Motherland Australia

When Diann Hawkins saw a small ad seeking foster families, she couldn’t have known it would define the next 35 years of her life. A former nurse, bush cook, and mum of three, Diann had just farewelled her youngest to boarding school. The house was quiet. She was lonely. So she opened her heart (and home) to children in need. From their remote Queensland property, she and her husband Morris have fo...

Kylea Hodgkinson-Jones didn’t grow up on a farm - she trained as a maritime warfare officer. From life at sea to six months in Antarctica, her Navy career took her to the most extreme, isolated corners of the planet. But burnout and a medical discharge changed everything. Today, Kylea’s raising cattle, and her beautiful daughter Maggie, on a regenerative farm in Queensland’s South Burnett. Her jou...

When Kathleen Chiverton answered a random phone call from me one afternoon, she had no idea it would lead to this conversation. We’d only just met at Motherland’s Clermont event and I knew her story was one rural mums needed to hear. Kath grew up on a remote cattle station in Central Queensland, the youngest in a family of boys, before heading off to boarding school at 13…homesick and lonely. Year...

On August 12, 2020, Ash Napolitano’s world shattered when her little boy, Hunter, drowned in a dam on a family property. Today, Ash bravely shares the story of Hunter’s life and the heartbreak of losing him, along with the trauma of that day. The details, while very difficult to hear, are something Ash feels compelled to share in the hope of preventing this tragedy from happening to another family...

Christina Baehr is one of the calmest, happiest women you’ll ever meet, which is remarkable, considering she lives off-grid in Tasmania’s Huon Valley, homeschools her 10 kids (yes, 10!), runs a hostel with her husband, and somehow finds time to write fantasy novels… five of them. Three were typed entirely on her iPhone during any spare moment to herself she could get. Today, Christina shares her i...

Meet Katrina Head, a nurse, mum of three, and…a competitive woodchopper who lives life at full throttle! By day, she coordinates Queensland’s Intensive Care Clinical Network. By weekend, she’s swinging axes at shows across the country alongside her husband and kids. Katrina’s story starts on a farm near Dalby, where her deep bond with her dad shaped her work ethic and love for hands-on challenges....

Nearly two years ago, I stood on stage at Parliament House in Canberra, emceeing the National Rural Women’s Award. I wore a stunning hot pink gown, hand-dyed, made entirely from 100% Australian merino wool, and created just for me. That gown wasn’t just beautiful, it was meaningful. And it was made by today's guest, Nikki Atkinson. Nikki is the founder of Horrocks Vale Collections, a rural fa...

At the start of this season we dropped a bonus episode about what it was like living through the devastating floods in outback Queensland. Two months on, that devastation is still being felt. But the aftermath isn’t getting a lot of media coverage. Shonelle Turner lives with her husband and five kids in the rural town of Eulo in outback Queensland, between Cunnamulla and Thargomindah - the floods...

Steph Wanless is the founder of FOUND Regional, a magazine in the New England area of NSW, and digital platform REGGIE , that focuses on showcasing the best of regional NSW. While she’s committed to sharing stories from across her region, she has one of her own that deserves to be told. Steph’s birth experience and her motherhood journey didn't exactly go to plan. Both her children were born...

Debbie Dowden arrived in Australia by boat when she was just 3 years old. Her family were ‘10 pound poms’ in search of a sunnier life in Australia. Little did she know that life would see her raising 4 children 600kms from Perth in Outback Western Australia. Debbie was working as a theory instructor at a flight school when she decided that she actually wanted to fly the planes, not just teach peop...

Ingrid Matthews and her husband manage 4 beef cattle stations in Northwestern Queensland. They also have 4 kids, aged 12, 10, 7 and 6. But Ingrid and her youngest daughter Olivia have spent 6 weeks maximum at home over the last 15 months. Olivia is living with a chronic condition she was born with that impacts her stomach and her blood sugars. When she was just 8 days old she was rushed into surge...

Dr Rebecca West grew up in England—far from red dirt, heatwaves, and the howls of wild animals echoing through desert nights. She never imagined that by 40, she’d be raising three young children on one of the most remote properties in New South Wales, 450 kilometres from the nearest supermarket and hospital. But since 2017, Rebecca and her husband Reece—both ecologists—have called the edge of the...

