October 16, 2024 • 15 mins
Today we speak to a political analyst about his predictions for the Queensland election.
How rising domestic violence call outs are affecting police.
The free service that's provided mental health support to hundreds of people.
And happy birthday Gympie!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I welcome to iHeart White Bay Burnett, your local news fix.
I'm Bruce Atkinson, joined by Taylor Larson.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Coming up today, Moor Police consider leaving the force and
the mental health service that's helped hundreds of people.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
A political analyst is sensing there's a mood for change
among voters that will sweep labor from power and Queensland
at next weekend's election. Professor John Cole from the Institute
for Resilient Regions says there are a number of major
issues affecting people, including in the wide Bay Burnette, and it's.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Really to do with the pain people are feeling around
cost of living, the day to day spectacle of youth crime.
The talking points that have been used by the leader
of the opposition, David Chrystal Pauly, have certainly resonated, and
you know, the evidence is there to suggest that there
is substance to what he's talking about. And you know,
(00:51):
whether it be health, ambulance ramping, cost of housing, supply
of housing. Some of these things, of course are more
complicated than just a state government responsibility, but they are
the things at the moment, cost of living and crime
that are certainly making an impact on the thinking of people.
I think it all adds up to the simple realization
(01:12):
that Queen's ouders want to change the governor of an expelection.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Professor Cole says Labor is avoided campaigning on its track
record which has seen it in power for thirty of
the last thirty five years. He says there's a lack
of detail in the pledges from both sides, and then
there's a question of how the promises will be paid.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
For politically to get to the point where they know
they're not going to win, so whatever they say, they
won't be held accountable for. And I get a sense
of that at the moment. I mean the current government
certainly talking about nine vision donors of election promises. Well,
I mean there's no money other than future borrowings to
cover that. So when we get to that point, I
(01:49):
think in our psyche there's something really crook and governments
should be able to go to the people have an
honest conversation. This is a thing. Neither side to trust
the electorate enough to be really candid. So we're getting buzzwords,
we're getting cliches, we're getting sort of talking points, and
not a lot of elves or we're getting sort of distractions.
(02:10):
The fifty cent fare thing. Yeah, fair enough, that's a
really significant public transport initiative, but still going to cost
more than three hundred million a year in government subsidies
to provide that, and you know it's certainly not going
to benefit people in bar Alden or necessarily in parts
of the burnout where there isn't public transport.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
With early exit polls showing the LNP leading across the state,
the political landscape will likely look a lot different after
October twenty six, particularly in Bunderberg, which is held by
Labour's Tom Smith by just nine votes.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
You know, there are seven candidates running in the Bunderberg election.
I don't think the minor parties, the Independent etcetera have
got a chance in this because, as I said at
the beginning, the mood for change is so apparent that
you know, I don't think you need to even be
talking about Home Parliament or whatever, because the LMP, I'm
fairly confident, will be elected in its own right, and
(03:06):
seats like Bunderberg, you know, these are the bell with
the seats you go, there's the first one to go
nine votes. So I think Stephen Miles the Premier challenged
Tom to win it by twelve votes, but I think
he's going to have an uphill task there. And Harvey
Bay be another one Mirabar, you know the seven candidate's
running there too, But I would have thought really these
(03:27):
seats Harvey Bay and Bunderberg would be two seats i'd
straight away at the moment give to the lm P.
Just taking account of the sentiment and given to the
visibility of things like crime in Harvey Bay particularly and
some of the issues there that have caused local angst,
you'd expect to see people going for a change there too.
(03:50):
I think.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Everyone is getting their election wish lists in, including the
Queensland Police Union. New general president Shane Pryor recently stopped
in at a number of stations and Bunderberg was on
the list. He says local officers are struggling with diminishing
resources and manpower.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
We need to retain police across the state, but there
needs to be decisive action now from political candidates to
speak up and address the challenges based by officers at
Bunderboog Police Station and every other police facility in the
Wide Bay to ensure the safety and security of both
our frontline police and the community. There is not an
area in the state. This is not short of stuff.
