The Centralian advocate Tue 28 Nov 2006
Centralian Advocate; NewspaperNT
2006-11-28
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English
Community newspapers; Northern Territory; Alice Springs; Tennant Creek (N.T.); Newspapers; Alice Springs (N.T.); Australia, Central
Nationwide News Pty. Limited
Alice Springs
v. 60 no. 54
application/pdf
Copyright. Made available by the publisher under licence.
Nationwide News Pty. Limited
https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2019C00160
https://hdl.handle.net/10070/233196
https://hdl.handle.net/10070/658437
6 Centralian Advocate, Tuesday, November 28, 2006 PU B : C A D V D A T E : 28-N O V -2006 PA G E : 6 C O L O R : C M Y K Join the festive spirit by decorating your front garden or business front with Christmas lights for Power and Waters, Show Santa Where You Live competition and you could win $1000 off your Power and Water bill. The winners and place getters in each category will receive a deduction off their nominated Power and Water accounts. First place will receive $1000, second place $500 and third place $250. To enter fill out the form below and send it to Show Santa Where You Live Competition, GPO Box 1921, DARWIN NT 0801 or enter online at www.powerwater.com.au Entries close 3 December 2006. Judging 4-7 December 2006. Winners announced evening of 12 December 2006. For more information visit www.powerwater.com.au or telephone 1800 245 092. Category: Domestic Commercial (must be paying commercial electricity rates) Your Name: Business Name (if applicable): Street No. & Name: Suburb: Town: Postcode: Postal address if different from above: Daytime phone no: Email: Entry forms are available on line at www.powerwater.com.au and at the following places in Alice Springs: Power and Water - Greatorex Building and Sadadeen Valley, Alice Springs Town Council, Alice Springs Library, Big O Mitre 10, Range Mitre 10, Home Timber & Hardware. By entering this competition you agree to the terms and conditions of entry as listed on www.powerwater.com.au and available at Power and Water customer service counters. supported by Pay offer annoys nurses THE latest pay rise offer has annoyed NT nurses, their union said yesterday. A Nursing Union delegation is due in Alice Springs today to discuss the latest offer in a six-month pay dispute. When negotiations began, the union asked for a 15 per cent rise. The Office of the Commissioner for Public Employment pro posed a 6 per cent increase over two years on Tuesday. Nurses Union Secretary Yvonne Falckh hoped for something better than six. Ms Falckh has travelled around NT discussing the offer with nurses. She said: We wanted something that will attract, recruit and retain nurses. Acting Commissioner for Public Employment Ken Simpson said the offer was a fair salary increase and a good outcome for nurses. He said: The new offer requires theunion to accept it by December 11 so that it can be put to a vote of nurses. If the union is unable to agree by then I will reluctantly withdraw the offer and negotiations will need to start afresh sometime in the new year. The Bushlight team at the Centre for Appropriate Technology Grant Behrendorff, Paul Coull, Tig Armstrong, Marcus McKay and Emma Chessell with the solar panel design and the trophy for the national Engineers Excellence Award for 2006. Picture: CHLOE ERLICH Excellence win By REBECCA LOLLBACK A RENEWABLE energy project that provides power to remote communities in Central Australia has been honoured with a national engineering award. Bushlight is run by theCentre for Appropriate Technology in Alice Springs. The project won the Engineers AustraliaNational EngineeringExcellence Award from a field of 41 short-listed projects. Group manager Grant Behrendorff said: We were not expecting to win, even though Bushlight is fairly significant for Alice Springs and the Northern Territory. Its a $40 million project, but the other projects nominated for awards, like the Westlink M7 Motorway, is worth $1500 million. This was a huge morale booster for the Bushlight team. Mr Behrendorff also said the awardwouldhelp attract funding in the future. CAT chairman Jim Bray said by winning the award, Bushlight had showed that cutting edge innovat ion can emerge from peoplecentred strategies. He said: This award is a valued recognition of the efforts of the Centre for Appropriate Technology an indigenous organisation that formore than20yearshas sought to support indigenous people with knowledge and access to science and technology. Bushlight has been support by the Federal Government for the past four years. In that time, the teamhasworked inmore than 100 remote indigenous communities to provide sustainable renewable energy services. Residents in these areas previously relied on expensive diesel or petrol generators to supply electricity. But with reliable and costeffective power sources, residents are able to run fridges and freezers to keep food fresh, re-establish schools and improve their day-today lives. The Bushlight programwill operate for at least another two years, but Mr Behrendorff said with additional funding, the program could run for longer. Natt to plead case for CA pastoralists Chris Natt By NICK CALACOURAS DROUGHT assistance for Central Australian properties is the goal of a lobby group, headed by the NT Government, going to Canberra next week. Minister for Primary In dustry Chris Natt said the Territory Government had declared 12 Central Australian properties as being in severe drought, but they had not yet received exceptional circumstance status by the Federal Government. This status gives property owners access to certain concessions and an interest rate subsidy valued at $500,000 over five years. Delegation Mr Natt said he would travel to Canberra next Tuesday with an industry delegation to discuss the applicationwithFederalMinister for Agriculture Peter McGauran. Mr Natt said: The case I will put to Mr McGauran is that the current system of assessing whether a pastoral property is eligible for financial assistance needs to be changed to take into account the vast size of Territory pastoral properties. NT Cattlemens Association executive director StuartKenny is amember of the industry delegation trav elling to Canberra. He said: Part of the cri teria is to show that the area has a severe downturn in farm income over a pro longed period. In a place like NSW, an area the size of an NT property would have 3000 people living, so its easy to show a shared trend. Mr Kenny said he was hopeful that the Federal Governmentwouldbe receptive to their very strong case. He said: There used to be very strict criteria for exceptional circumstance to be granted. That was relaxed about a month ago when the PM recognised that there were lots of other people who needed help. Mr Kenny said the timing is right for the application whichwill giveCentral Australians access to exceptional circumstance status for the first time. Federal Minister for Agriculture Peter McGauran said he received a letter from Mr Natt outlining the difficulties in qualifying for exceptional circumstance drought assistance. He said: I am currently considering these matters and will be having discussions with Mr Natt.