MAY 2025: After yet another record breaking flood emergency, NSW now faces the recovery

Brisbane Times, Updated May 24, 2025 — 5.03pm first published at 7.18am 

The NSW State Emergency Service estimates almost 10,000 properties have been affected by flooding this week. NSW SES Acting Assistant Commissioner Allison Flaxman said the agency was moving into a “resupply and damage assessment” phase of the disaster. “If you are isolated and in need of urgent resupply for items such as food and medication or transport to medical appointments, call NSW SES on 132 500 for a resupply request,” she said. 

 With conditions too dangerous for boats to cross, and with helicopters being used for rescues, the SES sent up a drone to cancer patients across the Manning River to Harrington on Friday night. “We didn’t have much visual on the Harrington side being night, so I used it in infrared mode and used aerial mapping,” said Gabe Mihalas, the agency’s drone pilot. He said people on the other side of the river cheered when the first drop occurred.

  

9 News, 3:32pm 24 May 2025: 

Local palliative care nurse Tiffany Willis worked with SES volunteers to receive the delivery and deliver it to patients. "My boss approached me and said they had spoken to the patients and they were working through ways to help them given their isolation," Willis said. "I spoke directly with the NSW SES throughout and worked with them to find an appropriate location. The communication was really great and seamless. "Within three hours of the drop off I had treated the patients and was back home. "Those two patients were just so relieved and so thankful to receive medical treatment and some reassurance that even though we are still cut off, we're not completely isolated from help. "I feel really proud to have made a small difference and it feels good because it is the right thing to do." The SES has been trialling drones as an innovation program.

Drone delivers urgent supplies to cancer patients in isolated NSW flood-hit community https://t.co/XOIpveAzvx

— no_filter_Yamba (@no_filter_Yamba) May 24, 2025

*

The Federal Liberal Party-National Party Coalition formed in 1945 splits asunder in wake of the May 2025 federal election

 

At the 3 May 2025 Australian federal general election the sitting National Party MP in the Page electorate for over 11 years Kevin Hogan received 48,043 of the first preference votes and, as then Deputy Manager of Opposition Business, may have believed he remained an effective representative of his NSW Northern Rivers region electorate.

Pat Conaghan as sitting National Party MP in adjoining Cowper electorate for almost 6 years received 40,833 first preference votes and, as an Opposition 'shadow assistant minister' in two portfolios since June 2022, may also have thought he had a path back to government benches in the House of Representatives by 2028.

Now both men although re-elected to the House of Representatives, along with 7 other party members, are no longer part of the official Opposition.

They have become the very definition of a political waste of space.

Nationwide News, 20 May 2024:

A “nightmare scenario” awaits the Liberals when they rock up to the first parliamentary sitting after the bombshell Coalition split.

The Liberal Party and the Nationals are getting a D-I-V-O-R-C-E.

National Party leader David Littleproud has announced the party will dump the Coalition agreement in the wake of the disastrous election result.

He is blaming a fight over the four policy issues including the future of nuclear power and supermarket divestitures.

It is a historic move, one of the rare splits in opposition since the 1920s.

The last split was during the Joh Bjelke Petersen for Canberra push in the 1980s.

It means the Nationals will sit independently in the new Parliament, Mr Littleproud will cop a pay cut and Liberals will be reduced to just 28 seats in the 150-seat Parliament.......

“It’s with great disappointment that I announce that we’re not going to form part of that Coalition,’’ Mr Littleproud said.

The Liberal Party as it currently stands have been slashed to just 28 seats. In other words they hold one-third of the seats that the Labor Party has now claimed.

It all looked a little more respectable when the Coalition agreement was in force and the Nationals MPs were added to their tally.

The Climate Council

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

TUESDAY 20 MAY 2025

Climate denial nukes Coalition as Australians call for more climate action

The Nationals Party decision to keep denying climate science, and walk away from the Liberal Party, will hurt their constituents in the bush. Together they were a political drag on Australia’s clean energy momentum.

Climate Councillor and energy expert Greg Bourne said: “Australian voters have moved on, but some politicians are stuck in the mud of climate denial unable to even acknowledge the climate challenge is there, let alone come up with a credible plan to tackle it. And yet many in the farming community are in the direct firing line of climate change driven extreme weather events.

“The 2025 Federal Election result has shown us that parties without credible climate and energy policies are unelectable.”

