February 4th, 2008
Take a good hard look at role of both sides in planning
In my former career as a town planner, I was involved in many
consultations about the framing of what is the Environmental
Planning and Assessment Act. At the time I was concerned by two
aspects in particular. One was the amount of power given to the
minister to override local decision-making; the other was section
94 levies. In both areas, the potential for mismanagement and even
corruption seemed high.
Subsequent events have done little to alleviate my concerns.
As the act came into effect, I saw from time to time - and heard
about from colleagues - what I considered to be questionable
decisions about the use of these levies. Of course, I also heard
many self-serving complaints from developers. The developers wanted
what Frank Sartor apparently wants, which was for the council to
spend the levies to enhance the income potential of their own
development. The councils, too, often wanted a fund they could dip
into for any purpose. I was disturbed when levies collected from
flats in “Smithtown”, where the local shopping centre had no
off-street parking, fed a big parking station project in
“Jonestown”. It was hard to feel reassured by protestations that
Smithtown would eventually get its parking station, and then the
Jonestown developers would pay.
In the current conflict between state and local government, it
seems to me that both parties should call a truce and reassess.
There is too little local accountability, and too much potential
for section 94 to become a state government revenue stream, under
the Sartor plan. It should not proceed. On the other hand, councils
can only make a good case for the retention of their powers to levy
and use section 94 contributions if they can show that they have
equitable policies under that section of the act.
Above all, this section has to be seen as a way of ameliorating
the environmental effects of new developments on their wider
setting, and that generally means that the bulk of the contribution
should be spent in reasonable proximity to the new development, but
not merely for the benefit of that development.
(Rev) Peter R. Green Silver Street Baptist Mission,
Marrickville
Only bigots would object to Rudd’s apology
Thank you, Alan Ramsey (”Weasel words won’t hide monstrous
shame”, February, 2-3). After reading that disturbing litany of
predatory inhumanity unleashed on the indigenous population, only
the morally blind could object to the apology from the Prime
Minister, Kevin Rudd. As Ramsey advocates, why can’t Mr Rudd’s
apology be widened to cover all the wrongs visited on the hapless
recipients of European settlement? Wake up Brendan Nelson.
Bennelong has a new member, and you are the leader of the
Coalition. There is no longer any need to kowtow to mean-spirited
bigotry.
Dennis Hale Beecroft
Once Mr Rudd gets the “sorry” off his chest, he can expect an
avalanche of compensation claims. Perhaps the answer is to forgo
the $3.1 billion tax cuts and redirect the money to a compensation
fund. The claimants can then spend the next decade bickering over
how it should be divvied up while the rest of us get on with our
lives.
John Harding Eastwood
The Coalition had the opportunity to deliver an apology to the
stolen generations during their 11%26#189; years in office. They
chose not to. They have no right to now demand to have their say in
the wording of the apology.
Kim Heng Oatlands
Perhaps the Government could apologise in part for the so-called
stolen generation. However, many indigenous Australians could also
say thank you for making their lives happier and secure.
Carolyn Wills Cremorne
Many Australians would welcome an opportunity to demonstrate
their support for this long overdue apology. Perhaps the Labor
Party could call for a public gesture to coincide with the formal
apology in Parliament. Something as simple as people leaving their
workplaces or homes to stand in the street with a placard saying
“Sorry” would be a powerful indication of desire for positive
initiatives in reconciliation and improving the lives of the first
Australians.
June Crowley Leichhardt
Shouldn’t there also be a statement from Brendan Nelson, Julie
Bishop and like-minded colleagues to say they are not sorry, or not
very sorry, or not sure whether they should be sorry or not. Such a
statement should satisfy everyone, and tell us all we need to know
about the people who sign it.
David Catchpoole Bangalow
Brendan Nelson is the leader of a party stuck in the past. His
idea of Australia seems to follow on from his predecessor, John
Howard: an Australia of the 1950s surrounded by the picket fence of
a privileged white Australia. When will the Liberals realise we
have progressed and adopted a more enlightened view of Australia
and the world? How arrogant and hypocritical of Mr Nelson to
lecture Mr Rudd that there are more pressing issues such as
interest rates and petrol prices; as if these are more important
than reconciliation between indigenous and non-indigenous
Australians!
