The recent announcement by the Victorian State government to ban native forest logging on public land in Eastern Victoria has been strongly welcomed by local environment groups including the Otway Ranges Environment Network(OREN) and Geelong Environment Council(GEC). Although the local communities of Eastern Victorian will need to go through a transition, claims of economic doom and gloom are unfounded. The logging phase out process to be completed by 2030 for Eastern Victoria is very similar to the process used to phase out native forest logging the Otway Ranges that successfully transitioned the local community and economy between 2002 and 2008.

“When the Otways logging ban was announced in 2002, wild claims were made that the Otways region would be economically devastated if native forest logging came to an end, that there would be mass unemployment” said Simon Birrell spokesperson for Otway Ranges Environment Network. “Claims were made that in Colac, where a number of hardwood sawmills were located, the town would die and that the Midway woodchip mill would close down. Instead nature based tourism has significantly expanded in the Otway region and this can easily be the case for Eastern Victoria.”

“For example, the Otway town of Forrest was founded on logging and had a sawmill mill that was phased out. It is now a hub for those who go mountain bike riding through the forests. Shops that were derelict when the local sawmill was operating have now been renovated and opened as a café. There are accommodation businesses. In another example, Otways logs once went to the Birregurra sawmill. Now many people who live in Birri work as part of the tourism service industries along the Great Ocean Road.”

“For the Otways there was six year transition between 2002 and 2008, for east of the State it will be a ten year transition to 2030. Claims the towns such as Orbost will die are rubbish. Orbost can easily be developed has a major gateway hub for nature based tourism to see the wonders of the tall forests and magnificent scenery the region of far East Gippsland has to offer. What needs to happen is investment in making the place more accessible for visitors and a marketing campaign to promote the wonders of the area so more visitors go.”

“It is concerning that Federal Government ministers were so quick to condemn the Eastern Victorian logging phase out. The Federal coalition government should note that the Victorian Liberal Party supported the Otway logging ban in 2005 and voted to support passage of legislation to ban logging and create the Great Otway National Park. Rather than irresponsibly talk up the negative, it is hoped both the State and Federal Liberal and National Parties will work in a bi-partisan way with the State Government to ensure a just and fair transition for the communities impacted by this decisions and jointly explore nature conservation tourism employment opportunities.”

“Finally, both OREN and GEC have recently been lobbying the State and Federal Governments to cancel the Regional Forest Agreement (RFA) that covers the Otways, given logging has already ended. We suspect that the requirement to renew the RFAs, by March next year, has prompted the State Government to announce this latest logging ban decision given there are also four RFAs that cover the East of the State and, if renewed, they would have guaranteed logging to the year 2040. This would have been irresponsible. All the RFAs need to be cancelled as they now all come into conflict with this new State Government policy to phase out native forest logging across Victoria by 2030.”

An article in yesterday's Herald Sun newspaper pointed to a sleight of hand by the North East Link Project in its recent appearance before the North East Link Inquiry and Advisory Committee. (See https://www.heraldsun.com.au/leader/inner-east/golfers-tee-off-at-controversial-proposal-either-reduce-or-alter-freeway-golf-course/news-story/386681c74b5e0151a62c2107f2943f78 - this article is hidden behind a Herald-Sun paywall. - Ed).

Documents tabled as the Committee proceedings were concluding countenanced a substantial reduction in the area of the Freeway Golf Course which is located near the Yarra River in North Balwyn. The president of the two clubs located at the course attacked the Committee process that left them unable to respond to the material.
That the Freeway Golf Course should be reduced in size sits nicely with the Victorian government's plan to substantially increase the lanes capacity of the Eastern Freeway, and to build a quite massive "spaghetti junction" to cater for the proposed North East Link. It is a threat always posed by major roads projects, which are inherently space inefficient relative to public transport. The Victorian government is not proposing any enhancement of public transport capacity in the corridor to be served by its proposed North East Link. If the North East Link were to be built it would, like all freeway projects that have preceded it, provide no more than temporary relief from current traffic congestion, and eat into a lot more green open space than the golf course in North Balwyn. The public transport services that do exist in the corridor can be truthfully described as no better than miserably inadequate.

The attached photograph is of the Eastern Freeway taken from the Yarra Bend Road bridge in Fairfield, about 10 days ago in the morning peak travel time. This is a delightful part of the world of extensive parkland except for the fact that it has a freeway bisecting it. If the Andrews government gets its way it will deteriorate markedly. The median strip, shown on the left of the photograph, was assigned to a rail service to Doncaster. The Andrews government now threatens to take it over for additional traffic lanes to cater for the North East Link. The photograph also shows four lanes of bumper to bumper traffic. A single train service can cater for about the same number of commuters as a freeway lane carries in an hour. You will also see that the left hand lane was unoccupied at this point. This is the T2 lane which is provided for vehicles with two or more occupants. Most vehicles driven in Melbourne have just one occupant, the driver.

In the last few days two quite significant things have happened. Melbourne City Council signed off on its new 10 year transport strategy, which proposes to remove on-street car parking in central Melbourne and to provide additional space for pedestrians, and active transport generally, as well as to facilitate public transport. The Grattan Institute has called for the introduction of a congestion tax for central Melbourne. These two initiatives demonstrate that central Melbourne is now full (of cars) and the situation is quite intolerable in social, environmental and economic terms.

The Andrews government is out of time. It is living in the 1960's, when the car was king. Things are different now, and the fight to defeat the North East Link, and for sustainable transport, is a necessary one for the present and the future.

“This is where we have got to with government-engineered breakneck population growth that also puts property developers and associated professions in charge of planning. 110 golf-courses, which occupy green, treed spaces, in all kinds of areas in Melbourne and its suburbs and another 374 in Victorian regions, now carry hugely increased potential resale value if speculators can get them rezoned for more intensive use. Predictably, golf-course owners and probably management committees are now complaining that they aren’t making enough money. Some of their complaints will be well-founded, because state-imposed population pressure has caused demand for land, water and power, hence their costs, to rise rapidly. If nothing is done, either to reduce population growth, or exempt golf-courses from paying these charges, they will skyrocket.” (Sheila Newman, Population, environment and land-tenure systems sociologist.)

After a 2017 discussion paper that not many of us heard about, the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, has again discreetly invited people to provide feedback to draft guidelines for their Golf Course Redevelopment Standing Advisory Committee, which is composed of property development industry professionals

SUBMISSION IN RESPONSE TO PROPOSAL FOR GOLF-COURSE REDEVELOPMENT

by Sheila Newman, Population, environment and land-tenure systems sociologist.[1]

Redeveloping golf courses and land-speculation:

This is where we have got to with government-engineered breakneck population growth that also puts property developers and associated professions in charge of planning. 110 golf-courses, which occupy green, treed spaces, in all kinds of areas in Melbourne and its suburbs and another 374 in Victorian regions, now carry hugely increased potential resale value if speculators can get them rezoned for more intensive use. Predictably, golf-course owners and probably management committees are now complaining that they aren’t making enough money. Some of their complaints will be well-founded, because state-imposed population pressure has caused demand for land, water and power, hence their costs, to rise rapidly. If nothing is done, either to reduce population growth, or exempt golf-courses from paying these charges, they will skyrocket.

Outrageous:

The proposal is outrageous, of course. It is outrageous in scale, in potential irreversibility, in lack of statistics, and in lack of adequate notification[2] of all Australians that something so huge is in train. If a government can provide wide, ongoing promotion of the dangers of bowel cancer, it could have reached more people on this.
It is also outrageous in the impossibility of most Victorians to find the time to contextualise, assess, and reply to the proposal, even if they knew about it.
It is notably shocking in its potential costs to environmental quality and diversity for all Australians.
It is especially outrageous in its potential strategic profit-grabbing by the property development and construction industry, which has positioned itself with government to generate focused benefits in demand from the massive population-growth engineering it has lobbied for so successfully and undemocratically. In the game of mates, the property developers and the state government (which has become dependent on stamp-duty[3] in lieu of a real economy) are organised to receive the focused benefits, but the public will pay – and not just in dollars - the diffuse costs of this massive expansion and intensification.[4]
This proposal, which flags a copious series of case-by-case fights over rezoning golf-courses for development, is a fine example of the kinds of diffuse and hard to identify costs that the public will bear if this goes ahead. The proposal would require Melbourne’s increasingly socially precarious population, already severely stressed by constant change, to endlessly monitor what is happening to golf courses along with all the other continuous development.
We should have the ability to reject out of hand such proposals all at once, in a job lot.
We should not be expected to devote our lives to fighting to keep what we have, against people who are supposed to be protecting it on our behalf.
Who, except developers, who are networked, resourced and organised at national, state and local level, could find out where all the golf-courses are and then attend, in person or by proxy, all the hearings and reviews, and engage in all the processes, that a Golf Course Redevelopment Standing Advisory Committee would apply to each of them? Who else could afford to do this? Who else controls the process?

