🚀 go-pugleaf

On Sun, 21 May 2000 04:36:21 +1000, Peter Mackay
<peter.mackay@bigpond.com> wrote:

>One of the biggest distinguishing features of the Rosemary Follett era in 
>ACT government was the almost total lack of consultation with the 
>community on issues that matter.

Like the consultation the current government has over planning issues?
Public consultation is a joke. Half of Turner is on sale so shoddy
high/medium density accommodation can be built. There hasn't been a
single planning proposal in the inner suburbs turned down or planning
approval reversed due to community concern (since the Libs got in).

snip

>
>From the same government we got Gungahlin, a new town built north of 
>Canberra and Belconnen. Again, it was the environmental zealots rather 
>than the community that was listened to, and Gungahlin went ahead, based 
>on the fantasy that the residents would abandon their cars and use public 
>transport. A big win for the environazis on the face of it, but now, 
>years down the track we are coming to grips with the results of Follett's 
>folly.

There was NEVER any suggestion that Gungahlin residents would catch
the bus. The plans were in place to widen existing roads.

>
>The simple truth is that the residents of Gungahlin are like every other 
>Canberra community, and they use their cars because it is cheap and 
>convenient to do so. More so, perhaps, because Gungahlin has fewer 
>facilities than other communities, and the residents must travel more to 
>have the same level of access.
>
>And the natural consequence is that Gungahlin residents are now creating 
>a problem that is a no-win situation for environmentalists. Either they 
>run their cars inefficiently on their daily commute, burning fossil fuels 
>as they idle at the lights or crawl along inadequate roads, or they 
>travel quickly along new roads yet to be constructed through bushland 
>corridors.

Yeah, people can be selfish can't they. Instead of blaming the
residents of Turner/O'Connor for being selfish, why not blame the
yuppies who want to get to work 5 minutes earlier?

>
>The only response from the envirolobby is the same tired old public 
>transport one. Well it ain't gonna happen -- Gungahlin folk aren't about 
>to give up their cars in favour of an inadequate and expensive bus 
>system. The only realistic response is to build the bloody road down 
>O'Connor Ridge and knock over a few gum trees in the process.
>

Plenty of people use O'Connor ridge, and it is the only peaceful place
available to the residents of Turner and O'Connor. The reason O'Connor
ridge road is being built is the Yowani Golf Club got the widening of
Northbourne Avenue and Barton Highway overturned. They would have to
redesign a few holes and would have lost a couple of shots off their
course rating.

>It is going to happen sooner or later, for the simple reason that 
>Gungahlin residents will outvote O'Connor residents through sheer force 
>of numbers at the ballot box. All the arguments in the world will not 
>dissuade the motorist crawling along to work breathing the fumes of the 
>shitbox ahead from voting for a party that promises to build the road.

It doesn't have to be done. Widen existing roads. Will people put up
with 5 minutes extra commute to save thousands of trees? Plenty of
people bag governments for their environmental credentials, here is an
opportunity for Gungahlin residents to prove theirs. Widening existing
roads will save time and petrol pollution.

>
>And in the end it is the environmentally responsible thing to do. 
>Australia has plenty of gum trees and we won't miss a few. Far better to 
>minimise the pollution and the inefficiency of the morning commute by 
>giving Gungahlin residents the road that a child could have predicted a 
>decade ago.

The environmentally responsible thing to do is catch the bus or ride a
bike. I do it. It costs me an hour in time I could be sitting in front
of the idiot box or responding to trolls like you.  I'd rather be on
the bike thanks.

>
>Or longer. A book occasionally seen on the second-hand market is 
>"Tomorrow's Canberra", published in 1970. It clearly identifies the need 
>for a freeway stretching from Tuggeranong to "Mulligan's Flat" (the 
>present day Gungahlin) and the various maps and pictures show it in all 
>its glory. Like it or not, freeways separated from residential areas are 
>the best way to move people in a car-oriented community such as Canberra.

