Byron Shire Echo August , 9LettersLetters to the Editor Fax Email Deadline Noon, Friday Letters longer than words may be cut letters already published in other papers will not be considered pseudonyms not acceptable. Please include your full name, address and phone number.By rail or by trail I note with interest the debate regarding the CasinoMurwillumbah rail line as a walkinghorsebike trail. Government needs to be reminded again and again that we as a nation need to be provided with options if we are to learn to commute travel more efficiently. A commuter service of eight return services per day as proposed by TOOT www. toot.org.au would do much to widen choices of transport mode for all who live and work here. I believe our best efforts need to be directed towards pressuring for a return of a train timetable and trains to go with it. If the NSW state government can then be persuaded to also allow dual use along suitable sections of the line for walking, horse riding and cycling even better.Amanda HallinanMullumbimby In response to Rebecca Archibalds letter concerning the idea to turn the railway into a trail, I have complete support for the idea. I am a resident of Mullumbimby and live in the southern dogtail, as its often called, of Station Street. My familys property backs onto the railway line and many a time my younger sister and I have explored its many elds and creeks which it runs through, however it has become increasingly dangerous inMore pollutionYour lead article regarding a review of the RTAs pollution licence supposedly supported by the
byron shire council
certainly raises some issues. An issue concerning a huge number of Shire residents is the enormous amount of pollution caused by the lack of maintenance and improvements to the Brunswick Heads Boat Ramp Road. For decades, every time it rains, huge amounts of mud run down the ramp into our river. Council has ignored dozens of letters pointing out the pollution problem and now they have suddenly noticed another problem that has received and is receiving every possible effort and remedy to combat what nature is dishing out. Its time the Byron Shire Council cleaned up its own backyard before pointing the bone and to the best of my knowledge not a word has been written or spoken by the other protectors of the environment BEACON, CONOS, SGBPA, NBVA, and NCEC.recent times as the wooden bridge which crosses a muddy swamp, only about metres from my property, has begun to rot and erode. It saddens me to think that this beautiful journey of scenery which runs throughout the entire shire is going to be cut off. I strongly believe that by creating this trail it would bring the community much closer together and make the shire a safer and happier community. I most sincerely hope that someday in the near future the council will spend some of our hard earned rates on creating a trail so that others can enjoy it.Cara Makuwe dont want them eating our crops. This is species vs species and we are a dangerous lot And there are too many of us so other species fall by the wayside Sad isnt it We are a pestilence and we just wont go away not yet.Veronica GuyMullumbimby Im pleased that Lucy Ashley picked up the kangaroo book I left for her at the Bangalow post office but Im mystied by her hostile reaction to it. Shes right that Kangaroos Myths and Realities would not qualify to be listed for the Booker Prize and indeed there is a lot of passion in it but it is crammed with facts from scientists and campaigners who have spent half their lifetimes on the kangaroo issue. I havent exactly hidden my light under a bushel forMullumbimby neither logic nor rationality stands a chance. Just take a squiz at different religions and their beliefs. Not open to rationality are they No, just guns, mortars, missiles and incarceration or death by ring squad And kangaroos This is their country, not ours. We wiped out the largest marsupials thousands of years ago remember. All thats left is what we have now and species are disappearing at too fast a rate of knots. We built pastures to feed European cattle and sheep. Kangaroos, like us, are opportunists and take advantage of whatever there is available like the rabbits and foxes we introduced. At least they dont manipulate stock markets or mine coal or gas or uranium or thorium or oil to feed an ever growing needy dependence. They just live within their means and good luck to them. We supply the food, the kangaroos feed so we kill them becauseon our lives and how so If asked to endorse her for many local government
deci- a second term I shall do so sions are made in Macquarie with enthusiasm. Mungo MacCallum St, Sydney, instead of Station Ocean Shores St, Mullumbimby.John Baileythe past thirty years while campaigning on the kangaroo and other issues, neither has Pat OBrien who is well known in Queensland for his wildlife protection activities. The evidence that currently of kangaroos being shot in New South Wales are females will be put to the Minister for the Environment in a few days at Estimates. The Parks Service already admits that the gure had risen to by . They also show in their own gures on their website that, by last July, populations had crashed up to in some areas, yet they still approved killing quotas. The kangaroo industry person, who went with Pat and Mark on that 8, kilometre drive through outback NSW and Qld, has already been interviewed by a TV station and newspaper butcontinued overleafMullumbimbyRoos and rusesWell done, Lucy Ashley, Possum Creek Letters, August . At last someone else who is sick of reading mindless rubbish in these letter pages. You should get a job on Media Watch with those investigative skills. Now, if you could only sort out all the other half-baked arguments each week I would be very grateful.James LittleA mature approachWhat sort of person would use their vehicle to deliberately ram two shopping trolleys into another car The driver of a big white Toyota ute is that sort of person. Had a bad day today, did ya Next time you might try a mature approach to make yourself feel better. By the way, have you heard, what Malcolm Murray you put out comes back to Mullumbimby you We may meet one day.Byron BayThanks to LesleyAs an avid reader of our weekly Echo, I was saddened to read that Lesley Patterson is leaving as deputy editor and specialist reporter on local government. Whatever Lesleys opinions were on an issue, they were not thrust upon us. What we got from Lesley was well researched, accurate and unbiased information about local government issues. I have come to realise that the NSW Iemma government as the Carr government before it is increasingly pulling the strings that control our local government. The State has ultimate say in our LEPs, in pegging our rates and in snapping up approvals for the really important developments like Becton, the Mallams supermarket and the SAE. One of Lesleys most recent articles concerned Labors latest grab of four of our caravan parks and of course their prots. So thank you, Lesley, for your years of instructive and accurate reporting. May you go safely and in good health and may The Echo replace you with someone who will keep us informed on how local government impingesS Graf Dear oh dear, Lucy Ashley. Ocean Shores You are deep in tiger country. Who to believe when the Tick of approval experts disagree Its not I have been asked to clarify just emotional tirades about comments I made about kangaroos and dodgy stats to Mayor Jan Barham at the prop up factional arguments. Byron Writers festival earlier Most emotionally laden arguments, purporting to this month. The context was a ques- rely on proven research, tion about whether my polit- under scrutiny fall apart. Be ical judgments had ever sure to keep your critical proved faulty. I replied that thinking wits about you. And they certainly had and gave hope like hell that you can as one example my refusal to inuence enough people to endorse Barham at the last start thinking critically for council election. themselves. At the time I feared that Single issue groups and she would lead a divisive and factions tend to pick up on uncompromising Green cau- arcane information and are cus which would take extreme more creative than academic positions and lead to a col- in their presentation of facts lapse in the decision making in order to build an emoprocess. I am delighted to tional argument to substanhave been proved wrong in tiate their credo. Most peofact Barhams mayoralty has ple are lazy and prefer to been one of the more inclu- believe what they are told sive of my years in the rather than to question and probe. Shire. We should all be suspicious There have been glitches the procrastination over of tunnel visioned people sporting fields for Ocean who trot out stats and Shores must be counted as a quotes from other people to failure. But on the whole bolster their usually ill Barhams administration has infor med and poorly been fair, progressive and researched ideological transparent. She has stood stance. Mind you, the probup to the bullying of develop- lem you are up against is not ers while keeping the fanatics one of logicrationality. It is of her own side in check, a unquestionably an emotional belief system against which considerable political feat.