Over-commodification:

On the technical side, these ‘planning guidelines’ lack adequate recognition or an overview of the huge natural benefits of relatively undeveloped land. Golf courses have important uses other than golf – as habitat for birds and other fauna, for climate stability, and for the green relief they provide from densely populated spaces. I personally prefer natural landscapes with native plants and animals to golf-courses, and I prefer landscape painting and bird-watching to golfing. Nonetheless, I can see that golf courses are much better for ecology and environment than buildings, roads, and other intensified land-uses. Melbourne, which was planned with large avenues and many green spaces, now lacks green spaces and is choked with traffic. Unfinancial golf-courses, if they cannot be made financial (see further on) should be returned to nature, to provide scarce habitat to our native animals and contact with nature for humans. These golf-courses often got by on the pretext that they would preserve open land and some habitat in the form of golf courses, as a trade-off for more development. “Since 2000 around over 10 new golf courses have been established as the centrepiece of high-end residential developments in Victoria.”[5] No surprise if they want to develop it now.

Golf courses per capita and Victoria’s population juggernaut:

Given that the Victorian Government intends to keep inviting people to come and live and work in Victoria, anticipating doubling and redoubling of the population, if Victoria has more golf-courses per capita than other states, it will need them, for golf or for return to nature.

Birds:

The situation is particularly dire for birds – they really need golf-courses. Australia is a land of birds; we have the most extraordinary range. Doesn’t anyone in planning know of our amazing evolutionary history? It is world famous! The majority of the world’s bird species started here, notably perching birds[6] and song-birds.[7] Humans who are able to hear and see birds deeply enjoy this experience, which seems to become more important as they get older. Bird-watching is an extremely popular activity in Australia. Birds Australia has multiple branches and a busy membership. Does the property development lobby/government really want to be responsible for wiping birds out in more and more places, and removing our age-old relation with them? Although birds are equipped to survive in many circumstances, able to move in search of water and food, massive population growth-fuelled development is transforming the sparse green fringes of this land into a hard-surface desert.
The situation for birds in the South East Region of Australia – Melbourne and Victoria – is increasingly difficult. Birds that require nesting hollows are devastated by the destruction of trees. ‘Common’ much-loved species like kookaburras, magpies and willy wagtails are now struggling, and shorebirds are in steep decline.[8] Golf-course land, because it is not intensively used and retains trees, is a vital resource for birds. There are golf-courses in just about every kind of habitat, including near sea-shores.

Reward golf courses for their environmental services:

With regard to strengthening the viability and continuity of golf clubs, governments should reduce or remove the rates paid for land, water, and power, for golf courses (and any other undeveloped land). The government could pay golf-course owners for mitigating climate change and urban island heat effects through their green spaces. Developers should be levied for this purpose in order to compensate the damage that they do.
Development, with its land-clearing and massive use of materials and energy, as well as creating huge carbon emissions, creates clumps and blocks of aggregate dead material. This is hard for organisms to break down, and incapable of re-ordering and reproducing itself. Living things, however, are the only things that can actually reorder energy and materials, in the acts of ingestion, reproduction and cellular repair.[9] The exception here is ‘modern’ human life, because humans come with more and more dead stuff per capita, in the form of roads, buildings, cars, and other consumables. Hence, we need more golf courses, or to return them to nature, more natural spaces, trees, forests, and healthy water bodies to support the organisms and ecologies that can clean up our synthetic concretions.
In this regard, the current economic model which taxes land in order to induce profit-making activity on it, is now a liability. It needs to change in order to promote natural land. State Governments have to get over their addiction to stamp duty. Otherwise, all this land will disappear under tar and cement.
Redevelopment is a bad thing for golf-courses. We have too much development now, and too much human population growth. Any golf-courses that are going to be abandoned as such, should be returned to nature.

No Re-zoning and prices capped:

Government may need to buy this land from owners of golf-courses who do not want it, and this is a major reason why this land should be excepted from rezoning possibilities. Overpopulation has already drastically overpriced land in Melbourne, even if it is not zoned for development. This makes it difficult and often impossible for local governments to purchase it in order to preserve natural space for Australians. This is why golf-course land and other relatively natural land must not be alienated from its low-use zoning. It must be taken out of the insane speculation cycle, for the thermodynamic reasons stated above as well as the social ones. Speculative gains are not a citizen’s by right.

Sports grounds and Playgrounds:

The ‘guidelines’ have also skewed the idea of open space with social, ecological, and environmental benefits to something always involving some infrastructure, such as ‘playgrounds’ and ‘sports grounds’. It is a form of regimentation as well as an unnecessary kind of capitalisation. As I have intimated, people can enjoy natural surroundings just by walking, and these places can provide habitat for our native animals. They already provide bio-links or wildlife corridors. Any further ‘development’ would reduce the size and viability of these bio-links, which should be increased and consolidated.

Hospitals, affordable Housing etc:

If we have to put hospitals on golf course land then we should realise that we have gone too far in our population and development paradigm. Unaffordable housing and homelessness have increased as Australia’s population has grown, especially from 2009 with massively increased its overseas immigration. Once again, unaffordable housing is a sign that we should interrupt our population and development juggernaut.

The Composition of the Planning Committee lacks diversity and disinterest.

There are no ordinary people on it who do not have deep involvement in the commercial property development industry. One of them was the secretary of population growth-lobbying APop from about 1999 to 2015.[10] For this reason the Committee should not have the power to say whether or not a golf-course may be considered for development. A cross-section of ordinary people should be able to decide this on a case by case basis. Only after this, in the unlikely event that such a democratic cross-section felt that any golf-course could be let go for development, it might be passed on to the Committee for more technical assessment.

Capitalisation:

The documents for this golf course redevelopment proposal have rationalised the closure of golf-courses largely in monetary terms, especially noting that some were not making a profit. The proposal seems to have attempted no education of the public on the main reason why, which is that state- engineered population growth had raised the costs of land and water involved in running golf-courses, thus narrowing their profit margin, and making it tempting for them to cash their land in. It is also suggested that people are not playing golf as much as they used to. We are not told why this is, although the 2017 discussion paper suggested that ten new golf courses that established themselves as centrepieces of high-end residential developments in Melbourne, had added to an oversupply. The development industry runs VCAT planning; it authorised those developments. It should return that land to nature. Many other possible reasons present themselves – changing demographics, difficulty in travelling due to congestion, increased fees, subtle discouragement of golfing by owners wanting to speculate, overwork among the financial, and poverty among the unemployed. The point is, we should not allow the developers or the government to goad us into a situation where land-availability becomes so desperate that it must be constantly used and attract a high financial return.

Low standards in the development industry:

As for redevelopment and the construction industry: The cladding crisis has highlighted the long-known fact that our construction and development industry is largely incompetent, unaccountable, and uninsurable.[11] With respect, it seems quite remarkable that the same industry thinks it should get golf course land or do any more building at all, let alone continue to be in charge of major decisions in Victorian planning.
This golf course redevelopment proposal is very important. It flags a major danger-point that we have reached, preparing to sacrifice something Australians have counted on – natural land. It shows what happens when a government engineers break-neck population growth and then puts property developers in charge of planning.  All natural spaces are threatened.  The fewer green spaces there are, the more their potential price for resale as developments increase. If you have planning outsourced to developers, as we do in Victoria (and all States) you will finish up with no green spaces, no birds, no native animals, and hugely priced high-rises. 

Democracy and the pace of change:

The massive population-growth engineering that our governments/growth lobby are carrying out, with their push for infrastructure and housing, is breaking our democracy. The pace of change is undemocratic because it is impossible for people to effectively engage, let alone democratically participate, and this juggernaut has been set up by an industry that invests all its time in it for massive profit. There is no way that people with normal responsibilities can keep up with what is happening, even when they desperately want to. Elected members of parliament cannot keep up with this either. In Sleepers Wake, Barry Jones MP warned of the danger that we were heading to a time when government would outsource things it could not understand to a technocracy and that is part of what is happening here.
I personally had no desire to make a submission, but I feel I must, if only so people can read my reasons. Just reading the material provided by DELWP was enough to give me nightmares, because I know that DELWP has the bit between its teeth. The property development, infrastructure, and population growth lobby inside and outside of government is waging war on the rest of us in their quest for personal profit and power. The only difference is that they are using bulldozers instead of tanks.

NOTES

[1] I am a population, environment and land-tenure systems sociologist. I completed a 143,000 word research thesis called The Growth Lobby and its Absence in 2002 on the difference between the Australian and French systems for housing, land production and policies on environment and population. Since then I have edited two editions of The Final Energy Crisis, Pluto Press, 2005 and 2008, a book of articles by different scientists on the subject of the future of energy resources. I have also written two volumes of a planned four volume series entitled Demography, Territory, Law. The titles published so far are Demography, Territory, Law: The Rules of Animal and Human Populations, Countershock Press, 2013, and Demography, Territory, Law2: Land-tenure and the origins of Capitalism in Britain, Countershock Press, 2015.

