Councillor Chris Harris

Climate change impacts become more obvious every day, meaning that any government that cares about the future of the planet should be looking at ways to replace existing coal fired power stations with renewable energy sources as soon as possible.  However Kristina Keneally’s NSW Labor Government has done the exact opposite of this by announcing concept approval for another two fossil fuel burning power stations to be built at Bayswater in the Hunter Valley and Mt Piper near Lithgow.  I find it shocking that the government can even consider a project like this, let alone approve it.  Building new pollution belching stacks is the last thing a government supposedly concerned about the future should be doing. The government’s actions are totally irresponsible, bordering on criminal negligence.

These two new plants, if powered by coal, will increase NSW greenhouse gas emissions by around 15% (the equivalent of doubling the number of cars on our roads), which means an increase in the emissions of Australia as a whole of just under 5%.  At the same time, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd tells us he wants to decrease  Australia’s Greenhouse gas emissions by 5%, a very weak target far below what the science tells us is necessary to avoid a climate catastrophe.  However any small benefits that this pitiful target may have had will be completely wiped out by these two new power plants being built by Rudd’s mates in the NSW Labor party.

Planning Minister Tony Kelly has said that the plants may be powered by natural gas instead of coal.  Natural gas burns cleaner than coal which means the negative impacts of the project would be a little less severe.  However the Minister says the decision on whether to use coal or gas will be determined based on “the market”.  Given the distance of the Mt Piper site from the nearest gas pipeline and the proximity of the Bayswater site to the Hunter Valley’s many coal mines, it seems highly unlikely that these plants will be powered with gas. In any event gas is a fossil fuel and therefore non renewable and should only be considered for refitting existing coal fired plants to achieve a short term improvement whilst renewable technology is developing.

The NSW Government claims that these plants will be needed over the next decade to “keep the lights from going out” – to meet the state’s increasing demand for electricity. However this claim comes from the Owen Report – commissioned by former Premier Morris Iemma to justify his plans to sell the state’s electricity assets to private companies – which exaggerated shortfalls in electricity supply in order to build support for Iemma’s ambitions.  NSW is not running low on electricity generation capacity and if it was there are much better ways of solving the problem.

In his paper How to reduce CO2 emissions by 50% Dr Mark Diesendorf, lecturer in environmental studies at the University of NSW, explains how there are no technical or economic barriers to Australia adopting widespread renewable energy technology and that the only barrier is a lack of political will.  He points out that a combination of improved energy efficiency and greater reliance on renewables could see Australia reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 50% in the next few decades, even with a population and an economy that continues to grow.  It is to these measures, rather than ones that lock us into decades more of coal dependence, that governments should be looking for the answers to our energy needs.

    
It is a sad state of affairs that in 2010 governments are still so in the thrall of the fossil fuel industries that they ignore the needs of the planet and the demands of the people for clean energy and green jobs.  My Greens colleagues and I will be doing all we can to make sure the government doesn’t get away with this, but we need your help.  Write to your local MP, whether government, opposition or crossbencher and ask them where they stand on these new power plants.  Tell them you won’t vote for anyone who is irresponsible enough to support new coal fired power stations, then spread the message to your community.  If governments won’t make the right decisions on their own, it’s up to us to force them to.  

For more information on solar energy, see my earlier post on this topic.

The prospect of twenty seven months of construction noise and dozens of trucks per day on your street would make the most stoic of residents unhappy.  And when your street is one of the quietest and most beautiful tree lined avenues in inner Sydney (pictured), unhappy doesn’t even begin to describe it.  Such was the mood of a group of Paddington residents, until an extraordinary meeting of City of Sydney Council’s traffic committee endorsed sweeping but sensible amendments to a controversial traffic management plan for the redevelopment of the College of Fine Arts (CoFA) site. 

The amendments restore the plan to a form that sees a general degree of acceptance from local residents who understandably want to minimise the impact that the construction will have on their neighbourhood.

