I'll be writing more on this event shortly, but for now here's the video of presentations by Climate Code Red co-author, David Spratt, and Kelvin Thomson MP, Labor MP for Wills. David has also published an extensive post on the event at his Climate Code Red blog. This excellent and well-attended event was organised by the Moreland Climate Group.
Showing posts with label Australia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Australia. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Switch off tonight for Earth Hour
As part of an annual global event to raise awareness about global warming and climate change, Earth Hour will take place at 8.30pm tonight local time around Australia.
If you live in the City of Darebin, Victoria, switch off at home, or join your community at Darebin Parklands from 7.00pm, where Darebin Climate Action Now is running an Earth Hour Event for Alphington Community Centre.
Live local music will be followed by a short animated film about climate change powered by renewable energy from 8.30pm.
The Earth Hour Australia website tells how you can use the web to share your Earth Hour experience and Vote Earth.
If you live in the City of Darebin, Victoria, switch off at home, or join your community at Darebin Parklands from 7.00pm, where Darebin Climate Action Now is running an Earth Hour Event for Alphington Community Centre.
Live local music will be followed by a short animated film about climate change powered by renewable energy from 8.30pm.
The Earth Hour Australia website tells how you can use the web to share your Earth Hour experience and Vote Earth.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Richardson has no answers for The Melbourne Times
This week's edition of The Melbourne Times includes a short report on the Roberts Street public housing redevelopment in Northcote ('Critics want more details on doomed housing estate', p.7). In it Northcote MP Fiona Richardson has no response to objections raised over the lack of public information on asbestos, except to insinuate that valid, documented concerns somehow threaten to undermine the project.
Unfortunately for the spurious argument put forward by the Northcote MP, there is widespread and strong support for the project among those holding the concerns she continues to ignore. With more than 40,000 people on Victoria's public housing transfer and waiting lists, there is an urgent need for more public housing. New housing for the elderly is most welcome. That doesn't mean that well founded concerns about asbestos should be ignored in cases such as the redevelopment at Roberts Street.
On the day Richardson spoke to The Melbourne Times, I sent her and housing minister Richard Wynne ten questions that need to be answered publicly as a matter of urgency. We shouldn't have to wait for a spin-doctor's newsletter promised for an unspecified time before the demolition starts. And it's not enough to say the issues will be resolved at closeted meetings held when few people can attend, and for which no minutes are available.
For more background on the delayed response of the State Government, and its reluctance to release timely information about asbestos to the public, please read the previous post.
Unfortunately for the spurious argument put forward by the Northcote MP, there is widespread and strong support for the project among those holding the concerns she continues to ignore. With more than 40,000 people on Victoria's public housing transfer and waiting lists, there is an urgent need for more public housing. New housing for the elderly is most welcome. That doesn't mean that well founded concerns about asbestos should be ignored in cases such as the redevelopment at Roberts Street.
On the day Richardson spoke to The Melbourne Times, I sent her and housing minister Richard Wynne ten questions that need to be answered publicly as a matter of urgency. We shouldn't have to wait for a spin-doctor's newsletter promised for an unspecified time before the demolition starts. And it's not enough to say the issues will be resolved at closeted meetings held when few people can attend, and for which no minutes are available.
For more background on the delayed response of the State Government, and its reluctance to release timely information about asbestos to the public, please read the previous post.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Department's asbestos response shows contempt for public right to know
A response I received by mail today to a 28 November request for information about the Roberts Street Northcote redevelopment shows the Office of Housing's contempt for the public's right to know. The letter, signed by the Director of Housing, tells me that tenders for the demolition of the flats will close on 17 January, that the successful tenderer must be a licensed demolition contractor, that an asbestos audit has been undertaken, and that the audit is available on the redevelopment website and has been included in the tender documents. It also assures me that the planned measures with respect to asbestos during the demolition 'will ensure that there is no risk to workers on site or the neighbouring residents'.
The first point to note is that this long overdue response provides next to no information I have not already obtained by my own efforts and despite the Office of Housing and Northcote MP Fiona Richardson attempting to keep a lid on the asbestos issue. The next point is that the audit is far from cut-and-dried when one considers the following: not all 'suspect materials' were sampled during the audit; not all areas of the flats were accessible to the auditors; a further assessment has been recommended to cover these areas; and the tender documents include a letter from the auditor to Housing's consulting engineer suggesting that not all asbestos need be removed prior to the demolition, despite also recommending that this be done 'where practicable'.
As for the tender documents, my copy was a mess of scrambled and upside-down pages that did include the audit, and also what I'd suggest is Housing's boiler-plate backside-covering conditions for those cases where asbestos just might be present in buildings slated for demolition. It will be interesting to see whether the asbestos 'control plan' recommended by the auditor and required by the tender conditions is published in a timely manner, and whether it adequately addresses the range of questions raised by the audit report itself. Who in Housing will make sure this gets done?
