Opinion pieces and letters to the editor
At the outset of this campaign, I said that there were three broad areas that I want to tackle in Council. A new approach to urban planning and design. A more activist approach to local government. Greater transparency and scrutiny.
Local government performs an impressive range of jobs and services, for what is, in the end, not a bad price, the cost of your rates. But things can be better. As citizens and as communities, we are entitled to expect things to be better. We need to tackle what I think is a complacency, a malaise, a ‘business as usual’ approach, that infects government decision-making.
Planning decisions need to do more than deliver developer profitability through suburb-building without neighbourhood shops and footpaths, without public transport, without attractive community spaces, without targets for affordable housing. That sort of planning is a debacle. It is planning for subdivision, not for communities.
I note the editorial outburst in Thursday’s Advertiser regarding Armstrong Creek. It is to be expected that the press will nail their political colours to the mast in any election, and I’ve no doubt Andy Richards is quite capable of defending himself over these issues. Having said that, there are serious policy reasons why this editorialising is at best misconceived on the question of Armstrong Creek. I have previously written of them in this newspaper.
The Armstrong Creek Plan is beset with a fundamental contradiction of trying to accommodate unprecedented urban sprawl with elements of environmentally-sensitive urban design. In an attempt to reduce car-dependence and other ills associated with unreconstructed sprawl, the Plan included concepts such as ‘walkable’ neighbourhoods, ‘greenways’, substantial open space contributions, increased public transport services, and mixed density developments.
THE Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Committee recently inquired and reported into tax changes aimed at promoting investment in carbon sinks.
-->
Carbon sinks may be understood as one side of the climate change equation. If greenhouse gas emissions, such as CO2, are the basic problem, then plants absorbing or sequestering CO2 are key to a solution. It's not all as simple as that, of course. In fact, calculating the capacity of plants to sequester carbon via photosynthesis is an immensely difficult exercise, not least because we are often dealing with complex and highly diverse ecological communities.
Government plans to allow tax deductibility for carbon sink forests split the Senate committee along interesting party lines. ALP senators, not surprisingly, voted for the changes. A dissenting report was produced by the Greens Chris Milne, the Liberals' Bill Heffernan and two National Party senators. Among their concerns was the likelihood carbon sink tax write-offs would have a similar effect to managed investment schemes, producing large-scale conversion and/or buy-up of farming land and shift it to tree cropping.
The carbon sinks legislation, in its current form, would accelerate MIS problems. Its contribution to carbon sequestration would likely be marginal with other perverse outcomes. The concern among dissenting senators is not only in land-use change such as taking land out of food production. Other outcomes are likely to be accelerated destruction of local rural communities, as family farms are sold up, consolidated or converted, people move to regional centres or further afield.
There is no requirement that carbon sink forests actually contribute to biodiversity. This is significant. Recent ANU research shows the net carbon sink benefits of commercial plantations are far lower _ around 40 to 60 per cent lower than for native, bio-diverse forests in southeast Australia. The concept of carbon sink in the legislation is woefully inadequate, essentially equating it to an abstract stand of trees. By comparison, Australia's huge rangelands, if properly managed, would be a major carbon sink, even though they are deserts. There are no estimates on how much carbon will be sequestered by the scheme.
The dissenting senators instead recommended that, among other things, the rules be tightened considerably on carbon sink tax rules so that native vegetation cannot be cleared, carbon sinks must be bio-diverse, prime agricultural land must be excluded from the scheme, and the nature of carbon property rights are clarified.
The carbon sink tax rules are a poorly designed, ill thought out, tax windfall for big plantation companies. The Government would be better advised to withdraw the legislation and do the job properly, sort out what carbon rights are going to look like and how to put vegetation communities into the scheme rather than vague and abstract forests. -- Bruce Lindsay is convenor of the Geelong Greens.
http://www.geelongadvertiser.com.au/article/2008/09/26/19015_news_pf.html
The Geelong Advertiser Pty. Ltd.
