Accessible Abrolhos infrastructure opens new world of possibilities: DBCA
Join wheelchair user Chris Kerr as she samples new disability-friendly infrastructure and equipment at Houtman Abrolhos Islands National Park. You can't help but delight in her wonder and excitement as she's able to don mask and snorkel and descend into a magical underwater world at the Abrolhos for the first time.
Parking, staff shortages make for holiday blues
Patricia Gill. A café proprietor says Denmark is having ‘growing pains’ and an acceptance is needed that the town is now ‘on the map’, particularly over peak holiday periods. Mrs Jones Café proprietor Sam Jackson is among other accommodation and food-provider businesses which have been under the pump over Christmas and New Year. “Things will change whether we like it or not,” Sam said.
Common-sense prevails in Federal Court decision on Regional Forest Agreements: Forestry Australia
Forestry Australia President Dr Michelle Freeman has today welcomed the Federal Court’s decision to uphold a Regional Forest Agreement in New South Wales ... “Forest managers, growers, scientists and workers will breathe a sigh of relief that the challenge by the North East Forest Alliance to the Regional Forest Agreement covering North Coast NSW native timber harvesting operations has been dismissed."
Appointment of Craig Emerson as Independent Reviewer of the Food and Grocery Code of Conduct: Chalmers
The Albanese Government has appointed Dr Craig Emerson to lead the 2023–24 review of the Food and Grocery Code of Conduct (the Code) to ensure that the supermarket sector is working as it should. The Food and Grocery code is prescribed under the Competition and Consumer Act 2010. Aldi, Coles, Woolworths and Metcash are signatories to the Code and are bound by it.
Fruit and vegetable prices need urgent ACCC inquiry
Member for Maranoa, Leader of The Nationals and Shadow Agriculture Minister David Littleproud is calling for an Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) Inquiry into fruit and vegetables, to make supermarkets pay their fair share. "As families struggle to pay for their food amid a cost-of-living crisis, supermarkets are still making record profits, even though all they are doing is putting fruit and vegetables on the back of a truck and onto the supermarket shelves," Mr Littleproud said.
NFF calls on Food and Grocery Code review to give code teeth
Australia’s peak farming body supports today’s announcements on the Food and Grocery Code of Conduct, hoping the action will give the Code the teeth it needs to fix a system failing consumers and farmers ... “We need to get to the bottom of why there’s a growing gap between what farmers get paid and what produce is being sold for on supermarket shelves": NFF President David Jochinke.
Businesses welcome busy holiday trade
Holidaymakers have flocked to the Clarence Valley for the 2023-2024 summer holidays with businesses reporting increased trade compared to last year, delivering a welcome economic boost in the current tough financial climate.
New era for hardwood timbers and Victoria’s forests: VFPA
“ .. a small number of processors will continue processing the native timbers that consumers love, sourcing this wood from private sources in Victoria, from other states and from overseas ... While the Government has ceased native forestry, Victoria’s forests still need to be managed for the health and resilience of the forest": Ms Deb Kerr, CEO of the Victorian Forest Products Association.
More disaster assistance rolls out for SEQ: Miles, Boyd
The Albanese and Miles Governments are delivering further disaster assistance to help South East Queensland recover from recent severe storms ... announcement will support local clean-up efforts, invest in specialised recovery staff and provide grants to primary producers, small business owners and non-profit organisations...
Gallery: Whistle stop or gate to The Centre’s soul
“Visitors are welcome to our gallery where you can purchase paintings and learn more about the history of Papunya and its artists.” This message is on the Papunya Tjupi website and Yuendumu’s Warlukurlangu Artists have a similar one. Meanwhile the plodding preparations continue for the bombastically named National Aboriginal Arts Gallery (NAAG) in Alice Springs.
End of an era for timber harvesting
Gippsland's hardwood industry is now largely gone, with harvesting of timber from native forests on Crown land no longer permitted. Gippsland's native forest is part of the vast swathe of forest that stretches along the Great Dividing Range from the Dandenongs to behind Brisbane. It’s integral to Australia having the seventh biggest forest estate in the world ...
Helicopter winch operations
Suzie Christensen. The first summer helicopter winch operation has concluded, with the Helitreck helicopter departing the Island Sunday, 10 December ... LHIB staff and external contractors successfully completed over 2,000 person hours of priority Weed Eradication Program...
Lord Howe Island Tourism Association News
Pia Funch & Trina Shepherd. It has been a busy year for Lord Howe Tourism! Lord Howe Island received a lot of media coverage through our familiarisation program in 2023.
Review – Ships, Shops and Sheep – The Remarkable Life of Paul Simons
This is the very personal life-story of a charismatic Welsh seaman who moved to Australia for love and once there became a captain of industry. The work is ‘as told to’ by Paul Simons to the writer Terry Larder and contains many anecdotes that illuminate aspects of life in wartime Britain and in postwar Australia ... Most of the book is concerned with Paul's life and career, enlivened with some quite racy anecdotes and more serious reflections on the way of the world. Paul has a sense of humour but also a strong moral sense.
Forests, fires and burns – still no consensus
Is this really how harvested forests are left? Australian Rural & Regional News looks into recent statements that highlight continuing conflicting and confusing information in the public domain about connections between forestry operations and bushfires and whether prescribed burns reduce bushfire risk.
Punters cheer pub’s revival
Alison Bennett Taylor. Local beer and festive cheer were flowing when the Denmark Hotel reopened for trading under new ownership recently. More than 400 locals filled the 100-year-old building for free drinks put on by the new owners in November before the doors were closed for a quick refit in time for the summer crowds.
Families breeding success at Downs thoroughbred studs
If ever you needed convincing that a long history of family experience in horse breeding was necessary for success then a close look at the successful larger studs and their family backgrounds will most certainly convince you.
Slow but steady economic growth for Toowoomba Region
The Toowoomba Region’s diverse economy and a steady population increase over the past five years have been the major contributors to the region’s steady economic growth, according to data contained in a report prepared for Toowoomba Regional Council.
New Toowoomba Hospital enabling works complete
One of the key steps ahead of construction of the new Toowoomba Hospital build is now complete, with enabling works recently concluding. Darling Downs Health Chief Executive, Annette Scott PSM said the completion of the $20 million enabling works package ... is an important milestone.
Florence gets on the move
A tunnel boring machine (TBM) working on the Snowy Hydro 2.0 project is operational again, 12 months after getting stuck in soft ground creating a large sinkhole above it.
Work initiative connects the dots
As the school year comes to an end the careers team at Corryong College have been very busy finalising opportunities for their students for next year in the form of School Based Apprenticeships & Traineeships (SBAT).
The government wants your soil
The thing that should be worrying farmers is not just the fact that the government has claimed the credit (and credits) for itself of not allowing landholders to clear land to help make the 2030 target, but they are now banking on farmers burying the emissions of the rest of the nation in their soil to help reach the unachievable 2050 target ... don’t sign up to any soil carbon contract until you are sure you won’t need those credits yourself when the inevitable carbon taxes arrive.