Getting back to the tender documents, we should note the careful inclusion of prepartions for a potential ministerial visit and photo opportunity at the site:
We are entitled to ask how much is this 'provisional sum', which no doubt could have been put to better use in the timely communication of public interest information to local residents. To underline this, let's take a look at just how untimely the communication has been, remembering that we're dealing with the Office of Housing and Northcote MP, Fiona Richardson, who chairs the community advisory committee for the redevelopment.
First of all, and despite Richardson's assurance in the 5 December edition of The Melbourne Times (p.8) that it would be released, an asbestos audit was not posted to Housing's redevelopment website until 24 December – that's right, Christmas Eve.
Nor, judging by the report itself, was the delayed release in any sense justified. Sampling at the flats was completed on 18 October and the laboratory analysis signed off on 1 November. Presumably the report as a whole, dated only 'November 2007', was completed shortly thereafter. Plenty of time for it to be tabled at the 26 November community advisory meeting, one would think, but the issue of asbestos was raised there by a resident, not Richardson or anyone from Housing (not that we have the minutes for the meeting).
In any case, testing in mid-October and release of the results on Christmas Eve is a farce by any reasonable measure. The clear inference to be drawn is that the delayed release and its ultimate timing were geared primarily to keeping the lid on public awareness of asbestos at Roberts Street in the lead-up to demolition of the flats. Getting hold of the tender documents, needless to say, also proved no easy matter.
Firstly, though the Office of Housing states on the redevelopment website that the tender closes on 17 January, an advertisement date and link to further details are not offered.
Even at tenders.vic.gov.au, where up-to-date tender information is supposed to be published, summary and contact information did not appear until 3 January, after I sent some 'feedback' to the site administrator.
By the time the tenders site had been updated, I had already retrieved the details from the tenders pages in the Herald Sun at the State Library, where I discovered that the tender for demolition of the flats at Roberts Street was advertised on 12 December (No. CW:147934). Advertised on 12 December, published online 3 January – is a theme emerging?
That wasn't the end of the story, of course. At first, when I rang up to pursue details on 2 January, the department questioned whether the documents could be released to me if I couldn't assure them I was a demolition contractor planning to tender for the job. When I suggested that the selective release of the documents might in fact legally compromise the tender process, they relented, and the documents soon arrived by post.
Why is it this hard to get information that should be readily accessible as a matter of public interest? Surely we have a right to timely information about the type of asbestos present at the flats, its extent, and what is planned to be done about it? As mentioned above, despite the slow extraction of information, there are still plenty of questions that remain unanswered, as I also recently suggested in The Age. Stay tuned for further updates.
The first point to note is that this long overdue response provides next to no information I have not already obtained by my own efforts and despite the Office of Housing and Northcote MP Fiona Richardson attempting to keep a lid on the asbestos issue. The next point is that the audit is far from cut-and-dried when one considers the following: not all 'suspect materials' were sampled during the audit; not all areas of the flats were accessible to the auditors; a further assessment has been recommended to cover these areas; and the tender documents include a letter from the auditor to Housing's consulting engineer suggesting that not all asbestos need be removed prior to the demolition, despite also recommending that this be done 'where practicable'.
As for the tender documents, my copy was a mess of scrambled and upside-down pages that did include the audit, and also what I'd suggest is Housing's boiler-plate backside-covering conditions for those cases where asbestos just might be present in buildings slated for demolition. It will be interesting to see whether the asbestos 'control plan' recommended by the auditor and required by the tender conditions is published in a timely manner, and whether it adequately addresses the range of questions raised by the audit report itself. Who in Housing will make sure this gets done?
Getting back to the tender documents, we should note the careful inclusion of prepartions for a potential ministerial visit and photo opportunity at the site:
Demolition plant will need to be present on site and a core group of site staff to provide a safe environment to the visitors. It is anticipated that demolition activities would be suspended for a period of 1 day for the visit to take place. A provisional sum has been included in the Contract to cover Contractor's expenses for this exercise. [Part 3 p.2]
We are entitled to ask how much is this 'provisional sum', which no doubt could have been put to better use in the timely communication of public interest information to local residents. To underline this, let's take a look at just how untimely the communication has been, remembering that we're dealing with the Office of Housing and Northcote MP, Fiona Richardson, who chairs the community advisory committee for the redevelopment.
First of all, and despite Richardson's assurance in the 5 December edition of The Melbourne Times (p.8) that it would be released, an asbestos audit was not posted to Housing's redevelopment website until 24 December – that's right, Christmas Eve.
Nor, judging by the report itself, was the delayed release in any sense justified. Sampling at the flats was completed on 18 October and the laboratory analysis signed off on 1 November. Presumably the report as a whole, dated only 'November 2007', was completed shortly thereafter. Plenty of time for it to be tabled at the 26 November community advisory meeting, one would think, but the issue of asbestos was raised there by a resident, not Richardson or anyone from Housing (not that we have the minutes for the meeting).
