Plus cream buns and a dog’s best mate. 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 can’t resist cream buns.
Australia feeds 100 million people but our 100,000 farmers operate as part of a disjointed system that carries up to $274 billion in hidden costs.
The nation faces critical challenges to ensure food production is more sustainable, to help farmers meet environmental threats, and deliver healthy food for all.
These are some of the key findings from the first audit of the $800 billion national food system by the CSIRO and University of Queensland, released this week as part of their Food System Horizons project.
The report confirms Australia’s agricultural sector is highly efficient and a vital part of a successful food system. However, it argues a heavy focus on production and export of food commodities doesn’t necessarily deliver the sustainable system or even the nutritional outcomes that Australians need.
It argues a more holistic approach, that also accounts for factors such as nutrition, health, waste and environmental degradation, could drive innovation and better government policy.
Why it matters Australia exports about 70% of its agricultural production yet 3.4 million Australians experienced food insecurity last year. And we don’t eat that sensibly – for example, more than half of our food is ultra-processed or packaged and less than 5% of Australians eat recommended amounts of fruit and vegetables. In just one example of those hidden costs, the report says impacts such as diet-related disease cost the nation $16 billion.
The opportunities The report argues that looking at the food system more holistically could deliver better economic and environmental outcomes. It even argued such action could improve our diet and pointed to opportunities to develop regional hubs for innovative food manufacturing.
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Speaking of critical components of the food system, consumers could end up paying more for milk as the full impact of this year’s NSW and Qld floods and drought in southern states hits dairy production.
The industry is also forecasting a decline in milk production in the next 12 months.
Dairy companies this week released their opening milk prices for 2025-26 that were slightly higher than this year, but less than farmers had hoped. Farmers sought prices from at least $9.20 to $9.50 per kilogram of milk solids – equivalent to about 70c a litre – but the processors offered $8.60 to $9.20.
More than 130 NSW dairy farms lost stock or feed and had equipment damaged in last month’s floods. Federal Treasury estimates weather-related disasters have been a $2.2 billion hit to the national economy this year.
A barking labradoodle named Penny has sparked the rescue of a pet labrador trapped in a central Victorian mine shaft for four days.
Labrador Ted and housemate Penny escaped from their Trentham backyard last week. Neighbours alerted by her barking found her guarding the entrance to the 8 metre-deep shaft in Wombat State Forest.
A Country Fire Authority rescue brigade eventually lifted Ted out in a dog harness. Authorities have since blocked off open mine shafts in the area.
A NSW council has warned it might have to impose significant rate rises after the Environmental Protection Authority told the council it would have to pay to clean up PFAS chemical contamination traced to a landfill site.
The EPA found the Blayney Shire’s waste site was responsible for PFAS leaking into the Belubula River in the central west. The cost of dealing with the issue could be as much as $1 million. Mayor Bruce Reynolds said the EPA’s stand was at odds with the principle of “polluter pays” and warned other councils were likely to face similar bills.
Waste facilities are known as secondary sources of PFAS, aka “forever chemicals", which can take decades to break down.
Last month the NSW EPA issued the Australian arm of chemical giant 3M with a clean-up notice over PFAS contamination at a quarry near Mudgee. The company used the quarry more than 25 years ago to test firefighting foams known to contain the substances.
Mining giant Rio Tinto has signed a new deal intended to give traditional Pilbara landowners more say in how iron-ore mining proceeds and greater heritage protection.
The deal between Rio and the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura Aboriginal Corporation follows five years of tension after the destruction of 46,000-year-old rock shelters at Juukan Gorge in 2020.
PKKP chief heritage officer Jordan Ralph said the new agreement went beyond the WA Aboriginal Heritage Act, which was updated in response to the destruction but watered down in 2023.
Elsewhere in WA, vandals have destroyed a rock statue sacred to traditional owners on the Greenough River east of Geraldton.
Geelong has overtaken the Sunshine Coast as Australia’s most popular destination for regional migration.
The Regional Australia Institute’s March quarter report showed net migration from capital cities continued to increase, with the Geelong area taking 9.3% of all internal net migration, compared with the Sunshine Coast’s 8.9%.
Housing that’s more affordable than nearby Melbourne, lifestyle factors and efforts to open up regional employment were seen as key advantages in Geelong.
