Bush Summit 2024: Why rural residents don’t want to be called resilient

“Resilient” means “we know it’s stuffed but you guys are tough and will cope anyway”, writes Trevor Pickering.

Croydon Shire Mayor Trevor Pickering. Picture: Steve Pohlner

I might be biased, but country Queensland is the best place in the world.

But that doesn’t mean it couldn’t be better. There are things holding us back.

This story is part of News Corp Australia’s Bush Summit series celebrating rural and regional Australia and championing the issues that matter most to those living in the bush. You can read all our coverage here

It’s not a shortage of ideas, or drive, or brains. It’s that we’re not being listened to. I’m not talking about a shortage of words. There are plenty of words, well meaning but pointless words.

What we want is action. When we ask for something, when we make the case for something, it feels like it’s falling on deaf ears in the city, in Brisbane and in Canberra. Instead of the city listening, all we hear is empty acknowledgments.

Words don’t stop young people in bush communities getting rheumatic heart disease.

Meeting acknowledgments don’t fill the gap in health care.

And calling us “resilient” won’t raise the Gilbert River Bridge any higher to be above the floods, or get our food trucks into Croydon or the mail and medicine in either, off and on for six months of the year.

“Resilient” means “we know it’s stuffed but you guys are tough and will cope anyway”. The real stuff we are asking for – reliable roads, bridges higher than the water, weather radar to help us prepare for the worst, health care that saves lives, mobile coverage that actually is, enough desks in schools so all the kids fit at once – is critical for the people who have been here for generations and generations, for all the different communities, for the towns, for the farming and other industries. But it’s important for the cities too – you need the stuff we grow so you can eat, and the stuff that gets dug out of the ground pays for your roads, bridges, schools and hospitals too.

The only way things will change is for the political leaders – the PM and the Premier, the Opposition leaders and the ministers, and the top bosses in Brisbane and Canberra – to get off their bloody backsides and come out here.

All we are asking for is for them to see and hear the truth, for us to be listened to, for a fair go. But it doesn’t just have to be the city pollies. Where are all the people who have been well taken care of in the cities sharing a bit of their time in the bush? Why don’t we see health specialists using some of their leave to come through and head off the health problems we’ve got before someone needs to be loaded onto the Flying Doctor?

Or the builders who have done pretty well coming out and helping our young people getting a trade?

It can be challenging out here but we’re a terrific place to visit.

And, once you’ve been out here and back home, become an ambassador for the bush.

Trevor Pickering is Mayor of Croydon Shire

Originally published as Bush Summit 2024: Why rural residents don’t want to be called resilient