Potholes seem to be appearing like mushrooms overnight as the rains keep falling.

It’s a topic that has dominated our conversations for the past couple of months, so many of us have whinged about it, letters have been written, and social media even has dedicated pages for potholes.

Hopefully there will be some improvement with the NSW Government’s announced of a $50 million investment to help regional and rural councils fix the increasing number of potholes brought on by this year’s extreme wet weather.

Minister for Regional Transport and Roads Sam Farraway said the funding was available to help every regional council across the state to carry out emergency repairs and would fix roughly more than 420,000 potholes on their roads.

“NSW has had more than its fair share of natural disasters and extreme weather and it’s promising to see that more than 135,000 potholes have been repaired on State roads in regional NSW since February.”

However, plenty more potholes still require attention, particularly on council-managed roads, which is why our government is putting more money on the table for councils to repair potholes on the roads regional communities use every day.

“This additional support will help ease the pressure local councils are facing and boost the resources they can draw upon to repair their most damaged roads to improve safety and reduce wear and tear on vehicles.”

Funding under the Fixing Local Roads Pothole Repair Round is available to 95 regional councils and authorities to help repair potholes on regional and local roads. Work must be completed by 1st January 2024.

Applications for funding are open for two weeks with funding announced in November so councils can begin work as soon as possible.

CatholicCare Wilcannia-Forbes Aboriginal financial counsellor intern Shardai Charters, and colleagues (second right) Jacqueline Coe and (right) Kyle Nixon-Croaker complete the training led by Jordy Dwyer from First Nations Foundation (second left) to become My Money Dream mentors.

Aboriginal people in western NSW seeking to build up their financial well-being and security need not do it alone. 

CatholicCare Wilcannia-Forbes (CCWF) is ready to help on the ground, a number of its team members recently completing training with First Nations Foundation to become My Money Dream mentors. 

My Money Dream is an education program created by First Nations people, for First Nations people, to teach skills for financial security and future prosperity. 

CCWF provides free access to My Money Dream, and now with more CCWF team members across western NSW trained as mentors, it can further assist community members. 

CCWF team members based at Dubbo, Forbes, Narromine, Orange, Bourke, Broken Hill and Condobolin took part in the training on 6th September at Dubbo. 

“We are thrilled to partner with First Nations Foundation to become My Money Dream mentors, supporting us to bolster financial literacy in a culturally safe format,” CatholicCare Wilcannia-Forbes Financial Stability portfolio manager Louise Cormie said. 

“Enhanced financial literacy helps everyone. First Nations people were only permitted to enter our country’s economy in the 1970s. 

“We can take steps to reduce this financial well-being deficit, by building confidence in managing money and for a secure financial future.” 

CCWF notes a 2019 study by First Nations Foundation, in partnership with the Centre for Social Impact and NAB, that underscores the need. It found 48 per cent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians were living in financial stress. 

CCWF provides free access to My Money Dream education via all formats – online, self-learn, or in-person with a mentor for individuals and groups. To sign up or for further information call 1800 067 067 or email lcormie@ccwf.org.au 

The Parkes Public School Choir at the Sydney Opera House for their performance in the Festival of Choral Music last Tuesday.

Hundreds of children’s voices filled the concert hall at the Sydney Opera House last week and 19 Parkes students were part of it. 

The Parkes Public School Choir joined more than 700 students from public schools across NSW for the return of the Festival of Choral Music after the annual event went silent for two years during COVID. 

It has been a long build-up making the occasion very exciting and special for the Year 3 to 6 students. The Parkes Public choir has successfully auditioned for the festival since 2015. 

“The last time we auditioned was in 2019 for the 2020 event,” said choir leader Colleen Leonard. “Some of the choir members were in Year 3 at the time and are now in Year 6.” 

The Australis concert last Tuesday required a lot of hard work from the choir members having to learn a repertoire of 11 songs. “We had two training sessions per week from term one this year – one early morning and one over lunchtime,” said Colleen. 

She said it was hard to really prepare the students for the occasion, but they were enchanted and so excited to be part of the great atmosphere. “It is quite awe-inspiring for them to be there with hundreds of other students and such a large audience.” She said every participating school’s name was called out and the audience stood up at the end calling for an encore. 

For Colleen the experience is also very rewarding. “It is such an enjoyable thing to do and a real privilege to access the excellent professional training that is part of the program.” She said every time had been special and exciting. “To be there singing with the students is just a great thing to do.” 

She thanked her fellow teacher Allison Wallace and the six parents who accompanied the group to Sydney. 

By Maggi Barnard 

NSW Farmers President Xavier Martin says while the first Labor budget contains promising announcements, rural communities will be “bitterly disappointed”. 

“Critical drought-proofing efforts such as Dungowan and Wyangala dams have been ‘deferred’, and the likelihood of more water buybacks means there will be less water for agriculture once the rain stops. 

“Rural communities are already looking at major economic losses as a result of this widespread flooding, the last thing they need is even less certainty into the future.” 

Xavier said investments into research and development to help lower emissions from agriculture was a positive move, as were efforts to improve education and training amid a major worker shortage. 

The state’s peak business organisation, Business NSW, acknowledged the government’s commitment to delivering on its commitments and putting fiscal repair at the heart of a budget which forecasts a challenging outlook for businesses already grappling with labour shortages, higher prices and global disruption. 

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has announced a projected deficit of $36.9 billion for the 2022/23 financial year, an improvement of $41.1 billion. 

“In a challenging economic environment, there is no doubt this budget makes the hard decisions to kick off the process of getting us back in the black,” said Business NSW, Regional Director – Western NSW, Vicki Seccombe. 

“With energy prices forecast to skyrocket next year, we welcome a $62.6 million boost for an energy efficiency grants program and a commitment to establish a $20 billion fund for energy transmission.