[2] “Notification was given via letter or email to all golf facilities, local governments, industry bodies such as Golf Victoria as well as all people and organisations who made a submission to the Planning for Golf in Victoria Discussion Paper released in 2017. For more information (and access to the 2017 discussion paper itself) on the Planning for Golf in Victoria process please click here. This process was also publicised on the Engage Victoria website.” Source: Personal correspondence with Michael C. Everett of DELWP. My criticism is that this notification went to local governments and industry bodies and boards in golf, who would not necessarily have passed it on, and who would probably not have looked at or communicated the wider impact of the loss of such spaces to all of Melbourne. Notification did not go to the wider population that will be impacted, or to wildlife networks, such as Birds Australia.

[3] Stamp duty income for the Victorian Government was $1.284b in 2001/2 and only 17 years later it was $6.933b in 2017/18. Source: https://www.sro.vic.gov.au/land-transfer-duty-stamp-duty-statistics

[4] James Q Wilson in Wilson, J.Q., ed., The Politics of Regulation, Harper, New York, 1980,) classified four types of politics depending on whether the benefits and costs of policies were concentrated or diffuse, and he applied this model to immigration politics. In this way, mass immigration has become entrenched in systems where its benefits are narrowly focused but the costs that it imposes are diffuse (and therefore not easily identified by the public that is paying for them). Narrowly focused benefits mean that those benefiting from immigration are consciously aware of this and are able to recognise each other and organise to keep those benefits flowing. Where costs are diffuse and fall upon a disparate population at many different points in many different ways, they are difficult to identify and there are no obvious political rallying points for the public to organise a protest around. I used this methodology in my research thesis, Sheila Newman, The Growth lobby in Australia and its Absence in France, 2002. https://researchbank.swinburne.edu.au/file/a3115a39-c50a-4504-8d1f-4aca21be26fd/1/Sheila%20Newman%20Thesis.pdf

[5] “Planning for Golf in Victoria Discussion Paper (2017). https://engage.vic.gov.au/download_file/3592/907

[6] State of Australia’s Birds, 2015, Birdlife Australia, 2015; Threatened species recovery hub, National Environmental Science Program, https//www.nespthreatenedspecies.edu.au/news/gimme-shelter-conserving-hollow-nesting-birds

[7] Tim Low, Where Song Began: Australia's Birds and How They Changed the World, Penguin, 2017.

[8] State of Australia’s Birds, 2015, p. 11.

[9] Excerpt from “In the end: Thermodynamics and the necessity of protecting the natural world, Chapter 23 in Sheila Newman (Eds), The Final Energy Crisis, 2nd Edition, Pluto Press, 2008. See most of the article below:

“Humans already use most of the land on the planet. In many places in the world the competition is between the land-poor and the land-rich. This is a political problem which needs to be solved without further trashing the natural environment. Some systems are more equitable than others and, as discussed in other articles in this volume, the Anglo-Celtic system used in most English speaking countries is worse than most. We humans have to share the land we already have more equally with each-other. If we insist on growing our population then the competition for land will be increasingly severe. We have already taken enough from other creatures and need to give some (a lot) back. Land for wildlife is not a luxury. The perception that it doesn't 'do' anything needs scientific countering with a thermodynamic explanation. That explanation is that Life is the only force that can reorder spent energy.

The First Law of Thermodynamics states that energy cannot be created but is never lost. However the Second Law of Thermodynamics states that energy is transformed by use and that you can never make it how it was before. (You can't have your cake and eat it.) Industrial society provides a good example in biological energy (food) with the idea that a machine can make a sausage out of a pig, but it cannot make a pig out of a sausage. Once you have turned the pig into sausage for human consumption the energy in the sausage will never be pig again. It will be human waste. The passage of the cake or the pig into something less coherent is part of the usual flow of chemical and physical reactions in a process known as ‘entropy increase’ or a tendency to ‘disperse’.

Otherwise the planet and the atmosphere would be completely filled with sludge and debris. This is the way that ecology and the life-cycles that make up an eco-system are able to temporarily make order from disorder. Industrial manufacturing can grossly restructure dead things, but life is the only process that is able to do this efficiently, keep the process going, and reproduce itself.

Of course if you feed a pig a pork sausage, some of that sausage will become pig again. Most people would see, however, that converting a pig into a sausage through an energy intensive industrial process and then feeding the sausage back to a pig so that the sausage contributed to a miniscule portion of pig-flesh is a pretty inefficient way to make pigs. Nonetheless pork sausages and many other processed foods do find their way back to pigs' troughs. This is quite illustrative of the circular and needlessly wasteful (and cruel) cycles that occur in consumer-industrial societies.
Modern human societies are in fact quite different from those of pre-fossil-fuel human societies and those of other animals.

We modern humans no longer just produce animal waste that is 'biodegradable' in a normal ecological cycle. Through extractive technologies we have artificially extended our bodies and amplified our activities, so that we consume quite enormous quantities of material and energy. In the process of digging up the materials and burning the energy to make things with, we also clear almost every other living thing in our paths. The waste carbon, nitrogen, phosphates, sulphur and other products which our artificial system puts out largely overwhelm the services of the remaining (shrinking) natural eco-systems. Yet the natural eco-systems are the ONLY agents capable of saving us from being buried, suffocated and burned by the physical and chemical interactions of our industrial-society waste.

That is how the second law of thermodynamics can be used to explain why it is vital to allocate increasing space to natural processes. Returning land to wild grass and forests and giving animals their freedom to live naturally is the most positive thing that we humans can do about the accelerating rate of planetary entropy that consumer society multiplied by huge human populations is causing. Entropy comes in the form of increasingly unpredictable climate and in broken, dead and dying eco-systems. [...]”

[10] Geoff Underwood (who chaired the Victorian Planning System Committee 2011) was the Secretary of APop, (the Australian Population Institute) from 2000 to at least 2015. This was an organisation with the sole aim of vastly increasing Australia’s population, and almost entirely officiated by property developers who had the money and clout to aggressively promote this. Ordinary Australians had no ability to combat this organised input to policy and media. APop has largely been replaced by the Property Council of Australia, of which several government departments are members, and which, in 2009, announced to its members via a Powerpoint display that its number one aim was “More political influence.” It seems to have achieved this.

[11] See Anne Paton, of Victorian Building Action Group (VBAG) on the long history of bad building and its costs: https://youtu.be/zsyyVILjGpE. Also see Nerrida Pohl on cladding: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFVNL8rV_ZQ .

“Since July 2002 there have been 54 separate reviews of the building industry, including by the Victorian Ombudsman and the State Auditor-General, all pointing to serious shortcomings and all calling for reform.” Clare Kermond, “When your dream becomes a nightmare,” The Age, August 16, 2015.

This disgraceful rebadged “Statement of Planning Policy” for Macedon Ranges (home of Hanging Rock) sets a damaging growth plan in concrete as State policy for Macedon Ranges for the next 50 years, perpetuating the direction of our previous council (and apparently the State government), not the new direction taken by the new councillors.

The fatally flawed “Statement of Planning Policy” for Macedon Ranges is now available as Attachment 5 to the Special Council meeting agenda for Thursday 13th September, available from Macedon Ranges Shire Council’s website. http://www.mrsc.vic.gov.au/About-Council/Our-Council/Meeting-Dates-Agendas-Minutes/Council-Meeting-Agendas-Minutes/Minutes-Agendas

The officer’s recommendation is that council receive (not endorse) the document; makes it clear the document is a creature of the State government; and makes suggestions for some changes. These include requesting Ministerial Guidelines to give direction on how the Statement is to be implemented, because despite recommendations and requirements that the document itself include this fundamental component, it doesn’t.

Minor changes since January simply reshuffle the deckchairs. The gross deficiencies of the original Localised Planning Statement (now re-badged as a Statement of Planning Policy) remain. It’s still a growth plan, it still doesn’t implement the recommendations of the Macedon Ranges Protection Advisory Committee, and – unbelievably – still doesn’t connect with or implement the Distinctive Areas and Landscapes legislation.

So, other than temporarily moving the settlement boundary back to the existing town boundary at Woodend, nothing you or apparently councillors or officers have said has made any difference.

The new (so-called) “Statement of Planning Policy”:

· Doesn’t make policy statements about how things will be done but a series of weak objectives and strategies about how it is hoped things might be done.

· Instead of being based on Statement of Planning Policy No. 8, condemns SPP8 to oblivion. With it goes justification for current planning controls, including protection of township character (which isn’t a “must” in the new Statement), and no further subdivision at Macedon and Mount Macedon.

Still ignores Macedon Ranges Protection Advisory Committee’s recommendations both for preparation of a statement, and policy e.g. “Landscape, biodiversity, cultural heritage and township protection must be a cornerstone of policy protection for the Macedon Ranges. The conservation of the Shire’s landscapes is of critical importance.” Not there.

· Where absolute clarity is demanded it nails nothing down, increasing uncertainty with “encourage”, “discourage”, “aim to”, “voluntary”, “should”, “consider”, “manage”, while “must” is confined to protection of extractive industries.

· Maintains separate policy domains, without saying how all of these work together.

· Is still not binding on public entities (including council), and only requires these bodies to have regard to the Statement, where relevant.

· Still singles out only “significant”, “State” “National” “high value” and “features” as important.

