THE BYRON SHIRE Volume 27 #09 Tuesday, August 7, 2012 Mullumbimby 02 6684 1777 Byron Bay 02 6685 5222 Fax 02 6684 1719 editor@echo.net.au adcopy@echo.net.au www.echo.net.au 23,200 copies every week
Inside this week
T H I S I S A N I M P O R TA N T E A R T H M I S S I O N
CAB AUDIT
Online election coverage kicks off – netdaily
Cr Diane Woods announces mayoral candidacy – p5
Health & Beauty – p17-19
Festival a successful write-off
Realtor and Writers’ Festival chair Chris Hanley Q&A – p46
Chris Crawford, the chief bureaucrat pushing to replace Mullum Hospital’s night doctor with teleconferencing technology, is now more isolated in his bid after Ballina MP Don Page told The Echo he doesn’t support the proposed telehealth trial ‘at this stage’. The MP’s distancing from the trial comes after overwhelming public sentiment against the proposal was voiced at last Thursday’s meeting at Mullum High School auditorium, where around 500 people attended. Previously Mr Page told The Echo that ‘health administrators have to make decisions from time to time in relation to service delivery, which can impact on some local communities.’
12-year-old Ethan speaks
Mandy Nolan
A spectacular winter sun gave warmth to the Byron Writers’ Festival last weekend as writers, readers, publishers and the like converged on the North Byron Events site for what director Jonathan Parsons believed is ‘quite possibly on track as the biggest attendance ever’. After last year’s financial woes that almost saw the festival close its doors, it’s a welcome relief for festival organisers and testament to Parsons’ vision ‘to bring the festival back to its core. It was about getting back to the heart.’ Parsons was the first festival director to be employed out of the region, and when organising the event he lived between Brisbane and Mullumbimby. ‘It’s a unique area,’ says Parsons. ‘It’s very local but it is connected to the rest of the country and internationally; in that way I never felt like an outsider.’ Bob Brown was clearly the hit of this
year’s event, with festival goers packing tents to pay homage to the recently retired Greens leader. Local identity Rusty Miller declared the highlight was when ‘Bob Brown walked into the tent and everyone stood up and clapped for him – he got a standing ovation. It made me cry.
Intellectual stimulation
around a particular theme. ‘In a way I guess it is an ideas festival explored through the form of writing’. It wasn’t just festival attendees who experienced enthusiasm about the event; writers continued to express their admiration and fondness for the Byron Writers’ Festival. Making his fourth appearance at the festival, Morris Gleitzman said the festival offered ‘a heady mixture of intellectual stimulation, rewarding interaction with readers, romance and a stiff neck from the width of the tents’. Lawyer turned crime writer Shamini Flint concurred: ‘It is such a relief,’ she said, ‘to come to a country where people still read books. But I am shocked you can’t get food after 10pm. Luckily you can still get a beer!’
‘How a man can have so much respect and how meaningful his presence was. It’s something we are missing in politics, someone who has stood up for something in public without changing his values to meet popular consensus.’ Although while Parsons agreed with Rusty that it was a festival where Bob Brown and Michael Kirby were the stars, ‘All of the tents were full, people were listening and engaging in all Q See the video of this story at sorts of topics often with writers they may not have heard of. The program was about ideas and bringing sessions Go to echonetdaily.net.au
netdaily
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Family fun run
Byron Shire Council Notices Pages 42
Community united against health service degradation Luis Feliu & Hans Lovejoy
Political pundit Mungo MacCallum, Byron Shire mayor Jan Barham and Greens party oracle Bob Brown. Photo Tao Jones
Page 45
dad to know they could be ‘losing our hospital’s overnight doctor’. ‘My specialist says if I have a seizure I need to see a doctor there day or night, and I have to be accompanied by a doctor when I’m being transferred by ambulance,’ Ethan said. ‘I’m very worried about what will happen to me next time I have a seizure at night and there’s no doctor there; my mum and dad will also be worried.’ He then put a question to Mr Crawford: ‘Mr Crawford, what if your family was in this situation? We must fight to save our services in the community,’ Ethan said to thunderous applause. His dad Aaron said when his son had seizures, which could happen at any time of the night or early morning, ‘he needs to see a doctor’. ‘What right have you got, Mr Crawford, to put my family’s lives in danger?’ Mr Diehm, a local builder, asked to loud applause. The Diehm family’s concerns were echoed by many at the meeting. Comments included ‘delayed care is care denied’, ‘Skype health is no substitute for a real doctor’, ‘this penny-pinching attitude doesn’t make sense: you can’t pick
Mr Page was in attendance at the meeting, and Northern NSW Local Health District (NNSWLHD) chief executive Chris Crawford, who is advocating the trial, addressed the crowd. The audience also heard a heartrending plea by a 12-year-old boy prone to epileptic fits for health authorities continued on page 2 not to remove the local hospital’s overnight emergency doctor as it would Q See the video of this story at put him at grave risk. In his appeal, young Ethan Diehm said it was ‘very worrying’ for him and his mum and Go to echonetdaily.net.au
netdaily
Dan Murphy’s licence open for public submissions The Liquor and Gaming Authority will be holding a public conference to hear public comments on the packaged liquor licence (bottle shop) application by Woolworths, owners of Dan Murphy’s. The corporation has applied to transfer an existing licence from Sydney to shop 11–20, 108 Jonson Street, Byron Bay (beneath Dendy cinemas).
It will be held Tuesday September 4 from 3pm at the Byron Bay Community Centre, but seating is limited and registration is required. To secure a place, call Mr Troy Bell on 02 9995 0355 or email bell@ilga. nsw.gov.au. Registrations close Wednesday August 29.