Regional businesses facing tough decisions after major financial changes

0:00ABC Listen, podcasts, radio, news, music and more. There comes a point where you just can't keep wearing the costs because you're already wearing so much. Business owners in regional Australia are being hit from all angles. Interest rate hikes, surcharges, scrap to and cost of living pressures. So how are they coping? We'll take you to Queensland to find out. And an Aussie tradition, stopping at the Big Banana near Coffs Harbour, will be harder to tick off, come Christmas. The last town on the motorway between Brisbane and Melbourne will be bypassed. It's a bit of an Aussie tradition, I suppose. We'll be doing that East Coast, Sydney to Brisbane trip, everyone stops, get the flight out. So how are local tours and businesses adapting? Plus, there's a pretty odd road trip taking place in the outback. This one's Henry. He loves to do it a little. He loves to do it a bit of talking.

1:00We'll meet a Camelier who's on a mission to break an Australian record with his team of 22 camels. I'm Alex Simon and this is Australia White. First to Queensland, this week has been filled with major financial changes in Australia. From the Reserve Bank increasing the cash rate again to the removal of card surcharges across the country. While homeowners are trying to balance household budgets against rising costs, regional business owners are making difficult choices about whether to absorb the cost directly or pass them along to their struggling customer base. Olivia Noons-Marlic has more. Nick and Amanda Kuhn run an organic egg business in the rural town of Tyro, about 220 kilometres north of Brisbane. The pair say their family run operation has been struggling to slow the snowball effect of rising costs. It comes a point where you just can't keep wearing the costs because you're already wearing so much and there also comes a point where you can't keep charging more for your

2:00products. So it's a very fine balancing act. Lone repayments are one of the couple's major financial woes. The Reserve Bank lifted the cash rate for the fourth time this year on Wednesday, pushing rates to the highest levels since 2011 at 4.6%. Yeah, our loans have gone up probably around that roughly $1,000 a month. By the looks of things it's going to go up even more later this year and into next year. Essentially what that means is it's just less profit for the business, it's harder to operate, harder to service loans, it's harder to get new loans if you want equipment such as that. Another concerning aspect for the Kuhn family is the removal of the card surcharges. Earlier this week it became illegal for businesses to tack on an additional charge for people using either a credit or debit card to purchase their items. There only a small business but it's going to cost us a couple of thousand dollars to wear that. We've had to look to increase our pricing on our eggs. Small are just to cover the cost of that. It's not just the cost of the surcharges as well, it's the cost of fuel and freight, insurance,

3:04wages and everything. Harvey Bay Honey producer Christopher Hall was also grappling with weather to increase the price of his raw honey buckets. People are used to the prices going up left right and send her all the time for no apparent reason. It's not as much a shock to customers as I expected it to be. We've gone from $12 a kilo to $16 a kilo, which is a pretty significant jump. We've just absorbed all the increased costs, which I know is a little bit crazy in its own right, but I thought it's important to maintain honey as cheap as it possibly can for people and we simply just can't do that anymore. John Rolf, a professor of regional economics development at CQ University, suspects external influences are impacting Australia's inflation figures. The process demand is pushing up prices without corresponding productivity gains. Interest rate rises are designed to reduce that excess demand. The problem at the moment is that it looks now so that's going to cause a slowdown in the economy. It will push up the unemployment rate and it will put a lot of pressure on businesses and

4:06households. Professor Rogers points to fuel costs and job security as two of the biggest pressures facing regional community is during tough economic times. People in regional areas often have bigger transport costs, so they've got longer distances to drive. A slowdown in regional areas is very difficult for people to deal with because they can't. If they lose a job, it's very hard for them to find a similar job in the same region. He urges business owners to prepare for the long haul. So we essentially are looking into close to mid-2028 before the effects of these interest rate rises are likely to be fully worked through. He encourages businesses to be wise about their spending habits during this period of economic uncertainty. So they've got to judge up where they might lose revenue and be prepared to make an early call about cutting their costs or managing the scale of their enterprise so they don't get caught out.

5:07Despite the struggles, Mr Hall said he and his business will endure. We have had to increase prices in order to stay afloat. Small farmers do make the world go around. We'll continue to try and provide the best quality products at the cheapest price we can. Olivia Noons Marlick with that report. ABC Australiawide. It is one of Australia's most iconic big things, but soon motorists will have to take a detour if they want to take in the big banana on the New South Wales mid-North coast. By Christmas, the Pacific Highway bypass around Kofsaba will be open. The New South Wales city is the last between Melbourne and Brisbane to be bypassed. So how is the region learning from other areas of the country before the big switch? Claire Simmons went along to find out. It's where it all began. They made us landpaces for the big, with no land. From road-weary holiday makers to British royalty, Kofsaba's big banana, has entertained