So, because it was mooted in 1970 it's automatically the right thing
to do is it? Very few people had environmental concerns in the 60's
and early 70's. Now we do, and we don't knock over thousands of trees
to get yuppies home 5 minutes earlier. 

>
>So where does community consultation come into all this? Surely instead 
>of making a decision to build Gungahlin without adequate transport 
>corridors and thereby ensuring that the issue would eventually be 
>resolved through conflict, the government of the day could have worked 
>with the existing residents of North Canberra and the future residents of 
>Gungahlin to find a consensus outcome?

As I said, the planning was there years ago to widen existing roads.
But you'll ignore that anyway. It won't allow you to bash the Labor
Party. Instead of bagging Labor, bag the members at Yowani who got the
current government to overturn the widening of Northbourne and Barton
Highway to make the commute faster for Gungahlin residents.

>
>If the residents of O'Connor could not be persuaded to accept a freeway 
>passing through nearby bushland, then what on earth is the point of going 
>ahead with building a town that demanded that such a freeway would 
>eventually have to be built? Isn't this government arrogance, to ride 
>slipshod over the desires of its citizens?

I say agin, plenty of people use O'C ridge, the road does NOT have to
be built.

>
>It is not just a matter of filling in survey forms and tabulating the 
>results -- people are quite capable of fooling themselves that black is 
>white on surveys -- but of polling the community and then debating the 
>results to highlight any logical flaws. If the logical conclusion of 
>building a new town is that new freeways need to be built, then this fact 
>should be highlighted and made known to all, with planning based on this 
>need for freeways and not upon some fiction that it will all work out 
>alright in the end.
>
>If only there were some mechanism to force governments to listen to the 
>community apart from the rare intervals when elections are held. The next 
>ACT election isn't until late next year. What government decisions will 
>be made in the meantime?

You're right, they're not listening to the community, they're
listening to people who have their home phone number. That's why we're
about to get a road through O'C ridge.

>The republic referendum was an example of this on a national scale. The 
>issue was debated long and hard and in the end the community made a 
>decision. It is important to note that this decision was not what one 
>would expect if one relied solely on the news media, or the loudest 
>voices in the debate. In the end, the people decided, and what could be 
>fairer than that?

People decided not to accept half a democracy when they can have a
real one if they are prepared to wait. There was never any doubt the
referendum would go down.

>
>It strikes me that with the growing acceptance of the Internet we have 
>the potential for a community consultation and discussion mechanism. I am 
>by no means alone in such thinking, and already there are several sites 
>that purport to poll the community. http://www.publicdebate.com.au/ is 
>one such, flawed in that it allows people to vote several times over, but 
>certainly showing the way.
>
>Eventually governments are going to have to take notice of the community. 
>To whoever is still reading this, I ask whether you would like to be able 
>to vote on significant issues without having to wait until an election 
>(when you essentially get a very limited choice, and diverse issues are 
>lumped together in party platforms), and to be able to speak out in 
>public against policies or government decisions that you think are wrong.

Not everything should be voted on. You get a vote once every 3-4
years.... "Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but
his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices
it to your opinion." - Edmund Burke (1774). 

You get a vote, use it carefully and you'll get the right pollie.
Don't expect him/her to come and ask you for your opinion on every
issue. You'll never be in parliament Mackay, you've been convicted, so
now you want power in other ways. You want some of the power taken
away from those whose job you can never get. You should have thought
of that before you leaked all those documents.

>
>I think that most people would like to vote on issues important to them, 
>even if they do not make any public comment. It is high time, in our 
>supposedly democratic society, that the wishes of ordinary citizens 
>prevailed, rather than those of the loudest, or richest, or best-
>connected. I think that this is something that we, as an Internet 
>community, should explore.

It is not always the loudest. A few phone calls and secret handshakes
means we are stuck with a road through magnificent urban bushland. I
suggest you get your facts straight before blaming people who are
prepared to stand up and say no. They have to be loud because they
don't have the right numbers in their little black book, nor are they
members of the correct secret organisation which can stop a couple of
golf holes from being redesigned.