The Byron Shire Echo – Issue 37.26 – December 7, 2022

Byron Council’s r enewable energy projects uncertain

Paul Bibby

Two major renewable energy projects promised by Byron Council are now facing an uncertain future, after an unsuccessful bid for federal funding left the Council struggling to pay for both of them.

The Byron Shire Bioenergy Facility and the Dingo Lane Solar Farm in Myocum have both been given development approval, following years of preparatory work undertaken at considerable cost to ratepayers.

But with the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) rejecting a grant application for the bioenergy facility at the final hurdle last month, Council is facing a significant funding shortfall.

‘We can probably do one of these projects but not both,’ Byron Mayor Michael Lyon told ABC radio last week.

‘What we’ll be looking at is either getting further funding, or potentially selling the [solar farm] project, so getting a private company in to proceed with it.’

The bioenergy facility and the solar farm projects are key planks in Byron Council’s plan to achieve net zero emissions in the shire by 2025.

But paying for them was always going to be a challenge, given Council’s limited finances, with the bioenergy facility costing $2025m and the solar farm valued at around $12m.

Council staff have previously indicated that Council would have to borrow money to pay for the solar farm, and that this would significantly increase its debt levels.

‘What’s disappointing is that we

were really confident after the first round of ARENA funding that the bioenergy facility would be funded by that renewable energy agency,’ Cr Lyon said.

‘In the end the board have decided not to fund it, so the Council is left having to decide between the two in terms of which we can fund.’

FOI on ARENA decision

A freedom of information (GIPA) request from resident John Lazarus has revealed that the ARENA board rejected Byron Council’s funding application primarily because they were told that a private group was already developing the particular type of cutting-edge bioenergy technology that Council was planning to use.

Thus, Council’s project would not ‘materially advance the commercialisation pathway’ for this technology, known as ‘dry anaerobic digestion’.

This information, contained in minutes from an ARENA board meeting which were obtained under freedom of information, would seem to undermine Council’s claims that the bioenergy facility was an ‘Australian first’.

It also raises questions about the level of planning undertaken in preparing the grant application and, indeed, the project as a whole.

However, questions are now also being asked about the veracity of the information provided to the ARENA board that formed the basis of their decision.

Films of the of the underground

Agritourism policy forced upon LGAs

Hans Lovejoy

The NSW Department of Planning and Environment (DPE) has ignored Byron Shire Council’s urgent request to delay the forced adoption of the NSW government’s agritourism policy. The policy came into effect last week in all local government areas (LGAs).

agritourism experiences’ through a ‘fast-tracked, [process] or without planning approvals’. This could include, ‘farm stays, cafes, cellar doors, retreats, roadside stalls, fruit picking, or small wedding venues’.

wanting to diversify their income will be able to start an agritourism business without lodging a development application (DA), as long as conditions are met.’

Shannon Burt, Director Sustainable Environment and Economy confirmed with The Echo that the DPE ‘did not agree’ to Council’s request to be omitted from the policy.

An extensive online search reveals no evidence of any dry anaerobic digestion technology

The NSW Minister for Planning, Anthony Roberts (Liberal) said in a press release the statewide agritourism policy allows farmers to ‘diversify their income by including

Roberts’ press release did not include details around how potential land use conflicts would be managed, and by whom. Potential environmental impacts were also not addressed.

She says the delay was requested so staff could review the changes, ‘and how they will impact planning and development in the Byron Shire’. ▶ Continued on page 4

Roberts says, ‘Landowners

The Byron Underground Film Festival, launched last Friday, promises to ‘tantalise and stimulate conversations of the not-so-talked-about’. Staged across multiple venues, the festival will include, ‘filmmaker panel discussions, street performers, stand-up comedy, and a celebration of the alternative lifestyle that made Byron Bay the Paramount of Australian anti-culture.’ The festival runs until December 11. For more info, visit www.thebuff.com.au. Pictured from left are fest crew: director, Andre Stamos, Cora Diego and Andreea Pirvu. Photo Jeff ‘So Underground He’s Emerged On The Other Side’ Dawson

Global Ripple Op Shop, Byron Taxis,

Paul Bibby

The much-loved Global Ripple Op Shop, along withByron Bay Taxis and the Suby pop-up cafe in the Byron Arts & Industrial Estate, have all suffered major damage from a fire that raged throughout Monday night into Tuesday.

Fire and Rescue NSW (FRNSW) say they received numerous calls about the fire in Grevillea Street just after 8.30pm. The first fire crews on scene quickly called in backup, as the shop and warehouse began collapsing.

Firefighters say they used power tools to cut access points through the metal sheet exterior and attacked the blaze from four sides.

Supported by ten FRNSW trucks and four Rural Fire Service tankers, there were concerns about LPG cylinders in the taxi building and a fallen powerline nearby. Neighbouring homes were evacuated as a safety measure and thankfully no-one was injured.

Firefighters battled the blaze for six hours and managed to contain the flames, saving nearby properties.

Just after 7.30am on Tuesday, the fire re-ignited and began smouldering, but was quickly extinguished by FRNSW crews. The cause of the fire is under investigation.

In an emotional post on social media on Tuesday

RE-OPENING SOON WRAIGHT’S GARAGE BUILDING

morning, the co-owner of Global Ripple, Jacqui Boyett said she was ‘gutted, physically and emotionally’.

Seeking help

Global Ripple is non-profit organisation that supports individuals and communities by helping them to access medical and dental care, food and supportive networks.

Ms Boyett and her team and are now asking for help to find a temporary new space so that they can continue to operate and do charity work in the community.

To help, call 0457 192 225 or visit www.theglobalripple. org/op-shop.

supplied

photo

End of year celebrated by Chamber, Destination Byron and Sourdough

A combined christmas party for Byron Bay Chamber of Commerce, Destination Byron and Sourdough Business Pathways was held Friday night at the picturesque Byron Bay Surf Life Saving Club.

The event attracted around 85 locals, and Chamber president Jason Bentley thanked those who attended for riding out the covid storm and then the floods.

Board doubles

Bentley told The Echo that the size of the chamber board has doubled, and now ‘represents a larger range of businesses’.

For the new year, Bentley says the chamber will focus on solving the staffing shortages. To get involved, visit www.byronbaychamber.com.

Mullum’s zebra crossing win hard fought by residents

Paul Bibby

A zebra crossing will be installed at a pedestrian safety blackspot near the centre of Mullumbimby, following a long-running campaign by a group of local residents.

The residents had long argued that the upcoming reprioritisation of traffic flows at the intersection of Dalley and Tincogan Streets would have made it very difficult to cross Tincogan Street safely.

This was particularly the case for those with mobility or vision challenges, who faced the prospect of being unable to make their way safely into town.

Back in July 2021, Council staff had promised to build a zebra crossing at the blackspot in response to the safety issues.

However, when the reprioritisation project came back before Council last month, the zebra crossing was not included in the plans.

It is understood that the reason for this was concerns that motorists would not be

expecting the crossing, and so might not stop in time, thus putting pedestrians at even greater risk than doing nothing.

However, this response drew an outraged response from those campaigning in favour of the crossing.

Deplorable pathways

Former Byron Councillor and Chair of the Local Traffic Committee, Basil Cameron, said, ‘The suggestion that a pedestrian crossing is “unsafe” as drivers may not expect to see pedestrians

in that location is laughable for anyone familiar with pedestrians regularly walking on the road owing to the deplorable state of pedestrian pathways’.

‘If drivers are so unaware, it surely demonstrates that a pedestrian crossing is urgently needed.’

It appears the Council heeded the call from Mr Cameron and his fellow safety campaigners.

When the matter came before last week ‘s Council meeting, councillors voted to install the zebra crossing,

and this was subsequently endorsed by the Local Traffic Committee at an extra meeting on November 30.

‘We were surprised we had to fight so hard for the past three weeks to make this happen – again,’ said local resident and safety campaigner, Linda Meades.

‘We thought it was all settled back in August 2021.

‘In the end, with the support and expertise of former councillor Basil Cameron and Council engineer, Judd Cornwall, we are all happy.’

The reprioritisation and the addition of the zebra crossing are expected to be in place within the next three weeks.

Byron Shire Mayor, Michael Lyon, who is Chair of the Local Traffic Committee, said he was happy Council ‘got to the right decision on the pedestrian crossing in the end’.

‘I’m glad all safety aspects were worked through properly and that we have a solution that accommodates people’s needs better –including members of our community living with vision impairment,’ he said.

Residents do the zebra shuffle to highlight the need for a crossing at the intersection of Dalley and Tincogan Streets.

Photo Jeff ‘Double Crossed And Pin Striped’ Dawson

Fashion designer, Jules Hunt; Jeremy Dufner from Sourdough Business Pathways; Byron and Beyond’s Peter Wotton; Byron Chamber of Commerce President, Jason Bentley; J’aimee Skippon-Volke, Director of the Byron Bay International Film Festival; Rachael Frew from Sourdough, and Byron Taxis’ Jason Erickson. Photo Jeff ‘Surf’s Up After This Pic’ Dawson

Agritourism policy forced upon councils by govt

Burt adds that a ‘report will be on the agenda for the meeting on December 15’.

Councillors voted unanimously at their October 27, 2022 meeting to ‘urgently and strongly’ confirm with the DPE that [Byron] wishes to opt out of the policy ‘until such time as we conduct our own review of where the provisions/ clauses could be appropriate’.

Not only did the DPE ignore Council’s request to be omitted from the policy, but it appears the DPE failed to include Council’s strong objection to the policy within

the Submissions and Survey Analysis Report that underpins the policy.

The Echo asked the DPE ‘Was there a reason for this?’

The reply was ‘Byron Shire Council’s feedback was included in the submissions report, and considered as part of our finalisation of the policy’.

The sparse ‘feedback’ by Byron Council in the Submissions and Survey Analysis Report did not include any objection or request for delayed policy adoption.

When asked how this new policy will affect Council’s

rural wedding policy, the DPE spokesperson replied, ‘Under the agritourism policy, weddings can be held 52 days per year, with 50 guests without planning approval, or with a complying development certificate approved by council or a registered certifier if there is building work involved.

‘If a proposal doesn’t meet these requirements, the farmer can lodge a DA either for a temporary function centre under Council’s planning rules or they can lodge a DA for farm experience premises under the agritourism policy’.

NSW Labor candidate announced

Andrew Broadley has been named the NSW Labor candidate for Ballina for the March 2023 election.

According to Labor’s press release, Mr Broadley is a teacher at Richmond River High in Lismore, and lives in East Ballina with his wife Leanne and their four children.

The NSW electorate of Ballina encompasses Ballina and Byron shires.

He joins a field including incumbent Greens MP, Tamara Smith, and first time Nationals candidate, Josh Booyens.

Labor say their members gathered on Sunday for the announcement, along wth Justine Elliot, federal Assistant Minister and federal Member for Richmond; Janelle Saffin, State Member for Lismore; and John Graham MLC, NSW Shadow Minister for the North Coast.

Andrew Broadley said it was an honour to be nominated as the Labor candidate.

‘I’d not really considered entering politics, until the floods, until I saw [Labor MP] Janelle Saffin in action.

‘How can you not be inspired by that level of commitment? I saw someone, up close, give everything for her community. I thought, that’s what Ballina needs –someone who will put our community first.

‘With four very active teenagers, most of my community activity has been

supporting their involvement in sports and the arts, and I know how important these volunteer organisations are in our community’.

River rehab passion

Broadley adds, ‘But my personal passion is getting hands on to help river rehabilitation, it’s so satisfying to know that you are making a real difference in our local environment’.

‘It’s hard not to be impressed by Justine, and our new federal Labor government, so much has been accomplished in the first six months, after a decade of inaction. [This includes]

Action on early childhood education, climate, an Integrity Commission, improving wages and much more.’

‘Like all of you, I was appalled when the [federal] National Party politicised flood grants and abandoned those families seriously impacted in Byron and Ballina shires’.

Renewable energy projects uncertain

being progressed at a commercial scale in Australia.

Furthermore, when asked for the name of the private company or consortium referred to, ARENA’s media team declined to respond.

Council’s senior project manager for the Bioenergy Facility, John Hart, says that ARENA has never told him, nor any other staff member, about the existence of a private company using the same technology, despite Byron Council successfully progressing through multiple rounds of the grant assessment process.

Council only discovered ARENA’s justification for refusing the grant application via the information

obtained under freedom of information.

‘Council and its advisors have no knowledge of what developer or projects the ARENA management staff may have been referring to in statements to the closed meeting of the Board,’ Mr Hart said.

Closed ARENA board meeting

He denied that Council had not done its homework in relation to the grant application process.

‘It is misleading and disingenuous to suggest that Council should have considered matters about which it had no knowledge,’ he said.

He also denied that

committing to build both the bioenergy facility and the Dingo Lane Solar Farm when Council was relying on a grant application demonstrated poor judgment or irresponsible financial management.

‘On the contrary, it is a sign of responsible government to pursue innovation and sustainability while seeking to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions and expand the generation of certified green power in the Shire,’ he said.

He said that the bioenergy facility and the Dingo Lane Solar Farm had ‘multiple, and different, options for financing and commercial delivery, which Council would continue to explore in the best interests of ratepayers’.

Lismore teacher, Andrew Broadley, has been announced as the NSW Labor candidate for Ballina.

Photo supplied

Bruns garage gets a locals’ makeover

Hans Lovejoy

A piece of Bruns history has been rebuilt and relaunched, by a team of born and bred local tradespeople, suppliers, real estate agents and the new owners, who went to Mullum High School together and have remained close friends since.

The Wraight’s Garage relaunch celebration was held last Thursday, and included long-term locals and previous owners from the Bashforth family, as well as descendants from the original owners, the Wraight family, who were also Mullumbimby High attendees.

Project organiser and building owner, Peter Vogel, told The Echo he wanted to bring the name of Wraight back to the town, and keep the heritage feel of the building and Brunswick Heads village with recycled timbers from the original building and other old structures in the area.

‘The iconic building first opened in 1957’, he says. ‘It’s housed a petrol station, mechanic, panel beater, NRMA office and retailers. It’s had a lot of life over the years and I’m really excited to be part of the next chapter for the building’.

Vogel adds, ‘We are thankful to the Wraight family, who gave us their blessing to rename the building in their name’.

The building design was a group effort by owners and friends Peter and Ashley Vogel, Johnny and Sarah Gillett, and school friend and lead builder, Jai Eller.

They also enlisted the help of South Golden Beach-based architect, Jose Serrano.

Vogel said, ‘Thanks to more than 20 tradies who were involved in this project. It has been great bringing

lifelong friends together to work as a team and keep a bit of the history of Bruns alive. Brunswick holds so many memories for us all growing up’.

He adds, ‘The signature timber beams at the front of the new building were sourced from decommissioned local bridges by school mate, Ozzie Mclymont of Solid Grain Timbers’.

Another former Mullum High student, Jamahl Grey, will take a space in the building for his apparel retail shop Afterlife. Local couple and part-owners of the building, Johnny and Sarah Gillett, have opened a health conscious cafe, The Salt Mill 2483, to add to their other successful stores in Kingscliff and Currumbin.

Vogel says he is looking for a permanent tenant in the back of the building, but would like to hear from local businesses interested in a pop-up store, or food truck operators to park in the front courtyard at night over the Christmas period.

Anyone interested in this

space should contact another mate he went to school with, Peter Browning from LJ Hooker in Brunswick Heads.

The owners would also like to thank all long-term friends who helped them bring this project to life –Robbie and Manu Winter (Winter Building); Robert Andrew (Arthur Plumbing), Leon Condie (Metal Roofers Aust); Ryan Sigley (Sigley Electrical); Ben Cooper (Benny’s Concrete); Danial Broad (DB Air); Brett Donnelly Plastering; Zeb Morgan (Plaster It

& Co); James Chester (Oasis Bath & Tiling); James Stokes (Brayco Stainless); Robert Crouch (BDR Crouch); Tom Searle (Searles Bricklaying); Craig Landy Steel Work; Billy Eller Tiling, Chris Kantouros Demolition and Paul Sjoberg (Showy Carpentry).

For Thursday’s opening, Wandana brewery owner and former Mullum High student, Rupert Brown, provided the beer.

Disclosure: Hans Lovejoy also went to Mullum High.

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We are interested in swapping with you. If you are genuine, call the owners on 0409 001 846.

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Wraight’s Garage has been rejuvenated – pictured in front are co-owners Peter and Ashley Vogel, and Johnny and Sarah Gillett. In the background are descendants from the Wraight family and previous owner, Darryl Bashforth, along with other local tradespeople involved in the project. Photo Jeff ‘Does 50 Years Here Make You A Local?’ Dawson

Artist Jennifer Hogan is one of ten Byron School of Arts (BSA) students who have their work on display at the school’s end of year exhibition, Hello I Must Be Going. The exhibition runs daily from 10am till 3pm until December 10, and is located at 112 Dalley Street, Mullum. For more info, visit www.byronschoolofart.com. Photo Jeff Dawson

‘One of the best ways to achieve justice is to expose injustice.’

– Whistleblowerand persecuted JulianAssange

Hello, art is going until Dec 10

A deeper dive into Council’s wildlife corridor map

Hans Lovejoy

Will Council’s draft Wildlife Corridor System, if adopted, help retain and even improve the high biodiversity credentials of the region?

While that may well be the aspiration, given the lack of any statutory guidance and the loss of environmental safeguards under the Liberal-Nationals state government over recent years, the longterm outlook is not so clear.

An online tool, that maps key corridors between habitat which fauna move across, has had its public exhibition extended by Council staff until December 12.

Despite the significance wildlife corridors have in ensuring the high biodiversity of the

region – known to be one of the most diverse in the country – the proposal is not embedded in Council’s main planning instrument, the Local Environment Plan (LEP).

The LEP makes up part of Council’s plan ning instruments which guide development, and sits above Development Control Plans (DCPs), which are more site specific.

Former Byron Shire mayor and NSW MP, Jan Barham (Greens) told The Echo that while she believes the report that underpins the corridor system to be of high quality, the draft Wildlife Corridor proposal comes without strong planning powers to ensure the preservation and enhancement of the Shire’s high biodiversity.

She told The Echo, ‘Previously, a wildlife

corridor map was included in the LEP via the consideration of the Biodiversity Conservation Strategy 2004.Before the standard LEP was brought in across the state in 2014, councils had much more autonomy and more robust environmental zones and planning powers’.

‘We had greater rights to determine our future. Another loss for council powers was the introduction of planning panels by the state government in 2009’.

‘Protecting essential wildlife corridors in the climate change era must be a priority. Where land-use conflicts occur, with farming or other developments, they can be managed on a case by case basis. This is a vital mechanism to ensure our exceptionally high biodiversity is not just maintained but enhanced. I believe the community expects Council to lobby the state government to seek stronger powers for biodiversity protection’.

Within the extensive report by Landmark Ecological Services which accompanies the map, the authors admit that the project brief could not be fulfilled, ‘as suitable Plant Community Types (PCT) mapping was not available’ (Page 34).

Byron Wildlife Corridor System 2022 from page 29 of the report to Byron Shire Council by Landmark Ecological Services.

The authors write, ‘The draft PCTs were supplied by OEH prior to finalisation of a description of these vegetation units for northern NSW and many did not fit the communities occurring in the Byron LGA. Consequently, not all mapped vegetation polygons could be assigned to PCTs and in addition, the BSC vegetation mapping did not cover the whole of the LGA, omitting the National Parks estate’.

When asked whether this should concern residents, Council’s Biodiversity Team Leader, Liz Caddick, told The Echo, ‘The NSW PCT system is still being refined, and there are plant communities that occur in Byron Shire that do not fit the current types. For example, those with a low-to-moderate component of Camphor Laurel, which can be important fauna habitat.

‘While the draft PCT mapping was used to inform development of the wildlife corridor map, this was used in conjunction with the finer scale, and more accurate, Byron Shire Vegetation Mapping 2017, as well as extensive records for over 120 threatened plants and animals. The local ecologists who developed the map also have extensive on ground local knowledge of the area. While no vegetation mapping system is perfect, we are fortunate in Byron Shire in having up-to-date, fine scale vegetation mapping that, together with numerous threatened species records for the

shire, enabled development of the wildlife corridor map. While the Byron Shire Vegetation Mapping 2017 does not include the National Parks estate, all National Parks were automatically included in the corridor system as they provide important, protected, habitat for threatened wildlife’.

As for balancing the preservation of Byron Shire’s high biodiversity and the pressures from development and farming, Caddick says the non-statutory wildlife corridor map is aimed at ‘prioritising and incentivising habitat restoration, rather than enforcing it’.

‘We hope that the wildlife corridor map will encourage and inspire residents to restore wildlife habitat, when they can see how important their backyard is for other species. We have already had a lot of positive feedback from the community, with people interested in restoring some habitat on their properties’.

As for the loosening of legislation, she says, ‘Wildlife corridor mapping […] was removed from Council’s LEP in 2012 by the NSW Department of Planning’.

