Town’s being

IT may not be a routine campaign issue, but a sky awash with airborne mammals is uppermost in the minds of Charters Towers residents as the starting gun fires in the Queensland election campaign.

And the ongoing flying fox saga in the old goldmining town west of Townsville provides the perfect illustration of just how stark the differences can be in the political preoccupations of the Queensland regions and the southeast.

Health, housing stocks, mining, juvenile crime and the LNP opposition’s $33bn pledge to create a four-lane Bruce

Highway from Cairns to Gympie are all part of front-bar discussions among the people occupying the 17 electorates above the Tropic of Capricorn this week as the state prepares to elect its 57th parliament.

But in Charters Towers in the seat of Traeger, which covers more than 100,000sq km, Mayor Frank Beveridge is eyeing off the four-week campaign as a rare opportunity to get some media attention and strongarm the state government into allowing the removal of the more than 200,000 screeching flying foxes once and for all.

Mr Beveridge says he is well aware the Labor government’s green flank is holding up plans by his council to move the noisy visitors on to a state government-built “bat sanctuary’’ outside town.

“We can use sonar and noise and all sorts of things to move them on, and there are groups which do that very effectively,’’ the mayor said.

The Department of Environment and Science says the dispersal was all set to go ahead until the arrival of little red flying foxes with pups in tow sparked fears that the pups, which may be too heavy

to carry, would be left behind in the forced removal.

Mr Beveridge says the people of Charters Towers are beyond exasperation at a problem which they know perfectly well would have been remedied immediately had it arisen in a Brisbane suburb.

“You can watch how opposition to any action to clean up the flying fox problem here flares up on social media, sometimes in North America or some place overseas,’’ he says. “And then any plans we have to fix the problem are suddenly stopped.’’

Mr Beveridge can remember the days when the local gun club was tasked with discouraging the flying foxes, which defecate in water tanks and often wipe out backyard mango tree crops.

“But no one wants to shoot them these days, no one wants to harm them — we just want them out of our town.’’

However, Katter’s Australian Party boss Robbie Katter is the MP for Traeger, Mr Beveridge does not anticipate a cavalcade of Labor or LNP politicians crowding through Charters Towers streets in an attempt to woo voters with pledges of a remedy.

Frank Beveridge and the bats. Picture: Liam Kidston

AN 83-year-old woman has suffered two black eyes and bruises to her throat while at a Sydney hospital and her outraged family are desperate for answers.

The elderly woman, known as Mrs B, was at Hornsby Hospital in Sydney’s north for tests last week.

When her family picked her up on Thursday, they noticed the horrific injuries.

Radio 2GB’S Ray Hadley said Health Minister Brad Hazzard was “horrified” when told of the injuries.

“When I received the photos on Thursday night I immediately contacted the Health Minister, Brad Hazzard,” Hadley said yesterday. “To his credit, he was horrified.”

The woman has dementia and is unable to recall what happened at the facility.

Hadley said the family had been told the injuries were the result of two falls.

NSW police said the matter was not suspicious.

A Northern Sydney Local Health District spokesman said the patient suffered two falls and an investigation was under way.

“Hornsby Hospital made contact with the family of this patient last week to provide an unreserved apology and to offer further support,” he said.