in this, the year of women in local government.

NSW Greens MP and transport spokesperson Lee Rhiannon says Federal Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese will only succeed in transforming Sydney into a more liveable city if he directs Infrastructure Australia to shift its funding preference from road construction to public transport and rail freight infrastructure.

“The key to liveable cities is public transport. Anthony Albanese must allocate funding from Infrastructure Australia to large scale public transport projects, reversing the current preoccupation with roads,” Ms Rhiannon said.

“It’s time for a funding switch from the current situation where the Federal government is allocating $28 billion to road projects over six years, while rail gets a mere $7.9 billion. (more…)

The NSW government’s approval for two new giant fossil fuel power stations is based on the big lie that they are needed to keep the lights on. They will drive up the state’s greenhouse gas emissions and destroy jobs in the renewable energy industry, according to Greens NSW MP John Kaye.

Commenting on Planning Minister Tony Kelly’s approval of the concept plans for 2,000 MW power plants at Mt Piper near Lithgow and Bayswater in the Upper Hunter, Dr Kaye said: “NSW does not need more baseload electricity generation to keep the lights on. (more…)

Commenting on the clause in the M2 motorway contract that could result in compensation being paid to operator, Transurban, Greens MP and transport spokesperson Lee Rhiannon said the northwest rail line is an essential piece of infrastructure that should be fast tracked not held up because of a poor decision by the Coalition when they were in government.

“The former Coalition government in the early 1990s should never have agreed to the clause in the M2 contract that allows the motorway operators to claim compensation if their profits are impacted by a nearby public transport project,” Ms Rhiannon said.

“If the NSW government has to pay compensation because of a poor motorway decision by a previous Coalition government that should not be used as a reason to prevent construction of the northwest rail project. (more…)

The Greens have criticised the State Government for withdrawing funding from Community Cultural Development NSW, the peak body for community
arts and cultural development in NSW.

“The effect of this de-funding will be that arts funding in NSW will now be focused on the flagships of Australian arts funding such as Opera Australia, Sydney Theatre Company, Sydney Symphony Orchestra and their like. While these are wonderful and important institutions, they interact with only a very small segment of our community,” said Sylvia Hale, Greens MLC and spokesperson for the Arts.

“With the withdrawal of this funding the NSW Government is reneging on its 2006/07 agreement with Federal arts funding body, The Australia Council, to support community based arts programs in NSW. The loss of funding from Arts NSW means the automatic loss of funding from The Australia Council. (more…)

It is beholden on us at the local government level to ensure that activities like mining do not make it impossible for our residents to live in their own homes. It is appalling that a mining company’s activities override the rights of people to live simply and comfortably and have adequate sleep. The general situation with mining in this country, which has a long record of destroying farmland, damaging ecosystems, polluting waterways, destroying Aboriginal sites of significance, sucking out huge amounts of underground and riverine water and generally impacting negatively on communities, is unacceptable to anyone who puts social justice and quality of life before gold and the dollar and I hope that we will do everything we can to lessen the impact of this particular goldmine on our residents.

Catherine Moore, Questions and Statements, February 4 Council meeting

Australians remain very uncomfortable about eating genetically manipulated (GM) foods despite government and GM industry claims of growing acceptance. Swinburne University’s fifth National Science and Technology Monitor has found most people well informed about GM but still very mistrustful of the institutions that commercialise GM foods.

“A major target of public mistrust is Monsanto, the world’s biggest seed company that owns patents on over 90% of all commercial GM soy, corn, canola and cotton crops that are grown,” says Gene Ethics director Bob Phelps.

“Monsanto’s management and shareholders should be ashamed of ranking absolutely last among the 541 trans-national companies assessed by the annual Geneva-based Covalence reputation index. It is a barometer of how the ethics of big businesses are perceived throughout society. Monsanto consistently fails ethics 101. (more…)

The Greens are calling on NSW Education Minister Verity Firth to warn parents about the misuse of testing data on her federal colleague Julia Gillard’s school results website.
 
Greens NSW MP John Kaye said: “The year 3, 5, 7 and 9 literacy and numeracy tests were not designed to be used to compare students, let alone schools or teachers. Using the averaged results to assess the achievements of a school is deeply misleading.
 
“Parents and the community are being invited to pass judgements on a school based on data that is narrowly focused, statically invalid and deceptive. (more…)

Australia Day. What does it mean?

For the First Australians, it represents the take-over of their land with the arrival of the first governor and the subsequent events which led to dispossession, disease, genocide and prejudice, not to mention mismanagement and destruction of the land and water systems that had provided for them for so long.

It re-emphasises the failure to acknowledge that Indigenous people were here for tens of thousands of years before the British flag was planted on the soil of what was conveniently called “Terra Nullius” - land belonging to no-one.

This in turn is further emphasised by the flying, draping, parading and wearing of the Australian flag, featuring the colonisers’ Union Jack in the left hand corner. And if that wasn’t enough, the notion of Terra Nullius is rammed home even more by the singing of the National Anthem with its first lines - “Australians all let us rejoice, for we are young and free.”

What’s to celebrate? (more…)

The Keneally government’s failure to guarantee cash payments under the Solar Bonus Scheme is a blow to households and a get-rich-quick racket for electricity retailers, according to Greens NSW MP John Kaye.

Commenting on a story in today’s Sydney Morning Herald (‘Retailers ‘must pay’ for solar power feed’, page 5), Dr Kaye said: “NSW households were told they would get a generous feed-in tariff to help them make the transition to clean energy generation. What was delivered was a public relations sham for a struggling state government

“Energy Minister John Robertson left open a giant loophole in the Solar Bonus Scheme allowing retailers to withhold cash payments as so-called ‘credits’.

“Without the cash in hand, many households will find it hard to pay off their investment in solar panels and will shy away from the scheme. (more…)