Around New England's Universities February 2010

From time to time I do a round-up of news at New England's various universities. This seems to the right time to do another one with the new academic year just getting underway. It's very interesting, in fact, for the three institutions are very different because of location and history.

At Southern Cross University, the big news has revolved around the University's Gold Coast campus. Orientation kicked off at the new campus on 15 February, with the building officially opened by Deputy PM Julia Gillard on 17 February.

In welcoming Ms Gillard, the Chancellor Mr Dowd, said Southern Cross University had a very clear mission to deliver on the federal government’s education revolution.

“We have more than 16,000 students studying with us, and that number will grow exponentially with this new facility,” Mr Dowd said.

“Only 18 per cent of people at the Gold Coast aged between 25-34 years possess a Bachelor degree or above. This is around half the national average. Fifty-three per cent of all young people in this region are not pursuing any form of education beyond year 12.

“These stark realities stand in contrast to the sun and surf image of the region. We therefore need to add another ‘S’ to this image – that of scholarship."

Other SCU stories included:

• the launch of a carpool, 39 new scholarships under the rising stars program
• orientation week activities for around 3000 newly enrolled students for on-campus study and around 900 students who will be studying by distance education
• Southern Cross University and ChildFund lead cutting edge research on Vietnamese children. The  project involves interviews with 50 children from the rural province of Bac Kan, north of Hanoi. In a culture where children are traditionally ‘seen but not heard’, engaging children in having a say is both important and challenging.

Moving south, the University of Newcastle celebrates the graduation of more than 1,100 students the Central Coast campus. This is an integrated program involving the University, TAFE and the Central Coast Community College. Of the 1,162 students graduating, 931 have completed University of Newcastle programs, 210 have completed TAFE qualifications and a further 21 are graduating from the Central Coast Community College.

On 3 February, the University of signed an agreement with global education provider, Navitas, who are establishing the Newcastle International College on the Callaghan (Newcastle) campus.

Vice-Chancellor, Professor Nicholas Saunders, said the college would be pivotal in the University's growth.

"The University has been working to grow its student numbers. However, in an increasingly competitive market, it is vital that we increase the number of international students coming to Newcastle."

International student numbers at Newcastle have grown over the past five years by almost 30 per cent. Onshore international enrolments now comprise approximately 15 per cent of total enrolments, but this remains below the sector average, which stands at about 20 per cent.

"Working with Navitas as it establishes Newcastle International College will expand the base of international students to the University across a broad range of our programs," Professor Saunders said.

The college will provide programs to international students across a number of disciplines. Successful completion will enable graduates to progress directly to the second year of a university level program.

Other University of Newcastle stories included:

• Recognition for the work of forensic dentist Dr Jane Taylor in the award of an Australian Federal Police Operations Medal for her work identifying victims of the Bali bombing in 2002 and the Boxing Day Tsunami in Thailand in 2004.
• Formalisation of the The Making Educational Goals Sustainable (MEGS) program between the University, Hunter TAFE and NSW DET (Department of Education and Training). This aims to promote education amongst students from targeted equity groups. The new MoU will formalise the partnership and will significantly expand the program with over 650 Year 6 students and their parents visiting the University of Newcastle this year. For many, this will be the first time that they have been in contact with a university.
• The launch (photo) of a new data base intended provide schizophrenia researchers across Australia with access to new information to help them treat the condition. This automates data collected by the Schizophrenia Research Institute's University of Newcastle group and collects genetic, clinical and neurological information from up to 4,000 volunteers across Australia.

At the University of New England, new VC Professor Jim Barber has also been welcoming new students at the first day of orientation activities. 

More than 1,000  new students attended the official welcome, during which Alicia Zikan, the undergraduate student representative on the UNE Council, also spoke to them about the unique opportunities at UNE for meeting people - both students and staff members - and making friends.

“In your colleges you’re already part of a strong social network,” Ms Zikan said, adding that there were also social networks for students living in the town.

“You’ll have opportunities that students at other universities - sitting in a lecture theatre with 900 other students - can only dream of,” she said.

Professor Barber followed the same theme:

“Our mission at UNE is to change your life,” he told the new students who, together with parents and friends, gathered yesterday on the lawns of “Booloominbah” - the picturesque heart of the University’s campus.

