Like a lot of people in their 30s who continue to live the Goulburn Valley region, Colin Webster grew up on a dairy farm.
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His farm just happened to be on a different continent, in the African nation Zimbabwe, and he has a very different story to tell — one which now spans three continents and has, ironically, seen him back in the dairy industry.
Tomorrow, at a Campaspe Shire citizenship ceremony that features more than 20 people from a dozen countries, he and wife Jenna will join their two and four-year-old Australian-born children as citizens of the country.
It will be the second, and last, time the Finlay Rd couple change their nationality after being forced to live in England after the Zimbabwe government’s much-publicised seizure of farms between 2000 and 2010.
“With the politics both Jenna’s family, and mine, both had our family farms taken in a hostile fashion,” Colin said.
Thousands of white farmers were forced off the land during government-led “invasions”, with several farmers and farm workers killed and many others were injured.
The Zimbabwean government promised the program would redistribute farming land to Zimbabweans in need, but many farms were taken by politicians and members of the ZANU-PF ruling party.
The farms were taken under a controversial land reform program launched by former President Robert Mugabe. He argued that this was to redress colonial-era land grabs, when much of the country’s best land was reserved for the white population and black farmers were forced onto marginal areas.
Jenna’s family lost their corn, wheat and tobacco farm in 2000, the farm her grandfather had bought a generation before and passed through her uncle’s hands to her father.
Colin’s family farm was a fifth-generation dairy farm, with about 2000 cows as part of the operation.
“They are still taking farms, even today, with the use of army and police. Back then if you valued your life, you just left,” he said.
The land grab crippled the Zimbabwe economy and, while living in London, Colin was supporting his parents by sending money whenever he could.
He has maintained that strong family connection, in fact, his parents now live on Webb Rd at Kyabram after relocating in June last year.
“They had nothing to retire on. It took a long time to get them over here,” Colin said.
Colin’s sister remains in Zimbabwe and he has a brother in the UK. Jenna’s parents and brother remain in England.
Ironically, after vowing to never return to the dairy industry, Colin is now operations manager a major Kyabram dairy farm operation, which is only a stone’s throw from where his family now lives.
Colin and Jenna have two children, four-year-old Joe and Lucy, who turns three this week.
They lived in London for nine years, Colin meeting Jenna after his family was left with nothing when he was 20.
Jenna’s family relocated first to New Zealand, where she completed her schooling, then to the United Kingdom.
In June 2016 they decided to go in search of a new future, throwing on their backpacks and heading Down Under.
While weather, the promise of a Australian sunshine compared with the UK’s seemingly constant cold, was number one reason, the major spark was to get ahead.
“We wanted something similar where we could set up home and start a family.”
Colin had been driving trucks for a removal company in England and Jenna did marketing for a graphic design company.
While he thought he had wiped his hands of the agricultural industry, he was forced back into the fold when he and Jenna were required to do 88 days of “farm work’’ to qualify for the second year of their visas in Australia.
“When we were in Perth Jenna worked with a company who knew someone from the region,” Colin said.
“We needed to spend 88 days on a farm to get second-year visa, so we used that contact.
“I hadn’t been on a dairy farm since Zimbabwe and worked for that three months on Mulcahys farm.”
He described the work as “just like riding a bike’’ and found himself quickly out of the milking shed quickly and into herd management.
“We decided we needed to put our roots down somewhere and this was as good as anywhere,” he said.
In 2017 the couple managed to put together the funds to purchase the Finlay Rd 17-acre property and in past three years have expanded their holdings to 160 acres, which they will use for cropping.
“The goal was always to have something of our own again,” he said.
The couple qualified two years ago to become citizens, but because of COVID-19 their June 2020 application has taken until now to be realised.
They said while they had worked to get where they are today, Australia had allowed them the opportunities to improve their lives.
“Out here it is so different. Even without financial backing, if you are prepared to work, you can get somewhere,” Jenna said.
“It is all about putting your mind to it and doing a bit of hard work.’’
Colin said when the children were older he would take them back to Zimbabwe, where the couple have only returned once since leaving (in 2012 for his brother’s wedding).
“It is a very beautiful place, even in turmoil,” he said.
“For tourism it is brilliant, but when you are there as a tourist you don't see the nasty side.
“I suppose going back will allow us to have some closure on the decision we have made to live in Australia.”
In the meantime, the two young Australian-born citizens will now have parents who share the same nationality and the family can continue build on the future that the two Zimbabwe ex-patriots have built for themselves on foreign — now home — soil.
Kyabram Free Press and Campaspe Valley News editor