Blog Archives
Unique far northern wheelbarrow race raises substantial funds for charities
The Great Wheelbarrow Race, the iconic athletic event of the year hosted by Mareeba Shire Council, has attracted 250 competitors this year who tested their stamina over the 140 klm gruelling run to the historic mining town of Chillagoe.
The wheelbarrow symbolises miners who pushed their worldly belongings on heavy contraptions through shanty townships dotted with hundreds of mine shafts yielding copper, lead, silver and gold 120 years ago.
Thirty teams left Mareeba Friday morning accompanied by their support crews blessed by Mareeba’s renowned mild May weather and the thermometer hovering around mid-twenties.
The rules of the race stipulate an empty wheelbarrow be pushed along the road between Mareeba and Chillagoe with a maximum of ten team members participating in a relay system.
Substantial prizes are on offer ensuring a competitive spirit among the teams ranging in age from pensioners to high school students. In past events over its 22 year history many hundreds of thousands of dollars have been raised for numerous charities.
Covid took its toll on the event which saw a two year gap, leaving organisers unsure how it would recover, but 2022 generated 30 teams and it came back with a vengeance.
The Bourke Developmental Road route to Chillagoe travels through some beautiful green countryside, vibrant after a long wet season with fat cattle, abundant kangaroos and other wildlife feeding in paddocks along the way.
Seasonal creeks, streams and watercourses are still flowing through the granite hillsides and marble outbreaks, from which small mining operations produce some of the world class monumental marble found in buildings across the country and overseas.
The Wheelbarrow Race looks set to become a major northern event yet again after attracting a team from Nudgee College in Brisbane joining other regional runners from across the north.
Contact Mareeba Shire Council if you would like to create and enter a team to participate in next year’s event.
The country’s longest serving, outspoken federal politician the indefatigable Bob Katter asked for a ride to the mining fields but the girls said he was a handicap because all the other barrows were empty and he would probably talk too much. Bob was a miner and is a great supporter of the Atherton Tablelands and the Kennedy electorate which just re-elected him with an increased margin.
ALP instructs cops to back off black criminals
by staff reporters
The hunters are becoming the hunted in a shocking new escalation of Townsville’s youth crime crisis, Katter’s Australian Party Hinchinbrook (KAP) MP Nick Dametto has said.
Mr Dametto said reports of youth offenders pursuing, ramming and throwing bricks at police cars overnight had sickened him.
He said due to the Queensland Police Service’s strict anti-pursuit policy, it was likely the targeted officers had no choice but to retreat and leave the kid crims to continue on their rampage.
It was a shocking state of affairs that was causing community anger to boil over and vigilantism to fester, Mr Dametto warned.
“This would have to be a world first – a situation where 12 and 13 year old kids have so little respect, or fear, of the law that they are actually comfortable hunting down police officers,” he said.
“Someone is going to die, or be severely hurt, unless drastic actions are taken.
“I don’t want to see that in this community – not again.
“The current youth justice system, and the Palaszczuk Labor Government that has presided over this mess for the last six years, must accept responsibility.
Last week half a dozen murris from the war-torn Cape York community of Aurukun were airlifted by rescue chopper to Cairns Hospital after being shot with a cross-bow and hunting bows during yet another regular riot between five warring families. Not a word from their caring local member Cynthia!
“Stop it with the dodgy statistics and the tokenistic press conferences – people are not going to tolerate this for much longer.”
Mr Dametto said with Cleveland Detention Centre at capacity and its rotational door set-up repeatedly failing to deter recidivist offenders, the situation in the North was desperate.
He, on behalf of the KAP, called urgently for:
- Relocation Sentencing to be trialled as an alternative to detention for recidivist youth offenders
- An innovative strategy that allows for the effective pursuit and disabling of stolen vehicles and ensures public and officer safety.
“Just waiting for these kids to get bored with their games or run out of fuel is not an effective response to these kinds of situations,” Mr Dametto said.
The biggest disappointment in the family is not me
The Labor Member for Cook, Cynthia Lui has spent months of her time putting together legislation to enshrine Torres Strait Islander adoption tradition into law while motorists are being killed on the neglected streets of the largest town in her electorate.
Lui, from Yam Island in the Torres Strait, controversially moved her office from Mareeba, out of the electorate to Cairns earlier this year, leaving the lower half of Cook without representation.
Cook MLA Cynthia Lui has dumped 22,000 constituents from the bottom half of her electorate
She said constituents from the Torres Strait found it hard to contact her in Mareeba, one hour’s drive from Cairns.
She relocated the office to the Commonwealth Centre in Cairns to enable a handful of Torres Strait constituents to meet with her after arriving on subsidised flights from Horn Island.
Ms Lui has dumped the 22,000 residents of Mareeba and Douglas Shires leaving them without state representation.
