Australia’s skilled migrant worker intake is set to grow by 40,000 people each year as the federal government attempts to combat the ongoing national labor shortage.
The migration intake will be lifted to nearly 200,000 people a year from its current rate of 160,000 after two years of COVID-19 border closures led to a national staffing crisis.
Independent MP for Warringah Zali Steggall said that the move is “part of the solution” but that women should be further supported to join the workforce.
Member for Warringah Zali Steggall said more women should be supported to join the work force. (9News)
“If we can improve parental leave child care, more women can participate in the workforce,” Steggall told Today.
Steggall said the need to accelerate the current processing of workers is essential in bolstering efforts and that Australia should be looking to use the existing local workforce.
“Hospitality, retail, aged care sector, nursing, you know, we have so many sectors crying out for more workforce,” she said.
“Skilled migrants is one part of the solution.
“At the moment it takes an excessive amount of time and costs a lot of money.”
According to recent Australia Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data, there are 480,100 job vacancies in Australia, a 111.1 per cent increase since February 2020.
The Albanese government flagged seniors as a solution, who could soon be allowed to work more hours and still receive their pension.
The plan would allow people over the age of 66 and six months to work extra hours and earn an income without losing their aged pension entitlement.
Currently, seniors are limited to earning $490 a fortnight. For every dollar earned over that, they lose 50 cents from their fortnightly pension.
The Albanian government is expected to reveal its migration cap in the October budget.
Heavy rains have brought flooding to parts of Tasmania, with flooded roads and emergency crews kept busy — but weather forecasters say the worst has passed.
Key points:
A number of severe weather warnings are in place for areas of Tasmania
Roads have been closed and electricity cut due to downed powerlines
The BOM says the worst of the rains have passed
Thousands of people were without electricity on Sunday morning, with Tasmania’s electricity utility TasNetworks reporting outages in Eaglehawk Neck, Highcroft, Koonya, Nubeena, Port Arthur, Premaydena, White Beach and surrounds “believed to be weather related”.
At 10am, the SES’s Leon Smith said there had been 40 call outs for “minor flood damage”.
“Things like water coming in through rooves, gutters overflowing, and water coming into homes.”
He said the calls starting coming from the northern suburbs and Greater Hobart area, but “as the system is moving south, crews are now active in the Huonville and Franklin areas.”
Mr Smith said there was “potential for thunderstorm activity”.
The SES will hold a press conference at 1pm today to update the situation.
A wet scene at Mountain River, south of Hobart.(Supplied: Kinnan Brightman)
The Bureau of Meteorology’s Deb Tabor said “certainly, the worst of it has happened.”
“But it will still be wet for the rest of the day, particularly in the east and south the winds will start to ease off, and they will get a little bit gustier in the afternoon on the east coast.
“Up to 9am this morning, the highest rainfall has been kunanyi/Mt Wellington at 109mm.”
Ms Tabor said there had been 91mm of rainfall at Nugent, 71mm at Mt St John, 68mm at Gray in the north-east, 67mm at Buckland and 56mm in Fern Tree.
Water has cut roads in the flood-prone area of Huonville, 38 kilometers south of Hobart, with Tasmania Police advising the Esplanade is closed due to water from the Huon River over the roadway.
Some residents have reported sandbagging their homes on Flood Road, with assistance from SES volunteers.
Tasmania Police are updating their list of road closures due to the weather.
In Baghdad, 37 kilometers north of Hobart, roads were flooded and residents watched as waterways swelled.
A resident in the town said the “rain was very heavy and the water came up really fast from the time I got up at seven till now”.
“We flood a bit in winter but this is crazy and seems to be getting worse every year.”
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Heavy rains hit Tasmanian orchard at Grove
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A Cygnet resident said she had “not seen this kind of rain for about 17 years.”
“Last time it washed away our little water crossing at the bottom of our street, this morning it’s starting to overlap that crossing.
“It’s incredible how much water is coming down the creeks, our rain tanks were nearly empty yesterday and today they’re overflowing.”
Stay up to date with the latest warnings on the Bureau of Meteorology’s weather warnings for Tasmania website.
