Charleville Show rides shut to highlight insurance premiums

Led by fifth generation showman Justin Gill, who has been coming to Charleville for 48 years, the operators shutting down their rides were part of a Queensland-wide show of force.

"Fuel's up, COVID - we just keep getting kicked in the guts, and insurance is the hardest one," Mr Gill said.

"We're really dropping in numbers in our amusements.

We're using about 40 per cent of our area here.

"The biggest thing is the insurance - we can't afford it, and it's harder and harder."

While the federal government recognised the impact of the COVID pandemic on agricultural showmen and women with $8m in funding, talks to establish a mutual guarantee that had been evolving over a 14-month period collapsed at the 11th hour prior to the last federal budget.

"Farmers, they all get help, if there's a new pool getting built in town, they get help," Mr Gill said.

"There's nothing that doesn't get a government grant.

"We're prepared to pay it back, that's the thing.

"We're all going to pay our fees every year and the money's going to go back to the government."

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Fellow operator Phillip Zacchini said of the government's reneging of support, "we'd been on a promise, we got let down".

"When the budget came out, they just wiped us altogether," he said.

He also pointed to the difficulty of having only one insurance company in the market, saying they had been able to shop around once but no more.

"They just say, it's going to cost you around $30,000-$40,000 and what choice have you got," he said.

Operators are struggling with a multitude of other issues eating into their viability as well.

Charleville Show patrons were without the pleasure of a 40m Ferris wheel on the weekend, although it's been fully insured, because according to its owner Michael Brown, he had no staff to help set it up.

"It's hard, no-one wants to work in Australia anymore," he said.

The ride operators service shows and events from Victoria and western NSW, through western Queensland to the Northern Territory, and they said on the weekend that the price of fuel as they went north was another big deterrent.

"The fuel up in the Territory is going to be around $2.50-$3," Mr Gill said, adding that the general public wasn't aware of the Showman's Guild's mounting costs.

"We're a small group of people just trying to get through life," he said.

"As the insurance goes up, showmen are going to go down.

"These numbers here, could be less next year.

"Then you start getting people saying, there's nothing down at the show, what's the use of going."

Nancy Capewell might have been operating the Laughing Clowns stall at Charleville but she had tears in her eyes as she explained the multitude of issues that might see her way of life shut down.

Originally from Cunnamulla, Ms Capewell's father Les was a well-known drover from the region, who she travelled with from an early age.

"He showed me the good life - we didn't have to pay rent or electricity," she said. "I'm used to the gypsy life and I like meeting new people and seeing the joy our rides bring to children."

The only work they got during the COVID period was operating the Ferris wheel at the Gold Coast while a Tom Hanks movie was being filmed.

Since getting back to work three weeks before Christmas, Ms Capewell said there had been only one week where it hadn't rained and impacted their income.

"We started at Gladstone and we've done a show a week," she said. "The money's not what it was, people are depressed."

She said she didn't make use of the Jobkeeper allowance because she'd worked since she was 11 and it went against her ethics.

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