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Letters

Problems with big festivals persist for local residents So Splendour In The Grass has given up on getting all it wants from Byron Council and is now confident of getting its way with the state government. Without going too deeply into the ethics of their move to undermine local democracy I would hope now that the people in the north of the shire will be able to fully comprehend what is in store for them if they do not now fight with every fibre of resistance. SPITG (Splendour) have been planning for at least four major festivals a year. Their current festival brings in around 20,000 predominantly young party goers per day over a three day period. On their website they talk of now being able to increase that number if their move to Yelgun proceeds. Let’s say 25,000 or more per day for a minimum of 16 days per year with another 56 days per year of highly concentrated activity and traffic movement either side of each festival. Now here is the choice. You swallow the extra jobs line, the extra income for businesses, but allow for the fact that Brunswick Heads ceases once and for all to be the family holiday place, the families desert and the party goers move in. On top of that you fully acknowledge that hav-

ing the entire population of Byron Shire doubled and concentrated between North Ocean Shores and Brunswick Heads for up to one month of the year in addition to the Christmas holiday period might be going to cost our existing infrastructure and tax our local budget by at least an additional 10%. You also fully accept without complaint that your local beach, possibly your front yard and possibly the house next door will become a venue for drunkenness for up to one month of the year. You appreciate too that driving in the northern part of the shire you will run the risk of being collected by a drunken driver (taking into account the age of the driver and proven statistics) by an increase of possibly 300%. You acknowledge that the chance of the Billinudgel nature reserve being burned out will also rise by about 300%. Not worth it? Then now is the time to email the NSW Planning Minister, Kristina Kenneally at heffron@parliament. nsw.gov.au, our local MP, Justine Elliot at Justine.Elliot.MP@ aph.gov.au. You can also leave a message for the band Powderfinger, who are major stakeholders in the development and ask them to withdraw support for the development on their website at powderfinger.com

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Pete and the power

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Bush Senior and Clinton. Nor would there be space to mention the aborted UNOCAL pipeline deals with the Taliban in the mid 90s or the plans to invade Afghanistan that were drawn up well before 9/11. And of course, the significant political influence of big oil, big money, private military corporations and the weapons industry is way beyond the scope of palatable commentary. Unfortunately, without such details the public is never going to understand the underlying reasons for our involvement in America’s wars. And if we don’t understand the problem, we can’t solve it.

I thought Paul Brecht (Letters, July 28) was too smart to get surprised or disappointed by Peter Garrett. I tried to like Midnight Oil myself but couldn’t do it. A Sydney Morning Herald review summed it up describing their work as ‘sloganistic trash’. The best I heard them sound was on a live TV broadcast in Brazil. I guess a Brazilian sound engineer didn’t recognise Garrett as a hero, couldn’t understand what he was on about, noticed that he sounded pretty bad and so virtually removed his voice from the mix – which is more or less how the Labor Party have managed him. Since then I’ve wondered John Scrivener if Midnight Oil would have Main Arm worked better by taking away

12 August 4, 2009 The Byron Shire Echo

or their facebook page after becoming a fan. We have never tried to stop SPITG having a festival in Byron, we have only ever asked for reason and so has Byron Council in its draft Events Policy when wishing to restrict the number of large festivals in the shire to just two a year. Mac Nicolson

Ocean Shores ■

Edited for length – Ed

■ The day after Splendour I received an email copy of a letter by Russell Eldridge (Ocean Shores, former editor of The Northern Star) to Justine Elliot MP, pleading the case against a permanent mega-festival site at Yelgun. I agree with Russell, but disagree with his statement that, ‘Most opponents of the move to Yelgun believe that rock concerts such as Splendour have their place. But they should be close to Byron Bay, where there is more transport, medical facilities and other infrastructure.” I am a Sunrise resident, ‘close to Byron Bay’. Saturday night the noise level outside our homes peaked regularly at 72db SPL (four times the maximum energy level Splendour agreed to) as measured by professional field recording equip-

