Cecil Hills expansion - Landcom makes good
 Local residents are meeting on Tuesday, 9 February at the Cecil Hills Community Centre to discuss the forthcoming
development of the estate by Landcom.
Let me be the first to say that I have been too harsh on Landcom.
When they previously had plans to fill lakes at Cecil Hills they ultimately came to understand the concerns of residents, and preserved the amenity.
It seems that once more, the heirarchy of Landcom have listened to the concerns of residents, and have agreed to save the larger of the two lakes
on Lascelles St. This is a great result - disappointing that the small lake will still go, but a win for the environment in any event.
While there has been a particular focus on the potential loss of the wetland area on Lascelles St, there are additional
considerations about the infrastructure and facilities of the estate - surely to be stretched with the addition of more than 600 homes.
The additional pressure on services is not Landcom's problem, but highlights the failing of the NSW Tripodi/Obeid Government, and interested persons are
invited to attend and have their say.
With public transport completely inadequate, and essential services of police, ambulance and hospital remote and over-committed,
there is simply no way that the proposed development should proceed without a plan of management.
If you live in the Cecil Hills estate, or if you simply want to show solidarity with your local community, please
try to get along to the meeting, starting at 7:00pm.
MySchools - failing our youth
 The Federal Labor Government has launched its controversial MySchools website to mixed reaction.
The website provides a pretty basic comparison of schools' performance at the NAPLAN test, and draws comparisons between them
without ever exploring the dimensions of each school's values, its academic and non-academic programs, the richness of its curriculum, the breadth of its curriculum,
the learning abilities of the student intake, the financial resources the school has, or the quality of the teaching or school management.
What really is the purpose of this data other than to form comparisons in the minds of the public?
There is a real danger that certain schools that could well be performing above expectations considering all these facts will
be judged by parents and others as underperforming and have parents wishing to go elsewhere.
The other real danger is from the usually irresponsible print media, who are odds-on to try to use the data to target specific schools
or locales - remember the sensational headline "The School We Failed" run by the Telegraph in 1999 about a school in Mt Druitt? Rather than do any good, this simply served to perpetuate
stereotypes and embarrass the kids that attended there.
In NSW the Greens have combined with the Liberals to pass a law making it illegal for the print media to publish simplistic
'league tables' comparing schools. We have been attacked mercillessly by the Murdoch and Fairfax press, and in this area some Conservative political groups have
joined the chorus touting it as a matter of "freedom of speech", but as usual they're blurring the lines for their own promotion.
If the whole story about schools was available - including data on the learning capability of the students enrolled in each - then
we would have no problems. The simple fact of the matter is that there are many, many variables not being addressed, and drawing any conclusions is not only not fair,
it's dangerous.
What do you think? Is the MySchools information worthwhile, or simply another distraction by Federal and State Governments incapable of
providing fair and adequate resourcing to all Government schools?. Let us know your opinion.
Labor
spits in the face of local residents
 Lee Rhiannon received a response from Transport Minister Campbell about the almost 1400 signature
petition calling for noise barriers to be built along the Casula leg of the Southern Sydney Freight Line.
Predictably, Campbell has dismissed the concerns of local residents, hiding behind the flawed conditions
that ARTC have used to avoid building the walls. As a profit-making entity, it is in ARTC's interests to reduce the overall cost of
constructing the line, and the NSW Government was so incompetent that they allowed dangerous levels of noise to actually increase in frequency
on this stretch of line!
Now we see the ridiculous situation where other parts of the line are receiving noise mitigation at 80Dba
because they are on the SSFL side of the track, where the Casula residents will experience 95Dba 24 hours a day, 7 days a week but get
no relief because they are on the opposite side.
The only people who don't see this as
being a State Government responsibility are the outrageous NSW Labor
right-wing Government.
Campbell's approach just proves you don't have to be smart to be a politician.
