Northcote won, but Labor set to lose Government

With yesterday's Victorian State election raising the prospect of a hung Parliament or, more likely, a Baillieu Coalition Government, counting is basically complete in Northcote. Fiona Richardson is set to retain the Labor stronghold - it would appear just needing those Liberal preferences that would have made things very close if they'd gone instead to the Greens.

My own result has been pretty modest, but I'm glad I had a go. I ran a stronger and more organised campaign this time around, with better media coverage - particularly in the Northcote Leader (thanks!) - as well as a lot of support from family, friends and climate campaigners - thank you to all.

From voters I managed to reach and who were therefore aware of my policies, the reception was very positive, and I was heartened by the people who were supportive of an independent running in the seat in their kind words to me on the day.

On the whole, the challenge for an independent running in Northcote is the lack of party affiliation, the inability to blanket the electorate several times over with campaign material, paid billboards and other advertisements, and the reality of being able to cover only a fraction of polling booths for a few hours each on polling day. That's the deal you agree to going in, and it's one that I accepted.

Despite Labor holding the seat, Northcote hasn't been immune from the big statewide swing against the Brumby Government, despite the resources devoted here to a largely negative Labor campaign. I put that overall swing down to arrogance, and to a string of Labor failures on key issues - myki and public transport, planning, services, and the dismissal of the community's voice - just to name a few.

Again the Greens increased their vote (well done to Anne Martinelli and her team). I would like to think this reflects community sentiment for strong action on climate change. However, a lot more work still needs to be done not only by the Greens, but by everyone in the climate change campaign community. The importance of urgent action on climate change must be an issue shared across a range of political perspectives if we are to address the threat it poses.

The challenge now will be to forge a new campaign in the context of a hung Parliament or a Baillieu Government. The Coalition's policies on climate change are not strong compared even to the weak policies offered by Labor, and the promise of some progress at the federal level must be used to argue for stronger action here in Victoria, including the rapid phasing out of coal and the replacement of Hazelwood with renewables by 2014.

I am committed to contributing further to this work and, where I can, to the broader life of the Northcote community, despite my modest result in this election. Participation by ordinary people in the democratic process is never failure.

Vote 1 for an independent voice for Northcote

So tomorrow is election day, and it's time for everyone to consider very carefully how they are going to vote. For me the campaign has been about climate change, about traffic, about big developments looming over us without a say for residents, about stopping the damage from poker machines, and about many other local issues on which I have clear policies.

I've worked hard to reach as many voters as a I can, delivering as many of my flyers to your letter-boxes as I have been able to with the support of family and friends (thanks!). Now it's up to you, the voters of Alphington, Northcote, Thornbury, Fairfield and parts of Preston who together make up the Lower House District of Northcote.

If you want an independent MP who can raise important issues in the Parliament and fight for better results without being controlled by a political party, if you want to be represented directly, then please consider voting "1" for me.

In asking this, I would like you to consider that I am the only independent in this seat who has offered a clear picture of what I stand for from the very first day nominations opened on 3 November. 

My flyers include a how-to-vote card, and this shows how I will be voting myself, based on what I think of the other candidates, whether I know who they are, and on the policies they have put forward in time for me to consider them.

The order I have given is a suggestion only, and if you decide to give me first preference, I ask that you then carefully consider how you number each of the other candidates. No political party can actually "direct" preferences if voters decide the order for themselves.

Tomorrow I will be out at polling booths handing out my how-to-vote cards together with my volunteers. Please feel free to say hello and to ask me any questions you may have.

Finally, my how-to-vote cards are printed on 100% recycled paper, but there aren't that many of them. If you have received one in your letter-box, please use it again when you go to vote. If you haven't received one, feel free to print out the web version. Some will also be available at voting centres, and I ask that these be returned to the person who handed them out to you wherever possible.

That's it. It's time to let democracy take its course!

Cheers, Darren Lewin-Hill

Northcote planning needs an independent voice

I've written a lot about climate change on this blog, but voters should know that I started campaigning back in 2003 with Save Westgarth Village to fight planning changes that were being forced through with too little community say.

Fast-forward to 2010, and the electorate of Northcote is under the same threat from big developers, and a Victorian Labor Government that has received large political donations from the industry. That's why I am calling for political donation disclosures on applications for all major developments. Voters deserve to know, and good developers will have nothing to hide.

But there's a lot more than that to the question of development in our community. As we go to the election, uncertainty looms over at least three large developments where locals have so far had only a small voice in shaping the future of their communities.

Amcor's Fairfield plant will give way to large-scale development when it closes in 2012. A development of more than 90 units and townhouses at the Northcote Bowl site is hanging over locals' heads, and the Arthurton Road site will see a massive development overshadow local residents.

