Dr. Nola Firth was elected to Tweed Shire Council in 2021. She is passionate about the Tweed community and caring for our internationally significant environment. In addition to her Council duties Cr. Firth is an academic and a writer.

I believe that for our collective welfare it is essential we look after our natural environment and I am committed to transforming the challenges of climate change into social and economic benefit for all. I support the greening our urban areas, regeneration of our rural lands and waterways, renewable energy and recycling industries and improving our foot and bicycle paths.

I advocate also for affordable housing and support for the many homeless people in our shire and I stand up for adherence to our community-developed locality plans when undertaking development.

I founded and remain a member of Hospital Hill Landcare in Murwillumbah and have served on the executive of the Caldera Environment Centre. I am also a writer and recently launched my second poetry book, ‘Counting on Murwillumbah’.

Although retired I remain an Honorary Research Fellow at The Murdoch Children’s Research Institute and The University of Melbourne and a Churchill Fellow. Originally a secondary teacher, I ran a special education consultancy business and became president of Learning Difficulties Australia. My work is published internationally and a national dyslexia award carries my name.

 

 

The Northern Rivers Greens is a regional collaboration of NSW Greens from Ballina, Byron, Lismore and Tweed. Together, the groups are campaigning to elect more Greens to local, state and federal government. The Northern Rivers Greens also has a strong presence within the NSW Greens contributing to the development of Greens policies and playing active roles on state working groups and committees.

The Northern Rivers has a rich history of environmental and social justice activism. For over three decades, local Greens have worked hard to achieve representation on councils and in parliament. In 1995, Byron Greens’ Ian Cohen was the first Green elected to the NSW Parliament. In 2011 he was succeeded by Byron Mayor, Jan Barham who in turn, was succeeded in 2017 by Tweed’s Dawn Walker.

In 2015, with the imminent threat of Coal Seam Gas extraction in the Northern Rivers, Tamara Smith was elected as the state member for Ballina, ending 88 consecutive years of conservative representation in Ballina.