Plus three banned words and other 2024 mysteries. Welcome to Galah Weekly and a special year-end edition of our newsletter on regional headlines that matter. By Dean Southwell, who hopes Santa will look kindly on this newsletter.
The round-up
Welcome to the end-of-2024 edition of the Galah Weekly. We're throwing caution to the wind for our last newsletter of the year, abandoning our regular format to instead embrace the wrap.
Thanks to donations ranging from $20 to $2500 from the Galah community (that's you), we raised more than $20,000 for our artist subsidy fund for the 2025 Galah Regional Photography Prize.
Also, we did not open a shop. Galah's editor-in-chief Annabelle Hickson is patting herself on the back for exercising such restraint. See "2024 goals" in our highlights for context.
We also welcomed three new team members this year:
Dean Southwell, author of this fine newsletter.
Josh Fletcher on partnerships. He's already lined up some great projects for 2025.
And Sophie Hansen who has a very pleasing title of "Marketing and Special Projects".
Now to the stories
What you loved the most
A story about Emily Quigley, the pregnant jeweller who took her pearl creations from the small NSW town of Trangie (pop. 1000) to the bright lights of Paris Fashion Week was Galah’s most “clicked-on” story of 2024.
The print story you loved the most, well we don't know exactly because print is click-free and fabulous for it, but we got a lot of great feedback about Sam Vincent's story It never rains, but it pours on why the serious business of weather forecasting leads Australian farmers to Norway. Many of you loved reading The house that floated away, a story about an old Queenslander house and its two cross-border relocations, dismemberment, and a midnight barge crossing as it made its way to a tiny island, and the profiles on artists Dale Frank and Jenny Kee.
Writer Tabitha Carvan was wildly popular with her Obsessions series and her Let’s Talk About Sex article in Galah Issue 11 in which she asks, “is a fig tree actually better than a husband?”
As was chef Lucy Ridge’s tender and thought-provoking essay Butchering Betty on the life and death of a runt piglet.
A portrait of Jenny Kee surrounded by waratahs in her Blue Mountains garden. Photography by Hugh Stewart.
Galah Weekly wrap
We covered a lot in our weekly newsletter this year. Here are some of the highlights.
The issues
Big banks have been blasted for years for the way they treat customers but supermarkets must surely be taking over. “Colesworth”, the word coined to sum up the general view of the Coles-Woolworths duopoloy, was even named word of the year by language nerds at the Australian National University. Inquiries, codes of practice and denials and apologies have followed some scathing evidence.
The Australian dream has faded for many and housing affordability and availability remain critical challenges. The Regional Australia Institute said smaller dwellings were vital for essential workers outside capital cities and lack of housing was holding back regional development. It was a theme that continued throughout the year.
Most people favour a shift to renewable energy. That support is usually steady as long as the infrastructure that goes with it is located “somewhere else”. It’s a dilemma for many farmers trying to realise the economic benefits of hosting infrastructure and it splits communities where benefits may not be evenly shared.
The funniest
Townsville police responded to a car fire after a 57-year-old man accidentally set his Nissan Pathfinder alight while trying to kill a spider.
Former geophysicist and software engineer Robert Towers has been recognised for finding hundreds of meteorites in SA and WA during twice-yearly visits to the Nullarbor. He should be just as famous for the dance he does each time he finds a space rock.
Four snake catchers failed to remove a red-bellied black snake that had made itself at home in the car of Newcastle resident Lisa Kournelis. No need to panic. Kournelis took to wearing thick pants, named the venomous visitor Fluffy and kept driving for weeks with the snake in the car.
A Top End teenager almost crashed the boat with his mates on the way back to shore after he caught a $1 million tagged barramundi in a Katherine River fishing competition. Keegan Payne, who worked two jobs and whose family had endured its share of tragedy, didn’t realise the fish was so valuable until his sister spotted the tag.
The ridiculous
Still no word from Victorian Water Minister Harriet Shing as author-chef Annie Smithers and her wife Susan Thompson count the cost of abiding by a water law. Dobbed in anonymously, the couple found it’s illegal to use their abundant water supply on their kitchen garden if the produce is used in Smithers’ restaurant. The same law says it’s OK to water livestock. In the absence of a legal solution, they are now almost resigned to adding tanks and trucking in water.
Executives at US movie giant Warner Bros apparently had no idea their iconic Taz cartoon character was based on a real Tasmanian animal. They soon found out when executives from the Tasmanian Devils, the AFL’s newest team, contacted them to sort out trademark issues.
The most surprising
Grubby is a category in a mullet competition. We never quite got the definitive rules on the “grubby” mullet category in Mulletfest, but we fully support the winner who, according to Mulletfest organiser Laura Johnson, "wasn’t bald but had grown a comb-over anyway, then cut the top section out of his hair to create a velcro like surface for the com—over to stick to and attach".
