THE ongoing saga of Bankwest's decision to place the properties of Richmond Mayor John Wharton into receivership continues, with Mr Wharton accusing receivers Korda Mentha of allowing the properties to fall into disrepair.
Mr Wharton told the North Queensland Register that on January 5 he and his son travelled to their properties, Red Rock and The Canyon, which they still have grazing rights over, to find that 70 percent of The Canyon had been burnt out and that the fire had been burning for a week.
"Receivers have let our property, The Canyon, burn and no one had even notified us that there was a fire," he said.
"The caretaker employed by Gavin Nolan, of Korda Mentha, and Kevin Currie, of Ray White Rural, lives on the next-door property. He saved his place, Stockman's Creek, from burning but allowed the fire to burn out 70pc of our place, Canyon," Mr Wharton alleged.
He said that further inspection of Red Rock revealed all the stock lick troughs empty except for one, which had a very small amount in it.
"It is his job to keep the stock lick up to the cattle and fix any broken fences. All of these jobs need fixing, yet there has been no sign of any receivers, except for possibly a helicopter checking the waters on Runnymede, who we have not seen."
Mr Wharton said the receivers had not asked him nor his son Luke to do any of these jobs and it seemed to be a prime example of once again allowing their asset to run down rapidly.
"We found we had more than 45 of our neighbours' cattle right up around the house and through all our small paddocks, and a number of breeder cows had got through a fence and into the Town Common," Mr Wharton alleged.
The problems also extend to the Richmond Shire block Runnymede, where Mr Wharton said he had to pull a cow out of a bog. It had to be shot.
Mr Wharton has been invited by National Senator John Williams to give evidence at a parliamentary inquiry into banking to be held next month.
Senator Williams said Mr Wharton's situation was not an isolated case and that he had become aware of several cases where stock on properties where receivers had been appointed had been severely neglected.
"Last July, I spoke with the CEO of Australian Banking Association and asked him 'Please do not send receivers and liquidators into family farms as they do not have any expertise in looking after stock'," Senator Williams said.
He said there were some cases where the RSPCA should have been alerted.
Korda Mentha has yet to respond to the allegations.
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