ONCE UPON A TIME IN QUEENSLAND (7)

There was a town named Karumba. It had a population of around 1200, mostly young people. It had 2 stores and a supermarket where you could buy anything from a bag of flour to an under and over shotgun. It had a prawn factory (Craig Mostyn) and 5 other seafood businesses. All that remains today is the supermarket (no shotguns available) and Mostyn's (now A Raptis & sons, and the population has fallen to under 500, mostly aged.
Karumba had a thrice weekly air service to and from Cairns. Problem was, it could only operate for 10 months of the year. Because of the dirt strip it was too dodgy for the old Bush Pilots DC3 to land in the wet season.
40 years on, and at a cost of 6 million dollars Karumba now has an all weather strip.Problem is, it is only used for 2 months of the year. (The Wet season!) There is no service for the other 10 months as Skytrans no longer services Karumba. 2 months service as opposed to 10 months service at a cost of $6 million. THIS IS PROGRESS?
Then there's the Heritage Track and all the you beaut signs contributed to by the Qld Government. Great to educate the tourists about Karumbas history. No earthly use to the LOCALS who already know Karumbas history!
And of course there's the HIGH school.OOPS, SORRY, THERE IS NO HIGH SCHOOL! Back in the '70s, Premier Joh Bjelke Petersen visited Karumba around election time and promised to build a high school. We're still waiting! Too late now, not enough students to warrant the expense of a high school say the Powers That Be.
40 years ago there were plenty of students, as can be attested to by the locals who went through Primary school at the time. Many of these kids went to boarding school back then (and still do today) but for every family using this option, 2 families elected to leave town to be with their kids. Thus, over the years Karumba's population has declined to a point where next year Karumba State School will be reduced to 26 students with the real possibility that it will close in the foreseeable future owing to lack of enrolments.

When you see people in their 30's and 40's who were born here leaving town with their kids owing to the lack of schooling, one must question the Government's priorities.
I recently wrote to the Minister for Transport requesting a school bus service to enable locals (who chose) to send their children to Normanto High School (70km away). My letter was accompanied by a support letter from the head mistress of KSS. His reply was in the negative, stating numbers would be insufficient to warrant the cost of a bus service.

They can afford to spend $6 million on a bitumen airstrip that is only used by FIFO mine workers and the occasional private aircraft, but can't afford a bus for our kids to get an education without leaving home!
Karumba has only one problem, it is in the Gulf of Carpentaria and NOT in SOUTH EAST QLD.
With the area contributing millions of dollars annually into the economy through the fishing and beef industry, not to mention the tourist industry, the Government seems to consider us to be insignificant.
Appears to be a case of out of sight, out of mind.
This once great place to live is slowly becoming a ghost town, as evidenced by the number of houses (and businesses) currently for sale.

Despite continued promises (from both sides of Parliament) that ALL children will have the opportunity of a sound education, the Government's performance in delivering these ongoing promises is ABYSMAL.
The Government wants to get more people to relocate to rural areas (You can't get more rural than Karumba) yet provides no incentives to do so.
Without a High school there is no point young families moving here.

Will the politicians EVER wake up, or really care? I seriously doubt it!

I wrote this 4 years ago for our local newspaper (The Gulf Chronicle) and sent a copy to the Qld premier asking for his thoughts on the matters I raised. Needless to say I received no response.SURPRISE, SURPRISE. I have been told (not yet verified) that Karumba State School was closed down this year. Anyone else have a similar story to tell? I say I have been told (as I no longer live there) being just another forced to leave so my son could receive a decent education.

I can see both sides in the argument. Nobody invests where there isn't the population to support it. A business can't prosper if it doesn't have customers. Customers can't buy if there is no business to buy from.

It is a conundrum and a reciprocal spiral of need/demand, and supply.

If there is no demand, then the supply dries up. If there is no supply, then the customers go to where they can buy.

This symbiotic circle is why towns have to encourage people to move there. Towns need to do this as much as the state and Fed government. There has to work around, there has to be affordable housing, affordable transport, etc.

I lived in a country town for a couple of years, and it was very expensive, too expensive if I didn't have work.

It is a reality of life that some towns have a life span, just like people do. They are born, grow, mature, and then eventually go in the opposite direction and, just like people, eventually die.

This is a universal law that can be seen in action everywhere, even in the stars that make up the universe, we observe new stars being born, then growing old, and dying.

It is the inevitable cycle repeated in everything. How many civilizations have done this in our history? Too many to count, and we can the the evidence of their once proud existences all around us.

Sometimes there is nothing that can be done to keep a town alive. That's just the way that it is.

Your opinion is spot on! Don't know about other states, but in Qld, if you live anywhere outside the south east of the state (where most of the politicians are to be found) it is an uphill battle to get anything done for your town. Building a school in places like Karumba will not help said pollies being re-elected as the voters in said place are not in their electorates. Consequently they have no interest in what is happening 2000 km.away. A high school was eventually opened in Normanton 70 km. from Karumba. Prior to this event, the population of Normanton was half that of Karumba. Now it has 3 times Karumba's population. The building of the school was politically motivated, as Normanton's population was mainly indigenous, while Karumba's was not. There are now 2 high schools in Normanton, one State run and one private. As may be seen from the figures this reversal of population has been a direct result of access to a school. Back in the 70's Karumba was the home of the biggest fleet of prawn trawlers in Australia. Most of the town at that time had been built and was owned by Craig Mostyn & Sons, a company with headquarters in South Australia. It was designed to house the crews and factory workers at the time. When it became apparent the promised high school was never going to happen the populace began to leave and new workers could not be found to replace them as there was no incentive to do so. So, the fleets began to dwindle, the prawn processing facility closed down and there were a lot of empty houses laying idle. Karumba's existence now relies on the tourist trade, but because of the climate this is seasonal (winter/ early spring.) So the town is virtually deserted during the summer months with those businesses remaining struggling to survive. Then there is the wet season which can see the only road closed for up to 9 weeks owing to flooding. Of the residents who lived there when I first moved there in 1971, only a handful remain. The rest have either passed away or (like myself)left town. Having seen my beloved town wither and die because of (I believe) short sightedness by the various Governments during that time I have given up hope of any resurgence of its former glory. A high school now is too little far too late to make a difference.