Letters Taxing Airbnb
Koala stress deaths It’s koala breeding season (August to February). Last season three female koalas captured in or adjacent to the urban landscape in Pottsville were euthanased. One was found sitting on a letterbox. One was in a tree behind housing on the edge of the wetland. They outwardly appeared to be in good health but were found to be suffering from chlamydia. The third had entered an urban backyard and was mauled by a dog. One of the symptoms of chlamydia in female koalas is cystitis. This affects their reproductive system, making the mating extremely painful and rendering them incapable of reproducing. Males are very single-minded when it comes to mating. I have seen a female leap five metres to the ground to escape a male in chase. I suspect that females with chlamydia and cystitis often enter the urban landscape during breeding season in an attempt to escape breeding males. If you see a koala in or near human activity, could you please use a zoom camera to get a close-up photo of it (ensuring that there is minimum stress to the animal) and send it to Friends of the Koala, who will assess its appearance and arrange capture and treatment if necessary. A joey with early signs of chlamydia adjacent to the Black Rocks sportsfield in Pottsville was saved from a miserable death in this manner last year. Dave Norris Pottsville
Bangalow estates? For many years I have wondered why Australian businesses have not reinvested
their money in this country where they made it? Why go offshore and pay no tax to, or employ, Australian workers? Now we have a company who has employed local workers for more than 30 years who needs to make their company larger in our area to employ more locals. We hear so many reasons why Brookfarm should not build opposite the industrial estate in Bangalow, so much agricultural land has been lost in the area to housing estates, making extra traffic. This area of land will not be used for farming again, so how much more traffic will arrive with another housing estate of 100 homes? And where are the jobs? I lived in Bangalow for 24 years. Dorothy Andrews Ocean Shores
Old Byron hospital I agree that the old Byron hospital has significant potential to continue to contribute to the well being of the Byron community as some form of social and emergency accommodation, or for other community uses. Let’s not lose it. The Murwillumbah floods certainly highlighted the need for emergency accommodation. Ideas for a women’s refuge and drop-in centre for homeless people could be accommodated within the existing facility. It has lots of potential. Though I don’t agree that we should take responsibility for it from the government and pay $10 million for the privilege of doing so, let alone hundreds of thousands more refurbishing it. Byron Council is already sinking under its infrastructure burden and has one hos-
pital site to redevelop; Council doesn’t need another. I think uses like emergency accommodation, women’s refuges and drop-in centres are rightly the responsibility of the state government and they have money from selling off community housing in Byron that could go into refurbishing the hospital for such purposes. What we need is a government commitment to retain it as a community facility and a steering committee with appropriate agency and community representatives established to identify suitable uses. Dailan Pugh Byron Bay
Jam time The magical art of distraction: Parent sees child with jam over face. Parent: ‘Have you been eating the jam again?’ Child: ‘No. Ooh look out the window. There’s a rainbow!’ Parent looks outside. Child exits. At Council meeting: Ratepayers criticise Byron Council for not advertising in The Echo – while advertising in the Byron Shire News – and taking Byron’s landfill to a tip in Queensland. Council spends weeks on a solution for both problems. Council to ratepayers: ‘Ooh look at this week’s Echo, at our lovely two pages of pretty pictures telling you how to use the kitchen caddy for veg peelings and how to use the green bin.’ Ratepayers look at the pretty pictures and go off to buy more bags for the caddy. Council writes to authors of Utopia at the ABC thanking them for advice. Raphael Lee Byron Bay
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It may be of interest to Echo readers to know that a recent article published in the Money section of the Sydney Morning Herald, 30 August 2017, titled ‘A Homeowner’s guide to costs of Airbnb letting’, raised an issue many may not be aware of. Apparently the main residence exemption from Capital Gains Tax (CGT) may not apply if that residence is being used for income-producing purposes, and CGT could apply when the home is sold. This also includes studios and granny flats in the backyard that are rented. Further, the ATO can match your data to rental platforms such as Airbnb to make sure income is being declared. As property prices soar the CGT may end up being more than the income received from holiday letting. Frankly, this is good news. Perhaps the communitydestroying juggernaut that is Airbnb will die in the bum, but that is probably just wishful thinking. Louise Andrews Byron Bay
‘ancillary development for the purpose of agriculture’? I could only dream how the owner, an earthmoving contractor, must be laughing all the way to the bank. I can see him at the bar of the local with his earthmover mates: ‘And then the council bloke said I presume all this is for agriculture? And I said yes.’ And silly me, I thought building on any site and constructing roads for large machinery in the Shire needs a development application. I guess the newly laid concrete piers onsite are also ‘for the purpose of agriculture’?
Maybe I should start my own granny flat and call it agriculture. Wake up, Council! Ian Blair Hamilton Myocum
Stunned mullets Quite often after addressing Council on a matter that’s up for discussion I wonder why I bother. The councillors just sit like stunned mullets, apparently interested in what I have to say but totally unaffected in terms of their arguments and voting intentions. Two issues I’ve been on about regularly are the lack of continued on next page
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Sahara in Myocum I couldn’t help an incredulous yelp at the article regarding the ever-growing sandpile in Myocum Road: ‘sand pile legal, says Council’. Really? Council seems to have taken it upon themselves to pronounce that this huge pile of sand – something any agriculturist would shake his/her head at… can be considered an ‘ancillary development for the purpose of agriculture’. Whaa? Did I read that right? So... the newly added machinery, large piles of pebbles, building activity, are all
THE
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To the Palliative Ward at Byron Bay Hospital I would like to thank and acknowledge all the staff for their exceptional care, their compassion and support. They went above and beyond their duties. On behalf of Chris, his family and Gail,
Thank you
RAILS
THE RAILWAY FRIENDLY BAR, BYRON BAY 6685 7662 • therailsbyronbay.com
AND THE FAMOUS
RAILS kitchen
Thursday 7 September
DAN HANNAFORD Friday 8 September
NINTH CHAPTER Saturday 9 September
PISTOL WHIP
Sunday 10 September
PETER C & DR. BAZ Monday 11 September
GUY KACHEL
Tuesday 12 September
JON J BRADLEY
Wednesday 13 September
SARAH GRANT DUO The Byron Shire Echo September 6, 2017 15