Brumby

'On the trail of the gunman from Snowy River' is the bleeding heart front page story in the Sydney Morning Herald by Fair fax journalist, Yuko Narushima, today (9th January 2010) of poachers slaughtering brumbies.

It is a sick sad tale and one hopes the poachers will be caught and dealt with as soon as possible.

Well I dare our Fairfax journalist, Yuko Narushima, and his employer to provide us with a similar bleeding coverage on the front page to the same plight of kangaroos. Kangaroos are Australia's iconic native animal, in case I need to clarify. Yet the same traumatic wounding to hundreds of kangaroos is occuring daily across outback Australia by state-sanctioned poachers, yet the media remains very quiet.

It's like how the media kept quiet in southern states of American in the Nineteenth Century when white posses went out and strung up blacks.

If Fairfax's front page story on brumbies were actually about the daily comparable slaughter of kangaroos, perhaps his article may then read along these lines...

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

"Mountain massacre ... some say the kangaroos, must be controlled; others at the sight of a recent shooting, are appalled that as many as 200 kangaroos have been killed.

HIGH in the Snowy Mountains a slain kangaroo lies rotting, her neck twisted horribly.
It is how the female fell when shot by a sniper still at large in the Bago and Maragle state forests. As many as 200 kangaroos have been shot here in the past 18 months.

The gunman, who may not be acting alone, is believed to use a high-powered rifle he is not licensed to shoot.

The female kangaroo was the first of six to be picked off in the latest killing at Christmas. Locals say she was a local who ran wild with other wild kangaroos after a tree fell on her enclosure.

Now the pale kangaroo's insides are visible from a large cavity under her tail where maggots have eaten into her rump. Decaying flesh hangs like stalactites from her hide and the carcass reeks.

Downhill 30 paces, a chestnut yearling lies with a belly deflated into crinkled leather. A fly buzzes in the hole where her eye should be. Another four kangaroos lie dead in a trail behind her.

One shooter lights a cigarette. Smoking helps mask the stench.
''That aroma coming out of it is like perfume, compared with how it was the other day,'' says one bloke, the city friend of a local intent on saving the kangaroos.

"He's obviously shot this one and gone, bang, bang, bang, and shot them in a line.''

''He's getting gutsier,'' says a local wildlife photographer . ''I've got photos where a female kangaroo's given birth while she was dying and the foal has joey too. This is Man From Snowy River country. I just can't get over how someone can be so cruel.''

Hunters shoot to kill. They are trained to pull the trigger only when they are sure of the target. But many of these kangaroos have been gutshot, taking up to four days to die.

Carcasses have been found in state forest - particularly in clearings under powerlines -on leasehold land and on private property. Shooting kangaroos on any of them is immoral and should be illegal if our government had balls. About 32 kangaroos have also been shot.

Police know no one with a licence was hunting in the area at the time of the most recent shootings. ''Our biggest problem is they are in such isolated areas, they don't get identified quickly,'' local police sergeant says.

Compounding the problem are wild dogs and pigs that move in to feast on the evidence.

This is Banjo Paterson country. Yellow road signs that warn of crossing wildlife show a brumby before they show a kangaroo.

On the main street is a saddlery, a takeaway shop and a cafe with meals from $4.50.

''This is a redneck town, and the people's views of kangaroos being vermin go back a long way,'' a local forester says. ''It's opened up a lot of emotion.''

But not everyone is upset. The local roo shooters believe kangaroos are in plague proportion.

''There's romantic shit that goes on, this Skippy stuff. He's got a lot to answer for,'' he says. ''Skippy the bush kangaroo is not genetically related to anything that the first settlers saw.

''We are obligated to control feral kangaroos.''
A local sheep and cattle grazier are trying to ensure sufficient pasture for their livestock which he claims the roos steal. He says the grasses have ''recovered beautifully'' since he removed hundreds of kangaroos that roamed the plains before he arrived in 1999.

The former Rabbitoh used to sell roo meat to the local meat works for $5 each, he says.

There is no suggestion he is involved in the current shootings. As he says: ''I don't have a licence and I don't have a firearm.'' He points to the difference between his part of the plains and that under the ''passive management'' of state forest.

''No one seems to acknowledge that these plains have heritage value - hundreds and thousands, millions of years of heritage value - and people can turn around and say that something [the roos] that's got 50,000 or more years is more important and should be allowed to destroy colonial sheep country.

