Moriarty, 70, and his dog went missing from Northern Territory town Larrimah, 430km south of Darwin, in 2017 with police suspecting foul play
Secret police recordings in which a man claims to have killed Paddy Moriarty with a hammer have been heard at an inquest into the Northern Territory man’s disappearance.
Moriarty, 70, and his dog went missing from the town of Larrimah, 430km south of Darwin, on 16 December 2017, with police suspecting foul play.
Continue reading...When Anglican Care closes facility in Bulahdelah, some will have to travel over 75km to Taree to visit their partner
The closure of the Bulahdelah’s Cedar Wharf Lodge will see elderly couples torn apart, unable to visit each other as limited transport options hinder travel to the New South Wales Hunter region aged care home.
Since Anglican Care announced the closure of the town’s only aged care facility this week, some in the community will be left travelling over 75km to the nearest aged care facility in Taree to visit their partner.
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Continue reading...Virus spreads through mosquito bites and people in regional areas who are in contact with pigs may be at particular risk
Australia’s chief medical officer has beefed up the nation’s response to the Japanese encephalitis virus as New South Wales reports its first case.
NSW Health confirmed on Friday night a woman from the NSW-Victoria border region was in intensive care in a stable condition with the virus, marking the state’s first case after outbreaks in Queensland and Victoria.
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Continue reading...Heavy rainfall expected to continue overnight, with northern New South Wales next in the line of fire
Flood waters continued to rise across Brisbane, south-east Queensland and other parts of the state on Sunday night as a “rain bomb” dumped significant volumes of water into the city and put more than 1,000 homes at risk.
In some parts of Brisbane, flooding and damage has already been more severe than the 2011 floods, which killed 33 people and caused widespread damage.
Continue reading...An outbreak in a small regional community could leave locals unable to access pharmaceutical and banking services
Essential services in rural towns are under pressure due to Covid-19 and could leave locals unable to access pharmaceutical and banking services.
Katie Stott, together with her husband, pharmacist Fred Hellqvist, manage the only pharmacy in Dover, Tasmania, the southernmost town in Australia, servicing approximately 2,000 to 3,000 people.
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Continue reading...The Dressmaker author says literary events in country Australia are all about ‘discussing, catching up and laughing’. Here are some planned for 2022
Rural readers are in for a bumper crop of established and emerging writers festivals taking place in country regions throughout 2022, a harvest that also offers plenty of flavour to city-dwelling book lovers seeking literary-themed getaways.
Jerilderie-born author of The Dressmaker, Rosalie Ham, says events in the bush have always provided a great excuse for a reunion of like minds. Her extensive literary circuit all began with an invitation to talk at a writers festival in country Victoria.
Continue reading...It took a pandemic and work-from-home order to convince me it’s possible to keep working and live where you want to live
I have spent a lot of time picking up rocks. This is not what I dreamed about doing as we sat in Melbourne during the city’s sixth lockdown and waited out the three-month settlement period to move to our new farm in central Victoria. That time was spent on cottagecore fantasies and planning out wildly unrealistic renovation schedules.
Then we took possession in October and I’ve been picking up rocks ever since. Rocks and sticks and, for one particularly disgusting week before we had scrubbed down the house, a series of dead starlings that had become stuck in the fireplace and under the oven.
Continue reading...One driving instructor told me he’d driven with murderers who were safer than me
The amusement arcades in Russell Street were the place in Melbourne to buy heroin in the 90s and early 2000s. But I went there to learn how to drive.
Continue reading...Tweed shire mayor says ‘many regions are facing the very real likelihood of their first Covid-19 outbreak’ ahead of the state lifting travel restrictions
All 10 local government areas in New South Wales with double-dose Covid vaccination rates below 50% are regional, with six of the 10 currently affected by outbreaks.
This could leave those areas at greater risk of adverse effects on health infrastructure and businesses in these areas, as NSW plans to reopen.
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Continue reading...A neurology professor wants MND to be listed as a notifiable disease to help investigate suspected environmental links
A top neurologist has called on the New South Wales government to list motor neurone disease (MND) as a notifiable disease amid suspicions a cluster of diagnoses in the state could be linked to something in the environment.
Prof Dominic Rowe, a neurologist at Macquarie University, has treated 889 MND patients – many from the NSW irrigation town of Griffith – in the past decade.
Continue reading...Purchase of Langidoon and Metford sheep stations is the second-biggest national parks land procurement in NSW in the last decade
The New South Wales government has purchased more than 60,000 hectares of farmland near Broken Hill for an outback nature reserve, home to at least 14 threatened species.
