made•hhere
BONUS magazine in this issue!
MAKE HUMAN RIGHTS GREAT AGAIN The Byron Shire Echo • Volume 36 #16 • September 29, 2021 • www.echo.net.au
A world of wond
erful things
Govt polarises community over mandatory vax Hans Lovejoy A local teacher, who cannot be named owing to onerous laws that prevent NSW government workers from speaking publicly, has raised their concerns over the looming November 8 deadline by the NSW government requiring all education and care workers to be vaccinated. They say the issue has forced them to no longer ‘sit on the fence’ around the issue but to pick a side. ‘That’s what just happened to construction workers, health workers, police etc’, they told The Echo. ‘If you don’t vax by the date they have set, you are forced onto the antivax side, and no longer able to take your time deciding if it’s right for you or not’. They said vaccine passports, which are operating in many European countries, will exacerbate the polarisation within the community. ‘Many on both sides would rather fence sit and wait until they feel they could make a more informed consent about what is right for them’. ‘And science is not our God. It isn’t always correct, or without bias, and it is such a shitty argument to make people subscribe to when, by nature, [the pandemic] is relative and evolving. ‘Lots of products on the market
that were said to be safe by science have been found [to be] not good for us in the long term. A lot of people know about their own body, and what is right for it, and don’t appreciate having their basic freedoms and rights such as being able to earn a living, or access certain facilities (if the passport comes in), intertwined with their choice. This is not consent, is it? ‘The whole Australian school curriculum is going to need rewriting if we continue the way we are as a society, and guess what – there won’t be enough teachers to teach it. There wasn’t before COVID-19, owing to casualisation of the sector’ (see page 4 for teacher shortage report). ‘It hasn’t been thought through properly, and our children will suffer deeply for it. It is not as simple as just getting vaxed so we can all get on with our lives. ‘The proposed vaccine passport will create negative changes that will affect generations to come.’ ‘Fingers crossed I can work out a different way to earn a living. Some of us have to stand up. ‘We are being forced to. I do not want the current government’s overreach of power to become normalised’, they said. A Public Health Order has been ▶ Continued on page 2
Labour Day public holiday October 4 Like most business in NSW, The Echo office will celebrate Labour Day, honouring the achievement of organised labour in the mid nineteenth century to limit a day’s work to eight hours. While Echo drudges work around the clock, the office will be closed Monday, 4 October.
Ratepayers, business get a helping hand ▶ p2
Made Here,
on the North
Coast and North
ern Rivers.
Greenpeace’s milestone celebrated
On Greenpeace’s fiftieth anniversary (notched up on September 15), one local couple had a special reason to celebrate – they met as young activists while working for the environmental NGO in Sydney. Lally Marshall and Mikey Rosato were involved with Greenpeace UK and Greenpeace International before joining the 2005-6 Greenpeace anti-whaling expedition in the Southern Ocean. The Mullum couple say it was their most dangerous adventure to date. Full story on www.echo.net.au. Photo Jeff Dawson
Byron and Tweed lockdown ends, for now The lockdowns in the Byron and Tweed local government areas ended midnight Tuesday, with no further cases having been detected in either area. NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard (Liberal) made the announcement during Tuesday morning’s press conference. Byron and Tweed went into lockdown last week, after a crew member of a reality television show filming in the area visited a number of locations while infectious with the virus. Meanwhile, travel from Greater Sydney and regional NSW will now be limited, apparently in response to a letter written by five NSW MPs
New Hemsworth mansion before Council, public ▶ p4
representing the Northern Rivers, to Premier Gladys Berejiklian and her Deputy, Nationals Leader John Barilaro. In what the MPs say is a first, Chris Gulaptis (Clarence), Geoff Provest (Tweed) and Ben Franklin MLC (all Nationals MPs), as well as Labor’s Janelle Saffin (Lismore) and the Greens’ Tamara Smith (Ballina) asked the NSW Government to protect the region from a predicted influx of city ‘70 percenters’, when Sydney reaches the Government’s double vaccination target before other regions. They write, ‘We are really concerned that, without policy
Spooks can now take over your online account ▶ p6
Hopefully both stores are open for trading as usual, but in the event of lockdown continuing, shop online with click and collect available. Exclusive fashion, homewares, furniture and accessories that recreate a luxury holiday lifestyle. Island Luxe Bangalow 02 6687 1605 62 Byron Street, Bangalow info@islandluxe.com.au
Island Luxe Tribe Byron Bay 02 6680 9600 1/11 Marvell Street, Byron Bay tribe@islandluxe.com.au
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changes, our region will suddenly become deeply vulnerable to a major influx of newly freed Sydneysiders, while we are still short of the 70 per cent safety target’. ‘This apprehension is shared by locally based medical professionals we have consulted as well as the broader community. ‘We cross-party MPs recognise that we are all in this together. ‘We therefore ask you to adjust public health orders to prevent this happening, by restricting non-essential travel to the North Coast until it too has reached the milestone’.
Lack of vaccines responsible for low vax rate ▶ p15