Aurora and Violet could see the bright side of the gloomy weather in Huonville.(ABC News: Daniel Miller)
An elderly man has died following a house fire in Adelaide’s northern suburbs in the early hours of this morning.
Key points:
An 89-year-old man has died in a house fire at Pooraka
Police do not believe the fire was suspicious
They are investigating a separate house fire at St Agnes, which they believe was deliberately lit
Police were called to the home on Nalpa Street in Pooraka just before 1:30am after a neighbor reported sounds of smashing glass.
Police said the home was fully engulfed in flames when they arrived.
Fire crews quickly arrived and extinguished the blaze.
When crews checked the home after the fire, they found the body of an 89-year-old man who police believe to be the occupant.
Police said the incident was not believed to be suspicious.
Fire at St Agnes house
A separate investigation has been underway into a suspicious house fire at St Agnes, in Adelaide’s north-east.
Police and fire crews were called to the house under construction on Kennedy Street around 10:30pm yesterday following reports of a fire.
Fire crews extinguished the blaze, which caused extensive damage to the home.
Police believe the fire was deliberately lit and have asked anyone who saw suspicious activity in the area or has information on the fire to call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
An ancient native nut once eaten by dinosaurs has huge potential to be part of the booming Indigenous bush food industry, according to new research led by the University of Queensland.
Brazilian-born scientist Jacqueline Moura Nadolny was aware of walking a sensitive line between examining new uses for bunya nuts without exploiting First Nations’ knowledge and food sovereignty.
Each heavy Bunya cone contains dozens of edible nuts.(Supplied: Jacqueline Moura Nadolny)
The PhD candidate said the bunya nut was not only nutritious and tasty, rich in protein, a healthy resistant starch, amino acids, minerals, omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids but undervalued by non-Indigenous Australians.
Ms Moura Nadolny studied seeds from the bunya nut’s football-sized spiky cones, struck by similarities to the Pinhao pine nut in southern Brazil.
Beware of falling nuts as bunya trees in Queensland drop record amount of knobs. February 6, 2015.(Rural ABC: Marty McCarthy)
South Americans eat the smaller, red-skinned pine nut boiled, roasted and salted as a snack, ground into gluten-free flour and brewed into beer.
“I found out that they were actually from the same family, just a different species,” Ms Moura Nadolny said.
“The name of the family is Araucariaceae and there are 21 species around the world but only three of them are edible by humans.”
culture and cuisine
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For thousands of years Aboriginal nation groups journeyed to Queensland’s Bunya Mountains and Blackall Range, gathering when the large cones weighing up to 10 kilograms, dropped from an ancient species of pine tree towering up to 50 meters high.
Each cone can contain up to 100 nuts. the Araucaria bidwillii tree dates back to the Jurassic period, at least 145 million years ago.
Pre-COVID, modern bunya nut festivals held on the Sunshine Coast revived ancient traditions that were severely disrupted by European settlement.
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Aboriginal festival celebrates harvest of bunyas(ABC Sunshine Coast: Megan Kinning)
“[Traditionally] there were very big festivals that used to get held every couple of years when there was a bumper crop of bunya nuts,” Indigenous academic Odette Best said.
“They were festivals that went for sometimes weeks at a time, marriages were struck, ceremony would be done, feasts would be prepared and a lot of cultural business would occur.”
The professor in nursing at the University of Southern Queensland, who has a keen interest in food sovereignty and researches First Nations history, provided guidance to Ms Moura Nadolny about her people’s ancient food.
Odette Best with Jacqueline Moura Nadolny on a visit to the Bunya Mountains.(Supplied: Jacqueline Moura Nadolny)
“For her and for me there was a real interest around how I could be on one continent and her people are on another continent and yet there’s an incredible similarity between the nuts [and the traditions around them].”
Professor Best’s favorite way of eating bunya nuts is cooked in coals until the tough husk pops. She also makes a “really beautiful” emu and bunya nut stir fry.
“Odette helped me to collect the bunya nuts and told me about the way they prepared it, the history, which was amazing,” Ms Moura Nadolny said.
“And she has been helping me to write as well because I don’t want to just put my results in a paper and publish.”