· Promotes extractive industries (making Macedon Ranges a target for them), and still promotes equine and intensive agriculture.

· Forgets to include almost half of the Shire’s drinking water catchments, and still makes biodiversity dependent on a website address.

Provides absolutely no guidance about dwellings or other development in rural areas, or in towns.

· Is still a growth plan that ignores the Distinctive Areas and Landscapes legislation and sets expanded settlement boundaries without parliament’s approval.

· Only provides Woodend with a temporary reprieve by excluding its investigation areas but continues to give a ‘free kick’ to development interests in other towns by including their investigation areas.

· Still doesn’t include settlement boundaries for Gisborne and Romsey.

· Elevates Kyneton to a “Regional Centre” (10,000+ population) and falsely attributes this to the Macedon Ranges Settlement Strategy when the State government is making it so.

Is based on the Loddon Mallee South Regional Growth Plan, current incomplete Macedon Ranges planning scheme and the appalling draft Visitor Economy document.

Includes the previous council’s deplorable In The Rural Living Zone document (the one based on advice from real estate interests) as a reference document AND requires its on-going implementation, including converting high quality agi soils at Romsey and Farming zone at Kyneton into 2ha blocks.

This disgraceful rebadged “Statement of Planning Policy” sets these weak, vague aspirations and a damaging growth plan in concrete as State policy for Macedon Ranges for the next 50 years, perpetuating the direction of our previous council (and apparently the State government), not the new direction taken by the new councillors.

It’s NOT protection in any guise. It takes Macedon Ranges in the opposite direction to protection and Statement of Planning Policy No. 8 (our existing Statement of Planning Policy), and will have a catastrophic effect on the Shire and its values. It could only be considered an “improvement” over the January Localised Planning Statement if going from bottom of the class to equal bottom is considered an improvement.

Please email your support and encouragement to Macedon Ranges Councillors to not endorse this Statement, and/or attend the special council meeting at Gisborne Shire Offices next Thursday, 7.00pm.

[email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected];

And let this be a lesson and warning to any other areas in Victoria that want to become ‘declared areas’.

"Single-minded focus on economics allows thousands of pigs and poultry to be kept, and if you're next door in any rural or green wedge or urban growth zone, your rights to know about it, object and go to VCAT are being extinguished. This Affects all rural and regional areas of Victoria, and Green Wedge and Urban Growth zones in metropolitan Melbourne. Pig and poultry business interests, and State government, are very happy. The rest, and the environment, can fade away." Macedon Ranges Residents' Association has distilled a huge body of information about shocking rule-changes for intensification of pig and poultry farming in Victoria's Green Wedges, called, in the bullying way of our political class, "Getting things done." We have kept the original formatting for the time being, for practical reasons. Thanks to Christine Pruneau, Secretary of the Association, for putting her extensive knowledge at our disposal.

Republished from Macedon Ranges Residents' Association (http://www.mrra.asn.au/).

RED ALERT Andrews Government

Is "Getting Things Done" By Removing Prohibitions On Intensive Pig And
Poultry Farming In Rural Conservation And Rural Living Zones, And Drinking Water
Catchments, Across Victoria.   Lost In Transit: "Making Things Fair"
And "Delivering For All Victorians" 

(23/7/18 - P)  Single-minded
focus on economics allows thousands of pigs and
poultry to be kept, and if you're next door in any rural or green wedge or urban
growth zone, your rights to know about it, object and go to VCAT are being extinguished. 
Affects all rural and regional areas of Victoria, and Green Wedge and Urban Growth
zones in metropolitan Melbourne. Pig and poultry business interests, and State government,
are very happy.  The rest, and the environment, can fade away. 
Intensive Animal Industries
File

 

On 29 June, the Andrews government adopted changes (to be introduced
to all Victorian planning schemes in September) which give priority to intensive
animal production industries over environment and amenity. On the way through, democracy
dies too as these changes remove neighbours' third party rights - to receive notice,
to object and to go to VCAT - as a means of reducing the regulatory burden on applicants
for pig and poultry farms: "If certain conditions are met, low-risk farms should
be allowed to establish in appropriate rural zones without being subject to the
extra cost and time associated with third party notice and review." 
(1)

 

Do the Rural Conservation, Rural Living, Green Wedge or Urban Growth
zones constitute appropriate rural zones?  Are some of them rural
zones at all?  Can pig and poultry farms ever be low risk, particularly
in the sensitive or quasi-residential areas these zones are applied to?  The
State government thinks so.  It is removing current long-standing prohibitions
on intensive animal production, beginning with pigs and poultry, across the
board in these zones "because there will be some small or low-density farms that will
be suited to the land in these zones" (2), and
it's reducing controls in others.  A new "simplified" permit application process
is introduced, as are new pig and poultry farm permit guidelines that adopt the
'flexible' principles of ResCode: an objective to be met, standards that can be
varied, wide-ranging discretion and interpretation.

 

Here's a snap-shot of adopted planning scheme zone changes:

NEW  100 chickens and 10
emus/ostriches 

To be allowed in: Farming, Rural
Activity, Rural Conservation, Rural Living, Green Wedge,
Green Wedge A, Urban Growth zones (currently prohibited
in these zones)

No permit required, no setback, land size or stocking
rate requirements, no say for neighbours.  

If environmental or amenity issues arise, the literature
says "you are encouraged to have a friendly conversation with your neighbour
to discuss your concerns and see if impacts can be managed",
(3) as your
first option.

NEW  Chickens: Up
to 10,000 (including broiler farms)

To be allowed in: Farming, Rural
Activity, Rural Conservation, Rural Living, Green Wedge,
Green Wedge A, Urban Growth zones (currently prohibited
in these zones)

A planning permit, using the new "simplified" permit
application process, is required.  Last October, the simplified permit process
was restricted to applications for up to 450 chickens, but now applies for up to10,000
chickens (including young birds raised in sheds until old enough to range).

As these numbers are considered "low density", and "low
risk" if well-managed, residents' third party rights to notice / object / go to
VCAT are removed:

• for up to 1,000 chickens, if they are kept 50m from
  a neighbour's house or 200m from a residential zone, and
• for more than 1,000 chickens (up to 10,000), if they
  are kept 100m from a neighbour's house, or 400m from a residential zone. 

No land sizes are specified.

'Well managed' means 50% ground cover should
be maintained at all times, mobile housing and feeding infrastructure
should be moved every two weeks and production paddocks
rested for three months, stocking rates should peak at
1,500 chickens/ha (not including young birds being raised in sheds), and production
areas shouldn't be located below a 100 year flood level,
in a Special (Drinking) Water Supply Catchment or within 30m of a declared waterway. 
These management practices can be varied. 

More chickens can be applied for with a normal
permit application process (other than broiler farms of more than 10,000 chickens
in the Rural Conservation, Rural Living, Green Wedge A and Urban Growth zones).

NEW  Pigs: 150 sows
(includes progeny) OR 1,000 Standard Pig Units (SPU)
 

Standard Pig Units

To be allowed in: Farming, Rural
Activity, Rural Conservation, Rural Living, Green Wedge,
Green Wedge A, Urban Growth zones (currently prohibited
in these zones)

A planning permit, using the new "simplified" permit
application process, is required.  Last October, the simplified permit process
was restricted to applications for up to 8 sows, 1 boar and their progeny but now
applies for potentially thousands of pigs.

As these numbers are considered "low density", and "low
risk" (low environmental risk and amenity impacts) if well-managed, residents' third-party
rights to notice / object / go to VCAT are removed if the 150 sows and their progeny
or 1,000 Standard Pig Units are kept 100m from a neighbour's house, or 400m from
a residential zone.   No land sizes are specified.   

'Well-managed' pig production is contingent upon management
practices, one of which is a rotational land use system where "following each
pig phase, a cropping/forage/pasture phase allows removal of nutrients (through
plant harvest) that accumulate on paddocks from pig manure and feed waste."
(4) 

In addition, 50% ground cover should
be maintained at all times, mobile housing and feeding infrastructure
should be moved every three months, stocking rates
should peak at 12.5 SPU/ha (approx. 5 - 125 pigs), native
trees and native vegetation should have fence or other
barrier protection from pigs, and production areas shouldn't
be located below a 100 year flood level, in a Special Water Supply Catchment or
within 30m of a declared waterway.  These management practices can be varied. 
More pigs can be applied for in all of the above zones with a normal permit
process.

NEW  Poultry Hatcheries

To be allowed in: Farming, Rural
Activity, Rural Conservation, Rural Living, Green Wedge,
Green Wedge A, Urban Growth zones (currently prohibited
in these zones)

 Permit required.  No restrictions, no requirements
to be met.

If the changed zone controls and simplified planning process don't
provide sufficient scope for increased intensive animal production, major changes
to land use definitions do.  For example:

A new Animal Production
definition (described as including "farm animals kept or bred for production
purposes, for example, chickens, beef cattle, dairy cattle, pigs, sheep, rabbits,
camels, buffaloes, goats") (5). 
Animal Production is introduced as a new 'permit required' land use in all rural,
green wedge and urban growth zones. 

