Northern NSW Community Recovery Tour Diary - Day 1 (Moree)

Mar 26, 2025

(Touring team Sandy McNaughton & Heidi Carolan with possibly ironic signage at Moree Airport)

I’m on the road from Moree to Garah in North West NSW. There are cotton fields to my right, saltbush to my left, and the gleaming, charcoal bitumen stretching ahead as the drizzle turns the brown-red dirt on the verges to putty.

I’m on a community recovery tour funded by Moree Plains Shire & NSW State Government. Since 2020, I’ve done three previous tours with NEMA (National Emergency Management Agency). The first one was a drought relief tour, but it rained solidly for a week when I arrived. This would have been more welcomed had it not meant that they couldn’t get their crop off as the land was too wet to get the cotton-picking machinery into the fields. I’ve already been blamed for this change of the weather. They’re tentatively happy for it this time, but given the unimaginable flood event they had up here in 2022, they’re holding their breath.

This time around the tour is more focused on preparing communities for the inevitability of pending major weather events. It’s been organised by Sandy McNaughton, who is the Community Recovery Officer for the Moree Plains Shire & previously toured me with NEMA. We’re also being joined each night by Heidi Carolan who has taken leave from NEMA to join us as the technical operator. The fourth wheel on the SUV is Letisha Cross from RAMPH (Regional Adversity Mental Health program), who speaks deftly & succinctly each night on the well-being of those whose livelihoods are impacted by the capricious twists and turns of nature.

Last night was the first show at the Moree Services Club & I’m going to attempt to write a daily diary of the tour in the car as we commute to the next town on the itinerary: Basically using the length of the road trip as my egg timer.

We’ve just slowed down to pass through the township of Ashley, which according to the town sign, had a silent disco in their hall 3 weeks ago.

The hall is the sized of shipping container, so it would have been an intimate affair. As the speed limit goes back to 100, I’m picturing the image of wheat & cotton cockies in RM Williams, plaited belts & moleskins, hip thrusting with their eyes closed to Dua Lipa’s ‘Levitating’ as the urn bubbles away nearby.

(Ashley Hall - Half of the space taken up by public toilets & Christmas decoration storage)

In order to achieve the remit of diarising every show, every day, I’m going to resort to bullet points

Venue: Moree Services Club

Audience: 127

Aggressive Rules Related Signage: 78

( I pulled a shift after the show driving the audience home in the courtesy bus)

I met Linda (80-ish) after the show. No selfies for Linda. She went old school and asked me to sign a Moree Services Club coaster with a biro she had nicked. We bumped into her at breakfast this morning, where she admitted her predilection for nefarious pen collecting. She also said to … ‘I’ve seen the comedians on the telly, but seeing you live, made me nearly piss my pants’. Her sister Patricia was less forthcoming. Her only contribution was to call into question an element of Sandy’s introduction to bring me on stage… ‘I watch Spicks & Specks all the time, but I’ve never seen you on it’.

(Linda & Patricia just before Linda fleeced my pockets for pens)

It was Olivia Kosh’s 30^th - Her family & friends booked the three tables at the front of the room. Their enthusiasm for having her involved was matched by her trenchant desire to not be involved. Honouring that wish, I got the audience to sing happy birthday in double time. Later, when the audience participation part of the show kicked in, she broke the speed of sound to get out to the safety of the pokies room.
The Victorian Murray Valley township is the backdrop to a story I tell in the show. A woman interrupted the story to tell me that her ex-husband was from Tallangatta. I suggested that I continue the story for now and we could maybe catch up on news about her ex after the show: An offer she very much took me up on.
I met a family who had recently moved to Moree from Dargaville on the north island of NZ. Their 10 year old son had been a great sport and had not gone to the pokies room during the audience interaction part of the show. I asked them what Dargavile was like. They looked at each other & said in chorus … ‘It’s like Moree’.
Moree is famous for its artesian pools. Mediterranean and Eastern European tourists come to the town in their droves to soak in the mineral baths. The adjacent Olympic pool was found to be leaking 7 years ago & had to be dug up. Despite the promises of successive councils, it remains a hole in the ground. This town sign was my gift to the community.