24.9 C
Byron Shire
September 27, 2026
Home Articles & Columns

Articles & Columns

Byron Echo

Democracy does not equal liberalism

iden Grandsimon - 0
In recent years, democracy seems to be taking sides. In political commentary, opinion columns, or even conversations with friends, after each major election, there appears to be a preferred ‘democratic’ candidate.
Read more
Editorial

Does Byron’s bum look too big?

Aslan Shand - 0
Byron Shire Council charges more for residential rates, farmland rates, water, sewer, and waste when compared to Ballina, Lismore, Clarence and Richmond shires. Only Byron’s business rates are lower.
Read more
Byron Echo

Time to create a new politics

Catherine Cusack - 0
Climate change is happening faster than we thought and Australia is set to fall well short of its 2030 renewable energy target of 82 per cent.
Read more
Byron Echo

Mandy Nolan’s Soapbox: Lets Talk About Dementia

Mandy Nolan - 0
This week is Dementia Action Week. Some of its purposes are to raise awareness, reduce stigma and build understanding. We don’t talk about dementia because it scares us.
Read more
Articles & Columns

The second algorithm: why government control is the wrong fix

Chaiy Donati - 0
It is not often that a minister describes the most sweeping power she has ever asked for with the words 'I guess'.
Read more
Articles & Columns

DV peak body responds to horror weekend

The Echo - 0
Domestic Violence NSW (DVNSW) has released a statement responding to what has been a particularly tragic weekend, even by NSW standards, noting that domestic violence doesn’t have an age limit, and it doesn’t stop being a national emergency because it happens behind closed doors.
Read more
Articles & Columns

Tony Burke and the immigration iceberg

David Lowe - 0
In a speech to the National Press Club, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has attempted to redefine the immigration debate. But what lies beneath?
Read more
Editorial

Editorial – Time for free oral

Aslan Shand - 0
Most of us have had a toothache. It is bloody painful and at times I’ve fantasised taking a pair of pliers and ripping the agonising tooth out while I wait for attention from a dentist to help me – please just help me with the pain!
Read more
Byron Echo

Graphic violence is fine, but pot smoking? Never

Professor David Heilpern - 0
There is a new computer game called ‘Halloween: The Game’ that builds on the hyper-real and brutal violence of the film.
Read more
Byron Echo

Mandy Nolan’s Soapbox: How do you view the world without taking your view from the world?

Mandy Nolan - 0
Sometimes people will say something, and the words just land inside me. Like a bird flying home to their nest. Like an ant finding the cool underside of a rock. Like a salmon swimming upstream to the place where they were born.
Read more
Local News

The life and wins of local sports legend Ric Light

The Echo - 0
Ric Light’s influence on sport in Byron Bay started with his father who was the much-loved English master at Mullumbimby High.
Read more
Articles & Columns

Angry energy, from digital duty of care to forests

David Lowe - 0
The government's draft bill for a new approach to online safety is currently up for public discussion, and various people are getting hot under the collar about it, particularly those whose political and business model relies on Australians being as angry as possible.
Read more
Editorial

Pill testing: just a small step

Aslan Shand - 0
The NSW Minns Labor government has recognised that drug and pill testing is effective in reducing risks and harms associated with illicit drug use, including for festival attendees.
Read more
Byron Echo

How pissed off are you?

Jo Immig - 0
There is a crisis of trust in the world – trust in governments, institutions, media, science, and in each other, is plummeting. According to research, younger generations are losing trust fastest, and honestly who can blame them?
Read more
Articles & Columns

Rage in the Machine

The Echo - 0
I have always been afraid of male rage. Growing up with a violent, alcoholic dad I got to witness that rage first hand. I saw the legs of a chair go through a door, a fist in a wall, hands on my mother.
Read more
Byron Echo

The law of silence: how Labor made ASIO’s powers permanent

Chaiy Donati - 0
On Thursday, 20 August the Federal Senate passed the ASIO Amendment Bill (No. 2). A compulsory questioning warrant lets ASIO require a person who has never been charged, and may never be, to appear and answer questions. Refusing is a criminal offence...
Read more
Articles & Columns