Current Intensive Animal Husbandry and Extensive
Animal Husbandry (grazing) land use definitions are deleted and replaced with
the softer definition of Intensive Animal Production,
and an expanded definition of Grazing Animal Production,
blurring the demarcation between intensive, and grazing, animal production activities,
in favour of more intensive (hand-feeding) 'grazing'. 

Grazing Animal Production
no longer requires most food to be obtained by grazing, but for grazing to merely
be a "key component":  "The amount of food being provided through emergency,
seasonal or supplementary feeding will vary depending on the circumstance, and can
be substantial."  (6) 

Pig and poultry farms
(pig farms, poultry farms, broiler farms, poultry hatcheries) are no longer
included in an "intensive" land use definition. They are made separate land uses
in their own right, and no longer prohibited in Rural Conservation, Rural Living,
Green Wedge A and Urban Growth Zones.    

The adopted changes originate from recommendations in the Regional
Economic Development and Services Review 2015, chaired by the Hon. John Brumby
(former Premier of Victoria), which were then run through some committee processes
(apparently not all committee members supported the proposed changes), before
exhibition of draft planning scheme changes last October.  Subsequently,
the government substantially increased the number of animals to which a simplified
planning permit application process (and removal of third party rights) applied,
and added prohibitions on pig and poultry farms in the Industrial and Urban Floodway
zones, while removing prohibitions in the Urban Growth Zone*.

*The zone applied to land earmarked for future development,
usually in Melbourne's metropolitan urban growth areas but lately also able to be
applied in rural and regional areas (Macedon Ranges Shire has a recently-introduced
UGZ at Riddells Creek). 

 

The State government says of its adopted changes:

"Planning reforms have been refined further
according to the following principles:

• Farmers need to have the flexibility and information
  support to make farm management decisions and manage risks.
• Farmers are responsible for managing their environmental
  and amenity risks.
• The planning process provides opportunity to
  ensure risks are considered and assessed prior to the land use proceeding.
• The planning process should be fit-for purpose
  based on risk."  (7)

Economics-driven changes for intensive animal production are far
from finished.  In response to the question, "Are these reforms the final
step in the Planning for Sustainable Animal Industries Program?",
(8) the State government response is
"No... they represent the beginning not the end of the work.  Work on all
12 actions... [is] underway and there are more milestones to be delivered
in the near future...". (8)  
Current changes represent only 4 of the
12 actions.

 

Not all revised planning scheme provisions that enable the changes,
or supporting documents, have been made available at this stage.  The current
Code of Practice for Piggeries is being abandoned (temporarily replaced with a Practice
Note), the Victorian Code for Broiler Farms is being amended to apply to conventional
and free-range broiler farms with more than 10,000 birds, and a new Code
of Practice for a broad spectrum of intensive animal production industries (additional
to pigs and poultry) is being prepared to support further 'reform' and 'simplification'
of Victoria's planning system.  

 

Public information sessions will
be held at Bendigo 24/7/18, Daylesford 25/7/18, Benalla 26/7/18, Ballarat 27/7/18,
Torquay 1/8/18  and Tatura 6/8/18 (all 10am-2pm);  Warrnambool 31/718,
Horsham 2/8/18 and Wycheproof 3/8/18 (all 11am-3pm); and Alexandra (to be confirmed).

 

Currently available documentation, and access to information session
details and registration, can be obtained from

http://agriculture.vic.gov.au/agriculture/livestock/planning-for-sustainable-animal-industries

 

MRRA Says:

 

The State government says of the final changes it has adopted,
"The planning reforms have been developed and refined according to the Government's
policy objective to support economic development while balancing environmental outcomes
and community expectations".  (9)  

 

As if suspended in 'pave paradise and
put up a parking lot' philosophy, the government euphemistically labels its ground-breaking
race towards universal intensive animal production as "sustainable" animal industries. 
But the bigger picture is missing.  The trade-off for new opportunities and
advances in terms of more ethical production practices and market expansion is
that these changes
disregard and thoughtlessly discard the broader principles of sustainability, and
democracy, and well-being, and strategic land use planning.  

 

One thing is clear: these changes have nothing to do with small-scale
or backyard self-sustainability.  This is business: industrial-strength intensive
animal production, export markets, an eye on expansion, and a green light to do
it anywhere.  The government is only too aware that this particular boat isn't
going to float without wholesale disenfranchisement, thus the vaporisation of your
rights to even know about these activities.

 

The changes take the fork in the road that leads to experimental
risk-taking, a place where self-regulation weds ResCode-flavoured 'flexibility',
and the winners take it all.  The risks involved aren't a secret, for example,
"Poor nutrient management can lead to soil structure decline, nutrient overload,
poor crop/pasture performance, leaf burn, compaction layers, erosion from bare patches,
excessive weed growth, leaching and run-off into waterways." 
(10)  These and other risks have
been recognised as unacceptable, and prohibited, for years in zones where they are
now to occur, rolling the dice with urban and rural amenity, the integrity of drinking
water catchments, and the most environmentally sensitive areas in Victoria. 
And it won't just be responsible people who take it up, these changes allow any
Tom, Dick or Harry to have a go as well.

 

The government issued a media release about the changes, entitled "Protecting
the Right To Farm In Victoria".  It contains quotes from the Minister
for Planning Richard Wynne, the Minister for Agriculture Jaala Pulford and, most
disappointingly, from Mary-Anne Thomas, current MLA for Macedon (which
seat includes Macedon Ranges Shire).  Mary-Anne says: "This is about 
getting the balance right between advancing our agricultural sector and safeguarding
the environment for decades to come."  

 

These changes aren't about protecting the right to farm but
creating new rights for intensive animal production in zones and places where they
don't currently exist, because that's where some people want them.  More rights,
in the wrong places, not because there is a lack of existing opportunities - most
of Victoria is already zoned Farming - but because it's more convenient for some.

 

The changes aren't and don't "balance"; they
only go one way. 

 

Safeguarding the environment?   Only if intensive
animal husbandry in places like Mount Macedon, Hanging Rock and drinking water catchments,
and completely compromising the Rural Conservation Zone - Victoria's ONLY conservation
zone for private land - can be considered "safeguarding" the environment.

 

While each new septic tank is counted in terms of the contamination
it adds to a drinking water catchment and public water supplies, apparently effluent
from thousands of pigs and poultry isn't an issue. Despite the red flag of mid-winter
algal blooms presently at Cairn Curran and Lake Eppalock water supply reservoirs,
the dangers of failing to prohibit intensive pig and poultry farming in drinking
water catchments haven't penetrated, and, like amenity and the natural
environment, these non-renewable catchments are to be sacrificed on the altar of
economics.  

 

Here in Macedon Ranges, mixed messages, inconsistencies and
contradictions have attained gold medal status.   Hey, it's getting
crowded in here.  Is Macedon Ranges a repository for Melbourne's overflow
population, an industrial opportunity, boom time for places with room for a
pony, intensive animal production real estate, or a sensitive environment
important to the state of Victoria?

 

In 2014, the State government said it would protect Macedon
Ranges, based on Statement of Planning Policy No. 8, for good.  Credit goes
to the State government for introducing legislation to protect Macedon Ranges Shire; 
the Distinctive Areas and Landscape Act has now been approved, with Macedon Ranges
Shire poised to be the first area in Victoria to become a declared area under that
legislation.  But with the government concurrently making changes that in turn
make it impossible to protect and prioritise the very values the legislation seeks
to protect, does it mean anything anymore?

 

The local community is still reeling from the shocking draft
Localised Planning Statement that 'protected' Macedon Ranges by under-stating values and setting up our towns to become urban growth areas.  It also revoked
the government's commitment to Statement of Planning Policy No. 8 - the policy that
has been in place here for 40 years and says protection of water catchments, tourism
and recreation, and nature conservation comes before agriculture - by saying the
Statement of Planning Policy had been superseded by the Victoria Planning Provisions, the same provisions
now being changed to give blanket intensive animal production industries
priority.  Another
piece of the LPS puzzle falls into place. 

 

As repugnant and excessive as they are, current intensive animal
industry changes are but symptoms of an epidemic of deregulation, intent upon eliminating
perceived barriers to economic and other development, that is poised to consume
planning in Victoria, rivalling in scale Jeff Kennett's one-size-fits-all Victoria Planning
Provisions in the 1990s.  Changes made last year to "VicSmart"
- a permit application process with a 10 day turnaround where Council CEOs are sole
decision-makers  - significantly expanded VicSmart's reach and the dollar value of
buildings and works which fall within its ambit (up to $1 million value). 
Buildings and works associated with intensive animal industries may qualify as VicSmart
applications, in which case councillors and third party rights will be excluded,
with applications in rural zones also exempted from being measured against any planning scheme requirements. 
This pattern of stripping out prohibitions, permit requirements and third party
rights, and increased self- and tickbox-assessment, is set to erupt if the government's
imminent "Smart Planning" proposals also go ahead.

