The response from a member of Victims of Holiday Letting (VOHL) to the spurious figures in the third Byron Deserves Better (BDB) full-page advertisement in The Echo (October 12) was ‘pigs can fly too’.
The BDB group consists of a few self-interested owners of short-term rental accommodation, management businesses, and local business owners.
In the most recent advertisement, BDB claim that Council’s proposed 90-day cap policy for STRA in certain areas ‘risks 1,448 jobs’. They use the Australian Trade and Investment Commission, commonly known as Austrade, as their reference source. If this were correct then this would have come from Tourism Research Australia (TRA), which is a department in Austrade.
VOHL has seen correspondence from TRA that completely refutes that they have done any research on the effect of a 90-day cap and that they have not provided the figures quoted by BDB.
Previously, BDB have also used the Urbis report and the ABS as a source for their figures. A check of these sources does not reveal the figures touted by BDB.
The cartoon in the October 12 Echo shows a pig saying, ‘SOMEONE IS TELLING PORKYS’. The Byron Shire community know that it is the few individuals behind the now discredited BDB movement who are utilising spurious ‘facts’. STRA owners should be embarrassed that these people represent them.
Don’t the residents of Byron Shire ‘DESERVE BETTER’ than this?
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
