Over the weekend I caught an interview with one of our small business owners in Barwon, she said words to the effect of ‘if we survived the worst drought on record, huge dust storms, and a mice plague what’s a little lockdown?’
I know we’ve been battered over the last few years, and we were just starting to come through it all – farming was back, people had a bit of money to spend in town, and our grass was getting greener – this COVID outbreak has come at a time when times were getting better.

The state government will build a new Wee Waa High School after the old site was laden with mould, the education minister announced on Thursday.

Police were called to contain a brawl between students at Walgett Community College after simmering tensions within the community erupted on school grounds, forcing teachers to intervene and leaving a police liaison officer with a minor injury.

A student filmed the incident on Tuesday morning and posted the footage on social media. It shows several students fighting and others being attacked when they stepped in to intervene.

Just after suffering the worst drought in living memory, farms and communities in western New South Wales are now enduring another natural disaster — millions of mice.

Regional communities have watched in dismay as any drought recovery from their first good season last year has been destroyed.

Many farmers have been forced to burn hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of hay and grain, now rendered toxic from mouse infestations.

With no end in sight, regional communities are desperate for support to control the vermin as many fight to avoid bankruptcy.

Romance is already in the air and commercials for lavish jewels and floral arrangements are all over the place. Celebrating Valentine's Day might feel like you'll have to shell out money to prove that you care, but the quality time you spend together is priceless.

Financial literacy is understanding money: how it’s earned, spent, and grown. It also extends on how money is used to help others. Research indicates that financial literacy has a critical correlation to income, debt, wealth accumulation, and retirement planning.

Credit Capital’s senior credit advisor, Alistaire Claire, emphasises its importance,” Learning and applying basic finance concepts in your everyday life is the way to financial security. Without the right knowledge, it’s easy to commit huge financial mistakes. It is through lack of financial literacy that people fall for fraud investment schemes and credit card debts. Just knowing the basics can provide you with a level of protection.”

With a few stories doing the rounds, I just wanted to clear up a few points. 
• We have permission from the Yarrie Lake Trust to drill a test bore.
• A grant is available to more than cover the cost.
• Drilling to a max depth of 400m to hopefully tap into the warm bore water of the Great Artesian Basin.
•DPI do not see the lake as a fish habitat and have no issue with the project.

Are you happy in your marriage?

Certain habits will either make or break your relationship. 

Many people, however, only learn how to co-exist with their spouses after they get into a marriage. Making an effort to establish healthy boundaries and habits before getting into a relationship can be the difference between a sad and happy marriage.  

Booking a trip to the snow can be a daunting task. It can feel like there are a million different options with so many variables that layer over the top. Getting the right advice can also be tough. Now to put all of those things aside, these are the 3 key things you need to consider before you book your next snow holiday (and have a blast).

We have all heard that one glass of wine from time to time isn’t bad for health, but how exactly does wine contribute to health? 

The answers appear to be almost endless as new studies continue to continually back up the health benefit claims of drinking wine moderately. 

From attacking cancer cells to a decreased mortality rate, a glass of wine a day has proven to be good for your body both now and in the long run. 

By sipping a glass of chilled white or red wine, here is how you will be helping your mental, physical and emotional wellbeing.

Ever wondered what the fuss was about the gluten-free diet?

There's actually a variety of health benefits to be had from eliminating gluten from your diet.

From increased energy levels to greater digestive comfort. There's plenty more that come with this great health move!

Dylan Smith U17 National Cricket Championships🏏

⭐️Raffle Winners Announcement⭐️

Kindly drawn by Roxanne Bushby Whitton😊

RDA Orana will host a two-day discussion focussed on migration as part of the organisation’s commitment to regional workforce shortages.

“Locally-led migration strategies have provided a response to issues facing rural and regional communities, including shifts in workforce and population,” RDA Orana Director for Regional Development Megan Dixon said.

The event will begin with an employer forum to discuss visa options for employers who may be interested in hiring migrant workers. This will be followed by a workshop about migrant experiences and a roundtable to look at regional settlement.

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.

Ready for your first home?

You might be tossing up between building a new home or buying an existing one. 

Read this article to discover the pros and cons of each and find out which option is right for you.

Do you want to increase the value of your home?

There are plenty of small changes you can make to your house to give you the best chance of adding value on auction day.

Here are 5 proven ways to increase the value of your home before it comes time to sell.

A Wee Waa local will soon get a glimpse of the big city lights of Melbourne for an international modelling contest. 

Toby Knight, 22, will be up against six other representatives from NSW in the national final event for Top Model Worldwide in February 2020. The winner of this heat will travel to London for the international competition.