6:08countless motorists for generations. Like tourists, Daniel Cork and his family from Brisbane. On the way past, we promised the kids a milkshake on the way back. And it's a bit of a nausea tradition, I suppose. On the, if you're doing that ace coast, you need a Brisbane trip, everyone stops, get the fighter, get back in the car, if you go. For the past 10 plus years, we've attracted over a million visitors a year to the big banana itself. It's always been up over that one million number, because we are right on the highway with very iconic attraction. That's Michael Lockman, he's the CEO of the big banana fun park. Businesses like his rely on tourists for their survival, but soon they'll need to travel a bit further to see the iconic site, as the city's bypass opens. The bypass will loop around Kofsaba, avoiding 12 sets of traffic lights and congestion, for those travelling between Sydney and Brisbane and beyond. Not everyone is a fan of faster freeway travel, like J. Beirstone, holidaying in the region.

7:09I'm not a big fan of the bypasses, because I think they kill all the small towns. I used to enjoy my drive from Brisbane to Sydney and go on by woodburn and slow down to the 40 zones and you pull into the cafe. Michael Lockman's been investing in park upgrades and boosting its online presence in preparation. It's all just going to be about targeting tourists and drawing them to the park. Our goal is not to just target people that are coming to Kofsaba, but our goal is to make people come to Kofsaba. You know, we want to grow the tourists coming in. He's not alone. The whole region is preparing for big changes as traffic patterns shift. The local council's city planning director is Ian Fitzgibbon. For some of the model in predicts about 20% reduction in traffic, so we're in, at the moment, supporting with businesses with that transition, getting in some consultants to a system with their online presence and ways that they might be able to grow into new markets and raise their branding and promotion. This week, the city released plans for what the old highway will look like. So hopefully in say five, ten years time, you're walking down that 10.2 kilometre post-bipast corridor.

8:13You've arrived at a great landscape and place you want to go visit. We've also would love to see businesses activated. So as part of that renewed streetscape, you're seeing businesses invest, come out to the shopfront, come out to the streetscape. The council wants the region's businesses to pivot from being a road trip stop off to a destination. We've done a bit of research on a number of cities across Australia. Small ones from Skone, Tari, Camsey, but also ones like say, Jolong, which are really reinvigied of themselves off the back of the ring road. Over the last, you know, 10 to 12 years, they've really looked at ways to invest in their city centre, in their foreshore, to attract business and even bigger government organisations to come back into Jolong. Roger Grant was the executive director of Tourism for Greater Jolong and the Bela Reen when Jolong was bypassed 12 years ago. He says the Victorian city's approach still holds up. We often said, you know, we'd rather half the visitors just spend twice the amount of money and that was very much the thinking at the time and proved to be the case.

9:15You don't really want people stuck in a location where they don't want to be. New South Wales Tourism Association CEO Natalie Godwood says it's a case of short term pain for long term gain. The trade-off is the visitor that stops because they were driving past and maybe they stop compared to the visitor and there's less visitors that come and stay, but they spend more. They're more invested, they're more sustainable. So volume isn't always the answer. It's about the depth of the experience and the value proposition that that visitor is going to experience. While it wouldn't give an exact day, Transport for New South Wales says the bypass will open in December. Claire Simmons reporting there. You're listening to Australia-wide. I didn't know Melbourne much, I knew where the race course was. I'm making signs for over-slating visits. Basically less eggs this year than what we would have expected. The houses that are near the edge of the bush, they might encounter a snake up to four times

10:17a year, a death out of. Just, you can't see how it goes. On ABC Radio. Agendas, meetings, bills and speeches. These may not seem like the most appealing things to do as a teenager, but there's an enthusiastic bunch who dream of being the nation's future politicians and they're already getting their start in local and state government. As Queensland youth parliament sat in Brisbane this week, eight youth councillors from a remote region discussed their community over dinner with the governor. While others turned to less traditional forms of political participation, his lockdown fought with more. These dogs are having their portraits taken by school students for the grand opening of their brand new dog park and the school student photographers. Well, they're actually the local youth councillors who got the idea off the ground. We have a formal council meeting every two months. We discuss ideas we want to bring into the town and we talk about what we discuss at

11:18the previous meetings. Georgia Duncan is 16 years old and was elected by her fellow councillors as mayor of Black All-Tambo Youth Council. So we had to present a speech for who wanted to be mayor and then the youth secretary. And we had to present a speech and then we got voted in and all that. Black All-Tambo Regional Council, about ten hours west of Brisbane, set up the youth council in 2025. Mayor Andrew Martin says it's not just an educational initiative, it's a real way for kids to have a say. Our council has the credo of the council and the community to the council. It's much easier and much better and much more productive. Whatever the idea is, rather than the council going down to the community and saying that you will have Black Park, we want them to come up and say we want Black Park. So we'll give it to them. And that's what we're trying to teach these kids is that it's community, don't. That's it at home, winging about the council. Get off you bum and do something about it and the council will help you. This week the youth council has traveled to Brisbane to have dinner with Queensland's