Professor Barber predicted that, as well as acquiring “skills that will make your career” and “a passport to travel the world”, they would make life-long friendships - many even finding their life partner.

“I’m more confident of making these predictions about UNE than I would be about any other university,” he said, explaining that the strong and lasting friendships formed at UNE were something he had been aware of throughout his career.

“I hope you’ll be proud of being UNE alumni,” he concluded. “Welcome, good luck, and let your new life begin!”

The University also reported the results of an unexpected finding in a new research report on science education commissioned by the National Centre of Science, ICT and Mathematics Education for Rural and Regional Australia (SiMERR) at the University that involved around 590 teachers and 3,800 students throughout the country.

Despite the current serious decline in the proportion of senior high-school students taking science subjects, there has been no corresponding decline in students’ enjoyment of science, their appreciation of its importance to society, or their interest in science careers.

If I understand the results correctly, the crux of the problem lies not in lack of interest, but rather in a widening of school choices that has reduced the role of traditional science core subjects.

Other February stories included:

• The opening of a new state of the art $A6.3 million greenhouse complex for plant research. In outlining the structure and function of the greenhouse complex, Professor Gross said it included 25 separate rooms, in each of which temperature and watering could be controlled independently.
• Scientists and research students from five continents participated in the ninth annual Armidale Animal Breeding Summer Course, becoming familiar with the latest genetic technologies for predicting the performance of individual farm animals.
• Industry Placement Scholarships were awarded to 21 school leavers this summer giving them an insight into the career opportunities available to science graduates in primary industries. Each student attended a five-day “Science to Industry Camp” based at the University, extending to agriculture-related businesses and laboratories throughout the region. They also completed a five-day “industry placement” working with professional scientists.
• Andreas Mehl , a distinguished Professor of Ancient History from Germany, is to give a public lecture at the University of New England on 5 March entitled “How the Romans recorded, remembered, thought about, and used their past”. This will be the first lecture for 2010 in UNE’s “Aspects of Antiquity” lecture series, now in its 17^th year.

Three universities, three very different stories. Each reflects the different pasts of three very different institutions. In a later post, I will put this in historical context.  

Battle Song of New England

The words and melody of the Battle Song of New England, the anthem of the New England New State Movement, were composed by Ulrich Ellis and arranged by Joy Harvie around 1952.

I first heard it as a sixteen year old at the convention in Armidale that launched Operation Seventh State, the major campaign that finally forced the first plebiscite. I say the first, because I still hope that there will be a second.

The Town hall was darkened, a spot light was shoe on the flag, and the battle song was sung by a very good singer. All very melodramatic, but effective none the less.  

The words of the New England Anthem follow:

Everywhere we hear a rousing song
Half a million people march along
New England is decreed
From the Hunter to the Tweed
Our cause is justly strong

Chorus:
We will raise the
Banner of New England
Work for New England
Fight for New England
We will raise the
Battle cry of freedom
Fight for our Liberty

Buccarumbi to Coraki
On the mountains you will hear the cry
Out upon the plain
You will hear it sung again
At Collarenebri

From the western borders to the sea
Tamworth links her fortunes with Taree
Thy join us in the fray
On the Hunter and Macleay
New England will be free

Where the Clarence sparkles in the sun
Where the Northern Rivers swiftly run
Where the Gwydir flows
By the cold Ben Lomond snows
Our Victories will be won

Soft Pacific breezes on the shore
Drive the fleecy breakers to a roar
Multiply and rise
Till they echo in the skies
They sing for evermore

The following reproductions from the Australian National Library show the original with music.

Sheet one

Sheet two

Raising the New England Flag

I had not intended to post again today. However, I could not resist when cousin Jamie sent me an email to say that William (Bill) Oates, the inimitable archivist at the University of New England, had produced another piece for Archives Outside on New State material.

This photos shows the 1962 raising of the flag at the new campaign offices in the Minto Building, Rusden Street, Armidale.

As I did with Bill's previous piece in New England Story - new states, archives and the preservation of our past, I will do a full companion piece providing more historical material.

For the moment, its nice just to share the photo!      

Belshaw's World - tubing on the Mekong

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express on Wednesday  10 February 2010. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the Express columns are not on line. You can see all the columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010.

When I was a kid going out to the Blue Hole, two things were required to make the perfect expedition. One was a rope to swing from, the second a car or truck tube.

