Thanks to Larissa Waters (new federal Greens leader) for using the right language on ABC Radio National last week: we are in a ‘cost-of-living crisis’. Calling it a ‘housing crisis’ is just a big green light to property developers, like the ones who want to bulldoze Wallum.
Decent development is possible, but not if government says yes to everything the white shoe brigade put forward.
BTW housing is not affordable if it includes high insurance premiums, loss of one’s car every ten years, loss of one’s home every 50 years, and big difficulties for government in providing community services like roads, sewerage, stormwater, and evacuation centres. Those services don’t correctly work on floodplains. Society can’t afford new housing on floodplains, like the ones rezoned for housing by Byron Shire Council in 2024.
It’d be great if the current Council undid some of that future suffering, and also focused on alleviating the current suffering of people already living on our floodplains. An example of how to look after those people would be to ban fill on any floodplain.
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. 
