March 11th, 2006
An excellent turnout from the Greens at Sydney’s Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras last week.
One of our active ISG members, Michael is a professional photographer and took dozens of great pictures.
Featured here is one of myself (in blue) standing by the rainbow flag together with state parliamentarian Lee Rhiannon (yellow) and federal Senator Kerry Nettle (orange).
A couple of more snaps below showing our large happy crowd donning the rainbow colours, celebrating sexual diversity and keeping up the pressure for absolute equality.
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Posted in LGBTI, Photo Gallery
March 9th, 2006
Media Release
Our Lord Mayor of the city, Ms Clover Moore, not content with the Lord Mayors job and being the member for Bligh, last year elected herself as Chair of all Council committees. Now, to top it off, she has made herself the chair of the Bicycle Strategy Steering committee.
“We note Lord Mayor, that you have decided to attend the remaining meetings of the Cycle Study Steering Committee as Chair.” Email from Council staff
To date Ms Moore has never seen it important enough to attend a Bicycle committee meeting let alone chair one. Only three councillors have ever been at these meetings and they chose Greens Cr. Chris Harris as the chair.
The question is why would the Lord Mayor, given her huge commitments, wish to take over this position when for the past 12 months, it has been successfully chaired by Cr. Harris?
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Posted in Council, Media Release
March 8th, 2006
I contributed this article to the internal NSW Greens newspaper Green Mail (March 2006) …
The Carlton United Brewery site is about to be redeveloped - will it be an icon of urban renewal or a modern inner city slum?
The Carlton United Brewery (CUB) site is a 5.7 hectare industrial site and the former home of The Kent Brewery but in more recent times it was known as the Carlton & United Brewery. It stands adjacent to the suburb of Chippendale, a short walk from the city.Before the Sydney City Council was elected in 2004, virtually every non-Labor candidate promised that there would be a new process of consultation with the community in order to set planning controls for the site that would be sustainable and in sympathy with neighbouring Chippendale.
After the election I was elected to the Central Sydney Planning Committee (CSPC), which deals with developments over $50M.
The CSPC is a considerable workload because it involves another set of briefings and meetings aside from the council process. It consists of three councillors and four government representatives.
I had hoped that between myself, Clover Moore and Deputy Mayor John McInerney, we could achieve a reasonable set of planning controls over the CUB site. However, this was not to be the case and I resigned from the CSPC in August last year over what I saw as a “sell-out” by Independent councillors on the car-parking ratio, floor space ratio and height controls.
So what happened? An independent study commissioned by the Council recommended a parking ratio of 0.57 spaces per apartment, but the Council representatives on the Committee, the Lord Mayor, Clover Moore, and Deputy Lord Mayor, John McInerney supported the current Local Environment Plan allowing a car-parking space ration of 0.97. This translates to an extra 800 cars –a huge environmental impact.
After extensive communication with residents in the area it was clear to me that many wanted an even lower ratio, but 0.57 seemed a realistic compromise since about half the households in Chippendale currently do not own a car, and locals commonly walk, cycle or use public transport.
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Posted in Council, Development
