Brumby government

Is Portsea preparing for invasion? Yes, by sea. Much of the beach has disappeared and the overhang has been sandbagged to prevent businesses from following it. Where did that $38m given to Parks Victoria go? This article also looks at Ted Baillieu's plans to continue development plans (cost $9.4b?) where Brumby left off, plus some comments from the Ex-Ports Minister, Tim Pallas.

The Department of Sustainability (DSE) and the Office of Environmental Monitor (OEM) probably had hoped their problem of disappearing iconic Portsea beach might have gone away. Well their problem hasn’t gone, but the beach has!

Disappearing beach

Sadly for them and thousands of holiday makers who once loved Portsea, the $millions of taxpayers’ funds thrown at months of beach works at Portsea have done nothing to solve the problem of the disappearing beach. In fact the supposed solutions - the sandbag wall and huge rockwall are already failing, with the sandbags nearest the pier breaking apart and slumping into the water. The DSE and OEM have been left to defend the channel deepening project long after the disappearance of its champion Mr. Brumby -who is a distant memory – leaving some unwanted legacies such as at Portsea with its sad and near useless beach and a massive sign erected by the Brumby regime spruiking how their plan to build a massive sand bag wall and dump some rocks near the pier would restore the beach.

Portsea Beach 2011, view from pier to beach looking south east. Once there was sand and trees. Fossickers with metal detectors were the only Portsea beach goers on this 2011 Summers day.

Damage obvious, say local papers

Local papers report that the damage is obvious.

Portsea businesses, including the Portsea Hotel owned juice bar claim that their takings are down 50% since the Entrance was deepened and the beach started to disappear. See: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/earth/stories/s939575.htm

Divers report marked increase in tides, currents and swells

Dive businesses too continue to report that tides and current speed have increased markedly whilst ocean swell now regularly pounds the beach and pier – making boat operations extremely difficult. (We recently were swamped trying to land a dingy on Portsea beach on an otherwise calm day but with a massive swell – it was like riding the rapids. Ed)

Ted Baillieu taking over where Brumby left off

It seems electing Mr. Baillieu in the hope of a fresh approach on environmental matters might be a dismal failure. He’s been silent on the damage to Portsea – in spite of his connections to the area, and within weeks of being elected, it’s more of the same for Port expansion plans with the new Mr. B announcing that he would fast track the development of the Port of Hastings within the next 10 years … …..That’s even faster than Mr. Brumby was intending! Sadly it seems our elected representatives are merging into a coalescence of business as usual dinosaurs when what we really need is some serious planning for a very different future.

Ex Ports Minister, Tim Pallas, now in opposition, changes tune, warns of $9.4 billion costs for Hastings Port development

We were amazed this week to hear Tim Pallas (previously the Minister for Ports and now Opposition spokesperson for Ports) sounding the alarm on how costly it might be to develop the Port of Hastings. See: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/cost-of-hastings-container-port-put-at-94bn-20110227-1ba1l.html

Mr. Pallas warns us it would cost $9.4 billion to develop Hastings Port, suggesting that it may not be money well spent……..Mind you he was singing from a different song book when as Minister for Ports he visited Hastings in 2009 to launch his Port Strategy – we were there - to hear his “vision” for a “green” port ….whatever that is. See: http://archive.premier.vic.gov.au/newsroom/7997.html and although he didn’t actually name a $ amount for his vision back then, it involved about the same amount of road, rail and portside works as he is now warning would be a $9.4 billion folly.

Projected huge container loads

The plan for Hastings Port[1] involves it handling almost 4 million containers some time in the not so distant future….that’s TWICE the current throughput of the Port of Melbourne. At the same time it is envisaged that the Port of Melbourne would be handling up to 8 million containers by 2030….QUADRUPLING it’s current throughput. Yes- that’s almost 12 million containers per year through Victoria compared with our present approx. 2 million per year. Hastings would look, feel, sound and smell like Port Melbourne.

And don't forget coal...

Note also new proposals for brown coal being mined in future from around Mirboo North.[2] Presumably that would be shipped out through Westernport!

Oil depletion will dramatise the insanity of planned expansion of Hastings Port

Where would we put all that stuff and how could we possibly afford it? Perhaps our only saviour might be skyrocketing production, shipping and trucking costs in future as oil runs out, demanding a re-think on what’s essential and what past follies can be done away with. We’ve been feeding the machine at the expense of our natural systems for way too long just to keep the creaking old system on the rails for longer than it should have been.

Auditor General's report on failure to protect marine environments: Where did the $38m go?

Anyway – a voice of reason was heard in the Victorian Auditor General’s Report "Environmental Management of Marine Protected Areas" tabled yesterday (March 2nd) in Parliament. The audit reveals just how ineffectively marine protected areas have been managed to protect biodiversity. It assessed the roles of Parks Victoria and the Departments of Sustainability and Environment and Primary Industries, finding that Parks Victoria could not show that marine biodiversity is being protected. Only 10% of the $38 million allocated to protection of marine biodiversity could be shown to have been appropriately discharged.

Just what was the rest of the money spent on then? Certainly not in protecting Port Phillip Bay from the damage we see to the Portsea coastline or protecting it from the massive unregulated toxic dump we now have in the middle of the Bay compliments of the Port of Melbourne!

The Auditor’s report can be downloaded from: http://www.audit.vic.gov.au/reports__publications/reports_by_year/2010-11/20110302_marine_parks.aspx

The report also warns that Government is failing to protect coastal waters from invasive pests and diseases, and recommends the development of a marine pest biosecurity plan. Now that’s an issue which shipping and ports have a LOT to answer for.

400 invasive pests in Port Phillip and growing

Port Phillip Bay with its thousands of ship visits per year currently has over 400 invasive pest species and growing, whilst Westernport Bay with its approx 200 ship visits per year has only a very small number of invasive pests – around 10 when we last checked. Ships ballast water and the hulls of ships are the main vectors for invasive marine species, but the shipping industry isn’t very interested in spending the money to address the issue. So, Mr. Baillieu’s port expansion plans would likely mean an explosion in marine pests in Westernport.

A very interesting and alarming report on ballast water is at ABC Science Show: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ss/stories/s1232619.htm and how trade facilitates the movement and impacts of invasive species at in this 2003 Earthbeat transcript at: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/earth/stories/s939575.htm

"A staggering 120 million tons of foreign ballast water is dumped into Australian ports each year - that's a quarter of the volume of water in Sydney's famous harbour. Professor Gustaaf Hallegraeff believes it's crucial that something be done, because the discharged ballast water can - and does - transport bacteria from one part of the world to another.

"[Professor Gustaaf Hallegraeff] [...] tracked the spread of nasty micro organisms around the world. Dinoflagellates, which poison shellfish, weeds, even cholera, would you believe, carried in the ballast water of shipping. The story and its implications are really incredible."
[...]
"Gustaaf Hallegraeff: There would not be a ballast water problem if for example a Japanese ship that comes now to Hobart to pick up woodchips, if that ship would for example deliver Japanese cars. Then it comes to Hobart, it picks up woodchips, changes the cargo and it takes the woodchips back. If a ship always carries cargo there is no problems, but somehow dedicated ships became designed that only pick a particular types of cargo and therefore they travel in one direction without a cargo, and that is where they need to fill up the whole tanks - sometimes up to 100,000 tonnes of seawater."

NOTES

[1] Sources: PoMC’s Port Development Plan 2006-2035 and PoH Land Use and Transport Strategy 2009
[2] Royce Millar, "Baillieu coal export push," 3 Mar 2011, http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/baillieu-coal-export-push-20110302-1bexa.html

Victoria's Auditor-General, Des Pearson, this morning tabled the "Environmental Management of Marine Protected Areas" report in the Victorian Parliament: This audit examined how effectively marine protected areas have been managed to protect biodiversity. It assessed the roles of Parks Victoria, and the Departments of Sustainability and Environment and Primary Industries, in the environmental management of marine protected areas. Parks Victoria cannot show that marine biodiversity is being protected or that the related management obligations of applying resources as intended are being discharged. Little environmental management activity is evident across its marine protected areas.

Environmental Management of Marine Protected Areas

Tabled: 2 March 2011

Marine protected areas, totalling 11.7 per cent of Victoria's marine environment, have been reserved to protect environmental, historical or cultural features. This audit examined how effectively marine protected areas have been managed to protect biodiversity. It assessed the roles of Parks Victoria, and the Departments of Sustainability and Environment and Primary Industries, in the environmental management of marine protected areas.

Parks Victoria cannot show that it is using allocated taxes to help marine environment

Parks Victoria cannot show that marine biodiversity is being protected or that the related management obligations of applying resources as intended are being discharged. Little environmental management activity is evident within marine protected areas.
(In May, 2010, The Auditor General also found that Control of Invasive Plants and Animals in Victoria's Parks was complicated, poorly coordinated, and poorly administered. Click here for more on this.)

Nearly half of all national and state park management plans are over a decade old.

10 year old strategy never completed, now expired

The statewide management strategy has neither been fully implemented nor evaluated before expiring in 2010. An absence of regular risk assessment review, detailed action plans and a lack of evaluation—both of management plans and activities—undermine planning at the park level. There were also gaps identified in the Department of Sustainability and Environments lead role in marine environmental policy and marine pest biosecurity.

In common with our 2010 performance audit, Control of Invasive Plants and Animals in Victoria's Parks, this audit points to systemic weaknesses with park planning, program management and resource allocation that should be addressed.

You can read the very readable, short, concise, #10;<h3>Lack of interaction between other impacting agencies makes DSE and Parks Victoria ineffective</h3>&#10;<blockquote><p>In addition to the roles that DSE and Parks Victoria perform in planning and managing marine protected areas, several other agencies have roles in regulating, funding or encouraging activities that could adversely affect the biodiversity of MPAs. These agencies include:</p>&#10;<p>• the Department of Primary Industries (DPI), responsible for fisheries management, including marine compliance activities in MPAs<br />&#10;• catchment management authorities (CMA), responsible for catchments whose activities may impact MPAs, for example, through water run-off<br />&#10;• Regional Coastal Boards, responsible for coordinating strategic planning and management of the coast<br />&#10;• the Environment Protection Authority (EPA), responsible for water quality in bays and waterways, and regulating ballast discharge from intra-state shipping. </p>&#10;<p>Arrangements between the various stakeholders are inadequate to enable effective planning. DSE’s Securing Our Natural Future: A white paper for land and biodiversity at a time of climate change and Victorian Coastal Strategy 2008, and Parks Victoria’s<br />&#10;plan, Victoria’s System of Marine National Parks and Marine Sanctuaries: Management Strategy 2003–2010, all emphasise an integrated approach to the management of MPAs. Yet, in practice, there is little interaction between the agencies.</p></blockquote>&#10;</body></html>">

In May, 2010, The Auditor General found that Control of Invasive Plants and Animals in Victoria's Parks was complicated, poorly coordinated, and poorly administered.

In May, 2010, The Auditor General also found that Control of Invasive Plants and Animals in Victoria's Parks was complicated, poorly coordinated, and poorly administered. Click here for more on this.

The report was tabled in Victorian Parliament on 26 May 2010

The audit examined the effectiveness of invasive species programs in national and state parks. In particular, it examined the governance arrangements, information systems, planning frameworks and on-ground activities targeting invasive species across the park network.
Among other things, it says,

"Several reports, including the State of the Environment report from the Commissioner for Environmental Sustainability, have made it clear that Victoria’s biodiversity is in poor condition and declining in most areas. Invasive plants and animals are a major contributor to that decline, and can have substantial economic, environmental and social impacts on parks."

The audit found governance arrangements for the control of invasive species, specifically between the Departments of Sustainability and Environment, Primary Industries and Parks Victoria, are complicated and not well coordinated. There is no single point of focus for oversight or for the responsibility of success or failure.

How well Parks Victoria manages the invasive species threat in parks is unclear. Its planning is not robust, and its data and park management plans are inadequate and increasingly out of date. In addition, monitoring and evaluation of invasive species management activities is inconsistent.

"The governance arrangements for managing invasive species are very complicated and do not clearly assign roles and ultimate responsibility for success or failure. Recent policy emphasises a landscape scale approach—one that disregards
boundaries based on land ownership and use—to manage pervasive threats, such as invasive species. While progress has been made, Parks Victoria (PV) is yet to apply this approach consistently, and no agency is clearly responsible for balancing local and
regional issues with statewide management priorities."

Good progress has been made in managing some invasive species in some parks, but an increasing reliance on short-term initiative funding to address a long-term problem is detrimental to the effectiveness of the effort across the park network.

PV’s human resources management system does not enable accurate reporting on the time spent on invasive species management activities, as it does not differentiate between invasive species activities and other tasks that PV staff routinely
undertake. This is important as invasive species management requires intensive use of human resources. As a consequence, PV could not provide assurance that adequate management activities were occurring, particularly in terms of time spent.

Given the scale of the problem, if these organisational issues and resource constraints are not addressed, invasive species will continue to pose a major and likely growing threat to Victorian parks.

Around 75 per cent of all plant data and 57 per cent of animal data is over 10 years old, while around 30 per cent of plant and animal data is over 20 years old. Data gathering on new and emerging invasive species is not given sufficient emphasis. The lack of universal access to good quality information is hampering coordination between responsible agencies.

Planning and control at the park level There are no park management plans or documents that provide park level detail on threat priorities, the actions to manage these threats or sets out who is responsible for implementing and action. Nearly half of the plans are over a decade old and do not address new and emerging threats—a key element of the current biosecurity
approach.

By Julianne Bell, Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc. and Jill Quirk, Sustainable Population Australia Inc. (Victorian Branch)
Planning issues dogged the Victorian ALP Government, although the ex-Planning Minister seemed remarkably unconcerned about community angst over high rise, high density development. Probably millions of dollars of the community's money and thousands of hours have been spent opposing unwanted, inappropriate developments especially in the established suburbs of Melbourne.

State ALP lost right to govern over population growth

From a quick analysis of the results of the Victorian State election it seems that the ALP lost its right to govern as a result of the direct and indirect effects of extremely rapid population growth in recent years in our State. Former Premier Brumby and his Cabinet failed to recognise the elephant in the living room - population growth. This was confirmed by Daniel Andrews, newly elected Opposition Leader, who attributed Labor's defeat to their having "not kept pace with growth" nor having "stayed ahead of the unprecedented (population) growth in the last few years." (3AW and ABC Stateline 3 December 2010.)

Unrealistic state policy

We submit that, as recent projections indicate Melbourne's population will almost double and reach at least 7 million by 2050, there is no way that the Brumby Government could have kept pace with provision of adequate services and affordable housing for Victorians. The same will be the case for the Baillieu Government if the present population intakes to Victoria continue. Any Government would simply be playing "catch up" and so it is inevitable that the community's living standards will fall further and further behind.

A rough overview of the demise of the Brumby Government follows.

Pipeline another cost of population overgrowth

The ALP was able to hold onto most of its non-metropolitan seats with the exception of South Barwon and Seymour. Constituents of the seat of Seymour were extremely disaffected by construction of the North South Pipeline (also known as the Sugarloaf Pipeline.) This piece of infrastructure was hurriedly installed to provide water for Melbourne's growing population. As it has turned out, it has not been needed as the drought has broken, but the intention was to siphon water away from the northern rivers of Victoria as required to supply Melbourne and hence the community in the seat of Seymour were the losers from population growth. The seat has gone to the Coalition with the help of preferences from independent candidate and Plug the Pipe member, Jan Beer.

Overpopulation-related erosion of living standards

Moving in towards the vortex of Melbourne, the outer suburbs suffered from an erosion of their living standards and financial stress from increases in council rates due to the rising cost of land and cost of infrastructure required by a rapidly growing population and so the ALP seats of Gembrook, Mt Waverley, Mitcham and Forest Hill were lost.

Public transport fiasco another cost of overpopulation

Turning our attention to the sand belt electorates; the seat of Carrum was unexpectedly lost to Labor, then Frankston, Mordialloc and finally Bentleigh became the last ALP domino to fall in the State Election. Constituents reported that they have suffered, amongst other things, from unreliable, unsafe and crowded train services which, in our view, were primarily due to increased pressure of population and failure of the Government to fund public transport. It was particularly aggravating that the Government splashed out on the Peninsula Link freeway which, reputedly, will soak up $2.8 billion of taxpayers' funds by the time it is completed.

Traffic congestion another cost of overpopulation

Focusing right in, the clearway issue due to traffic congestion from increased population and inability for our local streets to cope with traffic volumes even outside normal "Peak Hour" was a very sore point in inner southern suburbs of Melbourne, especially Malvern, Richmond and Prahran. The anger over this was expressed at a rally "Make Brumby History" on Parliament House steps, just before the election. The rally expressed a multitude of citizens' concerns but the impetus came from those opposing clearways.

Planning problems & protests caused by overpopulation

Planning issues also dogged the ALP Government, although the ex-Planning Minister seemed remarkably unconcerned about community angst over high rise, high density development. Regular rallies were held at Parliament and in the inner city, for instance, over the extension of the urban growth boundary; the destruction of the Windsor Hotel with the addition of a 92 metre tower block; loss of other iconic heritage properties in Melbourne; and his ALP fundraising ("cash-for-chat") lunch with developers. Probably millions of dollars of the community's money and thousands of hours have been spent opposing unwanted, inappropriate developments especially in the established suburbs of Melbourne.

No winners in this endless catch-up game

Unless the Baillieu government recognises that it is impossible to make life better for Victorians if population growth continues, as in the last decade, it too will fail to deliver as Victorians suffer anew. With continual rapid population growth, any state government will spend most of its energy just trying to cope with ever increasing demand for all services and housing and fighting escalating costs.

Dire environmental costs of overpopulation

The most serious long term problem that has been brought about by population pressures is the effect on the environment. The areas of concern - waterways and wetlands, water supplies, biodiversity, coasts, estuaries and the sea - detailed in the 2008 State of the Environment Report show our precious and fragile environment to be in a parlous state and this report should be a warning to any government taking the reins in Victoria.

Baillieu government faces same destiny if does not change course

Unless the Baillieu government faces the limitations firstly of our environment and secondly of the capacity of our society to provide requisite infrastructure, it will have little hope of outperforming the last government. The rate of population growth is, to a large extent, a choice made by the Federal Government which holds the actual keys to the immigration gates. We consider, however, that the Baillieu Government should create state history by establishing a joint Parliamentary committee of enquiry to examine just what is a sustainable population for Victoria, in order that our standards of living can be maintained and our environment rehabilitated and protected for future generations.

Jill Quirk is the President of Sustainable Population Australia Inc. (Victorian Branch)
P.O. Box 1173 Frankston 3199.

