Plus Galah’s future and all the good eggs. Welcome to Galah Weekly, our award-winning newsletter keeping you up to date with regional headlines that matter, plus other delightful things from life beyond the city. By Dean Southwell, who has loved being involved with Galah.
First, a message from Annabelle
After the Christmas break, Galah's newsletter world – Galah Weekly, We Bought a Hotel, Yes, Chef! – will go into an indefinite hibernation, with the exception of Jeremy Valentine's In the Weeds gardening newsletter, which will continue its monthly cadence. My heartfelt thanks go to Dean Southwell, Sophie Hansen, Neil Varcoe and Jeremy Valentine for their brilliant work at the helm of these newsletters. And to Helen Anderson, our magazine editor, who also edits all the newsies with her signature skill.
Magazine-wise, Team Galah will continue working away on Issue 14, due to hit letterboxes in April 2026. The first few layouts are coming through now and it's going to be an absolute cracker. I’m operating on the assumption that Issue 14 will be the final issue of Galah, although I do want to flag that there is one exciting conversation bubbling away in the background.
If it turns into what I hope it might, there could be a Galah 2.0 future, emerging phoenix-like bigger and better in 2026, but I don't want to count my chickens before they hatch. I'll keep you posted about this next year.
And our current Issue 13 is selling at breakneck speed – thank you for all your support. As of this week, we had 59 copies left. If you think you might want a copy, I suggest you order it now. Once they're gone, they're gone.
And now, let me hand over to Galah Weekly editor Dean Southwell for our end-of-year wrap.
– Galah editor-in-chief Annabelle Hickson
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Looking back
We’re incredibly proud of this year’s magazines.
Issue 12 is the Earth issue, about the planet we walk on, the farms we rely on, the backyards we play in. Among highlights – in an election year in which a record number of regional seats were contested by independents, writer Sarah Turnbull’s well-timed analysis, Kitchen-table Politics, charted the nationwide movement built by trailblazing rural women.
Issue 13 is the Elements issue, featuring a once-in-lifetime story, Song of the Grasses, a special invitation to spend time in the central desert of the NPY Lands with some of the 400 artists who are the Tjanpi Desert Weavers.
On top of that, editor-in-chief Annabelle Hickson launched the Galah podcast, exploring topics from obsession to the crisis in country schools to Christmas at a Women’s Shelter, examining the reality of domestic violence.
What you loved
If Galah’s most-read digital stories in 2025 tell us anything, it’s that you love an eclectic mix.
Most-clicked story: To be Frank, a profile of Hunter Valley artist Dale Frank by writer Luke Slattery and photographer Brigid Arnott.
Galah was established to tell the story of regional Australia, of smart, resilient people and opportunities.
More than 1100 entries in the $25,000 Galah Regional Photography Prize showcased some of that talent, both through the images and the people who made them. NSW Northern Rivers photographer Lisa Sorgini was announced overall winner at the prize party at NERAM in Armidale, which hosted an exhibition of 42 images from 37 photographers.
Sorgini’s winning work, The Flood, was a diptych of images showing the effect of the 2022 Lismore floods. Maitland photographer Thérèse Maher’s Sweetheart, Merriwa was voted the $2000 People's Choice Award winner.
The Flood, by Lisa Sorgini, winner of the 2025 Galah Regional Photography Prize.
Our round-up
Here’s a selection of the stories we covered this year.
The good eggs
Dubbo shearer Carol Mudford, who is also a registered nurse, won the 2025 AgriFutures Rural Women’s Award for tackling suicide and mental health issues in her industry.
Hats off to the Victorian netball club and its league who bent the rules so stalwart Maree Bagley could play a dream game with her teenage granddaughter.
Three plucky women, including great-grandmother Noni Wilson who was recovering from a broken leg, received bravery awards for their part in foiling a carjacking outside a Broken Hill hospital.
Mildura hairdresser Juliann Mutch regularly makes a 1000km round trip to cut hair in a main street op shop in Wilcannia in the NSW outback.
The volunteers at Christine Mastello’s Southlakes Incorporated in NSW have delivered programs such as Out West Community Pantry and community hair-cutting projects in the Lake Macquarie region and west.
Mary O’Brien established Are You Bogged Mate?, an organisation dedicated to raising awareness about mental health issues and preventing suicide among rural men. She also organised a team of volunteer mechanics to fix damaged farm equipment after Qld floods.
Rockhampton woman Roylene Robinson has fostered 280 children and is the driving force behind a thrift shop offering help to those struggling to meet basic needs.
In Toowoomba, Emma Mactaggart has been inspiring creativity and literacy through a program that lets children write, illustrate and publish their own picture books.
In the Victorian town of Tallarook, Gold Logie winner Samuel Johnson, famous for his TV and cancer-fundraising work, is also known as the local postie.
Barossa Valley friends Sheralee Menz and Marieka Ashmore released a book paying tribute to the women behind an iconic community cookbook. Like the 1917 original, Menz and Ashmore’s book also supported the Tanunda Soldiers Memorial Hall.
Lorraine Tuckett, a great-great-grandmother better known as Nan, celebrated her 85th birthday at the wheel of an SS Commodore, continuing her reign as Leeton’s burnout queen.
