Mr RUSSELL TURNER (Orange) [12.40 p.m.]: I bring to the House's attention a wonderful initiative of the Cumnock and District Progress Association. The association has advertised throughout Australia, and indeed worldwide through the Internet, to try to get more families into the town of Cumnock. The association has found four farmhouses that have been empty for a number of years and it is advertising the rental of those farmhouses for $1 a week, on the condition that the successful applicants have to renovate the houses and send their children to the local school. I wish to quote from an article in the Central Western Daily of Friday 24 October 2008. It reads:

Overseas families, children's art work and even a 10 page letter are among the 148 applications lodged so far from would-be tenants vying to live in four rundown farmhouses in Cumnock, north of Orange.

Cumnock currently has a population of 298, which swells to a little over 500 when one includes the local district. The town has a one-man police station, a general store, which includes the post office, a rural supply store, which includes a real estate agency, and a school with two to three teachers. Cumnock has no doctor and no railway line. A little further west of Cumnock is Yeoval, and further west is Dubbo. The Central Western Daily article continues:

The applications have been sent to the Cumnock and District Progress Association which went online and on television recently in its quest to boost the town's population and save the school bus—

I suspect, also to save the third teacher at the school—

The village is offering $1 weekly rent for two years or longer to tenants who volunteered to renovate the farmhouses.

Association member Christine Weston said applicants range from retired couples to families with babies.

"I've had tears in my eyes reading three of the applications. One had written in capital letters 'please, please—this is the answer to my prayers'.

"There's even three families with seven children each who have applied. They are cooped up in little houses in Melbourne and Sydney," she said.

Among the applications are some from southern Queensland.

Mrs Weston said: "People want to leave the rat race, but I'm wondering why people want to leave the beach."

The applicant who sent the 10 page letter, she said, "sadly forgot to send a photo of the family", which is part of the criteria, so they've already been culled.

After the November 3 deadline for applications, the association aims to best match them with the needs of the farmhouse owners.

One owner is keen for someone with a green thumb, another needs carpentry skills, while another doesn't care about the skills, but wants more children living in the district.

The association will interview by phone or in person the preferred tenants and invite them to check out the state of the farmhouse via a virtual online tour.

If they feel up to accepting the challenge, the first tenants could move in by January, she said.

Other owners of derelict farmhouses in the district and further afield in other struggling towns are watching the exercise with interest and some caution, she said.

"There are some people critical about the calibre of tenant and under the impression that it's about a dollar bargain.

"The tenants must provide free labour, but the town will get donations to do the renovations.

"We hope this will save our school and businesses. It's being the second year a lot of farmers have had total crop failure," she said.

It is certainly great to see the people of the town rallying in this way. I am sure that if the initiative is successful, other small towns throughout New South Wales might adopt a similar initiative to bring people into their areas. As we know, many of these small towns are struggling to get new families, as well as young people, into their villages because, as I said, there is no doctor and few facilities. We hope the initiative works, because the Cumnock community want to save their school and keep the three-teacher staffing level. I have visited Cumnock school on a number of occasions. It is a great school, it has a great parents and citizens association, and it has very good facilities. However, under the criteria, if the number of students drops below a certain level the school will lose a teacher, and that is when the rot starts to set in. I congratulate the Cumnock and District Progress Association, Christine Weston, and the other association members. I hope the initiative is highly successful.