When CoFA first proposed major redevelopment of its Paddington site the community were supportive but had concerns about the impact of construction on their quiet residential streets.  However the preparation of a traffic management plan, the approval of which rested with the City of Sydney, saw all construction traffic using the relatively major thoroughfare of Greens Road. This was a compromise most could agree on.

Unfortunately, in February this year CoFA submitted an amended plan that directed large numbers of trucks off Greens Rd. and onto the quiet residential streets of Albion Ave, Selwyn St, Josephson St. and Napier St. The community weren’t happy that the plan they’d negotiated in good faith had fallen by the wayside.

The new plan resulted in a long list of concerns from local residents including noise, loss of parking spaces, damage to streetscapes and the safety of pedestrians and cyclists. 

It was clear from the hundreds of emails that my Greens colleague Cr Irene Doutney and I received that the new plan wasn’t acceptable to the community.  So we called on Council to hold the extraordinary meeting of the traffic committee and have this new plan appropriately amended so that it reflected the spirit of the original negotiations.

During the meeting the passions of local residents were high but in the end CoFA representatives agreed to the amendments that will make the new plan similar to the original.

Under the amended plan trucks involved in the construction will enter & exit the site from Greens Rd via the Napier St. road closure. Trucks will only be able to use Selwyn and Josephson streets in a small number of predefined situations, with residents to be notified ahead of time when this is to occur.

The Greens have also requested that a member of council’s planning staff attend Construction Liaison Committee meetings which have been set up to resolve day to day issues that arise as the project progresses.

It is important that the City engages fully with the local community to protect the ambience & charm of some of inner Sydney’s most beautiful streets.  I think this is a case where this has successfully happened and it goes to show that, even in cases of major developments, positive outcomes can be achieved when parties get together and talk to each other.

At a Council meeting on the 15th of March, the Lord Mayor moved a mayoral minute (delivered to councillors 25 minutes before the meeting), which was supported Clover Moore Party “independents” and the Liberal Councillor, to abandon plans to build a skate park at the Millers Point site underneath a busy freeway (for background information on the site, see this previous post).

This is a massive blow for the skateboarding community of the City and young people generally, but it shouldn’t have to be this way.  The Lord Mayor’s reasons for abandoning the plans are based on a number of incorrect and poorly evidenced assumptions and it seems as though she is running scared from the hype campaign created by a small group of very vocal residents with a serious case of “Not In My Backyard”.

This spineless backdown by the Lord Mayor is the second time a perfectly good proposed site has been junked for her perceived political benefit. Prior to this a very advanced design for a skate park in Prince Alfred Park was deleted from the plan at the last minute following ill informed and prejudiced opposition by a handful of her supporters many of whom you will see handing out ‘how to votes’ for her at the next election.

The first reason given for cancelling the plan is that it will be “affected by” the cycleway planned to be built next to the proposed skate park site.  This is a flimsy excuse at best and the Lord Mayor has made no attempt to explain what exactly “affected by” means in this context.  The cycleway has been on the drawing board since before the planning for the skate park was initiated and there had been no suggestion that these two plans were in conflict before now.  The skate park was planned for a small plaza area next to the cycleway and would interfere with it no more than an adjacent café or children’s playground would.

The importance of the site as a pedestrian access way between Wynyard and Barangaroo is also listed as a reason to reject the plans, however with solid plans for a cycleway adjacent to the skate park site it’s difficult to see what the connection is between the skate park and pedestrian access.  Skaters will likely use the cycleway to skate to the site as cycleways are designed to be more sympathetic to the needs of wheeled vehicles than pedestrian footpaths are, providing a smoother and more enjoyable ride.  Unless Clover Moore has secret plans to abandon the cycleway as well (which would entirely destroy her first argument against the skate park) there will be already in place a separated path for skaters to use so they don’t conflict with pedestrians. Further the pedestrian link between Kent St and York St through to Wynyard station passes past the proposed skate park not through it. The only real conflict in that area will be between pedestrians & cyclists.

