Opinion

Shooters Fishers and Farmers Party MLC Robert Borsak and SFF Goulburn Branch President Andy Wood have called out the hypocrisy of the Liberal member for Goulburn, Wendy Tuckerman, for her recent motion in the NSW Parliament about the proposed Tarago Incinerator. The proposed incinerator at Tarago will burn 380,000 tonnes of Sydney's waste each year, including plastics, municipal and industrial waste.

David Prestipino, NIT. A prominent First Nations leader in the Kimberley has called for an independent panel chaired by an industry leader and Indigenous expert to re-draft WA's doomed Aboriginal Cultural Heritage legislation. Nyikina man and former Kimberley Land Council CEO Wayne Bergmann said a roundtable of industry, pastoralists, farmers, native title holders and land councils should be involved in drafting the new laws.

John O'Donnell identifies the multiple contributory factors that influenced fuels, forest fire resilience, bushfire attack, safety, impact, cost, bushfire extent and intensity of the 2019/ 2020 major bushfires across south eastern Australia ... Are we better prepared now?

Vic Jurskis. The facts haven’t deterred the ecowarriors of North East Forest Alliance (NEFA) from trying to hasten the demise of the sustainable, renewable, solar-powered native timber industry. They don’t care about habitat for people, other than themselves. They’ve launched an application for an injunction to ‘save’ the overcrowded koalas that are breeding more rapidly than ever on all the soft new growth resprouting after the Black Summer holocaust that they helped to create.

Adrian Tomlinson. Fire is one of the terrible consequences of buffel, the invasive grass many call a weed, and which is declared as such in neighbouring South Australia ... Yet the NT Government seems to be responding to this emergency without great strategy, judging by answers given to Araluen’s independent MLA Robyn Lambley, who put questions in Parliament suggested by the Alice Springs News.

We know just how important the local pharmacy is in rural and regional Australia. They’re a critical part of the fabric of a community and are often the first place we turn for health advice. That’s why the Government is supporting rural and regional pharmacies, as we ensure that every single dollar that the Government saves with 60-day prescriptions is reinvested straight back into community pharmacy.

WAFarmers met with the Western Australian Minister for Heritage recently. We had an interesting discussion on the roll out of the State's new Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Laws. The Minister clearly believes that the new laws won't impact farmers the way our lawyers tell us it will; in his view the roll out is smooth and all it needs is some tweaking ... Minister, some more advice.

The Chief Minister is clearly taking no account of the difference between  the impact on the society of DV – which is horrendous but usually happens in a private space, and needs targeted measures – and  the crime that happens mostly in public locations, much of it committed by children: its reporting in national media – factual and fabricated – has led to a drop in the town’s vital tourism business by about 50 per cent.

The state government decision to close the native forest timber industry culminates eight years of mismanagement that turned VicForests from a profitable business into a loss maker, an analysis by a Traralgon consultant has found ... Mr Cameron said Australian hardwood sawn timber mill gate revenue sold for 3.5 times the price of Australian softwood sawn timber, and contributed to much greater value-adding and job creation than softwood.

John Hassell, President WAFarmers. Sheep farmers in Western Australia have been told by the Federal Labor Government that we have lost our social licence for live exports ... If it was a rash decision then it's time to reverse it and accept that the industry has done everything it has been asked for by the Government and should be allowed to continue.   If not then this decision marks the end of agriculture in Australia as we know it and the Government should tell us.

Viv Markham. There’s a serious problem in the community at the moment, and that problem is housing ... Those even further down on their luck are camping out in tents, caravans and cars - out in the bush and on the outskirts of our towns ... And what is being done to help those doing it tough?

Trent Twomey. Sixty-day dispensing may sound good, but dig a little deeper and it’s rural and regional Australia that will pay ... “You don’t know what you got ‘til it’s gone.” It may as well be the theme song for 60-day dispensing, where pharmacists will be required to dispense two months’ worth of medicine for the price of one month.

Victorians should be alert – and probably alarmed – at a deal that has been kept quiet by the State Government that will give indigenous groups in Western Victoria a huge say over water, roads and biosecurity ... The land mass covered by the agreement is nearly 36,000 sq km and involves ten local councils: Ararat, Horsham, Buloke, Hindmarsh, Pyrenees, Northern Grampians, Southern Grampians, Yarriambiak, Mildura and West Wimmera ... “There is so much to be worried about in relation to this ‘unprecedented’ agreement:” Member for Western Victoria, Bev McArthur.

Try finding out what the true cost is of undertaking an Aboriginal Heritage survey in Western Australia and you will be confronted by a conspiracy of silence ... with no examples of the amount it has cost explorers, councils and main roads to get heritage clearances so that farmers can have a realistic idea of what their LACHS are likely to charge them, I’m limited to telling you my latest journey down the mad rabbit hole of aboriginal cultural heritage.

Mrs McArthur said the trifecta of mortgage stress, rental compliance and tax increases, will result in ‘rental providers’ seeking easier financial options ... “This rental crisis will become increasingly obvious in regional cities like Geelong, Bendigo and Ballarat as we draw closer to the Commonwealth Games."