12:19governor, visit the state parliament house and have some fun. Apparently they went to the Teppanyaki restaurant. Oh no, no, no, no, no, they all come back covered an egg and rice. So, you know, some of them, it was their first flight on an airplane. So these kids have a much better understanding of what's going on now. And they're taking at home to their parents and their parents are much more engaged and much more appreciative if you like or non-appreciative, I don't know of what the council does. They're very proud of these kids. They're engaged, they're intelligent, empathetic. Phillip O'Collan from the Young and Resilient Research Centre at the University of Western Sydney said young people today are also moving to non-traditional forms of political participation. We've seen over the last couple of decades a turn towards thinking about the rights and identities of different peoples and groups in society and the importance of recognising those. Obviously, digital media and social media is playing a role in so far as that we've never

13:24had a generation before that. So, information rich that is as educated and has tools that are disposal to both access information and content that also creates it and create those networks. She says the capacity for you to engage in meaningful ways shouldn't be underestimated. Young people like many of us, older people, they're pretty finely changed to, I guess, whether or not someone's taking them seriously and whether or not their involvement is really just a signal or a token rather than a substantial shift in the ways in which we govern. Ava Hane from Maurer in Central Queensland is the youth member for Gregory in the YMCA Queensland Youth Parliament. I love my community and that's what I would ultimately like to pursue. I just, I want to be that change for someone else and my own daughters in the future.

14:24To have a foot in this Parliament and be able to speak about their role as more than just a farmer's wife but as farmers is so important to me. Ms Hane is also a youth minister with the portfolios of regional and rural development, natural resources and mines and fire, disaster and volunteering. She worked on the disaster resilience core youth bill, tabled in youth parliament this week and hopes it could grab the attention of lawmakers in state Parliament as a way to improve disaster preparedness. Volunteering in Queensland is down 20%. And so we needed a way to incentivise volunteers because we know cost of living is a big thing. She's already been told that more life experiences necessary before pursuing a career in politics, but she takes inspiration from Ariana Dullin who won Queensland's seat of Palmerston in 2024 at the age of 22. It's just such a beam of hope that I don't have to wait to get older, to participate or

15:26have more experience. I can start now and start being the change I want to see. Lockland Ford with that story. In the dusty outback there's a different sort of road trip taking place. A team of 22 camels is pulling a wall wagon all in the hopes of breaking an Australian record. The role of camels in karting wall, mail and goods across Australia's outback is being celebrated at the Good Old Days Festival in the New South Wales Riverina this weekend. But achieving such a feat takes practice and our reporter Emily Doke joined the camel track to find out more. Rodney Sanson is getting ready to harness his camels. Yeah, you can sit the camel down to put the harness on because otherwise you have to be like seven foot tall to get the harness on. So we sit him down, put the harness on, the collars go on and then the holder steers the camel and we have some reins on some of the camels. We normally have reins on the leaders and the wheelers for a little bit of safety and then we drive them with a whip as well, a bit like the bullock train.

16:27Some have more to say about it than others. This one's Henry and he loves doing a bit of talking. But that's not necessarily saying he's angry. He's just talking to me like I'd come and talk to you. Like I've just pulled him around a bit. He says, I don't know whether I want to go to work or not. It's all good in the long run. Rodney's a camelier, leading an attempt to break a record. The Good Old Days Festival at Berrillin in the New South Wales Riverina this weekend. There's about four different people. Got camels in this team. We're going to put 32 camels in a team. Yeah, we've got a big wagon. So hopefully it all goes well. It's a historical moment because we believe it's a world record type thing. But anyway, we're making memories as we go. Now it sounds easy. Just put 32 camels together and get them to pull the wagon. But I'm guessing there's much more to it than that. You're dead right. About probably 10 or 20 people spent months and months getting camels together.

