THE Liberal party’s latest leader has thrown down the gauntlet, vowing to fight with her ailing party as a crucial election looms. First-term MP Kellie Sloane completed her meteoric ascent to the top of the NSW Liberals on Friday after her predecessor Mark Speakman gave way to mounting pressure and resigned. With just 18 months […]
Yarrila Place bags prestigious national architecture award
Yarrila Place. Photo: Tom Roe, image courtesy of BVN. Yarrila Place. Photo: Tom Roe, image courtesy of BVN. YARRILA Place has taken out one of Australia’s most prestigious architecture awards for public buildings. Announced at a gala ceremony in Canberra, the Council facility in the Coffs Harbour CBD won the Sir Zelman Cowen Award for […]
Experts want a national seabird beach monitoring program to help explain why mass deaths happen. Photo: Silke Stuckenbrock/AAP.
The ecological disaster threatening Australian seabirds
BILL Fulton recalls counting 1162 dead birds during a four-and-a-half kilometre morning beach walk. That’s a rough average of one every four metres. But when he tells people about the work and its confronting reality, they’re curiously inclined to dismiss it as kind of normal. “We want people to know that this is different,” Mr […]
Chris Bowen says you don't have to have solar panels on your roof to reap the benefits. Photo: Lukas Coch/AAP
Fears ‘free’ electricity could come with hidden costs
ENERGY retailers say they’ve been blindsided by reforms promising free electricity to hundreds of thousands of Australians during peak solar power hours. The Solar Sharer program, announced by the federal government last Tuesday, would give consumers free access to electricity for three hours each day as part of the default offer available. Households in NSW, […]
The cost to farmers of grain for feral pig trapping and baiting can be significant. Photo: supplied.
Free grain and bait on offer in statewide offensive on feral pigs
LANDHOLDERS across NSW are being encouraged to take advantage of $850,000 worth of free grain and bait on offer as part of a statewide crackdown on feral pigs. The funding is part of the Government’s Feral Pig and Pest Program with funding from the State’s more than $1 billion biosecurity budget. It is the third […]
CSIRO report reflects improvements in estimating East Coast koala population
MEMBER for Oxley Michael Kemp says the CSIRO’s National Koala Monitoring Program (NKMP) has revealed a staggering leap in koala numbers that “upends years of alarmism”. The 2025 report estimates the listed population across NSW, Qld and the ACT is between 398,000 and 569,000, a dramatic rise from the 2024 estimate of just 95,000 to […]
Country Women’s Association North Coast Group holds AGM
The Country Women’s Association North Coast Group Executive. Nursing grant recipient Sarah Brown with CWA North Coast Group Group President Leonie Saunders. Nursing grant recipient Mahaila Matheson with CWA North Coast Group Group President Leonie Saunders. THE Country Women’s Association (CWA) North Coast Group held their annual meeting on Wednesday 15 October at the Salvation […]
Council’s new investment prospectus shows Coffs Harbour is’ open for business’
Council General Manager Andrew Beswick said the report had been 12 months in the making. Mayor Nikki Williams launches the first-ever investment prospectus for Coffs Harbour. COFFS Harbour has taken another step toward shaping its future by launching “InvestCoffs”, the city’s first-ever investment prospectus. Twelve months in the making, the document highlights why Coffs Harbour […]
Firefighters to integrate cultural burning techniques in bushfire management
Cultural burning practices are integrated with accredited firefighting qualifications Laqueesha Laurie and her father, Dane, participated in the program. Photos: FCNSW. CULTURAL burning techniques are being integrated into government bushfire management frameworks across NSW. Funded by the Federal Government program “Fire, Country and People”, the aim is to strengthen community resilience to major bushfire events […]
Sudden stratospheric warming causes weather chaos
RISING temperatures over Antarctica have been a major contributing factor to recent volatile weather along the East Coast, according to new information from the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM). A “sudden stratospheric warming” (SSW) is to blame. This is a documented weather scenario in which air temperatures high above the South Pole rise by 30 degrees […]
