The organising committee at Murrook Culture Centre planning the event. Photo: supplied. THE inaugural Worimi and Birrpai Youth Gathering is being hosted by the Goori-Bugg family later this week at Saltwater, near Old Bar. Activities will include weaving, grass skirt making, emu egg carving, canoe and gunya building, and a Goori song and dance. The […]

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 […]

THANKS to grants from the NSW State Government, 2DCR Radio Dungog 107.9FM is moving into new studios. In addition, the community station is now being heard clearly by four times the number of listeners, with a new aerial located on Coorei Hill. Reception has gone from being just in the town of Dungog and immediate […]

THE chance of large-scale flooding in a specific catchment area can increase by as much as 700 percent if widespread deforestation has occurred. That is the finding of a new paper by academics who analysed decades of flooding data from regions in Australia which frequently suffer forest fires. The loss of forest canopy has long […]

SOME regional Australians may get a reprieve from the housing crisis as councils are offered interest relief to build more drains, roads, and other infrastructure. Though many parts of regional Australia have ample residential land, it often isn’t ready for development due to a lack of funding and planning for critical infrastructure, a 2024 national […]

The car’s roof safely peeled down, with sharp edges protected against accidental contact. Photo: Thomas O’Keefe. SES and RFS volunteers safely extract the ‘casualty’ from the well-lit wreck. Photo: Thomas O’Keefe. SES Deputy Commander Greg Snape demonstrates how to safely shatter side-window glass using a special SES tool. Photo: Thomas O’Keefe. One of the many […]

The plan includes extra bus services across the Hunter. Photo: Transport for NSW. The area covered by the Hunter Strategic Regional Integrated Transport Plan. THE Hunter needs more public transport. That’s the key takeaway from the NSW Government’s just-released Hunter Strategic Regional Integrated Transport Plan, which sets out 49 short and medium-term actions across public […]

LIVING in one of Australia’s fastest growing regional areas, Anna Noon was watching in despair as nature made way for sprawling housing developments. “There was a lot of land clearing happening,” she says of her home at Lake Macquarie in the rapidly-expanding Hunter region. “I knew that was leading to habitat loss, species extinction and […]

NEW data released by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare shows that in the period 2023–24, more than 6000 children across NSW without a parent or guardian, sought help from a specialist homelessness service. More than 80 percent of these children did not receive support. In addition to those who are without guardianship and […]

AS bat season nears in the Hunter, health authorities are warning residents to take extra care and avoid all contact with flying foxes or microbats. A spike in sick and distressed bats arriving at wildlife hospitals across Northern NSW and Southern Queensland in recent weeks has prompted the alert. Historic monastery opens its doors Authorities […]