 

Even though the short and long-term State-wide environmental
and social ramifications are profound, and inter-generational, from recent
Facebook chat there seems to be
a misconception amongst supporters of the intensive animal production changes that
objections flow from misunderstanding, that once supporters have explained the
facts, apprehensions
will disappear.  MRRA respectfully disagrees (and not just because we are
in the "white middle-class bubble of Macedon Ranges", as one supporter put it). 
Again, the bigger picture is missing.  Enthusiasm for the changes fails to recognise the heavy disbenefits to society and the environment that
result from advantaging some interests over the broader, public interest, and, indeed,
fails to grasp the true meaning of sustainability.  There's a place
for these activities.  It's called the Farming zone. 

 

At this stage, the changes are set to become law. 
There aren't many actions that can be taken, but
before your voice is silenced in September, you could join MRRA in calling upon

Minister for
Planning the Hon. Richard Wynne,

Minister for
Agriculture the Hon. Jaala Pulford, and

Mary-Anne
Thomas MLA for Macedon (or your local State government representative)
to:

• Retain existing prohibitions and controls for intensive
  animal industries, particularly in Rural Conservation and Rural Living zones,
  and 
• Retain third party rights, and
• Prohibit intensive animal production activities in all
  drinking water catchments.

 

(1) page 19, Victorian government response to public submissions,
Issue 11   

(2) page 13, Victorian government response to public submissions 

(3) page 9, 2018 planning reforms for animal industries, Frequently
Asked Questions 

(4) page 5, Pig farm planning permit guidelines

(5) page 6, 2018 Planning reforms for animal industries, Frequently
Asked Questions 

(6) page 7, 2018 Planning reforms for animal industries, Frequently
Asked Questions 

(7) page 4, 2018 Planning reforms for animal industries, Frequently
Asked Questions 

(8) page 6, 2018 Planning reforms for animal industries, Frequently
Asked Questions  

(9) page 4, 2018 Planning reforms for animal industries, Frequently
Asked Questions  

(10) page 3, "Sustainable Piggery Effluent Utilisation in
Australian Farming Systems 2011",  Australian Pork Limited   

 

 

State Government Is Removing Existing Prohibitions On
Pig, Poultry And Broiler Farms In Rural Conservation, Rural Living and Industrial
Zones

(31/10/17 - P)  Worse, these uses won't even need a permit
in the Farming Zone, and grazing is replaced with intensive 'supplementary feeding'. 
Thinking of moving to regional Victoria?  Don't bother unless you can live
with industrial animal production next door... Submissions close November
14   Intensive
Animal Industries File 
Smart Planning
File 

 

The State government is proposing changes across rural Victoria
to make intensive animal industries "sustainable", saying "the proposed planning
reforms will better support animal industries across the state" .  These
dramatic and far-reaching changes certainly leave no part of the State unscathed. 
But rather than "sustainable", these changes just make more intensive and
more animal production in more places. 

 

Existing long-standing prohibitions on intensive animal husbandry
are being removed in the Rural Conservation Zone (Victoria's
only conservation zone), and the Rural Living Zone
(which has a default minimum lot size of 2ha), with prohibitions only to remain
for cattle feedlots and intensive dairy farms.  Everything else - pigs, poultry,
goats, deer - in fact production of any bird or any mammal (except rodents!) and
their resultant animal products, will no longer be prohibited.  Prohibitions
are also removed from intensive supplementary feeding operations in these sensitive
zones (shades of Wagyu beef?).   And all of this without restrictions
on size, number or type of animals, environmental and conservation sensitivity,
setbacks - or location in drinking water catchments.

 

Same thing is happening in Industrial zones, regardless of whether
they are next to or inside towns, except they get cattle feedlots as well. /p>

 

In the Farming Zone, up to 200 chooks and 10 emus, and either 10
pigs or 3 sows, a boar AND their progeny (22 pigs allowing 6 piglets per sow), are
OK without a permit if they are 50m away from the
house next door, or a residential zone.  Gets worse - your rights to know,
object and go to VCAT are taken away for applications for up to 450 chooks, 25 emus/ostriches,
and 8 sows, a boar and their progeny (57 pigs) - if they are 100m away from the
house next door or a residential zone.  Associated structures are free to blight
the landscape because they don't necessarily need a permit either.

 

Grazing isn't what it used to be - it's proposed to become supplementary
feeding with grazing on the side, no permit required in the Farming Zone (any number)
if feeding structures are 100m from your house or a residential zone (but can be
closer with a permit).  In the Rural Conservation, Rural Living and Industrial
Zones, requires a permit (any number) but with no conditions, restrictions, setbacks.

 

Proposed changes to zones, and land use definitions, are currently
on exhibition, along with three new Particular Provisions for Pig Farm, Poultry
Farm and Grazing Animal Production.   Submissions
close NOVEMBER 14.

 

Here's a link to make or upload a submission.

https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/policy-and-strategy/planning-reform/sustainable-animal-industries/planning-for-sustainable-animal-industries-submission-form

Here's a link to the "Sustainable Animal Industries" website.

https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/policy-and-strategy/planning-reform/sustainable-animal-industries

 

MRRA Says: 

 

This is "sustainable"?  What are they thinking...

Pfft!  There goes the neighbourhood, and residential amenity,
and the environment, and drinking water catchments, and State level landscape and
biodiversity significance - and with more blurring of what zones mean, proper planning: 
WRONG WAY, GO BACK!

 

Seems nowhere is safe from this industrial animal production
mania - anyone for a spot of pig, poultry, goat or deer production on Mount Macedon? 
Upstream of Lauriston Reservoir?  In the 1ha and 2ha Rural Living Zones recently
approved in Amendment C110 around Gisborne?  On Mount Aitken?  In the
Industrial 3 zones in Woodend and Romsey?  Out in the forest at Bullengarook?

 

These changes are blunt instruments that crush environmental
credibility.  Why make these changes at all?  No restrictions in forested
areas?  No restrictions in open drinking water catchments?  Unbelievable.
No restrictions on setbacks or scale either, so pick a number.  And now that
so many houses have been approved in Macedon Ranges' rural zones - and particularly
the Farming Zone - what an attractive, healthy, safe living environment all this
will make - not.  Try rural NSW or South Australia
instead.

 

The Rural Conservation Zone is applied to Victoria's most environmentally
valuable and vulnerable areas.  Rural Living Zones are usually where people
want to live "the dream".  Think about it... think about it  -
maybe that's why all forms of Intensive Animal Husbandry are (and always
have been) prohibited in these zones.  Until now.  Hello pig, poultry
and broiler farms (up to 400,000 birds), supplementary feeding, and pretty much
any other intensive animal use except cattle feedlots and intensive dairy farms. 
No restrictions in these zones - do what you like. 

 

Changes being made to definitions narrow what's "intensive"
to just a few things, and then intensify what's left.  The current definition
of grazing, 'Extensive Animal Husbandry' is about grazing - where farm
animals get most of their food by grazing.  That's gone, replaced
with 'Grazing Animal Production' where grazing is secondary to seasonal
(6 months of the year), and routine, supplementary
feeding.  Intensive.  That's why, unlike grazing, it's proposed to be
prohibited in residential and commercial zones. 

 

This package of changes is pocked-marked with errors that make
understanding what's being proposed more difficult.  Hey Houston, we have a
problem:  the proposed zones say Pig Farms have to comply with Poultry Farm
provisions, and Poultry Farms have to comply with Pig Farm conditions.  Even
though current definitions, 'Extensive animal husbandry' and 'Intensive
animal husbandry' are being deleted from the planning scheme - woooo - somehow
they are still there in the Farming, Green Wedge, Rural Activity and Industrial
1 zones.  And in a 'take the cake' effort, in the Industrial 1 zone, intensive
animal uses are both prohibited - and permit required - at the
same time.  If anyone can work out what's going on in the Green Wedge Zone
- what's in, what's out - give them a prize.  As for the new Particular Provisions
for Pig and Poultry Farms, and Grazing Animal Production, only some segments of
them are referenced in the zones as conditions to be met (mainly how to get a pig
farm or poultry farm without a permit in the Farming Zone).  The new Particular
Provision for Grazing Animal Production isn't referenced in the zones at all, so
its requirements aren't  conditions to be met in any zone.  To be honest,
it's a bit of a lottery trying to work out if, what, where and when any of these
new particular provision controls might apply, and there's not much point having
them, such as they are, unless they are actually used.

 

The big question for Macedon Ranges is, of course - how is this
protecting Macedon Ranges?  Add this lot of changes to other recent
State government changes, like VicSmart where a CEO can approve a house in a rural
zone within 10 days, without anyone else knowing about it (including you and councillors)
or meeting any planning scheme policy requirements, and lifting dwelling heights
to 11 metres and 3 storeys in the General Residential Zone, and now, changes to
the Victoria Planning
Provisions - well, this isn't what we think of as protecting this place. 
How about you?

