“He may have disagreed with their politics but he invariably gave them a hearing.” Bill told me of the time that Bob Gibbs had Friday afternoon drinks in his parliamentary room and had invited among others the then-Hamilton Island owner Keith Williams with his island friend George Harrison, the quietest Beatle, you would recall. Also there were John Stubbs, Wolf Blass the man and vintner, whose conversations and interests rarely strayed from the topic of wine, up here from South Australia. Wolf Blass at the time was about 56 and George about 46. It was 1989 the time of the airline pilots’ strike, an event quite crippling for Brisbane’s hospitality and tourism business. Wolf and George were standing aside at the Minister’s cocktail bar and John Stubbs was casually eavesdropping. “Hi, my name is Wolf Blass,” to which George gave his own name and they shook hands. The wine was not Wolf Blass and Wolf held his red wine up to the light. “Well, what do you think this red is – merlot or shiraz?” he asked. George casually shrugged: “Not sure, Wolf.” “I think it is merlot. Huh?” Wolf said. He was still holding the glass to the light: “Anyway, what do you do for a
quid?” To which George replied: “Oh, music – I muck around with a guitar.” “Oh, has it been kind to you?” Wolf inquired. “Oh, I’ve done okay,” replied the quiet Beatle. “Getting by.” “How’s it going then with the pilots’ strike? Losing any bookings? Nah – I think this is definitely shiraz.” Bill has a great sense of humour and he roared as he told me what John had witnessed. I laughed just as much. And I am sure that Wolf Blass would have laughed also when John gave Wolf a quiet nudge and told him that George owned a magnificent mansion on Hamilton Island and was one of the Beatles. It’s true that it’s hard to take the country out of the boy. Especially so for Bill Stubbs. “Mineral exploration became a reasonably big part of my life, and along the way I met Jim McIntosh, who became my great friend and managing partner of our cattle grazing properties up Richmond and Charters Towers way (north-western Queensland) a solid partnership for 30-odd years prior to sale about 4 years ago.” “Back to exploratory mining,” continued Bill. “I saw in the 1970s that much was owned by foreign investment and I became quite passionate about Australians having more ownership of our natural resources, involving help
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for more funding for our prospectors and geologists. “My legal work mainly pertained to mining and exploration and land entry and compensation.” Public companies that Bill has helped include Bligh Coal Ltd, Pacific Arc Exploration, PacRim Energy, and a mineral sand-mining company south of Broken Hill, Bemax Resources. He was the inaugural founding chairman of Arrow Energy, since taken over by Shell, is chair of DGR Global and remains a director of Armour Energy. Here, I changed the subject to play, not work. Bill the fisherman heads to North Stradbroke Island in the tailor season, to the Northern Territory for barramundi, and takes an annual trip out to the Swains reef off Gladstone for bottom fishing. While duck-shooting is banned in Queensland, Bill came from a generation that grew up with a Daisy air rifle at 10, a .22 rifle at 12, and outings for pig and duck shoots. So while Victoria and South Australia still allow duck shoots, it’s to Tasmania and New Zealand, and occasionally Uruguay, where Bill heads for the duck season annual opening. “They are keen hunters there and it is accepted recreation in their community and visitors’ lives. “In the old days here, at properties that had lagoons and dams, if a law
Bill Stubbs the lawyer. court judge or the State Governor visited a community, the people would organise a duck shoot for him,” he said. Bill has two children, Mandy and Matt, along with five grandchildren. Mandy runs PR company Pulse Media, and Matt formed and runs a corporate advisory company called Allier Capital. He has an MBA and a law degree and has been a merchant banker. Bill and his dear wife Libbi Burns travel overseas occasionally, last year to the UK. A long way, William Stubbs, from your birthplace at Cunnamulla, Outback Queensland, we all agree!
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