Harvey Displays Fresh And Feisty Form Going For Silver

The Sunday Age

Sunday December 28, 2008

CHRISTOPHER WEBB

TELEVISIONS and computers are one thing, but don't get Gerry Harvey, of Harvey Norman, started on the fruit and vegetables that are sold in supermarkets.

It's one of his pet subjects and he reckons that you're severely disadvantaged if you don't eat produce straight off the tree or out of the ground.

"I won't buy my vegetables and fruit in Woolworths and Coles. I hate them," he declared the other day.

"I know what they buy: something off some bloke who uses fertiliser and from some farm overseas and they've got the hide to tell you it's fresh food. It's the greatest heap of bullshit you've ever heard in your life."

This is a man who grows all his own food of the plant variety and each day goes down to the back of his property "to pick the spinach or the radish or the cucumber or whatever you're picking that day and then you go up and eat it ... that's fresh food!"

As well as his beloved Harvey Norman stores, this is a subject it's hard to get him off.

"I pick an orange off the tree and eat it. It's the most beautiful thing you can eat. I couldn't go into a shop and buy a three-month-old orange. It's a great incentive to have your own tree. If you did, you would say, 'Holy shit, I never knew it tasted this good'."

He's not quite finished.

"I see people like you who have never eaten an orange off a tree and I think that's absurd, that is unbelievably stupid. One of the most basic things in life has passed you by!"

Meanwhile, moving on to something unimportant - like the sharemarket - Harvey has shares in about 50 companies. He has shares in little companies and scrip in big companies, and he is bullish about the market in the longer term.

His advice is to sell property and put it into shares.

"You'll double your money, probably triple it, quadruple it. If you leave it in property, you might put it up 50per cent, at best."

He's not buying now, though. "I'm temporarily damaged and I'm not buying or selling. I'm not doing anything. I just put them in a drawer. I'm not buying anything because I've bought all the way down."

FORGET about gold ... Gary Morgan reckons his little explorer Haoma Mining has encountered interesting silver results. The pollster and unsuccessful lord mayoral candidate filed his latest quarterly report for Haoma the other day and said significant silver assay grades had been obtained at Bamboo Creek in WA. "Bamboo Creek Valley is at least 8kilometres long. The 'high' silver results suggest the area contains large quantities of ore with significant silver grades," Morgan enthused. Haoma scrip most recently fetched 4.6 cents, which valued the whole show at $8million; but at last report the shares were suspended due to failure to lodge reports as required. One party hoping Haoma gets a wriggle on in finding something is Morgan himself. He has been funding Haoma's saga with new-fangled assay methods and at last count (September 30) his interests were owed $25.5 million, and counting.

© 2008 The Sunday Age

Back to News Index | Back to Home