south summit

friday 10th march free show reducing the days per year for STRA will free up housing for long-term rentals. Overseas experience, especially in New York supports this hypothesis.

Given that long-term rentals in Byron Shire are both scarce and expensive, one could surmise, on the simple supply and demand principle, if more housing was released to the longterm rental market, then there would be a reduction in the cost.

The STRA property owners have, on the whole, stated that they would not give up STRA even in a 90-day cap area – ie no release, so no effect. However, the status quo situation is primarily of industry self-regulation, lack of financial burdens such as taxes, low registration fees, lack of monitoring for compliance, and pathetic fines for non-compliance.

Real regulation elswhere

It also assumes that there is zero possibility of following other cities that have imposed regulations, such as: that the STRA property must be the primary residence; that the owner has to live in the area; that the owner can only have one sunday 19th march

TICKETS VIA OZTIX

Dick in your pants

All of these blokes circling each other and looking for a war – unevolved idiots!

Put your dicks back in your pants and climb back up into the trees. Sorry to insult other tree dwellers.

Hannah Grace Ocean Shores

Carbon credit scams

and disadvantaged business operators, are also key interest groups that have not been selected for contact by Council or the consultants.

The very last few pages of the consultant report mentions interviews with two groups who take a different view to the property owners. In addition to the interviews with STAY’s director, three executives from Airbnb, two executives from A Perfect Stay, the consultants did an interview with a representative of Neighbours not Strangers, and Victims of Holiday Lets.

property for STRA; and many more varieties of regulation. While NSW government remains comparatively slack in regulating the industry, the industry is secure in its intentions not to release property to the long-term rental market, to the detriment of the community.

On the issue of the possible impact of STRA on availability of long-term rentals, there are obvious other stakeholders that have not been emailed by Council, including real estate agents’ rental sections, the many community-based housing and rental NGOs, the organisations trying to relocate victims from the 2022 floods. The consultants largley ignored the Victims of Holiday Lets (VOHL), with some 200 members. An email to these groups and more may well have brought different conclusions to this exercise carried out by this consultant group and Byron Shire Council.

Closely tied to the above issue is the additional problem for rental refugees who work or volunteer in Byron Shire and the many businesses that have had to close or reduce their hours of trade because they cannot attract local workers. On this basis, the chambers of commerce for big polluters and paying villagers in Papua New Guinea (PNG) near nothing, but instead of saving their forests they are commercially logging them.

The PNG regime has sanctioned the scam and these companies buying the carbon credits are being cheated out of their dollars and credits.

Yet the negative impacts these last two groups raised in relation to STRA wre summerised inunder 200 words.

Failure to address community concerns

The overwhelming emphasis of this consultant report focuses on the views of the STRA property owners, who made up two thirds of the responses. In this 22 page document, a 150 word paragraph (4.7) addresses the deep community concerns about the impact that the massive growth of the STRA industry is having on residents. Section 4.10 does address the issue of ‘other policy options’, and these are listed as 15 dot points, with zero discussion, unlike the various issue raised by the owners.

It’s not surprising that the industry submissions to the community consultation outnumbered the community responses 2:1. Responses were selectively sought from this group of property owners by both the planning minister and Council. ASTRA can justifiably report that the majority of responses were not in favour of Council’s proposal for a 90-day cap, with a few coastal exceptions. It was always to be. Go figure.

See STRA campaingers gaslighting locals on page 15.

and don’t know that these companies are exploiting them. This is called carbon colonisation. In other words, scammers and fraudsters. This scam is happening all around the world where developingworld people can be exploited. These are mainly poor people who don’t know any better.

1 BAY STREET BYRON BAY WWW.BEACHHOTEL.COM.AU

I watched 4 Corners ABC TV concerning this company buying carbon credits

The poor villagers who are uneducated in knowing any different are asked to sign off on carbon credits

Please have a hard think about the situation.

Paul Brecht Evans Head

Local extinction

We thank The Echo for publishing the letters from John Bradley and David Morris discussing the recent local extinction of many of our unique native birds and plants. Fortunately, these species had no value and will not be missed. The only things of value are obviously people.

