AFTER a gruelling session in Federal Parliament firing barbs at Labor or the Greens, NSW Nationals Senator, Fiona Nash, loves nothing better than retreating home to the sanctity of her family farm.
She may look comfortable in Canberra, biting the heels of the Prime Minister as the Coalition’s regional education spokesperson, but life on the farm is what Fiona truly yearns for.
Caring for her husband and two teenage boys, tending to sheep, driving tractors or rising early in the morning to maintain the garden around their home, ensured Fiona remained grounded in her National Party values.
Two years after getting married in 1989, Fiona and David bought into "Cooyong", Crowther, between Cowra and Young, NSW, with their parents, where they have since raised their two boys, Will (18) and Henry (16).
Henry is now at boarding school in Canberra, while Will is spending a gap year working on the McArthur River zinc mine in the Northern Territory, but the boys were never far from their mother’s thoughts.
There have been tough times in the last 10 years, with drought and other seasonal factors taking their toll on the farm, but this season was looking good so far.
Summer rains and flooding helped to establish a strong moisture profile, placing the crop in a familiar knife’s edge position.
Rain is needed in the next week or two, to boost the moisture profile sufficiently before the sun shines.
If that happens, it will set the season up for an excellent finish.
But if not, their crop could end up looking like many others over the past decade, with an early season tease, a period of hope, then a disappointing end stunting growth, leaving bills to pay with less grain or hay to generate the income required.
In the early years, they farmed grain and bred Merino sheep for wool.
David said they changed the business structure after realising wool wasn’t paying the bills, so they now trade sheep while producing grains and hay.
"There’s nearly always someone buying sheep out there," he said.
"We have large hay sheds and there’s always some grain on hand for extra feed.
"When people can’t quite finish their sheep off for the butcher, we can turn them around in eight to 10 weeks, put a few extra kilos on them quite easily and get them out the door."
The Nashs' mixed farming enterprise roughly splits 600 hectares a third each way between their wheat and canola, irrigated hay and sheep grazing.
They were self-confessed single desk supporters, but when the system was on its way out in 2008 with deregulation of the AWB monopoly, they decided to install 1500 tonnes of storage.
At harvest, the grain goes into the on-farm storage where they then decide how to market it.
Average yields, like many others farmers on the east coast of Australia, have taken a hit due to the decade-long drought.
David said pre-drought they would have averaged about 1.5 tonnes an acre, but the past 10 years have knocked that average down.
However, David said, those challenging conditions had created "smarter farmers" who can manage stubble retention and summer weeds more effectively.
"Pre-drought we were a bit blasé about how we grew our crops," he said.
"But certainly the past 10 years we have learned a lot more about direct drilling, narrow points and press wheels."
Fiona’s National Party office sits proudly but modestly in the centre of Young.
Although she’s not there as often as she’d like to be due to her heavy workload, she has great support staff on hand.
Farmers and other community folk regularly walk in off the street and "pop their head over the counter", to talk about the issues of the day or make suggestions they’d like their local Senator to take to Canberra.
Fiona said she entered politics in 1995 after one too many late night dinner parties, where at 3am, after drinking lots of red wine, she found herself complaining again instead of taking action.
"I thought, ‘if I’m going to keep complaining about things I should put up or shut up’, so that’s when I got involved with the local Nationals branch," she said.
"But I don’t really see myself as a politician.
"I see myself as a farmer, wife and mother, who has an incredible opportunity to make a difference."
Fiona spent her formative years working at local branch level, before joining the State Council and Federal Executive in 1998.
In 1999, she started working in Larry Anthony’s office.
Fiona then worked for former National Party Leader and Deputy Prime Minister, Mark Vaile, before moving to De-Anne Kelly, then Parliamentary Secretary and member for the Queensland seat of Dawson.
It was that desire to put her money where her mouth is that elevated Fiona into the Federal Senate in 2005, after the 2004 election saw the Coalition regain power.
"I never sat here (on the farm) and said I want to be a politician one day," she said.
"I wanted to be involved to try and make a difference.
"For regional communities so often it’s like David and Goliath - we get so left behind and policies are skewed towards the city.
"Someone needs to be a champion and do the fighting."
Fiona’s political career doesn’t distract from her other role managing the farm.
David and Fiona make all the big decisions together, and when Fiona’s away they talk half a dozen times a day, often to discuss the farm’s direction.
When Fiona’s home, David said she’s "very, very handy" and "there’s pretty much nothing she can’t turn her hand to".
Fiona said she simply loves coming home after a session in Canberra, to get some dirt under the nails, listen to the soothing sounds of nature, watch the plants and crops grow and breathe familiar, clean country air.
"There’s a good balance between my political life and my farm life but I really miss the farm when I’m not here," she said.
"It’s been fantastic bringing the boys up on the farm because farm life, in my view, is just the best upbringing children can get.
"Being so grounded here makes me a better politician.
"Good politics is about having common sense and being able to put yourself in another person’s skin, and understand how they are dealing with issues."
David said his wife was able to empathise clearly with issues and their impacts.
"She’s very much aware of all the issues that go with the lack of rain or floods or whatever it may be, which gives her an advantage over other politicians who may not be exposed or involved with those issues," he said.
"There’s a perception that politicians somehow should be brighter and smarter and better than everyone else, but we are not," Fiona said.
"We are just the same as others in the community.
"Australia has a fantastic democracy, because the people in Canberra are largely reflective of what’s out there in the community."