''As far as the removal of the roos go, I don't know who's shooting and where they're shooting. I really don't know. I sort of clap my hands about it but I can't clap too loud.''

A few kilometres away raindrops glint on a carpet of blackberries. A bull grey looks up and stands rigid in front of his mob.

He twitches, pauses, then bounces off across the plain, a mob of females with joeys and hopping paws behind him.

Original Story: 'On-the-trail-of-the-gunman-from-snowy-river'

On Wednesday, 12 August 2009 the Victorian Parliament Upper House passed a motion moved by the Liberal Nationals Coalition to disallow parts of a water regulation which would have seen the Brumby Labor Government break key water promises.

The Coalition’s disallowance motion was supported by the Greens and DLP member Peter Kavanagh.

Coalition spokesman says it opposed the order because it broke three key promises

Leader of The Nationals and Shadow Minister for Regional and Rural Development, Peter Ryan, said the Coalition opposed the order because it broke three key promises made to Victorian communities.

The government’s intention was to redirect water to Melbourne through the north-south pipeline despite it being promised to the Snowy and Murray rivers,” Mr Ryan said “Labor also planned ‘negotiating with the Commonwealth’ on distributing savings from the second stage of the Food Bowl Modernisation Project, which contradicts its original promise of allowing the water to be split 50/50 between farmers and the environment.

He added that, “Furthermore the order lacks the necessary rigour in auditing savings from the Food Bowl Modernisation Project.” Mr Ryan said the Coalition was determined to hold the government to account over its promises to the environment, to irrigators and communities in northern Victoria.

Mr Ryan accused the Government of attempts at "looting water" due to failing to plan for Melbourne's future water needs

“Today’s successful disallowance motion in Parliament highlights the overwhelming opposition to the Government’s attempts to loot water from food producers and the environment because it has failed to plan for Melbourne’s future water needs,” Mr Ryan said.

“Labor’s hyperbole that by disallowing this order, the Coalition has denied water to the environment and Melburnians is factually incorrect.

“The ball is now in Premier Brumby and Minister Holding’s court to actually come back to Parliament with a fair and honest amendment to the bulk entitlement.

“Such an amendment should include a rigorous auditing process for savings which is approved by Parliament and where environmental water and savings that are meant for irrigators are delivered to them, rather than to Melbourne.”

Greg ... of the Greens commented that the Coalition should not treat the matter like political football and should do more than just criticise the Government. It should tell the electorate what it will do if it comes to power.

Logging this massive forest represents huge CO2 sink destruction

News is just in is that a decision to log the huge forests of Brown Mountain will be made in a week or so and the loggers will go in immediately afterwards! Brumby is not planning to protect it! Be there Tomorrow at 10.30am on the steps of Parliament House Victoria. We want everyone who can come along - young and old.

Old Growth stops this land from drying and burning!

The more old growth we cut down the more drying of the land, reduced rainfall, increased temperatures and risk of more and hotter bushfires. Bushfires dominate in managed and thinned forest, not in old growth! Logging Brown Forest will cause more bad bushfires in Victoria. Campervan, 4WDS and cars needed. Contact 0413927044

Climate Change Activism - less talk - more local action on the big factors - defend the forests!

Crikey news 12 August 2009 carries a relevant opinion article today on the farce that climate action has become.

Emissions trading debate: is this the best we can do?
[...] the public don’t have the faintest idea how emissions trading works and are completely disengaged from the debate over model details. They just want something done about climate change and know that the experts think emissions trading is the way to go.

This entire debate is being conducted under false pretenses or on the basis that what is manifestly not the case, is. Is this the best a democracy can do?

Making the 'solutions' very abstract and removed to a global forum of international 'experts' is the best way to keep people from local action and critical thinking and to mire action in impenetrable jargon and unverifyable accounting of C02 tradeoffs, offsets, sinks etc.

So much more we can do for ourselves here

There is so much more we can do for ourselves, crucially by stopping removal of vegetation for population, infrastructure and economic expansion. For instance we have in Victoria a record of climate change related fires which can be linked at their worst to the thinned and managed forests here. See "Victorian Bush-fires: ABC 7.30 Report ignores facts, creates scapegoats". We have climate refugees now living in tents in the winter cold as a result of these fires. Yet, in this most cleared of states, Mr Brumby is about to send in the loggers to Brown Mountain, where 600 year old trees testify to the very low risk of out-of-control fires in old growth forests. Most recently scientists have tied forest to inland rainfall . Deforestation drys continents - new theory explains how and a huge environmental and political experiment in Borneo by Willie Smit demonstrated they are right , "Recreating Eden". Climate activism is a huge source of organised public action in the name of which small groups should be able to act. Instead we see a crowd hypnotised by Al Gore and captured and harnessed by various local political groups in their usual quest for power and dollars. It amazes me that the Al Gore Climate Change activists, for all their repetitive noise are apparently unaware of or incapable of stopping the destruction of forests in Australia. Why are they not converging in busloads to stop the loggers and the developers' bulldozers?