Government sells out Pacific, NT, Australia

David Lowe - 0
Last week the government demonstrated its flagrant disregard for science and common sense; from Washington to Palau, and from Canberra to Darwin.
Read more
Byron Echo

We don’t just need more housing: we need it where it’s needed most

Sunil Badami - 0
With news that the last of Byron Shire’s pod villages will be closed by the end of the year, both residents and the wider community are asking: where will they go in a region where vacancy rates are less than 0.5 per cent?
Read more
Byron Echo

Mandy Nolan’s Soapbox: Warning: Choking Hazard

Mandy Nolan - 0
There is no safe way of choking someone.
Read more
Articles & Columns

Honeyeaters of the Wallum

Byron Bird Buddies - 0
To the untrained eye, Wallum might appear to be a chaotic tangle of vegetation intersected here and there by foot-made pathways through the sandy soil. But this surface view belies the intricate and complex web of life woven over epochs.
Read more
Articles & Columns

Lessons from Secret Harbour

David Lowe - 0
Held by Labor since 1989, Pauline Hanson's One Nation has comfortably won the Western Australian state lower house seat of Secret Harbour in Saturday's by-election, sending shockwaves across the country.
Read more
Local News

Katie Milne responds to Tweed’s draft housing and employment strategy

The Echo - 0
The former mayor of Tweed Shire Council, Kate Milne, has shared her submission to Tweed's Draft Growth Management Housing & Employment Strategy.
Read more
Editorial

Editorial – Drug-checking saves lives

Aslan Shand - 0
No-one would tolerate killing six teenagers with methanol-laced alcohol in Australia, as occurred recently in Laos. But in Australia, you can’t check your drugs to see if they’re safe.
Read more
Local News

Lynda Dean – a life of love and making the world a better place

Christopher Dean - 0
My beloved Lynda Dean was the rock and the heart that held in place not only me and our family, but an extraordinary network of friends and communities throughout the Byron Shire and far beyond.
Read more
Byron Echo

Mandy Nolan’s Soapbox: Turn and Face the Change

Mandy Nolan - 0
‘Changes’ – It’s my favourite Bowie song. How do we change? And I don’t just mean personally. I mean as a large community of humans. As a species? Because we have to change. Now.
Read more
Articles & Columns

How to stop overdoses? Dr Will Tregoning has some thoughts

Dr Will Tregoning, CEO of Unharm - 0
With International Overdose Awareness Day approaching on 31 August, NSW now has the evidence, the tools and record overdose deaths but lacks the will on permanent, community based pill testing.
Read more
Byron Echo

Traditional owners vs Adani’s mining operations

Michele Grant - 0
From bankruptcy to the Queensland government intervening and extinguishing their native title – Adrian Burragubba, a Wangan and Jagalingou Elder has continued the fight against Adani’s contentious mine.
Read more
Articles & Columns

Labor and Liberal join forces on multiple fronts

David Lowe - 0
Last week, government and opposition found themselves singing from the same song sheet in parliament on a range of issues, from the NDIS to ASIO, and big tech to gambling advertising. 
Read more
Editorial

Editorial – The cost of climate conspiracy

Aslan Shand - 0
‘A simple conclusion: the benefits of strong and early action far outweigh the economic costs of not acting.’
Read more
Byron Echo

Getting the balance right

Richard Jones - 0
Have you noticed how often Anthony Albanese and his ministers talk about ‘getting the balance right’? It has become a mantra used repeatedly to explain why reforms they are proposing go only a fraction of the way to solving serious problems.
Read more
Byron Echo

Mandy Nolan’s Soapbox: I Am Home

Mandy Nolan - 0
We are in a housing crisis. But does that adequately describe where we are right now? The last census told us there are lots of houses. A million empty ones in fact. So if we’re building enough houses, is it in fact less a housing crisis, and more a homing crisis?
Read more
Byron Echo

There is no viable future for human health on a biologically impoverished planet: it’s time to know ‘lifestyle medicine’

