Plus why Tamworth thrives and a shark whodunit. Welcome back 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 a new-found respect for orcas.
Regional towns are resorting to a bidding war to attract GPs amid a national shortage, sparking concerns smaller areas won’t be able to compete.
The federal Department of Health estimates Australia needs another 2400 GPs now and the shortfall will more than triple over the next few decades. Some country towns are offering lucrative salary packages and housing incentives to lure doctors.
The WA Wheatbelt Shire of Quairading recruited a GP in 2023 thanks to a $400,000 salary and benefits including three rental houses for the doctor and staff.
Shire president Jo Haythornthwaite said the package was a necessary cost for a service the town couldn’t do without. She said other shires had raised concerns they couldn’t afford similar incentives to attract GPs.
It’s not just a matter of attracting doctors. The WA Wheatbelt town of Jurien Bay lost its only female doctor when accreditation for her was revoked because of issues with remote supervision of her specialist GP training.
A similar country-city divide is limiting access to dentists, with one-in-three regional and remote Australians missing out on proper care for their teeth.
The NT town of Katherine’s struggle for a dentist highlights the shortage of practitioners in regional and remote areas.
Orange is preparing for its 10-day showcase of the best of the region’s seasonal produce, cool-climate wines and vibrant culinary scene.
Orange FOOD Week, known as the home of the long lunch, will feature acclaimed chefs, immersive experiences and iconic signature events.
It runs from Friday, 28 March–Sunday, 6 April and has added two new village events, Falling For Blayney and The Molong Meander, to almost 100 on the program. Learn more
Farmers are lobbying for legislation to give them more rights to repair farm equipment in the digital age.
Martin Honner runs a mixed cropping and livestock farm near Junee in the NSW Riverina but, like many farmers who are also capable mechanics, he is often locked out of doing his own repairs on sophisticated machinery because of software and warranty restrictions. Those restrictions often mean authorised repairers might be hundreds of kilometres away.
“With new machinery there is pressure on us not to do our own maintenance – even an oil change, and that’s not brain surgery,” Honner said.
Home mechanics have faced a similar situation if they want to work on their own cars but recent “right to repair” legislation opened up options.
Agricultural machinery is not covered by such a “right to repair” scheme yet and the National Farmers Federation and other industry groups are lobbying the federal government for legislation.
Research published this week has confirmed a 4.7m great white shark found washed up on a Victorian beach in 2023 had been killed by orcas.
Scientists used DNA samples taken from the mauled shark carcass, found near Portland in the state’s south-west in October 2023, to confirm killer whales were responsible. It’s the first time killer whale predation on great whites has been confirmed in Australia.
Orcas are also predators with an apparently weird sense of fashion. Killer whales off the US Pacific coast have been spotted with “hats” of dead salmon, a trend first described in the 1980s.
A NSW teenager has used his fascination with butterflies to help enrich the lives of elderly residents in his town.
Shellharbour 15-year-old James Tebbutt has taken a 3m x 3m mobile butterfly enclosure to Warrigal Shell Cove aged care facility to let residents share his enthusiasm for the creatures.
Community facilitator Scott Rayner said the enclosure, which was filled with butterflies, their eggs and caterpillars as well as flowers, provided an enriching experience for residents.
Tebbut told Galah this week he became interested in butterflies about six years ago and has also set up his own business breeding butterflies as well as selling chrysalis kits. He said he enjoyed engaging with older members of his community and had regularly visited the facility previously to perform and sing.
At least three companies have dropped out of the race to build wind farms off the WA coast, with at least one citing “green tape” delays in renewable energy projects as a reason.
The South West wind farm zone, off the coast of Bunbury, was announced by the Federal Government last year, one of six that also included areas off NSW, Vic. and Tasmania. All have sparked at least some level of community opposition. The federal opposition has said it would scrap several of them, including the WA project.
Grattan Institute program director for energy and climate change Tony Wood said projects located in offshore waters forced developers to navigate both state and federal jurisdictions, complicating approvals.
Incoming US President Donald Trump banned new permits and leases for offshore wind farms in his first batch of executive orders last month.
The Tamworth Country Music Festival’s “whole-of-city” approach has been cited as a key reason the event thrives when so many other live music events have disappeared.
Festival manager Barry Harley said the Tamworth festival’s blend of ticketed events, free shows and other entertainment based in up to 70 venues around the city meant it “almost naturally” provided an affordable, family-friendly festival.
The 10-day festival, which attracts 40,000 people and pumps millions into the regional economy each year, wrapped up last weekend.
The continued health of the Tamworth festival defies a nationwide decline in live music, with more than 40 events cancelled over the past three years.
Splendour In The Grass, which cancelled its 2024 event, confirmed late last month that it would not return in 2025.
Doctors angered by abortion restrictions at Orange hospital last year have taken their concerns to the NSW ICAC.
The ABC revealed in November that Orange Hospital staff had been told to stop providing abortions to patients who did not have medical reasons for a termination. It has since obtained a letter from a group of 15 doctors sent to the chair of the board that oversees the Orange Health Service.
In the letter, sent in December, the doctors said rural women already faced hurdles to access abortion services and the bans at Orange had been a “slap in the face for all rural women”.