The final argument against the plan is the many unfounded objections raised by local residents of noise, antisocial behaviour, graffiti and the like.  I am a local resident myself and have dealt with most of these arguments in my previous post on this matter.  However one argument that I haven’t tackled previously, which has been trotted out again, is one to the effect that because the site is small, skaters will quickly get bored of it. 

This is yet another baseless skater stereotype.  While a small site may not attract large numbers of regular visitors from outside the area (a situation that I imagine would please many of the objectors) one only need to briefly look through online skateboarding forums to realise how passionate skaters are about their local parks, even if they are small.  A site such as this will likely serve as a hub for local skaters from the younger end of the spectrum for whom it is not easy to travel to Waterloo or other outlying skate parks.  This could include primary school children and young teenagers skating with their friends as well as children as young as four skating under the supervision of their parents.  Older skaters respect the different needs of young skaters and the two can share the same space with very little conflict.  I think even those members of the community who adhere to the stereotypes of skaters as habitual perpetrators of antisocial and criminal behaviour will acknowledge that the presence of young children and parents at the site is likely to severely curtail any such activities.

This disgraceful decision by the increasingly autocratic Lord Mayor and her compliant Clover Moore Party “independents” reminds me of the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. In the film a mythical society keeps its children underground because they are seen to be noisy, smelly and troublesome. The town even has a child catcher who scours the town for children using a rattling toy as a lure. Once captured they are bundled into a wooden cage that is mounted on a horse drawn cart and despatched to the underground cave where they won’t bother anyone.

Well at least the young people of Clover Moore’s City know where they belong now. Not in her backyard. And she doesn’t even need to explain herself anymore. She has the numbers and as we have seen from politicians of her kind in the NSW state government – that’s all that matters!

I can only interpret Clover Moore’s actions on this as nothing more than a political move attempting to pander to populist ill-informed hysteria.  I would recommend that all members of the community who want to see this skate park go ahead write to her and her team on Council and tell them how you feel about this decision, how misguided she is in falling for the same unfair stereotypes dragged out again and again and how it will affect your vote at the next state or local council election.  Maybe she will see that abandoning such a well loved plan is not the way to win popularity and we will once again see the park inner Sydney wants and deserves back on the agenda.  

I have serious concerns about the tender process that appears to have been designed to place the City’s tennis courts under the management of a single operator. Should the recommendation of council staff be adopted the operator at Ruchcutters Bay tennis courts will be tossed out after 25 years of service to the community. The Greens councillors consider such a proposal to be unreasonable & unfair.  At an extraordinary meeting on Monday 1st March (attended by around 200 people protesting the recommendation, shown below) the Clover Moore Party used their numbers to defer the tender process for a second time.  Councillor Doutney and myself, along with the Labor and Liberal Councillors, voted against the motion.

As Greens we have three key concerns with the tender process: shortcomings with information provided to councillors, inconsistent treatment of individual tenderers during the process and a failure of the tender criteria & process to capture the “community benefit” that councillors had requested.

The level of benefit that an applicant could provide to the community was meant to be the most heavily weighted criteria upon which a successful tender was assessed. However the hundreds of emails that Councillors received from the Rushcutters Bay community have provided information about the local operator that should have been presented to Councillors in the staff report on the tenders at the Finance Committee on 15th February 2010.

There has been no performance review of the current tennis court operators at Rushcutters Bay, despite this being required by local government tendering guidelines. As a result the free coaching, court hire & equipment hire to children from Darlinghurst & Plunkett St Public Schools over the past fifteen years was not reported to councillors and could not have been considered in the tender assessment.

Another piece of highly relevant information was a proposed Franks Family scholarship of $100,000 per annum to provide coaching & court time for 40 children from disadvantaged backgrounds. Again this was not reported to councillors and therefore could not have been considered in the tender assessment.

