Great Britain might have had Harry and Meghan’s marriage to sustain them this year but western Queenslanders have exulted through some of the toughest conditions, physically and mentally, that I’ve witnessed, with celebrations that had to be seen to be believed.
I’ve only ever wanted to write stories that linger in people’s memories, that mean something weeks, months, years later, and that document fairly. To do that means having memorable subject matter.
Never was I in doubt when I left university 35 years ago that my home – western Queensland – was the place where the most important, thought-provoking, outrageous stories lived. And at no time more than this year has this proved to be the case.
Deep, deep in a drought I hoped I could have stopped writing about YEARS ago, I was to encounter stories of compassion, excitement, renewal, even as the political climate seemingly worked to erase the meaning of readers’ lives.
Take the first couple of months – the plan to re-open the Betoota Hotel, Charleville’s lowest rainfall ever while its olive farm claimed a world bronze medal, the Doing it for Dolly rodeo and its astounding $176,000 outpouring, Paroo’s carbon alarm, the ramifications of the Kangaroo movie, and a lazy Diamantina flood – how full of vitality are rural people, and how much do they have to deal with?
Not only is my job about highlighting inequities and inconsistencies that rural Queenslanders have to deal with – take the price of a flight from western Queensland to Brisbane, examined at Senate air service inquiry hearings, or painting landholders and the Green Shirts Movement as irrational environmental vandals, or suddenly refusing responsible handgun owners a licence after years of having one – but it’s about showing the communities here as the movers and shakers they are, shaping their own destiny.
Stories such as the Camden Park solar farm opening, Jenna Brooks’ 4500km feat of endurance for bowel cancer awareness, the Longreach council’s move to make its tourism product “China-ready”, and the money producers are pouring back into woolgrowing infrastructure showcase the positivity that needs to be known more widely.
It’s a spirit that was tested deeply when the drought refused to release its hold over most of western Queensland for a sixth year. The temptation was there to think it had been written about enough but thanks to the urban NSW epiphany, the stories we’ve been telling for years suddenly became flavour of the month.
Rather than compete on the shock and horror scale, I could ask what had been learnt from what our readers had been enduring for years; I could report on one of the state government’s drought forums with knowledge of hindsight to try and move the debate along; and I could see the subtle maturity in the way grassroots help was targeted at place like Jericho and Morven.
But above all, it’s the way the people of the west party that sticks in my memory most about 2018. Two of them – the Way out West Festival at Winton and Blackall’s 150th birthday party – went off.
The first was to share a proud heritage with the world when the new Waltzing Matilda Centre rose out of the ashes of the fire that destroyed the original tourism drawcard, and the other was to share memories with mates and to say to the world, what we’ve built out here in western Queensland is pretty darn good.
Both of them said, take a proper look at what we’ve got here – this way of life has a lot going for it. It’s a destiny we’ve shaped for 150 years now, and we just want the chance to keep doing it, with the nation’s respect and support.
I can’t wait to unearth more of the stories of our Way out West movers and shakers in 2019 – and tell you all how the drought of 2013-18 broke!