The Story of George’s Cottages

It takes a village to save a village

The Story of George’s Cottages: the Feros Dispute

Part One

12.46pm. 28 February 2023.

Messenger pings. It’s my mate Dave. We share a love of Frank Thring, the late and louche Aussie Hollywood star who played Herod in King of Kings. So I’m expecting a salacious joke. But this time he’s serious. It’s about Dave’s mother-in-law the artist Jenny Sages. My eyes open wide as I read the text:

‘Interesting thing just happened. Feros Care Byron Bay called a ‘snap’ meeting to let everyone know that they are being ejected. There are forty elderly people and their families who are extremely angry, distressed and confused right now and have no idea of possible legal recourse.’

At 90, Jenny, was living at 29-33 Marvell St, Byron Bay, a series of cottages designed by local architect Christine Verdasz. I did a small legal job for Jenny a few years back. Her daughter, Tanya and hubby Dave, are good friends of mine. Residents and families received an email about an ‘important meeting’ at 7pm the night before from management. Dave’s message arrives about an hour after the ‘snap’ meeting.

My response to Dave’s message was simple: ‘What the fuck?’ I swear a lot. We had a chat and I got a summary of what went down at the meeting. Anxiety. Anger. No closure date was set. Vague talk about redevelopment and upgrading the facility. Not fit for purpose. But no plans for redevelopment were shared. No videos or photos. Nothing. Not even a PowerPoint show! This made no sense.

At the meeting, someone called Maree Eddings, who I didn’t know then but soon would, asked management for 10 days so families could have a think about all this. The request was declined. What?!? Something had to be wrong. I looked after my dear old dad Charlie when he was in care for the last 3 years of his life. Aged care was not like this. I rang my old mate Gordon, a lawyer, who once ran a big aged care outfit looking after thousands of oldies across Australia. At school he played the piano for our musicals. Gordon told me they usually allowed two years for renovations and relocations. The golden rule was to look after the residents. Simple, right? Maybe I was missing something. Surely … turns out I wasn’t.

On 29 January 2024, eleven months and one day after the snap meeting, a new operator St Andrew’s took over. From down the road, in Ballina. A new blue sign went up on 2 February: ‘George’s Cottages’, to honour the founder of the village George Feros. He had spent years in the 70s and 80s collecting money to build an aged care village for his community. Riding around town on his bike. He raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to finance the 4 cottages that would now have his name. The triumph of the residents kept George’s legacy alive. How pleased he would be today.

On Australia Day 2024, I took champagne, beer and oysters to share with Kate, Mick, Bernadette, Henning, Charmian, Sybill, Rhonda and Jo - the 8 remaining residents who were celebrating the changing of the guard. Jo was in hospital and died soon after the new sign went up. He wanted to live to see the new operator come in, to know that he and his mates had won. He did. Just. As we enjoyed ourselves, Maree’s dad Mick sang the Bastard King of England while a worker prepared the new floors in the rooms. Working on a public holiday! St Andrew’s was already renovating the cottages. New contracts were already being issued for elders to return to the village.

All year we were told again and again that the village had to close and it was not ‘fit for purpose’ and how ‘irresponsible’ it would be to stay open. It was all proven wrong. Nearly 30 residents had moved out unnecessarily. The 8 residents who held out experienced completely and utterly avoidable distress and trauma. Imagine living in that uncertainty for 11 month. I shudder to think. Somehow they all stuck in there. It is hard to believe any of this happen, but the story should be told.

I spent most of my life in 2023 working on the case and holding the residents and their families in mind, in the middle of a pretty busy life. It is extraordinary what the residents achieved. They did so with the support of so many. See, it takes a village to save a village. A motley crew for the ages. To think we were accused of being ‘well organised’. If only.

I mainly worked with Maree Eddings, from March to December, who was on task every day, to the end. Maree is a wonderful advocate, inspired to protect her father, and dedicated to working for a great outcome for our community. We were an odd couple, to be honest. Maree has a dog, the lovely little 13 year old Havanese, Sunshine. I have no dog. I am dog tolerant on a good day and that’s about it. Maybe it’s a disability of mine! But we did this, together, Maree and me. We mobilised and motivated a beautifully diverse group of people. By the way, Maree raised a few thousand dollars to cover costs including my time but we settled a case with Feros to generate the small war chest of less than $14,000 to fund the whole thing including me, a barrister and a bunch of events. To think that a council parking survey for Brunswick Heads costs $140,000 - and we saved an aged care village for a fraction of that.

Throughout we had one strategy - to keep the dispute going until a new provider could be found to take over. Everyone in government and politics - quite literally - told us we could not do it. Or doubted us, anyway. It took a long time and a lot of effort to change that view. Each layer of government told us ‘an aged care operator is entitled to close a facility’. The regulator told us that loud and clear from beginning to end. Maree and I spoke to many aged care industry professionals and they seriously doubted we could save the village. The sector was in crisis. The model is changing. I didn’t accept we couldn’t do it. The village was a community asset, on community land. Maree was relentless, or whatever comes after that!

I would say to Maree, ‘trust no one, believe nothing, keep going!’. That was our mantra. We kept going for 10 draining and exhilarating months. Until we won. Early on Kate Smorty, the spiritual leader of the residents said: ‘tell ‘em they’re dreaming, they’ll need two burley policemen to drag me out’. It never came to that.

The battle lines were set in March by community protest and outcry after the bizarre snap meeting. We soon offered mediation but Feros refused and kept refusing time and again to meet with us all. The regulator provided no comfort.

The unlikely pathway to victory was the old fashioned, pedantic rules of crown land law and management! A colonial relic really but if there is one clear lesson in all this - do not muck about with crown land. In April we stated our case with the public servants in that part of our state bureaucracy and I’m sure we gave them the chance of a lifetime to prove that the public service can still be a service to the public!

Without the steadfast commitment of the residents and families nothing happens. There is no win. We had great media coverage which built the pressure and Mandy Nolan, local legend, was instrumental in making it happen. But one thing is for certain - if one aged provider - Apollo Care - who no one had heard of - had not come out publicly in August and said ‘this is a viable aged care facility’ then we would not have won. They had the guts to say - give us a chance. They didn’t win the tender in the end but they called the bluff Feros had been played all year in the most magnificent and decisive way. John Young at Apollo Care is a hero of this tale.

In the end we galvanised all three levels of government - the politicians, the staffers and the bureaucrats - to achieve an amazing result. This is my account of how a small group of people galvanised a village to save a village. It is a story about how government really works, how it generally leaves markets to themselves these days and how looking after people is not always the priority of aged care, not in the way it is regulated and delivered. This is a tale about how government is not designed to properly meet the needs of our community. It is yet another story of good people working in broken systems. Looking after each other should be the first and last thought in everything we do in government. But it is not.

To be continued.

Note: I hope to write the story in full by the end of 2024.