Julianne Bell is the Secretary Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc.
PO Box 197 Parkville 3052

URGENT: Please lend your support by attending at Supreme Court to Victorian Government prosecution of Brown Mountain protesters. Tomorrow, Wednesday at 10:00am, (10 November 2010) the Department of Sustainability and Environment will proceed with its prosecution of the individuals charged with protesting at Brown Mountain. meet outside the Magistrates’ Court at 9:15am, corner of Williams and Lonsdale Street Melbourne. I will be there to meet you and direct you to the relevant Court room. This is a political cause of deepest importance. The Victorian Government and the ALP's involvement in forest crimes goes back years. The forest protesters are our bravest democratic and environmental activists. We must support them for all that they do for the rest of us.

Wednesday 10 November - stand up for justice

Today, Wednesday at 10:00am, (10 November 2010) the Department of Sustainability and Environment will proceed with its prosecution of the individuals charged with protesting at Brown Mountain.

Although Bleyer Lawyers, acting for the individuals, invited DSE to withdraw the charges given the Supreme Court of Victoria restrained VicForests from logging at Brown Mountain, the Department is pressing on with the prosecutions of those charged before the outcome of the Supreme Court case.

We would be grateful if you could lend your support to the individuals who have been arrested for protecting Brown Mountain and attend Court tomorrow.

If you are able to attend, please meet outside the Magistrates’ Court at 9:15am, corner of Williams and Lonsdale Street Melbourne. I will be there to meet you and direct you to the relevant Court room.

Please do not hesitate to contact me should you have any queries.

Kind regards

Sophie Bird - Lawyers for Forests - M 0414 985 728

ALSO – LEGAL UPDATE IN FITZROY ON THURSDAY @ 7pm

A reminder that the launch of the legal guide for forest activist is being held this Thursday, 11 November 2010 at the Marquis of Lorne, Corner Kerr and George Street, Fitzroy. Please disseminate the invitation to your networks. At this stage we plan to have an update on the Tas and Vic negotiation, a chat about upcoming campaign events and a legal update.

We hope to see you there (see attachment).

Sophie Bird - Lawyers for Forests

AND LASTLY a fund raiser this Saturday 13th Nov at Rye Beach.

FOREST FUNDRAISER FOR ENVIRONMENT EAST GIPSLAND AND SAVE THE PINES

OUR WILDLIFE IS CRYING OUT FOR YOUR HELP

COME AND SUPPORT THE PEOPLE WHO ARE HAVE DEDICATED THEIR LIVES TO THE PROTECTION OF OUR STUNNINGLY BEAUTIFUL BUSH LIKE BROWN MOUNTAIN AND WESTERFIELDS AT:

ST ANDREWS REC CLUB HALL

99 BASS MEADOWS BLVD

ST ANDREWS BEACH (RYE BACK BEACH)

3 CLASSIC LOCAL BANDS :

· LUCKY,

· KING BAT AND

· TUBAVAS.

ON SATURDAY 13 TH OF NOVEMBER 2010

7PM- 12PM BYO

COME AND CELEBRATE ENVIRONMENT EAST GIPSLAND’S COURT CASE WIN AND FIND OUT WHAT THIS MEANS FOR ENDANGERED SPECIES PROTECTION. HEAR ABOUT THE BATTLE TO SAVE THE NORTHERN PENINSULA BUSHLAND.

COME AND ENJOY A GREAT NIGHT AT THE REC CLUB WITH OTHER PEOPLE WHO CARE ABOUT OUR MAGNIFICENT ECOSYSTEMS.

FOR MORE INFO CALL MARK ON 59822046 (or see attachment)

----------------

Jill Redwood

Coordinator

Environment East Gippsland Inc

(6800 Bonang Rd Goongerah)

Locked Bag 3

ORBOST Vic 3888

Ph (03) 5154 0145

www.eastgippsland.net.au

Victoria - the place to be? - for bloody whom?

Clearly, the Victorian Brumby Government is hell bent on accommodating immigration hoards regardless of triple-bottom line impacts. The Brumby Government changes to the Victorian State Planning Policy Framework – Amendment VC71, are summarised by Chairman Brumby's growthist mates up at the Property Council on its website.

This is Chairman Brumby's Big Victoria manifesto. He has set up a Growth Areas Authority to prepare Melbourne and its fringes rural areas for "new residential
communities and new employment areas", to "increase consistency and certainty in growth area planning".

Chairman Brumby's Melbourne @ 5 Million ruling proclaims creation of a multi-centre city through six new Central Activities Districts in Box Hill, Broadmeadows, Dandenong, Footscray, Frankston and Ringwood" and "expansion of the outer Melbourne Urban Growth Boundary to accommodate some of the 284,000 new dwellings". Perhaps Brumby's next demographic phase of his cultural revolution will be to rename his six new Central Activities Districts in Box Hill, Broadmeadows, Dandenong, Footscray, Frankston and Ringwood respectively 'New Guangzhou', 'New Shenzhen', 'New Nanjing', 'New Chanchun', 'New Qingdao' and 'New Chengdu'.

True-to-form Chairman Brumby's 20th Century growthist mindset shows contempt for socio-ecological quality standards. The bottom line outcomes for a Big Victoria are made starkly clear.

Victoria - the place to be?

Meanwhile, the Victorian Greens are tokenly supportive of triple bottom line principles and the desire for limits on urban growth. But true to form, their policy offering remains idealistic and motherhood, with no shovel-ready strategy nor costed programmes. They may aspire to socio-ecological quality standards, but are the triple bottom line outcomes for a Livable Victoria are starkly missing. The Victorian Greens profess a Land Use Planning policy (see below) and that is where the Victorian Greens contribution to Victorians seems to stop.

Brumby's VC71 'Big Victoria Manifesto'

(summarised by the Property Council)

"ready for tomorrow"...for whom?

Message:

Melbourne's 'most liable city' reputation was once was the envy of the world!
But Brumby is proclaiming - bugger the incumbents and ignore the society and lifestyle that Melbournians have built over generations. If you're from an impoverished underdeveloped country and seeking a better life then sure

Victoria is the place to be...for immigrants!

Meanwhile, the Victorian Greens Land Use Planning Policy reads as follows:

Victorian Greens Policy on Land Use Planning

Source: http://vic.greens.org.au/policies/land-use-planning

The following article takes the Victorian Greens severely to task . We at candobetter.org are very willing to publish a reply from the Greens explaining their failure to move a motion to replace or to vote against VC71.

Labor and Green MPs' condemned on VC 71

This week Protectors of Public Land Victoria and Planning Backlash both condemned Labor and Green members of Parliament for failing to act to remove the infamous Clause 16 of Planning Amendment VC 71.

VC71 clause 16 was to be challenged by the Liberals on 6 October. Greens were approached to support it and many people expected that support to be automatic. The Greens had voted against clause 16 in an earlier form[1] and it had now reappeared without significant changes. Many conservationists and planning activists throughout Melbourne have seen in the Greens some hope of an alternative to population growth and development uber al. They were aghast to realise that the Greens had finished up supporting the Brumby Government's ecologically unsustainable population growth and this crowning horror of Justin Madden's bad development laws.

But there were signs of this earlier. See "Are the Greens a real alternative?".

Mary Drost, of Planning Backlash, wrote that she was "devastated" to have to tell people that, when the partial debate took place on Wednesday night (the 6th):

Greg Barber, Planning Spokesperson for the Greens, talked so long that the time was up and there was no time for a vote, due to Standing Orders of Parliament. Reading his words in Hansard I am still not sure what he was saying. Some are calling it a "Filibuster" (to avoid a vote being taken). Hence it means that VC71 clause 16 was not challenged and remains in force."

"Even worse," Mary continued,

"On Thursday (the 7th) there was a motion that the Upper House return to Parliament next week to vote on deleting the clause from VC71 motion. The Greens voted with Labor against returning to Parliament, saving the Greens the decision whether to vote for deleting Clause 16 of VC71 and upsetting Labor or voting against the motion and upsetting the community. Well we are upset, we feel badly let down. We condemn those members of Parliament - Labor and Green – for allowing Clause 16 of VC71 to remain in force.

So VC71 stays in and is already being used in VCAT to help developers. It is pie in the sky for Greg Barber to say in his lengthy speech that it can still be got rid of in the new parliament.

Of Clause 16, Julianne Bell, of Protectors of Public Land wrote,

"PPL VIC has long campaigned against such high rise urban development along transport routes and also against the extension of the urban growth boundary. The community has not been consulted over VC 71 but it has been imposed on Melburnians by the Brumby Government despite the extraordinary community opposition demonstrated through Melbourne, including several rallies at Parliament. This plan to line public transport routes with multi storey apartments to accommodate the anticipated increase of one and a half million population had its genesis in the blueprint "Transforming Australian Cities" commissioned by the City of Melbourne and the State Government in May 2009. (This plan was said to have been derived from a South American architect who sought to house former shanty town dwellers in high rise/multi storey apartment units along bus routes.)

Atkinson's opening speech to the motion 6 October 2010

Liberal, Bruce Atkinson, despite the party's formal opposition to Clause 16,
summed up his party's spineless endorsement of Labor's laws to mandate land-speculation and profit at the expense of democracy through high density development, in this piffling piece of hairsplitting:

Mr. Bruce Atkinson (Liberal) speaking to the motion in the Upper House on Wednesday last 6 October : "What concerns us about the government's approach in planning amendment VC 71 is not higher density development per se but the fact that this particular provision is indiscriminate. This provision would suggest that higher density development could run along every major railway, every major bus route, every major tramline throughout the metropolitan area and could quite conceivably involve development along these major transport corridors to a level of five, six, eight or nine storeys and for a significant depth, some 400 metres in, from those transport corridors - those bus routes, tramlines or train lines. That is a very significant change to the character of Melbourne and its suburbs."

(...)

"We are not opposed to some of the objectives the government had in arriving initially at its Melbourne 2030 policy — a policy that became discredited in the community and needed to be re-badged as Melbourne @ 5 Million. "

Victorian Greens Greg Barber's hollow words

What did Greg Barber talk about for so long that everyone else ran out of time?

Barber canned both Labor and Liberal for their failure to care for the environment or to provide better policies. All very well, but completely hollow words, for the Greens simply failed to supply an alternative to clause 16. And they all went right along and voted against any further review of Clause 16.

Read the full text at the end of this article, [2] but here is a stirring and clever excerpt which unfortunately led from nowhere to nowhere and round and round and round until all the allocated time was gone:

[Ed. Excerpt reparagraphed for clarity.]

"Ms Mikakos described this proposal by the government as policy neutral, which is a very post-modern Labor way of saying, ‘The document actually does nothing’ — and I
agree.

This document, which appears to update and make changes to the highest level decisions and aims of our planning scheme, does nothing.

We all know with the sorts of environmental, social and economic pressures on our city that doing nothing right now is not really an option. In a way, doing nothing is making a decision.

It allows the invisible hand of the market to have its way, and when you intervene it is usually at the ministerial level, site by site, favour by favour.

Let us have a look at this policy-neutral document in front of us.

If we take Ms Mikakos at her word, it is policy neutral in relation to the supply of urban land, but in fact having just voted on an expansion to the urban growth boundary (UGB), which the Greens opposed, this material anticipates the next extension of the urban growth boundary. It is policy neutral in the sense that we will continue to have the oxymoron known as a growth boundary, which really means sprawl-for-ever.

It is policy neutral in relation to planning for growth areas.

When we debated the UGB and the growth areas infrastructure charge the Greens knew the major issue then was the failure of planning for growth areas, not just in the sense of structure planning but in all the matters that go along with a livable community on a greenfield site.

It is policy neutral — that is to say it does nothing in relation to structure planning, a phrase that first popped up when Melbourne 2030 landed on our city like a group of lost aliens and said, ‘Take us to your leader’, or more importantly, ‘We are in charge now’.

Structure planning was meant to indicate that councils would take control of how development was to occur in activity centres. The amendment is policy neutral in relation to open space, which is to say that the government will continue to chip away at it where it is most needed, where it is already underprovided.

Nothing in this will protect open space, particularly when even what we think of as open space turns out not to be zoned for public purposes. Nothing in this suggests that land used as open space and essential to the community must have an appropriate zoning, let alone the kind of zoning that can just be wiped away in an instant at the stroke of a pen by the minister. That is exactly what happened in relation to the Abbotsford convent until we fought the government back.

The document is policy neutral in relation to activity centre hierarchy because we just do not have one. Sure, we have different forms of activity centres listed in a document, but it does not tell us what will then be the fate of each of those activity centres.

The amendment is policy neutral in relation to employment corridors.

When I asked the minister in hearings with the Growth Areas Authority what the idea of the employment corridors was he could not really explain it to me. Mr Guy is not here and I do not want to verbal him, but I had the same conversation with him. What does it mean?

It says: Develop the following employment corridors: Avalon Airport to Werribee, Melton, Melbourne Airport and Donnybrook (Hume-Mitchell). Who will work there and what will they do? Who said that that will be a great place for a set of industries?

Under this same section transport networks are being provided that will allow circumferential in addition to radial movements. That means that you can be a metalworker living in Werribee and working in Warrandyte and every day on the Western Ring Road you can pass another metalworker who does the opposite and you can wave to each other on the freeway.

The amendment is policy neutral in the sense that the government will just keep on building roads and people will just keep on driving on them. The government will not ask us about how we want the city to develop. We will just follow the cars that have an asphalt truck in front of them.

The document is reasonably policy neutral in relation to central Melbourne because there does not seem to be a vision for central Melbourne. Between the two census periods central Melbourne added 25 000 jobs. Some of the CADs (central activities districts) have only about 25 000 jobs each. If in one census period central Melbourne added the equivalent number of jobs of a CAD, why did that happen? Is that what was intended? What will the government do about it?

Why did the government not buy enough trains to get those people to work?

If the government could not make provision for even those sorts of things, what chance does it have with other CADs in other locations across the landscape?

We absolutely know that the amendment is policy neutral in relation to green wedges because the government has done nothing for green wedges, to protect them and their values, since it has been in power. The green wedges have been there forever. As Mr Atkinson said, the city has always been there and the green wedges have always been there. The government has recognised them in policy occasionally. As with the CADs, the test is what the government did and what this document does to protect and enhance the values of the green wedges. The fact is that they are chipped away every year. "

Such reasonable observations. All talk apparently. The Greens offered up no new motion or recommendation. Perhaps they have some explanation - in which case, we want to hear it and publish it.

Three political parties or one big land-corporation?

All three parties seem to have become completely subservient to the developers and their agenda of growing Victoria (and Australia's) population just in order to promote inflation of their assets and demand for their products. There is much evidence to suggest that the ALP is no longer a real political party but more of a land-development corporation (see articles here), but the absolute lack of real opposition from Greens or Liberals to the way that the Labor government promotes its party's own financial agenda makes observers wonder what the pay-offs are.

The "Greens"

Most activists realise now that they cannot expect any kind of democratic reform from the Liberal or the Labor party. But many still had illusions about the Greens.

Maybe Victorians need to realise that branding - as in calling a party "Green" doesn't make it green. I mean, do you buy a dishwashing detergent just because it comes in a green bottle and calls itself 'environmental'? or do you look at the ingredients? Do you vote for a politician because they are a member of the "Greens" or do you look at the politician's record on ecological fundamentals - population, development and democracy?

Parties and politicians need to be judged by their actions and inactions. All the parties have politicians who are only ever seen or heard around election time, often in a photograph with the party leader, endorsing some motherhood cliche.

Others, more sophisticated, have developed a technique of trailing enticing isolated soundbites on issues of significance - population, development and democracy - but if you look more closely, you see that their parties have policies not unlike those of the State Labor government. For instance, check out the Greens' policies on Land-use planning. Not a word about avoiding population growth. Tim Murray's comments here about 'The Green Contradiction' are very apt, even though he is talking about Canadian Greens.

Truly, we are in dire need of new independent candidates. More activists should step forward and give it a go - outside the parties. Consider forming alliances of community independents.

Victorians urgently need someone else to vote for besides the Greens, Labor and the Liberals, or we are doomed. Let us hope for an outcome at the very least similar to the Federal election outcome, which gave the public for the first time in many decades, the possibility of real choice over policy directions.

Julianne Bell of Protectors of Public Lands writes:

"We consider that candidates standing in the forthcoming elections should be questioned on this issue and asked if they would consider acting to rescind Planning Amendment Clause 16, VC 71. We understand that the Liberal Party has recently advertised in a local paper that "a Coalition Government is committed to scrapping John Brumby's planning law changes." PPL VIC will circulate details of candidates election forums. Please send me details of any in your area for which you would like publicity."

REFERENCES

[1]
On Wednesday October 6th, the Coalition moved a motion to remove clause 16 from Amendment VC71 which Madden had signed 2 weeks earlier. This was a rewrite of the old clause 12 that had been sliced off VC67 earlier in the year, and resurrected in VC71 in the form of clause 16:

Link to the current clause 16 in VC71.

This will give developers an easy road to high density high rise development along tram train and bus routes and in and around all hundreds of Activity Centres. (see below quote from VC71 clause 16) This will allow indiscriminate development all over Melbourne. This will enable developers to win easily in VCAT, residents and councils would be rendered powerless in opposing high rise on transport routes and around Activity Centres, including even Neighbourhood Centres.

