Letters tradicts its earlier point that planned retreat is unfair: the onus falls on Belongil landowners. This sounds more like a ‘free-market’ idea: if they pay, they want it their way. What we need is a socioecological report, scoping modern options about planned retreat and post retreat opportunities. Mary Gardner Byron Bay
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I laughed, I cried I couldn’t disagree more with John Campbell’s review of The Dressmaker. This movie was a delight of caricatures and a deeply moving testament to many of us growing up in the 1950s. In John’s previous words, ‘stories close to our own experience draw on and are sustained by deep emotional springs’. Obviously John and his cinema partner didn’t grow up in a toxic town with uneducated and vindictive people. Nor have they ever met wonderful characters the like of whom Hugo Weaving and Judy Davis portrayed. I cried with recognition and desire for revenge, I laughed with satisfaction as my past tormentors got their comeuppance and I remember that place and those people very well. I loved the outrageous fashion (we could all lift our game I reckon).
Of course Tilly had to return, some things haunt you. And Teddy, well, he was every girl’s dream. The Dressmaker is a terrific movie, ie John is maybe a little too young and privileged to appreciate it. Fay Hardy (haha look at me now, she says smugly) Lennox Head
Expand the options When preparing the Coastal Zone Management Plan, why does Byron Shire Council rely only on engineering reports? Under the guise of Belongil coastal ‘adaptive management’, the latest advice recommends building: ‘stage 1. seawall with walkway; stage 2a. an initial self-filling trial groyne; stage 2b additional groynes; and stage 3 small scale sand nourishment.’ The Powerpoint is online at the Council website (www.byron.nsw.gov.au/
coastal-hazard-management-study-for-the-byronbay-embayment ). It makes unsubstantiated claims such as residents only value the beach and Belongil waterway for recreation, never thinking we value their ecosystem services too: flood mitigation, pollution repair, coastal and marine biodiversity. Another claim is that planned retreat only benefits tourists and is financed only by Belongil landowners. This ignores the obvious fact that the entire community is involved with not only the retreat but the entire social and environmental re-organisation of the sand spit as well as other coastal places in the shire. Finally, the report projects the costs of the engineering as ‘Landowners: $23 million, Council and State $6 million each’. This con-
Letters to the Editor Send to Letters Editor Michael McDonald, fax: 6684 1719 email: editor@echo.net.au Deadline: Noon, Friday. Letters longer than 200 words may be cut. Letters already published in other papers will not be considered. Please include your full name, address and phone number for verification purposes.
On the upside, the ebola outbreak is officially over, the Antarctic is adding ice, and a fabulous prototype electric bus is showing us the way of the future. Even better, Mal Turnbull likes public borrowing for infrastructure, so any renewable energy project that needs finance and can make a decent business case should be able to get a decent run. No, it ain’t all good in this world, but it ain’t all bad. Now, surely Mullumbimby can keep a big old tree? Matt Hartley Byron Bay
Trade and general public Visits to the nursery welcome by appointment. Contact us by phone, email or through our website. 14 Sherringtons Lane, The Pocket, NSW 2483 plants@ausbroms.com.au Phone 6684 5374
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Bill Gates nails it While Ian Cohen and Pam Ditton (The Echo, November 4) discuss the Greens’ plan to reduce atmospheric CO2 levels to less than 350ppm (currently 397.6ppm and rising), billionaire Bill Gates writes that capitalism itself is the actual problem, because ‘the private sector is too selfish and inefficient to produce effective energy alternatives to fossil fuels’ and ‘without a substantial carbon tax, there’s no incentive for
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The Byron Shire Echo November 11, 2015 9