IN-Focus

ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact US-born singer-songwriter Beyoncé Knowles-Carter is firming as favourite to win next year's Toyota Star Maker with the release of her first country album, 'Act II', next month. Ahead of the album launch, the Texan dropped a single this week, 'Texas Hold 'Em', that has shot to the Number 1 spot in charts around the country...

ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact The organisers of the Sydney Mardi Gras have told NSW Police to sit this year's show out because of how they've behaved this week after two members of their community were allegedly murdered in Paddington last week. The decision is disappointing, according to the NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb, who said she ultimately respects the...

ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact Short-term rental platform AirBnB is a pox on our delicate society and should be phased out completely - along with similar ones that allow greedy hosts to recklessly abandon their guests at the last minute and leave them in the lurch. That's the opinion of Gabrielle Bradley, 25, who arrived in Sydney today to find...

ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact An in-demand wedding planner and shown what sets her apart from the other wedding planners in our cosmopolitan desert community by mucking in and joining the front line of service. Guests at Noah & Olivia's wedding reception began trickling off the coaches at the Royal Betoota Botanical Paddocks on Saturday afternoon and were met with...

ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact A new study into the dangers of working from home have been released by a research group funded almost exclusively by a local real estate lobby group, complete with projections of what it will do to workers physically and mentally. The Commercial Real Estate Investors' Guild (CRIG) shared the study to local media via press...

ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact Coles CEO Leah Weckert has taken time this morning to shake off some stress by burning a few ants with a magnifying glass. Just a few days after an explosive investigation by the ABC's Four Corners program that uncovered a litany of dishonest practices in the Australian supermarket industry, there have been calls for systemic...

ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact Saint Barnabas of Danglemah kept true to his word at the Simpson Desert Cattleman's Association Gala dinner in Betoota last night, sticking to the non-alcoholic drinks for the entire evening. The former Prime Minister even drove himself home from the function in what's been described as a strange occurrence and a departure from what the...

ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact A local grazier has told The Advocate that times are tougher than what they seem out on the farm at the moment. David Clarke, of "Eurama Downs" via Windorah, told our reporter that the operating lease of his 2020 Toyota Landrcruiser GXL expired at the start of this year and due to a myriad of...

ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact Opposition leader Peter Dutton has defended Barnaby Joyce's right to disconnect and take time out of work to focus on personal issues as the Member for New England looks to take an extended break from his responsibilities in Canberra. Last week, Mr Joyce was filmed by a member of the public clinging to consciousness while...

ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact Opposition leader Peter Dutton has expressed his disappointment in the wider public today after a chalk outline of where one-time Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce fell last week after allegedly succumbing to a cocktail of alcohol and prescription meds on a Canberra footpath. "This is obviously the work of Greens and Labor staffers, they live...