A spokesman for the largest traditional owner group in the Torres Strait told Cairnsnews the child-rearing practices bill introduced by Ms Lui on Thursday into State Parliament was actually related to an Aboriginal custom and not that of Torres Strait Islanders.
Ms Lui has had an electorate office on Thursday Island in the Torres Strait ever since she was elected.
Meanwhile a female motorcyclist was killed in an accident on congested Byrnes Street in Mareeba on Tuesday when a four wheel drive vehicle drove into the rear of her stationary motorcycle while trying to turn into a service station.
Mareeba has been suffering extreme traffic congestion as thousands of tourist vehicles converged on the arterial main street bottleneck this week, heading north after Covid restrictions were lifted.
The Tablelands’ first set of traffic lights, recently erected at a major intersection in the CBD have caused chaos with local traffic forming long queues during peak hours.
Successive State Governments have refused to construct a heavy vehicle, main street bypass, gazetted for 35 years, to divert hundreds of large trucks driving through the CBD each week while parked cars and converging traffic play Russian roulette with smelly semi-trailers full of Cairns rubbish or others carrying dangerous goods.
A heavy vehicle bypass would have enabled The Main Roads Department to leave the large roundabout intact. The Labor government took the soft option of installing lights for $3.5 million instead of building a more expensive bypass.
Federal Member Bob Katter last week opened an office in Mareeba. He says his staff will help to fill the electoral void left by Ms Lui.
Mr Katter said he was “moving heaven and earth” to get funding for the construction of a heavy vehicle bypass, stipulating the work should go only to local contractors.
Mareeba comes of age with a massive traffic jam
Local News
Today the farming town of Mareeba, to the west of Cairns with a population of 15,000, came of age. The first permanent traffic lights ever seen on the Atherton Tablelands were turned on this afternoon but the traffic outcome was not what The Main Roads Department had expected.
Costing $3.47 million, the new lights at the Byrnes and Rankin Street intersection were predicted to improve safety for motorists, pedestrians and cyclists.
A large traffic jam, an unusual sight in Mareeba, 60 klms west of Cairns was caused by new traffic lights
Instead a traffic jam of Rodeo Procession proportion saw cars and trucks backed up for more than one kilometre along the main thoroughfare of Byrnes Street for more than an hour, coinciding with school departures at 3pm.
Mareeba Shire Council has had almost no involvement with the construction of the lights and the new intersection as Byrnes St is the responsibility of TMR.
Residents and business proprietors have questioned why traffic lights replaced a large roundabout when a gazetted but unmade vehicle bypass skirts the CBD which would alleviate the extremely high volume of traffic movements along Byrnes Street.
Katters Australian Party spokesman for FNQ Alan Webb said the bypass should have been constructed a decade ago removing the need for traffic lights and taking large trucks out of the main street.
“These single semitrailers carrying Cairns garbage, soon cane trucks and heavy trucks traveling to the west and north every day are an accident waiting to happen,” Mr Webb said.
“I know (Member for Kennedy) Bob Katter has been in talks with TMR in Cairns and federal authorities in Canberra about funding for the bypass but neither the state government nor the federal government want to know about it.”
New traffic lights caused a massive traffic jam more than one klm long in Mareeba. According to Katters Australian Party, a heavy vehicle bypass would be a better option said spokesman Alan Webb.
Mareeba mother, Ann-Marie Keating was quite worried when it took the school bus an extra 40 minutes to go past the gate to their small farm, 6 klms from town.
“I had picked up the kids from school because of the traffic and it took me over 40 minutes to get home instead of 15 and the bus was just behind me,” Ms Keating said.
“On Monday I don’t know if the bus will come early to get the kids to school on time. The kids will have to get up early to make it then if it is 40 minutes late again it will be a long day for them.
“It could be a very long day on the bus for kids from further out.
“There were temporary traffic lights set up at Centenary Park and Anzac Avenue intersection that made the congestion worse than Cairns.”
Member for Cook Cynthia Lui has been contacted for comment.
Member for Cook rattles ALP members by shifting office
The Member for Cook, Cynthia Lui, has ended speculation she plans to relocate her Mareeba electorate office to Cairns.
In a media release Ms Lui confirmed she will shift the office to Cairns but had not taken the decision lightly.
ALP sources reveal a condition of endorsement for Cynthia Lui, the Member for Cook, was to keep open an electorate office in Mareeba. Labor members are incensed she has broken this promise and her future in the Labor Party looked ‘bleak’, a source said.
“This year, I have been out talking and listening to the people of Cook and one issue that was raised time and time again was having an office space that is readily accessible to everyone,” Ms Lui said.
“I acknowledge the view that Cairns is not in the Cook electorate, it is however, the most central location for the large number of constituents who live in the Cook electorate.
