Backlash Years of NSW planning decisions are now ‘under a cloud’, reports the SMH (Fairfax) last week. The Independent Planning Commission, which was set up to provide more transparency and accountability for planning decisions, has been slammed by the ombudsman’s office for ‘serious flaws on how the commission disclosed information to the public’. It’s easy to be cynical about NSW planning given their arrogance in ignoring the public opposition to West Byron, but what it perhaps really says is that nothing has changed since the corrupt Rum Corps days of the early 1800s. Q Q Q Q
Fracking hell: The NSW government’s announcement last week that it has awarded Dart Energy a six-year renewal of its Petroleum Exploration Licence (PEL) 445, which covers a vast swathe of the state’s north coast, will bring no solace to the landowners and environmentalists opposed to CSG mining. It also shows the LibNats are hellbent on supporting their mining mates at the expense of social amenity. Q Q Q Q
The latest crime stats for NSW are out (see www. bocsar.nsw.gov.au) and they show a downward trend in violent crime, despite the pollywaffle on law and order. Domestic violence related assaults remain ‘stable’, which is a worrying fact because there are far too many of them. In the Byron local government area for the year to September 2013 there were 107 recorded DV assaults, 26 sexual assaults, 81 indecent assaults, and 321 assaults not related to domestic violence.
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The brave captain Scott Morrison rallies his men to repel all boarders daring to find shelter on our island home – except for little children who can be used as hostages.
Other notable offences were break-and-enter (134), steal from motor vehicle (242) and fraud (153). So much for the Rainbow Region.
trophe wherever it alights’. We know the problem, and
there’s an update at http:// bit.ly/apostrofly.
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On a positive note, congratulations to the North Coast Medicare Local (NCML), Northern NSW Local Health District and the Department of Family and Community Services (Northern NSW District) for forming an alliance to assist ‘the homeless, people with a disability and children and young people at risk of significant harm’. The first step was surveying what services are needed, and we hope we’ll learn more at www.ncml.org.au.
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Word nerds may be interested to know that Ian Mayes of The Guardian first recorded the appearance of the apostrofly, ‘an insect which lands at random on the printed page depositing an apos-
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