Mr Bourne said this is part of a fundamental shift in Australian politics, with climate change now a permanent fixture of our elections.

“Australian voters gifted the Albanese Government with its biggest mandate since World War II. Now they have a historic opportunity to keep powering on with renewable energy and storage, do more to regulate polluters and set new, stronger climate targets, and at the same time give support to those most in need from the havoc wreaked by extreme weather events.

“The Albanese Government must demonstrate it is a party of climate science by setting a strong 2035 target that can guide the country on further and faster cuts to climate pollution. The policies that underpin that will need to address the ongoing expansion of coal, oil and gas that is driving harmful climate change. An early litmus test is a decision on the North West Shelf project.”

Greg Bourne said: “The Coalition went to the 2025 election without a plan to cut climate pollution, and a nuclear scheme that would result in massively more climate pollution, not less. They suffered their worst election defeat ever, and now the Coalition is split in two. Climate denial is political poison.”

ENDS

With a substantial majority in the House of Representatives, a solid position in the Senate and four years in which to progress Labor's long held commitment to UN treaties & conventions as well as international law & rules based order, it is being put on notice concerning the national electorate's justifiable expectations - Part Two

 

President Donald J. Trump may be well past his physical & cognitive prime, with a narcissistic personality wrapped within an incoherent 'master race' world view which is rapidly coalescing into a vicious & violent form of fascism, but as yet neither the US Congress nor the American people will remove him from office.

Which leaves America's historical allies and long-time trading partners at the mercy of the delusional reasoning behind Trump's 'America First: Making America Rich & All Powerful' decision making and the never-ending White House churn to date of presidential executive orders (63), memoranda (16), proclamations (258), assorted remarks (35), and accompanying fact sheets (142).

On Monday 12 May 2025, Trump announced representatives of the Trump Administration had met with representatives of the People's Republic of China in Switzerland and the US had agreed to a 90 day pause in import tariffs created since 2 April 2025 — with the US lowering its tariffs on Chinese goods by 115 percentage points for duration of the pause and China agreeing to lower its retaliatory tariffs on American goods by 115 percentage points for the duration.

Leaving Trump and his inner circle trying to spin the fact that as part of this agreement he has insisted on imposing a crippling 30 per cent import tax on America's own domestic industry, business & household consumers of Chinese produce & products until around mid- August 2025.

If ever there was an urgent need for a 'Oh quick, look at that shiny thing over there!' moment it was on that Monday and Trump promptly trotted it out in a bizarre executive order titled Delivering Most-Favored-Nation Prescription Drug Pricing to American Patients, May 12, 2025 and an equally bizarre fact sheet Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Announces Actions to Put American Patients First by Lowering Drug Prices and Stopping Foreign Free-riding on American Pharmaceutical Innovation, May 12, 2025.

What these two documents indicate is that Trump has turned his disgruntled gaze towards "foreign health systems [who] get a free ride" with US citizens "effectively subsidizing socialism aboard [sic]".

That 12 May Executive Order reads in part:

Sec. 3. Addressing Foreign Nations Freeloading on American-Financed Innovation.

The Secretary of Commerce and the United States Trade Representative shall take all necessary and appropriate action to ensure foreign countries are not engaged in any act, policy, or practice that may be unreasonable or discriminatory or that may impair United States national security and that has the effect of forcing American patients to pay for a disproportionate amount of global pharmaceutical research and development, including by suppressing the price of pharmaceutical products below fair market value in foreign countries.

While Sec 5 ends with:

(vi) the heads of agencies shall take all action available, in coordination with the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, to address global freeloading and price discrimination against American patients.

According to this same executive order, on or about 10 June Trump's thinly disguised threats — against US multinational pharmaceutical corporations who don't immediately respond by lowering their domestic pricing to a new level set by the Trump Administration — will morph into further "aggressive action" by the US federal government.

It seems that Donald Trump may intend to deflect attention from the failure of his economic war on China, by placing those sovereign nations with universal public health care and welfare safety net systems on a MAGA enemies list and, pursue yet another targeted economic war — this time against countries that are definitely not super powers.

With over 180 other countries due to come out of the original 90 day tariff pause on or about 7 July, it is possible that Australia, New Zealand, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland & Denmark in particular will find themselves among countries publicly labelled by Trump as pharmaceutical "freeloaders" with additional tariffs arbitrarily imposed.

