It has been like riding on the back of a bumblebee in the attempt to find sweet nectar and consciousness that legally outlaws development on floodplains. First of all the buzzing journey began when the previous coalition government representatives assured me over the phone, and the Department of Planning’s secretary assured me too, that at that very moment Mr Roberts was working hard on the issue and that a media splash would be shortly forthcoming endorsing the premier’s statement: ‘There would be no more development on floodplains.’ I was talking to a neoliberal stooge (sorry folks, I am a cynic these days) but really I was feeling like an actor in a 1930s noir Jimmy Cagney gangster Chicago film. Will there be a wild tap-dance of joy? You guessed it, no media splash! Just ‘polly speak’. Ticking the boxes to ease the pain of flood victims. No insurance/assurance for them! Just a pile of approved zombie/legacy floodplain DA approvals charging ahead, creating more flood victims.
Premier Minns has assured the public, just like the previous coalition government, that:‘There would be no more development on floodplains’. He had even visited Lismore! But, you guessed it folks, now that he is the premier he has not politically/democratically ratified approval for a moratorium. In true neoliberal strategy, the iron fist in the velvet glove will keep stroking the masses with legal puff. Meaningless legal statements. It’s a minefield of legal emptiness, not just Jesus weeps but the whole feckin table of Apostles, including whimpering Judas and his faux pot of gold!
Read the recent articles in The Echo and online (www.echo.net.au/news) that see multiple groups calling for a moratorium on existing approved floodplain DAs while we work out a fair and equitable way forward.
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. 
