The ones I have done since August last year have been dry and could only talk about the hope of rain.

Although, some areas received significant falls some sections of our shire were not quite so lucky.

The Nhill area fared poorly and I say this very much tongue-in-cheek, that I'm not too concerned as the Nhill area and across to Kaniva fairly much hogged the rain last year.

Every rain event we had last season those areas received, almost without exception 10mm more than we did up in the north.

This certainly showed up at harvest time with some areas having two harvests in one.

I had the pleasure recently of chaperoning Jan Ballard and Audrey Hurst to the national tidy towns awards at Smithton in Tasmania, where Dimboola received an award for environmental sustainability. I think Jan is already working on next year's awards.

It is really great to have someone like this to inspire the community to have pride in their town.

Hindmarsh Shire hosted a candidate's forum in Nhill for those standing for the federal seat of Mallee.

The forum was very well attended and was an excellent opportunity for our community to hear what the candidates considered their priorities for our electorate.

It is pleasing to hear from both sides of politics, at forums I have attended, the commitment that is being alluded to for regional and rural road funding.

This is long overdue and yet to be seen of course but imperative given the pressure that our rural roads are under with ever-increasing dimensions of heavy vehicle traffic.

Our farming community cannot continue to bear the brunt of rate increases in order to repair our rural roads.

Hindmarsh council staff are currently working on our budget for next year which appears to be shaping up reasonably well at the moment.

We have had to cut back on some renewal programs due to obtaining government grants which have had to be co-funded.

I attended the Nhill Anzac dawn service this year and the Rainbow Anzac service where we were honoured to have Emma Kealy as our guest speaker.

As always, Emma spoke impressively without notes sharing her family's wartime experiences. Always down to earth and humble, if only all our politicians were of the same calibre.

Jeparit RSL also invited me to a dinner at the Hindmarsh hotel to celebrate the centenary and celebrate 50 years of the HMAS Jeparit, a supply ship that transferred equipment and supplies to our soldiers in Vietnam.

It was interesting to talk with these 12 or 14 gentlemen that came to the town from different parts of Queensland for the occasion.

Councillor Ron Ismay, Hindmarsh Shire Council mayor