Nicky Prosser lives on a station in the middle of South Australia that spans 1.2 million acres. She’s spent a lot of her life travelling around the state working in remote areas as a teacher and a principal. When Nicky was living in Maree, she met her property manager husband Nathan. They underwent one round of IVF to have their now 18-year old son, Ned. But now, at 50, Nicky is looking down the b...

Steph is a farmer, psychologist, and mum of three little boys who lives on a property in Worlds End, in South Australia. And right now, it kind of looks like the Worlds End is near because the state is in the midst of a horrific drought. Two weeks ago we released a bonus episode about the floods in central Queensland -  today, I’m sharing a story from the other end of the spectrum. Steph and her h...

When I say the name Liz Ellis, you probably think one of three things: One of the greatest Netballers our country has ever seen  A very funny media commentator The winner of I’m A Celebrity Get Me out of here a few years ago. What you probably don’t think of is Liz Ellis the farmer. Liz, her husband of 25 years, Matthew, and their two children live on a farm in between Lismore, Ballina and Byron B...

Outback Queensland is in crisis. An area more than double the size of Victoria has been hit by devastating floods not seen in 50 years. Properties have been inundated, More than 150,000 livestock have perished, with the death toll rising. Farmers are scrambling to save cattle, feed cattle, and salvage what they can. Behind the headlines, are the true stories of this unfolding crisis- the rural fam...

Em Armstrong is a glass half full kind of person. She’s one of those people who oozes positivity, you can see it on her socials, and hear it in her voice. Growing up in New South Wales’ Riverina district on a sheep grazing property, Em has always loved the bush. And she’s always been connected to it. Em has worked on stations in the Northern Territory, and lived in Sydney for five years. But it’s...

After Rosie Clements spent her gap year as a Jillaroo in the Northern Territory she knew she wanted a career that would enable her to help people in the bush. After starting degrees in law and teaching, Rosie finally landed on the right one for her... medicine. Now, she’s the only permanent GP in the Cunnamulla region in remote Queensland. She’s 500km from a CT scanner and 200 km from an ultrasoun...

Phoebe White has had a lot of titles and lived in a lot of places in her 35 years. She’s been a PE Teacher in Sydney. A Fashion stylist in London. A High-profile real estate agent in Miami. But it’s the two she’s been given in the past eight years that light up her life, and have brought her home. The first is being a mum to her two daughters Camilla and Olympia, and the second, is being the custo...

Weeks before Sonja Chrystal was born, her father was in a farming accident and became a paraplegic. Months after she was born, her mother packed her bags and left her paralysed husband and two little girls, and never returned. Her dad and her grandparents raised Sonja and her sister on a cropping and grazing property in the central west of NSW before Sonja found herself living and working in Sydne...

From very early on in her career, Elise Petty was a go getter who wanted to make life better for rural people, no matter what role she was in. From working as Telstra Country Life’s General Manager in Armidale NSW, to being a Senior Advisor in Kununurra for Argyle Diamonds, whatever Elise has had a crack at,she’s excelled.  Which is why she thought she’d excel when she had a baby. But as we know,...

When you google Cathie Schnitzerling, you’ll be met with some remarkable career statistics. Not only was she Landline’s first-ever presenter in 1991 and the current Executive Producer of the show, but she is also an award-winning writer, producer, and media executive. Her career has taken her to Sydney, to Melbourne and to Brisbane. She’s worked across radio, TV and documentaries. But at the heart...

Connie Wood, her husband Matt and their 3 kids manage Wave Hill Station in the Northern Territory. A property that spans 3 million acres and is a 5 hour drive away from the closest big town, Katherine. And the realities of living on a remote station? We’ll, they’re a lot. When Connie had her first child, she used to drive a 300 kilometre round trip just to get to a mother’s group for some support...

Cindy Banks always thought she’d have two kids. She grew up in a two-child household. Her husband grew up in a two-kid household. Two kids was just the norm. Plus, when you live on a remote station in Queensland, 135km northwest of Cunnamulla, two kids is a whole lot easier to teach distance education to, instead of say…four. But for Cindy, four is now her reality. Because she gave birth to 2 sets...

Hannah Speers was standing on a stage speaking when I first heard her story, and I knew instantly that I wanted to invite her onto the show. When Hannah met her husband Joe in Tumut near the Snowy Mountains in New South Wales, she didn’t think she wanted to have kids. But she realised that she loved Joe enough to have his kids. And very quickly Liam came along in 2008, followed by Lulu, 12 months...