THE BYRON SHIRE Volume 29 #33 Wednesday, January 28, 2015 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
Sign on 2015
pages 15-17
RADICALISED BY ENNUI
CAB AUDIT
Brandis spooking our freedom – p8
Arise, Sir Mungo – not! – p8
Surfing to Psychedelics Home & Back to benefit kids come of age Garden school – p13 – p20–22 – p12 – p11
One mob… surviving and thriving
Byron Shire Council Notices Page 41–42
NBN rollout yet to include shire Hans Lovejoy
While the nationwide rollout of high-speed internet continues, any plans for Byron Shire are yet to be announced. The federally owned National Broadband Network, or NBN Co, has been tasked with the job, which has been described as ‘the largest infrastructure project in Australia’s history.’ According to www.nbnco. com.au/maps, no town or village throughout Byron Shire is yet earmarked for fixed-line NBN, something which an NBN spokesperson confirmed. Residents in rural areas can expect a fixed-wireless NBN service at some stage, according to NBN Co’s website. The NBN Co spokesperson added that the construction schedule is expected to be underway by mid2016. ‘Ultimately no-one misses out as the NBN will be made available to every Australian family and business by 2020.’
Fixed line v wireless Photo & story Eve Jeffery
‘Jingi Walla! Hello!’ echoed across town on Monday as hundreds of tourists and locals gathered at Main Beach in Byron Bay to celebrate the survival of the Indigenous people of this country. It was smiles and the sense of being together rather than apart as visitors relaxed to watch ancient Australian culture first hand and to eat an all-Aussie snag. Protests about the invasion of this land were held across the nation, but the local mob took a different tack in what has become a joyous
annual Australian Day celebration known as Survival Day. In Byron it was a time to sing and dance, listen to some didge and guitar and get down like a goanna and kangaroo. The event, as always, was inclusive of all people in Australia and all people from Indigenous groups in this sunburnt place with performances from black fullas from across the nation represented during the Welcome to Country, delivered by Nigel Stewart. At almost 86 years of age, local elder Aunty Dulcie Nicholls still manages to attend events with her
family and she enjoyed a sausage and the show from one of the shade tents set up on the foreshore as her clan enjoyed the salt water and summer breeze.
Celebrating survival Arakwal woman Delta Kay said that January 26 is a day of mixed feelings for Aboriginal people but that it is about choices, and looking at it from a different point of view goes a long way toward reconciliation. ‘We choose to celebrate what is important to us: our cultural survival.’
Delta says that the day is also a success because of the local support from Byron Shire Council, the reconciliation mob and Byron NPWS. ‘The feedback from locals and visitors was fantastic’, said Delta. ‘And our reconciliation stall was a very busy part of the event and very helpful as it is important to educate people on Aboriginal issues.’ Other activities on the day included basket making, banner painting, a sausage sizzle and the traditional shapeshifter dance, much loved by the jarjums and their mums and dads.
make a difference
Under a new deal between telcos and NBN Co last December, federal communications minister Malcolm Turnbull said there will be a ‘shift to a multi-technology NBN’. Previously, Labor had committed fixed wireless and satellite technology to cover regional and remote Australia, as well as fibre to the premises (FTTP) in urban areas. The Echo understands the Abbott government’s shift to a multitechnology mix means the NBN will incorporate Telstra’s and Optus’s hybrid fibre-coaxial (HFC) networks as well as other fibre solutions, such as FTTN (node) and continued on page 2
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