The tube was great for just lying in the water, although you always had to watch the valve when the inevitable spills occurred. Do kids still do this, or have tubes just vanished?

I mention this because a whole gang of my daughters’ friends are presently in South East Asia. According to Helen (eldest), this has become something of a right of passage.

This is one of those sprawling modern trips not possible when I was their age. They are all going in different groups, but linked by Facebook, mobiles and travel blogs, they meet at particular points along the way.

Jenny, one of the less inhibited girls in the group and a long standing family friend, has been writing a travel blog. I won't give the link because, while it's a public blog, it’s really being written for the benefit of the group.

I have really enjoyed her trip so far. Jenny writes well and frankly, so its fun even if as a parent I do grit my teeth sometimes!

I was really struck by the way in which places once strange to Australians have become so familiar to the young in the forty or so years since brother David and I went for the first time. The popularity of tubing - I had to look tubing up - in the little Laotian town of Vang Vieng had completely passed me by!

This is the Blue Hole writ large. You get onto a truck tube and just float down the river.

Every so often there are things to see or do, including multiple bars, so you steer the tube ashore. The only constraint in all this appears to be that you must get to the other end of the journey by a certain time or lose your deposit on the tube.

Jen commented in one of her posts "this would not be allowed in Australia!". By this she simply meant that the activity in question would either not be allowed or at least rigidly controlled because it involved some risk.

She is right, of course, and to my mind it points to something of a problem. Australia has become a less relaxed society, with ever growing controls intended to control risk. This doesn’t stop the young taking risks. They simply do it in different ways and in different places.

On Friday, 19 March, I will be presenting a paper in Armidale as part of the University of New England's Classics & History Seminar Series. The topic: “Unrecognised and now almost unknown: explorations through the history of the broader New England”.

Those who read this column will know that I write a fair bit about local and regional history.

I do so because it interests me. However, a few years back when I returned to New England history, I had no idea that my research would become the historical equivalent of an archaeological rescue dig.

To the historians among you, please don’t take this the wrong way.

Local and narrower regional history such as that of the Tablelands is being written. But, to my knowledge, there are few if any looking at the history of the broader North/New England.

When I get a current Australian history book and look at the index, I find that whole slabs of history relevant to our area have gone over the last thirty years.

Of course historical fashions change. But the loss has not been replaced by alternative relevant material. Total visibility has declined.

I think that the desire to know our own past is still strong.

A few weeks back there were calls in the Upper Hunter for the reformation of the New England New State Movement. This led to a request to me for information about the Movement’s history.

Then, a few days ago, I had a request from someone writing a novel set in part in Armidale and Coffs Harbour in the period 1890-1920.

I guess that all this means that you can expect more history in this column!

I don’t want history to dominate. After all, Belshaw’s World is as much about the present as the past.

Yet there is just so much wonderful stuff about our past that I would like to share with you that I don’t think that I will be able to help myself!

Local council rate cap reduced to 2.6%

This may be an unpopular thing to say, but the decision by Sydney reduce the cap on increases in local council rates to 2.6% in light with changes in the consumer price index makes very little sense.

Councils are elected bodies that are meant to manage things in the interests of local residents. Putting an artificial cap on spending doesn't make a great deal of sense in the first place, linking it to a measure that has little to do with shifts in councils' real costs makes less sense.

Councils have been complaining for some time that the artificial and arbitrary rule has led to a run down in local infrastructure. There appears to be at least some truth in this.

As early as 1926 those supporting self government in New England were using the case of local government to support their contention that provincial councils would not work as an alternative to new states. They said then, and it has been true since, that Sydney always wanted total control and would interfere whenever it suited them.

The cap is really one of those arbitrary things so beloved by Sydney.

In memoriam - the Great Northern Railway

The following 1988 photo from Gordon Smith's archives shows the railway station at Black Mountain north of Armidale on what was once The Great Northern Railway.

It still distresses me that the Sydney Government should have first stopped trains, then closed and failed to maintain what was once the main railway north. You see, as time passed it became harder and harder to do anything about it.

Call me sentimental if you like, but "hard headed" - I have inserted the italics advisedly - economic decisions that ignore history, sentiment and the the possibilities of future changes are not always sensible.

The Queensland Government has at least kept its part of the line open.

