A Home in the Outback

The Broken Hill Bookshop's Johnathan Cooper has announced a buyer for his argent street business he set up in early 2022. He'll be bidding farewell to town at the end of 2024. A Home in the Outback's Katherine Waite sat down with Johnathan outside the bookshop to talk about living in the far west, what led him to start this bookshop and the stories he'll take with him on his next chapter.

The Flying Padre David Shrimpton has been flying to remote towns in the the far west of NSW with children's author and illustrator Andrew McDonough. They are on a 10 day tour visiting children in places such as Tibooburra, Wanaaring, Louth, Pooncarie and Clare. A Home in the Outback's Katherine Waite caught up with Andrew in Broken Hill. He has deep roots to Broken Hill - his great grandfather was...

The NSW Premier Chris Minns, Deputy Premier, Minister for Education and Early Learning Prue Car and Tara Moriarty, Minister for Regional NSW were in Broken Hill on Friday 8 November to announce $1.4 million dollars in funding to double the capacity of Busy Kids Broken Hill from 44 to 88 places, creating 9 additional jobs. The investment will support the construction of a new adaptable daycare clas...

Audio from the Press Conference held at the Broken Hill Police Station on Thursday 31 October at 2.30pm ACST. Minister for Regional NSW and Western NSW Tara Moriarty was joined by NSW Reconstruction Authority Head of Preparedness and Recovery Joanna Quilty, NSW Police Superintendent David Cooper, Transgrid's Sam Pickering and Essential Energy Mark Summers.

The press conference held on Wednesday October 30 with NSW Minster for Energy Penny Sharpe, NSW Police Superintendent David Cooper, Essential Energy's Mark Summers, NSW Reconstruction Authority Joanna Quilty and Member for Barwon Roy Butler.

Audio from the press conference held at Broken Hill Police Station on Tuesday 29 October at 12pm ACST. In attendance was NSW Minister for Energy Penny Sharpe, NSW Reconstruction Authority Head of Preparedness and Recovery Joanna Quilty, Member for Barwon Roy Butler, NSW Police Superintendent David Cooper, Transgrid representative Sam Pickering and Essential Energy's Mark Summers. Audio supplied by...

Audio from the press conference held at Broken Hill Police Station on Monday 28 October at 12pm ACST. In attendance was NSW Minister for Energy Penny Sharpe, Member for Barwon Roy Butler, NSW Police Inspector Andrew Mensforth, Transgrid representative Sam Pickering and Essential Energy's Mark Summers. Audio supplied by NSW government.

Audio from the press conference held at Broken Hill Police Station on Sunday 27 October at 11am. In attendance was NSW Minister for Energy Penny Sharpe, Member for Barwon Roy Butler, NSW Police Superintendent David Cooper, Transgrid representative Sam Pickering and Essential Energy's Mark Summers. Audio supplied by NSW government.

Press Conference held at the Broken Hill Police Station at 11.30am on Saturday 26 October. In attendance NSW Minister for Energy Penny Sharpe, Member for Barwon Roy Butler, NSW Police Superintendent David Cooper and Transgrid Representative Sam Pickering. Audio supplied by NSW government.

NSW Premier Chris Minns visited the far west NSW towns of Broken Hill and Wilcannia on 24 October 2024 to meet locals affected by the power outage. Listen to Premier Chris Minns Press conference held at midday at Sturt Park.

Back-up power has been restored to the far west NSW town of Broken Hill but locals are not taking chances. As news came that power was being restored to Broken Hill, people were gathering outside Adkins Hardware Store on Tuesday night, October 22, waiting for a truckload of generators to arrive to town.  Store Manager Graeme Tunes had a changeover switch wired into the shop recently and was able t...

Tens of thousands of dollars of medication will have to be thrown out after a thief stole a generator which was powering two fridges full of vaccines at a Broken Hill pharmacy.   The far west of NSW has been relying on generator power since a storm came through last Wednesday night and destroyed several transmission towers south of Broken Hill. Back-up generators have been powering the far western...