 

At the beginning of April Trump's ability with the stroke of a presidential black sharpie or a late night social media post to create an over 180 nation-strong rolling global trade disruption & trigger widespread financial market uncertainty seems to have produced in him a personally gratifying inner glow. He will likely want to revisit that sensation.

The Albanese Labor Government now enjoys a record majority in the House of Representatives, in no small measure because the Prime Minister assured the Australian people that he would not allow Trump to dictate to the federal government on matters concerning this nation's own national security, economic stability, biosecurity protections or its universal health care and welfare safety net provisions.

 

"It's not surprising that there is a push and some opposition to the PBS but let me be very clear and explicit — the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) is not for sale," Albanese said during a speech on Thursday, describing the program as a "core part of who we are as Australians".

"It is a monument to the fairness at the heart of Australian life and we don't negotiate our values."

[SBS News online, 19-20 March 2025]

 

Trump's appetite for the humiliating domination of others is insatiable and seemingly only encouraged by any attempt to placate or negotiate with him as a first response to his political & economic aggression — he will keep insisting on further access & concessions while repeatedly taking economic bites out of any country which he considers weak.

The Albanese Government resisted Trump's expectations that Australia — à la former Coalition Prime Minister Morrison — would publicly support his economic war on China and that won't sit well with a US Administration which sees Australia as nothing more than a convenient geopolitical pawn it can move at will.

As Prime Minister Anthony Albanese threw his backing behind Indonesia’s bid to join the trans-Pacific free trade pact to help counter the global chaos created by US President Donald Trump’s trade war, Farrell also confirmed the government was not rushing to seek relief from US tariffs from the White House.

“China is our largest trading partner. Chinese trade is almost 10 times more valuable to Australia,” Farrell said in an interview with The Australian Financial Review to mark his reappointment to the trade portfolio after the election. “We don’t want to do less business with China, we want to do more business with China.

“We’ll make decisions about how we continue to engage with China based on our national interests and not on what the Americans may or may not want.” 

[Australian Minister for Trade & Tourism Sen. Don Farrell quoted in Australian Financial Review, 15 May 2025] 

It appears that the best way forward for any national government — especially the Australian Government — is to repeatedly say no to Trump, lodge a formal complaint against the US with the World Trade Organisation and, in Australia's case, also consider giving notice that it is withdrawing from the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA) which Trump has already trashed since his inauguration and, inform the US Government that Australia will be undertaking a formal review of every and all agreements which allow US defence forces a full-time or periodic presence on Australian territory or in its coastal waters as it is proving itself to be an unreliable ally and regional partner.

****

With a substantial majority in the House of Representatives, a solid position in the Senate and four years in which to progress Labor's long held commitment to UN treaties & conventions as well as international law & rules-based order, it is being put on notice concerning the national electorate's justifiable expectations - Part One

Re-elected Albanese government must condemn Israel’s brutality and cut ties

7 May, 2025 / Media Release

On May 5, the Israeli Parliament approved plans to annex and occupy Gaza. These plans have been discussed for months. This is a blatant mission to ethnically cleanse Gaza, advancing Israel’s colonial intentions to take over the territory and rid it of Palestinians.

For the past 19-months Israel has acted with extraordinary brutality, carrying out daily massacres, and ensuring the total decimation of infrastructure, healthcare and anything that might sustain Palestinian life. On Tuesday, one Israeli government minister vowed that ‘Gaza will be entirely destroyed.’ This follows more than two months of blockade of medical, fuel and food supplies to Gaza.

Israel’s infanticide and targeting of women and children is so severe that infants are now being born with debilitating disabilities and conditions, including, most recently, an infant born without a brain. This is due to unfathomable distress and lack of basic medical care, food and supplements.

The deliberate blocking of aid and food, which Israel admits is a tactic to pressure Hamas, is leading to starvation in Gaza, with shocking malnutrition among children in particular. ‘We are starving the children of Gaza’, said the World Health Organization Executive Director this week. ‘We are complicit.’

The re-elected Albanese government must immediately sanction Israel and comply with our obligations under the Genocide Convention and international law. This includes cutting all economic, military and diplomatic ties with Israel.

We don’t have to be a ‘major player’ to show our commitment to the basic humanity of Palestinians and be part of the global movement to pressure Israel to comply with its obligations under international law.

