24th February 2011 1:43 pm
Green bans campaigner Jack Mundey today joined Greens MP and Lead Upper House candidate David Shoebridge and Balmain, Marrickville and Maroubra Greens candidates, all Mayors, overlooking the Barangaroo site to launch the Greens plan to overhaul planning laws.

Greens MP and Lead Upper House candidate David Shoebridge said: “Four weeks out from an election and after 16 years in opposition, the Coalition still doesn’t have a planning policy.

"The Greens have been actively campaigning to fix NSW's broken planning laws for more than a decade.  We know what is wrong with planning in NSW and we have a clear idea of how to fix it. 

"First off NSW needs an Independent State Planning Commission to replace the current system of Planning Ministers making scores of discretionary planning approvals under Part 3A of the Planning Act.

"Part 3A has delivered planning disasters around the State, from the catastrophe of over development here at Barangaroo to developments like Hearnes Lake in Port Macquarie where hundreds of houses have been approved by the Minister on a flood prone coastal wetland.

"Mr O'Farrell says he will scrap the notorious Part 3A of the State's planning laws but either can't, or won't, say what he intends to replace it with.  Most likely once the Coalition gets into power they will make some cosmetic changes to the law with the only real difference being a Liberal Minister will be wielding the power, not a Labor one.

"For the first half of the Coalition's term of office their only promise on planning is to have an inquiry while the new Coalition Minister will continue approving disastrous Part 3A developments.

"In 2009/10 the Planning Minister determined 74 Part 3A projects and there are currently 27 major projects on exhibition. It is clear there is still a lot of life in Part 3A under a Coalition government.

http://nsw.greens.org.au/planning-overhaul

Not the nuz, in brief...

Apparently, Eddie Obeid — the architect of Labor's massive defeat — said that if it had not been for him having forced his son's lampposts onto the New South Wales public road system, Labor would have won by a landslide, by keeping people in the dark a bit longer.

Meanwhile Barrie, the new Premier, in a definitely snooze-inducing victory speech, has pledged to be as boring as lint and as determined as a lint-filter in a clothes-drier. Barrie forgot to thank two of his main tirelessly working troops: News Ltd and the Fairfax Sydney Morning Herald - and the ABC.

And Sarah Lane, the dancer in Black Swan, the movie, is spilling the beans that Natalie Portman's face was digitally "grafted" on her, Sarah's, dancing bod... Who knows and it does not affect the price of fish. Or does it?

From Bob Ellis...

...

And so it was, and so it went, that a defeat in ten or twelve seats was turned into a twenty-eight seat wipeout by the Saluszinski Rules. And good, effective people are being scared away from elective politics now. For the Saluszinski Rules pervert democracy. They shame the Fourth Estate. They unbalance, buffet and wound our no longer genial civilisation. They are turning our culture and polity into a vigilant, earphoned tyranny like the one in The Lives of Others. They have delivered unfairly a bunch of dreamless drones to power for twelve years in New South Wales and brought our oldest, best and brightest Party to the brink of destruction.

And it’s a sorrow. And a pity.

And so it went.

Could Keneally have won? Oh yes. By cancelling the privatisation, announcing a Catastrophe Fund and a levy on the big banks to pay for it, not persecuting McLeay and Campbell, adopting or sponsoring a shipwrecked orphan and begging Sartor to stay on for six months and Rees to join her Cabinet.

Could Rees have won? Easily. He was on 45 percent when they topped him. One percent away from Hung Parliament victory, and obviously gaining votes each hour with his push against the Tripodi bunch and on his way to glory.

And oh what a fall was there, my countrymen.

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Well said Bob... and one thing I would add to my comment :

Meanwhile Barrie, the new Premier, in a definitely snooze-inducing victory speech, has pledged to be as boring as lint and as determined as a lint-filter in a clothes-drier. Barrie forgot to thank two of his main tirelessly working troops: News Ltd and the Fairfax Sydney Morning Herald - and the ABC...

is "and of course Alan Jones..."

