A property conglomerate, which includes the world's largest cattle station is up for sale. Together, the properties are larger than some sovereign nations and are expected to fetch more than the $325m reserve.

Time to break open the piggie bank.

I hope it doesn't all fall into overseas hands, but I realise that's probably a forlorn hope.

Gee they got a bit of that info wrong I think. I'm remembering from my schooldaysthat England fitted in NSW 7 times. I'm thinking from the size of that property that it is not nearly as big as England but is much Bigger remembering that some of the Australian cattle stations are actually bigger than the state of Texas .

South Australia is 200,000km² bigger than New South Wales. All the properties together are bigger than England but the largest property on it's own is only as big as Ireland.

Kerry Packer once owned huge pastoral interests in the NT. I know they were truly huge though each of his properties on its own was smaller than Anna Creek Station.

It's all academic though - all those big stations leave farms elsewhere in the world looking like a suburban quarter acre block.

In the USA it's called a ranch. "Station" sounds like a radio station, like WCOW, or KCOW or KMOO or such, in Australia maybe 6COW, 6MOO, 5COW, 8COW and such...

Even if some foreigner buys the place, they still cannot vote.

Voting isn't the issue; it's the money flow out of the country that doesn't get taxed.

Anyway, enough of politics here.

A station is a place where people stop and gather. Cattle stations are named for the time they doubled as post offices, general stores and even providing accommodation for travellers. In a country like this, there was no other infrastructure at the time.

The song Diamantina Drover, sung by many balladeers including John Williamson, gives an insight into the hard times of 19th century life in the outback. The property featured in the bush ballad, Cork Station, near Winton, QLD, as far as I can gather lies in ruins today though it was a typical large cattle station offering some of the services listed above, in addition to the core activity of raising beef.

On the subject of foreign ownership, another station in QLD, Cubbie Station, was sold to Chinese investors several years ago and the transaction received nationwide condemnation. At the risk sounding political the people that sold the station to the Chinese should be boiled in oil. So much of this country is wrongfully in foreign hands.

Lets hope the same doesn't happen with Anna Creek.

The Chinese also quietly acquired world's largest pork producer, Smithfield Foods, for $7b cash -
- taking the corporation private (no-one outside China can hold a stake)
But I noticed Smithfield still sponsor an Indy and a NASCAR , to throw the public off

By the looks of things they won't be at it for much longer. China is about to hit the skids, so the pundits reckon anyway. It tends to happen when economic growth becomes too fast. Between China's bubble-burst and the state of debt-ridden economies like Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy we should be ripe for another world economic downturn.

With that in mind, it is amazing how all these brilliant people who manage the world's economy haven't come up with a way of stopping the domino effect when a country goes belly-up.

all these brilliant people who manage the world's economy

Ask 12 economists for an opinion on a situation and you'll get 13 different answers.

Economists have it made. They are bullet proof. It doesn't matter how often they are wrong with their predictions, they never get fired.

A station is a place where people stop and gather. Cattle stations are named for the time they doubled as post offices, general stores and even providing accommodation for travellers. In a country like this, there was no other infrastructure at the time.

On my reading, this was an acquired meaning that came later. The earliest Australian colonies were military-run gaols, and the first generation of land grants all went to military officers. These men rarely went to live on their large land-holdings, but sent stockmen out with flocks and herds to set up the grazing operations. They called the places "stations" because they were quasi-military outposts. The name stuck even when later squatters and settlers were resident on their lands.

The American term "ranch" comes from the Spanish for "range" - orginally it described unfenced land where somebody had some kind of right to graze cattle - similar to the Australian "squat". Farms were titled and fenced land where crops might be grown. Ranchers and farmers killed each other at times over disputed rights.

Because a ranch was something big, the name got more prestige. I think it is funny when you hear about some Hollywood actor having a "ranch" that is just a few manicured acres near a fashionable town.

Maven

Some land grants came from His Majesty, the King himself. One example is Goonoo Goonoo Station (pronounced gunnah guhnoo) just south of Tamworth, NSW. The Station's official website is a construction zone though the link below has a lot of information.

http://www.naturesvision.com.au/natures-vision-blog/goonoo-goonoo

All the historical buildings remain and are being restored one by one and the Station still runs Santa Gertrudis beef cattle.

On the western fringes of Tamworth lies Bective Station which still runs Hereford beef cattle. Not a lot of historical information appears available for Bective Station though it appears named after Lord Bective who was a member of the House of Commons at the time of the Station's beginnings.

Some land grants came from His Majesty, the King himself

No land grant ever came directly from the King or Queen themselves. In Goonoo Goonoo's case it was a Crown Grant from the Colony of New South Wales on behalf of King George IV. This would of meant that the Australian Agricultural Company purchased at public auction the land at a upset £ price per acre from the Government of New South Wales. Free land grants had been abolished in New South Wales by 1831

In the case of squatting, a squatter occupied crown lands and paid the Government a yearly "licence" for the right to "depasture". Every year the Government would put the "licence" to squat up for auction at an upset £ price acre. When the Government eventually opened these lands up for Crown Grants it was often the squatters who purchased the land they previously leased. Hence the rise of the Squatocracy.

Another thing that should be mentioned is that the Australian Agricultural Company with its large land holdings in 1830's New South Wales was very disruptive to the local indigenous people.

Because a ranch was something big, the name got more prestige. I think it is funny when you hear about some Hollywood actor having a "ranch" that is just a few manicured acres near a fashionable town.

I think the most famous ranch, to Australians, was George Bush's, due to him inviting John Howard to stay for a bit and not many national leaders from any country got that sort of opportunity. I doubt even his was the size of some of the plots we have here. Even in Australia's urban areas, the famous quarter acre block is considered large by the standards of most and seldom obtainable in new land releases these days, with developers and local councils preferring free-standing dwellings to be built quite close to each other and back yards only being large enough to accommodate a clothes line and a shed only large enough for a lawn mower and a can of petrol.

I've just been reading about the Australian Agricultural Company in early NSW newspapers on Trove & in Wikipedia. Most interesting.

The Company was incorporated on the 21st of June 1824 by an act of the British Parliament. Under the charter the Company had the right to select a million acres of land in NSW for agricultural purposes.

The area the Company originally selected was nearly half a million acres around Port Stephens. Later on better land was found in the interior. In 1831 the Company surveyed potential land in the Liverpool Plains. Suitable land was found in the area including the 1/3 of million acres of the Goonoo Goonoo Estate. The company were given a grant to this land in lieu of an equivalent area at Port Stephens.

Some quarters were not too happy with the granting of the land in the Liverpool Plains. They felt the land should of been put up for auction by the Government either for sale or lease. Though free Crown Grants had ceased, the granting of land to the Company was part of a earlier binding agreement. Also the lands in question were outside of what was then the Settled Areas.

The men exploring and surveying the Liverpool Plains in 1831, according to contemporary news reports, had a dreadful time dealing with "wild savages", escaped convicts & bushrangers.