A 20-year veteran of radio and online at the ABC, Mr Brine has for the last 12 years been station manager and breakfast presenter in Ballarat, building a strong following personally and for the station.

He began working for ABC Rural producing the rural news bulletin with the legendary Judy Kennedy, before working as a producer in Broken Hill and as a presenter in Geraldton and Nowra.

He was approached to manage the new ABC Ballarat station in 2003.

“They wanted someone who would maybe do something a little bit differently – the focus was very much on building community relationships; building a relationship that was responsive and reactive to the local community, covering local issues and really being here for Ballarat.”

“It’s been a wonderful thing to lead, but it’s about the team. You can’t do it on your own.”

Mr Brine says it was exciting to do projects outside of day-to-day broadcasting such as the Exhumed band competition, which gave musicians who had never succeeded a second chance at glory.

“Exhumed was wonderful, to work with Jarrod Watt and Marc Eiden on that. We worked for weeks, out-of-hours, unpaid – including running a gig in Ballarat on a Sunday afternoon – our connections with the band that won it, Gunna Ball, who were a rockabilly outfit based in Ballarat – it was fantastic.”

Mr Brine stressed that the ABC, as a broadcaster, has always attempted to relay important information to the Ballarat audience as quickly as possible.

“In November 2003, on a Saturday afternoon, we were down at the Rokewood rodeo with no mobile coverage when the Ballan train crash happened.

“We didn’t get into mobile range until 6.30 at night and we were on air at 7.15 letting people know this had happened, and we stayed on air until late in the evening, bringing in news conferences. Thirty-odd people were taken to hospital but no-one was killed fortunately.”

“I’ll never forget that day. That was my first emergency. The radio was the first thing in those days; the website would post stuff the next day. Now it’s all very fast.”

Mr Brine is one of a slew of long-serving ABC employees to have lost their jobs in the regional restructure, including Jonathan Ridnell at ABC Bendigo and Kelli Brett, host of The Main Ingredient.

It follows a series of redundancies at The Courier and widespread job losses at Prime TV and WIN TV, and is part of larger cost-cutting process across rural and regional media generally as the outlets look to adapt to a fast-changing and fluid environment.

For Mr Brine, the future is family, not getting up before dawn, and finding something imaginative to do.

“I’ve had the best job in town for the past 12-and-a-half years; I have no idea what I’ll do next. My daughter’s starting school. There are other opportunities. I’ll do something I want to do, creatively.”