Local woman Brianna Hewitt is, unfortunately, the worst kind of drunk – an aggressive one.
Unlike her friends, who usually teetered somewhere between happy drunks, sloppy drunks and occasionally, the sad drunk, Brianna would find herself itching for a fight just a few cruisers in.
This can make Brianna a problematic person to go clubbing with, as her friends have to constantly assure her that no, that girl isn’t giving her a weird look.
For tonight’s debacle, a drunk Brianna has been put into a rather compromising position, similar to riding a skittish horse on the highway – lining up at 2 am to enter Betoota’s hottest nightclub, The Toot.
Though this would have been difficult enough for even the most seasoned clubber, lining up for 35 minutes can truly bring out the worst in humanity, especially when impatience is met with drunkenness. But for Brianna, the closely wedged bodies and too many 18-year-olds has resulted in her cruiser induced aggression reaching an all-time high. And they better watch out.
“Did she fucking push me?” seethes Brianna to her mates, as a girl walking past barely brushes her shoulder.
“She pushed me ON PURPOSE.”
“No, Hannah, I will NOT settle down, she can’t do that to people.”
The Werribee Business and Tourism Association (WBTA) has launched a digital campaign encouraging residents to support local businesses.
The WBTA was established in 2015 to provide events and services for businesses and those that would like to do business in Wyndham.
The association’s membership represents business owners and their employees, students and education facilities, plus corporate, medium, small and micro-businesses.
A grant from the state government has funded the WBTA “buy local” campaign, which took about six months to develop.
The campaign aims to raise awareness of the various services available in Werribee, encourage locals to visit the WBTA categories landing page to find out more about these services and promote individual Werribee businesses and their strengths.
The campaign features businesses in the categories of Your Town Centre, Your Business, Your Property, Your Health and Wellbeing, Your Local Sights & Community and Your Sports and Recreational.
Videos to promote each category will be used to reach residents through Facebook advertising.
There will also be social media posts for businesses within each of the categories and photography showcasing local business owners, sharing quotes on the best Werribee has to offer.
Food producers and makers have united to put local food on the table in Queensland's South Burnett.
As you walk through the door of the "Farm 2 Fork" shop, a large chalkboard displays a message highlighting how far the food at an average Brisbane barbecue has travelled.
The 200,000-kilometre figure is staggering, and one of the reasons chef Roberta Schablon wanted a place to be able to buy locally.
Ms Schablon is a member of the committee in the not-for-profit collective that has recently converted an empty store in the village of Wooroolin to a food market that opens twice a week.
Messages in the collective shop explain the benefits of eating locally produced food.(ABC Wide Bay: Brad Marsellos)
"It came about because all of us were struggling to get local produce," Ms Schablon said.
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Country Kitchens: Farmers unite to open local produce marketDownload 4.4 MB
"We were all scratching our heads, wondering why people don't have local produce in restaurants and cafes locally.
"We realised it's an accessibility issue."
Years of drought and diminishing markets for small growers also spawned the social enterprise.
The former bakery is filled with garlic, mushrooms, honey, meats and wine, all supplied by farmers in the region who are members of the collective.
The building in the village of Wooroolin was empty before the collective opened.(ABC Wide Bay: Brad Marsellos)
They volunteer in the store so they can chat with customers about their products and increase awareness about the benefits of buying directly from the farmer.
Free range, chemical-free pork and honey producer Selina Carey is also part of the committee and volunteers in the store.
While education for consumers on the value in eating local is important to Ms Carey, it is also about quality and flavour.
"I went to my brother's place at the Sunshine Coast and he decided to serve roast pork from the supermarket," Ms Carey said.
"I seriously couldn't eat it.
"I smelt it first, took one bite and pushed it aside."
Selina Carey volunteers in the local produce shop.(ABC Wide Bay: Brad Marsellos)
Farming can be quite isolating, with many producers working alone in remote areas.
The social enterprise has not only put food on tables, it has provided a feed for the mind as well.
