Survey on Newcastle City Centre revitalisation

You can download a survey (.pdf file) of community attitudes to revitalisation of the Newcastle CBD (conducted by the Hunter Valley Research Foundation for the Minister for the Hunter, Jodi McKay) from the HVRF website at: http://www.hvrf.com.au/pages/news/index.php?id=113.

Latest state government attack on local democracy

One of the most significant current threats to local democracy is from the NSW government's so-called "Planning Reform" program, which they've now been implementing (at the behest of the development and property lobby) since the early '90s, when Craig Knowles was Minister for Planning.

The most recent of these "reforms" is the establishment of Joint Regional Planning Panels (JRPPs), appointed by the NSW Minister for Planning, that will now (from 1 July) decide many of the development applications that were previously determined by local elected representatives.

They will determine all developments valued over $10 million, and subdivisions of more than 250 lots, that are not determined by the Minister for Planning.

See an interesting article on them in The Fifth Estate.

The NSW Department of Planning website for JRPPs is here. The site contains information for councils and members of the public on the JRPPs.

The members of these panels were recently announced (see here). Brief profiles of each member can be found here.

Garry Fielding has been appointed to Chair the Hunter JRPP.

Mr Fielding is well known in the Newcastle area, since he was Newcastle Council's Director of Planning for many years.

In an op-ed piece in today's paper edition of the Newcastle Herald, Mr Fielding argued that the JRPPs will provide the opportunity for the community to participate in planning decisions.

However, the JRPP website does not yet provide the contact details for the newly appointed JRPP members. Accordingly, NCLD has written to the Department of Planning asking for these contact details for the Hunter members, and when/where they will be available on a publicly accessible website.

We'll keep you posted.

Why Newcastle Citizens for Local Democracy?

Newcastle Citizens for Local Democracy formed in August 2009 in response to concerns in the grassroots Newcastle community about the rapid decline of local democracy in the city of Newcastle, New South Wales.

These concerns centre around anti-democratic tendencies that have emerged in the city's governance since the local government elections in September 2008.

Those elections resulted in Newcastle Council being dominated by conservative independents (mostly from the John Tate and Aaron Buman tickets), who have set about dismantling local democratic structures, processes and practices that had been established in the mid to late 1990s and early 2000s.

This has been aided and abetted by an equally anti-democratic council administration, headed by a relatively new General Manager, with a new senior management team.

These anti-democratic actions have included:

• Reducing the number of council meetings (and increasing behind-closed-doors workshops),
• Cutting council funding to - and effectively removing council support from - Community Forums, which allow people in local communities to come together to discuss issues that affect their communities,
• Placing the award-winning Loft youth venue (an avenue for input into council by young people) on a two year funding review cycle (after an attempt to cut it altogether),
• Involving representatives of the Hunter Business Chamber (who represent big business interests) in the appointment of senior council staff,
• Cutting the annual, independent community surveys conducted by the Hunter Valley Research Foundation,
• Abusing established formal meeting procedures, such as notice requirements for business at council meetings, and then using numbers to vote down dissent on such abuse,
• Abuse of the confidentiality provisions in the Local Government Act [s.10A (2)] to conceal decisions that should be made in public (including a radically new council organisational structure),
• Nod-and-wink decision-making in secret councillor-staff "workshops" that operate contrary to Department of Local Government guidelines, and take place away from the view of the media and the public,
  
• Continually using the "guillotine" (i.e., moving "that the motion be put"), to cut off full council debate of major issues,
• Ignoring requests from members of the public for information on council processes,
• Failing to consult the community on important council matters, such as the approval of a major commercial music festival in a public park adjacent to residents, in a location (Wickham Park) that has never had such an event before,
• Continually favouring vested interests over community interests in development decisions.

Ironically, this is all happening as Newcastle celebrates 150 years of local democracy.

Welcome to the Newcastle Citizens for Local Democracy Blog

Hello and welcome to the Newcastle Citizens for Local Democracy blog.

This blog will:

• provide public notices about NCLD activities
• publish information and commentary about local democracy in the Newcastle (NSW Australia) area
  
• provide links to like-minded blogs and websites
• publish media releases and other public statements on behalf of NCLD.

Future postings will expand on these objectives.

See the next posting for why NCLD was formed.

John Sutton
Coordinator
Newcastle Citizens for Local Democracy