The NSW Labor Party has failed the
residents of western Sydney with their contemptuous disregard for
their rights and welfare. Thankfully they will be soundly defeated
as a Government in March 2011, and while the Liberal Party are even
more likely to cut services and impose extremist right-wing
ideology, electoral carnage may just clean some of the rubbish out
of the ALP. Unfortunately the Labor Members likely to hold their
seats are those who shouldn't.
Without a doubt in this area Lynch,
Tripodi, and Khoshaba will be returned, though all three are
massively less deserving than others in other seats who have greater
talent and will probably lose. The other two ALP Members in this
area might not survive, though. Lalich could fall, and McDonald is no
certainty, though the Liberal alternatives would be no box of
chocolates. The ALP will take a very long time to recover from their
current miasma.
Well, we're not going to sit back and
let them get away with ignoring the residents of Casula. We will be
organising direct action in the next month, so keep your eye on this
site for more details.
Don't
miss our next meeting!
 One of the strengths of The Greens is
the commitment to "Grassroots Democracy". Keeping with
this belief, our Branch holds open meetings with a focus on what the
group and our friends can do to address problems in the area. You
don't need to be a member of the Greens (though of course we hope we
can make it attractive to you to join!) - if you are interested in
doing things to help your fellow residents, come along and see if
our activities fit with your views.
We've now set the schedule for our 2010
meetings, starting in February and running every second month
through the year. Our last meeting was pretty
encouraging, with a number of new faces and very welcome guests. The
disturbing thing was the number of issues we had on the table - we
simply didn't have enough time to speak about all of them!
2010 must be the year we get more
helpers to attack the problems in
Fairfield and
Liverpool. We can make a difference if we have the people-power to
do it.
Our meetings are on Saturdays between
10:30am
and 12:30pm at the Liverpool Central Library (George St).
It is certainly close to both public transport and parking, and
pretty equidistant for
all
points of our geographic range.
We're also thinking of starting up some
more regular "in between" gatherings, along the lines of Politics
in the Pub - to create an environment where people can learn
more about politics in general, and hopefully stimulate discourse
and interest in the democratic process as we have it in our country.
If you are interested in this idea -
whatever political views you hold - let us know.
The age-old
question: Where does my vote go if I vote 1 Greens?
I was
recently asked this question by someone who is quite politically
'savvy', but who had seen so much mis-information about our
electoral processes that they were totally confused.
It's
surprising to find so many otherwise well-informed people who are
scared to vote for us because they believe what they're told by very
ill-informed or dishonest sources - no wonder we have such a high
proportion of informal voting in a country where everyone is free to
vote. If people know what we represent but choose not to vote for us,
that's informed choice; if they're scared to vote for us because
someone has lied to them about the implications of voting for us,
that's undemocratic.
As we inch
closer towards Federal and State polls, we'll see a concerted effort
by the major Parties to 'muddy the water' about the issue of
preferences. And why wouldn't they? The more they can scare the
voter into thinking that votes for minor Parties or Independents
will either be wasted, or somehow 'traded' in underhand deals, the
more they drive people to vote for them.
It's time
to clear the air and try to explain our very complex systems - each
different, and each confusing. Click on the respective link below
for an introduction to voting, Australian-style.
We will be doing whatever we can to
help clear up the misconceptions, and ensure that voters have an
honest explanation - not the spin and self-serving confusion Liberal
and Labor dishonestly peddle.
Most importantly, even if you've had
enough of the Party in control of your local seat, and you want to
shake them up but without handing the seat to "the other
mob", you can vote for the Greens and still ensure that
your vote counts even if the Greens candidate doesn't win (that's
the strength of 'preferential' systems). Here's an example:
"The local ALP Member is a decent guy,
but a hopeless representative. He holds the seat by a margin of 12%,
so effectively the Government ignores it - it's 'safe' and
they take it for granted.
