The north-east NSW coastal fringe started the week with reasonable land & sea temperatures and only 6 bush & grass fires at advice level

Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM), 18 September 2023: 

Air-Surface Temperature 4pm Monday 18 September 2023
MAP: BOM

Between 6am to 4pm Monday 18 September 2023 temperatures along the coastal fringe of north-east NSW ranged from 5.5°C to 26.7°C as the day progressed.

Sea Surface Temperatures & Current Direction 

4pm Monday 18 September 2023

MAP: BOM

The East Australian Current was still bringing waters close to shore which were a comfortable 20-21°C at 4pm Monday 18 September 2023.

This may not last long.....

Australian Bureau of Meteorology

Warmer than median October to December days and nights for almost all of Australia

Issued: 14 September 2023

For October to December, above median maximum temperatures are very likely (greater than 80% chance) for almost all of Australia.

For October to December, most of Australia is at least 3 times likely to experience unusually high maximum temperatures, with chances increasing to more than 4 times likely for most of western and central WA, and parts of central and south-eastern Australia. Unusually high maximum temperatures equate to the warmest 20% of October to December periods from 1981 to 2018.

For October to December, minimum temperatures are very likely (greater than 80% chance) for almost all of Australia apart from a small area of Queensland's North Tropical Coast.

For October to December, broad areas of Australia are at least 2.5 times likely to experience unusually high minimum temperatures, with chances increasing to more than four times likely for parts of central WA, southern Queensland, and north-east NSW. Unusually high minimum temperatures equate to the warmest 20% of October to December periods from 1981 to 2018.

Past accuracy of the October to December long-range forecast for chance of above median maximum temperatures has been high to very high across all of Australia. For minimum temperatures, accuracy is high to very high for most of Australia, dropping to low to moderate for parts of north-western Australia.

Lismore City Council began its new local government 4 year-term term in earnest at an Ordinary Monthly Meeting at 6pm on 8 February 2022. It quickly went downhill....

Banyam Baigham, The Sleeping Lizard
Images: Change.org & David Lowe

With little forewarning Lismore City Council Business Paper for its Ordinary Monthly Meeting of 8 February 2022 contained a Notice of Motion which shocked and alarmed the Widjabul Wia-bal People, traditional owners of the unceded lands on which Lismore local government asserts a jurisdictional right, as well as shocking a good many residents in the wider community of the Lismore area and across Northern New South Wales. 

Motion 10.7 North Lismore Plateau read thus:

Councillor Big Rob has given notice of intention to move:

That:

1. Council take no further action in relation to its decision of 13 July 2021 (Item BP21/567) to hand back all Council owned land at the North Lismore Plateau to the traditional owners;

2. staff prepare suitable information and budget estimates for consideration in the upcoming Operational Plan and budget process to investigate options for Council to realise a financial return on its R1 zoned land at the North Lismore Plateau;

3. the information above include an analysis of Council’s obligations and associated costs to rehabilitate the quarry having regard to the North Lismore Quarry End Use Plan 2012, the North Lismore Quarry Rehabilitation Plan 2012, with a particular focus on the E2 and E3 zoned land;

and

4. Council provide in principle support to transfer ownership of the E2 and E3 zoned land owned by Council at the North Lismore Plateau to the traditional owners and prepare budget estimates and supporting information to allow further consideration of this matter in the upcoming Operational Plan and budget process.  [my yellow highlighting]

The initial public reactions was two-fold - an online petition and a public meeting.

Big crowd on hand to support Widjabul Wia-bal People in their fight to see North Lismore Plateau returned to them as the Lismore Council promised last year. pic.twitter.com/JzBztv4zuq

— Michael Bennett (@nthistorian) February 8, 2022

The Lismore Council meeting was webcast at 6pm and the following Twitter stream of consciousness from among those watching began in the hour before the meeting opened and once the relevant item was reached.

• Do Lismore City councilors realise if they go forward /w assent in any form of Motion 10.7 North Lismore Plateau at tonight's Ordinary Monthly Meeting then Council will likely be subject of least 2 formal complaints to NSW Office of Local Government & to Minister? @WendyTuckerman

• Have signed petition, downloaded business paper & attachment & opened a screen to listen to Lismore Council Ordinary Meeting at 6pm. I am seriously pissed off with Lismore City councillors!

• I think the SK team will get the shits with Big Rob calling all the shots. This might be the turning point. (Noticed Nimbin GT labelled it Big Robbery).

