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Byron Shire
March 18, 2024

Running out of time

Latest News

State of destruction

Tasmanians go to the polls next weekend, in an early election brought on by Liberal Premier Jeremy Rockcliff, whose party has fractured during its ten years in office but is currently warning voters not to elect a Labor minority government, which he's been calling a 'Coalition of Chaos'.

Other News

Global beats and lantern parades

Byron Bay’s free Harmony Day celebration on Saturday, March 23 starts at 3.30pm in Apex Park, Main Beach, with live global beats and dance from our region’s multicultural community.

Veterans’ and Families’ Hub for the North Coast

The federal government has announced that a $5.445 million grant has been awarded to RSL LifeCare, working with RSL NSW, to establish a Veterans’ and Families’ Hub in the Tweed/North Coast region of New South Wales.

Interview with Ben Harper

Ben Harper is one of the premiere songwriters of his generation and there is always a feeling of that extra something special whenever he appears at Bluesfest – on its stages, he has collaborated with many of the festival’s favourites and he has captured the ears of anyone within reach.

Editorial – Giving it a tick and flick

The rezoning of high-value agricultural land for future housing – some on floodplains – is likely to be rushed through at Thursday’s Council meeting with last-minute tinkering – see page 1.

LE-BA takes third in boardriders national final

LE-BA Boardriders have come third in the Australian Boardriders Battle Grand Final behind Burleigh Heads and North Shelly, in front of 30,000 spectators at the Burleigh Heads point break.

A ‘horrific spate of domestic violence related murders’

Domestic Violence NSW says that three women have been murdered owing to domestic and family violence since International Women’s Day, last Friday. 

Chibo Mertineit, Lillian Rock

I just returned from the ‘Festival of Resistance’, which happened outside of the weapon expo at the Brisbane Exhibition and Convention Centre. It fulfilled its aim to make a noise about taxpayers’ money being used to support this event as well as investing enormously into the military industrial complex in this country.

The expo was kept pretty quiet and only got into the mainstream media through police brutality and some gutsy actions by protesters. When I hear that a company like Rheinmetal is inviting teachers to their premises, aiming to have an influence through STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) on the curriculum, I feel more than frightened.

What are we letting our government get away with? Did they just embezzle $1.2 billion taxdollars to avoid the public seeing how the robodebt scheme impacted and destroyed lives? We know that the coal/oil/gas industries etc have lobbyists in parliament and are donating to political parties and in return getting millions, sorry, billions of dollars in contracts. We know that our government is working against renewables and they plan to build a $600 million gas plant in NSW and to expand mining in Narrabri. We know that they are cutting forests down to sell as woodchips or to burn to produce electricity in sugarcane mills right here in the Northern Rivers. Trees are carbon sequesterers!

While military spending is on the rise all over the world, it seems like no one takes the climate emergency for real. As Michael Franti sings: ‘We can bomb the world to pieces but we can’t bomb it into peace’. We are really running out of time to change our behaviour to make sure that we are saving our living conditions on this planet and we honestly need more people to engage in our politics, especially while we can do so much from our computer at home – like research information (imagine that thirty years ago!), write to politicians, connect and share it. Or better still, come along, join in. I’ve met so many beautiful people. Check out  disruptlandforces.org or find them on Facebook.


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