Weekend Australia Magazine

March 24 - 25, 2018

The good life

The best country towns in Australia

By Bernard Salt

m o t o r i n g | p h i l l i p a da m s | F o o d | NI K K I G E MM E LL | t r av e l | j o h n l e t h l e a n | h o m es TAM24MAR18NS001_001 1

16/03/2018 3:23:25 PM

town jewels What are Australia’s top country towns? Bernard Salt explains his criteria and our writers visit the surprising finalists

N

ot too big, not too small and with just the right mix of verve, chutzpah and “a fair go”: meet the Goldilocks towns that, in theory at least, deliver this nation’s best country-town lifestyle. I realise it’s a big call, because in coming up with my list of finalists I am probably disaffecting every other town in Australia. Let me just say: I think you’re all winners in your own special way.

And so to the methodology. In collaboration with my co-director at The Demographics Group, Simon Kuestenmacher, I have filtered the 2016 Census results for every one of the 1850 towns and cities that accommodate the vast majority of

Boomtown: view over Griffith, NSW

Australia’s people, from the sprawling behemoths of Sydney and Melbourne to specks of places with 200 residents. We then eliminated towns that were too small or too big. Those with fewer than 2000 residents were deemed not capable of supporting the breadth of functions required of “the best country-town lifestyle”, such as schools, shops, medical services and sporting clubs. Those with more than 30,000 were struck out on the grounds that at this scale it is possible for a town to contain distinct sub-groups, upscale and battler suburbs for example, that deliver a quality of life different to the town’s statistical average.

The finalist towns have an above-average income and a below-average unemployment rate. They have a healthy mix of young and old people – what we call demographic diversity.

We also filtered towns to ensure economic diversity – a community can’t be too reliant on the weekend Australian magazine

13

a single industry. The resulting process identifies one town from each state and the Northern Territory with populations ranging from 2300 in Margate, south of Hobart, to 19,000 in Griffith in the NSW Riverina. They vary from seachange (Margaret River, WA) to treechange (Woodend outside Melbourne; Nairne in the Adelaide Hills). Katherine, in the Top End, is what I would call special purpose: about 2000 people work at the RAAF base nearby. If Australia is attacked from the north, Katherine scrambles.

The Queensland finalist, the border town of Goondiwindi in the Darling Downs, was a bit of a surprise. I’d thought any one of the state’s seachange towns would have qualified but in the end they were knocked out by the demographic mix criteria. And I think it’s fair enough. Australia’s best country-town lifestyle should be demographically diverse; it should be prosperous and affordable, with all the amenities required to raise a family; and there shouldn’t be a marked unemployment problem or social divisions in the community.

A word about income: it is measured by the median, the halfway point when the income of all income-earners is ranked from lowest to highest. The median is the point where half the income-earning population earns more and half earns less than this figure. The Australian median income at the 2016 Census was $34,426, where the bottom half would include aged pensioners, welfare recipients and part-time workers.

The thing I like about the list of finalists is that they don’t all fall within the orbit of bigger cities.

Those that do include Woodend, Margate and Nairne, but the others are well removed from the refuge of capital city employment options. If you live in Griffith, Goondiwindi or Katherine, you have to make a go of it with what you’ve got.

I do feel a little guilty about ruthlessly chopping off towns with fewer than 2000 residents. Up to that point the leading contender in Tasmania was the sublimely named town of Snug, Margate’s neighbour, with 1500 residents.

I was secretly hoping Snug would sneak in. And the same goes for the 30,000 cut-off, without which Wagga Wagga would have been a contender for Australia’s best country town.

Another part of me thinks that maybe the best country towns aren’t necessarily these “winners” but rather places with social and economic problems that are being tackled by their irrepressibly optimistic, determined, spirited communities. Maybe that’ll make another story, on Australia’s best battler towns.