Toby was first scouted via his Instagram page by a representative from Cosmopolitan magazine, who offered him the chance to compete in Top Model Australia.

"I was like, 'No worries, I'll give it a red hot crack'. I went to the [state] competition and had a bit of training ... and luckily enough I was picked up pretty quickly," Toby said.

It wasn't an easy ride to the top, though. After competing in the NSW finals and making the top 10, Toby wasn't chosen for the top four to travel to Melbourne. But, a stroke of luck meant he was offered a wildcard entry and the top four became a top six, with Toby included.

"It was a proper golden buzzer moment for me to make top 10. I didn't expect that ... at all," he said.

"This is something I would really like to do full time, but I never thought I would be capable of doing it. This opportunity has shown me I can probably bloody do this."

At the national final in February, Toby will complete another runway presentation to show his confidence and ability to pull off different looks. He will also have an interview with the judges.

From here, Toby said if he was to win it would be "unbelievable", and that Miranda Kerr should look out for "the next big thing" coming from a regional town.

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

Price and Smith were both featured among the wicket-takers, both picking up two.

"We have Charles Mitchell, Jayden Zahra Smith and Harrison Townsend returning after having being involved in the joint national title winning team from 2018," McLay said.

Two Gold award winning students read their works at the ceremony, Erin Kruger from Masada College and Gabriel Siemer from Bourke Walgett School of Distance Education.

Six year old Gabriel has lived the devastating effects of the drought most of his young life on the family farm outside Walgett. They haven’t harvested a crop since 2016 and had to sell all their sheep and cattle due to the drought.

Young Gabriel and his older brother Rafael ‘attend’ the School of Distance Education by satellite link two or three times a week, leaving mum Casey to supervise their work and run the farm. Dad works as a movie and TV stuntman and due to the drought has been away from home much of the year.

Local residents are set to benefit from special rates offered as new air services take to western NSW skies next month.

With the support of the NSW government and the Far North West Joint Organisation (FNWJO), the airlines are able to offer a 'local fare'.

The local fare price for Cobar to Sydney is $249 one way, and the Dubbo to Cobar local fare price is $129 one way.

The sales come amid the $300 million offering of cotton giant Auscott's Midkin aggregation in the Gwydir Valley and with expectations of a smaller cotton crop next year due to the drought.

At 275 Spring Plains Road, Wire Lagoon, a 738 hectare irrigated cotton farm 15 kilometres from Wee Waa has changed hands for $11.4 million.

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.

Twenty-eight years since her daughter was found slumped against a farm gate along a NSW country road, Jeanette Hill says she still holds hope of finding out who was responsible for her daughter's death and bringing them to justice.

Penny Hill was 20 when she moved from Narrabri, in the state's north-west, to the small Central West town of Coolah in July 1991.

A concreter who murdered his boss in the break room of a local worksite with "savagery and ferocity" has been jailed for at least 13 years and 10 months.

Queensland man Patrick Allen Boon struck grandfather Frederick Tuffs over the head with a sledgehammer several times and then continued the bashing with a wrench near Narrabri, on June 13, 2017.

The 57-year-old site manager died in hospital the next morning.

Boon, who pleaded guilty to murder in May, was on Friday jailed for 18 years and six months, with a minimum term of 13 years and 10 months.

Grants and awards available.

About a year ago, the purchase of two dairy cows led to the discovery of a revolution in our paddocks.

My partner and I, two young farmers, learned we could rehabilitate the natural environment by the way we farm.

But the stakes were high — making the switch from conventional to conservation farming could send us broke.

So we set out to meet a network of regenerative farmers who are working with nature to eliminate the use of chemicals, revegetate their land, reduce carbon emissions and encourage the return of native plant and animal species.

The lure of a new approach

Our property, on the outskirts of Narrabri in north-west New South Wales, is about 130 acres of mostly farmed-up country.

There are very few trees but we have beautiful black soil and a stunning view of the mountain range to our east.

Birdwatching can be a compulsive pastime, a never-ending quest to see more species and add to a lifetime list.

Key Points
A study reveals birdwatchers generated an economic boom when they travelled to see the rare bird in 2017
Researchers say the study highlights the potential of bird tourism, especially around rare and vagrant birds
Work is now underway to create a bird trail in the lower Hunter Valley, NSW, to encourage tourism
It drives many devoted twitchers to travel long distances in search of unusual and hard-to-spot birds.

When a rare Alaskan shorebird, the Aleutian tern, was spotted for the first time in Australia in late 2017, hundreds of people travelled to catch a glimpse of the elusive species.

