Innisfail

Yeah, it is.

And finally, an Innisfail-raised actor is making his mark on the national screen.

Jaron Andy, who grew up in the Far North, has landed a role as Indigenous drover Charlie in Netflix's adaptation of My Brilliant Career.

After beginning in modelling in Cairns, he moved to Sydney to pursue acting.

Also known as the Palm Scheme, it enables people from nine Pacific Island countries and Timor-Leste to work in Australia on fixed-term contracts, supporting industries facing labour shortages.

The sounds of Vanuatu at a Pacifica festival in the far north Queensland town of Innisfail.

For the most part, this is banana country, enabling palm workers to earn and save for a brighter future back home.

But there are those who feel it's been a journey that's fallen short of the earning potential and protections promised to them.

Yeah, so just all the tropical growing areas.

So bananas are mainly Tully Valley, Innisfail, the Atherton Tablelands and up in Lakeland.

Now, you just mentioned that things are about to change.

So what's the situation at the moment?

It is one lane either way, right the way to Cairns for the most part.

I was up in Cairns the other day, Dobbo, and driving down towards Innisfail.

Mate, that road is so ridiculously dangerous and that rolls all the way to Gympie.

One lane where you're separated from semi-trailer after semi-trailer by a painted white line and that is it.

And, uh, so communication was letters they used to write, and transportation was, was, uh, wasn't, um, easy and was all horse sort of thing.

So he, he went to Innisfail for a wedding, a- and Frank's sister was living there at Innisfail.

And, uh, anyhow, because of the remoteness of his location and, and Frank was of an age where you should have a wife-

[laughs]

CaseysAnd, uh, so his sister had recommended that Mary would be more suited to the, uh, bush and that sort of life.

So at this...

He met the, the Mary Casey and, uh, he had a few days there at Innisfail.

Uh, and he proposed because of the time constraint and the travel constraints.

Like, you got areas like Ipswich and the second, uh, New Zealand team and, uh, you know, there's a lot of others.

There's Billy's old territory up in, uh, Cairns, in Innisfail or whatever.

All these areas that are screaming for rugby league teams.

Um, and I think in Ipswich trying to be a, just a, a goal one.