Three strong contenders and a mish-mash of minor candidates once again made for an interesting race and a complicated preferences count that will take days to be finalised. The Echo went on a deepdive into the polling data to see how we voted around the electorate, revealing the picture of Byron Shire being a Greens stronghold, and Labor edging ahead of The Nationals in both the Tweed and Ballina shires.
Senior Council planning staff have admitted to providing wealthy developers with an advantage around a contentious large 38-lot proposal near the main road into Mullum from Uncle Toms.
While counting continues in the marginal Richmond federal electorate (Tweed, Byron and Ballina shires), Labor incumbent Justine Elliot is the likely winner, with her closest competitor, Greens candidate, Mandy Nolan, conceded today.
Two local groups have been nominated for the he Environmental Citizen of the Year Awards, an initiative of The Australia Day Council of NSW in partnership with Return and Earn.
There is no doubt that local councils across NSW have struggled to financially support their communities as the state government has frozen developer fees they can charge, taken over assets like caravan parks that were a significant income stream, or make them apply endlessly for grants.
Nitazenes, synthetic opioids, have been detected in all types of drugs from counterfeit pharmaceuticals like Valium and oxycodone to, MDMA, ketamine, cocaine, methamphetamine – they're even being found in vapes.
