Plus your newsletter’s national award. Welcome to Galah Weekly, our newsy newsletter keeping you up to date with regional headlines that matter, plus other delightful things from life beyond the city. By Dean Southwell, who gives snakes a wide berth when he can.
Supermarket giants Coles and Woolworths face huge potential fines, even more public criticism and renewed calls for them to be split up after the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission announced it was launching legal action over discount pricing.
The consumer watchdog has accused the supermarkets, which have 65% market share, of systematically deceiving customers by temporarily raising prices on hundreds of items before promoting them as “discounts”. Coles intends to defend the action while Woolworths is investigating.
The cost-of-living crisis has added an edge to recent criticism of the duopoly, ranging from concerns over huge profits, their relationships with suppliers, and their use of so-called “phantom brands”.
In terms of public image, Coles and Woolworths are arguably the new “big banks”, with public sentiment comparable to the lead-up to the 2017 royal commission into the banking industry.
Meanwhile, consumer advocate Choice released its quarterly survey comparing supermarket prices. It found grocery prices vary depending on where you live and shop, but there was little price difference between regional and metro supermarket prices. Other surveys point to higher prices in regional areas, with some remote communities paying at least 26% more for a standard basket of groceries.
Lucky Charlie's simple, impactful and Australian-designed wall banners bring warmth and colour into your house. Tomorrow, 30 September, one lucky Galah newsletter subscriber will be randomly selected to win a @luckycharliestudio wall banner, a timber dowel to hang it on, and a tassel of your choice – valued at $405.
The winner will be drawn randomly from all our Galah subscribers (free and paid). The only other requirement is that the winner has an Australian postal address.
A crew of Singleton Council concreters has been reunited with the snakebite victim who owes them his life. Stuart Forrest was working in the backyard of his Upper Hunter home earlier this month when he was bitten, probably by an eastern brown.
The crew was working on a roadside gutter when they found Forrest collapsed and suffering a seizure. At one point he stopped breathing and the workers, who were on the phone to paramedics, performed CPR until an ambulance arrived.
About 3000 Australians are bitten by snakes each year. Springtime is a good time to brush up on advice from the Royal Flying Doctor Service for avoiding and dealing with bites.
Alana Johnson has a message for women considering a career in agriculture: “Come into this industry; this is now full of opportunity for you.”
Johnson is one of the founding members of Australian Women in Agriculture, which has spent 30 years championing the role of women and advocating for change. Australian Women in Agriculture was formed in 1994 when women had to fight to be counted as farmers.
The organisation’s national conference was held in the NSW border town of Albury this week, and Johnson said that while challenges remained – including issues such as access to childcare – much had changed to make agriculture an attractive career for women.
Landcare, environment and landholder groups are calling on Victorian authorities to remove protections for feral deer, which have been labelled as Australia’s “next rabbit plague”. The Victorian National Parks Association wants deer, which are seen as a threat to native vegetation, wildlife, pasture and crops, treated as a pest.
It’s a similar situation in Tasmania, where the population of feral fallow deer is exploding, yet deer continue to be a “partly protected species”. Control efforts have included closing the Walls of Jerusalem National Park for several months in the past two years to allow an aerial shooting program in the park and adjoining conservation area.
In brighter news on the feral front, wild deer have been eradicated from Wild Duck Island off the central Queensland coast, where they had threatened flatback turtle nests.
Motherland, the national charity launched by former television journalist Stephanie Trethewey, has launched a one-stop digital resource to link rural mothers and their families to health services.
A survey by Motherland showed 70% of rural mothers had put off seeking healthcare because they couldn’t find the services they need. Motherland Connect, which went live this week, aims to address that.
Speaking of services mums might need, rural ambulance volunteers are worried they don’t have enough skills to deal with emergency births. In cases of complicated deliveries, “calling for help is essentially our level of training” was the response of one rural ambulance volunteer in the Edith Cowan University study.
Jenna Pickering says that when she sees people “I fall in love with them’’ and wants to let their face tell a story. The artist from the mining town of Tom Price in WA’s Pilbara has translated that into prize-winning portraiture.
Her painting on bark of Yinhawangka elder Brendon Cook won two awards at the Lester Prize for portraiture in Perth this month. She said she enjoyed painting older people: “Every wrinkle, every scar, every grey hair — I love the thought of age.” The Lester Prize artworks are showing at WA Museum Boola Bardip until 17 November.
Did someone say snake? Yes, we’ve seen a few and we’d love to hear your snake story. It might not quite be a life-or-death situation like the hi-vis heroes in Singleton, but we suspect a lot of you have had encounters to remember. Hit reply and let us know.
Frocked-up galahs Lyndsie Clark and Annabelle Hickson were very pleased (can’t you tell?) to accept two Mumbrella Publish Awards in Sydney on Thursday night.
Galah won Best Engagement Strategy. And – ta-da! – Galah Weekly won Newsletter of the Year.
Annabelle says they’re going straight to the pool room to sit alongside Galah’s growing collection of Mumbrella awards. There are now five of them, with this week’s awards sitting alongside previous wins for Best Launch, Best Publication and Editor of the Year.
