to help fund the state's
10:43emergency services as Victoria's deficit soars.
10:47When the Victorian Government announced the new emergency services levy, it just lit a fuse.
10:54From July, rates charged to property owners for the fund will rise and farmers will face some of
11:01the steepest increases. They say they can't absorb more costs.
11:05The Allen Government announced a rebadging of what was called the old fire service property levy as a new
11:12emergency services volunteer fund tax. That meant for farmers a tripling in the amount of tax that they would pay.
11:20You're putting out the fire to save someone else, save someone else's assets,
11:25and you expect us to pay for it? What's right about that?
11:30The reason why we've taken an existing levy and expanded it to cover all of the emergency services
11:37measures comes in recognition of the more frequent and fierce fire, flood and storm events
11:42that are impacting all corners of our state.
11:47Have you seen this? How bad is this going to be?
11:52They're going to hit farmers. 189%.
11:56And he, from that moment on, was like a dog with a bone. Like, he was not going to let
12:01this go.
12:02Mine's going from $1,200 to $4,600. And I'm the one that's on the fire truck for free.
12:17My first thoughts were, talk to a politician. And then I thought, no, that'll be a waste of time.
12:24And then I thought, well, I've got to get it out there somehow, publicly, so everyone knows, not just a
12:31farmer.
12:32Rob Armstrong and his family have farmed in Victoria's West for six generations,
12:37but he's never been so close to giving up.
12:40He worked.
12:47Seven days a week, rain, hail, sun, trying to provide food for everyone else.
12:56You feel like, why do we bother?
13:00I didn't want to let anyone know I could be on television, because I was really worried it could
13:05have been a total disaster.
13:07Next thing we see, the classic humble farmer of Rob Armstrong sitting on the project.
13:12Farmer Rob.
13:13Farmer Rob, Cooper hat and all. And I was like, you do you, Dad. That's fantastic.
13:17Well done.
13:17Yeah, we're very proud.
13:19It has to get this bad before a farmer like me gets on television to try
13:32to try to get people to listen.
13:38I'd never heard of this Rob Armstrong fellow until I saw him on the project.
13:42And he sparked my interest with the fire levy and got in contact with him.
13:49And I said, what we should do is take a heap of fire trucks down to Melbourne and create a
13:53bit of
13:55exposure and let people know what was going on.
13:57Protesters angry at the Victorian government's new emergency services levy brought peak hour
14:03traffic to a crawl this morning.
14:05It was absolutely frightening doing what we did, trying to organise about 40 or 50 fire trucks and
14:12a heap of youths. It was a really daunting thing. But it was also a buzz.
14:20If this gets passed and it does get in, this, what's happened here today,
14:27it's not even remotely close of where it's going to end up.
14:32We've introduced this change because we want to increase support,
14:37increase support for our emergency services to bring funding to the state emergency services.
14:43Go and fight your own fires. We've had enough.
14:46I credit Rob for single-handedly starting the whole awareness protest. It was like a snowball.
14:55It just kept gaining momentum and everyone was jumping on board.
15:01Thousands descended on state parliament today to vent their anger about the government's
15:05hiked emergency services and volunteers fund.
15:08What do we want? We're out of the bank.
15:10When do we want it? Now.
15:12So as the rallies grew, I decided that it was probably time to tell my personal story,
15:20which I find...
15:24I find it really hard to talk about.
15:28And especially doing it in front of so many people.
15:32But it had to be said.
15:34In February 1969, two fires tore through Victoria.
15:40A woman was babysitting four kids, two, four, six and eight years old.
15:45They were badly burned.
15:48I was one of those children.
15:52You know, there's 15, 20,000 people there.
15:55There wasn't a dry eye in the area.
15:57And you could have heard a pin drop in Melbourne.
16:02I didn't realise he was going to say that in this rally.
16:06That's when I lost it.
16:07I was...
16:08And I just burst into tears.
16:13And then after he'd finished his speech, we all just got together and had a bit of a hug.
16:19And really, we'd never talked about being burned until that time.
