This morning Ballina Shire Council will hear a motion from Cr Steve McCarthy to remove the native macaranga tree from the list of approved species for planting by Ballina Council and local community groups.

This year is Nimbins 32nd annual MardiGrass and you’d reckon by now ‘weed’ be left alone. The same helicopter raids, the disgusting, and completely unfair, saliva testing of drivers, and we’re still not allowed to grow our own plants. We can all access legal buds via a doctor, most of it imported from Canada, but we can’t grow our own. There’s something very wrong there.

Sex Crimes Squad detectives have charged a Coffs Harbour man for alleged online grooming offences under Strike Force Trawler.

The youth of Kyogle were asked what their number one priority was and they said it was ‘is looking after the health of the river and they want to be involved in healing it’.

There is something strange going on with youth crime in rural and regional Australia. Normally, I treat hysterical rising delinquency claims with a pinch of salt – explicable by an increase in police numbers, or a headline-chasing tabloid, or a right-wing politician.