17:29They've got to get used to all the other camels. They've got to get used to all the drivers and everything's got to work as planned. And it's a big moment. Yeah, it's a thrilling moment for us to do, I'll tell you. Firsty, firsty, mama, help landing, pull. Walk out. The sight of camels pulling a wagon isn't the only thing out of place on this dusty stock route. There's also the American accents. Hi, my name is Valerie Crenshaw. I'm from the United States, in particular, Kansas. We're right in the middle. I'm the Secretary General for the North American Camel Ranch Owners Association. I'm also a camel owner in the United States at my family's ranch Shamrock Farms. 20 years ago, I got my first camels and it was kind of a passion project in the beginning. But what we discovered is that obviously they're very good livestock. And so one of the things that we use them for is for land management. We're in the Tallgrass Prairie, which is the grasslands of Kansas where people fatten

18:31up their cattle. And we have a very special connection with our land and trying to keep the native prairie grasses. But what we found is over the years invasive plants have moved in, whether they be trees or woody invasive or just just noxious plants. And we discovered pretty quickly that camels like those. They like them more than the prairie grasses. And so we can use the camels in amongst our cattle herds to help us manage the land and keep those invasive plants in check. Sleeping in swags, scones cooked on the campfire and learning to drive wagons pulled by camels, she says it's an opportunity to learn about Australia's history. Australia does a very good job of embracing their history and bringing to life how camels started in this country and what they were used for. That's something we admire about the cameliers that live here in Australia. So how do you train a camel? Rodney Sansum says it's all about learning how to understand each other.

19:33You've got to teach them English. Be kind to the camel and train him and show him what you want to do and he will love doing it for you. You say you've got to teach them English, but here on this trip there are some American accents around. Do you also have to teach them the American accent for this particular trip? Look it's all very similar anyway. You reckon the camels know what they say? They know what they're talking about, yeah, yeah. This is Camelier Rodney Sansum ending that report from Emily Doek. You're listening to Australia Wipe. On ABC Radio. And finally to the Gold Coast where one high school is giving students a new reason to get excited about class by getting their hands dirty. Pacific Pine State High School has its own greenhouse where students grow fresh fruit and vegetables as part of a project with food ladder. But the program is about much more than gardening as Emma Hannigan found out.

20:38It's warm, it's green and for these students of Pacific Pine State High School it's definitely not your typical classroom. Inside this high-tech greenhouse the glass is caring for rows of lettuce, herpes and vegetables. They're checking the plants, learning how the system works and eventually taking the produce into the kitchen. I love being able to cook food for different people that actually comes from our school. For the students there's something different about eating food they've actually grown themselves. It's amazing that we get to have fresh vegetables like not store bought but like freshly grown in our like greenhouse for school. It's just amazing. The greenhouse program is run by not for profit organisation, food ladder. It has 68 greenhouses operating at schools across the country. Food ladder CEO Kelly McJannett says fresh food is just the start. This is not a handout, this is not free food. This is food that children have grown and nurtured. They've planted the seed, they've looked after the plant, they've understood the inputs,

21:41the science, the environment and then of course they're the ones that rate the beautiful reward at the end. So there's an incredible sense of pride that comes for the students through cultivating produce that they take home to their families, they turn into beautiful meals. The greenhouse is also a living classroom, taking months and science out of the textbook and applying it in the real world. Year 8 students Ahmed Mariol and Lillian Robbins see the program mix other aspects of their school work more relevant. It's just not culinary in your life, it's science as well, using the AI, how it's made, how the water goes through it, the fans, how we calculate the pH level and all that. Learning the way the water and everything affects some plants to others is a big change because I thought all water is the same for plants but the plants rely on the temperature of the water. Teacher Bridget Gothridge is the driving force behind the greenhouse at Pacific Pine State High School. She says it's attracting a lot of interest.

22:42From STEM we've had geography classes reach out, we've also had business classes interested to grow and sell their produce as a little side business. According to Food Ladder, many schools experience an uptick in attendance on greenhouse days in one particular school from 30 to 90%. This dies with what experts on adolescent education have found. Professor Donna Prandegas from Griffith Institute for Educational Research says studies suggest this kind of hands-on learning has benefits well beyond the garden. It impacts their engagement so much. We see that students will turn up on the days when they're engaged in activities such as school gardens and greenhouses so it actually gives them purpose and a reason to be at school. Professor Prandegas says the programs can also help students feel more connected and motivated. Students will often say, why am I doing this? Why is this relevant? I'll never use this in my life.

23:44Obviously this is really relevant to their everyday lives so it gives them life skills that they can apply immediately and they can see and they can imagine how that now has occurred. So it gives them this great connectedness across their learning. Hey guys, let's go and see what we want. Vocket Pacific Pines, the students experience, bucks up the research. Oh, fun, super fun because we get to see it and we don't get much time outside of classroom. We're usually just sitting in the chair all day and it's just better. It's come out here, look around, have some fun. For Kelly McJannett, the broader impact is exactly what she hopes this program can deliver. It really is just like the old adage teacher man to fish and he eats for a lifetime. The same applies here. Let's teach them how to grow food, give young people the tools that they need and set them on their path for the future. Our reporter Emma Hannigan speaking with Food Ladder CEO Kelly McJannett and the next generation of green thumbs there as well.

24:45And that's Australia Wide for this Friday. I'm Alex Simon. Thanks so much for your company. Cheerio.