Roy is the son of Enrico and Carolina Lucca and was born in Griffith in 1915. Roy had two sisters and one brother; Rose Irvin (dec), Reuben Lucca (dec) and Daisy Mills who lives in Newcastle NSW.

Roy and Daisy returned to Griffith a few years ago for a nostalgic trip where they still have friends and Roy talked about his beloved Griffith and the way life was. He travelled overseas in the early days with his wife Vera and after he lost Vera, he continued with his overseas travelling. He often would travel to Newcastle to spend time with his sister Daisy.

Roy often talks about his many travels overseas and his beloved Griffith.

I believe Mike Baird and Local Government Minister Paul Toole are waiting until after the North Sydney federal by-election on December 5 before they announce local council sackings and forced amalgamations.

They must let rural and regional communities decide whether or not their local councils should be amalgamated.

‘Fit for the Future’ has been deeply chaotic. Goal posts have been endlessly shifted. Councils declared “fit” are now being told to merge with neighbouring councils declared “unfit”.

Mr Baird and Mr Toole still refuse to rule out resurrecting their statutory “one-size-fits-all” model for rural councils.

The recent parliamentary committee came down against forced mergers. It found that ‘Fit for the Future’ was flawed, and that we needed an inquiry into how councils are funded before anyone starts talking about amalgamations.

Let local communities decide the fate of their councils, not politicians in Sydney cynically making announcements just before Christmas.

I am sick of the media-driven climate change rubbish. Now when it rains it’s an event like it’s something unusual. When it’s over 38 degrees the weather is not “hot” it’s “catastrophic”. We only hear of climate change when we have a few hot days never when we have colder days than normal. It reminds me of when I was young about how the rain forests would be wiped out in 20 years.

The climate always changes: hot in summer, cold in winter, perfect in autumn and spring, and there will always be bush fires, floods and droughts as there have been for millions of years before and millions to come.

Communities need to remain a key focus of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. NSW has long been fighting for a true triple-bottom-line approach to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, which truly balances economic, environmental and socio-economic concerns, and puts local communities at the centre of everything we do.

We now have agreement to a more flexible approach to setting sustainable diversion limits – reducing the need to remove further water from agricultural production. There will be no more non-strategic water buybacks in NSW and I won’t support projects that don’t have the backing of locals.