Business
22 January, 2025
Major milestone for Julia Creek newsagents
There have been just two owners of the iconic business in the last 99 years.
Popular Julia Creek stalwarts Neil and Ellen Warner last week notched up a major milestone in the community – they marked 40 years since buying Julia Creek News.
Although, they arrived in the small North West community several years prior to their major purchase.
“We were actually transferred to Julia Creek with the Westpac Bank. It was Bank of New South Wales at that particular point in their journey,” she said.
“We did three years in the bank and got transferred to Cairns. After 12 months up there we said, ‘nah, let’s see if they want to sell the newsagency.
“It wasn’t on the market. Peter Dawes and his family who owned it, owned it for 49 years before us.”
It’s no secret that newsagencies have struggled in Australia in recent times, which is why Julia Creek News has diversified over the years and now sells homewares.
“There has been a lot of change but you’ve got to move with whatever the changes require,” Ellen said.
“When we bought into the shop in January 1985, newsagencies were pretty much a protected industry.
“A bit like taxi licenses, you sort of you paid a higher dollar for the immunity in the business world, but that’s all gone.”
The variety on the shelves has also changed. While you can still get the North West Weekly and Queensland Country Life, many other titles have disappeared.
“We had the whole range of daily papers – The Australian, Courier Mail, Townsville Bulletin, North West Star, Financial Review ... at one stage we used to get in The Age from Melbourne,” said Ellen.
Retirement looms for Neil and Ellen, but finding a buyer will be difficult, they said.
“We would like to think of retiring –we’re both in our 70s – but I don’t think the banks are very proactive with assisting people with purchase prices,” Ellen said.
“That’s the same through most rural communities. I think anyone coming into any sort of a small business has got to be able to diversify quickly.”