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Byron Shire
March 28, 2024

Game of Thrones and the Rose between the thorns

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Rose Wanchap’s ads are increasing in size in inverse proportion to their basis in fact and her contribution to, and support from, the Byron community.

I am reminded of some of  popular TV dramas I’ve been watching lately. I’m thinking of Game Of Thrones and Cersei, the wannabe queen, whose desire to have things her way has her forming Faustian allegiances, it’s a series where ambition, lies and money rule, although there’s a lot of sex in GoT and (I’m hoping) none in Byron Shire Council.

Then there’s The Walking Dead where dangerous non-thinking, brain-dead creatures have over-run the place and civilisation has broken down.

Finally I realised that of course it was Vikings that probably fits best: treacherous, marauding vandals invade and then destroy, pillage and plunder beautiful places inhabited by peaceful peoples.

Personally I prefer a return to the simplicity of Dallas when the popular character Bobby died and, for a whole season, the audience and Pamela grieved.

But Bobby’s death was unpopular with viewers so,  in the very first episode of the following season,  Pam wakes up to see Bobby stepping out of the en suite. He was never dead, it was all a dream!

In this analogy Rose Wanchap is Bobby, we are all Pamela (Sol Ibrahim might like to be JR Ewing) and we are hoping the bad dream will be over any time now.

Even as a teenager I recognised it as a cheap dramatic device, but the fact was the viewers had switched off until Bobby came back.

Just shows that you can’t turn your back on the people who put you there.

Cate Coorey, Byron Bay


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7 COMMENTS

  1. Cate I think you might be watching a little too much TV… Its time the BRG stopped playing chicken little with our community. Rose has been crucified for doing what she is suppose to be doing, making decisions which are in the interest of our whole community. Not decisions to make her popular with an aggressive vocal minority. Rose has never turned her back on our community its the BRG who has constantly done that by beating up and exaggerating issues with breath taking audacity.

  2. What ‘Rose’ is supposed to do is represent the people who elected her as a Green candidate.
    ‘Audacity’? Audacious, is ‘Rose’ turning her back on those people.
    As far as the ‘aggressive, vocal minority’ goes, please consider the result in the recent state election, it is clear they are no longer a minority, they may not all be vocal and they never were aggressive, but they are not a minority.

  3. I had to laugh when I read ‘cheap dramatic device’. Hasn’t that been BRG’s platform – to continually exploit and embellish ‘fact’ until it is fiction? I think its time you looked within and learned a thing or two from your own worldly musings Cate.

    • Sam we would all love to see an analysis of what facts we are misrepresenting – just saying we are not presenting facts doesn’t really cut it and hiding behind online forums without supplying your full name doesn’t generate much confidence in your argument.
      Since this process of arriving at a rock wall for Belongil was done in secret without any public consultation then we would welcome more information. This is as good a forum as any or please post to the BRG web or FB page. I’d start by reading this document on Council’s website first:
      http://www.byron.nsw.gov.au/coastal-hazard-management-study-for-the-byron-bay-embayment

      It should be noted that the Office of Environment and Heritage looked at the costings and considered that the stated cost of planned retreat (Council’s policy for the last 29 years) was substantially overstated (presumably to make the other options look better.)
      The OEH offered to do a Cost Benefit Analysis for Council but the offer was refused. We have the right to a proper CBA before our money is spent on damaging a public resource for private purposes.

  4. Rose has been “crucified”? really? It is SO easy – if she doesn’t like it she can step down! She does not represent the people who voted for her as a Green. It takes real chutzpah to steal a whole lot of votes from people by ardently promising one thing and then doing the opposite, continually asserting your legitimacy and then complaining that people are persecuting you! They are just angry and they have the right. If Rose can’t understand why people are angry then she doesn’t understand how passionately people feel about this town and its environmental values and how hard they have fought to keep it from becoming the Gold Coast for many years and Rose is throwing all that hard work away. We very much resent being called the “aggressive vocal minority”. Rose has clearly been the aggressor and she is also the minority. She has only 52 likes on her Facebook page. Byron Residents’ Group has 1,295 likes and over 3500 have signed our latest online petition. Scott, do us all a favour and suggest she resign, contest a by-election and see how much support she gets. 52 votes?

  5. ‘Aggressive vocal minority’? Ha ha ha that makes me laugh. It’s exactly the sort of language Petey Hendrerson used to describe the people that opposed Metgasco. It’s fitting because the ratio as per Rose is the same for Metgasco. And those three words are the kind of tabloid smearing used when there are no facts to lean on. Aggressive- which actually means passionate and is meant to makw us sound like a bunch of rabid irrational maurauding animals – and ‘ vocal’ – as if, cos we speak up and don’t remain obedient, we are not to be taken seriously. And: minority- well, once again, Rose has about the same support that Metgasco does.

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