dystopia

Rumours of early election if Opposition don't pass Planning Amendment bill

It is rumoured that the Government is suggesting that it will call an early election if the Opposition doesn't pass its loathed bill and that the Opposition may feel that it is not ready to govern yet.

Ms Pruneau, of MRRA, wrote to MPs today, saying, "In our view, if the government uses this flimsy excuse to call an election, it will be exposed for the short-sighted, minority-driven, undemocratic body it has become. Any compromise on your part will serve to endorse that behaviour. Please, let the government lose credibility, keep yours intact."

Indeed, let us remind the opposition that there is honour in standing firm and debating honestly, and that they have a duty to represent the electorate and to make the government do the same where it forgets its role and works, instead, on behalf of big business finance, materials, engineering, land speculation and property development.

In the excerpts of speeches published under the heading DACs 2, there are some notable examples of fudging on the government's responsibility in the whole overpopulation disaster which is Victoria. The opposition is also afraid to comment on this because they are under similar pressures and inducements to support developers over The People.

What more proof do we need to see that population increase leads to decrease in democracy in Australia?

Upper House rejects Planning Legislation Amendment Bill (No.2) motion today on standing order grounds

[1]

Introduction Received from Assembly.

The PRESIDENT — Order! I wish to remind the house that a bill of this nature was introduced, debated and the second reading negatived in this chamber in June this year. A standing order of this house in effect states that we cannot within six months of the same session debate two bills of similar content. Standing order 7.06 states:

No question will be proposed in the Council which is the same in substance as any question which has been resolved during the previous six months in the same session.

I note that this bill has been slightly amended, but in substance in my view it is still the same. I therefore indicate that I cannot accept a motion for the first reading of this bill at this stage. I do note, however, that earlier today the government gave notice of a motion for the suspension of standing order 7.06 in relation to this bill. Until that motion is moved and decided on by the house, this bill cannot proceed any further.

[1] http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/downloadhansard/pdf/Council/Jul-Dec%202009/Council%20Jul-Dec%202009%20Daily%2016%20September%202009.pdf

See alsoDACs 2: Highlights: Macedon Member Duncan makes bizarre statements about population growth in Victoria and DACs 2 Highlights: "The Bill is a very blunt instrument" (Mr Morris, Mornington, Victoria)

Editor: This is a comment about the Planning Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 2) Second reading Debate resumed from 15 September on a motion of Mr BATCHELOR (Minister for Community Development) made in the Assembly of the Victorian Parliament on 16 September and recorded in Hansard. [1] This Labor Government initiated bill is a source of enormous consternation for Victorians not completely roped in by the corporate media. The concerns are on democratic, planning and environment grounds. It was read for the second time and, after a very close call, its passing has again been delayed - this time until 13th October.

The Bill is a very blunt instrument" (Mr Morris, Mornington)

I want to initially come back to something the member for Bundoora [Mr Brooks, ALP] said when he was talking about the Dispute Resolution Committee process that has led to the current form of this bill. He referred to it as a democratic process with equal numbers from government and non-government parties, but of course the government has the right to elect a chairman and the government has the casting vote. So no matter what quality of debate there has been — and I understand there has been some good discussion and good work done and some of the nasties have been taken out of the bill — it is a long way from being a democratic process. In fact it is about as democratic as the are proposed to be.

The bill essentially is the death knell for community input into the planning process in the areas that have been nominated. It is a real symbol of the hypocrisy of the Australian Labor Party when it comes to local government, when it comes to local communities and when it comes to local interests. This is about getting the message right and getting the process right to suit the message. It is about spin. It is about saying one thing and meaning a different thing entirely. The claim is, ‘We are on side with the communities’. But the reality is that these are simply soothing words, lulling communities into a false sense of security, and then belting them on the head with a blunt instrument.

Members of DACs will be hand-picked

This bill is a very blunt instrument. This is not calling in one application and this is not calling in two applications; this is calling in the whole planning process. It is taking the entire planning process away from local government and the local community. It certainly gives lie to the government’s claims of partnership with local government. Every significant application in every principal activity centre in 27 areas of the metropolitan area, plus the city of Geelong, will now be determined by a committee hand-picked by the Minister for Planning. The people who will dominate these development assessment committees are not, will not and never can be independent persons. They will be hand-picked to push through the government’s agenda in this area.

Let there be absolutely no misunderstanding about that.

You simply need to refer to the bill, in particular proposed section 97MK, which deals with the membership of the development assessment committees. The chair will be nominated by the minister from a list of persons that he has prepared under proposed subsection 3. Proposed subsection 3 requires the minister to, firstly, prepare a list of names, secondly, to consult with the Municipal Association of Victoria and the Victorian Local Governance Association, and then to make his own decision. So the VLGA and the MAV are told who are contenders for the position. That is the extent of their input. They have absolutely no right to say, ‘Yes, we agree’, or, ‘No, we don’t agree’. It is the minister’s list, it is the minister’s decision, and they are dragged in to dress up the process and to make it look respectable.

Two members will be appointed directly by the minister. So that is three out of five. Two members will be appointed by the local council, and they will rotate. I understand there might be, say, one DAC for southern metro and two councillors from Glen Eira, two councillors from Frankston, two councillors from Kingston, or whatever. Those two councillors are, once again, simply to dress up the process, because you could wait until hell freezes over before they have any influence on a decision. They are there as the scapegoats. They are there to take the blame. That is all they are there for. and who is going to pay for the process? Do you think the people who have lost their influence over the process will be able to put the cost onto someone else? No, of course they will not.

I refer to proposed section 97MG at page 11 of the bill.

To enable a DAC to decide on an application, the responsible authority — in other words, the council — has to provide not only the application but also a copy of comments from a referral authority. They have to do the referral to start with and then also provide a copy of a report from any member of their staff, any other document that is relevant and any other document or information that has been reasonably requested by the DAC. In other words, if they jack up and say, ‘No, we are not going to do a report on this; we are not going to pay the officers to do these reports for someone else to make a decision on’, the DAC can come back and say, ‘Oh yes, you will anyway’.

The vast majority of the cost of the planning process is not the actual decision making. The costs are in officer time, the officer effort that goes into preparing the report and getting it into a form to go to the decision-makers. That cost will still be borne by the community.

Political mechanism called 'the blame game' to take heat off ministers in their local areas

The bill strips away any opportunity a citizen has to have an input into the bricks-and-mortar future of their community. In the second-reading speech the minister said the government is committed to strengthening confidence in decision making and to the state government playing a role in actively implementing state policies. If the government is that committed, why is it establishing these bodies? Why do we need to create another layer? Of course it is a tried and true formula, and it has been going on for the last 10 years.

It is called the blame game. It is about making sure there is someone else set up to take the blame. Many local councils are sick to death of being blamed. It has been standard government member policy. Any time an application comes up that the community does not like, government members say, ‘Look, the council is dealing with that; we can’t get involved’ — and quite properly they should not — the refrain is ‘It is not our fault’.

It is. The entire planning structure is a product of decisions of this government. The councils are simply charged with trying to knock the rough edges off and have some input. Once again statutory bodies are being set up in order to take the blame. The planning system is certainly in dire need of an overhaul and of a refocus.

There is now a huge number of development applications that are subject to appeal, and anyone who is involved knows that. This number of appeals did not occur 10 years ago.

They did not occur in the past when the appeal processes were not quite as effective as they are now.

These appeals did not occur before the introduction of Melbourne 2030. It is only the government’s meddling with the planning act, preventing people from having their say, that has caused this level of objection. We have a situation where local councils now cannot even commence a planning scheme amendment without the minister saying yes. Occasionally one slips through.

The C87 amendment — the Mount Eliza woodlands amendment — is a classic example; the minister did not like the outcome so it simply sits on his desk and he does not approve it.

All the planning in this state is now located at 8 Nicholson Street

All the planning in this state is now located at 8 Nicholson Street.

We have an epidemic, we have a tidal wave of objections, and the minister seems to have no idea what is causing it. But the solution advocated by the government, and this bill is living proof of that solution, is to strip councils of their powers, to put fees through the roof and to threaten objectors with costs in the event that they are unsuccessful — in other words, to try and scare them away from the process and to make it impossible for ordinary Victorians to have their views heard. That is the real message.

That is the intent of the bill — to take the process away from the hands of the people, to set up a body to take the blame, take the fire, deflect the anger from the government and to pretend, as we have heard in this debate again and again, ‘Oh, we have got urban expansion, is it not terrible?’. Yes, we do have urban expansion — because the government has set up the zones in that way. It has nothing to do with local councils. It has everything to do with the planning structure that has been set in place by this government, and it is time it stood up and took responsibility rather than trying to blame somebody else.

[1] Debate recorded in Hansard, 16 September, 2009 (Assembly)

Recall defective Planning Bill

Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc has called for the withdrawal of the Major Transport Projects Facilitation Bill 2009.

Brian Walters SC, President of Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc. said: “This Bill is an affront to democracy as well as to good planning. It will inevitably lead to damage to the environment and public assets. It is an irresponsible measure and suggests that its proponents are in league with developers instead of upholding the community’s interests.”

Under the provisions of the Bill, the Planning Minister (in consultation with the Premier) can recommend that a project be a “declared project”. Then the project is fast-tracked without any of the normal safeguards the community has a right to expect.

Community's rights removed

The community will have no right of objection, and comment by the public is only to be permitted at the whim of the Planning Minister – and then only in exceptional circumstances, and with only 15 days’ notice. To expect community organisations to provide proper comment on major projects with only 15 days to master the material and assess it – and if necessary obtain expert advice - is ludicrous. These provisions provide for a sham right of consultation which is effectively impossible to exercise. The real goal is to remove public comment altogether, but the Bill lacks the integrity to say so.

Without public comment, projects that do not serve the interests of the community will be rammed through without a full assessment of their impact.

Ministers will not have time to assess the projects

Even when comments are offered, the Minister has only 15 days to assess them, so only the most cursory examination of the merits of a project is anticipated. For most decisions under the Bill, appeals to VCAT or judicial review are expressly excluded. Where judicial review is allowed (only for the final decision to approve a project), the Bill allows just 21 days to commence proceedings once a decision is published in the Government Gazette.

Bill heavily biased in favour of developers and varies Constitution Act

In its haste to limit rights, the Bill goes so far as to vary the Constitution Act. All consideration is given to “project proponents” and none to the community.

Labour legislating for millionaire mates

Mr Walters said: “We hope the government sees sense and withdraws the Bill. If it does not, we hope the Parliament will reject it. The fast tracking of major projects for developers, at the expense of the community and good planning, appears to be legislation for millionaire mates rather than for the good government of the people of Victoria.”

Contact via this website:
Brian Walters SC President Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc.
Julianne Bell Secretary Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc.

These are dark times for Australia and Victoria is one of the darkest places in the country for democracy. There are, however still some good people in parliament and we must support their efforts. The Greens and the Opposition need the electorate's help to have this bill stopped in the upper house. They have done it before, so they can do it again. See for example, "Coalition, Greens & DLP vote Tim Holding's North South Pipeline enabling regulations down!".

If passed, the new proposed Major Transport Projects Facilitiation Bill 2009, will create an Act of Law tol override existing planning and environmental approval processes under the 11 other Acts listed below. Like the Repco rally law in NSW it will overturn laws for the protection of democracy, the environment, and the public.

This Bill is bad because:

- It will exempt the State Government from its own laws and concentrate decision making power into one or two Ministers, raising the risk of corruption and 'influence peddling'.

- You will not be able to appeal to the Supreme court except to appeal the final decison by the Planning Minister, but the law will be biased against the appeal because they will have to favour "cost and efficiency" of the project rather than environment, heritage, or democratic agreement by the community.

This bill is bad for democracy and is not needed or wanted - except by big business and developers.

Greg Barber of the Greens has asked, "What public transport projects have ever been delayed by following proper processes?"

Labor is determined to ram this through.

He says, "Labor is determined to ram this through. Only the Liberal-National Coalition, by voting with the Greens, can stop this bill in the upper house. You are urged to email Liberal, National, DLP Upper House MPs and tell them that if they really care about stopping corruption they will vote to make state government decisions subject to the law."

Copy of the legislation and explanatory info
http://www.legislation.vic.gov.au/domino/Web_Notes/LDMS/PubPDocs.nsf/ee665e366dcb6cb0ca256da400837f6b/eb658cee32cafe23ca2576100014d381!OpenDocument

Coastal Management Act 1995
Consent under section 40(1)
Conservation, Forests and Lands Act 1987
Comment under section 66
Environment Protection Act 1970
Works approval under section 19B(7)
Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988
Permit under section 40
Licence under section 53 to take and keep fish
Forests Act 1958
Licence or permit under section 52
Permit under section 59(1)
Authority under section 77
Heritage Act 1995
Permit under section 74
Permit under section 113
Consent under section 129
National Parks Act 1975
Permit under section 21(1)(a)
Approval under section 23
Consent under section 25
Planning and Environment Act 1987
Preparation, approval and adoption of a planning scheme or an amendment to
a planning scheme under sections 8, 29 and 35
Granting and issue of a planning permit under section 61
Road Management Act 2004
Consent under clause 1 of Schedule 2
Decision under clause 2 of Schedule 2
Consent under clause 16 of Schedule 7
Water Act 1989
Licence under section 51
Licence under section 67
Wildlife Act 1975
Authority under section 21(1), (2) or (3)
Licence under section 22(1)
Authorisation under section 28A

Partial source for this article was

Eureka Rebellion anarchist ceremony 2009

The 3 December Spirit of Eureka celebrations will be a 12 hour extravaganza. Congregate at 4 am at the corner of Eureka and Stawell Street at the Eastern End of Ballarat. Dawn ceremony goes to daybreak. Those present will form a large circle. And, whilst waiting for dawn to break, everyone present will have the opportunity to say why they are there. The celebration ends at 4pm.

Joe reminds us that Eureka was about direct democracy, with mass meetings of 10,000 people, delegates appointed with specific mandates, direct action and, that great thing, Solidarity.

Eureka 2004 - 150th anniversary. (More details and history here.)

Anarchist invitation to Eureka Rebellion anniversary ceremonies

"The Anarchist Media Institute is inviting everyone who is interested in reclaiming The Radical Spirit of the Eureka Rebellion, to join us on Wednesday 3rd of December at the Eureka Stockade site in Ballarat, in Victoria, to celebrate the 148th Anniversary of the Eureka Rebellion.

JOIN US

Friday 3RD DECEMBER 2004
EUREKA STOCKADE SITE
EUREKA HALL - (CORNER EUREKA & STAWELL STREET, BALLARAT)

4AM to 4PM

* 4AM ­ 6AM Gathering at Eureka Park to mark the 150th anniversary of the battle on the site and at the time it occurred
* 6.00am ­ 10.00am ­ Breakfast Eureka Hall (Bring own food & drinks)
* Further details to be announced

JOIN US - Celebrate the Past by Reclaiming the Present and creating a new future. Join us at Eureka Park /Eureka Hall (cnr Stawell and Eureka Streets, Ballarat)

It's time we reclaimed our history."

People for a Royal Commission into Corruption in Victoria

Email or snailmail for correspondence and petition:
E: [email protected]
A: P.O. Box 5035, Alphington 3078
M: 0439 395 489

Listen to the podcast for more or go to the Anarchist Media website

Melbourne City heritage under threat by undemocratic, unwanted, and destructive development

This article is a response to concerns raised by the Victorian National Trust, and using their material, so you can rely on the statements and cite them. At the base of the article and some specimen letters, there are addresses to write to or email.

Melbourne is under attack

IN MELBOURNE a very large number of heritage buildings are being demolished or overwhelmed by new development. This new development will deprive Melbourne of much that is unique to its character. Too much has already been lost in recent years.

The 1894 Eastern Arcade on Bourke Street and the rear facades of both Myer Bourke Street and David Jones have already been lost. Now a permit has been granted to demolish a collection of three interwar buildings behind Scots church, including Victoria’s oldest multi storey carpark, built in 1938.

Towers already approved break the height limit in the central city, and will be overly dominant, and may provide precedent for further breaches. St Paul’s Cathedral may soon be dominated by an 88m glass office tower in Flinders Lane that is more than twice the recommended height limit of 40m. Scots Church may soon be dominated by a 51m high office tower where the height limit is 30m.

Heritage buildings should be preserved where at all possible, and re-used instead of demolished for the sake of simple commercial gain.

Heritage buildings and precincts should not be completely overwhelmed by large new towers directly behind or over them.

Height limits should be respected, because they are intended to maintain a ‘pedestrian scaled’ street level environment, the proper context for heritage buildings.

It is alarming that so many of these big projects have been permitted by the Sate Government through a planning process that does not include an ability to make submissions or lodge appeals.

The Melbourne City Council has shown little interest in preserving existing heritage listed buildings, let alone updating the listings, which have not changed since 1984.

There is plenty of room for new development outside the central shopping area and Collins Street. The city fringe area such as La Trobe Street and beyond, King Street and beyond, and of course the Docklands and Southbank provide plenty of scope for new innovative developments without threatening unique heritage precincts.

The protection of areas by heritage and height controls, such as the central retail area, the Bourke Street hill and Chinatown, has preserved the small scale buildings of earlier eras, the laneways that serve them and the buildings hidden there. These controls are responsible for the development Melbourne’s vibrant laneway culture and apartment conversions of old buildings.

Re: Demolition of Lonsdale House, Lonsdale Street

• Lonsdale House is a good example of Art deco architecture in the city, and is ‘protected’ by a Heritage Overlay and should not be demolished. It is an integral part of the heritage streetscape of Lonsdale Street.

• The justifications used are not convincing. The need to widen the laneway for trucks sounds like a convenience rather than a necessity. Furthermore such a wide truck accessway will create a barrier and a danger for pedestrians.

• That it should be replaced with an entry for a large shopping centre and an electronic billboard clearly shows that generic ‘development’ has been given a higher priority than our unique city heritage.

• It will provide a diagonal entry to a shopping centre that will contain over 100 shops over three levels, and will have multiple entry points from Myer and Melbourne central. To allow this small corner piece as well the demolition of all but the facades of the Myer building shows that the demolition of Lonsdale House is simply a bonus profit for developers who knew full well that it was heritage listed.

• The development will destroy one of the now characteristic laneways of Melbourne, and specifically the St Jerome’s bar, home of the laneway festival. There will be no room for unusual or fringe activities that so animate Melbourne in the new shopping centre. Such unique spaces and activities are in danger of being destroyed by their popularity.

Letter specific to the Windsor

This letter should be addressed to Heritage Victoria

Email : [email protected]

Copies to the Minister and the Trust

Executive Director
Heritage Victoria
Department of Planning and Community Development
Level 4, 55 Collins St, Melbourne, VIC 3000.
PO Box 2392,
Melbourne, VIC 3001.

Dear Executive Director,

RE: Windsor Hotel redevelopment

• The Windsor certainly needs some ‘refreshing’ but the scale of the development threatens to overwhelm what would be left of the original building.

• The architecture of the new parts is certainly innovative, but is this sufficient justification for its scale and impact on the Windsor and the Bourke Hill heritage precinct ?

• The owners bought the business and the building knowing full well it was on the Heritage Register, and had a height limit of 23m, as does much of the surrounding area.

