GALAH (2025)

01/12/2025

Here’s one of the top stories from the latest Galah Weekly news round-up. To read our newsletters in full, please head to the link in our profile.

Rent squeeze

Queensland remains the state with the least affordable regional rents, draining more than 30% of the average income.

The SGS Economics snapshot of the national rental market shows even regional areas with strong employment growth such as Toowoomba, Rockhampton, Cairns and Townsville remain unaffordable for most renters.

The report shows rental affordability has declined again in the past year. Regional SA is one of the few states that offers what could be considered affordable rents.

It also shows parts of regional NSW, particularly on the coast, are comparable to Sydney for low affordability.

Meanwhile, home buyers are still feeling the pinch. Property research firm Cotality has found Australian households are spending twice as much of their income to service mortgages compared with five years ago.

Image - Bare Earth 2, one of a series of paintings by WA artist capturing the human impact of drought.

30/11/2025

This Sunday, let’s go to Bruny Island and stay over at .newman.morris’s century-old beach shack.

Imagine holing up here for the whole of summer.
This dream-like scenario is actually a reality for Tess and her family, who decamp to their cottage on the island every summer.

Amanda Ducker wrote this story for Issue 13, with photography by .

“It’s a mission to get to Fairweather. From their Macedon Ranges home, the family drives to Geelong to embark on the Spirit of Tasmania ferry for a 12-hour overnight Bass Strait crossing. ‘My daughter has her last day of school and we’re usually on the boat that night,’ Newman-Morris says. ‘Packing our life for the summer feels like something from a previous generation, or an Alison Lester storybook. Getting on the boat feels like a giant exhale’.

“Arriving at dawn at Devonport in Tasmania’s north, they drive three hours south to Hobart. After stocking up on provisions, they head another half-hour’s drive south to Kettering and catch a small car ferry across the D’Entrecasteaux Channel, a 20-minute ride on which their excitement builds. The final leg is a 45-minute drive south through farm and bushland, an isthmus called The Neck and, at last, a meander down the coastline. There’s just one more stop – at a couple of vintage refrigerators filled with fresh sourdough loaves, set up as a roadside stall by the Bruny Baker. Sometimes Newman-Morris keeps butter at hand to slather on their favourite sultana loaf for the final stretch to Fairweather.”

Read the full story in Issue 13. Now on sale around Australia and from our own online store (link in bio).

27/11/2025

It’s getting busy out there. But Galah is here to help.
We’ve mined our archive of Galah food columnist ’s menus and pulled out a collection of recipes that might just save your skin in the festive weeks to come. Among these is a most delicious slow-roasted beef recipe.

This is my go-to when I’m short on mental capacity, but still want to cook something delicious for a big group of people. It’s a breeze and always works.

We’re sending this to our newsletter subscribers tomorrow morning, you can sign up via the link in our bio.

Annabelle x

Illustration by Recipes by Belinda Jeffery.

26/11/2025

What’s on and coming up around the country?

Figure and Field
Three artists from northern NSW and south-east Queensland – Lucia Canuto (), and Meg Stoios – each explore the human figure in their work, highlighting three perspectives born of local life. At , Murwillumbah, NSW, until 15 February 2026.

Before Dawn
Galah Issue 13 takes readers into sculptor ’s Portland studio, where she casts bronze figures. Her monumental and smaller works feature in a solo exhibition at NSW, 28 November 2025 — 28 February 2026.

Overland
Wangaratta-born explores power structures and historical narratives through painting and sculpture. In Overland, Harris considers the lasting impact of colonisation. At , Vic, until 18 January 2026.

Calico Ceilings
Bellarine Peninsula artist Linda Gallus immersed herself in the Central Goldfields/Djaara landscape, engaging with historians and combing the archives to reimagine stories of women in the gold-rush era. At , Maryborough, Vic, until 8 February 2026.

Head to the link in our bio to read our latest Galah Weekly in full, and if you know of something we need to share in a future Galah Weekly, please comment or send us a DM, and we’ll make sure it lands on editor Dean Southwell’s desk.

Image: Much of artist Harrie Fasher’s work centres on the “mental and physical pow
: Much of artist Harrie Fasher’s work centres on the “mental and physical power of the horse. An image by Jennifer Leahy/Silversalt featured in Galah Issue 13.er of the horse”. An image by Jennifer Leahy/ , featured in Galah Issue 13.

23/11/2025

Here’s one of the top stories from the latest Galah Weekly news round-up. To read our newsletters in full, please head to the link in our profile.

The $1 House

One house sold for $1 and others went for as little as $5 at an auction in the NSW Northern Rivers last week. At another auction this week, a Lismore home sold for $50 and another went for $100. So what was the catch?

The 21 homes offered at the Lismore and Murwillumbah auctions were flood-damaged buildings being sold by the NSW Reconstruction Authority, which had taken ownership through a buyback scheme after the catastrophic 2022 floods.

The top price paid at Lismore was $125,000, while the 11 homes offered at Murwillumbah went for a grand total of $14,871.

Six other similar auctions were held earlier this year and another three are scheduled before Christmas, with houses sold without a reserve. One of the sale conditions is that the new owners must remove the buildings from their flood-prone sites and relocate by 30 November next year.

New owners face relocation costs that can be more than $150,000 but for successful bidders, such as Jaya Roche and her family, it seemed like a dream. They paid $200 for the house they had rented in 2022. Roche said even the relocation costs seemed cheap compared with a potential $600,000 loan to buy her own home.

Buyers might be looking for something different in another part of NSW, with a building claimed to be Australia’s most haunted house on the market in Junee.