It doesn't matter where I go in the state. The
(04:30):
first thing that comes out of everyone's mouth is that
we need more people. We need more people to join
this job. But in order to do that, we also
need to attract them. We need to retain the police
that we already have. That's why I'm calling on both
the ALP and the l and P to meaningfully commit
to retention programs that are going to keep police in
this job, but also to attract people to state for
(04:52):
the long term.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
The Queensland Police Service is in the middle of a
major recruitment drive. In the past twelve months, there have
been eight hundred and fifty graduates. That's up sixty eight
percent on the previous year. There are also more than
two thousand applications in the pipeline, but Shane Pryor argues
not enough is being done to keep more senior officers
who are facing increasing workloads. Domestic violence callouts in Bunderberg
(05:16):
have risen forty one percent, some incidents taking ours to
respond to.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
We need other government agencies to step up and start
helping us with this very complex problem. No longer is
it okay for police to be the ones carrying the burden.
We are not social workers, we're not child safety officers,
we're not corrective services officers. We are taking the load
for a lot of society's woes and that needs to change.
We need to address this from a government level. It
(05:42):
is no longer okay for police to be the only
agency responding to every single aspect of society.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
According to police data, eighty nine breaches of domestic violence
protection orders were issued in Bunderberger Loan last month. The
Broader Wide Bay Burnette recorded three hundred and eighteen. The
pryor says the work is on top of officers normal duties,
quickly leading to burnout and in some cases pushing them
out of the force.
Speaker 4 (06:07):
Our police will go to everything in this state. They
want to go and help people, but they are being
hindered by being called out to extensive amount of time
with domestic and family violince. Other support agencies are failing
to provide essential services after four pm essentially, and especially
on weekends and public holidays, despite the continuous need for
(06:28):
assistance outside of regular office hours.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Coming up after the break, it's a big, happy Birthday
to Gibbee.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
I Heard White, I Heard White, Welcome back to iHeart White,
bay Burnett time Taylor Larson, joined by Bruce Atkinson. The
Institute of Health and Welfare estimates eight and a half
million Australians have experienced a mental illness at some time
in their life. Accessing help can be incredibly in a
(07:00):
regional area, from waiting for an appointment to become available
to then being able to afford it. Our hospitals are
also dealing with an increase in patients who are physically
injured not always able to cater for those who are
struggling mentally. A year ago, the Lighthouse Crisis Support Space
opened at Bunderberg Hospital. It's its own little building that's
walking distance from the emergency department. Over the past twelve months,
(07:23):
the team has seen two hundred and eighty two people,
some even returning to the space. Social worker Jeff Richardson
has been in the industry for more than twenty years.
He says the non clinical environment is more beneficial than
the hospital.
Speaker 5 (07:37):
If you're a motion upset and you've got a lot
going on, or if you're meant doing well and you're
having hallucinations. The police may turn up, the ambulance may
turn up. There's blue lights, there's fast cars. You come
into ed, there's somebody with a physical health. You've got
alarms going off, you've got bright lights. It's just triggering
and it's just more and more stimulus come in here.
Without the stimulus, we normally have low lights on. We
(07:59):
have background music, tea, coffee. It's a calm, homely environment
and it calms people down. We had a gentleman in
last night with relationship who's extremely agitated. When he left,
he was saying, I've got to leave because this music
is ending to sleep. It's calmed me down so much.
You know, that's all the little things played in for
the bigger picture.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
David Fletcher has used the service several times. He used
to present to the mental health department.