Caddick added that so far in 2022, Council has received $115,000 grant funding and $200,000 from Local Land Services for projects to address riverbank erosion, and Council’s yearly budget for restoration works on Council-managed land is at least $360,000.

Vale, much loved Jack Crittle

Flood Songs compilation released

Paul Bibby

‘So divided before the fall, we survived because we’re fighting on the same side after all.’

These words, from the song Northern Rivers Rising, say much about the community’s response to the February floods.

They are a powerful part of the lead track in the highly-anticipated Flood Songs Compilation.

The brainchild of local sound engineer, Jan Muths, The Flood Songs Compilation intends to help local people process their trauma, and to raise funds for local musicians who have been severely affected by the floods.

Fresh campaign launched against West Byron ‘locals’ development

Paul Bibby

A determined group of locals have launched a fresh campaign against the West Byron housing development, demanding that the state government appeal a court decision that paved the way for one of two projects on the site to proceed.

In March this year the Land and Environment Court approved a development application (DA) by Site R&D (known as ‘the local group’) for a substantial portion of the Ewingsdale Road site.

The application is for a 162-lot subdivision that includes 127 residential lots, 25 super lots, two business lots and two industrial lots.

It is separate to the adjacent Harvest Estate project which is smaller in size and scale. Locals fought long and hard against both projects, and were bitterly disappointed with the court’s ruling, which was an appeal against an earlier decision by the Northern Regional

Planning Panel to refuse the application.

Now, a collection of locals is calling on locals to rally to the cause once again.

‘We are asking people to write to Planning Minister Anthony Roberts, the Minister for Environment and Heritage, James Griffin, and NSW Premier, Dominic Perrottet, demanding that they appeal the decision,’ a spokesperson for the group said.

‘If we can hit them with a mountain of submissions they won’t be able to ignore us.’

The residents oppose the so-called ‘locals’ project on multiple grounds, including the salient fact that the site is flood prone.

They argue that any new houses built on the site will be at risk of flooding, and that the fill required to build them will direct flood waters into the homes of those who live nearby.

‘The proposed development will require fill levels of up to four metres high,’ the spokesperson said.

Update on road assessment that omits unsealed roads

Further to last week’s Echo story, Unsealed roads left off road assessment, a spokesperson for the NSW government replied to The Echo regarding why unsealed were left off the assessment.

They said, ‘The Northern Rivers Reconstruction Corporation (NRRC) road assessment survey is in the process of testing more than 5,500 kilometres of road surface in seven flood-affected Northern Rivers local government areas. The road condition assessment collected by the

ARRB vehicles is specifically targeted at sealed roads.

‘The assessment method used in this survey is unsuitable for unsealed roads’.

Another inquiry

Meanwhile, the federal House of Representatives Standing Committee on Regional Development, Infrastructure and Transport, has launched an inquiry into the implications of severe weather events on the national regional, rural, and remote road network.

‘Everyone has got their own flood story to tell,’ Mr Muths says.

‘Some stories are truly terrifying, others tell us about hope and community spirit – all of them are important.’

‘Sharing these stories through song is

an important part of our collective healing and we hope to get these songs out there to the whole community and to help local musicians at the same time.’

Mr Muths and a small team of professional producers and sound engineers invited musicians from flood-affected areas across the region to put their flood stories into songs, record a simple demo and then submit it to the project.

Seven songs were chosen by an industry panel and then produced by professionals who donated their services to the project.

This included all recording, mixing, mastering and distribution.

‘One of the key motivating factors behind the project is that when it comes to government flood support, artists and musicians seem to have have been the last ones on the agenda,’ Mr Muths says.

Industry professionals

The team of volunteers working with Mr Muths included local industry professionals, Saphia Smeraka and Nathan Stanborough, and acclaimed Victorian producer, Andy Stewart.

‘I thought it would be great to do something to support these people who add so much to the life of our community by sharing their incredible music,’ Mr Muths said.

TWEED VALLEY WAY WOOYUNG

Sound engineer, Jan Muths. Photo supplied

Young DJ and keen surfer, Jack Crittle, was tragically killed in a car accident last week. His family told The Echo details of his funeral and a celebration of his life will be supplied for next week’s paper. Photo GoFundMe

News from across the North Coast online www.echo.net.au

Interim Lismore

GM John Walker withdraws application for GM

Lismore Mayor Steve Krieg announced that the current General Manager of Lismore City Council has withdrawn his application to become the permanent GM.

Warning: Tweed section of Northern Rivers Rail Trail not ready yet

Love it or hate it, the Northern Rivers Rail Trail is under construction and the community is being urged to wait until it is safe for public use before trying it out.

Planning for Casino and urban growth

Richmond Valley Council is seeking community feedback on two key strategic documents – the draft Richmond Valley Growth Management Strategy and Casino Place Plan.

Ballina Council to kickstart waste reduction policies and projects

The Ballina Shire Council has voted unanimously to adopt a newly drafted policy aimed at waste reduction.

Roller skating, skateboarding and more for Lismore

A new sports precinct, including a 2300sqm skate park, in the Lismore CBD has received $3.9 million in funding from the state government.

New research collaboration aiming to flood-proof our future

The Northern Rivers Reconstruction Corporation (NRRC) and Southern Cross University, are collaborating on a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to inform and shape the future of Northern Rivers communities following the February and March 2022 floods.

Rally for the Right to Protest on Dec 10

Activists and concerned citizens of Lismore and the Northern Rivers will rally at 10 am on Saturday in Peace Park in Lismore on International Human Rights Day.

Councils ‘bullied’ with increased NSW govt burdens, say LGNSW

Hans Lovejoy

NSW councils have been ‘set up to fail’ with their annual audits ‘because the NSW Government is forcing them to carry the depreciation cost of assets they neither own nor control’, claims the peak body representing councils, Local Government NSW (LGNSW).

Described in a press release as the ‘Red Fleet’ dispute, LGNSW says the audit requirements are adding to further financial uncertainty for local government areas across the state.

LGNSW President, Darriea Turley AM, said the current NSW Government was overseeing a ‘dramatic increase in the number of councils being hit with qualified audits, after only two were issued in 2021’.

Remarkably, the serious claims of cost-shifting and bullying by the state government have not been refuted by the Minister for Local Government, Wendy Tuckerman MP (Liberal).

LGNSW President, Darriea Turley, said the spike in qualified audits comes down to the NSW Government’s insistence that council accounts include depreciation costs for Rural Fire Service (RFS) assets.

‘It is a ridiculous notion that councils are responsible for RFS assets. In most instances we don’t even normally know when a new fire truck arrives in town until we see a photo of the minister and the local fire service in the media,’ Cr Turley said.

‘But despite this, the NSW

Government continues to dig its heels in on the issue and heap more financial uncertainty on the local government sector at a time when councils facing unprecedented natural disasters can least afford it.

‘A qualified audit report can have serious financial repercussions for councils, limiting their ability to obtain loans and grants. This comes at a time when many are struggling with rising costs and a repair bill in the millions owing to recent extreme weather events.

‘The bullying of councils by the NSW Government needs to end. The government needs to do the right thing and take back control of the RFS assets.’

Cr Turley said LGNSW and councils across NSW wholeheartedly support the efforts of RFS volunteers who do a heroic job to keep communities safe.

‘This is purely about questionable accounting practices adopted by the NSW Government,’ Cr Turley added.

‘Requiring councils to record in their financial statements the total annual depreciation expense of RFS red fleet assets – estimated to be $145 million in the past year – will result in many councils having even less money to repair potholes in local roads or rebuild communities devastated by recent floods, let alone continue to provide and maintain other community infrastructure and services.

‘We’re so concerned about the implications of this issue that several metropolitan councils who don’t have a Rural Fire Service are passing motions in support for the communities that do’.

Minister handballs to bureaucrats

The Echo asked Minister for Local Government, Wendy Tuckerman MP (Liberal), whether the LGNSW claims were accurate.

Instead, a spokesperson for the Office of Local Government (OLG) replied on her behalf and told The Echo, ‘The Office of Local Government continues to engage and work with the local government sector to address issues and concerns around the financial reporting of Rural Fire Service assets’.

‘The Office of Local Government recently facilitated a webinar with councils and the RFS to provide guidance on the financial arrangements for the reporting of RFS assets. The Audit Office also attended the webinar and responded to questions’.

Govt corps sign MOU ‘to deliver housing across the region’

Two government-run corporations – Northern Rivers Reconstruction Corporation (NRRC) and Landcom, have agreed upon a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) which they say will deliver housing across the region.

NRRC described themselves as a ‘development corporation established following the 2022 floods

across Lismore and Northern Rivers region of NSW’, while Landcom is the NSW government’s land and property development organisation.

According to their press release, the MOU will support the sustainable growth of the Northern Rivers ‘by providing a range of affordable housing options for low to moderate income households,

including for key workers and Aboriginal community members’.

‘It will also enable collaboration with local councils, state and Commonwealth Government agencies, nongovernment organisations and businesses to improve housing diversity and supply, and infrastructure outcomes in the Northern Rivers’.

Rally for the right to protest on Dec 10

www.sydneycriminallawyers.com.au

Activists and concerned citizens of the Northern Rivers will rally at 10am on Saturday in Peace Park in Lismore on International Human Rights Day.

The rally is inspired by the case of Violet Coco, who this week was given a 15 month jail sentence for blocking one lane of the Sydney Harbour Bridge for 25 minutes.

Under the terms of the sentence, Violet is to remain in custody until the appeal in March next year.

Violet is the first person to be charged under the NSW government’s new anti-protest legislation passed in Australia with

the support of the Labor opposition.

In response to the sentence, the NSW Premier described the result as ‘pleasing’.

Speakers will include: John Shipton father of Julian Assange; Aiden Rickets lecturer at SCU; Mali Cooper, a young Northern Rivers activist; and others who will speak on a range of human rights issues.

Cindy Roberts will welcome the crowd onto Widjabul Wiabul land, and speak to the history of injustice faced by her people on this continent and the continued fight against over-policing and violence.

4WD restrictions at South Ballina beach to stay

Mia Armitage

Moves towards use of a smart phone app to help control 4WD access to South Ballina’s beach have failed in a recent Ballina Shire Council meeting.

Independent Councillor, Rodney Bruem, last month said he wanted Council to work with relevant NSW government agencies to review the access system currently in place and to ‘consider the feasibility of using technological systems as a permit system’.

Camera surveillance is used at Seven Mile Beach in Lennox Head, where 4WDs are still allowed.

The more open system has been accused of

leading to environmental destruction.

But it wasn’t until after councillors had debated Cr Bruem’s motion in November’s ordinary meeting that he added a second part, specifically calling for the introduction of a smart-phone permit monitoring app.

The last-minute change to the motion prompted official dissent from a majority of councillors. After a lengthy voting process, councillors voted for the status quo, which is for the state government to continue its management of 4WD access on South Ballina’s beach. The council is expected to debate the system used at Seven Mile Beach in an upcoming meeting.

Violet Coco. Photo

Minister for Local Government, Wendy Tuckerman MP (Liberal). Photo supplied

Byron waits for Emergency Response Beacons

Aslan Shand

In early November, two men were saved from drowning at Dreamtime Beach, Fingal Head, when a woman activated the Emergency Response Beacon (ERB), alerting the Surf Life Saving NSW (SLSNSW) State Operations Centre that the men were drowning.

The ERB at Dreamtime is one of 20 currently positioned at blackspots around the state – the initiative is managed by Surf Life Saving NSW, and funded through the NSW government.

There is also another ERB at North Kingscliff.

‘The beacon provides direct voice communication with the Surf Life Saving State Operations Centre in Sydney and video camera capability which allows operators to view an incident,’ says Director of Lifesaving at Surf Life Saving NSW, Joel Wiseman.

‘The aim of this lifesaving device is to streamline and shorten response times to coastal emergencies. All it requires is a touch of the button and the appropriate assets can be tasked to assist.’

A reader recently alerted The Echo to the fact that Surf Life Saving NSW has had three ERBs ready to go in since mid-2022 at Brunswick Heads breakwall, Belongil Beach and Tallow Beach – but they have yet to be installed.

The delay to installation comes from the complicated mix of approvals that may, or may not, be required for the installation of the ERBs.

Byron Shire Council’s (BSC) Manager, Open Spaces and Facilities, Malcolm Robertson, told The Echo that, ‘Council is supportive of the installation of emergency response beacons at Tallow Beach, Brunswick Heads and Belongil and this has been communicated to Surf Life Saving NSW’.

Landowner consent

‘The proposed locations are on Crown Land and it is Council’s understanding

that Surf Life Saving NSW is working with Crown Lands to obtain the necessary permits for the ERBs.’

However, the need to determine if development consent and landowners’ consent are required appears to be the holdup.

‘Crown Lands has received an application from Surf Life Saving NSW for a licence to be allocated for Emergency Response

Beacons to be placed on beachfront land,’ a spokesperson for the Department of Planning and Environment –Crown Lands, told The Echo

‘SLSNSW has been asked to provide confirmation that the ERBs are exempt from planning approvals with local councils’.

‘Also, the proposed locations for the ERBs in Byron Shire are on lands where Native Title has been recognised, so Crown Lands is consulting with NTS CORP and the Bundjalung People of Byron Bay (Arakwal People) as the native title holders as is required in accordance with the Commonwealth Native Title Act 1993.’

Community pantry relocates

Managers of the Gulganii Community Pantry say they have relocated to a new home at 3 Bridglands Lane, Mullum, in the big yellow warehouse next to Mullum Hire.

The pantry’s Katie Tweedie says, ‘This is a program offered by the Mullumbimby District Neighbourhood Centre (MDNC) for all community members to have

access to low-cost pantry staples, and free fruit and vegetables when available. We also source frozen meat and meat alternatives from the supermarkets’.

She adds membership is still only $2 per year, and they also offer ‘toiletries, nappies, and cleaning products free of charge when available, just to name a few’.

Dreamtime Beach, Fingal Head. Photo supplied

Labor does a better job of being less terrible

Federal Labor had a cracking week of reform, something that even the last prime minister (Liberal) admitted was their thing.

Notable laws passed this week alone include the National Anti-Corruption Commission, Secure Jobs Better Pay, and Respect at Work.

The Liberal pick for the President of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal also resigned.

It’s just one of many partisan appointments made over the years, which raise questions around the independence and integrity of our institutions.

Labor also last week censured former Liberal PM Scott Morrison for his secret seizure of ministry powers that damaged our precious and endangered democracy.

The one use of those secret powers – that the public know about – was to approve a contentious gas project off the NSW coast.

As the only PM ever to face a censure, Morrison responded like all narcissists do, and said if it wasn’t for his swift action to place himself at the centre of the problem, the place would have fallen apart.

Upon his censure, Morrison had sycophantic Liberal MPs line up to shake his hand in solidarity.

The only notable Liberal MP who didn’t ‘kiss the ring’ was Liberal MP Bridget Archer.

Anyway, as a political dumpster fire goes, the Liberals are tops.

With their continual decline as a political force, and an unwillingness to move with the times, it’s actually hard to focus on the party who are in power.

Fun fact – Labor not only

occupies the federal parliament, but every state and territory parliament, except Tasmania and NSW.

December 2 also marked 50 years since Labor’s Gough Whitlam won a historic 1972 federal election.

That win led to free university education, sewers built in capital cities, a family law court, and the removal of the luxury sales tax on the pill, just to name a few reforms.

The Aboriginal identity explosion

Arecent episode of the SBS show Insight discussed the vexed issue of Aboriginal Identity and featured a number of notable Aboriginal community members and prominent Aboriginal academics. Suzanne Ingram, a Wiradjuri woman and Sydney University postgraduate student shared some disturbing data arising from the 2021 Australian census involving what Ms Ingram calls ‘race shifting’.

Ms Ingram explained that there’s been more than a 25 per cent increase in people identifying as Indigenous since the last census in 2016.

Explanations for this explosion are as elusive as they are contested but wherever truth lies, this matter has been festering in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community for decades.

So, who are Aboriginal people, what is the three-pronged definition and perhaps more importantly, who decides?

One of the big challenges that must be confronted if fraudulent claims to Aboriginal identity are to be arrested is that white systems, the public service, universities, notfor-profits and other corporations must cease to accept and appoint heritage Aboriginal people to ‘identified’ positions simply on the basis of a ‘Certificate of Aboriginality’.

COAs are too easily obtained, leading to what Ms Ingram refers to as a ‘distortion’ of Indigenous identity and realities.

Yes, it was where rainbows emerged, and unicorns and fairies also pranced around in the knowledge that the dark and regressive 23 years of the Liberal-Nationals government was behind us.

The foundations for modern Australia had begun.

And the last decade, under the Liberal-Nationals, it stalled.

Just as well we are the lucky country. Not that smart, just lucky.

While it is refreshing that Labor are getting on with stuff while being ignored by mainstream media, the incarceration of Julian Assange is one issue that will continue to cast a shadow over Australian politics.

Albo’s response this week was to say he’s spoken to high level people within the US government.

Presumably he told them he’s unhappy. What wedge or bargaining chip is up your sleeve, Albo?

California’s GDP is larger than Australia’s, so good luck.

Hans Lovejoy, editor News tips are welcome: editor@echo.net.au

The three-pronged definition can be traced back to the early 1980s and declares that people seeking to identify as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander must meet all three criteria of the definition.

The three criteria are: ‘An Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander is a person of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent who identifies as an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander and is accepted as such by the community in which he [or she] lives.’

Culturally grounded Aboriginal people know their Country, their culture and kinship systems and the responsibilities and obligations stemming from them, whereas the growing list of people who are claiming their ‘Aboriginality’ based solely on their heritage speak of their Country but have rarely visited it.

Nor do they understand the importance of knowing Country and how it helps to inform and shape identity. Heritage Aboriginal people exist in a world that is disconnected from the community they claim to be connected to, and it seems that they have more in common with their non-Aboriginal heritage than their Aboriginal ancestors.

Of course, there are individuals who are legitimately seeking to reconnect with kin, Country and culture, they don’t want anything and simply want to claim their Aboriginal heritage rather than benefit from it.

Speaking on the Insight program, Dr Stephen Hagan, a Kullilli man from Queensland and long-time Aboriginal rights activist said that he had no concerns with individuals ‘who are on a road of discovery. I encourage people.’

However, Dr Hagan added that when he has asked people, ‘who’s your mob? where are you from?’, which are important markers to establish what I refer to as ‘cultural credentialling’, a process used to establish a person’s identity, Dr Hagan reported that a common response to his questions is a claim of ‘lateral violence’.

Echoing the concern that many Aboriginal community members have regarding the rise in the number of people with dubious claims to Aboriginal identity being appointed to lucrative jobs, Dr Hagan added, ‘People are being remunerated very handsomely to hold a lot of senior positions in our business and organisations’. ‘People are growing rich on our misery’.

Kumarah Kelly is a Pambalong

woman and CEO of Awabakal Local Aboriginal Land Council with a pedigree of Aboriginal activism spanning generations. Ms Kelly is concerned with the increasing number of people conducting cultural sites visits who may not have the cultural knowledge or authority to do so. Ms Kelly claimed, ‘We’re seeing people participating in cultural site surveys for the protection of artefacts and sacred sites. They’re making $1500 a day. Where did they get that cultural knowledge from?’

Ms Kelly added, ‘If you find out that you’re Aboriginal when you’re in your late 40s, you cannot be a cultural knowledge holder, because it was not given to you from your people’.

These types of concerns have been festering in the Aboriginal community for decades and will persist unless urgent action and agreement is taken to resolve the explosion in Aboriginal identity irrespective of whether it involves genuine efforts to reconnect or the more pernicious issue of ethnic fraud.

A plethora of academic papers, judicial rulings and other policy analyses have probed the issue of Aboriginal identity and a common finding is that an administrative definition such as the threepronged definition identified above is insufficient and ineffective to deal with claims to Aboriginality.

Aboriginal customs and laws must be the benchmark against which Aboriginal identity is measured.

Professor Morgan is a Gumilaroi man from Walgett, western NSW. He is a highly respected and acknowledged Aboriginal educator/ researcher.

‘Culturally grounded Aboriginal people know their Country, their culture and kinship systems and the responsibilities and obligations stemming from them’.

Prof Bob Morgan

Stupid frogs!

We’re in hot water

There’s no argument.

How much is enough?

How much corruption? How much destruction? How much distraction?

The writing has been on the wall for a very long time. Are we all sign blind?

Stupid? Brainwashed? Lazy? Is it Destiny? Karma?

Or are we too wounded to see past our next mouthful?

Our next peak experience. How much is enough? Stupid frogs!

Our collective hand turns up the heat

While the remedy is hidden In plain sight.

L Grace Wilsons Creek

Dead planet?

The great thing about a global temperature target is that the expansion of fossil fuels stays below the target... until, oops, it’s over the target. Oh well, what’s the next target? Fossil fuel investors love that game.

Ninety-six per cent of global gas and oil companies have massive expansion plans incompatible with the 1.5-degree target. So, the fossil fuel cartel has got COP’s knee on our necks.

