While the deputy PM sees relocation to rural areas as a solution to poor housing affordability in capital cities, the risks are high without government support for infrastructure and planning.
Land grab to take farms for Singapore Army training base
Susan Chenery
A government proposal to compulsorily acquire farmland outside Townsville, to be leased to the Singapore Army for a training base, has local graziers gearing up for a fight.
As coal seam gas is promoted as essential to Australia’s future energy needs, there is insufficient research being funded on the contribution to climate change of ‘fugitive emissions’ from gas mining.
The initial findings of a royal commission into the merits of South Australia becoming a hub for uranium mining and waste storage raised as many questions as they answered.
Migrating bat colonies wreak havoc in northern NSW
Susan Chenery
NSW Northern Rivers residents are losing sleep as their towns succumb to chattering, defecating flying foxes. But rather than moving on the colonies, is the better answer to adapt to their existence?
As debate rages about approval of the Shenhua coalmine on the Liverpool Plains, the latest mine expansion in the Hunter Valley has come up against an elderly farmer not inclined to make way.
It’s the biggest investment to secure a town’s water supply in the state’s history: half a billion dollars for Broken Hill and the parched far west of NSW. But as the dry spell deepens, the government will struggle delivering it.
Generational farmers are preparing to stand their ground as BHP and China Shenhua Energy seek to mine coal in some of the nation’s richest agricultural land, on the NSW Liverpool Plains.