PLANNING along the Victorian coast is overseen by the Victorian Coastal Council (VCC). This body has the responsibility for producing a Victorian Coastal Strategy under the Coastal Management Act for long-term planning of the Victorian coast. The current strategy, written in 2002, is being revised.
A draft strategy came out nearly a year ago. I understood the final version was to be released this Friday. But speculation has it that the document landed on the doorstep of the State Treasury and it went into a spin about the implications of climate change and sea level rise predictions in the document.
It appears the strategy is being held up because the State Government has just realised climate change will have an immense impact on the Victorian coast, and these problems are no longer an abstraction. The strategy is a major planning document. Its application to planning decisions will affect billions of dollars worth of land, property and infrastructure. There was clear warning of this.
VCC chair Libby Mears last November stated that sea-level rise would be at the centre of the document. The VCC was planning for a rise of up to 80cm by 2100. Now it appears there is a great scramble for a political response to a systemic crisis, The Hollowmen style.
Once property prices and development applications might be adversely affected, they jump into action. They are less concerned with responding to silly old things like climate science and the precautionary principle that we act to mitigate environmental damage even without absolute certainty.
It is worth noting that coastal impacts are already being felt, especially in the form of erosion. Furthermore, it is increasingly likely that an 80cm sea-rise by 2100 is wishful, if not fanciful, thinking. Sea-level rise will more likely be measured in metres not centimetres, given the feedback consequences of events such as the melting of Arctic ice. This point is made in detail in the Carbon Equity submission to the draft coastal strategy.
A further important point is made by Deakin University's Geoff Westcott in his submission that a prospective planning crisis is emerging on the coast as climate change impacts combine with development pressures. Rates of development approvals in coastal areas have been significantly higher than inland in our region consistent with the seachange phenomenon.
There seems to be little or no political will to deal with it, at state or local government levels, whether by fixed coastal town boundaries, a development moratorium or strategic retreat from the coast. I guess we'll see when the final strategy emerges from Treasury.
http://www.geelongadvertiser.com.au/article/2008/09/11/18182_opinion.html
What a terrific story on multiculturalism on the front page of the Journal Sep 8. An under 15 football team that reflects the nature and benefits of multiculturalism. Top points for making it a page one feature.
I was surprised by the "angle" of the story in the Journal (front page Aug 18): "We'll Walk". The report made it seem like council had made a bad decision in blocking a development application for a hotel with up to 60 poker machines, and the sale of alcohol, in a youth area! The way the story was packaged, made it sound like the council blew it: another lost business opportunity for Dandenong!
Jim Reiher
Greens Candidate for the City of Greater Dandenong Council elections in November: Red Gum Ward
Sir, I write in response to your article 'Mitchell Dam supporters slammed' (Bairnsdale Advertiser 31/10) in the interest of setting your readers and Mr Craig Ingram MP straight.
For many years the Australian Greens have been campaigning for better amd more sustainable environmental flows for river systems across this country. This, of course, includes the once-might Murray River. We oppose the north-south pipeline because of the precious water that would be extracted from an already stressed river system.
Melbourne, like Adelaide, needs to wean itself off the Murray. Each year in the Victorian capitial, 500 gigalitres flows from the stormwater straight out to sea. This could be, and must be, captured, reused and recycled to supply Melbourne - no dam required.
Despite what Mr Ingram claims, I have never supported damming the Mitchell River. As a South Australian senator and an Australian Greens senator, I want to see the health of our river systems made a government priority. Envirnomental flows must be obtained and protected so that enough water remains within the rivers for them to survice.
I look forward to discussing these issues with Mr Ingram, and determining how we can work constructively together in the future. He will find my door and phone line are always accessible.
As always, accurate information on Greens policy and media statements can be found on our website,
yours etc
Sarah Hanson-Young,
Greens Senator for South Australia