In my region: Mallee, VIC

Four municipalities make up the Mallee: Mildura Rural City, Swan Hill Rural City, Buloke Shire and Gannawarra Shire. Every year, they draw millions of visitors keen to explore the area’s natural beauty, agricultural history and pretty villages.

As of 2021, the Mallee’s Gross Regional Product was $4.86 billion, according to Regional Development Victoria. The biggest industry is agriculture, forestry and fishing.

The population is just over 92,000 and the annual growth rate is -0.41%. However, Mildura bucks the trend, with its population edging up 0.7%.

As of June 2023, the unemployment rate was 4.6%, up 0.7% since June 2022, according to Jobs and Skills Australia. This was 0.6% higher than the Victorian average of 4%.

Like everywhere else in Australia, house prices have been on the rise. As of April 2024, the median house price in Mildura was $450,000, according to realestate.com.au. This represents a 50% increase since May 2019 and a 5.9% increase since May 2023.

Building a business amid a cost of living crisis: Meet Mike Marrable, Founder, Mike’s Window, Gutter and Solar Cleaning, Mildura

Mike Marrable moved to Mildura three years ago to escape Melbourne’s cold weather.

“I lived just east of the city for a while, and I was getting fed up with the wind and rain, and cooler temperatures,” he says.

He spent his first year-and-a-half in Mildura working as a tradie’s assistant and on various farms before founding his own business, Mike’s Window, Gutter and Solar Cleaning.

“I started with window cleaning, then added other services,” he says. “Mildura has been very good to me. [Running my business] has been a very rewarding process.”

While things are going well, getting started in the Mallee was not without its challenges. First, earning a place in the community did not happen automatically.

“It takes time to build trust and rapport,” says Marrable. “It’s a matter of getting the word out slowly. It’s not like in Melbourne or Adelaide, where there’s more immediate exposure to clientele willing to pay money for services.”

More recent challenges include high inflation, high interest rates and increased competition.

“The cost of living has well and truly bitten in now, and a lot of people’s savings have been exhausted from living costs being so expensive for so long,” Marrable says. “Over the past few months, people want to haggle on price more and more. There wasn’t too much of that before. Or they think, ‘Should we pay to get our gutters cleaned, or ask a family member to do it?’.”

At the same time, Marrable has seen big companies in metro areas advertise more competitive prices for the services he delivers.

“People see ads and wonder why a smaller company is charging higher rates.”

Despite these challenges, Marrable is optimistic about the year ahead. His plan is to expand his solar cleaning services, while moving away from windows.

“My focus is to push the solar side of things. A lot of people have solar panels installed, but aren’t told about the importance of cleaning them,” he says.

“I particularly want to educate clients about it – why we need to clean solar panels, why we use the equipment we do, how cleaning works, how it plays into your warranty. It’s a huge and growing industry.”

Seizing national opportunities locally: Meet Kyarna Nalder, founder, KLN Cleaning

Mallee local Kyarna Nalder grew up in Sea Lake, around 190 kilometres south of Mildura, before moving to Swan Hill eight years ago.

Her husband runs a farm and, in 2020, Nalder launched her own business, KLN Cleaning, which provides domestic and commercial cleaning services.

“I started off with just myself and one other girl in Swan Hill,” says Nalder. “Now we have 20 staff members.”

The rapid growth arose mostly from an unexpected opportunity.

“It fell into our lap. Valuecare, a national disability services provider, decided to outsource its cleaning services in our area. The director called me and asked if I wanted to take them up.”

Nalder was thrilled at the offer to expand, but there are still challenges to operating in the Mallee – from competition to day-to-day management. However, the most difficult is the tyranny of distance.

“Servicing a broad area is very challenging; for example, Sea Lake is 45 minutes from Swan Hill, and it’s very sad, because no one will provide services there,” she says. “The time required and petrol costs make it unfeasible. I find it personally challenging – not being able to fulfil people’s needs.”

Nalder called for more government support for businesses here so they can support people in the disability and aged care sectors.

More generally, a lack of financial support is an obstacle to entrepreneurship in the Mallee.

“There are lots of opportunities and room for improvement,” Nalder says. “I’d love to see the Swan Hill main street closed off like Bourke Street in Melbourne, with singers and ice cream trucks on a Friday night, so there was a bit of a vibe about it, but people don’t take the leap.”

Nalder believes more accessible business grants would support the growth of more local businesses.

“People might do a lot more if there were business grants available. It’s expensive to start, especially in our day and age, when it’s hard to even have a roof over your head.”

Nalder is taking her next leap, with the expansion of her business into Mildura in June.

“I have really good staff,” she says. “Without them I wouldn’t be able to do what I do. I’ve appointed a regional manager, and she’ll really kick it off. I have no doubt.”

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