I am quite disturbed by the tone and manner of personal attacks that have been made and unfair letters demanding the resignation of Rose Wanchap that have been sent to Echonetdaily, as a result of her no longer representing The Greens on Byron Council.
Politics often sees individuals who cannot agree to caucus and then vote with their party cross the floor and there is no crime or dishonesty in behaving this way – to stick to your true beliefs. Resignation from your party is also not a crime if you feel you cannot agree with supporting or rejecting issues. State and federal ministers regularly do this, and to expect a local councillor not to do this is quite ignorant.
Whilst I am not convinced the West Byron development – planned by the state government – is in the best interests of Byron Shire residents and the future of the town, I greatly respect Rose’s knowledge, insight and integrity and believe she would have given serious consideration to all the arguments for and against before forming her view.
Rose is known throughout the Byron community as a woman of great integrity – with a strong moral compass. Rose is one of the finest examples of an ethical real estate agent to be found in the Northern Rivers and attacking her – in the manner some of the writers have – reflects very poorly on the individuals writing them rather than having any bearing on the choices Rose makes or has made.
As an elected councillor, we have voted her to hold this position and I believe she and all other councillors deserve more respect and credit for the often loveless work they do for the community.
Mary O’Connor, principal, Bangalow Real Estate
I agree that personal attacks are not fair but is it ethical for a Greens candidate to give no indication to the other Greens members or to the voters prior to the election that she would vote with the pro-development group on Council on [what seems to me like ALL important] development issues.
How tiresome it is to read that some in the Council are constantly referred to as a pro development faction. What does this make the Greens and their supporters? Anti development? In Byron? Have you looked around? Byron is full of development. What happened to a Shire that is supposedly full of people who could come together and talk things through? How easy and lazy it is to label people who’s view don’t match yours as pro development.