GOVERNMENT'S RESPONSE TO THE INDEPENDENT EXPERT'S REPORT ON IMPROVING
WATER QUALITY WITHIN THE VASSE WONNERUP WETLAND SYSTEM VERY DISAPPOINTING
The public announcement by the Minister for Water Mia Davies about
the state government's response to the independent expert's report
on management of the Geographe Bay catchment was a great
disappointment.
Her presentation on October 31 to a large crowd of local people vitally interested
in preventing further fish deaths contained three main initiatives.
These were:
* $200,000 to be given to the Geographe Catchment Council to assist
the government in community consultation
* the establishment of a ministerial taskforce to "oversee
a long-term strategy to improve water quality and
the ecosystem" and
* $4.8 million dollars to connect 126 properties in Quindalup to
deep sewerage.
All three initiatives are disappointing for a number of reasons.
The one-off allocation of $200,000 to GeoCatch is not to allow any
on-ground works to be implemented, but only to consult and
communicate with the local community.
The taskforce will, for the most part, be reinventing the wheel,
since the management actions needed to improve water quality have
been outlined in documents and reports prepared by GeoCatch over the
last 10 years.
The money for deep sewerage connections in Quindalup is equal to
$38,000 per property with only minor improvements in water quality
to be gained by Toby's Inlet and Geographe Bay.
I was a former member of the GeoCatch board and the
former member for Vasse from 1996 to 2005. I'm highly critical of all three initiatives because they lack substance
and any long-term commitment to improving water quality in the Vasse
Wonnerup wetland system.
GeoCatch has been given a one year allocation of funds with which
it has to tell the community what a great job the government is
doing. Not one cent of this money is to be spent on water quality
improvement, even though GeoCatch was set up in 1997 to be the
coordinating body for on-ground improvements.
The ministerial taskforce appears to be an exercise in delaying for
a year - until much closer to the next state election - any
commitment of funds to allow catchment management actions to be
implemented.
The $4.8 million for sewerage connections is more about providing
the Water Corporation with a new source of income via wastewater
treatment from the 'lucky' 126 properties. As well, deep sewer connections will allow more of these properties
to be rezoned for tourist accommodation or higher urban density, so
the City of Busselton will be a financial beneficiary of this
initiative through an increased rate base.
$4.8 million equals $38,000 being spent per property on deep
sewerage, when instead the government could have installed $17,000
Aerobic Treatment Units (ATUs) at each property and given the
unspent $2.6 million to GeoCatch or the City to improve water
quality in the Vasse Wonnerup wetland area.
Professor Barry Hart, formerly from Monash University in Victoria,
was the independent expert called in by the state government in 2013
to provide a review of management needs in the Geographe Catchment.
His report contains 14 recommendations, the first of which - for the
state government to establish a single catchment management
authority to manage all wetland assets - has been rejected by the
state government.
Recommendation 13 - that the government provide $30 million of
funding over 10 years for management - has resulted in just $200,000
being committed, less than 1% of the recommended amount.
Dr Hart's review report was welcomed by the local community as
it gave them reasonable grounds for hoping that the state government
would do something meaningful to better manage water quality in the
Vasse Wonnerup wetland system.
Instead, we have had scraps of money offered to GeoCatch, a one
year delay before the taskforce reports and money being spent on
deep sewerage, a relatively lowly ranked management action.
My relevant background to water quality issues in the Geographe catchment include:
Former president, Geographe Bay Advisory Committee
Former member, Vasse Wonnerup Land Conservation District Committee
Former member, Geographe Catchment Council
Councillor, Busselton Shire Council, 2009-2010
Member for Vasse 1996-2005, including shadow minister for the
environment 2001-2004
Friday, October 31, 2014
Monday, October 20, 2014
Shooting Up on Heroin at your Local Polling Place
I'd forgotten how backward and unhelpful the WA Electoral Commission were at election time. Over my almost 30 years of involvement at polling booths on election day, attempts to recycle How To Vote (HTV) cards have become increasingly frustrated by the silly decisions of the Electoral Commission.
