TOO MANY PODCASTS AND NOT ENOUGH PROTESTS The Byron Shire Echo • Volume 35 #21 • Wednesday, November 4, 2020 • www.echo.net.au
letting BRUNS Holiday code announced ZOMBIES! Hans Lovejoy
A long-awaited Code of Conduct to regulate holiday letting has been released by the government, which includes a mandatory premises register that ensures a ‘two strikes and you’re out’ policy for unruly guests. Also known as short term rental accommodation (STRA), the NSW government say the code comes into effect December 18, 2020. At 24 pages, the code aims to be ‘a state-wide planning framework to achieve consistency and certainty across local planning controls’. It applies to ‘online accommodation platforms, letting agents, facilitators, hosts and guests’. Minister for Better Regulation and Innovation, Kevin Anderson (Nationals MP) says of the code, ‘The standards are enforceable, with powers available to NSW Fair Trading Commissioner to take disciplinary action, including penalties and exclusion from the industry for repeat offenders’.
McDonald Trump supporters held a small mask free election rally in Brunswick Heads last Saturday, ahead of the November 3 US election. A little known virus replicating itself at alarming rates in the US and Europe is helping global ratings for 2020 go though the roof. Photo Jeff ‘Three Meals Away From A Zombie Apocalypse’ Dawson
Compliance unclear
Bioenergy waste facility touted, have your say Ideas and feedback are being sought on Council’s plan to build a $15 million bioenergy facility that would convert much of the Shire’s organic waste into renewable energy. Council say, if built, the facility would be the first of its kind in Australia and would process residential green bin waste, commercial food waste, and turn grease trap waste into biogas, via a process
called anaerobic digestion. Also to be converted would be wastewater from the Byron Bay Sewage Treatment Plant (STP), which is where the proposed facility would be located. Council had previously proposed to build the facility at the Brunswick Valley STP on Vallances Road, but changed the location in 2018. According to Council, the entire process would generate approximately four million kilowatt-hours
of renewable electricity per year, equivalent to powering 267 households. This electricity would be used to run the Byron Bay STP – one of Council’s most power-hungry operations – with the excess energy fed into the grid, creating a revenue stream which Council hopes will make the project economically viable. ‘This could revolutionise the production of bioenergy in this country’, the manager of the project
Hospitality leaders help Melbourne’s night life ▜ p5
A day to remember the dead, Nov 8 ▜ p6
Ballina news ▜ p8,14
Paul Bibby
John Hart said. ‘It doesn’t require any fossil fuels to operate, effectively solves the Shire’s organic waste problem, and it stacks up financially on its own’. Key to this financial viability is the fact that phosphate-rich bio soil compost is made as a byproduct of the process. Council believes this will be highly sought after by farmers around the region, creating an â–ś Continued on page 3
NAIDOC week ▜ p13
Yet details regarding who will enforce compliance are still to be announced. Within the code’s compliance and enforcement section (page 21), there are no responsibilities defined, other than what the commissioner can do with the findings. The Echo asked Mr Anderson’s office, ‘Does the government expect that local councils and police will provide the commissioner with evidence that an industry participant has contravened this code? If so, won’t this be an added burden on their resources?’ â–ś Continued on page 5
Phillip Frazer’s take on the US election ▜ p17
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