His Liberal opponent offers nothing - the Libs have ignored the seat
because it's safe Labor, and only now are they emerging because they
know the ALP is unpopular, but still they offer no policies or
answers - they hope to win 'by default'. You want to shake up the Labor guy, but
there's no way you want the Libs to get in. To do this, you decide
to vote Greens - if they get enough votes to win the seat, it would
be a good thing anyway because you know they'll work hard for the area. If
they don't get enough votes to win, you make sure your vote goes to
the ALP candidate next - that way he sees his Primary vote go down
(showing him he can't take the seat for granted) but he ends up with
the vote. It is neither wasted nor benefits the Libs."
Neither
of the major Parties will want you to understand that. Out this way
Labor doesn't want to lose their massive Primary vote buffer, and
the Libs are hoping enough people will be so fed up with the ALP
they'll see no alternative but to vote for them. We're saying there is
an alternative - and a very good one. The Greens are fresh and
enthusiastic, untainted by the laziness and scandals plaguing ALP
and the Libs - we will work for your trust, for your interests, and
for your vote!
It's been a tough
year for our area ...
And it
doesn't look like improving any time soon.
At our most
recent meeting we tried to fit all of the immediate local issues
into two hours - and couldn't. After years of neglect by an ALP
smugly certain of dominance and a Liberal Opposition not really
interested in doing the hard yards it takes to represent the
interests of an area they never hoped to win, we have seen the
potential of this region virtually squandered.
Now,
however, NSW Labor's arrogance and incompetence has caught up with
them, and the people of even their heartland areas are turning
against them. You would think this might be a good thing, but the
worrying trend is that the extreme right are now eyeing us off as a
never-before-seen possibility. We have even had Nile out here trying
to spread his doctrine of religious intolerance and hatred - this is
as disturbing as the influence of Clarke on the local
Conservatives.
The
challenge is for the electorate to be truly informed - not only of
the Parties trying to win their votes, but of the nature of the
individuals who put themselves forward as possible representatives -
and there are some pretty appalling characters in the mix. This will
be our goal throughout 2010.
About us
We're currently a very small group
in an
area dominated by safe Labor seats (Federal and State),
but
we're becoming more active and more involved, and we're looking
to
put our vision of a fair, socially-conscious society and
environment
firmly into the public view.
We
can and have been successful in representing the views of our
residents,
but much more needs to be done, and the Greens need
representation
in Government serving this area.
More people need to get involved
with
grass-roots politics in our area. If we don't attract more of
the
passionate, intelligent people we have in Fairfield/Liverpool we
will end
up with more of the same dross from a pretty poor bunch of
politicians.
It's well and truly time to put
forward
viable alternatives to the appalling Tripodi, Lynch, Lalich and
Khoshaba.
A strong Greens presence will put
additional
pressure on the ALP to be more open and accountable, and
will
protect against the unbelievable arrogance of the current State
and
Local Governments.
Our share of the vote at the last State poll was better than
8%
in some
parts of the area, despite a limited campaign and being
heavily
smeared by the major Parties. We continued this at the Local
poll
in Fairfield and improved dramatically at the by-election for
Cabramatta,
and we believe we have a strong base from which
to
grow for the future.
If you are a Facebook user, you can join our online FLG group
here.
Local Group focus
The highest
priority task is for
our
group to become affiliated, so that we have full standing within
the
Party. At the moment, we are moving in the right direction, with
regular
meetings that have strong agendas, a solid core of regular
attendees,
and an active approach to local issues. We need more
members
to help
us
continue our drive to reach full status.
We're attempting to
reach out to
the
local community. We need to establish a strong healthy network
of
contacts to form the foundation on which the the work leading up
to the
next election will be based. The network will have three
tiers:
-
A strong
cooperative
relationship
with other Greens
NSW
branches
(particularly
those that are geographically close to Fairfield/Liverpool
Greens)
so that we can share ideas and engage in joint
activities.
This is important because there are some issues that
geographically
span multiple Greens
NSW
branches
that
should be tackled in a coordinated manner
-
A healthy
participation by Fairfield/Liverpool
Greens
members,
by
making their participation easier and more
fulfilling.
-
A direct
engagement with diverse
sections
of the community, by working with them individually to
determine
policy direction, and rally support for the Greens in
the
population in general.
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