Hervey Bay Gossip

It’s sad to note the passing of Dick Elmer who died in Hervey Bay Hospital yesterday morning after a long battle with cancer.

Thanks to those crazy television ads for his furniture store Dick was probably the best-known person on the Fraser Coast

Parts of Tiaro Shire were drought declared today and that now means that 62.29% of the land area of Queensland are now officially drought declared.

… ripe pickings for carpet baggers and snake oil salesmen in Hervey Bay

If you’re a small business owner here in Hervey Bay and you’re thinking of launching your business onto the Internet - whether to sell online or just have a marketing presence online - be very wary.

As web designers here in Hervey Bay we’ve seen some interesting cases of other small businesses being sold on expensive websites that are never going to achieve what the small business had hoped for.

We’ve also seen some other disturbing situations arise and control of your domain name is one of them. It’s important that you have complete control of your domain name yourself and if you don’t know how to do that then How to Protect Your Domain Name will provide you with all the information you need to know.

New marine laws will ensure boaties are more accountable for any damage they cause to our waterways.

Transport and Main Roads Minister, Paul Lucas, said today that changes to legislation now means boat owners have new insurance requirements.

“Every year the State Government invests $7.2m to ensure we’re able to react quickly and efficiently to marine pollution,” Mr Lucas said.

“But the current laws make it difficult to recover costs from evasive marine polluters - these changes will hold them more accountable for the clean-up.”

Mr Lucas said the new legislation to the Transport Operation Act now requires all recreational and commercial boats over 15 metres long to have insurance.

Mr Lucas said the specific insurance requirements now are:

- Recreational ships more than 15 metres but less than 35 metres - $250,000 for pollution clean-up; and $10 million for salvage or removal if the ship is abandoned or wrecked;

- Commercial ships more than 15 metres but less than 35 metres - $500,000 for pollution clean-up; and $10 million for salvage or removal and;

- Any ship more than 35 metres - $10 million for both pollution clean-up and salvage or removal costs.

Mr Lucas said Maritime Safety Queensland would phase in the new requirements over 12 months to give owners time to organise the appropriate insurance cover.

“We are trying to make the introduction of these regulations as smooth as possible.”

“We will be writing to all boat owners with vessels over 15 metres to advise them of the changes.”

“The bottom line though, is that boaties have a responsibility to do the right thing on the water and ensure in the event of something going wrong they’re adequately covered to deal with it.”

Mr Lucas said Queensland Transport will enforce the changes through ensuring newly registered vessels have adequate insurance cover

“This will further be imposed with enforcement officers patrolling the water checking for compliance to the changes once they are phased in.

Maritime Safety Queensland will be contacting owners of eligible ships in the next few weeks to advise them of the new requirements. Further information can be found on Maritime Safety Queensland’s website at www.msq.qld.gov.au.

The Bureau of Meteorology announced today that the outlook for the period June to August suggests that we could experience a warmer winter than usual this year.

If you were out and about at 5am in Hervey Bay this morning you might have thought the Bureau had its wires crossed again.

You can read the Bureau’s outlook here

Back in March there were some doubts about the future of Neighbourhood Watch and it was struggling to survive in at least one area in Hervey Bay. But now things are beginning to look up.

The struggling Neighbourhood Watch group in Kawungan is surviving and Neighbourhood Watch in Queensland has a new sponsor.

Minister for Police Judy Spence announced today that the Real Estate Institute of Queensland has agreed to sponsor the program for the next three years.

“When long-time sponsor CGU announced earlier this year it is moving on to other ventures, the Queensland government put out the call for a new organisation to come on board,” Ms Spence said.

“REIQ has eagerly answered that call, and will generously provide $50, 000 in sponsorship per year.

“In addition to this important funding, the REIQ will provide assistance to Neighbourhood Watch with media promotion, branding, education and training.

“This is great news for a very important program that has helped promote community policing for two decades.”

Ms Spence said the REIQ is the peak professional association for the real estate industry and supports real estate agents ensuring a professional service to the public.

“It is great to see a Queensland organisation showing such strong support for local community based initiatives,” Ms Spence said.

“I have no doubt this is the beginning of a fruitful partnership for all parties involved.”

For people outside Hervey Bay it might be a little hard to understand that, although this is quite a developed urban area, there’s a lot of interesting wildlife to see in our backyards here.