Home Grown solutions in NSF and Permaculture

We also have at least two homegrown major applied science theories and practice in the structural ecology of Peter Andrews' Natural Sequence Farming (NSF), and the social theory (as well as the farming theory) in Bill Mollison's Permaculture.

With this in mind, I hope I may now return your attention to the crucial local political action to save Brown Mountain Forest for tomorrow in Melbourne. This is a huge forest and logging it will make a HUGE difference to CO2 emissions and local and regional temperature and rainfall if allowed to proceed in this (it bears repeating) the most cleared of Australian states. Protest tomorrow (12 August) at 10.30am on the steps of Parliament House Victoria. Everyone who can come along - young and old. Contact 0413927044

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

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

Melbourne is under attack

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Re: Demolition of Lonsdale House, Lonsdale Street

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

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

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

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

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

Letter specific to the Windsor

This letter should be addressed to Heritage Victoria

Email : [email protected]

Copies to the Minister and the Trust

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

Dear Executive Director,

RE: Windsor Hotel redevelopment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Letter specific to 80 Collins Street

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

Email : [email protected]

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

Dear Mr Madden,

Re: Proposed 40 storey office tower, 80 Collins Street

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What you can do

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Email :
[email protected]

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

Re: Proposed Urban Growth Boundary changes.

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

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

***

Graeme Base starts his book with this rhyme:

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

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

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

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

What should I tell them?

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

Photographs of Southern Brown Bandicoots in our backyard near Clyde.

One of several speeches made at Melbourne 14 July 2009 rally against undemocratic rezoning of green wedges to benefit developers by making it possible to continue high immigration by providing housing at the expense of wildlife, open spaces and democracy.

The speaker is Michael Hocking of Taxed Out. The GAIC tax proposed is quite medieval, like a tax on peasants to benefit lords, which is how the feudal system worked. Where modern practice in the anglophone land-tenure systems is to tax developers the windfall they make on rezoned land, the GAIC tax would tax landowners if they sold land which had been rezoned against their wishes. The choice is a Hobson's one; if you stay you pay very high rates based on the theoretical value of resale. Hard to stay under the circumstances. A recipe for driving farmers and wildlife out and ushering suburbia in. A policy driven by the Growth Lobby.

Rights of Landowners to be clarified

July 14th 2009

On July 9th at the Seymour Magistrate’s Court, the date of 27th August was set for a contest mention where charges of trespass against Sugarloaf Alliance employees will be refined.

These charges have been made by two Yea landowners, whose freehold properties have been affected by the construction of the North-South Pipeline. Their land was entered by pipeline employees, who fenced off a portion of their property, excluded the owners under threat of arrest and constructed a pipeline 1.75 metres in diameter, all against the wish of the landowner and prior to acquisition under the normal due process by way of the Land Acquisition and Compensation Act.

It is extremely important to all landowners, that the question of the right to enter private freehold land, for the purpose of major infrastructure construction, prior to due and proper acquisition(under the Land Acquisition and Compensation Act) is clearly and finally clarified.

Brumby government threatenes to recover legal costs

The Brumby Government should hang it’s head in shame when it threatens to recover legal costs over this issue. Any Government should uphold the rights of its citizens to the highest level, particularly the rights of freehold landowners.

One would think that the Government would also want this point of law decided, unless of course, Mr Brumby is worried that in his extreme haste to construct the N-S Pipeline, he has instructed employees to illegally enter freehold land.

Also : Contrary to recent Melbourne Water Media Releases, Plug the Pipe is not involved with any legal actions against Melbourne Water. All actions past and pending have involved private individuals. Melbourne Water has been mischievous in these media statements.

Jan Beer, Plug The Pipe Spokesperson, Yea Group
Mob: 0407 144 777

"Dave the Developer" at the Restore Residents' Rights protest rally, June 10, Photo: Progress Leader

Development Assessment Committees' Legislation Stopped In Upper House

Ed. The following story is adapted from the MRRA Macedon Ranges' Residents Association site: It describes a really important battle in the ongoing war for democracy in Victoria which will probably be reported on in other articles at candobetter.