It is no coincidence that Queensland has been far more effective than Sydney in promoting its country rail system. The Sydney lot see rail lines as just transport, Brisbane as transport plus tourism. This is part and parcel of Sydney's failure to develop an effective tourism branding strategy that I have written about before.    

Page and Pooaraar's The Great Forgetting

In an earlier post on my personal blog, Train Reading - S H Roberts the Squatting Age in Australia, 1835-1847, I reviewed this pioneering study of the emergence of the Australian wool industry. Then Janine Rizzeti wrote a rather nice companion piece, ‘The Squatting Age in Australia 1835-1847′.

In that piece, Janine included a link to a book by New England poet Geoff Page and Aboriginal print maker Pooaraar (Bevan Hayward), The Great Forgetting (1996) . I had not seen the book before. Janine included the book because it had a poem entitled The Classic Text that dealt with  S H Robert's book.

The poems and supporting illustrations look at the interaction between Aborigines and new settlers over time. They can be read at several levels.

At one level, Page and Pooarar's joint work brings out aspects of post European settlement Aboriginal history in a powerful way. I may quibble with aspects from a historical perspective, but it is quite a powerful book.

At a second level, the specific location of some of the poems means that they are likely to be understood by and appeal to many of those from the broader New England. We all like to read work set in our own country. For example, I think that Lynne or for that matter the broader North Coast Voices collective will find them interesting.

Then there is a third level, the linkage between Geoff Page himself, country and New England history.

There are aspects here that I find fascinating and am slowly teasing through.

Geoff is Earle Page's grandson. I am David Drummond's grandson. Judith Wright is PA Wright's daughter. Page, Drummond and Wright were all actively involved in the same New England causes. From somewhat different generations and sometimes different perspectives, their children and grandchildren have all written on Aboriginal issues.

I would not put myself as a writer in the same class as either Geoff or Judith. I am not. I just find the linkage between us all and country and our respective histories fascinating.

One of the huge pleasures I get in writing about New England history lies in the fact that I can sometimes shine light on linkages and relationships that might otherwise get lost.

I do not know whether Geoff Page and Pooaraar's book is still in print. I doubt it. If not, I would love to see it reprinted. In the meantime, please browse the Google Book entry. 

Round the New England blogging traps 12 - peace and protest

It's been a while since I did a blog round-up.

Since starting last Tuesday, the Save Bellingen Facebook page has reached 1,444 fans as of 10.22am Sunday morning. Quite remarkable, really.

I noticed several familiar blogging names appear among the fans: my old friend Sydney blogger Neil Whitfield, Lynne Sander Braithwaite who actually started the Facebook page in the first place because her daughter lives in Bellingen and has just had a baby and Bellingen based blogger Pip Wilson.

  Pip has several sites in addition to Wilson's Blogmanac -    Wilson's almanac and the Feel Good Manual. He is a member of the Rainbow Region Flikr group.

Pip, who describes his role as web content provision, writing, journalism, editing, came to Bellingen in 1971 attracted by the alternative life style. He has very firm views:

The hospital drama is part of the strategy to make Bello (Repton, Mylestom, etc) suburbs of Coffs, through shire amalgamation, for $$$$$. The battle to save our hospital is SO important. Bello's not Coffs in culture, climate, history & BIOREGION. Coffs was built on a swamp only recently. Less than 100 yrs ago, Coffs people came to Bello to do their shopping at Hammond & Wheatley's. We MUSTN'T let the sharks Californicate our valley. Population explosion/subdivisions is part of the macro strategy - we must wake up to this. Save the hospital, & save Bello.  

I can see his point. In Distant memories of a now vanished North Coast - Bellingen, I mentioned that Bellingen's slight remoteness meant that it escaped the sudden development that affected the nearby coast.  Gordon Smith's views of Bellingen contains a picture of the store Pip is referring to.

Staying with protest, the North Coast Voices collective has been somewhat stricken with illness and injury leaving Clarencegirl alone at the fort. Hard to get the Premier's attention? Well life's like that in regional New South Wales reports on the continuing efforts to gain political support to improve the Pacific Highway.

Driving on this road north of Kempsey can be quite frightening because of the trucks among other things. Prior to the opening of the road bridges across the Clarence some years ago, interstate truck transport used the inland New England Highway route. Now the ever increasing volume of trucks combines with increasing interstate and local traffic to create a real mess.