16:30I'd love to tell you the whole story about it.
16:35But it's pretty hard to do.
16:38It is a real roller coaster.
16:42And it's a roller coaster most of the time.
16:45I don't even want to be on.
16:49Back in 1969, there was a country bushfire near Tatooine.
16:57In a howling, northerly hot day.
17:02And Dad went off to fight the fire.
17:05You could see the fire approaching behind the hill.
17:09But the thing that was most horrifying was the speed at which the fire approached.
17:19So Mum decided in those days, you just don't stay at home.
17:23So she thought it would be a really good idea to take the kids away,
17:27take them to a safe place, which was Mrs Tucker's down the road.
17:31And then Mum was going to go back and try and save the house.
17:36Unfortunately, the wind changed direction.
17:39And it was heading straight towards Mrs Tucker's house.
17:42And Mrs Tucker thought, I think we'd better get out of here.
17:51And then wrap all of us kids up in wet towels.
17:59And she put us in the front of the FJU.
18:03And she drove out the drive, but the trees were all burning and they fell down in front of the
18:09ute.
18:10And we couldn't go any further.
18:15That's when we all got burned.
18:19Running through the flames to get to the road.
18:23Because the flames were 30 foot high.
18:26It was just a ball of fire.
18:30Like, I don't know how we lived.
18:35We had these plastic.
18:40Plastic sand was on.
18:45And they melted to our feet, which was...
18:54But I do remember sitting out on the road with Mrs Tucker.
18:59And she helped cover us up with a warm blanket.
19:09My dad was a volunteer firefighter.
19:13He was a local farmer.
19:14They were driving along the road.
19:15And then all of a sudden up ahead was this tarpaulin or a hessian bag or something.
19:21And so they pulled up.
19:22And they pulled it back.
19:25And here four little kids were and Mrs Tucker.
19:31He didn't know how they survived.
19:33They were burnt.
19:34It was a horrible day.
19:41I was four years old at that time.
19:44Bit of a tough day.
19:51Back at the hospital that night, the doctor in charge said to mum and dad,
19:57I don't know whether the youngest one will get through.
20:00And that was me.
20:00Yeah.
20:02I had the most burns on the biggest area, yeah, of my body.
20:07The girls were burnt more on the legs and the feet.
20:11And Rob was more on the feet.
20:16My mother went back to the house thinking that she wasn't too badly burnt.
20:21But then I think on closer inspection, she was taken straight into hospital as well.
20:27But she was terribly concerned about the welfare of the children.
20:31That was her main concern.
20:38Every time I drive past here, you always get this feeling of being burnt.
20:45And it doesn't make it any easier.
20:58He did make a conscious decision to do the talk about being burnt in the bushfire at the rally.
21:06And I think to him that's where all of these things connect and why it is so important that volunteers
21:14are not paying for the right to fight fires.
21:18It is the fear that people won't volunteer.
21:23That if the levy comes in, there wouldn't be volunteers.
21:25And if there wasn't volunteers when he was a child, they could have died.
21:41Fire. Got one.
21:46Every time a fire starts, I'm a mess.
21:54And the only thing that keeps me going is what Mrs Tucker did to save us.
22:15And because of that day, it's made me, I think, probably pretty driven.
22:23Because I'd love to be one day in a situation where I could help someone like she helped me.
22:29The little demons in the back here are going, someone needs your help.
22:35You've got to get out there.
22:37When do we want it?
22:38Yeah.
22:39When do we want it?
22:40Yeah.
22:41When do we want it?
22:42Yeah.
22:43My name is Rob.
22:45I'm a farmer and have been in the CFIA volunteer for 39 years.
22:50He's accidentally falling into a position where he's now the face, the brand, the leader,
22:56the unofficial leader of what we're doing.
22:59Now you see what Rob's doing and he's got confidence.
23:02He's just grown into that position.
23:05Yeah, when he came out publicly, it was quite cathartic for him.
23:10I think it was a really beautiful, poignant moment for him.
23:14Rob Armstrong, he's a farmer from Ararat and he will be hit by this tax.