• The 1961 corner building has little heritage value, but the new corner building is a floor higher, dominating the original building more than the existing.

• If the tower is allowed, it will provide a precedent for other tall buildings in the area, threatening the low intimate scale of the precinct and its laneways and small businesses.

• Is the demolition of the rear wing of the original 1888 building really necessary ?

• Surely there is a viable alternative future for the Windsor that did not include a tower with 200 new rooms, a swimming pool, gym and all the features you would expect for a modern hotel. As a boutique heritage hotel, such facilities would not be expected.

• The re-creation of the ground level arcade, a new suite incorporating the towers, and further restoration of the interior of the original building are welcome, but seem like small concessions for a building that is already largely restored.

Letter specific to 80 Collins Street

This letter should be addressed to the Minister for Planning, with copies to the City Of Melbourne and the Trust.

Email : [email protected]

The Hon Justin Madden
Minister for Planning
Level 17/8 Nicholson Street,
East Melbourne VIC 3002

Dear Mr Madden,

Re: Proposed 40 storey office tower, 80 Collins Street

• This giant tower will totally dominate the ‘Paris End’ of Collins Street, one of the most important precincts of Melbourne.

• A 40 storey tower built right up to the street line completely ignores planning rules and precedents for Collins Street that tall towers should be setback at least 10m from the street line.

• Placing the building on giant legs does not lessen its impact on the intimate scale of the small heritage buildings below; indeed they become insignificant footnotes at the bottom of a giant commercial development.

• Building right over the airspace of the Le Louvre shop would set a very bad precedent, threatening all small buildings in the city area with the same treatment.

• The tower is 30m wide and 40 storeys tall on the north side of the street; this will cast such a shadow over the street that dappled sunlight through the trees will become a distant memory.

• How is it possible that a development that so completely ignores the rules has been allowed to get to this stage ?

• Filling in the ‘gaps’ created in the early 1970s for Nauru House would be welcome if the new development complemented the heritage buildings on either side. Instead they are transparent glass boxes set right on the street front.

What you can do

The National Trust info[AT]nattrust.com.au suggests that people write to the Minister for Planning justin.madden[AT]parliament.vic.gov.au about this matter using these facts and cc the National Trust a copy. They have also sent out two specimen letters about specific projects in Melbourne, which I append below. Below these are more addresses.

Here is the Minister for Planning's street address:
The Hon Justin Madden
Minister for Planning
Level 17/8 Nicholson Street,
East Melbourne VIC 3002

Email : justin.madden[AT]parliament.vic.gov.au

And a copy to the National Trust please : info[AT]nattrust.com.au

Mail:
Conservation Division
National Trust of Australia (Victoria),
Tasma Terrace, 4 Parliament Place,
East Melbourne Vic 3002

And you might like to write to or copy to the Lord Mayor of the City of Melbourne :

The Right Hon the Lord Mayor Robert Doyle
City of Melbourne
PO Box 1603
Melbourne VIC 3001

Email :
[email protected]

Save your Parks from Sharks

What Ever Happened to Royal Park?

[1]

The Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc, of which the Royal Park Protection Group Inc. is a member, has lent us their logo for this newsletter.

Unfortunately we have failed to save Royal Park from “shark” attack. Over the short space of the past 13 years first the Kennett Government, then former Premier Bracks and his operative Bronwyn Pike MP, Member for Melbourne, plus compliant past and present Melbourne City Lord Mayors and Councillors, have presided over the progressive carve up, degradation, clear felling and concreting over of Royal Park, previously one of the glories of Marvellous Melbourne – set aside by our first visionary Governor, Charles La Trobe.

Park death by a thousand cuts

Construction of a multitude of developments include: concrete super-market style carparks round the Zoo for the Zoo, including the VCAT approved expansion at the north entrance; super tram stops; bike paths; a bus parking bay on Brens Drive for the Urban Camp; the State Netball and Hockey Centre plus carparks, ostensibly for the 2006 Commonwealth Games; and a mega, private real estate residential development “The Parkville Gardens” on the former Royal Park Psychiatric Hospital (RPPH) site, used for a few weeks for athletes’ accommodation for the 2006 Commonwealth Games. In addition, the Federation style Heritage listed buildings of the RPPH, restored at taxpayers’ expense and promised for community use, have been included in the Parkville Gardens, divided into units, handed over to the developer Australand and then sold for up to $800,000 a unit.

Hospital

Currently still under construction is the $1 billion plus new Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH), which has involved alienation of a huge section of south Royal Park to the west and north of the original hospital. Over 7 hectares, additional to the original 4.1 hectares hospital footprint, have been alienated for the “project construction site”, without guarantees that any land will be handed back to the park. In addition a 2,000 underground carpark for the expanded hospital is being built under the Park and, apparently, under a PPP deal a private hotel is to be built in the new hospital complex. The “Mercy Health” development, an aged care facility, is now being built on the former RPPH site. Although we believe that original contracts show approval for only a 100 aged care bed “social housing” facility, this aged care facility has 140 beds. Additionally a “Mercy Place” multi storey apartment complex is being built with 53 units for private sale, priced up to $600,000, and has use of a wing of the heritage buildings on the site. A “retail hub” is to be built for the flats and the aged care facility with consulting rooms. Also a Catholic chapel.

Freeway extension aborted

Thanks to the extended campaign last year up to December 2008 by RPPG with a coalition of community allies, extension of the Eastern Freeway - through under or over Royal Park, planned by Sir Rod Eddington as part of the $18 billion “East West Link” will now not proceed. It has been quietly deleted from the Victorian Transport Plan.

Ex Liberal leader, Lord Mayor Robert Doyle, cuts funding and protection of parks

Of grave concern is the fact that, as the present Council under Lord Mayor Robert Doyle has downgraded the care and protection of city parks and cut funding to the community, Royal Park will accordingly suffer. (See over.)

“This is my Land, this is your Land, this is our Land, this is not Australand’s” Banner at protest over loss of RPPH site.

Breach of Royal Park Master Plan by City of Melbourne

Breach of Royal Park Master Plan by City of Melbourne: As members may recall Lord Mayor John So sacked the Director and Deputy Director of Parks and Gardens plus a number of staff to save funds. In March this year Council terminated the Royal Park Master Plan Implementation Advisory Committee (RPMIAC) on the grounds that the implementation of the Master Plan was complete. This is far from the truth.

In April we saw the extraordinary departure from the Royal Park Master Plan by staff. The hill top in West Parkville with views of the Macedon Ranges was, in the Master Plan, to be kept clear. RPPG heard that staff planned to plant 120 forest eucalypts – Red Ironbarks. This species is not indigenous to Royal Park, was not included for this location in the Master Plan and will obscure the magnificent views. It is entirely unsuitable for a picnic area as the trees are prone to “limb drop”. RPPG plus other community groups’ members appealed to Councillor Cathy Oke to request staff to put the planting on hold until future discussions could be held. Staff apparently ignored her instructions and went ahead the next day and planted 120 Red Ironbark Trees. In June RPPG made a submission to the “Eco-City Committee” on the agenda item on Master Plans and included our complaints but have had no response. Members formerly of RPMIAC supported by RPPG and the North and West Melbourne Association have put in a formal complaint to the City of Melbourne over this breach of the Master Plan.

Phoney Parks Advisory Committee

Establishment of a Phoney Parks Advisory Committee: RPPG understood from Cr Cathy Oke from the May Council Committee meetings that Council was to establish a Parks Advisory Committee. By the June meeting it had morphed into a “Community Engagement Committee” It was then further altered when the CEO Cathy Alexander spoke to explain that it really was a committee to help set up consultations in the community. The Lord Mayor also had a go at explaining. So there is now no central Parks Advisory Committee as promised when the individual parks committees including Royal Park were terminated.

State Netball and Hockey Centre’s Obtrusive Hockey Lights

State Netball and Hockey Centre’s Obtrusive Hockey Lights: RPPG has a representative on the SNHC Advisory Committee. At the beginning of May installation of new lights was discussed and RPPG presented the Executive Summary of Dr Barry Clark’s latest research paper on the health risks associated with exposure to powerful light at night which includes increased risk of breast and prostate cancers. (As 2/3 of the Zoo is flooded with light when the hockey lights are on then the animals’ health is also at risk.) The State Sports Centres Trust is to be advised. This is serious because it puts the SSCT on notice of risk to health of users and staff of the Centre.

Volunteers not supported where it counts

Issue of Certificates of Appreciation to Royal Park Protection Group Inc. Volunteers: Representatives of RPPG – Rod Quantock and Julianne Bell - were invited to an afternoon tea on 11 June 2009 hosted by Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner, Federal Member for Melbourne “to acknowledge the important role that volunteers from the Royal Park Protection Group make in strengthening the well being of our local community.” Moreover we were presented with “Certificates of Appreciation” for “our outstanding contribution to the community.” Compare the scant recognition to community groups ever been given by the City of Melbourne!

Sewer Mining to supply parks and gardens with water

Report of the Parliamentary Environment and Natural Resources Committee Inquiry into Melbourne’s Future Water Supply: The report was released in June 2009. It contains a section of RPPG Convenor Julianne Bell’s submission to the Committee on 2 February 2009 on Sewer Mining (Page 204) which would be a means of supplying the City of Melbourne with recycled water for all its parks and gardens. (The Committee’s recommendation is to pursue sewer mining projects.)

RPPG Next Meeting:
Time: 11:30 am
Date: Saturday 1 August 2009
Venue: Walmsley House Royal Park corner of Gatehouse Street and Royal Parade Parkville.
Transport: Park in Gatehouse Street; tram up Elizabeth Street to Royal Parade. Get off at Gatehouse Street. Train to Flinders Street then tram as above.

Unreasonable rules for grant submissions

Rejection of RPPG’s Application for a 2010 Community Grant: As RPPG Committee members were ill and away overseas RPPG submitted our application by email. This was not accepted as only postal applications were specified. It is extraordinary as many organisations including the State Government accept online submissions and by email. It appears to us an excuse to cut back on grants.

This notice was printed with the support of the City of Melbourne through the 2009 Community Grants Program.

[1] This article comes from The Royal Park Protection Group Inc., News Bulletin – July 2009

(Photo from Wikipedia commons - African Elephant)

Dangerous emerging prominence of firearms and cruel sports in our society

Game Council chairman Robert Borsak, who intends to stand for the Shooters Party in the next elections, recently visited northern Zimbabwe, where, on a two-week trip he killed several elephants for entertainment. It is, thanks to corruption of Robert Mugabe. quite "legal" and the amount he and other great "hunters" must pay is adding to the dictator's coffers.

A demented boast ...

"As he came down there was an unearthly scream as the full weight of the falling bull collapsed his heaving lungs, expelling through the trunk and sending an involuntary shiver through me. On the ground now, on bended knee the ochre coloured wet bull thrashed around with its trunk, paralysed unable to move. I reloaded as the empties flicked over my shoulder & the PH yelled to drill him again. As I approached I moved in quickly, not being sure at all exactly at that time what had happened. As I approached with some caution he lunged as far forward as his trunk & position allowed, trying to grab me. At this I placed two frontal brain shots into the now almost defunct bull and it was all over." Source of citation re Borsak's elephant murder

An obscene and sadistic passtime

Elephants are intelligent animals, and their use as targets for the thrill of killing is totally callous, obscene and sadistic!

Mr Borsak is being paid $342 a sitting day for his part in regulating hunting in NSW, and if he and the shooters have their way, our gentle native animals will be aimed at with their firearms, all for entertainment!

This man may soon join the party currently holding NSW government to ransom

If successful, he would join a party that now holds the balance of power in the upper house and is holding the Government to ransom after Mr Macdonald failed to negotiate through cabinet the right to shoot in National Parks.

Would Borsak's breeding business constitute personal fiduciary interest?

Mr Borsak breeds and sells dogs to help killing duck, quail and other "game" bird hunting.

It's against the ethics of politicians to have a personal fiduciary interest in what they are in charge of as politicians! In a fiduciary relation good conscience requires one to act at all times for the sole benefit and interests of another, with loyalty to those interests. Borsak has financial interest in propagating hunting. This is something parliamentary regulators should be investigating.

The emerging interest in firearms in our society, as demonstrated by the rise in influence of this lobby and political group, is dangerous and needs to be quashed and outlawed.

Tune in

Dr Douglas has a grasp on the broader politics and bureaucracy problems which are making it impossible for the governments involved in regulating water (i.e. all Australian governments) to act effectively on the issue. When I say 'effectively', I mean to say that they simply seem to be paralysed and allowing things to drift into ever greater crisis. They are not paralysed on the privatisation issue; they appear to be enthralled by the privateers, but they are paralysed on taking the necessary measures to safeguard Australian water sources. They need the public to keep up a huge pressure because only public pressure will wake these bureaucratic government sleepwalkers, who will take Australia beyond survival mode if they are not woken up.

See other articles on this issue from Fair Water Use here: http://candobetter.org/taxonomy/term/619.

The message coming from Fair Water Use Australia is that the Federal and State Governments are not handling Australia's water properly, transparently or effectively. The mishandling is causing a dangerous crisis. The public should be very concerned and NGOs should support Fair Water Use and the UN in their call for a state of emergency and a Royal Commission. Australia, this is really serious.

Higher rainfall should mean more water - so where is it going?

Higher rainfall should mean more water in public and environmental reserves, but it is going to private holdings instead and the public is not aware

Private sector increases its strangle-hold on the Murray-Darling

Data obtained by Fair Water Use from the Bureau of Meteorology and the Murray-Darling Basin Authority provides confirmation of the effect of the rapid increase in privately-held water in the Darling Basin on the volumes of water available for essential public and environmental use, refuting claims that the crisis in the Darling is predominantly drought-related.

image from Fair Water Use site http://www.fairwateruse.com.au/

Despite average-to-above average rainfall in the Darling Basin over the last two years, the amount of water flowing down the Darling has reduced dramatically.

image from Fair Water Use site http://www.fairwateruse.com.au/

Public H20 store 80% less than it should be

Storage in the Menindee Lakes is currently around 80% less than would be expected under average rainfall conditions. As there has been no similar increase in volumes released from the Lakes, the water-hoarding activities of the private sector stand clearly incriminated.

There can be little doubt that, although compounded by drought, rampant water-privatisation is also a major contributor to the current devastation of the Murray catchment. However calculations are impeded by the apparent unwillingness of State Governments to provide required data.

UN Senior Water Advisor supports State of Emergency and Royal Commission on MDB Water

Fair Water Use is encouraged by the recent support of the senior water advisor to the United Nations for its call for declaration of a State of Emergency and the establishment of a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the management of the water of the Murray-Darling Basin. Such actions offer the only means whereby Australians can regain control of this vital and acutely-threatened resource.

Listen to interview.

Source: Fair Water Use Australia. Fair Water Use Australia strives for a revived Murray-Darling basin by supporting environmentally sustainable water-use.

(Photo by Sheila)

This article is a reflection on the nature and efficacy of wildlife research in Australia.

I raise 3 issues:

Can research benefit wildlife? Can research contribute to its survival? Can research engender respect for the intrinsic value of wildlife?

The Nature and efficacy of wildlife reseach in Australia

I’ve asked these questions because, despite over 200 years research into every aspect of the lives of our native animals, the many thousands of papers produced and the many millions of dollars spent, fauna populations continue to decline, the number of endangered and extinct species continues to rise and the attitude of the general public towards indigenous animals slides further into the abyss.

The current state of wildlife is desperate. It’s obvious that Australia is waging a war on wildlife. It’s a dirty war. It’s fueled by research and it will ultimately result in the destruction of all native animals.

You would think that our native fauna would be a precious and vital element of our country’s identity and that these animals would be nurtured and protected, not only for their value to the tourism industry or their role in the maintenance of biodiversity and the fragile ecosystem but for their sheer beauty and the elegance of the way they strive to survive in this harsh and dangerous land.

Two prevailing views

Photo provided by Nikki Sutterby, Co-Ordinator, Australian Society for Kangaroos

Unfortunately this is not the case. Very broadly speaking there are two prevailing views of the environment in Australia and I believe that wildlife research reflects and perpetuates these opposing points of view.

The majority view is that humans always have priority, with the right to live wherever, take whatever and do whatever they want.

Depending on who you are, wildlife is a resource to be exploited, a pest to be exterminated, or a curiosity to be dissected. For hunters and hoons, wildlife is fun to kill and for environmentalists it is sustainable food.

These beliefs are perpetrated by bureaucratic, short sighted, exploitative institutions and individuals who are always looking to maximize revenue, trade and profit. The research of selected experts is used to justify lethal management decisions and to excuse horrific cruelty to animals often by incompetent contract killers.

Taxes pay for this

Members of the CSIRO, National Parks, State and Federal Government agencies, councils, universities and agricultural colleges make up this group. Their work is often supported by the RSPCA and always paid for by the tax payer.

At the laboratory level these institutions also appear to be conspiring to eradicate wildlife by any means. They contract and conduct research into all means of destroying wildlife and habitat - poisons, fencing, traps, snares, starvation and introduced predators just to name a few. This research not only uses native animals in lab and field experiments but has contributed to the suffering and death of millions of native animals in the wild, as has the wide variety of cruel and often lethal tracking devices that have been developed and applied by these institutions for their dubious data collections.

Just last week it was revealed that in NSW, native stripe-faced dunnarts, a species classified as vulnerable, died in an experiment to see how their immune function would be affected by pesticides.

Research favourable to animal welfare

West Aust Black Cockatoos in rehab. Photo from Black Cockatoo Conservation Team

While it is true that there is research favourable to animals; research that proves for instance that kangaroos do not threaten the wheat and wool industries and that they are beneficial to the maintenance of natural vegetation, ethics committees and government departments usually choose to ignore these findings in favour of a quick result and often to cover–up incompetence in other areas of environmental protection or worse, to hide plans for building development.

Wildlife is not and has never been a priority in Australia. Based on the research and recommendations of certain experts, state governments and councils continue to sanction the slaughter of populations of flying foxes, koalas, possums, wallabies and kangaroos. Non-violent solutions, long-term planning and pro-active methods are rejected as thousands of ‘inconvenient’ animals die in holocaust-style mass-murder.

But then, when a species comes to the edge of extinction or contracts a mysterious disease, suddenly there appears to be great concern, with heaps of money flying around, lots of experiments in labs and zoos and plenty of carefully manipulated media attention, often to avert a situation which, with attention to research that had warned of environmental threats, could have been avoided.

Views of the Environment

The minority view of the environment is held by a group of Australians who believe that humans must co-exist with the natural environment for our mutual benefit. People with this view are compassionate, moral people, some of whom rescue and care for injured and dying animals, some carry out vital research of their own. They endure threats and scorn but mainly their work is ignored.

This minority group is long-sighted, non-violent, inclusive and creative. These people always look for the third alternative, they promote moral decision-making based on the interests of all players and they offer solutions that are not based on vested interest.

For example;
Last year when the Department of Defense decided to massacre hundreds of kangaroos trapped at the Belconnen Army Base, no amount of non-lethal, alternative solutions offered by researchers from this minority group could persuade the government to show an atom of compassion for these gentle family-oriented animals - and the world saw the most horrendous, unforgettable slaughter. When populations of animals are trapped in areas without corridors, when there is no proactive planning and when ‘management’ is code for ‘killing’, it’s so easy to justify their elimination.

