Murwillumbah was one of the 10 Municipalities out of the 180 in NSW where the number of males earning more than £260 pa exceeded those earning less than £52. Seven (7) of the Municips were in posh suburbs of Sydney. None of the 138 Shires had this distinction. And no female workforce in any LGA anywhere could claim this privilege, including Vaucluse.
Unemployment in the Richmond-Tweed Shires was amongst the lowest of any region in the state. Unemployment in Lismore was the lowest of any Municipality with a population greater than 10,000.
On most parameters Richmond-Tweed fared relatively better in the Depression than all other regions of NSW, except for the income gulf between Males and Females, accommodation overcrowding, quality of accommodation and home ownership. While dairy farmers in the shires had less income than those in the towns they compensated with subsistence living and less unemployment.
Depression effects (ie, unemployment, income distress, accommodation crowding) were mainly manifest in Sydney and provincial manufacturing and mining centres.
Dairying employed 3.8% of State’s male workforce and 0.8% of the female workforce, of which Richmond-Tweed made up 26.9% and 37% respectively. Underpaid dairymaids were in great demand.
Grants to Councils for maintenance and construction of road and community infrastructure provided the major work relief schemes in almost every shire and municipality. Preference in employment given to locals rather than itinerants.

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‘Median Income’ is individual gross income across entire workforce, inclusive of ‘breadwinners’ who earned no income but probably got ‘sustenance in lieu’, for 12mths to 30Jun1933. [Murbah and Mullum each had 5.8% of male breadwinners earning no income, lowest % on FNC (11.9% average). Largest group was Terania at 15.5%.]
‘Income per Head’ includes dependants. (♂+♀ Median income figure x total breadwinners divided by total population.) Coraki had greatest proportion of dependants. Murbah least.
(See other explanatory notes below)
At time of census the nominal average weekly wage for adult males was still £4/1/3, but work sharing meant that this was often spread over a month or more. Rather than sack people a lot of employers decided to share the available work. Unemployment figure, which didn’t measure intermittency, would have been higher otherwise. The Statistician gave an ‘adjusted’ figure for NSW unemployment of 26.95%, measured as a % of all ‘wage earners’, to ‘allow for inclusion among the unemployed of persons who stated themselves to be employed part time on sustenance or relief work.’ Unions vigorously disputed unemployment figures.
In early Depression, Relief Grants specified wages to be paid on hourly basis. Equivalent rate of £4/2/6 per 48 hr week = 20.6 pence per hr. Hours worked not to exceed 35 per week or 8.75 per day.
[Sustenance-in-lieu allegedly only granted after all personal assets exhausted. But ways around it, plus often at whim of local police. May1931 Rural Bank policy change on ‘necessitous circumstances’. Depositors can withdraw up to £3/week from their accounts if they can prove ‘necessitous circumstances’ in case of sustenance. Those with accounts of £10 only allowed to take out £1/wk, with £20 can withdraw £2/wk.
Government Savings Bank shut its doors Apr1931. Reopened Sep31. Depositors eventually compensated by Commonwealth Savings Bank.]

The Depression was very spotty. Much like the alleged current economic boom.
A rough comparison indicates NSW median male income of £86 equates to ~ $5700 in 2001 money after inflation, but you could by a house on that (compared to ~$xxxxxx in actual money for a median house in the current market). Check house adverts 1933. Median individual income Byron 2001 was $225/wk. = $11,700pa. Get median house value.

Tents and corrugated iron shacks in shantytowns were probably defined as ‘owner-occupier’, giving an unreal picture of home ownership. Witness aberration at Tenterfield.

Depression Chart Notes

‘Accom Density’ is average number of people per room, inclusive of those sleeping on open verandahs and living in tents and corrugated iron shacks. (ie, number living in ‘house’ divided by rooms per ‘average house’ - standard varied from tents and one and two room corrugated iron shacks to 13+ room mansions of various quality. eg, At Murbah 3174 people were accommodated in 689 ‘houses’, the majority of which, 37.3%, were 5 room weather board houses. Largest house was 11rooms, of which there was only 1. (There were only 13 x 13+ roomed houses in the whole region, of which Kyogle Shire boasted 5). ‘Rooms’ included kitchen and enclosed sleepout or portion of verandah that has been permanently enclosed. It does not include bathroom, pantry, store or outhouse unless they are generally used for sleeping. ‘Dwelling’ means a building, erection or tenement, whether permanent or temporary, which is wholly or partly used for the purpose of human habitation. A Flat or tenement could be a private house divided up into apartments.
Accommodation was tighter in 1921.

‘Rent per room’ for non owner-occupiers of unfurnished houses is derived from census data. eg, At Murbah 370 houses, 54% of total, were rented,  the average house being 5.41 rooms, occupied by 4.61 people, inclusive of those living on verandahs, for a weekly house rental of 18/10d, giving a weekly rent per room of 3/6d and accommodation density of 0.85 people per room. (Note that ‘owners’ included people paying off house on mortgage, but not those who had an arrangement by paying off in the form of rent.) The average ‘flat’, (of which Murbah had a total of 55 housing 167 people, with another 8 people on open verandahs), was 2.52 rooms, accommodating 3.04 people, for a rent of 13/10d.  ‘Other Accommodation’, including hotels (6) and boarding houses (20) of various numbers of rooms, plus other type accom (eg jail) and ‘not stated’, made up 4.6% of the ‘occupied Dwellings’.

