RING OF HOPE
INLAND North Queensland’s firstever irrigation dam near Hughenden is looking even more of a “goer” with the election of Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
The 500,000 megalitre Fairlight Creek Dam has had the stamp of approval from the PM ever since he popped up from nowhere in the midst of the Turnbull-dutton dogfight and snatched the top job. Once installed as PM he promised to put $180 million towards the $350 million project. And now he has been back on the phone to check the dam is still a goer. A PM ringing up to check if a water project in northwest Queensland is still on the boil? That doesn’t happen every day. President of the Hughenden Irrigation Project Inc Shane Mccarthy told me this week that the first thing the PM did this year was visit the Cloncurry and Julia Creek areas devastated by flooding.
“The second thing he did was to phone to see how we were going with the dam project,” he said.
“It has become his pet project. We are just glad he won the May election because it means he is still there to support the dam. We feel as though the Federal Government is really behind the dam,” Shane said. The dam when it is built will flood Torver Valley Station owned by Allan and Mary Paine. The Paines have lived on the station for the 55 years of their married life. Allan, though, has lived on the station since he was 10. You might assume that Allan and Mary would be reluctant to leave but you’d be wrong. They will be happy to pack up and leave because they see the dam that will irrigate 10,000ha as being the trigger for developments at Hughenden that will send a signal right across North Australia’s Dry Tropics that just about anything can happen, and succeed, if you just add water.
Shane told me there is interest in the project from farmers all over Australia. He said the most interest is coming from MurrayDarling farmers struggling to make a living from their depleted rivers. He said dealer representatives from a major farm machinery manufacturer have already visited the area with interested farmers in tow. When it happens, it will be the first major irrigation project to bear fruit in inland North Queensland.
Vegie smarts in toilet
BOUGHT some silverbeet in the supermarket this week. The girl at the checkout picked it up, looked at it, turned it around, looked at it again before asking “can you tell me what this is?”
A woman in the queue whispered, “I bet she can tell you every type of pizza at Dominoes”. This reminded me of the time I asked the young bloke stacking the vegie shelf in Woolies if he had any leeks. A blank look came over his face. He appeared to be struck dumb. “Leeks,” I repeated. “Have you got any leeks?” With a look of total bewilderment, he asked me if I wanted to use the toilet. “No, I want a leek,” I repeated. “You want to use the toilet?” he asked, politely.
“No, I want a leek,” I said again. On it went … “leek”, “toilet”, “leek”, “toilet …” It was ages before I was able to get through to him that I didn’t want to use the bloody toilet and that leeks were a vegetable. After all of that he went and checked. No, he didn’t have any.
Hut removals shame
THE State Government has given hut owners along Ingham’s Palm and Crystal creeks until September 30 to tear down and remove their timber and iron structures.
Hut owner Ralph Poppi says 14 huts are involved. I visited Eric and Frank Poppi in their Palm Creek hut back in 2011. They told me then that some huts have been there 90 years. The State Government has a fight on its hands. These huts and others like them up and down the coast have become symbols of a lost way of life. These simple constructions of corrugated iron, bush hardwood and recycled steel are reminders of a time preceding political correctness and workplace health and safety.
This was a time when Australians could go out and camp in the bush without being told “how high to jump” by government regulators in Brisbane. These huts do no harm and are so important to the recreational lifestyle of so many families. Destroy these huts and you destroy the happy memories of generations of people who learnt as very young boys and girls to catch fish and crabs and to cook them over