Water Royal Commission is the way forward

Leaving the Basin Plan will not solve the issues we have with the allocation and management of water in this State. It will not see any more water in our rivers, or return any water back to farmers.

The Shooters Fishers and Farmers Party have been calling for a Federal Royal Commission for over a year now, with the sole intent of untangling the mess water management is in.

The mismanagement of water is destroying our rivers, communities and industries. That’s why myself and Helen Dalton have been pushing hard on pausing the Basin Plan and conducting a Royal Commission.

Whether you travel frequently or rarely, travel insurance is one of your most valuable expense especially for the inexperienced.

Travel insurance can be beneficial for various reasons, especially if you're travelling to an unfamiliar destination. 

Without travel insurance, disruptions to your trip can end up costing you a fortune.

Insurance ensures that in any circumstance, you are covered and here's five things to help prove it to you.

Moving home can be quite a frustrating task, especially if you've accumulated a lot of items over-time.

When it comes to packing everything we own into boxes, it becomes more of a task we think is both time-consuming and a burden to our daily lives.

Sometimes we even wish we could pay someone to do all the hard work for us.  So, here are some hints you need if you're looking to make packing less of a task and more of an experience, especially if you're moving into your dream home. 

The Spring Newsletter is available online here 

Members of the Burren Junction School of Arts Hall Committee at the re-opening on the weekend. Pitcured is Philip Powell, Coral Marshall, Elizabeth Powell, Sandy Stump, Philip Marshall and Lucinda Stump with the Powell's grandchildren Harry, Rachel and Maggie Powell. Photo by Ali Smith, The Courier.

Burren Junction School of Arts Hall is the town's beating heart, a building that once symbolised hope and prosperity.

So when it was condemned in 2014 a group of the town's volunteers rallied to keep it's doors open.

"It's got heart and soul...it was the last significant building in Burren Junction and if it was torn down there wouldn't be much left," hall committee secretary Lucinda Stump said.

The hall was built in 1914 and over time it's walls have seen many dances and weddings, meetings, festivals, school events and charity functions. It even held school classes when Burren Junction Public School's numbers were high and they need more room.

It was the venue for the Victory Ball after the Second World War to welcome home the town's soldiers and it also marks the names of those who didn't come home, at the war memorial.

Do you have a wedding on the horizon?

First things first...CONGRATULATIONS!

Now, onto the most important question - are you spray tanned ready?!

Looking beautiful on your big day is more than a matter of self-confidence. When you’ll look back on the photos for a lifetime, feeling sexy in your skin is super important.

Barwon MP Roy Butler has renewed his party’s call for an independent audit of rural and regional public hospital services and staffing.

This call follows the deeply concerning revelations in the Four Corners report Health Hazard. 

Mr Butler says the government needs to undertake an immediate independent audit of rural and regional public hospitals to determine what services are missing or lacking from hospitals; and the distribution of the health workforce across the State. 

“It’s time to make the health, welfare and safety of people across rural and regional NSW a priority,” said Mr Butler.

Welcome to our Business and Infrastructure Funding Opportunities Newsletter

Welcome to our Business and Infrastructure Funding Opportunities Newsletter where you will find details of grant and funding programs that are available for the Northern Inland Region for businesses and infrastructure projects.

Due to the number of grants that are available, we send two funding opportunities newsletters a month; one for Business and Infrastructure and another for Community Projects and Award Programs. These newsletters are a free service that we provide, and can you can add the Community Funding Opportunities and Awards Programs newsletter to your subscriptions by filling your details into on the left hand side of our website: www.rdani.org.au

Do you feel 100%?

With modern diets and the stress of daily life, you won’t be alone if you feel as though your body isn’t operating at full speed.

The answer may be simpler than you think.

Detoxing. 

The Shooters Fishers and Farmers Party put on the table in Parliament a drought package that would provide real support to farmers and farming communities, disappointingly the Government voted against supporting them.

The SFF drought package includes immediate cash grants, to allow creditors to be paid, cash rebates for local government rates, transitioning legacy loans to zero or low interest loans, the establishment of a re-sowing and re-stocking grant and providing financial support for employers to retain employees on farm and in local businesses.

Cessnock MP and shadow minister for water Clayton Barr was in Moree last week as part of a trip across the region to gain a better understanding of the water situation.

Starting at Dubbo, then moving on to Bourke, Brewarrina, Walgett, Moree on Friday and then Narrabri, Mr Barr wanted to get on the ground and talk to affected people and groups.

"I've only been the shadow minister for water for about six weeks now and I've been trying to read through a whole bunch of reports but for me, the best way to learn was to come and talk to people and see things and be shown how it's working and how it's failing and things like that," Mr Barr said.

He met with the Gwydir Valley Irrigators on Friday as well as local farmer and irrigator to hear their experiences with the low water.

"It's part drought, it's part water sharing, and it's a significant part around priorities of what's most important and what needs to come first, second and third and getting that balance right," he said.

Mr Barr said the reports he has read are mostly facts and figures but they don't detail the social impact on communities, with people being forced to leave town because of the lack of water and therefore lack of work.

"For example, at Walgett they were concerned about losing all of their tradesmen....because the rest of the community didn't have much work so there wasn't much money around," he said.

"So people weren't spending money or doing renovations or building new buildings and improvements, so the tradies didn't have any work but they needed to feed their families.

"They've had to move, and often it's younger families, which then drags kids out of schools so then your school numbers drop.

"That's something that hasn't been captured in any of the reports about water but it's a really important social consequence of the absence of water.

"Hearing stories like that has been fantastic in framing my understanding of how the absence of water has impacted the communities."

While Mr Barr has visited Moree and other towns across the region, it's his first visit in his new role as shadow minister for water, and he said it has been a fantastic experience.

