Voice of Byron

Voice of Byron regular, Christopher Dean, has refuted claims made in another Voice of Byron post about the OurEarth “Learning for Deep Resilience After the Floods” meeting held recently in Mullumbimby. 

Christopher says:

I feel the need to refute what Linda Parlett has posted on this site. Too many others swallowed this view uncritically.

There is so much inaccuracy and misinformation in what Linda has reported. She clearly misunderstood the purpose of this meeting, (Building Flood Resilience in future planning) and so she attacked it for not being what she wanted it to be, and left half way through without contributing to the opportunity to stop such poor responses in future.

Rather than repeat my refutation of this let me quote from another participant who did understand what was going on, Nicqui Yazdi.. a local winner of volunteer of the year in our Shire, a doer , activist, helper and definitely not a winger: all those blindly cheering on Linda’s misguided understandings please take a moment to go a bit deeper.

There is clearly a need for a meeting to beat up council and others as the cause of the post flood problems. Maybe this will help some somehow. This was not that meeting. Nicqui’s intelligent response to Linda follows:

“I am the ‘woman from Mullumbimby talking about her street (good)’ that you refer to. I spoke at this meeting and watched as your group from Billinudgel literally hijacked Simon Richardson, attacking him and council right from the get-go.

“It seemed that for some reason the Billinudgel group believed they were the MOST important group at the meeting and I felt that all they had come to the meeting for, was beat up on council.

“They didn’t seem interested in any of what was being discussed, they didn’t seem interested in participating in a calm and intelligent manner, it was an attack mob.

“I am glad that you enjoyed what I had to say and it wasn’t just about the fact that my street flooded for the first time ever, it was about where we go from here, how we create a more resilient community, closer neighbourhood ties, more structured actions from neighbourhoods in the future, so that we can take care of ourselves, know the best-practice actions to take in these sorts of situations and lessen the need for the already over-burdened services of other VOLUNTEER groups, such as the SES. Money was NOT what this meeting was about.

“It wasn’t about what is available or not, but yes, it was discussed that it is abhorrent that Byron Shire has been left out of the relief funding from the Govt, yet both Lismore and Murwillumbah were both declared disaster zones within 48 hours of the floods hitting.

“Six weeks later, Byron Shire is still waiting to be added to that list. I have NO IDEA what you are talking about when you say that Byron Shire Council are trying to get big money from an American corporation, you seem to have your wires crossed between something very good that could happen for our community and on a global level through the actions and initiatives of OurEarth and what the purpose of the meeting was, which was to bring together people who were involved in the relief efforts, council, charity groups, emergency services, and yes, people who were flood effected, who ACTUALLY WANTED TO CONTRIBUTE INTELLIGENTLY, towards creating a more cohesive approach to natural disasters in this area in the future.

“I don’t understand why you actually came to the meeting, as I think it was pretty clear from the media, what the meeting was for, not a beat-up, but a meeting of interested parties, towards future actions… and from where I sat and what I heard, it WAS a brilliant meeting, where others who were there actually did put across some very good information and concepts for future management of these sorts of events in the future.

“It was actually a shame that your group approached the meeting as you did, and literally stole Simon’s ability to contribute at other discussion tables, by demanding that he address your issues over all the other issues being addressed at this broadly cross-sector meeting.

“Your actions did not give you any fans at the meeting. You could have gone about this a lot better, at a better time, instead of making yourselves the focus over the rest of the 3000 or so residents homes that were inundated across the WHOLE of Byron Shire.

“Let’s face facts, Billinudgel has ALWAYS been flood-prone. In these latest floods, there were other areas, which have never flooded before, and those areas actually NEED assessing and addressing to determine why and yes, I do understand that areas of Billinudgel that have not flooded before, also should be part of what is investigated.

“AND, the meeting went for FOUR hours, so if you left, then you missed THE most important part of this meeting, which was bringing together the ideas, actions and concept from ALL the people who were there, contributing to ALL the discussion tables, not just their OWN agenda, as the Billinudgel group did.”