[2] Speech by Mr Barber

Hansard: Wednesday, 6 October 2010 COUNCIL PROOF 109 (pp.105-112 includes other speakers)

Mr BARBER (Northern Metropolitan) — It is amazing. It has taken four years and I never thought it would happen, but Ms Mikakos and I agree on something in relation to planning. Ms Mikakos described this proposal by the government as policy neutral, which is a very post-modern Labor way of saying, ‘The document actually does nothing’ — and I
agree. This document, which appears to update and make changes to the highest level decisions and aims of our planning scheme, does nothing. We all know with the sorts of environmental, social and economic pressures on our city that doing nothing right now is not really an option. In a way, doing nothing is making a decision. It allows the invisible hand of the market to have its way, and when you intervene it is usually at the
ministerial level, site by site, favour by favour. Let us have a look at this policy-neutral document in front of us. If we take Ms Mikakos at her word, it is policy neutral in relation to the supply of urban land, but in fact having just voted on an expansion to the urban growth boundary (UGB), which the Greens opposed, this material anticipates the next extension of the urban growth boundary. It is policy neutral in the sense that we will continue to have the oxymoron known as a growth boundary, which really means
sprawl-for-ever. It is policy neutral in relation to planning for growth areas. When we debated the UGB and the growth areas infrastructure charge the Greens knew the
major issue then was the failure of planning for growth areas, not just in the sense of structure planning but in all the matters that go along with a livable community on a greenfield site. It is policy neutral — that is to say it does nothing in relation to structure planning, a phrase that first popped up when Melbourne 2030 landed on our city like a group of lost aliens and said, ‘Take us to your leader’, or more importantly, ‘We are in charge now’. Structure planning was meant to indicate that councils would take control of how development was to occur in activity centres. The amendment is policy neutral in relation to open space, which is to say that the government will continue to chip away at it where it is most needed, where it is already underprovided. Nothing in this will protect open space, particularly when even what we think of as open space turns out not to be zoned for public purposes. Nothing in this suggests that land used as open space and essential to the community must have an appropriate zoning, let alone the kind of zoning that can just be wiped away in an instant at the stroke of a pen by the minister. That is exactly what happened in relation to the Abbotsford convent until we fought the government back. The document is policy neutral in relation to activity centre hierarchy because we just do not have one. Sure, we have different forms of activity centres listed in a document, but it does not tell us what will then be the fate of each of those activity centres. The amendment is policy neutral in relation to employment corridors. When I asked the minister in hearings with the Growth Areas Authority what the idea of the employment corridors was he could not really explain it to me. Mr Guy is not here and I do not want to verbal him, but I had the same conversation with him. What does it mean? It says: Develop the following employment corridors: Avalon Airport to Werribee, Melton, Melbourne Airport and Donnybrook (Hume-Mitchell). Who will work there and what will they do? Who said that that will be a great place for a set of industries? Under this same section transport networks are being provided that will allow circumferential in addition to radial movements. That means that you can be a metalworker living in Werribee and working in Warrandyte and every day on the Western Ring Road you can pass another metalworker who does the opposite and you can wave to each other on the freeway. The amendment is policy neutral in the sense that the government will just keep on building roads and people will just keep on driving on them. The government will not ask us about how we want the city to develop. We will just follow the cars that have an asphalt truck in front of them. The document is reasonably policy neutral in relation to central Melbourne because there does not seem to be a vision for central Melbourne. Between the two census periods central Melbourne added 25 000 jobs. Some of the CADs (central activities districts) have only about 25 000 jobs each. If in one census period central Melbourne added the equivalent number of jobs of a CAD, why did that happen? Is that what was intended? What will the government do about it? Why did the government not buy enough trains to get those people to work? If the government could not make provision for even those sorts of things, what chance does it have with other CADs in other locations across the landscape? We absolutely know that the amendment is policy neutral in relation to green wedges because the government has done nothing for green wedges, to protect them and their values, since it has been in power. The green wedges have been there forever. As Mr Atkinson said, the city has always been there and the green wedges have always been there. The government has recognised them in policy occasionally. As with the CADs, the test is what the government did and what this document does to protect and enhance the values of the green wedges. The fact is that they are chipped away every year. Land values, in farming, the landscape and biodiversity, are in decline in the green wedges. The document is certainly policy neutral in relation to wildfire. That in itself is a minor scandal given that members of this place have spent an awfully long time talking about wildfire and the Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission and its recommendations. I go back to what the recommendations in relation to planning are so that we can remind ourselves that they are not being implemented, at least not through this exercise. The bushfires royal commission wanted a number of tasks done. In terms of actual strategic planning, these were the specific recommendations: The state amend the Victoria planning provisions relating to bushfire to ensure that the provisions give priority to the protection of human life, adopt a clear objective of substantially restricting development in the areas of highest bushfire risk — giving due consideration to biodiversity conservation — and provide clear guidance for decision-makers. The amendments should take account of the conclusions reached by the commission and do the following: outline the state’s objectives for managing bushfire risk through land use planning in an amended state planning policy for bushfire, as set out in clause 15.07 of the Victoria planning provisions — It is not there in this effort — allow municipal councils to include a minimum lot size for use of land for a dwelling, both with and without a permit, in a schedule to each of the rural living zone, green wedge zone, green wedge A zone, rural conservation zone, farming zone and rural activity zone amend clause 44.06 of the Victoria planning provisions to provide a comprehensive bushfire-prone overlay provision. The commission then goes on to talk about a number of other changing rules for various decision-makers and referral authorities, including the Country Fire Authority. It suggests some considerable changes being made to those, changes that cannot be seen in the document that is being considered here. It is possible that the government is working on this and it will bring forward another document, but there is no alacrity. There must have been some kind of momentum behind this particular document, which is a complete review, if you like, of the overarching state planning policy framework, but it seems to have overtaken the efforts that we are making in relation to bushfire, which I would have thought were urgent. I spoke about that at length in various responses to the bushfires royal commission, and I have spoken about it in relation to particular planning decisions that have been made since February 2009. I do not really need to speak to it much more but simply point out that the government has failed at that particular hurdle. In relation to the continuing chipping away of productive agricultural land, which is a problem at the urban fringe but also in those leapfrog growth areas such as the Macedon Ranges, again there is nothing in the amendment from the point of view of protecting productive agricultural land, which we can expect to shrink over time under the climate change scenario. Members of the coalition are looking very worried. On a matter of procedure I just want to tell people not to despair because there are two possibilities when we come back here in February. One is that the coalition parties are in government and Mr Guy is the planning minister, in which case they can rewrite this amendment however they want. The second possibility is that we are back here and where we started, at which point this amendment is still a disallowable instrument. The capacity to disallow this or any part of it, including the small part that Mr Guy is going after today, will still be disallowable when we get back here in February, and no doubt in our first sitting week in March, because the clock will not have run out on it. There is plenty of time; there is no shortage of time. I know that some members are looking at the clock. There is no shortage of time, firstly, for the coalition to put out an alternative vision to what is here and, secondly, for Mr Guy to become planning minister, if the planets line up. The worst-case scenario is that if the opposition is fair dinkum about what it is saying tonight, it can come back and make the same motion in February, and it will not have run out of time. It is policy neutral in relation to Aboriginal cultural heritage, but of most concern, I would have thought, to people thinking years down the track is the impact on our rural landscape, which has been under pressure ever since this new form of planning scheme has been in place. Having addressed Ms Mikakos’s issues I now want to pick up on what Mr Atkinson, the mover of the motion, said. He said he is worried that this provision is indiscriminate. Everything in the planning scheme is indiscriminate. ‘Nothing’ means ‘nothing’ under this planning scheme, and that is the way the Liberals, when last in government, designed it. That is the way that Labor, for 11 years, has kept it. It loves it. What we are really debating here is a by-law. There is the Planning and Environment Act, and then there is a by-law to the act, which this thing is. However, what we are told is that it is a wonderful form of law because it is performance-based; it is objective-based. The very things that Mr Atkinson is objecting to today, on behalf of Mr Guy, are in fact objectives; that is all they are. They are objectives to be achieved. We would never vote for an objective-based traffic law. Would we come in here and say, ‘We’re passing this new law and there will be some by-laws worked out later by the minister, but effectively what they will say is that the objective of the traffic law is “Don’t kill people”, and here is a table of preferred maximum speeds’. It would be like these preferred maximum heights that the Liberal-Labor coalition is so keen on when it comes to every other aspect, including the Windsor Hotel, which we could have had a crack at if we had had our chance. Preferred maximum speeds are designed to achieve more objectives. As a driver you can consider the different factors at play. There will be a list. There will be decision guidelines underneath that you have to check off. If someone says you are doing the wrong thing, you go to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, spin the wheel of fortune and argue about whether or not you were speeding. At VCAT you can bring in various kind of road consultants, perhaps physicists, mechanical engineers and so forth to prove that on balance — not as a matter of law, but on balance, when all the different parts of the decision-making guidelines are considered — that you were generally compliant with the preferred maximum speed on the Geelong Road. That is an extremely contrasting example, I have to say, but this is an extremely important issue. We are trying to do some really important things here — maybe not as immediately important as road safety, but important for the entire fate of all the people who live in Melbourne. It is sometimes their physical wellbeing, sometimes their access to buildings, if the question is accessibility and sometimes their ability to afford a house, if the question is affordability, which we can come back to when we debate this motion a bit further. It is very much their direct and daily welfare, but it is also our shared welfare. It is our social, economic and environmental future. It includes things such as biodiversity, which we want to pass on to generations to come and which in a way are not really ours to mess with. We might think we are the Parliament, that we are elected and that people gave us the job to make a lot of decisions, but there are certain decisions that I think should be virtually out of bounds because they are for future generations. We might pride ourselves on being in a liberal democracy, but it was a reasonably democratic liberal democracy that sat down and made the very considered decision to kill all the Tasmanian tigers. Unfortunately today’s Tasmanian Parliament does not get to vote them back into existence. When it comes to matters of biodiversity, environment and the future legacy we leave to our children and grandchildren for many generations to come we have to be extraordinarily careful in the way we exercise that power. Mr Atkinson said he was worried about consultation in relation to the way planning schemes were amended, if I understood him correctly. The mechanisms for consultation and having your say under amendments to the planning scheme I would say are fundamentally the same as they always were under the Kennett government that created this architecture. The bigger question, though — and there is no doubt that Mr Atkinson thinks very deeply about these things — is the proper planning of the city. He said it is the major issue. He said the opposition is not opposed to high density. He said it is not opposed to a number of other things as well. Unfortunately over the four years I have been here I have discovered to my cost that the opposition is not opposed to development assessment committees. It was opposed to them for a while. Then it got scared and decided they were all right. The opposition is not opposed to urban sprawl. It is not opposed to the growth areas infrastructure charge. It is not opposed to raking in the same sorts of donations from developers that the government of the day does, but the opposition thinks the donations are a bit cleaner in its hands simply because it is not the government writing these planning schemes at the moment. However, the opposition is writing them because ever since the Greens have been here we have been bringing these matters up for debate, and the opposition was never opposed to Mr Madden’s intervention on the Yarra River down there at Richmond or down there on the bay — — Mr P. Davis — Yes, we were, actually; some of us were opposed to that. Mr BARBER — No, you may have been opposed, but you did not vote that way, Mr Davis. And you were not opposed to Mr Madden’s intervention down there in Williamstown, despite the fact that the entire community, Joan Kirner, Steve Bracks and the local council were all opposed to that intervention.

The Greens were opposed to it too. The coalition and the Labor Party were not. There is a certain point when you need to be opposed to a few things. It is a good start to say what you are against, what you are not for. If you can go on from that, you can start talking about what you are in favour of. I am in favour of all the things the government lists in its table here. That is what planning is for — it is to allow for changing things we want to change and protecting things we want to protect. Unfortunately Ms Mikakos’s policy-neutral document does not give those sorts of things the protection they need, and therefore I am against it. I am against the lack of protection in Ms Mikakos’s planning scheme, inherited from those guys. Mr Atkinson quite rightly pointed out that in established areas we need infrastructure. He was talking about drains and sewers, but there is a lot more to that when you are running an inner city or even middle suburban municipality. It is very important. That is why the Greens support enhanced developer contribution plans, not just out in the greenfield areas where you have the growth areas infrastructure contribution now but also in established areas where the question of infrastructure provision is a lot harder. The densification builds up very quickly. You cannot simply create new open space. You cannot always shoehorn in community infrastructure such as child-care centres; it is very expensive to do so. What you are really doing is site-by-site development. You are supposed to be giving the money to councils so they can provide something for all of the residents, both established and new, but the trigger is new. If you have ever tried to deal with one of these developer contribution plans, you know it is an absolute nightmare. The way it is structured under the planning scheme and under the Planning and Environment Act makes it not worth doing. It is hopeless. Some councils have looked at doing them. I know the City of Darebin did one and it has barely collected any money from it so far. It probably has not even paid back the cost of going through the exercise, which the government forced it to do.

Business interrupted pursuant to standing orders.

Midday: Anti Desal Plant Rally on steps of parliament, Melbourne. All supporters welcome. After that, go to the Upper House Gallery, Parliament House,and show your support to the Opposition's motion to Overturn Amendment VC71

Anti Desal Plant Rally, Wednesday 6 October, midday until 1.30

Watershed (formerly Your Water, Your Say) – those protesting the now infamous Desal Plant at Wonthaggi, ARE HOLDING A RALLY ON THE STEPS OF PARLIAMENT HOUSE, calling for the very expensive and deeply troubled project to be scrapped. You are enthusiastically invited to support them by being there – after all, its OUR money and OUR future too, not just theirs.

Parliament House – Opposition To Overturn Amendment VC71

Wednesday 6 October (time to be advised but likely afternoon)

Matthew Guy, Shadow Planning, will be moving a motion in the Upper House to get rid of the terrible Amendment VC71 that was approved by Planning Minister Justin Madden last week. VC71 is a terrible amendment and terrible planning which puts Melbourne 2030 across all of Victoria, forcing metro standards on country areas, and makes it obligatory to have high rise and high density across the metro area (these provisions could also be applied in country areas).

Please show your support for getting rid of this horrid amendment by being at Parliament House Upper House gallery if you can. If you haven’t been to parliament before, here’s your chance to see how our democracy works (or not).

Also, please encourage Greg Barber (Greens) greg.barber[at]parliament.vic.gov.au and Peter Kavanagh (DLP) peter.kavanagh[at]parliament.vic.gov.au to support Matthew Guy’s motion by sending a message to both.

Source: Christine Pruneau of Macedon Ranges' Residents Association (MRRA)

The ALP’s 2006 election promise was to protect ‘the last significant stands of old growth planned for logging’. But environment groups say that most of what has recently been identified for protecton was either in existing protection zones, had already been logged or was degraded forest unwanted for logs or woodchips anyway.

For at least the third time, the Government today announced the new additions to the reserve system in East Gippsland. The ALP’s 2006 election promise was to protect ‘the last significant stands of old growth planned for logging’.

But environment groups say that most of what has been protected was either in existing protection zones, had already been logged or was degraded forest unwanted for logs or woodchips anyway.

“We’re pleased some areas of old growth have been put into National Park, but they account for only about one quarter to a third of what the state government is claiming has been saved from logging”, said Jill Redwood from Environment East Gippsland.

"The government is to be praised on its clever recycling of protected zones back into protected zones, and logged forest into National Park. It’s mostly been a creative game of swaps.”

“However the protection of Yalmy’s forests and Goolengook’s magnificent old growth and rainforest is very welcome, despite Goolengook’s heart having been logged out.”

“The areas have taken four years to be finalised, while DSE accommodated the logging industry’s demands over this election promise. Meanwhile thousands of hectares of old growth and mature forests were clearfelled in the interim. Like an extinct species, they will never return.”

“This includes forests at Brown Mountain, which had recognised old growth values and supported endangered wildlife. If the government didn’t consider Brown Mountain ‘significant old growth’ it shows how many other equally magnificent forests have been condemned to clearfelling.”

“The new parks announcement today is at least a start."

For comment: Jill Redwood (03) 5154 0145

Source: MEDIA RELEASE, "Government recycles announcements and logged forest,"Friday 1st October 2010

Jill Redwood,
Coordinator,
Environment East Gippsland Inc
(6800 Bonang Rd Goongerah)
Locked Bag 3,
ORBOST Vic 3888
www.eastgippsland.net.au

FORESTS - our breathing space!

All photos in this story were by Rod Binnington. Some cropping and resizing was done by the editors.

People wanted to know who owned the Westerfield property. The government had said that it owned the property and the police had said last week that it was 99% likely that the government did, but that they could not be categorical. On Tuesday they would not even discuss the question. There is a lot of confusion when it comes to compulsory acquisition about who owns what. Two fantails came out of the trees and flew down towards the men and their machines in a dancing pattern, almost attacking the machines. The men standing by the machines ducked to avoid the tiny birds. Then the little birds returned to their trees and sat there, as if they had made their final statement. See also LMA (was SEITA) Bulldozers trash bushland from Westerfield to the Pines

Tuesday 28 September at Westerfield.

Protesters realised that this was going to be the big day because the Abbeygroup workers, who had previously talked and been friendly enough to the protesters, stopped looking at them, or glared and laughed at them. They lined up as if they were troops in a war and four big machines started rolling in.

Road blocks prevented access for protesters and observers initally

There were only about twenty protesters on site at 6.30 am, perhaps in part because the police had closed off Robinsons road at each end, before and after the entrance to Westerfield. This meant that people who wanted to come into the Westerfield driveway could not enter. The protesters managed to have the barricades moved so that people could still enter the Westerfield property driveway. More protesters arrived later.

Rumours of more and more police arriving

The protesters heard rumours from Robinsons Rd that more and more police were going to turn up. Eventually something around 100 police came through the bush in single file. There were enough of them to man the perimeters of the site. The main police coordinator gave the protesters ten minutes to get off the property. The police refused to answer questions and would only say that they were enforcing the trespassing law.

Compulsory aquisition - a mystery to most Australians

People wanted to know who owned the Westerfield property. The government had said that it owned the property and the police had said last week that it was 99% likely that the government did, but that they could not be categorical. On Tuesday they would not even discuss the question. There is a lot of confusion when it comes to compulsory acquisition about who owns what.

Police give protesters 10 minutes to get out

After the police gave the protesters ten minutes to get off the property or be prosecuted for trespassing, the protesters discussed what they could do. Gillian Collins, who had been the main organiser of the protests there, said that she was not going to stay to be arrested because she has relatives in the United States and that if a person has a criminal record, they are not allowed to enter the US. She then walked away.

Some people remained, however.

The police moved in and more people retreated.

Joyce and Simon, who owned the property now seized by the government to make a freeway, were among the last to leave. Some protesters withdrew sadly to watch events from behind the 2 meters high wire mesh security fence which had been made virtually impenetrable.

Carey Priest's heroic action and others arrested

Carey Priest, memorable for his politeness under pressure, led the next protest action by climbing a tree, where he remained for about two hours, despite the trees all around falling under Abbeygroup's bulldozers. People admired Carey's action very much, and he was arrested for his trouble. So was his girlfriend, Ellen. Five people were arrested in total: Carey, his girlfriend Ellen, then Neil and Mark Adams and another whose name is not available to candobetter.org.

They were released within half an hour with bits of paper containing something vague in writing about how they would be prosecuted and fined $2,500 and or jailed if they returned to the property. Of course there wasn't anything to return to by the time they were released.

David vs Goliath Machines

The presence of the machines was overpowering. It felt like David and Goliath, with Goliath - the machines - winning. To remain and protest demanded courage from the humans, but other species were to suffer far more.

Just after the police had rolled in and lectured the protesters, five of those giant machines lined up to flatten the forest, and two courageous fantails came out of the trees and flew down towards the men and their machines in a dancing pattern, almost attacking the machines. The men standing by the machines ducked to avoid the tiny birds. Then the little birds returned to their trees and sat there, as if they had made their final statement.

A number of people observed that the wildlife carers employed by Abbeygroup who were meant to be rescuing animals during the destruction did not seem to know what they were doing. People yelled out to the lead wildlife carer, "Do you know what you are doing?" because it seemed so obvious that they were only there for the look of things.

The process of destruction was just so rapid. The bulldozers were operating in two areas. On the north side of the dam and the south east side, where the protesters had had their camp for months on Robinsons road. The protesters just stood and watched helplessly, thinking all kinds of thoughts.

