Great escape
Movin’ to the Country follows a generation of people keen to bring their business ideas to the bush. Host Kristy O’Brien tells Danielle McGrane what’s driving this latest regional rush.
Over the past year, a strange phenomenon has occurred. Young people have started to leave the cities in favour of regional areas across Australia.
It’s partly due to the pandemic, and a few other factors, but country living has never been so cool.
“We know there’s been a trend with millennials moving to the country for career reasons and family reasons, but then I think COVID brought about this huge job mobility,” journalist Kristy O’Brien said.
“That has been exciting for people who have been perhaps trapped in the city because of their careers. Now they can work from their laptops basically from anywhere.”
Alongside lifestyle factors such as property prices and a better work/life balance, millennials are heading for the hills and moving to the regions.
“The statistics are showing it’s 15-24 year olds who are leading the charge,” she said.
O’Brien explores this phenomenon in the new series Movin’ to the Country, alongside her fellow hosts
Craig Quartermaine and
Halina Baczkowski.
In each episode they focus on a different regional area where people have relocated or returned to start up businesses.
“We’ve worked right across the country and we’ve chosen a region in each state – except for Western Australia, we didn’t quite get there – but every other state and territory we have been to,” she said.
Movin’ to the Country hosts Halina Baczkowski, Kristy O’Brien and Craig Quartermaine.
O’Brien understands better than most the desire to live outside of the major cities.
She chose to move to Darwin as a young journalist and has never looked back.
“I’ve lived in cities and you do spend so much time just getting around or getting by and I thought ‘You know what, I don’t want to do that any more. Life’s short’,” she said.
“So people like me go ‘Why not move?’ and we’re trying to show that there’s all kinds of people making that move.”
This new cohort of young relocators understand that the regions represent more than the traditional stereotypes.
And each episode of this series proves that, showing innovators and entrepreneurs tackling new challenges.
“For the first episode we focused on New South Wales. I went to Mudgee for a cherry harvest which is just beautiful. Craig profiled these amazing lawyers who are farming but they also started the biggest conveyancing firm in Australia,” O’Brien said.
These are stories of people who want to bring back the knowledge or expertise they’ve gained in big cities and apply them to bold ideas that they believe can work in the country.
“A common theme is they’re all willing to take a risk and they’re also not afraid to look stupid. They’re happy to YouTube ‘How to be a farmer’ or ‘How to build a piece of machinery’, or they’re happy to ask their neighbours for help,” she said.
These risk takers also feel a connection to country, which brings them back with some fantastic ideas in tow.
“There’s a little bit of a boldness to their ideas too and they all seem to have a love of the environment or the natural surroundings. A lot of the motivation and what keeps them going is that ability to be out on the earth and feel the dirt on their feet and the clean air. That keeps people hanging in when the business is hard,” she said.
But it’s the people around them that help build them up and make them a success once they do make that move.
“That sense of community is what’s allowed a lot of their business to go forward
– the sharing of ideas and collaboration,” she said.
“People are willing to do that in the bush, they’re willing to help a neighbour out.”
Kristy O’Brien: A lot of the motivation and what keeps them going is that ability to be out on the earth and feel the dirt on their feet and the clean air.
Movin’ to the Country, Friday, July 2, 7.30pm, ABC and ABC iview