A bonus episode of the Galah Podcast was launched this week, and it’s a real education. Galah editor-in-chief Annabelle Hickson and columnist Gabrielle Chan respond to listeners’ voice notes about what it’s really like at country schools in 2025.
The discussion ranges from the impact that boarding schools have on small towns to myth-busting about home-schooling, AI in the classroom, and the looming extinction of male teachers.
Find Galah on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Galah contributor Luke Slattery was recognised as the island state’s top freelance journalist at the 2025 Tasmanian Media Awards last week. Included in the prize-winning body of work was Slattery’s Earth Works feature in Galah Issue 12, about a third-generation artisan brickmaker in central Victoria.
The 99 finalists in Australia’s highest-value women’s art prize were announced last month and will be exhibited after opening night on 20 June. At Ravenswood School for Girls, Gordon, NSW, 21 June-6 July. Read more
Artists aged 5-18 years from Lake Macquarie and neighbouring areas entered work in the Young Dobell art competition, with finalists’ works exhibited. Sir William Dobell was a three-time Archibald Prize winner who lived in Lake Macquarie. At the Museum of Art and Culture, Booragul, NSW, until 3 August. Read more
A literary festival for women that also bills itself as an ideas festival, the Rose Scott Women’s Writers Festival features workshops and conversations with writers including Suzanne and Gina Chick, Hannah Kent, Jane Caro and Tasma Walton. At The Women’s Club, Sydney, 27-28 June. Read more
Waukivory creatives including artists John Andrews, Meg Tulk and Richard Rawbone were invited to take their work to nearby Gloucester in the NSW Hunter region when floods disrupted their original plans. Proceeds will go to the Waukivory Hall along with donations to flood victims. At Gloucester Gallery, NSW, until 15 June. Read more
It took Sunshine Coast writer and noted cream-bun lover Shelley Dark until her 70s to publish her first book. Released late last year, Hydra In Winter is the self-published tale of Dark’s trip to the Greek island to research her husband’s 19th-century pirate ancestor, Ghikas Voulgaris. It was a test run before she publishes what she describes as her “opus magnus”. A work of historical fiction, Son of Hydra is the full story of Voulgaris, the real-life reprieved pirate who became Australia’s first Greek convict.
Tell us about your life before Hydra In Winter? I was teaching when I met [husband] John. We were cattle farmers in Queensland’s Granite Belt, at Dirranbandi and Injune. We raised two children and a few cows. It was physical, honest, demanding work, and it gave me a deep sense of what matters and what doesn’t.
Have you always loved writing? I was too busy to write for decades, but I’ve always loved words. In retirement, I’ve given it a real go. Turns out writing is where the joy lives. When we retired to the beach, I sold daily online subscriptions to my travel diaries. It paid for my airfares, but I ran out of puff after about 10 trips.
What did you learn about yourself researching the book? That I’m a perfectionist addict — of the archival kind. Research is like cocaine, if you can believe what addicts write about it. When you discover something no-one else has found, you’re flying. Except it can take months or years before you get the high.
What advice would you give budding authors? Do it. But only if you’re willing to write a first draft so bad it makes your toes curl. Then do it again. Buy books on writing. Study the craft. And don’t wait for confidence. Write without it. And, as they say, you can always edit bad writing. You can’t edit a blank page.
You’ve mentioned a book on cream buns. Really? There is most certainly a book about cream buns, and I’ve even mapped out the character arc. I have a whole portfolio of cream- bun photos to go with it. It’s like a national treasure hunt. Fellow cream-bun tragics put the Babinda Bakery (north Qld) in pole position, but I’ll take suggestions at shelleydarkwriter@gmail.com.
What's next on your travel itinerary? Travel planning is on hold until I publish Son of Hydra and, after seven years, I’m so close I can smell it. Then John and I are looking at a trip to China that will follow in the footsteps of a famous 19th century photographer.
Tractors don’t feature in too many jail-break movies, but apparently a red Massey Ferguson was the getaway vehicle of choice for a prisoner absconding from a minimum-security prison west of Cairns last weekend.
A police spokesman said the man was last seen driving the tractor at 10.20 on Sunday morning and was reported missing about midday. The spokesman said he believed it was the first time a tractor had been involved in an escape at the prison.
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