He wants to make it clear that he nor anyone in parliament is anti-irrigation, but it's about coming up with a good strategy in regards to the distribution of water.

"While we can't do anything about rain falling out of the sky and drought conditions we can do something about the rules about what happens to the water once it lands," Mr Barr said.

"I think that's where the really important focus needs to be right now because we don't know when it's going to rain but when it does rain we have to make sure the water goes where it needs to go."

He said most of the reports he's read heavily criticise the government while also making recommendations from scientists, commissioners and experts in the area about what the government should do.

He is yet to see anything that proves those recommendations aren't the right way to go.

"They will cause a bit of pain and grief for some people in terms of their business model and farming models but the benefits to society, environments and in other ways will be significant," Mr Barr said.

"But I would hate to make judgmen

AWU national secretary Daniel Walton late last week rounded on the government for granting the status of "critical state significant infrastructure" to a proposed $589 million LNG import project in Newcastlewhich will now enjoy a streamlined approvals process.

The Berejiklian government has already given the green light for a separate, $250 million LNG import terminal at Port Kembla, backed by mining billionaire Andrew Forrest.

The plans for the two import terminals are racing ahead as Santos's $3 billion Narrabri coal seam gas project, which could supply up to half NSW's gas requirements, remains locked in the state government's approvals process.

But Mr Stokes said the Narrabri project has "big potential impacts" on the environment, and that in any case the state is "best served by a competitive market with multiple sources".

Spectacular gowns reflecting the landscape and other creative works make up an exhibition that shines a light on the talent of female artists in western NSW.

Women Out Front is a culmination of the work Signal Creative and Outback Arts have been doing with women in Warren and Walgett in the past two years. 

• READ ALSO: The philosophy behind a business duo's 20-year milestone

The exhibition features the 'Mother Nature Gown', the 'Yellow Belly Gown' and others, printed photos and textiles, as well as a large collaborative wall hanging.

• READ ALSO: Unconditional love: Walkom family prepare to farewell Nana Bet

It opened in Coonamble on Thursday, with a dance performance in the street.

"For many of the young artists, it's the first time their work has toured and been a part of a big collaborative exhibition and I'm proud to be a part of supporting these amazing young women," Signal Creative co-director Caroline Wallace said.

The Women Out Front program has already featured local performances from the young women at Warren Central School of the movement piece Drylands Wetlands, comprising sounds of the Tiger Bay Wetlands and original costume and set pieces made by the students inspired by the wetlands.

In Walgett, River Stories, created by the Sista Speak students, was exhibited in the Walgett Library as well as online.

Signal Creative co-director Emma Hoy said: "It's been an incredible two years working on Women Out Front with Outback Arts, we can't wait to see what these exciting new artists come up with next."

Walgett residents have a supermarket again after a temporary outlet opened its doors on Tuesday.

The town's permanent IGA was destroyed by fire in June, which left Walgett without a supermarket for the second time in six years.

Western NSW Minister Adam Marshall said the supermarket will resume its normal 8:30am-6pm trading hours after a successful trial run on the weekend.

As every year passes, trends involving fitness training change. And as 2019 continues it is clear that a new set of fitness training trends are set to explode.

People who never would have dared to say the word 'fitness' are now jumping onboard thanks to the following exciting fitness trends of 2019.

Imagine you’re sitting on a beautiful tropical beach right now, cold drink in your hand.

Now, what’s stopping you from making that dream become a reality?

Luckily for you, the research has been done, and here are five money-saving hacks so simple you’ll wonder why you weren’t doing them already.

You’ll be walking along the beach in no time with these...

This drought is breaking records, pushing families and communities to the brink − and it’s getting worse.

Across NSW, it’s drier than many have seen in their lifetimes. Farms that have never in their hundred-plus year history destocked, have sold all their livestock.

Farmers that had enough hay in storage for years of drought have used their last bale.

Farmers that have never complained, have gotten on with the job, have put food on tables across the world − are asking for assistance.

Gloucester's Lyn Stewart had a niggling interest in researching her family history.

Like many Australians, her family tree has a range of convicted criminals, which was partly what first piqued her interest. But it was chasing down that tale of her great great grandmother, Margaret Murphy which inspired her to write a book.

She started researching her relative by first acquiring Margaret's death certificate as it provided details of her date of death, the date and location of her birth, and the names of her parents.

Salt Therapy has been around for over 100 years. It has been used by people of the past to ease symptoms of some illnesses. It is known for its respiratory and skin health properties. There are several areas that salt therapy can be beneficial to our health.

Let’s explore the importance of salt therapy and its health benefits.

If you’re planning on buying a new car through finance, or you’ve finally saved up enough money to move out of your parents’ house and apply for a mortgage, then you need to start building a good credit score. 

Your credit score is essentially a bunch of statistics based on all your financial decisions and hiccups over the last 6 years. In today’s world, it is all too easy for banks to access this report. This makes it all too easy for them to reject your loan application based on a few regretful money mishaps.

 According to financial experts Empowered Finance, “This is because lenders believe they might be taking a higher risk when lending to you. This means your loan application will either be flat out rejected or you will be expected to pay a much higher interest rate.”

Grants and awards available.

Shooters Fishers and Farmers Party MP Roy Butler has expressed his disappointment in the NSW Government’s budget announcement’s today.

“The Berejiklian Government has celebrated its operating surplus and its record investment in infrastructure across the state and that’s all good - if you forget that western NSW is also part of the state.”

The Barwon electorate is 44% of the state, but hasn’t had a significant school or hospital upgrade funded in this budget.

“All I am seeing in this budget is a continuation of record neglect of western NSW,” Mr Butler said.