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Volume 25, No. 11, August 2024, Queensland History Journal
It was a match! Land ballots, 1950s to 1980s, in central Queensland*
Jennifer Moffatt†
Queensland histories provide a rich social and political narrative.1 Many accounts explore the early tensions over rural land between the government and large landholders during this period of rapid change where land legislation was used to manage Crown land, then the government’s most valuable resource.2 ‘Closer settlement’, as the Queensland Government’s dominant rural development policy from Separation for 100 years,3 has been well documented. Though the policy was multi-faceted, a key objective was to increase agricultural production through more intensive land use, which meant more farmers. However, there is a gap in the administrative and social history of how the Queensland Government used legislation to manage Crown agricultural land to meet its varying responsibilities following World War II, and how this affected those on that Crown land.
The purpose of this paper is to address the gap by investigating how land balloting between the 1950s and 1980s was used as a policy instrument to contribute to increasing primary production, addressing balance of payments problems and food shortages in Western democracies, and feeding a growing Australian population following World War II.4
For those who heard the ‘call of the land’5 but had insufficient funds to purchase land, ballots presented the perfect opportunity. On the other side of the equation, the Queensland Government wanted ‘new’ farmers to help increase food production post-war. Land ballots brought these interests together. It is estimated that from the 1950s to the 1980s, almost two million hectares of Crown agricultural land were balloted resulting in almost 1,000 new farmers.
Land ballots are well known and mostly well regarded in rural Queensland, with most accounts in personal and local histories.6 The exception is a socio- political critique of how the Queensland Government used land balloting in the 1960s to progress its agenda through populist politics.7
This article is a broader story about balloting. It builds on previous research by sampling from a larger geographical area resulting in a more diverse sample of balloters. Covering a World War II Soldier Settlement area, and two of Queensland’s largest land development scheme areas and as a result of legislation in 1952, first-hand accounts from balloters and their descendants capture the joys, challenges and achievements of new farmers on their ballot blocks. Using archival records and interviews, the study not only provides the results of interviews with balloters, it demonstrates that balloting was used as a policy instrument by the Queensland Government.
The balloters’ story in this article is one of success following struggle. While valuable additions to this article would have been a comparison with balloters who did not succeed and also non-balloters who took up land by purchase, these aspects were beyond the scope of the study. Moreover, negative dimensions of rural life in general, including the heartbreak of family farming and the types of challenges reported in this study, are well documented.8
The author’s positive, first-hand lived experience of growing up on a ballot block was the motivation for this work. Coupled with this was the belief that this story, a known part of Queensland’s history, should become a part of Queensland’s written history. While bias is inherent in all research, including in this study, the author has rigorously applied the scientific method.
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* This article has been peer reviewed.
† Dr Jennifer Moffatt is a social scientist who grew up in south-east Queensland on a ballot block. This paper comes from the project undertaken for her 2018 John Oxley Library Fellowship, awarded by the State Library of Queensland.