“I want to have this Indigenous knowledge on the paper and show how important they are to Indigenous communities.”
Traditional Indigenous dances are performed at the Bunya Dreaming gathering in 2019.(ABC Sunshine Coast: Megan Kinning)
Her PhD project with UQ’s School of Chemical Engineering and the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation’s Center for Nutrition and Food Sciences, compared roasted bunya nuts to boiled bunya nuts — benchmarking them against the sweeter chestnut.
A team of panelists investigated their aroma, flavor and texture.
“Chestnuts are much more sweet, bunya nuts are more savory and a little more bland,” Ms Moura Nadolny said.
Cakes made with Bunya flour on display at the Bunya Dreaming gathering.(ABC Sunshine Coast: Megan Kinning)
Boiling bunya nuts made them softer and more moist while roasting made them drier. Flour, beer, cakes, bread, curries, snacks and stir fries are all potential uses. Frozen, they last at least two years.
Ms Moura Nadolny’s goal is to make bunya nuts more accessible by working with Aboriginal communities.
“If you could find in the supermarket, as we find chestnuts, it would be amazing,” Ms Moura Nadolny said.
Scientist Jacqueline Moura Nadolny at the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation.(Submitted: Jacqueline Moura Nadolny)
While praising the research, Professor Best was cautious about the next step.
“We just don’t want non-Indigenous people exploiting Indigenous foods and making an industry out of it because you can’t walk into a supermarket these days without Indigenous food flavorings being utilized in absolutely everything, and the reality is very little of that kickback goes to Indigenous communities,” she said.
“There’s a sense of hesitancy amongst a lot of Indigenous people about ‘Oh this is just the next wave of colonization and taking of knowledge and being utilized by non-Indigenous people and being made into products that can be sold and a lot of money made from them’.
“Jacqueline’s not exploitative, she wants and she understands that hopefully we can get Indigenous involvement into this … that actually sees stuff being done or created that’s Indigenous owned and run.”
Sharon Shillingsworth and Deidre Bolt are sisters in their 50s but have only just met for the first time.
WARNING: This story contains details of an Aboriginal person who has died and has been used with the permission of family.
Their separation was influenced by intergenerational trauma which stemmed from their father’s experiences as a child of the Stolen Generations.
It took the women years to track each other down, and while they had been connecting over the phone, a face-to-face meeting had eluded them until now.
It was a pivotal moment for both women; Ms Shillingsworth said she held her sister de ella for what she felt like “the longest time”.
Their father, John Carroll, was one of up to 600 Aboriginal boys who lived in the notorious Kinchela Boys Home in Kempsey on the NSW Mid North Coast.
The institution operated under the authority of the state’s Aborigines Protection Board and forcefully removed Indigenous children from their families and communities from 1924 to 1970.
The Kinchela Boys Home in Kempsey opened in 1924 and operated up to 1970.(Supplied: Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal Corporation)
Like many of the boys in the home, Mr Carroll’s life was plagued with psychological and physical trauma from the abuse he endured in the institution.
Ms Shillingsworth said the trauma her father suffered at the home affected his adult life.
“He was in a lot of turmoil, he basically drank to numb the pain; it was just heartbreaking learning what he went through,” she said.
Her father left her mother and later had three other children with another partner, one of whom was Ms Bolt.
‘They were lost’
While the siblings knew of each other’s existence, they had never had the opportunity to meet or contact each other until after Mr Carroll’s death in 2016.
“Our brother Neil hired a solicitor to find us; we had known about them [John, Neil and Deidre] and they had known about us, but they were lost,” Ms Shillingsworth said.
A list of boys who were in the Kinchela Boys Home is displayed at the healing forum, including Deidre and Sharon’s father.(ABC News: Arianna Levy)
The solicitor managed to track down the siblings and connected them through Facebook.
“We’ve been talking over the phone for a few years now but had never seen each other face to face,” Ms Bolt said.
Ms Shillingsworth said with her sister living in Forster-Tuncurry and herself living “in the scrubs of Trundle” in central west NSW, linking up while also working six days a week was difficult.
“We were getting old too, I’m 57 and Deidre’s 53, we knew something had to happen soon,” Ms Shillingsworth said.
