Wolfgang Hackman is one of Merge's favourite Adelaide authors. Recently he spent time in outback Queensland at a small newspaper with only the outrageously-sized horseflies for company. Here is the first in a series of three installments he has written about his brush with the big boys of Federal Politics.  

When he left late last night my housemate was dressed in glowing orange.  

 

Now he returns, at seven in the morning, smeared head to toe with thick lines of black coal dust. Rob mutters an exhausted ‘hello’ and I grunt back. He’s just one of hundreds here who make their money digging underground for coal. It’s already 35 degrees and the biggest cockroach I’ve ever seen scuttles beneath the television. I sip my coffee without even batting an eyelid. 

 

Fuck. I’m a long way from Adelaide. 

 

Working for a newspaper in outback Queensland didn’t seem like such a bad idea half a year ago, but heat, humidity, apathy and an editor who prides social pictures of smiling One Nation voters over articles about the oncoming federal election have left me tired. I’m beginning to understand the mentality of the US postal workers who just one day snap and lay waste to a room full of gormless colleagues, but I’d never admit it.

  

 When I learned Bob Brown was coming to the nearby town of Blackwater, the self-proclaimed coal capital of Queensland, I knew the hardest thing would be convincing anyone it even mattered.

“Who’s he?” he says staring straight ahead at his computer screen.
 

One would think a newspaper editor would pay a little more attention to the news.
 

“Bob Brown,” I say.
 

Nothing.

“Senator Bob Brown. Greens Senator Bob Brown.”

“Oh…?”

“The Tasmanian environmentalist?”

Nothing.

“The anti coal campaigner?”

Nothing.

“Three weeks ago he was reported saying he wanted to shut down the coal industry in the next three years. I wrote something about it, and then I spoke to him last week and he said he was misquoted. I wrote something about that too.”

Nothing.

My mind is racing. A short silence passes.

“The gay one?” I offer.

“Oh. Right,” he says after a pause.

Unfortunately he’s got no idea. Words like ‘federal’ seem to give him a brain freeze usually reserved for five year old children who eat ice cream too quickly.

He pushes his palm against his forehead and readjusts his glasses. I tell him I’m making the 90-kilometre drive tonight, and they needn’t pay me. Wordlessly he clicks her mouse and I turn back to my computer.
A half finished story about a stolen $2000 Galah stares back at me and I turn my hand to writing headlines.

“O’Neill ropes top prize and junior rodeo”.

“New mine planned for Clermont”.

“Rugby league season set to kick off”.

“Bruce loves his life on the land”.

When can I get out of here?

I pad out the time until lunch trying to read online Swedish newspapers with limited success, finish the story about Harry the Galah, pick up my camera and car keys and head for Blackwater.

*****
It’s a long drive and there’s little else to do but seethe and count roadkill.

Kangaroo. Bird. Kangaroo. Toad. Toad. Unknown. Bird. Kangaroo.

To the people out here in the middle of Queensland the arrival of Bob Brown should be akin to Satan himself riding into town on a chariot of fire. Why don’t they care?

Another kangaroo. They’re leading the toads seven to three. Suddenly, the phone suddenly rings. It’s Mike, the editor of The Daily Mirror, a daily paper 300 kilometres east, and he wants to talk to me about Bob Brown. Maybe more people are interested than I thought. 

 “How are ya mate?” he shouts down the phone. Look I hear that gay environmentalist fella is talking to a group of coal miners tonight. He’ll get fucking lynched ay?”

“Maybe,” I respond.

“Too right, too right. Look mate, we just want a bit of a story for tomorrow’s paper, we’ll give ya a by-line, just give us something on the phone, maybe something like ‘they’re burning the place down, they’re throwing tomatoes at him. Someone’s going to get a rope; they’re going to hang him! Can you do something like that? Well pad the rest out with a bit of shit about coal.”

                      

“Um, well, I can probably give you something, I don’t know if it’ll be as dramatic as all that,” I say.

“Yeah, good mate, good. We’ll dress it up for you. Oh, and say ‘hi’ to The 7.30 Report for me,” he says hanging up. 7.30 Report? Well, things are looking up.

The sky darkened during his monologue, and rain has started battering the windscreen. I pass the sign marking the road to the Curragh coal mine. A metre long barramundi hangs from it, swinging in the breeze. It’s been gutted, spine exposed, and rain streams down its flanks and off its tail. About 500 metres ahead is the familiar orange billboard reading “Welcome to Blackwater”.  

It always makes me chuckle, with its big black miner in a hard hat holding a nugget of coal the size of a peach skyward. It’s meant to be a noble image, a hangover from the heady days of unionism and romanticism about the working class. Now faded and weatherworn, it looks more like something from an old Czech communist pamphlet. 

To my left, the toads gain one back on the kangaroos. The score is now seven to four.

I pull the news car with stickers screaming: “We’re local and we love it!” into the car park of The Black Diamond hotel.

After checking in make the 50-metre dash to room 12. The rain is torrential and, as I drive my key into the door, lighting cracks like a gunshot. There’s just enough time to put my bag down, towel off and take a breath before heading to the Blackwater Civic Centre.

Outside my door a man with a Dutch accent puffs away on a cigarette and I tell him I’m here for Bob Brown. He moved out here from Amsterdam to mine like so many others all over Australia, and he humbly says he now clears $120,000 a year. Not bad for driving a dump truck.

He says he doesn’t like what his industry does, but it feeds his wife and children. He says Brown will get a fiery welcome. Lightning cracks again, and it’s time to part. He’ll drive six hours tonight to see his wife in Bundaberg, and I’ve got my own appointment.  

Continue reading Welcome to Blackwater right here.