FULL SHOW 9th MARCH 2026

0:00Good morning and welcome to Rural Queen's Land today on Monday morning, the 9th of March. A very good morning to everybody listening to us through 4SB in Kinga Roy, 4Zero and Roma, 4VL in Charleville, 4H I and Emerald, 4LM Mount Eiser, 4LG Longreach, 4GC Charter Stowers in the Hot Country Network, good morning to you. G-Wiz, there is a lot to like about what is going on at the moment throughout Rural and Regional Queen's and some really good rain on the Daling Downs. Look at Cut Out Around Me and Arra, but Marin Arra got some rain, up North got some rain. Listen, if you can get in contact with me, let me know how much you got. Go to our Facebook page, direct message me, Rural Queen's Land today. You can get in contact with me, Ben at BenDobbon.com. We will unpack everything, some really, really big rain that changed the whole process of the livestock industry and also the farming industry with some subsurmoisture coming in. We are going to unpack a lot this morning, David Littlebrow talking about fuel, will unpack the tick line, Paul Dyle will join us, and the Mayor of the Western Downs Regional

1:03Council, Andrew Smith. There is a lot to get through on this very busy Monday morning. You're with Ben Dolvin, it's Rural Queen's Land today, across the Resonate Broadcast Network, good morning. Welcome back to start the show on the 9th of March. It's the leader of the National Party, David Littlebrow joining us this morning. David, good morning. I'm going to start in match of your electorate, some just phenomenal rain over the last 24 to 48 hours are long over two and much needed, but it's funny what 24 hours in the bush can do, five, six, seven, eight inches of rain, slow falling, water running in the condom line, and the mariner are looking very nice. Yeah, mate, we'll take it while we can, particularly as you get into autumn, so it'll give everyone some good subsurmoisture on the Downs to plant some winter crop, but it just gets through and hopefully gets a bit of herbage growing between now and when it gets cold and we start getting frost, so a little ankle deep floods not bad, not a bad outcome mate, and I think that's

2:05really, it brings confidence, and that's the thing is that no matter what government or anyone does, the weather brings the most confidence. You get rain, cockies know that they can make money out of mud, they can't out of dust, and this is where you just hope that it gives us a rest for three or four weeks, probably three weeks, and then we get another inch or something just to top up if you want to be greedy. Can I ask you, you talked about confidence, I've got zero confidence in the federal government at the moment, and I just want to talk about fuel. Now we know what's going on with Iran, and I'm interested in your opinion on how that's playing, but the biggest thing at the present moment is the shortage of fuel. Now, depending who you talk to and correct me if I'm wrong, we are always supposed to have 90 days reserved, like that's like being a law, we don't, we are now down to I think 20 days reserve of diesel, everywhere you go, the price is going up, I understand around the world, I was talking to people in America this morning, it's gone up $2 a gallon, they say it's a short hit, but is this real, this is what Chris Bowen, this is what Anthony

3:12Albanese, this is what Tony Burke, this is what Penny Wong, these people who absolutely, we haven't heard from Julie Collins, which doesn't surprise me, they actually don't care, the lifeblood is agriculture, and without diesel we cannot survive, yet they don't seem to understand the importance and the desperation that we're in at the present moment. No, in fact, I had to write Chris Bowen late last week to say, mate, you might want to focus on this because this is a real problem, the reality is your Ag Minister doesn't seem interested in it, but we've got farmers really me telling me, and this is not just in Marinality, this is across coins and in New South Wales, but the only fuel that I've got is what left in the tanks of their machines is that we've got a real problem, and the reality is, is Chris Bowen, there is fuel there at the moment, but what's happening is the wholesale markets control, 80% of it's controlled by two companies, and most of those have retail outlets across the country, and so what they're doing, one to actually protect

