Autumn has arrived feeling a lot like an extended wet summer. The ‘to do’ list is ever present regardless and so …
…Our first working bee for this autumn season is on this Saturday, March 7th.
Meet at the hall at 2pm. Bring along some good cheer, energy and a mate.
Drinks on the verandah afterwards at 4pm.
February Friday Night Social is on this coming Friday, Feb 6th.
Stefan AKA The Hidden Valley Honky Tonker will again be providing live music for the gathering.
The drinks will be chilled just right and as always bring some bar nibbles to share. Bar open at 6pm.
Here is my latest email to TMR and the minister. It’s great that this in only one of many emails that other residents (I will let them identify themselves if they wish) have written to TMR, the Minister and the Premier expressing their anger and frustration over how the permit system has been implemented and the refusal of the Department to openly share the information and reasoning that has guided their decisions.
Wed 4/06/2025 4:10 PM
The Honourable Brent Mickelberg MP,
Minister for Transport and Main Roads
Dear Minister,
I am disappointed not to have received a response from you to my previous email (May 21). I acknowledge the response received on May 27 from your Director General to an earlier email (May 19) on the same issue.
Unfortunately the response from Ms Stannard was not very informative and mostly repeated the rather vague information from TMR Range Road Updates. I had indicated this information was deficient for the purpose of understanding how the permit system had been developed and why it clearly discriminates between different categories of residents in Paluma. That email also refused to provide the PDCA with access to technical documents that would help us to understand the facts and reasoning behind permit decisions.
The Mt Spec Road has been closed to all traffic for nearly 4 months and continues to be closed to part-time residents and the general public. The poor state of the dirt road providing access to the Village and surrounding district means that access is impossible or highly impractical for non-permanent who don’t have high clearance vehicles and those individual whose health could be compromised by travel over rough surfaces. Commercial enterprises in Paluma are in dire straits, and there are strong rumours that the range road will remain closed till the end of the year. This is virtually guaranteed to result in severe financial distress if not bankruptcies.
The latest update on the Mt Spec Range road report continues to arrogantly provide less and less information on the progress towards opening the Road to all residents, and the general public. The PDCA finds it extremely disappointing that TMR has not provided specific dates (or even provisional targets) for:
Closing of a public road and effectively cutting off homeowners from accessing their properties is a very significant imposition on people’s daily lives and personal freedoms. For many of us Paluma is an extension of our Townsville home and being refused access can be likened to being told we know longer have access to some of the rooms in our house. In making such a major decision, with profound personal impacts the government has a duty to follow best practise and:
Unfortunately, due to the active refusal of the Department to answer our request for information on data used and processes followed to make its decision, the residents of Paluma are quite reasonably inclined to consider the possibility that none of the above steps were properly followed and that the restrictions imposed are based on inadequate data and faulty reasoning. They also would be reasonably entitled to feel furious that major impositions on their lives have been made without adequate justification.
In addition to the lack of best practise in items 4 and 5 above and lack of demonstrated best practice in items 1-3, residents’ confidence in TMR decision making has fallen due to two key decisions that defy common logic. In the absence of any cogent explanation from TMR they just don’t pass the “Pub Test”.
TMR has frequently allowed traffic to travel up the range road after dark when the road had significant sections that were reduced to one lane and subject to traffic lights. Clearly the risk of a land slide does not increase at night, and the use of powered night lights on those critical sections would adequately ensure that any land slip would be detected as easily, or even better, than during daylight. So why insist that the road must be closed after dark for safety reasons? And why allow current permit holders to start up the range road at 6pm when this means that a large part of the trip will be made after sunset in darkness? In the absence of any explanation from TMR, the most logical explanation is that the TMR wishes to avoid costs of manning the gates after 6pm. If so the TMR is being duplicitous in using safety as a more palatable justification than penny pinching. If this is an unfair assessment TMR could just answer the question we have posed repeatedly over the last month.
Unless TMR has established that an increase in the number of small vehicles traveling on the road will increase the probability of a land slip there appears to be no reason to claim that capping the number of vehicles on the road will increase safety. Safety is increased by decreasing the likelihood to individual people or cars that they will be hit by a landslip. This could be achieved by obvious measures that stabilise the slope or provide remote monitoring and telemetry to warn of any signs of increasing instability. Increasing traffic volume does not affect individual risk. If the road was opened up to all residents and homeowners none of them would be placed at a higher risk than those who already have permits. Likewise letting additional people use the road would not change the risk to permanent residents. So why does TMR justify its claim that vehicle cap is in place to increase public safety? Perhaps it’s because TMR does run the risk that as the volume of cars goes up, there could be more cars caught in a land slip, which results in greater political and legal liability. Using this logic, we should be restricting the number of cars allowed to use roads on public holidays – it would drastically reduce the carnage on our highways. But we don’t do this. Instead, we try to reduce individual risk by keeping dangerous drivers off the road through increased RBTs and speed traps.
Currently part-residents are furious because they have been deprived of access to their homes and are being kept in the dark about the reasons for this. TMR is refusing to provide residents with information that might provide satisfactory explanations to the illogical nature of its decisions, and this is leading to rampant speculation that TMR is either incompetent, duplicitous or both!
The current TMR Road report just repeats pathetic platitudes about how much it appreciates our patience and understanding, both of which were exhausted weeks ago!
Minister, the PDCA calls on you to thoroughly review the analyses and decisions that have been made and ensure that best practise (including external review and true community consultation) is being implemented. Based on the publicly released information we believe that your Department’s decisions have unnecessarily made life increasingly intolerable for Paluma residents. We seek urgent relief from what are viewed as draconian decisions based on faulty reasoning.
