Geraldton Problem Solvers Awarded at GovHack

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Hackers in action at GovHack over the weekend.  

Geraldton problems solvers proved themselves as among the best in the state last weekend as they turned their minds to creating innovative new ways of using government data, as part of the Australian and New Zealand-wide GovHack competition.

One of these teams placed second in its category across the entire state, while a Geraldton mentor, Paul Dowling, won the WA Spirit of GovHack Award.

The GovHack event kicked off at Pollinators’ CityHive on Friday when event organisers released a wide range of data that teams could use to interpret or present in whichever way they could imagine.

Data ranged from natural phenomenon such as rainfall and temperatures to business insolvency statics and population numbers.

With ideas flying around the room, the attendees eventually formed two teams who sought to tackle two vastly different topics.

One team compared data on the numbers of international migrants to regional centres, with the regions' economic growth.

The other developed a prototype for an app that would measure the distances between travel destinations and provide information on the services and rest stops along the way.

The submitted projects were considered by a team judges in Perth, along with entries from across the state, and the app prototype was awarded second place in the Main Roads GovHack Keep Western Australia Moving category.

GovHack facilitator Summer Pirrottina said it was incredible to witness the magic of collaboration in action. “It was amazing to see what a small group of people, who didn’t even know each other before, could create in terms of worthwhile projects,” Ms Pirrottina said.

“They created projects that interpreted dry data and made them into something useful. 

“The migration project disproved the notion that migrants steal jobs by showing that our economy in fact grew with an increase in migrant numbers.

“And the road safety app showed how information can be interpreted to provide practical and useful information to help keep drivers safe.”

View the project submissions here, https://youtu.be/9IGY94WQLZI and https://vimeo.com/176916509.

GovHack Geraldton is supported by Mid West Development Commission, through its Innovation Agenda and commitment to growing a Culture of Innovation, as well as the Mid West's science engagement group Scinapse, Northern Agricultural Catchments Council, Pollinators and GovHack. 

Planned water interruption in parts of Wandina

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Planned water interruption in parts of Wandina -

3 August 5am to 3pm Water Corporation will be turning off the water for customers living between Bellimos Dr, around Bellimos Park and further South towards Verita Rd.

Water supply will be interrupted from 5am and will be restored at 3pm.

An alternative source of potable water will be made available from Bellimos Park over the shut-off period.

Customers who wish to access water from this supply are encouraged to bring their bottles or storage containers for re-filling.

Customers with special water requirements should call our 24 hour Faults, Emergencies and Security line on 13 13 75.

Election 2016: Coalition to form government as more crossbenchers pledge support

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Louise Yaxley and Dan Conifer for the ABC:

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has edged closer to forming Government after two more crossbenchers pledged their support on confidence and supply.

 

Key points:

Three crossbenchers have now pledged support for the Coalition
ABC's election computer has Coalition at 73 seats, Labor 66 and five seats in doubt Shorten concedes
Coalition likely to "scrape" over the line
ictorian independent Cathy McGowan and Tasmanian Andrew Wilkie made the commitments, giving the Coalition 76 votes it needs to govern in minority.

 

5 reasons you should keep getting the Geraldton Guardian

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Newspaper sales have fallen dramatically around Australia in recent years, and our local Guardian has not been immune to the changes in how we all consume content. 

Even though Everything Geraldton may compete in some ways with the Geraldton Guardian, I honestly believe Geraldton is better served if said newspaper continues does well. 

Here are some of the reasons I believe you will benefit from buying our local paper.  

1. Public notices

They may be the most boring part of the paper, but I think they're the most important.

Why?

When a local government WANTS to get the word out about something, they will send a press release or public notice to all media, usually including Everything Geraldton. 

I'm grateful for this. EG wants to help locals stay informed about what's happening in their community. Many people who never read the paper, including young people, are now far more connected and informed.

Sometimes the City will even pay Everything Geraldton to promote or publish something. This too is very helpful for us in terms of paying our staff and continuing operating. We think we're pretty good at getting information out to the Geraldton public. And we're super grateful for support from the CGG. 

But when the council HAS to put something out to the public, but doesn't necessarily WANT a lot of feedback, I've noticed they just purchase an ad in the public notices section of a paper. 