Speaker 6 (08:23):
When I walk through the door, my nerves are jangled
and I peeled, represhed and everything. And usually half an
hour three quarters of an hour later, I walk out
of here and I'm pearl refreshed and I can get
on with living. And that's what this place is. I
would think that I'd probably be the most frequent visiitor
(08:46):
here of all the patients or customers, whatever you want
to call them.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
The center's open two pm to nine pm, seven days
a week and is free to access. Jeff Richardson says
most referrals from the emergency department. On a Sunday, we
had two.
Speaker 5 (09:01):
People at the weekend who work Monday to Friday office hours,
and where do we've got a chance to talk to people?
And we told them and we've seen one on Tuesday
came back. So it's been huge because people do work,
they have lives. People can function and work, but they
need extra support and most places close after office hour,
So coming in here three hundred and sixty five days
(09:22):
a year, two two pm to nine pm, it's been huge.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Brian O'Neil is a peer worker at the Lighthouse. He
believes it's important for people to connect with others who
have lived experience with mental health.
Speaker 7 (09:34):
Most people aren't always looking for an answer, they're looking
for a conversation. They're looking for a chat and looking
at finding things, and most people have the answers themselves.
It's in here. They're just going to find that way
forward and all we do is help them tease that out.
We try to walk with the person rather than lead,
rather than follow and so you know, through a conversation
(09:56):
they can find what works for them and they can
find what will help them move forward. If we try
and tell them anything, people push back.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
In the past year, forty nine people have received their
first referral for more formal mental health services. The Lighthouse
is the second center of its kind in the Wide Bay.
Harvey Bay's Oasis Crisis Support Space opened in twenty twenty two,
and Marraborough Hospital will welcome a similar model this year.
David Fletcher is supporting a third center and says it's
(10:24):
the people who really make the space.
Speaker 6 (10:26):
It's not a bad one amongst them. I don't know
many years that they would have had to study and
it's got to be in their makeup as a person
to be able to do it as well as what
they do.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Gimpi is known as the town that Saved Queensland and
this month that's celebrating its one hundred and fifty seventh birthday.
The state was bankrupt in eighteen sixty seven and the
government offered a three thousand pound reward for anyone who
found payable gold. James Nash took up the challenge discovered
gold bears soon after Welph Richardson as the Secretary of
(11:03):
the Gimpian District Historical Society.
Speaker 8 (11:06):
The wealth generated from the Gimpi gold supported the huge
industry and development in Maryborough, which was the busiest seaport
on the eastern coast of Australia during those early periods
through the eighteen eighties when the mining boom was on here,
and it also supported the Burroom coalfields, which ultimately supplied
(11:30):
fuel for all the machines here.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
And what was Gimby like at its height at the
peak of the gold rush.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
I'm not that old.
Speaker 8 (11:37):
I could imagine that it was pretty frantic and possibly
a little lawless. There were many incidents and gold robberies
and so on. There were disputes over claims, but there
was a bustling city. There was a stock exchange which
was very busy at the time, and there was a
lot of wheeling and dealing going on. The other thing is,
(12:00):
of course, that it had attracted foreign investment, so the
investment by the Scottish Skimpy gold Mine was certainly the
first significant foreign investment in Queensland.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
I grew up in the gold mining city of Charter's Towers,
which was massive as well in the gold rush that
discovered in eighteen seventy two, the gold there and the
way they gauged how big it was a lot of people.
They say there was so many hotels. What about Gimbie.
Was there a few pubs there as well to help
create some of that lawlessness.
Speaker 8 (12:29):
Well, we had fifty three of them at its peak,
not too many less now. One of our hotels still
is alive and well to the boring point, the Apollonium,
because it came from Apollonian veil here on what was
the Brisbane Road.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Tell me what happened to James Nash He saved Queensland
with him and his brother discovering gold. Did he end
up a rich man?
Speaker 8 (12:51):
No, Briefly he was quite wealthy. He made some very
poor investment decisions, which can happen to anyone, and he
was fairly fond of the alcoholic beverages. He very fairly
quickly lost any wealth that he had. He was quite respected.
