ROAR LIKE A LION AND BLOW YOUR SACRED CONCH HORN, IT’S… The Byron Shire Echo • Volume 33 #40 • Wednesday, March 13, 2019 • www.echo.net.au
Where nudity and cycles mix
Two new candidates join Ballina race Mia Armitage & Hans Lovejoy
Despite a lone Lismore policeman stopping that town’s event, World Naked Bike Ride co-organiser Debra Lee Conomy says Byron police were fantastic when it came to managing the most easterly nude cycle on Sunday. Lee says 229 people crossed the railway line from Butler Street Reserve where they painted up for the yearly event. Photo Jeff ‘Spun Cycle Sans Briefs’ Dawson
No community consultation on transport hub Council and the state government will not be asking the Byron Shire community for feedback on the proposed Byron transport hub within the disused rail corridor, according to acting mayor Michael Lyon (Greens). The contentious state-government project comes under the Infrastructure SEPP, he says, so it ‘requires no exhibition/community consultation’. ‘Our strong recommendation to Sydney Trains was that they provide an opportunity for community input/feedback to “bring the community along” with them”. ‘They determined that the best mechanism for this was through the Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH) approval process. ‘When OEH assessed the
John Pilger in town April 10 ▶ p9
interchange application, they determined that it did not require public exhibition. Sydney Trains then (eventually) persuaded OEH to put it out for exhibition anyway to give the community an opportunity to see the designs. OEH advised that they would be happy to help out Sydney Trains by doing this, but that plans would only be available via hard copy in OEH’s Parramatta office, as is their standard practice’. Cr Lyon says at the ‘strong urging from Council and Sydney Trains’, OEH agreed to public announcement of the project, an advertisement of the project in local media and providing hard copies at Council’s Mullumbimby office. Electronic copies are availabe upon request and signage on
Byron Shire Council Notices ▶ p10
site was installed. Cr Lyon says Transport for NSW/ Sydney Trains have no plans for any further notifications to be issued regarding the public display. ‘Essentially, there is no legislative, environmental or heritage requirement for exhibition or consultation on this project. Transport for NSW have done more than they need to, but less than we would like’. When pushed on why Council can’t take the lead and seek community input he said, ‘It’s their project on their land. We have an advocacy role at best’. He added that while the Cavanbah Centre was put forward as an option, the state government are required to run buses to roughly the same area as railways.
PM desperate, flailing and in a blind panic ▶ p12
Voters in the Ballina electorate now have six candidates to choose from in the upcoming NSW election, with Keep Sydney Open and Sustainable Australia parties registering candidates late in the race. Keep Sydney Open and Sustainable Australia join the Animal Justice Party, Country Labor, The Greens and the Nationals in fielding candidates across the northern rivers in the Tweed, Ballina and Lismore electorates. James Wright is representing Keep Sydney Open in Ballina and says there is a ‘cultural emergency happening in NSW’. ‘It started half a decade ago with the introduction of the lock out laws in Sydney,’ he says, ‘and it is
Keep Sydney Open’s James Wright
now extending to extreme pay-forpolicing policies at music festivals and public events’. Despite the party name, Mr Wright says Keep Sydney Open has 42 candidates across the state and is ‘now about keeping Ballina, Brunswick Heads, Alstonville, Federal, Mullumbimby, Byron, Newcastle and The Blue Mountains open’. Sustainable Australia’s Lisa McDermott says her party’s policies include a ‘sustainable environment and population, affordable housing for first home buyers and renters, secure jobs via a more diverse economy and better planning to stop overdevelopment’. The Echo has ambitiously attempted to collate policies and pledges from the candidates, which are available at www.echo.net.au.
Animal Justice Party’s Cathy Blasonato
Country NSW Labor’s Asren Pugh
Incumbent Greens MP Sustainable Australia’s NSW Nationals’ Ben Tamara Smith Lisa McDermott Franklin
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Meet the candidates ▶ p22
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