In SA the kangaroo industry killing quotas are reviewed every 3 years after aerial and ground surveys. Although this is euphemistically called research for sustainable management, kangaroos are not benefitting from this. On top of the commercial kill, they also continue to perish as farmers take more land every year and kill more kangaroos. Independent research shows that genetic diversity is diminishing as a direct result of this slaughter but while the government profits from this industry, this issue will not be addressed.

On a smaller scale, there are the activities of the SA Museum, a centre for biodiversity research in that state. Researchers map declines and extinctions. They claim to contribute to the informed management of wildlife. This is defined as the way to provide for human needs without destroying other species. They are keen to point out that no unnecessary pain or suffering occurs in their research procedures but earlier this year a report revealed that, among other deficiencies in research methodologies, trapped tortoises had drowned during a data collection procedure. The solution to this ‘mistake’ was to invent a snorkel device to stop tortoises drowning.

These are just a few of the myriad ways that research harms wildlife in Australia.

Can research benefit wildlife?

Dr Maxine Piggott

Dr Maxine Piggott received the Voiceless Eureka prize last year for her development of non-invasive DNA analysis to research animal behaviour, genetic variation and population structure in Australian native fauna. Traditional methods of data collection involve trapping and handling animals to get blood and tissue samples. This can cause animals stress, injury or death and there is a risk of females abandoning their young in the process. Currently DNA analysis of hair and faeces samples is mainly used for conservation work and is particularly applicable to the study of rare and endangered species. It is an extremely important example of what research can achieve when animal welfare is made a priority.

Can research contribute to the survival of wildlife?

Recently Dr Mike Letnic, of the University of Sydney carried out observational research into the environmental role of the dingo. He has shown that as Australia's top predator, the dingo, plays an important role in maintaining the balance of nature and that reintroducing or maintaining existing dingo populations could reduce the predatory impacts of foxes on small and medium sized mammals, increasing biodiversity across over 2 million square kilometres of Australia..
Different regions separated by the dingo fence in farmlands of New South Wales and Victoria were compared. In regions where dingoes roamed free, there were far fewer kangaroos and red foxes and small native animals thrived. On the other hand, in lands protected from dingoes, researchers noticed far fewer native animals were present.
Dingoes suffer so much because of human pressure and ignorance – it’s amazing to find a researcher presenting in their favour, with data that hopefully cannot be ignored or distorted. And that’s what so great about this kind of research – it focuses on native animals in the context of their environment while highlighting the detrimental human impact of traditional attitudes and providing a non-lethal proposal that puts humans and wildlife on the same side. Is there a possibility that the Minister for the Environment will recognize the importance of this work and act on it before dingoes all disappear into history?

Can research engender respect for the intrinsic value of wildlife?

As you may well know, Northeast of Melbourne in the Whittlesea council, there is an area where a mob of kangaroos have become trapped on its home range by council –approved building developments. Residents are confronted daily by the sight of dead or dying kangaroos that have been hit by cars or mauled by dogs and local police have increasingly been called to euthanize injured kangaroos who have tried to escape to safety or better food availability.
The council and government have allowed development to enclose the kangaroos’ territory and are now just waiting for them all to die as this last tract of land left for the animals is going to be developed as a cinema.

Where is the research on which government based the decision to abandon these kangaroos? Where is the long-term environmental plan that showed respect and concern for the welfare of the original residents of this area? What message about the value of life and the wisdom of government is being conveyed to the local population?

Wildlife research becomes corrupt when it operates outside the ideals of preserving species and habitat; when it fails to protect individual animals and provide an environment where they prosper. Government used such research to justify the killing of the 7000 kangaroos slaughtered at Majura in the ACT over the last month.
Such actions contribute to the public perception of the disposability, even invisibility of wildlife and this manifests in the contempt consistently shown towards wildlife by sections of the public. But, appalling and shameful as any murder of wildlife is, I believe that the long-term consequence of this callous official attitude will be irreparable damage to the national psyche; the destruction of the natural spirit along with the extinction of all native animals.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

I don’t want to live in an Australia without native animals. It’s unbearable that they should continue to suffer because of pseudo-science and society’s addiction to economic growth. But there is great pro-wildlife research out there and many active people lobbying for change. We urgently need a coordinated national approach which makes wildlife protection and preservation a priority to all Australians. Meanwhile we can all get behind the campaign to boycott tourism to the ACT until they stop this obscene rampage against kangaroos.

Original Source: http://www.climate4you.com/images/OperationBarbarossa1941.jpg

Submission by Jill Quirk, headlines and teaser by Admin, candobetter

Growth is discretionary but the Government doesn't want Victorians to realise this

We have just learned from a newly issued State Government report that building on the outer urban fringes -taking into consideration the infrastructure needs for making new suburbs from scratch- costs more than twice as much as building within established areas.

The hackneyed arguments about urban sprawl vs. urban densification are usually presented and reported as either forced choices or choices of the most suitable recipe of proportions of one or the other.

What is rarely questioned is the actual need to have the rate of population growth that forces these dilemmas on us.

The State Government and planning authorities as well as developers and all those who lobby for higher population growth must be well aware of the extent to which the level of population growth in Victoria is discretionary. These aforementioned must also be well aware that logically, growth at the present rate or indeed at any rate is not possible into the indefinite future.

http://www.liveinvictoria.com.au is a Government website to drive population growth upwards

Even without the State Government recklessly inviting people from overseas and interstate to join us in our water depleted state e.g. via the website http://www.liveinvictoria.vic.gov.au, Victoria would still experience population growth- but at a far more manageable level- roughly 30-40,000 per annum as opposed to the present nearer 100,000 p.a. increase . Eventually with a balanced level of incomings and outgoings and our natural birth and death rate , Victoria's population would level off in the next 40 odd years.

Victoria now in ecological overshoot

Victoria is now in ecological overshoot-as clearly demonstrated by the need to industrialise our water supply with a desalination plant and by the parlous state of our environment as described in the State of the Environment report 2008.

That is why we need to stabilise and then allow natural attrition

This is why Victoria, for a secure future needs to look towards stabilising its population in future decades. As long as our population increases, our environment will be in decline. The present scenario of high population growth guarantees a poorer existence for future citizens than that of present citizens just as the present residents are poorer than those of 40 years ago when the environment was in much better shape and we had adequate water supplies.

As Victoria is in overshoot in 2009, imagine what it will be like in 10 years with 1 million more people,many of them living on the Melbourne outer fringe in large poorly designed houses on small blocks of land with few transport options. 10 years from now, more of our agricultural land close to the city will be either built on or earmarked for development. At the same time we will be further down the one way road towards oil depletion which will adversley affect car travel economy, agricultural output and transport of goods.

In ten years people on the outer edges will be much closer to the edges of survival - food, water, petrol

The people of Melbourne especially those in the suburbs of the urban fringes will be much closer to the edges of survival. Their lives will be more difficult as they struggle to find economical transport and their opportunities for self sufficiency in a climate of rising food prices will be limited by lack of land and time.

These are all arguments against a mindset of continual population growth and expansion of our city which has so many unwanted consequences right now for the bulk the population.

Higher urban density not the answer; we are already going upwards and outwards

The alternative to extending the urban growth boundary given continued population growth is the densification of the established parts of the city which the State Government report says is the cheaper option for accommodating population growth. Unfortunately, at a massive 2% socially engineered p.a growth rate, we will get both more urban sprawl and urban densification . Urban densification has distinctly negative consequences for affected residents- overcrowding , uncertainty of what will be built next and where, loss of natural light in houses, loss of gardens and of open space and increased traffic. Eventually everyone will be adversely affected except those with enormous property buffers within the city i.e the very rich.

Apart from major conservation and wildlife considerations on which other organisations will be making separate submissions especially as extension of UGB affects the Green Wedges, the proposal to extend the UGB totally lacks vision and any will to make a different future in the interests of Victoria's citizens.

The Victorian Government should totally revise its modis operandi with regard to its own part in population growth in Victoria and work towards a sustainable future with first a future stable population and then inevitably a smaller one after mid century. This kind of foresight is needed if we are to have a future and not ecological collapse.

Jill Quirk

(Submission by Jill Quirk, on behalf of Sustainable Population Australia (SPA) Victorian Branch)
If you want to contact Jill, send her a message to [email protected]

***

See also on the financial cost alone:Jason Dowling and Clay Lucas, "Suburban sprawl costs billions more," The Age, July 17, 2009

"PLANS to build thousands of homes on Melbourne's fringes will cost Victorians around $40 billion more than if they were built in existing suburbs, a new State Government report shows.

In an embarrassment for the Government on the day that submissions close on its plans to further expand Melbourne's urban growth boundary, the report released on Wednesday shows the total cost of building homes in new outer suburbs is more than double that of building in existing areas.[...]"

Ed. But don't believe that writing to the Age will save you or even that the Age owners care - the Fairfax Press and the Murdoch Press would be backing this growth to the hilt, since they have corporate investments in property development and its marketing throughout the world, as indicated by, for instance, www.domain.com.au and www.realestate.com.au

Image from cover of Graeme Base, Uno's Garden, Viking, Penguin Australia, 2006

Re: Proposed Urban Growth Boundary changes.

There is a fantastic book by renowned author Graeme Base, that I often read to my children. It’s called ‘Uno’s Garden’. It’s about a guy named Uno, who arrives in the forest one beautiful day, where there are many fascinating and extraordinary animals there to greet him. And one entirely exceptional Snortlepig.

Uno loves the forest so much, he decides to live there. But, in time, a little village grows up around his house. Then a town, then a city….and soon Uno realises that the animals and plants have begun to disappear….
(sounding familiar?)

***

Graeme Base starts his book with this rhyme:

‘The animals go one by one
A hundred plants, then there were none
And all the while the buildings double…
This numbers game adds up to trouble’

So significant is this story, that it featured as the Myer Christmas windows in 2007. If you haven’t already read the book, I urge you to get a copy. It really is easy to read, and makes perfect sense.

On behalf of my children, I would like you to seriously consider the moral of this story when determining the UGB and population expansion.

Sharing our backyard on the periphery of the proposed new South East UGB, are EPBC listed, endangered Southern Brown Bandicoots. To my kids, these are like the ‘Snortlepig’ in the story. They think the Government must be careful to protect them as it’s important we have biodiversity. They really get that. What they don’t get, is that the Government is now planning to shift the boundary of the Urban Growth Corridor encroaching into Green Wedge land further threatening the SBB’s, to make way for more ‘concrete and McMansions’. They are worried that it will never end, and wonder where all the animals and farmers producing our food are going to go. They are worried that when they get ‘old’, their children and grandchildren will suffer for today’s government’s seeming lack of concern for the environment.

What should I tell them?

Submitted by: Catherine Manning [to the Growth Areas Authority]
Friday 17th July, 2009.

Photographs of Southern Brown Bandicoots in our backyard near Clyde.

For MPs who voted FOR this awful bill, click here

NSW Bill to override local democracy and to privilege private business and protect Ministers from legal challenge

The following is from a speech to the Legislative Council of the NSW parliament by the Reverend Dr Gordon Moyes [1]. (Headings and new punctuation have been added by a Candobetter editor):

The Motor Sports (World Rally Championship) Bill 2009 is a bill for an Act to facilitate the conduct of the international motor sport known as the World Rally Championship. Clauses 13, 14 and 15 override the Local Government Act 1993, the Forestry Act 1916, and the Water Management Act 2000 by allowing the Motor Sports (World Rally Championship) Bill 2009 to authorise people to take actions that are expressly not permitted by those Acts. Clause 20 protects the exercise of certain functions of the Minister, or any delegate of the Minister, or a public authority, from challenge or review before a court or administrative review body, or from being restrained, removed or otherwise affected by any proceedings.

An affront and an injury to Northern Rivers area in NSW

The Northern Rivers area of New South Wales is pristine and beautiful. It is incredibly rich in flora and fauna, with more species of fish, birds, amphibians and mammals than even the world-famous Kakadu area of the Northern Territory. The region also has many threatened fauna and plant species that need to be protected. The area is recognised as having diverse ecosystems, including different kinds of rainforest, wetlands, heath lands and important zones between the land and the water.

Area already officially consacrated as a national landscape icon

Some areas of Australia are so special and unique that they have received official recognition, and this is one of them. In 2008 the Federal Government launched the National Landscape Program, selecting only a handful of regions. Along with Kakadu and the Great Ocean Road, the Mount Warning Wollumbin Caldera was awarded special status as a national landscape icon by the Ministers for Tourism and the Environment. The green cauldron, as it is commonly called, is a designated area stretching from Byron Bay up past the State border into the Gold Coast, and was selected because of its distinctive natural features, including the world's second-largest shield volcano crater, which has shallow sloping sides, awesome environmental biodiversity and a very rich Aboriginal heritage.

Gordon Moyes MP: personal observations

I have wonderful memories of visiting this area on many occasions, particularly the area around Kyogle, which my family has visited several times. Kyogle is a town of approximately 4,000 people in the Northern Rivers region of northern New South Wales. It was founded as a lumber camp in the 1930s, with red cedar and hoop pine being the main timber trees. It is about 750 kilometres north of Sydney, quite close to the border. The Kyogle area has cattle grazing, dairy farming and forestry as its primary industries, and is a tourist gateway to many national parks. The mad rush of the modern lifestyle has lost so much of the simplicity and beauty of the more natural pace of life and the smaller scale of living on the land. The people living in Kyogle and Tweed shires have purposely set out to recapture this preferred quality of life and are living their vision in the most committed way.

REPCO Rally assails regional community world-view

The back-to-the-land lifestyle is a homey, environmentally based world view that embraces home-grown organic food, handmade items of daily life, eating actual cooked meals rather than fast food on the run, raising poultry and cattle, birdwatching, bushwalking and a philosophy that supports the ongoing daily work of a commitment to recycling and a deep love and respect for, and the protection of, wildlife. These are the kinds of quiet pursuits that they embrace and encourage in their region. The people of Kyogle and Tweed collectively have identified the environment and its protection and enhancement as their top priorities, and the extraordinary natural environment is the reason people choose to live there. I emphasise the fact that the people as a community and as a region have purposely chosen that natural, life-affirming, low-carbon-footprint, close-to-the-land lifestyle.

As part and parcel of that worldview, they have eschewed big, noisy, air- and water-polluting, old-fashioned, high-energy-using pastimes from the manic-paced cities, such as international motorcar racing. It is true that there has been a small Speed for Tweed race of historic motorcars for the past five years on the streets of Murwillumbah, but it is very small scale, low key and charming. It is run as a non-profit event by the locals for the benefit of locals. It has raised thousands of dollars for local charities and Murwillumbah hospital. The race is tiny in comparison with the major-event motor car races of a scale threatened by the Repco Rally, which is simply not welcome there for many reasons—one of which is that it is an international business. It does not even pretend to benefit or serve the interests of local people. It is merely a commercial enterprise, a business. It does not share the ethos of the region and will offer nothing of value to the community.

An insulting imposition on the locals by external parties

Most of all, the Repco Rally simply does not belong there; it is seriously out of place. If the rally proceeds, it is an insulting imposition on the locals by external parties with truly alien values who are apparently such arrogant people that they will not take the broad hint that they are not wanted. Indeed, the local people could hardly be more expressive of their point of view on this matter, having written to their representatives and to the newspapers, marched in their localities, attended consultations, and done everything else they could think of to get someone to pay attention to their concerns—which range from indignation at being treated shoddily by the State Government to concerns about damage to the environment, and to issues with the suspect economic claims behind the decision to hold this race in their vulnerable natural environment.

Same Rally cost WA tax-payers $6m+ p.a.

Previous speakers who praised the rally indicated that it will bring $100 million of value to the area. They do not understand what they are talking about. For example, $100 million over what period? It is certainly not for this one race that is coming up; nor for the one in two years time or the one in 10 years time. It is the accumulated value they think they might get if everything is done and all options are accepted between now and 2027. A more true picture comes from Western Australia. The Western Australian Government no longer wanted the rally, indicating that it was costing Western Australia $6 million a year and it was not getting economic value to make up for that $6 million.

Sham public consultation

I have received, as I guess have many members, hundreds of emails, letters and visits from people in the area pointing out many different aspects. Obviously I will not go through all of them now. However, one concerned citizen, Dr Jules Lewin of Stokers Siding, pointed out to me that Repco Rally's socioeconomic impact assessment was so poorly put together, without being substantiated or having verifiable projections or references, that in scientific, medical and management circles it would be flatly rejected. The methodology was inappropriate, the numbers were inadequate, the data presentation was obscure and the analysis was unsound and contradictory.

In the assessment there was no consideration of the current economic crisis; nor were there any references to current social trends, such as green driving, concern for many environmental issues, the concept of sustainability or the impact of peak oil. With such a lack of insight and grasp of elemental issues, the so-called impact assessment is utterly irrelevant. No multimillion-dollar contract meant to last a minimum of 10 years, plus a 10-year extension, should be allowed to proceed on the basis of the authenticity, accuracy or recommendations of this flimsy report.

Also, in the socioeconomic impact assessment the Repco Rally organisers claim to have consulted with the community, but a letter written to a number of local newspapers stated the following:

"We the undersigned wish to advise the community that our respective community associations have been totally misrepresented in the report entitled Rally Australia Socio-economic Impact Statement, which was committed by Repco Rally Australia. We have been listed on page 29 of the report as being the representatives of our respective community associations who were supposedly part of the community consultation process. We wish to advise that no such community consultation ever took place."

The letter is signed by a significant number of leaders of community organisations from the area. Claiming that community consultation took place might look good on paper, but it has now been completely discredited as an untruth. If the Repco Rally organisers have not provided meaningful background research, presented accurate information or genuinely consulted with the community, and they have misrepresented their own activities, what is their word worth on anything else? One lady wrote to me about Sargents Road in Kyogle, where she lives, which is a core koala habitat crucial for the survival of the species. She cited the New South Wales Department of Environment and Climate Change [DECC] November 2008 Recovery Plan for the Koala, which seeks to ensure the survival of the koala in the wild. This State report reinforces the need to recognise the value of koalas to the community in terms of their presence in the landscape and their potential to attract eco-tourism.

Chaotic policy causing wildlife calvary

How then can another State department come along and act in opposition to those interests already committed to by that department? Sargents Road is not the kind of road recommended for racing—not if we care about animals and their habitats. In fact, the busy local wildlife rescue volunteers say that already far too much wildlife is injured and killed on the roads by automobiles, and that more cars racing on those roads is the last thing the animals need. They also mention that the methods proposed to scare the animals away from the roads—I wonder how many Government members understand this—will likely lead to stress reactions and heart failure in the animals. There will be extremely loud noises, such as banging and so on, to frighten animals away.