These awards are a huge tribute to our readers, and the people and communities that originally inspired Galah.
You’re the reason Galah exists – thank you for being with us.
From newsletters to books: Annabelle hits the road in the next few days on the Galah book tour. Wednesday’s long-table lunch at Merricks Store with Annabelle and Galah contributor, author and cook Sophie Hansen is a sell-out, but there’s still a chance to catch them at Barwon Heads on Tuesday or in Melbourne on Thursday.
Tuesday, 1 October: Barwon Heads Community Hall, 77 Hitchcock Ave, Barwon Heads. 6-8.30pm. Read more
Thursday, 3 October: Hill of Content Bookshop, 86 Bourke Street, Melbourne, 6pm. This event is free but please RSVP. Read more
The Byron Writers Festival is bringing international bestselling author Anna Picoult to Bangalow on 21 October.
The following night, Gina Chick, who won the inaugural season of Alone Australia, will appear at the same venue. She has just released her memoir, We Are The Stars, and will be in conversation with … our own Annabelle. The inside news is that Gina has agreed to sing. Annabelle is now searching for two people who can hold a tune to sing in a round on stage with Gina on 22 October. No one wants Annabelle to be one of those singers, so please volunteer by replying to this email. Read more
For nearly two decades Ivy Hill Gallery was a much-loved fixture on the NSW far south coast, between Bermagui and Tathra. Run by arts stalwart Carolyn Killen, it was a vibrant hub for the work of career artists in the area. The gallery closed in 2020, but its legacy lives on in Ivy Hill Gallery Goes West, a special exhibition at the Arts Centre, Cootamundra, NSW, until 7 October. Read more.
Calling all regional artists. North Qld’s leading temporary public art festival, Ephemera, invites regional artists to submit their work for the 2025 show. Awards include cash prizes from $1000 to $10,000. Entries close 5 November. Read more.
Emerging artist Madeleine Cruise lives and works in Ballarat. Her art uses drawing, collage and painting to explore everyday rituals and their contribution to identity. Learn more about Cruise in Galah Issue 11, and see her work at AK Bellinger Gallery, Inverell, NSW, until 9 October. Read more.
Interview by Emma Hearnes.
Twelve years spent wandering and working in Jakarta, Broome, Wyndham, Tokyo, Exmouth and Arnhem Land have seen Dickie take her family on “surf drifts” and craft award-winning stories such as Troppo and Red Can Origami. Dickie has served as editor-in-chief of National Indigenous Times and is a director of The Skill Engineer, a social enterprise aiming to shape purposeful futures for young people.
What’s a thread that runs through your career?
I’ve spent over 10 years working with traditional owners in Arnhem Land and Western Australia. This work has made me feel grounded and given me a deeper sense of what it means to be a non-Aboriginal Australian, living here on this old, old land with its unique stories, songs and spirits. The cultural knowledge here is unbelievable. I wouldn't swap this work with traditional owner groups for the world.
You work across fiction and non-fiction. What’s the difference in the writing experience?
Non-fiction is easier. Perhaps it’s like sculpture; all the materials are there and it’s just about shaping it, giving it rhythm and suspense. Fiction, on the other hand, is so bloody hard. I’m snail-like. I can spend eight hours at the desk and write only two sentences. It requires conjuring up a whole technicolour world just from imagination. But there’s a freedom in it, too – if something isn’t working on a plot level, you can experiment, make it up, make it work.
When you aren’t writing, what do you do for play?
When I last lived near the surf in Western Australia, my weekends involved taking the tinny out with the girls to surf beautiful, lonely waves off the edge of a coral reef. Now, in Arnhem Land, I’m still out on the boat but I’ve swapped my surfboards for a handline. My husband, son and I catch barramundi, mangrove jack, crimson snapper and tuna. On the weekends, if we don’t have any fish, I make Sumatran rendang out of wild buffalo or beef that my husband’s Aboriginal ranger team has shot through the week.
What’s your most meaningful reward?
I have a beautiful, bold little boy. He’s three. His chuckle is a freshwater river. He is calm and patient on a handline. He can fall asleep on the boat in the middle of a tropical squall. And his balance is superb: whether out on a choppy sea, dare-deviling his way across the back of the couch, or spinning 180s on a surfboard. He is naughty, fun and full of go, and I adore him.
Full Stop Australia has spent the past 50 years working to end sexual violence against women and to support survivors. Its national conference in November will again pose the question: what will it take to put a full stop to sexual violence.
The conference on 5 November includes full-day panels, discussion and networking with expert victim survivors and professionals. It’s being held in Sydney, but in-person and streaming tickets are available.
Galah wholeheartedly supports the work Full Stop Australia is doing. If you’re interested in attending the conference, either in-person or online, Full Stop Australia has offered Galah readers 20% off tickets bought online. The discount is available for the first 10 tickets using the code ANNABELLE20 Read more
We’d love to hear about the news, events and people that should be making the headlines in the Galah Weekly newsy. Share what’s new(s) in your neck of the woods with us at newsie@galahpress.com