Nature may have had some importance in the past but is of no value now and has been replaced by the wonderful creativity of the only things that matter on the planet, human beings. These perhaps may be the thoughts of many readers as they prepare for another day working towards our rapidly approaching glorious future full of happy children.

We also know that ordinary people do not matter. Almost all of our media is dominated by our wonderful sportspeople, entertainers, and other celebrities whose smiling faces bring happiness to our lives. We all celebrate their well-deserved success. Their value to our society must be far in excess of all the other people who are of so little value that we never see any of them winning awards.

Perhaps this is the view of our children who must all aspire to be celebrities. Much more important than the garbage collectors, cleaners, roadworkers, sewerage workers, plumbers, electricians, builders, factory workers, truck drivers, farmers, rural workers, gardeners, shop owners, staff, health and education workers, journalists, and all the many other people that actually make civilisation possible.

The cult of celebrity has

An elite classical tournament which invites Russians has become a rarity in the past year, but the WR Masters, which concluded last week in Dusseldorf, was a notable exception.

Ian Nepomniachtchi, the Russian who will play a world title match against Ding Liren next month, enjoyed a successful warm-up in Dusseldorf, tying for first place alongside veteran Levon Aronian and 16-year old Dommaraju Gukesh. 40-year-old Aronian won the playoff, but Nepomniachtchi will be content with his undefeated performance. That he and his compatriot Andrey Esipenko were competing was no surprise given the event was the brainchild of Wadim Rosenstein, a longtime Dusseldorf resident and now German citizen.

Rosenstein’s German logistics company WR Group until 2020 used the slogan ‘Driving Your Business to Russia’ and two days before the invasion of Ukraine signed a deal with Russia’s Gazprom. Rosenstein also played an exhibition game against Sergey Karjakin in May 2022 in Moscow, a time when Karjakin was banned by the world body FIDE for some particularly bloodthirsty comments about the war.

However, ever since Rosenstein announced his plan to hold a new World Club Cup for FIDE in Dussel- now colonised the planet to such a degree that there is almost no evidence in the media of either ordinary people or ordinary nature. We are all under the delusion that this is a human planet where only humans matter. However, humans do not exist. The reproducing surface of the planet is composed entirely of single-celled, microscopic, symbiotic organisms that together to create the organs of a solitary living entity. The only one like it in the known universe. Humanity is a delusional concept in the communications of a single species that has recently risen to dominance. Only one per cent of people are composed of human cells. Ninety-nine percent of people are composed of unrelated organisms that have colonised humanity to create the ecosystem that we prefer to think of as ‘ourselves’ with a glorious future. People isolated from reality. Having broadcast a weekly, live-to-air wildlife identification program on ABC North Coast NSW Radio, now in its 27th year at 6.40am every Saturday morning, I have noticed a massive decline in listeners phoning in to talk about their wildlife experiences as there is now little wildlife left. Insecticides have killed off most of the invertebrates that pollinated the flowers that created the seeds. With a collapse in insects, pollen and fruit, the birds and all the other animals that are actually the recycling organs of the living planet have died. The estuaries essential for wading birds are now suburbs and golf courses. The nesting hollows dorf and, before then, host the WR Masters, the company has been busy scrubbing mentions of links with Russia from its social media accounts. essential for our wildlife have vanished, along with our carbon dioxide absorbing, oxygen-producing forests. The oceans are acidic, the atmosphere and climate unstable.

Victoria’s Rheyansh Annapureddy, 8, was present in Dusseldorf as one of eight juniors who had qualified through an online competition. He was much younger than the other qualifiers but enjoyed the benefit of coaching from legend Boris Gelfand and German GM Elisabeth Paehtz and will have returned home a more mature player.

One of our last surviving planetary life-support organs, the hundred-million year-old Tarkine rainforest wilderness in western Tasmania is soon to become a toxic waste facility for yet another dictator-run mine. With the death of the planet there will be no happy children.