Road carnage bad enough without Repco adding to it

Additional concerns have been reported to me in letters from people, such as problem driving and street racing. I will not comment on those. We all know that streets and roads are already deadly to innocent drivers and pedestrians. The news is always full of copycat racing in every area after it hosts such races. Do we really want to inspire more of them? The answer from the people of the North Coast is a resounding "No". The local Kyogle and Tweed Landcare teams, made up of people who give their time free cleaning up, salvaging and repairing damaged ecosystems, dread the havoc that will be wreaked by such an event in this area—one that they have tended with such devotion over the years. The members of the Tweed Valley Wildlife Carers and the Caldera Environment Centre, who have worked for decades protecting the natural environment, are sick at heart over this bill, which will force on the rally in an area where it should not be allowed.

So many reasons to scotch the Repco rally

I assure members that local residents in this area are informed and intelligent; they know their special environment is critical to the growth of tourism in the area and is, in fact, its greatest attraction. Any activities that are destructive of the environment are anathema to them. Some believe that the Government will be in contravention of the Convention on Biological Diversity, which was signed in 1992. Motor sports are an incompatible activity and irrelevant to the local agricultural industry, and can only undermine the World Heritage value of the area. Any anticipated profits from motor sport enthusiasts would be dwarfed by the year-round loss of ecotourists once the green branding of the area is tainted. In addition to the danger to wildlife at risk from the rally, there are also many companion animals and domestic stock living in this area that are very sensitive to noise and can be terrified by screeching, careening and unpredictable motor-generated noises. Even if they were able to stay safely indoors, they will be bombarded by noise, which to animals is perceived as a threat. Such noise permeates and penetrates residential walls as if they were not there. This kind of noise should be isolated away from population centres—and not allowed in an area known for its nurturing silence.

Noise pollution

The excessive noise pollution will be imposed on the human population too, of course. The standards set to protect people and animals will be overruled by this bill that we are considering passing, so that people will have no right to complain—and that is wrong. Those standards were established for a purpose, and to remove them casually in this way is a great wrong. Exposure to excess noise is known to raise the heart rate and blood pressure of many people and to contribute to anxiety; it should not be inflicted on populations as if it is of no importance. The wives, families, counsellors and companions of 4,000 war veterans living in the area have expressed their great concern over the anticipated helicopter noise—which they anticipate will cause psychological disturbance and deep anxiety as it triggers post traumatic stress episodes in the vulnerable, particularly Vietnam War veterans.

Solistalgia

Even the anticipation of one helicopter circling above them is unbearable, much less the dozens of helicopters that will be used over the three-day event. To put veterans through such stress is just unconscionable. Their absolute dread is really escalating into a serious mental health issue for them, their families and their communities. Previously I have mentioned that I was responsible for establishing a mental health facility in Taree to handle post-war traumatic syndrome. Hundreds of Vietnam veterans from the northern rivers came to the Wesley Mayo clinic at Taree for psychological services. In fact, the recently named psychological condition of "solistalgia" is now widespread in the North Coast area. Solistalgia is defined as "the deep distress induced by environmental change, which is exacerbated by the sense of powerlessness and loss of control over the changes that are occurring".

Copious chemical and atmospheric pollution

Then there is the spillage of oil, petrol and other wastes that will seep into the ground, into the atmosphere and onto roads, which is unconscionable in such a pristine area. The air pollution generated from motor racing is unhealthy for people and all other living things, including trees close to the track. The amount of dust that is raised is dangerous for asthmatics and people with respiratory conditions, not to mention dirty and distressing for the people whose homes it will fill. Advising them to go inside and turn on the air conditioning is not good enough. People have outdoor work and busy lives to live and cannot easily take refuge indoors, and many do not have the option of air conditioning. Nothing will help animals cope with the particulate matter in the air that will sicken them.

On the topic of pollution, it is reported that every member of the world rally racing team travels over 130,000 kilometres by air each year. Add that to all the carbon emitted by the activities associated with the rally and a thoughtful person cannot help but recognise that it is an unacceptable carbon footprint.

Car-racing anathema to crucial environmental concerns - Why is government encouraging them?

In fact, in this era of climate change, in response to the deadly global threat of increasing greenhouse gases, it would be far more sensible for the State Government to discourage all human activities that produce such a massive carbon footprint. Perhaps the rich race organisers think they do not have to worry about such matters, but climate change will eventually affect them too. There are also all the prudent economic arguments that many of my constituents have pointed out. Locals believe almost universally there will be far more irremediable damage than any possible benefit accruing from having full restaurants and accommodation for a few days every other year.

The proposed benefits of showcasing the northern area to an estimated 51 million people worldwide, who are supposedly going to watch the racing on television, is outweighed by the actual damage done to the whole fabric of society, the already ill-maintained roads, the environment and the people. Some things just do not bounce back that easily, and having had an event of this magnitude forced upon them is not going to sit easy with residents. Many are simply not resilient enough to cope with the magnitude of the change being thrust upon them.

It just does not make sense on any level

West Australian Government on record as saying it was deceived by rally organisers

I will say very little more. It just does not make sense on any level. The history of the rally in other States has been lacklustre, leading to large financial losses by taxpayers. The Western Australia Government expressed that by not being willing to let it continue in that State. It is on record as saying they it was deceived by rally organisers. Why have Suzuki and Subaru withdrawn their sponsorship of the rally? Why did Victoria or Queensland not want it? Why did the Welsh Assembly Government recently terminate its five-year contract after just two years? I will tell you why. Because all the promised benefits that have been presented to members of the Government and the Opposition were hyped to them were not forthcoming, after all—and if we in New South Wales are sold the same bill of goods, the same thing will happen on the North Coast.

People have asked me why are the taxpayers of New South Wales being asked to fund this rich-people's sport? Why is the State Government promising this international commercial enterprise free labour of hundreds of local volunteers, particularly, who are already overstretched by their efforts and services during two recent floods in the area? As well as the money paid to the Repco rally organisers the State intends to provide free of charge a number of bushfire brigades, 150 extra police, the services of the State Emergency Service, hospitals and all their associated staff on stand-by, on and on ad infinitum. This event will run at a loss for the State, but not for the organisers. Even though the people who thought the idea had some merit now recognise the contempt in which their region's concerns are being held by the arrogant rally organisers who act as if they have been given carte blanche to do whatever they like. The residents know full well it is not democratic, not respectful, not what they expect or deserve, and not right.

One wrote to me and said:
"Apart from being a very bad idea and unpopular with residents, this is a dangerous practice: taking control over events that the local councils should be regulating, in order to benefit outside elites."

Another wrote:
"Have our governing bodies become so anesthetised to the fact that they are elected to represent the citizens, and not given the divine rights of kings?"

Githabul Aboriginal women say attack on their sacred areas of life and death importance

There is one more group whose interests and concerns I have not yet mentioned, the Aboriginal women of the Githabul people, whose representative contacted my office when they heard that I was listening to all sides of the issue. The representative of the Githabul people explained that under the agreement reached in late 2007 the Githabul people were going to be allowed joint management of national parks and State forests with the New South Wales State Government. Regarding the Repco rally, there was consultation carried out with one sole male elder. But he, as a male, was not in a position to know anything about the areas that are sacred to the Githabul women and apparently the women are very distraught that they have had no voice in presenting their deeply honoured cultural concerns to the rally organisers and the New South Wales Government, and they call upon both to recognise that they too have a right to be heard. To them these issues are of life and death importance and they do not want the Repco rally to have access to particular areas on the race route as announced that are actually sacred territory.

Undemocratic bill to say the least

Forcing through the bill does not demonstrate respect for the opinions, needs and lives of people and their families in these areas. This is not good manners, it is not social justice, and it is not democracy. In fact it is a blatant flouting of the democratic process and does not represent the value system that Australians have gone to war to defend and protect. It is an insult to war veterans and families in that area. I am disturbed to note that this is becoming an all too familiar pattern, with bills being used by the Government to disregard other tiers of government or authorities in order to force its own way without regard for the feelings or safety of the people on the receiving end. Our political system has been built up over many years with multiple layers of power and checks and balances, and we must not give them away.

Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament

I conclude, Mr President, by reading a passage from the Code of Conduct for Members, which you signed and sent to every member of this House. I am sure that it has been quite a while since many of us read or thought about it. It states:
Members of Parliament acknowledge their responsibility to maintain the public trust placed in them by performing their duties with honesty and integrity, respecting the law and the institution of Parliament, and using their influence to advance the common good of the people of New South Wales.

Dr Gordon Moyes (MP) draws the line

I will not support any bill that allows large-scale events unwanted by the people who would have to host them.

Not all of my constituents are against motor racing per se, if it can be held in an area that will be undamaged by it and if nearby residents actively want it happening there. It is a hard ask, though. No residents that I have spoken to in the area, or anywhere near it, want motor races to be held near their children's schools, on their village streets or on rural roads. I do not approve of anything that can be construed as a misuse of power and, therefore, I will not support any bill that allows large-scale events unwanted by the people who would have to host them. I encourage any other members here today who still think they have either an environmental or a social conscience to join me in refusing to support what I believe is an ill-conceived bill. I thank you, Mr President, for extending me the privilege of being able to speak.

[1] Source: Text of Rev Hon Dr Gordon Moyes ANTI REPCO RALLY speech 23/6/09 on the Motor Sport (World Rally Championship) Bill 2009

government source at biodiversity site

Sustained protest delays nasty political act

Sustained protests from Australians who are horrified at the cold-blooded policies pushed by the NSW Cabinet seem to have had an effect for the moment. It is believed that public reaction to this bill has put the wind up members in marginal seats. The proposal has the obvious 'pay-off' for a cash-strapped spendthrift government of pushing through another unpopular privatisation - this time of a state lottery.

"A decision was deferred until further talks could be held with the Shooters. The Opposition, the Greens and environmental groups oppose the bill and the Government had been accused of supporting it because it relied on the Shooters Party for critical support [to sell off a state lottery] in the upper house."Source:The Sydney Morning Herald

Shooters Party & NSW Labor - Rees Government

The Shooters Party had introduced a private member's bill to "allow recreational hunters to shoot native animals and birds and to allow for private game reserves to be set up for professional safari hunters."Source:The Sydney Morning Herald

NSW Liberal Nationals declare strong opposition to notion of sporting shooting in National Parks

The NSW Liberal Nationals portray themselves as strongly opposed to the shooting of Australian native species in National Parks, and the establishment of private shooting reserves. SourceThey say they will introduce amendments to the Game and Feral Animal Control Amendment Bill to ban it, according to Shadow Minister for Environment and Climate Change, Catherine Cusack MLC, and the Shadow Minister for Primary Industries Duncan Gay.

"The NSW Liberal / Nationals' move comes following a backdoor attempt - with the apparent support of the NSW Labor Government - to introduce unprecedented shooting of Australian native animals, including in National Parks, as well as private game reserves,” said Ms Cusack.

“We will oppose this and introduce other amendments aimed at genuinely managing the real environmental and other threats posed by feral animals - not Australian native species.

"The shooting of Australian native species in our National Parks or exotic species in private 'game parks' are offensive concepts. If this legislation is brought on the NSW Liberal / Nationals are armed and ready to move legislative amendments to make sure it doesn't happen.”

Illegal release of animals for hunting purposes & feral pig and deer problem

One of these amendments includes changing the Game Act to increase the penalty by four times as much for anyone caught illegally releasing animals for the purpose of hunting. The fine will now be $22,000 for persons caught illegally releasing animals.

“The feral pig problem in NSW is due to the deliberate release of piglets and juveniles for the purposes of hunting,” said Ms Cusack.

“We are also seeing deer being released in many National Parks - they are spreading weeds and are an incredible threat to agriculture as well as the environment.

“I challenge the NSW Labor Government to support our tougher penalties.”

Mr Gay said NSW National Parks and their neighbours needed a comprehensive and strong approach to managing the threat of feral animals - especially as the State comes out of drought and feral animal numbers go up.

“Strongly regulated professional shooting is part of that - unprecedented and unrelated new rights for people like wealthy overseas hunting tourists should not be," Mr Gay said.

"We need comprehensive and strong management of feral species including professional conservation shooting - we don't need for NSW to inadvertently become the Safari State of the Southern Hemisphere.”

Details of Other legislative amendments to be moved by the NSW Liberal / Nationals

Other legislative amendments to be moved by the NSW Liberal / Nationals will:

* Put strong regulatory limits and controls on the use of professional, limited shooting for the appropriate management of feral animals;

* Give Forestry and DECC officers stronger powers to oversee feral animal shooting - rather than the proposal to make it an offence for them to approach hunters;

* Give the Minister for Environment the regulatory power to classify in which National Parks feral animal shooting should take place - rather than the proposed 'one size fits all' approach that makes all National Parks - be they urban or rural - public hunting lands;

* Continue to allow farmers to appropriate manage feral animals on their properties - rather than requiring the proposal that they be forced to pay for licences;

* Ban trap shooting with live birds

Mr Gay said the NSW Liberal / Nationals would fight strongly for these and other amendments because of the need to protect Australian native animals and manage feral animals.

“That's in the best interests of both the environment and rural communities that border National Parks,” he said.

Ms Cusack urgently called on NSW Labor to do the right thing and support the Coalition’s amendments.

Is there no end to growth?

Queensland and the rest of Australia sure have problems associated with growth, but the growth lobby appears completely addicted to entropic speed and there are dealers in real-estate activity on every corner and lurking all over the internet, financing the commercial media and even advising the ABC. What hope does Andrew McNamara have, or even Simon Baltais (Sustainable Population Australia) of affecting this scourge on koalas, quality of life and democracy? Well, there may be a window, since growth is costing many businesses more than they can afford, in terms of rising prices for land, water, petroleum and electricity. Stay tuned.

A new self-help movement for growth-addicts?

Former environment minister, Andrew McNamara will join some 150 business leaders from across Brisbane as keynote speaker at a business breakfast forum. The Queensland Conservation event looks at when enough is enough in terms of population in Southeast Queensland and Australia more broadly. McNamara is excited about the opportunity to share his views about population with a diverse audience.

“Every day, the front pages of our papers are covered in variations on the same problem. Whether the issue is traffic congestion, overcrowding on trains, waiting lists for hospitals, skills shortages, social alienation in urban sprawl, food security, water security or global warming," McNamara says.

“There is only one problem,” McNamara says. “There are too many of us.”

The forum, with tickets at $120 per person or $1000 per table takes place on Friday 17 July from 6.50 am - 9.00 am at the Gabba. The event also features the following panel:

* Brian Stewart, CEO Urban Development Institute of Australia
* Melva Hobson, Mayor Redland City Council
* Glen Elmes MP, Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Sustainability and Member for Noosa
* Simon Baltais, Sustainable Population Australia

Registration is now open for the event, which is sponsored by SEQ Catchments. For more information, contact [email protected] or at register online

Report on the Victorian Transport Infrastructure Conference
11-12th May 2009 @ the Melbourne Convention Exhibition Centre
by Catherine Manning
President, Southern Victoria Community Action Group Inc.

Foreword: A huge thank you to all of the groups and individuals who contributed to the cost of a ticket so that our community could be represented at this conference. As expected, the conference failed to provide any new information about the implementation of the Victorian Transport Plan (VTP) and seemed to have left some who'd paid up to $1655- for a ticket deeply disappointed. (One participant told me he was so stressed about what he was going to report back to his boss, as he'd convinced him it was worth spending the money to go and 'do business'.) However, I believe it was well worth SVCAG being there, as I was able to publicly question several ministers and bureaucrats on behalf of all of our groups, and made it known that we were concerned at the 'exclusivity' of the event that was publicised as a 'high level forum for discussion and debate'. To download a copy of / or view the VTP please go to www.transport.vic.gov.au

Disclaimer: I have compiled this report from my notes taken at the conference. I cannot guarantee the accuracy of the information, only to say this is purely an honest account of how I saw the event, but others may have seen it differently. I have tried to dot point as much as I can, and have added some questions that I asked (and some I didn’t !).

Day1

MC: Rob Gell opened the event .
Rob Gell thanked the sponsors/supporters: Project Link, Theiss, DLA Phillips Fox, Vibropile, Brifen, Coffey Rail, Leighton, Dial Before You Dig, GTA Consultants, Engineers Australia, and of course the State Govt - Dept. of Transport.

9am

Jim Betts - Secretary, Department of Transport Victoria

After explaining his disappointment at his title of ‘secretary' which made it sound as though he should just be ‘taking minutes’, Jim convinced us that he is really a very important person. He then proceeded to give a quick explanation of the VTP...

• Melbourne @ 5million and the Victorian Transport Plan were produced together and will be updated every 3-4 years to adjust figures ie. population growth, etc.
• would like to work with industry to spread the freight task
• Into the future 2030 - more freight 'immune to economic issues’
• Vision for a 24hr operation, mass transit orbital system, significant expansion in port rail as per Eddington Report.
• 'We're planning for Hastings at the moment'
• Mentioned the 'Freight Futures' document (more on that later)
• Channel Deepening (plug for)

It was then opened up to the floor for questions. Rob Gell asked about four questions on interstate rail, emissions reduction and fuel efficiency.
(I didn’t hear a substantial answer, other than 'we're working on it' or words to that effect.)

Tim Holding as Minister for Finance, Victoria

• restated that the State Budget saw an $8b investment in 09/10 infrastructure for transport, schools, etc..
• Victoria the best place in the country, best workers... Wants to be the 'best placed in the country' - jobs jobs jobs... in transport - freight & logistics.
• VTP is the plan, the vision, the context to tell the community where to go with infrastructure projects...
• Sustainability is at the heart of this plan…sustainability…sustainability..
• mentioned Peninsula Link, Epping Line (rail upgrade), Lynbrook (road)

Question Time:

Catherine Manning Southern Victorian Community Action Group (SVCAG): Minister, I notice you say 'sustainable and sustainability' a lot, what is your definition of sustainable when it comes to this Transport Plan? How can more and more growth, less local manufacturing, a massive increase in freight imports, more port development i.e. Hastings, and the associated truck movements, be anything but unsustainable?

Tim Holding: ‘freight needs the best possible infrastructure to be sustainable’, etc., etc. Said something to the effect that now we all expect higher quality living, we have to develop Hastings so we can provide it. (Incredibly, he then went on for another ten minutes without answering my question….)

Halvard Dalheim - Director, State Strategy, Planning Policy Branch

1. Green Spaces. Spoke about Melb @5million, 1.8 additional people by 2036. 600,000 dwellings in the next 20 years. How are we placed to deal with growth? Govt response was to release its 'transport policies'.
2. Challenges - Shaping Victoria, linking regional Victoria, Sustainable Growth, unblocking congestion, responding to climate change.
3. Unique Collaboration - benefits/new approaches/relationships/new opportunities - VicRoads/DOI (now DOT)/DSE. Urban Growth Boundaries - new issues raised and discussed...loves collaboration...(group hug with DSE/VicRoads/DOT)
4. Managing Melbourne's Growth
5. Scale of Growth .. (up, up and up..). How do we accommodate this growth?

6. Components of Growth - international migration levels never seen before...address future labour force. Long term drivers - migration. Health infrastructure needed - maternity wards.

