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Feature
Could people like Prealene help solve issues facing regional Australia?
Prealene moved to a small town as part of an experiment. She was the first person of colour in her workplace's 150-year history.
Published 31 October 2023 5:57am
Updated 31 October 2023 4:09pm
By Jessica Bahr
Source: SBS News
Image: Prealene Khera moved from Melbourne to the small town of Maryborough to work at the Maryborough District Advertiser newspaper. (SBS News / Jackson Finter)
From Mumbai to Melbourne, and then to Maryborough; Prealene Khera jumped at the chance to begin her journalism career in regional Victoria.
When she started work, she found out she was the first person of colour to be employed at the Maryborough District Advertiser in its 150-year history.
The 25-year-old, who is originally from India and had been living in Melbourne, was motivated by the career opportunity in a competitive field.
Prealene said she was aware the town had a mostly Anglo-Celtic demographic but was still surprised by how much she stood out.
"It was weeks before I even saw another person of colour in town," she said.
"You stand out like a sore thumb, but I think eventually I got used to it."
Prealene Khera is the first person of colour to work at the Maryborough District Advertiser. Source: SBS News / Jackson Finter
"You feel like ... surely they should know better by now," she said.
"It is so, so inappropriate and also so unnecessary."
From Melbourne to Maryborough
Prealene came to Maryborough as part of SBS and Blackfella Films’ new three-part documentary series Meet the Neighbours.
The show, which premieres on 1 November, follows eight households from diverse cultural backgrounds as they leave the city behind and seek to live and work in the small Victorian town for three months.
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How multicultural is your suburb?
The social experiment aims to provide insight into the challenges faced by regional Australia, including a lack of affordable housing, skilled workers shortages, and under-investment in crucial services and infrastructure.
Maryborough is home to around 8,000 people and used to be a multicultural and vibrant town.
Today, it is one of Australia's least ethnically diverse and most disadvantaged towns, and its population is ageing fast.
In the regional town of Maryborough, only 3.3 per cent of residents speak a language other than English at home, according to the 2021 Census. Source: SBS News
Liz Allen, a demographer at the Australian National University Centre for Social Research and Methods, said the challenges facing Maryborough were "not unlike" many other regional communities across Australia.
"It is very typical of the demographic difficulties that many regional communities face; an ageing population where essentially communities are dying out, industries have left, young people no longer roam the streets, footy teams have closed up," she said.
"There aren't many opportunities in communities like Maryborough, and so we have this kind of perfect storm of demographic difficulties."
According to the 2021 Census, 45.9 per cent of the population comes from English ancestry, while 43.5 per cent cited their background as Australian.
The other top ancestries were Scottish, Irish and German.
84.4 per cent of the town's population was born in Australia, and 75.1 per cent had both parents born in Australia.
Allen said while new migrants are not often drawn to regional Australia, they can aid the future prosperity of small towns if given the right opportunities and facilities.
Migrants don't steal local jobs, migrants don't inflate housing prices, migrants don't suppress wages - in fact, migration is a vital source of economic and social lifelinesLiz Allen
"Ultimately, migration is keeping this country economically afloat; migration is helping keep our workforce strong and is helping meet the needs of our labour force.
"It's programs like Meet the Neighbours that (are) exposing us to the realities of our demographic headwinds and how we are going to buffer the difficulties of our economic reality."
Craving cultural connection
After moving to Maryborough, Prealene eventually settled into town and believes working as a journalist enabled her to get to know the community at a deeper level than most new residents would.
"Initially, I wasn’t sure how the community would feel about letting me into their space and if they’d trust me with their yarns because I was an outsider at the time and obviously looked and sounded different than what they’re used to as well," she said
"But that wasn’t the case at all — everyone I spoke to and every event I covered, I felt like I was really welcomed."
She said she also learned a lot about herself.
In Melbourne — a multicultural city popular with new migrants — she had had no shortage of opportunities to connect with people from her home country, but in Maryborough she found herself longing for cultural connection.
"When I was in Melbourne, I wasn't actively involved with the local Indian community but after moving to regional Victoria, I realised I had taken for granted the fact that such a group even existed because I found myself longing for that same cultural connection in Maryborough, but it just wasn’t there," she said.
"I’ve come to realise that I do truly cherish those ties that remind me of home."
Religion and acceptance in regional Australia
Suelaf participated in the series with her husband Fadi and three children, while pregnant with the couple's fourth child.
She had been apprehensive about being accepted by the small regional town, but said she was pleasantly surprised by both community attitudes and lifestyle.
Suelaf said she had felt "a little bit anxious" about how the tight-knit, small community would react to a Middle Eastern, Muslim family.
Suelaf, her husband, and their three daughters were pleasantly surprised by the town of Maryborough. Source: SBS News /
"So I was anxious about what we would be met with as I know Maryborough is a very conservative community but I was pleasantly surprised."
She said she would "100 per cent" consider relocating to a regional town long-term.
"We loved it. We loved the routine, we loved the calmness of it. It was really nice to get away from city life, not having roadworks and traffic and feeling constantly rushed."
Suelaf said she hopes the show will illustrate the experiences of both migrants and residents of small towns.
"I think a lot of people are aware of what asylum seekers and refugees have to go through to build a life here in Australia, but nobody ever hears the side of people that choose to migrate here or marry and have to choose where they're going to live," she said.
"So it's really nice to see the backstory of that and then also bring it up into these regional towns where there is this constant shortage of work and amenities and facilities.
"I really hope all of regional Australia gets a good shout-out and opens people's eyes to what's going on."
Meet the Neighbours airs Wednesdays from 1 November at 7:30pm on SBS. You can stream all episodes free now on SBS On Demand.