Max Kaiser, Executive Officer of the Jewish Council, said:

‘The election defeat of Peter Dutton and the Liberal Party makes it clear that unconditional support for Israel’s flouting of international law is not a vote-winner. Swings to Greens and independents in seats such as Wills and Blaxland demonstrate that the Australian public is outraged by the atrocities in Gaza.

‘The Jewish Council of Australia is a movement of over 1,000 Jews nationwide. We’re ramping up pressure on Albanese to act—and working side by side with our Palestinian allies to demand that our government pressure Israel to stop killing Palestinians. We are a bold and growing Jewish movement that won’t stay silent in the face of genocide. This government will hear us—and we won’t let them look away.’

It can't be sugar coated, the Australian Greens had a disastrous House of Representatives result in the 2025 federal election

 

Five days after close of polls in the 3 May 2025 federal general election, the parliamentary leader of the Australian Greens, Adam Bandt, conceded that he had lost the seat of Melbourne, which he had held for the last 14.5 years and which was the first House of Representatives electorate held by the Greens since the party's inception in 1995.

Bandt lost to a first time federal Labor candidate, Sarah Witty - 33,616 votes to 29,785 on a two-party preferred basis as at 2:28:38 PM AEST on Thursday 8 May 2025.

Melbourne was the third federal electorate lost by a sitting Australian Greens MP to Labor at this election. The others being Brisbane & Griffith, both Queensland electorates held since 2022 by Stephen Bates and Max Chandler-Mather respectively. At the time of writing, a fourth Greens MP may or may not hold the Ryan electorate (Qld) also won at the 2022 federal election.

If Ms. Elizabeth Watson-Brown does not retain Ryan then the Australian Greens will have to rely on their presence in the Senate for representation in the Australian Parliament.

It is expected that the Australian Greens will hold their 2022 representation numbers in the Senate, although this will not be confirmed until 16 May 2025 when Senate preference results are published.

The Australian Greens Party issued an online statement on 8 May 2025 which included the following statement from Adam Bandt, which although commencing with a gracious first paragraph true to form then reverted to casting blame for his defeat on others, accepting no personal responsibility, mischaracterisation and over-the-top bragging.

Comment attributable to Adam Bandt:

“A short time ago I called the Labor candidate for Melbourne, Sarah Witty, to concede, congratulate her and wish her all the best as the next Member for Melbourne.

The Greens got the highest vote in Melbourne, but One Nation and Liberal preferences will get Labor over the line.

To win in Melbourne we needed to overcome Liberal, Labor and One Nation combined, and it’s an Everest we’ve climbed a few times now, but this time we fell just short.

I want to thank the Melbourne community for regularly giving me the highest vote, including this election, and to thank you for the last 15 years and the chance to do some amazing things together.

Together we’ve made marriage equality law after getting the highest vote in the country in the plebiscite no-one should have had to have.

We worked hard together to get the highest vote in the Voice referendum, sending a message of hope that big parts of Australia still want to see First Nations justice.

Together we got dental into Medicare for kids and world leading climate legislation.

The price on pollution worked. It really worked. It was the only thing that has actually cut climate pollution in this country. In the middle of a climate crisis, we actually turned the corner.

Fighting the climate crisis is the reason I got into politics, and I want to thank you for helping us make a difference.

Together we’ve been powerful. As a community, we’ve been a progressive beacon for the nation. We’ve stood for justice, for compassion and we’ve led the way on the national stage.

It has been a joy to represent you and I hope I’ve made you proud.

I’m really proud of what I’ve achieved as Leader.

We’ve achieved the highest vote in Greens history and our biggest ever representation in Parliament.

We got billions for public and community housing, we won people the right to disconnect, and strengthened our climate laws, even though nowhere nearly enough.

This election, we may end up also with a record high vote in the Senate too of around 13%, with some Senators effectively getting a quota in their own right.

I leave with the Greens now having the sole balance of power in the Senate.

The government now can’t blame any independent Senator for not making reforms: the only thing stopping getting dental into Medicare, stopping new coal and gas mines or rebalancing housing tax breaks is the government itself.

There are also now a big number of seats across the country where the Greens are second.

We know about the Greens, the Teals, and now there’s the Purples. Mix red and blue together and you get purple. There are now a swathe of seats where Labor MPs owe their political life to the Liberals’ preferences, and the Greens are the real opposition to the two party system.

If the government doesn’t use its big majority to start actually cutting climate pollution and tackling Australia’s massive inequality crisis, watch for a big swing at the next election and see those purple seats go Green.