7. Trends of Growth Maps - bridge the Yarra/Maribyrnong
8. Affordability and Growth - affordable living, housing, etc.
9. Shaping Melbourne's Growth - The growth equation: 316,000 established areas. 284,000 growth areas. 134,000 new growth areas. Shift new growth areas North and West. Expand growth areas and high density living in Melbourne.
10. Urban Form and Growth. Block sizes.
11. Accessible Jobs. Can't keep building roads and tunnels to handle our transport issues. So now we have 'land use and transport planning' so we can influence potential behavior patterns.
12. Disadvantaged with Jobs
13. Mode of Travel and Jobs - cars cars cars.
14. Proximity of Jobs
15. A Sustainable City Form. 'Polycentric' Multiple major centres - jobs close to home. Box Hill, Broadmeadows,Dandenong, Footscray, Frankston, Ringwood.
16. Inner Core - housing.
17. Tram Network
18. Conversions - housing
19. New Opportunities
20. Infill - across metro area
21. Residential Initiatives - lot densities. 'Local intelligence' looking at City of Moreland.
22. Melbourne's Newest Sustainable Communities - rail links, smartbus, Northern Suburbs.
23. Delivery - 'Transport plan.....shaping Victoria....jobs...jobs...jobs.'

Ray Kinnear - Dep Director Strategic Policy and Planning, Public Transport Division

• Growth rate exceeding current growth forecasts across all models
• More people on public transport: Why?Fuel costs, Global Financial Crisis, 20% environmental concerns
• Operating railway - creating a metro
• Local Bus Networks
• Offer early bird schemes to encourage travel before peak.
• Rail infrastructure projects underway...New track Laverton, Clifton Hill Rail Project..etc...$18b over next 2 years
• $10b sought from Building Aust Fund
• Regional Rail Link - Western part of Melb - sharing tracks/bottlenecks. Build new line west of Werribee on Geelong Line. Able to run v-line trains - no longer on suburban line.
• Build a second tunnel- Dynon area across to Parkville-Domain.
• South East capacity problem. Metro tunnel to Caulfield - all lines independent.
• Waiting for Govt Funding
• 70 new trains 50 new trams, maintenance facilities, light rail, more stops.

Question from Cameron of Coffee Projects: How long do you anticipate that growth to continue?
Answer from Ray Kinnear: planning on continuing at 8%p.a.

Jonathon Metcalfe - Exec Chair Connex

• challenging times
• Pollution 'we've talked about that'
• PPP's - more from the VTP about what's being delivered....
• more PR pitch about keeping customers happy and 'managing dissatisfaction'.
Question: What about level crossings?
Answer from JM: Where there's a business case.

(mass exodus - about 15 people left the auditorium at this point)....

Question unposed: When you say ‘pollution – we’ve talked about that’, when exactly did we talk about it? I’ve been awake the whole time…did I miss something?
Question unposed: Shouldn’t we refer to climate change as a problem, not a ‘challenge’? I know it’s very ‘Chopra-esque’ to say ‘challenge’, but doesn’t that make it sound like a fun run or math’s quiz, not the serious environmental issue that it is? It may be challenging to find solutions, but if we’re to be really honest, wouldn’t you say that climate change is really a big ‘issue’ or ‘problem

Brad Vann - Partner, Clayton UTZ

• Cost $60b to replace all of Victoria's level crossings - how to deal with this in Global Financial Crisis?
• Impact of credit crunch - lack of liquidity - banks retreating from long tenure and complex lending
• Cost of funding PPP's - as liquidity in markets decreases, lending margins increase....
• Feast or Famine: sales pitch for PPP's - alternatives: Govt underwrite financing bids (potential conflict of interest) - unsyndicated portions of debt taken up by govt entity until full syndication possible - shorter concession periods - shorter term financing.
• Market disruption risk
• Govt takes back some risk - ie. Hospital infrastructure project - decrease payments from the private sector if not bringing in the $$$.
• Unbundle the project
• Peninsula Link 'economic infrastructure' - No toll, therefore needs $$$. then Govt repay private sector. Govt looking at this way.
• Super Funds - Institutional Funds. Govt guarantee to lift the quality of the project and attract investment thru super funds etc. In turn, super and industry funds invest to keep their members in work.
• Regulatory changes - at the moment there is better returns for people to invest overseas.
• Develop by Govt then sell to private sector [Comment by editor: This is privatization in advance]
• Ask Industry Fund Managers, if we meet operational parameters of the project, will you agree to support it?
At this point just before lunch, the MD of Theiss got up and said 'we need accelerated spend up on transport infrastructure'. However, I didn’t notice anyone jump up and wave their wallet around.

Lunch: Met a few of interesting people. Am beginning to think I'm not going so mad after all. Some of these people do seem to get it too, and aren't as excited about all aspects of the VTP as I thought they would be.... Almost managed to attract a few new members (LOL).

Panel ‘Discussion’

Darren Bilsborough – Director of Sustainability, Parsons Brinckerhoff
Rob Turk – Associate, ARUP
Sean Murphy – GM Infrastructure & Environment, Worley Parsons
Glenn Hedges – Environmental Manager/Project Services, Thiess

Refreshingly, Darren Bilsborough spoke of the ‘elephant in the room – climate change’
• the VTP failed to adequately address climate change, health impacts, peak oil or our aging population.

Rob Turk

• minimising environmental impacts by collecting run off from freeways (used Frankston Bypass as an example) to provide solutions to other issues ie. Water.
• offset planting, ‘integrated resource management’, using road corridors as IT corridors (i.e. Broadband network infr.) and ‘smart energy zones’.
• the formation of the ‘Australian Green Infrastructure Council’, formed in 2007 by various industry reps, applying for state govt funding to try to create a ‘green star’ national rating scheme for business/developers.

Lots of talk about ‘fast tracking’

• geopolymer concrete / fly ash – being used as a better alternative to concrete. 80% less emissions.
• Waste vegetable matter for ‘sandwich panels’ – reinforced skins.
• Glass work – discharge from desalination plants to replace timbers, beams, concrete, etc.

Glenn Hedges repeated much of what had already been said, plus
• A ‘promo’ for Theiss providing indigenous communities with training & jobs to build a construction workforce
• More about the Green Inf. Council and Theiss’ efforts to replace lightweight truck bodies instead of stainless steel. Auto timing switches on mobile lighting banks, and more use of diesel

Questions for panel:

Rob Gell asked: Why geopolymer concrete wasn’t used for the construction of citilink and eastlink when the government had been consulted extensively on its benefits?
Answer:…..don’t know.

Questions from Catherine Manning: What payoff will there be for developers fastracking development to seek endorsement from Aust Green Inf Council, and will it have any real effect?
Answer: No real effect as yet, but it will be a ‘feel good’ exercise. There will be no legally binding contracts

Question from Catherine Manning: Doesn’t this just provide a vehicle for developers to appear green without being green when there are no real ‘green’ guidelines for development (apart from what comes out of the EES – EPBC Act). Where we have Work Cover and legal guidelines for other things, why aren’t there laws for developers to abide by when it comes to environmental/health impacts, etc.?
Answer: inadequate policy.

Question unposed: Do you think the Global Financial Crisis is being used as justification to fast track development so that even less community consultation can be justified?

Dr Lewis Gomes and Peter Zahnleiter (Brisbane Roads and Tunnel Experience)

• Spoke of the project delivery (if you really want me to document this, let me know, but it was about as exciting to me as watching grass grow).
• Their airport link averaged $56million per kilometer.

Peter Bentley – CEO Connect East

We then heard yet another promotion and back patting exercise about Eastlink. $3.8b for 39klm of toll way. Heard about Mullum Mullum Valley, the untolled Ringwood and Dandenong Bypasses, 88 bridges, 17 interchanges and 2 tunnels.

• 270,000 trips during the toll free period
• 135,000 once tolls introduced.
• Community consultation…’no one can ever say there was a lack of dialogue on this project’. Local community forum settled community matters
• Thanks to EPA ‘s communication between groups, there were ‘no public appeals when Connect East got works approval for the tunnel/ventilation project.
• 60 wetlands established / 3.5million shrubs and trees planted

Wrap up of day 1: So much of today sounded like repetitious, back patting, spin. There was nothing learned that wasn’t already in the VTP book. I got the sense by the end of the day that many of us hoped that tomorrow would provide far more substance, and we looked forward to ‘doing business’ and having that ‘high level debate’……

Media presence

*I contacted the conference organisers beforehand to enquire about media access to the event. I was told there was none. However, Jason Dowling from The Age was there on the first day. On Day 2 Jillian Verhardt from Radio Port Phillip was permitted to attend (I didn’t see any other media at all).

DAY 2.

Good morning Rob.

The Hon. Tim Pallas, Minister for Roads and Ports, Victoria, Steve Bracks Advisor 1999.

• The VTP will connect communities, build economies..etc…enhance livability, enhance amenity….etc…etc..

Apparently famous for his PowerPoint prowess, Mr Pallas lived up to his reputation and provided a lovely slide show….

10 Challenges facing infrastructure.

1. Congestion: $20.4b p.a. cost of congestion by 2020
($2.6b p.a. cost of congestion now)
‘Victoria is Australia’s Freight and Logistics hub’ – more talk about VTP Projects.

2. Port Capacity: 2035 - 8million containers annually.

Expand Swanston Dock – berth extensions
Webb dock for container handling
Transport plan for Hastings
Relocate market
Move Sth Dynon Rail terminal to Donnybrook
75% of channel deepening done – physical works due to be completed by
end of August.

3. Transport Linkages: Seymour Wodonga – Standard Guage Rail
4. Road Toll: duplicated roads safer than unduplicated
5. Freight Mode Share: more freight onto rail

Retain status as manufacturing state
90% of freight travels on road
Rail freight subsidies/freight access charges to encourage larger off-peak
use of port.

6. Intermodal Capacity: Container volumes not yet at a stage where rail is viable.
Until then encourage larger road transport to get freight around.
30m / 28m b-doubles and b-triples: tried and proven.
‘the public are accepting of b-doubles sharing the road’

7. Airport Capacity: Melbourne Airport Strategy

See Draft Airport Master plan 2008

8.

Infrastructure Funding: imbalance – requirement of state to raise revenue, failure of states to deliver. Money taken from road fines/tolls etc. goes back in to building/infrastructure.

Availability of PPP’s – i.e. Peninsula Link

9. Residential Amenity: Freight Futures

Truck action plan: new off ramps Westgate Fwy at Hyde St will remove 1.2 million trucks a year. Sunshine/Dempster/Paramount Rd – trucks will divert around Seddon using tunnels and new routes.

10. Port of Hastings: Bolte’s vision – lots of talk about ‘vision’

Question: Jason Dowling (Age News) asked about the funding of the Peninsula Link, state gov. has allocated $350m but nothing in the Fed. Budget.
Answer: Tim Pallas said he was confident they would receive the Fed. funding and said it was not unusual for items to be funded after any given main budget.

Question: 30mt. super B trucks, are they suitable for our roads?
Answer: Length is an issue, so they will only be trialed on certain routes, monitored by gps system to ensure they stick to nominated roads. See map.

Question: Catherine Manning – Considering all roads in the VTP lead to Hastings, is it not a bit dangerous to put all your eggs in one basket prior to any environmental assessment or EES? There are other ports around Victoria that could service our needs. What is ‘Plan B’ if Hastings proves to be an unviable location for major port development?

Answer:Tim Pallas: There is no plan B. Hastings is it. The EES just tells us what we need to watch out for, not whether or not we can do something. Minister Pallas assured the audience they would secure the necessary environmental approvals/considerations. Geelong has limitations. The EES is not a yes or no process. Hastings will happen.

Justin Madden – Minister for Planning

Again spoke of VTP and Melb @ 5million. Spoke about:
• Fast tracked approvals for infrastructure developments / collaboration
• Housing – growth growth growth….
• 325,000 will live in provincial areas by 2026
• Something about extra help for councils to measure households within their municipalities
• Online planning systems / ‘modernising’ planning and environment act
• Finally, we need to consult communities

Questions:

A man from Moonee Ponds: Why hasn’t growth been considered around Geelong etc.,…?
Answer: Again, hard to decipher, but something about ‘social issues as population reaches 3+million’, and ‘hamlets, villages and hinterland…’

Question: Jason Dowling of The Age asked if the Minister would sack his staffer after recent revelations re Brimbank Council.
Answer: No
Jason them commented cities over 3M seem to consistently present increased crime and other social problems.
Further reply from Minister, that our City is Attractive, especially housing as it is cheaper than Sydney. House and land packages here are around $60k less.

When does the population growth & infrastructure expansion come to an end?

Q. Catherine Manning: Considering your PowerPoint showed massive growth on Melbourne’s outskirts, are you concerned about the impact of all this growth on our food bowl, particularly the Koo Wee Rup Swamp/Gippsland regions? When does the growth come to an end?
A. (the following is a summary of what I understood of his lengthy response):
The south/east is almost at capacity and they are planning to move more people out to the West where there are larger tracts of land to be built upon (I then asked ‘so why develop Hastings???’ to which he said ‘Minister of Ports answered that’ – oh did he??? Well, just because it was ‘Bolte’s dream’ isn’t a good enough answer to me!). He said the rezoning of the 6 areas identified on the far edges would be done so in an environmentally sensitive manner. The North and West were definitely the only places to develop. He then went on to say that he welcomed my questions and was assuming my next would be about the EES process after Minister Pallas’ comments (well, actually I was planning on letting him off the hook on that one as I thought I might be removed from the gallery if I asked another question!!!) He spoke about the EES as something the community feels contains a ‘do nothing’ option. He said they (govt.) were more sophisticated now and complexities have to be managed. However, he did mention that although it ‘sounds like a done deal’ (my words), he would still have to seek federal approvals (EPBC Act).

Terry Garwood – Exec Director, Freight Logistics and Marine, DOT, Victoria

• More talk about more people, more freight, more, more, more. Planning, building managing freight network.
• Victoria is home to most efficient element of road industry: B Doubles – larger b-doubles under consideration to be trialed on certain roads.
• Freight task to double from now to 2030 ‘efficiency/capacity/sustainability
• Private sector moves freight on shared networks: trucks/cars, air freight/passenger, recreational boating/shipping.
• Government owns ports ( the ones in the VTP)
• ‘Planning and protecting’, ‘building and maintaining’, ‘managing and regulating’….( lots of buzzwords!)
• National rail that bypasses all major cities (now you’re talkin’!)
• International terminal at fresh market
• Truck Action Plan: building the network, freight charge during the day – encourage night road use
• Port of Melbourne’s charter to change to expand its role outside the port gate, giving them more power beyond the fence line of their current site.
• New policy document: Port Futures – tweaking the PLUTS
• This document will take Hastings and the UGB’s into consideration.
• There are no plans to introduce b-triples onto our Victorian road network, just longer b-doubles.

Question: Would Rail-Share suffer with the introduction of larger trucks?
Answer: Yes. Intra rail is port related. Interstate Rail non port related. National by passes all Capitol Cities. eg. Donnybrook Terminal. Metro rail freight is currently zero.

Question: Rob Gell: were green-house gas emissions part of the over all decision making process, especially trucks?
Answer: Aviation was quoted as 1.5% emissions, shipping 1.5% emissions. (Maybe he meant shipping and Transport, but that needs to be looked at.)

Rob said if Darwin was the Sea/Container terminal, how about train to the rest of the nation?
Further A. Melb. to Sydney Rail attracts barely 5% all freight movements. Funds are likely to be directed to increase rail and they are in close contact with Fed. Gov.

Question Unposed: Have the social impacts been considered or ‘costed in’ of the hundreds and thousands of ‘Daddies’ out there encouraged to drive their trucks only at night?

Stephen Bradford – CEO, Port of Melbourne Corporation

After a few figures relating to the Global Financial Crisis’s impact on freight movements, Stephen Bradford got stuck right in to the community for daring to suggest that things might not go so well to plan as expected. Here’s a rundown:

TEU’s (containers) Motor Vehicles
Dec. down 5.2% down 28.7%
Jan down 16% down 33.8%
Feb down 7.6% down 35.9%
Mar down 7.6% down 38.7%

TEU’s down 1.5% to Mar 09
Cars down 15.9% to Mar 09
Dry Bulk down 1.8% to Mar09

Long Beach down 30%
Seattle down 24%
Tacoma down 15%
Oakland down 16%
Los Angeles down 17%

(anyone wanna buy a transport plan???)

• 8 million TEU by 2035
• 60% container vessels are draught constrained, need ‘a hole in the sand’ – dredging.
• $12million EES
• Headlines cut and pasted on PowerPoint of ‘Negative Headlines’

He then went on to show news footage of ‘community reaction’, including the ‘Battle Zone’ story with Jo Hall, a Blue Wedges Rally, protesters and the exclusion zone, Federal Court story….etc..

• EES – after 130 recommendations from initial panel, rebuilt the team, performed the highest environmental studies, project liaison group, ‘subsequently we then had the SEES peer review by experts not on the original panel as selected by the state government’.
• Successfully dredged with no environmental impacts
• On schedule and within budget
• Port corporation took the option to be vigilant and open
• EMP is very rigorous

Followed by the ‘Big Tick’ video of the Queen of the Netherlands
• Took on an advertising campaign
• Showed the media ad
• More justification of media campaign
• Looking at Hastings and other ports
• By the way, loves the little penguins – lots of monitoring of the little cuties.

Question: What benefit to the environmental outcome of spending the $120M second/further EES re Bay Dredging.
Answer: He said it was worth it, they learned more about sea-grasses, penguins and turbidity. He also commented that the second 'team' convened to carry out the 'further' EES were almost an entirely new crew.

Question: CEO RACV Negus asked about increased container volumes on roads.
Answer: Negus was directed to the presentation by the previous speaker and he had answered all that. Negus only attended for the Bradford presentation and left the conference shortly after.

Question: Was Mr. Bradford concerned about increased severity of storms, King Tides etc. adding to an increase water level in the bay.
Answer: No.

Question unposed: When you say the port corporation ‘took the option’ to be vigilant and open, what was the other ‘option’?

The Hon. Jacinta Allen, Minister for Regional and Rural Development

More of what seemed like a ‘press release’ from the VTP.

Question Jillian Verhardt (Radio 3RPP): Despite a recent massive upgrade there is great congestion at times at the Tulla/Calder merge. Bendigo and towns such as Gisborne had been touted as ‘commuter satellites’ for those seeking affordable regional housing yet wishing to remain working in Metro yet get home at a reasonable hour. Asked about the Melbourne City to Tullamarine light rail in terms of alleviating serious congestion, and stated that the airport had been doubled in capacity around 5 years ago, and the management were out there last year stating another doubling would be required to keep up with increased aviation activity.

Answer: Dismissed the question as it was in her opinion a metro issue, yet the highway, Calder and Tullamarine Freeway are heavily used already. As other road issues around the freeways are ‘addressed’, it is assumed that will ease congestion.

