In this episode of Above the Fray we hear the first-hand account of Byron Shire’s rise from smelly industrial town to prime living and tourist destination.

Well-known local Donald Maughan recounts local yarns and gives us his impressions of the massive changes he’s witnessed over the past 50 to 60 years.

From clearing of pristine forest for industry, whaling, meatworks, sand mining and dairy farming, to the coming of surfers, the rainbow people, tourism, and the rich & famous. We also hear about Donald's 40 years at Norco, Australia's oldest dairy co-operative, which turns 125 years old in 2020. 

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Donald Maughan is President of the Suffolk Park Progress Association and President of the Byron Bay Historical Society.
 

In the second hour of the program we continue our look at the ballooning surveillance state and use of big data to influence elections.

There are growing fears in the United States that companies like the now defunct Cambridge Analytica are already working behind the scenes with misinformation, fake news, and micro-targeting to again determine the result of the looming November US election.

We speak with a leading Australian researcher in this field about the global efforts to protect our data and safeguard what’s left of our so-called ‘democracy’.

Normann Witzleb, Associate Professor of Law, and Associate at the Monash Castan Centre for Human Rights Law at Monash University.

He co-edited and co-authored the book: 

Big Data, Political Campaigning and the Law: Democracy and Privacy in the Age of Micro-Targeting, Routledge, 2020 (with M. Paterson & J. Richardson (eds)