Total Environment Centre goes to bat against NSW Planning Minister Sartor's poor policy

MEDIA RELEASE – 3rd April 2008

Planning reform groundswell:
104 groups reject Sartor's changes

Over 100 peak and regional environment and community organisations have today written to the NSW Premier outlining 6 key areas where the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 (EP&A Act) must be reformed to restore (EP&A Act) must be reformed to restore community participation in the planning process.
The letter also tells The Premier that changes to the NSW Planning System, proposed by Planning Minister Sartor, will only serve to further alienate the community from the process.
"There is a growing sentiment among the general community that the NSW Government is going too far and the Premier would do well to listen to these concerns," said TEC Director Jeff Angel.
"Since the introduction of Part 3A into the EP&A Act, the balance has shifted from an Act that guarantees public participation and environmental assessment to one that hands developers more exemptions and less accountability.
"The planned reforms will only see an increase in the number of loopholes developers can jump through to avoid scrutiny. They also open the door for unhealthy relationships to form between developers and private certifiers.
"What is required is an EP&A Act with strong principles of ecologically sustainable development, contains genuine environmental assessment provisions and reinstates genuine public participation."

Contact: Jeff Angel or Leigh Martin on 92613437
TOTAL ENVIRONMENT CENTRE INC.
LEVEL 4, 78 LIVERPOOL STREET, SYDNEY, NSW 2000
Ph: 02 9261 3437 Fax 02 9261 3990
www.tec.org.au

Young Liberals: deluded, dangerous and at university

I would like to think that this piece in The Sydney Morning Herald was a leg pull. Unfortunately it isn't. The Young Liberals have started a campus witch hunt worthy of Salem.

The black posters started cropping up on university campuses early this month. A gagged, wide-eyed youth stares out from the top corner. "Record biased lecturers," the posters scream. "Scan biased textbooks. Report incidents of bias. Education. Not Indoctrination."---
"Lecturers and tutors are brazenly forcing students to agree with their political or ideological views and we want to catch them doing it," Noel McCoy, president of the Young Liberals, told reporters at the recent launch of the campaign.
Collating evidence of bias is the first step before asking the university senate to conduct an inquiry, McCoy says.

Ah, conservative uni students. Those poor (only a figure of speech because those coming from true comparative poverty rarely progress to higher education) deluded souls who always kick and buck when their own inherited world views are even mildly challenged.

This quadrangle tantrum would be barely tolerable if most were attending lectures in the pursuit of knowledge and informed debate, but all they are chasing is that piece of paper which allows them entry into a lucrative profession.

Modern professions of course demand a demonstrable degree of conformity of thought or practice to gain entry to what is sometimes almost a closed shop, so before Noel McCoy begins to make some tutor's life miserable he might like to consider the possibility that he is/was at university to be 'trained'.
Mr. McCoy would be the first to cry foul if he found the university hadn't provided him with this guild handshake.
Any knowledge or exploration of ideas that may come a student's way in pursuit of a degree are icing on the cake and deeper exploration of any subject must ultimately be on his/her own initiative.

Oh so earnest Young Liberals, here's the reality - you are not brighter than the average bear, you possess no unique pearls of wisdom, neither are you in some way special. You just happen to be there.

So try to at least leave your alma mater as you found it - still attempting to hold its head above the black pall created by Joe McCarthy's putative heirs and John Howard's tertiary education funding parsimony.

North Coast Area Health Service 'surge beds' issue still not resolved

The NSW Nurses Association is still waiting for the North Coast Area Health Service (NCAHS) to release an explanatory statement concerning its introduction of 'surge beds' in local public hospitals.

Surge beds are by definition additional inpatient beds which become available during epidemics, natural disasters and bioterrorism events.
Though in the case of NSW Health and NCAHS it appears that the label 'surge beds' is being used to withdraw existing hospital beds from daily use and reduce staffing levels.

After the fact consultations with the 14 hospitals involved do not appear to have engendered confidence within medical circles.
Which leaves many North Coast residents concerned about the present focus of regional health planning, if word games and bean counting are considered more important than people.

After twelve long years Brendan Nelson discovers Australia

Now into the fourth day of his 'listening' tour and Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson has discovered that the average Aussie is struggling with grocery bills, petrol prices and interest rates.

Hello? Drop a stone down that well and see if there is water at the bottom.

We've all been struggling for years, mate. Years and years and years.

So why wasn't Nelson all that concerned when he was part of the recently deceased Howard Government.

Little Brennie has been buzzing like a blue ar*ed fly around Queensland, New South Wales, South Australia and Western Australia in quick succession and the superficiality is beginning to show.

Leader of the alternative gov'ment - don't make me laugh.

Ted Calma soldiers on for human rights and equal opportunity

HEROC Social Justice Commissioner Ted Calma is having some trouble getting the ear of government on indigenous issues.

 

This is more than unfortunate as Mr. Calma appears to be the only indigenous person left in such a formal watchdog and consultative capacity at a federal level.