Where to from here?

'Where to from here' depends on whether government finds a way around needing parliament's consent to change the law

The day after the "Restore Residents Rights" rally at parliament house on June 10, which was attended by 600 [1] people, Victoria's upper house rejected changes to the Planning and Environment Act that would have introduced Development Assessment Committees [DACs] to the State.

Initially proposed for a limited number of metropolitan areas, the government's aim is to have this system of decision-making apply more broadly. The DAC system takes planning powers off Councils and hands them to majority government-appointed committees which then make planning decisions in Council's place, while Councils and community carry the financial costs of having DACs make the decisions for them.

Lack of transparency key concern for democracy

Key concerns with DACs include a lack of clarity about accountability and transparency mechanisms, the breach of fundamental democratic principles and the community's right to know, and the potential for planning decisions to be driven by party politics, and implementing specific development agendas without any obvious ability by the community to express their views to the decision-makers.

In their present proposed form, DACs are vulnerable to being 'stacked' politically, while cutting off Councils and communities from decisions that affect them. Another concern is the inadequacy of the current planning system to produce outcomes that the community, as opposed to the developer, wants.

DAC Ideology

The whole DACs ideology captures and builds on a belief held at governmental level that all it takes to make a "good" planning decision is some 'tick boxes' and for applicants and decision-makers to settle it between themselves - no such thing as "no", just "whatever it takes". You get to know about it when it happens. So much for community ownership of decisions that affect the community! And they wonder why we are all getting peed off!

As "Dave The Developer" said at the RRR rally, this a fantastic government - when us developers go in with 12 storeys in a 5 storey area, all they say is, is 12 enough?!!

Chris Gaffney played the part of Dave the Developer and put on a great comedy act. The whole show was the idea of the Darebin Appropriate Development Association and they had working bees to make the little houses and garden that were knocked over by the Bobcat. In the photo you see the splendid high rise blocks called Brumby Towers and Villa de Maddening that rose in their place.

[1] A reestimation based on the known number of people carrying balloons (300) plus the number of people not carrying balloons, puts the total around 600 people, which is huge for the sprawling, socially disorganised and transport-disconnected city of Melbourne, where, although population is growing, democracy and communication are shrinking.

The Victorian Premier Brumby's Royal Commission into the January-February 2009 bushfires is a mere incident review. If Victoria is to be protected from firestorms in future, it should undertake a root cause analysis, including the numerous past investigations into bushfires, with a view to achieving a cultural shift in rural fire fighting methods, resourcing and emergency management and into ecology management, housing approvals in bushfire prone areas, building design in bushfire prone areas, bush arson criminology and into serious resourcing of rural fire management.

Indeed, given the repeated history of bushfires across Australia and the repeated uncontrolled nature of many of these leading to extensive property damage, the loss of thousands of livestock, widespread ecological destruction, the human lives lost and injuries, and the massive costs incurred every year, the scope of the enquiry should be escalated to a national level.

But the Victorian Commission's terms of reference focuses on the immediate causes and circumstances of the 2009 Victorian Bushfires. It focuses on the immediate management, response and recovery. This is a start, but the real start occurred in 1939 with the shock of Black Friday. It lead to the Stretton Enquiry, but many large and damaging firestorms have occurred since - so the Stretton Enquiry showed that lessons were either ignored or the application of those lessons were ineffective. The Esplin Inquiry of 2003 identified striking parallels between 1939 and 2002-3 bushfires. Now we have the 2009 Bushfires, but each investigation is disconnected from the previous one, almost as if to intentionally ignore history and any prior lessons learnt. Interstate and overseas, many major bushfires and their subsequent investigations have amassed research, insight and lessons. Why limit the investigation to one event?

Incident investigation will uncover causes and flaws and will likely make specific recommendations in the hope of preventing similar incidents. But root cause analysis goes beyond identifying the symptoms of a problem. But the Commission has not started with identifying the problem. Let's say that that at the core is the problem of preventing ignitions becoming firestorms. What are the causes of uncontrolled ignitions in the bush. Where are they typically lit? How are ignitions detected by fire authorities? What is the time lapse between ignition and detection? What is the time lapse between detection and response and eventual suppression? Which causes and interventions would mitigate the risk of these ignitions developing into uncontrollable firestorms? Are the ignition detection tools adequate? Are the communications tools adequate? Do we have the right tools and trained personnel in the right places to effectively respond? Is the entire detection, response and suppression system sufficiently integrated to deal with multiple igntitions in extreme conditions across the State at the same time? How would this be achieved? What budget would be required to have such resources and technology in place to achieve this standard? Is the problem indeed too big for Victoria by itself to adequately deal with and so is the problem in fact a national one?