They demanded anyone who had sought to “impair access” to abortion services be held accountable. Hours after the ABC reported on the bans late last year, the NSW Health Minister had intervened to reinstate all abortion services previously offered in Orange.
The Western NSW LHD told the ABC an internal review into the abortion ban had been completed and findings suggested no health executives would be sacked.
Getting an appointment with a doctor can be tough no matter where you live, but the GP shortage hits regional Australia particularly hard.
What’s the situation in your part of the world? Is a “bidding war” to lure GPs to rural and remote areas sustainable? We’d love to hear your thoughts. Hit reply and let us know what you think.
It’s only eight days until entries close for the 2025 Galah Regional Photography Prize and we want as many regional photographers to know about it and take a shot.
It’s regional Australia’s richest photography prize, with $25,000 on offer for the winner.
Entries close on 10 February, with finalists announced on 25 February.
Thanks to the generous Galahs who donated to our Artist Subsidy Fund late last year, all finalists for 2025 will receive a subsidy of $524 per image to help offset printing, framing and shipping costs.
If you’re interested in entering or you know someone who should, you can check it out here.
Artists Rebecca Baumann, Christopher Langton, Belem Lett and Brendan Van Hek focus on their shared love of colour in a group exhibition that spans painting, installation and sculpture. Ngununggula, Bowral, NSW, from 8 February-30 March 2025. Read more
Cairns Art Society is one of the region’s oldest community arts organisations and 2025 will be the 77th year that it has held their exhibition of selected works submitted by member artists. Opening night on 7 February will include several awards announcements. Cairns Art Gallery, 7 February-9 March. Read more
This exhibition presents the work of eight artists – Linda Chant, Rebecca Dowling, Sally Falkiner, Clare Leeuwin Clark, Nic Mason, Colleen Southwell, Joel Tonks and Jane Tonks – from across the NSW Central West. They were invited to visit the National Gallery of Australia to study Clarice Beckett’s paintings. This project asked the artists to respond to an element of Beckett’s work or life and reimagine it in their own work. Until 23 March. Read more
Rhys Hannan credits a stint working with Rodney Dunn and Severine Demanet in the early days of their award-winning The Agrarian Kitchen near Hobart as instrumental in shaping his career. Hannan is part of the team running Launceston’s Harvest Market, an award-winning event that contributed to the city being designated as a UNESCO City of Gastronomy in 2021.
Hannan grew up in Launceston and started his chef apprenticeship at 15. His career in hospitality has included time interstate and overseas and running his own restaurant in Hobart for seven years. For the past three years his Saturdays have been dominated by pre-dawn starts supervising Harvest Market. That means regular commutes from home in Hobart to northern Tasmania. More recently his passion for Tasmania and sustainable produce have featured on Left Off The Map, a 7TWO production where he joins fellow hosts Ben Milbourne and Holly Bowden showcasing the island state.
Why did the Agrarian Kitchen have such a big influence on you?
I can draw a direct line from my time with Rodney and Severine to now. They did two things for me when I was looking for direction in the infancy of my career in food: they opened up an entirely new and intoxicating way of thinking about food, cooking, and what was possible in Tasmania, and they were an example of elite-level professionalism and drive. The Agrarian Kitchen was then, and remains, a definitive statement that Tasmania is one of the best places in the world for a career in food.
Why do you think we need farmers’ markets in the 21st century?
We need them more than ever! We need them because of Colesworths. For me it boils down to choice. I understand the need for large-scale food production, but we deserve more control over the food we consume than we have these days, and farmers’ markets and local grocers are one of the few ways left that we can have this choice.
What gives you the most satisfaction from running a farmers’ market?
Knowing that I’m doing something additive for the community, and that my input can have impact. I shudder at the thought of any occupation that doesn’t have these attributes.
What did you find most rewarding about last year?
It was a huge year for me. Between Left Off the Map, and projects with Harvest including helping deliver the 25th Symposium of Australian Gastronomy, working with Rural Alive and Well, and some other personal milestones, I had a satisfying year all around.
What are you looking forward to in 2025?
Simple really: continuing my work with Harvest Kitchen, a new project of recipes and content that will connect people with the market and hopefully open it up to new audiences, shooting Season 4 of Left Off the Map. I’m absolutely privileged to have these opportunities and I’m really looking forward to seeing where I can take them in 2025.
A central Australian wildlife ecologist has snapped images of Australia’s rarest bird of prey.
Dr Tim Henderson, who leads a team of ecologists at the Australian Wildlife Conservancy sanctuary at Newhaven in the Northern Territory, spotted the endangered red goshawk on the property last month.
There are believed to be fewer than 1400 mature red raptors, which are ambush predators that target other birds like lorikeets and cockatoos. This was the first time in more than three decades that a red goshawk had been seen in the region.
The news isn’t so good for birds elsewhere. Waterbird populations have halved over 12 months according to a survey of wetlands in the Murray Darling Basin. And on Tasmania’s east coast, a colony of little penguins at Bicheno is facing a survival fight amid concerns adults are not returning from sea to feed their chicks. Ecologists say the decline could be linked to a rise in sea temperature in the area.
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