The government gave him a job for life when they
(13:13):
moved the explosives store from the railway station down to Traviston.
He looked after that for the rest of his career, and.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Those Gold Rush days when Ghippe was at its peak,
with all those pubs and a stock exchange and a
bit of lawlessness thrown in. You can still see traces
of that today, can't you. It still has an impact
on the city.
Speaker 8 (13:31):
Well, if you're meaning we're lawless, well.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Not really that, but more so, there's plenty of buildings around,
and there's a lot of mine shafts still around, and well.
Speaker 8 (13:41):
The shafts haven't gone away. There's something like two thousand
mine shafts, not all deep and big. But back in
the nineteen nineties there was a lot of subsidence of
mine shafts which hadn't been capped and hadn't been treated accordingly,
and so there was a conscious effort by the mine's
(14:04):
people to go and find and cap for safety reasons,
all the shafts that they could find, and that pretty
well fixed them. Although since then there still have been
a few instances of minor subsidence in people's backyards, in
shafts that weren't very deep and they've just been back
filled with rubbish and which has rotted away and collapsed,
(14:26):
particularly after wet weather.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Hey Ralph, there must be plenty of characters throughout the
history of Gippees. Is there any that stand out, whether
lawless or good or in between.
Speaker 8 (14:37):
They've done about the word characters, there's heaps of them,
many still around, like there were some fairly famous people.
Andrew Fisher is probably one of the most significant former
Prime Minister of Australia nineteen o eight nineteen fifteen, who was,
amongst other things, a engine driver here in the mining days.
(14:58):
Came out from Scotland with his brother I think when
he were seventeen and they worked in the Burham coalfields
first before coming to Gampegn. He got into looking after
the workers' rights and producing a newspaper and doing all
sorts of things before being elected to local and state
and autantly federal government. So and Andrew has a pretty
(15:18):
good record here.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Well that's it for this week. If you want to
hear this episode again or find previous ones, look up
iHeart White Bay Burnet on iHeartRadio or wherever you get
your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
We're back next week with more local, trusted and free news.
Speaker 7 (15:35):
I have White Bayburnette
I welcome to iHeart White Bay Burnett, your local news fix.
I'm Bruce Atkinson, joined by Taylor Larson.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Coming up today, Moor Police consider leaving the force and
the mental health service that's helped hundreds of people.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
A political analyst is sensing there's a mood for change
among voters that will sweep labor from power and Queensland
at next weekend's election. Professor John Cole from the Institute
for Resilient Regions says there are a number of major
issues affecting people, including in the wide Bay Burnette, and it's.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Really to do with the pain people are feeling around
cost of living, the day to day spectacle of youth crime.
The talking points that have been used by the leader
of the opposition, David Chrystal Pauly, have certainly resonated, and
you know, the evidence is there to suggest that there
is substance to what he's talking about. And you know,
(00:51):
whether it be health, ambulance ramping, cost of housing, supply
of housing. Some of these things, of course are more
complicated than just a state government responsibility, but they are
the things at the moment, cost of living and crime
that are certainly making an impact on the thinking of people.
I think it all adds up to the simple realization
(01:12):
that Queen's ouders want to change the governor of an expelection.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Professor Cole says Labor is avoided campaigning on its track
record which has seen it in power for thirty of
the last thirty five years. He says there's a lack
of detail in the pledges from both sides, and then
there's a question of how the promises will be paid.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
For politically to get to the point where they know
they're not going to win, so whatever they say, they
won't be held accountable for. And I get a sense
of that at the moment. I mean the current government
certainly talking about nine vision donors of election promises. Well,
I mean there's no money other than future borrowings to
cover that. So when we get to that point, I
(01:49):
think in our psyche there's something really crook and governments
should be able to go to the people have an
honest conversation. This is a thing. Neither side to trust
the electorate enough to be really candid. So we're getting buzzwords,
we're getting cliches, we're getting sort of talking points, and
not a lot of elves or we're getting sort of distractions.