‘% Canvas Houses’ is the number of tents as a percentage of all ‘occupied houses’. The 1235 tents used for accommodation on the FNC were included amongst the 17,465 occupied houses. Ditto the 373 corrugated iron ‘houses’ accommodating an unknown number of people, making up 2.1% of total housing, below state average of 3.8%.  [3.9% of ‘occupied dwellings’ in Tweed Shire (114 total) were made of corrugated iron, the highest in the region (30.6% of total). Lowest was Mullum at 0.3%, followed by Murbah (0.9%).]

‘% 1&2rm Houses’ is the number of 1 and 2 roomed houses as a percentage of all ‘occupied houses’. Presumably some were tents housing an unknown number of people.
Presumably most of the shantytown type of ‘houses’ were the 1 and 2 roomed variety, which made up 1.5% and 1.7% respectively, or 3.2% total, of Murbah’s housing. [Anecdotally however, majority of semi-permanent shantytown dwellings, which in some places were still being used into the post war years, were 2 and 3 room weather board. The 867x3 room houses made up 5% of FNC ‘occupied dwellings’ - largest number at Kyogle (238), making up 9.6% of shire’s ‘occupied dwellings’]
Presumably the tents, of which Murbah had only 1, were amongst the ‘one roomed houses’, and corrugated iron shacks, of which there were 6, were amongst the shantytown type, leading to the conclusion that Murbah was immune from accommodation distress. Across the region tent accommodation varied from 0.2% of total ‘houses’ at Murbah to 19.7% in Kyogle shire.
Kyogle had by far the largest number of people living under canvas in the state. But Kyogle distorted by number of ex railway navvies. ie there were 496 tents amongst the 2518 total houses, but there were also 35 ‘camps’ within the shire, the majority probably being road and logging camps made up of tents. Aberration Kyogle 1921 also probably due large number of logging camps. Kyogle’s population growth, 74%, was the highest of any LGA in the region 1921-33. It was growing into one of the biggest dairy production regions in the nation, surpassing the Tweed during the war. Flow on from wood veneer industry also generating work during Depression, attracting more itinerants to Kyogle than all other LGAs. Apart from housing distress, Kyogle was best performing shire on all other parameters. Kyogle town probably on a par with Murbah.

‘No. of Camps’ is number of ‘wagons and camps’ identified as population centres within LGA. Some could have been the equivalent of the modern ‘caravan parks’ and provided for travelers who brought own accommodation in form of a tent, wagon or whatever. Murbah had 2 ‘camps’. Apart from Kyogle, ‘camps’ varied from 0 at Mullum and Tomki, to 31 in Tweed, but with no correlation to ‘tents’. ie, Coraki had 10 camps but only 1 tent, Tomki had no camps but 40 tents (5% of housing accom), Byron had 8 camps and 160 tents (8.9% of the total housing), Tweed had 31 camps and 229 tents (7.8% of total ‘houses’). Kyogle distorted by big number of 'calico townships' housing those working on various sections of huge road work relief scheme. A number of the Tweed camps were probably housing those working on the Highway over the Burringbar range, while the banana industry, which was again expanding like the clappers, also probably accounted for a few. FNC had 4.2% of total ‘wagons and camps’ in NSW. Some of the Depression camps were probably ‘official’, ie set up by councils, with separate single mens and married mens camps, but others (majority?) probably ad hoc and formed as communal ‘shantytowns’ by groups of itinerants looking for work. Aberration Byron Shire 1921 probably due logging camps and people living in grouped packing sheds during banana boom.
Murbah had 268 people, or an average of 0.39 people per house averaged across total houses, ‘sleeping out on open verandahs’. Number on ‘open verandahs per house’ varied from 0.46 people at Kyogle to 0.17 at Ballina (NSW average = 0.20, Municips 0.17, Shires 0.27.)  Number living in flats, pubs, boarding houses, etc, ignored in this exercise to allow comparison between Municips and Shires. (eg 7.1% of accom at Murbah was provided by flats and 4.6% by pubs, boarding houses, etc (for 554 people total), while Tweed Shire was almost 100% ‘houses’.)

‘Unemployed’ is portion of ‘wage earners’ out of work as at 30Jun33 expressed as a percentage of total ‘breadwinners’. [Whereas census expressed unemployment as a % of total wage earners only, excluding self-employed.] They may have earned some income, or granted ‘sustenance in lieu’, over the preceding 12mths.
Of those employed, 46.7% of the entire Richmond-Tweed workforce was engaged in some form of primary production. From here it was all down hill – by 1991 only 9.7% of the workforce could be found in primary production.

‘Sustenance-in-lieu’ was by food coupons. Food relief dockets, ‘dole tickets’, of around 6/5d, depending on the number of children and other dependants, were distributed each Thursday from the local Police Station and redeemable at approved shops. Ration scale changed 3 times 1930-33. McDermotts Department Store main contractor Lismore. Work-for-the-dole scheme introduced Lismore June 1933, first municipality outside Sydney. Most other local LGA's followed.

2006 Census

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