It has been shown that when the cost of that expansion of oil and gas is diverted to renewable energy it can fully fund the global construction to keep the 1.5-degree target. Are you grinding your teeth?

Methane has now reached 2.6 times the pre-industrial level and that’s just starters for the huge runaway meltdown of the Arctic permafrost. 1.5 billion belching cows and global fugitive fossil fuel emissions play flute in our funeral procession.

The solution is simple:

stop any new oil and gas exploration, cancel construction of new power plants, and decarbonise global transport, food, and manufacturing systems by 2050.

I’m already at zero emissions energy, personal transport, and food; you can do it too, step by step.

Sapoty Book Main Arm

Ending corporate abuse

If you want to see the definitive best film of the decade, She Said, is on this week in

Byron. It’s about the two New York Times women reporters who broke the story on sexual harassment in the movie industry, with Harvey Weinstein as the main subject of investigation.

This is what sparked the #MeToo movement. There are no car chases, no manipulative tear-jerking moments.

It is a cut-to-the-bone, nodramatisation account of the

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Dune – not bush – regeneration

Jan Hackett

Inote in the current Byron Shire Council (BSC) Vegetation Management Plan (VMP), that six months after the current beach scraping is completed and a first phase of dune revegetation of Spinifex, Beach Bean and Goats Foot is done, a second wave of revegetation will follow.

It is this second wave that concerns me – though, of course, as BSC keep reminding me, I am not an ‘expert’ on these matters, and therefore my concerns are readily dismissed!

According to the VMP, the second revegetation planting is located at the rear of a foredune which is now being sand scraped into existence, and into what remains of our old back dunes, currently covered with dead trees, bush and weeds.

The plantings will be undertaken by our Dune Care group under the direction of contracted qualified bush regenerators, who have experience working in littoral rainforest and coastal habitats. The intention is to expand by four metres or more landward, with tree planting dominated by Coastal Banksia and other littoral rainforest species. Really?

There was never a littoral rainforest in this location. The entire ‘sandhills’ area east of Fletcher Street was, prior to circa 1970, just that – sandhills and dunes (albeit unfortunately damaged during mining by the NSW government post war).

Following the extension of Lawson Street directly across to Massinger Street, the developers moved in –holiday rentals, businesses, footpaths, grassy parkland, and, for some unknown reason, Council planted a ‘littoral rainforest’ fronting the beach. Looks pretty but is no better than dumping rocks along the back of the beach.

Severe storm-cut erosion is nothing new in Byron Bay. Recorded history describes beach loss back to the coffee rock in the 1800s. Until the town’s tourist potential was ‘discovered’ 100+ years later and our built environment grew seaward, the beach swiftly rebuilt after these regular catastrophic events. You will hear many say ‘It comes and it goes, so why do anything at all? Let nature take its course.’

Unfortunately, there is less

sand travelling north due to blockages down south and we need to hold onto every grain of sand that swings around the cape. The key to natural beach recovery is for waterborne sand to stick readily and build up, forming a sloped beach with a protective bank of free-flowing dunes behind to absorb wave impact and replenish beach sand after storm events.

As less sand trickles around the cape, as replenishing sand from the dunes is locked away behind land development and tree plantings and as walled carparks and similar hard revetment reject incoming sand and send it packing further north, Main Beach is under the hammer!

So, I have to ask – why, when we now have a chance to make corrections and regenerate a healthier dune barrier in the eastern corner of ‘The Bay’, are council intent on repeating past mistakes?

Why are they employing bush regenerators for what should be dune regeneration?

Why aren’t Council expanding our protective dune buffer as councils are to the north of us? Surfers Paradise has already ‘moved’ and the entire ‘Gold backCoast’ is investing in dune regeneration between built

and natural habitats. Why is this not happening here?

Why do Council continue to allow development and use on and of the dunes, e.g. music festivals, markets, akayak storage container?

It’s universally known dunes are our best defence against coastal erosion, yet for some reason BSC locks away our dunes behind trees, root balls, foreign soils, rocks, concrete and buildings and then blames global warming and changing currents for massive erosion and sand loss.

To my mind, WE are the ones eroding our once magnificent beach, not nature.

The sea is rising and heading back to the escarpment where million-year-old marine fossils have been found. Byron Bay stands in its way. We can destroy our natural defences and hasten the need to create a walled city, relocate, or we can work with nature and extend the life of the town and beach by restoring a healthier dune buffer zone.

Which would you prefer? A beach and sandhills, or a shaded picnic spot atop a seawall with no beach below? Time’s running out.

Jan Hacket is a former Byron Shire councillor and Byron Bay resident.

various women’s assaults and events; yet riveting and emotive.

Every teenager should see this film.

Raphael Lee Cass Byron Bay

From the heart

I’d just like to mention the fact that your publication has been a stalwart in the background of my life for at least 25 years, and that I appreciate the effort your staff and the people who write genuine letters from the heart go to.

I’ve written to you on quite a few occasions, from a handwritten note during a flood following my brother’s suicide in 1999, to repeated pleas to treat ‘asylum seekers’ as one would one’s neighbour. It is always fascinating to read your readers’ thoughts on the state of the world. Community building in action!

I can’t sign off without noting that Byron (with Mullum close behind) is one giant construction zone at the moment... with people still homeless following the February floods. I guess that means the fly-in schoolies won’t get a sleep-in. They are lucky to have a bed – many ‘locals’ don’t. Many locals can’t afford food. It’s a

shame all the construction going on is based on a chase for tourism money, rather than a reconstruction of ‘community’ (the most overused word of the century).

Always interesting and only very rarely boring. Thanks so much to all of the contributors.

Sarah Smith Mullumbimby

Does anyone

Amazing stuff, that now we learn that the Vallances Road site for natural burials is unsuitable mainly because, as reported, it is vastly flood prone.

Does Byron Shire Council (BSC) actually keep records? Surely when the Vallances Road Waste Water Treatment Plant was constructed it would have been identified as a flood-prone area or when flood investigations were carried out by the stormwater engineer employed by BSC?

Also, there was a local farmer who was refused the right to grow sugar on their land in close proximity to Vallances Road as BSC identified it as a sensitive environmental area.

I wonder about the ability of BSC to store and supply information on issues like

this. Surely someone would have recorded that Vallances Road was a flood-prone site at some stage over the years, and that over two hundred and fifty acres in close proximity is a sensitive environmental area, but apparently not.

Alan Dickens Ballina

Brittany Higgins

What a pathetic decision by the ACT Court to abandon the Brittany Higgins rape case.

The implication is that in future rape trials if an alleged rape victim is pilloried in the media or online enough to drive them to mental illness, the alleged rapist will get away with it. What is to stop the defence lawyer or the accused’s mates and supporters anonymously trolling the victim to bring this about?

Bob Vinnicombe Sefton

Oops, it looks like we poked the bear. How in the heck is a multinational that made $2.1 billion in profits last quarter, their most profitable year EVER, claiming to be helping Byron Shire’s housing crisis?

The fact that Airbnb is advertising in the little ole

Echo newspaper is a clear indication of the bully-boy tactics of this platform. It’s not about stopping Airbnb, it’s about bringing balance to holiday letting – regulation is happening around the world.

You can advertise all you like, Airbnb – but the research shows that unregulated ‘whole house’ holiday letting affects communities; depletes housing supply, reduces long-term rentals, forces up house prices/ rentals, and encourages over-tourism. Have I missed anything?

BE Crowle Byron

A Keilor man was found guilty of animal cruelty this week in Melbourne Magistrate’s Court for violently kicking a dog during a protest in 2021. The man was fined and ordered to pay costs, and put on a good behaviour bond with no conviction recorded, which the RSPCA found disappointing.

The magistrate rightly condemned the unprovoked attack, saying: ‘People should not be lashing out at defenceless animals that are causing no threat to them’.

The RSPCA prosecutor said that it’s hard to provide enough proof to get

▶ Continued on page 18

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Australian chess books are rare, Australian chess novels rarer still.

David Lovejoy’s 2008 fictional biography of Savielly Tartakower, Moral Victories, was well received internationally – though internation al sales are virtually assured when your subject, a world class player preWorld War II, held Russian, Austrian, Ukrainian, Polish and French citizen ships (as well as applying for a British passport before being parachuted back into France during WWII).

However, Lovejoy’s latest novel, White Horses and Dark Knights, is an entirely different beast, the story of the fictional George Marks, a British journeyman International Master whose rational mind struggles with the possibility that he may have met – or rather been chosen by – a muse, Kay Orikasa.

Marks’s battles, both over the board and with the British chess establish ment, ring true, yet the demands of real life interrupt constantly. Indeed Marks’s chess activities in England, Spain and Russia are frequently over shadowed by Kay’s problems with the seemingly even more dodgy poetry world.

Though 245 pages, White Horses and Dark Knights is a far less sub stantial work than Moral Victories but also more fun to read, with Lovejoy

keeping the action and plot twists going until the end. Marks is a likeable, though sometimes bumbling, hero – sure to be played by Hugh Grant in the movie version. (Lovejoy, a tournament chess player himself, regrettably explodes a few carefully cultivated myths about chess players being intelligent.)

Referencing Moral Victories, Lovejoy makes Marks’s final showdown against his nemesis, Grandmaster Brian Lye, an action replay (without chess moves) of a famous Tartakower game, given below.

Teplitz-Schonau 1922 White: G Maroczy Black: S Tartakower

Opening: Dutch Defence 1.d4 e6 2.c4 f5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.a3?! Be7 5.e3 0-0 6.Bd3 d5 7.Nf3 c6 8.0-0?! There is no need to walk

The advantage of ‘savings banks’ charging minimal interest is that the high rates of interest are not of significance. Since 1694 the Bank of England has charged exorbitant interest rates. The rate of interest is four times the original loan.

David Hall Ocean Shores

It was a bipartisan vote in 2020 that refused to adopt an amendment to the Financial Sector Amendment Legislation (Crisis Resolution Powers and Other Measures) Act 2018 to explicitly exclude deposits from being used to ‘bail in’ failing financial institutions and stablise the global financial system.

The loss of that amendment, that would have brought certainty to the status of deposits, is

convictions, but this attack on the defenceless, leashed dog had been captured by a television camera.

Acts of cruelty to dogs and cats are rarely captured, yet there is plenty of video evidence of massive cruelty in shearing sheds. Hours of eyewitness video footage reveal

indicative of the power of the banking lobby to oppose any change to the status quo! Consequently, escalating Cr Lyon’s motion on a Commonwealth Postal Savings Bank for fear of Council’s support being used for political purposes has the result, as the editor so succinctly put it, that ‘... a good idea gets kiboshed because the people proposing the idea are considered crazy conspiracy theorists’.

There is clear-cut evidence of the success of a post office banking system in Japan. It provides financial security for savings. So why in Japan and not in Australia?

A veteran of the finance industry has made the point that such a system would remove the necessity for the government to bail out

that workers in the wool industry beat, stamp on, kick, mutilate, and throw sheep around. PETA has released seven exposés of over forty facilities in Australia’s wool industry. Abuse was documented at every farm and shearing shed visited.

If the man who kicked the dog had done any of

the commercial banks. (I would add that since the GFC their modus operandi has shifted aggressively into the derivatives market and the lack of separation of retail from investment banking puts deposits at higher risk.) He then raised the question, why isn’t the Labor Party championing the notion of a post office banking system because the idea fits so well with Labor’s principles? Asren Pugh is asked to explain.

Patricia Warren Brunswick Heads

It is noted in The Echo editorial (30 November) that ‘Another debated item was held in secret – the Mayoral Fund 2022/23 – Allocation of Funding. Why all the secrecy councillors?’

This action defies the recent Charter of Deliberative

the things routinely done to sheep – punching them, jabbing them with sharp metal clippers and sewing up gaping wounds with no pain relief, he would have gone to jail. Yet the response of governments throughout the country has been to ban the filming of video evidence, rather than

Democracy ratified and distributed to the Byron public as a charter of principles upheld and practised by Byron Council. Nowhere in this document are there ratified articulations of ‘secret meetings’. This action, and the consequent inaction of elected councillors, once again violates public rights, human rights, democratic processes etc. The secret meeting practice is highly abusive and extremely dangerous and manipulative, setting a precedent to continue violating democratic principles. Better to be truthful and state ‘there are times when secrecy must be upheld. Councillors can adhere to totalitarian methods to support the mayor and ever-present cronies’.

Jo Faith Newtown

banning the abuse itself. When the magistrate denounced the man for kicking the dog, saying he should ‘not be lashing out at defenceless animals’, the same principle must apply. This vile industry needs to be closed down.

Desmond Bellamy PETA

Rogers

Why a warming climate creates more devastating rain impacts

Aslan Shand

It is a simple equation: an atmosphere with more water in it makes more rain. The impact of climate warming is that more water rises from the earth’s surface and is held in the atmosphere. But as they say: what goes up, must come down. In a warming atmosphere, when the rain comes down, larger amounts of water come down at once and you experience flooding like February and March 2022 – more water in shorter periods of time. This leads to higher flood levels and landslides.

It is estimated that for every degree of warming there is a seven per cent increase of water in the atmosphere.

‘Currently we are living the consequences of 1.1-degree global warming,’ Brendan Mackey, director of the Cli mate Action Beacon, Griffith University and a coordinating lead author for the 2022 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) explained during a recent webinar on floods and farming for Farm ers for Climate Action.

‘Unfortunately extreme rain and flooding will continue to get worse for

decades as we have at least another 0.4 degree of global warming locked in in the next ten years.

‘What happens with climate change is that patterns of rainfall are changing but it is not the same everywhere. A warmer world is actually a wetter world overall but also [with] more extreme droughts in some places and more extreme rainfall in others.’

Increases in rainfall have been seen in northwestern Australia. Daily rainfall associ ated with thunderstorms has increased 13–24 per cent between 1979 and 2016, particularly in northern Australia (Dowdy 2020).

Landslides are caused by ‘pluvial’ or ‘flash flooding’. The combined cost of flood ing is estimated at $8.8 billion a year.

Not only have we seen the impacts of the increase in intensity here in the Northern Rivers early this year, we have also witnessed the devastating impacts on farmers throughout NSW, Queensland, and Victoria as the recent flooding has destroyed crops and farms.

Chloe Fox, a farmer in Seymour, Victoria, described how the flooding of the Goulburn River on 12 October

devastated their organic farm. She said that in the seven years they had been there the water had never impacted the farm but this time ‘the water was higher than my head’ and it ‘remained for five days. It was like being in a lake – you wouldn’t realise there was a farm under there. We’ve only dropped below minor flood level in the last week and a half.’

The loss of the garlic crop alone was valued at $100,000 but she said that it would be ‘too heartbreaking to work out the total loss’.

Intense events

‘The most intense precipitation events observed today are likely to almost double in occurrence for each degree of further global warming,’ explained Brendan.

‘The increase in global temperature, and in Australia’s temperature, is exacerbating all extreme events that Australia is experiencing: heatwaves, bushfires, droughts, and floods.’

These are all getting either more frequent, more intense, or of longer duration as these climate trends continue.

‘Current global policies, even if implemented, will result in global warming of

3.2 degrees by 2100. With recent enhanced ambitions it is reduced to 2.5 degrees; it is well above the current levels.

‘We are going to see another 0.4 [degrees] happen in the next eight to ten years [and] are going to see as much climate change in [that time] as we’ve seen in the last 20 years. So just think about how much worse the heatwaves, bushfires, droughts, and floods have got – well we are going to see continuing worsening in the next decade.’

Chloe said that more accu rate predictions of flood risks would be helpful as the October flood had been ‘warned as a minor flooding event’.

To achieve that Brendan said that it comes down ‘in part to investment in monitor ing equipment. It will require a lot more instrumentation in both rainfall and flooding and having systems that can feed into the models in real time. I think it is going to be a while before we have the systems in place to do this.’

The full webinar is available on the Farmers for Climate Action website: https://bit.ly/3iCYLsz. The Full story on The Echo online: www.echo.net.au.

Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Co-operative

Dr Bronwyn Bancroft

Thirty-five years ago, ten Aboriginal artists gathered to create an Aboriginal Artists Co-operative in Sydney, the place of first point of contact with the English in 1788, when Captain Cook proclaimed that the land was now England’s and all black people can bugger off! There are historical notes that inform us that Cook’s instructions, from British High Command, were to take possession ‘with the consent of the Natives’. As we all know this never happened and the murderous tentacles of self-righteousness and greed infiltrated our country.

Smallpox was introduced and devastated many of the Gadigal people, and from that point on the imperious English stole our families’ lives and our country. They worked assiduously to destroy any cultural knowledge and history and replace that with Christianity, with clothing to cover the human body, and murder of black people went unchecked and was wide spread. My own family/clan members were massacred in 1840 under the direction of the British Command at Nogrigar Creek in our traditional land outside of Grafton. Even writing this down fills me with sadness.

Fast forward to 1987, when ten artists decided to work together as a group to leverage and dispel many naïve impressions held by non-Aboriginal commentators about our art, our lives and our history. The ten Boomalli founding member artists were Michael Riley (dec.), Fiona Foley, Tracey Moffatt, Brenda L Croft, Arone Raymond Meeks (dec.), Fernanda Martens, Jeffrey Samuels, Avril Quaill, Euphemia Bostock and Bronwyn Bancroft. We came from many different language groups and all had a passion to create. Our first exhibition ‘Boomalli Au Go Go’ was held

at 18 Meagher St, Chippendale in Sydney on 25 November 1987 and was opened by legendary journalist John Newfong.

Our challenges were many as we confronted a lack of commitment by many to learn about our cultures and connections. We all had strong links to our families. The gross interrogation by many about our Aboriginality was not only repulsive but indicative of a non-Aboriginal narrative that has been written by the British since they came here. As is often stated, ‘the victor writes the history!’. I am so proud of my peers and the work they have contributed over many decades to remove the igno rance that prevailed through a white lens.

Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Co-operative celebrates its 35th year in 2022, but within that anniversary milestone are the tears, pain, success, turmoil and hard work that are always embedded in being a survivor as an organisation. Many Aboriginal artists have benefited from the presence of Boomalli and I cannot imagine a world where it might not have existed. The existence of Boomalli has provided opportunities for so many artists to have their art, stories and history appreciated without having the conflict of their relevance, integrity and authenticity being challenged constantly by outsiders who never delved into the dark history of Australia’s unlawful dispossession by the British. All this history is artfully

documented by many squatters in homestead journals, but carefully written to disguise the full force of brutality that is now known as the Frontier Wars.

When we were embarking on our art journey in 1987, we faced a lot of resistance to our work, but on the flipside we had many amazing supporters and friends amongst the non-Aboriginal community who worked hard to be our allies. Michael Riley (dec.) was behind the impetus to set up Boomalli (in the languages of the Bundjalung, Gamilaroi and Wiradjuri, Boomalli means to strike; to make a mark) and went to state our case with the then director of the Aboriginal Arts Board of the Australia Council, Mr Gary Foley and chairperson, Uncle Chicka Dixon. This meeting resulted in Boomalli securing funds for rent at the Meagher Street space. It was a monumental moment for this fledgling group and laid the foundation for all of us to learn about how to run an exhibition space and all that this entailed. Boomalli will be celebrating its 35th year of existence on 25 November at our Flood St Gallery in Leichhardt, Sydney.

My passion as a founding member of this co-operative has been to contribute to its survival for other Aboriginal artists so that the opportunities to showcase their work and to be able to sustain themselves and their families through the creation of art are there. This has been pivotal in my still being involved as the senior strategist. I have

volunteered for the last 13 years to save the co-operative from financial turmoil, imminent closure by government officials and the possibility of eviction by the then Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts. A small group of us withstood the pressure by external forces to fold and through the maze of bureaucratic intricacies and bullying by outsiders we have survived.

Boomalli now focuses on artists from language groups within the state-based border of New South Wales and we are thriving. Our space at 55–59 Flood St Leichhardt is fully renovated with solar panels and three gallery spaces (however, we still do not have airconditioning). We have 59 members and a strong program of external and internal exhibitions, all with a skeletal part-time staff of four. We rely on volunteers to assist us and always acknowledge with gratitude their contribution in support of our artists. We have recently achieved Deductible Gift Recipient Status and will be working hard next year to build philanthropic donations to help assist with staff wages. Our lives are bound by grant applications that are year-by-year so the threat of imminent closure is only relieved when we receive news of a successful application. You would think that a place like Boomalli should be fully supported for at least a threeyear period, but that is not the case.

This is a brief article and in no way illuminates the victories and losses over this 35-year period, but something to be mindful of is that the Aboriginal people of NSW were the first colonised and last to be recognised – and that should always be remembered as we are survivors and our art is our storytelling.

Made possible by Nimbella Gallery and The Echo online: www.echo.net.au.

Founding members of Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Co-operative. Photo Margaret Olah

Assange and extradition

As a bloke who has besmirched Julian Assange’s reputation, my humble opinion probably doesn’t mean much, but it won’t stop when the same regurgitated defence statements keep being made.

