Rural news out of Australia

I've been collecting these stories and am just going to roll them into a single post, with "Australia" as the common theme:

First, from the Washington Post, is this story about a rural community of Biloela (population 5,758) in Central Queensland (Banana Shire, no less!) which has rallied around a Sri Lankan immigrant family, trying to spare them deportation.   Rebecca Tan writes under the headline, "How a conservative town in Australia set aside politics to rally for a family facing deportation."  The headline implies that rural folks are conservative and, perhaps, also anti-immigrant-- except when it came to this family.  Tan writes: 

Kokilapathmapriya Nadesalingham and her husband, Nadesalingam Murugappan, who go by Priya and Nades, fled Sri Lanka amid a civil war and settled in Biloela five years ago. After failed attempts at securing the appropriate visas, the couple, along with their two Australian-born daughters, Kopika, 4, and Tharunicaa, 2, were seized by immigration authorities from their home last year and placed in a detention facility under deportation proceedings.

* * * 

[In Biloela] friends, neighbors and strangers have worked for a year to get the family home, forming an online movement under the banner “#HomeToBilo."

* * * 

“The emotional swing that has occurred in this community has been extraordinary,” Angela Fredericks, a Biloela resident and friend of the family, told the Guardian on Saturday. “I’ve never seen a rage like that in Biloela. We’re a polite town.”

As for how the family endeared themselves to the community, Tan writes:

In the four years they spent in Biloela, the Tamil family had become a core part of the community, advocates say. Nades worked at the local abattoir and volunteered at a welfare services society, St. Vincent de Paul. Priya, the Guardian reported, often cooked for staff at the hospital.

One community member commented for the Washington Post: 

It’s a very politically conservative town; that’s not debatable. Growing up, I had never ever been to a protest or to a vigil about anything political.

Even now, I think people are not thinking about it as global issues or politics. It’s a story about a family and a town that wants them back.

I can't help wonder how the Biloela resident quoted here would define "conservative."

The other stories from down under came to my attention via the Australia Broadcasting Corporation's Twitter feed.  One is out of South Australia, a town called Lucindale (population 301), and it's about how this community lobbied to host a major national concert as a way to help raise money to replace their dilapidated pool. 

Almost 15,000 festival goers donated more than $22,000 — half of which is to go towards the pool, the other to youth leadership scholarships — as they entered the gates to the free event. 

It means children from the small farming community, almost 350 kilometres south-east of Adelaide, will not have to travel to other towns for their half-hour swimming lessons.

Love this quote from a "Year 12" student about his town:

It sums up the way Lucindale lives and operates as a community. We set out a goal to do something and we get it done.

The third story is about coal mining in New South Wales in an area called Bylong Valley.  Here's the gist of the story, with no significant explanation for the decision to stop the mine:

There has been immediate and sometimes angry reaction to the Independent Planning Commission's decision to halt the proposed multi-million-dollar Bylong Valley coal mine in the Upper Hunter. 

The mine was expected start operations this year and provide 650 jobs during construction and 450 once developed in the Bylong Valley. 

The decision by the IPC to reject the proposal comes following significant community opposition.