Byron Bay: ‘When did the rot set in?’

When long-time magazine writer David Leser first visited Byron Bay in 1973 – as a 17-year-old – the place was little more than fibro shacks and a small pub, and the abattoir was the biggest employer in town. “There was something absolutely idyllic about it,” Leser says. “The counterculture officially began that year with the Aquarius Festival [in nearby Nimbin]. That’s when people came, saw and stayed. It attracted rebels and misfits and dreamers; people who wanted to live outside of the dominant paradigm.”

And now? It is an area beset by chronic housing insecurity, he says, with people sleeping in their cars or camping on the sides of mountains. Tension points abound as disgruntled locals rub up against wealthy newcomers, and the community grapples with how to manage the influx.

“This is a problem being faced by communities all over the country,” says Leser, “where people are being priced out, where there’s not enough long-term housing, where people are opting to rent out their rooms for Airbnb, and where the army of homeless – particularly among women, single mothers and older women – is growing at an alarming rate.”

Leser was speaking on the latest episode of Good Weekend Talks about his cover story this week: “Loved to death: How stupendous wealth and global adoration are distorting an Australian paradise”. Joining him was his daughter Hannah Leser, a photographer who shot the cover image for the current issue of Good Weekend, and who was raised in Byron Bay from age five.

“I feel really lucky to have grown up in this beautiful place,” Hannah says. “On the other hand, having had years of retrospect and countless conversations, there’s definitely an underbelly to this town.” Hannah speaks of sexual assault and violence, broken families and poverty lying beneath the picture-postcard images. “In a way I’ve always seen this paradox, of beauty but an incredible darkness as well.”

People often ask “When did the rot set in?” – meaning when did it start to really commercialise – and Leser says there’s no single answer. Was it 1990, when the Beach Hotel was first sold? Or 1995, with upgrades to Ballina Airport? Perhaps it was 1998, when changes to NSW planning laws limited the control held by local councils. Maybe it was the Pacific Highway upgrade, speeding visitors from Queensland more comfortably and quickly to this haven of beach and hinterland. Was it the emergence of Airbnb or the arrival of Chris Hemsworth? Most likely all of the above.

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Leser says what’s different now is that investment is driving some of the newer arrivals. In decades past, the only people coming to Byron were those following their hearts. “They loved the place, and it was a fierce kind of love,” he says. “It had nothing to do with making money or adding to your portfolio of investments. And I think that’s what’s begun to change.”

For Hannah, who grew up surfing after school and walking the streets in bare feet, there’s a newly problematic turf warfare emerging, with some locals adopting a kind of disdainful moral authority over newer arrivals. “It can kind of be a bit emblematic of a bigger issue – of who we welcome to this country, and who we don’t,” she says. “And when we fall into that localism trap, it’s not actually going to the heart of looking after this beautiful area.”