(02:10):
The fifty cent fare thing. Yeah, fair enough, that's a
really significant public transport initiative, but still going to cost
more than three hundred million a year in government subsidies
to provide that, and you know it's certainly not going
to benefit people in bar Alden or necessarily in parts
of the burnout where there isn't public transport.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
With early exit polls showing the LNP leading across the state,
the political landscape will likely look a lot different after
October twenty six, particularly in Bunderberg, which is held by
Labour's Tom Smith by just nine votes.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
You know, there are seven candidates running in the Bunderberg election.
I don't think the minor parties, the Independent etcetera have
got a chance in this because, as I said at
the beginning, the mood for change is so apparent that
you know, I don't think you need to even be
talking about Home Parliament or whatever, because the LMP, I'm
fairly confident, will be elected in its own right, and
(03:06):
seats like Bunderberg, you know, these are the bell with
the seats you go, there's the first one to go
nine votes. So I think Stephen Miles the Premier challenged
Tom to win it by twelve votes, but I think
he's going to have an uphill task there. And Harvey
Bay be another one Mirabar, you know the seven candidate's
running there too, But I would have thought really these
(03:27):
seats Harvey Bay and Bunderberg would be two seats i'd
straight away at the moment give to the lm P.
Just taking account of the sentiment and given to the
visibility of things like crime in Harvey Bay particularly and
some of the issues there that have caused local angst,
you'd expect to see people going for a change there too.
(03:50):
I think.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Everyone is getting their election wish lists in, including the
Queensland Police Union. New general president Shane Pryor recently stopped
in at a number of stations and Bunderberg was on
the list. He says local officers are struggling with diminishing
resources and manpower.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
We need to retain police across the state, but there
needs to be decisive action now from political candidates to
speak up and address the challenges based by officers at
Bunderboog Police Station and every other police facility in the
Wide Bay to ensure the safety and security of both
our frontline police and the community. There is not an
area in the state. This is not short of stuff.
It doesn't matter where I go in the state. The
(04:30):
first thing that comes out of everyone's mouth is that
we need more people. We need more people to join
this job. But in order to do that, we also
need to attract them. We need to retain the police
that we already have. That's why I'm calling on both
the ALP and the l and P to meaningfully commit
to retention programs that are going to keep police in
this job, but also to attract people to state for
(04:52):
the long term.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
The Queensland Police Service is in the middle of a
major recruitment drive. In the past twelve months, there have
been eight hundred and fifty graduates. That's up sixty eight
percent on the previous year. There are also more than
two thousand applications in the pipeline, but Shane Pryor argues
not enough is being done to keep more senior officers
who are facing increasing workloads. Domestic violence callouts in Bunderberg
(05:16):
have risen forty one percent, some incidents taking ours to
respond to.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
We need other government agencies to step up and start
helping us with this very complex problem. No longer is
it okay for police to be the ones carrying the burden.
We are not social workers, we're not child safety officers,
we're not corrective services officers. We are taking the load
for a lot of society's woes and that needs to change.
We need to address this from a government level. It
(05:42):
is no longer okay for police to be the only
agency responding to every single aspect of society.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
According to police data, eighty nine breaches of domestic violence
protection orders were issued in Bunderberger Loan last month. The
Broader Wide Bay Burnette recorded three hundred and eighteen. The
pryor says the work is on top of officers normal duties,
quickly leading to burnout and in some cases pushing them
out of the force.
