Late one Friday afternoon in January, three adjoining acreages on the mist-cooled ridges above Mittagong, New South Wales, changed hands for a whispered figure just shy of A$30 million. The purchaser was Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes, who already controls more than a thousand hectares of Southern Highlands pasture and eucalyptus forest.
His latest acquisition barely registered in mainstream news, yet it illustrates a powerful trend: Australia’s wealthiest individuals and family offices are rushing to secure self-sufficient, low-density, water-secure land far from the urban glare, but still close enough to a helicopter pad and an international airport.
From Tasmania’s frost-kissed Midlands to the sun-drenched cattle stations of Queensland, “bush bolt-holes” are becoming the 2020s equivalent of the Cold-War bomb shelter—only prettier, organic-certified, and sometimes turning a profit. The rush is quiet, off-market and, for locals already priced out of regional housing, more than a little unsettling.
This article maps the pattern, explains why it is accelerating, and pinpoints six Australian hot spots where ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) buyers are concentrating their off-grid bets.
From pandemic panic to the climate clock: why the bush is the new bunker
The seeds of today’s land grab were planted during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, when private-jet traffic to regional strips spiked and satellite-phone suppliers ran low on inventory. But the rush did not abate after borders reopened. Instead, a new calculus—part climate science, part geopolitical risk, part plain FOMO—took hold in boardrooms and family offices.
A survey of more than 600 family offices worldwide by Knight Frank for its latest Wealth Report 2025 found that 44 percent intend to increase exposure to “defensive real assets” such as rural land and timber over the next two years. Carbon-credit revenue and food security top the list of motives; lifestyle and legacy are not far behind.
Australia ticks every box on that wish list. The continent offers political stability, a strong rule of law, and—critically—vast tracts of sparsely populated land with reliable water or rainfall gradients. Add a currency that remains cheaper than the U.S. dollar and a tax regime friendly to agricultural investors, and the appeal is obvious to a Singapore-based tech founder or a London hedge-fund veteran weighing where to park wealth for 30 years or more.
Data on rural prices underscore the surge. Rural Bank’s Farmland Values Report 2024 shows the median price per hectare has risen 201 percent in the past decade—more than triple the pace of metropolitan housing. Yet the very top of the rural market is now driven less by productive value per cow than by “amenity premiums” for seclusion, altitude, spring water and solar exposure.
What counts as an “off-grid” estate in 2025?
Real-estate agents once used “off-grid” as a romantic synonym for a glorified shed running on diesel. UHNW buyers have re-defined the term. The new off-grid spec sheet typically includes:
- A minimum of 500 acres (200 ha) for privacy and on-site food production;
- Reliable surface water or bore licences, plus rain-harvesting;
- A solar array sized for full estate operations, backed by batteries and (often) biodiesel;
- A sealed helipad within walking distance of the main homestead;
- Elevation above any conceivable floodplain, and geology stable enough for bunkers or cellars;
- Internet redundancy via Starlink or private microwave relay; and
- Proximity—by rotor blade rather than road—to world-class medical care.
When those boxes are ticked, price per hectare ceases to be anchored by cattle weight-gain metrics. Record deals show premiums of 20–40 percent over the “productive value,” according to rural valuers Colliers Agribusiness.
Mapping the boom: six regions where the money is landing
A. Southern Highlands & Southern Tablelands, NSW
Cool winters, high rainfall and lush basalt soils have drawn retirees for decades, but the past four years have seen extraordinary consolidation by tech elites. Cannon-Brookes’s spree—documented in Domain’s property desk—includes historic Joadja ghost town for whiskey production, a vineyard and multiple horse farms. Local agents note that quality grazing blocks once marketed at A$15k per acre now transact privately above A$25k. Helicopter traffic over Bowral at dawn has become a talking point on community forums.
B. Tasmanian Midlands & Central Highlands
Tasmania’s interior—long associated with merino wool—has re-branded itself as a climate-resilient sanctuary. The flagship example is The Quoin, a 5 000 ha property purchased by Canva co-founder Cameron Adams and partner Lisa Miller. They are re-wilding the station for biodiversity credits while keeping a small fine-wool flock. The project, profiled by the ABC (link), is already a pilgrimage site for regenerative-agriculture investors.
Local conveyancers say sealed bids from Hong Kong and Dubai family offices are common, even for properties lacking a public listing. Tasmania’s Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) exemptions for agricultural land under 5 ha do not apply here, but buyers appear unfazed by red tape if the asset comes with permanent water and trout streams.
C. Queensland interior: carbon-credit cattle country
Behind Queensland’s Great Dividing Range lies a checkerboard of grazing country now viewed through a carbon lens. Packhorse Pastoral’s portfolio sale to Queensland Investment Corporation (QIC) in 2023—for a reported A$80 million—was framed by the Australian Financial Review (link) as a “natural-capital push.” The institutional pivot validated carbon-farming economics for smaller family offices.