A number of common themes emerge from these proposals - firstly, the lack of community say. The Northcote Leader reported that in August the Labor-dominated Darebin Council moved to exclude third-party appeal rights to VCAT for the Arthurton Road site. Why, when this will exclude the right of residents to have a proper say on a development that will profoundly affect them?

The unreliability of planning laws also features among resident concerns. As many as 12 storeys have been proposed for the Arthurton Road site, and residents are made to feel as if they should be grateful it has been scaled back to five, when even that height may well be excessive for a development of that scale.

Running through each of the proposals is the fear of locals that the traffic implications of large-scale development simply haven't been thought through. Heidelberg Road, Victoria Road and Arthurton Road are already stretched and pressured, yet the Government's approach seems to be that the traffic will look after itself.

If elected as an independent MP for Northcote, I would fight for all of these issues to be robustly addressed, and for better protections for residents living with developments that are already underway.

There is more that could be done to resolve disputes between developers and residents, and more to ensure that developers make good any impacts they impose on their way to profiting from the sale of their apartments - this includes cracking of neighbouring buildings, exposure to potential hazards during demolition, loss of solar generating capacity through overshadowing, and loss of amenity due to the presence of developers and their machinery.

It's not a choice between no development and over-development. We can achieve a balance that will meet economic, social and environmental needs by including the community's voice. No-one wants endless urban sprawl that will bring more cars (with their emissions) through Northcote from outside the city. On the other hand, no-one wants excessive development driven only by developer profits.

Voters in this election need to ask what sort of advocacy they are going to get on planning issues from Northcote MP Fiona Richardson, who is part of the Government that set the planning policies leading to such poor outcomes. An independent with sound planning policies can offer a voice that is not beholden to the development industry, or to a political party - an independent voice whose only task is to represent you in the Parliament.

Here's how to move to renewables

The Victorian Government likes to downplay the practicality of a rapid transition away from coal to renewable power generation, but has never responded in detail to the innovative Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan produced by Beyond Zero Emissions.

In short, the plan calls for a ten-year transition to 100% renewables using 60% concentrated solar thermal (CST), which can produce baseload power, and 40% wind. 

Full video is now available of the University of Melbourne launch by the Melbourne Energy Institute back on 14 July. To see it, go to the university's Live@Melbourne website.

It's a long video, but you can skip forward as needed, and to answer the question: "Who is that climate campaigner challenging the federal government to produce any sort of plan to justify the pipedream of carbon capture and storage?" (@106 mins 28 secs)

Secret ballot the answer to Labor's secret files

Yesterday's revelations in The Age that the Brumby Government is keeping secret files on citizens should be at the forefront of voters' minds when they go to the polls on Saturday. The secret files - also apparently kept by the Coalition - have no purpose in serving the public interest, but are there to protect the interests of the major political parties.

In the case of Labor, the files should be seen in the context of a Government that has already made deals to provide personal details to large corporations. It is also a Government already under fire for its dirt unit tactics against political opponents. The combination of Labor's propensity for dirty campaigning and its gathering of personal information should be distressing to anyone concerned with open, accountable democracy.

In Northcote, we have already seen smear tactics employed against a local climate campaigner by Northcote MP, Fiona Richardson, who is on Labor's campaign committee.

I would be curious to see if the campaigner recently smeared by Richardson in the Melbourne Times Weekly appears on the ALP's secret database, but we may never know.

There's a simple antidote to Labor's secret files - it's called a secret ballot, and it's coming up on Saturday.

Telephone pole set to vote Labor in Northcote

Media release

Independent candidate for Northcote, Darren Lewin-Hill, has been shocked by the discovery that even local telephone poles are succumbing to ALP propaganda, with one Clarke Street pole stridently declaring, "I'm voting Labor".

"I've heard of telephone polls, but this is ridiculous," Mr Lewin-Hill said.

"There's no human face on the placard, so we can only assume it's the voting intentions of the pole being referred to in the message. As an independent committed to accountability, I'll get to the bottom of this - I very much doubt that that pole is on the electoral role for Northcote," he said.

The distracting signage, on a speed-limited section of the notorious traffic rat-run, covers an earlier sign featuring Northcote MP Fiona Richardson, wife of former Victorian ALP State Secretary, Stephen Newnham.

"I did stop letter-boxing for a while to try to talk the pole out of such a foolish move, explaining that in its exposed position it would be among the first to experience the impacts of severe climate change driven by the Victorian Government's disastrous climate policies, not to mention Australia's status as the world's largest exporter of coal.

"I also pointed out that the Government's mania for roads would likely see even more traffic using rat-runs through local residential streets, and it was likely the pole would be a sitting-duck. My plea fell on deaf ears, so-to-speak," Mr Lewin-Hill said.

He said the sheer prevalence of Labor propaganda had given him the brilliant idea for a "Replace a Placard" scheme, in which Labor placards would be replaced with an equivalent surface area of solar panels.

