About The Current

On 9 November 1888 Tamworth switched on the first municipal electric street lighting in Australia (Tamworth Powerstation Museum timeline). The name comes from that. So does the line in our nameplate: a river, drawn the way a survey map draws one, that turns into a circuit and ends in a light.

New England runs from the Liverpool Plains up through Tamworth and Armidale to the Queensland border at Tenterfield. Nine councils sit across it: Armidale Regional, Tamworth Regional, Uralla, Walcha, Glen Innes Severn, Inverell, Tenterfield, Gwydir and Liverpool Plains. Much of what shapes the region is written down in public documents: council business papers, the planning record for the New England Renewable Energy Zone, the health district’s releases, the valley water allocation statements. Very little of it gets read end to end.

We read it. The Current answers the questions people here actually ask: what did my council decide, and what will it cost me? What is being built near me? How much water is in the dams? Is the hospital getting what it was promised? Every factual claim in a story links to the primary source we read, and how the site is made is set out plainly on how this site works.

We are non-partisan. Members of parliament, mayors and councillors appear through their public roles and the public record, and the energy zone is covered on its documents, not for or against it.

Contact

News tips, corrections and advertising enquiries all go through the tips page. Tips can be anonymous, and every claim is checked against primary sources before anything is published.