From the Mayor's Desk - 30 August 2022

Advocacy for water policy consistency and certainty a priority for Council

Last week Cr Kearney and myself travelled to St George to meet the Honourable Tanya Plibersek MP, Minister for the Environment and Water, along with representatives from the Murray Darling Basin Authority.  The Murray Darling Water Plan is nearing the time for its 10 year statutory review and the Minister was familiarising herself with the local context.  Council knows the importance of the irrigation sector to our region – the nature of our economy is that both directly and indirectly our prosperity, including local jobs, is reliant on a productive agriculture sector.

University of Melbourne Professor Mike Stewardson recently stated “Australia’s irrigation regions are the powerhouse of Australia’s agricultural sector producing 50 per cent of Australia’s agricultural profits, with the Murray-Darling Basin being the focus of two thirds of that irrigated agriculture.”

Despite the clear importance of irrigated agriculture in this country, the industry has been through decades of water policy reform, significant investment in reform measures and much pain for primary producers.  As a region, I reinforced to the Minister the we just need consistency and certainty to get on and do what we do well and the constant political football of water policy is harmful to our communities. Minister Plibersek was open and enquiring during our meeting and acknowledged the impact of water reform on regional agriculture communities.  

Council also participated this fortnight in the Regional Water Alliance meeting along with mayors from our neighbouring councils.  The Regional Water Alliance prioritises key opportunities for towns across the Darling Downs, providing a collective and collaborative voice for priority water infrastructure.   The Goondiwindi Region remains the envy of our neighbouring councils, with alternate secure water supplies being established in the last three years in all the communities within the Goondiwindi Region that have a town water supply.

Coordinated Natural Resource Management works best

Southern Queensland Landscapes (SQ Landscapes) were recently in Goondiwindi to meet with Council representatives including myself, to work on a coordinated approach to land and water management.  SQ Landscapes are a community owned organisation dedicated to supporting communities to take care of their landscapes.  Our discussion focused on the criticality of the control of feral animals and weeds and fire management.  Council resources for pest management focuses on public land as part of our 10 year pest management plan.  The success of our pest management program is reliant on the complimentary efforts from private land owners which is why the work of SQ Landscapes is so important to our region as well, council has recently undertaken a program of fuel reduction on some council controlled land.

St Mary’s school musical showcases amazing talented youth

It was a pleasure to be invited to the dress rehearsal last week for the St Mary’s Parish School ‘Peter Pan Jnr’ musical.  It was evident that hours and hours of student, teacher and volunteer time has gone into this event, and I congratulate all involved on a magnificent performance.  Once again, I want to say how fortunate we are to live in a region with such talent, but more importantly commitment to providing this opportunity to our youth.

Tourists are back

It has been fantastic to see so many tourists out and about taking the opportunity to visit the Region.  We’ve seen bus tour groups, as well as caravans and camper trailers across the region over recent months and I am sure our local businesses are benefiting from this boost.  A heartfelt thanks to all those residents, volunteers and employees/ employers that contribute to welcoming and keeping tourists in the region.