4:14their supplies is cut off the smaller wholesalers who support us, who bring the fuel out for our regional communities, but more importantly, as well, out into those farms, and that's why we've got farmers aren't getting anything because these mid-tier wholesalers and distributors are getting cut off, they're simply being curled, no, not interested, you're on your own, and the other reason for that is not just about protecting their supply for their own domestic their own domestic retail outlets, it's also to do around price contracts, and the fact that they don't want to, they're scared of another priced shock, so if the bomb stop and they've bought all this fuel, and then they sell to these wholesalers, and the price goes down, then they get caught, so there is volatility within the price that they're trying to hedge against, and to do that is they're just pushing out their supplies longer, rather than giving it to the smaller wholesalers,

5:16that's causing problem, there is a better significant increase in crude oil in an actual price, you've all seen that, but so too is the refinement, the diesel refinement premium in Singapore, it's gone up exponentially, and so that's added to the price, but the reality is, there are supplies there, they're being withheld by these four large companies, that the government needs to step in and lean into, we need to make sure that those supplies are still coming, we are to get to the international energy agency has said that we should have 90 days in country storage, that came in 2021-22 just before we got punted, we started that process of securing fuel storage and starting to build it, so that needs to be constructed here in Australia, it's still being constructed, it does take a little bit, but Albanese in Cone to get on with that, because the vulnerability is exactly what we're experiencing now, if we don't have fuel for farmers, and for truckies, and you need it for the truckies as well, because if they don't get the food

6:23to the supermarket, then we've got all sorts of problems, and so this is the problem that we've really got, is that there's not been taken seriously, all that bow and an Albanese are worried about, is people in Sydney and Melbourne, so long as they can go to the service station, the fuel there, they're all happy, because they'll keep everyone content, but the reality is, if the food's not at the supermarket, it's going to be a real trouble, you don't have to think of what happened at COVID, when we ran out of toilet paper, so this is where Albanese and Co haven't taken this seriously, they're looking at a superficial level, rather than understanding what drives the economy, what drives our country, and these are in trucks and tractors, is what's going to keep this country sane and going. Why is it this renewable-centric government don't understand the importance of, you know, there's a happy medium, you know, we just seem to be so far down the track on renewables, and this is the prime example, what do they think we're going to have solar on the roof of the

7:26tractors and then have to stop every hour to charge them up, like it is just an unreal, realistic expectation that has been going on for far too long, and these kind of moments are pivotal, because it actually shows just how completely uneducated, crisp bone and that labour government are around the needs for agriculture in this country. Yeah, and I mean, you can even go back to domestic cars, I mean EVs haven't taken off, despite all the subsidies, in fact, you're forking about $4.5 billion worth of subsidies for rich people, to in cities, to go and buy an EV, because they get they get FBT exemptions, the reality is is that they're still a less than 10% of total car sales in this country, because they're not practical in Australia, they're very ideological, and this is the reality is that you look at your transport industry, you need a combustion engine to be have the horsepower to be able to do anything at scale, to have the

8:27grunt to be able to do it at large scale, so there is no way in the world that whether it's a car, your truck or anything else, there'll still be combustion engines, and I'm not against renewables, but I think we've gone too far, we've got too much of it, and they should be in the right place. I've got no problems with people in capital cities wanting to put their roofs for solar panels on them, so long as we don't have to fall out too much for it ourselves, I can do it themselves, but the reality is you need base load power, and this is what we've been away from, and that's why it's not just about the fuel problem we've got at the moment, it's also about the fact we don't have the agricultural inputs manufactured here, because we're uncompetitive, and we're uncompetitive because our energy is uncompetitive, and that's because we've gone from base load power, coal to renewables. Now, you've just forked out as Australian taxpayers, the best part of about $7 billion between subsidising Mount Isar, a tomago, a wiala, port peri, you'll probably have to have a go at Gladstone at some point as well,

