Community & Business
12 January, 2023
Year in Review - May and June
YEAR IN REVIEW: See the best of May and June 2022
MAY
Rodeo season got underway, with the Mt Garnet event attracting a record crowd, as many annual events would as people were keen to get back to normal after two years of Covid restrictions.
The Great Wheelbarrow Race was a re-sounding success, with more than $105,000 raised for charities and 24 teams taking part. The 20th anniversary of the race will take place in May 2023.
The then Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce came to Mareeba to support calls for an alternative road to the coast, calling the Kuranda Range Road “obscenely dangerous”, and committing $11 million of Federal money to get a study done on the alternatives, calling on the State to match it.
Candidates vying to be the next Federal member for Kennedy put their best case forward at public debates, but on 18 May the spoils went to Bob Katter for the 11th time.
Community angst grew in the face of the closure of an Atherton GP clinic which meant many of the patients could not find a new doctor, and if they did, appointments could take weeks to get.
Thieves struck at the Atherton cemetery, and even Yungaburra became a victim of crime, with people stealing the flower baskets that grace the town and give its village character, upsetting locals who fundraise to provide them.
JUNE
The GP crisis worsened, with a Facebook poll revealing that 265 people had to wait for more than three weeks to see a doctor and 168 people saying they had no access to a GP because practices would not take on new patients.
Grey nomads began to flood back to the region after the “Covid years” and Malanda had plenty of reason to celebrate with its new $564,000 playground opened.
Sporting clubs took on Tablelands Regional Council over having to pay for water used on their sporting fields at the Atherton International Club, an issue that played out later in the year with a new policy endorsed by council that now provides clubs with a water allocation after which they must pay.
Five new police officers took up the beat as crime continued to plague the region’s large towns, with figures showing an average of 52 offences a week recorded for Mareeba and 26 for Atherton.
Locals got hot under the collar about a truck stop north of Mareeba, claiming it was ruining their lives and wanting a new one to be established in another location. That never happened, but action was taken later in the year to prevent trucks from driving on dirt areas, reducing some impact upon residents.
More Ukrainian refugees arrived as the French Ambassador travelled to the region to see its potential for export opportunities and declared his country was placing high importance on relationships with agricultural regions.
While Mareeba was gearing up for its annual rodeo, the local agricultural shows began to roll out, with Atherton and Malanda shows a great success.
MSC announced an art trail while TRC put in place a new policy to promote development in their local government area by waiving or offering reductions in infrastructure charges.
