Letters
North Coast news online
▶ Continued from page 21
1/53 Tam
ar St, Ba
0431 1
llina
22 057 au au .a om.au com com e.co te. atte ma m g km ge mygee my w.my w.m ww ww
Personal tech support for bamboozled bipeds
Op Shop Cnr Tweed St & Booyun St Brunswick Heads Next to IGA Supermarket
Mon to Fri 10am–4pm Sat 9am–1pm
ALL CLOTHES $2 byrondogrescue.org • Ph 0447 927 600
beef up Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. Israel has been doing this since 1948 when the terrorists of the Stern Gang went on a killing spree throughout Palestine, well before the state of Israel was established. Now Netanyahu, who should be jailed for corruption? He wants to go in harder into the West Bank against Palestinians who are trying to protect their homes. I don’t support one side or the other, when it comes to one side shooting and bombing the other, even though Israeli settlers on the West Bank can obtain weapons and shoot Palestinians, just like the Stern Gang did back in 1948, when the British left them to it. Paul Brecht Evans Head
Struggling health
Natural, drug-free headache and migraine approach
Ph: 0475 75 75 10 + Advanced head, neck and jaw assessment, treatment and management.
Phone for an immediate, obligation-free phone consultation. Let us help you gain a better quality of life...
t Headache and Migraine t Jaw pain – locking – clicking – grinding t Vestibular – dizziness – vertigo
72 Byron Street, Bangalow – opposite the Public School
www.bangalowheadacheclinic.com.au
CHESS by Ian Rogers Over the last week, it has been hard for chess fans to hold their heads up high. Firstly, despite German sporting sanctions, a Russian, Ian Nepomniachtchi, began playing in a top class tournament in Dusseldorf. His participation in a major German tournament could ultimately result in the German Chess Federation being cut off from government support. Then a prominent US chess commentator, Alejandro Ramirez, was discovered to be the subject of a number of investigations after being accused by former fellow commentator Jennifer Shahade (and others) of sexual assault. (Ramirez responded: ‘I look forward to the opportunity to respond to these charges and share my side of the story.’) However, it was an interview with a German newspaper by the president of the world body FIDE, Arkady Dvorkovich, that caused the outrage to be dialled up to 11. When asked whether his desire for the war in Ukraine to end as soon as possible would include Ukraine remaining as a sovereign country, Dvorkovich refused to comment. To another question about whether FIDE would support refugee Ukrainian chessplayers, Dvorkovich noted how tight the FIDE budget was.
The criticism of Dvorkovich was led by Magnus Carlsen’s second Peter Heine-Nielsen, who has long campaigned for the chess world to rid itself of Russian leadership. Nielsen’s attempt to unseat Dvorkovich at the 2022 Presidential election in Chennai failed miserably – though this was perhaps less due to opinions on the Ukraine war and more to Dvorkovich’s administration in effect offering free tickets to Chennai for all Olympic teams for the first time. When Dvorkovich expressed sorrow for Ukrainian victims of the war soon after the invasion, one Russian politician went so far as to demand he be charged with treason. So Dvorkovich’s subsequent actions show he fears becoming a target in Russia more than he worries about chessplayers’ opinions. The result has been, for example, World Junior Championships with 60-plus Russians and no Ukrainians competing, and FIDE’s new fee-free method of Russians being allowed to change to neutral status just before a tournament abroad and then change back to Russian immediately afterwards. During the recent interview, Dvorkovich refused to comment on Vladimir Putin, but it turns out he already had at an international forum in China in 2016: ‘He is a great person, always laughing. I don’t know anyone who would be afraid of him.’
