THE BYRON SHIRE
Health &Healing
Volume 29 #17 Tuesday, October 7, 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
pAGEs 22–24
S T O P S TA L L I N G , C L I V E , L A U N C H T H E T I TA N I C 2 A L R E A DY
CAB AUDIT
Ronald Bentock sets us straight – p10
Halloween: Giving 110 The Good Ewingsdale residents one hell of an per cent Life rolls on rail against Council, – p25–28 – p17 development plans – p7 evening – p13
Byron Shire Council Notices Page 46
Big plans for region All aboard the career search to go renewable Simeon Michaels
Plans are afoot to create Australia’s first community-based renewable energy retailer in the northern rivers, following the award of a government grant to Northern Rivers Energy (NRE), a consortium of clean-energy professionals and analysts. Mark Byrne of the Total Environment Centre, which teamed with the Office of Environment and Heritage to provide the grant, told The Echo, ‘We had several excellent tenders, but the NRE tender won because they had the most sophisticated and thorough understanding of the ways that the northern rivers community could be involved in the company.’ Citizens of Colorado (USA) and Hamburg (Germany) have demonstrated that a motivated community can take control of its electricity supply and transition away from a carbon economy. This is the first attempt to achieve similar results in Australia. ‘The potential is enormous,’ says NRE spokesperson Alison Crook.
‘The northern rivers already has a high level of take-up of solar PV. ‘We have a community that really understands what it means to support each other. ‘We are aware of the reality of climate change and want to do something constructive about it. ‘We can work with existing generators and there is plenty of scope for new projects.
Model for Australia ‘Our aim is to generate sufficient renewable energy to cover our use within the region – a long-term goal and a moving target, but a model for Australia.’ The $54,000 grant will assist NRE to develop its business plan, which is expected to focus on providing renewable energy at competitive rates while purchasing solar and other renewable energy at a fair price from existing residential, commercial and government system owners. This will become critical for locals when feed-in tariff agreements continued on page 5
Merrin Boller and Cai Leplaw were two of the performers at Sunday’s launch of The Youth Training Station at Mullum’s Court House Hotel. Photo Eve Jeffery
A chilled musical Sunday afternoon at Mullum’s Court House Hotel welcomed a newly formed not-forprofit organisation called The Youth Training Station. To be held at the iQ Platform at Mullum’s Railway Station throughout October and November, indus-
try professionals will give TED-style talks, Q&As and offer career/lifestyle information for local teens.
TED-style talks It’s part of The Mullum Music Festival program, and it aims to build on the strengths and success
of the Youth Mentorship Program, which supports the careers of upand-coming local musicians. Those presenting/Q&A include: Jia O’Connor (Parkway Drive’s bassist), Hans Lovejoy (The Echo editor), Mike Fishwick (fashion designer continued on page 3
Large-scale housing/industrial proposal referred to ICAC The West Byron development proposal is expected to be referred to the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) on Tuesday October 7 by NSW Greens MLC and former Byron mayor Jan Barham. Ms Barham told The Echo that the site ‘may have been wrongly defined’ and is worthy of investigation. ‘The community deserves to be assured that a project of this scale has not been brought forward for state approval wrongly.’ ‘I believe that it is important that this matter is clarified before any assessment of the
proposal by the government,’ she said. The 108-hectare land is currently under planning minister Pru Goward’s determination for large-scale housing/industrial development, and sits just 2.5 kilometres west of the CBD on Ewingsdale Road. The Echo understands that Sydney-based developer Terry Agnew is by far the largest shareholder at around 80 per cent, along with other local investors. Ms Barham says there appears to be ‘irregularities’ from when the site was defined in 2009 as West Byron Bay Urban Release Area
for inclusion in the Major Development SEPP. It comes after a meeting was held between Ms Barham, local state MP Don Page (Nationals) and members from the Byron Residents Group last week.
MP Don Page’s position Mr Page told The Echo, ‘We discussed the full range of issues ie koalas, traffic, population projections, acid sulfate soils, vegetation, environment zones etc. They supplied additional information on koalas. We also discussed the
meeting they had with the minister.’ When The Echo asked Mr Page if he would support Ms Barham’s inquiry, he said, ‘I believe the inquiry Jan is talking about relates to matters that may have taken place back in 2009 when the rezoning went to the thenstate [Labor] government. I don’t have any knowledge on those matters.’ But Mr Page stated his position on the contentious development, and supplied The Echo with his recent template letter for those continued on page 3