M Griffith, NSW

By Greg Bearup Photography Nick Cubbin

artin Ruggeri is like a Mormon at the door, ­ ­busting to let me in on a wondrous tale of latterday success. We are sitting in a crowded cafe in ­Griffith’s main drag drinking good coffee when the local planning consultant whips out his phone to show me a Google Earth image of Casella’s mammoth winery, a short drive from where we are ­sitting. “You see these vats here,” he says, pointing to several hundred circles in a paddock – huge storage vats on the flats of the NSW Riverina.

“Each one holds 270,000 litres of wine – and these ones here,” he explains, honing in on 100 even larger vessels, the fermenting vats, “each one of these holds 1.7 million litres of wine.”

Every day around the world, 2.5 million glasses of this wine are consumed.

It is a staggering volume of plonk bound for export to 50 countries under the bounding ­kangaroo Yellow Tail label, one of the world’s most recognisable booze brands. What’s in these vats accounts for half of all the Australian wine consumed in the US, and 12 per cent of ­Australia’s wine exports. And, Ruggeri says, Casella is expanding again, into China. It is the largest ­winemaker in Griffith, but there are other big players here such as De Bortoli and McWilliams – a hundred jobs were created recently when McWilliams moved its bottling plant here from Sydney – along with dozens of smaller vineyards.

In most other country towns, a business the size of Casella Wines – 459 full-time employees, rising to 626 at harvest time – would be like a Rolls-Royce engine, smoothly powering the local ­economy. But in Griffith, population 18,878, it is not even the largest employer. That title goes to Baiada Poultry, owner of the Steggles and L ­ ilydale brands. The company is in the midst of a $200 million expansion that will ramp up production to 500,000 chickens a day through its Griffith plant and take the workforce from 1200 to 1900 when complete. To meet this increased demand, 250 giant poultry sheds are being built on the farms of contract growers in the district.

Each shed costs $1 million – that’s $250 million worth of sheds to be manufactured locally.

Local engineering firm Collier & Miller, which employs 160 people, is struggling to keep up. Last year it advertised for 10 apprentice welders and boilermakers; it got only eight a­pplicants and

employed five. It was so desperate for staff that its engineering manager, Paul ­Giovinazzo, had to fly to the Philippines three times to source welders.

The company has since imported 22 experienced Filipino welders, paying their airfares and ­relocation costs. His experienced welders earn upwards of $80,000 and yet still he struggles to find staff. Last year the company advertised for two school-leavers to train as engineers; it was even prepared to pay their way through uni. “We got just two applicants and employed one,” says Giovinazzo. “It’s really tough.”

Griffith is groaning under the weight of its own success. It simply can’t get the staff it needs.

Its prosperity is due in part to its incredibly diverse economy. If one industry is taking a hit, others are powering on. Apart from poultry and wine there are large cotton and rice farms, both big employers. It has citrus, melon and vegetable crops; ­Australia’s largest broccoli producer is just out of town. And farmers have branched out into almonds and walnuts – Webster, Australia’s largest producer of walnuts, is building a $12 million office block in Griffith.

The town is dripping with money and optimism. It has virtually full employment and only the hardest of the hard-up can’t get work. On a Monday morning, at a time when you could fire a shotgun down the main street of most towns and not hit anything, Griffith is packed. The cafes are full and it’s difficult to get a park; you have to make a booking to get into its restaurants. On employment websites there are hundreds of ads for engineers, agronomists, sales staff, farm ­managers, mechanics, dentists, nurses and midwifes, barmen, cooks, welders, bulldozer drivers, TAFE and school teachers, social workers, motel managers, logisticians, workshop managers, IT specialists, graphic designers, accountants, fitness instructors, directors of medical services…

According to Griffith City Council, this trend is set to continue: more than $1 billion worth of

the weekend Australian magazine

15

I grew up in a small country town in NSW and travelled extensively around Australia for ­several decades, reporting for various newspapers.