On Saturday October 18, I was reminded of the Commission's silliness when I attempted to recycle HTV cards at the Vasse Primary School polling place. As electors left the school assembly area where they were crossed off the electors' list, handed a ballot paper, directed to a booth to mark the paper and then directed to the ballot box, next to the only exit was box for rubbish such as HTV cards. When I asked Lorraine, the person in charge of the polling booth, if I could recover HTV cards from the rubbish box so that I could recycle them on behalf of all the parties who had volunteers handing out HTV cards, I was told that she could not allow me to do so. When I politely but resolutely protested and asked the basis for this ruling, she directed me to her boss Phil who I phoned with the same request. In turn, Phil advised he'd talk to the WAEC's by-election manager and get back to me.
A few minutes later, Phil phoned me back and confirmed that permission to empty the rubbish box would not be given. When I asked him to explain why, he declined to elucidate the WAEC's concerns, other than saying there could be a ballot paper accidentally discarded in the box. When I pointed out that Lorraine has said such ballot papers would not be allowed to be placed in the ballor box, he ceased attempting to explain the decision, instead reiterating the Commission's refusal to allow access to the rubbish box.
So why is the WAEC opposed to anyone - their staff or political party volunteers - recycling HTV cards? As strange as it may seem, they appear to believe it's a occupational health and safety issue. If you think back 15 or so years when heroin was one of the most popular recreational drugs, the WAEC warned that drug users might inject themselves in the privacy of a booth, even though these booths then as now were open and barely concealed a ballot paper, let alone any drug-taking paraphernalia. So, after injecting themselves with heroin, drug users were expected to dispose of the used needles in the rubbish boxes near the polling booth exits.
How many times were heroin users found shooting up in polling booths? None. How many discarded needles were found in rubbish boxes mixed in with HTV cards? None.
But the OHS concerns don't stop there. People coming into the polling booth could bring glass drinking containers in with them, drop them on the floor and the broken glass would have to be cleaned up and disposed of in the rubbish boxes. Of course this could happen, expect that you can't buy non-alcoholic drinks in glass bottles any more.
OK, what if people used the rubbish boxes to dispose of soiled nappies or food scraps? For recent elections, pre-polling has allowed people with reasonable reasons for not being able to vote on polling day to cast a pre-poll vote. Invariably, almost all nursing mothers will find a suitable time to pre-poll rather than run the risk of standing in long queues on polling day with babies in nappies, often under a hot burning sun during a summer election.
Please, WAEC, come clean (excuse the pun!) on why you won't allow polling booth volunteers to empty the rubbish boxes at polling booths so that HTV cards can be recycled. If someone puts a HTV card in the ballot box and throws their ballot paper in the rubbish box , that's not an action that WAEC staff should be held responsible for. If volunteers are happy to run the risk of being cut or injected by a sharp piece of rubbish or putting their hand into a soiled nappy, that's their problem, not yours.
Is it worthwhile trying to recycle HTV cards? Let's do the numbers (but round them off for simpilicity's sake). In a normal state election, there are probably 1.5 million electors. If the four major parties -Liberal, Labor, Nationals, Greens - print enough HTV cards so that, in a worse case scenario, every elector going into a polling booth has a HTV card, then that's six million pieces of paper printed and distributed during the election campaign. Add in an extra million or two to take account of the minor parties' HTV cards and the total could easily hit seven million HTV cards. Forgetting about the number of trees that have to be cut down to meet this need for paper, the cost of printing out seven million, one sided colour A4 pages is probably three cents per page. Total cost - $210,000. If the political parties could reduce their HTV card print run by 50%, in the knowledge that they can recycle HTV cards from the polling booth's rubbish box, that's a worthwhile financial saving for the political parties and their candidates and, thanks to taxpayer funding of election campaigns, the savings could be passed on to taxpayers through reduce public funding.
The WAEC needs to explain why it maintains this absurd ban on the recycling of HTV cards. The risks it perceives to volunteers involved in recyling are non-existent and the financial and environmental benefits are worthwhile.
