Plus a space odyssey and shark on the menu. 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 dreams of being able to take a half-decent photograph.
Wind farms have made Craig Henderson a target. The graingrower has been told he’s on top of a “so-called hit-list” and can expect to be hassled.
He’s one of the few people living in his part of Victoria’s Mallee who are prepared to host wind turbines on their land. He’s also one of the few prepared to speak in favour of hosting renewable energy infrastructure in a region where many vehemently oppose its impact.
This is not a story about renewable energy. It’s about the bitter rifts repeated across the country as friends and families split over the impact of infrastructure on farms and communities.
Jim "Spud" Hepworth, 85, has farmed in the Mallee all his life and said it had been “heartbreaking” to see the debate erode community cohesion. "It's not the way of country people," he said.
These growing divisions beg questions about how communities can deal with bitter disagreements and what help they might need.
Late last year a Regional Australia Institute report highlighted a top-down approach to the renewables transition that has left residents feeling “like an afterthought”. ANU social scientist Rebecca Colvin, who has researched the effect of renewables on communities, said transparency and good communication was vital.
In the WA town of Denmark, a playgroup with a difference is connecting three generations.
Each month, parents take their babies and youngsters to the Nanna’s Next Door meeting at the local CWA where babies and toddlers spend time with older women, often grandmothers whose families don’t live nearby.
The intergenerational playgroup was started six months ago by resident Megan Sutton after her own grandmother died.
Australian Institute for Intergenerational Practice chair Anneke Fitzgerald said such interactions bring mental and physical benefits for the older women involved. Mainstream awareness of these benefits has come from programs such as the ABC TV’s Old People’s Home for 4 Year Olds.
Rural and remote residents who endure communication dead zones might see signs of relief in a Labor pledge to make basic mobile voice calls and SMS available to all.
It’s a pre-election promise, yes, plus it would update the universal service obligation for all telcos to finally include mobile coverage. The universal service obligation currently covers only broadband internet via the NBN and landline and payphone telephone access.
Under the Labor promise, telcos would be required to partner with a satellite provider to ensure the services are available in parts of the country where phones get no reception.
Somehow, fruit and vegetable growers again defied a year of regular disasters and setbacks to record bumper crops.
Australian fruit production had a record 2023-24 with citrus production alone valued at more than $1.1 billion.
The newly released Australian Horticultural Statistics handbook for the year ended June 2024 showed the industry defied some of the year's natural disaster-related setbacks.
Production of all horticultural products was worth $16.9 billion. Fruit production contributed $6.6 billion. Vegetables, led by the humble spud, were worth $5.7 billion.
The first test to send an Australian-made rocket into space from a north Qld base is potentially only a few weeks away.
Gilmour Space Technologies, which hopes to launch satellites from its spaceport just north of Bowen, had hoped to launch the test flight of its Eris rocket last year but was held up gaining approvals.
The first test is scheduled on 15 March, although the company said the date is weather-dependent, with some concern about tropical cyclone Alfred.
A north Qld councillor has suggested adding bull shark to the menu at fish and chip shops as a way of controlling numbers of a problem predator.
Commercial fishermen and some authorities are lobbying for tougher shark control measures as more of the aggressive bull sharks prey on fish catches. They say the removal of gillnets has resulted in a surge in bull shark numbers.
Livingstone Shire councillor Rhodes Watson said there would be a market for bull shark fillets if catch rules could be amended.
If you’re in the market for health insurance that’s a little closer to home, or built on values similar to your own, you can’t go past Westfund – health insurance from a healthier place. Based in Lithgow, NSW, and available Australia-wide, Westfund is more than a health fund. It's a not-for-profit organisation building a new kind of healthcare for collective good.
Join Westfund on eligible Combined Hospital and Extras cover by 31 March 2025 and get one month FREE cover. Use promo code WESTFUNDGM. New memberships only. T&Cs apply. Learn more here.