Rod Binnington took this photograph of Simon standing by himself watching the destruction of a third of the grounds of his home which his wife and he had spent much of their lives protecting for the flora and fauna now dead or dying and dispossessed. Joyce knew every tiny plant in that property and all the birds. How bleak politics must seem them now. Although the house has been spared, a third of the property has gone. Most of the community doesn't even realise what is happening, let alone the extent of it.

Government has put itself above the law

If it can happen to Westerfield, it can happen to any of us.

Westerfield had everything going for it to be spared from the bulldozers. All the 'boxes' had been ticked, so the protest should have worked.

In a Hansard presentation by Greens Sue Pennicuick, 5 or 6 pages long, one was devoted to Westerfield. In this she described a way of dealing with the traffic flow that would not involve freeways. There were so many logical alternatives. Many people came up with them but they were just ignored.

Despite the so-called ticked boxes, the gov does whatever it likes. Although there was a VCAT hearing in progress, according to an ABC report, the government has claimed that the clearing work has been approved by the relevant bodies and is not subject to the VCAT hearings.

People say that Justin Madden is just a rubber stamp for the government which wants more and more people.

An observer said that, although they respected the way Gillian Collins went about organising the protests in a quiet and respectable way, they could not understand why she seemed to keep believing that what she was being told was the truth.

"The 'authorities' are laughing at us as they lie to us," he said.

Inadequate Mainstream reporting protects government from just repercussions

Something like this should be on radio and tv day and night, but the report about Westerfield on channel 10 was only a minute long. 10secs on Channel 9. They don't place importance on what the public should see. Who knows where they draw their priorities from?

A young girl there yesterday was about 20 y.o. and you could just hear her despair about the fact that all the boxes are ticked and she could see that and here she was seeing what the government could do and she was virtually saying and thinking, "What's the use of protesting?"

How long will it take her to come back from this, because it takes a lot of energy to protest against the abuse of power. Other people were also in despair. That is what the government and the growth lobby want. Poor mainstream press reporting protects the government from democratic reactions to its abuses of power.

One protester encouraged people to ring the 1300 number of Abbeygroup to tell them that there were no wildlife rescuers present when many of the trees came down. She did this to emphasise that the rhetoric of rehoming and rescuing displaced fauna is only words.

After a lot of the trees had come down, it started to rain. One of the foremen said, "Quick, get under the trees!" but there were only about two trees left standing. The protesters called out, "You would have had more trees before!"

The police should be able to refuse to enforce bad laws. Some were obviously sympathetic to the protesters willing to engage and listen to the protesters' reasons through the fence.

This is the sequel to our important, long-running article,"SEITA Bulldozers imminent on Westerfield Bushland Sth Frankston - Picket-line plans up to Victorian Elections" (was "SEITA Bulldozers threaten...". Update, Monday 27 September 2010: VCAT Appeal and Be ready on site for action Tuesday 28 Sep
On 21 September 2010, Gillian Collins, who has led the defense of the Pines Bushland and wildlife corridors, against the Frankston Freeway for years now, may have taken her final physical stand on this on the battlefield at Westerfield, where she has been manning a picket-line since Monday 5 July 2010. I doubt, however, that we have heard Gillian's last word on this matter, because as she went down, she was brandishing papers and talking barristers.


[Clarification: Linking Melbourne Authority is the new organisation or name which has replaced SEITA in this section of the Freeway. It's hard to keep up with these name changes.]

Update, Monday 27 September 2010: VCAT Appeal and Be ready on site for action Tuesday 28 Sep

Here is news from the front concerning the threatened destruction of historic Westerfield with construction of Peninsula Link (Frankston Bypass). As reported earlier. on Thursday 23 September 2010 Roads Minister Tim Pallas gave an undertaking that work would be suspended until after a VCAT appeal had been heard.

The AbiGroup and its sub-contractors are apparently not working on the property today, Monday, because they have an agreement with CFMEU to honor their "lock down" week-end.

Gillian Collins says that if the AbiGroup and Linking Melbourne authority do not comply with Minister Pallas' decision to suspend the work until the VCAT appeal has been heard, then we will need to show up in force at Westerfield on Tuesday - tomorrow - to continue to make our case.

So the message is - prepare to come to Westerfield tomorrow early if possible. Check later today on www.savethepines.net. This will have current information. Gillian suggests that if there is to be a picket tomorrow coming to the Westerfield house parking lot and then walking down to the picket line. Hundreds of people have visited the picket over the past months. The community support is very much appreciated.

Contact: Gillian Collins, Pines Protectors Phone: 03-9782-5116 Mobile: 0414 309 960
Source: Julianne Bell, Protectors of Public Land

From Gillian: Update#1, 0815hrs, 23-9-2010

Police informed Gillian and site manager confirmed that no trees will be cut down today. Site fences will be built.

From Gillian: Update #2, 22-9-2010

It was a long day today - but what a day! About 60 protestors came to our community picket today and stopped the bulldozers. We owe you such a great debt of gratitude. As Shakespeare's Richard V said in a very loose modern translation - you should have been there!

I am in awe of the courage shown by our faithful band, and by the exceptional work and support shown by the two CFMEU organisers who came to help. Thanks to them and some great mediation by the Frankston Police, we have a short reprieve until 7:00am Thursday morning. Between now and then the Pines Protectors under the auspices of the Frankston North Community Group, Inc. will be filing a case with VCAT to stop the contractor until offsets required by the Native Vegetation Framework are secured. We will also continue to work with the CFMEU and the contractor to get more time.

If we can't stop the contractor from continuing, the bush will be destroyed on Thursday. We saw enough raw power in their three PC300 excavators and a bulldozer today to destroy Westerfield's in a day - a terrifying thought. Some of us will still be there trying to stop them on Thursday. We would welcome your companionship and participation as we face this real life terror.

Gillian Collins
Pines Protectors
0414 309 960

Update 22-9-2010

"Protest co-ordinator Gillian Collins said the group would go to the planning tribunal today to see if there were legal avenues to stop demolition. If the group is successful, the case could become the first test of state legislation put in place last year to stop last-minute legal objections delaying big transport projects. Ms Collins said police had informed the protesters they would be arrested on Thursday morning if they remained. Abigroup spokeswoman Carol Bartley said yesterday work had been put on hold until Thursday morning."
Source: Clay Lucas, "Protesters fight to delay Frankston Bypass work," The Age, September 22, 2010.

The Front Line

Gillian Collins, who has led the defense of the Pines Bushland and wildlife corridors, against the Frankston Freeway for years now, may have taken her final physical stand on this today, September 21, 2010, at Westerfield, where she has been manning a picket-line since Monday 5 July 2010F. The freeway is the work of SEITA and the Victorian Government, and this encounter was with Abbey Road Construction. I doubt, however, that we have heard Gillian's last word on this matter, because as she went down, she was brandishing papers and talking barristers.

Negotiations

Good for her!

She continued to negotiate firmly right to the end with an Abbey Road Construction team, on behalf of the picketers, and all remained on site, to block the passage of the bulldozers in order to defend the wildlife and the trees.

As the picketers stood their ground against several bulldozers, whilst awaiting the arrival of the police, other construction workers began to chainsaw trees at the other end of the property, where the picket-line had its marquee.

Ceci Cairns painting one final beautiful record of tragically destroyed beauty

(My apologies at not getting a picture of the painting which could be reproduced on its own. It is a lovely painting and should become valuable as a unique aesthetic record as well.)

An artist working there, Ceci Cairnes, who had been painting the trees and the tent, was alarmed to see the chainsaws arrive. "No-one even spoke to me. Not even to tell me to be careful. They just began sawing down trees."

When I left only a few trees had been sawed down, here and there, as though the moonscapers didn't want their work to look too obvious right away. Perhaps they intended to finish it at night. A woman carrying one small animal cage - the kind you take a cat to the vet in, followed behind a small group of construction workers, which proceeded towards a large, beautiful dam, surrounded by luxuriant vegetation. As they disappeared among the foliage, I heard their chainsaws start up.

War-zone

My dog had been waiting for me in the car for a couple of hours, so I was anxious to take him walking. I consoled myself with the idea that there were still some areas between here and the Pines Reserve where we could walk off-leash for a kilometer or two without putting wildlife in danger. Heading for the area between Skye Road and the Pines, that runs parallel with McClelland Drive, I passed scenes of complete devastation. Next door to and opposite Peninsular Private Hospital, on the corner of McClelland and Cranbourne Road were moonscaped, with not a tree standing, but mounds of massacred vegetation with broken trunks and branches poking out, and hills of bare, drying earth. You could almost hear the silent screams - or perhaps they were my own - as the earth and the creatures in it died and released the carbon they had stored in their living bodies.

There was industrial mowing along McClelland Drive. Bulldozer-like machines with long metal arms with lawnmowers on the end mowed the roadside vegetation on the left as they drove down the road. This was the first time I had seen such machines. I marvelled at their number, at the embodied energy in these monsters, and at the trouble engineers take to remove every last scrap of life from their projects.

No-where to walk left

When I got to Skye Road, I reeled in horror, because the bushland on both sides was also now reduced to mute and damaged carcasses, bulldozed up to form a dark wall on the horizon. I saw that the actual tree-lined-track beside walled new suburbs that I usually took from Skye Road to the Pines had been spared, although everything between it and McClelland Drive had been blasted. Determined to console myself with this last remaining bit of green, I drove the car up to it and parked. My dog got out of the car eagerly, looking forward to running finally.

All part of "the plan"?

Alas, our way was barred. A grotesquely cheery blue sign announced on behalf of the Victorian Government that this was "all part of the plan!" Maybe body-snatchers have invaded our leaders in Victoria. That would explain their alien plans for the rest of us.

Infuriated, I drove on to a road that leads to the golf course on McClelland Drive. Word was that they had done a deal with SEITA to have their course saved when parts of the adjacent Pines Wildlife reserve had been sacrificed. I thought that I should be able to get into the reserve with my dog, via the golf-course. I realised I would have to keep my dog on a leash, but it would be better than nothing.

Locust-like swathe cuts Pines Reserve

The entrance gates to the Pines Reserve adjacent to the golf course were covered in signs telling the public to keep out, but the gates were wide open, and Nubi and I had had enough. We walked through the gates, heading for the sand-hills in the distance. Alas, to the left and to the right were more scenes of devastation. The bulldozers had already been through here too, leaving only a few self-important little men in florescent parkas walking about with mobile phones a few hundred meters away.

Log-truck load in Frankston Pines

My gaze was arrested by a truck bed stacked with enormous logs. I had not thought that there were such large trees left in this area. For a moment I thought this must be part of an exhibit I had seen in the outdoor exhibition at the McClelland Gallery, but these logs were much larger. I wondered what would happen to them.

At last I realised the extent of the Frankston Freeway: it was going to trash most of the bushland I had come to love in the 20 years since I moved into an old house here - no, not some new development. Below is my google-earth grab of what it looks like to me.

The Victorian Government is at War with Nature

The Victorian Government is at war with nature and the people who defend nature. It has been shown to flout its own laws on fauna protection. It presses the interest of property developers and passes laws to promote property development in the name of economic growth which it prioritises over all other things. It forces population growth on the people of Victoria and thus creates new pressures daily for our natural environment. We are not able to affect our government democratically on these issues because the opposition holds similar values to the government. The Victorian Greens won't criticise population growth or property development as priorities, only trying to minimise a harm which must eventually overwhelm all attempts to compensate for it or otherwise attenuate the damages it causes to our natural surroundings and the fauna which depend on them.

The Victorian government licenses agents, such as Abbey Road Constructions, to carry out its will and expects the police to back up such corporate activities in the field. It thereby forcibly exerts its will against democratic objection.

How should Citizens react to forcibly carried out undemocratic actions which they hate?

Most of us cannot afford to access the formal legal system and there are few laws to defend the environment and fauna and flora which the public can actually make a complaint under. Usually those laws require another party - often a State Government agent or an NGO in receipt of government funding - to act on behalf of the public and bring a complaint, and this so rarely happens.

In the absence of legal resources, for whatever reason - either by lack of money or lack of good laws, how should citizens react to force? They cannot afford to initiate force because the state holds the power and the means of savage repression. Citizens do, however, have the moral right to resist the state or its agents and contractors where they forcibly act against democratic objection and the spirit of laws to defend environmental and ecological values, for all kinds of reasons.

The importance of picket lines

The use of picket-lines represents a reasonable and defensible response where citizens use their bodies to resist the impacts of unreasonable government policies, whether carried out by a contractor or directly by government employees, in the opinion of this author.

Gillian Collins and others on the Westerfield Picket line took a courageous and necessary step in the battle of Victorians to defend their right to protect and conserve their natural surroundings and the right of indigenous fauna to live in peace. They have not won this battle, but the war is still on and there must be more battles.

Click to go to New article 1 October 2010.
Photos by Jill Quirk added on 21 July. Latest Update 20 July: More Picket News! This will make you angry. In the first project to come under the notorious "Major Transport Facilitation Act," bulldozers move in to nationally significant heritage Westerfield before the Heritage Council Decision comes out. Picket line ongoing, since 5 July. Contacts for the picket site: S Walsh Mobile: 0405 380 312 Also Gillian Collins Pines Protectors 0414 309 960 and Jim Kerin Defenders of the South East Green Wedge Mobile 0409 501 764. Original notice was from Julianne Bell, Secretary, Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc.
PO Box 197, Parkville 3052, Mobile: 0408022408

Update 16 September 2010: Urgent - Reinforcements required now!

THE SITUATION AT WESTERFIELD HAS BECOME DESPERATE. After the picket line holding them at bay all winter, the Heritage Exective Director has signed off the plan for destruction. So this Heritage property will be destroyed when they could take the road another route. Help now needed - an hour or two, to front up to the bulldozers which could arrive at any time.

"After the terrible meeting yesterday, LMA asked for another with the Welsh's today and broke the news that the Heritage Executive Director has signed off on the revised plan leaving a little more of the dam.

The plan they discussed was : 1) the dam would begin to be lowered so the aquatic animals can be rescued, then it would be drained completley.; 2) at the same time, the fence alignment will be cleared; 3) the construction fence constructed in its new location, and 4) the fauna sweep conducted. Carol Bartley of Southern Way said the nesting boxes will be set up 24 hours ahead of the tree removal so the animals can escape - we were speechless.

We believe LMA and Southern Way are in violation of their Incorporation Document, since they are not minimising the damage to Westerfield's. If the Heritage Appeal had not gone through, they would have made no changes at all - they are determined to destroy this magnificent piece of grassy woodland for the sake of the road. We are about to take an action against them.

The good news is that the Trades Hall Council and the CFMEU are supporting us, and they believe with us that no work should proceed until such time as all legal avenues have been exhausted.

To that end, we need every available supporter to join us on the picket starting tomorrow morning. If you were ever going to help us out - now is the time to do it. Give us an hour or give us a day - we do not know what day they are starting, but we have been notified, and "soon" is any moment from now on. Please distribute this call to action to all your networks.

Gillian Collins
Pines Protectors

0414 309 960"

Update 15 September 2010: Organising the picket up to Victorian Election time

Gillian Collins has led a picket on Westerfield for the last 10 weeks. This has been a deliberate and sustained effort to achieve a better outcome from the Government’s merciless push for Peninsula Link. Peninsula and Western Port need a vastly better, sustainable and greener future than the Brumby government plans for them. Many people have made enormous efforts put their considerable resources into different aspects of the same issue, and the efforts to draw the line at Westerfield are among the most remarkable and admirable.

Gillian, the Welsh family, and a couragous and reliable group have picketed seven days a week from early morning until the end of the work day. They have been visited by over 300 individuals and supported by nearly 30 environmental groups across the Peninsula and across Melbourne.

Their efforts have not been in vain: It looks like the road easement across Westerfield is still being negotiated, as there has been no clearing of Westerfield. Minister Pallas may be listening.

The amazing picketers are giving their utmost, but as in any concerted and long-term action in the face of vested interests in government and corporate enterprise, their numbers need constant supplement. The picket line needs a continuing supply of regular, reliable, individuals. They need tangible support and encouragement - both bodies and funding.

The Pines Protectors, a sub-committee of the Frankston North Community Group, Inc., and which Gillian chairs, have organised CMFEU support for the picket and have received help from The Greens Party. Supporters of the picket have established that the Abigroup construction was started before the legalities were complete and that the Native Vegetation Framework offsets are required before works start (despite information by government). DSE, LMA, LGA Councils and DEWHA must implement the full requirements our environmental laws. Gillian has made a major contribution to the community consultation process supporting the significant efforts of the Frankston community and the two local councils.

At a strategy meeting on Friday, the meeting recognised that a picket up to the elections is required. But that needs on-ground support.

Conservationists the Peninsula recognise that the 40 year-plan to industrialise greater Melbourne and Western Port poses serious threats, through incremental losses - large and small - on our remaining natural environment.

This infrastructure growth is deceptively portrayed by the media and government as a "part of our community’s vision." There needs to be a bolder plan for an environmental and sustainable future.

Tangible support to the picket could help this.

Help is needed to man the Westerfield Picket with more than 60 person days from now till Election day. Offers of help can be made to Gillian Collins and donations up to $1000 to The Pines Protectors are being sought to support further action on their behalf. (Contact Gillian or Pines Protectors)

More Picket News 20 July 2010

"A really cold start to the day was warmed by the presence of four beautiful children brought by David W. and Ted H. With Kate's lovely hairy Dachshunds, they brightened up the day no end. Then the team from the Friends of the Pines Flora and Fauna Reserve came and did some weed pulling at Westerfields and joined us for lunch on the picket line. What a great
group they are!

In case you missed it, Bill Russell from the Centre for Urban Studies recommended on ABCs Stateline on Friday that:

"...we will probably see the metro rail tunnel funded in the next two or three rounds of federal funding. But as I say, the trucks action plan is quite small; it's only $380 million and the state could fund that from its own resources, really. And then, I think that both the WestLink and the Peninsula Link really ought to be postponed five or10 years into the future."

It is still on the web if you want to see it - Google "Stateline" and then click on Friday's program.

With a State and Federal election looming, we remain hopeful that this project will be stopped, the land repaired, and more public transport and an upgrade to Moorooduc Highway will be considered. It's not too late.

We're looking at a week of cold and cloudy weather - the Melbourne winters I remember from my youth - but we will still be on the picket line. Please come and give us what time you can."

Signed: Gillian Collins

UPDATE 16 JULY: PICKET-LINE ONGOING!

"Our picket day started with Michelle C. delivering the attached brochure to the Bayside Christian School. Michelle did a brilliant job of capturing the essential environmental values that, we assume, the school teaches. The school had a working bee today, and she delivered the brochure to parents, the Principal, and the "Light FM" radio station that was broadcasting from the school.

Later in the day, we had 4 visits from Grade 10 students asking about our picket. This evening I find that David M. from WPPC has sent an e-mail to the school asking that students be allowed to join us - an unplanned but great coincidence.

