About Regional – a new place for the stories of South East NSW, in episode 7…
* Local Government across NSW is in limbo again as Gladys Berejiklian takes over from Mike Baird as Premier.
A sense that they might be in trouble at the next election has the new look Government reviewing and reconsidering some its past decisions.
Council amalgamations are at the top of the list.
Here in South East NSW, the Snowy Monaro Regional Council has been operating since May 2016 – Bombala, Snowy River and Cooma-Monaro Shires weren’t forced to merge but not given much of choice either.
Until elections are held one man is in charge, former Cooma Mayor Dean Lynch. He says the recent talk from Macquarie Street has been destabilising and has complicated the process underway through the High Country.
*Catalina’s Neville Baker is a breast cancer survivor.
Recent numbers suggest there are about 120 men diagnosed with breast cancer in Australia every year.
Neville’s diagnosis came at Christmas time in 2003. It was a rocky road from there, aside from the treatment many in Neville’s circle simply didn’t know how to handle a man with breast cancer.
I meet Neville over a coffee and cake at his home in Catalina, just south of Batemans Bay.
*The rich artistic community of South East NSW has inspired a discussion paper that calls for greater recognition and funding for regional artists.
Lindy Hume is the current artistic director of Opera Queensland as well as being the former chief of the Sydney Festival and Chair of South East Arts, among many other things.
Lindy’s platform paper for Currency House describes regional arts as a ‘restless giant’.
The paper was launched in the middle of one this region’s most dynamic communities – Candelo.
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