Australia’s public broadcaster, the ABC, has opened a bureau in Hervey Bay in Queensland for the first time as part of the expansion of its regional and rural services.

The bureau is one of 10 new sites established by the ABC across Australia, along with Charleville in South West Queensland, which was opened last month.

The ABC has recruited 55 regionally based journalists as a result of commercial deals struck with Facebook and Google in November last year, following the passage of the federal government’s News Media Bargaining Code earlier in 2021.

The Hervey Bay bureau will serve the state’s Fraser Coast region and has two reporters, Jake Kearnan and Lucy Loram.

The ABC’s Managing Director, David Anderson, said the opening of the bureau represented a significant boost to its regional services on the Fraser Coast.

“We’ve always covered this region but having two journalists who live and work in Hervey Bay will mean we can provide a much broader range of stories from this important part of Queensland.”