Greg Hunt, our Federal Shadow Environment Minister, paid a visit, and we are hoping for his support for an immediate halt to the destruction and a better solution for all of us, including the school.

Peter K. showed us the photo of the skink that he carried home unknowingly yesterday in his tea cup in his backpack. He only found it when he went to clean the cup last night. He called Mel, who told him how to keep the skink comfortable overnight, and he returned it, unharmed, this morning.

Such tender care in the face of such a brutal future for this tiny member of our ecosystem.

E.O. Wilson, famous ant biologist and author, wrote a book called "Consilience," in which he predicts that there will come a time soon when our individual scientific fields of knowledge will consiliate (jump together) and we will understand the nature of the universe. It feels as though we have a consilience of effort at the picket site, and that we are beginning to really have an effect.

We will continue. Hope to see you there some time this week-end."

Signed Gillian Collins

BACKGROUND AND EARLIER REPORTS

In the first project to come under the notorious "Major Transport Facilitation Act," bulldozers move in to nationally significant heritage Westerfield before the Heritage Council Decision comes out. Picket line ongoing, with effect. Work will probably start tomorrow (6 July) or Wednesday (7 July).

UPDATE: REPORT ON TODAY'S ACTION RESULTS BELOW. Contacts for the picket site: S Walsh Mobile: 0405 380 312 Also Gillian Collins Pines Protectors 0414 309 960 and Jim Kerin Defenders of the South East Green Wedge Mobile 0409 501 764. Original notice was from Julianne Bell, Secretary, Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc.

(See contact information at end of article.)

Why is this picket-line so important?

Expression of public protest on this destructive and undemocratic process is of great importance because this project is the first to come under the "Major Transport Facilitation Act." For this reason it will attract a lot of interest.

UPDATE 3: REPORT FOR 7 JULY

Another amazing day today, and still no bulldozers. It would seem that Abigroup is now held up until a satisfactory resolution can be found to the outstanding issues about Westerfields. We feel strongly, however. that the picket should be maintained until that happens.

An exciting innovation will occur, we hope, tomorrow, when we go live with a computer camera from the Robinson's Road side. Craig Allen will be streaming the resulting images from our web site, www.savethepines.net

We had more [mainstream] media interest today, and some of the picketers stopped by to help because they drove by and saw our signs. Melanie Attard has done a brilliant job of making them, and the coverage in The Independent , we
think, caused lots of folk to hoot and wave encouragement all day long.

Julianne Bell of Protectors of Public Lands drove from the City on Sunday to bring her "Community Picket" sign for us to use, and her brilliant strategic abilities have inspired a lot of what we are doing so successfully now.

Please join us whenever you can. We will be there every day until we get a more positive outcome than is now planned. There are so many interesting people stopping by, that we promise you won't be bored! And there will be
more singing tomorrow.

Gillian Collins, Pines Protectors

UPDATE 2: REPORT FOR 6 JULY

Another amazing day today. The situation is still incredibly fluid, and picketers hear that tomorrow (7 July) may be the day they try to bring the bulldozers in.

A "Community Picket" has been established on both sides of the site, and drivers of the equipment have been asked not cross the line until the unresolved issues with Heritage Victoria and wildlife rescue are resolved.

Today representatives from the CFMEU were on the site, thanks to Colin Long, Greens Candidate for South Eastern Metropolitan area. These union reps have been very encouraging about supporting the picket.

As many people as possible are needed to man the picket.

The picket is situated at Robinsons Road (MEL 103 C11) from 7:00am. Easy parking is at Bayside Christian College, just before the traffic signals that are closing one lane of Robinsons Road for gas line relocation. Walk on up to where the picket is and you will be assisted to get to the rear picket.

Today there were twice as many people as yesterday, and more tomorrow would be good. Some groups that have been
represented are:

Frankston City Council, Mornington Council, Protectors of Public Lands, The Greens, Green Wedges Coalition, Animalia Wildlife Shelter, Environment Victoria,The Connies, Western Port Protection Council, Friends of the Pines Flora and Fauna Reserve, Pines Protectors group of the Frankston North Community Group, Inc., Australian Wildlife Protection Council, Inc., Blue Wedges, Friends of Banyule, and the Public Transport Users Group.

Mainstream media who have been present or are following are: Channel 7, 9, 10, ABC, The Independent and The Age.

Thanks to Peter for the chips, Ronnie for the coffee, Jenny for the tea and home made biscuits, and Joyce and Simon for the egg and bacon sandwiches and afternoon tea!

Source [edited]: Gillian Collins
Pines Protectors, 03-9782-5116, 0414 309 960

UPDATE 1: REPORT ON FIRST ACTIONS: Monday 5 July 18:24 p.m.

Gillian Collins of Pines Protectors reports that the community picket line was successful, and the bulldozers did not come on the site. They were parked across the street all day, and a lot of their folk stood around idle.

Volunteers showed up, brought signs and soup and chips, and generally kept the protestors feeling really positive all day.

Gillian writes that great thanks are due to the Mayor, Christine Richards, who stayed all morning and gave lots of interviews to the press. Similarly, she writes that thanks are also due to Neale Burgess, Member of Parliament for Hastings, David Morris, Member for Mornington, and Geoff Shaw, candidate for the seat of Frankston, who all stayed a long time and gave the picketers their support.

She adds that the picket starts again tomorrow starting at 7:00am sharp. There will be two locations, the one on Robinsons Road and on the west side of the property, where the bulldozers are now parked. (MEL 103 C11) If you can come, please come to the Robinson's road site and we'll send half of you to the other side. Bring a torch is you're really early, because it was very dark without street lights. Dress warmly, too!

There was strong mainstream media interest - Channel 7, 9, 10, and ABC were there, plus a reporter from the Independent.

Because this project is the first to come under the "Major Transport Facilitation Act" it is getting a lot of interest and is also very important. More people to support the picket line will be very welcome.

Source [edited]: Gillian Collins
Pines Protectors, 03-9782-5116, 0414 309 960

Background and earlier reporting

Today: 7 am Monday 5 July 2010 construction will start on the Westerfield bushland heritage property. It is being bulldozed for the peninsula Link freeway route. Local groups will be picketing the site.

Work is to start despite the fact that :

* The Westerfield appeal was heard in the Heritage Council on 25 June 2010 and no cldecision has been made. The Heritage Council was reported to have said that the members would not be hurried into making a decision.

* There still appears to be a dispute over the question of whether vegetation offsets has been finalised.

On Monday 28 2010 June a resolution was put to Frankston Council and carried unanimously that "That Council seeks the assurance of the Linking Melbourne Authority and the Department of Environment and Sustainability that Vegetation Offsets required of the Peninsula Link project and the location and detail of such offsets will be determined prior to further clearing occurring. That such offsets for Frankston native vegetation will be taken up within the municipality in consultation with Council to ensure that there will be a net gain of native vegetation within the municipality."

The Frankston Council is again considering the matter at a Council meeting tomorrow night.

* The owners were given less than 24 hours notice of the start of land clearing/construction and have not been given a time table for works .

If anyone in the area can help attend the picket the details are:

Time: 7 am start but it may well continue during the morning.

Date: Monday 5 July 2010

Place: Robinson's Road, Frankston South. See Melways Map Page 103 C 11. The site of the picket is next to Bayside Christian College and near the intersection of Mc Clelland Drive and Robinson's Road. As the road might be
blocked it is suggested that you approach via Robinsons Road and drive into the Westerfield property to park.

The driveway is opposite Robinsons Park and is just past a white water tower. It will be signposted. Then you will have to walk down to the end of the road. Note that the proposed route of the freeway is marked on the Melways map.

From the Victorian Heritage Database

Westerfield
Location

86 - 96 Robinson's Road,FRANKSTON, Frankston City
For further details, contact the local council or go to Planning Schemes Online.

Level of Significance: National

Statement of Significance

Designed in 1924 for Russell and Mabel Grimwade by Harold Desbrowe Annear, Westerfield is the most intact example of the series of houses Annear remodelled, or designed on the Mornington Peninsula in the 1920s which demonstrate the vitality of early twentieth century eclecticism. Moving away from the more formal urban Georgian style, Annear responds to the "playground" ambience of the peninsula with a range of formal attitudes. Westerfield itself is a Y plan half timbered house built on a granite base somewhat reminiscent of French country architecture.

However, the significance of Westerfield lies not only with its architecture but also its owners and its place in a particular Melbourne culture of the 20th century.

Conceived as a working farm as well as a retreat, Westerfield's grounds are planted with the euclypt species Grimwade cultivated and recorded in a photographic study. With his friend Charles Lane-Poole, first Principal of the School of Forestry at Canberra, Grimwade was ahead of his time in matters of conservation and land use, seeking a workable alliance with industry. During the war, the property was given over to growing crops for medicinal drugs; poppies, lavender, foxglove and belladonna. The house, garden and grounds are included in the classification of Westerfield which is considered to be of national significance.

First Classified 12/12/90
Revised: Classified National 3/8/98

CONTACT DETAILS

Contacts for the picket site: S Walsh Mobile: 0405 380 312 Also Gillian
Collins Pines Protectors 0414 309 960 and Jim Kerin Defenders of the South
East Green Wedge Mobile 0409 501 764

The above article was based on a notice from Julianne Bell, Secretary, Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc.
PO Box 197, Parkville 3052, Mobile: 0408022408

Congratulations Jill Redwood, leader of Environment East Gippsland! In a landmark decision today, the Supreme Court has found that the government has a responsibility to look for and protect endangered wildlife before logging in the contentious Brown Mountain forests of East Gippsland. “This judgment has implications for all native forests that are set to be destroyed by logging,” said EEG spokesperson Jill Redwood. “If we hadn’t sued VicForests, Brown Mountain would have been illegally logged by now. And Brown Mountain is just one area. The government is logging publicly owned forests every day without endangered species surveys.”
EEG Website for more updates
To find out more about the history of this battle, which has demanded so much courage and committment from people like Jill Redwood and those who fight with her, see the section: Brown Mountain in Candobetter

Landmark decision enforces law to defend animals and trees

In a landmark decision today, the Supreme Court has found that the government has a responsibility to look for and protect endangered wildlife before logging in the contentious Brown Mountain forests of East Gippsland.

“This judgment has implications for all native forests that are set to be destroyed by logging,” said EEG spokesperson Jill Redwood.

Decision shows the battle was just and necessary

“If we hadn’t sued VicForests, Brown Mountain would have been illegally logged by now. And Brown Mountain is just one area. The government is logging publicly owned forests every day without endangered species surveys.”

“We are calling on the government to respect the judgment by stopping logging in native forests that may contain rare wildlife, until the full implications of this judgment are examined.”

“VicForests, the Government-owned logging monopoly, has a legal responsibility to protect endangered wildlife. They can’t just go in and log blindfolded.”

“Victorians have always known native forest logging is immoral, uneconomic, unaccountable, unsustainable and unpopular. Today we’ve proved that where endangered species are present, or likely to be present, it’s potentially illegal as well”.

Will the Victorian Government try to defy the courts as well as the law now?

“This extraordinary court case isn’t just about protecting Brown Mountain’s rich and ancient ark of rare wildlife; it’s about forcing the government to abide by its laws as anyone else would”, said Ms Redwood.

“This represents a win for the state’s rare forest dependent wildlife. It’s also a win for all Australians who are concerned about the environment.”

Next danger may be Government attempt to change laws to suit itself

Environment groups are now concerned that the government may attempt to alter the laws to allow the destruction of endangered species habitat, as happened in Tasmania in 2008.

“The government must now honour the law, not alter it”, said Ms Redwood.

Forest supporters will gather at Victorian parliament tomorrow at 1pm, to ask the Environment Minister, Shadow Environment Minister and Greens for their response to the judgment.

For comment:

Jill Redwood – EEG Convenor

Liz Ingham – EEG Secretary -
Vanessa Bleyer – solicitor for EEG –

Many Victorians who lost friends and family, and know people who lost houses in the 2009 furnace in Victoria are appalled at some of the recommendations issuing from the Royal Commision Final Report. They are trying to find solutions that match the enormity of the increase in bushfire threats of the future. Inform yourself with this analysis of the 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission Report and Recommendations!

Analysts in the field are calling for new ideas and asking Victorians to be wary of obsessing about yesterday’s solutions, which haven’t worked or are still scientifically unproven).

Safety lies in scientific, not simplistic solutions

Thoughtful people say that before land management is altered we need evidence and scientific knowledge before repeating unproven solutions. Fire management must be different for each landscape, taking into account that there are 300 different vegetation types across Vic.

Burning off a ritual to ward-off evil but not a real solution

Calls for burning-off as a solution lack science and evidence. They are like warding off evil by burning incense, but they do a hell of a lot more damage, whilst doing little if any good. Burning gives a false sense of security by cultivating a mistaken belief that it will make people safer. Fire experts appointed by panel all agreed that prescribed burns wouldn’t reduce fire severity on extreme fire danger days.

New extreme weather conditions need useful, not political or superstitious responses

CSIRO and BOM study of 2007 says Victoria faces up to 65% more days of extreme fire risk in the next decade. Extreme weather conditions are unfortunately Victoria's new future. Politicians need to accept this reality and allow the delivery of new solutions to match, instead of simply legitimating inadequate traditional responses from their politically positioned beneficiaries.

Declaring war on forests and the environment and trying to alter nature is ineffective and could add to problem.

Fact: Arson and electricity problems, not trees, cause loss of lives

Contrary to the folklore of forests as a danger in themselves circulated by the logging, real-estate and agribusiness industries, it turns out that arson and power line failures are far and away the greatest cause of total areas burnt and loss of lives.

We need to control the sources of the fires - the arsonists and the power-line incidents - not the forests which keep our country cool and watered and stop carbon emissions.

Australians need to beware of politically and commercially motivated scapegoating of groups, such as 'environmentalists' and 'greens' because these tactics are used to avoid and postpone real solutions, whilst protecting bad habits in the commercial world.

We cannot afford to have commercial beneficiaries of forest-destruction, such as land-developers, loggers and agribusiness take our future hostage. We have to take democratic and political control to ensure that rational solutions are used to tackle a new future of extreme weather conditions.

Extreme weather conditions in January/Feb 2009

Fires tragically claimed 173 lives, damaged or destroyed more than 2000 properties and 61 businesses, burned through entire towns and affected 430,000 hectares of land throughout Victoria. Disasters on this scale do not occur in isolation, but are the result of preceding events and conditions.

The 7th & 8th of February 2009 were the hottest days on Victorian records. These terrible conditions which many of us recall were exacerbated by high winds and very low humidity. Most meteorologists think that these conditions were less a drought than a permanent trend of drying. Many believe that they were signs that climate change is here.

The general conclusion by responsible scientists and other environmentalists is that we all need to work together to find best way to deal with this frightening but unavoidable reality.

Shocking facts about the Royal Commission into Victoria's 2009 Bushfires

Royal Commission recommendations into the Victorian Bushfires seem politically driven not scientific

The Royal Commission’s team of experts admitted that on days of such extreme conditions, control burns were useless. So why did the Commission recommend threefold increase in so-called controlled burns?

Was this Royal Commission politically driven even in these shocking circumstances that demanded rigorous honour, compassion and honesty?

Observers say that the Royal Commission ignored the fact that the major danger around towns and settlements was not old growth forests, but - to the contrary - plantations and the flammable re-growth from logging!

The fires that came out of these plantations killed 11 people.

Yet the fire-risk they caused and continue increasingly to cause was not examined by the Commission!

Shocked observers feel that this strange omission can only be explained by the wish by the authorities to protect commercial interests vested in plantation assets.

Bizarre and irrelevant focus on native forests on public land ignored major causes and areas of bushfires

The one dimensional nature of the Royal Commission's focus on just native forests on public land for prescribed burning will do nothing to lessen the fire risks that the other land tenure types pose.

Priority attention needs to focus on deadly powerlines

SEVENTY PER CENT OF BLACK SATURDAY'S DEATHS WERE DUE TO POWERLINES!
Much can be done to reduce the risk of power line sparks in hot windy weather. Attention to this would provide the most effective protection against fires in the future!

Media, including public media, has a responsibility for ongoing fatalities by bushfire

The commercial and public media (the ABC) should provide objective information. At the moment all mainstream media and the government favour sources from the pro-logging and commercial forestry lobby. This lobby unconscionably pushes an over-simplified message about fuel reduction burns that is UTTERLY IRRELEVANT to saving lives, or preventing firestorms on days like Black Saturday.

Critique of Recommendations from the Commission

Although there have been some good recommendations, some are very bad. Others seem to be largely padding.

Bushfire Safety Policy.

Recs 1-4 and 6-7: Mostly sensible and relatively obvious, on education, safety policy revision, evacuation and shelters, looking after the vulnerable and elderly, standards for community refuges.

Rec 5 is a bit ambiguous on the subject of evacuations.

Emergency and incident management.

Recs 8-19: These discuss internal processes to be improved, such as the Department of Sustainability and Environment and or the Country Fire Authority (DSE/CFA) needing better coordination.

Fireground response

Rec 20-26: Fast response by aircraft – put on standby, look at engaging Defence Department to help, more inter-agency communication, radio black-spot problem looked at etc.

Rec 24 & 25: Dangerous incidents including back-burns (obviously a problem in the past) be fully investigated, and no back-burns lit until IC gives approval (implies past mistakes with cowboys lighting up and creating bigger fire front. Hearsay has it that 50% of fire area in 2003 and ‘06 caused by back burns).

Electricity caused fires.

Recs 27-34: Underground or bundled power lines – priority in high danger zone – to be replaced within 10 years. Power utilities to improve relevant performance with inspections every 3 years. Advice to cut down even more trees along power lines that are outside of clearance zone ‘just in case’. Councils also advised to cut down ‘hazard trees’ around lines, as well as to install spreaders and vibration dampers as soon as possible on power lines.

Deliberately lit fires.

Recs 35-36: These recommendations make noises that sound like huffing and puffing about better arson prevention and detection and police training but don't give details.

The Report gives more practical suggestions, such as police patrols.

Planning and Building.

Recs 37-55: Planning, mapping, bushfire risk, council controls, CFA input ... etc. Recommendation 39 talks about “substantially reducing development in areas of highest risk – giving due consideration to biodiversity conservation...”

It may seem picky, but it is hard to see how these two things are logically or logistically connected.

Rec 39-40: Discusses minimal lot size to allow for ‘defendable space’. Does this mean permanent moonscaping? (A good way to heat up the earth.)

Rec 41: Amend planning regulations to let more tree clearing permits through where fire threat is a priority. Looks for a maximum level of permissable clearing.

Rec 42: Mention of “collective offset solution” (?) when native veg cleared.

Rec 43 – This is one for the cynics!