How would a satisfactory solution be achieved without causing other problems like ecological damage and local wildlife extinctions? Then implement the recommendations and scientifically monitor their effectiveness. But the Commission is looking at what caused the specific ignitions, what damage the specific bushfires caused and specific responses. It will conclude what specifically should have been done in these specific incidents. It will lead to a blame game that will solve nothing. Subsequent ignitions if not predicted, detected, responded to and suppressed to prevent firestorms, will likely have different circumstances in different locations. So how will the problem have been solved by this Royal Commission? How will the Victorian Royal Commission prevent bushfire history repeating itself?

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

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

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

Day1

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

9am

Jim Betts - Secretary, Department of Transport Victoria

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

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

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

Tim Holding as Minister for Finance, Victoria

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

Question Time:

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

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

Halvard Dalheim - Director, State Strategy, Planning Policy Branch

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jonathon Metcalfe - Exec Chair Connex

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

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

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

Brad Vann - Partner, Clayton UTZ

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

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

Panel ‘Discussion’

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

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

Rob Turk

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

Lots of talk about ‘fast tracking’

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

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

Questions for panel:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Peter Bentley – CEO Connect East

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

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

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

Media presence

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

DAY 2.

Good morning Rob.

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

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

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

10 Challenges facing infrastructure.

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

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

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

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

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

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

7. Airport Capacity: Melbourne Airport Strategy

See Draft Airport Master plan 2008

8.

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

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

9. Residential Amenity: Freight Futures

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

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

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

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

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

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

Justin Madden – Minister for Planning

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

Questions:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stephen Bradford – CEO, Port of Melbourne Corporation

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

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

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

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

(anyone wanna buy a transport plan???)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Panel ‘Discussion’

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

Tim Ryan

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

Helen Newell

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

Andy McNicol

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

Questions/Discussion:

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

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

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

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

More q & a for the panel:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Parsons Brinkerhoff

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

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

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

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

• Land use is predicator for location of transport.

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

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

Over and out.

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

I became aware of scandal in Brimbank Council a few years ago, because I assisted Jill Quirk in the editing of a film where Jill and Gloria O'Connor interviewed Marilyn Canet at length. The film, entitled, The Arcane Battle of Taylors Lakes has never been publicly released, but has been held as a document. Yesterday I recontacted Marilyn Canet and asked her what she thought of the investigations and the parliamentary speech. She said that she had been present in Parliament when Mrs Powell, the Member for Shepparton, had delivered her speech (published below) and that she thought it was very accurate. In addition Marilyn wrote:

"Since 2002 I have submitted more than 130 items of correspondence, submissions, reports to the Premier, Ministers, Auditor General, Attorney General, Victoria Police and other bodies requesting a full investigation into alleged corruption in Brimbank.

. No satisfactory investigations took place in response to those efforts.

. I have issued correspondence to the Victorian Ombudsman since the issue of his report outlining a further 22 issues which I believe his investigation should have included. In other words the recent investigation was narrowly focused and did not serve to present the full breadth of the allegations of irregular/corrupt practices.

. The Ombudsman's office was aware of these further issues from correspondence previously issued to his office. Appropriate actions should have been taken in 2004 when first notified.

. The reasons provided by the Ombudsman's Office for failure to investigate all allegations during this investigation was the limited resources available.

. It is the writers view that this case demonstrates the necessity for the urgent appointment of an Independent broad based Crime and Corruption Body to Victoria."
(Marilyn Canet)

Local government: corruption

[Subheadings added by candobetter editor]
Mrs POWELL [Nationals Victoria member for Shepparton] stated on 10 June 2009 — Today I grieve for the erosion of democracy in local government under this Labor government which refuses to stamp out corruption and thereby fails the people of Victoria, particularly those in the western suburbs.

To show Victorians the type of corruption evident within Labor Party ranks, today a second Ombudsman’s report has been tabled. It outlines allegations that a council building inspector, Mr Peter Anastasi, used information and influence in his role with the council to obtain a personal advantage in the purchase of a property. The Ombudsman has asked that those allegations be referred to Victoria Police for its consideration. This is another damning report on the Brimbank City Council and on this government’s allowance of corrupt practices in that council.