Virtually all his supporters insist he was going to be sent to the US and this was the reason he hid away. Wrong. This is pure speculation. And the answer universally given as THE reason he evaded his legal obligations, not because he was worried about the sexual assault accusations. Why can’t we speculate he answered the accusations in a legally proper way, denied guilt, was cleared and is now living back high on the hog here in Australia? Because that doesn’t suit the prevailing narrative of the wronged hero freedom fighter. Speculation is the same, positive or negative.

Mr Westley is fantastic with buzzwords like state apparatus, corrupted global market interests etc, but I’m not sure comprehension is his strong suit. How he can divine that I think that accusation equals guilt, when I’ve been whingeing

about Assange eluding his legal obligations, is beyond me. I would have loved to see him answer his accusers in a court of law and pass with flying colours. Then the alleged extradition would have been a moot point.

Here’s a positive prediction. Assange will be free, to make his millions on a book, speaking tours, and to visit the believers at his statue in the middle of Burringbar Street within 18 months.

John Donnellan Ocean Shores

If we are making claims or allegations about Julian Assange we should not forget ‘innocent until proven guilty’. Assange is in his fourth year of imprisonment without charge.

Swedish prosecutors dropped the sexual assault charges in 2019. The 18 indictments planned by the US government make no mention of the events in Sweden.

Assange will be charged under a resurrected Espionage Act of 1917, the first journalist to be prosecuted under the Act.

If convicted he risks 175 years’ imprisonment.

I refer readers to The Trial

of Julian Assange by Nils Melzer, former United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture. Melzer is an authority on these matters with over 20 years in the field of international law and human rights. Melzer details the abuse of due process, breaches of standard procedure and failure by Swedish prosecutors and police to secure justice.

Given recent revelations of plans by US intelligence to kidnap and assassinate him, the possibility of extradition from Sweden to the US was not paranoid delusion. He was spied upon in the embassy including during discussions with his lawyers, amounting to a breach of his client-attorney confidentiality rights. Many believe the case should have been dismissed.

Thanks to Byron Councillors for passing a motion on 10 November 2022 calling on Albanese and the US president to drop the charge.

Supporters recognise that there is much at stake for society as a whole: principles of free speech, free press and our right to know what is being done in our name and with our resources.

Roy Drew Mullumbimby

NORTHERN RIVERS Welcome

Green Living Expo 2022

Speakers Program

Main Stage

Village Green

10.30am

Green Living Expo to showcase regional initiatives and projects

In a first for the region, a Green Living Expo is being staged on Saturday 10 December at TAFE NSW Wollongbar. The community event is an initiative of the Rotary Club of Alstonville with Ballina Shire Council and Southern Cross University as key partners.

The Northern Rivers Green Living Expo is a family friendly community event that is designed to engage, inform, and entertain everyone who attends.

Everyone is being invited to come along on Saturday 10th December to TAFE NSW Wollongbar between 9am and 4pm and enjoy a green living gathering in a beautiful space with views of rolling hills and the Nightcap Range.

The Expo site at TAFE NSW Wollongbar is on the Bruxner Highway 20min from Ballina, 20min from Lismore, and 30min from Byron Bay.

On show will be demonstrations as well as a Green Living Q&A panel session, and an exciting diverse range of local products, programs and services as well local musicians, local food, coffee and a full program of activities for children to maintain a buzz throughout the day.

Bring your family and friends to share in the spirit of our community that cares for the environment and is working towards creating a bright future for future generations.

Spokesperson for the Expo, Bob Costello, said ‘The aim of the event, planning for which commenced before COVID and well before the devastating floods, is to showcase local creativity, products and services that are contributing to the care for our environment and creating a bright future.’

‘Our region is known for its green thinking and passion for making a difference. We want to celebrate this passion and hope for a positive sustainable future through this community event. The region has been hit hard by the floods and has other ongoing challenges. We want to contribute in the hope that comes about when we work together and put the spotlight on positive things that are happening.

Further details including speaker bios can be found at www.greenlivingexpo.org.au or phone Bob Costello on 0410 598 523.

Club Northern Rivers articipate w , food ransport, will also be a ll staged TAFE conic

A few sites remain available for the Expo. The Rotary Club invites expressions of interest from local Northern Rivers businesses and groups who would like to participate with a display. Themes for the event include new products, projects and services around water, waste, food production, cultural knowledge, housing, transport, energy and habitat. Local food and music will also be a feature of the music of the event, which will staged across a family friendly green space at the TAFE with a panoramic view north towards the iconic Nightcap Range.

WEEK 2 WINNERS!

Miriam Neuenschwander

– shopped at Paséyo Cafe

Syl MCDonald

– shopped at Liberty Mullumbimby

Janelle Essery

– shopped at The Source

Bernie – shopped at Devine Meats

Matt – shopped at Courthouse Bistro

The retail world can be a tough game, the capitalist credo says compete or die, which in economic theory is supposed to deliver the consumer the best goods at the lowest price. In practice of course what you end up with is relentless dog-eat-dog undercutting, predatory sales staff and goods that gradually get shoddier and shoddier. Economics is indeed the dismal science. In Mullumbimby, as they say, they

Jonny from Camping and Disposals told me ‘sometimes all a customer needs is some advice, which is free, but those are the ones that come back’. Gerard from Stewart’s Menswear reckons it’s all about personal service and being able to see, feel and try on what you’re buying. Recently I was at the

and saw a strong contingent of supposedly competing fashion store owners at the event. When I commented on

look at it like that. We want to create a vibe where people will come to Mullum because it is a real fashion hub, that’s why we’re here to support.’ – Brian Mollet

ART GALLERIES

ARTIST STUDIO GALLERY

Belongil Beach Open by appointment. www.janrae.com.au

ARTIST’S HOME GALLERY BYRON BAY Landscape inspired works imparting a ‘spirit of place’. Open by appointment. jaypearse.com

BILLINUDGEL PICTURE FRAMING & PICCOLO ART GALLERY billinudgelpictureframing.com.au BS’A PROJECT SPACE byronschoolofart.com/exhibitions MZ GALLERY

LONE GOAT GALLERY

Byron Bay. lonegoatgallery.com www.thelorebureau.com MACKAY HARRISON GALLERIES East Ballina MIST GALLERY mist.gallery.cabarita@gmail.com MULLUMBIMBY CLAYWORKERS GALLERY mullumclayworkers.com NORTHERN RIVERS COMMUNITY GALLERY nrcgballina.com.au

PEEK GALLERY Check website for Byron Bay www.peekgallery.com

STUDIO SUVIRA CERAMICS & SCULPTURE GALLERY Home gallery and suviramcdonald.com TWEED REGIONAL GALLERY & MARGARET OLLEY ART CENTRE artgallery.tweed.nsw.gov.au

Art Classes for Kids, Teens and adults.

Byron Bay Contemporary Artspace is an independent art school located in lovely heritage premises in

57 Tennyson Street, Byron Bay 0468 718 045 www.byronartspace.com.au

ART CLASSES FOR KIDS, TEENS & ADULTS

Saturday & after school School Holiday Workshops

Small classes (max 6) with NSW registered teacher Covid safe Creative Kids vouchers welcome

Byron Bay Contemporary Artspace Contact Michele on 0468 718 045 or email info@byronartspace.com.au www.byronartspace.com.au

Open studio & December Sale Grab a bargain (or some fine art)!!! Thursday Fridays Saturdays  10 – 3pm Other times by appointment.

men,s underwear

Reer Endz, underwear makers of eco-friendly men’s underwear crafted from GOTScertified organic cotton, are based in Lennox Head. They are an underwear label that cares about you and the planet. Their goals are simple. They want to eliminate waste, conserve energy and water, avoid chemicals, and wear organic cotton as much as they possibly can.

Organic cotton is a natural, biodegradable and renewable resource. Organic cotton is grown without the use of harsh chemicals and requires less water than conventional cotton.

The Reer Endz team are committed to making the least negative impact on the planet possible, learning more every day, and making as many positive changes as they can along the journey.

#COVERYOURZ www.reerendz.com.au

The Cork Shop

Cork is harvested from the bark of the cork oak tree. It is 100 per cent natural, sustainable, recyclable, durable and waterproof. Cork is also hypoallergenic, microbial and is not prone to stretches or tears. It is an amazing, organic raw material.

Cork is also very soft, smooth, flexible, and incredibly lightweight, which makes it comfortable to wear. Cork is a great vegan alternative to leather. The cork oak tree is unique in that its thick bark can be harvested every nine years or so, and cork oak trees can live up to 250 years.

Cork is used to make many beautiful items such as handbags, shoes, wallets, jewellery, sunglasses, homewares, toys and more. Choosing cork is great for our environment.

thecorkshop.com.au

Byron Arcade, 13 Lawson Street, Byron Bay 0422 262 675

The Oracle

Ever since I can remember, I have been able to see, sense and know energy. At 15 I was reading Tarot professionally and even now my passion for it has not dimmed.

I absolutely love it.

I love the interaction with the client, the way the patterns inform and impart wisdom.

I love to witness the confusion or cloud people come in with dissipate  and defuse over the session.

I love to see a sense of purpose and direction renewed and inspiration  ignited from within.

If it presents, I will also remove any blocks, patterns or bad juju in the way of the positive outcomes that appear as potentials in the reading coming to fruition.

– Vicki Veranese

Gift Vouchers Available www.i-of-ra.com/readings Text: 0412 400 085

Dispensing musical medicine

Son of Drum is a candy store for adults – alive with the sounds of musical instruments you can try out and taste with your ears! They have musical instruments and accessories for all ages and skill levels and to suit any budget. Their range is constantly evolving and improving, so it’s worth swinging by regularly to keep up to date with what’s new. They also carry out instrument repairs and arrange tuition. They pride themselves on their helpful and intimate local knowledge. Oh yeah, and their prices are pretty competitive too! Drop in and see what they can do for you before you buy anywhere else, including online. You may be pleasantly surprised! They’re fully stocked for Xmas.

Shop 1 / 31 Burringbar St, Mullumbimby 6684 1742 www.sonofdrum.com.au

Ninbella

Ninbella Gallery exhibits a fine range of work by First Nations Australian artists alongside paintings by Northern Rivers artists.

They represent highly sought-after, award-winning artists and work directly with wholly Aboriginal owned art centres in remote communities such as Ampilatwatja, Yuendumu, Yirrkala and the Tiwi Islands. Collectable Western and Central Desert artists include Willy Tjungarrayi, Makinti Napanangka, Mitjili Napurrula, Naata Nungurrayi and Dorothy Napangardi.

Among their other contemporary indigenous artists are Kurun Warun, Gloria Gardiner, Ethan-James Kotiau, Gabriella Possum, and Melissa Ladkin.

Local artists Vlad Kolas, Hilary Herrmann, Lae Oldmeadow, Tanith Kershaw, Beryl Miles and Leah Anketell are also represented. The gallery is a member of the Australian and New Zealand Fair Trade Association and stocks a range of Better World ethical giftware. ninbella.com grant@ninbella.com 19a Byron Street, Bangalow 02 6687 1936

Festive Season

The Book Warehouse

"2022 has truly been a year like no other. After two years of Covid disruptions the flood has taken the devastation and challenge faced by our community to a whole new level. Our Lismore store is open again and despite the current footpath works out the front you can get into the shop! The main reason we continue to survive and prosper is down to you, our wonderful customers. A bookish community is a strong and resilient group and we are so grateful to all who continue to support us through these challenging times. Thank you!   We wish you a joyful Christmas and look forward to your custom in 2021.

Sarah Morrow and all the staff of the The Book Warehouse Lismore, Coffs Harbour, Ballina and Grafton."

6686 0917

165 River Street, Ballina 107-109 Keen Street, Lismore  www.thebwh.com

Toyworld

Shack Palace

Shopping at Shack Palace is a truly unique experience where you can sample a selection of organic teas, elixirs & cold drip coffee whilst you browse their curation of high quality artisan homewares, objects, skincare and apothecary items. They also offer complimentary gift wrapping in store for all purchases. This is the perfect place to pick up a unique gift for someone who has it all!

Find Shack Palace in the Habitat shopping precinct in the Byron Bay Arts & Industry estate.

8/1 Porter Street, Byron Bay www.shackpalace.com

Instagram: @shackpalace

For children, toy stores are magic places. At Toyworld you’ll find everything you need to make your child’s Christmas truly magical, with a huge range of highquality toys that are made to endure, from beautiful rattan dolls’ furniture to organic soft dolls and Jellycat Rabbits in all the colours of the rainbow. Toyworld has all of your favourite brands. It’s hard to go past the range of beautiful wooden infant toys or the extensive range of walkers, ride-ons and scooters to keep kids active.

For the games buff you will find all of your childhood favourites, along with hardto-find games and quality puzzles for the whole family. For the creative child there are art and craft and science kits to fuel the imagination and teach while they play.

Shop 2, 103 Jonson Street, Byron Bay 6680 8811

64 Woodlark Street, Lismore 6621 3473

Mytoykingdom.com.au

Festive Season

at Byron Community College

The 2023 Term 1 program is now open for enrolments online!

With over 100 courses on offer this term it is the perfect opportunity to upskill, change careers or learn a new hobby in the new year. There are courses in business, computers, cooking, writing, music, performance, dance, photography, handcrafts, drawing, painting, sustainable living, languages and wellbeing. Always a chance to learn!

Enjoy 15%* OFF full fees for all General Courses if you book online by Thursday 22nd December 2022. Simply enter coupon code EARLYBIRD at the checkout. They hope to see you at the College soon!

*Not valid on any courses already subsidised or funded. For more information visit www.byroncollege.org.au or call 6684 3374.

RTO No: 90013.

Festive Season

No Bones Little in Ocean Shores is the sister business to No Bones in Byron, which opened its doors in April 2018 with a mission to change the way people think about vegan food. Now after the past few years, they want to do better for our community and planet. Their goals are to become 100% carbon neutral across their businesses and to make sure they’re using as much Australian made/grown produce and products as they can, to reduce their environmental impact. As you may know, a plant based diet goes a long way towards fighting climate change and every meal counts.

Ocean Shores is open Tuesday - Sunday.

Lunch 12 - 4pm

Dinner from 5pm Join them on their expedition to save the Earth one brussel sprout at time. #brusselsnotbeef noboneslittle.com 82 Rajah Road, Ocean Shores 0422 355 928

Byron Bay Chocolate Co

The Byron Bay Chocolate Co. was founded in 1985 by husband and wife team David and Carole O’Connor and for more than 30 years their family has poured their hearts and souls into every single chocolate made, using only the highest quality, freshest ingredients. The quality of their product has ensured their longterm success. From humble beginnings, the Chocolate Co. has grown rapidly over the years, enjoying sweet success and a loyal customer base locally and globally. From the very beginning, all chocolates have been, and continue to be, handmade with love at their small family factory in Byron Bay.   'Chocoholics' throughout Australia and all around the world look forward to the next time they can indulge in these delicious sweet treats! 6685 8062 | byronbaychocolateco.com.au | @byronbaychocolateco

Australia’s Finest Chocolate Coated Fruit & Nuts

For all your photography needs Byron Photo Magic is the place to visit. They cover printing instore or online as well as large-format, canvas printing, photo books and calendars.

They have full 35mm/120mm film Colour - BW processing and printing services, batteries, memory cards, camera bags and the largest range of Fujifilm Instax & Polaroid Cameras, along with the full range of GoPro and accessories.

They now handle old video tapes, and Super 8mm film to USB. They stock frames, photo albums and an extensive range of Promaster photographic accessories, tripods, filters, binoculars and the largest range of 35mm film on the north coast, as well as pre-owned 35mm film cameras. Passport photos are covered professionally instore; just call in and see Stephen, Karen, Alanna and Molly. www.photomagic.com.au

Shop 20, Mercato on Byron, 108-114 Jonson St, Byron Bay 02 6685 5877

Do you want to join the BOMi team?

BOMi (short for Body & Mind) is a community health hub of practitioners, health ambassadors, athletes and leaders who believe our whole lives matter. They currently offer specialised services in the realms of osteopathy, massage therapy, exercise physiology, dietetics, and pilates (among others) and their service list continues to expand. With their range of services growing, the BOMi team is seeking expressions of interest to join their busy clinic in the Byron Bay industrial estate. While they’re open to any practitioners eager to join the team (and encourage you to reach out), they’re specifically on the hunt for a Myotherapist and a Pilates Instructor. Submit your interest (with your CV) to info@bomi.com.au

Unit 9, 1A Banksia Drive, Byron Bay www.bomi.com.au

FEATURE

Magic Murwillumbah

Bolt + Buckle

It’s an accepted fact that men are hard to buy for. Well… it used to be… until Bolt + Buckle came along and they are now the self-professed ‘men are so hard to buy for’ store. Opening nearly a year ago, Bolt + Buckle has quickly established itself as the ‘go to’ shop for men’s gifts and fashion in the Tweed, all presented beautifully with a rustic industrial People far and wide have fallen in love with this store, and it’s easy to see why, the

gifts, the latest fashion and a range of rustic leather goods. Bolt + Buckle is a must-visit store on your next trip to Murwillumbah.

11 Commercial Road, Murwillumbah 02 6608 3645 www.indepal.com.au

Echora – Simply Natural

you notice is how it feels. It comes from the lovingly created interior and the beautifully designed clothing, homewares and accessories.

made from quality linens, silks, wools and leathers, and painstakingly sourced natural and beautiful body and wellness products. Echora’s range comes from the Northern

Mavis’s Kitchen

Nestled at the base of Mt Warning is former dairy farm is home to modern country restaurant, a bountiful organic kitchen garden, eco-friendly B&B accommodation and highly sought-after weddings and events venue.

Surrounded by World Heritage rainforest and the lush Tweed Valley, the focus is all about sustainability.

share their ethos of quality, sustainable manufacturing.

Their Prospero Street store is also home to the Echora Gallery, a revolving collection of nature-inspired artworks from local artists. They invite you to visit them at Echora.

7 Prospero St, South Murwillumbah Facebook | Instagram @echora.life echora.com.au

Belle M Boutique

Great deals throughout December, with a fabulous new offer each week and a chance to win a $250 instore gift voucher when you spend $100 or more.

Beautiful colour, cool fabrics and styles to suit most occasions.

Their European made shoes are of highest quality leather, sizes from 36 to 42. 3 vouchers to be won!

114 Main Street, Murwillumbah 02 6672 1224

to all of their team, customers and suppliers who have supported them this year.

Pictured accepting the award are owners Tindal Magnus and Sam McCormack.

64 Mt Warning Road, Uki 02 6679 5664

www.maviseskitchen.com.au

Northern Rivers Property Group

‘Murwillumbah has always been home for us. There’s just something so special about the Northern Rivers that really captures the heart and we love sharing this beautiful lifestyle with our clients.’

of real estate sales experience and over the primary market shareholders in the area and successfully continue to achieve exceptional

results selling the Northern Rivers lifestyle. So if you’re looking to buy or sell in our

help guide you through the process.

m: 0448 191 351 | 0422 265 871 www.northernriverspropertygroup.com.au Suite 2A Warina Walk Arcade, 114 Murwillumbah St, Murwillumbah

Makers & Finders Market

This market in the heart of Murwillumbah is almost a mini festival. It brings together makers, growers, recyclers and vintage collectors. Throw a blanket on the grass and enjoy the live music, delicious eats and good vibes while the children play in the huge adventure and skate park. 3rd Saturday of each month.

Knox Park, Murwillumbah

Mavis’s Kitchen was thrilled to take home Gold as the number 1 Tourism Restaurant

Lightbulb Crystal Healing

Magic Murwillumbah

Summer into The Foundry

Brighten up your Christmas at The Foundry Murwillumbah.

The Foundry Murwillumbah is packed full to the brim with Christmas gifting inspiration for all the family. From the young – to the young at heart – browse luxurious and versatile gifting options that will make your loved ones smile with glee (and your Christmas gifting easy). Excite your senses and be treated to a unique shopping experience in a lovingly restored 1908 building. Doors open at 6am every day (including weekends) so you can get in early

Complemintary gift wrapping is available on all giftware purchases.

90 Murwillumbah Street, Murwillumbah Facebook | Insta: @thefoundrymurwillumbah www.thefoundrymurwillumbah.com.au/

The Regent

The Regent Cinema showcases the biggest summer hits these School Holidays, including Avatar 2, with a special preview on 14 December, for those who just can’t wait! Strange World + Puss in Boots 2 (from January) plus awesome live events, including the dynamic band, Bunny Racket for kids who love to rock!! (8 January)

Adults are covered with a pre-Xmas gathering of the Country Witches Association for their Summer Solstice celebration. The Magic Bus will be available for Byron Shire Covens. Book your stop with your ticket - beats a broomstick! More movies await - check the website to book ahead! www.the-regent.com.au

5 Brisbane Street, Murwillumbah 02 6672 8265

Summer dining at Tweed River House

recreates the great nouvelle cuisine classics of the provinces of France. Dine in the century-old Dining Room under elegant, pressed tin ceilings, or the River Terrace, overlooking the Tweed River with sweeping hinterland views. The riverside Lawn Bar is ideal for a drink and light bar food. 131 River St. Murwillumbah South 02 6672 5269 www.tweedriverhouse.com.au

Cure All exhibition tours at the Museum

Join Museum Curator, Erika Taylor, on a free entertaining tour of Tweed Regional Museum’s newest exhibition, Cure All. The exhibition explores stories of health and medicine in the Tweed through displays of more than 200 fascinating objects and photographs from the Museum, both the strange and the wonderful.