Panel ‘Discussion’

Tim Ryan – GM, ARTC
Helen Newell – Director, Corporate Dev. & Government Relations, Asciano
Andy McNicol – Coffee Rail

Tim Ryan

• Nth/Sth rail corridor: Melb/Bris/Syd – 16m gross tonnes to 28/35m 2015
• East/West: Melb/Syd/Perth – 80% market share - focus to sustain operation – not much growth in it.
• Include customers, deliver what the market wants, location of terminals to take long trains, commercial opportunities in regional areas.
• Trucks have access to good road networks, makes it difficult to compete for $$$ for rail infrastructure.
• 1.8klm trains Syd/WA 1.5klm trains Bris

Helen Newell

• Engage with stakeholders
• Freight transport through inner urban areas an issue
• Need proper debate to find the best place for development (she’s speaking my language!) Hastings provides ‘many challenges’.
• Containers from Tasmania
• Asciano prefer development out west (i.e. Geelong).
• National freight rail system only way to justify freight on rail.
• Rail freight under 500klm cannot compete with trucks.
• Asciano position: move freight to west out of Dynan precinct to allow double stacking of Rail

Andy McNicol

• Literally arrived in Melbourne from Scotland 4 days ago.
• Was impressed by the ministers and audience being so embracing of the VTP and mentioned that there was much more ‘debate’ about such matters overseas.

Questions/Discussion:

Catherine Manning: Andy, you say that you are impressed that the Ministers and audience at this conference seem to be ‘embracing’ of the VTP. That may be because this is a ‘target audience’. The exorbitant cost of a ticket to this event prevents many community groups from attending (I am here representing a number of groups across Victoria). Further, when Tim Pallas said earlier that ‘the community had accepted b-doubles on the roads’, I beg to disagree. I don’t believe we’ve ‘accepted them’ at all, what choice did we have? They just arrived, and I can tell you that amongst the greater community there is huge support for a National Rail System that would reduce the number of trucks on the road, removes the parochialism and assesses the best place for port development.

To Helen Newell, if the cost to society of health impacts and safety issues were assessed and added to the cost of trucking freight, would that not bring the margin closer and make rail more competitive?

Helen Newell's response was that we’d be pleased to hear that the Federal Government are looking at this very issue and are about to release a document that she couldn’t elaborate on as yet, but that we would find it very encouraging. She went on to say that health issues and safety of trucks is being considered - Asciano stated it would help if trains were priced more economically, using all the columns. When they did their study, using all aspects, including safety, congestion etc. it produced a compelling argument showing trains can reduce road stressors currently present around centres.

(With this in mind, I wonder if we should hold off on the whole VTP until we can ‘collaborate’ with everyone for the best possible outcome for our freight needs! So far, the budget looks like it has done that for us, and I didn’t see anyone pulling dollar bills out of their pockets at this conference….)

More q & a for the panel:

Q. Freight via large trucks (all) around Port of Melbourne has a curfew to avoid commuter peak times and maybe residential considerations.

Is Infrastructure worth the cost to solve? Sydney has 4 hr curfew morning and evening re rail movements (noise and road closure/s?) where trucks are not limited there making it hard for rail to compete.

A. Asciano talked about doubling the track to Wodonga/Albury and said the Melb. to Bris. rail system was a major impediment.
Sydney was a rail bottleneck, in terms of getting freight through, especially sharing tracks with commuters as above.

Q. Wyndham Planner? The West is preferred location for rail terminal in a highly built up area.

A. The North-South and East - West must be connectable. The Sunshine triangle is part of this. North or West, both need corridors as a location. Donnybrook is 'looking good'.

Q Rail Lubrication from an expert in reducing friction, wear and tear etc. Apparently Aust. is using ineffective product and this adds to maintenance both trains and tracks.

A. This Q was dismissed immediately by the 3rd member of the 'panel', he explained he had heard of superior products but was sticking with existing suppliers and technology.

Q. Regional Hubs, who might be the operators? Terminals, rail, have their own economies of scale.

A. Financially, Rail always struggles. Multiple users is an answer and other business is required other than simply 'lifting' containers.
Single box rail transport does not pay.

Footnote - US does not allow double B's. Their policy is if the freight is that big, it must go by rail.

Parsons Brinkerhoff

• Freight and Congestion have risen sharply. Though, traffic volumes appear to have leveled off. Public Transport is steady and has experienced strong growth. Of the $38B, how best to use.

• Plan beyond today’s needs, we are simply catching up with a back-log not actually creating future capacity. Look at least 30yrs ahead.

• Current government plans will barely provide for the next 10 yrs.

• EIS is the opportunity for Community to improve the environment.

• Land use is predicator for location of transport.

• The presenter used Boston as the model to demonstrate how transport planning can work, for both commuters and road users.

• Development on roads are best, in their opinion, near major intersections.

Over and out.

Catherine Manning
Southern Victoria Community Action Group Inc.
P.O. Box 707,
Pakenham 3810
www.svcag.org
svcag[AT]ozemail.com.au

There is one key fundamental driving the real estate market, Australia's population growth.

We are in 3rd world territory as far as population growth goes,
We have just topped 1.9% growth !!!

source:#10;http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/MSB/71.htm</a></p>&#10;<p>Even in the midst of a recession we are bringing in plane loads of people here each week. And the Victorian Infrastructure Plan is based on higher immigration than ever seen before here. See <a href=" http:="">Report on the Victorian Transport Infrastructure Conference
Most immigrants end up in the suburbs of Melbourne and Sydney, these new immigrants are definitely supporting the real estate market of the big capitals.

Also note that I know areas that have many empty houses. They are in areas on the coast and inland, places like Lorne and Daylesford. The houses are owned by Melbournians and used as weekenders. I was told by a resident of Hepburn (next to Daylesford) that the census showed a very small proportion of permanent residents, with most houses owned by out-of-towners, used only on the weekend. Of course there would be some empty dwellings in the areas of highest demand (less than 15km from CBD), but not many, and I would bet more on the urban fringe.

Of course they are not anywhere near most jobs, markets or public transport.

Mr RYAN (Leader of The Nationals),speaking in Parliament on 11 June 2009, said, "Yesterday, together with the member for Bass and other members of Parliament from the conservative side of politics, I was on the front steps of Parliament House when yet another rally was conducted by Victorians who came to the Parliament to complain about the excesses of the Brumby government.

The organisations involved in yesterday’s rally [10 June 2009] were the Coalition of Concerned Councillors, an organisation called Planning Backlash, and another organisation called Watershed Victoria. I was presented with about 3000 letters in relation to issues to do with the desalination plant. Part of one letter reads as follows:

I am dismayed by Mr Brumby’s intention to build the largest, climate-change-accelerating desalination plant in the southern hemisphere on the pristine Bass Coast. There is no mandate. It is a total about-face to ALP re-election Water Policy of ‘recycling and conservation, that will secure Melbourne’s water supply’

… Desalination uses enormous energy, and is enormously expensive. The Brumby government has spent millions of tax payers dollars attempting to deliberately distort and mislead the community into accepting this disastrous project without openly and transparently evaluating sustainable and superior water alternatives …"

I have undertaken to provide these letters to the Premier, and I will. The people of Victoria are sick of the taint of corruption, issues to do with financial management, taxation, matters to do with the destruction of people’s rights — all things this government campaigned on and is now ignoring.

Source: Victorian Hansard June 11, 2009

Australians are losing their human rights to power, water, affordable housing, agricultural land, wild healthy biodiverse landscapes, self-government, education, and sustainable population very very fast.

Do you all know about the current Human Rights Consultation in Australia? You can register your concerns. Deadline is 15 June. Format is not limited to filling out the form; you may express yourself freely.

Please strongly consider writing your concerns about what is happening to human rights in Australia through commercially driven population growth, development, media and government. Circulate this article as widely as you can. Print it out and help elderly people, homeless people and others not able to access the internet to contribute to this consultation. The mailing address is lower down in this article.

This consultation provides avenues for people to record their concerns about the government's big population policy and its effect on human rights.

Examples of rights impacted and diminished by government policy and its coalition with the commercial Growth Lobby include:

- safe clean natural affordable water
- healthy river and soil and forest systems
- beautiful natural landscapes
- a healthy wild biodiverse envelope
- a kind and respectful treatment of farm animals and wildlife, with land-use planning for their welfare
- functioning democracy not overwhelmed by commercial interests fed by population growth
- the right to local self-government
- affordable housing

Towards protecting or retrieving these rights, we suggest that you demand:
- an end to the tendency towards monopoly of ownership, outlets and delivery by the mainstream press
- an end to commercial representation on the boards of the ABC and other public media
- the right to demand that the owners of the commercial press daily declare their commercial and corporate interests and associations to the public in an accessible manner
- public ownership of institutions and assets
- proper consultation about privatisation
- limitation of corporate rights
- add your own (The highlighted areas above may give you some ideas and material.)

The National Human Rights Consultation is seeking views about human rights in Australia on the following, but not limited to the following:

1. Which human rights and responsibilities should be protected and promoted?
2. Are these human rights currently sufficiently protected and promoted?
3. How could Australia better protect and promote human rights?

You can send an electronic submission via the submissions page or send it by mail to
National Human Rights Consultation Secretariat
Attorney-General's Department
Central Office
Robert Garran Offices
National Circuit
BARTON ACT 2600

or register to attend a community roundtable discussion in your state. The Consultation will run from 10 December 2008 until August 2009. The last date submissions can be accepted is 15 June 2009. After listening to the views and ideas of the Australian people, the Consultation Committee has been asked to report to Government on what they have heard by 31 August 2009.

Help http://candobetter.org to amplify your concerns and help you organise

We here at candobetter.org would also appreciate your contributing your submissions or to discussion at http://candobetter.org where we can amplify any ideas. There is no guarantee that the people appointed to represent the submissions will do this adequately without public pressure. Please help us to stimulate and organise this public pressure by sending your submissions to us as well, via the comments section, so that we can keep a public record and promote your concerns, show where others shared your concerns, and publish your views.

Sheila Newman
Population, Environment and Energy Sociologist
Sheila Newman (Ed.) The Final Energy Crisis, 2nd Edition, Pluto Press, UK, 2008

Australians receive little useful coverage in the mainstream media about new laws which are constantly being brought in to privilege overpopulation and overdevelopment in various states. Candobetter tries to publish information to fill this gap. The Bill discussed below, if passed, will make Victorians slaves to developers. They will not be able to influence most of what happens in their state and they will be punished if they try to stop developments by other means.

The comments below were on a debate (in an ALP-dominated parliament) was on the second reading of a motion by Mr Batchelor, The Minister for Community Development, for the Victorian Planning Legislation Amendment Bill 2009.
Labor Ministers who spoke in support of this bill were Mr Brooks of Bundoora, Victoria and Ms D’Ambrosio, of Mill Park, Victoria.

Mr Clark of Box Hill and Mr David Morris (in the Liberal Opposition) spoke against it. Here is Mr Clark's speech. We present Mr David Morris's speech in the next article, to be published shortly, "New Vic Planning Legislation Bill "a blatant, naked grab for power"

Criticism in Parliament of the Victorian Planning Legislation Amendment Bill

Mr CLARK (Box Hill) —

The Planning Legislation Amendment Bill has five main purposes. It makes amendments to the Planning and Environment Act 1987 so that any area of Victoria may be deemed to be a growth area, it creates a regime for the establishment and operation of new development assessment committees (DACs), it increases penalties in the Heritage Act 1995, it amends the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Trust Act 1996 to remove the limitation requiring that the trust only operate within the city of Port Phillip and the city of Melbourne, and it amends the Docklands Act 1991 to allow VicUrban to continue its involvement in projects in the Docklands development beyond 31 December 2005. The last of these purposes is effectively a tidy-up amendment, because VicUrban is already continuing its involvement in such projects.

I would be interested to hear the government’s reasons for removing the limitations on the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Trust so it can operate beyond the city of Port Phillip and the city of Melbourne. The increased penalties in the Heritage Act continue policy initiatives started in previous legislation.

The bill proposes to give the Governor in Council the power to declare as a growth area any part of Victoria that the Governor in Council sees fit

The two main provisions of the bill are the first ones I referred to. The bill proposes to give the Governor in Council the power to declare as a growth area any part of Victoria that the Governor in Council sees fit, and the bill contains extensive mechanisms for the constitution and operation of development assessment committees.

The government has announced that the initial development assessment committee areas will be the activity areas of Camberwell, Doncaster, Geelong, Preston and Coburg, but they can go much further than that. They can basically be extended as the government sees fit.

Once created, the new DACs will act in lieu of the responsible authority for all developments within their deemed operational areas, as determined by the ministerial order. The order will specify the class of development to which it applies and the areas it covers.

Each DAC will consist of five members. Three, including the chair, will be appointed by the Minister for Planning, and two will be nominated by the relevant municipal council from a group of five persons who are councillors or members of staff of that council.

There are provisions in the bill relating to the disclosure of membership of the DAC, provisions relating to conflicts of interest and disclosure of those conflicts, and provisions empowering removal of DAC members in certain circumstances. The bill specifies that the DAC will have the powers of the responsible authority in relation to the matters it considers. The decisions it makes will be treated as the decisions of the responsible authority. The relevant municipal council is required to provide documents, information and assistance to the DAC and to reimburse all reasonable costs and expenses incurred by a DAC other than the remuneration of the three members nominated by the minister. Once a decision is made by the DAC, it is treated as if it were effectively the decision of the council itself. For example, it is liable to be appealed at the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT). This is the scheme of the bill. In putting forward the bill the government has said it is partnering with local government in seeking to improve the operation of the planning system.

I have to say that I have been struggling to think of an initiative announced in the planning sphere, or indeed in any other sphere of government, that is as stupid as the provision contained in this bill in terms of achieving the objectives for which it is said to be put forward.

There has certainly been other legislation that has been more damaging to the community than this, but in terms of its sheer illogicality, this bill is hard to beat.

The argument in favour of this legislation effectively says — and perhaps I will put some words in the government’s mouth — the current planning system is not working properly. There are long delays and interminable arguments.

Bill won't help create jobs

The government may claim councils cannot make timely decisions and that this is inhibiting the capacity to get on with developments and create jobs and prosperity for the state. Taking that argument as a given, this bill does absolutely nothing effective to overcome the bulk of the problems that exist in the system on that account. It simply creates a new decision-making body, the DAC, to make a decision in lieu of the councillors of the municipality sitting around the table in the council chamber.

Every other element of the process remains as it is.

Problems with the adequacy of zoning, planning scheme definitions, flawed criteria for deciding about the issue of planning permits and local government planning departments that are short staffed or where staff are slow, lacking in ability, pedantic or unaccountable — or any of the other accusations that are made from time to time — continue. Exactly the same group of council officers will be servicing the DAC as are currently servicing the councillors.

Beyond the point of a decision being made, if people object to a decision, they can appeal to VCAT against the decision of the DAC, just as they can appeal to VCAT against the decision of the council. The potential for this measure to overcome perceived problems in the planning system is extraordinarily limited. Those who hold out hope that once the DAC makes a decision the development can proceed ignore the fact that if there is strong resident opposition to a proposed planning initiative, that decision can go off to VCAT just as it can in the case of a council decision. If we assume the council would have rejected an application and the DAC would approve it, nonetheless the residents who were opposed to that application could still take it to VCAT. Any potential improvement to remedy the current problems of the planning system is extraordinarily limited. I fear those who were hoping to get great benefit out of this scheme, if it is enacted and implemented, will be sorely disappointed.

But that is only half of the problem with this bill.

The even greater half of the problem is the extraordinary price at which it comes in terms of intrusion on local communities, the diminution of the capacity of local communities to have a say in their own destiny, and the undermining of the role of local government councillors. The government appears to be treating local government councillors with disdain and disregard.

The government has the nerve to call this bill a partnership with local government, whereas in fact it will take away the existing responsibilities of local government to make decisions on planning permits and offers councils only two places out of five at the table of development assessment committees. The government is doing that on an extraordinarily limited and constrained basis.

To start off with, because councillors will have only two places out of five they will always be at risk of being outvoted. The second-reading speech claims that there is going to be an independent chair, but when members look at the bill they will see there is nothing of the sort — the chair is to be appointed by the minister as are the two other non-council nominees.

The local community representatives can be either councillors or members of staff. I think it will be highly likely that councillors will find it virtually impossible to become involved with a DAC. If they do, they are certainly going to be under extraordinary constraints.

There are confidentiality provisions governing members of DACs. The councillors who take part in them are almost certainly frequently, if not always, going to find themselves outvoted. They are then likely going to come under attack from the local community.

DAC Confidentiality provisions stop councillors talking to their communities

They will be trying to defend themselves with one arm tied behind their backs, because they will not be able to cite confidential information in their defence. They will be in a no-win situation.

Councillors squeezed out of planning process, leaving only government officers

If this scheme ends up being enacted, I would not be at all surprised if councillors say, ‘We are not going to take part in this at all. We are not going to be tarred with this brush. We’ll send some council officers along to make the decisions’. Councillors are effectively being squeezed out of the process altogether.

No reason required for overriding public policy

A further concerning aspect is that the DACs are not only being created in defined areas where the government has demonstrated there is some overriding public policy reason as to why in particular cases and in particularly sensitive or important parts of Victoria a DAC should be established.

Crocodilian policies

The DACs can be set up anywhere the government chooses. It reminds me of Churchill’s metaphor of people hoping the crocodile will eat them last while the crocodile goes around gobbling up one at a time. The Brumby government crocodile has designated a handful of local communities to gobble up in the first instance, and it will soon be chomping its way further through other communities.

A bil to destroy any democratic resistance to any development

It will not only do so in activity centres. The government has talked about its policy of imposing high density development along tram corridors. If the government runs into local community opposition to that proposal, next we will find that it has constituted a DAC to take responsibility, for example, for the entire strip of properties along the tram 109 route. Thus that entire strip, running from the city of Yarra through Boroondara to Box Hill, could also be pulled out of the hands of the local community.

The government is seeking an extraordinarily broad grant of discretionary power from this Parliament.

Exactly the same point applies in relation to the power it seeks through this bill to designate growth areas. It is not as if, for example, the government has a schedule in the bill and is seeking to designate areas in the schedule as growth areas; it wants the power to declare any part of the state to be a growth area. It could designate 1 hectare in Mildura, 100 hectares in Sale or a former commercial site in Camberwell to be a growth area, and all the rules relating to growth areas would then apply.

What would also apply is the obligation on people who develop land in any of those areas to pay the growth areas infrastructure contribution. This is a new burden on the people — a new tax being introduced for the first time in Victoria in 2009–10.

The government has claimed that there are going to be no new taxes, but if one looks at the budget papers made available to the house earlier today, one sees that for the first time in 2009–10 something in the order of $84.7 million is going to be collected from growth areas. The budget papers are a bit confusing as to exactly what this is going to consist of, and there is an inconsistency between budget paper 4 and budget paper 3.

Flat tax of $95,000 per ha on land owners whose land is rezoned from rural whether they asked for rezone or not

Budget paper 4 talks simply about a growth areas infrastructure contribution, estimated to be $85 million in 2009–10 — it explains that land brought into an urban growth boundary in future will be liable to a levy of $95 000 per hectare. In budget paper 3, under ‘Revenue initiatives’, at page 369, this figure is split into two figures, which designate a growth areas development fund and a growth areas infrastructure contribution, one of $42.3 million and the other of $42.4 million. This seems, although the budget papers do not make this clear, to reflect the fact that some of the money in the growth areas infrastructure contribution will in turn be assigned to a growth areas development fund — at least that is my assessment. If government members can confirm or vary that, I look forward to hearing what they can tell us.