The good eggs
Victorian artist Leesa Cowan made a limited-edition run of bookmarks for Galah this year. Instead of sending an invoice, she asked us to donate the money to Full Stop Australia, an organisation dedicated to ending domestic violence. Galah raised $2850 for Full Stop in May.
Victorian Leila McDougall became a filmmaker and picked up an international acting award along the way. McDougall’s film Just a Farmer was her way of highlighting wellbeing issues in rural communities. McDougall and husband Sean are also behind Mellow in the Yellow, which has a similar focus.
Tanya Egerton used the Remote Opshop and Circulanation projects she founded to work with First Nations communities on projects that support economic participation and self-determination. Egerton won the 2024 Agrifutures Rural Women’s Award.
Ella Brady, a Qld country woman, had found the lack of understanding about endometriosis in rural areas meant enduring the condition was even more difficult. The 22-year-old founded Rural Endometriosis to advocate for greater awareness.
After a near tragedy involving her toddler son, Kate Mitchell started The Darcy Effect and a mission to teach children first aid and help isolated families access health services.
Galah gripes
If there’s one thing editor Helen Anderson hates more than the relentless march of red fire ants, it’s the relentlessly incorrect use of apostrophes. Southwell is similarly triggered when he sees signs such as “Apple’s for sale”.
Anderson likes to keep it simple when it comes to rules for the Galah team. “Fabulous, gorgeous and moist. They’re banned words.” I wasn’t game to ask for more explanation.
The wackiest
Queensland Health took the unusual step of warning snakebite victims not to take the snake to hospital with them. Well-meaning people had been catching and presenting the snakes in the mistaken belief it helped medical teams.
Editor Helen Anderson is meticulous about meeting deadlines for Galah magazines. Yet, when the magazine arrives in her letterbox, she always waits three days before opening it. She can’t explain why.
Ella Smith was our Galah on the ground for Rockhampton’s Beef2024. Described as Coachella for cows, the event attracts 100,000 people to Rockhampton every three years for the southern hemisphere’s largest beef symposium.
A mission to improve wellbeing in the bush created an event that could probably happen only in Australia. Outback Rowing Australia’s two-day rowing festival at Barcaldine and Longreach in central Qld drew crews from unlikely places. Cunnamulla laid claim to being the most remote crew in the most remote regatta.
More snakes (and some other animals)
Rampant reptiles keep coming, whether it’s in stories about a posse of tradies who helped to save a snakebite victim or Hickson’s anxiety about a resident in her bedroom wall. Few snake encounters topped the story of the woman who had to fend off a tiger snake that slithered up her leg while she was driving on a Melbourne freeway.
Efforts to save native animals showed signs of success. Koalas made a comeback on one Victorian sheepgrazing property after a major tree-planting effort, and they were later spotted in a Canberra suburb for the first time in years.
The invasive red fire ant continued its march from southern Qld into NSW, with more than 15,000 infestations detected up to August. Cane toads also appeared as far south as near Grafton in NSW.
The Central Coast Council in north-west Tasmania pushed for new laws to help local governments deal with feral animals after 150 wild pigs ran amok in the farming community of Gunns Plains. Victorian and Tasmanian state governments also faced calls for legal changes to combat exploding numbers of feral deer.
The losses
Betta Milk closed its factory in Tasmania’s north west. It wasn’t the only blow to Tasmanian brands, with cheesemaker King Island Dairy also slated to close next year. SPC and Bilson’s Brewery also faced challenges.
Regional travel took a hit when discount airline Bonza went the way of so many other airlines trying to compete with Qantas and Virgin. And it took an $80 million federal government lifeline to keep embattled Rex Airlines flying.
We lamented the loss of even more traditional regional news media outlets and what it means for the communities they serve. Broken Hill’s The Barrier Truth closed after 130 years, although there was some good news with the launch of The Broken Hill Timeslater in the year.
We also lost the Galah office phone for a few months at the beginning of the year. It was eventually found packed up in a tub of overalls. We have higher hopes for our phone management systems in 2025.
One last thing
A summer snooze
Today marks the start of a summer break for most of the team here.
We’re sending our very best wishes to the Galah community, for a safe and joyous Christmas and a fantastic 2025.
The work in a country garden never ends so Jeremy Valentine’s In The Weeds newsletter continues from 17 January.
Galah Weekly returns on 2 February.
Other dates to watch: Neil Varcoe, We Bought A Hotel, 7 February; Sophie Hansen, Yes Chef!, 21 February; Annabelle Hickson, Letter From The Editor, 28 February.
And keep an eye out for a new podcast in 2025. Hickson has been talking about it for a while, but promises it’s starting soon.
We’d love to hear about the news, events and people that should be making the headlines in the Galah Weekly newsletter. Share what’s new(s) in your neck of the woods with us at newsie@galahpress.com