The Greens are also very concerned about the inconsistent treatment of the two tenderers who made direct contact with councillors in order to lobby for their bid. One tenderer was excluded and the other, who ended up as the recommended tenderer, was not.  I have read the “no lobbying” clause in the tender and the emails from tenderers (see attachment 1 below). I can’t see why one was ousted and the other was not. The decision seems biased and unfair.

I have since sought legal advice from a senior counsel Francis Douglas QC who advised that the email from the tenderer who was not excluded  had indeed breeched the tender guidelines (see attachment 2 below). Further the awarding of the tender to the offending tenderer could see such a decision invalidated by a court and damages sought from the City of Sydney.

Once the legal advice was tabled the Clover Moore Party scrambled to defer the process until a more thorough investigation could be carried out, but this is not a positive way forward.  To simply delay a process with so many flaws in it so that just one of those flaws can be investigated, while ignoring all the others, is not in the interest of the community. 

People have invested significant time and effort in writing to Council and turning up to meetings in order to try to make sure the process reflects their very reasonable desires for their community. They deserve better than to have to wait once more for a flawed process to turn out an unsatisfactory outcome.  The process needs to be restarted with criteria that will accurately reflect the benefits that each applicant will provide, and has provided previously, to the community.

Attachment 1- Tenderer not to Solicit Council Personel

Attachment 2 - Legal Advice from Francis Douglas QC

Hot on the heels of their destruction of the habitat area at Orphan School Creek with the freshly laid concrete zig zag path, the Clover Moore Party are at it again across the road in Johnstons Canal with more habitat destruction.  The proposal is a bike path that links the shared pathway emerging from Orphan School Creek as it crosses Wigram Rd at Forest Lodge.

Two pathways have been outlined by City staff. The one favoured by Clover Moore Party councillors  proceeds along the eastern side of the canal between Wigram Rd and a bridge across the canal about 150 metres away. This area contains about 5 metres of council land immediately adjacent to the canal and joins seamlessly with the backyards of 22 terrace homes that front Minogue Crescent. Currently there is a dirt ‘goat track’ that is used by the occasional recreational cyclist, mothers with little kids in prams and people walking their dogs. These uses have happily coexisted with the local residents for years but all that is about to change.

The Lord Mayor’s concrete and steel brigade have voted to build a 2.5 metre wide concrete path with regular 3.5 metre light poles. This new commuter cyclepath will be lit up like a carnival, it will attract a lot more cyclists and totally destroy this idyllic little haven. The impact on the residents will be considerable.

When I visited the site with Greens colleague, Cr Doutney, we saw corellas feeding their young, sulphur crested cockatoos munching the freshly mown grass seed and multiple varieties of birdlife – night time brings out possums & other native animals.

There is a perfectly good alternative route for this section of the cycleway just metres away on the other side of the canal. Booth lane is a very seldom used laneway that hosts a Housing NSW development on one side of the road and a private multi unit development on the other. Both of these have adequate on site parking for residents. The laneway contains 8 parking spaces that could easily be converted into a two way cycleway that terminates at Taylor St. Taylor St is a very wide & quiet dead end street that leads straight into the park where the shared path cycleway will continue down to the parklands around Roselle Bay.

Clover Moore councillors refused to consider the alternative ‘on road’ route but have decided instead on habitat destruction, increased conflict with cyclists and the loss of the peaceful glade enjoyed by the 22 homes along Minogue Cres. This choice is totally unnecessary.

Leichhardt Council will shortly be spending around $700,000 on Taylor St to convert it into a model sustainable street. What better addition to this project than the inclusion of sustainable transport. The traffic movements on Booth Lane and Taylor St are very low and it would be an ideal and easy path for both recreational & commuter cyclists with little potential conflict with cars or pedestrians

Residents of Minogue Cres, who have not been properly consulted, turned up at council on 22nd February to express their view and were refused an opportunity to address councillors when the Clover Moore Party voted as a block to deny them the right to speak. Once again Forrest Lodge residents are being ignored.

Thanks to local resident Alexandra Brunner for images of the site as it is now in it’s unconcreted state.