Rob Burgin

But they would maybe know Mergan, which is 5km up the road.

Mergan itself...

It's got a really...

upheaval, a lot of upheaval in its history.

It's just six kilometres down the road from a forced indigenous settlement that a lot of people would know, Cherbourg.

And although there's not that racial tension in this story about Jack, it's a place where you don't have to scratch far under the surface to find some sort of angst.

And because it is that three hours northwest of Brisbane, it's not near the Sunshine Coast.

It's not near Toowoomba.

It's not near Bundaberg.

It's kind of

slips between the gaps in a geographic sense, but also a socioeconomic sense.

And out here, the average living income is $350 a week less.

So the average household income is about $700 a week less than you get in the rest of Australia.

So imagine that every week getting $700 less, what impact that has on the broader community there.

So there are things like higher than average divorce rates, higher than average

people in their 20s leaving the area.

You've got a very low educational profile for the region.

So it has fascinated me.

And the reason I originally went out there, and I think probably the reason a lot of people would go there, was just for rugby league.

Steve Renoff comes from Mergen, and that's what we know that area for, and not much else aside from maybe cattle, cotton, peanuts.