Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This clip from 1982 shows Coonamble, a country town in northern New South Wales hard-hit by drought and recession. Over images of the postman delivering mail, the reporter says that social-service cheques are the only growth industry in the town and that an alarming percentage of unemployed people are under 25. He then interviews a group of school leavers who feel that there is no future for them in Coonamble; one young woman says: 'When the land fails, the town fails’.

Educational value points

• When this Four Corners program was made in 1982 the unemployment level in Australia was nearing 10 per cent, and country towns with populations of less than 4,000 such as Coonamble had far higher unemployment than urban centres. The high unemployment was due to a worldwide economic recession, exacerbated in Australia by severe drought. Australia’s GDP dropped by 3.8 per cent that year, the greatest fall since the Second World War.

• The 1982–83 drought was perhaps the worst in the 20th century in terms of rapid onset and short-term lack of rainfall. Over two to three months in 1982 drought became established in most of eastern Australia, with extensive areas experiencing record-low or near-record-low rainfall from April to December. The Coonamble area suffered more than most because it is marginal agricultural country at the best of times, with low average rainfall and fragile soil.

• The exodus of young people from rural areas contributes to the decline of country towns by eroding the 'social capital’ – the social structures and networks that contribute to civil society. There are fewer people to participate in sporting and community groups and fewer people to form a new generation of leaders, farmers and business people. Falling populations also lead to the closure of services such as banks and post offices, which in turn causes more job losses.

• In the clip, the quiet collapse of the town is simply but strikingly conveyed through the image of the postman cycling down wide empty streets and through the juxtaposition of a final-year economics examination and the dearth of economic prospects for the young people who sit it. Four Corners is Australia’s longest running current affairs program and has a reputation for high-standard journalism and filmmaking.