The tour is interactive and full of surprises. Get up-close and personal with the Museum’s leeches, be fascinated by killer pills, cure-all concoctions, and illicit potions, and experience some electrifying quack medicine.

Free. Bookings call 02 6670 2493 or via www.CureAllTours.eventbrite.com.au

Tours: 11–11.45am, on Sat 10 Sept, Wed 21 Sept and Wed 12 Oct.

Tweed Regional Museum 2 Queensland Road Murwillumbah 02 6670 2493 trm@tweed.nsw.gov.au

museum.tweed.nsw.gov.au

Magic Murwillumbah

Pulp Fiction

Chantilly Lace Boutique

A

4 Wharf Street, Murwillumbah 02 6672 3221

Ben’s Patisserie

BP Murwillumbah

BP Murwillumbah, aka the newly established Gourmet Garage & Co, has been transitioning for many years from your typical service station to a mustvisit family owned and operated BP,

Independently managed by a few local girls with a vision to create a unique one-stop shop, it’s driven by dreams to continue expanding, with a focus on locally sourced eco products, healthy alternatives, vegan options, gourmet style food for breakfast, lunch and dinner, all made onsite alongside fresh juices, smoothies and quality barista

Open 365 days, 5am–10pm. 216 Tweed Valley Way, Murwillumbah 02 6672 8355

Festive Season

Byron Bay Camping & Disposals

If you need sleeping bags, tents, work boots, knives, lighting, kitchenware, stoves, mattresses, rainwear, snorkelling and fishing gear – they have it!

They are a locally owned and operated family business of over 40 years now located in brand new premises in the Byron Bay Arts and Industry Estate, with plenty of parking available.

Go in and meet the team. Their staff will give you friendly, expert advice, no matter whether your next adventure is a campout, bush school, fishing trip, multi-day hike, or you need Christmas present inspiration.

1/1 Tasman Way, Byron Bay (ph) 0439 212 153 www.byron-camping.com.au theteam@byron-camping.com.au

BYRON BAY CAMPING

& DISPOSALS

Linen House

Linen House Mullumbimby is the perfect destination for all your festive needs, and is home to their sought-after pure linen collection. The Nimes range is made from a super-soft flax with a marvellous vintage style and drape – perfect for your bedroom, living and dining areas.

Laundering well and softening over time, it requires little to no ironing.

Why not update your bedroom with their new colours, Sky and Clay, the perfect summer hues to freshen up your sleep space. Their Nimes range of bedding is suitable all year round, owing to its popular breathability.

Versatile and with a dreamy colour palette, the entire Nimes range makes a perfect festive gift for any household and a long-lasting, environmentally friendly investment.

Create your ultimate Christmas bundle at 33 Burringbar Street, Mullumbimby, (02) 4334 4876.

VARUNA

Grown in Indonesia and designed by industry legends, Varuna wooden surfboards are the perfect complement to your quiver.

They create high-performance, sustainable surfboards by working directly with shapers to replicate their designs consciously. This ensures the quality and performance rivals its PU counterpart.

By using natural materials like balsa wood and bio-based resin, their construction produces 3x less CO2 than the average polyurethane surfboard over its lifetime. Not only that, they source their wood through an environmentally forgiving method that regenerates deforested grasslands in Indonesia, leaving behind a restored ecosystem.

Check out all available Varuna models for sale at their warehouse in Byron’s Industrial Estate, 3/16 Tasman Way. Demo boards are available for trial. Open Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, 9am-5pm. www.varuna.surf

Ocean Shores Happy Herb Shop

"It’s the festive season again at Ocean Shores Happy Herb Shop and we are overflowing with an abundance of stock for your gifting needs. What a year it has been, and it has been an honour and a pleasure to have served our wonderful community throughout, with the deepest appreciation and gratitude from the team here for your support, suggestions and loyal custom," they say.

Besides offering a wide range of natural herbal products to support optimal health, vitality and wellbeing physically, mentally and spiritually, they also have a wonderful and eclectic collection of gifting ideas – natural incenses, intriguing books, tarot/oracle cards, clothes, jewellery, natural perfumes and body oils, children’s toys and delights from their felted fantasyland, ceremonial tools, singing bowls, musical, fire and circus gear. Come explore!

Ocean Village Centre

Rajah Rd, Ocean Shores 0468 853 774

Device Trader

Device Trader Byron Bay continues to evolve after more than 7 years of repairing and selling mobile devices in the Byron Shire.

Founder Duane Tutchen says, “We now offer great deals in-store and online across a wide range of products. We’ve got a huge range of mobile phones, laptops, tablets and accessories available, and you can even trade in your old device with us!

With Macbooks, Apple Watches, Airpods and virtually every current iPhone, from $149 to $1499 and everything in between, we really do have something for everybody! We spent a lot of time building our online store and it has paid off. You can now see all of our products and services online and find huge discounts on refurbished devices and repairs."

1/ 130 Jonson Street Byron Bay, www.devicetrader.com.au

02 66855585

Festive Season

Virtual Golf Centre Ballina

Looking to try something new and different in Ballina?

Mullumbimby Ex-Services Club

Christmas Raffles are underway! From this Friday 9th December you can win yourself a Chrissy ham with 15 x Hams & 10 x Meat Trays to win.

Christmas Raffle tickets will be on sale from 5:30pm and drawn at 7:00pm.

Alternative Rock and Indie band fresh out of Byron Bay, Concrete Gold will be hitting the stage Friday 9th December, with two great support bands, Raw Deep and Mud Wagon. Tickets $20 https://www.mullumexservices.com.au/what-s-on

Don’t forget their random members' jackpot draw every Wednesday and Friday between 6-8pm. The current jackpot for tonight’s draw, Wednesday 7th December, is $8800, you must be at the Ex-Services or Bowling Club to win. T&C’s apply.

Wednesday 14th December will be their hammiest ham raffle with 100 hams to win!

Dalley Street, Mullumbimby mullumexservices.com.au

Come along and visit this state-of-the-art-indoor, air-conditioned virtual golf facility, with an amazing atmosphere.

Fully licensed and ready to cater for your next work or family function.

Family friendly.

Great for the seasoned golfer, the beginner, or those just wanting to have some fun with mates.

Come play some of the best golf courses in the world, like St Andrews and Augusta.

Also plenty of virtual golf games for the non-golfers, like putt putt and target golf games.

They welcome you to bring your own clubs. If not, they have clubs for you.

Gift vouchers and lessons available.

Open from 10am till 10pm, 7 days a week.

14 Ascot Rd Ballina www.virtualgolfcentre.com.au

Byron Bay Pork & Meats

It’s that very merry time of year again and the butchers at Byron Bay Pork are preparing the finest cuts of Christmas meats and selections for customers.

Your local family-owned business in Mullumbimby and in Byron Bay, they source premium quality pork, beef, lamb and goat from their family farms. All meats are antibiotic and hormone free.

They have locally-sourced and smoked leg hams along with free range chickens, ducks and turkeys. Their specialty sausage range includes a gluten-free variety, salami and they stock a range of locally produced smallgoods, sauces, spices and products.

Come in and see the friendly staff, or place an order on the phone, for all your festive season needs.

Open Monday to Saturday.

70 Dalley Street, Mullumbimby or 130 Jonson Street, Byron Bay 6684 2137

Balloon Aloft

Spring into summer with family and friends this season on a special morning adventure! Hot air ballooning is a great way to celebrate the region, drifting aloft with the vast hinterland and treetops below. From above, you will get to see the rolling hills of the Northern Rivers and the first rays of Australia’s sunrise. Enjoy a breakfast after the flight at Three Blue Ducks restaurant, The Farm. www.balloonaloftbyronbay.com

Success Thai

Open Lunch Wednesday –Friday 12 2.30pm.

Dinner Monday Saturday 5 8pm. Closed Sunday 3/31 Lawson St, Byron Bay www.facebook.com/ pages/Success-ThaiFood/237359826303469

All your favourites, every lunch and dinner. Experienced Thai chefs cooking fresh, delicious Thai food for you.

BYO only.

Welcome for lunch, dinner and takeaway. Menus available on Facebook.

The Rocks is back in business!

We have a range of freshly sourced dishes, Reverence coffee, and hand-made juices and smoothies

KARKALLA

Byron Bay

Native Indigenous Restaurant

Cnr of Bay Lane & Fletcher St, Byron Bay 5614 8656

Barrio Eatery & Bar

1 Porter Street, North Byron

Mon–Tues: 7am–3pm Wed–Sat: 7am–10pm www.barriobyronbay.com.au @barriobyronbay 0411 323 165

Supernatural

9 Bay Lane, Byron Bay 0477 629 271

@supernaturalbyronbay

Wahlburgers

Byron Bay

American style burger restaurant & sports bar Upstairs at Mercato on Byron, Jonson Street. www.Wahlburgers.com.au

Food with history, story & connection DINNER, THURSDAY–MONDAY

Early sitting from 5pm | Second sitting from 7.30pm Bookings highly recommended, via our website www.karkalla.com.au | @karkallabyronbay

Main Street

Open for takeaway daily, 12 midday until dinner.

Menu, more details –@mainstreet_burgerbar 18 Jonson Street 6680 8832

Open for takeaway daily, 12 midday until dinner.

Menu and more details

@mainstreet_burgerbar

‘Make a meal of it’ Add chips and a drink, just $5.

8.30pm / Fri & Sat 11.30am-9.30pm

Bar open daily 11.30am-late Bottleshop open daily 10am-8pm hello@northbyronhotel.com.au

Barrio brings together the local community in a relaxed environment for all-day dining.

The wood-fired oven and open-flame grill is the heart of the restaurant. Keep an eye on socials for daily specials. Now open for Sunday lunch from 11.30am–3pm

A Slice of Paris in Byron Bay

Come find us down the laneway for delicious share plates, natural wines, cocktails and potions.

Open from 5pm Tuesday to Saturday.

American & local sports played live Family Offer Buy 1 kids meal, get 1 free. $8 after 8 $8 drinks from 8pm Thur–Sun. Live music Fri–Sun.

Open 11am to 9pm daily – dine-in or takeaway.

Step away from the centre of town and into a shimmering oasis away from crowds.

Like tucked away treasure, the North Byron Hotel is a thriving mecca of good food, great music, laughter and the ‘chilled Byron Bay vibes’.

Eat Drink Discover

Summer at Hotel Brunswick

If you hang out at a pub in a wonderful seaside location like the Hotel Brunswick, you can smell the sea from the expansive beer garden, perhaps as you enjoy a Spanish Mackerel Cutlet from the pub’s specials board. If it’s not on special when you go, I’m sure Executive Chef Loki will have something just as good from the sea that week, as in the new summer menu there’s an emphasis on the freshest seafood from the region.

hotelbrunswick.com.au

Executive Chef Loki from the Hotel Brunswick doesn’t exactly catch the fish from the actual balcony of the pub, but you’re close enough to smell the sea when you dine there.

Ventura ‘hard kombucha’a winner!

Simon Haslam

Ventura Brewing in Murwillumbah are true pioneers in the industry, making ‘Australia’s first craft hard kombucha’, and now they’ve won ‘best alternative alcoholic drink’ at the Drink Easy Awards. With hard kombucha ‘well on its way’ in the US, Ventura’s Dom Hurley said he saw the win as a positive sign the drink will become increasingly popular with Australians, especially given the strong competition.

Competing against the hottest new beverages on the market from the emerging alternative drinks category, including hard seltzers, hard lemonade, ready-to-drink cocktails, and even cannabis-infused drinks, Ventura’s double fermented hard kombucha took home the win with their Peach & Sage specialty

batch – Dom says that like all their drinks, they spent a lot of time perfecting it.

lollies and papaya delight the palate.

Leaves you wanting…’. Test your psychic abilities to insert the missing word from that quote!

And there’s more good news for Ventura, with Tweed Shire Council after almost two years recently approving a DA for a taproom at the Ventura Brewery site.

Belongil Beach Italian Food

The judges described the winning beverage as ‘An old-school kombucha with great fermentation showcasing the perfect balance between sweet and dry. The nose enchants with hints of ginger, peach and lemon, while apricot stone, peach

Cheeses loves you

V Cosford

Cheese is one of my favourite foods, so it follows that I’m going to love a cheesemaker. And in this case, Deb Allard is very easy to love. I’ve known her for over 15 years, from when she first started on the cheese journey; I’ve done one of her brilliant cheesemaking classes even if it made me realise I’d rather leave the craft to experts like her. An expert Deb truly is. She’s travelled to Europe to study, observing how ‘the Italians and French embrace all cheese – smelly, fresh, big cracks through it – they loved it all’. Her first lesson was in Melbourne with a French cheesemaker, part of a small group who had all made cheeses before but

who ‘were like sponges’, Deb tells me. ’We really started the jour ney into understanding the cheese.’ Mozzarella-making in Venice, the Bra Cheese Festi val also in Italy, Limousin in France for a week in a village: all of this fed Deb’s passion and knowledge

‘It’s got a beautiful view over the canefields to Mt Warning, and we’re hoping to be able to invite the public for a drink by February 2023,’ said the hard-working Dom, who seemed like he was spending his Christmas holidays sprucing up the place in readiness, as well as perfecting new award-winning seasonal kombucha brews for the new year.

venturabrewing.co Instagram: @ventura_brewing

Today she makes around 22 different cheeses, selling them at farmers’ markets and to restaurants. A perfectionist, she spent a year ‘to get the brie how I wanted it and another year to make it more consistent’, she says. Her mozzarella, ‘one of the most technical cheeses to make’, requires her to start at 6am on Tuesday morning so ‘it is ready to stretch and throw into the iced water at 11am.’

Despite lots of requests for everyone’s current darling of the cheese world, the buffalo burrata (‘I tell them my husband isn’t buying milking buffalo any time soon!’), her customers are content with all the varieties she sells. I’m making her easy recipe for Stuffed Hungarian Peppers, her ricotta and haloumi bound with egg and oregano, the peppers baked slowly till oozy. Divine. Recipe on

the website.

Maurice Terzini launched Belongil Beach Italian Food back in December 2021, after having his heart set on opening a venue in Byron Bay for over twenty years. It followed his acclaimed Bondi’s Icebergs Dining Room and Bar, Cicciabella, and the world’s most sustainable bar.

A year later and Belongil Beach Italian Food has launched a vibrant new menu for the warmer months and just in time for the end of the year. The everyday beach restaurant, which deals in locally sourced produce that’s as fresh as its beachside breeze, celebrates the community and, of course, stays true to its Italo-Aussie heritage.

as well as a constant buzz of lively energy. The dining room is open to the elements making BBIF the best place to watch the daylight fade with a Paloma (or minimal intervention wines) in hand this holiday season.

Cheeses Loves You are at New Brighton on Tuesdays 8–11am and Mullumbimby on Fridays 7–11am.

at New 8–11am and on 7–11am

BBIF showcases the best flavours from the Northern Rivers with the new menu carefully curated in partnership with Alex Pritchard and head chef Danny Rossi. The trattoria champions Italian coastal classics like their Calamarata Moreton Bay Bug Charcoal Roasted Spatchcock, and more.

As difficult as it may be, save space for dessert – the simple yet refined dessert menu boasts the likes of Pavlova with Preserved Cherries and Rosemary Cream dolce, which is just the way to end a Christmas celebration.

Suitably laidback in nature, contemporary in style and family friendly, the venue is lined with pastel pink chairs and tables that bring a playful lightness to the space. Contrasted by terracotta walls, pops of greenery pay homage to its Italian roots

Coming up to Christmas, Belongil Beach Italian Food offers several options to celebrate your year with groups of all sizes welcome. It is open Wednesday to Sunday with extended hours to come over the summer months. BBIF will also welcome the new year with a NYE Dinner Party followed by a NYD Recovery Lunch. They will have additional seating for drinks with their Terrace Pop-Up coming and with its casual vibe, it will be perfect for aperitivo or relaxed dining after the beach. However, bookings are highly recommended.

I went to Belongil Beach Italian Food with friends a couple of weeks ago, and I’d say go prepared to relax into it; start with a Paloma and have some fun! It’s a really good place to go if you want good-quality tasty food at the top end, with comfortable chairs but still with a bit of a hip relaxed atmosphere – but professional service. The top-flight dishes are pretty expensive, but there are more affordable options too, and every dish is beautifully presented with great care. There’s a light seaside vibe to the place, and street-style art, that made even locals like us feel like we were on holiday in Byron.

bbif.com.au 33–35 Childe St Belongil

Footnote: Simon Haslam

DISCO

BYRON STYLE

Groove Terminator and Rodd Richards are proud to present for the very first time in Byron Bay, France’s very own king of Disco, Dimitri From Paris, appearing at one of the very last parties at Secret Garden on 16 December.

As the French ambassador of stylish club sounds, Dimitri from Paris is everything his nation could be proud of: a DJ, producer and remixer of the highest standard, and a stylish snake-hipped pin-up with French reserve.

His musical influences are deeply rooted in 70s Funk and Disco sounds that spawned today’s House music but also original soundtracks from 50s and 60s cult movies. With such a large mix, Dimitri remains one of clubland’s most empathic and most unpredictable DJs. Playing across genres and tempos, his first goal is to share his love for music while moving your mind, body, and soul.

Arguably Australia’s first ‘Superstar DJ’, Simon ‘Groove Terminator’ Lewicki has been at the top of his game as both a DJ and music industry professional for over 35 years. The first DJ to sign to a major label in Australia, his breakout single for Virgin, the Big Beatflavoured Hair soundtrack sampling – One More time (The Sunshine Song) went top 20 in several countries including Australia and even in France, while almost at the same time under the disco-tinged alias Chili HiFly he scored the pole position Australian and US Billboard dance chart #1 single Is It Love in 2001. Teaming up with Ministry Of Sound Australia since its inception, mixing the very first compilations, touring nationally as a DJ and recording artist he’s also in recent years been working with Ministry of Sound Australia as the Creative Director and DJ / Host for their massively successful national touring Orchestral Classics show. Secret Garden, December 16, 6pm.

INCREDIBLE SCREENINGS AT BANGALOW FILM FESTIVAL

Bangalow Film Festival adds more incredible films to the 2023 program and, with a stack of special screenings still to be announced, sessions are already selling fast.

Expanding its already impressive program, the Bangalow Film Festival is thrilled to welcome four more incredible screenings to the acclaimed 2023 film lineup.

Get the popcorn ready to enjoy an international stopmotion animation delight with No Dogs or Italians Allowed two insightful documentaries with AGE OF RAGE –The Australian Punk Revolution, Fashion Re-Imagined and a stunning First Nations drama Sweet As Directed by Alain Ughetto, stop-motion animation No Dogs or Italians Allowed invites audiences on a tender journey. The Ughetto family dreams of a better life abroad as their grandson travels back in time, revisiting his family history and unravelling the dreams of an Italian immigrant family. Combining personal memories, poetry and realism, No Dogs or Italians Allowed offers a touching and entertaining testimony to the experiences of generations of migrants and a tribute to their courage.

Crank up the stereo and relive the roaring Aussie punk era in the bold AGE OF RAGE – The Australian Punk Revolution. Directed by Jennifer Ross, this documentary unearths archival footage from the 1970s and 1980s, diving into the human-rights activism beneath the

Mohawks and distorted guitars. Rediscover how these radical musicians and activists found transgressive alternatives to the status quo, and in turn battled with the harsh realities of housing, duress from police, drugs, and grief.

Eye-opening and critically acclaimed documentary Fashion Reimagined sees trailblazing fashion designer Amy Powney embark on a worldwide sustainable mission as she traces down each phase in the development and manufacture of fabrics, striving for her new collection to be as environmentally friendly as possible.

The debut feature film by Indigenous writer and director Jub Clerc, Sweet As, follows 16-year-old Indigenous girl Murra, who becomes abandoned after an explosive incident with her drug-fuelled mother. On the cusp of entering the child protection system, Murra’s Uncle Ian throws a lifeline as she finds herself on a unique photo safari, leading to a coming-of-age story about unconventional friendships, first crushes, and self-discovery.

Stay tuned for all things Bangalow Film Festival, 12–21 January 2023, as there are heaps more special events and screenings to be unveiled in the coming weeks! Tickets on sale now from www.bangalowfilmfestival.com.au.

THE LAST CURTAIN…

By Alan Goldstein

For twenty-one years, on the second Saturday of the month, Federal Films has brought our diverse community together through film and food. Over this time, we have screened over two hundred and thirty movies, from the classic to the quirky. You can check out all the films screened here: federalfilmsociety.com/past_films.html.

