North Qld Spir ‘it’

Last week I was trying to work out what that ‘it’ factor is, that some communities seem to have in abundance, enabling them to do extraordinary things like organise a 2-day horse racing meet in a ghost town. I asked the question, could this ‘it’ be bottled? As we find out more about the utter devastation of what happened in north Queensland: stock losses running into the hundreds of thousands, property owners who are already crippled by long term drought now facing astronomical costs to re-build stock and infrastructure from scratch, I’m hoping that the ‘it’ factor is an internal quality that keeps driving ordinary people to do extraordinary things, like in the Richmond, Cloncurry and Julia Creek communities, continuing on. But we can’t just leave it to them to look after themselves. Nor just get upset and offer short-term assistance while these hardship stories are in the media cycle. We need to look at ways of on-going help. It will take years for people, property and animal life to recover. Regional Australia needs an insurance fund that can assist communities rebuild after natural disasters, not just recover, if need be still contributing years after the event. Long after state and federal governments emergency funding has ceased. If not, regional Australia risks further population and services erosion. This insurance fund should not just be another cost or dependent on the whims of government, it needs to be derived from preference and profit. We are already starting to see the ‘it’ factor work in reverse, so to speak, with people going out of their way to help people they’ve never met. The story in Monday’s paper being one example, Blaze Aid being another (Blaze Aid helps communities rebuild after natural disasters by co-ordinating volunteer help to rebuild fences and infrastructure. Which also helps rebuild lives. I heard on the radio a lady, a self-described grey nomad, preparing to go to Cloncurry to do her third Blaze Aid trip). And hopefully soon we’ll hear of businesses offering a percentage off their sales, making sizable donations and calls to buy Australian produce to assist the affected communities. All noble deeds, but what happens after the media interest elapses, how do rural communities particularly rebuild as people and thus services leave because they just can’t continue on. On Saturday I heard how Agnes Water/1770 is still being affected by the November bushfires. Their summer tourist numbers are down. For an economy largely reliant on tourism this could, but hopefully won’t, result in business closures and people leaving. They, like any other small community affected by natural disaster, need help to rebuild not just recover. I imagine there are Byfield businesses still trying to rebuild from Cyclone Marcia, are they still eligible for any monetary assistance? If a brand was created that indicated products (from any business) featuring it are giving a substantial percentage of its profits to a regional Australia rebuilding fund would you prefer that over a similar product? Be it clothing, food, credit card, furniture, books, jewellery. And would this preference for these branded products help that business to make on-going profits, thus keeping cash flowing into the fund? This concept is not new and I think regional Australians realise that we need to help ourselves, as more government moneys is poured into the major cities, so there would be significant public support for such an ‘it’ project. Perhaps now is the time to seriously consider implementing it.