Mrs McCahon said: "Since 1956, Bert [Rudd] had been employed as a share farmer and when the monthly milk cheque came in, his wage was half that cheque. Out of his money, his outlay was half the cost of feed for the cattle and any additional labour he may have hired. Other expenses were met by my father. When Bert died our father had no choice but to employ a new farmer. It was the biggest dairy farm on the Sunshine Coast and there were more than 120 cows that needed milking morning and night. Margaret would always have known at some point, inevitably, an incoming farmer would have to occupy the farmhouse. But provisions were put in place by our father for Margaret. He explained to her she could remain on the farm, at no cost whatsoever, until such time as the new farmer arrived. What Kevin has always failed to state is that the new farmer didn't even arrive until July - that's almost six months after his father's death. During that entire time, our family continued to run the farm. There was absolutely no reason for them to have left until the new farmer arrived in July. To continuously say he was evicted immediately after his dad's funeral is quite an unbelievable statement. Not only does he blame our father for the so-called eviction, he subsequently mentions having to sleep rough in a car."
rudd version "I think my father's death was difficult at an early age, being evicted actually was the harder bit because we were share farmers, we didn't own the property so bury Dad one day and get tossed off the property virtually the next with nowhere to go and no assets because you don't own a house if you're a share farmer either." - Kevin Rudd, Interview with Julia Baird, ABC, March 5, 2006.
"Within two or three weeks of Dad's funeral, we were told we had to go. I can remember the terrible discussion between my mother and the fellow who owned the land."
- Kevin Rudd, The Australian Women's Weekly, January, 2007.