At the same time, the group has supported Federal Hall, helped local community groups and schools raise over $250,000, and provided a regular social event for the local community to get together.

However, all good things must come to an end, and it is with a level of sadness that the group has decided to pack up the chairs for the last time in February 2023. There is no one reason for this and mostly it is just time for some younger blood to take up the reins of this or create something completely different. They are happy to be leaving having done something good in the village and been part of building the strong community that exists today. They hope that the same motivations can see a new bunch of locals come up with a fresh idea or take our one and re-invent it. Federal Films want to thank all the catering groups, the hard-working bunch of locals who have sustained this project throughout, and our projectionist, Noel, who has always ensured the quality of screenings. Thanks also to so many of our individual supporters and local businesses who have always stepped up to help, provide funding or give us a discount. Finally, thanks to the many audience members who have supported us over the years. Federal Films invite you all to share this experience again, by coming to one or all of our three final screenings and keep your ears open for our wrap party.

On Saturday 10 December they will be screening The Sapphires. Bring a rug and a picnic from 6.30pm; film starts at 8pm

Federal Films will be showing their final films in January and February 2023, details to come. Thanks from all the Federal Films mob.

If you need more information about how it all happens or just want to chat about possibilities, please contact Federal Films at: federalfilmsociety@gmail.com.

7 DAYS OF

NORTHERN RIVERS YOUTH ORCHESTRA RETURNS

What a year – after a positive beginning and memorable performances by talented teacher bands at the first Twilight Concert in February, things were looking up. What happened next was beyond believable with a 14.4-metre flood, which caused chaos not only on the ground level but eight feet up into the first floor of the beloved Conservatorium building. In the following days, the reality of the damage, wreckage, and loss was incredibly challenging both physically and emotionally.

Everyone pitched in for the cleanup and Southern Cross University offered space for admin and teaching and the Music In Schools program continued to be delivered where possible.

By term 3 the admin and teachers moved back into town and, with the incredible generosity of Musica Viva Australia and SCU, the Con were able to get their Visiting Artists program back on track.

The Northern Rivers Youth Orchestra was back in force in the spring holidays, the Youth Jazz Orchestra energised the Lismore Show, and the Big Play Day was a hit with the Hot Potato Band

As the year draws to a close most of the restoration works are now complete – and the Con will be able to continue to provide free tickets to the flood-affected for our 2023 events. Stay tuned, and happy holidays!

After almost three years’ delay, Lismore Symphony Orchestra is very happy to present their Timeless concert series

On December 10 and 11 you can hear masterpieces of music that have stood the test of time, featuring timeless classics including Ravel’s Bolero and Beethoven’s Symphony No 7. Joining old classics will be new favourites from contemporary composers Elena

Kats-Chernin and Katy Abbott. This is one concert you certainly don’t want to miss!

Other items on the program include: Percy Grainger’s Colonial Song and Johann Strauss’s Radetzky March as well as Elena Kats-Chernin’s Dance of the Paper Umbrellas and Katy Abbott’s Fast Ride in a Suave Machine

The Lismore Symphony Orchestra was formed in 2003 by a group of dedicated musicians with a common goal of bringing classical music to the people of the Northern Rivers. The orchestra has gradually acquired more local players over the years, and this concert will see over 50 players on stage. The orchestra puts on three concerts a year, including our sell-out Proms concerts held this year in August.

Tickets are available via the Ballina RSL website or you can call 6681 9500.

For more visit: www.lismoresymphony.org/ events/2022-timeless or ballinarsl.com.au/event/ lismore-symphony-orchestra/.

7 DAYS OF ENTERTAINMENT

YOUR WITCHES ARE BACK!

FEEL YOUR BLISS

After a year’s absence owing to Covid, House of Bliss is proud to present its 9th all-day chant festival on Saturday at St John’s Hall Mullumbimby

Eight kirtan collectives from all over the Northern Rivers: House of Bliss, Heart Chant, Shrine River Kirtan, Byron Kirtan, Gaia Tree, Shunya, Krishna Village and Rasa Shala will lead chants for 12 hours.

The day will begin with a special puja ceremony by Daniel Rawson and will be catered throughout the day by Bliss Kitchen

House of Bliss is a non-sectarian community collective that for the last 10 years has been promoting the chanting of mantras to open the heart, soothe the mind, and lift the spirit.

Cost is $45 for a full day or $35 for a half day. Kids free. Concessions available on the door.

St John’s Hall Mullumbimby, Saturday 9.30am till 9.30pm

Online tickets at events.humanitix.com/ house-of-bliss-kirtan-sacred-music-festival.

It’s the longest day and the shortest night: 22 December is the summer solstice, a time to transition from action to nourishment. It’s a time for tired women all over the region to pick up their brooms and sweep into a show of wild celebration with the Country Witches: Comedian Mandy Nolan and singer-songwriter Aine Tyrrell for their Midsummer Meeting at the Regent in Murwillumbah. The CWA is the satirical and inspired work of Nolan and Tyrrell who call in a supercharged gathering: from the rabble rousers to the tree-hugging activists, the wild women, the wise women, the boundary breakers and the menopausal cranky pants. This is a show for women who feel unheard, who are angry, who want to see change. This is a show for women who are going to make trouble. Mandy Nolan is a standup comedian who took her passion for change to the polls this year when she stepped into the political arena to push for change.

Áine Tyrrell is a singer-songwriter who uses her craft to give voice to the uncomfortable. An Irishwoman who stands strong against the mindset of the colony, she is a passionate ally for First Nations justice, with her own lived experience at the forefront of her truth-telling. On their own, Nolan and Tyrrell are a force to be reckoned with; together, they are formidable. Together they are The Country Witches, an unlikely collaboration that speaks deeply to their shared values and the tribe of women who find comfort in their call.

And now, for one show only, Your Queens are Back! With a nod of respect for the actual CWA, the satirical spiritual revival of the Country Witches draws down on telling the stories of our Queens, the women and people who have moved and inspired us. The Country Witches bring the tribe together for what will be their only show for 2022. It’s the ultimate Halloween for REAL witches everywhere. So warm up your rebel yell. Wear black, and pack a wicked picnic basket. The Country Witches Association are back by popular demand. Times they are a changing, and the witches… well, they’re rising!

Bring a flower for the stage.

The Regent, Murwillumbah

Thursday 22 December 2022 8pm

Tix $40 & $50 for Rich Witch on the-regent.com.au or ainetyrrell.com/tour

WEDNESDAY 7

RAILWAY HOTEL, BYRON BAY, SIMON MEOLA

BEACH HOTEL, BYRON BAY, 12PM DJ MADAN, 2.30PM SCHMONE 5PM MISMO TEMPO, 8PM DJ LOUIS BLUMES, 10PM DJ DANNY B & THE HORN STAR

BYRON THEATRE 11AM MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING – NT LIVE SCREENING

FOXY LUU’S, BYRON BAY, 6.30PM TONY AND THE THIEF

THURSDAY 8

RAILWAY HOTEL, BYRON BAY, BROADWATERS DUO BEACH HOTEL, BYRON BAY, 12PM DJ WAX ADDICTS, 4PM DJ REIFLEX, 6.30PM HEAVY WAX, 7.30PM DJ JAMES OWEN, 8.30PM ABROAD, 9.30PM DJ JAMES OWEN 10.30PM DJ KIRA SUNDAY

HOTEL BRUNSWICK 6PM GUY KACHEL

BRUNSWICK HEADS PICTURE HOUSE 7PM CHEEKY CABARET SOUNDLOUNGE, CURRUMBIN, 7PM PETER ROWSTHORN

FRIDAY 9

RAILWAY HOTEL, BYRON BAY, 4PM OOZ, 8PM SABOTAGE

BEACH HOTEL, BYRON BAY, 12PM DJ GENE ENGLISH, 4.30PM DJ SOPHDEXX, 7.50PM OPIUO + Z.I.V. & TAY-A

HOTEL BRUNSWICK 7.30PM RAGGA JUMP

BRUNSWICK HEADS PICTURE HOUSE 7PM CHEEKY CABARET

OCEAN SHORES COUNTRY CLUB 5.30PM HAYLEY GRACE

YUM YUM TREE CAFÉ, NEW BRIGHTON, 6PM ROD MURRAY – A TRIBUTE TO JAZZ

WANDANA BREWING CO., MULLUMBIMBY, 4.30PM  DJ TAZ

MULLUMBIMBY EX-SERVICES CLUB 7PM CONCRETE GOLD ST JOHN’S SCHOOL HALL, MULLUMBIMBY, 7.30PM ECSTATIC DANCE MULLUMBIMBY WITH DJ R.I.A.

MIDDLE PUB, MULLUMBIMBY, 5PM

BALCONY BEATS, 8PM KRAPPYOKEE

HOTEL

SUNDAY 11

RAILWAY HOTEL, BYRON BAY, MAJESTIC KNIGHTS BEACH HOTEL, BYRON BAY, 4.30PM THE FERAMONES, 7PM DJ QUENDO, 10PM DJ MY HAPPY PLACE FOXY LUU’S, BYRON BAY, 5PM MARK CHAPMAN HOTEL BRUNSWICK 4PM IS MAN KIND

BRUNSWICK HEADS PICTURE HOUSE 1PM BEST OF BUFF: FILM FINALS + AWARDS, 3.30PM BUFF: CONTEMPLATIONS PLUS Q&A WITH JULIAN PALMER, 7PM BUFF: BENJAMIN WALSH — REMIX EXPERIMENT LIVE OCEAN SHORES COUNTRY CLUB 5.30PM GUY KACHEL WANDANA BREWING CO., MULLUMBIMBY, 4PM OPEN MIC

THE MENU

Do chefs wield too much power in this world? The power over life and death in fact? In The Menu, Julian Slowik (Ralph Fiennes), is a celebrity chef who is menacing from the get go.

The story follows Tyler (Nicholas Hoult) and his companion Margot Mills (Anya Taylor-Joy) as they travel with a group by boat to Hawthorne, an exclusive restaurant owned and operated by chef Slowik, located on a private island. There they are given a tour of the island by the restaurant maitre d’, Elsa (Hong Chau).

The courses and Slowik’s accompanying monologues gradually become more disquieting and violent and things get really creepy as Slowik declares all the guests were selected because they either contributed to his losing his passion for his craft or because they make a living off exploiting the work of artisans like him, then announces that the night will end with everyone dead.

SATURDAY 10

MIDDLE PUB, MULLUMBIMBY, 5PM SUNDAY JAM LENNOX COMMUNITY MARKET 9AM CHEYNNE MURPHY DUO CLUB LENNOX 3PM BEN WALSH

SHAWS BAY HOTEL, BALLINA, 1PM LISA HUNT BALLINA RSL LEVEL ONE 2PM LISMORE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA – TIMELESS CONCERT SERIES REGENT CINEMA, MURWILLUMBAH, 3PM SUNSET SESSION WITH MEL SCARLETT

MONDAY 12

RAILWAY HOTEL, BYRON BAY, JESSE WHITNEY BEACH HOTEL, BYRON BAY, 2.30PM VENDULKA, 9.30PM DJ MONSIEUR DIOP

TUESDAY 13

RAILWAY HOTEL, BYRON BAY, OLI FALCO BEACH HOTEL, BYRON BAY, 5PM TIM STOKES BANGALOW HOTEL 7.30PM BANGALOW BRACKETS OPEN MIC TWIN TOWNS, TWEED HEADS, THE SHOWROOM 11AM CHRISTMAS – BACK TO THE TIVOLI

WEDNESDAY 14

RAILWAY HOTEL, BYRON BAY, DAN HANNAFORD BEACH HOTEL, BYRON BAY, 2.30PM YAZMINDI, 5PM LUKE BENNETT 9.30PM DJ SOPHDEXX FOXY LUU’S, BYRON BAY, 6.30PM TONY AND THE THIEF

Will this master of chefs end it all for his guests? This film might just make you rethink your eatery exclusivity.

The Menu is screening at Ballina Fair Cinemas and The Palace at Byron Bay this week.

MARGRETE:

7:20pm

Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.

Frank Zappa

Cryptic Clues

ACROSS 1. Told to purchase a ticket for the road around the town (6)

Cattle vehicle – but it’s used for racing! (5,4)

Actors not working – dismiss (4,3)

Eastwards, a line over the sea bird –forever! (7) 12. Woman, a rotter – but she gets around! (5) 13. Silly fellow was lost for words – and hung out in the open to stop being so wet! (4,5) 14. Rule Twiggy the miner, they say – for the tropical flora! (10) 16. Odd. Soft arse (4) 19. Watch daughter germinate! (4) 20. Corpse with weapons made an illegal tackle (5-5) 22. The sound of Davis’s trumpet – an important sign of progress! (9) 23. Unpleasant type with an order for a sinful city (5) 25. Crazy about the small island? Get it wrong! (7) 26. Shiny wrapping can frustrate (7) 27. Princess’s performances –spectacles! (8) 28. Stigma around large dictator (6)

1. ‘Smash poets,’ orders Spooner, demanding a reversal of the course (9) 2. Col East, no longer popular (5) 3. Store elevator is a crime (8) 5. The winner, very fast, arrived in 1788 (3,5,5)

Cold, rushes for belief systems (6)

Trick can add two turns to male universe (9)

Gained power, but repented over the line (5)

1901 celebration died any rate of disorder (10,3)

Concept leans to Utopians (9)

Said to be Irish fruit wallaby? (9)

Cradle fish in trap (8)

Also a toff (2,4)

1999 – Journalist acted without words (5)

BY LILITH

December’s never stress-free, but this week’s Mercury and Venus heading into Capricorn bring a sensible balance to end-of-year angst…

Is it better not to report rape?

We failed Brittany Higgins. Our judicial system is so brutalising the only way to keep her safe was to drop the charges against her alleged rapist.

That’s our justice system. Designed by men, in the interests of alleged offenders who just happen to be – wait, is this a coincidence? – men.

During an ABC interview earlier this year, Higgins pointed out the inequities between protections for alleged perpetrators versus alleged victims.

‘I was required to tell the truth under oath for over a week in the witness stand; I was cross-examined at length. He [Lehrmann] was afforded the choice of staying silent in court.

‘I was required to surrender my telephones, my passwords, messages, photos, and my data to him. He was not required to produce his telephone, his passwords, messages, photos, or his data.’

Our judicial process hurts women. Cross-examination of testimony and subsequent character assassination causes harm to people who are already vulnerable. Other countries have made changes to protect victims, including New Zealand and in September this year the UK and Wales. Why can’t we do that here?

It’s too late for Brittany and my friend Cathy.

Cathy is a successful public figure who works in the advocacy space for vulnerable communities. Cathy was so triggered by what happened to Brittany Higgins she wanted to share her story. Cathy also went to court on rape charges and dropped them because she couldn’t endure the trauma of what happened in court.

‘Most women don’t proceed to charge so being someone who does is a very different experience. They are out to break you. I had no idea it was going to happen like that. Our system allows barristers and solicitors to put victims on trial. And it broke me. I felt so alone. And ashamed.’

From an early age Cathy was violently raped by two brothers. It took her over three decades to report.

Cathy believes as the victim she was not prepared for what happens in our courts.

In our courts the victim gets crossexamined first, and the alleged perpetrators get to watch. ‘We can’t sit in on their cross-examination,’ said Cathy.

The defence were relentless with no concern for the harm and distress they were causing Cathy.

ARIES: Mars retro till mid-January will require attitude adjustments when things aren’t moving as fast as you’d like. During the touchy planet’s moody standoff with this week’s full moon, you’ll suffer fools… reluctantly, but remember that raw honesty could cut sensitive others in ways they may not be able to forgive.

TAURUS: As Venus settles into her most pragmatic mode, your calming, stabilising effect on those around you will be an increasingly welcome gift to seasonal serendipity. Your personal recipe for festive success? Dial down distractions, keep feedback constructive, and engage your earthy aesthetic to blend time-honoured traditions with contemporary necessities.

GEMINI: With your mentor planet Mercury in Capricorn, words are powerful magnets, and articulate full moon in your sign on 8 December is Gemini’s once-a-year chance to verbalise what you want, along with your annual portal for partnership pleasure. That said, this definitely isn’t a time to be taking risks.

CANCER: Late-week annual full moon in Gemini, combined with December’s adventurous Sagittarius cycle and bountiful Jupiter accelerating your dreams and optimism, all set a bonanza of new ideas swirling in your imagination, and a lot seems possible. Let what might be workable settle during weekend Cancer moon, to be continued…

LEO: Take extra care to make sure you’re being understood this week, and if confusion sets in, consider what that’s telling you about what you do and don’t know. Don’t act before you have the facts; you’re less likely to incur damage control if you give yourself time to understand what’s going on.

VIRGO: As Mercury moves through the second of three distinct modes this December and your perspective switches to wide-angle setting, Chateau Virgo could become a hub of social activity. Sagittarian season’s focus on philosophy, philanthropy, generosity and gratitude offer a wonderful opportunity to hit refresh on a part of your life that’s been languishing.

‘They said, “do you remember his penis size?” I said, “I was seven”.’

They asked invasive questions about her penetration with a beer bottle.

‘It was a beer bottle? What kind of beer? Lite beer? Full strength? Was it a sherry bottle?’ Cathy recounts quietly.

‘They need a code of conduct. They were not allowed to do this in the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. I didn’t realise how it could go so low,’ Cathy said.

In Cathy’s case, the defence called in evidence by a violent ex-partner, who had stalked and harassed her for over 20 years. He completely fabricated details in order to discredit Cathy. Not only was she having to respond to things that were not true; she was now at risk from the reintroduction of this violent man back into her life.

‘I told them, “You have presented the statement of a mentally unstable man who has been harassing me for years to the point where I had to take out an AVO against him”. The “female” solicitor for the perpetrators turned around and winked at them and said “We’ve got her”. I was like – what the fuck just happened? I saw my whole world crumble. I pushed my chair back and ran. I had a complete meltdown. I had been interrogated for two days. I ran towards the traffic. I wanted to die. I have never felt like that before.’

Cathy was tackled by a security guard who stopped her from reaching the road. What kind of legal system allows this to happen to an alleged victim?

Cathy dropped the charges. The risks were just too great. ‘I really struggle to think about it because they got off and I regret not pursuing it. There wasn’t one person who didn’t believe they were guilty but it didn’t matter. It wasn’t about fact or evidence. It was about breaking me. And they did it.’

Sophie is 63. She is a health academic and writer. She knows this story too well. It happened to her.

Sophie is an Aboriginal woman who was part of the stolen generation. She was taken from her mother, placed in a nonAboriginal family, then raped by her adopted brother. She ran away. Then she was placed in the care of juvenile justice, where she was raped again. Sophie sought justice but the DPP got cold feet and dropped the case.

Sophie also felt traumatised by the system. She was interviewed numerous times, once at the recommendation of the royal

LIBRA: With your planetary guide Venus entering Capricorn, the way you run everyday life, and the conversations you have with your friends and family, set up a powerful echo chamber that could bring people together and strengthen key alliances. This week favours trying out a new activity that’s always been on your wish list.

SCORPIO: No need to resist slowdowns, better to make use of them. Mars backpedaling in retrograde means operating at a lower speed to be productive. The upside of retrogrades is that they offer more opportunity for all those enjoyable activities beginning with re: like relax, recuperate, refresh, rejuvenate, and replenish.

SAGITTARIUS: Mars doesn’t retrograde often, but when it does, focused forward motion can feel a little elusive. With the planetary engine of the zodiac reversed in easily distracted Gemini until early next year, progress this week could be frustrating and challenging, so consider parking serious plans till mid-January. Take a break.

MANDY NOLAN’S

commission, but the perpetrator was able to decline being interviewed. Sophie has never had any justice for the rape and abuse she experienced as a child. She has, however, been traumatised by continually having to tell her story, be interrogated, and then have nothing happen. Like Cathy she was asked details about her sadistic rape as a child: size of penis, what day? what month? what time? She was also only seven at the time.

‘You think you are going to get justice,’ she says, ‘and you don’t; you get mental illness or you kill yourself.

‘After months and months of testimony… to have nothing happen! It drove me to a suicide attempt and led to the beginning of a decade of downward spirals.’

Sophie is not hopeful of change. ‘There was a vague glimmer of hope when a young good-looking white woman from our parliament and from a “good family” came forward. If she can’t get somewhere, who can? What message does this send? These men know they can get away with it. I say to people: don’t go to court. There is no such thing as justice.’

‘I struggled to follow the Brittany Higgins trial. It was like knowing a car crash was going to happen. Women die from this. We don’t recover.’

We cannot ask women to come forward with allegations of rape and sexual abuse if we can’t provide a legal system that protects them.

Make this the line in the sand. Let’s push for judicial reform that puts victim rights at the centre, and not the periphery of the court process.

Let’s do this for all those women who have had this happen. For those too scared to come forward, that will need to come forward in the future. Let’s do this for Brittany Higgins, so that the last two years of her life meant something. She may not get her justice but she just might be the case that got justice for women and victims ahead.