I am not sure why people actually use the coastal route. The route that I follow to Brisbane from Sydney is just over one hour longer ( 13hrs vs 12 hrs), but is much easier driving because it avoids the heavy traffic. Mind you, it may not be in my interests to provide details!

Turning from protest to peace, I have just discovered The woman on the mountain. Like Pip, Sharyn Munro is a writer who moved for life style reasons. Now she lives in a solar-powered mudbrick cabin on her mountain wildlife refuge in the Hunter Valley. Here she is, and I quote, "regenerating her property’s vegetation at a pace dictated by ageing knees". This is a gentle blog combining photos and short descriptions.

I discovered Sharyn through Wollombi Valley Online.  

Staying in the Hunter, Gaye's Snippets and sentiments continues her exploration of life and nature in the Hunter and Beyond. Like Sharyn and Lynne, Gaye is a grandmother who recorded the birth of her sixth grandchild in January in And Ava makes six. . .. Congratulations.

Mulubinbi Moments, another Hunter bog, does suffer from irregular posting, but is worth checking. I enjoyed the Kakadu posts, while  Blogging, internet search engines and privacy contained some thoughts that I actually need to review in a professional sense.

I see that Newcastle Rugby League player Kurt Gidley has taken his blog off-line, so that's another blog down. Last night's initial and very successful  Australian All Stars vs Indigenous All Stars saw a thundering tackle from Newcastle and Indigenous second-rower Cory Paterson on Kurt Gidley force his club captain to leave the field.     

Craig Wilson's Media Hunter blog continues to provide some remarkably interesting material on media, the internet and advertising.

Finally, Gordon Smith on LookAndSee has been dusting off photos from his archives.

Bellingen Hospital, Facebook and the costs to the community

Yesterday in Bellingen organises to save hospital I reported on the campaign to save services at Bellingen Hospital.

It's been very interesting watching the unofficial Facebook page formed to support the official campaign site. This was created on Tuesday 9 February. As of this morning, it had 812 fans. That's a very rapid growth in such a short time.

The first challenge in a local campaign of this type is to demonstrate local support. The Facebook provides a tangible measure of this.

The second challenge is to spell out the reasons why people want the particular result, in this case saving the hospital's facilities. The official campaign has been doing this, but the Facebook page provides lots of specific examples. It personalises the general arguments.

It also provides information that can be used directly in scoping need. Let me illustrate this by example.

  Health planners work with the statistical data they have. This includes census data and health system data including hospital admissions. They are concerned not just with the now, but also the future. Here they use projections that by their nature reflect the past.

There are several difficulties with this approach: one lies in the weaknesses of the statistics themselves; a second is the inability to identify and properly analyse the on-ground effects of decisions.

Looking at the Facebook comments, the examples might be used to draw up a table of adverse effects.

It is clear from the comments that Bellingen Hospital serves a catchment extending from Ebor in the west to Urunga in the east. This broadly but probably not exactly equates to the LGA boundary. In broad terms, the catchment boundaries are set by the travel time to Bellingen compared to the bigger hospitals in Armidale on the west, Coffs in the east.

The first effect of any reduction in services will be an increase in travel time. This will be differential across the catchment and can be mapped.

Dorrigo, for example, is roughly 29k or 26 minutes by car from Bellingen, 124k or 1hr 40 from Armidale, 66k or one hour from Coffs. So any reduction in Bellingen services means increased travel time for Dorrigo people of 1hr 14 in the case of Armidale, 74 minutes in the case of Coffs. The extra cost to patients can be calculated. 

Travel times then need to be adjusted for the availability of public transport for those who do not have cars or who must travel by public transport or, alternatively, taxis. Extra time and costs here can also be roughly estimated. Another health cost may be the failure of people to seek treatment when they should, simply because its too difficult.

Travel times also need to be considered in terms of type of illness or accident. Again, the Facebook pages provides personalised examples to be considered. For example, what happens if your child has a sudden asthma attack?

The extra costs of ambulance travel can also be roughly estimated.

This analysis addresses just the direct costs. There are also broader community costs, including access to other Government services. For example, the supply of social housing may be affected because one of the key criteria here is access to services.

No doubt many of these issues have already been picked up by those fighting to save services at Bellingen Hospital. However, the new Facebook page provides extra evidence.