Sculptor in her foundry studio in Portland’s former cement works. Fasher features in Galah Issue 13 and this week’s What’s On. Photo: Jennifer Leahy/

23/11/2025

If only all trains were so excellently upholstered.

For this Sunday’s places post, we’re going trackside and remembering that time we took over Tenterfield’s Railway Museum to showcase some of our favourite Australian designers for Issue 05 : Make Australia Make Again.

All aboard. Where to?

Design Lisa Post  Assistant Lucy Munro  Photography Annabelle Hickson

Featuring designs and textiles from House of Delapre, .jones_ , , , , and .

22/11/2025

Today is Stir-up Sunday, the last Sunday before Advent and the day we’re supposed to make our Christmas cakes so they are mature and ready for December 25. Or whenever you feel like cracking into yours.

And if that’s sooner rather than later, then the recipe we suggest is even more perfect because Galah’s food columnist ’s last-minute Christmas cake can be made and enjoyed on the same day and will also keep, wrapped up nicely, in the fridge for up to three months (as if).

We’ve made it many times and it’s an absolute winner. Of course it is. All of Belinda’s recipes are. Have you tried her menu of recipes in Issue 13? They’re all winners.

Find the recipe on her website, belindajeffery.com.au.

20/11/2025

Yes, Chef! Tomorrow we're chatting with Karlee McGee of Stonefruit, Tenterfield's newly-hatted wine bar and favourite of Galah's Annabellehickson (for whom Tenterfield is practically local).

She tells us what she's loving cooking right now in her tiny Stonefruit kitchen, what she's listening to, what she makes to comfort, soothe, celebrate and nurture.

And she shares the recipe for the beloved Stonefruit classic, café de Paris Ballina pipis. Chef's kiss.

Thank you, Karlee.

Sign up via the link below to receive it in your inbox tomorrow.

For now, we leave you with Karlee and her partner Alistair's mantra, "Stonefruit is not about bravado. We have a clear purpose: to eat and drink well, in good company." Amen.

https://digital.galahpress.com/tag/yes-chef/

19/11/2025

What’s on and coming up around the country?

The Bogeyman
Emerging Bathurst artist explores the strangeness of nightmares and living through unreal timelines in a series of works in which a cowgirl is trapped in a world of horror. At , NSW, 22 November 2025-25 January 2026.

Martin Hanson Memorial Art Awards
This year marks the 50th anniversary of one of Queensland’s most significant regional arts events. The exhibition celebrates the work of established and emerging artists in the awards. At , Qld, until 24 January 2026.

Gratitude and Orchids
This exhibition is inspired by NSW north coast artist
realising her own good fortune, regardless of the challenges of life. Each work by Mason, who featured in Galah Issue 4, imagines a close friend or family member at a birthday party. At , Inverell, NSW, until 30 November.

Head to the link in our bio to read our latest Galah Weekly in full, and if you know of something we need to share in a future Galah Weekly, please comment or send us a DM, and we’ll make sure it lands on editor Dean Southwell’s desk.

Bridget, by NSW north coast artist Kiata Mason in Gratitude and Orchids at AK Bellinger Gallery.

16/11/2025

Only a handful of people across the globe practise the art of faux bois, using concrete and steel to mimic the appearance of wood. For issue 5, Galah visited one such artist, , in her home and studio near the New South Wales Riverina town of Deniliquin, to learn about this niche art.

Beau was scrolling the internet, trying to find ways to make garden structures that could withstand the outdoors, when, one day about eight years ago, she stumbled across the art of faux bois—pronounced ‘foe bwah’, in case you were wondering, from the French for ‘false wood’—and what’s more, there was someone in Tennessee who was going to run a workshop to teach it. Beau was immediately taken by this style of furniture that looked like it had grown out of the woods and forests, but was actually heavy and long-lasting.

Read the full story in Issue 5.

Photography by .

09/11/2025

Tonight we’re off to Berry, revisiting a story from Issue 6 on ceramist . Writer and photographer visited Flis at her home and studio near Berry, on the NSW south coast.

Amber writes;

“A small, winding road peels off the Princes Highway, fringed in flowering wattle trees, and I make a mental note to check for secateurs in the glove box on my way home. I’m heading to ceramicist Fliss Dodd’s home in the New South Wales town of Berry, so I don’t entirely trust the GPS when it urges me to take a concealed lane pocked with puddles and potholes to my left. I crawl down the road, past misty fields of cows that seem unperturbed by the drizzle and, sure enough, I find her house.

“The garden is full of lesser-seen plants that are clearly the work of a very green thumb (belonging, it turns out, to Fliss’s landscape designer husband, Hal).

“Also: mud. After months of rain, I’m grateful she’s there pointing out a safe path through the sludge, past an excited kelpie x German shorthaired pointer called Frankie, to the front door.

“Berry, just a stone’s throw from where she was born in Nowra and looking out at the very same escarpment, has been home to Fliss and her family since Christmas 2018. It’s also where she works; after being revived with a hot mug of dandelion chai tea, we wander through to her studio at the back of the house.

“It’s clear this is a sacred sanctuary for her. With big windows that look over chickens scratching in the garden on one side and a duck pond on the other, it’s a truly bucolic vision. The walls are filled with shelves of ceramics and books, as well as large pinboards brimming with photographs, drawings and other nostalgic bits and pieces. A transportive mix of moody, electronic beats and gentle tribal vocals hums away in the background, and in the centre of the room is the long table where Fliss makes.

“‘When I say I make abstract cows, people look at me really weirdly,’ she admits. ‘Then when they see them, they always say, “Oh wow—that’s not what I was expecting’”.

Find the full story in Issue 6.

GALAH

01/12/2025

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