9:28because they can't get power, the power costs too much, so you are subsidising because they want them to go to an all renewables approach, it does not work. Tomago alone needs 950 megawatts of power 24-7 every year. With renewables, you need three gigawatts, you need more than three times the energy generation, and you have that many panels and wind turbines, and there's not even the batteries to be able to support to keep these things going, and this is where this ideology is catching up with, why we don't have sovereign capability is because we don't have a competitive manufacturing base because we have gone to an all renewables approach, but you're also seeing your energy bill. Your bill was meant to go down to $75 last year off your 22 price. It's gone up by over 1,300 bucks, and it's going to continue to go up, and this is the reality of an ideology not meeting a practical reality, but in these times, you show your vulnerability. You show your vulnerability, not just in not building the storage for diesel, but also not having

10:30your own sovereign capability to refine, but also to produce your own agricultural inputs. Yeah, it's crazy. Just quickly, and I won't hold you in environmental minutes to Murray Watt. He's the real mouthpiece for everybody. He just delivers it. I don't know what he's standing for at the moment, but now they're going to make it clear about cultural heritage reform laws. I mean, David, seriously, this is, I mean, I get to the point like with what they're doing with land clearing and vegetation management, with what they're doing now. Murray Watt, he understood the ag industry. He actually listened, but since then, he's just back, and I don't know if he's trying to keep his job, but what I do know is that he is not the friend that we all thought he was anymore. Yeah, well, my year more generous than I always knew this burger was all about going in. He's a political animal. He's a machine of the Labor Party, and he goes and does all the dirty work that they don't want to do. He did it in the ag. He got rid of the live sheep industry.

11:32He whilst did and just said, I'm shouting, I don't care what you, what anyone thinks. He's going to environment. The EPBC is the biggest cluster. He's now over overriding the states. We need to repeal that, and we also need to get rid of the EPA, the new federal EPA, because that's a new tree police about to come to a farm near you in Queensland and right across this country. They'll want to get a few marks chalked up against somebody real quick for doing the wrong thing on tree clearing, even though the state law is already probably the harshest in the world. You go to the cultural heritage. Tanya Puebosek was sitting on this little chestnut, and the only reason they didn't do it was when it blew up in Western Australia. You had to go and get a cultural survey if you dug in more than 20 centimetres down underneath the ground. This is the insanity that they're going to bring in. They lost the voice, so by stealth they're going to come back through all this regulation. This is how Labor operates. Murray Watt is a product of the Labor

12:36Party. He is nobody's friend in regional Australia, and he does all the heavy lifting of all the things that no one else wants to do, and that's what he's going to go and do. He's made a career on it. That keeps him in cabinet, and in some perverse why I think he enjoys it. It's a very, very good flag. I appreciate your time this morning. We need to talk to you more often. Thanks so much for being with us, mate, and just here's hoping that this Iran conflict gets sorted and fuel becomes more available, and that the people of rural and regional Queensland aren't disadvantaged. As we come into some moisture, the people will be planning oats. There's wheat about to be, there's a lot of farming about to start. We don't need a fuel crisis on our back door right at this moment. Thanks for being with us. We appreciate your time. Thanks for having me, mate. Good on you. We're going to take a break. Come back. Still plenty more to get through. This is Rural Queensland today. Welcome back to Rural Queensland today, Ben Dobin with you this morning, 9th of March. There is a line drawn across Queensland that most

13:37people in the metropolitan areas, the cities, don't even know exists. It's not on a map. It's not on any GPS. You can't see it from the air, but for the rural community who raised cattle across this state, it's without doubt the most important boundary in this state. It's called the Queensland tick line, and right at this present moment, regardless of what people say, it's under threat. See, in the last few months, there's been a string of cattle outbreaks, cattle tick outbreaks, that have shown a harsh light on just how messed up our biosecurity system is. It's fundamentally broken, not under pressure broken. As of February this year, two hundred and twelve properties within the tick freeze zone had been identified as restricted recorded, and only 39 were successfully cleared. And where ground zero is, is the Taroum district

14:46in Western Queensland. Now, we've talked about the cattle producers that pack the local hall that were furious to confront biosecurity Queensland officers and what they described as a broken cattle tick system. Every time someone got up to speak, the applause was deafening. They were challenging the department's handling of the situation, and they said everything that need to be said. But let's go back to what the tick line actually means. And to understand the gravity of the situation, you first need to understand what it does. To put it simple, it separates two zones, tick-free, tick-infested. Now, the cattle tick and the endemic was managed through ongoing control programs, and the freeze zones where the ticks are not meant to exist at all.