Gary Opit, Carmel Daoud Wooyung

Keeping lights on

If ever there was a political party totally unfit to govern, or even influence governments, it has to be the Greens. They are once again threatening to use their Senate numbers to derail the Labor government’s new laws to cut carbon emissions by insisting the government ban all new coal and gas projects.

The blind ideological stupidity of the Greens defies description. They never learn. World markets are phasing out coal, needing an orderly transition to renewables that keeps the lights on with gas playing a big part whether the Greens like it or not. Any government that allows the lights to go out will not govern for long.

Even with the federal government’s recent intervention in the energy market, both coal and gas prices are still too high. So just what does it take for the Greens to realise that banning new gas projects outright would undoubtedly result in massive compensation payouts, further unsettle the markets and push prices even higher?

The Greens have a shocking history of derailing action on climate change. They forced Kevin Rudd to abandon the CPRS, an election promise, and forced Julia Gillard to introduce a price on carbon, with both decisions resulting in an unmitigated disaster.

Alan Veacock Cumbalum

Mushroom clouds

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Doomsday Clock now stands at 90 seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever been, even in the height of the Cold War. Meanwhile, Labor and the opposition enthuse about AUKUS and what a jobs bonanza it will provide and how it will upskill hundreds of Australians in nuclear high tech.

No doubt the time will come when these subs will deploy Trident D5 nucleartipped missiles, which the British chose because of their ability to kill ten million Russians! The operational deployment of nuclear capable B52 and the more lethal B2 bombers in RAAF Tindal, enlarges the Chinese targeting set beyond the ‘joint facilities’ at Pine Gap and Exmouth.

Any war with China is likely to escalate to a hot, nuclear war, either by design or inadvertently, in which our cities will be targeted.

However, Australia has no publicly released plans for civil defence, other than two booklets published in 1984/86, which are currently unavailable. The text is identical in both booklets and comes from the UK and the US Oak Ridge National

Laboratory, but the covers are radically different.

The earlier booklet featured a missile/mushroom cloud threatening a cityscape but this was replaced by the placatory bushscape picture where grazing animals look at the mushroom cloud without panic. The text in both is ‘comforting’, claiming nuclear war is survivable and that there is no radiation damage to future generations.

Einstein, one of the initiators of the Doomsday Clock, stated, ‘The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything except our thinking. Thus, we are drifting toward catastrophe beyond conception. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.’

When Jan Barham was Byron mayor she went to Hiroshima and, as a mayor for peace, listed Byron in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. The purposes of the Mayors for Peace are to contribute to the attainment of lasting world peace by arousing concern among citizens of the world for the total abolition of nuclear weapons through close solidarity among member cities as well as by striving to solve vital problems for the human race such as starvation and poverty, the plight of refugees, human rights abuses, and environmental degradation. Byron has a responsibility to oppose this drift to war and maybe a good start would be to declare our region a nuclear free zone.

Gareth Smith Byron Bay

Nuclear war

Sleepwalking into nuclear war: ‘The delivery of NATO aircraft to Ukraine and their maintenance by a NATO country, will be a direct entry of NATO into the war against Russia, with all the ensuing consequences’; Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman, Dmitry Medvedev.

Peter Olson Goonengerry

Op Shop

Cnr Tweed St & Booyun St Brunswick Heads Next

Nepomniachtchi’s key win came against leader Aronian. Aronian, White, felt that he had control in the diagrammed position, but when the Russian played 38...Bh3! 39.Bf1 Nf7!! Aronian realised he was in trouble. After had some pressure for the lost piece. However,

My Geek Mate

The Chief Geek at My Geek Mate is applying for another round of funding to help support senior citizens with their technology. If he’s successful you can have another free 1.5hr session in a maximum class size of three humans.

Alternatively, if you need private tech support or tuition Mark is available for that too. Parking is free, still no potholes.

Meanwhile please make sure you enable ‘two-factor authentication’ for all your important online accounts, add a recovery email and or a phone number, don’t use a false date of birth, use a password manager, keep your devices backed up, and up to date, and have some fun time away from the screens!