I then spent a mad year in a caravan with my wife and baby son, doing a lap of the continent. C ­ ountry

Population in 2016: 18,878 (growth 2011-16, 7%)

Griffith stats

town Australia is my specialty and I can tell you, there are a lot of desperate and shitty towns out there. I was in Port Hedland, WA, in the midst of the mining boom and even awash with money it had all the charm of a council dunny block.

Griffith is not one of those towns. It was designed by Walter Burley Griffin, the architect who fashioned Canberra. It only came into existence after World War I, with the opening of the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area, a grand scheme to open up the area to cropping. It was settled first by returning servicemen who took up the soldiers’ settler blocks. A couple of waves of ­Italian migrants followed before and after World War II and many in the town (17.2 per cent) now claim Italian h ­eritage. In the 1970s, Indian migrants came to work as farm labourers; the most common surname in Griffith is now Singh, and 900 people in the town speak either Punjabi or Gujarati. Dozens of nationalities give Griffith its multicultural flavour. The town boasts wide, tree-lined streets and the main street is still the beating heart of the community. It has first-class sporting facilities and a ­theatre that hosts ­visiting artists and film festivals.

Statistically, according to demographer Bernard Salt, Griffith is one of the most desirable places in Australia to live. It has low unemployment, good population growth and affordable housing, with a median price of $320,000. The one area in which it falls short is schools. The Weekend Australian ­Magazine had a school principal look at its results.

Her assessment was that all three high schools – Griffith High, Wade High and Marian Catholic College – were below where they should be, given their socio-economic status. This has been a major concern in Griffith and $25 million will soon be spent on combining the two public high schools under one school with two campuses.

But what’s it like to live there? “I absolutely love it, best thing I’ve ever done,” says Alan Shea, a 41-year-old engineer who moved from the inner Melbourne suburb of Yarraville two years ago with his wife Joanna and kids Eva, 11, Leon, 10, and Hector, six. Shea had been working for Western Water, which provided water and sewage to a cluster of rural towns northwest of Melbourne.

Each day he was spending almost two hours in the car getting to and from work. “I just wasn’t seeing enough of the kids,” he says. “I could never commit to anything; a prang on the ring road could cause an hour-long delay.”

His wife saw an advertisement for a director of operations at Murrumbidgee Irrigation, a private firm that manages the huge irrigation system.

Median age: 36 Top three countries of birth: Australia 68.4%, India 4.7%, Italy 4.3% Most common religion: Catholic 37.3%, no religion 14.3%, Anglican 12.7% Occupations: Labourers 19.2%, professionals 14.2%, technicians & trades workers 14.1%, managers 12.5%, clerical & administration 11.6% Median income (all workers): $35,001 (Australian av $34,426) Median weekly personal income for people aged over 15: $673 (Australian av $662)

Work-life balance: Alan Shea; orange orchard; Daniel D’Aquino and Michaela and Ben Di Rosa; irrigated farmland Statistics: 2016 Census / CoreLogic

developments are under construction and they will require an additional 1000 staff within the next two to three years. Forget the mining boom, this is the agricultural boom, and unlike many mining projects it’s long term. Griffith’s other great bonus is that it’s not a company town – many of the big businesses are owned by locals, often ­second and third generation Italians who’ve been prepared to reinvest in their local community.

Why is it so difficult to get people to move here? There are hints in the tourist book I was given. “Griffith is centrally located,” the map at the back says, rather optimistically, “450km north of Melbourne, 570km south west of Sydney, 790km east of Adelaide.” Despite the overseas image of Australians as rugged outback dwellers, 85 per cent of us cluster in cities and suburbs on the coast; the inland is more foreign to most of us than Bali. East coasters in particular can’t comprehend that people can lead happy and ­ ­satisfying lives west of the Great Divide. They think there’s nothing out there.