“I tried to capture the surreal moment of a man, relaxed in his camping chair, fishing in floodwaters in the Diamantina River, near Birdsville,” says photographer Peta Rowlands, a Wangkangurru/Yarluyandi traditional owner from the outback Queensland town. “It highlights the powerful forces of nature that shape life in the outback, and the resilience of the people who live here.”
Rowlands’ striking image is an “editor’s selection” published in Galah Issue 12, on its way to the printers soon. Her work is among more than 1100 amazing entries we received for the $27,000 Galah Regional Photography Prize.
Our judging panel has chosen the finalists, selecting 42 images created by 37 regional Australian photographers.
The finalists’ work will be presented at the New England Regional Art Museum (NERAM) in Armidale, NSW, in an eight-week exhibition on 11 April–8 June 2025.
The winning works will be announced at an exhibition party at NERAM on Friday 2 May. Book tickets here.
The fifth Bangalow Film Festival will include more than 20 critically acclaimed films and documentaries, as well as live events and panel discussions. A special evening conversation, From Page to Screen, features filmmaker Rolf de Heer and writer-producer Deb Cox discussing book adaptations. At Bangalow, NSW, 6–16 March. Read more
It’s Glover Prize season in Tasmania, and this year’s winner will be announced on Friday. Meanwhile, catch a major exhibition by regular Glover finalist and past winner Michael McWilliams in his hometown of Launceston. It features 90 of his often quirky works, many of them depicting Tasmanian landscapes and human impact on the environment. At QVMAG, Royal Park, Launceston, until 23 March. Read more
Naturopath and author Anthia Koullouros explores the journey of food from the earth to the table and eating our way to health in an all-day event at Glenmore House, hosted by Mickey Robertson, who featured in Smell The Roses in Galah Issue 10. At Camden, NSW, 15 March. Read more
Bundanon Art Museum launches its 2025 exhibition season this weekend with Thinking Together: Exchanges with the natural world. It embodies First Nations practices of knowledge-sharing and community. At Bundanon Art Museum, Illaroo, NSW, until 8 June. Read more
Interview: Emma Hearnes
Based between Bunuba lands in the Kimberley region and Noongar Country in south-west WA, Nandi Chinna a research consultant and community arts facilitator. She's also a poet whose work includes collaborations with First Nations communities, including her latest release, Tossed up by the Beak of a Cormorant.
How do you imbue your poems with a sense of place? I was lucky enough to spend a lot of time in the bush growing up. I like to share the essential awe, drama, beauty and solace of connecting with nature and also how important it is for us to care for it.
What’s your latest poetry collection about? Tossed up by the Beak of a Cormorant is a collaboration with Nyikina Elder Dr Anne Poelina, written at Fitzroy Crossing in Bunuba Country. In the dry season, the river is a gentle, welcoming place where you can sit on the sandy riverbed, swim and fish. Then in the wet time, Martuwarra turns into a raging torrent.
What sparked your collaboration? After living in Fitzroy Crossing for several years, I was powerfully affected by the river. I approached Anne with this query: How can I as kartiya (newcomer-white person) write about this ancient, living, cultured place without appropriating knowledge from others?
What did you learn from the process? I think there is, in some circumstances, a deep shyness between cultures in Australia. Since becoming more educated about Australia’s colonial history, I have wanted to reach out to First Nations people. I have learned in most cases what is on the other end of a phone call or an email is great generosity and kind-heartedness. Through this experience I have begun to feel more at home in the country that I was born in.
A tiny, threatened native mouse described as a “dumpling on legs” has been found in the Blue Mountains for the first time in about 20 years.
There are isolated populations of the New Holland mouse ranging from Tasmania to Qld, but the species was once thought extinct in NSW.
The latest discovery, aided by peanut butter and oat baits strung up in tea strainers at camera sites, was the first in Wollemi National Park since 2004.
Closer to Sydney, the NSW Department of Climate Change is using another small critter, the spiny crayfish, as a guide to the health of waterways in Royal National Park.
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
