Category: Opinion

Natalie Johnson, a twenty-five-year veteran of the tourism industry and current tourism business owner, explores her growing concern in a three-part series, for the future of independent local tourism organisation, Tourism Port Douglas Daintree (TPDD).

Rockhampton has not had a COVID case for about seven weeks, and perhaps has let its guard down.

Like many other Douglas residents, I was horrified to witness the destruction of the magnificent mango trees in and around the Court House Hotel early on Monday 18 May.

People, quite reasonably are drafting wishlists for a post-COVID world – such as action on climate, energy, tax, water, industrial relations and so on – but that risks a return to politics as usual. Rather we should be asking: what sort of economy do we want; what is the economy for; what role should government play and who should decide how government acts?

This week’s report on ABC funding should alarm Australians.
The death by a thousand cuts of the ABC and the slow strangulation of Medicare has become woven into in Liberal Party’s DNA since John Howard turned Robert Menzies’ broad church of a liberal-conservative Liberal Party into a purely conservative one by shutting out almost everyone left of the nave.

On any view of it, we are in extraordinary times. We are in the midst of a pandemic. People are dying. COVID-19 is, in many respects, unique compared to recent mass infectious diseases, like SARS and MERS. This disease is potentially fatal. It is highly contagious. It does not discriminate. Asymptomatic infected persons can spread it and its sequelae are not confined to pneumonia. It has been linked to major organ damage due to embolism and in children, severe septic shock.

Within 48 hours of its launch, over 2500 people have signed a petition expressing their opposition to the Douglas Shire Council Mayor’s proposals threatening the Daintree World Heritage rainforest.