The meeting was facilitated by a charity set up to help the survivors of the Kinchela Boys Home and their families.
Operating with a collective goal of healing the trauma and intergenerational trauma suffered in the home, Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal Corporation (KBHAC) holds annual healing forums to help survivors and their descendants connect.
Boys were stripped of their names and given numbers at Kinchela Boys Home.(Supplied: National Museum of Australia/Katie Shanahan)
When KBHAC heard of the sisters’ desire to connect, they organized a meeting point in Coffs Harbour.
“I jumped at the opportunity; I thought this is my chance now. If this union is ever going to happen, it’s going to happen now,” Ms Shillingsworth said.
KBHAC chief executive Tiffany McComsey said emotions in anticipation of the meeting were high, and that Ms Shillingsworth was “so excited and nervous at the same time.”
“They ended up meeting in the foyer the next day, very naturally, a lot of tears were shed but it was a beautiful moment” Ms McComsey said.
Ms Bolt said the meeting had been “a long time coming”.
“We walked up and gave each other a big cuddle, I was just so relieved and happy to finally meet my sister,” she said.
‘A hidden scar’
Gumbaynggirr and Dunghatti man, Uncle Richard Campbell was given the number 28 in the Kinchela Boys Home.(ABC News: Arianna Levy)
KBHAC is now seeking to transform the heritage-listed boys home into a living museum and healing center to allow for the loss and grief experienced by survivors and their descendants to be processed.
Secretary and Kinchela survivor Uncle Richard Campbell said the sisters’ experience of separation was an example of the domino effect of ongoing suffering and mental anguish endured by survivors.
He says the work KBHAC is doing, not just with survivors, but in education is vital in telling the stories of what happened to the Stolen Generations.
“This is about healing the nation and also significantly the Macleay valley where this hidden scar continues to cause pain,” Mr Campbell said.
The Victorian opposition has pledged to offer free public transport for nurses, aged care workers and allied healthcare workers for four years, if it wins the November election.
Key points:
The opposition says the policy is aimed at easing cost-of-living pressures for health workers
The policy is likely to cost about $468 million a year
Earlier this year the government announced a “surge payment” in a bid to retain healthcare workers
Shadow Health Minister Georgie Crozier, a former nurse, said the plan was designed to recognize the difficulties of the past few years of the pandemic.
“It’s really to recognize all of those who have worked in our healthcare system, both public and private, over the last two-and-a-half years, who have done it so hard and so tough,” she said.
Ms Crozier said the policy would be extended to nurses, allied healthcare workers, clerical staff, patient transport orders, dental assistants, midwives, aged care workers, paramedics and aged care workers.
The policy would make public transport across Victoria free for public and private sector nurses for four years.(Reuters: Sandra Sanders)
“That will be assisting with their cost-of-living pressures,” she said.
“We know this is becoming a very big issue, cost of living. And this is one way that we can ease that burden.”
The opposition said the more than 260,000 healthcare workers covered by the policy could end up $1,800 a year better off.
That upper-end estimate was based on someone who was using public transport daily across zones one and two in Melbourne, the opposition said.
Based on those figures, the policy could cost up to roughly $468 million a year, but Ms Crozier also noted not everyone who was eligible would take up the opportunity.
Opposition Leader Matthew Guy said the policy would be easy to administer, with eligible workers offered a specific public transport card for free travel.
He said there would be further health policy announcements from the opposition in the months ahead.
The opposition’s announcement comes after a fortnight of turmoil for the Coalition, with several staff leaving Mr Guy’s office after details of a proposed arrangement between a Liberal donor and his former chief of staff came to light.
Earlier this year, the Victorian government announced a $3,000 “winter retention and surge payment” to try and support and retain public sector healthcare workers as the state battles its deadliest phase of the COVID-19 pandemic so far.
In the backroom of an outback pub, a group of about 100 concerned locals have gathered to perform a rendition of the smash hit Blow Up the Pokies by The Whitlams.