• this is not the only issue being tabled. The Sleeping Lizard agenda will attract much attention and the response may surprise this arrogant new council and mayor. The newly elected council are all in for a tough time and deservedly so.

• What a way for the new Lismore City Council to start its local government term 😂😂😂

• Uncle Mickey Ryan just presented a petition of 25,000 people to the Lismore Council meeting.

He expressed his thanks to all that have shown their support.

• Way to go! Opponents of Motion 10.7 North Lismore Plateau politely & carefully raised the prospect of racist intent. The colonialist attitude of take what you want & let First Nations live on the scraps you don't want was written all over it #LismoreCityCouncil

• Not normally a fan of watching Council meetings but that was superb.

• One LGA resident told Lismore City councilors that if they voted for Motion 10.7 North Lismore Plateau they will be on the wrong side of history & another told councilors who might support this motion that it looked as through they intended to "steal" the land a second time.

• Yet another LGA resident told councillors Motion 10.7 North Lismore Plateau is a test of their personal characters & referred to colonial attitudes towards First Nations peoples.

• I never thought watching a Lismore City Council meeting would bring me so much joy. The deputations are on fire! #landrights #reconciliation #SleepingLizard #GiveItBack

• OMG! Motion 10.7 Lismore Plateau is being changed on the run before being voted on - the details clearly demonstrating one particular councilor has no idea what spiritual connection to Country actually means. #OdiousDestructiveColonialismIsAliveAndWellAtLismoreCouncil

• And the newby Mayor is making it worse!

• Elly doing best to stop the mess that Cr. Rob created

• Sheesh Mayor Krieg is totally out of his depth.

• Yes. Caught the last 5 minutes. BR reading the meeting code and getting it totally wrong.

The Mayor’s got even less of an idea. It’s pathetic.

• He thought he knew how to chair a meeting because he was a school teacher. Oh well, reality strikes.

• I just witnessed so many breaches of the meeting code of practice, I don’t know where you would start a complaint.

• A certain Lismore City councilor is calling the Sleeping Lizard "a piece of crap land" then tries to walk it back and blame others a la Scotty Morrison.

• Oh please, someone save those new Lismore City councilors from themselves before they wreck this particular local government. A 5 minute break has been called in the OGM

• I honestly fear for Lismore City Council. If it continues breaching Code of Meeting Practice & Practice Notes it will be under administration before June.

• Motion 10.7 North Lismore Plateau before Lismore City Council at OGM 8 Feb 2022 failed decidedly! No-one except the mover voted for it.

• And the motion goes down.

• It should never have been contemplated, let alone put to a vote. This kind of shit harms people.

That said, I’m glad it was voted down.

• 9-1! Excellent news.

• Good news

• Finally, in spite of the Lismore City Mayor & Cr. Rob the experienced councillors finally put the issue of Motion 10.7 to bed.

• Honestly I have never witnessed new local government councillors anywhere undertake such a sustained insult of First Nations culture, lore & law #LismoreCityCouncil

• To see the response to Lismore council brings strength to my soul. Thank you to everyone who has helped.

Yessss pic.twitter.com/TP6Ukvbbq5

— sᴉɹɹǝℲ ǝllǝɥɔoɹ (@OzEcology) February 8, 2022

*

ULURU STATEMENT FROM THE HEART, 26 May 20017

ULURU STATEMENT FROM THE HEART

We, gathered at the 2017 National Constitutional Convention, coming from all points of the southern sky, make this statement from the heart:

Our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tribes were the first sovereign Nations of the Australian continent and its adjacent islands, and possessed it under our own laws and customs. This our ancestors did, according to the reckoning of our culture, from the Creation, according to the common law from ‘time immemorial’, and according to science more than 60,000 years ago.

This sovereignty is a spiritual notion: the ancestral tie between the land, or ‘mother nature’, and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who were born therefrom, remain attached thereto, and must one day return thither to be united with our ancestors. This link is the basis of the ownership of the soil, or better, of sovereignty. It has never been ceded or extinguished, and co-exists with the sovereignty of the Crown.

How could it be otherwise? That peoples possessed a land for sixty millennia and this sacred link disappears from world history in merely the last two hundred years?

With substantive constitutional change and structural reform, we believe this ancient sovereignty can shine through as a fuller expression of Australia’s nationhood.

Proportionally, we are the most incarcerated people on the planet. We are not an innately criminal people. Our children are aliened from their families at unprecedented rates. This cannot be because we have no love for them. And our youth languish in detention in obscene numbers. They should be our hope for the future.

These dimensions of our crisis tell plainly the structural nature of our problem. This is the torment of our powerlessness.