Not to be outdone, mining magnate Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Agriculture secured two of Packhorse’s “blue ribbon” stations—Moolan Downs and Ottley Station—with abundant artesian water and improved pastures (Beef Central). These deals, along with record-setting sales such as 31 500 ha Gattonvale Station at A$77.75 million, have lifted regional price expectations by more than 30 percent in two seasons.
D. Private reef islands, Queensland
If mainland remoteness still feels too crowded, the Whitsundays and Keppel groups now serve as real-life Bond-villain retreats. In April 2024 Victor Island—a 7.7-acre jewel 20 minutes by boat from the coast—sold at auction for just A$2.51 million after 15 registered bidders, according to Mansion Global (link). The island already had a solar array, desalinator, helipad and two moorings; running costs are reportedly under A$80 000 a year—a rounding error for its new owners.
Local selling agents say the buyer pool is global: Los Angeles entertainers chasing creative privacy, Singapore family trusts hedging against sea-level projections, even European biotech founders unable to obtain New Zealand’s more restrictive Overseas Investment Office approvals.
E. Northern Rivers & Byron hinterland, NSW
The micro-region made famous by Crystal Brook and influencer lifestyles now offers something more sobering: sub-tropical food security close to the Pacific Highway. Domain reports half a dozen estates with bore licences, solar farms and sealed helipads changing hands quietly for A$15–25 million each during 2024 (Domain search link). Properties featuring existing bunkers command premiums, while those with volcanic soils fetch organic-farm multiples.
One veteran buyer’s agent describes the new class of Northern Rivers purchaser as “software, psychedelics and streaming money” looking for “a Bali vibe without the geopolitical uncertainty.”
F. WA & NT rangelands: the mega-acreage endgame
For investors who equate safety with sheer distance from population centres, the Kimberley and central Australian deserts remain the grail. Andrew “Forrest, via his private family office Tattarang, has assembled more than 220 000 ha of cattle country in Jubilee Downs and Quanbun Downs since 2022 (Beef Central roundup). Rumours persist he is chasing Rawlinna Station—Australia’s largest freehold property at 2.5 million acres—creating a contiguous empire bigger than Israel.
Water rights in these regions hinge on deep aquifers; solar irradiance is world-class, making on-site hydrogen production a tantalising longer-term option. But medevac times push UHNW families to build fully equipped paramedic facilities on site—part of the new off-grid spec sheet.
How the deals are stitched together
Almost every high-profile sale above was off-market. Agents cultivate a “web of trust” database of fewer than 1 000 global UHNW names. Once a property meets the water-solar-helipad spec, a digital data-room is emailed with GPS mapping layers and drone footage; deals can close in 14 days, subject only to FIRB review and environmental due diligence.
The legal structure of choice is a unit trust with a corporate trustee domiciled in Australia, allowing multiple generations to hold units while shifting estate-planning complexity offshore. Carbon and biodiversity projects are stapled to the deed to generate income and, crucially, to rebuff any public narrative that the purchase is mere doomsday indulgence.
Sellers willing to include fully permitted bunker plans report premiums of A$1–3 million on mid-size holdings. The bunker market itself has become specialised: one Melbourne firm now offers a 450-square-metre subterranean residence rated to 12 psi blast pressure, complete with NFT-secured entrances.
Winners, worries and the social ledger
Is this good news for regional Australia? In the short term, yes: vendors pocket life-changing gains, tradespeople win renovation contracts, conservation covenants protect vulnerable ecosystems, and local councils enjoy boosted rate bases. But a counter-narrative haunts community halls: absentee ultra-rich owners lock up land, hollow out school enrolments, and push median house prices beyond teachers’ reach.
Queensland’s Local Government Association warns of “economic Dutch disease” if beef and cropping land becomes an asset class divorced from actual food output. Meanwhile, environmental economists argue that biodiversity credit schemes are turning cattle barons into de-facto conservationists—an outcome green groups privately applaud.
Rural sociologist Dr Kate Auty notes that the richest buyers often fund new fire sheds, sponsor local football teams and underwrite Indigenous ranger programs. Yet she also sees “cultural friction” when McMansions sprout in paddocks where tin sheds once dominated the skyline.
What happens next?
Three forces could slow the spree: a sharp rise in real interest rates, an Australian government clampdown on foreign agricultural investment, or a collapse in Australian carbon credit prices. All three are plausible but unlikely to bite simultaneously. More probable is continued, selective consolidation—especially in Tasmania, where water licences remain undervalued relative to California and Spain.
The larger question is what this portends for the rest of us. If billionaires, armed with the best risk data money can buy, are spending vast sums to secure water, soil and solar assets in semi-remote Australia, what is the share-house renter in Marrickville, the mortgage-holder in outer Melbourne or the investor in a CBD apartment block meant to conclude? Perhaps only that the idea of Australia as the world’s last big blank canvas still lives—just not at a price most of us can afford.
For now, the choppers keep thumping over Bowral at dawn, and the auctioneer’s hammer echoes across quiet paddocks. The bush boom is real, and the map above tells you exactly where the next bid may land.