 

It's all rather sad when you realise that he is mainly asking that indigenous people have returned to them the same rights and protections afforded to other citizens.                     

 

The following are just two of the fourteen recommendations covering indigenous issues including land rights, discrimination, health, community and accountability.

 

The Northern Territory 'Emergency Response' intervention – A human rights analysis

 

Recommendation 3: Provision of external merits review of administrative decision-making

 

That the Parliament should immediately repeal all provisions which deny external merits review. These provisions should be replaced with provisions which make explicit that merit review processes do apply. This includes, but is not limited to, the following provisions:

• sections 34(9), 35(11), 37(5), 47(7), 48(5) and 49(4) of the Northern Territory National Emergency Response Act 2007 (Cth) relating to determinations about Indigenous land;
• section 78 and sections 97 and 106 of the Northern Territory National Emergency Response Act 2007 (Cth) in relation to decisions by the Minister to suspend all the members of a community government council, and decisions of the Secretary of the Department of FACSIA in relation to community store licences respectively; and
• new section144(ka) of the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999 (enacted by the Social Security and other legislation amendment (Welfare Payment Reform) Act 2007 (Cth) ) in relation to the right to seek a review by the Social Security Review Tribunal of decisions that relate to income management.

Note on implementation: This action can only be achieved through amendments to the legislation.

 

Recommendation 4: Reinstatement of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth)

 

That the Parliament immediately repeal the following provisions that exempt the NT measures from the protections of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth):

• section 132(2), Northern Territory National Emergency Response Act 2007 (Cth);
• section 4(2), Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and Other Legislation Amendment (Northern Territory National Emergency Response and Other Measures) Act 2007 (Cth); and
• section 4(3),(5) and section 6(3), Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Welfare Payment Reform) Act 2007 (Cth).

Note on implementation: This action can only be achieved through amendments to the legislation.

 

The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Social Justice Report 2007 in recommendations in full.

Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett does something right for native plants and animals, but will he stand up to Japanese pressure over whaling?

The Age yesterday on the nation's land reserve system.

 

AUSTRALIA'S National Reserve System will get its biggest injection of funds — $180 million over five years — since its establishment by the Keating government.

The money will expand the system of national parks and private reserves for native plants and animals.

The Government will commit $2 for every dollar advanced by state, local government or private sources, ensuring at least $370 million is available.

"It will mean that private conservancy organisations, those private investors who want to get in and protect important parts of bush — say for example in Cape York that connect with existing national parks — will have access to investment funds," Environment Minister Peter Garrett said.

Mr Garrett said priority would be given to regions of sub-tropical savannah, the Mitchell grass country of north-west Queensland and arid central Australia, all of which had a low level of protection.

 

It's good to see that Peter Garrett is capable of positive action, although he does not appear to have fully taken onboard the contents of the latest OECD assessment.

The trick for Garrett will be in making sure that this money is spent on land areas large enough to provide sustainable habit and ecosystems and not frittered away on small parcels which are unlikely to provide generational protection for Australian flora and fauna or on wildlife corridors which are not hectares wide.

 

The Government of Japan continues to push for an extension of its coastal right to hunt whales.

Its bloody-minded and expensive 'scientific' hunt in the Southern Ocean whale sanctuary appears to be an attempt to blackmail the international community into lifting the whaling moratorium in the Pacific Ocean.

 

The National Geographic reported last week.

 

But the possibility now exists that a deal will be struck allowing Japan to take as many as 400 minke whales from its own waters, provided that its whaling fleet leaves the Southern Hemisphere for good.

"It would be very similar to aboriginal subsistence whaling, but not identical," Palmer said.

"What we might look at is some possibility that scientific whaling be abandoned in return for some sort of concession."

Chris Howe, executive director for the New Zealand office of the international conservation group WWF, said that any deal should include an end to scientific whaling.

"Japan would whale coastally for a small number of minkes and only for domestic use, and quotas must be based on the [Revised Management Procedure] alone."

The procedure is a set of rules developed by the IWC that determines allowable catch limits based on estimates of whale numbers and catch figures past and present.

No matter what terms they might eventually discuss, many anti-whaling delegates are optimistic simply about what they see as Japan's willingness to negotiate.

Palmer says Japan may have realized that it went "a step too far" by threatening to kill humpbacks, the basis of many whale-watching operations in the Pacific.

In addition, violent encounters between whalers and protestors in Antarctic waters last month won Japan no public sympathy. (Read "Japan Denies Shooting Anti-Whaling Activist" [March 7, 2008].)

 

When examining the details of any negotiations with Japan Peter Garrett needs to consider whether the ramifications of killing 400 Minke whales annually will lead to localised extinctions and how this would affect genetic diversity and species vigour.

This century in particular is not the time to accept second-best when it comes to species protection.

If this means staring down Kevin Rudd and Cabinet, the Environment Minister needs to do that also.