Health &Beauty
THE BYRON SHIRE Volume 28 #42 Tuesday, April 1, 2014 Phone 02 6684 1777 Fax 02 6684 1719 editor@echo.net.au adcopy@echo.net.au www.echo.net.au 23,200 copies every week
Inside this week
page
18 ALL HAIL, SIR SUPPOSITORY OF A-BUT T
CAB AUDIT
Talking the birds and bees to the teens – p8
Both the coalition and Labor produce ICAC fodder – p12
West Byron Mr Peabody Dame flares up returns Amanda’s – p13 – p26 Soapbox– p21
Bentley on knife edge
‘Temples’
www.echo.net.au Lee is just one of around ten ‘simmo’ protectors locked onto concreted objects at Bentley, just 15kms west of Lismore. Gas company Metgasco plan to drill a 2km deep test well into a tight sands gas deposit on privately owned prime agricultural land, but locals won’t have a bar of it. A well-established council-approved protector’s camp is located on private land adjacent to the drill site, complete with info tent, shade structures and porta loos. Non-violent direct action training is also being undertaken and everyone is welcome. Photo Jeff Dawson
Final solution by Sir Brandis revealed News just to hand: federal attorneygeneral and minister for the arts, Sir George Brandis, is planning to herd all artists into ‘special re-training camps’ on Manus island to help them overcome their ‘undesirable social attitudes’, and ‘become bigots like the rest of us’. Sources say Sir Brandis would like them to suffer emotional hardships, so that they can ‘produce real art.’ It’s been hailed as a masterstroke in distraction from selling the nation’s land and fossil fuels to global corporations for peanuts.
Simeon Michaels
Up to 2,000 protectors, many of whom are Byron Shire residents, were on red alert first thing Monday morning after intelligence suggested that gas company Metgasco and a large police presence would attempt to access the Bentley site, located just 15km west of Lismore. ‘Metgasco is trying to paint this as an action by crazy ferals, but it’s not’ says Reverend Jim Nightingale, of the Anglican Church in Kyogle, who has deemed the protest a ‘righteous cause’ for his parishioners. ‘We have been given dominion over the Earth. That is not a right to plunder, it is an obligation of stewardship.’
The solidarity extends to adjacent landholders who also oppose the drilling, including premium cattle farmers. One farmer has allowed protectors to set up a campground within earshot of the drilling site. Bentley resident Liz Stops said, ‘The property owner where the drilling is scheduled to occur does not even live here.’ While organisers expected the riot squad on Monday, they believe the large public presence is holding them back. Organisers say a larger public presence is needed immediately.
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Divers find ‘pyramidal structures’ off Julian Rocks In an exciting moment for local scientists, the Southern Cross University Marine Research Unit (SCUMRU) has announced it has uncovered ‘pyramidal structures’ in a deep gully to the northeast of Julian Rocks. The structures were found last Thursday during a routine dive measuring biodiversity in the area. SCUMRU’s director, Professor Lillian Dagon, told The Echo, ‘We’re totally flabbergasted by the find. ‘It’s not unusual to find underwater structures near the edges of the Mediterranean and in some parts of the Gulf of Mexico, but I don’t believe anything like this has ever been seen before in this part of the Pacific.’
Q See the video of this story at
Byron Shire Council Notices
Prof Dagon said the three pyramids found are stepped in structure, ‘like those in Chichen Itza in Mexico’, and form roughly a 30m by 30m square at the base. ‘Two of them have what look like small houses or temples at the top. ‘It is entirely accidental we found them,’ said Prof Dagon. ‘One of our
students saw the gully in a rather murky patch of water and decided to investigate.’ Prof Dagon declined to give an exact location for the pyramids, fearing treasure hunters might damage them before the federal government’s archeological team arrived to investigate.
Mayan travellers During a video linkup with the SCUMRU team, Dr Henry Asenath of Miskatonic University in Massachusetts, an expert on central American architecture, told The Echo that, though the find was ‘astonishing’, it was ‘in the realms of possibility’ the skilled Mayan pyramid builders could have travelled this far westward. ‘Thor Heyerdahl pretty much proved that in 1947 in his epic raft trip from South America to the Tuamotu Islands,’ he said. The Echo was later contacted by Brad Innsmouth of the Byron Shire Cthulhu Society, who had found out about the discovery from an SCU student. Mr Innsmouth claimed the continued on page 2
Q Updates are available on north-
ernriversguardians.org, and to be on the text alert, message 0447 399 535.
One of the first pictures of what are believed to be pyramids off the Byron Bay coastline. Photo courtesy Richard Langton, SCUMRU.