With all our global communications, satellite tracking and mysterious spy agencies we’ve somehow lost a Boeing 777 airliner with more than 200 people on board for more than a week.

Gas prices look set to soar with shortages predicted despite years of being told to get cooking with gas.

This area is now subject to potential coal seam gas exploration against a raft of claims worldwide that the industry often causes irreparable damage to artesian water supplies, in some cases in the USA communities apparently have to have water trucked in.

All this is against the backdrop of Australia selling huge amounts of gas from Western Australia’s north west shelf to China for a pittance for the foreseeable future.

In case you’re wondering, that’s the same China which has become so wealthy, partially on the back of our cheap exported energy, that Chinese investors are now causing massive hikes in Sydney property prices and cutting local first home buyers out of the market.

Why couldn’t we have just built a proper pipeline to transport this abundance of cheap energy to the eastern states when the country still had some money in the bank?

Is it just me thinking that our policy makers at the highest level, those advising our politicians, have got things so hopelessly wrong?

The past week saw headlines about the long-mooted inland rail between Melbourne and Brisbane as being a potential game-changer.

I’ve been writing similar headlines for 20 years as a journalist and reporters before me were writing them since 1901 when the states federated, but no-one has ever bothered to actually start laying rail to unlock the potential of inland communities.

This is why I believe community organisations such as Macquarie 2100 will assume ever more importance as the centralised bureaucracy allocates scarce budget dollars to larger centres.

A friend of mine told me recently that her elderly parents, conservative to a tee, had recently become placard-waving activists opposing coal seam gas in the state’s north.

For 100 years I believe most country people have taken what’s been sparingly doled out and just got on with the job ahead because it looked like any protests or demonstrations would get nowhere.

That attitude seems to be changing along with the realisation that keeping every local dollar in our local communities is vital.

M2100 is looking at innovative ways to help revitalise the lower Macquarie Valley and create opportunities for younger generations coming through and the more support the committee gets the better it could be for everyone in the area.

Plenty of programs across the world have seen remarkable changes including communities setting up their own banking and phone companies which channel a major portion of the profits back into the area instead of seeing those local bucks go to the north shore, or offshore.

One Victorian community has built sporting ovals, netball courts, a community hall/function centre and is on track to build an indoor heated swimming pool, all with money that would otherwise have been lost to the town.

There is a real strength in small communities and with local, state and federal governments telling us we can’t look to them for all the answers, we have to realise many of those answers will come from ourselves.

If anyone has experience in any community program or project they think can be transplanted to this area, please let me know.

On another note, it looks like at least 400 students will be hearing accident survivor Sam Cawthorn speak in Narromine next week. M2100 is putting that session on for free, if you appreciate what the organisation is doing for local kids please support us by coming along to Sam’s Thursday night talk at Narromine USMC at 7pm on March 27 and bring a group of friends.

Sam’s presentation is, by all accounts, absolutely amazing and by paying a small cover charge at the door you’ll be helping M2100 to perform other works throughout the lower valley.