15:47So the line just isn't a regulatory boundary. It's a foundation for the whole southern and Queensland cattle industries, and it's been built off the back of that. Cattle raised in tick-free areas have no natural immunity to tick fever. When the ticks breach the freeze zone, and in fact, and now I have heard, the consequences can be catastrophic. Now, this is the worst case scenario. Tick fever caused primally by a blood parasite. It causes a fever, and then it causes destruction. Now, I can tell you of an instance, where one by-man family in North of Roma watched more than 50 head die on Christmas Eve, as tick fever took over. This is an industry that needs protecting. Now, to the cost, the Australian cattle industry from tick-related impacts runs at in excess of $160 million a year. The figure alone,

16:51that $160 million should demand government attention to be like fire ants, but the risks extend well beyond the financial. We've had Garth Christensen on here many, many times. The Taroum producer, he delivered one of the strongest messages when at that meeting in Taroum by drawing a direct line between ticks and future disease threats. He said, quote, if you can't control ticks, how is biosecurity going to be able to control lumpy skin disease, foot and mouth disease, if it comes to Queensland? And that's the question that every single agricultural policymaker in this country should be thinking about at night, and it should be worrying them more than anything else. The tick line is not just about the ticks. It's a test on whether or not our biosecurity works at all. Now, the decision, and this all stems back to 2016.

17:57That was the year 2016, when the Queensland government under the Palische minister made sweeping changes to the tick state's tick management line. The buffer zone between infested and tick-free zones was eliminated, and Queensland moved to a simpler two-zone model. Now, the system of government regulated inspectors backed by the department's stock inspectors was replaced with a self-inspection model. So, how do I think about that? The biosecurity system that had been built up for years, had been worked on, had worked, was supported by boots on the ground government expertise, was dismantled and replaced with a model that asked producers to police it themselves. It was destined for failure. To room in one day on areas who opposed this change

18:58at the time have been 100% vindicated. A long time producer who wishes to remain anonymous said that they'd once successfully cleared all their properties of ticks and moved the tick line, but that effort was backed by a set of inspections and clearance under the department's stock inspectors. Now, we have a self-inspection system, and it was never going to work. The government at the time were they promised to maintain surveillance programs, to compensate for removal of buffer zones. Virtually everyone working in the industry has not been kept. There's not enough DPI staff in the field, there's not enough proactive surveillance, there's no longer medical safety margins of infested and free zones, and tick outbreaks are occurring all the time. Now, this is a system that punishes the honest. One of the most troubling aspects is

20:00if you're honest and you clear cattle properly, there's no incentive, and that's the drama. You move cattle after a single treatment and inspection, it's not strong enough. The path forward is not complicated, and this is the thing the government need to understand. Self-inspection models need an urgent review. The single treatment and inspection before crossing the tick line is not adequate enough, and safe guards need to be put back in place. We need government-regulated inspections backed by properly trained, resourced, departmental staff, and they have to return. Meaningful, proactive surveillance also needs to be restored. Now, Doug Stewart is an accredited certifier. He warned that in the absence of the systematic inspections of surrounding properties, means low infestations could persist unnoticed for months.

