About a week ago media attention became focused on purported tensions between local Byron Bay residents and visitors following an altercation between television personality Rex Hunt and his family, and a group of local teenagers. Accounts differ on what actually happened, but the main theme in most coverage of the affray is that there is growing resentment on the part of some Byron Bay residents towards the large numbers of tourist visitors to the town, and what are seen to be unwelcome changes arising from this.
I haven’t been to Byron for a while and can’t comment on the basis of current firsthand knowledge. However, last week I made my second stopover for the year at Brunswick Heads, which is 19km north-west of Byron by road and which has marketed itself as the quiet, low-budget, low-development alternative. I have visited Brunswick regularly over the past 10 years and have noticed incremental processes at work which have resulted in it becoming only relatively quiet, low-budget, low-development vis-a-vis Byron.
In 1995 the accommodation (motels, hotel, camping, etc.) was genuinely low budget. The retail outlets in the town, the food outlets, and its general appearance were what one would expect of a quiet coastal fishing town. The interior of the pub (the Hotel Brunswick) were also rather typical of a pub in a small coastal town, especially in the dining lounge area. The comparisons which spring to mind as I write this are with the pubs at Urunga and Evans Head circa 2001.
On my two most recent visits, I was struck by a number of changes which had been accumulating over the past decade, but which for some reason I only really noticed this year. One is that the prices of everything have gone up — meals ($14 for a big breakfast which cost $9 two or three years ago), drinks ($3-90 schooners compared with $3-40 at my local in inner-city Brisbane), hotel and motel tariffs, etc. Another is that the product line at eating outlets has expanded to include a range of European and Asian cuisines, blackboard menus and other specialities, rather than the fare one traditionally associates with small Australian fishing towns. A third significant change is to the internal decor and ambience of venues in the town, exemplified by the refurbishment of the dining lounge at the pub so that it resembles a certain kind of inner city bar or nightclub — all shiny surfaces and bright lights. Judging by accommodation notices around the town, the rentals for flats are not much below the norm for inner-city Brisbane.
What appears to be at work is that the entrepreneurs of Brunswick have concluded that there is a significant and growing market amongst cashed-up city dwellers visiting the town for stopovers, holidays, etc., (ironically including people looking for a quiet alternative to Byron), have adjusted their product lines and marketing accordingly, and are charging the prices which they judge that this market will bear. One could speculate that this is a smaller-scale and more recent repeat of what has happened at Byron over some decades, and to some extent a knock-on effect of it.
Most public concern about the impact of tourism and associated economic changes on coastal communities tends to focus on large, visible looming changes such as inappropriate new resorts (the now abandoned Byron Club Med), large-scale infrastructure, entry of large chain retail outlets like McDonalds and Woolworths, etc. These tend to attract an organised, articulate and political response. The more micro- and molecular processes which are obviously at work in Brunswick (and more so in Byron) don’t attract such a response. They are likely to be perceived as positive in each individual or incremental case, and not perceived as a part of an overall process which may have negatives in the aggregate. Yet one imagines that sooner or later some of the locals would begin to feel less welcome and less comfortable in their own town, and less able to afford habitual recreations. Further, the locals most likely to be affected adversely in this way would be the ones less likely to be part of organised political or civic networks of the information-rich and communicatively skilled. Therefore, their responses could be expected to take a different, less genteel form.
When I go down to my holiday house, I resent the fact that the locals resent me. Especially as I am giving them lots of my not very hard earned lolly.
Interesting post, Paul. I think I was last in Brunswick Heads in 92 – and it was certainly a sleepy sort of place back then – and with good cheap pub food!
There are a number of factors coming together which are focussing attention on development in regional and coastal areas – housing prices and welfare in capital cities, downshifting, infrastructure, and demographics spring to mind.
There’s no doubt that a debate on these sort of issues and how growth (and decline) affect communities is needed.
Hard to feel that it’s not all a terrible shame. I’ve had some good times in that BH pub (alas, refurbished). Although utterly over-run by international tourists, one of the things I like about Italy, for instance, is that the place has a stable population and distribution in its towns. Will the growth mania ever stop in Oz?
I grew up in Grafton and the relatives on my Mom’s side were all in the Lismore area including BH. The change over the past 30 years has been tremendous. I remember back when Bangalow just a small town you passed through on the way to the Gold Coast. Not the trendy town of arts, craft and lattes it has become. We often visited a relative in BH on the way through to the GC as well. I remember it as a quiet seaside village.
A few years ago we spend a few days in Woolgoolga over Christmas. Visited Bellingen near Coffs and found that as well have become a arts/craft/cool cafe village.
It would be nice for these towns to find a balance. It is such a beautiful area and I fear development and a push to grab city types will harm (if not already) those areas.
On the plus side, what I have noticed on my trips back is that even little hamlets out of the main towns often have a nice cafe or a pub that does good food. These become a popular secret with the locals and there are some great little places if you have local knowledge.
Anna Kraack & Jane Kenway have done some research on related issues.
Oh, thanks just for reminding me of that wonderful radio spoof of Brideshead Revisited (c. 1982?). I spent a lot of time listening to my dad crack up over that series. It was a cracker.