Key points:
Residents in Alice Springs are protesting a plan for dozens of new poker machines to be installed in pubs and hotels
Iris Capital has applied to install 60 pokies weeks after buying up many of the town’s hospitality venues
There are concerns about the gambling and liquor industry’s ability to influence government decision-making
Assisted by the local choir, community members are making their voices heard over plans to roll out dozens of new poker machines in pubs and hotels across Alice Springs.
“I’ve turned up because… I work at the hospital here in Alice Springs and I see every day how many problems our people have,” one attendee said.
“We don’t need any more gambling in our community.”
Hospitality giant Iris Capital has applications in for 60 new pokies to be installed in four of its newly purchased Alice Springs venues, including several where there currently are none.
The Sydney-based company has already expanded its gaming machine empire, having added at least 115 new pokies at Lasseter’s Casino since purchasing the Alice Springs venue for $105 million last October.
Close to 100 community members attended the local pub to sing a rendition of “Blow Up the Pokies”.(ABC News: Xavier Martin)
Locals have taken up the fight, expressing concerns that adding more pokies will disproportionately affect some of the region’s most vulnerable residents.
A ‘perfect storm’
Anti-pokies campaigners have said the timing of the applications makes for the “perfect storm”.
In July, long-term alcohol bans introduced during the NT intervention in dozens of remote communities and town camps surrounding Alice Springs came to an end.
Frontline organisations, including the Central Australian Aboriginal Congress and the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, have said they have seen a spike in alcohol-related serious injuries in the weeks that have followed.
Frontline organizations have said the ending of long-term alcohol bans makes for the “perfect storm.”(ABC News: Xavier Martin.)
Meanwhile, the use of the cashless debit card, which limits welfare payments being spent on alcohol and gambling, is set to be scrapped by the Labor government.
Campaigner and former gambling addict Roxanne Highfold said there were already too many machines in Alice Springs, a town which grapples with some of the highest rates of poverty, alcohol abuse and violence in the nation.
“To be honest, I worry about my people using the poker machines and falling even into more debt, and also what the long-term impact that will have on the community,” she said.
Roxanne Highfold speaking at a community meeting about poker machines.(ABC News: Sam Jonscher)
“I would hate to see Alice Springs get to a point that every single pub has got poker machines, and that it takes away the recreational activities from the pubs, where families can go to enjoy a meal or enjoy other recreational activities.”
The decision on whether to approve Iris Capital’s applications rests with the NT’s Director of Gaming Machines, who, the government says, operates at an arm’s length from cabinet.
Gaming Minister Chansey Paech has been accused of “sitting on the fence” over the pokies plan, and has refused to comment directly on whether he has held concerns about the potential expansion.
Northern Territory Gaming Minister Chansey Paech is facing questions about more poker machines being installed in Alice Springs.(ABC News: Matt Garrick)
‘Cashed up’ companies in the gambling industry
There have long been concerns about the gambling industry’s ability to influence government decision-making through well-documented tactics such as political donations and lobbying.
Researcher Tony Brown has been providing legal assistance to members of the Casula community in south-west Sydney, where Iris Capital is in court making a similar push to expand its pokies empire despite pushback.
Tony Brown says the investment companies are opportunistic.(Supplied)
“We see these organizations moving in and their priority is unmistakably in terms of maximizing their profits, but we see very little government and legislative attention to the harm and consequences associated with the proliferation of pokies and alcohol outlets,” said Dr Brown.
Dr Brown, who has recently completed a PhD examining the regulation of alcohol and pokies across the country, said companies operating in the industry were typically powerful and politically connected, and tended to target low socio-economic communities.
“What we’re finding is that these cashed up, opportunistic corporations are really taking advantage of these desperate communities,” he said.
“They really are being made ripe for plucking.”
The Mercure Resort in Alice Springs is one of several venues Iris Capital has made new gaming machine applications.(ABC News: Xavier Martin)
Dr Brown said large gambling and liquor companies had over the decades “hijacked” law-making and regulatory processes across much of the country, flying in the face of politicians’ responsibility to work in the public interest.
“The role of government is to protect communities from outside threats and influences” he said.
“What we’re finding instead is that those industries effectively captured our democratically elected politicians and those institutions that they control.”
Across the Northern Territory, there is a cap of 1,699 pokies in operation for licensed venues, as well as caps for each venue.