[T]his bill will enable the government, without any further recourse to the Parliament, to declare an area to be a growth area. Following on from that will be the liability of citizens to pay this increased levy.

Be that as it may, this bill will enable the government, without any further recourse to the Parliament, to declare an area to be a growth area. Following on from that will be the liability of citizens to pay this increased levy. I would have thought that was getting pretty close to violating longstanding constitutional principles about the need for taxation or similar imposts to be authorised by Parliament rather than be imposed by the government through open-ended delegated legislation.

However, regardless of the constitutional principles, it arms the Brumby government with yet another way of grabbing revenue out of the community without proper debate and without proper authorisation by this Parliament.

This legislation seems to be completely at odds with the promises and claims that the Bracks and Brumby governments have made and the Labor Party made when in opposition about planning and their support for local communities. The former planning minister, John Thwaites, made out that he was going to be the champion of local communities and would restore authority, which he claimed had been taken away by the previous government, to local communities. But instead of restoring authority or allowing local communities to have a legitimate say, the government is taking that ‘say’ away from local communities at just about every step of the way. The bill before the house is a particularly gross example of that.

As I said, this bill is not going to be of any significant benefit in creating jobs and speeding up the development process. It operates at only that one particular point in the continuum at which an initial decision is made by a responsible authority.

It also may well not be of much help to small and medium-sized developers if the government is going to exercise its power primarily at the instigation of larger developers who come to it and persuade it to act in any particular case.

The fundamental opposition to this is twofold. On the one hand it does nothing to fix the serious problems which the Bracks and Brumby governments have allowed to evolve and fester within our planning system. It does nothing to overcome unreasonable delays; it does nothing to provide certainty to residents or those seeking to develop properties. It puts one more complicating element, in particular instances, on an existing convoluted structure that is not working properly.

Yet on the other hand it dramatically derogates from any potential for local communities to have a say through their local representatives. It is treating local government and local councillors with contempt, asking them to be part of a process through a DAC in which they have only two votes out of five — three votes are appointed by the minister against them — and to try to defend their position with one arm tied behind their backs.
The bill, whichever way you look at it, is badly flawed.

It attacks principles of democracy, of devolution and decentralisation. It attacks principles of accountability to Parliament by government for revenue raising. It is bad in all of those respects, and it is opposed by the coalition.

Source: “Planning Legislation Amendment Bill, (Second Reading), Members Statements, Assembly, Hansard, Tuesday, 5, May, 2009 pp. 1103-1115

Article written by Catherine Manning

I am not a prude, but my children have a right to childhood

I am not a prude. (I know, it's a shame that women have to clarify that point before commenting on pornography, but just before you grab your keyboard to type a response, I am not opposed to adults accessing legal pornography.) What I am opposed to, is children being exposed to pornographic images in milk bars, service stations and newsagents.

We have a great local store. The vendor takes the time to serve the children of our community one by one as they choose their lollies the 'old fashioned way', and as if they're making the biggest decision they'll ever make in their lives. My kids look forward to their once a week treat, and I enjoy helping to foster what I think will one day be a positive childhood memory.
However, last week as I stood waiting for an order with my four year old son, I noticed at children's eye level two magazines with almost naked, unnaturally busty, spread legged, pubeless 'women', faces with parted glossy lips wantonly staring out as they pull down their knickers, just beside the icecream freezer right in front of us. With headlines such as 'Fit to F*#K', World's Oldest Porn Star', 'Keep on F*#king','Porn star goes down on chopper pilot's chopper', etc., there wasn't much left to the imagination. (hey, if you're freaking out reading this, imagine how I felt with my child in tow.)

Does the right to make money cancel out my children's rights?

I spoke with the storekeeper about this, and although he understood my concerns, his job was to make money. In fact, he informed me that many of his clients, the truckies passing through who park out the front of our primary school, actually think he should stock more of the 'hardcore stuff'. (gee, that's comforting I say as I push my stomach back down from the back of my throat....). Apparently, according to the storekeeper, less offensive magazines such as Ralph and FMH do come covered, but these two, which have progressively become more explicit, have escaped the same censorship. Therefore, the storekeeper (and anyone else) can have these magazines sitting anywhere in their shop and as in our case, right between the lollies and icecreams about half a metre from the floor. (Have an icecream kids, and would you like porn with that?)

Our children are victims of pornography

Our children are victims of pornography. They are being exposed to images of a sexual nature long before they can comprehend their meaning, but these images make an impression. It tells boys what to expect of girls and tells girls how they should act. We have a society full of girls and young women with eating disorders and serious body image problems, and a fast growing cosmetic surgery industry (which cashes in unashamedly on those with body image issues). We have what seems like an 'epidemic' of paedophilia, with more and more men accessing sexual images of children. The news is full of stories about footballers physically and sexually assaulting women, yet society still allows our kids to be brainwashed with pornographic images at an early age.

I'd like to know that when my kids go in to the local store for a bag of lollies or some milk, that they are safe and not exposed to things they shouldn't and wouldn't see at home. Sadly, I've come to learn it's something I shouldn't 'expect', but surely it's not too much to ask.

About the author:

This article is by Catherine Manning, President of the Southern Victorian Community Action Group Inc, and the newly formed Cardinia Township Association, and an ordinary parent/citizen concerned about the future for our children, in this case, the impacts of inappropriate exposure to pornography.

“Victoria's water reality and a growing population”

Come and hear

Dr. Ernest Healy

Senior research fellow in the Centre for Population and Urban Research at Monash University who will present new research into fundamental considerations and constraints in the fast growing city of Melbourne including the potential capacity and limits of our rail network and of our most basic necessity- water.

At the

Sustainable Population Australia

(Victorian branch)

Annual General Meeting

Saturday May 16th 2009 at 2.00p.m.

North Melbourne Library (Upstairs)

66 Errol St, North Melbourne 3051
All welcome!

How to get there

Melways Reference: 2A J10
Car: On street parking (meters)
Tram: 57 from Flinders St. Station up Elizabeth Street.

Contact: Jill Quirk President Sustainable Population Australia (Victorian Branch)

Tel 03 95097429 mobile: 0409742927

[email protected]

Ed. Consider joining SPA Victoria and helping President Quirk in the massive and urgent task of overturning Victoria's politically engineered and undemocratic population growth.

Ed. This article is adapted (with insertion of headings) from the introduction at www.savethepines.net This reserve is located at the top of the Mornington Peninsula, which extends south of Melbourne like a boot. Until Jeff Kennet became Premier of Victoria, this area was zoned rural. With his arrival it was rezoned into 'Greater Melbourne' and thus became targeted for continuous urbanisation. There is a video of the freeway route & landscape at the bottom of this article.

Brumby to bulldoze tollway through Pines

Premier Brumby has announced his intention to bulldoze the Peninsula Link Freeway through the centre of Frankston’s 220 hectare Pines Flora and Fauna Reserve. He pre-empted the “Independent” Panel report reviewing the South and Eastern Integrated Transport Authority’s Environment Effect Statement thus wasting $5m of taxpayers money and thousands of hours of submitters time.

This land was recommended by Victorian bureaucrats in 1993 for reservation as a National Park. They also recommended that Vicroads remove the road reservation.

Vital for wildlife corridor to save Peninsula species

This is the closest place to Melbourne where the endangered Southern Brown Bandicoot and other endangered species survive in the wild. It’s also the closest place in Melbourne’s South and South East where Swamp Wallabies, Echidnas, Koalas and other iconic Australian species roam freely.

The Department of Environment and Sustainability said “The potential impact of the proposed bypass may cause the local extinction of this species.” This advice was repeated to the EES Panel by many experts including the Government’s ecological consultant.

In 1995, the Minister for Conservation (Mark Birrel) advised Parliament that “This is the most botanically significant reserve in south-eastern Melbourne.”

214 Regionally significant flora

Parks Victoria advise that two hundred and eighteen flora species recorded in the Reserve are considered to be regionally significant within the Gippsland Plain Bioregion. Land abutting the Reserve’s edge was the last place the Frankston Spider Orchid was found in the Peninsula’s north. It numbers now fewer than 40 plants in the wild.

Alternatives not being considered

There are alternatives. If fly-over’s could be built over Burke, Toorak and Tooronga Roads, then so to can Cranbourne road be overpassed and the delays alleviated.

Mark Birrel’s statement followed 20 years of public controversy regarding successive proposals to subdivide and quarry this land. The issue first came to media prominence in 1975 when a group of residents hoisted the Eureka flag and claimed the land for Frankston residents.

The time has come to reclaim this land.

The time has come to reclaim this land.

But there is more.

Most precious reserves sacrificed to unnecessary urban expansion

The 20 odd kilometer swath cut into the landscape from Carrum Downs will destroy an extraordinarily rare patch of herb rich grassy wetland. DSE says it can’t be replaced. The road will plough through 60% of the Belvedere Reserve in Seaford, the Pobblebonk/Willow Reserve and the Wittenberg Reserves in Langwarrin, destroy a pristine remnant at the heritage listed Westerfield property and bisect precious farmland the length of the Moorooduc Plain.

Help us save this priceless landscape and species that are our Australian heritage.

The www.savethepines.net asks readers to "Please contact your local member and Federal Minister Garrett to voice your opposition."

All around Australia, indeed all around the world, towns are fighting against having huge costly marinas foisted on their communities and much loved beaches. It is about time that someone founded an international anti-marina association to coordinate democratic movements against unsustainable business proposals for locally unwanted marinas .

Below we reproduce correspondence between the Frankston Beach Association Inc to the Hon. Justice Madden MLC, who is Victoria’s current Minister for Planning. It was the latest in Frankston community’s attempt to make itself heard in a more than 30 year battle to prevent a marina from being forced upon the community. The letter was a response to nine dot-points made by the Minister in an attempt to justify the [many times reproposed] marina in question. Ed.

"Frankston Beach Association Inc.
Preserving the beach for all to use"

www.vicnet.net.au/~fbainc
Registration Number - A0031686R ABN - 68 874 762 644 Secretary: Graeme Lyell, 2A Fenton Crescent, South Frankston, 3199 Tel: (03) 9783 7445

1st March, 2009
Hon. Justin Madden, MLC
Minister for Planning,
8, Nicholson Street,
East Melbourne, Vic 3002.
Dear Minister,

Proposed C50 Frankston Planning Scheme Amendment relating to a marina at Olivers Hill

The Committee of the Frankston Beach Association (FBA) wish to thank you for your correspondence of the 30 January 2009, responding to our letter of 19 December 2008 and our submission of 17 December 2008 commenting, (at the invitation of the Frankston Council) on the proposed Frankston C50 Planning Scheme Amendment.

Detail of your correspondence was conveyed to us by Mr. Alistair Harkness, MP. A copy of this January 30 correspondence is attached for your reference.[1]

The Frankston Beach Association is puzzled and disappointed with the statements made in the nine points in your correspondence, responding to our 17 December 2008 Submission relating to the proposed C50 Amendment.

None of the 'nine points' in your correspondence, directly address the financial, environmental and social concerns and issues that we have clearly detailed in our Submission of 17 December 2008.

Rather, these 'nine points' appear to be a clumsy attempt by the three Authorities referred to in your correspondence, ie., Frankston Council, the DSE and Tourism Victoria, to justify their support for a grossly enlarged Marina at Olivers Hill, by falsely suggesting that their support is consistent with the previous EES and Advisory Panels' and Ministers' 'Recommendations'.

Is the Minister aware that the 'nine points' in several instances are inaccurate and misleading and appear designed to obfuscate important facts?

We briefly comment below, on each of these 'nine points'.

Point 1.

Justin Madden MLC wrote: “The concept of a safe boat harbour at Olivers Hill, Frankston has been actively supported by Council, the Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE), Tourism Victoria and the boating industry.”

Since the formation of the FBA in 1982, no member of the Public has advised that they are in favour of providing a marina at Olivers Hill, at the cost of destroying the Frankston Beach and Daveys Bay.

Why are Frankston Council, the DSE and Tourism Victoria controversially wanting to develop a grossly enlarged marina, significantly larger than the one currently approved and larger than the Frankston CBD, with a diameter twice the length of Frankston Pier, that:

i. On the advice of seven eminent scientists and coastal engineers will likely destroy Frankston Beach and cause Daveys Bay to silt up? and

ii. Is more than twice the size required to accommodate the boating and retail, commercial and industrial activities prescribed by the proposed C50 Amendment?

The activities proposed in the C50 Amendment can adequately be accommodated in the 15.8 hectare marina area currently approved.

Why are these Authorities pursuing a development for which no credible cost analysis or financial viability studies have been made public, no environmental studies have been undertaken and which directly conflicts with and contravenes the financial, environmental and social parameters and standards established by the past Planning Processes?

Point 2.

Justin Madden MLC wrote: "Olivers Hill has undergone a comprehensive planning assessment including an Environmental Effects Statement, Planning Scheme Amendments and Ministerial Assessments."

This point states that Olivers Hill has undergone a comprehensive planning assessment and refers to the 1999 EES and the 2003 Planning and Advisory Committee Panel Reports, and the two Ministers' Assessments in 2000 and 2003.

This statement falsely suggests that the recommendations and standards prescribed in these Reports and Assessments are continuing to be adhered to.

In reality, Frankston Council, DSE and Tourism Victoria are paying little more than tokenism to these recommendations and through the proposed C50 amendment they are arbitrarily rejecting and disregarding many of the financial, environmental and social standards and recommendations prescribed in the Panel Reports and Ministers' Assessments.

Does the Minister accept that such conduct by these authorities is deceptive and misleading and makes a mockery of the State Planning Process?

Point 3.

Justin Madden MLC wrote: "The Frankston Planning Scheme was amended in 2003 to facilitate the provision of a safe boat harbour at Olivers Hill."

The Frankston Planning Scheme was amended in 2003 to facilitate the provision of a 15.8 ha marina including a reclamation area of 5.8 ha.

The development and operation of this marina was subject to compliance with the Recommendations of the 1999 EES Panel Report and 2000 Minister's Assessment and the 2003 Panel Report and Minister's Assessment.

Point 4.

Justin Madden MLC wrote: "The Environmental Effects Statement (EES) assessed the impacts of rezoning 35 hectares of land and sea to a Special Use Zone for use as a safe boat harbour. The revised model proposed by Council encompasses 22 hectares and is still within the parameters initially tested by the EES."

This statement is totally incorrect and misleading.

The 1999 Environmental Effects Statement (EES) did not assess the impacts of rezoning 35 hectare of land and sea to a Special Use Zone.

The EES assessed two areas for a marina development ie., one of 6.6 hectare (option 2) and one of 15.4 hectare (option 3). The EES did not assess any specific area for rezoning to either a Public Park and Recreation Zone (PPRZ) or a Special Use Zone (SUZ).

The 2003 C15 Panel of Inquiry and Advisory Panel assessed the impacts of a 15.8 hectare marina within a 35 hectare PPRZ. The Panel recommended that a SUZ would be more appropriate than the proposed PPRZ .

Within the 35 hectare SUZ, the Panel and Minister approved a marina of 15.8 hectare including 5.8 hectare of reclaimed land, the development of which was subject to specified detailed recommendations, parameters and standards being complied with.
The proposed C50 Amendment increases the size of the marina from 15.8 hectare to 22 hectare. We ask the Minister, why increase the size of the marina? (seepoints 5 and 7)

Point 5.

Justin Madden MLC wrote: "In 2006, Frankston City Council completed a cost analysis for a preferred development model. The revised model identified more land to be reclaimed, a larger breakwater to increase the number of berths, the introduction of dry boat storage, an increase in parking provision, short term accommodation and increases to floor area for boat repairs and for retail purposes."

No credible cost analysis has been made public for the larger 22 hectare marina.

Contrary to the current Planning Scheme, no size limit has been specified in the proposed C50 amendment, on the amount of land that can be reclaimed.

As less than half the 22 hectare marina is required to accommodate both the prescribed 330 marina berths and the permitted commercial, retail and industrial activities including the stacked dry boat storage and 60 berth hotel, what additional activities are intended for the remaining unused area? (See points 4 and 7).

Point 6.

Justin Madden MLC wrote: "Council’s revised model contains dry boat storage and an increased commercial area. The current planning controls in the Frankston Planning scheme do not facilitate these elements. Therefore an amendment to the Frankston Planning Scheme would be required to accommodate these changes."

Council's revised model, described by the proposed C50 Amendment, contradicts and conflicts with the environmental, financial and social recommendations and standards determined by the 1999 EES and the 2003 Planning and Advisory Committee Panel Reports, and the two Ministers' Assessments in 2000 and 2003.

Point 7.

Justin Madden MLC wrote: "In May 2007, Council adopted a preferred development model for a safe boat harbour. I referred this model to the Priority Development Panel (PDP) for advice and evaluation."

The proposed C50 model recommended by the Priority Development Panel, differs from the 'Preferred Development Model' adopted by Council in 2007, following advice from their financial advisors, by removing the upper limit to the reclamation area.

With very high breakwater construction costs, no developer will build a larger marina than one required for the permitted activities, unless expecting the permitted activities to be further expanded.

What additional activities do Council, DSE and Tourism Victoria intend for the extra land inside the larger breakwaters? Will additional activities be offered and permitted as inducement to a developer? Will these activities include residential housing and more commercial, retail and industrial development? Will they also include an entertainment complex?

Has the Minister been advised of and considered these implications?

Point 8.

Justin Madden MLC wrote: "The PDP worked closely with key stakeholders, Frankston City Council, the Frankston Design Panel and representatives of the State Government including the DSE and Parks Victoria. Advice was sought on a number of issues including the environmental sustainability of the proposal. The Frankston Beach Association was also invited to make a submission during the process."

The Key Stakeholders were nominated by Council. In total they numbered approximately 13 organizations and 8 individuals.
Does the Minister consider this miniscule amount of community consultation adequate and appropriate in a community of approximately 150,000 persons, where many residents and visitors use the beach throughout the year, when the proposed marina is putting Frankston beach at risk?

The statement is made in this point that, 'Advice was sought on a number of issues including the environmental sustainability of the proposal'. This statement is meaningless. Who was invited to give this advice, when was the advice sought and on what part of the proposed marina development did the advice relate to?

Was advice sought on the effect of the marina on the Frankston Beach and Daveys Bay? No environmental studies to determine the effects of the marina on these assets have been undertaken.

Insufficient data is available on which to undertake these studies and data over a period of more than one year is required.
Are such flippant statements relating to environmental standards acceptable to the Planning Minister?

Point 9

Justin Madden MLC wrote: "Frankston City Council will seek tenders from private industry to fund the construction of a safe boat harbour. State Government funding for public infrastructure through the DSE and Vic Roads Asset Management Program for slope stabilization at Olivers Hill and funding for boat ramps through the Boating Facilities Grants through Marine Safety Victoria may be made available."

The funding advice made in this point is contradictory to the funding information approved by Council and proposed to be placed in the Tender Documents.

Council's information in the proposed tender documents commits the Government to all public infrastructure funding, including Public Boat Ramps, and car parking and trailer parking and five boat launching ramps together with stabilization of Olivers Hill.

Is the Minister satisfied that Frankston Council has the authority to make this financial commitment on behalf of the Government, when development costs have not been determined?

