Opinion

The elephant in the room is poverty, says Greens candidate for Namatjira, Blair McFarland, in the election campaign mostly focussed on what to do about crime. “We’re already the most over policed region in Australia. If public safety depended on police numbers we’d be one of the safest places in the world.”

"Today I read a report that struggling Victorian families are forking out an estimated $200 million per annum to foreign wind-turbine operators, largely collected through charges on household bills. That $200 million price tag will be even higher if Victorian and Federal Labor succeed in their scheme to turn Mallee into a spider’s web of transmission lines, wind turbines and blanket solar panels": Member for Mallee Dr Anne Webster.

Boosting technologies and manufacturing for a Future Made in Australia could get off to a healthy start if we focus on water security solutions. That’s according to Kristi McLachlan, who’s the Regional Director of Water Australia Asia for Hatch, a global multidisciplinary leader in urban solutions, engineering, operational and development projects in metals, energy and infrastructure.

Leader of The Nationals and member for Maranoa David Littleproud has said the appointment of a new Agriculture Minister won’t change the Federal Labor Government’s litany of disastrous decisions that have impacted the agricultural sector in just two years. Julie Collins has inherited the agriculture portfolio after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese reshuffled his cabinet and moved Senator Murray Watt to Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations.

Member for Mallee, Dr. Anne Webster, has written to landholders whose farms, environment, amenity and safety on their land is threatened by the VNI-West transmission project and proposed wind turbine installations, encouraging them to make a submission to the State Government’s Developing the 2025 Victorian Transmission Plan. “I’ve just seen the map and despite earlier indications of six Victorian Renewable Energy Zones, clearly Mallee is the prime target in Labor’s sights,” Dr Webster said.

John Malham, patient. Recently I spent two weeks in a semi-major regional hospital that caters for its town population of twenty thousand and the surrounding areas 70 thousand population. I had no intention of writing this article but having witnessed the forceful nature of the hospital’s discharge team, I began taking notes and interviewing people involved in all aspects of the hospital’s running.

Two conflicting reports on land clearing during the last week are likely to leave Queensland residents confused over the issue and make it difficult to decide as to what is fact, bias or just propaganda. The Queensland Minister for Resources and Critical Minerals, Scott Stewart said the latest Statewide Landcover and Trees Study (SLATS) report and accompanying vegetation management analysis shows Queensland’s vegetation management laws continue to protect native ecosystems ... In the same week the Queensland Conservation Council used the same SLATS report but put forward its concerns over the report’s findings.

AFL Victoria – which operates under the all-powerful AFL umbrella – is in the business of sport. Getting people to play it, and watch it. Only, AFL Victoria doesn’t want to play with anyone unless everything goes its way. If it doesn’t, AFL Victoria picks up its ball and goes home.  

Michael Balderstone. Martin Soutar from Lismore Council emailed me with an invitation to check out progress on the walking track ... My walking track would have been all natural paths like the thousands of miles I’ve walked barefoot in the Himalayas. A concrete path is like, weird. So, I had mixed feelings about the Track ...

Councillor Ruth McRae OAM, Murrumbidgee Council Mayor. Enough is enough...things you all should know. Crippling water buybacks will see many communities, currently with their back to the wall, disappear, and the shiny trinkets offered by the Federal Government as compensation are $300 million. The Federal Government plans to buy back up to 450GL of water which, at our estimates, will cost them $8 billion. No surprises, there is an undisclosed amount in the Federal Budget to buy water ...