State politics

Energy leader, RWE Renewables Australia, has announced details of a generous local Community Benefit Fund for the Campbells Bridge Wind Farm, if the project proceeds to operations ... Funding will be calculated at $3,200 per megawatt of project capacity.  

The State Government’s new health tax is another hit for rural and regional communities, with many GP clinics facing the risk of closure.  Labor recently reclassified tenanted medical professionals as employees, not contractors, for payroll tax. This move has left clinics grappling with debts often in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, as the tax has been backdated up to five years in many instances.

The current Budget Mid Year Report raises the question: How can the NT have a debt of more than nine billion dollars and still boast a balanced Budget? ... Prof Gerritsen takes a wry view about Budget electoral cycles.

The mooted Toowoomba North South Transport Corridor, first announced in July, has been scrapped by the Queensland Government following significant community backlash ... Under the proposed corridor, hundreds of properties would have been directly affected, including dozens at Westbrook, Wyreema and Vale View.

Fire and Rescue NSW (FRNSW) firefighters battled a blaze in a grain silo at Leeton and discovered a new use for their Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS), or drones, that is expected to significantly reduce the length of emergency operations. The Leeton crew is now preparing to share this newfound capability with their firefighting colleagues across the nation.

Communities who carried the burden of a Basin Plan corrupted by politics are once again looking down the barrel of mass buybacks. The impacts of water buybacks cannot be understated as communities were ripped apart, football clubs closed, huge areas of food production and habitat provision were dried out, industries retracted, driving increased costs and undermining sustainability, and the price of water was sent out of reach of many young farmers.

Murrumbidgee Local Health District (MLHD) is once again under the spotlight as the Barham Hospital had been left with no doctors after the contractual arrangement with Ochre Health ran out on November 30 ... Having the multimillion-dollar facility sitting idle due to a bureaucratic standoff has greatly frustrated local doctors and distressed patients seeking treatment.

A spokesperson for NSW Health Infrastructure has revealed planning for the Grafton Base Hospital (GBH) redevelopment is continuing, and confirmed there has been no change to the NSW Government’s $263.8 million investment commitment to improve health outcomes for residents of Grafton and surrounding communities ... following the recent release of the updated Clarence River Flood Model by CVC, there has been an increase in the Probable Maximum Flood Level across Grafton.

South Australia’s Country Fire Service and Metropolitan Fire Service brigades are joining forces on northern Yorke Peninsula. After a fire at Moonta Mines ... prompted some community confusion about local CFS and MFS jurisdictions ... the services announced they would adjust their response areas when needed to protect the community.

Wallaro Hospital should be reclassified to reflect its status as the major hospital in the Yorke and Northern Local Health Network area. That is one of the specific requests in the petition led by Member for Narungga Fraser Ellis calling for better health services in the electorate, which was signed by 10,688 people and presented to the South Australian Parliament in November.

Sixty nurses from the UK and Ireland have been recruited to work in the Northern Rivers ... Indian national Kavitha Mathew will work at Kyogle Multi-Purpose Service ... “I’m very happy to work in Kyogle,” Kavitha said.

Woodburn IGA is being knocked down. Tanya and Neale Hundy have gone away during the demolition because it’s “emotional” to watch ... The IGA supermarket was renovated and modernised a year before it was flooded to the ceiling in the 2022 floods.

John Hassell. The ban on live sheep is inherently unfair and Australians can see it. Roger Cook can see it. Let’s hope for the Albanese Government’s sake they recognise it too before the next election. Underestimate Australia’s farmers at your peril.

Twenty-one families have recently moved into homes at Alpurrurulam, and three more five-bedroom homes will be ready in the next couple of weeks. The modular homes, built by Territory company Demountable Sales and Hire have been installed by Wilga Indigenous Corporation, which has provided employment opportunities to Alpurrurulam locals.

In this article Robert Onfray details the lack of environmental scrutiny of the wind factories and pumped hydro projects built or planned in Queensland as the state sanctions the wholesale clearing of remnant native forest on the coastal ranges straddling the Great Dividing Range ... 10,178 hectares of koala and 6,744 hectares of greater glider habitats are set to disappear if all the renewable proposals in Queensland are approved ... "blunt force trauma" is to be used to euthanise injured animals or those that cannot be relocated, particularly koalas.

Fishers can once again head to northern Victoria’s lakes and rivers in search of an iconic Murray cod with the season opening today, Friday, December 1.

The stunning landscapes and unique environments of Curtis Island will be further protected and celebrated under a new Queensland-first partnership. The Palaszczuk Government has purchased the island’s Spadely Station from  Bakara Investments Pty Ltd to add the land to Queensland’s protected areas estate, with the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service to partner with the company to boost eco-tourism and visitor numbers on the island.