They are legally obligated to do this much of the time.

While I'm sure there's nothing malicious happening behind the scenes, I do believe that for much of the general public, only putting a public notice in a newspaper essentially makes it invisible. I don't think I know anyone under the age of 35 who even buys the paper with any regularity. 

Here's a recent example. I've seen no hoo-ha or press release about it, despite it potentially having a massive impact on our city. 

There were a number of complaints when the Jaffle Shack opened on the foreshore, saying that others weren't given the opportunity to put a business on the most prime piece of real estate in Geraldton. Now the city can technically say they have given everyone the opportunity. All you had to do was be one of the few people that buy the Guardian twice a week and always checked the public notices section. 

In fact, each time there's a public outcry about a decision the city makes, I have heard: "We published a public notice in a newspaper and very few people responded."

So until the laws change to better reflect how people actually get information in 2016, it's incumbent upon us, the general public, to keep an eye on the public notices in our local papers. 

2. Journalists.

The Geraldton Guardian employs a small team of journalists who put effort into chasing up stories. 

It's no secret that journalism isn't exactly a growing industry, but it will probably survive for the foreseeable future. Even though it's not the highest paying career, it can lead to other fulfilling professions. 

The Geraldton Guardian has a good track record of giving young journalists a start and helping them get their uni degree. I personally know a couple of people who are doing well in other careers now, who started off at the Guardian. Had they not had the support of the local paper in their youth, they may have struggled somewhat more. 

3. Geraldton needs multiple media voices

I admit I'm extremely inconsistent when it comes to reading the paper. Or rather, I'm consistently terrible at it. 

I will try harder after writing this article.

Three years ago I knew I wanted local content in a digital format, but no-one was going to do it in Geraldton. So instead of complaining, I started a business doing just that. But The goal of Everything Geraldton was not to replace other the media completely, but to be another voice.

I don't think a community is well served if there is only one media voice. If you piss off the wrong person, you can essentially be cut off from having your say. 

Fortunately, this isn't the case in Geraldton.

We have Everything Geraldton, which is independant and I'm obviously an advocate for. There's the Geraldton Guardian/Mid West Times, who have been around for 100+ years and are backed by Seven West. There's a talented and creative team over at the ABC, who publish great stuff. And there's a few radio stations. 

Having more media publications means a more diverse voice, and fewer newsworthy items are likely to slip through the cracks. It also gives advertisers more choices and opportunities to promote their products and services. 

4. Responsible people at the helm

I know a couple of people who work at the Geraldton Guardian in the editorial team, and from what I know of them, I do believe that they care about the people of Geraldton. 

It's not very common to have people who care so much about the community in charge of local media. Often the agenda to simply sell more papers at the cost of sensationalising everything wins out over the mandate to serve the community by printing the facts. 

Anita Kirkbright is the current editor, and I've dealt with her in other capacities in the past. I've read several of her articles over the last year or two, and she certainly seems to have a desire to surface encouraging stories from the Mid West. It's a refreshing change from the usual negativity that seems to fill our Twitter and Facebook feeds. 

That's not to say I agree with every publishing decision the Guardian makes, but for the time being I think it's well above par. 

5. It's not too big

I'm pressed for time. I don't sit down and read the paper to alleviate boredom. I know reading the paper was a favourite pastime for our Granddads. But I have a million things to occupy me that are more interesting than a newspaper. And when something big happens I will probably hear about it well before the paper comes out anyway. 

So when I do read the local paper, I want to get through it as quickly as possible. 

I have listened to complaints for about 8 years now about how thin the Guardian is. But looking at it as someone who mostly reads content online, I consider thinness a positive. 

When someone "reads" the paper, they don't actually read very much. You scan through the headlines until something stands out, and you end up reading about 1 and a half articles. 

What you leave with is the knowledge that you haven't missed anything important that may affect you, your business, or your family.

And with a world of information now accessible through our smartphones, we don't need our local papers to try and be all things to all people, publishing all manner of lifestyle articles that we may or may not be interested in. They can just give us important local content, and we can follow our particular interests through apps, social media, websites, podcasts, YouTube etc. 

In conclusion, my vision of the future of media in Geraldton doesn't involve a winner take all outcome as was the case in the past, but a diverse range of voices, each serving the community and playing a part in our daily lives. I hope the Geraldton Guardian is a part of that future. 

