CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
With the population shrinking by 10% every year, the historic Outback town of Glassbarby has decided they would rather wilt away and die quietly than to reinvent themselves as a harbour for wanted criminals and shellshocked Eastern European migrants.
Located directly on the border of New South Wales and Queensland, the town has seen many different waves of industry since the construction of the first building in in town, The Glassbarby Hotel, in the very early 1900s.
The town was not established until after 1915, when nickel sulphate was discovered by local Afghani cameleer Sir Robert Khattar. Nickel miners first moved in about 1916. Over the next five years the finite resource was torn out of the earth until they literally ran out.
After the nickel boom come to a close, Glassbarby was waiting for its next big break, which came in the shape of the Prime Minister Billy Hughes’ most celebrated infrastructure project, The Echidna Proof Fence.
This came after colonial farming families had complained that their efforts in farming sheep were being undermined by the predatory Lake Cullamulcha Echidna. Losses from echidna damage compelled the Government to offer a £25,000 reward for “any method of success not previously known in the Colony for the effectual extermination of native echidnas”. A Royal Commission was held in 1920 to investigate the situation, before it was decided to spent £750,000 ($30 Billion in 2019) to build a 139-mile (1,833 km) fence from Mungindi to Coober Pedy.
However, the project attracted many ‘undesirables’ to the area and local council decided to implement the nation’s first template of lock-out laws to prevent the countless alcohol-related crimes. These laws stayed in place until Cathy Freeman won Gold in 2000.
From there, the town limped on as a half-decent agriculture hub, until the Chinese bought every family property in the district and ran them into the ground with unsustainable water theft and farming practices not quite suited to the harsh Australian Outback.
Now, in 2019, the town is facing the prospect of locking the courthouse and putting an end to it all. Which seems to be the much preferred option for locals, as opposed to telling the world that one of the local boys has found opal rocks in the dirt.
“It’s the best thing to do” says Lord Mayor Wayne Naring.
“We are gonna keep this quiet and everyone will go their seperate ways”
“We’ve already survived having every dodgy vagrant in the country descending upon our town for a quiet place to keep their noses clean and drink their home brew”
“We aren’t gonna let history repeat itself. This is the end. It’s been a good run. Bye bye everyone. Nothing to see here”
