Opinion

I reckon the Monty Python team would have been jealous of the creative genius behind NSW’s Koala Strategy. It would be hilarious except for the $200 million price tag to save an irruptive species which is in much greater numbers across a much wider area than before the European ‘invasion’. Apart from Strzelecki, no explorer saw any koalas because they didn’t live in the grassy valleys occupied by Aborigines and sought by pastoralists.

Residents living around Victorian waterways are breathing a sigh of relief. June 13 was the final day of the state’s three month ‘recreational’ native waterbird shoot ... Shooting was reported to have started half an hour before the legal start time on day one, upsetting children, animals and visitors for three months since. "It finished with shooting on the final day in one of the thickest fogs we’ve ever seen."

What has caused this estimated 20 million cubic metres of sand in the riverbed between Yarrawonga and Picnic Point to be such a problem now? .... Why did gold mining centuries ago only raise a problem now? How did the sand from the upper reaches get through the settling pond of Lake Mulwala constructed in 1939? And even more alarming, where have the beaches gone around Cobram and surrounds in the last 12 years?

Kendall Jennings. Unfortunately, my mind always takes a wander; I tend to overthink things and get stuck in my head. Hello, mental illness. One thing that has been on my mind recently is the decline in participation in community sport ... Over the past 12 months, I have realised that local football is not like it was 20 years ago.

Robert Onfray introduces a powerful 2015 speech by Roger Underwood, retired forester, firefighter and bushfire specialist in karri country ... "We have given warning after warning, until we sound like a broken record. We have met with Premiers, Ministers and senior bureaucrats, and written dozens of letters and submissions. We have said “get your bushfire management sorted out, or you will lose everything”, but instead of getting better, things on the ground just kept getting worse." Has anything changed?

Off-road adventuring has been the backbone of the Cape York tourism industry for decades, yet has somehow survived with the bare minimum amount of support. It has been people power that has kept the 4WD market ticking over – often individuals who have cleared tracks or built makeshift bridges through remote parts of the Peninsula. However, there is a real fear among locals that we could lose the adventure tourism market.

Indonesia has 280 million people of which 38 million are farmers. Between them have 16 million cattle and 9 million pigs spread across 6000 inhabited islands, extending 5,500km East to West and 1,800km North to South. As the borders open and the world starts travelling again, we can look forward to the return of the 50 flights a week between Bali and Perth.   Each of these flights will carry the risk of the transmission of Lumpy Skin and Foot and Mouth Disease into Australia.

Victorian Environmental Water Holder (VEWH) commissioners will start to flood Gunbower Forest with 74,000 megalitres after ecologists raised concerns of declining health of red gums after four years without a flood ... Audrey Dickins, local landholder, passionate environmental advocate and member of the Central Murray Floodplains Environment Group, believes the problems with the Gunbower Forest are more complex than the ‘just add water’ approach.

Australia is laying the groundwork for a third consecutive bumper harvest, with this year’s total planted crop area forecast to reach a record 23.83 million hectares, Rabobank says in its just-released 2022/23 Winter Crop Outlook ... Locally, the bank says, “hopes are on” another large winter crop to allow Australian farmers to secure good margins in the face of high costs for inputs including fertiliser, fuel, freight and agrochemicals.

The Victorian Government has confirmed it intends to slaughter hundreds of wild brumbies in the Alpine National Park and Barmah Forest, and has issued a tender document specifying the carcases will be hacked up and left to rot ... “It’s brutal,” Beverly McArthur, Member for Western Victoria said. “It means 400 broken up carcasses in the Barmah, alone. Worse still, little real effort seems to have gone into the alternative – rehoming the animals – as promised by Parks Victoria."

... when it came to it, when the ALP was clearly still in a minority, yet desperately wished to form Government and appoint themselves as Ministers of the Crown (nice cars, overseas trips, bigger offices, extra staff, higher pay, etc) the independents rolled-over like pussy cats wanting their bellies patted. Or should we say, five independents, three of them from rural seats, those selected carefully by the ALP, rolled-over.

National Farmers’ Federation President Fiona Simson: "This election, the NFF was looking for ideas and funding commitments to propel the farm sector’s growth trajectory and to give the support regional Australia needs to reach its potential. Unfortunately, all parties have fallen short ... The NFF was shocked and frustrated, when at the eleventh hour this week Anthony Albanese put a red pen through the $500 million Regionalisation Fund. This announcement was not included in Labor’s official response to the NFF." The Coalition’s regionalisation plan also falls short of the $4.1 billion ask from the NFF.

To demonstrate the magnitude of ignorance, look no further than the coffers of Australia’s largest irrigator, the taxpayer funded Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder (CEWH). For the 2021-22 season, the CEWH has a total of 2,365,000 megalitres – 1,640,000 in new allocation and 725,000 in carryover from the year previous – 1,030,400 of that in the Murray system. As of March 31, 2022, the CEWH had used 492,200 megalitres in the Murray system for the 2021-22 season.

John O'Donnell discusses the significance of a graph showing areas burnt by bushfire and by prescribed burning across Australia since 1960.

A Charles Sturt University early childhood education expert asks where in the 2022 election campaign is the commitment to big investment and to big policy ideas that ensure free and accessible early childhood education for the long-term? Dr Leanne Gibbs tells ARR.News how the challenges in workforce supply and retention in the ECE sector are even greater in rural, regional and remote areas within Australia.

Geoff Helisma. Environmental watchdog, Valley Watch, first began predicting flooding of Yamba, as a result of developing West Yamba, in about 1995; on Sunday May 21, the group will present a more than 1,000-signature petition to the mayor, Ian Tiley (or his proxy), calling for a moratorium on further filling and development approvals on the Yamba floodplain. “Basically, the petition is demanding a well-designed master plan for West Yamba,” Valley Watch spokesperson Helen Tyas Tunggal said.

Kookaburra decided that it could be helpful for readers of Australian Rural & Regional News if we were to conduct a survey of independent candidates from across rural and regional Australia to find out which party group they would support in the event of a hung Parliament.

Vic Jurskis discusses data from historical reports and field surveys and concludes that koalas are in no danger of extinction. ARR.News asked some further questions of Vic.