Rally for democracy on steps of Parliament

A rally is being held on the steps of Parliament House today, involving councillors from all over Victoria who are outraged at the government’s removal of planning powers from local government. I grieve because I know how important local government is; it has a vital role.

Members in this house know I have been a local government commissioner, but they forget that I have also been an elected councillor and an elected president with the Shire of Greater Shepparton.

I grieve for the councillors who will lose their jobs around Victoria ...

I understand the roles and responsibilities of a councillor. I grieve for the councillors who will lose their jobs around Victoria not because they have done anything wrong, but because this government has failed to stamp out corruption. It knew about those practices in the Brimbank council; it was warned for years, but it refused to do anything, and now decent, hardworking councillors across Victoria have to decide whether they want to be a councillor or whether they want to work for a member of Parliament.

...Because the government has sat on its hands and allowed corruption to escalate

These councillors have done absolutely nothing wrong, but the government has sat on its hands and allowed corruption to escalate because it does not want to upset the factional warlords and jeopardise their political careers. The factions really run Labor-dominated councils, as we have seen from the Brimbank report, which I will talk about later.

John Cain on Victorian ALP machine

It is not just the coalition or the community that believe there is corruption in Labor councils. An Age article of
16 May is headed, ‘Cain attacks ALP for council abuses.’ It reads:

Former Premier John Cain has called on leaders of the Victorian ALP machine to show some political will and stamp out the alarming abuses of power revealed in the Labor-dominated Brimbank council.

Mr Cain says the appalling behaviour of the ALP figures in the western suburb municipality, exposed in a scathing Ombudsman’s report last week, is an indictment of the whole party and a challenge to its organisational leaders.
The article further says:

It has the rules and processes to do so. All that is needed is the political will.

The article goes on:

Mr Cain, who wrote a damming internal report for the ALP five years ago on corrupt party practices in the western suburbs, says the Labor machine knows how to root out the problems.

… In reference to his 2004 report and other investigations Mr Cain writes: ‘Some years ago the Victorian ALP was shown, by internal inquiries conducted under its rules, what was wrong. It was told quite unambiguously what was needed to be done to remedy these faults. The branch stacking and ghost branch meetings had to stop. (But) for several reasons, it chose not to act.’

That is a damning indictment by a former Labor Premier of this state.

Marilyn Canet

I also grieve for the people of the western suburbs who have put up with these practices for years and have begged the government to intervene. For many years community members have written letters and made submissions to the government and Brimbank council asking them to stop the corrupt practices. I do not have time to go through all of them, but one of the people I would like particularly to speak about is Marilyn Canet, who on 1 July 2005 wrote to all members of Parliament. I have on file a copy of the letter I received from Ms Canet, who was then the Save Our Suburbs municipal representative for Brimbank.

The letter states:

The attached document has been issued to all parliamentary members and relevant planning bodies representing Victoria. It concerns alleged corruption involving the Brimbank City Council, but more importantly, the state government’s refusal to investigate and address those matters.

A letter from Ms Canet of 29 June 2005 says:

A full investigation into Brimbank City Council was recently sought in a parliamentary motion by the Hon. Bill Forwood and the Hon. John Vogels. Six Brimbank councillors (including the mayor of the time) were named in relation to alleged corruption involving a ‘councillor pool of moneys’ contributed by Brimbank developers, real estate agents and other businesses, intended to finance the named councillor’s 2003 election campaign …

Years of letters ignored by local and state government...

Ms Canet goes on to talk about the letters and submissions she has put to this government and to members of the ALP for years, and nothing has been done other than the Ombudsman finally being asked to look into those matters.

The Sunshine Ratepayers Association has written numerous letters, and Darlene Reilly has been to Brimbank City Council. There have been numerous letters and submissions sent to the former Minister for Local Government and to the Minister, for Planning, asking them to intervene and stop corrupt practices at the Brimbank council. A former shadow Minister for Local Government, John Vogels, also raised this matter a number of times in the other house, urging the government to step in and investigate allegations of corrupt and illegal practices by Labor councillors, and again nothing has happened.

