From the Mayor's Desk - 16 August 2022

National celebrities and local heroes at the Texas Show
It was great to get out to the Texas Show this fortnight, which drew a strong crowd considering the on-and-off nature of many events in recent years. Celebrity chef ‘Fast Ed’ officially opened the weekend – it was fantastic to catch up with him again after so many years, and the Show committee did exceptionally well to secure such a great drawcard. He kept the crowd thoroughly entertained and appetized with his cooking displays.
It was also my huge privilege, on behalf of the community, to present a gift to Mrs Betty Cleeve in recognition of her 30 years of service as the treasurer of the Texas Show Society. For perspective, that’s roughly about half the time the Texas Show has been in existence. Congratulations again to Betty on her remarkable contribution – selfless volunteers like herself are the backbone of our towns, and give so much to our communities.

Goondiwindi – a hub for research and development, especially in water management
This fortnight, I also met with representatives from One Basic CRC, a new national body of research and translation into sustainable water and agriculture technologies within the Murray Darling Basin System (MDBS). Goondiwindi has been announced as the Queensland headquarters for the 10-year program, with up to eight researchers to be based in the town thanks to Council’s successful advocacy.
The program aims not only to research sustainable water and agriculture technologies in the MDBS, but also to ensure that ideas are trialled and taken up by producers across the basin’s billion-dollar food and fibre industry – community involvement is a critical part of the process. One Basin CRC has now announced a forum to be held in Goondiwindi in September: this will both bring together and introduce key parties involved in the research, and also provide opportunity for interested community members to hear more information about the 10-year program. More information to follow.
Staying in Goondiwindi, the Southern and Darling Downs Regional Water Assessment committee met in town this fortnight to discuss opportunities around water policy, management and infrastructure opportunities across the region. The meeting included key players from across the area, with mayors from four southern Queensland councils in attendance, and we also looked at some shortlisted priority projects for enhancing water supply (particularly urban supply) in southern inland Queensland.
Here in the Goondiwindi Region, we are extremely fortunate to be in a very enviable position compared to any other Council in our area: we have guaranteed water options for all of our region’s towns on town water supply. Quite simply, this is thanks to enormous investment in our region’s water supply infrastructure, especially in recent years, to secure our water even during dry times – we’re also fortunate to have some underground alternatives not available to our neighbouring councils.

Community updates
I was also pleased to meet with the new Assistant Commissioner at Queensland Police Service (QPS) Charysse Pond, who has been appointed as the new Assistant Commissioner for the Southern Region (Ipswich, Darling Downs and South West policing districts) following the recent retirement of Assistant Commissioner Mike Condon.
I was glad to be able to make acquaintances and talk through local issues with the new Assistant Commissioner, and to re-affirm Council’s commitment to assisting the QPS, where possible, in the wonderful job they do in serving our communities.
Finally, in Yelarbon, I was very happy to attend the latest meeting of the Yelarbon Community Consultative Committee (CCC), where we outlined and prioritised projects for this financial year, following Council’s allocation of another annual allocation of $20,000 in discretionary funding to the Yelarbon CCC for the town’s community improvement priorities.