Note: No one from the Geraldton Guardian had any involvement with this article.

 

 

Opinion - The Skippy Paradox: On eating kangaroos.

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I have been thinking about kangaroos – eating them, to be precise. The whole industry is tanking across WA and Macro Meats from South Australia are the company selling us human grade roo meat in the supermarkets. 

Recently Macro Meats upped the marketing from their Gourmet Game site to include a very sexy I Love Roo campaign; so while was I going on and on like a drain about the nutritionally dense qualities of this fabulous meat and its value as food-is-medicine, my argument was trumped instantly by a picture of a muscled chick wearing a sports-bra plastered with the legend ‘lean meat, lean body’.

I concede that Macro Meats have the marketing chops - but not the whole story. CLAs, or Conjugated Linoleic Acids, are the good fats that are found in the meat of a ruminant when omega 3, the green in all growing things, undertakes its complex transformative journey through the digestive processes of a rangeland grazed animal. Lamb from station country is high in CLAs and considered good tucker, but kangaroo meat registers 5 times richer in these good fats and makes excellent health sense as an anti-inflammatory food. It is anti-diabetic, anti-carcinogenic and brought to you only by ruminants grazed on biodiverse pasture – stock that are grain-fed or grazed on paddocks with limited plant variety register way lower on the CLA count. 

Kangaroos, naturally, also score highly on all measurements made to register environmental sustainability. They live here, they are adapted to the arid lands and they have been a favourite protein choice of Australians for over 40,000 years. 

It is only in the last 150 years or so that people have chosen to take kangaroos off the menu to both revere them as a National Symbol or shoot them for dog food or as Rangelands vermin. This is the Skippy Paradox; it makes no sense from a bio-security food or environmental sustainability angle and for anti-meat crusaders this muddled sentimentality doesn’t help kangaroos because wherever you stand in this thinking kangaroos carry on dying in enormous numbers. They die as a result of poor seasons and at the hands of farmers, pastoralists and Government conservation agencies as they safeguard their core business; growing (introduced) stock whilst attempting to minimise the total grazing pressure that leads to eroded land.

The raw pet food industry is diminishing with the only signs of growth being in the wild dog bait business; South Australia has an effective monopoly on selling us their roo meat; the roo leather industry is severely reduced despite its incredible qualities as leather and kangaroos are being shot and left to rot across agricultural and pastoral zones. 

My desire is that we start to treat kangaroos with more respect. Rather than push roo corpses into holes in the ground, let us do the research to see if it is possible to manage numbers and benefit economically, socially and culturally from the situation in our severely depleted rangeland communities. 

There are many anomalies surrounding the kangaroo industry and a lot of unexamined emotional issues that need to be dealt with before the kangaroo can take its rightful place as one of the most abundant and profound gifts the WA Rangelands has to offer to its own people and the world.

Emergency sand nourishment to slow Drummond Cove coastal erosion

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In an effort to slow down the rate of coastal erosion, save trees and protect at risk state government infrastructure sand nourishment works will begin today along Whitehill Road in Drummond Cove.

The works expected to take five days to complete will see approximately 5,000m3 of sand placed along the shoreline.

City of Greater Geraldton Mayor Shane Van Styn said that although Council recognises sand nourishment is only a temporary solution, it aligns with the community’s preferred option to combat the erosion of Whitehill Road.

“Council understands sand nourishment is only a stop gap measure but we are faced with an imminent threat and understand the sand could wash away quickly,” he said.

“However, it is better than no action at all and has the support of the Drummond Cove Progress Association and was also identified by the local community as the preferred temporary solution during the Whitehill Road Community Workshop held in May.

“At this point, $50,000 in emergency funds for sand nourishment will hopefully buy us some time to continue discussions with Western Power, Telstra and Watercorp regarding at risk infrastructure and medium term solutions such as sand bags, rock revetments or concrete squares on matting can be investigated.

“Permanent solutions to coastal erosion at Drummond Cove cannot be considered by Council until data collection and modelling of the ocean currents in the area are undertaken and Coastal Adaptation Planning for the entire Geraldton coast has been completed,” Mayor Van Styn said.