News

Yass mothers have questioned the findings of a recent review of maternity services available in the regional NSW town. Bec Duncan and Jasmin Jones, who have campaigned for several years for women to be able to give birth at Yass District Hospital, said the report data is flawed. Jasmin gave birth by the side of Barton Highway - and Bec...

These days, it seems there’s not much exciting about railway lines unless they’re turned into bicycle trails. However, some lines built in the NSW South West Slopes as early as 1888 are on a path to redemption. The Cowra Lines aren't huge in the grand network of rail lines, but they extend from Demondrille, near Harden-Murrumburrah, to Blayney, and west...

Floods and fast-moving grass fires fanned by strong winds and longer heatwaves in the ACT and southern NSW are the prominent warnings in the Bureau of Meteorology's severe weather outlook from October to April. The Bureau issued the long-term warning on the back of a wetter than usual spring which has led to abundant grass growth in the region and has...

The wheels are in motion to attract a new cohort of adventure-loving tourists to the Eurobodalla with the announcement of $3 million in NSW Government funding for a new nature trail network at Mogo. The Mogo Adventure Trail upgrade will connect Mogo to Batemans Bay with more than 80km of stacked loop mountain bike trails starting in the centre of...

Snowy Monaro Regional Council has written to the Office of Local Government (OLG) after residents received 'harshly worded' letters about annual permit renewals for non-desexed cats and restricted or dangerous dogs. Residents who received correspondence about changes to annual permit payments under the Companion Animals Act 1998 say the letters came after the 1 October payment cut-off. "Council is aware...

More than 100 workers with the Snowy 2.0 project near Cooma have been sent home on full pay after the site was shut down due to a "litany of risks and breaches". A safety inspection on Thursday (15 October) revealed that temporary wiring failed to meet Australian standards while inadequately maintained generators had lids open, exposing workers to potential electrocution. Power...

"It's in that first instant when I wake from my disjointed sleep, wondering where the hell I am, it just gives me the bloody creeps." This is the first line of a poem by Jim Hughes, whose home at Catalina, near Batemans Bay on the NSW South Coast, was destroyed by bushfire on New Year’s Eve 2019. Jim is a school...

Never has so little time meant so much to the people of Tumbarumba, who are hellbent on getting their shire back. With just three weeks remaining until the public inquiry into the demerger proposal affecting Snowy Valleys Council, the call has echoed far and wide for residents to not only make a submission but be heard when November 3-5 rolls...

NSW Minister for Transport and Roads, and Member for Bega, Andrew Constance has acknowledged the role of climate change during the Black Summer bushfires, which has been welcomed by environmental groups across the Bega Valley and Eurobodalla shires. Mr Constance made the remarks in an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald on 13 October. After living through the past summer's...

Emergency services have spent two days pumping water from a leaking dam in the southern NSW village of Taralga to prevent a burst. The 27-megalitre Taralga Dam – which is about the size of five football fields – has been leaking for several years and recent rain put pressure on its lining, said Upper Lachlan Shire Council general manager Colleen Worthy....

A New South Wales farmer caught this adventurous photographer halfway up a tree in his canola field in pursuit of an Instagram-worthy photo on the October long weekend. Wallendbeen farmer Ken Jacobs found the man parked on a particularly dangerous section of Burley Griffin Way, a busy highway with trucks and cars travelling between Canberra and Griffith. A few hours...

When the people of Tumut have a minister’s ear it means big things for the town. Hot on the heels of the announcement on Friday, 9 October, that a new roundabout is to be constructed at the intersection of Gocup Road and Snowy Mountains Highway comes the news that another intersection in the South West Slopes town is in the...

More than nine months after the Black Summer bushfires ravaged Bega Valley, in southeast NSW, repair works are still underway. A team of 50 volunteers is hoping to install new pipes to restore running water for up to 10 residents in the community of Kiah, who have been without it since the bushfires. The project, led by Connecting Communities Australia, is...

Bega Valley locals have long been hoping to see some competition between airlines flying into Merimbula airport, to push down fares and offer more people affordable regional travel options. On Friday, we got our wish as Qantas announced it would be servicing Sydney-Merimbula with four weekly flights from December but, in a surprise move, Regional Express, which has flying the...

NSW Police welcomed 192 new probationary constables during a quieter than usual attestation ceremony at the NSW Police Force Academy in Goulburn on Friday, 9 October. Due to COVID-19, no members of the public or media were able to attend as the new probationary constables were sworn in. The class, which comprised 130 men and 62 women, were socially distanced...

A business case to build a sovereign Australian fleet of firefighting aircraft capable of extinguishing remote fires before they become disasters has been recommended by a Senate inquiry into the summer's bushfires. Fast attack strategies against particularly remote lightning fires that later became disasters could have been put out shortly after ignition with a strong force of specialised helicopters, bombers...