Another possible reason is that Griffith is still tainted by its dark past. According to the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, its crime rates in most categories are pretty much bang on average. But it will forever be associated with one crime, the unsolved 1977 murder of anti-drugs campaigner and political candidate Donald Mackay. Last October, 82-year-old Tony Sergi, one of those accused of (but never charged with) ordering the murder, died in Griffith.

A number of people I interviewed said they hoped the burial of Sergi in his gold casket would signal some sort of closure for the town. Yet thousands of people turned up to pay their ­ respects at the funeral of the Calabrian mob boss, whom the head of the Royal Commission into Drug Trafficking, Justice Philip Woodward, described as a marijuana grower and a member of the “Honoured Society” or ’Ndrangheta that ordered Mackay’s murder. When national media travelled to Griffith for the funeral they were unable to find a single local photographer to ­ cover it. “We have to live in this town,” said someone from the local paper.

It may have a murky past, but the tale people are keen to tell now is of Griffith’s bright future.

It is a stunning success story.

Unemployment: 5.3% (Australian av 6.9%) Median house price (2018): $320,000 (Australian av $548,000) Five-year growth (houses): 48.8% Did voluntary work in past 12 months: 17.2% (Australian av 19% )

They flew up from Melbourne and liked what they saw. Shea applied for the job and got it; a ­substantial pay rise was a bonus. They’ve kept their Melbourne house as an investment and have recently purchased a house in Griffith – a four-bedroom home with a pool on a 1ha block, seven minutes from his office. “Eight on a bad day… we could never have dreamt of owning a house like it in Melbourne,” he says. “In the city our kids were always indoors; now they are always outdoors, off playing sport or over at their friends’ houses.” The kids are living a free-range life that just wasn’t possible in the inner city.

Financially, Shea says, he is well in front. And the job is interesting and challenging – at the height of the irrigation season he is responsible for delivering 8000 million litres of water to

farmers each day, which is eight times the water usage of Melbourne. Joanna has a part-time job in administration and the job is flexible, allowing her to knock off early to pick the kids up from school. “I’m a convert,” he says.

Sonia Casanova, who runs a local PR firm that has a contract to run a council campaign and a website to entice workers to relocate, Griffith Now Hiring, says the Sheas’ story is fairly typical of ­people who move to Griffith. “In the city, a couple, where one maybe works as a fireman and the other a nurse, would have trouble buying a house,” she says. “Out here that same couple has a big house with a pool, often they have an investment place and enough money left over for an overseas holiday each year.”

When young people moved away from the town where I grew up, they never moved back.

But Griffith’s diverse economy makes it easier for its young people to go off to the big smoke for a time and then return and raise a family.

Daniel D’Aquino, 31, Michaela Di Rosa, 36, and her ­husband Ben, 34, all grew up in Griffith before moving to Melbourne for a decade or so.

Now they’re back home and two years ago opened a stylish Italian restaurant called Zecca.

The spacious ­restaurant, located in a lovely 1930s art deco building that once housed the Rural Bank, specialises in hearty Italian food, housemade pastas and breads and most of the produce and wine is sourced locally. The ­ venture has been a great success, and one they’d never have been able to afford in Melbourne without substantial backing.

The couple and their friend have each bought good three-bedroom houses and the repayments are less than their rent was back in ­Melbourne. “It is nice to know that your money is going to something that you are eventually going to own,” says Michaela. While there are things they miss about Melbourne, such as the food scene, the cultural life and the buzz of the city, they are enjoying life in Griffith and being among family. Daniel is soon to be m ­ arried, and Michaela and Ben are at a stage where they are looking to have kids. “I think there is a big and interesting future here for us,” says Michaela. “It is a great time to be here.”

Their biggest problem is getting extra staff so they can take time off once in a while. “Ever since we’ve been open we’ve been looking to take on an apprentice chef,” Michaela says. “We want someone with a bit of passion and drive who wants to learn.” But the competition for those young ­people in Griffith is fierce. the weekend Australian magazine

17