In an effort to expand conservation efforts in the traditionally underrepresented far west of the state, on Monday NSW environment minister Matt Kean announced the government had finalised the purchase of the neighbouring Langidoon and Metford sheep stations.
Continue reading...More Labor voters prefer the premier than Jodi McKay, while One Nation’s spirited campaign in the NSW seat doomed Shooters, Fishers and Farmers to electoral failure
New South Wales Nationals leader John Barilaro has proclaimed “the Nationals are back” and all but declared victory for Dave Layzell in the coalmining and rural seat of Upper Hunter – but he should probably be thanking One Nation.
For Labor too there will be some soul-searching and pressure on opposition leader, Jodi McKay, to consider her future. Speaking on Sunday afternoon, McKay said she was “devastated” that people did not vote for Labor and that the party was shocked that it had “failed to connect” with the voters of the Upper Hunter.
Continue reading...Complex web of data reveals large swathes of country controlled by small number of billionaires and large companies
Continue reading...Locals who have endured months of mice and rats getting into their houses, stores and cars are praying heavy rain will help wipe them out
Warning: graphic images may disturb some readers
Drought, fire, the Covid-19 pestilence and an all-consuming plague of mice. Rural New South Wales has faced just about every biblical challenge nature has to offer in the last few years, but now it is praying for another – an almighty flood to drown the mice in their burrows and cleanse the blighted land of the rodents. Or some very heavy rain, at least.
It seems everyone in the rural towns of north-west NSW and southern Queensland has their own mouse war story. In posts online, they detail waking up to mouse droppings on their pillows or watching the ground move at night as hundreds of thousands of rodents flee from torchlight beams.
Continue reading...Dingoes eat kangaroos and kangaroos eat grass. So on the side of the fence where dingoes are rare, there is less vegetation
As one of the longest structures in the world, the dingo fence is an Australian landmark. It stretches more than 5,600km across three states, including 150km that traverses the red sand dunes of the Strzelecki Desert.
Since it was established in the early 20th century, the fence has had one job: to keep dingoes out. The effect of this on the environment has been enormous – you can see it from outer space.
Continue reading...The tiny Australian town was surprised but got into the spirit, selling daft pork sausages and random access rissoles while celebrating a dusty agricultural show it will never forget
In April 2013 word got out that Daft Punk planned to launch their album Random Access Memories from a regional Australian town barely anyone had heard of.
Dubbed the “cotton capital” of Australia, the small town (population 2,000) with the evocative name of Wee Waa in the Narrabri shire of New South Wales was not much known as a dance music hub. The news, which began with murmurs about Sony label reps scoping the area for locations, seemed just bizarre enough to be true. Daft Punk, after all, were never great adherents of the traditional album rollout – and, with the revered French duo announcing their split this week, it’s worth taking ourselves back to their strangest one.
Continue reading...Deputy PM says he’s focusing on now, not 2050, as Coalition’s climate skirmishes go on
The Coalition is facing an increasingly testy party room as it struggles to land on a climate policy, with the Nationals leader, Michael McCormack, declaring he is “not worried about what might happen in 30 years’ time”.
The deputy prime minister said excluding agriculture from Australia’s attempts to reach net zero emissions by 2050 may be one option.
Continue reading...Fair Work Commission to be given power to approve agreements that don’t guarantee workers are better off overall. Follow all the latest updates
Earlier, the Australian Council of Trade Unions secretary, Sally McManus, set out the union movement’s objection to the “extreme” industrial relations bill.
Those are:
On the other side of that debate:
Take the sand out of your ears – and let's hope we can soften your hearts. Because all this legislation does is push people further and further in the ground. Please Senators, vote no to this horrendous legislation. My full speech: https://t.co/MTYbj02hyw
Continue reading...Towns west of Brisbane to swelter over next three days as western NSW continues to suffer and Sydney’s temperatures forecast to rise again on Tuesday
Queenslanders are in for a record-breaking hot day on Monday as Sydneysiders get a short-lived reprieve from the heat.
Dean Narramore, a senior forecaster with the Bureau of Meteorology, says much of southern Queensland will be experiencing an “extreme” heatwave over next three days.
Continue reading...Kevin and Carol, friendly emus who wander the town of Yaraka in Queensland, have been barred from the only pub after leaving droppings on the floor and stealing toast
It can’t be easy being an emu in outback Australia at the best of times what with the heat and the perennial droughts.
But to be banned from your local pub for bad behaviour must now be added to the list of grievances inflicted upon the big birds.
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