21:05Ticks don't explode overnight. They slowly melt the fly over time, and before you know it, we've got a problem. And that's where we are today. Now, the financial burden on producers who report outbreaks must be addressed. Since changes were made to the Biosecurity Act, most of the onus is on the cost as many of the tick's belongs with the owner of the stock, apart from rebates for chemical costs. So you're isolating and punishing those who do the right thing in the fastest way to build a culture of non-reporting, and a culture of non-reporting is existing threat to any Biosecurity system. We need to reinstate some form of a buffer zone, and the decision to abolish it in 2016 has not worked. The industry sets out at the time, and the evidence now is clear. So this is just not a worry about the tick line. It's a story about what happens when the government slowly and quietly withdraw from the hard, unglamorous work of rural Biosecurity. And when policy

22:09is made in Brisbane, for communities living 1,000 kilometres away, it's a warning that if lumpy skin or foot and mouth arrives on our shores, then we're in trouble. Now, the DPI are trying their hardest, but they just don't have the resources. It's time to make a change. The Queensland tick line has held for decades because generations of producers, inspectors and policy makers understood what was at stake, and they did the hard work maintaining it. The institutional commitment has been allowed to fray and rebuilding it will take resources, honesty and courage. We need the tick line. That means investing in property, investing in it properly in people, a process, changing the Biosecurity Act, and managing it properly. This is our biggest threat.

23:11This is our biggest challenge. And the Premier, it's up to you. We're going to take a short break, come back plenty more to get through. This is rural Queensland today. Welcome back to rural Queensland today. Mayor of the Western Downs Regional Council joins me this morning, Andrew Smith, Bluey Good Morning. Some amazing rain in your electorate, and obviously in your council, just phenomenal rain, waterlogged these miles in Chinchilla, and even you're a little bit damn underfoot. Absolutely double. It's been a wonderful 24 to 48 hours across the region. I think our rainfall is sort of filling in because we did have some dry patches, but they seem to have picked up some rain over the last 24 to 48 hours. But been some phenomenal falls, quite a lot of falls over the 200 mils, which is amazing. And we'll turn the season around

24:12for a lot of our rural landholders. Talk to me about, you know, your the electorate, it is such a melting point at the moment. Big agriculture, big feedlining, but renewables, and trying to get the balance right. And we've talked about it. I mean, meetings, we know about the one by wind farms, you've attended them. Can we get to a place where we get the setbacks changed? Everybody's happy. We get the noise setbacks, the dwelling setbacks changed. I think everybody then gets happy. Or is it something greater than your council having to try and manage, and it needs to go to the state? I guess, Dabbo, what we have to remember is the planning decisions that are made, and the legislation comes from the state. So, we only have a certain amount of, I guess, voice in the whole, you know, whether it be a debate or development or whatever.

25:13There are challenges. There's no doubt about that there are challenges. You will never keep everybody happy. Not everybody's going to be happy at the end of the day. However, you know, we still believe as what came out of the CSG industry. And unfortunately, we haven't learned, you know, all the lessons that we should have. But coexistence is king. I've got no doubts that we can coexist. It is about getting everything or getting as many of those boxes ticked as possible. And there's still a fair bit of work to do. But, you know, we're a very fortunate region as you pointed out this. There's so much going on the energy industry. Our traditional ag bases is flying, but we've got this intensive ag sector as well, cattle feed lots that are just doing great things in their communities. So, a great place to be at the moment, Dabbo.

26:13Yeah, it certainly is. Can you understand the annoyance of some of countless, and it was done before this L&P government got into power, but it needs to be rectified because people's livelihoods are at risk. Yeah, look, there are challenges, obviously, one of the big challenges around setbacks when it comes to, I'm pretty sure you're referring to wind farms and renewables. So, that's, you know, that's beyond, I guess, my qualifications. But the government, you know, the pressure is on the government to get those setbacks right. We, you know, always keep in mind, there will be, there will be some that want larger setbacks than others. It needs to be backed by science, but they need to get it right, and there needs to be surety for landholders, because, you know, they're landholders that want to be a part of the energy transition,

27:17but there are those that don't want to be, and they really need some surety. Yeah, they certainly do. Mate, I've got to talk about housing. You've got a growing population in your, in your electorate, and in the Western Downs Regional Council municipality, there is more people moving there. There's not vacant houses, rentals are hard to find. It's, and it's hard. You can't get buildings, you can't get trades, costs are going up. But how do you navigate that? You want to grow these cities, and you want to grow these towns. So, how do you get more houses and make it more attractive to try and get people there? Yeah, look, there are only so many levers that we can pull as a local government. One of the ones that we've done, no, I guess one of the costs in developing is around infrastructure charges. The current government have residential activation fund, which councils can apply for, and we've, we were successful in round one. We will certainly be in

