SunRice

Yeah, look, I had the opportunity to have an invitation, late invitation to talk with Minister Watts in Leighton.

He was announcing that funding, which is $14.5 million from federal government will be matched by Sunrise, which, look, it's a great initiative.

It really sets up the rice industry for the long term, particularly in that Leighton area and secures potentially 200 on and off jobs.

But really, yes, it doesn't have a real great effect here in Deniliquin where our mill is, yeah, it's gone back to one shift.

So there's got to be some structural reform, and that's what we really sent the message to Mr Watt.

He was very respectful and listened to.

There was probably 30 people in the room for the meeting at Sunrise headquarters, and everybody was on the same end sheet, and I think he got a loud and clear message, and he was respectful for that.

Do you

The Rice Growers Association of Australia says the announcement of a new Leeton rice cake manufacturing facility does not help the Deniliquin mill at all.

The federal government announced a $14.5 million co-contribution towards the facility, with SunRice matching the government's funding.

However, Executive Director of the organization, Perin Davey, says anything that helps SunRice's bottom line will hopefully help stabilize the business.

I would dearly like to see enough rice production to reinforce the need to continue to have our healthy, two healthy SunRice processing mills operating in the Riverina.

Turning to sports, and the Meraki Football Club has paid tribute to senior captain Nathan Hicks, who has played his last game with the Blues.

During his footy career, Nathan played over 150 senior club games, was a four-time leading goal kicker at the club, and a two-time Murray League representative.

Council says tire marks have significantly damaged freshly renovated turf, with repairs expected to take up to six weeks.

SunRice's latent operations are getting a major boost, with the federal government committing fourteen point five million dollars towards a new rice cake manufacturing plant.

SunRice will match the investment, strengthening food manufacturing and creating new opportunities for Riverina-grown rice.

And the GWS Giants are heading to Wagga next month for a preseason training and community camp across the Riverina.

Wagga product Harvey Thomas will be among the players returning home, with school visits, coaching workshops, and an open training session planned.

Um, so they're the kind of things that we are investing in to make sure that these communities continue to have jobs, continue to produce as the climate changes, as water availability changes.

Minister, around, uh, eighty workers in the Riverina lost their jobs at SunRice.

Will there be any assistance for those workers who lost their positions?

Um, you may have seen that we have announced already, uh, that we have committed to funding for SunRice, uh, for a proposal they've got, uh, at Leeton, uh, to expand and upgrade a rice, uh, a rice cake processing plant.

Uh, we're still in negotiation with SunRice about the details of that agreement.

But as I say, we have already invested over a hundred million dollars in New South Wales, in basin communities, um, to create new jobs, to create new industries, to expand existing industries, uh, to help with these changes.

You know, we, we do believe, um, that we need to take action to preserve the health of the Murray-Darling Basin system for the long term, but we're also standing with those communities as these changes happen with real funding, uh, that is helping to create new jobs in those communities as well.