Plus Victor’s many faces and gumnut buddies. 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, whose portrait might be best done as an abstract.
Almost 18 months after Ballarat residents rallied over the deaths of three women, the regional city is at the cutting edge of the effort to end gender-based violence.
Last week Victoria launched Respect Ballarat, a four-year pilot scheme to prevent violence that takes a whole-of-community approach known as a saturation model. The program focuses on prevention and early intervention by challenging some of the norms that lead to violence, particularly within romantic and sexual relationships.
Why Ballarat? Last year’s deaths rocked the community. In the aftermath, principals of three high schools arranged a joint forum with their students. There, female students told of fear becoming a part of their life and how some avoided even going out for a run. Male students spoke of feeling limited by traditional gender norms.
The path to Respect Ballarat The Victorian government announced $9.8 million last year for the design and delivery of the program. Over the past year there have been dozens of community forums and consultations to help develop it ahead of last week’s official launch.
What is a saturation model? As the name suggests, the idea is to ensure that ideas of respect and gender equity saturate an area and are reinforced, regardless of an individual’s community contacts. Respect Ballarat will have projects in schools, sporting clubs, parenting spaces and workplaces. The model aims to ensure messages are heard across the community. So, for example, a student who discusses respect and equality in a classroom would have those messages reinforced at home or when they’re involved in sport or other community events.
Why it matters Earlier this year shelter manager Carly Ravenscroft spoke to the Galah podcast about domestic violence and why it should be discussed. If you haven’t heard Christmas At A Women’s Shelter, it’s a powerful story.
More help Galah has also been a proud supporter of Full Stop Australia, one of many organisations working to help survivors of violence and abuse.
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A partnership between an artist and botanist with a shared love of eucalypts has resulted in a 4.4km forest featuring more than 2000 Australian plant species near South Australia’s Clare Valley.
Artist Ian Roberts met eucalyptus scientist Dean Nicolle 30 years ago and started buying eucalyptus seeds from him. Eventually Roberts was gifted the seeds on the condition he gave some of the plants he grew back to Nicolle, who planted them at an arboretum in the state’s south-east.
Roberts eventually planted his seedlings along a former rail trail at Blyth.
As the seedlings grew into gum trees, Roberts used them as his models in his effort to paint all of the roughly 900 eucalyptus varieties. He’s completed 770 watercolours.
Climate change is expected to expose hundreds of thousands of Australian homes to increased flooding yet there’s an argument that relatively few people have access to reliable data on the potential risk.
Daniel Melser, a senior business researcher at Monash University, says insurers have access to such information and it’s widely available in other countries, but not so easy to find for the average homebuyer in Australia.
Last week’s National Climate Risk Assessment said more than 1.5 million Australian homes would be exposed to flooding because of rising sea levels.
The risk assessment also highlighted the threats to developing northern Australia as a food bowl for Asia.
The many faces of a Victorian who in his 70s traded life in Warrnambool for a more bohemian existence in the Italian art centre of Florence are on show in regional Victoria.
Victor Caulfield, now 86, followed a dream to live in Florence where he stumbled into a late-life career as an artists’ model.
Caulfield found that as an older subject he was never short of work. He said he only did it for fun and, as a man with the gift of the gab, it gave him plenty of time to talk to the artists.
He even brought his own creativity to the role, searching markets for vintage clothes that gave him a different look for the artists to paint.
Seeking Victor, an exhibition at the Hamilton Gallery, features 100 portraits of Caulfield.
Rabbits have caused so much damage to graves in the main cemetery in the southern NSW town of Junee that the council had to close it for a week around Fathers’ Day to carry out a baiting program.
Stonemason Dean Ryan, who repairs headstones, said he had seen graves being undermined as rabbits in plague numbers dug burrows that could fill with water.
Mayor Bob Callow said the control operation had cost the council about $30,000 but there were still large numbers of rabbits.
CSIRO researcher Tanja Strive said biological controls such as the calicivirus were becoming less effective and work was continuing to develop a new strain.
