Passionate Eddie leads by example
10.06.2009
By: Tony Koch
COMMUNITY-owned enterprises set up on Aboriginal settlements ``don't work'' and the way to achieve economic independence is for indigenous people to fund their own small businesses, according to Cape York passionfruit grower Eddie Woibo.
Mr Woibo operates a successful orchard at the Hopevale Aboriginal community, north of Cooktown.
``Just at Hopevale in recent years we have seen a bakery, a butchery and a market garden all get started and then things go wrong and they close,'' he said.
``But around me here is a privately run sawmill that is owned by the operator and several other farming enterprises, all of them successful, if only in a small way.
``There are six or eight families who want to follow my lead and grow passionfruit, but there are currently some problems with confusion over what the state government is doing through declaring waterways in the Cape (York) to be wild rivers.
``But that will get sorted out.''
Mr Woibo strongly backed the agenda of indigenous leader Noel Pearson, who says the best way forward for Aboriginal people is through economic development in ``real'' jobs, rather than government-created employment such as park rangers.
Mr Woibo said there were second-generation Aboriginal families at Hopevale who depended on welfare for a living and had never had a real job.
He said government regulations continually inhibited attempts to establish individually owned enterprises in the north.
``I had my own hardware business and I have had other businesses where I had trucks and heavy machinery, and the greatest struggle is against government regulation.
``I set up this farm over 20 years ago and built my own home here. There was no electricity or town water then, but power and the telephone have come since.''
Mr Woibo, 58, has invested $100,000 drilling a bore, setting up irrigation lines and buying machinery for his 1300-vine passionfruit farm, which he runs in conjunction with beef cattle breeding.
Last year was his first harvest when 1900 cartons, each containing about 48 pieces of fruit, were sent to Brisbane and Sydney produce markets.
He received between $30 and $48 a carton, and now wants to expand his production area.
Balkanu Cape York Development Corp employs Mr Woibo to assist other indigenous people to get established in self-sustaining businesses.
``I like to lead by example, and it is my experience that Aboriginal people who see people like me and my neighbours -- their own people -- succeeding in what we do, they are prepared to follow,'' Mr Woibo said.
