Storm looms as Charters Towers district Runnymede station listed after rural lending stoush
Runnymede station near Richmond in north-west Queensland has been listed for September 7 receivership auction through Ray White Rural agent Kevin Currie.
It had been the long-time farm of John Wharton, the mayor of the Richmond Shire Council.
He lost control of the 20,200-hectare property, which had been with his family for about 96 years, in late 2011 when Bankwest appointed insolvency firm KordaMentha to take control.
At the time Wharton said the receivers had moved in after a debt repayment of more than $1 million was submitted to the bank beyond deadline.
"They just came in and bloody shut the gate," he told the AM program on ABC Radio.
In an act of solidarity, more than 60 beef producers converged on Runnymede to protest about what they described as unfair lending practices.
Cloncurry Shire mayor Andrew Daniels suggested some banks didn't understand the challenges landowners currently faced after two very wet seasons and the live export debacle.
Bob Katter, the Federal Member for Kennedy, noted it just needed one bank to start fire selling and then the region's farm values would come down.
Katter advised the protesters he had spoken to the Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens about the need to reform the rural banking sector.
In a statement to the ABC last November, Bankwest strongly denied placing Runnymede Station into receivership without enough warning.
It said it had been working with John Wharton over a number of years to try to reach a mutually acceptable outcome.
Wharton said last year that he had paid all the interest and reduced debt by $3 million with other property sales.
Wharton, who has an occasional blog and Facebook page, is a well-known figure in the region having been mayor of the shire since 1998.
Wharton has lawyers fighting his battle, with the bank having engaged Stewart Levitt, from Sydney-based firm Levitt Robinson, known for his fight with the banks over Storm Financial, according to the Courier Mail's City Beat columnist Tony Grant-Taylor.