Q Players meet at Byron Bay Services Club, Sat 2.30pm and Mon 5pm
22 The Byron Shire Echo DĕćſƖëſƷ ǩǩǽ ǩǧǩǪ
Regarding your article NSW Labor states its position on struggling health sector (8 February). Nurses and midwives across NSW are grateful that the NSW Labor and Greens political parties acknowledge the need to increase public sector wages, in order to stem the haemorrhage of staff to other states offering better pay and conditions. However, it is not the only reason there is a health professional staffing crisis in NSW, particularly in the nursing and midwifery professions. It must be clarified that, unlike the NSW Greens, who support the NSW Nurses & Midwives (NSWNMA) campaign for nurse/midwifeto-patient ratios across NSW in all areas, the NSW Labor
NSW Labor and Greens acknowledge the need to increase public sector wages, in order Ɛş ƆƐĕŔ ƐIJĕ IJëĕŔşſſIJëīĕ şĪ ƆƐëǔ Ɛş şƐIJĕſ states … However, it is not the only reason ƐIJĕſĕ ĶƆ ë IJĕëōƐIJ żſşĪĕƆƆĶşŕëō ƆƐëǔĶŕī ĈſĶƆĶs… party remains resistant to the adoption of the nurse/ midwife-to-patient ratio terminology. Instead, they persist in calling for shiftby-shift safe staffing levels, which is confusing for health professionals and the voting general public alike. They have also not committed to ratios in many areas such as paediatrics and community health. This is nearsighted, given that improved community health staffing, whether it is for physical or mental health, adult or paediatric, means that many potential admissions to overburdened public hospitals will be prevented. By the provision of primary health care, more patients will be cared for at home, a saving on both hospital beds and health budgets leading to an improvement in patient wellbeing. Elizabeth McCall Byron Bay
Buggering Byron Council’s ‘Buggering Byron Policy’ has moved to action, flapping ‘open and transparent community-led governance’ with one hand, while doing secret developer business with the other. Last Thursday’s Council Meeting had seven different attachments of Development Control Plans (DCP) under the heading ‘housekeeping amendments’. The developments covered by the last attachment (publicly
hidden in the Agenda under the vague title ‘Certain locations in Byron Bay and Ewingsdale’), weren’t minor ‘housekeeping amendments’, and included the major redevelopment of the Bayshore Drive Elements of Byron tourist resort site, to facilitate significantly increased tourist development on the present undeveloped grassed area, all the way to the end of the road, (and backing onto the new beachfront house blocks that also extend that far). Evidently the ‘Buggering Belongil Policy’ is a subset of Council’s ‘Concreting the Coast Policy’ – there’s no room for the Writers Festival on land now to be developed for dunefront houses and a vast increase of the site’s footprint of tourist accommodation. And who would have thought that the previous rabidly pro-development State Planning Minister, Frank Sartor, was more intune with the community’s aspirations, and the site’s environmental values, in 2006, with his Becton consent for fewer tourist cabins that are there now, and his requirement for 57ha to be handed to the adjacent Nature Reserve, than Byron Council in 2023? The same ‘certain locations’ part includes Habitat, originally given consent as a light industrial site with an internal worker-focused canteen. With plenty of
blah blah on affordability, community, and environment, this ‘housekeeping amendment’ covers planning parameters for 152 residential dwellings, retail shops, food and drink restaurants, hotels, motels, serviced tourist apartments, function centres, recreation facilities, gyms, Pilates studio, sauna, wellness centre, medical centres, and offices for solicitors and holiday letting agencies etc. The same planner who put in the original light industrial DA to Council, when privately employed by Geolink, then became employed by Council as Council’s Major Projects Officer. The Habitat site has now become higher revenue development. This DCP seems to be part of the councillor/developer business that’s best kept from the pesky residents. Were you part of the community that raised concerns about development around the new Ewingsdale Rd hospital? Well, this same ‘certain locations’ description of unidentified sites, also included planning to facilitate development of the land adjoining the hospital site. Other unidentified ‘certain locations’ bits were planning on coastal hazards, development of The Farm’s restaurants and retail site. And it adopted the ‘residential character narratives’ for Byron Bay, Sunrise and Wategos – if you submitted to them I’d check what’s been adopted, it may be that residents are required to ‘consume, be silent, and either die, or bugger off’. John Lazarus Byron Bay
Indulge yourself with the Northern Rivers’ tastiest offerings!
/LYLQJ ZLWK D FKURQLF GLVHDVH" :H FDQ KHOS \RX DQG \RXU IDPLO\ ZLWK
Issue #3 Summer 2022
Respiratory conditions Arthritis Osteoporosis Asthma COPD Cancer Diabetes Heart disease Kidney disease Pain
&DOO West Byron Shopping Village 9/20 Bayshore Drive, Byron Bay
www.echo.net.au/eat-drink SCAN TO BOOK
Bookings open now for Easter issue Contact adcopy@echo.net.au www.echo.net.au