28:18amongst round two, which helps provide the bigger infrastructure for different developments. The bottom line is, and totally agree, we have housing concerns, I think most regions across Queensland, even Australia, have housing concerns at the moment. We're a growing community, so we probably have as many concerns as others. But the bottom line is, we need developers to come into our region and build houses. Now, for them at the moment, it's not that attractive. So, that's why we put money on the table in regards to infrastructure charges, and we've, we've basically written a check and it's on the table for five million in the Western Downs at the moment. But also, there's, as I said, the residential activation fund from the state. So, and I know that that's helping different developments, but it is a challenge. It is a real

29:22challenge at the moment. But, but, you know, we are a positive side of it. Dobot is that we're fortunate. We're a growing community. These are growth pains. People want to come to you. People want to come to your community. That's the biggest thing. You know, people want to move out there. That's better than them running away from their endures. There are people choosing to move out there and go and look financially and from an opportunity perspective, whether an oddity is renewables, whether an oddity is more gas, whether or not there's more opportunity in there. The Western Downs is in a very healthy position with, with a long way forward. How close are you getting to new CEO, mate? Look, we're starting the process, Dobot. You know, we've been really, really fortunate to have our CEO, Jody Taylor, with us for five years. She and Hussam Brad, they're going to travel around Australia. Great, you know, adventure for them. But, yeah, there's an opportunity for us to get another dynamic person to run the operations

30:26of Council. So, we're starting that process now. Be a little while before we go to the public, but there is a process that you need to go through here in the local government. Appreciate your time. Have a good day, mate. You won't be able to get out today, but to wet in your neck of the woods. Oh, it's beautiful, Dobot. 215 mil with measured and, you know, we were really dry prior to that. Yeah, it's good. Andrew Smith, appreciate your time. Thanks so much for being with us this morning on rural coins end of day. Cheers, Dobot. Good on you. We're going to take a break. Come back still plenty more to get through across the Resonate Broadcast Network. Well, I'm back to rural coins end of day. It's the ninth of March, a Monday morning across rural coins end of day. And the Broncos, as per usual, have been out and about through rural and regional coins land. Over the course of last week, they were in the Western Downs, Marinerar and the Central West, well, game day and development boss, and also the CEO of the Women's Game for the Brisbane Broncos as Paul Dye joins us this morning on rural coins end of day. Rock, good morning, and thanks for being with us.

31:27Yeah, good morning, Dobot. Great to be out in the regional areas the last few days or two, the bush has never looked so good. So, talk to us. I mean, give me a little snapshot of, I mean, the Broncos don't have to have a game day development. And it's been an integral part of their business where yourself, along with a litenary of former players, men and women, go out and obviously go and give back. Where were you last week, and what's the process around it? So, we're at the bar called in Shaw. I mean, we're supported by the Council. The original sort of plan for this trip was sort of devised about six months ago. When Darren Burns, one of our current staff, who's sort of based in the GIMP sort of area, and does a favorite of work still back in that Dolby sort of Talumba region, as well as a part of the partnership now with the Clydesdale and the Dolby Louise Club, he went on a bit of a traveling road trip with

32:29the family and took the caravan, and as he was doing his round, he just said, I'm going to do some work along the journey and sort of stopped into a lot of the local schools. He went on a 10-day road trip, and when he was along that road trip, he sort of met a number of different people, and one of them was the junior league people at Barcaldon, and then there were some weeks into the local council there, and before you knew it, Dolby, there were four of us, myself, to Royal Yee, the great Michael Hencock, and Burns, he out there for the last three days, just working throughout the schools and through the junior club and the senior league, and obviously the galloners have had a little bit of success recently out there with their senior team. So it was just wonderful to be back out in that region. We love going in to those areas, because there are huge Broncos fans through that region, and secondly, it was just great to see Bush footy still alive and kicking, and I know it's got its challenges, but there's some wonderful people out there, just trying to keep our game alive, and to see the way they go about

