Sunday, May 19, 2024

Lloyd Polkinghorne, The Koondrook and Barham Bridge Newspaper

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Agritourism consult provided fertile conversation

A meeting held at Murray Connect on Wednesday, May 10 with Destination Riverina Murray (DRM) and local tourism stakeholders provided stimulating conversations around the new agritourism strategy ... The developing Agritourism Strategy will provide significant opportunities for farmers, tourism operators and the wider community to capitalise on the Riverina Murray's unique combination of agricultural and tourism assets...

Club house enters history

The first view of the bare site where once stood the original purpose-built Border Football Club rooms has left a lump in the throats of former players. The fond memories are now all that remain of the club house that served Border from 1965 to 1995 and Koondrook Barham River Raiders from 1996 until 2019 when the current state of the art facility was built.

A rich history at Myall

Sunday, May 7 saw a strong crowd gather at Myall for the unveiling of the Myall Historical Timeline and Myall Remembers service personnel honour board. The day was the fifth attempt to hold the event since 2019. With the pandemic behind us and the flood water receded, attendees braved the frigid conditions to soak up the rich recent history and live music. 

Local producers excited as micro abattoir draws closer

Eight years after its inception and almost 12 months after construction began, the Murray Plains Meat Co-Operative’s micro abattoir is reaching the final stages of licensing approval. The project will enable producers to have full control of the supply chain to ensure the ethical treatment of their animals and to value add their produce.  

Just add water, again

While Victoria wrestles with the federal government over the Murray-Darling Basin Plan Sustainable Diversion Limit project, the delivery of held environmental water ramps up to flood Gunbower Forest again. Described as the ‘Special Sauce’ by North Central Catchment Management Authority (NCCMA), held environmental water will be used to irrigate the forest following two flooding events in 2022, an irrigation event and the following wide-scale major flooding. It’s not tree or canopy health that is driving the NCCMA’s call for water this time around but food for water birds.

Covid-19 vaccine class action

A class action, organised and crowd-funded by Queensland GP Dr Melissa McCann, is taking aim at the Commonwealth government and the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), along with a number of senior public servants, alleging negligence, breach of statutory duty and misfeasance in public office. The suit alleges that the respondents approved the vaccines “with no proper or reasonable evidentiary or logical basis to reasonably determine the vaccines to be safe, effective and possessing a positive risk-benefit profile.”

Funding fears halt projects

Reports have surfaced that Victorian Water Minister, Harriet Shing, has halted work on several of the nine Victorian Murray floodplain restoration projects, due to fears the federal government will not reimburse it for the work ... Irrigators now fear that Federal Minister Plibersek will now push on with further buybacks, adding to the current round of buybacks, all bringing with them perverse social, economic and environmental impacts.