•The Ballina and Lismore areas have more than 32,000 residents on welfare
•That figure includes 14,000 people on the Newstart allowance
•The unemployment rate in the Richmond-Tweed region is 10.2 per cent
•The region’s youth unemployment rate is listed at 15.8 per centIT’S not easy being Green, even in the hippie haven of northern NSW.
The Daily Telegraph can reveal Nimbin and Lismore, home of the Australian Hemp Party and new Greens’ heartland, have one of the highest rates of welfare recipients in the state.
The north coast region, where the Greens claimed a historic win in Ballina and came close to taking Lismore at the weekend election, has more than 32,000 residents on welfare, including 14,000 on the Newstart allowance.
The unemployment rate in the Richmond-Tweed region, which includes Nimbin, is a whopping 10.2 per cent, compared to 6.6 per cent in Parramatta in Sydney’s west. The Department of Employment lists the region’s youth unemployment rate at 15.8 per cent.
If the Greens lose Lismore, where their candidate Adam Guise was last night trailing Nationals incumbent Thomas George by 252 votes, it could ironically be linked to the number of apathetic locals who are not registered to vote.
While the Nimbin booth traditionally registers a high Greens vote, The Daily Telegraph has learned many residents living in the hills around Nimbin and Uki were not registered and failed to vote for the anti-CSG activist.
“Why would we vote? Voting is for mugs and sellouts,” a local woman said. A non-voter said: “Nimbin is already the greenest area of Australia.”
Other Greens supporters who moved to the north coast said they were registered in other states and ineligible to vote despite having lived in the region for years.
Greens candidate Tamara Smith, who cleaned-up in the historically green Byron Shire region, yesterday looked set to claim Ballina. Outgoing MP Don Page had held the seat for the Nationals since 1988.
Greens MP Jeremy Buckingham has dismissed the idea of the “hippie” and “tree hugger” vote being behind the party’s popularity in the north.
As well as apparent voter apathy, the north coast – once a thriving farming and fishing hub – is home to the country’s worst immunisation rates and anti-fluoride activists.
It is also over-represented in annual drug statistics released by the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research.
The National Health Performance Authority last year listed the NSW north coast as having the worst immunisation rates in Australia.
In Byron Shire, only 66.7 per cent of children aged five were fully immunised.NSW Police targets the region through annual cannabis eradication programs unearthing massive marijuana crops.
An ice and speed syndicate allegedly linked to the Ballina Rebels was smashed by local police last December, and LSD and MDMA have also been targeted.
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