Category Archives: Rural Australia

Flood-hit Murray River caravan parks miss out on vital holiday tourism as clean-up continues

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Piles of rubbish fill the space normally taken by summer visitors, with businesses facing the loss of a season’s earnings

Caravan parks and more than 100 national parks remain closed across New South Wales and Victoria after widespread flooding damaged infrastructure, filled waterholes with debris and made some areas unsafe for swimming.

The summer holidays would usually be the busiest time of year for the McLean Beach holiday park in Deniliquin, in the NSW Riverina region.

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Lifesavers rescue 1,200 over holiday period in Australia – as it happened

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‘Challenging night’ for WA fire crews in south-west

Earlier today, Western Australian Department of Fire and Emergency Services incident controller Peter Thomas said it had been a “challenging night” for fire crews in the south-west, as bushfires threaten the region.

So our volunteers from the Donnybrook area across the south-west [who have] come to deal with this incident.

We’ve had some strong winds that have been coming consistently from the east, but been fairly strong and making it challenging for our crews.

When we allow sportspeople from Russia to participate in the Australian Open, we do exactly what Putin wants.

It doesn’t matter what flag Russian Federation players compete under. It has Ukrainian blood on it.

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Fears for remote WA towns as Fitzroy River records one of highest flow rates in Australia

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Amount of water surging down river in one day equivalent to what Perth uses in 20 years, Bureau of Meteorology says

Kimberley residents are worried they could run out of food and fuel as a once-in-a-century flood isolates remote towns in Western Australia’s far north, with authorities saying the Fitzroy River is experiencing “one of the highest flow rates ever seen” in Australia.

Fitzroy Crossing, Broome and other towns were expected to be cut off as the waters rose.

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GPs ask for all contraceptives to be subsidised and end to abortion ‘postcode lottery’

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Exclusive: ‘We need to do more to improve access to and affordability of the full range of contraceptive options,’ Senate inquiry told

All contraceptives should be government subsidised, Medicare rebates for IUD insertion should be increased and larger quantities of contraception pills should be dispensed at once to make abortion and contraception more accessible, the peak body for general practitioners says.

In its submission to the Senate inquiry into universal access to reproductive healthcare, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners said there were significant barriers to reproductive care, particularly in rural and remote communities.

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The ‘silent killer’ of flooding: Murray River fish in dire straits as water quality drops

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Scientists fear an ecological disaster is playing out in parts of the river because of ‘alarmingly’ low dissolved oxygen levels

Stretches of the Murray River could become an “ecological desert” because widespread flooding has reduced water quality, a scientist has warned, as New South Wales communities rally to save fish populations.

Dr Ian Wright, a professor at Western Sydney University’s School of Science, believes fish and other aquatic wildlife are dying in huge numbers along the river as dissolved oxygen levels plummet – and the ecological impact could be “catastrophic”.

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Australia’s diesel price spike causes rethink in reliant regional areas

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‘We have had to rethink the ways we do things’, says farmer who dusted off his 1973 petrol-powered truck

Nick Holliday’s 1973 International Acco truck sat dormant out the front of his farm for years, as a decoration collecting dust. But diesel price rises have given the old truck a new lease of life.

“We have had to rethink the ways we do things,” Holliday said.

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Dutton given official warning by Speaker – as it happened

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How can strengthening federal laws stop the destruction of sacred heritage sites?

Tanya Plibersek:

I think I think it’s really worth having a look at the two inquiries that the the parliament undertook into the Juukan Gorge destruction because it describes not just the failure of laws, but the failure of process and the failure of people to listen and that happened at the commonwealth level and it also happened at the West Australian state government level.

The other thing that it describes is a company that paid lip service to consultation and really, you know, really didn’t do what it should have done when Aboriginal people said you can’t blow up caves that are 46,000 years old, that have examples of continuous use and habitation that you know, the site of finds like a 4,000-year-old hair belt, and tools that are tens of thousands of years old.

There’s absolutely a sense of urgency to ensure that this sort of cultural heritage destruction doesn’t happen again.

I completely agree with that, but a very strong message from the the First Nations Heritage Protection Alliance is also that they genuinely want to sit at the table to work through these issues in partnership and cooperation.

Yeah, I’m not going to put I’m not going to put a timeline on it yet. I think that’s something that we determined as we work through the complexity of these issues, and there are a lot of complexities involved.

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NSW floods: Condobolin waits behind 3km wall of sandbags as record peak flows west from Forbes

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Forbes mayor criticises decision to base recovery team in Parkes as towns and villages downstream wait days for peak

The New South Wales central-west town of Condobolin is experiencing the worst flood in its history and the expected peak is still days away.

