Jo Faith, Newtown
The strong stance made by ex-councillor Duncan Dey in relation to the current acting mayor Michael Lyon, and local Green councillors is heartening.
The community has witnessed the hijacking of the label ‘Green’ to aid non-democratic development in the Shire. Notable was the dismissal of all the Butler Street community’s rights, slaughtering of mature trees in Railway Park and its recent re-zoning to ‘commercial’ and the destruction of adjacent wetlands with the bypass. The Byron community is being colonised by developers, while laws are amputated by the NSW state government.
What is happening in Australia with the recent shooting of a shackled prisoner in Lismore by police or security at the Lismore hospital should raise local concerns. It was claimed that this man ‘had mental health problems’. Why was it necessary for this shackled man to be shot dead? How dangerous was he? What liberties exist in law for such a shameful act to occur?
Do we know the circumstances that precede the fate of dying First Nations men who are shackled by their feet to their beds in prison hospitals on life-support systems? The chains are identical to those used in earlier days when First Nations people were herded by the colonisers.
Since the royal commission, over two and half decades ago, there have been 411 deaths in custody nationally. Do we really understand the terror that underlies their lives. Can we understand the high rise in First Nations youth suicide?
It is hoped that grounded and articulate Duncan Dey returns to public office in Byron Council.
