A public health alert has been issued after a positive COVID-19 case travelled on the Virgin Australia flight VA1139 from Sydney, arriving in Ballina on 14 July at 11.45am.

Following a refusal by Byron Shire Council to communicate with local landholders on the Belongil Catchment Drain Board over the impact of excess water flows from the Sewage Treatment Plant they have finally admitted there is a major problem.

When I walk the streets of my town I feel this. I feel the divide. I watch the masked mingle with the ‘medically exempt’. There’s an unspoken agitation. A sense of ‘them’ and ‘us’. My town is no longer a place of love and acceptance. It is not a place of compassion and kindness. There is an undercurrent of distrust, suspicion and potential violence. We are being taken.

John Cornell, a character credited with initiating major change in Byron Bay after his purchase of the Beach Hotel, has died at his home in Byron Bay, aged 80, surrounded by his wife Delvene Delaney and family.

The Department of Education has accused the Teachers Federation of being inaccurate and misleading following last week’s teachers strike at Mullumbimby High School.