However, no such caps exist in the NT’s two licensed casinos: Lasseters and Mindil Beach Casino Resort in Darwin.
Iris Capital chief executive Sam Arnaout says Alice Springs is “undiscovered from a business perspective.”(ABC: Samantha Jonscher)
As the overall cap edges closer to its limit, there has been a spike in the number of gaming machine applications made to Licensing NT from just one in the 2021–22 financial year to eight since July (four of which are from Iris Capital).
As a nation, Australia has more pokies per person outside of casinos than anywhere else in the world, and holds the title as the country with the world’s worst average gambling losses at about $1,000 per adult each year.
Investment in the Territory ‘welcomed’
The NT’s hospitality industry peak body has thrown its support behind Iris Capital’s applications, arguing the company was being unfairly targeted.
“We welcome investment in food, beverage, accommodation, upgrades right across the Territory, and yes, gaming services is part of that,” said Alex Bruce, the chief executive of Hospitality NT.
Alex Bruce has staunchly defended a plan to install 60 new pokies in Alice Springs.(ABC News: Terry McDonald)
“There’s a lot of problem gambling that goes on in unregulated community card game houses, in the streets, in the public parks.
“People can sit at home and bet online and lose their house – we never see any focus on that, it’s always on the pub with the light on.”
Mr Bruce said the Territory had some of the best gambling regulations, pointing to a number of recent changes to the NT government’s Code of Practice for Responsible Gambling, including a mandatory online course for staff working in the industry.
Iris Capital did not respond directly to questions about its business strategy or the potential impact of its plan for Alice Springs, but said in a statement the company sought to use its newly purchased venues to their full “capacity”.
“Iris will look to spend significant monies to reposition and activate the venues to operate to their capacity in all areas. This includes gaming,” the spokesperson said.
Alice Springs locals have organized several community events to push back against a plan to install 60 additional pokies in town.(ABC News: Xavier Martin)
The Roebuck Bay Hotel is one of the Kimberley’s most well-known landmarks, with its Thursday night wet T-shirt competitions as popular among tourists as a sunset camel ride on Cable Beach.
The infamous watering hole has survived cyclones, fires, world wars, bankruptcies, economic recessions and a depression, and most recently a global pandemic.
The Roebuck Bay Hotel was established in 1890 and was one of the first buildings in Broome.(Supplied)
Now, it is on the market for the first time since 1985 as the current owners, the Coppin family, test the waters after a busy post-COVID boom in business.
The iconic pub is believed to have been the first building in Broome with flushing toilets and one of the first to have electricity.
And it has played host to brawls between indentured pearlers and the gross murder of a senior police officer in 1912.
For a brief period in the 1950s, patrons could even get a haircut at the bar while they sipped on a middy in exchange for a beer in return.
A dash of sin and debauchery
Indeed, ‘The Roey’, as it is affectionately known, has had a colorful 132-year history, which published Peter Coppin admits has involved plenty of “sin and debauchery”.
“It hasn’t changed in a long time. We still try and allow people to have fun,” he said.
“If you’re not having fun, you may as well go home.”
Bill and Agnes Ward were the proprietors of the Roebuck Bay Hotel from 1922–37. (Supplied: Broome Historical Society, Ward Collection)
The Roebuck Bay Hotel had the humblest of beginnings, built on a bush block that was bought at auction with a reserve price of just £20 sterling in 1883 on country belonging to the Yawuru people.
Edwin William Streeter, a pearl merchant of London, went on to open the establishment in 1890 after buying the block from James William Hope.
The new pub was made of little more than a few sheets of tin.
Beers for the pearlers
Streeter had identified a potentially lucrative business opportunity in supplying liquor to the hundreds of hard-working laborers servicing the then-thriving pearl shell industry.
Most of the workers had arrived in Broome from Japan, Malaysia and Manila, traveling thousands of kilometers to an alien landscape of bright red pindan and sparkling blue waters.
The Roebuck Bay Hotel is considered a ‘local’s bar’ but it attracts visitors from all over Australia and the world. (ABC Kimberley: Jessica Hayes)
After days at sea, they would seek refuge in the bars and gambling schools which lined the road now known as Dampier Terrace.