The Aleutian tern breeds in Alaska and eastern Siberia and usually spends the southern summer in the North Pacific and parts of Indonesia, so its appearance on a sandbar, off the small New South Wales mid-north coastal town of Old Bar, came as a surprise.

"There was the tufted duck in Melbourne in 2019, there was a black-headed gull in the Northern Territory, there was Australia's first collared pratincole in Perth, there was the grey-headed lapwing in Burren Junction, near Wee Waa … there's been heaps," Mr Callaghan said.

Narrabri pacer Kid Montana may have been down for the count in one race but soon bounced back at the Tamworth harness meeting on Sunday afternoon.

Kid Montana had four wins on the trot before he headed to the Dubbo Carnival of Cups meeting on Friday night to contest the 2525 metre Quamby's Stayers Cup which was contested with a mile rate of 1.57.5 and finishing seventh.

Sunday afternoon saw Kid Montana bounce back into the winner's circle at Tamworth in taking out the Trans-Tasman Racing Pace with a mile rate of 1.58.4 for 1980 metres.

Businesses have threatened to pull $2 billion of planned investmen­t from NSW as frustrations mount that delays approving Santos’s Narrabri project will cripple the viability of their operations.

Gas giant Santos issued a plea yesterday for the NSW government to outline its approval timeline for its $3bn coal-seam gas project in the Gunnedah Basin just days after the Queensland government agreed on a deadline to make a call on Adani’s long-delaye­d ­Carmichael coalmine.

Santos’s demand has been reinforced­ by industrial gas custom­ers, who have agreed to preliminary deals to buy gas from Narrabri, which could meet half the gas needs of the state.

Boggabri Coal will be able to transport small amounts of coal by road and realign its mine boundaries under approval from the Independent Planning Commission (IPC).

On Monday, the IPC signed off on modifications to five parts of the company's existing project approval for Boggabri Coal Mine including a coal stockpile area, drilling and exploration in the approved disturbance area, and an extension of the time frame for securing biodiversity offsets.

UPDATE: A MAN has died after a Sydney-bound passenger train collided with a ute between Moree and Narrabri.

The Moree to Sydney Xplorer service was stopped less than a hour into its trip when it hit a ute at a rail crossing near Millie Road in Bellata.

At About 8.40am emergency services were called to the scene 50 kilometres north of Narrabri after the southbound XPT struck a Holden Rodeo at the crossing in Bellata.

The 64-year-old male driver of the ute died at the scene.

There were no reports of injuries on board the train, which was carrying 18 passengers and three crew.

The train was evacuated as police forensically examined the vehicles.

The passengers were put on buses from Bellata.

Passengers from Werris Creek onward were placed on buses for the rest of the journey to Sydney.

FOR Pirates number 6 Jimmy Schwager, the 2019 Central North season has been an education on and off the field.

The Year 12 Calrossy student has been a regular starter in his debut first-grade season, but has also received tutoring off the field from teachers-turned-teammates Conrad Starr and Bart Leach.

"To have those guys around, both at the club and at school, has been massive for me," Schwager told the Leader.

"I am really wanting to get the textbook stuff a number 6 does down pat and those guys have been awesome in helping me do that." 

A Boggabri woman is helping to kiss multiple-sclerosis (MS) disease goodbye by walking 50km to support a mother figure of hers.

Twenty-two year old Brianna Nelson is hoping to raise $1000 for MS research for Debbie Hobden, who is Brianna's "second mum".

A treaty with Australia’s Indigenous people and addressing climate change were two issues of unfinished business that Bob Hawke saw for Australia, according to one of his oldest friends and most important collaborators.

Bill Kelty, a former head of the Australian union movement who knew Mr Hawke for more than 50 years, told The Age and Sydney Morning Herald on Friday that he had seen Mr Hawke just a few weeks ago.

People are being told their rents will go up under a Labor government but that is a jumped-up scare campaign.

The lowest blow of this election campaign may have come from a firm of real estate agents that abused its position of trust to scare renters about Labor’s proposed negative gearing changes.

If you are one of those renters, relax. You have nothing to fear from the changes. You might even benefit from them. The only interests the real estate firm is protecting is its own.

The Coalition's proposed federal integrity commission to investigate corruption in the public sector is "fraudulent" and designed to protect ministers, a retired judge says.

Stephen Charles, a member of a non-partisan group of former judges campaigning for an effective federal integrity commission, said he could name around 20 issues worthy of investigation, citing as examples the so-called Watergate affair, the government’s $423 million contract with the little-known company Paladin for security on Manus Island, the events leading up to the approval of the Adani mine and allegations about rorting in defence procurement.