Ballina Shire should be one of the top tourism destinations in New South Wales, and we wholeheartedly support Council’s push to take out the state’s top tourism crown.

There is so much to celebrate here in Ballina, from our beaches to our hinterland, from Lennox Head to Wollongbar, all underpinned by a strong sense of community that gives this place its unique character.

And in our view, there is something else that truly sets Ballina apart — its friendliness.

In last year’s NSW Top Tourism Town Awards, South Coast destinations Kiama and Shellharbour took out the top honours, with Ballina finishing third.

They set the benchmark.

I’ve lived in the Kiama municipality, right next door to Shellharbour, and while they are outstanding coastal destinations, nothing quite compares to the warmth you encounter here in Ballina.

It is, quite simply, one of the most welcoming places you will find anywhere, and that is something worth protecting.

But here is the hard truth.

Right now, that reputation is under pressure.

Today, we report on a string of alleged indecent exposure incidents along Ballina’s coastline, with women telling us they are now afraid to walk onto our beaches alone.

That should give this entire community pause, because this is not about a single isolated event, but a pattern of reported behaviour stretching across multiple beaches over several months, with no resolution.

Tourism is not just about scenery or marketing brochures; it is about the lived experience of a place, and whether people feel safe when they arrive.

At the moment, too many people do not.

Visitors do not come to a coastal town expecting to feel like they have wandered into some sort of bad episode of the The Benny Hill Show, with a man allegedly jumping out of the bushes and exposing himself, or worse still, engaging in sexual acts in full public view.

There is nothing amusing about that.

It is confronting, it is unacceptable, and it goes directly to the question of whether Ballina can genuinely present itself as a safe and welcoming destination.

And this issue does not exist in isolation.

The North Coast carries a disproportionate share of the state’s homelessness burden, while at the same time operating with fewer and more stretched support services than more centralised regions like the Illawarra.

That imbalance matters, because when support systems are thin, problems become more visible, and when they become more visible, they begin to shape how a place is experienced by both locals and visitors.

Layer on top of that rising concerns about crime and ongoing questions around police resourcing, and it becomes clear that Ballina is dealing with a set of pressures that many comparable coastal destinations simply are not facing at the same level.

Ballina News Daily has, within 24 hours of calling for information through the Ballina Crime Reports Facebook page, received multiple detailed accounts from members of the public, allowing us to assemble a substantial body of material, including consistent descriptions of the alleged offender.

We stand ready to share that information with police.

But the speed at which that material was gathered inevitably raises a broader question — if this level of reporting has been occurring over six months or more, what does it take to trigger a sustained response from NSW Police in Ballina?

None of this is said to undermine Ballina — quite the opposite.

It is said because Ballina is worth fighting for, because this community deserves better, and because the people who live here, as well as those we invite to visit, deserve to feel safe.

We know this is one of the best places in the state.

But for now, it is a bit hard to take home the top prize when issues like this are playing out in plain sight.

There is a gap between the image we are promoting and the reality some people are experiencing, and until that gap is addressed, the idea of being crowned the state’s top tourism destination will remain, unfortunately, just that — a dream.

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