In Melbourne, the boundaries changed and made the seat much more marginal, and I feel that a number of people shifted their votes to Labor to keep Dutton out, but by far the biggest factor was Liberal and One Nation preferences going to Labor to push them over the line despite our high primary vote.

As I said before, to win in Melbourne, we have had to regularly overcome the two major parties working together on preferences. It’s not like the traditional contests, where Labor just has to beat Liberal. The Greens have had to beat Labor and Liberal combined. It’s climbing Everest, and we’ve managed to do it a few times, but this time we fell just short. More people in Melbourne voted Greens than anyone else - we got the highest vote - but Liberal and One Nation preferences will get Labor over the line.

I don’t know if many other minor party or independent MPs have done what we’ve done and won without either major party sending them preferences, but we’ve done something pretty incredible over the years. This time, everyone was gunning for us, and we came very very close, but couldn’t quite get there.

I hope that the media start to hold this new Labor majority government to account on climate especially, because the government is saying they care but are approving more coal and gas projects and putting a safer climate out of reach.

I want to thank my colleagues for their strong support and absolute brilliance. I want to thank the former Leaders of our party who have offered me wisdom and guidance. As well as everyone in Melbourne, I especially want to thank the African and Muslim communities, who have welcomed me so warmly and who I’ve been so proud to represent.

I'm proud to have raised my voice for the people of Palestine who are being decimated, and to have continued to call for a just and lasting peace for Palestinians and Israelis based on an end to the invasion and an end to the occupation.

Millions of people have voted Greens – renters and first home buyers, people who want real action on the climate and environment emergency, all those horrified about the genocide of the Palestinian people – you’ve sent a clear message that you want action. The Greens will keep fighting for you.

When you’re taking on the combined might of both major parties, big corporations, the coal and gas lobby, and challenging a system that puts their profit before people, there will be obstacles. But I know we are on the right path and we won’t stop now.

To the tens of thousands of people who have poured their hearts into our movement – you have run a bold, joyful, visionary campaign, and I cannot thank you enough.

I want to thank my incredible staff and all the Greens team, who have worked so hard over all these years, for their trust and support. Your commitment and intellect amazes me daily.

Thanks to my kids for your love, support and patience. Thanks to my Mum and Dad for doing so much to make this possible. And finally, thank you to my incredible wife Claudia, who is one of the sharpest political minds I know, for being my partner on this journey, and for all you have given.”

Hopefully the Australian Greens Party will regain the respect and confidence of the national electorate which was sadly diminished under Adam Bandt's style of national leadership.

North Coast Voices going forward into 2026

 

It is becoming increasingly difficult to read digital text and normal-sized print newspapers, therefore researching issues of interest for publication has become a hard task.

Reliant as I am on the public health system in a regional area, I'm am still only two months into a twelve month plus wait for corrective treatment to restore full sight to one eye and a further unspecified wait for treatment of the other eye.

Therefore until March-April 2026 I will not be resuming posting on North Coast Voices on a daily basis, but will attempt to post on issues of interest from time to time. 

I hope that those who have visited this blog over the years will still pop in occasionally over the next ten months until hopefully normal publication resumes.

Clarencegirl

 

Clarence Valley Council State of Play May 2025

On 14 September 2024 the most recent scheduled state wide election of NSW local governments took place.

In the Clarence Valley 17 local residents and/or ratepayers put their names forward as candidates at that election and, the election itself was an unremarkable event at which 35,061 eligible residents, out of a possible 41,897 residential and non-residential electors enrolled in this area on 5 August 2024, cast their ballots for the nine vacated councillor positions.

By 2 October 2024 the election results were declared.

Listed in the order in which they reached the required quota or otherwise became eligible, the following nine candidates were declared elected for a four-year term:

Cristie YAGER (IND) - elected at the first count;

Peter JOHNSTONE (IND) - elected at the first count. Served on the previous council;

Greg CLANCY (GRN) - elected at the second count. Served on the previous council;

Ray SMITH (IND) - elected at the ninth count;

Allison WHAITES (IND) - elected at the eleventh count. Served on the previous council;

Shane CAUSLEY - elected at the eleventh count;

Lynne CAIRNS (IND) - elected at the fourteenth count;

Debrah NOVAK (IND) - elected at the fourteenth count. Served on the previous council; and

Karen TOMS (IND) - elected at the sixteenth count. Served on the previous council.

