Byron’s ‘hippie-flavoured’ tourism shouldn’t surprise. Byron of old was effectively an outpost with a few key industries for the state. All those industries started to shutter their doors as the hippie heyday began in the late 1970s.
With industries going and new people coming in Byron was changing. With The Local Government Act 1993 much of old Byron was lost being under a council that did not truly represent the entirety of the shire population but was rather oppositional toward it. Old families left. Real estate became more dear, driving others to leave. Decades of Byron Council neglect and mismanagement meant Byron not only lost the public works/infrastructure technical skill and knowledge but the machinery as well.
The anti-capitalist, anti-business mindset of Byron Council has for years failed to differentiate between local small family-owned business and national/international corporations while often confusing local and international politics; Byron doesn’t understand business because Byron doesn’t like business. Byron Council has for years been a myopic expression of hippie environmental fantasy and related oddball priorities. Such a town cannot support independent businesses. Such a town struggles to deal with basic infrastructure issues and is constantly on the back foot with budget problems. Personally, I have experienced foreign visitors state that ‘Byron doesn’t feel like a real town; it has that tourist-town mark’.
A local once confided that Byron was like a prostitute everyone just wanted their way with and now there’s nothing left. Byron Bay has gone from all soul and no image to all image and no soul.
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. 