“Historically the Cook electorate office has been in Cairns. The move to Mareeba was a decision made during the Campbell Newman Government.
“I will still continue to work hard for the people of Mareeba by visiting regularly and holding mobile offices.”
Speculation has been mounting for several weeks among Mareeba Labor Party members that Ms Lui had asked the Speaker of Parliament, Curtis Pitt to relocate the Post Office Arcade office to Cairns.
A spokesman for the Speaker said it was up to each Member to decide the location of their electorate office and “it would be inappropriate to comment any further.”
Mareeba ALP member Anne-Marie Keating said she was “very disappointed” that Ms Lui had decided to “disenfranchise Mareeba residents, leaving them no representation.
“Pensioners and indigenous people won’t be able to get help with government agencies because the office is in Cairns and trying to sort out issues over the phone will be impossible,” Ms Keating said.
“Just because Ms Lui and her staff live in Cairns is not an excuse to move the office. She promised not to shift the office at the pre-selection meeting and this was one of the conditions on which she was nominated as a candidate.”
Ms Lui also has an office on Thursday Island.
Crocodile safari hunting legislation coming to Qld
Katters Australia Party will be conducting a series of public meetings beginning Wednesday April 12, at Mareeba, Innisfail and Port Douglas to gauge support for crocodile egg removal and safari hunting legislation to be introduced into the Queensland parliament.
Further meetings will be held at Mossman and Innisfail where salt water crocodiles have attacked humans or animals and menaced tourists over the past few months.
Where: Mareeba Bowls Club, Anzac Avenue at 1.30 to 2.30pm, Wednesday April 12.
Innisfail Senior Citizens Hall, Owen St, Innisfail, 5.30 to 7.30pm, Wednesday April 12
Port Douglas Community Hall, Thursday, 9.30 to 11.30am, Thursday April 13
Bob Katter, Robbie Katter Member for Mt Isa and Shane Knuth Member for Dalrymple will be in attendance.
Union to push for determined Mareeba meat workers
A determined display of solidarity among a large number of Mareeba residents who want jobs at the local Steggles chicken factory was the outcome of a packed public meeting on Monday night.
More than 160 previous and prospective employees demanded they be employed in preference to the large number of 417 Holiday Visa and 457 Temporary Work (Skilled) workers employed at the factory.
Organised by the Australian Meat Industry Employees Union Assistant Secretary Ian McLauchlan and Mareeba AMIEU delegate Fred Brunjes the rally was addressed by the General Secretary of the Queensland Council of Unions, Ros McLennan.
Steggles, owned by Sydney company Baiada, was accused by workers of employing temporary visa workers in preference to locals.
Mr McLauchlan told the meeting that the large roll-up at the racecourse venue was ample proof Mareeba people wanted to work.
More than 50 potential employees lined up to fill out Steggles work application forms which would be handed to the company’s HR department at the Mareeba plant.
Solidarity among Mareeba workers demanding an end to 457 visa workers taking their jobs at the local Steggles chicken abattoir. front: Ros McLennan, Secretary Qld Council of Unions; Ian McLauchlan ,Assistant Secretary AMIEU; Fred Brunjes, local AMIEU delegate; Member for Cook, Billy Gordon
“We are fair dinkum, we want to work but local people who hand in applications at the security gate say the forms never make it to the office,” Mr McLauchlan claimed.
“Somehow they get lost between the gate and the HR department.”
The Member for Kennedy, Bob Katter said he has been long opposed to the 200,000 overseas workers arriving in Australia every year on 457 visas.
“‘They are taking our jobs and undermining our pay and conditions,” Mr Katter said, apologising for not attending, due to commitments in Parliament.
Addressing the Steggles situation, he asked: “Who will you take as a worker, the bloke overseas used to working for $5 a day and 60 hour week and has a deportation order at your discretion?; or would you take an Australian who you have to pay a fair days pay for a fair days work?”
Member for Cook Billy Gordon told the meeting he remembered the problems of getting a job when he was a young man growing up in the Mareeba area.
“I picked mangoes at local farms and did other farm jobs years ago working around the area and being a young Blackfella in those days it was hard to get work when I was just out of school,” Mr Gordon said.
“It inspires me at the turnout here tonight with people standing up for families.
“There is 25 per cent youth unemployment here and it irks me there are companies out there not prepared to do the right thing by the community.”
Mr McLauchlan said Steggles job application forms were available at Mr Gordon’s office and urged applicants to fill them out then hand them to AMIEU delegate Fred Brunjes.
Mareeba Shire Council had been invited to the meeting, but Mr McLauchlan said he was unaware of any representatives in attendance.
He said Baiada senior management had agreed to meet with the union in Brisbane on Thursday to sort out the issues.
Cairns News 