Rally against Westlink

Yesterday around 300 people attended a very successful rally against Westlink . We were treated to some fantastic music, especially "tunnel vision" by Phil Hudson which encapsulated the feelings of everyone at the rally.

We heard from some important speakers about what this road is going to do to our community when it is built.

It will:

• divide community ;particularly in Sunshine West and in Seddon,
• prevent residents from being able to walk and cycle in their local area, because a great big 4-6 lane road will go through the middle of it
• it will leave us with high levels of air and noise pollution.
• During construction it will cause cracking, noise, dust and destroy the value of surrounding houses.

Building this monstrous road will rip out scarce resources from the ground - and all because the Brumby Government refuses to implement the econmically and environmentally responsible option of improving rail for freight and putting in place fast, frequent and reliable public transport which would take the load off the westgate.

There is no logical argument for this road, other than increased profits for big business using the port. The Brumby government have shown time and time again they are not interested in economics, not interested in the environment and not interested in our communities. They are only interested in supporting increased efficiencies for big businesses moving freight as cheaply as they can off the ships and onto roads to the consumer.

The only way we are going to defeat this road is with large numbers of people getting angry about it and taking our concerns right up to Parliament.

Ardeer Albion Neighbourhood Walk

I joined about 500 local residents from Ardeer and Albion taking part in a walk from Ardeer Community Park to Selwyn Park with the aim of encouraging families and children to be physically active. Wonderful community festivals such as this enable families to get out and get to know their neighbours in a friendly and inclusive environment

http://http//leader.newspaperdirect.com/epaper/viewer.aspx

Westlink Protest

I joined other protestors against the Westlink road and tunnel outside the electorate office of Telmo Languiller MP.

Brimbank Council sacking - the real reason is to stop opposition to Westlink

It appears the real reason the Brimbank Council has been sacked is so that the Brumby Government can further their agenda to build the Eddington Tunnel and help big businesses get freight from the port easily across Melbourne.

The democratically elected council, including Greens Councillor Geraldine Brooks was elected with 27% of the vote in response to the growing anger at ALP self interest in Brimbank , and now they have been sacked

Meredith Sussex, one of three newly appointed administrators to Brimbank Council has just come from a Directorship at the Department of Transport.

But - It gets better!

Meredith's role was to ensure the implementation of the Eddington Report!

The state Labor government could have sacked Brimbank Council any time in the last 18 months given the level of evidence it had provided by the Ombudsman's report, but it chose not to.

It was trying to leave the problem alone and see if it would die a natural death.

Then, the Greens came along and started raising publicly many of the issues our community were getting upset about like a civic centre to be built on a public park, a dirty big road to be built through homes in West Sunshine and housing developments to be built where there is not enough community facilities and keeping them constantly in the media. All of a sudden Brimbank had to go!

If they think these issues are going to go away, they have a nother think coming. Despite many in our community being told by members of the department of transport that their houses will be safe, they have not ben given information about the route and even if the road was to go through factories instead - we do not want this road! We do not need this road, and our community are not buying it!


Brumby is on record as saying that he intends to implement Eddingtons proposal to construct a tunnel from Clifton Hill ( the start of the eastern freeway) through to the Western Ring Road - and it appears this is exactly what he intends to do - regardless of the communities that will be destroyed by it in the process.

We have to stop him. And the only way we can stop him is by working together.

Brimbank Council Sacked

Brimbank Council was sacked this week by a government apparently desparate to remove Brimbank before the next state election, and it now appears, to try to ensure the success of its hugely unpopular Westlink road project

Cairnlea - more developments

It was brought to my attention before leaving council that Council had made its decision to support the development of this highly contaminated site purely on the basis of certificates and / or statements issued by the auditor.

Council appears to have utterly failed to make its own assessment of the safety of the site by making site visits, asking questions and ordering its own tests to satisfy itself that the remediation work had indeed been carried out.

I have raised this with Council and have received a reply that indeed this was the case that council relied on these documents to make its judgement

I now intend to raise this with the Ombudsman - lets hope that this is investigated thoroughly, because the long term health of countless residents is at stake

Iramoo Design Workshop

Today I attended a design workshop @ Iramoo to help vision the eco living centre that is planned for construction next year...

It was great to get together with other like minded residents in Brimbank and imagine the kinds of activities we could have at Iramoo

Some of the highlights included a cafe, nursery, and back to back programmes to be provided to the school and general communities and for the potential for the house to demonstrate sustainable living in every possible way...

Greens Preselection for Derrimut

I have lodged my nomination for preselection for the lower house seat of Derrimut. The outcome of this should be known by Xmas.

I believe our community deserve to have a decent, hard working candidate that will genuinely represent their interests and their aspirations.

Our community is sick and tired of lazy parliamentarians who do nothing but collect a large income and utterly fail to advocate for the important issues of liveability and safe climate action for our community

I believe candidates should be elected based on their track record, what work they have actually done in our community. and that they represent ordinary people rather than the interests of big business projects such as roads and container parks. I also believe that you cannot possibly represent the community of Derrimut unless you live in the area.

I think our community deserves better and has the right to start demanding its representatives actually work on their behalf!

Community Conversations in Sunshine

It was great to see such a great turn out of local residents to discuss Sunvale and other local issues despite councils very poor effort to promote the event and despite the poor location

Residents continue to raise many of the same issues - they want local facilities and services, the want action on climate change and they do not want developers to make huge profits by getting away with building huge amounts of unsustainable housing that brings an increased density of population with no corresponding increase to support this with adequate facilities and green places

Rally to save Sunvale - from developers!

Sunday's rally saw a great turn up of about 40-50 local residents angry about the lack of genuine consultation, the lack of planning for proper community facilities and the lack of planning for genuine affordable housing instead of just catering to the interests of developers

I have written many times on this blog about the issues at Sunvale and my position has not changed

I do not think more housing on this site is appropriate. Council's own open space strategy identifies a need for more open space in this area and there is also a need for community meeting space and facilities (especially for youth). The community has high levels of disadvantage and this needs to be addressed with an increased level of services and facilities not less!

While council's plan to keep half the space for open space and half for housing is better than nothing, it fails to take into account the serve disadvantage in this area and the wishes of our community. If it had properly consulted with the community, it may have been able to discuss these issues thoroughly and arrived ata compromise...but to date it has failed to do this!

I think urgent and genuine consultation with the sunshine community is critical

I support public housing as the only real solution to the housing affordability crisis, but will this housing be public or just cheap! The last thing we need is large numbers people living in cheap and nasty housing which will entrench their disadvantage. We need to start demanding high quality public housing that you and I would live in.

I also support infill development in places that have good community infrastructure. But who says we have good community infrastructure!!! Our infrastructure is lousy and has been suffering from underinvestment from Labor neglect for at least the last 20 years!

Where is the complete analysis of our housing needs, do we need more buildings to be built or are there houses sitting vacant in Toorak and Brighton that could be public housing and already have good infratructure and green places that would support and increase in density better than Sunshine.

Where and when is Sunshine going to get the infrastructure it needs right now!

While State government policy continues to allow a shifting UGB and a seemingly endless stream of financial support for developers profits at the expense of local communities - we should be sceptical of plans to build new cheap and nasty high density developments