Letters
Flawed laws What a good idea to register disapproval and contempt for silly laws (Comment, Echo, January 20). The closed car window law must have been dreamed up by someone living in aircon. After all it’s summer and if you leave the car all shut up in the sun then it’s an oven when you get back to it. The groceries are cooked, the water bottle is boiling and the steering wheel is untouchable. What a pain. How about we bring in a mechanism that says that all new laws shall be assessed after three to six months to see how practical they are, and whether the general public actually want them. Laws are like ticks; once they are in they are buggers to get rid of. So why not a cooling-off period, same as with buying a house? Oh, but wait a minute; that might in-
terfere with polly power and the nanny state. Andrew Hall Ocean Shores Q See the Facebook page and
www.flawedlaws.org. – Ed
Censuring volunteers I found your report on Angela Dunlop’s ‘censure’ in last week’s Echo very worrying. Volunteers do a lot of work that otherwise would have to be done by Council but for which it lacks the resources, and in Angela’s case she has worked on the South Golden Beach project for years and, everyone seems to agree, achieved a wonderful result. Instead of the appreciation she surely deserves from both councillors and Council staff, she has been found to have possibly breached Council’s code of conduct and been ‘censured’ by the
general manager. If there was a breach it was apparently a very minor one and the South Golden Beach community is very unhappy about the whole incident. Perhaps Mr Gainger could attempt to rectify the situation by talking to Angela to get a better understanding of what happened and withdrawing the offensive censure. Jenny Coman Bangalow
ing in cities to mitigate the effects of global warming yet sanction the removal of stands of old-growth forest that provide immeasurably greater benefits. It’s inconceivable when viable alternatives through cleared and degraded land exist. Nest boxes won’t help the nationally threatened longnosed potoroo and koala populations along the Broadwater-Coolgardie section of the upgrade, the two threatened species most at risk from the proposal. Such nest boxes would mainly be used by common, opportunistic species whose consequent increase in density is most likely to further unbalance ecosystems and endanger more threatened species. Losses of the local potoroo and koala populations in the Broadwater–Coolgardie area will contribute to incremental population decline in these species across the landscape, culminating in regional and eventually national extinction. We need politicians prepared to halt this process. David Milledge Broken Head
Fauna losses
Market kerfuffle
So, our local coalition politicians think that the provision of 700 nest boxes (Echonetdaily, January 21) will compensate for the destruction of biodiversity resulting from the route proposed for the Broadwater–Coolgardie section of the Pacific Highway upgrade. It’s ironic that these politicians belong to governments promoting tree plant-
A Byron Community Market meeting was held on Tuesday to discuss the cancellation of the Byron Community Market on January 17 as reported in last week’s Echo. The meeting highlighted the difficulty faced by many stallholders and the inconvenience it caused to customers. I would like to acknowledge and apologise for the disappointment, frustration and loss of income the market cancellation caused stallholders and guarantee that future cancellations of markets will
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only occur on market days – excepting extreme weather events. A very positive outcome of the meeting was an agreement to establish a Byron Bay markets committee that will include stallholder representatives and key stakeholders from the Byron Bay community to inform and advise on the operation and management of the markets in Byron Bay. The Byron Community Centre looks forward to working with the market stallholder association as we undertake a restructure of the market management team. The staff, volunteers and
management of the Byron Community Centre thank stallholders for their continued support to ensure the Byron Community Market remains one of Australia’s iconic markets. The next Byron Community Market is on Sunday February 7. Paul Spooner General Manager Byron Community Centre
Ethics classes Last year in an act of pragmatic conniving Mike Baird did a deal with Fred Nile to buy his vote for the polesand-wires sale. Mike agreed continued on next page
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MR HOWLIN GREEN The Byron Shire Echo January 27, 2016 9