THE BYRON SHIRE Volume 30 #13 Wednesday, September 9, 2015
www.echo.net.au Phone 02 6684 1777 editor@echo.net.au adcopy@echo.net.au 23,200 copies every week
EXTRAORDINARY POPULIST DELUSION EDITION
CAB
on page 14
AUDIT
Two years What’s new Food! Talk Echo property Largest gig of Abbott, in the Shire? of great guide – listing in the Mungo – p8 – p13 food – p16 p18 – 21 Shire – p29
Byron street crime still at high levels
Might as well be spring fair
Chris Dobney
New Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR) figures for the 12 months to June 30, 2015 show that non-domestic assaults in Byron Bay were still double the state average. While assaults did drop from a high of 314 in the Byron LGA for the same period last year, 260 were recorded. By comparison, Ballina had 138 assaults (0.8 times the state average); Lismore 293 (1.6); Richmond 126 (1.3) and Tweed 300 (0.8). Figures for another typical latenight street crime, stealing from a person, are even worse, with Byron LGA clocking 2.5 times the state average, 63 incidents in total (an increase of 11 from the previous year). All other regions saw a slight drop in this offence, except Richmond Valley, which saw a massive rise from 12 to 83, although this still only represents 0.8 of the state average per head of population. Richmond Valley Councillors will no doubt be hoping the recent installation of CCTV cameras will be worthwhile, as they only came online towards the end of the survey period. Sexual assault saw an even worse result for Byron, with a greater than 50 per cent increase in cases, from 20 last year to 31 this year. Apart from Tweed, all LGAs on the northern rivers had higher than state average incidences of sexual assault, with Ballina 1.2 times the state average, Byron 1.6, Lismore continued on page 2
Saturday’s annual Spring Fair at Shearwater Steiner School entertained families with not only the usual high quality entertainment, food and kids’ activities, but with a tour and launch of the farm and trade skills centre. It’s the school’s latest venture, where Vocational Education and Training (VET) Certificate I courses in AgriFood Operations and Agriculture are being offered to year nine students over three years. Certificate II courses will be offered in 2016. Shearwater agriculture teacher Robert Sutherland says the opportunity to cook while gardening, plan future crops and tree plantings and share gratitude for the land, ‘all make for a very interesting project.’ Pictured are Jazzy and Ashah. Photo Jeff Dawson
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www.echo.net.au/hundreds-rally-forrefugees-across-region/
Dog owner jailed over attack The owner of a dangerous dog that mauled and seriously injured a woman at Byron Bay’s Roadhouse cafe in July has been given a sixmonth jail sentence. Adam Coates, who is part owner of Roadhouse cafe, faced Byron Bay local court on Friday for sentencing – he failed to comply with a previous court order as the owner of a ‘menacing dog’. He pleaded guilty. Mr Coates’s mastiff dog bit a 30-year-old woman on the nose in July at the cafe. The woman had to undergo reconstructive surgery in Gold Coast University Hospital. Byron Shire Council’s legal services co-ordinator, Ralph James, told The Echo at the time that the dog had previously been declared menacing and the owner’s failure to comply with menacing-dog control requirements had ‘facilitated the attack’. He said the dog should have been muzzled and on a lead. The animal, known as a vicious breed, was put down following the attack.
Mullum’s hospital land secretly nabbed Luis Feliu & Hans Lovejoy
NSW health bureaucrats have been accused of an illegal land grab of the Mullumbimby Hospital site and a public campaign – including a public meeting on September 17 – has been launched to retain the site for a community aged-care and socialhousing precinct. According to the Mullumbimby
y a d r u t a S r e p Su l Night Specia only 300g Rump Steak & chips/ salad or veg
netdaily Hundreds rally for refugees across region
Online in
Still Servingg all of our Bistro favourites Still servingg all of our Cafe fe favourites
Hospital Action Group, the land was set aside as a public trust and reserved for a hospital in 1900, with the first four trustees of the Mullumbimby Hospital Reserve Trust appointed for a four-year term in 1902. But the most recent four-member trust was dissolved quietly in 2010 after two of its members suddenly quit, leaving it without an official quorum. Group member Elaine Robinson
says the community had been involved in fundraising for the hospital over many years and the trust had managed the area on Hospital Hill, including the community health buildings and adjoining nursing home site. ‘A Mr Wallace’ owned a portion of the land, Mrs Robinson said, and ‘deeded it in perpetuity to the town to build a hospital and health
services when needed and we have always believed it was our land’. Another action group member Dr Michael Pelmore told The Echo the community lost control of the land and use thereof when the trust was dissolved, ‘which we don’t believe was legal; there was no explanation, no public notice, nothing’. It’s a view which retiring NNSW continued on page 2
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