DSE to “conduct biodiversity mapping to identify ...threatened species throughout Vic...”
State and local government have demonstrated lack of will or allocated resources to do this even in small areas where it’s critically important. The Department of Sustainability and the Environment have been shown by Auditor General reports in 2009 and the Minister for the Environment's responses to be unwilling or unable to carry out such an immense survey and mapping exercise.

Thus this recommendation seems naively founded on ignorant overestimations of DSE's competence, power and resources. Or worse, it simply continues to use DSE as a convenient front to cover inaction with a pretense of good intentions.

Man or Mouse - no contest

Will Brumby reject or set up such a Mickey Mouse type biodiversity mapping exercise?.

Rec 44: Fire resistant plants list to be produced by the CFA. Don't the bushfires already produce fire-resistant vegetation and isn't this part of the problem of our drying environment? Old-growth forests (by definition) do resist fire, but this is not what is meant by the commission, unfortunately.

Rec 46: Buy-back land and settle people elsewhere in high risk zone – non compulsory.

No mention of funding fire-bunkers.

Rec 47- 55: Building codes, overlays, etc

Land and fuel management - a pyromaniac's guide

Recs 56 – 62: Currently about 1.5% of land is burned annually. This is a huge amount. The Commission has recommended that the area to be crudely devastated in this way by human agency may be increased up to 5%, or 3 x increase!

Why was more burning advocated despite the Royal Commission’s expert panel earlier admitting there was little evidence that control burns achieved anything on the extreme days Victorians will face in the future?

Cynics will say that it's no surprise that the Royal Commission is politically driven, but Victorians should march on Parliament in outrage.

Rec 57: Annual report on targets and “impacts on biodiversity”! We cannot say what the impact of a burn was for years afterwards. As the report says, there is a need baseline data, seasonal monitoring, and surveys on many diff veg types, aspects, areas etc.

At least they admit they don’t have the necessary information, but this doesn't stop them making dangerous recommendations about burning off.

The current monitoring looks only at plants. It does not look at micro-fauna, fungi, insects, frogs, reptiles, birds and the ground mammals that are most heavily impacted when huge areas of forest are ‘control burnt’.

Rec 58: DSE to improve its long-term data collection to monitor the effects of its burns and of bushfires. As mentioned above, DSE' current data collection is almost non-existent and next to useless.

DSE does not monitor the impact of fire on loss of ground cover and on the soil life that depends on healthy leaf litter. It doesn't look at how the vegetation that grows back after a fire is thicker, more flammable i.e. "fire-adapted."

Risk analysis model lacking holistic context could promote commerically motivated abuse

Rec 59: Contains a risk analysis model which gives humans priority over the [read 'natural'] environment where there’s a dispute.

The dangers of this model are obvious. Without a healthy natural environment we will all perish and the risk of commercially vested interests using this model to devastate natural forests and make them loggable or clear them for housing and agriculture is a well-known one which the commission, in good faith, should have avoided.

Recommendation 60 promotes annual destruction of roadside vegetation

Rec 60: Revised Planning regulations allow major vegetation clearing along roads under the guise of fire safety. This is often where the last remnant strips of original vegetation survive in farmland. Such actions will raise the water table and promote more drying.

Rec 61: Discusses getting the Federal government to solve conflict over destruction of valuable roadside vegetation and to modify the already tattered Federal Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC) to allow protected vegetation to be destroyed annually!

Rec 62: That VicRoads, which is an organisation that has no core ecological or environmental expertise, do risk assessments along roadsides.

Organisational structure.

Recs 63 – 64: Monitoring and implementation.
Rec 66: Auditor General or other ‘independent’ body report back on the progress of these recommendations by July 2012.

Age letters [email protected]
Herald Sun [email protected]
Talkback on Gippsland ABC 1300 295 222 or text in 197 22 842
Melb talkback on ABC 1300 222 774
Drive show – regional Vic 1300 303 468

Or make your comments here on this article and send the article around to politicians and friends to publicise the absurdities, cruelties and dangers in these recommendations.

Demonstration in Frankston, on behalf of Nature,

11:00am., Friday, July 30th, 2010
Everyone Welcome

Meet at Shannon Mall, Frankston (MEL 100a D7 and just down from the Frankston station) and walk with us to the office of Frankston MP Alistair Harkness. Bring your favourite environmental or political sign!

We will be presenting Mr. Harkness with an indigenous tree in honor of National Tree Day on Sunday. We will also to let him know we are very unhappy with him and the Labor Government that has failed in their duty to protect our natural environment. By failing their duty, they have endangered our children's future. A government that is not taking care of
our future is not the government we want.

We will be leaving some of our group at the Westerfield site so that we can return there if the bulldozers come, although we believe that Abigroup has a lot of work to do before they can even think about it. Unfortunately, the terrible environmental destruction continues elsewhere in the freeway right-of-way.

Walt Whitman, American Poet, had this to say in 1892:

After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality. and so on - have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear - what remains? Nature remains.

But only if we save it now. Hope to see you at the picket any time you can make it, and on Friday at 11:00am.

Gillian Collins
Pines Protectors
12 Tecoma Street
Frankston North
Victoria 3200
03-9782-5116
0414 309 960

"The Windsor Hotel redevelopment scandal will go down in history as a bid to corrupt Victoria's Planning and Heritage laws.

What is not so clear yet, however, is whether the Windsor scandal is an isolated incident linked to a 'Rogue Trader' in the State Government's Media Unit, or whether it is part of a wider conspiracy designed to help undermine the rule of law, and the regulation of property developers in Victoria," says Brian Walsh, leader of the Kew Cottages Coalition in Victoria.

A 'must read' from Kew Cottages Coalition leader, Brian Walsh

The Windsor Hotel redevelopment scandal will go down in history as a bid to corrupt Victoria's Planning and Heritage laws.

What is not so clear yet, however, is whether the Windsor scandal is an isolated incident linked to a 'Rogue Trader' in the State Government's Media Unit, or whether it is part of a wider conspiracy designed to help undermine the rule of law, and the regulation of property developers in Victoria.

Ombudsman's Inquiry into Windsor Hotel Affair

As the Parliamentary Inquiry into the Windsor Hotel affair now waits for the Ombudsman to complete his own investigation, the Inquiry will find the Ombudsman's recent report on the Probity of the Kew Cottages and St Kilda Triangle developments helpful in addressing the wider question, and Government decision making involved.

For example, the Ombudsman records that early in the Kew development process the then Executive Director Heritage Victoria, Mr. Ray Tonkin, recalled feeling some pressure from the Government owner (DHS) to advise them informally on the Heritage status of Kew Cottages, rather than to go through the public consultation and State Heritage nomination process required by the Victorian Heritage Act.

The Ombudsman concludes that,

"the heritage issues led to uncertainty, considerable delays and significant additional costs for all associated with the project. It is unfortunate that a nomination was not made by the Department of Human Services (DHS) at the beginning of the exercise.." (295)

and that

"in my view it was unfortunate that the Executive Director, Heritage Victoria, provided informal advice on the site early in the project." (297)

The Kew Cottages Coalition subsequently successfully nominated the site for State Heritage listing. The nomination ensured that public consultation eventually took place.

Mr. Brian Walsh, President, Kew Cottages Coalition, today said that:

"What the Ombudsman has now revealed doesn't look like a simple bureaucratic stuff up. It looks too well planned for that. It looks to me more like the Windsor affair, more like an orchestrated bid by someone in authority to corrupt the Planning and Heritage laws."

"Mr. Tonkin, himself, may have made an honest mistake under pressure, but as with the Windsor Hotel affair, it beggars belief that all of those concerned did not know what was at stake here."

"I hope that the Ombudsman will help the Inquiry to unravel the details of the Windsor scandal," Mr. Wash said, "and I hope the Parliament will get to the bottom of any attempt to corrupt Victoria's Planning and Heritage laws."

Kew Cottages Coalition was formed in 2003 to defend public ownership of public land containing building and plant for the care of people with developmental problems. This public estate, overlooking sweeping views of parkland and the Yarra River all the way to the city of Melbourne, has since been sold-off by the government to private development, without democratic consultation.
For details on KCC Media Releases please contact:

Brian Walsh,
President,
Kew Cottages Coalition
PO Box 2317
KEW
Victoria 3101
Australia

Reg # A0044698H

M: 0414 979 300
E: [email protected]

www.kew.org.au

Release Date: 20100723

Libs give in to Madden

This morning Planning Minister Madden’s revised Planning Amendment, now re-badged VC 68, was fast tracked through Parliament with the support of the coalition - Liberals and Nationals – who had, over the past year, held out against inducements to approve this toxic planning amendment. (Only the Greens and DLP MP’s stood firm.) This represents a catastrophe for Melbourne as it will see rezoning of land from rural to residential on the City’s fringe and so extend our notorious urban sprawl.

Protectors of Public Land: "The Community opposes these changes."

Brian Walters SC, President of Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc. comments:

"The community opposes these changes. Extension of the urban growth boundary will destroy green wedges, the lungs of Melbourne. This amendment will take 43,600 hectares out of the western, northern and Cranbourne South green wedges for housing development, freeways and freight terminals. The losses include: 5,000 hectares of environmentally significant Western Basalt Plains grasslands; the grassy woodlands of the Maribyrnong and Merri Creek catchments, with their magnificent red gums; and 4,000 hectares of the South East food-bowl, where highly productive market gardens using recycled water double as Southern Brown Bandicoot habitat. Our Green Wedges have been sacrosanct for generations. There was no mandate from the people to dispose of this legacy.”

Julianne Bell: Great increase in car dependency - city in permanent gridlock

Julianne Bell Secretary of PPL VIC: points out :

“It is also forecast that extension of the urban growth boundary will result in the creation of numbers of “dormitory” settlements without advance provision of infrastructure and services. It will greatly increase car dependency with people needing several cars per family and so worsen Victoria’s greenhouse gas emissions. (This is ironic given the Brumby Government's recent announcement of work to control carbon emissions by the part closure of Hazelwood power station.) Monash University Centre of Population and Social Research forecast that from 1.97 million cars registered in Melbourne in 2006 there will be over 3 million by 2036. Our city will then be in permanent traffic gridlock.”

(See also "Why Gillard's car fuel-efficiency 'reforms' make no ecological or social sense" of 30 July 2010.)

Madden planning more nightmares to come

Community groups are now waiting for another bombshell from Planning Minister Madden – he is reported to be attempting to put through another planning amendment which will approve high rise (22 stories plus) along tram, bus and light rail routes as a means of accommodating the expected 1.5 million more people in Melbourne by 2036. This will result in further congestion of the major transport routes and condemn the population of flat dwellers to ill health. (Anyone who lives within 500 metres of a main road is threatened by developing asthma and cardiac-respiratory diseases.) The Brumby Government is fast turning Melbourne into one of the great unliveable cities of the world.

Inquiries: Julianne Bell Mobile 0408 022 408 Brian Walters SC Mobile 0411 020 967

Source: Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc., Media Release 29 July 2010

Urgent Appeal to all Victorian activist groups

Planning Backlash is joining Protectors of Public Lands and Green Wedge Coalition to oppose Amendment VC67, which is being brought to Parliament by Justin Madden (Minister for Planning) on June 22.

This amendment must not be passed.

Please join the rally 1 - 2 PM

June 22

On the steps of Victorian Parliament, Melbourne.

Details from Protectors of Public Lands:

Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc. has joined with the Green Wedges Coalition Inc. and Planning Backlash to hold a protest SAY NO TO VC67 PLANNING AMENDMENT - STOP URBAN SPRAWL, GREEN WEDGES DESTRUCTION AND HIGH
RISE ON TRAM/BUS ROUTES. It is not exaggerating to say that, if ratified by Parliament, this amendment could signify a catastrophe for Melbourne - the face and fabric of our city will be changed irrevocably forever. We are, therefore, inviting member groups, friends and supporters to our protest:

Rationale for Rally:

It is expected that, at this next sitting of Parliament commencing on 22 June 2010, Planning Minister Madden will be putting a resolution to the Upper House for ratification of VC 67 Planning Amendment. This is to approve extension of Melbourne's urban growth boundary involving alienation of Green Wedges and will also increase density (Government lingo for high
rise) of residential development, including along tram and bus routes.

We need you to write to Coalition (Liberals and Nationals) Members of Parliament plus the DLP Member Peter Kavanagh urging them to take a last stand and vote no on VC 67. It would be helpful if you wrote to the Greens commending the Members for their stand opposing VC67. (I will send email addresses in my next communication. Also some extracts of VC 67.)

The maps showing the new Urban Growth Boundary and affected shires were only made available by the Department of Sustainability at the request of MPs late on 9 June. See VC67 at link here.

The Minister for Planning has approved and is now seeking parliamentary ratification of Amendment VC55. Subject to Parliament’s approval of the Growth Areas Infrastructure Contribution legislation it will then come into operation.
25 May is the date on which the government will probably try to bring this bad law (Amendment VC55) in. Mary Drost of Planning Backlash has called these proposed laws, "diabolical".

Planning Minister now seeking ratification for these bad laws

The Minister for Planning has approved and is now seeking parliamentary ratification of Amendment VC55. Subject to Parliament’s approval of the Growth Areas Infrastructure Contribution legislation it will then come into operation.
Amendment VC55

Crucial information about diabolical proposed laws which would change your life and Melbourne forever

If this legislation goes through, it will change Melbourne forever. It will, furthermore, certainly change your life and there will be nothing you can do about it.

This proposed legislation is many times more radical than Melb 2030 - it is diabolical.

Open it up and especially open up "Explanation"
also "Clause 12".

"Explanation" is endless detail about the expansion of the Urban Growth Boundary and all the acquisition of land for transport.

"Clause 12". spells out the cramming in of more buildings into existing Melbourne. The detail includes Rob Adams proposal of building high density along the tram routes, as well as adding yet more "Activity Centres" and connecting them all up.

The contents or intent of the clause is quite fiendish and assumes we will keep adding people to Melbourne as fast as Brumby can attract them to come.

Timeline for passage of proposed legislation

THIS VC 55 WILL BE BROUGHT TO PARLIAMENT AS SOON AS THE GROWTH AREA INFRASTRUCTURE CONTRIBUTION (GAIC) IS PASSED THROUGH PARLIAMENT.
(Probably the 25th May - in the afternoon)

VC55 MUST BE OPPOSED VIGOROUSLY.

It looks as though GAIC will be passed. The Coalition has decided that it is a better deal for the fringe landowners to go with the amendments they were able to get through this Labor dominated committee. These amendments mean that there will be no tax on about 90% of the land when sold, i.e. land under 10 hectares . On land bigger than that, tax will be paid by the purchaser in stages: 30% to start and the balance on subdivision.

The Coalition have committed that if they take over government in November they will change it so that nothing is paid until subdivision and paid by the developers. They feel this is better than refusing the Bill outright because if Labor retain government they are then committed to this instead of reverting to what Labor really want which is the seller pays the tax on point of sale.

I know I would love to urge them to vote "No," but they appear to be convinced that they are doing the best for the landowners with this system. It is important, however, to get them to VOTE NO to VC55. Without VC55 there will be no GAIC anyway because no extension to the UGB.

Greg Barber of the Greens has suggested that a committee be formed about VC55. This would at least have the effect of delaying this legislation until the election. If it were delayed until the election, the electorate would be in a position of more power and should then try to dissuade the opposition from giving this legislation any support in any form

IF YOU WANT TO WRITE TO MPS URGE THEM TO SUPPORT GREG BARBERS MOTION SO THAT VC55 WILL BE DELAYED. (Mary Drost)

"Believe me this is a very tricky issue and you need to be Solomon to find the right way to handle it. There are so many details and so many opinions. For better or worse this is my considered opinion after hours of discussion and agonising over details. Plenty of you will have different ideas, but I think we can all agree that the whole thing should be delayed and in time things will become clearer."

Adapted from information provided by Mary Drost, of Planning Backlash.
Thank you Mary.

A new you-tube film about the forest protectors' camp and community at Goongerah, South East Gippsland, near Brown Mountain...

A group of forest-warriors in East Gippsland

There is an interesting new you-tube film just published about the people who fight to protect our forests from VicForests, the Government loggers for woodchips. A group of them are located at Goongerah. The film is called "AVATAR at Errinundra Plateau Brown Mountain, East Gippsland.m4v."

Giselle Wilkinson ("Gisellebluepearl") made the film to reach a few more people and help catalyse a bit of extra support for the ongoing battles and particularly for the current legal battle, for which we still don't have the result yet.

"Gisellebluepearl — March 22, 2010 — Come to the Errinundra Plateau, East Gippsland. Visit the home of the forest defenders and the ancient old growth forest they're protecting. The old growth forests of Victoria have been logged for wood chip for years - over 90% is gone forever. Some trees are over 10 metres in girth and a tree stump left behind after loggers was carbon dated to be over 600 years old. The little that's left needs our urgent protection. Brown Mountain is earmarked for logging this year again. For more info go to: www.eastgippsland.net.au; www.goongerah.org.au; www.geco.org.au

GECO is an independent grassroots environment organisation based in East Gippsland. It is dedicated to protecting the remaining old growth forests of the region. There are updates of film-documented recent forest loggings and protests.

The Angel on the tripod

At the end of the film we see the picture above which looks like a Victory Angel protecting and personifying the forest, high in the canopy, appearing larger than human.

I had to make inquiries to find out who it was and what it was all about. The woman with the wings was Allana Beltran, who is a visual artist and the forest is in the lower Weld Valley in Southern Tasmanian forest. Here she met Ben Morrow, a tree sitter who was to become her partner. The photo is probably by photographer Matthew Newton, but I had to look far and wide on the web, where there are many copies, for any reference to the photographer, which I found here: http://slingshot.tao.ca/displaybi.php?0096003">Lilia Letch, "Resistance everywhere - eco-defense in Tasmania," in Slingshot.

In November 2006 the forest camp where Morrow and Beltran were living in was raided by police ahead of a logging company's arrival. In March, only three protesters remained, according to the Tasmania Times:

'One man was locked onto the gate at one of the entrances to the forest. Another man, Ben Morrow, was hanging in a sling off the bridge over the Weld River. Seven kilometres from him, Alanna Beltran was attached to a giant tripod at a second entrance to the forest. She had a long white curtain wrapped around her waist, white body paint on her face and was wearing wings of white cockatoo feathers that she’d scavanged from the shorelines and forest floor. She’d become the “Weld Angel,” the “Angel of the Forest,” and her haunting image was about to enter Tasmanian folklore.

“I did it because I thought it would look beautiful,” she says now matter-of-factly, “and if I was going to be arrested as a visual artist, I wanted to make a visual statement.”' Source: "The arrest angels in Tasmania", Tasmanian Times27.02.08

"Allana Beltran and two years ago she walked into the lower Weld Valley in Tasmania’s southern forests and experienced what can only be described as a life-changing epiphany. In front of her was a wilderness of ancient, towering trees, deep gorges and waterfalls, and a wild river flowing through it. On an adjacent ridge there was a different scene. It was the blackened ruins of a recently clearfelled tract of native forest.