On Saturday October 18, I was reminded of the Commission's silliness when I attempted to recycle HTV cards at the Vasse Primary School polling place. As electors left the school assembly area where they were crossed off the electors' list, handed a ballot paper, directed to a booth to mark the paper and then directed to the ballot box, next to the only exit was box for rubbish such as HTV cards. When I asked Lorraine, the person in charge of the polling booth, if I could recover HTV cards from the rubbish box so that I could recycle them on behalf of all the parties who had volunteers handing out HTV cards, I was told that she could not allow me to do so. When I politely but resolutely protested and asked the basis for this ruling, she directed me to her boss Phil who I phoned with the same request. In turn, Phil advised he'd talk to the WAEC's by-election manager and get back to me.
A few minutes later, Phil phoned me back and confirmed that permission to empty the rubbish box would not be given. When I asked him to explain why, he declined to elucidate the WAEC's concerns, other than saying there could be a ballot paper accidentally discarded in the box. When I pointed out that Lorraine has said such ballot papers would not be allowed to be placed in the ballor box, he ceased attempting to explain the decision, instead reiterating the Commission's refusal to allow access to the rubbish box.
So why is the WAEC opposed to anyone - their staff or political party volunteers - recycling HTV cards? As strange as it may seem, they appear to believe it's a occupational health and safety issue. If you think back 15 or so years when heroin was one of the most popular recreational drugs, the WAEC warned that drug users might inject themselves in the privacy of a booth, even though these booths then as now were open and barely concealed a ballot paper, let alone any drug-taking paraphernalia. So, after injecting themselves with heroin, drug users were expected to dispose of the used needles in the rubbish boxes near the polling booth exits.
How many times were heroin users found shooting up in polling booths? None. How many discarded needles were found in rubbish boxes mixed in with HTV cards? None.
But the OHS concerns don't stop there. People coming into the polling booth could bring glass drinking containers in with them, drop them on the floor and the broken glass would have to be cleaned up and disposed of in the rubbish boxes. Of course this could happen, expect that you can't buy non-alcoholic drinks in glass bottles any more.
OK, what if people used the rubbish boxes to dispose of soiled nappies or food scraps? For recent elections, pre-polling has allowed people with reasonable reasons for not being able to vote on polling day to cast a pre-poll vote. Invariably, almost all nursing mothers will find a suitable time to pre-poll rather than run the risk of standing in long queues on polling day with babies in nappies, often under a hot burning sun during a summer election.
Please, WAEC, come clean (excuse the pun!) on why you won't allow polling booth volunteers to empty the rubbish boxes at polling booths so that HTV cards can be recycled. If someone puts a HTV card in the ballot box and throws their ballot paper in the rubbish box , that's not an action that WAEC staff should be held responsible for. If volunteers are happy to run the risk of being cut or injected by a sharp piece of rubbish or putting their hand into a soiled nappy, that's their problem, not yours.
Is it worthwhile trying to recycle HTV cards? Let's do the numbers (but round them off for simpilicity's sake). In a normal state election, there are probably 1.5 million electors. If the four major parties -Liberal, Labor, Nationals, Greens - print enough HTV cards so that, in a worse case scenario, every elector going into a polling booth has a HTV card, then that's six million pieces of paper printed and distributed during the election campaign. Add in an extra million or two to take account of the minor parties' HTV cards and the total could easily hit seven million HTV cards. Forgetting about the number of trees that have to be cut down to meet this need for paper, the cost of printing out seven million, one sided colour A4 pages is probably three cents per page. Total cost - $210,000. If the political parties could reduce their HTV card print run by 50%, in the knowledge that they can recycle HTV cards from the polling booth's rubbish box, that's a worthwhile financial saving for the political parties and their candidates and, thanks to taxpayer funding of election campaigns, the savings could be passed on to taxpayers through reduce public funding.
The WAEC needs to explain why it maintains this absurd ban on the recycling of HTV cards. The risks it perceives to volunteers involved in recyling are non-existent and the financial and environmental benefits are worthwhile.
