April Falls Month is an annual campaign to raise awareness about the impact of falls and to promote the latest best practice fall prevention strategies. The overall campaign goal is to get active and improve balance for fall prevention.

A fall can have terrible consequences for an elderly person, their family and the community and falls are the leading cause of injury in older Australians and one in five falls requires hospitalisation. There are 1.3 million falls by people aged 65 and over in Australia every year, most of them occur at home and sadly, people over 65 make up 95 per cent of fall deaths. ...

March 16 was National Close the Gap Day.

Close the Gap aims to reduce disadvantage experienced by Indigenous peoples with respect to child mortality, childhood education, life expectancy and health. Among the 17 socioeconomic Closing the Gap targets are the aims to improve: health and wellbeing, education, employment, justice, safety, housing, land and waters, languages and digital inclusion.

The Close the Gap campaign became a commitment of the Australian government in 2008 following Prime Minister Kevin Rudds Apology to Australias Indigenous Peoples in March that year.

The plan

In 2023, the Closing the Gap Implementation Plan outlined the Commonwealths strategic priorities and efforts to close the gap over the next 12 to 18 months. While on almost every measure in the Close the Gap, there has been progress, closing the gap in life expectancy within a generation is not on track to be met by 2031. This demonstrates the importance of a First Nations Voice to inform government strategies and policies for First Nations people.

First Nations people in the Byron Shire and across our broader region, have compounded health and social problems owing to the injustices of the past that have resulted...

Lismore City Council is inviting residents and members of the community to contribute to Your Say Lismore, an innovative online platform that creates a two-way conversation between the community and Council.

Your Say Lismore provides an easy way for community members to participate in decision-making processes and give feedback on issues that are important to them.

The key advantages

Council says that one of the key advantages of Your Say Lismore is that it allows the community to be informed about various policies, plans, and projects that Council is working on. These include community strategic plans, delivery programs, and annual budgets, as well as policies and strategic plans related to economic development, sport and recreation, and other areas of interest.

Your Say Lismore also provides information on planning matters such as Development Control Plans and the Local Environmental Plan, as well as major infrastructure and capital works projects.

Council says it is also a platform for the community to engage with Council on Development Applications and proposals, as well as events and other issues that are of interest to the community and stakeholders. This helps to ensure Council is aware of the communitys opinion and ideas so they can be fully considered during the decision making process.

Some of the current engagement projects on Your Say Lismore include:

• Northern Rivers Rail Trail, a walking and cycling trail following the old railway line.
• The Lismore Skatepark and Youth Precinct, a project which aims to create a new youth-focused space in the CBD.
• Rural and Nature-Based Tourism Development Control Plan, which aims to support the development of sustainable and responsible tourism in the region.
• The Safer Cities: Her Way project, which aims to improve safety and reduce violence against women in public spaces.

To have your say go to https://yoursay.lismore.nsw.gov.au/.

The post Lismore Council wants you to have your say appeared first on The Echo.

The North East Forest Alliance has welcomed the Minns Labor governments promise to create a Great Koala National Park, and have called for a moratorium on logging within the proposed park until the promised assessment is complete.

NEFA spokesperson Dailan Pugh said the Forestry Corporation is targeting the proposed Great Koala National Park in a smash and grab operations to extract as much timber as they can, while they can.

They have been removing thousands of Koala feed trees from one of the best Koala strongholds in NSW, compounding the impacts of the 2019/20 wildfires and causing immense damage to Endangered Koala populations.

To avoid compromising the integrity of the Labor governments assessment process this vandalism needs to stop.

We look forward to working constructively with the new government to ensure a comprehensive and robust review of the Great Koala National Park is undertaken.

The post NEFA welcomes the election of a new government appeared first on The Echo.

Fifty-four years is a long time to be in the workforce let alone in the one business in the one town, but that is how Corrie van Dommele has spent most of her adult life at Corries Frock Shop in Ballina, but now she is about to call it quits.

Janelle Saffin is in the lead for the seat of Lismore after yesterdays state election. Although preroll and postal votes are yet to be counted, its hard to imagine Saffins position changing.

It appears that Tweed MP Geoff Provest will retain the seat of Tweed but there are still plenty of votes to be counted.

Provest and the Nationals celebrated his re-election last night though Craig Elliot for Labor has not conceded.

Mr Elliot told The Echo this morning that he will wait for the prepolls and postal votes to be counted.

Provest has held the seat since 2007 and it will remain to be seen in the coming days if he keeps it.

Last night a packed Suffolk Park Hotel exploded with cheers at around 8pm when the ABC broadcast computer popped up a Greens result for Ballina and the return of Tamara Smith to the seat she has held for the last eight years.