33:31their business, and to see the nice green pastures out there, just from the rain over the last five or six months, it was just good to see the bush up and about, and lots of good people still supporting the game out there. And that's the big thing what you're doing, you're giving back, and I mean, you guys go across the state. It's very much the cornerstone, and it's not just to unearth, and I mean this, this is not to unearth the next Bronco. This is just to get kids playing the greatest game of all, which is Rugby League. Yeah, well, look, as I said, it was a bit of a vision. I don't like giving wine better too many wraps, but I do remember back when I first started the club in the mid-90s. I do remember wine having always having a game development officer or manager as a part of each staff, and one of the reasons you always used to say that was is because if I have a Bronco, we're the professional team in town, and we're going to come out to those regions and look for players and hunt for players to come and play for our club one day, and

34:33try and recruit them to the Bronco's true country Queensland, then his vision was, well, what are the Bronco's doing for those towns, you know, to help and support them so that they're developing players that potentially one day can go and to be the next down lock years of the world. Essentially, that's where the game development department of the Bronco's was first created. You know, there was a vision from him to sort of say that we're going to come to your region and we're going to recruit your best player or take your best coach out of that region, then we've got to make sure we're giving back to that region, and that's our way of doing that is we've got eight staff that are full-time, most of which are former players, that are all strategically sort of based throughout Southern Queensland. They've all got their own regions that they primarily serve us, but then what we do as an department is we commit to sort of 15 to 20 regional trips a year, and you know, that's us just traveling right through our Queensland, from, you know, cans in the far north, you know, right the way out the places like Longreach and Barcorden in the west, and we get down into the northern rivers in New South Wales,

35:34and sort of that's our way of giving back to those regions where we recruit players from. And it's been successful. It's been successful, so may just talk to us about just what what entailed last week and where you were last week across across the western part of Queensland. Yeah, so we flew in on Thursday to Barcorden, and then, you know, we sort of did the local schools there, the Catholic School and the Primary School, and on the Thursday afternoon, and then we went work with the junior league that night, they had two or three teams come down in the senior age groups, and then we stayed on and worked with the actual senior men's team that night. Then on the Friday, we sort of split up into two groups, and one of the groups went to Aramack. There were some flood waters there, so they had to actually cost for some flood waters. There was about 30 or 40 centimetres of flood waters, and one of the roaches actually closed, but the boys still sort of pushed through there. They ended up at a school with Aramack, and they're honest with three kids that could get into the school. So,

36:35Fernzy and Jaro, yeah, you worked at the school there with three children at the school. Unreal. Awesome, just to see what's important. That's a great idea to that. Yeah, so those boys sort of went that way, and myself and Mickey Hancock went out to Alpha and Jericho and worked with the schools there as well, and then we met back there and brought out the moon back in Barcladon, and Saturday morning ran a coach education. So, the coaches, we had about seven or eight coaches turn up for an education session for a couple of hours. Well, a few of the other boys went down under the oval and sort of worked with any kid that was one to come along to a Bronco's coaching clinic, and we had about, I think we had about 55 or 60 kids in the end that turned up for that clinic at Barkey. So, yeah, the thing that was really pleasing for me, mate, was that there's lots of really good people out there working really, really hard to keep the game alive. And I just, you know, the one thing that sort of messages that came through from those people is just how grateful they are to get any level of sort of education or support or to try and help them do what they do. I just, as a game,