Now is the time to subscribe, renew or pre-order Galah Issue 13. If you get your order in before 14 October we'll send you this issue – behold the glorious cover – with free shipping early November. Excellent way to stock up your present cupboard ahead of Christmas.
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COVER IMAGE: Emily Kam Kngwarray, Anmatyerr people, Alhalker Country, 1994 © Emily Kam Kngwarray/Copyright Agency, 2025. Private collection, courtesy of Deutscher and Hackett. Image courtesy of National Gallery of Australia.
Northern Rivers painter Leona DeBolt’s first exhibition is a celebration of influence after she had a chance meeting with Ken Done and decided to honour her artistic hero. It will show alongside a collection of Done prints from the gallery collection. At Grafton Regional Gallery until 23 November. Read more
Rain might have forced the cancellation of most events at last month’s Byron Writers Festival, but it continues to introduce a series of author conversations. The lineup over the next six weeks includes Fremantle author-screenwriter Craig Silvey, environmentalist Bob Brown, crime author Jane Harper and actor Bryan Brown. At A&I Hall, Bangalow, NSW. Read more
Regional creatives feature heavily among the 36 finalists announced for the Australian Design Centre’s MAKE Award. It is Australia’s richest non-acquisitive prize for craft and design with a first prize of $35,000. At the Australian Design Centre, Sydney, 10 October-19 November. Read more
This exhibition features 13 artists all associated with The Squatter’s Artist in Residence program at The Foundations in the NSW Central West. It’s part of Makers Month at The Foundations throughout October. At The Foundations, Portland, NSW, 4 October-2 November. Read more
This November outback Queensland will host an art exhibition that’s been more than a century in the making. My Art Over The Years, which opens at Mitchell on Maranoa Gallery in western Queensland on 1 November, will be the first solo exhibition for painter Marion Moore. She will celebrate her 101st birthday during the exhibition.
Moore, who grew up on a farming property at Dalby in Queensland’s Western Downs, trained as a nurse in Brisbane during World War II, eventually moving to Mitchell with her work. There she met her air traffic controller husband. The Moores and their two sons moved several times before settling back to run the Moore family farm The Peaks, near Mitchell.
Tell us about your early time as an artist? As kids we always drew and we used to use clay from the Bunya Mountains to make little dishes – they always crumbled. One of my first paintings was for Grandma (my mother-in-law) of the old house at Yapunya. I used little pots of house paint on board. Then John (my husband) brought me an oil set.
How did you fit art around the property and family? You just do. I didn’t do a lot until the boys went to boarding school. I was too busy feeding men. We formed a pottery group and met on a property near Mungallala. We were mainly self taught and helped each other. The painting was just self taught. Later I went to the Carnarvons to do a course with John Morrison and my sister Helen, and I went on a painting holiday in Italy with David Taylor.
Have you had your work exhibited before? I always put art in the local art show and the Mitchell Show.
Tell us about this exhibition? It’s just a collection of things I have done over the years: paintings, embroidery and pottery.
How does where you’ve lived influence your painting? I love the country. I love gum trees, flowers and trees. I have painted daisies, Eremophilas, wattle, bottle trees, mulga, bunya pines and lots and lots of eucalypts.
What makes Mitchell a special place to live? It’s a very friendly place. People help each other.
My Art Over The Years, by Marion Moore is at Mitchell on Maranoa Gallery, Mitchell, Qld, 1 November-13 December.
A school farm started by a student teacher during a three-week placement has helped boost enrolments at a South Australian regional school struggling for numbers.
Penola High School was facing an uncertain future with dwindling enrolments three years ago until Cory O’Connor, who had grown up on a local farm, launched the ag program during his placement.
O’Connor had originally planned to move on after his placement, but stayed and has been named a finalist in a public teaching award for the program that is credited with boosting enrolments by 22 percent. It’s also seen students pick up dozens of awards at the Royal Adelaide Show.
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