Local MPs in the area called for investigations into Brimbank

The local MPs in the area became involved. Mr Bernie Finn, a member for Western Metropolitan Region in the other house, has continually called for investigations into Brimbank. If members read the upper house debates regarding the Brimbank council, they will see how many people have asked for investigations into the Brimbank council, going back many years. In this house the member for Keilor delivered an absolute tirade on the Brimbank council in the grievance debate, and anyone who wants to understand how corrupt he saw Brimbank council as being just has to read in Hansard the debate of 30 July last year. It is a shame that I do not have enough time to put more on record, but those who are interested should read the report of that tirade.

The member for Keilor is the local member. He is also a longstanding Labor member, and in absolute frustration he used the grievance debate to urge the government to investigate the Brimbank council.

Ombudsman's investigation finally occurred

On behalf of the coalition I wrote to the Ombudsman the day after that tirade, calling for an investigation of the serious misconduct of two councils — the Brimbank council and the Port Phillip City Council. I sent the Ombudsman a copy of the Hansard speech of the member for Keilor and his claims of threats, bribery, intimidation, misuse of council funds, mismanagement, improper behaviour and the Brimbank council’s failure to govern effectively. I also sent the Ombudsman a transcript of the ABC program Stateline of Friday, 25 July, which raised some serious issues about the conduct of Labor councillors and Labor members. Mr George Brouwer, the Ombudsman, responded on 7 August last year saying that he was conducting his own investigation into Port Phillip council but had decided to conduct a formal investigation into the Brimbank council following my request.

The Ombudsman’s report was tabled on 7 May, about nine months after it was requested. This report was much-awaited by the coalition, but more importantly it was much-awaited by the Labor government, ALP councillors at Brimbank and all ALP members, because they would have known it would be a damning indictment of the way Labor runs councils — for Labor’s benefit and not for the benefit of communities.

The 208-page document goes absolutely to the cut and thrust of what was happening at Brimbank at the time. I suggest that any member who wants to find out how not to run a council and about the misuse of power by councillors, should read the Ombudsman’s report. I congratulate the Ombudsman on the thoroughness of the report. It was tabled on 7 May and is entitled Investigation into the Alleged Improper Conduct of Councillors at Brimbank City Council, and.

The report states:

Councillors are mandated to represent the interests of the community and to faithfully and impartially carry out their functions to the best of their skill and judgement. They are required to act honestly and to exercise reasonable care and diligence and must not make improper use of their position or information acquired, because of their position, to advantage themselves or any other person or to cause detriment to the council.

It further states:

Sadly, my investigation into the conduct of councillors at Brimbank City Council identified that the behaviour of many councillors failed to meet those standards.

Dysfunctional council, influence of unelected persons

The report goes on to detail evidence given to the Ombudsman about a dysfunctional council, the influence of unelected persons who held no elected local government office, including individuals who would be or who were in the past precluded from holding office because of criminal convictions. These are people who are dealing with councillors, talking to councillors and trying to make decisions in their interests rather than in the interests of the people of the western suburbs.

...Conflicts of interest, an improper use of power, bullying and intimidation, misuse of council funds and equipment including pornographic material...

The Ombudsman found there were conflicts of interest, an improper use of power, bullying and intimidation, misuse of council funds and equipment including pornographic material and inappropriate software on the laptops of two councillors, the inappropriate release of information, improper use of electoral information and concerns about the Office of Local Government not being funded sufficiently to carry out the statutory responsibilities of investigating breaches of the Local Government Act. The report goes on and on about the corrupt practices at the Brimbank council.

The government has said it will implement all of the recommendations in the report, including having the Minister for Local Government closely monitor the activities of the council and suspending it if the current poor practices continue. The Ombudsman also recommended that the Local Government Act be amended to disqualify persons employed as electorate officers, ministerial advisers and parliamentary advisers, and anyone employed by a federal or state MP from becoming or continuing to be a councillor or nominating as a councillor. As I said earlier, this means that councillors across Victoria who are hard working and are not guilty of any offence will be sacked.

Conflict with Charter of Human Rights and Responsiblities

We have to wonder whether, when this legislation is introduced, it will be contrary to the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities. I understand the Municipal Association of Victoria is seeking some advice on that issue.

Some of the most damning evidence is that this government is saying it has put in place a code of conduct and conflict-of-interest guidelines, and it talks about the issue of bias and says that councillors must come to their council chambers with an open mind and be able to change their minds.

ALP 'Municipal Caucus rules'

I will read briefly from the ALP’s ‘municipal caucus rules’. These show how members of the ALP — councillors of the caucus — cannot have open minds.

