Australian Story: Kate McBride (ABC TV Monday 24 April 2023)

Australian Story: Kate McBride airs tonight on ABC TV.

In just four years, farmer Kate McBride has gone from accidental activist to Parliamentary liaison.

Kate’s distressing 2019 footage of her father holding a massive dead Murray Cod alerted the world to widespread fish kills in the Darling River.

“I don’t think there’s any way to put into words what seeing millions of dead fish on the river you’ve called home is like,” she told Australian Story back in 2019.

The video went viral, bringing attention to a river system that had been severely depleted due to years of drought and excessive water withdrawals.

Kate was taken aback when she became the public face of the movement to protect the Darling River and was heralded as a potential future leader.

“The river’s just in strife,” she says today. “It’s got me wondering where I could have the most impact and whether that involved a move to Canberra.”

Kate McBride, who is now 25 years old, has left the family farm near Menindee in western New South Wales to work as an advocate for the bush at the public policy think tank The Australia Institute in Canberra.

Kate also has a personal problem on her hands: the question of who will inherit the family estate. Generational differences over land management in the face of climate change have contributed to this conflict.

“It definitely made me think that I needed to look elsewhere and make sure that no matter what happens in the future, I’m also looking after myself.”

Australian Story: Kate McBride airs Monday 24 April 2023 at 8.00pm on ABC TV.