Pete’s mic and putting him in a go-go dancing cage – which is also a bit like what the Labor Party have done. Pete won’t surprise us if we recognise that he’s always been motivated by the power rather than the passion. The way he’s changed sides is a bit like the way a footballers change codes or the way Malcolm Turnbull has changed parties and religions. IQ aside, Turnbull and Garrett have much in common (eg Gunns pulp mill). It is evidence of a super thick skin, head or both, that Garrett hasn’t embarrassed himself into retirement already. Speaking of IQ and embarrassment: Mal Meninga, who entered politics in similar style, managed to understand that

ment, mostly in the infrasonic range undetected by the usual sound measuring machines. This rattles pictures and china, and went on until 2am Sunday morning. Sunrise Beach has been barricaded and fenced for ten days. So much broken glass remains on the bicycle tracks that they are unsafe. Saturday Ewingsdale Road was clogged, even to emergency vehicles. Roving mobs of drunken punters terrorised the neighbourhood, but the police were concerned with writing as many parking tickets as possible. Splendour does not belong ‘close to Byron Bay’ or any other residential area. Splendour, like Burning Man in the US, belongs in a deserted hinterland. Charles Sawyer

Byron Bay ■ While

everyone has been focused on the Splendour site at Yelgun the Blues Festival have been pushing through a DA for the equally inappropriate siting of their festivals at Tyagarah. There has been much speculation about the reasons for lack of coverage by the local press. This Wednesday August 5, 10.30am, Council will consider a DA for an annual festival with 20,000 people on the Tyagarah

he couldn’t cut it and make an early exit, retaining way more of his dignity than Pete Garrett can now hope to. Alistair Bell

Byron Bay

We were wrong In my military days it was suggested that it was good practice to ‘never apologise, never explain’. So I will now proceed to do both. As Mr Rene Thalmann helpfully points out (Letters, July 28), I did predict that Council was unlikely to sustain significant financial loss from their purchase of CDO investment products – I was wrong. My opinion was based on the then advice of Council’s financial staff (and consultants)

swamps, adjacent to the nature reserve. Local residents are seriously worried about being effectively excluded from living peacefully in their homes for five days as they put up with noise and illegal campers and also with the challenge of getting to and from their homes through the traffic. Discussions with police have revealed concern at the prospect of 15,000 partygoers leaving the site at midnight to drive to places of accommodation throughout the shire. Given the nature of these festivals it doesn’t take much insight to imagine the state of many of these drivers. Mullum residents are also worried as Mullumbimby will be the closest place to shop without paying inflated festival prices, and locals are likely to find it hard to access the highway as festers use Gulgan Road to try and avoid the inevitable traffic jams at the site. With the virtual shutdown of any other tourism other than the festival, Brunswick Heads businesses should also be worried. Byron gets virtually locked down for multipule days at a time during both Splendour and Blues Fest. Do we want Mullum and Bruns to be similar no-go areas to locals? Tyagarah Beach is also threatened. The DA has failed who no doubt felt that this was the most accurate assessment at that time – they were wrong – as was the majority of the investment world. As for the vindication of Ephraim Sella (the Burringbar Banker) et al, their prediction that money would be lost (at that stage, only the interest component) was unfortunately only partially correct. However, as I recall, their main point was that the elected council should have somehow prevented the investments in the first place. This would have been a feat to rival the loaves and fishes considering that these were ‘AAA’ and ‘AA’ rated products (as mandated by the state government), almost the entire global financial system

to show how it will be protected from festival goers, while retaining access to locals and other tourists. On one of the maps it shows access restricted, but in another part the DA talks about festival goers having access. As everyone knows Easter is a common time of the year for floods, and the festival hasn’t convinced many people that they can adequately evacuate 20,000 drunk and stoned partyers in the event of a flood. Grays Lane has flooded several of the recent Easters and it is not clear how locals will be able to get home if they are unable to drive up Grays Lane and unable to park at the interchange. Anyone who has an issue with this is encouraged to call their councillors, and to turn up on Wednesday and let Council know how big a concern they have. John Bailey

Chairman Byron Ratepayers Association Edited for length and legal reasons. Letters on this topic also received from Charlie Donaldson, Ocean Shores, Gwen Gould, Tyagarah, Chris Coady, Yelgun, Kathy Norley, South Golden Beach – Ed

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didn’t see the ‘meltdown’ coming and councillors have absolutely no power to choose individual investments anyway. I hope ths clears up some of the background for those paying attention. I suspect Mr Thalmann will persist with his own very individual view of the world. (As endorsed by his Byron United beatification – prior to him sinking his team at the last election.) Cr Tom Tabart

Brunswick Heads

Unsustainable? Well, I thought the advert in last week’s Echo about becoming a household sustainability assessor sounded promising. Especially the opportunity to earn $5,000 per week.