Speaker 4 (06:07):
Our police will go to everything in this state. They
want to go and help people, but they are being
hindered by being called out to extensive amount of time
with domestic and family violince. Other support agencies are failing
to provide essential services after four pm essentially, and especially
on weekends and public holidays, despite the continuous need for
(06:28):
assistance outside of regular office hours.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Coming up after the break, it's a big, happy Birthday
to Gibbee.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
I Heard White, I Heard White, Welcome back to iHeart White,
bay Burnett time Taylor Larson, joined by Bruce Atkinson. The
Institute of Health and Welfare estimates eight and a half
million Australians have experienced a mental illness at some time
in their life. Accessing help can be incredibly in a
(07:00):
regional area, from waiting for an appointment to become available
to then being able to afford it. Our hospitals are
also dealing with an increase in patients who are physically
injured not always able to cater for those who are
struggling mentally. A year ago, the Lighthouse Crisis Support Space
opened at Bunderberg Hospital. It's its own little building that's
walking distance from the emergency department. Over the past twelve months,
(07:23):
the team has seen two hundred and eighty two people,
some even returning to the space. Social worker Jeff Richardson
has been in the industry for more than twenty years.
He says the non clinical environment is more beneficial than
the hospital.
Speaker 5 (07:37):
If you're a motion upset and you've got a lot
going on, or if you're meant doing well and you're
having hallucinations. The police may turn up, the ambulance may
turn up. There's blue lights, there's fast cars. You come
into ed, there's somebody with a physical health. You've got
alarms going off, you've got bright lights. It's just triggering
and it's just more and more stimulus come in here.
Without the stimulus, we normally have low lights on. We
(07:59):
have background music, tea, coffee. It's a calm, homely environment
and it calms people down. We had a gentleman in
last night with relationship who's extremely agitated. When he left,
he was saying, I've got to leave because this music
is ending to sleep. It's calmed me down so much.
You know, that's all the little things played in for
the bigger picture.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
David Fletcher has used the service several times. He used
to present to the mental health department.
Speaker 6 (08:23):
When I walk through the door, my nerves are jangled
and I peeled, represhed and everything. And usually half an
hour three quarters of an hour later, I walk out
of here and I'm pearl refreshed and I can get
on with living. And that's what this place is. I
would think that I'd probably be the most frequent visiitor
(08:46):
here of all the patients or customers, whatever you want
to call them.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
The center's open two pm to nine pm, seven days
a week and is free to access. Jeff Richardson says
most referrals from the emergency department. On a Sunday, we
had two.
Speaker 5 (09:01):
People at the weekend who work Monday to Friday office hours,
and where do we've got a chance to talk to people?
And we told them and we've seen one on Tuesday
came back. So it's been huge because people do work,
they have lives. People can function and work, but they
need extra support and most places close after office hour,
So coming in here three hundred and sixty five days
(09:22):
a year, two two pm to nine pm, it's been huge.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Brian O'Neil is a peer worker at the Lighthouse. He
believes it's important for people to connect with others who
have lived experience with mental health.
Speaker 7 (09:34):
Most people aren't always looking for an answer, they're looking
for a conversation. They're looking for a chat and looking
at finding things, and most people have the answers themselves.
It's in here. They're just going to find that way
forward and all we do is help them tease that out.
We try to walk with the person rather than lead,
rather than follow and so you know, through a conversation
(09:56):
they can find what works for them and they can
find what will help them move forward. If we try
and tell them anything, people push back.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
In the past year, forty nine people have received their
first referral for more formal mental health services. The Lighthouse
is the second center of its kind in the Wide Bay.
Harvey Bay's Oasis Crisis Support Space opened in twenty twenty two,
and Marraborough Hospital will welcome a similar model this year.
David Fletcher is supporting a third center and says it's
(10:24):
the people who really make the space.
Speaker 6 (10:26):
It's not a bad one amongst them. I don't know
many years that they would have had to study and
it's got to be in their makeup as a person
to be able to do it as well as what
they do.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Gimpi is known as the town that Saved Queensland and
this month that's celebrating its one hundred and fifty seventh birthday.
The state was bankrupt in eighteen sixty seven and the
government offered a three thousand pound reward for anyone who
found payable gold. James Nash took up the challenge discovered
gold bears soon after Welph Richardson as the Secretary of
(11:03):
the Gimpian District Historical Society.
