In Michelle Anderson’s Kanpala, circles of red, orange and yellow bring a place in Western Australia’s Spinifex Country into view. It’s a place she returns to often in paint: Kanpa, the Country where her grandmother was born.

It is the age-old story – the lack of public transport across the Northern Rivers that leads to high car ownership and a failure of local and regional public transport infrastructure and use.

A major effort to rehabilitate almost 30 kilometres of flood-affected riverbanks across NSW has received international recognition, with Local Land Services and the Soil Conservation Service winning this year’s International Erosion Control Association Australasia (IECA Australasia) Environmental Excellence Award.

Construction has begun on an eight-lane athletics track at Southern Cross University’s Lismore campus, giving Northern Rivers schools and clubs a competition-standard venue closer to home when it opens in mid-2027.