Michael Sartori The Bellingen Institute, Bellingen
Turning a blind eye to Soeharto’s savagery
Paul Keating’s article on Soeharto (”The Nation Builder”,
February 2-3) where he explains that he was not a bad bloke and
forgets to mention the 1 million people he liquidated was
breathtaking. How about a piece on Hitler’s good side or on Pol
Pot’s kindness?
Paul Stephen Yamba
Paul Keating says Indonesia’s recently departed president
Soeharto took his country “from near-disintegration to the orderly,
ordered and prosperous state that it is today”.
I read Mr Keating’s observation after several hours of heavy,
but by no means unusual, seasonal rain that so paralysed this
capital city that several people drowned in floods, 100,000
slum-dwellers were made homeless, the main airport was closed and
it took nine hours to travel one kilometre in downtown traffic so
waterlogged that even Indonesia’s current leader was forced to
abandon his presidential motorcade.
If this is today’s ordered prosperity Mr Keating’s great friend
Soeharto left Indonesians as a legacy, what would Mr Keating regard
as chaotic, dysfunctional and poor?
Eric Ellis Jakarta
It’s sad that a former Australian prime minister would have so
much contempt for his own country that he would praise a person
such as Soeharto and dismiss the fact that not only Australian
citizens (the Balibo Five) were murdered by this butcher but
millions of Indonesians and East Timorese. Until governments take a
stand on human rights and the rule of law this world will never be
any better.
Anthony Craig Lithgow
School blues
Last week I enrolled my five-year-old in a public school in Byron
Shire. I was asked to choose between several options for special
religious education. These included a combination of Christian
sects; Catholic; Jewish; or none. “None” offers the ritual of
colouring in. I asked about Buddhism and offered to help find a
trained teacher. Office staff looked bewildered - as if the school
had never had such a strange request.
If ours is a secular society, why are some religions privileged
in public schools? Why is instruction delivered by church-sponsored
volunteers rather than trained teachers? If ours is a secular
society, where is the ethics, philosophy and values education for
our children?
The delusions that we live in a secular society and that secular
means no religion rob us all of the opportunity to develop
much-needed pathways towards understanding. In Britain comparative
religion education is compulsory. In Australia, inter-religious
ignorance contributes to sometimes violent intolerance.
Cathy Byrne Ocean Shores
Brian Cade (Letters, February 2-3) has good reason to be
concerned if Australia follows educational practices of
Britain.
After spending a year on teacher exchange, just outside Oxford,
I can assure you that, though there is some teaching happening,
even at times, good teaching, there is little or no learning going
on anywhere within the state secondary education system.
In Britain children are subjected to a national policy of
inclusiveness (of every behavioural problem imaginable); testing
procedures covering a curriculum which alienates many within the
school population; and where the school is tied to every possible
statistic in an attempt to quantify education. It only assists in
continuing to stifle any attempt at improvement within the school.
Good students are forced to tolerate a classroom where disruption
is the norm, at every level.
Surely, in Australia, we will not blindly follow a system which
is not only flailing but is dead in the water.
Janice Creenaune Austinmer
In defence of museums
I write to defend the Historic Houses Trust of NSW against the
ill-informed criticisms of Barry Gardner, Valda Muller and David
Toms (Letters, January 30-31).
In all aspects of its activities - interpretation and
preservation of historic buildings, exhibitions, public programs
and publications etc - the trust achieves the highest level of
excellence. It also successfully melds history with contemporary
design such as the moving Edge Of The Trees sculpture
outside the Museum of Sydney and the memorial to the Irish famine
at the Hyde Park Barracks.
At the Museum of Sydney, as well as changing exhibitions such as
the wonderful Sydney Views, there are standing displays
relating to the First Fleet and NSW governors as well as the
intriguing cabinets of artefacts. The boundaries of the original
Government House are outlined in First Government House Place in
front of the museum. On Australia Day, the trust staged a
re-enactment of a historic painting of the scene after Bligh’s
arrest by Major Johnston outside the museum, and there is a display
inside the museum to commemorate the 200th anniversary of this
event.
As well as being the trust headquarters, the Mint contains the
Caroline Simpson Library and Research Collection, where the public
can research the past, be it Australian gardens, architecture,
history or even wallpapers.