(Cathy’s and Sophie’s names have been changed.)

Read the full story on The Echo online: www.echo.net.au/articles.

CAPRICORN: As methodical Mercury and reasonable Venus rendezvous this week in your capable sign, your commonsense contributions to the season of unreason’s merry madness and mayhem become increasingly practical and apparent. But don’t forget the fun factor: vivacious, playful full moon on 8 December is your lunar cue to lighten up and let loose.

AQUARIUS: Your master planet Uranus taking a long sabbatical in its most downto-earth placement heartily recommends the practice of eudaimonia this week: the elegant exercise of maintaining the condition of human flourishing, of living well, of being in good spirits, no matter what mad antics and whacky distractions are happening.

PISCES: If ongoing changes have you looking at this year’s festive arrangements differently, creative Neptune in Pisces stimulates vibrant confidence and can-do momentum for celebrations that make the world a kinder and more inclusive place. Plus Jupiter’s busy powering up your personal penchant for rendering things unique and special into full, free, fabulous flow…

3-7 Myokum Street, Mullumbimby

MUST SELL! Due to circumstance this charming 1950s character home’s price has been drastically reduced and must be sold! 1,628m² lot with 2A zoning offering a variety of development options or create your own private family oasis right in the centre of town.

Inspect Sat. 10th December 10 -10.30am Auction Date Pending Guide $1,375,000 to $1,495,000 Todd Buckland 0408 966 421 Gary Brazenor 0423 777 237

PRIME COMMERCIAL INVESTMENT – “3 WAYS”

78–82 Burringbar Street, Mullumbimby $2,450,000

• Three established tenancies

• All services available

• VG land value $1,320,000

• Rental return $115,215 PA (excl GST)

• Land tax $3,300 approx

• Lettable area: 261m2 (47m2 common)

• Land area: 693m2 (including carpark)

• Zoning: B2 Local Centre

• Rates: $6,477.77 PA

• New roof

Call Mark Cochrane for detailed information on 0416 142 663 or email: markc@nclp.com.au

81–83 Burringbar Street, Mullumbimby P: 02 6684 2615 E: sales@nclp.com.au www.nclp.com.au

8 Sallywattle Drive, Suffolk Park

Online

•The kitchen features wooden cabinetry, a large island bench and storage •Featured is a large undercover deck overlooking the inground pool

•There are multiple options for indoor dining with the conservatory offering beautiful views of the surrounds and an additional dining area •Numerous fruit trees including banana, papaya, mango, avocado and more!

240 The Manse Road, Myocum

Online Timed Auction

Starting

$2.2M

Some things never go out of style – like this blissful beachside sanctuary. Sitting pretty on a level 2.9 acre allotment and a mere 500 metres from the unspoilt sand and surf of South Golden Beach, it’s a heavenly pocket of paradise that restores your senses, soothes your soul and can even offer an enticing income. Featuring a charming primary reside nce with lush grounds, a sparkling pool, outdoor hot and cold shower, and many species of birdlife. It also spoils you with a cosy 3 bed, 2 bath selfcontained studio. Ideal as an Airbnb, it can be used in conjunction with the American-style barn with a wet bar - perfect for parties and functions.

contemporary, country style home that truly is the embodiment of country-coastal living.

renovated single-level four bedroom home exudes elegance, style and an inspiring charm of yesteryear.

on 12 easy care north facing acres, only 5 minutes to Bangalow, a further 15 minutes to the world class beaches of Byron Bay and within an hour of the Gold Coast.

But words are things, and a small drop of ink, Falling like dew, upon a thought, produces That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think...

Love a tranquil atmosphere with extensive water and parkland views? This could be the home for you.

Complementing the home is a spacious glassed-in sunroom with insulated vaulted ceiling, tinted windows, privacy blinds, ceiling fan and split system air conditioner. A great spot to relax and watch picturesque sunsets across the water.

Open plan carpeted lounge/dining connects to the sunroom and adjoining kitchen making this an ideal layout for entertaining. The kitchen features a Chef stove with ceramic cooktop, ample storage, good bench space and views.

Two carpeted bedrooms with built-in wardrobes & ceiling fans; master bedroom includes a split system air conditioner. Renovated bathroom with walk-in shower, stylish vanity and separate toilet.

Adjoining the home is a 2 vehicle carport and garden shed. The home features roof insulation, 2Kw solar system and solar hot water.

Amenities include a swimming pool, club house, social club and library.

Retirement living at its best without the associated costs of exit fees or stamp duty.

Open For Inspection

Atlas by LJ Hooker Byron Bay

• 10 Old Bangalow Rd, Byron Bay. Sat 9-9.30am

Byron & Beyond Real Estate

• 21 Philip St SGB. Sat 10-10.30am

Century 21 Plateau Lifestyle

• 8 Gardner Avenue, Lismore. Sat 9.30-10am

• 93 Weis Lane, Rous. Sat 9:30-10am

First National Byron

• 88 Station St, Mullumbimby. Wed 3.30-4pm

• 19 Stuart St, Mullumbimby. Thurs 2-2.30pm

• 1B Chinbible Av., Mullumbimby. Thurs 3-3.30pm

• 8/124 Lighthouse Rd, Byron Bay. Fri 1-1.30pm

• 88 Station St, Mullumbimby. Sat 9-9.30am

• 119A Balemo Dr, Ocean Shores. Sat 9-9.30am

• 65 Lilli Pilli Drive, Byron Bay. Sat 9-9.30am

• 6/26 Beech Drive, Suffolk Park. Sat 9.30-10am

• 10 Tahra Cres., Ewingsdale. Sat 10-10.30am

• 5/11 Constellation Cl., Byron. Sat 10-10.30am

• 240 The Manse Rd, Myocum. Sat 10-10.30am

• 42 Brandon St, Suffolk Park. Sat 10-10.30am

• 19 Stuart St, Mullumbimby. Sat 10-10.30am

• 2/10 Corkwood Cres., Suffolk. Sat 10.30-11am

• 14 Brooklet Road, Newrybar. Sat 11-11.30am

• 12 Brunswick St, New Brighton. Sat 11-11.30am

• 32 Argyle Street, Mullumbimby. Sat 11-11.30am

• 1/9 Sunrise Blvd, Byron Bay. Sat 11-11.30am

• 2/24 Paterson Lane, Byron Bay. Sat 11-11.30am

• 44 Bangalow Road, Byron Bay. Sat 11-11.30am

• 8 Sallywattle Dr., Suffolk Park. Sat 11.30-12pm

• 678 Broken Head Rd, Broken. Sat 12-12.30pm

• 358 Binna Burra Rd, BB. Sat 12-12.30pm

• 6 Avocado Crescent, Ewingsdale. Sat 1-1.30pm

Harcourts Northern Rivers

• 6 Karalauren Court, Lennox. Sat 9 -9.30am

• 129 Ballina Rd, East Lismore. Sat 10 -10.30am

• 1/28 Crane Street, Ballina. Sat 10 – 10.30am

• 7 Sweetlip Place, Ballina. Sat 10 -10.30am

• 2/14 Patricia Pde, Lennox. Sat 10 -10.30am

• 20 Sunnybank Dr, W Ballina. Sat 11 – 11.30am

• 4 Eden Place, Girrards Hill. Sat 11 -11.30am

• 33 River Drive, East Wardell. Sat 11 -11.30am

• 950 Pimlico Road, Pimlico. Sat 12 -12.30pm

• 439 Teven Road, Teven. Sat 12 -12.30pm

• 59 Richmond Hill Rd, Richmond Hill. Sat 1 -1.30pm

• 2/79 Silver Gull Drive, E Ballina. Sat 1 -1.30pm

LJ Hooker Bruns

• 31 Natan Court, Ocean Shores. Sat 11 - 11.30am

• 26 Booyun St, Brunswick . Sat 12 - 12.30pm

• 65 Fingal St, Brunswick. Sat 12 - 12.30pm

• 72 Tweed St, Brunswick Heads. Sat 1 - 1.30pm

• 21 Tweed St, Brunswick Heads. Sat 1 - 1.30pm

Mana Real Estate

• 4 Walooan Way, OS. Thurs 4-4.30pm

• 1D Short Street, New Brighton. Sat 9-9.30am

• 1/3 Haylard Court, OS. Wed 5-5.30pm

• 1/3 Haylard Court, OS. Fri 5-5.30pm

• 1/3 Haylard Court, OS. Sat 9.30-10am

• 4/2 Nunyar Court, OS. Tues 4-4.30pm

• 4/2 Nunyar Court, OS. Fri 4-4.30pm

• 4/2 Nunyar Court, OS. Sat 9.30-10am

• 30 Nugget St, Diggers Camp. Wed 12-12.30pm

• 30 Nugget St, Diggers Camp. Sat 1.30-2pm

• 51 Garden Avenue, Nunderi. 10.45-11.30am

McGrath Byron Bay

• 35 Belongil Cres, Byron Bay. Wed 4.30-5pm

• 5/133-141 Broken Head Road. Thurs 4.30-5pm

• 18 Scott Street, Byron Bay. Sat 10-10.30am

• 56 Parrot Tree Place, Bangalow. Sat 10-10.30am

• 20 New City Rd, Mullumbimby. Sat 10.00 -10.30 am

• 5/133-141 Broken Head Road. Sat 11-11.30am

• 35 Belongil Cres’, Byron Bay. Sat 11-11.30am

North Coast Lifestyle Properties Mullumbimby

• 1/99 Moon Street, Ballina. Sat. 9.30 –10.15am

• 1 Willow Tree Dr, Chilcotts Grass. Sat 11.30 – 12.15pm

• 6/2 Condon Drive, East Ballina. Sat 1 – 1.45pm

• 1/3 Boondoon Cres, OS. Sat 2-2:45pm

North Coast Lifestyle Properties Brunswick

• 1 Mullumbimbi Street, Brunswick Heads. 10-10.30am

• 19 Grevillea Av., Mullumbimby. Sat 10-10:45am

• 70 Helen Street, SGB. Sat 11-11.30am

• 6 Coonawarra Crt OS. Sat 11-1130am

• 20 Redgate Road, SGB. Sat 11 – 11.45am

• 3 Paldi Court, Ocean Shores. Sat 12 – 12.30pm

Ray White Byron Bay

• 3 Yalla Kool Drive, OS. Wed 3-3.30pm

• 2/4 Hazelwood Close, Suffolk. Fri 2-2.30pm

• 3 Yalla Kool Drive, OS Fri 4-4.30pm

• 29 Helen Street, SGB. Sat 9-9.30am

• 56/11-19 Cooper St, Byron Bay. Sat 9-9.30am

• 5/18 Mahogany Dr, Byron Bay. Sat 9-9.30am

• 222 Friday Hut Rd, Possum Creek. Sat 10-10.30am

• 3/14 Sunrise Blvd, BB. Sat 10am-10.30am

• 126a Stuart St, Mullumbimby. Sat 10-10.30am

• 12 Old Bangalow Rd, BB.. Sat 10-10.30am

• 13/46 Old Bangalow Rd, BB.. Sat 11-11.30am

• 8/1 Wollumbin Street, BB.. Sat 11-11.30am

• 18 Kiyung Court, OS. Sat 12-12.30pm

Real Estate of Distinction

• 454 Crabbes Creek Rd, Crabbes Creek. Sat 10–10.45am

Ruth Russell Realty

• 76 Orana Road, OS. Sat 12 30 - 1 pm

Tim Miller Real Estate

• 8 George Street, Bangalow. Wed 12.30-1pm

• 8 George Street, Bangalow. Sat 10-10.30am

• 17 Ivory Curl Place, Bangalow. Wed 1.15-1.45pm

• 17 Ivory Curl Place, Bangalow. Sat 9.15-9.45am

• 4/19 Teak Road, Federal. Sat 11-11.30am

• 9 Mayfield Street, Eltham. Sat 12-12.30pm

Century 21 Plateau Lifestyle

• 13 Main Street, Alstonville

North Coast Lifestyle Properties Mullumbimby

• 6/2 Condon Drive, East Ballina. $1,550,000

• 15 Clifford Street, SGB. Contact Agent

• Site 4/153 Huonbrook Road, Huonbrook. $1,200,000

• 896 Main Arm Road, Main Arm. $1,052,000

• 78-82 Burringbar Street, Mullumbimby. $2,450,000

North Coast Lifestyle Properties Brunswick

• Site 82/2 Tweed Street, Brunswick Heads. $269,000

• 3 Paldi Court, OS. $1,100,000

• 6 Coonawarra Court, OS. Contact Agent

• 11 Coral Court, Brunswick Heads. $1,125,000

• 172 Orana Road, OS. Land.

• 10 Strand Avenue, New Brighton. $2,250,000

• 70 Helen Street, SGB. $1.375-$1.425,000

Auction

Century 21 Plateau Lifestyle

• 93 Weis Lane, Rous. Sat December 10, 10am

MANA RE

• 1/3 Halyard Court, OS. Sat 10am

Ray White Byron Bay

• 2/4 Hazelwood Close, Suffolk Park. Friday 9 December 3.00pm

• 3 Yalla Kool Drive, Ocean Shores. Friday 9 December 4.30pm

• 8/1 Wollumbin Street, Byron Bay Friday 16 December 4.00pm www.echo.net.au/echo-property

High School Design and Technology (D&T)

Temporary 6 Month Contract commencing Term 3, 2023.

Cape Byron Rudolf Steiner School is an independent K-12 school dedicated to the educational principles inspired by Rudolf Steiner. The school is situated near the township of Byron Bay.

Applications are sought for an experienced, dynamic and enthusiastic High School (7-12) D&T Teacher. As the D&T Teacher you will have experience using woodwork machines and experience in teaching Stage 4, 5 and 6.

The successful applicant will have the ability to provide creative and engaging educational programs for the D&T Department.

Applications close 4pm Monday 12th December. Position description and application process available capebyronsteiner.nsw.edu.au

POSITIONS VACANT

THE ECHO LENNOX DELIVERY

LENNOX HEAD: 1000 PAPERS++: possibility to expand run. Folding, inserting and if necessary bagging papers then driving around in a

throwing accurately

This job would suit a semi-retired or underemployed person/couple who just wants a reliable job to do at their own pace at the same time every week. The successful applicant for this run will have an ABN, a reliable vehicle, a strong throwing arm, and ideally they will live near the distribution area. They will collect the papers/inserts from Ballina or Mullumbimby or Byron A&I Estate mid-morning on Wednesday and will have delivered all the papers by 6pm Wednesday. Suit mature or stable person. Commencing asap. Email simon@echo.net.au or phone/text 0409324724

CHAUFFEUR, PRIVATE DRIVER Luxury airport transfers company seeks driver, 30–40 hrs p/w with rotating roster (may incl. weekends). Must hold unrestricted licence. Light rigid licence preferred. Opportunity for role to expand into operations. Send your details to grant@ byronbayluxurytransfers.com.au

I

BALLINA

KRYSTAL

Mozart is a very handsome boy & is eager to win himself a spot in your family in time for Christmas. He’s not enjoying the musical dynamics in the shelter & is desperate to leave so he can demonstrate his tuneful meow to you. He’s certain to

Strong, loving, playful, big-beautiful-eyed Nala needs patience & stability due to past trauma and resulting mistrust.

NAL A NALA

Nala needs a loving but firm handler who can provide her with further training and socialisation. Please contact Shell on 0458 461 935.

MC: 991001000924234

Peggy

nspiring Creative Academic Nurturing

Peripatetic Cellist Tutor

Commencing Term 1, 2023.

Cape Byron Steiner School is a vibrant and progressive K-12 school dedicated to the educational principles inspired by Rudolf Steiner.

Cellist to teach individual lessons to students Classes 3 to 7, eight weeks per term one day per week with a view to extra days. Previous experience in Steiner Education would be desirable.

The successful applicant will have the ability to provide creative and engaging lessons for our students.

Application close Friday 9th December, 2022. Position description and application process available capebyronsteiner.nsw.edu.au

Byron Dog Rescue (CAWI)

Community at Work

Regular As Clockwork

DEADLINE NOON FRIDAY

Please note that, owing to space restrictions, not all entries may be included each week. Email copy marked ‘Regular As Clockwork’ to editor@echo.net.au.

Mullumbimby District Neighbourhood Centre

Mullumbimby & District

Neighbourhood Centre is open Monday–Thursday 9am–4pm and offers a range of services and activities. Everyone is welcome to come and enjoy art, music, games, great food and more. Call reception on 6684 1286 and discover what is on offer.

MDNC services that are running include: Community support/emergency relief: Food parcels, meals, assistance with electricity and Telstra bills. Listening Space: free counselling. Staying Home, Leaving Violence program

Integrated Domestic & Family Violence program

Financial Counselling: outreach available Thursdays & Fridays

Financial Counselling: free service funded by the government, offering advocacy & assistance to find options to address debts.

Information, referral and advocacy. To enquire about accessing any of these services call 6684 1286 or fill out an online enquiry form.

Byron Community Centre

Byron Community Centre

The Byron Community Centre provides community services and programs including meals, advocacy and counselling for locals in need. Fletcher Street Cottage: A welcoming, safe and respectful space where people who are experiencing or at risk of homelessness can come to get practical relief opportunities, find connections and access broader support. Fletcher Street Cottage services are open Monday–Friday. Breakfast: Monday–Friday, 7am–9am. Showers and Laundry: Monday–Friday, 7am–12pm. Office Support: Monday–Friday, 9am - 12pm. Support Appointments: Individual support appointments with community workers or specialist services. For bookings please call 6685 6807. Fletcher Street Cottage, 18 Fletcher St, Byron Bay. More info: www. fletcherstreetcottage.com.au.

Byron Community Cabin: Seniors Computer Club (school term only), 9–11am, Friday, Carlyle Steet. More info: www.byroncentre.com.au Phone: 6685 6807

Low-cost or free food

Food Box Thursdays 9.30–11.30am at Uniting Church, Mullumbimby. You may purchase cheap food, obtain free veges, and enjoy a cuppa. Free Food Relief Bags for anyone doing it tough, every Wednesday 10–12noon at The Hub Ocean Shores, cnr Rajah Rd and Bindaree Way. No ID or Concession Card required. NILs referral service also available. Check Facebook page The Hub Baptist Ocean Shores for details.

Liberation Larder Takeaway lunches and groceries Monday and Thursday 12 till 1pm. Fletcher Street end of the Byron Community Centre.

Respite Service

Byron Shire Respite Service Inc delivers high-quality respite care to a broad range of clients throughout the Byron, Ballina and Lismore shires. Donations welcome: Ph 6685 1921, email fundraiser@byronrespite.com.au, website: www.byronrespite.com.au.

Alateen meeting

Alateen meeting every Thursday at 5–6pm. Do you have a parent, close friend or relative with a drinking problem? Alateen can help. For 8–16-year-olds meet St Cuthbert’s Anglican Church Hall, 13 Powell Street, corner of Florence Street Tweed Heads. Al-Anon family groups for older members at the same time and place. 1300 ALANON 1300 252 666 www. al-anon.org.au

ACA

Adult Children of Alcoholic Parents and/or Dysfunctional Families (ACA) help & recovery group meets in Lismore every Friday 10–11.30am, Red Dove Centre, 80 Keen Street. Byron meetings are on Tuesdays at 7pm via Zoom – meeting ID 554 974 582 password byronbay.

Drug support groups

Call Alcoholics Anonymous 1800 423 431 or 0401 945 671 – 30 meetings a week in the Shire – www.aa.org.au. Are you experiencing difficulties and challenges because of the alcohol or drug use of someone close to you? Learn coping skills and gain support from others. Narcotics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women for whom drugs had become a major problem. We are recovering addicts who meet regularly to help each other stay clean. For information and meetings call 1300 652 820 or text your postcode to 0488 811 247. www.na.org. au. Are you concerned about somebody else’s drinking? Al-Anon Family Groups meetings held Fridays at 2pm by Zoom. 1300 252666 www.al-anon.org.au.

Support after suicide

StandBy provides support to people who have lost someone to suicide. They provide free face-to-face and telephone support and are accessible 24/7. Follow-up contact is available for up to one year. Find out more at: www. standbysupport.com.au or call 13 11 14. If you, or someone you are with, are in need of immediate support please call an ambulance or police on 000.

Carers’ support

Mullumbimby Mental Health Carers’ Support Group for family members and friends who have a loved one with a mental health issue. Meeting on 4th Thursday of each month 9.30am at the Mullumbimby Neighbourhood Centre. Info: Susanne 0428 716 431.

Rainbow Dragons

Rainbow Dragons Abreast (RDA) welcomes breast cancer survivors for a paddle at Lake Ainsworth, Lennox Head (and sometimes at Ballina) on Sundays 7.30am for 8am start. Contact Marian 6688 4058, mazzerati2010@ gmail.com.

Older adult exercise

Chair Based Older Adults Exercise Classes run by a qualified instructor, that feel more like fun than exercise, are held every Thursday at 10.15am in the Brunswick Memorial Hall. Cost $10. All welcome. Just show up or if you have any questions please contact Di on 0427 026 935.

