A lot gets decided, dear reader, by those we entrust on our behalf.
And that impacts us in good and bad ways.
If you are interested in the slightest in what political actors and bureaucrats do, then please do push on.
If not, there’s cute kittens to your right.
As the global elite distract us with psyops and nanotech while pushing authoritarianism upon our simple impressionable minds, a small meeting occurred in Mullumbimby last Thursday with nine people that were elected by the Byron Shire electorate last December.
If you want to spend eight hours (it really is that long), then the audio and video are available via www.byron.nsw.gov.au.
In a short and concise way, let’s note a few key things decided:
New and returning councillors agreed to commend planning staff for the vast amount of work they are required to undertake.
Yes – the Liberal Nationals government will never be satisfied until paradise has become car parks, shopping malls and sprawling urban landscapes.
Cr Duncan Dey told The Echo after the meeting that all regional councils were sent the same threatening letter by the NSW planning department, warning them about the ominous sounding Environmental Planning and Assessment (Statement of Expectations) Order 2021.
And that, says Cr Dey, is because regional councils still have planning powers – city council’s don’t (although they used to).
Want to squeeze a bureaucrat? Crank up their staff performance benchmarks to an unrealistic point, and then take over with an administrator whose sympathies lie to the right of Genghis Khan.
It’s all happening folks. Scary huh?
Meanwhile, Council newbie, Cr Mark Swivel, has taken a brave and heroic stab at the impenetrable armour around the guvmint.
His motion to ‘recycle stamp duty and land tax revenue into Local Government Areas experiencing house price inflation and homelessness, housing shortage and rental stress’ passed.
As such, it will be taken to the upcoming LGNSW Special Conference.
The sensible argument is that this vast amount of money should instead be invested into ‘new housing stock for essential workers, lower income and vulnerable members of the community’.
Oh, to see the expression of the pompous NSW Planning Minister, Anthony Roberts, if he gets confronted by that motion, should the LGNSW Special Conference adopt it. Way to go Mark!
Council’s Code of Meeting Practice was deferred, thankfully, because as a famous BBC TV bureaucrat might say, such things should be considered in the fulness of time in order to reach a mature decision. Senior Council staff had wanted councillors to reduce public participation in morning access by banning questions.
Likewise, adoption of council delegations was also deferred, which gives the newbies a bit more time to reach a decision based on grounded independent thinking. They do think for themselves, don’t they?
The threshold of delegations is important because this is Byron Shire.
In most shires, staff are delegated powers over most issues, like determining large contentious DAs and handling court cases.
You don’t want pesky councillors in the way of ‘progress’.
Yet in this bubble, there’s a middle finger sticking it up at ‘progress’.
And you can thank whatever God you like for that.
Hans Lovejoy, editor
News tips are welcome: [email protected]
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