Finally, one of the points that I always try to make in cases like this is that Government policy focuses on the savings to Government on one side, the broad nature of services on the other. The cost shifting to local communities is rarely taken into full account simply because it is harder to measure.   

Bellingen organises to save hospital

While I have never lived in Bellingen, I have known the town all my life and written about it on this blog a number of times.

Bellingen now faces a threat to its hospital services and the locals have organised to try to save it. You will find the Save Bellingen Hospital web site here.

The Bellingen Hospital case is an example of the increasing conflict that has arisen between the needs of centralised service delivery on one side, local needs and indeed history on the other.

To health planners concerned about value for health dollars at a time of budget stress, the idea of rationalising services across broader areas appeals greatly and has done so for a number of years. However, there can be a fundamental conflict between this and local aspirations and needs.

To the health planner, a local hospital is a piece on a chess board to be moved or given up in the interests of the greater game. To the local, the hospital is an integral part of their life. They have worked for it, they were born there, their children were born there, family and friends have died there, they have visited it many times, they know the staff.

You can see this clearly if you look at the newly established Save Bellingen Hospital public Facebook page. Just a few quotes:

• Marguerite: Bellingen Hospital was a very decisive factor in my sea change from Sydney to Bellingen over a decade ago. As a single mother with a young asthmatic child I needed to know that I could access an emergency service, that was close by, no matter what time of day or night. I have indeed used the service many times and wou...ld feel that the community would be robbed of this asset . Although my daughter has since grown up and moved away. I would like to see the hospital survives this senseless closure, ensuring its fantastic care for others with high health risks.
• Briony: I broke my shoulder bone, from a horse riding accident way back when I was about 12. I was treated at Bellingen hospital, they were very good to me!!
• Hannah: I had may major asthma attacks at Bello , they saved my life more than once, and there was never a wait x.
• Laura: My mother and auties were born in Belligen Hospital, all my 7 brothers and
  sisters and I were born at Bellingen Hospital, 2 of my 4 children were
  born at Bellingen, For 1 i was forced to go to coffs due to bellingens
  services being down graded and just 7 months ago I gave birth at home
  because it was the only option that suited my family situation. Neither me or my husband drive and many a time we have needed to catch a taxi to make the 4minute trip to the hospital in
  the middle of the night when our little pumpkins have been ill. Catching a taxi to coffs or having to wait for a ambulance in the middle of the night is not only unnecessary but could be life
  threatening. Please keep the hospital services we have and my wish is
  that they will go back to what they were.
• Tokana: I know that I've always gone to Bellingen Hospital, even f I needed to be transferred. I will have my children at Bellingen Hospital one day. I love and appreciate the wonderful staff who put in long hours and never complain at what they do -but they do complain about the wages not being enough for the amount of time they put into the hospital and their patients. They also make you feel welcome and important. They're always friendly to patients and each other, and they tend to your needs. SAVE BELLINGEN HOSPITAL!!!!
• Carol: They should go back and read or listen to the The Elders from the Indiginous people of this land as a lot of our relatives use to walk the back road from Bowraville to Bellingen Hostpital to have there babies. My three grand children were born in Bellingen Hostpital and all the Doctors and Staff have always been there for me when I neeed there help SOOOOOO p[LEASE don't close our wonderful hostpital down as the whole Community needs the doors to be kept opened.
• David: As we recently had our hospital closed down in Cowes, I feel for you. Can't these idiots get their priorities right?

If you look at these comments, you can see the way people still love and trust their local hospital at a time when distrust in health services and hospitals has been on the rise.

Over time, the inexorable centralisation of health services has weakened local hospitals. All country people know this. They have seen services withdrawn, forcing them to travel increasing distances for service if indeed they can travel. Not everyone has a car, and public transport is often poor.

This has economic and social effects and actually increases the normal dangers of life. If the Bellinger River floods as it does so often, then access to Coffs may be cut. It becomes harder to attract people to live in specific communities. It becomes harder for older people who may need care to stay in their communities.

One might accept some of these outcomes if country health services were delivering better results. However, the reality appears to be a growing gap in health outcomes between country and metro areas.

Given the fundamental disconnect between the models currently used in health planning and community needs and aspirations, the only weapon available to locals is protest. This is the reason why the Bellingen community is looking to attract as much support as possible for the preservation of the local hospital.

You can help them and also follow the cause by joining the Save Bellingen Hospital Facebook page.