News

South Australia’s capacity to rapidly respond to emergency animal disease (EAD) outbreaks such as H5 avian influenza (bird flu) has been boosted with the launch of a new mobile biosecurity laboratory. The state-of-the-art mobile lab enables rapid processing and turnaround of samples - a critical factor during EAD outbreaks, where early diagnosis can significantly reduce economic and social impacts, as well as the risk of the disease spreading.

NSW Farmers Acting CEO Mike Guerin – who led a successful legal challenge against the federal government and mining giant Glencore in Queensland – said he was “getting the band back together” to fight Santos’ Narrabri Gas Project ... “The people who depend on the Great Artesian Basin for their water are living in fear that this project will go ahead and go wrong, like many of them do, creating tens of thousands of water refugees and forcing farmers to abandon half the continent because it’s been contaminated forever.

Hugh Schuitemaker and Madison Eastmond. The region's peak wine industry representative group has issued an urgent open letter to South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas, warning that the state's largest producing area — the "backbone for thousands of family" livelihoods — is in the grip of a severe economic and social crisis ... Grape purchase prices remain at historic lows, with early indicators for the 2026 vintage, showing shiraz prices far below the cost of production – as low as $80 to $120 per tonne – which exceeds $350 per tonne.

An online petition by mayor of Bourke Shire, Lachlan Ford is calling for the NSW Government to stop purchasing farming land for National Parks in the western region. "In the last 20 years, the Bourke region has lost nearly half a million acres of agricultural land to make way for a suite of National Parks, Nature Reserves and State Conservation Areas - now totalling approximately 860,000 acres managed by the NSW Government," Mr Ford's online statement reads.