Thus far, like the other two tiers of government, Clarence Valley Local Government Area has resisted electing its leader by 'popular vote' and it is the councillors who chose the mayor who holds office for a two-year term.

On 3 October 2024, I remarked here that:

Hopefully Ray Smith will resist the urge to put his name forward for mayor. Being a former general manager of Grafton City Council is rather a poor recommendation in my opinion.

The five returning councillors and four new councillors ignored the stable from which Ray Smith sprang and elected him as Clarence Valley Council mayor.

Thus, seven months into his 24 month first term, Mayor Ray Smith's poor leadership and community communication skills has resulted in a growing rift between Council and valley residents/ ratepayers, along with barely concealed chaos at monthly council meetings.

The electorates growing dissatisfaction with both Mayor Smith and General Manager Laura Black came to a head during the Thursday, 20 February 2025 Ordinary Monthly Meeting at the first item of business after confirmation of the previous meeting's minutes:

MAYORAL MINUTE

5.1 General Manager - Annual Performance Review

Item Reference Number 2025.1384

Meeting Council 20 February 2025

Submitted by Ray Smith, Cr

Attachments None

SUMMARY

The review was completed in accordance with the OLG Guidelines on the Appointment and Oversight of General Managers. In accordance with the Guideline, this Mayoral Minute is the official report to Council on the General Manager's Annual Performance Review. It is not an opportunity to debate results or revisit the General Manager's performance review.

The annual period under assessment was October 2023 - October 2024. A facilitator from Local Government NSW was present to assist the panel in accordance with the Guidelines. The General Manager was assessed against Performance targets set by the former Mayor Peter Johnstone in conjunction with the General Manager at the start of the performance management period, in October 2023.

The Annual Performance Panel comprised the Mayor Ray Smith, Deputy Mayor Greg Clancy, Cr Cristie Yager and Cr Debrah Novak. Following a six month progress assessment being completed by the previous Council, by a panel comprising former Mayor Peter Johnstone, former Deputy Mayor Jeff Smith, Cr Karen Toms and Cr Debrah Novak.

PROPOSED MOTION

That Council

1. note the Annual Performance Management report from the Performance Management Review Panel.

2. endorse the recommendation from the Performance Management Review Panel to award the General Manager 2.5% performance pay increase under Clause 8.3 of the Standard Contract of Employment for General Managers of Local Councils in New South Wales with the increase backdated to 7 October 2024.....

BACKGROUND

The Panel agreed that the performance of the General Manager met, and in some instances exceeded targets. The Panel acknowledged the General Manager's leadership and positive impact on staff culture. The General Manager fosters strong relationships through accessibility, effective delegation, and consistent management practices. Staff feel supported and capable, and there is mutual professional respect between senior staff and the General Manager. Improvements in staff retention and engagement with the community have been noted, alongside a positive relationship with unions. Reporting to Councillors is generally satisfactory, with only minor delays. The leadership team's capability and the General Manager's proactive problem-solving are recognised. Overall, performance and engagement are steadily improving, supported by Council and the review panel.

The performance agreement, action plan and any associated records that contain specific information about the work performance or conduct of the General Manager are to remain confidential unless otherwise agreed to by the General Manager or are required to be disclosed by law. The unauthorised disclosure of this information may constitute a breach of the Act, the Council’s Code of Conduct and the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act 1998.

At that point in the meeting Mayor Smith came face-to-face with evidence that the content of his motion and the glowing terms he applied to the current general manager were not universally shared by Clarence Valley residents.

Mayor Smith apparently took umbrage and decided to call NSW Police to attend that 20 February meeting.

A decision which did nothing to ease the tensions building between Council and the Clarence Valley local government electorate and which are being reflected during Chamber debates.

On 11 April 2025 at an Extraordinary Council Meeting, Council in the Chamber walked back the General Manager's high handed operational decision which had been one of the trigger points for community dissatisfaction - to evict long-term casual occupants from its four caravan parks at Brooms Head, Iluka, Minnie Water and Wooli - and voted for the recission motion (p 4 of 11 April 2025 Minutes) put forward by Crs. Cairns, Clancy and Yager.

The final form of the resolution reading:

COUNCIL RESOLUTION - 4.2025.2

Cr Cairns/Cr Clancy

That Council:

1. directs the General Manager to have all occupants who have long-term (casual occupation) agreements relating to the right to occupy moveable dwelling sites in Brooms Head, Iluka, Minnie Water and Wooli Holiday Parks and who have received notice advising them of the termination of their long term (casual occupation) agreements, written to informing them of the following:

a. council withdraws the current proposed termination notices of the long term (casual occupation) agreements for the moveable dwelling sites used by the long-term casual occupants in Brooms Head, Iluka, Minnie Water and Wooli Holiday Parks.

b. council provides delegation to the General Manager to retain the existing Long Term (Casual Occupation) occupants, and that Council will enter into new Long Term (Casual Occupation) Agreements, utilising the Occupation Agreement template, and this is to be carried out immediately.

c. council will consider any changes to the current site uses of the Brooms Head, Iluka, Minnie Water and Wooli Holiday Parks during the formulation of the Plans of Management, and with full involvement of the Traditional Owners in accordance with the Native Title Act 1993.

Voting recorded as follows

For: Cr Yager, Cr Clancy, Cr Cairns, Cr Smith, Cr Causley

Against: Cr Whaites, Cr Novak, Cr Johnstone CARRIED

Although this resolution gave some relief to those affected by the general manager's operational decision, it exacerbated the rift that had developed between councillors during Ray Smith's mayoral term and, has done little to alleviate concern's growing in relation to Mayor Smith's:

a) lacklustre personal commitment to the process of community consultation;

b) proposal to restrict Clarence Valley residents and ratepayers attendance at council meetings - in their capacity as community members - under an admission ticketing system;

c) apparent desire to sever the Clarence Valley's historical ties to the Northern Rivers region - presumably to 'protect' council from the terrible dangers of moving away from any NSW National Party agenda which survived the change of state government in 2023; and

d) encouragement of a divisive partisan atmosphere amongst councillors.

Neither has it alleviated the ongoing concerns of Lower Clarence communities in relation to urban development pressures resulting in ill-advised changes to topography within or adjacent to town and village boundaries resulting in permanent changes to flood water flows, nor the ongoing failure to address the disconnect between urban stormwater networks designed with an uncertain upper load capacity and the increasing number of properties being added to these networks.

BACKGROUND

Sunday Telegraph, 5 April 2025:

It was meant to be their golden years. Instead, elderly residents across four Northern Rivers caravan parks are gearing up for the fight of their lives, with officials rallying behind them as they battle to save their caravans from demolition.

The Daily Telegraph reported last month how Clarence Valley Council had advised more than 130 caravan owners – via a letter – that they needed to vacate their leased sites to make room for tourists.

Now, residents are considering legal action, while Nationals MP Richie Williamson and some councillors have pushed back against the decision to turf them all out by June 30....

Clarence Valley Independent, 26 April 2025:

Within minutes of it opening, the monthly Ordinary Meeting of Clarence Valley Council (CVC) on April 17 was prematurely adjourned following angry and emotionally charged outbursts by members of the public in the gallery.

It was the third month in a row CVC Mayor Ray Smith had been forced to call an adjournment.

Clarence Valley Independent 2 May 2025:

Ordinary and Extraordinary Meetings of Clarence Valley Council (CVC) could proceed in the future with limited public attendance after CVC Mayor Ray Smith spoke of his plans to contact the Office of Local Government this week.

When councillors met for the rescheduled monthly Ordinary Meeting of CVC at the Grafton Council Chambers on April 24, the Mayor was forced to adjourn proceedings on a number of occasions in the interests of the safety and wellbeing of councillors, council staff, members of the public seated in the gallery, and media personnel in attendance after a number of people continued to disrupt the event throughout the afternoon.

As he expressed his disappointment and reiterated previous comments made in relation to his acknowledgement of emotions and tensions running high within the local community following recent comments made by Councillor Debrah Novak during an Extraordinary Meeting of CVC on April 11 and other recent decisions made by Council, the Mayor said he cannot continue to adjourn meetings and subsequently delay council business which impacts other Clarence Valley residents.

Despite the presence of two security guards, Mayor Smith revealed he put forward a Notice of Motion to continue the rescheduled monthly Ordinary Meeting of CVC without the public being in attendance to enable Council to get through more than 20 items of business on the agenda without experiencing further interruptions.

It was carried 6-3.

The decision was made at the conclusion of another 15-minute adjournment while members of the public and Clarence Valley Independent journalist Emma Pritchard were outside the Grafton Council Chambers....