Lloyd Polkinghorne, The Koondrook and Barham Bridge Newspaper

Under the government lead water reforms, water trading is mostly unregulated, not even requiring an ABN to trade water. “There is no law against market manipulation in the Murray-Darling Basin water markets,” ACCC deputy chair, Mr Keogh said. “So, it’s not illegal, even if it is occurring.” In Australia we now have multinational corporates, foreign buyers and the big end of town able to buy, trade and, in some instances, remain capital gains tax free as they bid for water against Aussie food and fibre producers.

Kirstin Nicholson. “Everyone has their own role and responsibility. The three events are all different technicalities where you’ve all got to gel together and work as a team, but there’s also a bit of speed put in. Between first and third place sometimes there’s not even one second,” explained Brigade captain, Matthew Trigg. Matthew cannot speak highly enough of the team and it is clear he is impressed with their effort and achievement. “The crew works really well together. We haven’t had much training, and it shows you their dedication. When we get down there, we make every minute count.”

Stunned fishermen have had a close encounter with what they described as a ‘Sand Slug’. Once thought to be a tale of folklore, the mythical creature rose to public awareness after a Sand Slug was reported to have caused the blocking of the Barmah Choke.

A beautiful soaking rain has fallen around the district this week. Falls from 15 to 30mm have been recorded and the timing couldn’t be better as farmers are busy sowing pasture and preparing for winter crop cereal plantings. The chorus of birds and life in the forest has also been rejoicing, there is nothing quite like the gentle patter of rain through the tree canopy. Irrigators will be keeping a watchful eye on storages as inflows are on the rise. With huge rains in the floodplain harvesting regions of northern NSW it will be interesting to see the volumes of unlicenced and unmetered water intercepted. Member for Murray, Helen Dalton, posted this week, “It was 117 years ago that poet Dorothea Mackellar proclaimed Australia as the ‘land of drought and flooding rains.’ “I wonder if, in the next 100 years, we might start expecting and planning for them?” We live in hope!

The annual Murrabit Cod Challenge was held over the weekend of March 19-21, an event run each year by the Murrabit Football and Netball Club to raise funds for their club. The event has been running since 2009 and is run 100% by local volunteers. Entries for the competition were capped at 300 adult tickets and sold out in just over a week, proving to be a very popular event. There were also 39 enthusiastic junior competitors entered, who were all lucky enough to take home an assortment of prizes donated by Hookem Fishing.

Kendall Jennings. Jaydyn Coggins is a former student from Barham Primary School. The school had cups and that is where Jaydyn first tried sport stacking. At this moment the world changed for Jaydyn, his family moved to Adelaide after he completed year one. Then, at nine years old, Jaydyn rediscovered the sport on YouTube, but it would also be the start of an obsession with sport stacking. With the support of his family, at 15, Jaydyn quickly became the fastest cup stacker in Australia, with a dream to travel overseas to the World Sport Stacking Championships. As a young man with Autism, Jaydyn has had his hurdles to overcome throughout the years and so, when he found a sport that he not only loved, but excelled in, there was no turning back.