Right call will help bush
FEDERAL Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has announced recipients of his mobile phone black spot program.
Rural North Queensland is a winner.
It is exciting news and something this newspaper has been campaigning on for the last 10 years. As it stands now you can drive from Townsville to Georgetown via Greenvale, Lynd Junction, Einasleigh and Forsayth and not get back into the network until you reach Georgetown six hours later.
The first $ 100 million stage of the program will be rolled out soon and some areas listed for Round 1 should be in operation before the end of the year.
Greenvale and Forsayth are on the list.
Others areas to come on stream in Round 1 are: the Barkly Highway between Mount Isa and Camooweal; the Barkly Highway between Mount Isa and Cloncurry; Abergowrie up on the Herbert River outside Ingham; the Bowen Development Rd between Bowen and Collinsville; Dalbeg up there on the Burdekin River inland from Ayr; Gregory Downs south of Burketown; the Gulf Development Rd between Georgetown and Croydon; the Landsborough Highway between Winton and Cloncurry; Long Pocket outside Ingham. McKinlay in Crocodile Dundee Country and Torrens Creek.
All of this will do so much for tourism and industry not to mention health and safety out in these remote areas.
The implementation of phone service in these areas represents a giant step forward in development in the northern inland.
If you missed out get your submission in for the $ 60 million second round. Bush gets priority AND it is good to see that for once the bush gained preference over some black spot pockets in coastal areas.
There are places close to Townsville, for example, that don’t get network.
In most of these areas, people only have to drive a kilometre or two and get service.
There is not one of these areas named in Round 1 that wasn’t screaming out for mobile.
Malcolm Turnbull has done a great thing for inland North Queensland. Rugby truth hurts WE had the difference between soccer and rugby union explained to us by a 13- yearold Townsville Grammar footballer, a bush boarder, we had picked up at school.
The conversation was along the lines of rugby union is a thug’s game played by gentleman and rugby league is a gentleman’s game played by thugs.
Brayden, a rugby union player, piped up and said “what about the difference between rugby union and soccer?”
“Well,” he said, “in soccer you pretend to be hurt for 90 minutes and in rugby union you pretend not to be hurt for 80 minutes.”
About sums it up, don’t you think? Muddying the rules MATE from out of town was down the other day, looking for a pair of size 13 steel- cap boots. He had to go to three workwear shops before he found one that stocked this larger size.
For the record, the shop where he struck gold was Totally Workwear on Hugh St. Speaking of work boots, the same bloke says there are some work sites that are talking about banning the wearing of elastic- sided steelcap boots.
Something to do with them pulling off in muddy conditions. He reckons that where he is from no one knows anything about this strange phenomenon called “mud”. Tree clearing go slow SOME landholders with tree clearing applications pending with the State Government are noticing that they are getting the “go slow” treatment. Could this mean that the Government is moving to bring tree clearing to a standstill? Pessimistic optimism HAVE you noticed the slide from optimism to pessimism when it comes to Adani’s Carmichael mine?
Three to four months ago everyone was feeling pretty good that the $ 16 billion mine would proceed.
“The court cases are wearing the company down,” one coal town identity told me.
But, then again, there is the general belief that this is a project of national significance and that somewhere along the line the government — Federal, if not State — will step in and clear the decks for it to happen. Optimism prevails. Sight for sore eyes SIGNAGE for gyms and workout classes were starting to clog up every tree, road sign and spare bit of rock face on Castle Hill. Overnight they seem to have vanished. A good thing too as they were an eyesore. Perhaps council might take down the signs on the Goat Track wooden bridges warning about them being slippery after being painted.