Speaker 8 (11:06):
The wealth generated from the Gimpi gold supported the huge
industry and development in Maryborough, which was the busiest seaport
on the eastern coast of Australia during those early periods
through the eighteen eighties when the mining boom was on here,
and it also supported the Burroom coalfields, which ultimately supplied
(11:30):
fuel for all the machines here.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
And what was Gimby like at its height at the
peak of the gold rush.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
I'm not that old.
Speaker 8 (11:37):
I could imagine that it was pretty frantic and possibly
a little lawless. There were many incidents and gold robberies
and so on. There were disputes over claims, but there
was a bustling city. There was a stock exchange which
was very busy at the time, and there was a
lot of wheeling and dealing going on. The other thing is,
(12:00):
of course, that it had attracted foreign investment, so the
investment by the Scottish Skimpy gold Mine was certainly the
first significant foreign investment in Queensland.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
I grew up in the gold mining city of Charter's Towers,
which was massive as well in the gold rush that
discovered in eighteen seventy two, the gold there and the
way they gauged how big it was a lot of people.
They say there was so many hotels. What about Gimbie.
Was there a few pubs there as well to help
create some of that lawlessness.
Speaker 8 (12:29):
Well, we had fifty three of them at its peak,
not too many less now. One of our hotels still
is alive and well to the boring point, the Apollonium,
because it came from Apollonian veil here on what was
the Brisbane Road.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Tell me what happened to James Nash He saved Queensland
with him and his brother discovering gold. Did he end
up a rich man?
Speaker 8 (12:51):
No, Briefly he was quite wealthy. He made some very
poor investment decisions, which can happen to anyone, and he
was fairly fond of the alcoholic beverages. He very fairly
quickly lost any wealth that he had. He was quite respected.
The government gave him a job for life when they
(13:13):
moved the explosives store from the railway station down to Traviston.
He looked after that for the rest of his career, and.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Those Gold Rush days when Ghippe was at its peak,
with all those pubs and a stock exchange and a
bit of lawlessness thrown in. You can still see traces
of that today, can't you. It still has an impact
on the city.
Speaker 8 (13:31):
Well, if you're meaning we're lawless, well.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Not really that, but more so, there's plenty of buildings around,
and there's a lot of mine shafts still around, and well.
Speaker 8 (13:41):
The shafts haven't gone away. There's something like two thousand
mine shafts, not all deep and big. But back in
the nineteen nineties there was a lot of subsidence of
mine shafts which hadn't been capped and hadn't been treated accordingly,
and so there was a conscious effort by the mine's
(14:04):
people to go and find and cap for safety reasons,
all the shafts that they could find, and that pretty
well fixed them. Although since then there still have been
a few instances of minor subsidence in people's backyards, in
shafts that weren't very deep and they've just been back
filled with rubbish and which has rotted away and collapsed,
(14:26):
particularly after wet weather.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Hey Ralph, there must be plenty of characters throughout the
history of Gippees. Is there any that stand out, whether
lawless or good or in between.
Speaker 8 (14:37):
They've done about the word characters, there's heaps of them,
many still around, like there were some fairly famous people.
Andrew Fisher is probably one of the most significant former
Prime Minister of Australia nineteen o eight nineteen fifteen, who was,
amongst other things, a engine driver here in the mining days.
(14:58):
Came out from Scotland with his brother I think when
he were seventeen and they worked in the Burham coalfields
first before coming to Gampegn. He got into looking after
the workers' rights and producing a newspaper and doing all
sorts of things before being elected to local and state
and autantly federal government. So and Andrew has a pretty
(15:18):
good record here.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Well that's it for this week. If you want to
hear this episode again or find previous ones, look up
iHeart White Bay Burnet on iHeartRadio or wherever you get
your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
We're back next week with more local, trusted and free news.
Speaker 7 (15:35):
I have White Bayburnette
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