Dr John Stevens - 0
Human health and the health of the living world around us are so intertwined that you can’t talk about one without the other.
Read more
Articles & Columns

Government races to transform NDIS

David Lowe - 0
After six days of public hearings, the Senate inquiry into the NDIS amendments tabled its final report on Friday. Most of the critical findings are likely to be ignored by the Albanese government, which has been negotiating behind closed doors with the opposition and seems likely to push its changes through parliament as early as this week.
Read more
Articles & Columns

Comparing costs and impacts of two housing projects in Mullumbimby

David Brown - 0
Mullumbimby residents rightly continue to condemn Byron Council’s pig-headed refusal to abort the 57 Station Street proposal.
Read more
Editorial

The AI dog ate my homework

Guest editorial, Michael McDonald - 0
Now that a few AI models have escaped like digital Frankensteins from billionaires’ gold-plated labs and molested other AI models in other labs...
Read more
Byron Echo

Fines, jail time for pot use in Qld

David Heilpern - 0
The words ‘courageous’ and ‘Minns Labor government’ are not commonly used in the same breath. But...
Read more
Byron Echo

Mandy Nolan’s Soapbox: Hold a person to your ear and hear the sound of what they see

Mandy Nolan - 0
People are better than podcasts. And you don’t have to download them. It’s ironic that we have developed a love for the recorded dialogues of people – yet avoid the real thing.
Read more
Byron Echo

The last blasphemy: why offence is the wrong test

Chaiy Donati - 0
Last Monday week, for the second time, a court held that Pauline Hanson’s tweet broke the law. Plenty will argue about what Hanson said. The harder question sits underneath...
Read more
Articles & Columns

What would induce the PM to change course on gambling advertising?

David Lowe - 0
With parliament still on winter break, last week's most explosive revelations in Canberra came from the Senate committee examining the government's proposed gambling reforms.
Read more
Editorial

El Niño, a heating planet and preparing for the fire season

Aslan Shand - 0
Fires are raging around the world as climate change continues to impact, and average temperatures continue to climb, and while we may be enjoying what feels like a rare bit of sunshine in the Northern Rivers, with a strong to super El Niño coming our way, now is the time to prepare for the fire season.
Read more
Byron Echo

Growing Mullumbimby: Who pays for the infrastructure?

Di Brown - 0
As a Mullumbimby resident, I want to raise what I believe is a significant issue facing our community: the disconnect between Byron Shire Council’s (BSC) desire for more housing, and the reality faced by ordinary residents trying to provide it.
Read more
Byron Echo

AI: can’t hold a rope, can tell you to tie a noose

Natalie Archibald - 0
Artificial intelligence usage becoming more prevalent and socially acceptable within our society has helped further endanger the mental wellbeing of an already isolated and disconnected generation.
Read more
Local News

Coercive control incidents rise across Northern Rivers

Paul Bibby - 0
Recorded incidents of coercive control have increased across the Northern Rivers in the second year of NSW’s new coercive control laws, with 30 incidents recorded in the Richmond-Tweed region since the offence came into effect.
Read more
Local News

New laws set to influence local live music scene

The Echo - 0
New NSW laws designed to support live music venues have been passed months after Byron Shire Council abandoned plans for a Special Entertainment Precinct in Byron Bay.
Read more
Local News

Shark drone operator rescues six-year-old at Lighthouse Beach

The Echo - 0
A shark surveillance drone operator at Ballina’s Lighthouse Beach has found himself carrying out a very different kind of rescue after spotting a six-year-old boy struggling in the surf.
Read more
Local News

Red alert issued for potentially toxic algae at Lake Ainsworth

The Echo - 0
People are being warned to stay out of Lake Ainsworth at Lennox Head after testing detected high levels of potentially toxic blue-green algae.
Read more

Support Us

Become one of the supporters who helps keep independent, local journalism alive in the Byron Shire by contributing anything from as little as the cost of a coffee each month.

You're Wonderful, Thank you for supporting independent journalism in the Byron Shire