This NSW family has been ordered to evict their Appin home after 34 years to make way for new housing developments. They are also wildlife carers who take in injured koalas and are advocating for better protection for one of NSW’s last healthy koala colonies, which will also be affected by these developments.

Despite losing their home, they are remaining committed to saving the home of the local koalas and are now taking the property developer to court to protect the area.

Cassie McCullagh, presenter of Focus on weekdays from 10am - 11am,will announce Australia's most prestigious literary award, the Miles Franklin, via a live YouTube video. Watch online here at 4pm Thursday 16 July.

Proudly supported by Perpetual as the Award Trustee and ABC Radio Sydney as media partner, the Miles Franklin winner will be selected from six Australian shortlisted nominees.

This year’s shortlist is rich and diverse, with the titles covering themes from neglect and abuse to the national story of racial and cultural dispossession. Intensely moving, all six novels demonstrate how past trauma continues to inform the present.
 

Win a Miles Franklin shortlist book pack

To celebrate this year’s nominees, Cassie is giving you the chance to win a Miles Franklin pack with all six of the 2020 shortlisted books.

To win, tell us in 50 words or less your pitch for the great Australian novel. Then, tune in to Focus at 10.30am on Friday 17th July to find out if you are one of five lucky winners.

"Hi everyone, Simon Marnie here with you.

Weekends is returning to Bilpin on July 19th, one of many areas in NSW devastated by the summer bushfires. This is also one of the areas we came to during our 'Recovery Month' that saw Weekends broadcast from ten locations in NSW in four weekends last summer.

We’ll head to some of the others but I’m keen to get back to Bilpin and see how they are going. We’ll also catch up with some of the farmers, characters, survivors and performers that have made that part of the world their home.

You’ll meet two old firies who just chalked up nearly 150 years of voluntary service with The Rural Fire Service, hear great music from Blue Mountains musician and member of Dragon Bruce Reid and also touch base with people from Bilpin, Nymboida and Bega to hear how recovery is going some 6 months or more after they lost their homes or businesses.

I hope you can join us over the airwaves this Saturday from 6am right through to midday."

Abandoned, submerged by dams, or forcibly closed, ghost towns pepper the Australian countryside. You might have driven through one. How does a once thriving community suddenly disappear? How quickly can it happen and where do all the people go?

It’s also likely that the current pandemic will speed up the fading of some places to ghost town status. Join Indira Naidoo on Nightlife to explore all these questions and more.

Do you know a Western Sydney woman making a difference in business, the arts, sport, science, education or the community?

Recognise her efforts and achievements and nominate her for the Western Sydney Women 2020 Awards before the 19 July.

The Western Sydney Women Awards celebrates women at all stages of their life, business and career across Sydney’s Inner West, Greater West, North West or South West of Sydney.

There are eleven categories to choose from, including the ABC Radio Sydney’s Community Woman of the Year.

Carbonara is a classic pasta dish drenched in a creamy (yet cream-free) sauce. Typically, humble ingredients like eggs, cheese and cured pork are coaxed together (with the help of a little pasta water) into a velvety sauce that lusciously clings to every strand of pasta.

Now we understand the DNA of this classic dish, it's time to throw caution to the wind with my modern, vegetarian take: mushroom miso carbonara.