Back-to-back sitting weeks after spending a week on the road

After a week in Parliament earlier in May, I spent last week on the road, which took me out to Broken Hill, Silverton, White Cliffs, Wilcannia and Cobar, this week I am back in NSW Parliament for the first of two back-to-back sitting weeks.

Archibald winner’s Wee Waa connections

During the previous sitting weeks, I was pleased to hear the news that Julie Fragar, who went to Wee Waa High School, was the winner of the Archibald Prize with her work Flagship Mother Multiverse (Justene) – a portrait of her friend, fellow artist and university colleague Justene Williams.

Although Julie and her family were originally from Gosford they moved to Wee Waa when Julie was young, and her parents still live there.

She still has strong connections to the Barwon town and credits her time there as having an influence on her art.

Some of her formative studies in art were at Wee Waa High, under art teacher Jacqui Harrison. She graduated in 1994 and went on to become a lecturer at the Queensland College of Art, Griffith University.

Having already been a finalist in the Archibald prize three times, Julie has well and truly made her mark in the art world, with her paintings hanging in galleries across the country.

I congratulate her on her win and wish her many more successes in the future.

Structured approach to drought

Barwon is such a huge electorate that it is possible for some parts to be experiencing flooding while some parts are drying. It can be tempting to forget about the potential for drought when there seems to be so much water around.

But now is the best time to think about how we would approach another drought, before we go through the pain and chaos that marked the last one. There has been a lot of work done since then, but we haven’t come up with a definite plan or a structured approach to drought.

We need to adopt definitions for types of droughts, create thresholds for identifying when we are going into drought, and for when assistance needs to kick in.

Then we need to do the same thing when we are coming out of a drought, to help rebuild and recover from the drought, getting agriculture back on its feet as soon as possible.

Recently in Parliament I delivered a Notice of Motion asking the state government to work with the federal government on creating a plan for going into another drought and coming out of it.

Tourism in Barwon

There has been a lot happening in the tourism sphere in Barwon over the last few years, which has been great for the local economy. In the last sitting week, I gave a private members statement about Tourism in the electorate.

Tourism plays an important role in the life of most towns, providing an alternative revenue stream to primary production or mining.

It also gives regional, rural and remote communities a chance to show what they have to offer, to give people a taste of bush hospitality and it can even help to bring more people to live in country towns.

Back in 2020, when people came out of lockdown in NSW, they were told they could travel interstate or overseas.

Thousands headed west, many bought caravans or campers. Many towns did their best year ever of tourist trade in just a few short months, injecting money into communities coming out of drought, and enticing many people to move to regional areas.

Since then, there have been great things going on, with new attractions and events being created, and more either in the planning stages or on their way to becoming a reality.