We seek constitutional reforms to empower our people and take a rightful place in our own country. When we have power over our destiny our children will flourish. They will walk in two worlds and their culture will be a gift to their country.

We call for the establishment of a First Nations Voice enshrined in the Constitution.

Makarrata is the culmination of our agenda: the coming together after a struggle. It captures our aspirations for a fair and truthful relationship with the people of Australia and a better future for our children based on justice and self-determination.

We seek a Makarrata Commission to supervise a process of agreement-making between governments and First Nations and truth-telling about our history.

In 1967 we were counted, in 2017 we seek to be heard. We leave base camp and start our trek across this vast country. We invite you to walk with us in a movement of the Australian people for a better future.

26 May 2017

Australia is the only Commonwealth country that does not have a treaty with its Indigenous peoples.

The imporatnce of Indigenous Protected Areas as part of Australia's National Reserve System

Country Needs People:

Here at Country Needs People, we focus a lot of attention on Indigenous rangers. There’s a pretty good reason for that. It’s a phenomenally successful program that is having a positive effect on the lives of Indigenous people across the country. But there’s a second side to our campaign, which sometimes feels overlooked, but which is just as important.

Securing the future of Indigenous Protected Areas will mark another critically important milestone in recognising the value of Indigenous land and sea management to Australia.

Increasingly, Indigenous Protected Areas, or IPAs, are being appreciated as an expression of cultural and economic self-determination for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. IPAs are tangible demonstrations of connection to country, but also provide an important social and economic foundation for improving health, education, employment and cultural identity.

IPAs are recognised as part of the Australian Government’s National Reserve System. To date there are more than 70 IPAs, covering 65,000,000 hectares of Indigenous owned or controlled land and sea areas. IPAs are are voluntarily entered into by Indigenous land owners and as part of any agreement with the Australian Government to manage biodiversity; local Traditional Owners initiate the process, and develop a management plan according to criteria which address both local priorities and national biodiversity priorities.  

Typically these two aspects strongly overlap.  The program combines extremely well with the Indigenous Rangers initiatives to result in a strategic, locally led natural and cultural management approach combining highly valuable traditional and local knowledge and contemporary science.  

The IPA is 'declared' formally at a time the Traditional Owners determine, it then becomes part of Australia's national reserve system the NRS.

Read the rest of the post here.

Australian Dept. of the Environment, February 2013:

Stretching over 1,114 hectares of the Lower Richmond Valley on the northern coast of New South Wales, Ngunya Jargoon Indigenous Protected Area is a refuge for an extraordinary number of plants and animals.

Part of the traditional homelands of the Bundjalung people of Ballina and Cabbage Tree Island, Ngunya Jargoon itself is of particular significance to the Nyangbul clan group.

This natural oasis lies in a region suffering from fragmented habitat due to historic land clearing. It is the last remaining intact native area on the lower Richmond floodplain and contains heath and woodlands, rainforest and eucalyptus forest.

Bingil Creek, flowing along the eastern side of the protected area, is in near-pristine condition.

Next to the Blackwell range and Tuckean Swamp, Ngunya Jargoon creates a wildlife corridor between the region's protected areas and provides a home to 38 threatened animal species such as the long-nosed potoroos and other important species including swamp wallabies, koalas and red-bellied black snakes.

More than 400 native plant species are found here, many of which the Bundjalung people used for food, medicine and tools. Bundjalung used broad-leafed paperbark for wrapping food prior to cooking, as a bandage and as a coolamon.

Bush fruits such as geebungs, fiver corners and sour currents played a big part in people's diets. Resin from grass trees, a culturally important plant currently in decline, was used to make glue for firesticks.

Archaeological and historic records paint a rich picture of Indigenous occupation in the area which stretches back thousands of years.

Because large parts of Ngunya Jargoon Indigenous Protected Area have never been developed or damaged, a number of significant discoveries including artefacts which point to precontact economies during the Holocene period, have been made.

Cultural sites containing a large number of artefacts such as stone axes and flake tools and numerous middens and scar trees have also been recorded on the IPA.

The Bundjalung people are guided by the values of healthy country, intergenerational learning, sustainable business and enjoyment to shape their country's future. They plan to develop an outdoor learning space, build walking tracks and collecting native seeds for regeneration programs as part of their management plan for Ngunya Jargoon.

For more than 10 years, the Mibinj Green Team, made up of Bundjalung people, have been working on country. They've undertaken extensive rubbish collections, cultural surveys, revegetation and fencing activities.