37:38what it does make me realise is that they don't see enough of people from the cities, you know, whether it's from NREL clubs or from the QRL or from the National Rugby League. I just hope that in our strategy and all the planning that we're doing for the next two, we write still that we're thinking about rugby league out there in those regions because they're about to be flagged. Yeah, it's such a great flag. And you know, if you said to me, what are our great challenges of the game? I'd still say the same thing I would have said to you 10 years ago, they lack a knowledge of our junior experience, so how do we as a game provide them with that knowledge? And it can't just always come from a book. It's got to come from, you know, people getting off their butts and getting on some aircraft or getting in some cars and driving to those regions and actually getting, you know, out on the ovel and teaching these coaches how to do their jobs well. And then the other, you know, great challenge we've got is just the, obviously, the behavioural side of the sport, which is just adults behaving like human beings and doing the right thing. And so I think if we sort of look at that and it's in its biggest sense, you know, in that next

38:42TV right, so you're just making sure that, you know, what are we doing for these country regions? I know that you are all a constantly challenged by the geographical locations of some of these towns, but, you know, there are airplanes landing in lots of lots of places. Lots of areas. And Council is listening to us now. I've got to give the Barcladon Regional Council a bit of a shout out as well. They can see the benefit of it. And there are councils throughout who can invest, like, you know, what I mean, like it's, you know, you go, I think it's one of those definitely made. I was looking at, I was the same, but, you know, they help fund their trip out there. They pay for their flights and I think one of the local, the accommodation places put up the accommodation for free for us. So there are lots of regions that would have similar councils in place that would, you know, potentially get a tap into some funding like that. I think it's a great initiative. And as I said, you know, I got to see first hand again just a pair of, you know, a brand like ours, ending the region for two or three days. You know, it used to be a regular

39:44occurrence for us as a club. It's something that we don't do as often. We once upon a time, we had a Western tour that went out there every year for 10 days. We sort of got in cars for 10 days and hit the bush every year for about 20 years, but it sort of dropped off over the last sort of final 10 years. So, you know, to have burns you go back out there and do a little 10-day road trip at the end of last year and then, you know, if we followed that up with a trip like that this year, you know, it's certainly sort of giving me, you know, even for people like me, a bit of Mojo back to make sure that we're, you know, we're constantly every year hitting some of those regional towns and giving them the support that they need. It's such a good flag. Well done. Who was the worst behaved? Look, but it was a pretty pain trip, to be honest, because I'm on a 100-day alcohol-free at the moment. I'm at that day number 22, Dubai, which I know will surprise you, but it does. It really does. So yeah, it was a very, very humble. We actually had the pleasure of going to the barcaldon hotel. There's a family out there, the actual family of the young fellas name that

40:51got the barcaldon Sengo and it's back going there that we flew down to the Broncos number years ago when he got the rugby league back going in the town. The family, his family actually owned the pub there and they've spent the last 12 rating months renovating, and it's only about three or four weeks away from opening them. So we had the pleasure of being taken back there on Friday night just to have a bit of a sneak peek. And the boys did get to rip two or three pots off the tap. Awesome. Hey, Paul Dodd. Well done. Well done to Broncos as well. And I know the barcaldon region loved it. You had a few pests there in John Brown and a few of those bugs, but that's to be expected. Yeah, look a big shout out to Granny. He told me he owns about 74,000 acres there. Of course he did. Of course he did. And he had future ambitions to be in politics. Yeah, well, Anna will be happy that he joins politics so he could leave there and go away. Appreciate your time. Thanks so much for being with us. Paul Dodd, we really appreciate your time. Pleasure, mate. So yeah, we're going to take a break. Come back through. This is Rural Queensland today. Well, that's it from us here this morning at Rural Queensland today on the Resonate

41:54Broadcast Network, Ben Dobin with you this morning. Hope you've enjoyed the show I certainly have. Jason Matthews to join you next, but listen, wherever you are in Queensland, benupbendobin.com, please get in contact with me. I'm happy to hear your concerns or make sure that if there's something going on in your neck of the woods that you need advertised or if you want, I'm more than happy to promote it. Have a great day. Remember, when the weed is right, kick the headers rolling in the paddock and we'll see you again tomorrow morning from 9am on Rural Queensland today. See you later, Queensland.