In any case, testing in mid-October and release of the results on Christmas Eve is a farce by any reasonable measure. The clear inference to be drawn is that the delayed release and its ultimate timing were geared primarily to keeping the lid on public awareness of asbestos at Roberts Street in the lead-up to demolition of the flats. Getting hold of the tender documents, needless to say, also proved no easy matter.
Firstly, though the Office of Housing states on the redevelopment website that the tender closes on 17 January, an advertisement date and link to further details are not offered.
Even at tenders.vic.gov.au, where up-to-date tender information is supposed to be published, summary and contact information did not appear until 3 January, after I sent some 'feedback' to the site administrator.
By the time the tenders site had been updated, I had already retrieved the details from the tenders pages in the Herald Sun at the State Library, where I discovered that the tender for demolition of the flats at Roberts Street was advertised on 12 December (No. CW:147934). Advertised on 12 December, published online 3 January – is a theme emerging?
That wasn't the end of the story, of course. At first, when I rang up to pursue details on 2 January, the department questioned whether the documents could be released to me if I couldn't assure them I was a demolition contractor planning to tender for the job. When I suggested that the selective release of the documents might in fact legally compromise the tender process, they relented, and the documents soon arrived by post.
Why is it this hard to get information that should be readily accessible as a matter of public interest? Surely we have a right to timely information about the type of asbestos present at the flats, its extent, and what is planned to be done about it? As mentioned above, despite the slow extraction of information, there are still plenty of questions that remain unanswered, as I also recently suggested in The Age. Stay tuned for further updates.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Roberts Street asbestos issue in The Age
Today's opinion pages in The Age carry my piece on the lack of transparency and timely release of information regarding the treatment of asbestos in the demolition and redevelopment of the Roberts Street flats in Northcote. I hope it highlights the issue and leads to more open communication of information that is clearly in the public interest.
In this case, the delay in the release of the asbestos audit report can only be put down to an attempt to contain information and manage the issue, rather than inform the public. This problem was further exacerbated by the lack of tender information on the Office of Housing website.
With several redevelopments on the drawing board, why doesn't the government create a benchmark model of communication for asbestos and other redevelopment issues. Such an approach would create greater public confidence and trust, but only if the emphasis is on communication, not spin.
In this case, the delay in the release of the asbestos audit report can only be put down to an attempt to contain information and manage the issue, rather than inform the public. This problem was further exacerbated by the lack of tender information on the Office of Housing website.
With several redevelopments on the drawing board, why doesn't the government create a benchmark model of communication for asbestos and other redevelopment issues. Such an approach would create greater public confidence and trust, but only if the emphasis is on communication, not spin.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
3CR interview on asbestos at Roberts Street
This morning I was interviewed on community radio station 3CR's breakfast program about asbestos at the Roberts Street public housing flats in Northcote. The interview covered the failure of the Office of Housing and Northcote MP Fiona Richardson to release information about asbestos at the flats and how it will be dealt with when the flats are demolished and redeveloped for new public housing early in the new year.
As well as being the local MP, Richardson chairs the community advisory committee for the redevelopment, but has yet to fulfil a 5 December commitment in The Melbourne Times to release an asbestos audit for the site that the Office of Housing website claims has already been done. Nor has demolition tender information been released, despite the website stating that the tender for demolition was to be advertised mid-December. No minutes for any of the community advisory committee meetings are available on the website, including the 26 November meeting at which Richardson claims the issue of asbestos was discussed.
While I wholeheartedly support the Roberts Street public housing redevelopment, it should proceed with transparency and accountability – especially with regard to asbestos. As I said in this morning's interview, if the government is asking us to trust them on asbestos at Roberts Street, then I'd say trust comes with openness and public information, not secrecy and spin.
If you'd like to get in touch with me on this issue, email darren.lewinhill@gmail.com, or leave a comment by following the comments link at the bottom of this post.
As well as being the local MP, Richardson chairs the community advisory committee for the redevelopment, but has yet to fulfil a 5 December commitment in The Melbourne Times to release an asbestos audit for the site that the Office of Housing website claims has already been done. Nor has demolition tender information been released, despite the website stating that the tender for demolition was to be advertised mid-December. No minutes for any of the community advisory committee meetings are available on the website, including the 26 November meeting at which Richardson claims the issue of asbestos was discussed.
While I wholeheartedly support the Roberts Street public housing redevelopment, it should proceed with transparency and accountability – especially with regard to asbestos. As I said in this morning's interview, if the government is asking us to trust them on asbestos at Roberts Street, then I'd say trust comes with openness and public information, not secrecy and spin.
If you'd like to get in touch with me on this issue, email darren.lewinhill@gmail.com, or leave a comment by following the comments link at the bottom of this post.
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