Tuesday, October 07, 2014
Peter Gordon is the best candidate in the October 18 Vasse by-election
He may be standing for the Nationals but Peter Gordon is the best
person among the candidates for the Vasse by-election on October 18.
During my 8 years as the member for Vasse, I was always on the lookout for those rare people with the necessary qualities to be a good member of Parliament. In particular, I searched for people who provided sound leadership, who had been successful at their chosen career (business, professional, parenting, teaching, etc), who had a moral compass to help steer them when the difficult issues came along and who were mentally and emotionally capable of committing to the long hours, extensive travel, the time away from home as well as the personal abuse which is always directed towards politicians, regardless of their party or their individual qualities.
In my time as an elected MP, I found just 4 people who I considered had the necessary qualities to be good members of Parliament. The small number is not a reflection on the many other people I interacted with who I believed weren't well suited to a parliamentary life. Instead, it was simply a measure of the significant difficulties associated with being an MP.
Of those 4 people, two were dairy farmers (one male, one female) and one was a geologist (female). None showed any interest in becoming a politician at the time I spoke to them because of their existing business or family demands.
Peter Gordon was the fourth person on my list and, while I suggested his name to various people when the Vasse by-election was announced, I have to admit I never asked Peter direct if he might have been interested in standing. Nonetheless, I was greatly pleased to see him running as a candidate for the Vasse by-election (even if he should have been chosen by the Liberals rather than the Nationals!). Why? Because the interactions I've had with him over the last 10 to 12 years have shown him to be a highly capable leader, a successful business person, committed family man and father and, probably most important of all his qualities, honest. He's also not a bad sort of bloke.
Without reflecting on the other candidates standing for the by-election, all of whom have some good qualities, my assessment is that Peter stands head and shoulders above them all. If elected, I believe he will be an incredibly hard working member of Parliament for Vasse, committed to achieving benefits for all Vasse voters, regardless of their voting preferences. While economic development issues are understandably the primary policy issue at this by-election, Peter is close to the full range of issues that are important to Vasse electors: education, health, water, environment, public housing, agriculture, tourism, police, justice, family services and community development.
During my 8 years as the member for Vasse, I was always on the lookout for those rare people with the necessary qualities to be a good member of Parliament. In particular, I searched for people who provided sound leadership, who had been successful at their chosen career (business, professional, parenting, teaching, etc), who had a moral compass to help steer them when the difficult issues came along and who were mentally and emotionally capable of committing to the long hours, extensive travel, the time away from home as well as the personal abuse which is always directed towards politicians, regardless of their party or their individual qualities.
In my time as an elected MP, I found just 4 people who I considered had the necessary qualities to be good members of Parliament. The small number is not a reflection on the many other people I interacted with who I believed weren't well suited to a parliamentary life. Instead, it was simply a measure of the significant difficulties associated with being an MP.
Of those 4 people, two were dairy farmers (one male, one female) and one was a geologist (female). None showed any interest in becoming a politician at the time I spoke to them because of their existing business or family demands.
Peter Gordon was the fourth person on my list and, while I suggested his name to various people when the Vasse by-election was announced, I have to admit I never asked Peter direct if he might have been interested in standing. Nonetheless, I was greatly pleased to see him running as a candidate for the Vasse by-election (even if he should have been chosen by the Liberals rather than the Nationals!). Why? Because the interactions I've had with him over the last 10 to 12 years have shown him to be a highly capable leader, a successful business person, committed family man and father and, probably most important of all his qualities, honest. He's also not a bad sort of bloke.
Without reflecting on the other candidates standing for the by-election, all of whom have some good qualities, my assessment is that Peter stands head and shoulders above them all. If elected, I believe he will be an incredibly hard working member of Parliament for Vasse, committed to achieving benefits for all Vasse voters, regardless of their voting preferences. While economic development issues are understandably the primary policy issue at this by-election, Peter is close to the full range of issues that are important to Vasse electors: education, health, water, environment, public housing, agriculture, tourism, police, justice, family services and community development.
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