 

ACTION REQUIRED:  Please make a short
submission by November 14th (use the submissions link above). 
Here's an overview
of the changes

The government's thinking is these changes strike 'the
right balance'.  Tell them they don't.  These changes
don't respect, let alone protect, Macedon Ranges' environment, landscape and water
catchments, residential amenity, or high quality agricultural soils, and they don't
respect residents either because they are extinguishing residents' rights. 
Tell the State government this is not protecting Macedon Ranges, and it's
not on.  Make sure you let Macedon Ranges'
councillors,
Mary-Anne
Thomas (MP for Macedon) and
Richard Wynne
(Minister for Planning) know your views.   .

 

 

The Public Housing Defence Network is calling for the Opposition parties to support the Greens motion in Parliament on Wednesday 6 June 2018 to block the Andrews Governments Public Housing Renewal Programme (PHRP). The PHRP reduces Public Housing, displaces tenants, sells off public land to private developers and reduces open space and amenity, and will drive up homelessness. If you would like to stop the Andrews Government PHRP, please contact the Opposition MPs from Monday 28 May, by email, phone, or text. (See suggested letter and addresses inside.) Every action counts!

Here is a suggested text:

“Dear Parliamentarian,
I oppose the Andrews Government`s Public Housing Renewal Programme, and call on Parliamentarians to vote to block it in the Legislative Council of Parliament by disallowing the Planning Minister`s assumption of planning powers.”

Add your name, suburb. Preferably full address and phone, too.

Please phone or text these 4 Liberal politicians: Matthew Guy: 9651 6702; David Davis: 9827 6655; John Pesutto: 9882 4088; Georgie Crozier 9555 4101;
Plus one bulk email to all these Parliamentarians:

[email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; edward.o'[email protected]; [email protected]; Luke.O'[email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected];
[email protected]; [email protected];
[email protected];
[email protected];

There may be a rally outside the office of Liberal MP David Davis or at Parliament in the lead up to the likely vote on Wednesday 6th June. See Public Housing Defense Network facebook page for details.

https://www.facebook.com/publichousingdefencenetwork/

Signed:
Public Housing Defence Network (PHDN)
Defend and Extend Public Housing (Australia)
Friends of Public Housing (Victoria)

Save the date: Sunday 30 July 2017. Walk in St Kilda Road and Environs for National Tree Day. Walk in St Kilda Road grand boulevard on Sunday 30 July 2017 or join an information walk in St Kilda Road and Environs. There will be information meeting points along St Kilda Road, from opposite Victoria Barracks down to near the intersection of Toorak Road and St Kilda Road, manned at least from 1.00pm to 4.00pm., and planners, engineers, politicians, arborists, heritage consultants and others will be invited and available for information and discussion on St Kilda Road and Environs. Video inside explains what is at stake.

This is an event for National Tree Day, Planet Ark’s National event, as a community tree and naturecare event for St Kilda Road and Environs and its trees, environment, habitats.

- fostering a love of nature and creating positive environmental attitudes and change
- education and awareness
- for the protection and preservation of St Kilda Road and Environs, including the tree canopies of elm and London plane trees in the grand heritage boulevard St Kilda Road, and Domain Parklands.

In the Community

Each year thousands of families, businesses and groups across Australia take part in National Tree Day, which in 2017 will be on Sunday July 30th, although events can be held at any time during the year. National Tree Day is a great opportunity for community and organisations to engage members, recruit new participants or just have a great day out. It can mark the beginning of a long term environmental program or be used to demonstrate the great work you're already doing. Whatever the case is - National Tree Day is a much loved event that will sit nicely on your social calendar.” (Planet Ark: National Tree Day)

We are organizing a nature care and awareness/information event, promoting the trees and natural environment of St Kilda Road and Environs, on the Australian Heritage Register since February 2017 for emergency protection, and drawing awareness to its habitats and the urgent need for its protection and preservation.

• there will be information meeting points along St Kilda Road, from opposite Victoria Barracks down to near the intersection of Toorak Road and St Kilda Road, manned at least from 1.00pm to 4.00pm., and planners, engineers, politicians, arborists, heritage consultants and others will be invited and available for information and discussion on St Kilda Road and Environs

• there will be information walks, from 11.30am to 4.00pm, including:

o A walking tour of the award-winning La Trobe Cottage garden by garden co-ordinator Sandi Pullman. (including information on an elm tree planned to be planted in the future, grown from the original elm at Governor La Trobe’s cottage).
o A walking tour of select favourite St Kilda Road trees, vistas and stories by author and historian Dr Judith Buckrich (author of the iconic book “Melbourne’s Grand Boulevard: The Story of St Kilda Road”, 1996).
o Noted arborist Dr Greg Moore, OAM, University of Melbourne, Chair of the National Trust’s Register of Significant Trees committee, previously Principal of Burnley (Horticulture) College, will lead a walking tour of significant trees in St Kilda Road and Environs, including grand boulevard St Kilda Road’s iconic, world renowned elm trees and London plane trees and tree-canopies, at imminent risk.
o Walking and information tour with John Fordham, arborist and horticulturalist, member of the National Trust’s Register of Significant Trees committee, considering the world significance of the beloved boulevard elm trees and the Australian Standards on the protection of trees on development sites.

Note: the above areas and trees are currently at risk.
Yellow ribbons will identify where there are community information points along St Kilda Road and where to meet for National Tree Day walking tours and information.

This is an opportunity to participate in something positive in this iconic Melbourne environment, to join the community and to reconnect with nature and enjoy its health benefits, to foster creating positive environmental attitudes, preservation and change.

Hope to see you all there.

Come to St Kilda Road and Environs and Be Informed and Inspired to Action: It’s in Our Nature.

Regards,
Bea McNicholas
Event co-ordinator
If you can volunteer to assist on the day or before please contact: Liz Doak on Tel 0401-289-820,
Email: [email protected]
Event/Information Walks details are below and are posted on the National Tree Day website:

Walk in St Kilda Road and Environs for Planet Ark National Tree Day: Sunday 30 July 2017

Walk in St Kilda Road and Environs for Planet Ark National Tree Day: Sunday 30 July 2017

Our parklands, trees and boulevards reflect our character as a nation.
Our Diversity.
Our Grit and Determination.
Our commitment to each other and to future generations.
Our Passion.
You can leave a legacy and make a difference in your community – in St Kilda Road and Environs.
Friends, community and supporters of St Kilda Road and Environs and Planet Ark and Toyota are inviting Melbourne residents and visitors to be inspired by nature and to make a positive difference by attending a National Tree Day event in this heritage registered neighbourhood of St Kilda Road and Environs.

This nature care event on Sunday 30 July 2017 will commence at 11.30am and run to 4.00pm. Come and join us:

Walk in St Kilda Road and Environs for Planet Ark National Tree Day: Sunday 30 July 2017
See National Tree Day 2017 Community Service Announcement:
Share Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwzl3PRqL6U#action=share

The Andrews Labor government has just failed a crucial test of its integrity in relation to threatened species listings and biodiversity governance. Immediately prior to losing office in December 2010, the Brumby Labor government had finalized listing the dingo as a threatened native taxon under the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act.

The current Labor government’s virtual trashing of that listing, through the reinstatement of a ‘wild-dog’ bounty, which directly panders to the Victorian Upper House Shooters, Fishers and Farmers party members, who were voted in on a relative handful of first preference votes, now casts a shadow over the Victorian Government’s commitment to biodiversity conservation.

The broader significance of the dingo listing relates to the dingo’s pivotal ecological role as apex predator. Ecologists around the world are increasingly pointing to the importance of top predators for ecosystem stability at a time of environmental dislocation and accelerating species loss.

The bounty is nothing more than a publicly subsidized membership recruitment drive for recreational hunting organizations because membership of such organizations is a precondition for permission to kill 'wild-dogs'/dingoes and receipt of the bounty payment.

While Jaala Pulford, the Agriculture Minister, against strong advice from peak environmental organizations and environmental experts, has obstinately persisted in reintroducing the bounty, the Environment Minister, Lily D'Ambrosio has remained invisible. No environmental defence of the bounty has been forthcoming, nor could there be.
This reflects a disturbing, environmentally destructive imbalance of ministerial responsibilities established under the previous Coalition government, whereby the Minister for Agriculture has shared responsibilities for key sections of the Wildlife and Flora and Fauna Guarantee Acts.

Labor is now demonstrating its willingness to continue the environmental dirty work of the Coalition government with little acknowledgement of the environmentally progressive legacy of the Brumby government's dingo listing and the arrangements then put in place to ensure a balanced approach to dingo protection and farm stock protection.

By reinstating the bounty, Victorian Labor has displayed serious environmental incompetence and party leaders seem unable or unwilling to do anything about it. Victorians deserve better.

Attached are two media releases, one by the Humane Society International (HIS) and the other by the National Dingo Preservation and Recovery Program Inc. (NDPRP). The HSI emphasises that there is no sound pest animal control justification for the bounty and that it will be environmentally harmful. The bounty of $120 per scalp will make no significant contribution to protecting farm stock from wild-dog predation.

The NDPRP Inc. highlights how the Andrews Labor Government has been captured by extreme elements of the farming lobby and recreational shooters organizations in the misguided belief that the ALP can win over a greater share of the rural vote to compensate for the likely electoral gains of the Greens at the next Victorian election.