The State Emergency Service has predicted the Lachlan River at the town 100km west of Forbes will peak at 7.8 metres on Monday – a record flood height. On Saturday afternoon an evacuation order was issued for low-lying parts of the town.

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New battery technology could be a ‘game changer’ for regional Australian communities

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The CEO of Swiss company Energy Vault says its gravity storage technology can be built anywhere you can build a 20-storey building

The head of a Swiss energy company which has been contracted to build a solar storage battery in Victoria says its technology will be a “game changer” for rural communities because it can be built anywhere – provided the locals don’t mind having a structure that is as tall as a 20-storey building.

Energy Vault has pioneered a gravity energy storage system that uses surplus energy to raise 35-tonne blocks, made out of recycled materials, to the top of the tall battery structure. Energy is released by lowering those blocks.

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News live updates: Medibank, Optus among companies shunning privacy law hearing in ‘collective failure of corporate Australia’

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Greens senator David Shoebridge has criticised notable absences at a Senate committee looking at privacy laws today. Follow the day’s news live

ADF personnel to help in NSW as government works on dedicated disaster workforce

Murray Watt is asked about a permanent disaster workforce to assist during national disasters and their clean-up, given the pressure put on the defence force.

The ADF does certainly play a role, particularly in the recovery phase. And just yesterday we activated more defence forces to go into western New South Wales to assist so over the next couple of days, we expect to see 200 defence force personnel helping there to top up these state-based services. But the reality is all of this is putting a huge amount of pressure, whether it be on those state-based services or the ADF. And that’s why in this budget, we committed over $30m to a volunteer veteran organisation called Disaster Relief Australia to sort of top up the kind of services that are available for communities, particularly in that clean-up phase.

But we’re going to be keeping on doing some work on this about what we need to put in place as a country to supplement the ADF and I’d be hopeful that we might be able to bring that to a conclusion around about the budget next year.

There’s insurance costs so let alone the huge damage bill that individuals are going to be incurring themselves.

So I think everyone is unfortunately going to be having to put their hands in their pockets for for this unfolding event that just won’t go away.

So even if we weren’t to get any more rain, we’re going to be looking at even more damage from the existing flood waters. And, as I say, I think we’re likely to see more. We’ve also got to remember that we haven’t yet seen the cyclone season start whether that be in north Queensland, Western Australia or Northern Territory. So unfortunately I haven’t got a lot of good news for people except for the fact that there is unlikely to be a lot of rain over the next couple of days. So that’s a good thing.

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Veterinarians warn horse owners in Australia’s flood zones to guard against Japanese encephalitis

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Warm weather and stagnant flood waters have created ideal conditions for mosquito-borne diseases

Veterinarians have warned horse owners to be on the lookout for symptoms of Japanese encephalitis as widespread flooding and warmer days creates “the perfect storm” for mosquito-borne diseases across eastern Australia.

It comes as the Australian Medical Association has urged people to protect themselves against mosquito bites and to get vaccinated for Japanese encephalitis if they are eligible, after a slow vaccine uptake in at-risk communities.

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PM’s meeting with Chinese president confirmed – as it happened

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Andrews rules out deal with the Greens and independents in event of minority government

Dan Andrews was also asked what would happen if Labor finds itself in a minority government situation – will it do a deal with the Greens?

No deal will be offered and no deal will be done.

And independents – no deals with independents?

No deal will be offered and no deal will be done.

So if you’re in a minority situation and you hold more seats than the Liberal party, what happens? You go back to another election?

Well, I think what the best thing to do, and what happens, Michael, is we work hard for the next 13 days, we work hard to put a positive and optimistic plan out there, and we’ll see what the verdict of Victorian voters is. I’m arguing, I’m urging people to vote for a strong, stable majority Labor government, to vote for your local Labor candidate.

The new SEC – government-owned, not private for-profit, but government-owned electricity, so owned by every single Victorian – creates nearly 60,000 jobs – 6,000 of those will be apprentices. It will be 100% renewable electricity. These companies can’t be relied upon to replace themselves. They’ll just put another profit machine in place. We need to make sure that we’re looking after pensioners, we’re looking after families and, indeed, businesses. And without electricity, there is no economy, so we have to replace them. And we choose to replace them with a public option – a government-owned option. An option that’s owned by every single Victorian.

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South Australia suffers biggest blackout since 2016 as weather system brings more flooding to inland NSW

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Severe storms continue to drench exhausted communities as a humid air mass prompts flash flooding alerts in eastern Australia

Wild storms have caused the biggest blackout in South Australia since the entire state went dark in 2016, as flash flooding caused havoc in parts of New South Wales and Victoria.

More than 423,000 lightning strikes were recorded in SA on Sunday. Heavy winds downed trees and SA Power Networks received more than 500 reports of fallen wires.