Dedicated as an Indigenous Protected Area on 12 February 2013, Ngunya Jargoon has become part of Australia's National Reserve System, ensuring it will be maintained for future generations to enjoy.

Ngunya Jargoon Indigenous Protected Area will be managed under the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Category VI, as a protected area which is managed for conservation and the sustainable use of natural resources.

Unfortunately the Ngunya Jargoon IPA, which is home to a total of 38 threatened species, falls along the proposed Woolgoolga to Ballina Pacific Highway upgrade that was approved by the Abbott Government in August 2014.

Clarence Landcare "Making Commercial Farming Systems Sustainable with Bob Shaffer" 9.15 to 3pm at Harwood 15 May 2013

Click on image to enlarge

The Great NSW Crown Roads Scam

Suppose that by some historical mishap a section of your neighbours' land been included into your block. In farming communities this can happen due to a bad sense of direction while fencing.

It is up to the owner of the land to have the land surveyed and the cost of fencing the area properly are shared 50-50 between the neighbours. 

Once this land is returned to the legal owner it is up to the owner to control weeds and feral pest.

Not so if the land in question are crown roads belonging to the state government. 

The state government has decided that you the land holder have to pay for the land surveyed then pay for all the fencing and once this is done you are still responsible for weeds and feral pest.

Talk about a bad neighbour, you cannot even take them to court to achieve a fairer settlement.  

I suppose I should explain what crown roads are, they are in reality lines that were drawn on maps to accommodate for population expansion, or access to plots of land.

No investigation was done to find out the need or suitability of these roads. The result is that there are roads going through wetlands, floodplains, through steep gullies and even up cliff faces.

For years the rent was very low, then the state government had a problem with the crown roads around the Sydney harbour area. Millionaires renting foreshore crown roads for $5 per year so KPMG the financing firm were brought in to investigate and report on the crown road systems.

The result was the rent for these crown roads went through the roof, it all depended how many blocks of land you own and how many crown roads are within the blocks. Increases in rent from $50 per year to $800 per year are common.

If this was residential land you could go to the rental board and protest the large rental increase. but since the state government is the landlord you do not have any options for redress.

I agreed to buy the crown roads on my land 7 years ago when I received their offer of purchase, but because of the inactivity of the Department of Trade & Investment Crown Lands it has taken them 7 years to present me with their final offer.

All this time I was forced to pay them rent on the roads. Since it was no fault of mine that the process took so long I thought that at least some of that rent money should be credited towards the sale.

Not so the state governments reply.

Then we come to the purchase price of the crown roads, this process has followed the same reasoning that caused the roads to be created.

Neverland thinking has decided that the valuer generals estimation of property value should be used regardless of the market value of the land or its production potential.

This means that cliff faces can cost $7,000 per hectare, and is included if you wish to fence the area out.

Wetlands are another source of problems, these areas come under the state government Wetland policy SEPP 14, with all the restrictions to land use that are under this act, but when the price of crown roads is concerned it makes no difference.

An example of this is a lower Clarence farmer who owns land that is a wetland. He has been told that the crown roads on his property will cost him $7,243 hectare. 

When he pointed out that his neighbour who has flood free prime cropping land has had his place on the market for 3 years for $3,000 per hectare and has still not been able to sell his land, he was told that it was not relevant and the price of the crown roads in his farm would remain at the price the department demanded.

Back to my gripes with this process - it has taken the state government 7 years to come to the party and give me a price for the crown roads on my property yet they give me a deadline of 30 days to accept or decline the offer.

It seems that I have no right to negotiate a more realistic price for this land based on market value or production potential or restriction imposed by the state government. If I refuse to buy the roads I have two options:

•     Pay for surveying the land and fencing it out of my property, and then still be responsible for weeds and feral pests on this land. Not to mention that the road would cut the property into two portions which would make the farm management very hard.
•      Pay the rent that the state government demands, which has no basis in land use or land value. Currently the state government rent on 2 hectare on a 97 hectare property is more than a third of my council rates. I am sure that this rent will increase exponentially.

So what can you do when the state government, who makes the rules and enforces them, extorts farmers to pay for a historical stuff-up of the government's making. 

Then the state government demands fees and charges of over $1,700 which are not negotiable on each transaction.

Who do you go to get some justice? Who has the money to take this to the courts? Not me.

This process is a classic standover practice commonly used by criminal gangs but because it is the state government using this process it is deemed legal, with no thought given to fairness or justice.

I wonder if they’ll accept that interesting bottle of Grange I found on my doorstep this morning in lieu of those dollars........