Is the Minister aware that contrary to the current Planning Scheme requirements the proposed C50 Amendment fails to require the proponent to be financially responsible for beach restoration, sand bypassing and maintenance dredging costs?

Is the Minister aware that construction costs may be more than $150 million and more than half these construction costs, plus future costs associated with beach restoration, sand bypassing and maintenance dredging will be to the account of the Government, unless the C50 Amendment and Tender documents are changed from those proposed in the C50 Amendment?

Are Frankston Council, the DSE and Tourism Victoria being open with the Government and the Public with respect to the issues raised above?

Summary.

Frankston Beach Association continues to harbour grave concerns as to the financial, environmental and social probity of this proposed development. Our main concerns relate to safeguarding Frankston Beach and Daveys Bay for the present and future use of residents and visitors to Frankston City.

A small number of self-interested parties continue to perversely push ahead with a so-called iconic development that will put Frankston on the map. This proposed development is flawed, and if it fails, the Frankston community will pay the price.
We are currently witnessing the financial failure of iconic developments world wide. The community of Frankston can ill afford a financial, environmental and social disaster on their doorstep at this time.

We respectfully request that our concerns carefully detailed in our 'Comments and Review of the proposed Frankston C50 Planning Scheme Amendment' dated 17 December 2008, be individually and properly considered and be factually responded to.

Yours sincerely,
Graeme Lyell
Secretary Frankston Beach Association Inc.

[1] Ed. Attached was this document from Justin Madden, from which I have transcribed the nine dot points corresponding to the responses of the Frankston Beach Association.

A Stonington Council resident and Yarra Valley Water 'customer' (can you be a 'customer' if you have no choice in the matter? What about a 'serf'?) writes to us:

"Dear Candobetter,

I have just opened a Yarra Valley Water brochure which came with the last account. The account tells me I use over 500 litres water per day with no-one else in the house,where the dishwasher is not used, the car is not washed the lawn is not watered, the washing is done rarely (and when it is rinsing water is carried in buckets to the parched garden), the toilet is flushed as little as possible,and there are no leaks. Yarra Valley insist their meters never run fast so that usage figure is correct and I am asked to reduce this usage to 155 litres per day.

How can I do this without seriously compromising health and hygiene?!!

As far as I know Yarra Valley Water is a private company that bills me for water. It is one of many . It is not a council. Water used to be supplied by the Melbourne Metropolitan Board of Works- but I think there have been a few incarnations scince then and to do it justice I would need to do some research. Not sure what the reponsibility is of Yara Valley Water."

Firstly, we see that the Victorian Government has succeeded in completely confusing this constituent. Yarra Valley Water is actually owned by the Victorian Government, but it has been corporatised with the effect of distancing responsibility and removing the Government from direct accountability to the electorate. It is as if Melbourne Water is still in the same location but has changed the name of the street so that it can no longer be found.

Our correspondent goes on to describe the literature she has received promoting this affront to democracy, hygiene and tax-payer affordability. Due to the government's corporatisation of water-distribution in conjunction with forcing a massive increase in consumers (via population growth without the consent of the community) prices are going up - well most first graders could do that sum.

Page 1 of the brochure, "Preparing for our future", has a picture of a little blond girl, laptop on lap, eucalypts in the background.

Page 2 of the Brochure has this large heading:

"Helping Melbourne to grow"

and continues in bold- "average bill to increase by about $35 per quarter"

Underneath the paragraph reads:

"While the price increase is absolutely necessary, we understand that it will have an impact on some of our customers. [Note the dishonest gloss: it must have an 'impact' on all of their customers, and more and more as the financial depression bites.] We will provide information to help you prepare your household for higher bills and we are committed to ensuring that the average water bill will no more than double over the 5 year period between July 2008 and July 2013,consistent with previous commitments by the state government....."

And, on the last page:

Heading

"Why do prices need to rise?

continues:

"The increased prices will pay for essential projects to increase Melbourne's water supplies, service new growth and protect the environment..."

A little further down:

Preparing for the future

"The price increase will also help us to build extensive new water and sewerage infrastructure to service Melbourne's rapid growth, (our correspondent's emphasis) including provision of major water recycling projects while maintaining and renewing the existing infrastructure.

The big question:

Why didn't Yarra Valley Water (a corporation owned by Victoria) inform these residents that the State Government was pushing population growth upon them and that these exponential price rises would be the consequences if growth were not stopped? And that the only alternative would be to decrease water-use to below normally acceptable or possible levels in an every more densely populated urban environment?

I am sure that Yarra Valley Water would have answers and excuses for not discussing these questions in depth, but only ones which would reinforce Victorians' loss of self-government and control over vital resources.

State Government has moral and civic duty to indemnify constituents

The State Government has failed their duty to adequately inform, consult and represent Melbourne people about its responsibility for Victoria's aggressive demographic growth policy and the consequences of this to cost of living for the electorate. The Government thus a moral and civic duty to indemnify constituents against higher charges. There is no way that Yarra Water can guarantee that prices will not double again... and again... and again... after the five year period it guarantees them for. And, doubling the price of water, even once, is totally unacceptable. In fact, part of Yarra Valley Water's brief is that it

"(f) Must manage its business operations to maintain the long-term financial viability for the Licensee".

How can it do this without constantly raising prices as Melbourne's population constantly rises?

Why did the Victorian Government corporatise Melbourne Water into commercial parcels like Yarra Valley Water? One theory is that the Government intends to sell these corporate bodies off to public shareholders, as happened with Telstra. It is nigh impossible to exert real control over corporations, as we learned in a high court decision on the Wheat Board, See "Justice Michael Kirby on Why Privatisation is wrong"so the prospect of marketing water to a captive population which has no choice but to purchase it will be very attractive to the psychopaths who are buying up and privatising water all over the world.

Maud Barlowe, who leads a global grass-roots network against erosion of basic rights by governments colluding in the commercialisation and inflation of water prices through induced scarcity (via forced population growth, for instance), warns that:

...the global corporate cartel that I worried about when I wrote my first book, Blue Gold has come to pass, and water is being more and more corporately controlled. Now we all know about the delivery of water by these big utilities, Suez, Vivendi, or Veolia, and that continues apace and of course bottled water which is an enormous industry.

But the one that kind of was newer to me was the creation of a massive new water reuse technology which is being heavily heavily funded by governments, particularly by US and European governments, which I think is going to be a disincentive to enact water protection laws or to enforce water protection laws because we’re building a massive international industry to clean water up and there is going to be trade and environmental services so-called, through the WTO and GATS (General Agreement on Trade and Services) around water technology cleanup. And I envisage a world in 20 years when we’ve dried out so much of the planet and all of the oceans are ringed by massive desalination plants, run by nuclear power. That’s not in my head. That’s coming. That’s for sure. Those plans are there. Which is terribly polluting, a horrible, polluting, energy intensive industry. And that people—rich people—will buy bottled water from the few remote, clean places left on earth or take it from the corporations from clouds—literally that technology is being developed—while millions and millions more die. This is just the future that I can see unless we start to change course so that the ecological crisis, the human rights crisis, and the corporate control are just absolutely so clear to me."

Source: Video: Maude Barlow: Water Stress

by Mark Simpson

Surrender Democracy now

Surrender Australia to overpopulation now, argues "demographer" and investment spotter Bernard Salt, rather than have China lean on us later to take in its millions! (Australian, April 30th, "No room to be smug as population peaks").

What a wonderful combination of long-term cowardice and short-term business convenience!
What a failure of democracy to have a business-man given the spurious authority of the press to manufacture such appalling opinion, which will be read all around the world.

Mr Salt and Mr Murdoch might just as well send personal invitations to the Chinese, telling them to come here. Of course the Chinese would not last very long, and neither would we. We are already running out of water and soil, as Bernard Salt well knows.

The hell with Anzac, eh?

No wonder young Australians flock to the War Memorial on Anzac day, to commemorate their WWII grandparents who thought Australia was worth defending against the Japanese superpower, even when the odds seemed overwhelming.

And Salt's argument is demographic nonsense. Pushing Australia's population to 34 million, as he advocates, would take us way beyond the 23 million that the Australian Academy of Science told the Keating government should be our limit. The extra 11 million people, even if every one was a Chinese immigrant, would make negligible difference to China's vast population and is unlikely ever to be a major policy objective of the China's government.

Article written by Mark Simpson

See also: "Bernard Salt, Murdoch media insult the memory of Second World War Australians" of 2 Apr 10, "Invasion victory ensured by complacency" in The Australian of 1 Apr 10, "No room to be smug as population peaks" in The Australian of 30 Apr 09, "Working man's vegetable plot under threat again" of 22 Apr 08.

(Photograph, "Rêve Générale" by Francis Ronsin, taken during the demonstration of 29 January in Paris.)

France is currently going through an acute social and political crisis. And an economic crisis too, it is said, like everywhere else. For me, however, this is only the consequence of the first two kinds of crisis.

Towards a Modern France

Until the end of the 20th century the French still enjoyed public services of a standard equaled almost nowhere else in the world. Education: free government school from the age of 3 years right up to baccalaureat [university entrance examinations]; free and compulsory from 6 to 16 years of age. Almost free university courses. A health system which guaranteed access to care: public heath insurance, hospitals and pharmacies for even the poorest people. The trains ran fast (TGV) and arrived in one piece on time. Mail was delivered in 24 hours no matter where it came from or where it went. The postman came by my place up to three times a day (in Paris). Many unemployed people suffered – especially the youngest ones – as did people with salaries that were too low even then – but they were still protected from absolute poverty.

Revolting inequalities and injustices persisted and many of us protested. At the same time, however, it seemed natural to benefit from basic social welfare. Yes, it was beginning to erode, but it was not fundamentally in question.

France had always been careful to preserve independence with regard to the United States. For this reason the impact of the US world capitalism project and ultraliberal ideology wave was delayed here. The progress of ultraliberal ideas accelerated with the collapse of the Soviet Union and with the decline of the French Communist Party which followed. Up until 1980 the Communist party had received more than 20% of votes; in the last elections it only received 3%. Rid of this ally/competitor, the other big political party of the Left – the Socialist Party – followed the example of European Social Democrats and labour parties by coming to believe that freedom and prosperity of private enterprise were the basis of general well-being and that the only real form of democracy was the one defended – which meant imposed – by the Western block under the natural direction of the United States.

Their mainstream media being either government controlled, or having fallen largely into the hands of the big finance groups, the French were subjected to intensive propaganda. This propaganda caricatured the country as divided between creators of wealth: financiers, industrialists, heads of enterprise, dynamic executives … and “dependents”, “protected”, “parasites”, who took advantage of the system and created an unbearable load on the nation’s useful people. To enable French enterprise to become competitive at the highest world level a vast construction-site of radical reforms was indispensable.

Public services dismantled

The people responsible for France’s anaemia having been clearly identified : public servants, lazy people, too numerous and too well paid, unemployed people, more interested in accumulating benefits and payments than in looking for work, people with real and imaginary illnesses, carelessly overspending on treatment reimbursed by the state, old people, of which the proportion relative to the total population constantly increases because of demography, whose pensions are too heavy a burden now and will be an impossible one in the future, and illegal immigrants … Their evil deeds had to be stopped!

Since the President of the Republic, Jaques Chirac, was deemed not capable of urgently taking the necessary drastic measures, the Right found a replacement for him, who would hit quickly and hard. In 2007 Nicolas Sarkosy was elected, having promised to bring the ruinous social policies to an end. Effectively, he announced and immediately put to work, two series of ‘reforms’ the Right wanted, but which his predecessors had never dared to apply with such vigor.

A ‘package’ of fiscal measures allowed companies and the richest people to significantly reduce their taxes. In the same spirit, a number of high salaries – including his own – were strongly increased.

Simultaneously, other ‘reforms’ aimed to reduce the budget deficit and growth in public debt by going into battle against the perpetrators of the above-mentioned ‘abuses’.

Since laws protected public servants from being sacked, only one new public servant would be employed for every two that retired. Hospitals were already too under-staffed to function properly. A number will close to accommodate the programmed reduction in public servant numbers. Medical expenses are less and less well-reimbursed by [public] medical insurance. The number of years of saving required to qualify for full retirement benefits regularly goes up, just when enterprises want to get rid of workers more than fifty years old. The future for tomorrow’s retirees is very dark. The whole school system, from kindergarten to university, is being reorganized to adapt to a reduction in the number of teachers. A series of other decisions go in the same direction, in the direction of Margaret Thatcher or George Bush-type politics.

Is this leading to a major confrontation ?

The Right and most of the mainstream media applauded the president’s acts as he undertook a class war without hesitation or scrupule, indispensable for turning France into a modern nation. The political opposition, paralysed by internal quarrels of a Socialist Party widely affected by liberalist ideas itself, was incapable of proposing a radically different direction. Meanwhile, the most affected sectors protested, to the point of going on strike and demonstrating (public servants, high school students…) but always in an isolated manner. This changed after the global financial crisis and – perhaps – with the election of Obama.

Reacting to the global crisis, the government, which had claimed to be constrained to considerably reduce the social advantages and public services the French benefited from, immediately found billions of Euros to give or to lend to banks and to industrial enterprises, especially in the automobile sector. These same sectors stated themselves obliged to make many of their workers partly or fully redundant, all the while continuing to make considerable profits and to pay large sums out to their shareholders and directors. Anger and anxiety about the future spread widely, permitting the unions – united for once – to initiate a vast protest movement, culminating, the first time, on 29 January with a general strike and big demonstrations in all big cities (2.5 million demonstrators, including 300,000 in Paris.)

Forced to react, Nicolas Sarkosy appeared on three television stations to say that he understood how anxious the French were and would take this into account. He refused, however, to change his politics, despite the need to do so today, to combat the crisis, and tomorrow, to help re-launch the economy. His politics are those that the United States (his model) massively condemned at the last elections.

New demonstrations on the 19th of March were attended by even greater numbers.

Since then numerous universities have gone on strike. Guadaloupe and Martinique have also gone on general and indefinite strike.

In the face of a president whose only response to criticism is contemptuous and insulting, some people have begun to dream of a movement like the 1968 clashes. This is what the many demonstrators of 29 January 2009 were expressing with stickers on their jackets bearing words in the spirit of 1968: “Grève Générale” -- General Strike -- translated into “Rêve Générale” --General Dream.

The unions continue to follow due process and negotiate, they have scheduled their next demonstration of strength for the first of May – a symbolic day - but also a holiday. In the mean time, workers, condemned to lose their jobs, are developing more radical battle strategies: notably the detention in their workplaces of upper echelon executives to make them more respectful of workers’ rights. At the same time, some people are even making another historic comparison - with 1789 – the beginning of the great French Revolution, which swept away an equally powerful and contemptuous aristocracy, and established a Republic styled on democracy and equality.

(Translated by Sheila Newman)

Francis Ronsin was Professor, Department of Contemporary History, at the Université de Bourgogne (Dijon). He has published several books and numerous articles that focus on the relationship between political struggles and private life: La Grève des ventres - Propagande néo-malthusienne et baisse de la natalité en France 19ème-20ème siècles (Aubier, Paris, 1980); Le Contrat sentimental - Débats sur le mariage, l'amour, le divorce, de l'Ancien Régime à la Restauration (Aubier, Paris, 1990) ; Les Divorciaires - Affrontements politiques et conceptions du mariage dans la France du XIXème siècle. (Aubier, Paris, 1992); Le Sexe apprivoisé -Jeanne Humbert et la lutte pour le contrôle des naissances (La Découverte, Paris, 1990) ; and La population de la France de 1789 à nos jours. Données démographiques et affrontements idéologiques (Le Seuil, Paris, 1997); La Guerre et l’oseille (Syllepse, Paris, 2003). He is also the principal organizer of the international research seminar Socialism and Sexuality.

Rights of partial or full reproduction of this article are forbidden without permission from Francis Ronsin.

Details of Shepparton inquiry even are below the italicised editorial. The comments preceding the details of the Senate Inquiry in Shepparton are my response to AWPC's Maryland Wilson's questioning of my supporting irrigators. Comments and independent reports of this event will be most welcome. Submit to "contact" at top left margin of this site or reply in the comments function at the bottom of this article.

What is the link between Foodbowl Unlimited, the North South Pipeline and the Senate Inquiry on the 14th?

There is a link between the "Foodbowl unlimited project" and the North South Pipeline because the savings proposed to be made from Goulburn River water are supposed to be made through claimed increased efficiency of the Foodbowl unlimited project. It is sad that supporters of the Plug the Pipe project probably benefited from an earlier democracy-destroying and land and water alienating project, which was the Wimmera-Malley pipeline. Australian farmers should stand together against big agribusiness, but it is so easy for government to divide and conquer over regional interests and water. Irrigators, who settle land more densely than drylands farmers, carry more electoral clout than dryland farmers, and have used this to their advantage and the disadvantage of dryland farmers in the past - not necessarily all of them knowingly. Now big agribusiness is playing the irrigators at their own game, because big agribusiness has the government in its pocket - literally - in this public-private venture called the Foodbowl Unlimited project.

Unfortunately, if we do not support the incumbent irrigators, my fear is that we will lose all control of this section of the Murray Darling to corporate interests.

For those of you who are interested in the politics of big-water and corporatised government, it is instructive to look through electoral system glasses at the way the State and Federal governments during Howard's era, manipulated the irrigators and the public over the then proposed privatisation of the Snowy River Hydro Scheme. At the time the Victorian ALP and the Federal Liberal Party were vying for electoral popularity among irrigators. The Hydro Privatisation scheme was unpopular everywhere because privatisation is unpopular, but it was especially unpopular with irrigators because of the likelihood that their allocations would be up for grabs and become more expensive. Howard, whilst he pushed for the privatisation of the Snowy Hydro, was deeply unpopular with them. The Bracks Victorian government struggled with itself over exploiting the situation for popularity with irrigators and giving in to its ideological committment to selling off Victoria's assets. But they had little to lose if they were on the same side as the Federal government in this instance, because the voters would have no choice at all. So eventually Bracks gave in and joined the Howard Government support for privatising the Snowy Hydro scheme. That was when Howard did one of his most breathtaking political acrobat tricks. Suddenly he dropped the privatisation scheme, leaving the Victorian Government looking like the only snake in the grass. Well they haven't lost their privatisation agenda, even though Mr H has departed the halls of government.

The Senate inquiry into the Water Amendment (Saving the Murray and Goulburn Rivers) Bill 2008

Plug The Pipe Gathering of Supporters

In Shepparton at Country Comfort Motel (opposite Skate Park beside Shepparton dry Lake) on Tuesday April 14th

Plug The Pipe Submission at Starts at 11.15 am

Seating available for 50-75 people (People are advised to be seated early 10:30am onwards)

BBQ Available afterwards in Park opposite ( Gold coin Donation)

Plug The Pipe has been scheduled to appear before the Committee from 11.15 am to 12.00 noon on Thursday 14 April 2009 at the Country Comfort Hotel, 481 Wyndham Street, Shepparton Vic.

Northern Victoria Irrigators Inc will also be appearing before the Senate at 10:30am

Please make the effort to be there and support our Plug the Pipe Irrigators who will be making our presentation.It would be ideal to have a crowd there in attendance by 10.30am