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‘Fix the faults’: Coles criticised for using carbon credits from controversial project

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Carbon-neutral farmer says use of offsets from Armoobilla project ‘outrageous’ but company says they meet ‘rigorous requirements’ of government standard

A farmer who was assured by Coles that it would look for better carbon offsets for its “carbon-neutral” beef has described the supermarket’s continued use of credits from the Queensland Armoobilla regeneration project as “outrageous”, claiming the project is a “greenwash”.

When carbon-neutral sheep and cattle farmer Mark Wootton called on companies to ensure the integrity of farm offsets used for carbon-neutral products back in April, Coles staff had assured him that the supermarket would “look for a better alternative” once their contract with Armoobilla finished in July.

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Politics live: Nationals accuse Labor of regional ‘vendetta’; Chinese state media denounces closer security ties between Australia and Japan

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Albanese government will scrap two Coalition grants programs to set up two new regional programs worth $1bn over next three years. Follow the day’s news live

Gallagher: spending audit is an ‘ongoing piece of work’

And it will continue, Katy Gallagher says:

My view is finance minister is that this is a process that should keep going. We’ve identified obviously, some of that the short term work and that will be reported in the budget.

But this spending audit should should keep going. We should do it in every budget, just to make sure that we’re constantly looking at ways we’re spending money and I think the Australian public would expect us to do that, that it’s not always adding in new spending when there’s … need that arises, and there will be, but we’re looking at existing expenditure as well and how we can reuse that or … realign it with … new investments.

It’s not exclusively infrastructure. We are finding savings across government. We have gone to every single department and ask them to look at their programs to identify programs that don’t need to be done any longer or don’t align with government priorities and where we’ve been able to return some money to the budget we’re doing that.

The other part of it is actually not adding new funding to things but using existing funding to fund some of our our priorities. So it’s been a very useful exercise and I think $22bn is a pretty reasonable figure to have achieved over just, you know, a couple of months in government.

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Australia live flood updates: body found in search for woman swept away in NSW; Echuca locals watch levee as they wait for flood waters to peak

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Another low pressure system is moving towards Victoria down the NSW coast, which is likely to bring rain to Gippsland

Daniel Andrews says there will be a flood update at 11.30am

Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, is at a school in Seaford in Melbourne’s south-east, announcing $1.6bn to upgrade schools and kindergartens. Before he goes into the details, he’s providing a short flood update.

It’s not expected that they will go higher than the peaks that were recorded during the beginning of this flood event. But it is an anxious time out there.

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NSW and Queensland brace for severe storms and flooding as wild weather lashes eastern Australia

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Large parts of both states put on notice as emergency services forecast large hailstones and heavy rain

Severe thunderstorms will bring large hailstones and a flash-flood risk to large parts of New South Wales and Queensland, with coastal regions in both states to be hit by heavy rain belts.

“We’re bracing for significant rainfall right across NSW,” the NSW flood recovery minister, Steph Cooke, said.

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‘Absolutely horrendous’: woman left incontinent after giving birth blames Mackay Base hospital failures

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Samantha Sheppard is considering joining a growing number of women in a class action lawsuit against the hospital

Three years ago, Samantha Sheppard checked into Mackay Base hospital to have her first child. What followed, she said, was an ordeal she believes could have killed her baby, Bobby, and that has left her unable to control some of her basic bodily functions.

“It was absolutely horrendous. It was so life changing. I live with a pad on every day. I weigh myself every day. I’ve actually peed myself countless times because I can’t control it,” she said.

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‘Dark ages’: Brisbane lord mayor pushes for Queensland to adopt daylight savings

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Adrian Schrinner promotes economic benefits in latest bid to change clocks, saying state is ‘letting good daylight hours go to waste’

In Hervey Bay, Paul unwittingly switched on Sunday night’s NRL grand final 60 minutes after kick-off. The game he was watching had a half to go but the result had already been decided.

Paul was among those suffering after Queensland’s reluctance to join much of the country in winding clocks forward an hour for the annual introduction of daylight savings.

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Canola field selfies: Australian farmers warn tourists against ‘dangerous’ social media trend

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In spring, Instagram is awash with people posing in yellow fields, but farmers say the fad is a risk to biosecurity and people’s safety

A social media trend where eager tourists drive out to flowering canola fields, jump fences and seek out the perfect selfie is becoming “dangerous” and a growing biosecurity risk for farmers.

Two weeks ago, Tim Condon was driving over the crest of a hill at about 90km/h near Harden–Murrumburrah in southern New South Wales when he had to slam on the brakes. He said two cars of families with little kids were spread out across the road taking photos of the canola.

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