Twelve Northern Rivers residents are celebrating the completion of a groundbreaking program designed to build essential skills and unlock employment pathways for women in civil construction.

Beyond the froth and bubble of the daily political soap opera, there are some major threats confronting Australia and its government.

Our family has been trying to give up plastic. And I’m not just talking single-use straws or takeaway cups or bottled water. Like most people we did that years ago. I’m talking about all the other plastic that we ingest either directly or through chemical leaching. In the period of time since I was a child, to a child born now, the fossil fuel industry has become implicated in nearly every part of our daily routine.

Kyogle heavyweight, Athol McQueen, who represented Australia at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, and famously floored a then-unknown Joe Frazier,...