“The pearlers would come ashore and relax during the neeps,” Broome Historic Society member Ron Johnston said.
“Broome was the capital of the pearl shell industry of the world, which up until the introduction of plastics was the predominant button [material].
The Roebuck Bay Hotel has survived several devastating disasters including a fire in August, 1904. (The Daily News: Trove)
“Today, WA couldn’t do without royalties from the iron ore industry. In those early days it was pearl shell.”
The Roebuck was one of just two hotels in its first decade, but by the turn of the 20th century it was one of six.
“People love a beer and there was a quid in it so people built these little places for them,” Mr Johnston said.
“In the early days, pubs were probably just a couple of sheets of tin and a few poles, and people who sell grog.
“But those pubs have obviously disappeared.”
Today the Roey is the only original pearling-era pub that remains, with the others succumbing to the boom and bust waves of the local economy.
Locals enjoy a Sunday session at the Roebuck Bay Hotel in the 1980s.(Supplied: Broome Historical Society Collection)
A national treasure
The National Trust, one of Australia’s chief conservation organisations, describes the beloved local institution as “legendary” in a statement of significance.
“[The Roebuck Bay Hotel] has always been a social and cultural focal point in Chinatown,” the statement reads.
Its ownership has passed through the hands of successive proprietors many from faraway places with curious stories.
Most recently it has been owned and operated by the Coppin family, when Peter’s father Brian purchased the property in 1985.
Pearlers, locals and tourists have gathered for an ice cold beer for more than a century at the Roey.(ABC Kimberley: Jessica Hayes)
The younger Coppin, who grew up in and around the bar, describes the hotel as “the last piece of memorabilia which connects us to why Broome actually exists.”
“Pubs are probably the greatest place that captures living history,” Mr Coppin said.
“With every old pub being torn down or renovated to be something new and sterile you lose a piece of that history.
“But the history is not just in the bricks and mortar, it’s in the people, and it’s a time capsule of people new, old and everyone in between.
“You can go to museums, and you can see dummies, artifacts and replicas, but to walk into an old pub, that’s where you find real history.”
fun and scandal
The Coppins’ tenure has been characterized by equal parts fun and scandal including a ban on the wet T-shirt competition after a 16-year-old won the event in 2011.
The tradition was resumed two months later after its ‘immodesty license’ was reinstated.
It continues today, defining the #metoo era and changing social norms.
“Well, I always say it’s like an 80:20 rule, 80 per cent can’t believe it and have the greatest time and 20 per cent somehow can’t believe that it’s still going on and think it’s demeaning to women,” he said.
The Roebuck Bay Hotel before undergoing major improvements in the 1970s.(Supplied: Broome Historical Society, Jean Haynes Collection)
“Our biggest defenders of the wet T-shirt competition are actually women and most of them are in their 60s.”
Mr Coppin said the Roey had stayed true to some of its more sordid traditions while adding some new ones.
“We’ve still got skimpies. We’ve also had himpos or himpies,” he said.
“I don’t think we would have ever thought we’d have done a wet jockstrap, wet tradie or a wet drag queen competition but they’re now fairly prominent fixtures.
“You’ve got to try and keep true to your traditions and your heritage but at the same time you’ve got to try to change and roll with the times.”
Broome local Craig Godfrey has been visiting the Roebuck Bay Hotel for 15 years.(ABC Kimberley: Jessica Hayes)
Camaraderie and longevity
If you ask the regulars who frequent the infamous Roebuck Bay Hotel what the secret to the hotel’s longevity is, many will struggle to put their finger on exactly what brings them back to the bar stool.
Broome resident Craig Godfrey has been frequenting the Roey for the past 15 years, which he describes as a proud locals bar.
“[I love] the camaraderie with mates that I’ve been drinking here for years with,” he said.
Mr Godfrey said he had “too many memories” from his time in the pub, including “a couple of shockers”.
“What about the bar manager running around the street naked out the front… the accountant that was naked down the street and the police brought him back and said, ‘I think he’s one of yours’.
“There used to be a lot of that sort of stuff going on.”
