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The organisers of one of the Northern Rivers’ biggest employers and most notable tourist attractions, Splendour In The Grass, have today been told they must spend $2000000 to ensure the safety of not only festivalgoers – but also the 3000 police officers and their sniffer dogs, which they also have to pay for.

Despite being one of the last live platforms that supports emerging artists while also securing performances from international superstars, the overly positive outcomes that result from an enormous music festival appear lost on the NSW Government – who are looking for something to blame for the fact that their over-resourced police department is very much on the losing side in the war on drugs.

With more than enough police scheduled to attend, absolutely zero pill-testing or drug information kiosks and several thousand ambulance staff – organisers felt as though they were more than ready for this year’s SITG.

Unfortunately, according to the NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian, they forgot about the prickles.

“We want kids to be safe. Safe kids, ” said the Premier.

“Safe from anything that any normal kids would learn from themselves. The safest form of safety is what we are after”

“Also, the bull-ants need to be dealt with too. We have an overstaffed government department that can deal with that too”

However, aside from the incessant moving of goal posts, the one thing that festival organisers say is making things much more costly is the fact that they have to exclusively hire a state government-owned pest control agency

“I didn’t know there was a pest control agency owned by the state government…” said one of the organisers , Bernard Murray.

“Other than ICAC”

“But yeah turns out our own precautions weren’t enough, or we weren’t paying them enough.. Something like that”

“I don’t think it’s fair for organisers to blame anybody but themselves,” said NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian, when asked if charging festival organisers extortionate fees to hire the services for their own under-stimulated government departments.