Cathy McGowan (Indi, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Winter in Indi is perfection, and on Saturday, 25 July, I had the perfect weekend travelling up the Mitta Valley in my orange caravan, beginning at Talgarno with a community meeting of over 15 people talking about telecommunications, schooling, transport and the special social issues of being a spillover from Albury-Wodonga. Next, I went up to beautiful Eskdale for the Mitta Valley community Landcare AGM, where funding for Landcare, biological control of blackberry and the future of the dairy industry were on the agenda. Finally, we finished at the footy—nothing better than footy on a Saturday afternoon—seeing Mitta play Thurgoona. I spent time exploring the new facilities and also the netball courts that have been built as a result of a partnership between the community, the Mitta Muster, the shire and the Victorian government.

A special thank you to Julie for making it happen at Talgarno; to Jim de Hennin and Paula Sheehan; to Doris and Peter at Landcare; to Mac Patton for hosting me at the footy—thank you very much for that; and to Karen Moroney for all the work you do with the Landcare group.

Thank you to the Mitta Valley: you are clever, you are productive and you actually show what a fantastic electorate Indi is.