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Friday, 1 June 2007

Carr - Iemma corruption of Planning Inquiry process in NSW as per Port Botany expansion
Mood:

sharp
Topic: legal

We first appeared in a Commission of Inquiry for the Total Environment Centre in 1992 under the 1979 Planning legislation before Kevin Cleland.

The same Commissioner Cleland in the Visy Pulp Mill Inquiry in March 1998 as an ngo green party for Friends of the Earth.

In this century we supported the 30 groups of Botany Bay Catchment Alliance such as NOPE and Gary Blashke on ABC radio just now including BBACA participation in the Planning Inquiry by Commissioner Kevin Cleland in 2005.

Trouble is the Cleland report didn't give the pro ALP developers a blank cheque which is what they wanted at Port Botany centralising container freight to the Eastern side of Sydney, ignoring economics of Port Kembla and Newcastle with even more access to greater Sydney.

So the Iemma Govt set up a parallel corrupt planning process with selective pro industry submissions headed up by retired federal MP Laurie Brereton called the Freight Infrastructure Advisory Board. This has been nothing more than a bald attempt to destroy the Planning Commission process. And so far it has been working. It was an industry apologist for this Big Govt/Big Business FIAB we heard on the Trioli Show abc radio show after 10.30 am yesterday, as per the front page Financial Review story May 31 2007 (offline).

It's a corrupt decision to dump transport congestion including noisy sooty diesel locomotives on the inner city 24 hours a day from a corrupt process by a corrupt government effectively repealing the checks and balances in the 1979 Environmental Planning & Assessment Act.

Some strong background on this disgraceful compounding of Sydney congestion is here:

These links are strong independent groups with good information on this huge catchment covering the south half of metropolitan Sydney:

Botany Bay & Catchment Association, covering south/western half of Sydney, umbrella to 33 community groups opposing Port Botany expansion

Save Botany Beach Inc based around the suburb of Botany and thus the eastern side of 'BBACA' network

No Port Enfield, or NoPE, campaigns for equitable share of container transports across NSW and to stop expansion of Port Botany, thus inner west of 'BBACA'

Index of items

3/06.. Good repudiation of the NSW ALP government's economic analysis for dredging and expansion into Botany Bay of the Port facility.

19/3/05...Sydney's biggest export - empty shipping containers at 1000 per day is just one consequence of redundant consumerism at $10 billion per year as per Australia Institute study/SMH, says green lobbyist Lynda Newnham

16/3/05...So called 'draft' (but really approval) conditions for Port Botany expansion, with introduction on the NSW framework of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Commission of Inquiry (CoI) process.

Feb 05...Botany Bay: No Port Enfield Community Group (NoPE) submission to 2nd hearings of Commission of Inquiry

8/2/05...pollution plume huge threat to Botany Bay by 7.30 Report's Jonathan Harley re ICI/Orica site northern side Botany suburb.

5/2/05...Sydney Morning Herald letters re working Sydney Harbour/Port Jackson