Councillor Chris Harris

In an extraordinary move at council on Monday night, Lord Mayor Clover Moore and her team of ‘independents’ voted against a lower pool entry fee for children at the new Ian Thorpe pool at Ultimo, soon to be open.

Using her casting vote against the children of Sydney, Lord Mayor Clover Moore rejected Greens Deputy Lord Mayor Chris Harris’ amendment to reduce the entry fee for children from $4.40 to $3.00.

‘The only reason that council gave to reject a $3 entry fee for children was that it would cost the council $64,000,’ said Cr Harris.

‘I am appalled that our Lord Mayor and her team would put a $64,000 price tag on our children. All we’re talking about is a $1.40 reduction. Let’s not forget that Council made a net surplus this year of $61.7 million.’ Read the rest of this entry »

Paddington’s fig-tree lovers are furious. In the face of overwhelming resident opposition, Clover Moore on Monday night used her casting vote in Council to support a policy that will decimate one of Sydney’s few remaining avenues of fig trees.

Selwyn Street Paddington is lined by Hills Weeping Fig trees forming a cathedral-like canopy similar to the main avenue of Hyde Park. Along with nearby Napier Street, they are listed on Council’s Significant Tree Register.

When two of the trees did what trees do and invaded residents’ property, causing damage, Council decided to replace them with Lilly Pillys and to continue doing so as the figs in the street died off or became a problem, claiming that the new species was less invasive. However an independent arborist, engaged by residents, disputes this. The new species is just as invasive but will take around twice as long to grow.

Deputy Lord Mayor Greens Cr Chris Harris: “While planting Lilly Pillys might delay damage to property in the short term, it will mean that Selwyn street will have no tree canopy for around 60 years and when the trees do eventually grow, unlike the Hills Figs that allow a beautiful dappled light, the Lilly Pilly’s dense leaf mass will significantly darken the street.

“By using her casting vote Clover Moore has ensured that the magical charm the fig trees have created in Selwyn Street will be destroyed.”

Residents collected a petition of 317 signatures showing that 80 percent of Selwyn Street residents supported the fig trees.

“The conflicting arborist’s reports prove that the need to remove the Hills Figs is a matter of opinion. Given this and the amount of resident support for the fig trees, you would have thought Clover Moore would have used her casting vote to vote for the residents, not against them,” said Cr Harris.

Politicians of all shades these days pay at least lip-service to climate change. But which ones are serious when it comes to real action?

Chris Harris at Monday night’s Council meeting will present Councillors with an opportunity to get behind the community legal action challenging the concept plan for the CUB site in Chippendale.

He is asking Council to contribute $20,000 towards the estimated legal costs, backing up community members who have already donated $3,000 to the cause.

‘I imagine the Labor councillors will have to think hard about supporting action against Planning Minister Frank Sartor, but I can see no good reason why the remaining councillors should not get behind this last-ditch attempt to save the future of Sydney,’ said Cr Harris.

‘The CUB site is the largest remaining old industrial site to be developed in the CBD and given that we will have to live with its environmental consequences for decades, we have to act now or never.’

‘I support Clover Moore’s vision for Sydney. I agree with her that Sydney should be liveable, equitable and environmentally sustainable and that this depends on what we do now.’ (SMH 6/6/07)

‘If we believe this then we need to change the nature of this disastrous project which will snarl traffic and impact heavily on the environment for decades to come. The other environmental measures council is planning will be cancelled out unless we act now.

Cr Harris has fully backed the community action by letterboxing Chippendale with an appeal for loan/donations. The litigation is also being supported by Legal Aid which has indemnified the litigants against costs should they lose the case.

‘This means there is no risk to Council or anyone else who backs the action,’ says Cr Harris. ‘The choice is simple: get behind this action or face a long future of pollution and traffic chaos in Sydney.’

‘I invite residents to come to Town Hall on Monday evening to watch the debate.’

Attachments: Media Release; Flyer Page 1; Flyer Page 2.

A few people have made comments lately that show the concept of ’sustainability’ means quite different things to different people.

Here we are making an issue of the CUB site and the Surry Hills Community Centre, which clearly do not meet the sustainability standards needed to reverse global warming, and more than one person has responded with comments like: ‘But what’s wrong with being on mains water?’

Well, nothing is wrong with it, especially as most of us have little choice and little incentive to do otherwise. Some climate-change sceptics even take sustainability messages as a personal affront.

That’s not what we are saying, though.

The point is that the ways of the past, the ways we have grown up with and take for granted, cannot last. Even ultra-sceptics like George Bush and John Howard are finally admitting that climate change induced by human activity is a real problem.

That’s partly because so many major players in business and economics have now accepted that the longer we take to tackle the problem the worse the economic damage we will most likely have to endure. Even the risk of it demands action.

So when developers propose major projects that incorporate only minor or marginal green initiatives, and these projects have, say, a 30-year life span, it’s simply stealing from our own future and that of our children — and their children.

Don’t forget that every tonne of CO2 pumped into the atmosphere will stay there for hundreds of years. There is no magic vacuum-cleaner to take it all away.

Every minute, every week and every month counts. It’s urgent!

So the only responsible way forward is to drastically reduce emissions, now. We need to realise that every take-away coffee cup, every glass of mains water that has been pumped from a distant dam and every old computer monitor we throw out embodies energy that has produced emissions. But compared to a take-away coffee cup, major developments like the CUB site will be cataclysmic in their impacts.

Read the rest of this entry »

The court case to save Chippendale from an extra 2,300 polluting cars, the unsustainable use of water, the disposal of sewage to the ocean and the massive long term construction impacts of the proposed CUB development is set for 25 July. The Environmental Defender’s Office, the community’s legal advisors for the case, estimates that a further $30,000 will be needed on top of the Legal Aid already granted.

That’s why I am working with members of the local community to launch a public fundraising appeal.

The concept plan approved for the site pays only lip-service to the environment while Frank Sartor’s autocratic planning powers ensure that community concerns will also be sacrificed on the altar of developer profits.

This court case is our last chance to force the big end of town to re-think and re-design this massive new development into something Sydney and future generations can be proud of.

Anyone who travels along Broadway, Abercrombie Street or Regent Street which bound the huge site knows how bad the delays already are. Imagine three more sets of traffic lights and 2,300 more vehicles moving in and out of the site – because that’s how many parking spots are planned for the development! Read the rest of this entry »