News

Farming in the Bega Valley has always been a collective effort, the 1899 foundations of the region's iconic Bega Cheese company are a cooperative of local farmers, that spirit of working together is getting a tech makeover this week at the Bega AgTech Days. "It's hard to change or scale up as an individual, but if you collaborate and come...

Premier Gladys Berejiklian has made a sweep of the Bega Valley and Eurobodalla making significant cash deposits along the way. It feels like a long time since a NSW Premier of any political persuasion ventured into the Bega Electorate for such a visit; yesterday's (March 26) won't be forgotten for a while. The day started with $10 million for Tathra...

A series of portraits spanning the length and breadth of the Yuin Nation are about to go on show and be auctioned, the end result will be a cross-cultural walkabout for Australia's indigenous people centered on South East NSW. The nineteen faces that smile, stare and sing from the canvases painted by Towamba artist Vickie McCreedie, take in territory that...

A new generation of community support has stepped forward in the wake of the Tathra Bushfires. "The old girls of Bega" who have answered the call for help countless times during their history in the Bega Valley say they have never seen a response like the one witnessed at the Bega Showground Evacuation Centre over the last three and a...

One Tathra family who lost their "forever home" have moved to reassure and thank firefighters who battled Sunday's furnace. Media speculation today has suggested incompetence by the Rural Fire Service for declining offers of help from Fire & Rescue NSW in the early stages of the blaze. Flames from the Reedy Swamp Fire gathered momentum and travelled the 17km east...

As the sun was setting behind the hills to the west of Bega the people of Tathra lined up to find out the fate of their homes. Tonight's briefing from the Rural Fire Service followed a day to assessments within the devastated community of 1,700 people. "Access to the fire ground will not be available until Wednesday afternoon at the...

Day two of the Tathra bushfire emergency has broken under smokey skies but thankfully without the hideous heat and north-westerly winds that put lives at risk yesterday and destroyed at least 70 homes in the idyllic seaside village of Tathra, east of Bega on the New South Wales Far South Coast. Given the haste and intensity of the emergency, it's...

The full sale of Snowy Hydro to the Federal Government is a $4.2 billion injection into the New South Wales economy, and the Mayor's of South East NSW are lining up to spend it. Premier, Gladys Berejiklian, and Deputy Premier and Member for Monaro, John Barilaro have "ring-fenced" those dollars for infrastructure projects in rural and regional NSW. "4.2 billion...

Women are making their presence felt at the National Sheep Dog Trials underway at Hall Showground, 25 minutes west of the Canberra CBD. President of the Trials Association, Charlie Cover says 41% of entries this year come from female handlers. "Its a record for us and I think it might also be a world record," Charlie says. "Women's sport, in...

Summer in Bermagui is busy, a time when locals surrender their beaches and cafes to welcome tourists, but what only locals know is that autumn is the best time in Bermagui. The water is warmer, the Gang Gang’s move into the Spotted Gums, a fire at night becomes an option again, the daytime sun is a little weaker but still...

Summer is nature's peak season in South East NSW. Fauna and flora look to those warm rays from the sun to flourish and keep their species going. Survival of the fittest means something new in these days of rapid environmental change; creatures of feather, fur, and fin are responding differently to those influences, and it's often something that can be...

The principals of 50 public schools from across Southern New South Wales have gathered in Batemans Bay to meet with chiefs of the NSW Education Department. Schools from the Monaro, Far South Coast, Illawarra, Shoalhaven, Southern Tablelands, Southern Highlands and Queanbeyan were all represented, part of a road trip by Department Secretary, Mark Scott, Deputy Secretary School Operations and Performance,...

The rules of polite conversation are clear; politics and religion are generally no-go areas, and in Southern New South Wales, foresty, logging, and woodchips are perhaps also on that list given the volatile nature of debate in the past. But the rules of polite conversation don't resolve or inform discussion. In recent weeks the State and Federal Governments have been...