THE BYRON SHIRE Volume 30 #35 Wednesday, February 10, 2016
www.echo.net.au Phone 02 6684 1777 editor@echo.net.au adcopy@echo.net.au 23,200 copies every week CAB AUDIT
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A RADICAL FREE PRESS FOR THE NON-OPPRESSED AND UNIMPRESSED
What are the remaining obstacles for the species moving forward? Politicians! – p9
What’s in store for your cosmic week? Stars with Lilith – p33
Into the wild Bruns
Online in
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South Ballina park owner says he’s lost it all www.echo.net.au/south-ballinapark-owner-says-hes-lost-it-all
Epic fail
Councillors handed a report card at packed meeting by new peak community group Chris Dobney
Every Thursday in Brunswick Heads, a bunch of very excited children gather to spend the day outside on nearby bushland to reconnect with nature and learn practical wilderness skills. Using art and crafts, ceremony, creative play and games, the children are guided by mentors in small groups. The school runs during school term every Thursday from 9am till 3pm for children aged six to 13 years. To book, contact Rohan on 0407 898 374 or visit www.brunsbushschool.com.au. Pictured left are Yoar and Spike with their koala impersonation, then Josephine, Yael Ray, Onyx, Tal and co-ordinator Rohan Stewart. Photo Jeff ‘Where The Wild Things Are’ Dawson
Surfing beaches still under threat Hans Lovejoy
Byron Shire’s world-renowned surfing beaches and related ‘tourist activities’ are at risk owing to Council’s relentless push to create plans that favour coastal protection structures, a state government department warned again recently. But the warning appears to have made no difference to Council’s rightwing controlling faction, who again barrelled through with yet another motion to continue on the path of overturning the planned retreat policy in favour of ‘protection works’.
Structures such as rock walls are known to erode beaches over time. At last Thursday’s Council meeting, the controlling faction ignored staff recommendations that sought clarification over a newly announced coastal management framework. Instead, Cr Sol Ibrahim again produced a last-minute lengthy motion – written in the lunch break – which aims to continue the preparation of a Coastal Hazard Management Study Byron Bay Embayment. The project is led by consultants Water Research Laboratory (WRL), who the left-leaning councillors
point out are employed to engineer and build coastal protection works and therefore are potentially biased against planned retreat as an option. Cr Ibrahim’s fellow councillors Woods, Hunter, Cubis and Greens turncoat Wanchap all voted without explanation or debate for his motion. The plans have been continually dogged by the Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH), who say the cost benefit analysis (CBA) of WRL’s plans is inadequate and, if done correctly, could demonstrate continued on page 5
A new peak body of Byron Shire organisations used Council’s Thursday public access meeting to hand the council a ‘report card’ based on what it says is its ‘epic failure’ to adhere to the Community Charter for Good Planning that it signed in 2014. The new organisation, Community Alliance for Byron Shire (CABS), describes itself as ‘a collection of community groups who are dissatisfied with Council’s unsatisfactory procedures and practices and the unplanned and unchecked development that is taking place across the shire.’ The body consists of ten existing resident groups, progress associations and action groups shire-wide, as well as some individual direct members. CABS says it compared the council’s processes and decisions
on 20 key issues over the past 12 months against the five principles of the charter and found only one, the Byron Bay Masterplan, that addressed all five. Sunrise Residents Association’s Bethany Hudson said CABS wanted to convey the message that the council, ‘must put the community and environment first’.
Charter for Good Planning ignored ‘The dissatisfaction, frustration and anger that people are feeling about what is happening in our shire has reached critical mass and we are all pulling together to make Council accountable to us,’ she said. ‘In December 2014, Council resolved to adopt the Better Planning Network’s Community Charter for continued on page 5
Councillors who have ignored their own charter of good planning policy are on notice to improve their governance. Photo Hans Lovejoy