Reduced opening hours of some of the house museums is a direct
result of budget cuts to the arts by the NSW Government.
Marina Garlick Balmain
Highways of waste
Peter Conigrave writes (Letters, February 2-3) that new freeways
will always create new traffic. That is correct, the University of
Technology, Sydney did statistical studies to prove it. But that
was in the past. In future, after peak oil, traffic will decrease,
no matter how many new freeways are built, simply because fuel
supplies will decrease. The main point here is that the proposed
tollways are a terrible waste of money. Everyone will lose.
Matt Mushalik Epping
Send away the clowns
“Doctor clowns see off Bozo, to kids’ delight” (February 1) brought
back memories. In 1944 at age 12 months I was admitted to what was
then the Camperdown Children’s Hospital where I spent the next four
years. The clown “Banana Custard” with orange hair flying
everywhere would arrive quite regularly to visit us children.
I hated this clown. The minute he walked into the ward the
nurses would push my bed, with me screaming, onto the veranda until
he left. I think I would have got along much better with Dr
Know-It-All.
Joan Roche Narooma
Rudd the rudderless
Kevin Rudd’s calling of a summit of 1000 chosen people to solve
Australia’s worst problems confirms the impression he gave during
the election campaign, that he is a bureaucrat and a micro-manager
- not a leader with a vision of his own. We can only hope he
listens to what Albert Einstein said, that “we cannot solve our
problems with the same thinking we used when we created them”. It
would be a huge mistake to think that a summit of experts in the
various fields will produce anything new or any real solutions.
They will come from people who are able to think outside the box.
Gordon Drennan Burton (South Australia)
My word, what champion contortions
What a delight to see the word diving contest being conducted by
former prime minister Paul Keating and his media extraordinaire
opponent Mike Carlton in the Herald (February 2-3).
Keating opened with a plain layout “vituperation” and was
countered by Carlton’s double-twisting “gravamen”, immediately
followed by Keating’s inboard triple somersaulting “contumely”. The
winner? Whoever pens the vituperation for Keating!
W. L. Bill Thomas Cabramatta
Simply classic
Saturday’s Moir has to be one of the great classic cartoons of our
time. So much from so little: crystal clear. And the icing on the
cake? The microphone.
Richard Lynch Waterloo
Talking figureheads
Refreshing to have a Governor-General who is not only allowed to
appear in public but also to speak in public. Must look a bit
strange from Wollstonecraft.
Frank Walker Budgewoi
Catholic welcome
Why is it called World Youth Day and not Catholic World Youth Day?
Will atheist, gay, Muslim or Jewish youth be welcome?
Brad Parry Culburra Beach
Sol reason for rejection
“Sol Trujillo’s key role in John McCain’s presidential campaign
%26#133; ” (”Direct line to the White House”, February 2). That
phrase is sufficient to rule out John McCain as the next US
president.
Rod Hamilton Hazelbrook
Perpetual poster girl
Ten weeks after the federal election, Lyn Shumack’s Democratic
candidature for the Senate still lives - on a telegraph pole in New
South Head Road, Vaucluse. Is this a record for an election poster?
Henry Brodaty Vaucluse
Airport forsakes passengers
Who will save us wretches who use Sydney Airport? Three recent
pick-ups/drop-offs have been a nightmare in the peak traffic,
almost in gridlock. There’s the obligatory parking slug for
international pick-ups. And now, 100-plus Jetstar passengers cast
out on the street without toilets, food or blankets. The executives
of Jetstar and the airport owners should have risen from their cosy
beds to help. The airport clearly has no contingency plan to deal
with large groups of stranded passengers.
Jim Wilkinson Eastwood
Politics of plunder
What is it about Labor governments? They get elected because of
Green preferences then proceed to plunder the environment as their
own special way of returning the compliment.
At federal level, the “Environment Minister”, Peter Garrett,
approves every destructive pulp mill, harbour dredging and seismic
testing project that crosses his desk. Meanwhile in NSW, Labor is
so beholden to developer and mining interests that it can barely
dismantle our tried-and-trusted planning regulations fast
enough.
I used to think that being a “true believer” meant something
more than a predilection for political donations. Now, few have any
faith in this deceptive democracy.
Malcolm Fisher Manly Vale