Oswald Walters Brierly (later Sir) arrived in Twofold Bay on December 15, 1842, aboard Ben Boyd’s steamer, the Sea Horse.

Brierly, although trained as a painter, came with Boyd as a companion and to assist in management of the proposed settlement. 

Only six days after their arrival Brierly organised a journey with Boyd to look for the best way to the Monaro and enlisted a young Aboriginal man to lead them along one of the ancient pathways of the region (a precursor to the Bundian Way).

This man was called Budginbro (sometimes spelt as Budgunburra but also known as Toby, Toby the King or Toby Blue) who Brierly described as “a very remarkably intelligent fellow”. 

Budginbro was, from the beginning, Brierly’s main source of information on land, fishing, culture and such and their alliance brought about a trove of shared history. 

The Brierly name has been handed down through generations of Aboriginal people in the region. 

Brierly catalogues the dispossession of the Aboriginal people of the region but nowhere does he portray them as worthless, savage, and barbaric or a doomed race.

He employs them as equals and continues to work with them over the years. 

Apart from the naming of Brierly’s Point, a location that would be known only to a few locals and now more commonly known as Davidson’s Whaling Station, the name of Brierly has basically been forgotten and nowhere is the name of Budginbro recognised. 

Although coming from vastly divergent backgrounds and cultures, the friendship and mutual respect of these two men was one that was relatively unique at the time and has afforded us a view of life in what was then considered to be one of the frontiers of settlement in NSW. 

Robert Sykes, Eden Killer Whale Museum

In the same week that Bega Valley Shire Council opened its new $7million-plus “Palace of Dreams” in Bega, residents and staff at Eden’s aged care facility had to be evacuated after apparently finding themselves standing knee-deep in sewage.

While BVSC busies itself spending millions of dollars on monuments to government and its burgeoning real estate portfolio, critical infrastructure such as our sewer systems repeatedly fail to meet the needs of residents and ratepayers.

While council is always quick to blame storm-water flooding or illegal residential storm-water pipe connections for overwhelming its facilities, it has nothing to say about what strategies it is pursuing to prevent such disastrous events continuing to be a regular feature of our way of life.

This is the third occasion in five years that Lake Curalo has been closed due to a sewage spill. Sewage spills have also impacted the Pambula River Mouth, not to forget our oyster growing industry.

The BVSRRA does not believe the severe storm events that occurred in November last year and again in late January are once in a 100, 50, 20, 10 or even five-year events. 

The fact that our infrastructure is not capable of adequately responding clearly suggests that council is not effectively addressing the infrastructure needs of the shire, in particular those in Eden.

If council can find the tens of millions of dollars to build a new civic centre; to acquire plum real estate like the Auswide building for questionable purposes; to acquire the old Tura Beach Tavern to create a library the shire simply doesn’t need or to construct a bigger monument to stupidity at Merimbula Airport, then why can’t it attend to the core service needs of the shire?

John Richardson, BVSRRA