“It was the most horrific devastation of land I had ever seen in my life,” the visual artist from Sydney told Vanity Fair recently. “And from that moment on my heart was with the people who were standing up for places like this.”

Allana Beltran decided to stay in these forests and join the group of protesters trying to save it from further logging. That’s when she met Ben Morrow, the man who would soon become her partner. He’d been in the valley for six months, much of it spent 50 to 60 metres up in a grey-trunked eucalypt, in what’s called a `tree-sit,’ on the lookout for loggers.

“Our camp was in the middle of the road that changed from clearfell to wilderness,” Beltran says now from her home in the Tasmanian capital of Hobart. “There was 100 ha of clearfelling and they wanted to bulldoze a road another two and a half kilometres in so they could access 2000 ha. This was all old growth forest surrounded by World Heritage Area.”

In November 2006 the camp was raided by police as the logging company moved into build the new stretch of road. Twenty-five protesters were arrested. By March, the beginning of the Australian autumn, the blockade had virtually collapsed with only three protesters left standing between the chainsaws and the forests.

Although not exactly standing. One man was locked onto the gate at one of the entrances to the forest. Another man, Ben Morrow, was hanging in a sling off the bridge over the Weld River. Seven kilometres from him, Alanna Beltran was attached to a giant tripod at a second entrance to the forest. She had a long white curtain wrapped around her waist, white body paint on her face and was wearing wings of white cockatoo feathers that she’d scavanged from the shorelines and forest floor. She’d become the “Weld Angel,” the “Angel of the Forest,” and her haunting image was about to enter Tasmanian folklore.

“I did it because I thought it would look beautiful,” she says now matter-of-factly, “and if I was going to be arrested as a visual artist, I wanted to make a visual statement.”

Beltran sat in her forest aerie for nine and a half hours listening through headphones to Tibetan monk music, as the police ordered her down through megaphones. “I was praying for the forests and for people to realise what they are doing. I was ready to sacrifice myself to this cause. I was ready to stand up for these ancient forests.”"

For background to this public protest see "Save Williamstown requests help..."

New potoroos detected!

New Potoroos detected - in bunch of planned logging coupes – in fact a fairly outrageous cluster of 6 in an area enviro groups were negotiating for protection in the upper Yalmy River catchment last year.

Amazing new footage via remote camera

There are more clips on you-tube, but this clip number one is the best. The other three show it gathering the dry fern fronds and grass and tucking it under its belly into its curled tail - quite amazing footage captured by remote cameras and never before seen in the wild. It’s new behaviour that was previously unknown. Volunteer surveyor, Andy, has written a report which is now with the relevant authorities and Ministers. Response has been to ask for the entire footage from the camera again (as in pre-court case shenanigans) to be able to verify that the footage hasn’t been doctored or something (?!).

Something like 14 separate Potoroo images were taken over a 3-4 week period in this area of forest! They now only score a 50 ha protection zone, but with the two sites and a Potoroo skull found, DSE/VicForests should protect the entire block of forest from logging.

VicForests whole of landscape obliteration plans for Victoria's forests

These people are supposed to be working for us!

And while speaking of ‘never before seen’ phenomena – VicForests logging plans have been amended to include 24 coupes in the Big River and St Patricks River junction just to the sth west of Mt Ellery and Errinundra Nat park (west of Goolengook). These coupes are in a mass block shoulder to shoulder, again in an area mapped for protection by enviro groups while negotiating old growth and High Conservation Value (HCV) forests for protection. This is whole of landscape obliteration and appears to be deliberate targeting – or a major mapping error! It’s also in a Potoroo and Spot-tailed Quoll Special Management Zone! Closing date for submissions and comments were yesterday.

Forests Forever Ecology Camp

Forests Forever Ecology camp – a fantastic event again over Easter. Rainforests, old growth, (sadly, too much of it logged) and of course Brown Mountain all featured. If people want to visit Brown Mt on their own at any time, grab the booklet from the EEG website and take yourself in there. http://www.eastgippsland.net.au/?q=node/265 then click on the bottom button to download the booklet as a PDF. EEG have now tracked into a beautiful new stand of giants around a magical glade. They than all the FF camp helpers, and especially Robyn and John.

New EEG Branch in Melbourne soon

A new EEG branch in Melb is being set up to help facilitate campaign work down there. EEG will let supporters know when and where the first meeting will be.

Importance of EEG's work reflected in massive response in donations from public

Over 700 donors have helped pay EEG's legal fees so far. This is phenomenal support that even some bigger groups can’t manage. EEG still could need more donations as the case was twice as long as anticipated and ended up with more expert witnesses than first thought. All were needed to try and secure a win for the forests.

If you want to make a tax-deductible donation before the end of the financial year – think about making this it! And if you want to donate, why not buy a beautiful Brown Mt card as a gift in exchange for your donation. See website here for details #10;<p>If you’d like to donate specifically to help buy more survey gear like cameras ($400) or 6v gel cell batteries to run the cameras ($30) or fuel to help run the car to go out with survey eqpt (any amount) or a new-fandangled weatherproof sound recorder that can be trained to pick up only endangered frogs etc ($800), then by all means let EEG know. </p>&#10;<p>There are various options for donating – PayPal via website, another secure system (if you don’t like PayPal), direct deposit (email me for details) or cheque via old fashioned envelope and stamp method.</p>&#10;</body></html>">

Help requested by Williamstown Saturday 10th at 1pm

Save Williamstown Meeting and Workshop at Seaworks Tavern this Saturday 10 April at 1pm

Seaworks is on Nelson Place, parking entry on Ann St.

This is an important meeting.

See below video from 29 March, which gives the story up to the most recent outrages:

Arbitrary rezoning tramples democracy

The Minister, Justin Madden, has already rezoned the Former Port Phillip Woollen Mill site residential, preventing any mixed use which could have benefited the community and protected the shipyards. Hobsons Bay Council has been excluded from the rezoning decision and was not informed until minutes before the Minister's press release on 26th March. The rezone was on the request of the developer, Nelson Place Village Pty Ltd with no reference to our council or the community or the industrial stakeholders.

The council had NOT delayed the decision on the development application, the developer had only submitted the application in August 2009 and the Council considered it in December 2009.

The Minister has set up an advisory committee to report to him on what is suitable development criteria for the site BUT individuals in the community will not be permitted to make submissions to the Minister's committee. The committee's report is to be provided within 8 weeks of submissions closing.

see: http://www.savewilliamstown.net/Save_Williamstown/NEWS/Entries/2010/4/8_Draft_Terms_of_Reference_for_the_Ministers_Advisory_Committee.html

Community locked out of consultations - outsider developers indulged

The community needs to be aware that the Minister's draft Terms of Reference for his advisory committee do not include third party responses or open community consultation. Only community based groups such as Save Williamstown, WNSRA and POW are to be invited to submit to the Minister's advisory committee. Therefore attending Save Williamstown meetings will be your opportunity to tell Minister Madden what our community believes is appropriate development.

Issues such as:

Heritage,

Impact on Williamstown jobs,

Heights and

Impact on Infastructure of an increasing Williamstown population

will be discussed in preparation for the Save Williamstown submission.

Please make sure that everyone who wants to be on our emailing list gives us a contact email address. Lists will be available at the meeting. People not at the meeting who needs to add their name to the list should send an email to [email protected].
If you know people to telephone, please establish telephone trees to let as many people know what is happening.
Funds will also be needed for letterboxing.
If you have skills or time please also let us know on the lists at the meeting or by email to [email protected].

AND FOR THOSE WHO THINK RESIDENTIAL ZONING IS OKAY AS LONG AS THE HERITAGE OVERLAY AND HEIGHT RESTRICTIONS APPLY.. PLEASE BE AWARE THAT THE DEVELOPER STILL WANTS AT LEAST 46.5 METRE TOWERS (OR UP TO 17 STOREYS) AS SHOWN IN DESIGN OPTION 5.

THE DEVELOPERS ARE NOT MEMBERS OF OUR LOCAL COMMUNITY AND THEY ARE SEEKING WHATEVER MAXIMUM HEIGHT AND PROFIT THEY CAN OBTAIN OUT OF THIS SITE.

AND THIS WILL BE A PRECEDENT FOR FUTURE DEVELOPMENT APPLICATIONS.

Thanks,

Save Williamstown

--

Save Williamstown Working Group
Website: http://www.savewilliamstown.net
Email (General): info[AT]savewilliamstown.net
Planning and Design Issues: [email protected]
Communications and Media Issues: [email protected]
Legal Issues: legal[AT]savewilliamstown.net
Strategy Issues: strategy1[AT]savewilliamstown.net

A new you-tube film about the forest protectors' camp and community at Goongerah, South East Gippsland, near Brown Mountain. The long trial for the wildife on Brown Mountain has come to an end - all except the final decision by Justice Osborn, which all await with baited breath. This is a land-mark trial where real-life avatars have come out and opposed the 160 year old treatment of Victoria's forests and animals as colonial spoils for the taking and Victorians as mere servants to the State.
Read inside a fascinating summary of the arguments and evidence from either side: Vic Forests (for logging) and Environment East Gippsland Inc. (for nature). Revelatory of Department of Environment and Sustainability.

Court case finishes – summary of the final 3 days.[1]

The final days of summing up both VicForests’ and Environment East Gippsland’s arguments were heard in the Melb Supreme Court on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday (23rd-25th March). These were the last submissions presented to Justice Osborn who heard the 17 day trial that started on the 1st March.

Both sides presented their condensed arguments from the past 3 weeks. Early in the case, the economic claims were not allowed as VicForests (VF) had not made any allegations in its defence about economic impact, and there was only summary evidence supplied by VF, without details. The arguments focused on the laws covering protection of threatened species and how VF did or didn’t abide by them. Justice Osborn has reserved his decision . Our legal team have said he could hand this down in a month or two or three ...

Despite some fairly revealing and insightful evidence being given and some quite startling information to come out of cross examination of witnesses, the decision will be looking at the complexities of the laws governing forests and wildlife management.

A new you-tube film about the forest protectors' camp and community at Goongerah, South East Gippsland, near Brown Mountain.../files/Brown-Mt-Supporters-in-Melb-for-trial-.jpg" vspace="13" hspace="13" align="left">

A support team of about 45 people attended the Melbourne start of the case to show that there was widespread interest in Brown Mountain. Thanks everyone who came along and who sat through the proceedings.

1st Day (Tues) – the defence (VicForests) lawyers had the stage on day 1 and delivered their case.

To those who hadn’t heard the facts, arguments and cross examinations of the previous 3 weeks, it could have sounded fairly reasonable and even worrying. Read our responses to their arguments below. VF lawyers’ arguments consisted of the following:

* EEG didn’t have standing to take the case to court as we are too small a group, don’t have a special interest in Brown Mountain, only an emotional or intellectual interest. The fact that we didn’t apply to be on the local Shire environment committee, and the claim that we didn’t take part in the Nat Estate study on 1990 – (but we actually did) and various other arguments were used to attempt to argue we shouldn’t be able to sue VicForests.

* It was DSE that should have looked out for threatened species, not VicForests. VF can’t change zonings.

* The Potoroo wasn’t ‘detected’ within the meaning of the action statement (FFG Act) - although the animals and the sites were confirmed, the full two weeks of footage was withheld by EEG (under instruction from our lawyers) until late 2009 – making the authorities suspicious of possible tampering and was the reason given by VF for not protecting the area.

* Language in the FFG Act and Sustainable Forests (Timber) Act, is not enforceable.

* VF noted that the Forest Management Plan was out of date (ended in 2006), which generated much discussion. Justice Osborn pointed out that if it was no longer applicable, then all logging in EG was illegal as the FM Plan is needed before forest can be logged. That point was then quickly resolved.

* The Precautionary Principle, which was a major argument in the whole case. It was first claimed by VF not to give rise to any legally enforceable obligation against it, and even if it did, VF claimed it had observed the PP even if it wasn’t thought to be regarded as enough precaution.

* VF claim Potoroo wasn’t ‘detected’ to their or DSE’s satisfaction,

* On Quolls - there are 75 already protected in EG and that was enough,

* For the new species of crayfish – it’s still being named and so doesn’t have a prescription for protection and the 100 metre buffer around the creek will protect it

* Sooty and Powerful Owls – only dusk calls detected but no confirmed nesting or roosting sites so no need to protect. Plus there are enough Sooty Owls Management Areas and Powerful Owl Management Areas, despite some evidence from DSE suggesting the protection zone targets had not been reached.

* Giant Burrowing Frogs – even if it is high quality and likely habitat, none have yet been detected.

* Hollow Bearing Trees – logging prescriptions are claimed to look after them.

* Gliders are there in high numbers, yes - but it’s not for VF to protect them and 100 mts along creek should do anyway.

* The Precautionary Principle requires caution, but not total infallibility. Actions to express adherence to the PP can be many. VF argued that a 100 metre buffer along the creek was caution enough for all the species.

2nd day of summing up (Wed) –EEG, the plaintiff’s case was presented.

Debbie Mortimer SC argued that:

* The standards and conditions in the FFG Act Action Statements, Forest Management Plan and the Code of Forest Practices hasn’t been and can’t be complied with by VicForests.

* VicForests was the “agent of harm” about to begin clearfelling when we applied for the first injunction, and VF was as obliged to adhere to the law for threatened wildlife as was DSE.

* VF don’t need to have DSE declare a conservation zone for VF to adhere to the law or decide not to log.

* The Allocation Order (giving forests to VicForests from DSE), Timber Release Plan and the Code (for logging) all mention adhering to the Forest Management Plan.

* The issue of whether EEG has legal standing to bring the case to court was argued well for showing we did have standing. It had not been objected to by VF strongly before we embarked on the 17 day trial.

* If various surveys had not have been carried out (owls, Gliders, Crayfish and Potoroos), the court case would not have commenced. Surveys show a genuine interest.

* Obligation on VF are mandatory – they don’t allow them to ‘duck and weave’ around these obligations.

* The main law is the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act – it deals directly with Threatened Species, and binds the state/crown to protect endangered wildlife. The FM Plan and the Code both refer to it.

* Forests are a community property. Managed for common good into future. DSE’s position in the evidence given by Lee Meizis was that the Timber Release Plan gave ownership of forests to VF to exploit, but with the right to exploit comes responsibilities for conservation.

* FFG Act has strong ‘must do’ language and is imposed on government authorities. Important objectives of FFGA disregarded by VF. Action Statements within the FFGA are enforceable.

* Debbie Mortimer said “In every way, VicForests pushed away from its conservation duties” to benefit its access to forests for logging.

* VF is not abiding by the law by merely reading the Action Statements.

* Logging high quality Quoll habitat is endangering the animal’s survival. At odds with the Precautionary Principle because this species is only found at a functional level in East Gippsland now.

* Sustainable Forests (Timber) Act directly forced VF to adhere to the Code. Allocation Order also states VF MUST comply with CFP, PP, AS and FMP.

* Not complying with the Code was a breach. Acts refer to the Code being adhered to.

* VF must consider advice from relevant experts in Flora and Fauna. The advice of these internal DSE experts were ‘completely sidelined’ during the process that lead to the decision to clearfell Brown Mountain. It was also claimed that the Minister was not given important information on these species.

* The 100 mt buffer offered by VF would not protect the Gliders, Quoll, owls, Potoroo and Large Brown Tree Frog and was unknown if it would adequately protect the Giant Burrowing Frog, Brown Mt Crayfish and Square-tailed Kite. Leaving additional large trees while logging and burning the remainder would be unlikely to protect the habitat values of hollow bearing trees (85 out of 207 was all that survived the logged and burnt coupe across the creek in April 2009).

* The guideline to protect 100 ha for rich populations of gliders is self-regulating and doesn’t need major fuss – just needs to be mapped and complied with.

* Justice Osborn discussed decent reserve designs and ‘whacking in’ some reserve along the creek.

* The oft-cited ‘risk-weighted consequences’ of the precautionary principle the VF lawyers used daily, does not mention social or economic ‘balance’ and in context is only about conservation risks and consequences.

* We are dealing with some species in a demonstrable state of decline. Failure to halt damage is serious. There is lack of scientific certainty as there is no research or info on impact of logging.

* New reserves mean nothing unless we assess the quality and type of the habitat, logging history etc.

* BHP was used as an example of a company which must employ specialist ecologists/biologists if it plans to carry out potentially damaging work. VF either needs to employ biodiversity staff, or get in consultants to survey and advise forest planning.

* Potoroo detections 100% authentic – no questioning by VF of witnesses – fully accepted, yet despite 3 verified detections, VF made no attempt to consult with DSE biologists or protect 50 ha for each as stated in the FFGA.

* DSE set up its own ‘rules’ outside of existing legislation.

* DM asked for full injunction to logging.

Day 3 – Thursday – response from Defendant (VF)

* Having to abide by the SFT Act could mean that every logger, truckie, contractor, roading operator must comply with these laws as well. Does that mean every worker has to set up a biodiversity unit and consult biologists?

* Argues again, it’s all DSE’s responsibility.

* Argues that the words for Greater Glider protection in the FMP says “approximately 100 ha” is unenforceable – how much is ‘approximately’?

* VicForests Lawyers couldn’t find any expert biologists to speak for them. They tried.

* Not being given the entire potoroo footage was the whole problem.

* The 400 ha reserve to the (drier, steeper) west is a benefit for all the species.

* Crays were found in the creek next to a previously logged forest so therefore they can survive OK.

* Potoroo no 2 (on camera) wasn’t used in original evidence (it was actually discovered after writ was served but this was overlooked by VF lawyers).

* The hair tube evidence of the Potoroo near proposed coupe 19 didn’t come with a copy of the note when it was sent off for analysis – so how do we know where it really was?

Final Judgement awaits

This ended the long trial for the wildlife of Brown Mountain. We await Justice Osborn’s final decision ...

Donations

Our supporters have been showing astonishing determination to have our forests and wildlife protected! We’ve hit our first minimum target which is really something for a small enviro group. But due to the case having gone for 16-17 days when it was only down for a 10 day hearing, we are still needing some help to cover the extra costs for this time in court with our team, a couple of extra witnesses and various associated costs.

NOTES

Source of this article was "[EnvEastGipp] Brown Mt Detailed Update, 29 March 2010" , almost verbatim, but without all the photos. The website for Environment East Gippsland is here.

Article adapted from original report by Julianne Bell of Protectors of Public Lands.

Hysteria in Victorian Parliament disrupts Hearing on Finance and Administration

In Parliament yesterday (12 March 2010) television cameras from several stations caught a remarkable fracas when Planning Minister Madden gatecrashed the hearing of the Standing Committee on Finance and Public Administration. Madden's staff member, Peta Duke, was subpoenaed to attend but was apparently instructed by the Attorney General NOT to attend. ALP MP Matt Viney disrupted proceedings and effectively took over, upon which the Chair Gordon Rich Phillips left and then Peter Kavanagh, which meant that there was no quorum so the meeting collapsed.

