Trade Training Workshop and Joinery at Cherbourg c1980

“The building … is the joinery and next to it is the Plumbers. We had all the timber lined up from the Forestry, we stacked it up in the sheds and then the joinery would take some of the wood and the Pre-Fab would take some – the pine. This used to be the lifeline of this community. That kept everyone in work. That was until 1986 when the Government took away everything that made money – just prior to the handover to the community – the sawmill, the Dairy and the beef cattle industry, the piggery, boomerang factory, the koala bear factory and the retail shop. Everybody used to do their shopping here – and they shut that place down and leased it out to private enterprise. Wouldn’t give it to Council. If they had left all the enterprises here, we wouldn’t have had to depend on Government funding – we would have made our own money. That infrastructure was sent up to other places – Woorabinda, Yarraba – places like that. I was on Council at the time of the hand over – when the Government handed the community over to the Council. That was real hard we were forced to rely on DAA for funding. We could have made our own money with those enterprises.”
— Uncle Rory Boney Sept 2011