Yours sincerely
Jamie Oliver
President, Paluma & District Community Association
Our first working bee for this year is on this Saturday May 3rd.
Meet at the hall at 2pm. The focus will be to do some tidying up and restorative work on the Hylands’ Rainforest Track. Bring along gear you think will be useful.
Drinks on the verandah afterwards at 4pm.
Here is your chance to sail the Greek Islands
virtually,
through John and Anneshka’s photos.
Saturday 21st September 1800hrs
Bring a Greek or Greek inspired plate to share.
All welcome.
Venue TBA
Macleay’s Honeyeater (Xanthotis macleayanus) is one of Paluma’s most common birds in our gardens and at feeders. While it eschews the dramatic displays and gaudy colours of some of our other regulars around the village, dedicated observers grow to appreciate its soft pastel colours and tartan pattern. It is also special in being one of 13 bird species that are endemic to (only found in) the Wet Tropics. Its distribution extends from Paluma range in the south to Cooktown in the north.
In the forest, Macleay’s Honeyeater is found mostly in the forest canopy where it forages for a range of insects and spiders (its predominant food) as well as nectar and fruit. It is most abundant at lower altitudes, but you would never know it from the vantage point of a typical porch in the village, where it is one of the most common visitors at feeders and is easily encouraged to eat from a hand. In town, it will eat a variety of food on offer although providing processed food to native wildlife is never a good idea.
Macleay’s Honeyeater commences breeding in September. Nests are generally located in very dense vegetation in the canopy (7.5m and above) but occasionally lower. The female is the primary incubator of the eggs, but both parents feed the young.
The genus Xanthotis is derived from the Greek xantho (yellow) and otis (ear) which is a distinctive character of this species. Both the common name and scientific name also pay homage to Sir William Macleay (1820-1891). He was a Scott who emigrated to Australia as a young man. After achieving financial security as a pastoralist (and through marriage) he became a politician and then spent most of the rest of his life indulging in his passion for natural history. He was the founding President of the Linnean Society of NSW, a prolific author, a generous patron of the sciences and an avid collector. His collections were donated to the University of Sydney after his death and formed the basis for the Macleay Museum.
The scientific name is sometimes written as Xanthotis macleayana but this is an error and also a faux pas. Those readers old enough to have taken Latin in school might recognise that the suffix “ana” is used to denote female characteristics whereas “anus” is masculine. I doubt very much that Sir William identified himself as a female!
Text and Photos by Jamie Oliver
Did you know that Koalas can be found in the open forests west of Paluma and much of the sclerophyll forests in the eastern Queensland coastal area of north Queensland? If you would like to know more about koalas or share any sightings you have made in the region, The Australian Wildlife Conservancy is hosting a community workshop leading up to some targeted Koala monitoring later this year.
Felicity L’Hotellier, Senior Field Ecologist for the AWC is inviting Paluma residents to attend the workshop on Wednesday, April 19th. The workshop will be hosted on site at Mount Zero-Taravale’s bush camp. The day will kick off at 9am, and wrap up by 3:30pm, with informal discussions throughout the day including a round-table with those in attendance.
Attendees are invited to camp on site (would need to supply their own tents/sleeping gear), with AWC to provide basic catering from the evening of the 18th through until the morning of the 20th. For anyone interested, an evening spotlight drive and a visit to our new feral predator-free exclosure fence is also planned.
This invitation is restricted to Paluma residents and you are asked to register for the workshop before April 10th. To register or obtain further information contact Felicity on 0408084 617 or 4770 8025.
Felicity L’Hotellier, Senior Field Ecologist
Mobile. 0408 084 617 Phone. 07 4770 8025
Email. felicity.lhotellier@australianwildlife.org
Taravale, Ewan Road, Paluma QLD 4816
www.australianwildlife.org
Wilfred is again calling for volunteers to attend a Working Bee at the Rainforest Walking Track on Saturday 4th February at 2 pm. The work started in January will continue to repair and upgrade various sections of the track. Steps and drains will be the main works to be undertaken this Saturday.
Volunteers should bring a wheelbarrow and shovel if they have them, but the main requirement is enthusiasm and lots of energy. Please meet at the Community Hall at 2 pm. Refreshments will be provided after the working bee. If you can spare an hour or two, please come along to help out in undertaking this important work to maintain our village walking tracks.
For more than a year several people have raised the possiblity of creating a facebook group for Paluma residents to post notices to others about items for sale or even to let people know of an opportunity to share costs for bringing a plumber or electrician up to the village to do some work.
Well Stella Thompson-Wheway has recently taken the initiative to create just such a group. It’s called Paluma Buy, Sell, Swap and Give away and she is inviting all Paluma residents to join up. The link above should take you there, or else just use the search function to find the group (using “Paluma Buy Sell” in the search box should do it).
There’s already one item for give away on the site, and I am sure more posts like it will follow soon.
Many thanks to Stella for setting this up for the Community.
Our very own ‘Paluma Potter’, Len Cook has taken out yet another prestigious award for his work. Last Friday (22 July 2022) Len was presented with the Betty Jackson Memorial Award at the Perc Tucker Regional Gallery. Some long-time Paluma residents may remember Betty and Graham Jackson who owned a house on Lennox Cresecent. They also owned Loloma Jewellers in Townsville.
The winning artwork is a Flower Container – made from local clay with feldspar inclusions. It is Anagama fired (in Len’s famous kiln). It has a naturally-deposited wood ash glaze produced during the firing.
Congratulations Len on this latest achievement for your hard work.
If you haven’t been to the Gallery at Len Cook Ceramics for a while, drop in and see Len. Why not choose your very own unique masterpiece from an award-winning Potter.
