Councillor Chris Harris

When Deputy Lord Mayor Greens Cr. Chris Harris requested a motion of urgency to bring forward the debate on erecting a banner – ‘Cage Bush. Not Sydney’ – on the Town Hall, not one councillor supported him.

The reason Cr. Harris gave for this motion to be brought forward was that camera crews were waiting to record the debate and there was wide public interest in the issue.

Not surprisingly when the motion finally came up for debate, with one intrepid camera crew still present, neither the supposedly progressive Clover Moore independent team, nor the Liberals (predictably) nor Labor voted to even discuss the matter. Read the rest of this entry »

Will the City of Sydney Council stand up for its citizens or will it standby and say nothing while its people are caged in, water cannoned and not allowed to cross the streets? Chris Harris wants council to take a stand and has put forward a motion calling on council to erect a banner on the Sydney Town Hall – ‘Cage Bush. Not Sydney’.

“The banner acknowledges that we need to protect Bush – and let’s be honest that’s what this security is all about – but not at the expense of caging in Sydney. As the council responsible for the city it is up to us to let the people of Sydney know where we stand on the closing down of their city. I think a banner erected on the Town Hall would identify that stand,” said Cr Harris. Read the rest of this entry »

In a notice of motion put before the City of Sydney Council, Greens Deputy Lord Mayor Cr. Chris Harris has proposed that while the council is legally obliged to provide existing employees with a ‘Workplace Relations Fact Sheet’ designed by the Federal Government, it should also provide staff with an alternative non-political fact sheet.

This is especially timely given the Queensland government’s legal challenge in the Federal Court – the NSW government is considering joining this action - where it is seeking a declaration that local government bodies are not constitutional corporations and therefore are not subject to Work Choices legislation. Read the rest of this entry »

Draft Late-Night Trading Premises Development Control Plan 2007

As reported widely in the media, new draft approval guidelines have been designed to change the mix and type of licensed venues in Sydney. They will soon be exhibited for public comment.

The new rules, if ratified, will be less strict for smaller, ‘Category B’ venues which will be able to extend their trading hours more easily than larger ‘Category A’ venues.

This is intended to encourage smaller, more intimate bars of the kind more common in Melbourne and European cities.

Approval for extending operating hours beyond ‘base’ hours will be granted on a trial basis only. Larger venues will be limited to a one-year trial period before re-assessment. Smaller venues (those with a floor area under 200 square metres) will enjoy a maximum five-year period.

But trial periods mean that late trading approvals for either category become a privilege, not a right, and they give the City the power to withdraw consent if a venue consistently fails to meet its consent conditions. A full legal process is required to achieve this during a trial period. It seems the primary intention is to review eligibility at the end of each trial period.

This has been criticised as ‘de facto approval’ but venue owners on the other hand would no doubt be concerned about the extra paperwork and expense of repeatedly re-applying for consent.

Further, venues applying for extended hours will be granted extensions in increments − two hours extra per approval for large venues, three hours for smaller venues. Read the rest of this entry »

The court case, Matthew Drake-Brockman v the Minister for Planning and others (Foster’s has sold the CUB site to Frasers) regarding the environmental disaster that will be the Carlton United Brewery development has completed.

In two days of debate barristers for both sides argued the case for the importance of ensuring that environmentally sustainable measures were incorporated into the approval process for the site.

With climate change threatening the way we live it was astonishing to hear counsel for the Minister and Frasers argue that “ESD (ecologically sustainability development) should not take primacy over economics” and that under Part 3A the Minister is under “no obligation to take ESD considerations into account.”

Tell that to the future generations when their health, work opportunities and environment are destroyed.

We now await a judgement within the next few weeks.

Below I have included a summary of the arguments in the CUB Hearing including the submission from Francis Douglas QC, counsel for Drake-Brockman.

I would like to thank everyone who took an interest and supported this landmark case that deals with climate change in an urban development. If you would like to read the full submission please email me at charris@cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au and I will send these to you.

Cheers 
Deputy Lord Mayor of Sydney
Greens Cr Chris Harris Read the rest of this entry »