The issues
Regional communities continue to fight for services the rest of the country takes for granted. Health was an obvious example. The National Rural Health Alliance said regional Australians miss out on $6.5 billion in aged care and health funding.
The renewables roll-out divided communities across the country, with louder calls from community leaders for host regions to see real benefits. The Riverina shire of Hay was singled out for its community-led approach to the change, largely driven by development officer Alison McLean.
The role of arts and the galleries that support them are vital in regional communities. Peak arts bodies warned that regional galleries across NSW faced dramatic program cuts or even closure after many missed out on critical state government funding this year.
The Victorian town of Ararat is testament to the benefits that migrants bring to regional communities. In Bendigo, a Muslim outreach program in conjunction with a once-contentious mosque development have shown the benefits of tolerance.
This week's newsletter is sponsored by Westfund
The funniest
Alfonzo, an Adelaide rescue staffie, was originally suspected of snakebite when he returned wobbly from a walk. He was later found to have eaten a discarded marijuana stash.
A north Qld mayor might have been going a touch too far when she described a wastewater project as making sewage treatment “sexy”.
The social media team for Gilmour Space Technologies found the positives in a brief flight from the Bowen Orbital Spaceport, even though the 23-metre rocket barely cleared the tower. They had fun with news of an onboard jar of Vegemite that was still edible after the crash.
Tumut horticultural scientist Mark Peacock used his skills to grow a pumpkin big enough for his mate to hollow out and row down the Tumut River.
The wackiest
Residents of the Victorian goldfields town of Castlemaine walked the red carpet at the local theatre for the premiere – and probably final – screening of the mockbuster film project Jurassic Park: Castlemaine Redux. The frame-by-frame remake featured a volunteer cast and crew of 150 who mostly live in and around the town.
A well-meaning wildlife rescuer forced the temporary evacuation of a northern NSW sanctuary when she turned up with a highly venomous sea snake found stranded on a beach.
A couple found their relocatable home was installed on the wrong block in a rural subdivision outside the Victorian town of Camperdown. It should have been built on the block next door.
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Snake tales
Can drinking milk or vinegar protect against snakebite? Can snakes bite you in or even underwater? Are baby snakes more dangerous than fully grown ones? We had so many questions about snakes we turned over an entire edition of Galah Weekly to the experts. The RFDS, a Charles Sturt University snake expert and a vet answered the obvious questions – and plenty out of left field – to provide us with our definitive snake guide.
Outback grazier Ian Jackson and his neighbours were lauded for their common sense reaction when Jackson was bitten by a snake on an isolated station 240km from Broken Hill. His story actually inspired our snake guide.
A family evacuated by boat during floods in the NSW town of Kempsey returned to find 30 snakes in their shed and a plague of spiders, while this video of a nest of more than 100 red-bellied black snakes was just too much.
The ridiculous
Two long-delayed Spirit of Tasmania passenger ferry replacements don’t fit their home ports, the cost of fixing that blunder is rising astronomically, and the bill will rise even further because someone relied on the wrong instructions. Enough said.
Bureaucracy and anonymous complaints about traffic stopped Mornington Peninsula baker Michelle Ball from selling sourdough loaves to her loyal customers under an honesty system. Operating as the Bread Box Baker, she had stocked an antique Ukrainian street kiosk outside her Mount Martha home with loaves for three years.
The WA government appointed senior ministers to represent each of the state’s eight regional areas, even though some of them are Perth-based and only one minister lived in the region they represent.
Escapee Valerie after 18 months on the loose. Supplied: Georgia Gardner/Kangala Wildlife Rescue
The dogs
Pint-sized dachshund Valerie sparked one of the good news stories of the year when she was reunited with her Albury owners 540 days after going missing on a camping trip to SA’s Kangaroo Island.
Penny the labradoodle’s persistent barking led to the rescue of her best mate, labrador Ted, who had fallen down a central Vic mine shaft after the pair escaped their backyard.
There’s big money in dogs, with a report showing farm dogs add $3 billion to the national economy. There was also a $1 million court battle over Teddy, the Cavalier King Charles spaniel that went missing from a home in the NSW town of Young.
The pests
A Frankenstein toad, a genetically modified cannibal cane-toad tadpole that never grows up, was seen as a potential weapon in controlling the invasive pest.
The cannibal toad was rivalled for weirdness by the sex-switching invasive Chinese river oyster in Qld waters.
Varroa mite outbreaks continue to plague beekeepers and disrupt pollination of crops, pushing up the price of food. Researchers are turning to artificial insemination to help bees resist the onslaught. The bees’ relatively large penis makes collecting sperm an easier, but still-delicate process.
Fire ants continued to defy control efforts. Seen as potentially worse than the combined impact of all of Australia’s other imported pests, infestations were found at central Qld mining sites. Eradication and control efforts on the Sunshine Coast were hampered by residents opposing biosecurity staff entering their properties.
Some imported pests were on two legs. American influencer Sam Jones copped plenty of backlash for a video showing her with a wombat joey separated from its mother, while a video of another American influencer apparently chasing and capturing crocodiles by hand in far north Qld sparked calls for his deportation.
… and other critters
Predator turned prey when a 4.7m great white shark washed up on a Victorian beach was found to have been killed by orcas. In north Qld, one councillor suggested putting bull shark on the menu at fish-and-chip shops as a way of controlling numbers.
