Patience, network key to one-cop town

The trick to doing a good job as a lone ranger policeman in an isolated place like Birdsville, with a beat bigger than the United Kingdom, is keeping a good network.

Birdsville’s sole policeman, Senior Constable Stephan Pursell, with his wife Sharon in the main street. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

“Watch your feet, there’s a brown snake floating about in here,” says Senior Constable Stephan Pursell as he enters the police station.

He later clarifies it’s “only a baby” that hid somewhere in the office when he went to get a kit to remove it.

How did it get inside? Pursell doesn’t know, but he deals with it with the same patience and tolerance that is required when running a one-cop-show in the remote Queensland town of ­Birdsville.

It’s been seven years since Pursell set off from his home in Maroochydore on the Sunshine Coast for his new posting in the outback, 1639km away.

He’d never been to Birdsville, population 110, and was shocked when the trees started disappearing on the western side of Quilpie, giving way to gibber plains and desert dunes.

Along with snakes, which sometimes rain from the sky into the police station yard when dropped by hawks, Pursell has dealt with floods, countless breakdowns and the many quirks of being in the lonely outpost near the juncture of three states with differing Covid lockdown policies.

“Policing here is probably what you join the police service to do,” he says.

“You ask any police officer and they will probably tell you they joined to make a positive difference in the community.”

The trick to doing a good job as a lone ranger policeman in an isolated place like Birdsville, with a beat bigger than the United Kingdom, is keeping a good network, Pursell says.

He’s talking about the graziers, shop owners, road workers and truck drivers who exist along the few dusty roads in and out of town.

If someone is missing, something awry or somewhere experiencing an issue, Pursell can rely on the network to keep him informed.

“90 per cent of jobs can be solved by the telephones via the network,” he says.

When the world came to a halt in 2020, Birdsville was not spared.

The town’s proximity to the state boundaries meant border lockdowns were a constant nightmare that split bush communities apart.

But rules are rules and the network kept Pursell abreast of anyone moving northwards up the sandy Birdsville Track from South Australia into Queensland.

Any wayward travellers were met at the border line and escorted into town, where they could refuel, before again being escorted out of the state.

“We managed to get through the pandemic without any cases of Covid,” says Pursell, who is also sworn-in as a special constable in South Australia and the Northern Territory.

“It was only when the tourists came back that we had our first cases.”

Visitors flock to Birdsville in abundance in the cooler months. The two biggest weekends of the year are the iconic races at the dusty track on the edge of town and the booming Big Red Bash music festival.

“I’ll definitely miss them, especially the Bash,” Pursell says.

Revellers at the Big Red Bash. Picture: Matt Williams

The Birdsville Races. Picture: Dan Peled/NCA NewsWire

“I’ve watched that grow in my time here and it’s just massive now.”

Pursell and his wife Sharon love the community so much that they’ve contemplated staying. But the desire to be with their family means they will likely move back to the Sunshine Coast when mandatory retirement comes on Pursell’s 60th birthday in 2025.

In the near decade since moving to Birdsville, Pursell has seen improvements in technology solve a lot of the challenges that faced his predecessors.

There are fewer desert rescues, although the occasional tourist still needs a hand when rare rain turns the roads to mud.

When she found out he’d been posted to Birdsville, Sharon said “wow” 28 times.

She joined him six months later and continued her career as a kindergarten teacher while also working as a government agent in the police office, processing licences, registrations, births, deaths and marriages.

She’ll miss the people the most. “Everyone has been so welcoming, we are definitely part of the community,” she says.