Bonnie Hayes

Prior to working in her role at RFCS, Bonnie spent the better part of the last 10 years floating around QLD, NSW and VIC in the agriculture industry, trying a variety of roles until she found one she was passionate about. Bonnie has worked in mostly seasonal ag – a cotton gin, grain harvests as a chaser bin driver then a header driver, a pen-rider at a feedlot, vintage seasons in a winery on the weighbridge and the lab, a rousie in the shearing sheds, a ringer during mustering season in NW QLD and a general farm hand. Bonnie puts this as being a “jack of all trades, master of none”. Bonnie has spent the other portion of her working life in hospitality – mostly pubs/hotels and although she enjoyed the social aspect, ag was always where she wanted to be.

Bonnie grew up in Bega, on the far south coast of NSW and left to adventure the country a few years after graduating high school. Bonnie also spent six months on an exchange program in California, USA when she was 15-16, to which she credits her independence and willingness to explore solo.

Bonnie is a Justice of the Peace for NSW and has currently paused her financial planning degree half-way through to take on her financial counselling degree for her RFCS role which she considers to be her ‘dream job’.

Bonnie’s passion for being a rural financial counsellor comes from her time in the agriculture industry and seeing the devastation farmers faced during the decade long drought. She was working in a shearing shed when she walked out to see a devastated farmer with about 1,000 less sheep in the yards than he expected, and she enrolled in university the following week with the intention of finding a way to help farmers prepare for the bad times and survive the worst.

LGAs Covered: Griffith, Murrumbidgee

Email: bonnie@rfcsnsw.com.au

Mobile: 0447 479 694

Role: Rural Financial Counsellor

The Rural Financial Counselling Service Program is funded by the Australian Government and the New South Wales Government and is administered by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry