Is everyone with any authority still playing Pass The Parcel with the health and safety of communities on NSW coastal floodplains? Will the Northern Rivers see effective state planning legislation amendments before the next big flood? Will local governments across the region stiffen their spines & act?

The Echo, 11 May 2023:

Development site at 60 Tringa Street, Tweed Heads, on Cobaki Creek.

Both the Tweed District Residents Association (TDRA) and Kingscliff Ratepayers and Progress Association (KRPA) have recently called for a moratorium on existing legacy or zombie development approvals (DAs) on floodplains. The state government continues to say that councils have the ability to deal with these problematic DAs, but the evidence seems to say otherwise.

The failure of current legislation to stop legacy DAs is of particular concern to the TDRA which has been seeking stop work orders on the recent activity by MAAS Group Holdings at Tweed on Cobaki Creek. MAAS bought the property, with a 27-year-old legacy development approval on it, last year for $20M+ and have started clearing the sensitive site. The Tweed Council have asked MAAS to ‘cease work’, but MAAS have declined leaving both Council and locals frustrated with their inability to stop the work and have the site reassessed in relation to flood and environmental impacts of the DA.

NSW Premier

Responding to The Echo NSW Premier Chris Minns, who spoke to community representatives on the issue of legacy developments in the lead-up to the NSW election said, ‘My office will be working closely with the planning minister as the government works on new rules to stop new developments on dangerous floodplains – having been on the ground in the region over the past couple of years, I know how important it is to get this addressed.’

The Department of Planning and Environment (DPE) told The Echo that, ‘The government is committed to drafting new rules and streamlining planning processes to stop new developments on dangerous floodplains’ yet they have thrown responsibility back to councils saying they already have the legal power to look at legacy developments.

‘Councils already have legal power under the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act to take action against existing zombie developments, and DPE tightened planning rules in 2020 to clamp down on new ones,’ a DPE spokesperson said.

‘Councils also have powers to investigate and take enforcement action if they are concerned whether physical commencement has occurred, or if any part of the development does not comply with the relevant consent….

Action needed now

Peter Newton from KRPA responded to the DPE’s statement saying ‘it’s disappointing that the department has thrown this on Council’s shoulders given that it is obvious the legislation is not strong enough for Council to actually prevent legacy developments from proceeding, such as Cobaki, where the Council “cease” orders have been disregarded. The legislation is not working and needs the state government to step in and commit to reform.’

Tweed Council’s General Manager, Troy Green also highlighted the current failures in Council’s powers to take action on these types of DAs.

‘There has been no change in Council or state policy concerning floodplain development post the 2022 floods. The NSW State Government Flood Inquiry made various recommendations concerning floodplain development from which there have been no subsequent directions from the government,’ Mr Green told The Echo…...

Read the full article here.

Cartoon of the Week

Cathy Wilcox

Australian Bushfire Season 2019-20: Northern Rivers communities once again demonstrate that they care

Echo NetDaily, 17 January 2020:

11 volunteers headed up to farms near Tabulam last weekend to help get fences back in place following devastating bushfires in December. Photo supplied.

Having his and his neighbours farms devastated by fires in December, including the loss of one of their homes, local Byron Shire resident Bart Vanarey had put the call out for helping hands to rebuild fences on their properties. He was not left disappointed and had 11 people  last weekend and another 11 are people coming up this weekend to help get their perimeter fences re-built on the properties near Tabulam.

‘The response has been very heartening,’ said Bart.

Getting fence  farms near Tabulam last weekend to help get fences back in place following devastating bushfires in December. Photo supplied.

‘It was such a good weekend with helpers coming from all over the world (only in Byron Bay) from the Canary Islands, Ecuador, Canada, Texas and of course Lismore, Byron and Lennox.’

Even in the rain the volunteers got down to the hard yakka and kept building fences and while Bart was claiming they had managed to erect 700m of fencing he was told he was ‘dreamin’ and it was more like 400m.

The call was also heard by a tractor hire company who has donated a tractor to help with the fencing. Bart is continuing to raise funds for the materials and and has raised more money for another 170 fenceposts and 80 concrete fenceposts to be delivered to the properties....

Australia 2019-2020: "I have never been prouder of my nation. Leaderless, leaders emerged ... "

This is author Jackie French:

Jackie and her husband Bryan live in the Araluen valley, a deep valley on the edge of the Deua wilderness area. Most of their property is now a Conservation Refuge for the many rare and endangered species of the area. They live in a home made stone house, with a waterwheel Bryan made as well as solar panels to power their house, with an experimental orchard of over 800 fruit trees and more than 272 kinds of fruit that show how farming can coexist with wildlife. Jackie writes columns for the Canberra Times, Australian Women’s Weekly, Earthgarden Magazine, Australian Wellbeing and Gardening Australia. Her garden rambles over about 4 hectares, and there is never a time when there aren't basketsful of many kinds of fruit to pick.

The opinion piece below was penned by French.....

The Sydney Morning Herald, 9 January 2020: 

It is impossible to weep. 

I cannot weep because this is only the beginning. Logs smoulder on our ridges, a tide of injured wildlife is sweeping down into our refuge. I have been living out of a suitcase for most of the past six weeks, evacuated twice, sleeping in many different places and accepting generosity too great to count. I need to clean the pink sludge from the fridge (hint: remove watermelon from fridge before evacuating), keep putting out food and water stations, cope as desperately injured wildlife emerges from the flames, and help others in every possible way I can. 

Focus on what you can do. Don’t cry for what you can’t. 

I also cannot weep because I dare not even imagine yet all that we’ve lost. Friends have lost their houses and towns, entire communities have been displaced, the social links that make us who we are, as social beings, turned to smoke. Tourist towns have no tourists – or the heritage buildings that made them tourist towns. Businesses are bankrupt. Evacuees like me have lost months of paid work, with more lost months to come. I am OK. Many are not. 

The carefully planted local Indigenous "food larder" landscape I have loved and depended upon most of my life, and that has survived 200 years of colonisation, cannot survive fires like these. Farms and vast areas of bush already teetered on a knife-edge in the worst drought in history. Now they are ash. The Araluen Valley, south-east of Braidwood in New South Wales' Southern Tablelands, has lost much of its remaining peach orchards. Will the orchardists replant? We don’t know. 

I do know our community will support them. And that I have never been prouder of my nation.  

Leaderless, leaders emerged; the magnificent firies, but also those who defended their houses and others with nothing but hoses and determination. Our neighbour, Robyn, singlehandedly waited to defend her farm while checking on the properties of those who had evacuated, knowing that with age or injury we would now be a hindrance, not a help, on the fire front. 

I have never been prouder of my nation. Leaderless, leaders emerged ... [And] this is the comfort we must give our children: in the past weeks, Australia has been a truly great nation. We must remain one. We must not forget. 

Friends in their 70s and 80s, who would not want to be called old men, have been out for days or nights for three months with the tankers. I have seen a man, dying in great pain, still struggle towards the flames to give his wisdom on where the fire might go; I have seen wombats share their holes with snakes, quolls, possums and a nervous swamp wallaby; a fridge on the highway kept constantly stocked with cold drinks for those defending us; six firies leaning against the hospital wall, too exhausted to stagger inside for first aid. The next day they went out again..... 

Please read the full article here with its acute observations and well thought through suggestions.

So is there an army of "Quiet Australians" backing the Morrison Coalition Government or is it just another political myth

The Morrison Coalition Government, its ministers, senators and MPs, have been making much of the notion that there is a large mass of citizens who quietly agree with them on every subject they discuss and every policy position they hold. 

This survey suggests that rather than there being a large number of head nodders in the community, these so-called 'quiet' Australians may broadly disagree with the Morrison Government on issues involving treatment of vulnerable people and low income households - especially when it comes to the Newstart Allowance level of payment. 

Essential Report, Australian survey, 8 August 2019 by clarencegirl on Scribd

  http://www.scribd.com/document/421336946/Essential-Report-Australian-survey-8-August-2019