23:19He helped organise Friday's rally and he joins me now.
23:30I can't believe how much public speaking, how many television stations I've spoken to,
23:36how many cameras I've been in front of, how many radio stations I've been on.
23:40The controversial emergency services tax will be delayed for two years in a win for struggling
23:47Victorian farmers.
23:48That's actually really good.
23:50Well done.
23:51They're showing the drought.
23:52After those protests, which were very effective, the government turned around and backed off.
24:00Now, what it effectively did was defer any sort of increase for farmers.
24:05They basically deferred until after the election.
24:09I'd also like to remind people that there is a rebate available for active and lifelong volunteers of
24:16the CFA and VIC-SES. The change that we're making is to lift the cap of $5 million of CIV
24:24to $10 million of CIV.
24:29And now for a farmer, most farmers have land which is valued far more than that.
24:35We're talking more likely, you know, $15-20 million. So they were still going to pay an enormous amount of
24:40tax.
24:42We've just won a fight, but we haven't won the war. And that's why we're not stopping.
24:52Yet, I have been approached by political parties, but I just couldn't think of anything worse.
25:00I have no affiliation to any political party. I just want someone to do a good job.
25:20Since this has all started, it's actually really made me think a lot more about my past,
25:26of what happened that day. And there's so many gaps. But now I'm really interested in trying to find a
25:34lot more.
25:37And I thought, well, why don't I try and see if we can all get together in one room
25:45and have a go at it.
25:47It was never brought up, never discussed. It was sort of a taboo subject.
25:54And in later life, we never talked about it, never ever discussed. That's what happened and just leave it at
26:02that.
26:03This will be the first time we've all sat down and talked about it together.
26:09I always felt, and I still do, really bad about not thinking Judy Tucker.
26:15And I've been trying to get an award to have to do an award for Judy Tucker, and the Tuckers
26:22don't want it.
26:23I just know I had nightmares until into my twenties about being burnt.
26:31I've had sore feet since I was eight. And just going about my daily business,
26:38I've usually got dressings on my feet, which I have today.
26:45It's not a competition, Jonah. Who's got the best feet?
26:50When you get burnt like we did, it takes the soles off your feet, and your soul doesn't grow back.
26:56To this day, I've got scars all over me. They're pretty much the same as what they were
27:01when I left the Royal Children's Hospital in 1969.
27:05And mentally, well, obviously, obviously it still affects me.
27:15Which is a bit frustrating, really, but anyway.
27:19And it just does not get any easier any time I talk about it.
27:26Like, you'd think I'd start to get good at this, and it wouldn't upset me, but it just does.
27:42It's a good idea.
27:46God, how nice is it to sit here and just see this beautiful, steady rain.
27:53It's so different from what it's been the last two years. It's great. It's a godsend.
28:00I think we might be at the end of the drought.
28:04We might actually make some money for a change.
28:06It takes so much pressure off. And it's such a big relief.
28:28Who would have thought looking at the grass on a farm would be so much fun?
28:32It's a good idea.
28:33Farming's fucking hard. And you really only do it for one reason, is to supply food to other people.
28:41Australia produces enough food for 80 million people. I'm one of these people that fed 80 million
28:48people. And it makes you feel really good.
28:53Good boy. I need to do a head shake.
29:00He just feels really strongly that there's been a real loss of connection between the city and the
29:04country. And he's always wanted to do something to, I guess, bring those people closer together.
29:12Really what he wants is for farmers to have appreciation and respect.
29:17Farming's had its ups and downs. I think he'll come out of that.
29:22Definitely see Rob right here to the end.
29:26I don't think he loves anything as much as he loves being here.
29:30We'll both be, we love it here.
29:54So now I'm becoming a manufacturer for goat obstacle course.
30:02And especially for Sunny and her goats.
30:06And she thought it'd be a great spot to sit over there.
30:09You could have bickies and cheese and beer and sit on it and watch the goats play on it all
30:14at the
30:14same time when the sun's setting. How romantic is that? That's better than flowers.
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