The iconic double act of Giembra Busmer and Stretch Noonan after a year redefining the expression "The Aussie Battlers" have struck gold.

Just over one year ago, they started a rival local newspaper entitled FNQ Independent to compete with Rupert Murdoch's nationally owned Port Douglas and Mossman Gazette from which Giembra had left after some 20 years of loyal service.

The FNQ Independent was their brain child to concentrate purely on genuine local news from Bloomfield to Wangetti and despite a difficult year as all new ventures experience they have done such a good job that they caught the eye of an experienced group of independent local newspapers that include Cooktown Local News, Torres News, Western Cape Bulletin and the Araafura News owned by Meg and Mark Bousen.

Stretch and G have been involved with the Bousens for over 5 years now with Giembra having done a lot of design work with them when working part time at the Gazette.

The new amalgamated group is called 'Regional and Remote Newspapers' and the FNQ Independent is Stretch and Giembras investment into the group.

The Group Manager will be Meg and Marks son Corey Bousen and according to Stretch "Our readers will not notice any changes.  We still have the Mossman office but our production office has now moved into Port Douglas where we now enjoy a combined group staff of 16, which will make us even more efficient."

Stretch and G will continue monitoring the local details but very shortly they will be relocating to Weipa to see how the rest of the group operates.  "We plan to be based away from Port for about 12 months but when we get back we'll have experienced both the Weipa and Arafura operations in great detail which will help us push the Independent to bigger and better things".

"Corey Bousen will be acting editor for the Independent until Stretch's and Giembra's replacements are ready to take up their appointments sometime before the end of the year."

Giembra said "Our amalgamation is designed to make the Independent stronger.  We are determined to keep the faith with continuing to concentrate 100% on local issues.  The new facilities that the group has brought to us will help us speed that ambition to fruition"

This amalgamation brings back together the three amigos of Sharon Gallery, Nadia Zammataro and Giembra Busmer who together had a combined service of over 65 years of service at the Gazette before all the changes forced their production down to Brisbane and resulted in a reduction of staff levels at the local Gazette Office.

The girls commented, "This is going to be like the old days, when we could have fun and still get the job done"

Stretch summarised the situation by saying "We are certainly not walking away from what we have worked so hard to build. This amalgamation makes sense to help us to fulfill our dreams to bring local news to local people, the region has had to settle for second best for too long".

Stretch and G have said that the next edition being published this coming Thursday will be the first one under the new operation.