The rules state:

12.6.1 An ALP caucus shall be established in each municipal government area where two or more endorsed ALP candidates have been elected to office, All endorsed ALP candidates who have been elected to office shall belong to the ALP caucus.
…
12.6.6 The vote of an absolute majority of eligible caucus members shall bind all members of caucus and no member shall oppose in debate in council any matter which has been determined by caucus, except by the agreement of caucus.
…
12.6.9 Any member of caucus first wishing to introduce an item in council under general business shall first submit that item to caucus for its consideration.

12.6.10 In the case of a notice of motion which must be submitted before the notice paper is published, permission to submit such a motion must be given by the president of caucus.

12.6.11 The caucus shall determine who shall move and second motions to be introduced or coming before council arising from caucus decisions.
…
12.6.14 Meetings of caucus shall be held in camera. Unless required by these rules, no member of caucus shall divulge any information regarding the proceedings of caucus unless authorised to do so by an absolute majority of eligible caucus members or the administrative committee.

Mrs Powell: Municipal caucus rules not in the public interest

I call on the government to immediately abandon its municipal caucus rules in the public interest and the interests of good local government. People need to have confidence in local government, and they have to respect the office of local government. Victoria needs to stamp out corruption at all levels of government.
Obviously this Labor government has shown that it does not have the will to do that.

It is not just the opposition that says this; former Labor Premier John Cain, the community of Brimbank and councils right across Victoria are saying we should stamp out corruption. They are telling this government to use the power it has, to use the Local Government Act to stamp it out, to stop it before it festers and grows and escalates. Those of us who support local government say, ‘Stop these corrupt practices’.

Call for independent, broadbased anticorruption commission

To stamp out corruption at all levels of government Victoria needs an independent, broadbased anticorruption commission. I believe we are almost the only state without one, so I call on the government to listen to what the opposition is saying. We support local government and ask this Labor government to put in place the Ombudsman’s recommendations and stamp out corruption.

ALP should take the muzzles off the Labor councillors

More than that, we ask the government to talk to its Labor councillors and allow them to speak on behalf of the community, not for members caucus and the ALP who deal with ALP policies and practices. In the interests of local government I urge the government to work with local government, to stamp out corruption and allow local government to get on with what it does best — namely, represent the interests of its community.

Source: Hansard Victoria, 10 June 2009, heading, "Local Government: Corruption"

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

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

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

Criticism in Parliament of the Victorian Planning Legislation Amendment Bill

Mr CLARK (Box Hill) —

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bill won't help create jobs

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

Every other element of the process remains as it is.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

DAC Confidentiality provisions stop councillors talking to their communities

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

Councillors squeezed out of planning process, leaving only government officers

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

No reason required for overriding public policy

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

Crocodilian policies

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

A bil to destroy any democratic resistance to any development

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Brumby to bulldoze tollway through Pines

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

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

Vital for wildlife corridor to save Peninsula species

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

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

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

214 Regionally significant flora

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

Alternatives not being considered

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

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

The time has come to reclaim this land.

The time has come to reclaim this land.

But there is more.

Most precious reserves sacrificed to unnecessary urban expansion

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

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

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

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

"Dear Candobetter,

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

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

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

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

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

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

Page 2 of the Brochure has this large heading:

"Helping Melbourne to grow"

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

Underneath the paragraph reads:

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

And, on the last page:

Heading

"Why do prices need to rise?

continues:

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

A little further down:

Preparing for the future

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

The big question:

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

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

State Government has moral and civic duty to indemnify constituents

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Source: Video: Maude Barlow: Water Stress

It has been assumed that the natural environment could bear any impact of human activities!

However, according the State of the Environment report, it is very likely that many species won’t be able to adapt. Biodiversity richness, inherited as part of the natural wealth of this country, is being sacrificed on the altar of short-term economic benefits. As a result of mismanagement and ignorance, people and animals will be at risk from extreme weather such as heat waves, drought, fire, floods and storms. We haven't even faced the full impact of climate change yet!

Current measures of growth such as GDP and population ignore environmental degradation and the social wellbeing of inhabitants. Bulging growth boundaries may be good for land developers and corporations but are detrimental for most people who are not only threatened by the collapse of our ecosystem and climate change, but by traffic congestion, increasing pollution, higher costs and charges, water restrictions, housing stress and poor public transport and infrastructures.

Business as usual isn’t going to work! Brumby's government should step down and a caretaker administrator take over until State elections.