‘ W E A R E T H E O D D S O C K S ’ – M A N DY N O L A N The Byron Shire Echo • Volume 39 #19 • October 16, 2024 • www.echo.net.au
Determining the future of Byron’s new Council makes history the Byron Bay Golf Club Aslan Shand The Byron Bay Golf Club (BBGC) has seen significant board resignations and a refusal of a member request for an extraordinary general meeting since the attempt by some board members to include the golf course land in the Byron Shire Council’s (BSC) Residential Strategy 2041. The BBGC was established in 1957 by local golf enthusiasts who bought a 193-acre dairy farm on Broken Head Road. With regular working bees and household mowers the golf course began to take shape. Today the BBGC is ‘a challenging 18-hole championship course’ and a place that many koalas and other wildlife call home. The attempt by some board members to include the land of the BBGC for housing in 2023 has caused significant upheaval at the club. Some members, who have asked not to be named, have contacted The Echo to highlight the fact that while the proposal to include the BBGC site in the residential strategy was withdrawn at the 14 March 2024 BSC meeting, they feel that there is still a push to sell the land for housing development from some members. During discussions to include the BBGC in the residential strategy, with then Byron Shire Mayor Michael Lyon, it is understood that the club were seeking assurances that an alternative site in Myocum would be available to create a future golf course. ‘The main issue for many
club members is to keep this an everyday members’ club and not a privatised, exclusive club that is too expensive for the common person,’ one member told The Echo. ‘Fees have gone up ten per cent a year and they are getting to the point that they are borderline unaffordable for many locals. The effect is that it becomes an exclusive private club that untlises the public asset for the private means.’ BBGC manager Shaun Breheny told The Echo that ‘the golf club does not currently have an application in with Byron Shire Council to rezone the land to housing’. This was confirmed by board member Ralf Pelz who said, ‘there is no plan whatsoever for any subdivision or anything for sale from the board’s point of view. There is nothing on the table.’
General meeting called Following a spate of resignations from the BBGC board, five per cent of the playing and voting membership asked for an extraordinary general meeting (EGM), as they felt that the board should have called a meeting to elect new board members rather than simply appoint them. This request was denied by the board who stated that a member EGM required a notice period of 60 days. However, the board have now brought forward the December annual general meeting (AGM) telling members in their September newsletter that ‘the board acknowledges the intent of the notice and ▶ Continued on page 7
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The 2024 Byron Shire Council is made up of councillors (left to right) Michael Lyon, Michelle Lowe, Delta Kay, Elia Hauge, Mayor Sarah Ndiaye, Jack Dods, David Warth, Janet Swain and Asren Pugh. Photo Tree Faerie Paul Bibby History was made at the Byron Council chambers last week when two First Nations women were sworn in as local councillors. As a packed audience of friends, family, and community members watched on, Bundjalung women Delta Kay and Michelle Lowe took their oaths of office alongside seven other proud councillors. Byron Council has never had a First Nation’s woman as an elected councillor before, and the election of Crs Kaye and Lowe has been heralded as a breakthrough moment by many across the region. ‘First and foremost, I am Bundjalung,’ said Ms Kay, who has been a strong advocate and leader in the Shire for well over a decade. ‘I am a proud black woman,
and I’m so proud to have my Bundjalung brothers and sisters here supporting us. ‘I really want to be that person to give voice to the voiceless. Aboriginal people in the Byron Shire are such a tiny percentage and we’re still struggling to be heard and to be seen, so I’m here for my brothers and sisters.’ Councillor Lowe, a local school teacher and mother, said she was proud to be standing alongside her ‘Arakwal sister’ and to be ‘part of a historic council that has two First Nations women’. ‘The most important and fundamental cause for me is the future of our children and their children, the future of the wild spaces that we are the custodians of, the future of the wild species that we share the planet and our Shire with,’ she said.
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Cr Lowe also noted that it was the first time in the history of the Byron Shire that there was a majority of women on Council. ‘I hope that we can bring some of those peaceful, conciliatory, negotiations that many women, and obviously men, are partaking in as parents,’ Ms Lowe said. Newly-elected Greens Mayor Sarah Ndiaye said she didn’t know what it would look like to have more women than men on Council because it had never happened before. ‘We’ve come from a society that has been patriarchal for thousands of years. ‘I was really lucky to watch Jan Barham in this role as mayor, as a young woman, to see what’s possible. ‘We are an incredible team.’
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