A RECENT Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) blitz in Queensland’s Gatton region should serve as a wake-up call for New South Wales. Operation Topaz uncovered systemic labour rights breaches among labour hire firms, with every single provider investigated demonstrating some non-compliance. Contraventions included failure to pay minimum and overtime rates, withholding pay slips, and poor record-keeping. […]
DEAR News Of The Area, A SUBMISSION was made to Council at the time of the State Government’s advertising of its foreshore rezoning proposal pointing out that the business plan for the proposed development had not been made public. Without this there is nothing to explain how the roads and services infrastructures for the project […]
DEAR News Of The Area, THE matters raised by Harry Creamer and Jake Little in a recent edition of your paper in relation to the National Party’s attitude to the policy of “Net Zero” require some response. The Nationals are as eager as anyone else to reduce carbon emissions and if we ever reached a […]
DEAR News Of The Area, LAST week’s informative article in NOTA by Mr Andrew Vivian again highlights that we are still fighting the climate wars of the past decade and a half. I am amazed and embarrassed that so many of our parliamentarians, supposedly well educated, still deny the existence of climate change. It was […]
DEAR News Of The Area, THE COALition seems desperate to live in a fact free zone. Let us dissect their decision to abandon their Net Zero policy to concentrate on power prices. What options are available to any government to lower electricity prices? To make this simpler, let us ignore any commitment to lower carbon […]
DEAR News Of The Area, I HAVE read the article of Friday 14 November 2025 by Greg Mclntosh entitled “Reflections on the 1975 constitutional crisis”. lt contains excellent research concerning his views on Senate elections and the dramas that preceded his analysis of that dramatic event. However, he speaks from hindsight which is a valuable […]
DEAR News Of The Area, IT is sad to see that Bellingen Council is on course to set a new low bench-mark for housing development, by recommending that the last little piece of accessible bushland in suburban Urunga, Lot 1 Ferry Street, be given to a local affordable-housing group as the site for a multi-dwelling […]
PERRY’S circus was one of the earliest to be formed in Australia by convicts, George and Mary Ann Perry. Their son, Charles Perry and his wife Bridget, took over its management, with Perry’s circus becoming the first circus to circumnavigate Australia’s mainland. Charles specialised in horse riding feats and by the mid-1880s was advertised as […]
DEAR Jasminda, I’m thinking of getting an ice bath for stress relief. Do you have any views on this? Gavin H. Oh, Gavin, Sometimes I read a conundrum and my first thought is, yes, I have views on this, but do you really want to know them? I have no qualifications in ice-bath therapy, so […]
