THE BYRON SHIRE
NSW Seniors Festival April 1-10
Volume 30 #42
Grow Young
Wednesday, March 30, 2016
www.echo.net.au Phone 02 6684 1777 editor@echo.net.au adcopy@echo.net.au 23,200 copies every week CAB AUDIT
A N O T H E R N O N - S TAT E - S P O N S O R E D M E S S A G E
A peek inside the Yes – the public still Find yourself a home: policy factory of NSW write letters to the Echo Property real parliament! – p5, 7 editor – p11 estate guide – p18
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APN move an ‘attack on independent journalism’ www.echo.net.au/apn-move-anattack-on-independent-journalism
Jackson’s Local MLC defends anti-protest laws blues Hans Lovejoy
Jackson Browne headed one of the 82 top-name bands who played Bluesfest over Easter. He told the crowd he has family in Lismore and Federal, and dedicated a song to a niece born three days ago in Mullumbimby. ‘I came on holidays to Byron Bay around 20 years ago and went to the little music festival there… this is the best town with the best music festival, the best bands, the best food and the best people!’ Despite some wet weather and some slow traffic, the 27th annual Bluesfest was again warmly greeted by throngs of music lovers. Another highlight was that $47,000 was raised for Cystic Fibrosis, organisers say. Director Peter Noble said it ‘would be the best selection of young and emerging artists we have ever presented.’ Photo Eve Jeffery
Council faction still failing: CABS The Community Alliance for Byron Shire (CABS) says it has assessed the recent performance of Byron Council against the Community Charter for Good Planning and found them still to be failing. The group formed in early February and consists of ten existing resident groups, progress associations and action groups shirewide. Former councillor and member of Bangalow Progress Association and CABS, Jenny Coman, says Council endorsed the charter in December 2014, ‘but has yet to implement the principles it contains’.
‘CABS has compiled a second assessment of Council’s activities since we launched and we will continue to provide regular report cards’, she told The Echo.
‘Miserable 31 per cent’ ‘Since February, Council has scored a miserable 31 per cent when mapped against the five principles of the charter. ‘Council scored some points for the Clifford Street roundabout at Suffolk Park, but there are glaring examples of bad planning process which we believe are a dereliction of
duty, particularly by the five dominant councillors: Ibrahim, Hunter, Woods, Cubis and Wanchap. Significant decisions with longterm impacts for the whole Shire are being made without community oversight, against staff recommendations and without even councillors themselves having sufficient time to scrutinise last-minute changes. ‘For example, the rushed approval of the Elements DA and the extraordinary acceptance of Cr Ibrahim’s amendments to the Rural Land Use Strategy. continued on page 2
The following exchange with Byron Bay-based Nationals MLC (upper house) Ben Franklin took place at his Sydney parliamentary office last Wednesday morning. It concerns his support for the highly controversial new anti-protest bill which became law recently, entitled Inclosed Lands, Crimes and Law Enforcement Legislation Amendment (Interference) Bill 2016. The NSW Law Society and the NSW Bar Association have both flagged major concerns over the law, which provides for fines of up to $5,500 and seven years’ jail for interfering with mining operations. Comment was also sought from Lennox Head-based MLC Catherine Cusack (Liberal), who also voted in favour. There was no reply from Ms Cusack. HL: The Greens are saying that this law will be challenged in the High Court. They’ve indicated a few things as to why it’s not a strong law in a legal sense. Morally it doesn’t look very good. What’s the reason why you voted for it? BF: In terms of the legal issues, that will work its way through the courts and I’m not a legal expert so I can’t really comment on that. There are a lot of discussions in the party rooms about this, and that’s how the Westminster system works. We have political parties and within party rooms there is substantial discussion across a range
of views about how this will work. I certainly made my views known in the party room. Obviously I can’t repeat those discussions because they are confidential. But I don’t think my views would surprise anybody who knows my record of achievement. At the end of the day, the minister assured me that this is not about just normal decent protesters. It’s not about getting the Knitting Nannas. If people are protesting and protesting appropriately and so on then that’s fine. HL: It was a ‘lock on’ law by the looks of things. But we also know that people who locked on are farmers and we know that it happened in Bentley [near Lismore]. We did stories on this, and we profiled the people who are going to be affected by this. These weren’t radicals, these were farmers, so doesn’t that concern you? BF: You know perfectly well what I’ve said about this stuff before. And I have publicly stood up and said I will not accept people calling these sorts of people who stand up and protest about CSG as extremists or eco-fascists… or any of this stuff. It’s outrageous, it is offensive and it is untrue. I absolutely disavow that sort of terminology. Of course we’ll have to wait and see how they will work in practice. For me, this was a safety issue… It’s about safety of community, it’s about the safety of the protesters… continued on page 3
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