The Sweet Spot. Making LIfe Sweeter.
You might be buying the wrong home battery. Here’s how to tell.
Australia is installing home batteries at extraordinary speed. Around 600,000 homes now have one, and more than 400,000 batteries were installed in the 12 months to June 2026. This growth has largely been driven by the federal Cheaper Home Batteries Program, which...
The Rough End. You got a bad deal.
Personal threats, lower property values, rising insurance costs and a housing crisis: can council flood maps stand the pressure?
EXPLAINER: In Australia, close to 1.4 million properties are at risk of flooding, according to the Insurance Council Australia. The CSIRO says floods are the costliest natural disasters in Australia, averaging an $8.8 billion damage bill per year and the Australian...
Gympie Civic Centre restoration on ‘fast track’ with federal funding
Gympie Mayor Glen Hartwig has welcomed an $11 million grant from the Albanese Government toward the restoration and upgrade of the Gympie Civic Centre. The facility has languished, unused and in disrepair since the 2022 floods caused a major mould problem which...
Club Tropicana. Leisure and the Arts
REVIEW: Heart of Gold International Short Film Fest delivers heart-warming films in Gympie
Ever seen a short film so profound, exquisitely made, relevant and moving that your eyes filled with happy tears? Three of the short films at Gympie’s Heart of Gold film festival 12-20 September, had this effect on me. ‘Like friend, like Deer,’ by Iranian director...
Pineapple Style. Queensland Style.
What is Queensland style?
Welcome to Pineapple Style, a design and style blog celebrating Queensland’s unique, fun, colourful, comfortable style. This blog is unique because the fashion articles will feature all ages fashion and celebrate Queensland architecture and design. In our...
JUICY. SEX AND SEXUALITY
‘It’s a reset’. New program reframes midlife for women
In a sea of perimenopause and menopause medication and well-being advice, two Brisbane positive psychology practitioners are offering midlife women a new program focussing on the psychological side. Fluxx founders Berni Cooper and Nicole Border say The Midlife...
Aqua. On Swimming
The best freshwater swimming holes in the Mary Valley
A trip to Kenilworth in the summer months would not be the same without a swim in some of our beautiful fresh waterholes. The Mary River and the many creeks that flow into it offer diverse and interesting swimming experiences. Obi Obi Creek Crossing No 2 Obi Obi...
LITTLE PINES. FOR KIDS.
Best storybook for small children
How good does it feel when you buy a child a toy or book, they start playing with it immediately and all the other kids of all ages want to play with it too? That’s what happened when I bought my great-nephew Byron the Montessori Story Book for his fourth...
GREEN SHOOTS. ON GROWTH.
When we took 37 strangers into the urban bush, their loneliness began to ease
One in three Australians says they are lonely. To be lonely is to feel a lack of adequate social connection. Loneliness is about feeling disconnected from others or unable to form the kinds of relationships people need to feel seen and supported. It’s often shaped...
The Long Read.
The biblical lesson of The Fall is proving true for AI: an ethicist’s view
Human intelligence requires control from human ethics. What to do about artificial intelligence? I’m not religious but have always appreciated the central morality tale drawn from the biblical story of Adam and Eve. To realise their full humanity, they had to fall...