If I ever visit the office of the new Premier of NSW, I'll be looking for a dent in the woodwork. The dent may be hard to spot, it may appear insignificant, but it serves as a reminder why the state's voters have just delivered the most emphatic mandate in the history of politics in Australia.

Strangely, that mandate has gone almost unremarked. Yet the one thing certain about this mandate is that it was a repudiation of the dominance of insular, self-serving machine politics. And what did voters get? A new government which already contains a machine just as insular, just as self-serving, and even more shadowy than the one just rejected.

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/new-broom-in-the-grip-of-another-machine-20110403-1ct10.html

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Good one  Mr Sheehan... But we should have known this BEFORE the elections...

We knew that but did not have the exact details though I suspect that some people working for the Labor Party were (and still are) moles for the Libs (conservatives). Obeid and Tripodi gave the impression they were just working for their own nest eggs. But the way the stench was floating in the air indicated to me that someone with secret liberal affiliations was sabotaging the Labor Party, by using the Labor party's own division... Piece of cake, really...

see toon at top...

Barry O'Farrell's post-election honeymoon ended rather abruptly on Sunday. No sooner had he finished overseeing the swearing-in of his cabinet than he was accused of betraying a colleague, undermining a senior minister and gutting the environment department. Not a great start to the second week of government.

But there is a good lesson to be taken from it: most of the bad headlines could have been avoided if O'Farrell had decided to make good on his promise of taking a more open approach to sharing information about how the government is being run.

The surprise dumping from the ministry of the Coalition's environment spokeswoman, Catherine Cusack, became an issue only because O'Farrell repeatedly assured the media his shadow cabinet would become his new ministry, barring unforeseen accidents.

When challenged on this, he responded that the accident which had befallen Cusack was a happy one - too many newly elected MPs in the Coalition ranks. It was a weak explanation.

The move to abolish the department of environment was seen as a deliberate downgrading of the environment as an area of policy focus.

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/honeymoon-is-over-now-its-time-for-truth-20110408-1d7fv.html

see toon at top....

'This is not the outcome we worked hard to achieve or want and it seems to us yet another example of the [former] government's abuse of its planning powers,'' Cr Moore said.

The draft plan remains on public exhibition until April 21.

Residents of all inner-city villages have been urged to ascertain how the draft plan affects their area because opposition must begin immediately if they want to try to limit any over-development.

Those who think the change of government will remedy past planning ways might need to think again.

One of the inexplicable decisions Barry O'Farrell made in opposition was to support the Land Acquisition (Just Terms Compensation) Amendment Bill in 2009. It allows councils to purchase private land and transfer it to developers for a profitable resale - all for the supposed good of the community in a public-private partnership.

http://www.smh.com.au/business/property/innercity-fights-to-save-its-villages-20110410-1d9a5.html

THE state's top marine scientists have blasted a decision by the O'Farrell government to abolish environmental protection in two NSW marine parks, accusing it of putting marine life at ''unnecessary risk''.

The zones in the Jervis Bay and Solitary Islands marine parks were approved just before the state election by the former Labor government.

The changes reduced the area where fishing is permitted, added to the list of endangered marine life not allowed to be taken and better protected intermediate-depth reef habitats.

Several lakeside towns in the Philippines are struggling to cope with mountains of rotting fish that were killed by a sudden drop in water temperatures at the weekend.

The Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources says more than 750 tonnes of fish have died since Friday in Taal Lake near Manila, hitting several towns whose economies are heavily reliant on the fishing industry.

Scientists say the onset of the rainy season led to a sharp drop in water temperatures that depleted oxygen levels in the lake.

Most of those killed were milk fish and tilapia being commercially bred in cages along the lake's shores.

"There are just so many dead fish," said Zenaida Mendoza, mayor of Talisay, one of the worst affected towns.

"Fishermen are hauling them manually using their boats and bringing them ashore. But the rotting smell is overpowering and could pose a health risk."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/05/30/3230806.htm?section=justin