Victorians need to ask where such extreme anti-environmentalism by Victorian Labor is heading. There is now a concerted push by the gun lobby for increased access to public lands and the advocacy of ‘community involvement’ in ‘pest animal’ management is providing the rhetorical basis for greater access. Victorians can expect that their national parks will become a focus of this push. At the moment, it is illegal to carry a firearm into national parks. However, given its present reactionary policy trajectory, Labor will likely continue to dump environmental principle in favour of political expediency.

Val Morgan

........................................................

Victorian Labor destroys legacy with backflip on dingo bounty
26th October 2016

Humane Society International (HSI) is incensed by the announcement that the Victorian Labor Government has destroyed its dingo conservation legacy with “a bigger, better bounty” than the Coalition program they scrapped just a year ago. A far cry from the previous Labor Government’s landmark listing of the dingo as a threatened species in 2008, the move signals a new era where Labor is beholden to the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party with the state’s wildlife considered nothing more than collateral.

An abundance of reasons this regressive and misguided bounty program is bound to fail at the expense of Victoria’s environmental health were outlined by HSI and echoed by experts last week. They include: leaving the Government exposed to fraud; an inability to determine genetic purity in the field; and ‘wild dog’-dingo hybrids playing the same ecological role as genetically pure dingoes, including suppressing feral cat and fox populations to the benefit of countless native species.

"The Victorian Government is using taxpayer money to incentivise the killing of a threatened species with the ecological fallout to impact dozens more, it’s inexcusable and the public should be outraged. An opportunity to reform management to the mutual benefit of farmers and the environment has been ignored for purely political purposes, and we’re left with short-sighted investment in outdated methods that have repeatedly been tried and failed," said HSI Senior Program Manager Evan Quartermain.

Minister for Agriculture Jaala Pulford’s justification that a bounty of $120 per ‘wild dog’ scalp will be introduced “In recognition of the role hunting can play in supporting the management of wild dogs” is in stark conflict with expert organisations such as the Invasive Species Council, who have determined that shooting is a highly ineffective control measure for canid species. Similarly, Minister Pulford’s claim that “One less dog roaming on people's farms is a good outcome” demonstrates an alarming lack of ecological understanding. The latest research suggests that such control programs in fact increase stock predation due to pack disturbance altering behaviours.

“Alternative stock protection methods such as guardian animals have proven to be effective and are ripe for Government investment. Yet against all evidence the Labor Government has turned their back on the iconic and threatened dingo, bowing to shooters groups and trashing their conservation legacy by mimicking Coalition policy. They should instead be focused on strengthening the dingo’s threatened listing, with the voice of Minister for the Environment Lily D’Ambrosio conspicuous in its absence,” Mr Quartermain concluded.

HSI is currently seeking legal advice on the legality of the Victorian ‘wild dog’ bounty announced today.

Media Contact:
Evan Quartermain, Senior Program Manager: 0404 306 993 or (02) 9973 1728

HSI concentrates on the preservation of endangered animals and ecosystems and works to ensure quality of life for all animals, both domestic and wild. HSI is the largest animal protection not-for-profit organisation in the world and has been established in Australia since 1994.

https://www.hsi.org.au/go/to/2866/26th-october-victorian-labor-destroys-legacy-with-backflip-on-di.html#.WBF_ofS8-So

.............................................................

Media Release

National Dingo Preservation and Recovery Program (Inc. A0051763G )
Date: Monday November 7 , 2016

Does Victoria have an Environment Minister? –
Agriculture Minister continues to trash threatened species listing

The National Dingo Preservation and Recovery Program Inc. (NDPRP) today expressed dismay that, as the Victorian Minister for Agriculture, Jaala Pulford, appears to have run amok with environmentally damaging ‘pest animal’ policy, the Victorian Environment Minister seems to have resigned herself to a junior minister role over crucial biodiversity decision making.

It is extraordinary that at the very same time as the Minister for Agriculture has announced a ’wild dog’ bounty, she has announced a review of the same policy in 12 month’s time by a newly established ‘Wild Dog Management Advisory Group’. The NDPRP urges the public to ask why a policy that has so little to recommend it was adopted in the first place.

Having been strongly advised by peak environmental organisations, environmental experts and progressive elements within the Victorian ALP itself that bounties are an ineffectual means of pest animal control, would undermine Victoria’s listing of the dingo as a threatened species and would be environmentally harmful, the Agriculture Minister has persisted in imposing the bounty, for which recreational hunters will receive $120 dollars for each dingo scalp. President of the NDPRP, Dr Ian Gunn, today stated:

“The announcement of a review of the bounty decision in one year’s time is clearly a concession that the Agriculture Minister has been forced into by more environmentally responsible elements within the Victorian Labor Party. However, if the justification for the bounty policy is so spurious, why was it reinstated at all? Why would the Victorian Labor government allow the Agriculture Minister to dictate poor policy that is known to have no environmental or pest management validity?”

Part of the answer is the presence of two Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party members in the Victorian Legislative Assembly, with whom political horse trading has become a priority – in this instance at the expense of good environmental management.

Dr Gunn added:

“Unfortunately, the Victorian Government is endorsing what amounts to a publically-funded membership recruitment drive for recreational hunting organisations, as membership of these organisations is an eligibility requirement collection of the bounty.”

“At present the Victorian Labor government is in a race to the bottom with the Liberal-Nationals Opposition to show that Labor can implement the toughest wild-dog policy, regardless of the environmental consequences.”

This is evident in the second stated purpose of the ‘Wild Dog Management Advisory Group’, which is to review the central pillar of the dingo threatened species listing – that lethal control for dingoes/wild dogs not be permitted beyond a 3 kilometer buffer at the interface of public and private land (on public land). This buffer was put in place by the Brumby Labor government to ensure equitable protection for both farm livestock and the threatened dingo population.

Dr Gunn stated:

“The NDPRP considers that, on being forced into a review of the flawed bounty policy before it has even begun, the Minister for Agriculture has countered by including a review of the key protective element at the heart of the dingo threatened species listing, which had been put in place by the Brumby government in 2010 – the 3 kilometer limitation on lethal control.

It appears that the Minister is effectively using her privilege of having shared responsibilities for wildlife and biodiversity conservation legislation to undermine measures previously put in place to protect Victorian biodiversity. ”

Perhaps the most extraordinary aspect of the Victorian Labor Government’s treatment of the ‘wild-dog’ bounty issue is the invisibility of the Victorian Environment Minister, Lily D’Ambrosio.

Dr Gunn stressed:

“Any review of the terms of the dingo threatened species listing should be led by the Victorian Environment Minister and state biodiversity officers, not the Department of Agriculture. It is extraordinary that a review of key aspects of the dingo threatened species listing, arrived at through extensive stakeholder consultation with the Department of Sustainability and Environment in 2009, should now be subject to review by the Department of Agriculture. The public might be forgiven for asking whether Victoria has an Environment Minister at this point in time. ”

The NDPRP calls upon the Premier, Daniel Andrews, to ensure that any review of the terms of the dingo threatened species listing be conducted by the Department for the Environment and led by the Minister for the Environment. The primary focus of any such review must be biodiversity conservation, not pest animal management. The Department of Agriculture has shown itself to be incapable of responsible, balanced decision making on this issue. The current approach is quite perverse and is damaging the Victorian Labor government’s environmental credibility.

Dr Ian Gunn BVSc. FACVSc. President NDPRP, 0427 387778 (mob.) [email protected]

How many more outrageous options for our state’s (planet’s) most valuable climate moderators and wildlife arks can they come up with?! Whole logs to China now. Not even processed (value added!) into woodchips. Has VicForests also got Daniel Andrews by the short and curlies? In The Age today… http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/victorian-forests-bound-for-china-under-secret-andrews-government-rescue-plan-20150712-gian0v.html Discussion on ABC Gippsland’s facebook page … https://www.facebook.com/ABCGippsland/timeline

Victorian forests bound for China under secret Andrews Government rescue plan Date July 12, 2015 - 7:42PM by Josh Gordon, State Political Editor

Exclusive

Victoria's low grade native timber could soon be packed into shipping containers bound for China and other cut-price countries for processing under a rescue plan to help ailing state timber company VicForests.

VicForests has been left without a market for hundreds of thousands of tonnes of so-called "residual" timber following the loss of a key contract with Japanese-owned wood-chip company South East Fibre Exports (SEFE).

In response, the Andrews government is now considering relaxing a rule requiring local processing before export in a bid to open up new markets for the struggling state-owned wood business.

A confidential November 2013 Department of Treasury and Finance (DTF) briefing seen by The Age confirms the industry has for months been lobbying to relax the requirement for domestic processing of timber.

"VicForests indicates the Victorian Association of Forest Industries (VAFI) now supports relaxing certain aspects of the export restrictions," the briefing to former treasurer Michael O'Brien, said. "Such a change should lead to improved outcomes for both VicForests and industry. DTF supports the reconsideration of the timber export policy."

[...]

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/victorian-forests-bound-for-china-under-secret-andrews-government-rescue-plan-20150712-gian0v.html#ixzz3fjOUCeGO