What democratic Planning activists said to the Press

Following an interview with Madden there were excellent interviews with Peter Kavanagh, David Davis and Greg Barber. Community representatives, Mary Drost for Planning Backlash, Brian Walsh for Kew Cottages Coalition, and Julianne Bell for Protectors of Public Lands Victoria, made brief statements to the press. They spoke of their dismay at revelations that public consultations over planning developments had been revealed as sham and said that the farcical proceedings at the Parliamentary Inquiry were an insult to Parliament and hence to Victorians.

See the the "Inquiry into Victorian Government Decision Making, Consultation and Approval Processes."

Purpose of the Hearing

On 3 March 2010, the Committee agreed to the following resolution: To inquire into and report on Victorian Government decision making, consultation and approval processes, and any knowledge and/or involvement of Ministers, Ministerial staff and/or Victorian Government officers since 1 December 2006 and, in particular, issues arising from media plans prepared within the Victorian Government since 1 December 2006.

The Public Hearings were scheduled for today in relation to the Inquiry. In particular the Windsor Hotel redevelopment planning process was to be looked into. These hearings were to have included one with Ms Peta Duke, Media Advisor to Planning Minister Justin Madden.

Public Submissions invited until 26 March 2010
For display on Parliament Website

However your submissions are treated in the Inquiry, having them on the Parliamentary Website is your opportunity for a real democratic voice. Tell people what you know and have seen and suffered through the planning and population push by big business and government in Victoria.

The Committee is inviting any individuals and organisations, wishing to express views on the terms of reference. Instructions are on the Inquiry website Guidelines for submissions may be downloaded here. Submissions will close on Friday, 26 March at 5.00 p.m. Once submissions are received, they will be displayed here: http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/council/SCFPA/PC/Submissions/Index.html
Other contact details for this very important inquiry are as follows:

Inquiry into Victorian Government Decision Making, Consultation and Approval Processes
Council Committees Office
Department of the Legislative Council
Parliament House
Spring Street
East Melbourne, 3002
Phone: (03) 9651 8696
Fax: (03) 9651 6799

Parliamentary Press Release 3 March Terms of Inquiry

Here is a press release from the Inquiry dated 3 March 2010. In it we can see that the terms of the Inquiry were frustrated. This may be an indication of what is often said, that Victorian laws make it impossible to get answers from politicians so that corruption is unstoppable unless we change those laws.

Source was: http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/council/SCFPA/PC/PRESS%20RELEASE.pdf
PRESS RELEASE
STANDING COMMITTEE ON FINANCE AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION INQUIRY INTO VICTORIAN GOVERNMENT DECISION MAKING, CONSULTATION AND APPROVAL PROCESSES

The Legislative Council’s Standing Committee on Finance and Public Administration today met and resolved to inquire into and report on:
Victorian Government decision making, consultation and approval processes, and any knowledge and/or involvement of Ministers, Ministerial staff and/or Victorian Government officers since 1 December 2006 and in particular issues arising from media plans prepared within the Victorian Government since 1 December 2006.

The initial focus of the inquiry will be on the Windsor Hotel redevelopment process. The Committee has resolved to conduct public hearings and take evidence from the following witnesses:

• Hon. Justin Madden, MLC, Minister for Planning
• Mr Yehudi Blacher, Secretary, Department of Planning and Community Development
• Mr David Hodge, Department of Planning and Community Development
• Ms Peta Duke, media adviser
• Mr George Svigos, Premier’s media unit
• Ms Fiona Macrae, Premier’s media unit

Hearings are scheduled to commence on Friday 12 March 2010.

The Committee has also resolved to seek access to the ‘Minister for Planning Justin Madden Media Plan’ document and similar media plan documents.

GORDON RICH-PHILLIPS, MLC
CHAIRMAN
STANDING COMMITTEE ON FINANCE AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
3 March 2010

The Brown Mountain landmark trial has begun!

After months of preparation, our legal team and supporters have gathered in Sale and begun the two-week Brown Mountain landmark trial.

Everything is going very well so far. It's difficult to report on a hearing that is in progress, particularly since we are the plaintiff, so this article might lack a few things.

Our lead barrister, Debbie Mortimer SC, spent Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning in Court outlining what we say are the facts and the law, in a fascinating opening submission.

She spoke about the beautiful native wildlife that is central to our case, and the Court was treated to large pictures of the critters. It was almost surreal, but quite appropriate in our view, to see a team of lawyers in black gowns and wigs defending the furry, the feathered, the cray and the frog.

She said that VicForests has a number of legal responsibilities towards the environment, including endangered species, and that those responsibilities are inconsistent with logging at Brown Mountain.

For a more detailed summary of the first day's hearing, read this excellent article by The Age journalist Kate Hagen, who is attending the hearing #10;h.html">Click here

Journalists from ABC Radio and Win TV (channel 9) are also attending the hearings.

VicForest's Defense

VicForests' lead barrister Ian Waller SC started outlining VicForests' case this afternoon. When Court adjourned today, he said he still had about an hour to go, so we haven't got the full picture yet.

But generally speaking he contended that VicForests' responsibility to the environment wasn't anywhere near as strong as we made out, and was balanced by its requirement to create economic and social benefits. He said that, to the extent to which VicForests has responsibilities to the environment and native wildlife, it has fulfilled them.

Judge and Legal teams in the field

On Wednesday, Justice Osborn and the legal teams were having a look at Brown Mountain first hand. It's not just a bushwalk, though; they will observe first hand some places and concepts about forests, logging and post-logging practices that will later on be discussed in Court.

Schedule

On Thursday morning, VicForests' opening submissions is expected to finish, then Environment East Gippsland will bring out our witnesses.

Court is open to the public. You are welcome to attend if you are in Sale - there have been a few people sitting quietly in the public area. If you drop in, please come up and say hello.

A local wag is tweeting the trial. Click here for regular updates.

Court adjourned until Tuesday 9 March (Monday 8 is a public holiday.)

Information, but not headers, from Jill and the team at EEG
Environment East Gippsland Forest Update

To make a tax-deductible donation for this crucial trial:

* Online - CLICK HERE.
* By direct deposit - email info[AT]eastgippsland.com.au for our bank account details
* By cheque - Make out to EEG and send to: EEG, Locked Bag 3, ORBOST Vic 3888

For more information CLICK HERE.

The big court case between
Environment East Gippsland (EEG) and
the Victorian Government finally begins on Monday at 1.30pm at the Sale Court House.
The media will be there at 1pm and it would be really great it if everyone who is able to be there is as well.

Democracy and justice are crucial in this case, and the more observers the better, to see justice done or to bring back a warning to Victorians if it is not done.

Anyone is welcome to attend and observe the proceedings at any time during the proceedings. In fact, people are encouraged to come along to any of the sitting days (excluding Wed 3rd March and Mon 8th March) over the two weeks.

More details as they come.

The TRUTH comes out of Maddens office. Consultation is faked. This is what we have all know for a long time as we spend hours of our time working away putting in submissions.
Well it is official; they just tick the boxes, as in: "Consulted with the community - tick."
And this is Madden who wants to be Premier?

This article was originally published on 25 Feb 10. It was updated on 28 Feb 10 with embedded videos #MaddensGrilling">below (thanks to Marvellous Melbourne) showing Madden being grilled by the newsmedia. - JS

The TRUTH comes out of Maddens office. Consulation is faked. This is what we have all know for a long time as we spend hours of our time working away putting in submissions.
Well it is official; they just tick the boxes, as in: "Consulted with the community - tick."
And this is Madden who wants to be Premier? See http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/02/25/2830415.htm?section=justin

Here is an example of the way Justin Madden consults, as highlighted by an exchange in Parliament:

The subject was the Commonwealth Games Athletes' Village and Royal Park Protection Group. The Protection group, run by Julianne Bell, has snowballed into a quite a big movement of diverse groups in Melbourne - notably in Protectors of Public Land. The initial group had resulted from the Victorian Government actually giving away 20 ha of public land from Royal Park, the oldest park in the heart of Melbourne, just next to the zoo, to Australand to build a housing estate for wealthy customers, many of whom would purchase them from overseas and migrate to live in them, i.e., not even to Australians in need of housing and already here.

Here I.J. Cover takes Madden to task for saying that he consulted when he had hardly done so:

Royal Park Protection
VICHANSARD
Whole Speech

________________________________________
Title Commonwealth Games: athletes village
House COUNCIL
Activity Questions without Notice
Members COVER
Date 24 April 2002
Page 729
________________________________________
24 April 2002 COUNCIL
________________________________________
Page 729
Commonwealth Games: athletes village

Hon. I. J. COVER (Geelong) -- My question is to the Minister for Commonwealth Games, because I care about the Commonwealth Games. I am delighted to hear that the minister has now agreed to meet with representatives of the Royal Park Protection Group on 3 May. Will the minister now admit that when he said on 21 March in this place that:

... I have continued to meet with representatives from the Royal Park group ...
he had not met with them since his commitment in October last year to consult on the preferred site and design of the Commonwealth Games athletes village, and in not meeting with them and giving that statement in this house he misled the house?

Hon. J. M. MADDEN (Minister for Commonwealth Games) -- As I mentioned in the house, I have continued to meet with members of the Royal Park Protection Group. I will continue to meet with them, as I have, and I look forward to meeting with them. I have not misled the house because, as I mentioned on that occasion, I am happy to meet with those groups and I am happy to have met with them. Further, I am happy to continue meeting with them.

Hon. I. J. COVER (Geelong) -- I have a supplementary question. My question on 21 March was clearly about whether the Minister for Commonwealth Games had consulted since October when the issue was debated in the house. He said he had continued to meet.

I have asked that question again today and I have a letter from the convenor of the Royal Park Protection Group who says it is simply not true that the minister has continued to meet with representatives from the Royal Park group.

Julianne Bell says that they have not met the minister for six months and they have not met him on the subject of the design and location of the games village. She concedes that she 'exchanged a few words' with the minister on the ABC 774 drive talkback program some months ago. I ask the Minister for Commonwealth Games whether the exchange of a few words on talkback radio with the convenor of this group is his idea of consultation.

Hon. J. M. MADDEN (Minister for Commonwealth Games) -- I thank the honourable member for his question. I again reinforce that Mr Cover has got it wrong; he got it wrong yesterday, he has got it wrong today and I am sure that he will get it wrong in the future. He is wrong because, as I mentioned in that answer, I have met with members of the Royal Park Protection Group. I will continue to meet with them. I look forward to continuing to meet with them. In terms of the dates, I did not refer to dates. I have said I have met with them and I have continued to meet with them.

I have spoken to them informally and formally and even on talkback radio. I have no problem with continuing to meet with this group and using consultative processes to ensure that it has input into wherever the Commonwealth Games village might be located.

See also: "Government email reveals plans to deceive" of 25 Feb 10 by Ryan Sheales on ABC Online, "Consultation with community a sham" of 27 Feb 10 on Marvellous Melbourne.

#MaddensGrilling" id="MaddensGrilling">Videos of Madden being grilled by the media

Thanks to Marvellous Melbourne for having published these videos on vimeo.com. Videos also embedded in Marvellous Melbourne's story "Fake Consultation - Proof of what we always knew....." of February 2010.

Editorial comment: It's unfortunate that politicians are not grilled in this way much more often. Surely it could not be that hard for our interviewers to manage, even if our politicians are not always caught red-handed in the way Madden has. If they had been prepared tod do this our politicians would have either long ago lifted their game or been booted out and Australia's standards of governance would not be nearly as bad as they now are.

Problems viewing these videos?: A friend was able to view these videos with Mozilla Firefox running on his Apple computer, however, I was unable to view these on my Debian Linux system with any of my Konqueror, Epiphany or Firefox browsers. If you also have problems, please let me know through the contact form. - JS.

Justin Madden - ABC News - fake consultation claims 25 Feb 2010 from Marvellous Melbourne on Vimeo at vimeo.com/9732178.

Staff of Victorian Planning Minister Justin Madden suggested faking community consultation. Brumby government spin doctors have been caught out with plans to engage in contrived public consultations, setting up photo-opportunities to boost ministers' local profile and leaking stories to the media. An email accidentally sent to the ABC, Planning Minister Justin Madden's chief spinner detailed plans to use the cover of a public consultation to knock back plans to build a massive 25-storey tower as part of the Windsor Hotel's re-build.

ABC Justin Madden reply to Jon Faine 26 Feb 2010 from Marvellous Melbourne on Vimeo at vimeo.com/9744001.

Justin Madden: Should he be sacked? 3AW 26 Feb 2010 from Marvellous Melbourne on Vimeo at vimeo.com/9752386.

Victorian Planning Minister Justin Madden arguably reduces himself to a bumbling mess on the 3AW Neil Mitchell program. But he 'has a job to do and will keep doing it'.

Victoria's Planning Minister Justin Madden ABC News 26 Feb 2010 from Marvellous Melbourne on Vimeo at vimeo.com/9771435.

Victoria's Planning Minister Justin Madden ABC News 26 Feb 2010 Justin Madden says the email leaked from his office contains inapproprate language. An email obtained by the ABC from Planning Minister Justin Madden's office shows a plan to use a sham public consultation process to stop the Windsor Hotel development in central Melbourne

Victoria's Planning Minister Justin Madden faces a tough task to keep his job from Marvellous Melbourne on Vimeo at vimeo.com/9758151.

Victoria's Planning Minister Justin Madden faces a tough task to keep his job, following the leaking of an embarassing email which revealed plans to scuttle the Windsor Hotel development. ABC Stateline 26 Feb 2010

Levels of fluoride dust from a brick factory at Craigieburn and the Alcoa aluminium smelting plant near Portland are proving fatal to kangaroos. DSE was informed of the problem in 2008 and the EPA was told in 2005, but signs of fluoride-related symptoms in kangaroos were noted as early as 2001. We know we cannot rely on the DSE's wildlife statistics and most of us have heard that the EPA is a toothless tiger, but how many of us would have thought there was enough fluoride dust out there to kill herds of kangaroos? Where does that put humans, especially children?

Our kangaroos are dying of fluoride poisoning in Victoria

Deborah Gough's article, "Roos victims of factory fluoride," February 21, 2010 The Age:http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/roos-victims-of-factory-fluoride-20100220-oms2.html reveals a nightmare. The article merits ongoing discussion so that the information does not perish with the fish and chips wrapping.

If, like me, you were confident that Australian governments were able to judge safe levels of fluoride in water, you may wish to review your opinion now. Although the Age article is about levels of fluoride dust from brick factories and the Alcoa aluminium smelting plant near Portland, causing deaths in wildlife - and you may not be wildlife - the level of incompetence in environmental 'regulation' and waste 'management' here seems quite alarming. The degree of poisoning is awful. Why would anyone believe that with such incompetence and callousness prevailing in Victorian government and business that humans in Victoria were safe?

Biggest fluoride polluters in Victoria

According to The Age in Victoria:

The Alcoa smelter in Portland emits 120 tonnes of fluoride dust a year
Austral Bricks in Craigieburn emits 60 tonnes a year
Melbourne Water emits more fluoride than any other agent overall.

The Age gives its source as the National Pollutant Inventory.

Responding to inquiries about the fluoride poison-related deaths of many kangaroos in the Portland and Craigieburn areas,

"EPA director of environmental services Bruce Dawson denied the authority had been slow to reduce maximum emission levels. He said that while the levels were safe for humans, it was now clear they were too high for some animals and a new level was likely."

According to this Age article, Wildlife Victoria had told the Department of Sustainability about the problem of fluoride emissions and kangaroos in 2008! The EPA had been told about it in 2005. Signs of fluoride-related poisoning in kangaroos were noted as early as 2001.

Sounds like the Department of Sustainability ignored this alert too, or, even worse, culled and disposed of the signs or allowed someone else to do so.

And, if it is only clear now to the EPA that the levels were too high for wildlife, why would we have confidence that the levels were okay for humans, particularly babies, and particularly over time?

The situation for the kangaroos seems so severe that I cannot find words to say how it makes me think of my government and the industries emitting these toxins. If people have knowingly allowed this to happen then they are inhuman.

"Scores of starving and pain-ridden kangaroos have been culled after developing tooth and bone deformities from breathing and ingesting fluoride emissions. Many more are believed to be suffering from growths that will kill them. The affected kangaroos are living near the Alcoa aluminium smelter in Portland, in the state's south-west, and the Austral Bricks factory at Craigieburn."

Mr Dawson (EPA Director of Environmental Services) said the EPA had demanded that Austral ''significantly reduce'' its fluoride emissions by building new facilities and upgrading technologies, but neither it nor Alcoa were 'in breach' of regulations. Obviously the regulations are hopeless.

Dawson said the levels were safe for humans.

There is actually a lot of doubt about what constitutes safe levels of fluoride over time and it is hard to have faith in such pronouncements, especially for babies and children, when authorities in Melbourne were able to ignore or not able to understand that the fluoride levels were so dangerous as to be causing tooth deformities in kangaroos so that they were starving and moved painfully.

"Autopsies performed at Melbourne University on 49 kangaroos culled at Alcoa on a single day last year found all but one were suffering from fluorosis, which leads to excessive bone growths, or lesions, on joints in the paws, ankles and calves. It can also cause tooth and jaw deformities that hinder eating and foraging."

Alcoa has been in the business of managing fluoride for a long time. How come it isn't aware of its toxicity in all conditions by now?

And, apparently culling of the kangaroos has been going on quietly, presumably with government permission.

The Sunday Age has been told more than 200 ill kangaroos living near both affected sites have been culled in recent years, but this figure could not be confirmed

This time the culling may have prevented the alarm being raised sooner. The recent Auditor General's report is evidence that the Department of Sustainability has been issuing licenses to cull kangaroos and other wildlife without any reliable wildlife statistics. Have ill-advised kangaroo culls in the area also disguised what must be a high mortality rate in these animals from poisoning? In other words, is this another flow-on from the Victorian Government's failure to monitor the welfare and population dynamics of our wildlife?

Perhaps those 'nuts' who resisted fluoridation of Queensland's water recently were right after all. One certainly cannot ignore the fact that there is little evidence for fluoridation of water supplies and quite a bit contradicting its supposed benefits for teeth.

From this poisoning epidemic we should derive the lesson that our living environment, those species that share this world with us are like us. If they suffer, we are likely to suffer. If we ignore their suffering we may well be turning our backs on clear warnings about our own predicament.

Our predicament is not the poisoned environment alone, it is also our helplessness to treat our fellow creatures decently because of the wall of obscure regulations and power thrown up by our commercial-in-confidence-government. A society which allows other creatures to be dispossessed and herded into toxic land then culled and disposed of with no public outcry is depraved.