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Gulargambone is one of the several rural communities in Australia that are faced with change. Gulargambone is a small rural town located near the Castlereagh River, halfway between Gilgandra and Coonamble in north western New South Wales. The population of Gulargambone is extremely low, in total the population of Gulargambone is only 1072! The small population of the town makes finding a job hard as companies don't want to waste money on an area were they will only get 1000 people buying their product. The age variety in Gulargambone is mostly young children and adults aged 50+. The reason why there are less teenagers, young adults and adults in their 30's if that the teenagers want a sound education and move away to a larger town, young adults seek job opportunities and adults in their 30's want to start a family near a major town.
There are a wide variety of factors which are affecting the rural community of Gulargambone. The main factors that are affecting change include, drought, mechanisation and technology in agriculture and loss of services. Firstly drought if affecting the community of Gulargambone. Drought is a regular occurrence in many rural communties, drought starves the local community and causes economic hardship for the community which in turn effects businesses, jobs and the local economy of the town. Secondly, the mechanisiation and technology in agriculture has affected the rural community of Gulargambone. The introduction of giant machines which can harvest 30 hectares of crop in one day reduce jobs. Jobs which once needed hard labour now only need one machine and one driver to do all the hard work, people lose their job and which in turn effects the economy of Gulargambone. Finally, the loss of services in the rural community of Gulargambone has affected the local community. The services which have been lost in Gulargambone include, petrol stations, mechanics, newsagent, butchery, cafes and banks. These vital services resulted in shops fronts being deserted and meant that the rural community now had to drive vast distances to reach basic supplies.
The rural community of Gulargambone has been affected in a wide variety of ways however the local community eventually decided enough is enough and took the productive action of responding to these changes. The community of Gulargambone transformed the rundown cinema into a community meeting area with a newsagent, cafe and shops, all run by volunteers. The post office which was threatened with closure is now the first publicly volunteer run post office in Australia. The changes described above had affected the local community but through hard work and determination the rural community of Gulargambone responded to these changes.
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