Lamb producer Greg Patch enjoys the companionship and friendship of being involved in the collective, with the shop acting as a hub where locals can meet for a chat.
"For me, it's the friendship I get from it," Mr Patch said.
Greg Patch, Roberta Schablon and Selina Carey outside the community-run produce store.(ABC Wide Bay: Brad Marsellos)
And while the mental health benefits are valuable to Mr Patch, nutritious cuisine that is locally produced remains a vital part of the collective.
"We do Australian white sheep and we sell that directly to the customer," he said.
"So, everything we sell is sold before it goes to the butcher shop.
"Our lambs are fed on multi-mix species' pasture, and you end up with a densely more nutritious meat."
Becoming a 'locavore'
The Farm 2 Fork collective has taken some inspiration from the North American "locavore" movement — in which food is sourced within a 165 kilometre radius.
While some foods can't be easily accessed in the regional Queensland area, Ms Schablon believes it is important to keep front of mind when considering what you eat.
Farmers deliver produce to the collective each week and volunteers do the selling.(ABC Wide Bay: Brad Marsellos)
"We always say 'we strive' to utilise local," she said.
"There are some things you just can't get; like chocolate, maybe flour."
Ms Schablon said collectives like Farm 2 Fork would mean less food travelling to the central markets, just to be driven back to supermarkets.
"We still have trucks going from a farm to a distribution centre just to come back to put the food in a shop," she said.
"People need to stop and think, the food would be more nutritious and flavoursome because it is not sitting and not travelling.
"Where your food comes from is important on so many levels.
"It's not just about your farmers, your low food miles, your nutrition — it's about everything."
Mazars has been fined £250,000 by the UK accounting regulator for failings in the mid-tier firm’s audit of a local government authority.
The findings against Mazars are the latest indication of a growing crisis in the audits of local government accounts, which has been blamed partly on a decade of austerity and deep cuts in audit fees.
Only 9 per cent of local government bodies in England had published audited accounts for the 2020-21 financial year by the statutory deadline at the end of September, creating questions about transparency and governance in the public sector.
Almost one in three audits in the sector were found to require improvement in the Financial Reporting Council’s latest annual inspections, half of which were based on historic accounts because the most recent ones had not been completed on time.
The FRC fined Mazars for breaching regulations in its audit of the 2019 financial statements of an unnamed local government authority.
The regulator, which oversees audit quality for larger local authorities in England, said its enforcement committee had “found failures in the reviewed audit, which it considered fell far short of the applicable standards and regulations and had the potential to undermine confidence in the standards in general of registered auditors”.
The penalty was discounted by 20 per cent from £314,000 to reflect Mazars’ co-operation and admissions, the FRC said. The firm had also offered undertakings to address its concerns, the watchdog added.
The fine will fuel concerns about the quality of audits by Mazars and other mid-tier accountants hoping to gain market share from the Big Four firms — Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC — which have themselves been criticised for failing to raise red flags before the collapse of companies such as outsourcer Carillion and retailer BHS.
Mazars is under investigation by the FRC over its audit of retailer French Connection while Grant Thornton has been fined £3m in the past four months over its audits of café chain Patisserie Valerie and outsourcer Interserve.
Mazars is the third biggest auditor of large local government authorities and health bodies in England, holding 15 per cent of the market, according to the FRC.
“Having worked closely with the FRC throughout its investigation, we accept and regret that the quality of our work did not meet the standards expected,” said Mazars.
The firm added that it had made significant investments in its teams and processes and that all four of its audits included in last year’s FRC local government audit inspections had received the highest ranking.
South Australia has recorded 2,100 new local COVID-19 infections in the past 24-hour period.
The caseload sets a new daily record for the state.
The number of people admitted to hospital with the virus has surged to 71, up from 44 patients yesterday.
There are currently four people in intensive care.
Premier Steven Marshall said Omicron is currently the dominant variant in the state.
“Omicron is really … dominant, by far, in South Australia at the moment, like it is right around the country and increasingly right around the world,” he said.