Last September I wrote about almost stepping on a snake in our back yard - it was a heart starter I didn’t need - and today this beautiful specimen was sitting on the clothes line next door:

It’s certainly one of the biggest kookaburras we’ve seen for a while.

And then there are the bats - thousands and thousands of them and this is what the sky often looks like at sunset here in Hervey Bay

There’s no doubt Hervey Bay is a great place to live if you like wildlife (but maybe I’ll pass on the snakes)

The 2008 Olympic Games are just around the corner and we’re beginning to see an increase in news and stories associated with those Olympics.

While most of us can read stories about Chinese working conditions and pollution and move on without seeing China in too negative a light there is one story that’s beginning to emerge that will impact on your possibly positive view of China. As that story emerges you will begin to see China in a totally different … and very negative light.

You see China is heavily involved with Sudan - it’s where they are sourcing their oil needs - and it’s also where the Sudanese government are involved in the genocide of the people trapped in Darfur. As the Olympic Games come closer you will hear more and more about China and Sudan and you will see the label - the Genocide Olympics - gain traction.

You might think that China is too powerful to be bothered by a title like that but the Olympics are big business and much of that business comes through sponsorship from companies that don’t want to be associated with anything that people associate with genocide.

That opens up a whole range of problems for China that not even a powerful country like China would want to try and overcome.

So expect to see more references to the Genocide Olympics in the months ahead  and to gain further insight into the problems this brings for China read ‘Did the “Genocide Olympics” Influence China?‘ - it will really open your eyes to what the Olympic Games are all about. 

Financially distressed councils have been named

Premier Peter Beattie and Local Government Minister Andrew Fraser today released a list of Councils outlined in the Queensland Treasury Corporation’s (QTC) advice to the government, naming those which fall into the 43 per cent found to be either “weak”, “very weak” or “financially distressed”.

The statewide Financial Sustainability Review of Local Governments in Queensland report by the QTC assessed 94 Queensland councils involved in the former voluntary Size, Shape and Sustainability review.

At the time the Government called for all Councils to disclose their financial status to their communities.

Releasing the full list of Councils involved in the review, Mr Beattie today urged each of them to make the actual contents of each report public.

“Following the Government’s announcement about Local Government Reform in April the Minister for Local Government wrote to all mayors urging them to make their individual QTC review assessments publicly available on their websites as soon as possible.

“Some Councils have complied, others have not.

“Ratepayers across Queensland deserve transparency and to know that Local Government Reform aims to deliver better services for all communities.”

Mr Fraser said reform needed to happen and the government was determined to achieve reform.

An independent report by PricewaterhouseCoopers, commissioned by the Australian Local Government Association, found that without reform between 25 and 40 per cent of local governments may not be sustainable across Australia.

“The specific Queensland advice tabled previously shows that figure to be 43%,” Mr Fraser said.

The Queensland Auditor General’s annual report into the finances of Councils for 2005-06 and that report showed 59 Queensland Councils had audit issues in the moderate or high risk categories.

The report also showed that long term viability remains a significant issue for the local government sector with an aggregate deficit of $290 million for 68 Councils in the period.
“Without reform we face a situation where many local governments will collapse under the weight of mounting pressure,” Mr Fraser said.

Councils named in the report in the Wide Bay area include Maryborough and Bundaberg in the Moderate category and Tiaro, Kilkivan and Woocoo in the Weak category.

We had to do the round trip from Hervey Bay to Brisbane and back again yesterday, here are some things we noticed.

After the recent rain here in Hervey Bay it might be hard to think that we’re in the middle of drought until you pass the lagoon at Dundathu and see that it’s totally dry.   

South of Tiaro there’s not much grass in the paddocks. Some hillsides are so short of grass there’ll be some erosion when it finally rains.   

 Unfortunately there are still a lot of drivers out there who can’t find their accelerator till they reach a passing lane and they lose it again as soon as the passing lane has ended   

Petrol was cheaper in Hervey Bay than in Brisbane but petrol at the small stations between Maryborough and Gympie was much cheaper than either Hervey Bay or Brisbane   

There were some slight delays due to roadworks in Gympie but there were longer delays due to roadwork at the start of the M1 and on the way back to Hervey Bay the southbound lane was banked up in one spot for about 4kms   

After only three hours in Brisbane we couldn’t wait to get back to Hervey Bay.