$5 pilates classes

Pilates for the price of a coffee! Come and join us for $5 Pilates classes every Thursday at 8.45am in the Memorial Hall, 22 Fingal Street, Brunswick Heads and Monday at 8.45am in Mullumbimby. It doesn’t matter what level you are, as beginner to advanced options are shown. Just bring a mat and water. My goal is to keep the Shire active and feeling great one person at a time. No need to book just show up. For more information contact Di on 0427 026 935.

Language exchange

Byron language exchange club runs every 2nd last Friday of the month from 6pm (alternating Ballina/ Byron). Practise other languages or help someone with your English! Find us on Facebook. Contact byronbaylanguages@gmail.com.

Brunswick Valley Historical Society Inc

The Museum is on the corner of Myocum and Stuart Sts Mullumbimby, open Tuesdays and Fridays

10am–12pm and market Saturdays 9am–1pm. Discover your local history, join our team – 6684 4367.

Library fun

Baby Bounce and Storytime for toddlers and pre-school children are at: Brunswick Heads Library, Monday – Story Time 10.30 till 11.30am; Friday – Baby Time 10.30 till 11am. Mullumbimby Library, Monday – Story Time 10–11am; Tuesday – Baby Time 10–10.30 am. Byron Bay Library, Tuesday – Story Time 10:3–11:30am; Wednesday – Baby Time 10.30 till 11am

Social sporting groups

Mullumbimby: Tuesday Ladies Group of Riverside Tennis Club welcomes new players 9.30am every Tuesday next to Heritage Park, for social tennis, fun and friendship. Info: Barbara 6684 8058.

South Golden Shores Community Centre Women’s table tennis every Monday at 10am. Phone 0435 780 017. Byron Bay Croquet at Croquet Club next to the Scout Hall at the Byron Rec Grounds every Monday at 3.30pm. Ring 0477 972 535. Pottsville Fun Croquet Club at Black Rocks Sportfield. Beginners and visitors welcome. Game starts 8.30am Tuesday and Thursday. $5 per game. Enquiries 0413 335 941.

Exercise for older adults

Chair Based Older Adults Exercise Classes run by a qualified instructor, that feel more like fun than exercise, are held every Thursday at 10.15am in the Brunswick Memorial Hall. Cost $10. All welcome. Just show up or if you have any questions please contact Di on 0427 026 935.

Toastmasters

Byron Cavanbah Toastmasters meetings coaching in communication and self-development run on 1st and 3rd Mondays, 6.15 for 6.30pm at Byron Bay Services Club, Byron Bay. Online attendance allowed. Mullum Magic Toastmasters: Mullum Magic provides a safe and fun environment for members and guests to develop their public-speaking and leadership skills. Meeting 6.30–8.30pm every second and fourth Thursday of the month at the Mullum Ex-Services Club. New members and guests welcome. Contact Bruce 0418 515 991 or Ninian 0411 629 982.

Meditation

Dzogchen meditation and study group 2nd and 4th Saturdays each month at Mullumbimby CWA Hall. Didi 0408 008 769. Buddhist meditation and conversation with John Allan, Mondays 6.30–8.30pm, The Yurt, Temple Byron. No fees. John 0428 991 189. Byron yoga philosophy club free meditation classes Monday, 7pm, 1 Korau Place Suffolk Park. Go to www.wisdom.yoga or phone Kris 0435 300 743. Byron Bay Meditation Centre, Tuesday 6.30pm at Temple Byron. For more info: byronbaymeditationcentre.com.au or contact Greg 0431 747 764.

Story Dogs

Read with Story Dogs at Byron Bay Library every Wednesday 3–5pm. This is a flexible and inclusive reading program that gives readers the chance to practise reading one on one with the Story Dog in a calm and motivating environment. If your child would like to read to our Story Dog regularly or as a one off, come along or book a slot in advance on 6685 8540. Can’t wait for you to meet our Story Dog!

Brunswick Heads CWA

Brunswick Heads CWA Crafty Women meet Fridays 10am–2pm, cnr Park and Booyun Streets, Brunswick Heads. Join us for a chat and cuppa, bring along your craft projects including sewing, knitting, crocheting, or quilting. Beginners welcome. Gold coin donation for morning tea.

Lions Club

Interested in making new friends and helping our community? Lions Club of Brunswick Mullumbimby meets 1st & 3rd Tuesdays at 7pm Ocean Shores Country Club. Info: Joan Towers 0400 484 419.

Craft group

The Uniting Craft & Social Group meets every Monday 9.30am–2.30pm at the Uniting Church in Carlyle Street, Byron Bay. Bring lunch and whatever else you need. Small cost. All welcome. Do you prefer patchwork and quilting? Come along on Monday evening same place at 6pm. Enquiries Tilly 6685 5985.

Mullumbimby Potters & Sculptors

Mullumbimby Clayworkers Gallery in the Drill Hall complex is open every Thursday to Saturday 10am–2pm with pottery and sculpture from community members for sale. Applications for studio membership open in January. All details at www. mullumclayworkers.com.

CWA Bangalow

Bangalow CWA has reopened and our hours are Monday–Friday 10am–2pm and Saturdays 8am-12 noon.

Toy Library

The Byron Shire Toy Library is open Mondays and Thursdays 9am–12 noon, at the Children’s Centre, Coogera Cct, Suffolk Park. Come and see the large range of preschoolers toys available for loan.

Up your skills

Come to Upskill in Mullumbimby, a free introductory building and carpentry workshop. Workshops are held every Saturday, 9am to 1pm at Shedding Community Workshop. Bookings Essential via shedding.com.au. Contact Sophie Wilksch via email at shedding. communityworkshop@gmail.com.

Muslim prayer

Friday Muslim prayer. Jumu’ah service held weekly at the Cavanbah Centre at 1.30 pm. Come to the remembrance of Allah.

Baby cafe

Bubbamummas baby café drop in mornings, Thursdays from 9.30am at New Space, Shop 2 next door to Target 86 Rajah Road Ocean Shores. Morning tea, discussions, guest speakers. Ocean Shores Community Association (OSCA). Details 0431 477 445.

Free ESL

Free English as a Second Language classes suitable for beginners to advanced learners. Kingscliff 6674 7267.

Landcare

Bangalow Land and Rivercare working bee every Saturday 8.30–10.30am. Email: bangalowlandcare@gmail.com. Noelene 0431200638.

Soap Aid saving lives

Soap Aid is a not-for-profit organisation recycling and sending critical soap to communities facing major hygiene challenges. Please drop in your partly used household or holiday rental soap for recycling to Kim at Raine & Horne Byron Bay 39 Fletcher Street 0499 839 566. Small and large quantities welcome. https:// soapaid.org.

Sex & Love Addicts Anon

Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous is peer-support group of men and women for whom sex and/or romance have become a problem. For details of weekly meetings, phone 0452 074 974 or visit www.slaa.org.au.

Bridge club

Brunswick Valley Bridge Club meets every Monday, seated at 12.15 to commence play at 12.30. Visitors welcome. See bridgewebs.com/ brunswickvalley/home.html or for partner ring Lesley 0468 807 306. Facebook Brunswick Valley Bridge Club.

On The Horizon

DEADLINE NOON FRIDAY

Email copy marked ‘On The Horizon’ to editor@echo.net.au.

Christmas Market

CWA Brunswick Heads will be holding their annual Christmas Market on Saturday 10 December 8am till 1pm in the CWA Rooms, corner of Park and Booyun Streets, Brunswick Heads. All your Christmas favourites, cakes, craft gifts, jams, pickles, chutneys, plants and flowers. Come early to avoid disappointment. CASH ONLY. Enquiries brunscwa@gmail.com.

North Ocean Shores

AGM

Conservation of North Ocean Shores Inc AGM, Saturday 10 December at Billinudgel Pie Shop at 9.30am.

Amitayus Home Hospice

Our trained volunteer carers at Amitayus Home Hospice Service provide practical, compassionate, and quality palliative care to those who wish to die at home. To find out more about this free service, or to train as a volunteer carer, please contact us: M 0468 483 857, info@amitayus.org.au, www.amitayus.org.au.

Byron Gem Club stall

The Byron Gem and Lapidary Club is holding a fundraising stall in Mullumbimby on Thursday 8 December 8.30am till 2.30pm. Come and see some wonderful crystals that make affordable gifts. Find us on the corner of Burringbar and Stuart Streets, opposite Santos in Mullum. Inquiries: 0427 845 308.

Play chess

Tireless chess promoter Peter Hanna, who has already started a successful group of players at the Byron Bay Services Club (Saturdays 2.30pm and Mondays 5pm), is now trying his hand in Ballina. The first meeting is due at 5pm on Wednesday 7 December at the Ballina RSL Club. All chess players, beginners or experts, are welcome.

Mullumbimby Library

School holiday activities in Mullumbimby Library will be: Make your own Christmas decorations Thursday 15 and Friday 16 December 3.30–4.30pm. Bookings not required. Decorate a Moroccan-inspired jar Wednesday 21 December 2.30–3.30pm. Ages seven plus. Bookings essential. Phone 6684 2992.

Julian Assange

Turing Point Talks is delighted to welcome Julian Assange’s father John Shipton to give an update on Julian’s present situation on Thursday 8 December at 7pm in the Courthouse Hotel opposite Mullumbimby Post Office. By donation. All proceeds go to supporting Julian. There is finally some good news to share!

Bangalow Progress Association AGM

The next Bangalow Progress Association AGM will be held at 6pm Tuesday 13 December at the Bangalow Men’s Shed, off Station St carpark, Bangalow. All residents in the 2479 postcode are invited to attend the AGM. Our shared values and proactive engagement in development and infrastructure projects can produce significantly better outcomes for our village. Plenty of community action to discuss. Come along and become involved.

Secondhand books

Friends of Libraries (FOL) Byron Shire, are calling for secondhand books in good condition for the annual Book Fair. The fair will be held in June next year. The FOL book fair has become a major fund raiser for the local shire libraries. All donations from the community are always greatly received and the fair itself is a wonderful place to browse though many hundreds of books looking for hidden gems.

BV scrabble club

Brunswick Valley Scrabble Club will meet each Tuesday afternoon from 1 till 4pm at the Brunswick Bowling Club. New members welcome. Contact Steve on 0407 844 718.

Bosom Buddies

Ballina Bosom Buddies Support Group meets the third Thursday each month 10am–12pm at the Ballina Kentwell Community Centre. Contact Karen 0439 438 576 for further information.

Emerge Australia

Emerge Australia Inc is a not-for-profit charity supporting those with myalgic encephalomyelitis, also known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. For more information see the Emerge Australia Website at http://emerge.org.au/.

Bruns tennis

Mondays, Wednesdays and Sundays 5–7pm. $7, all welcome. Enquiries Linda 0449 825 108. Coaching available.

Play and sing playgroup

Meet at The Hub Baptist Church Ocean Shores (next to Target) 69.30 am-11.30am Fridays druing school term. For families with children 0-5 years. More info facebook or ph.Katie 0438 531 011.

Prostate Cancer Support

We invite men who have had or are newly diagnosed to join this active prostate cancer support group at these meetings held on the third Monday of each month at 10am at Ballina Cherry Street Bowling Club – partners or carers are most welcome to attend – This is a great opportunity to share, learn and benefit from other people’s experiences. Meetings also held on Wednesday nights in Lismore. Enquiries phone Bob 02 6628 1527

For collection information email byronbayfol@gmail.com.

AIRFNCB

The next meeting of the Association of Independent Retirees, Far North Coast Branch (AIRFNCB) will be held on first Friday in February, 2023. All enquiries to John Ritchie, President/Secretary, Far North Coast Branch: 0437 509 618.

BV VIEW Club

The next luncheon of Brunswick Valley VIEW Club is 8 December at Brunswick Heads Bowling Club. Wear something festive. The guest speaker is Patt Gregory. Casual members need to advise if they are attending. Members unable to attend need to apologise to Wenda on 0449 563 580 or email wjhunt@yahoo.com no later than the Monday before the meeting.

VIEW stands for Voice, Interests and Education of Women. The club supports seven disadvantaged students in The Smith Family’s Learning for Life program. Info: view. org.au, call 1800 805 366 or email view@thesmithfamily.com.au.

End-of-Life Choices

Voluntary Euthanasia End-of-Life Choices are discussed at Exit International meetings held quarterly. Meetings are held at Robina and Tweed Heads South. Attendees must be Exit Members. Philip Nitschke will hold a workshop early next year on the Gold Coast, to discuss the ‘Voluntary Assisted Dying’ laws, and how they may affect you, plus other important Information. For further Information www.exitinternational.net or phone Catherine 0435 228 443.

Falls Festival tickets

Volunteer in exchange for Falls Festival Tickets! Join us at the ‘Taking Care of Bruns During Falls Festival’ project to help mitigate any negative impact of the festival on Brunswick Heads, from Friday 30 December through to Monday 2 January. In return, you’ll receive a three-day Falls Festival ticket. Or, you could volunteer and gift your ticket to a family member or friend. Call Belinda on 0435 228 443.

Gort claims singles tennis title at Mullumbimby

Mullumbimby Tennis Club

Championship finals were held last weekend and culminated with the open men’s singles where Steve Gort beat Rob Dornan.

It was a game of very tight tennis between the Club’s coaches that saw Steve get the upper hand 6–4, 7–6.

Steve and Rob have played against each other many times since they were 12-years-old, with Steve having the most wins. This last was another closefought battle.

Full results

Juniors: Division 3, Poppy Sexton defeated Katja Pichler 6–3 6–3.

Division 2, Wilbur McKenzie beat Jasper Pike 5–7 6–3 10–5.

Open juniors: Kylan O’Connor beat Summer Browning 5-7 6–1 10–7.

B grade singles: Peter

Brett Def Indy Wild 7–6 6–3.

Open women’s singles: Maggie Santamaria winner, Kirsty Paron runner up.

Open doubles: Stephen Gort/Amadeus O’Connor beat Robert Dorman/Solomon Wolff 7–5 6–3.

B grade doubles: Jarel Aymonier/Jim Preece beat

Jiabin Bai/Simon Haslam 6–2, 1–6, 10–5.

Mixed Doubles: Rani Willis/Andrew Duval winner, Leah Cranston/Jarel Aymonier runner up.

Ladies Doubles: Rani Willis/Leah Cranston beat Maggie santamaria/Ann Nguyen.

Local waterpolo team thriving on friendship

The Byron Bay Bullsharks women’s waterpolo team have played their way into second place on the Far North Coast competition ladder after bagging five wins from six starts.

The Bullsharks are a good mix of youth and experience according to Kerry Hardey, who played some of her junior water polo for Great Britain.

‘We lost four or five players from last year, but have managed to make up the numbers and ended up with a pretty good team,’ she said.

‘We have players coming back to the game who are experienced, and out fitness is growing as the season goes on. We are also getting to know each other better, but best of all we are managing to get some goals in.

‘Waterpolo is awesome

for fitness and awesome socially, it’s a really great bunch of women, super friendly,’ she said.

There are just two rounds before the halfway mark of the competition and the Alstonville Axolotls are just one win in front.

Lennox Ladies and Mullum round out the top four.

The competition also includes teams from Lismore and Ballina.

‘It’s a very social comp, we are happy for anybody to come down to the pool and have a try,’ Kerry said.

Medal storm for locals at pickleball tournament

Thirty Northern Rivers pickleball players won medals in the first ever NSW regional doubles tournament last weekend in Ballina.

The local club secured nine gold, seven silver and six bronze medals across 16 events ranging in skill levels from 2.5 to Opens and age divisions from Open (18+) to Over 70s.

Outstanding female player, Kim Pickering, won three gold medals, partnering with Roberta O’Brien in the Women’s Open Doubles and in the U/64s (intermediate 3.5 division) as well as with Brian Alston in the Mixed Doubles Under 64s (intermediate 3.5).

Kim also partnered her son, Toby Pickering, in the Mixed Doubles Open Age group and won bronze.

Roberta added a silver medal to her tally with Mark Roberts in the Mixed Doubles (U/64).

Paul Martinovich and Brian Alston paired up against Ron Gatliff and Vince Lofaro from Noosa to dominate an exciting and tightly-fought three-set game in the Men’s Doubles Open Age (Over 18s). Paul continued his good form partnering Sydney

player, Donna Jay, to win the Mixed Doubles Open Age (Over 18s).

Twenty-one additional Northern Rivers pickleball players, some who had never competed before, came away with medals: including Naomi Doncaster (two golds), Ellen McGirr (gold and silver), Keryn Noach (gold and silver), Grant Anderson (gold and bronze), Marina Schreiber (silver and bronze), Phil Wilk (silver and bronze). New competitors Bernie Bligh, Steve Prince and Michael Dow each came away with gold medals.

Growing sport

‘The results demonstrate just how far the sport of pickleball has developed

in just over two years in the local region. With regular sessions at the Ballina Indoor Sports Centre on Mondays and Fridays, and now at the Goonellabah Sports and Aquatic Centre on Wednesdays and Saturdays, pickleball has really taking off on the North Coast,’ NRP president Rik Dillon said.

Halliday’s Point, the next most successful club, was well represented with 21 members travelling to Ballina for the weekend. They took home four gold, four silver and seven bronze medals from the high standard and competitive matches across all the skill levels.

Pickleball combines elements of badminton, tennis, and table tennis.

Goonellabah cricketers top the LJ Hooker league

Goonellabah Workers first XI cricketers are undefeated for the season and sitting on top of the region’s LJ Hooker league.

Last weekend they added Ballina Bears to their list of victories after their two-day game played at Fripp Oval.

Goonellabah won the toss and sent the home side in to bat, whereupon they made the most of the conditions, bundling them out for 105 inside 40 overs.

First drop Tyson Cox and Joseph Lee both went for

ducks leaving the home side at 3/15. The only batsmen to reach double figures were Samuel Norris (30), Kyle Chapman (17) and Hamish Clacher (24).

Goonellabah bowlers Reece Gregor (4/35) and Josh Healy (3/2) did the damage with the ball.

In reply Goonellabah also had early trouble slumping to 4/41 before a 45-run partnership between Kaleb Armstrong (21) and Riley Gregor (42) steadied the innings.

Jack Cooper scored 39 and helped carry the total to 159 off 48 overs.

Ravinderpal Singh topped the bowling with 4/10 off 5.5 overs, supported by Hamish Clacher (2/52).

Second innings of the game wasn’t played due to rain.

The win puts Goonellabah at the top of the table on 16 points followed by Tweed Banora (14), Tintenbar East Ballina (12), Marist Brothers (9), Cudgen (8), Casino (8) and Alstonville (6).

All smiles after a tough game: Steven and Rob in front of the club board, with the singles trophy. Photo S Haslam

Northern Rivers pickleballers in action at the BISC earlier this year. Photo supplied

The Byron Bay Bullsharks are a premiership contender in this year’s Far North Coast competition. Photo supplied

Three businesses in the Byron Arts & Industry Estate are now in a state of ruins – Byron Taxis, Global Ripple and another cafe were engulfed by fire on Monday night. See page 2.

It was a pity that no councillor, or the mayor, attended the combined Chamber/Destination Byron/Sourdough Christmas party last Friday at the Surf Club – see page 3. What does it say about all these locally elected representatives who ignore the business community?

John Shipton, the father of persecuted Australian journalist Julian Assange, will be at the Mullumbimby Courthouse Hotel on December 8 to provide updates on his son’s situation and where he stands in his legal battle. Given Assange is being pursued and slowly murdered by the most powerful terrorist state actor on the planet – the US – there are enormous ongoing legal costs. To donate directly, visit www.assangecampaign.org. au/donate.

If Schoolies 2022 in Byron taught us anything, it is that mullets are in fashion and that Sydney-based riot police and their cute doggies need yearly holidays too.

Services Australia has revamped its service centre at 3 Fingal Street, Brunswick Heads! There is now ‘a fresh look and feel and a contemporary layout that makes it easier for customers to interact with staff’, according to the press release. The centre also offers digital coaching. It seems the white Ibis, or the ‘bin chicken’ is fairly smart

– BBC reports that its method for eating cane toads is to first wash them of their toxins before swallowing them whole.

Sarah Ferguson’s ABC interview on 7.30 with Finland’s PM Sanna Marin has been roundly criticised because she focussed on her going dancing and the ‘outrage’. Better questions would be around Finland’s success with addressing homelessness and income inequality, its top education system, and its happiness ranking.

All the resource companies listed on the ASX Top 20 are majority foreign owned, as of May 2019, according to investigative journalist Peter Cronau. He also says the four big banks are also foreign owned. Blackrock, the largest asset management firm on the planet, are the major investors in the Commonwealth Bank, says independent US journalist, Lee Camp.

US rapper Kanye West loves Hitler but Hitler would have murdered Kanye if given the chance. Just so you know.

Heard of the control freak who walked into a bar? They ordered everyone around. Boomtish!