It’s a quiet morning in Avondale as we arrive at the Huntley Colliery site entrance, an abandoned car sitting there, wild grass whispering in the wind. The air carries a faint smell of native trees; there’s not a trace of the dark dust that once coated the area, but beneath the soil, the echoes of the mine’s past are still entwined with the place. It was 1946 when three brothers, William, Phil and Frank Waugh, opened the colliery. The original vision was local and determined. Handworked in the beginning, the mine was named ‘Huntley’ as a homage to Huntly in…
Author: Mikaylee Priest
There are more than 200 million active users of dating apps worldwide, according to the National Library of Medicine. Aged-care worker, Emily Priest, uses dating apps to meet people, blaming her work roster as a reason she struggles to meet people in person. “Working long hours and night shifts has ensured that I won’t meet anyone normally,” Ms Priest said. Ms Priest describes how despite the success of using the apps, it was an exhausting process. “You would be a great conversation and really getting along with someone but they can suddenly disappear onto the next person, it’s emotionally exhausting,” she…
There’s been a rise in abuse of retail workers across the country, with more than 88 per cent of employees claiming to have been verbally and even physically abused in the last year. The statistic comes from a survey conducted by the Retail Association and Shop, Distributive & Allied Employees Association (SDA), which showed that the abuse is impacting the mental health and wellbeing of retail workers. More than 88 per cent of surveyed members experienced verbal abuse from a customer in the past year, impacting their mental and physical wellbeing, the report found. Woolworths checkout operator, Maddy Steel said…
Real estate in the coastal town of Kiama has skyrocketed since Covid and the cost-of-living crisis. Kiama resident Peta Priest said that real estate prices are at an all time high across the region. “I have been in Kiama for over 30 years and have never seen the prices for the area so high before,” she said. Ms Priest has blamed an increase in tourism and wealthier residents for the rise in real estate prices. “Kiama is no longer a town for me, a local, but rather the blow-ins. My children can’t even afford to live here,” she said. According…