The NSW electricity operator and manager Transgrid says it will take several weeks to fix the transmission towers that were destroyed in a storm that passed through the far west of New South Wales on Wednesday night October 17, 2024. General Manager of Network Operations Jason Krstanoski told A Home in the Outback seven transmission towers on the 250km line between Broken Hill and Buronga were des...

Dave Gallagher, Tom Kennedy and Darriea Turley are the mayoral candidates for the Broken Hill City Council election on September 14. A Home in the Outback 's founding editor Katherine Waite sat down with the three candidates to hear their Broken Hill story, learn the values that drive them and give their election pitch. The interview complement's the election preview published in A Home in...

Mundi Mundi is hosted by the Blore family on Belmont Station. As the sun was setting on another bash, owner John Blore sat down to talk to A Home in the Outback on Saturday night about the festival and his involvement behind the scenes with the water truck. He's just spent the afternoon drafting goats at his goat depot. Although there's lots of stress leading up to the event he said he unw...

Lucas Trihey is the Festival Director for Mundi Mundi and he spoke with A Home in the Outback during the bash about how it came to be at Belmont Station, a remote station in far west NSW. Also participating in the interview sisters Shannan Botten and Cassie Koch who were employed to help with roll in days. The sisters share about the benefit of volunteering and working at Mundi Mundi and Lucas exp...

Australian singer Shane Howard performed at Mundi Mundi 2024. He was joined on stage with school students from the far west as part of a Australian Literacy & Numeracy Foundation (ALNF) Residency Camp. Forty-four students from 7 schools were involved in the residency which happened from Monday to Wednesday prior to performing live on stage with Shane Howard. After Thursday afternoon's perf...

Broken Hill’s Heavy Metal band Firestorm have recently returned to Broken Hill after touring Australia and New Zealand with Canadian band Unleash the Archers. I sat down with the four band members to chat about the tour, the history of heavy metal in Broken Hill and a new upcoming heavy metal music festival which will be held in Silverton in early October. Listen to the 25-minute interview on my p...

One of the stall holders at Agfair 2024 was Jaddan Bruhn who was selling Broken Hill and Silverton greeting cards and gifts using his original photography and artwork and archival images. Jaddan says his works are inspired by the landscape, buildings, textures and people of Broken Hill, in particular the unique building material and finishes in use around the town throughout its history. He likes...

Butcher Girl Alison Meagher was a special guest at Agfair 2024 providing four demonstrates over the two days on how to use the whole beast in butchery. On Saturday morning I attended the demonstration and up on stage with Alison was local school student Annabelle Smith from Scarsdale Station. I caught up with Annabelle afterwards to ask about her interest in butchery.

Agfair 2024 saw the launch of the book Pubs, Publicans and People of Broken Hill and the far west by local writer Emily McInerney. I caught up with Emily at the Broken Hill Book Company Stall to talk to her about the book. All books brought to Broken Hill were sold and more are on the way to Broken Hill soon

There’s a real buzz in Broken Hill at the moment with the biennial Agfair Show which is held at the race course. There’s stalls showcasing farming and agriculture equipment, clothing, art and crafts as well as entertainment and cooking demonstrations. I went along for the good old country catch up and met Lucy Gale, from Pincally Station north of Broken Hill, who was run off selling her hand made...

On Thursday 2 May, Katherine Waite facilitated a discussion at Petrichor Bar in Broken Hill with podcast guests Lori Emment, Heather Pearce and Ben Clavel in front of a live audience. As you can imagine, live events always have the special quality of the unexpected and sometimes the audio doesn't capture the magic of the event quite like attending in person. *During the event, I asked a questi...

Meet Robert Williamson, the A-grouper who trained as an apprentice in Broken Hill and worked his way up to be a mining executive. Robert is the oldest of four boys but when his mother died from breast cancer, he decided to stay in Broken Hill and help his father. He got himself a trade at Zinc Mine and was offered training in industrial electronics which became an in-demand skill. As a young man h...

Meet Lori Emment, a local Broken Hill person who spent a lot of her life not being about to remember people’s faces.   Lori spent a lot of her life being told that she was dumb, lazy and self-centred and she believed it. She could see people’s faces but never remember them. As a child, she would focus really hard on what her parents were wearing any particular day to identify them at the shops. Sh...