Please call Mark on 0431 122 057 or pop in and see him at 1/53 Tamar St, Ballina www.mygeekmate.com.au

CA Construction Management

Do you need advice on building your new house?

Building Contract responsibilities difficult to understand and negotiate?

Dealing with a builder’s progress claim?

With over 34 years’ experience in commercial, industrial and residential development and construction, Craig and his team provide project management services encompassing the complete development and construction process. They pride themselves on guiding clients through the minefield that a building contract or development project can create, and they keep your project on track.

Affiliated with Castrikum Adams Legal, they also offer contract drafting and review, formulation and lodgement of property dealings and titles, and conveyancing services. Their experience also includes expert report writing, adjudication matters, dispute resolution, residential property subdivision management and facilitating Land & Environment court actions.

Craig on 02 6687 1167 or 0411 575 991 craig@cacm.net.au. www.caconstructionmanagement.com.au

Byron Bay Camping & Disposals

After 40 years trading in the Byron CBD, Byron Bay Camping & Disposals is now conveniently located at a brand new premises on the corner of Tasman Way and Centennial Circuit in the Arts and Industry Estate.

As a locally owned, family business they absolutely love serving both the local community and the visitors that come to enjoy beautiful Byron Bay. They have a wide range of products for camping, travelling, hiking and living the van life, but also everyday necessities like rainwear, workwear and kitchenware. If they don’t stock what you need they will happily order it in for you.

Shop local and independent with the friendly staff at Byron Bay Camping & Disposals. 1/1 Tasman Way, Byron Bay 0439 212 153 www.byron-camping.com.au

ReForest Now

ReForest Now is a local organisation that connects donors from around the world with landholders in the Big Scrub area who want to reforest their land!

They can offer you thousands of free trees – provided you pitch in and pay for some trees as well and you can cover all the costs/labour of aftercare of the trees. They also offer commercial bush regeneration, camphor drilling and maintenance of plantings as a paid service. Of course as a not-for-profit organisation, they do all this as cheaply as they can while still looking after their wonderful staff.

Enquire today at info@reforestnow.org.au, or check out their website for more information or to make a donation. www.reforestnow.org.au

Byron Community College

It’s GO time at the College!

Term One at Byron Community College has just kicked off, but there is still time to sign up to that art class you’re dreaming of, or learn the language on your bucket list! The opportunities to explore new interests are endless with over 100 courses on offer. Everything from Silver Jewellery to Bats and Dingos for Conservation, Crystal Awakening to CAGED Chords for Guitar, Soils –Organic Management, to Arranging Dried Botanicals.

There is something for absolutely everyone! It’s never too late to chase those dreams and meet new friends!

Head to www.byroncollege.org.au or call 6684 3374 for more details. RTO 90013

Karma Canvas Bell Tents

Karma Canvas Bell Tents are here to transform your backyard into outdoor luxury accommodation. Are you a property owner in the Northern Rivers? With the influx of Easter guests just around the corner, now is the perfect time to expand your accommodation with a luxury canvas bell tent. Why go through the hassle and expense of building a tiny home when you can offer your guests a memorable, elegant and beautiful back-tonature experience? These canvas bell tents are easy to set up and take down, making them the perfect solution for accommodating guests any time of year. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to join the growing number of Airbnb hosts who have already added our luxury canvas bell tents to their backyards. www.karmacanvas.com.au

Device Trader

Device Trader has been serving the Byron Shire for over seven years.

The company continues to evolve from a man in his van doing door-to-door phone repairs to a full bricks-and-mortar and e-commerce business. They specialise in Samsung, iPhone & iPad repairs, new and refurbished phones and they also have a wide range of phone and computer accessories.

Founder Duane Tutchen said, ‘Our customers have asked, and we’ve listened; we now stock every Apple phone available, new or refurbished, from the 6S, starting at $149, to the new iPhone 14 Pro Max at over $2000, and virtually everything in-between. We also stock cables, cases, screen protectors and accessories.

We are 100 per cent committed to reducing e-waste. We refurbish, repair and recycle everything we can!’

1/130 Jonson St, Byron Bay 02 6685 5585 www.devicetrader.com.au