"By the end of this election, I'd say we'd have enough renewable energy to power Victoria ten times over," Mr Lewin-Hill said. "We could close the Hazelwood brown-coal-fired power station immediately."

"At the moment, emissions savings from the renewable initiatives slated by the Brumby Government would be quickly overtaken by our continued burning and likely large-scale export of brown coal. Lip-service to renewables can't compensate for the emissions from brown coal," he concluded.

He said that until his Replace a Placard scheme kicked in, it still wouldn't be a bad idea to shine a light on Labor's propaganda machine.

Richardson's climate spin gets past the Times

In its 17 November edition, the Melbourne Times Weekly (MTW) has reported uncritically an attack by Labor MP, Fiona Richardson, on a Northcote Vote Climate campaign scorecard that rates Labor poorly on its climate commitments. Two independents, including myself, topped the ratings.

The report makes the unsubstantiated claim that the other independent, Adrian Whitehead, an Upper House candidate for the Northern Metropolitan Region, authored the Northcote scorecard being letter-boxed by Darebin Climate Action Now, giving himself a top rating. The headline of the story read "'Report card' author gives himself all As".

Climate groups have rejected the claim point-blank, defending the scoring process as independent of all candidates who were rated in every seat where the scorecards are being distributed. A retraction has been demanded from the newspaper in next week's edition, with climate groups noting the absence of any right of reply in the story itself.

Further criticisms of the campaign in the report include comments discounting the scorecard's value made by a business associate of Fiona Richardson's husband. The paper fails to declare this connection in the report itself, and on Wednesday I rang MTW calling for an acknowledgment of the link and an explanation to readers of how these comments came to be reported.

Richardson's statement that the research is "deliberately misleading" also remains unconvincing. The scorecard accurately presents party and candidate positions regarding the commitments that science says are necessary to achieve a safe climate. It notes, for example, Labor's failure to commit to the use of renewable energy to completely replace Hazelwood, Australia's dirtiest coal-fired power station, by 2014.

If Richardson deems this unclear or misleading, she must explain why the call to close the power station has been endorsed by Professor David Karoly, who led the Premier's own climate change reference group.

In a more balanced report in this week's Northcote Leader, Richardson says the scorecard is misleading because a judgment has been made based on what the candidates have said, rather than on what they can deliver.

The reality is that no single MP - government or independent - can guarantee particular proposals will be implemented. However, the candidates who rated well on the scorecard have made a clear commitment to advocate in Parliament for necessary action.

Labor's position - with which Richardson has not disagreed - would only "deliver" further significant climate change, contributing, among other impacts, to more frequent and severe bushfires in Victoria, such as the catastrophic fires of Black Saturday.

The MTW report further notes that Environment Victoria's own recently launched scorecard "drew different conclusions" - without saying what they were, but suggesting the Vote Climate scorecard was somehow inaccurate. Readers may have benefited from knowing the environment group gave Labor an overall score of just 47% on its broad environmental policies, including climate.

These are the issues the paper must now address in its last edition before the State election.

Further, as MTW has implied preference-dealing among candidates with strong climate policies - and therefore ranked highly on the scorecard - it should examine Labor's preference deal with the anti-environment Country Alliance Party, including a possible link with the party in Northcote itself.

Yesterday I sent detailed information to MTW on these matters - together with a corroborating copy to an independent third party. The test of the paper's objectivity and fairness will be how it reports in the countdown to 27 November.

As for Fiona Richardson, voters can send a message to the Brumby Government by giving their first preference to a candidate with clear policies supporting strong climate outcomes.

Further information:

Darebin Climate Action Now - Election Q and A
My climate policies
Climate - ALP style

How I'm going to vote - you too, I hope

The finicky process of registering a how-to-vote card with the Victorian Electoral Commission now complete, I'm pleased to present mine here at Northcote Independent.

My tentative headline for this post reflects my thinking about preferences. You, the voters, choose exactly how to order your preferences, and no party can "direct" you how to do so. Exercising your choice for every preference - in the case of Northcote, from first down to sixth - is the best way to frustrate the preference-dealing of the major parties.

In my case, I present my preferences to you as the way I am going to vote in good conscience, based on my assessment of each candidate. If you agree with me, I invite you to follow my suggestions!

An earlier post on preferences is here.

Richardson's lip-service on planning

Here's the unedited version of a letter published in today's Melbourne Times Weekly in response to a 3 November article that spoke of Fiona Richardson's muted approval of the Brumby planning approach as "dissent" ("Dissent in ALP camp not part of the plan").

Fiona Richardson's tepid defence of the Brumby Government's planning record was too lukewarm to warrant the description of "dissent" in your headline. It's easy to call for community input, but quite another thing to allow local communities to actually influence the outcome of big planning decisions.

How far do voters think Richardson will stray from the ALP party line, as Planning Minister Justin Madden evades scrutiny of the planned sham consultation on the Windsor Hotel project, and big planning decisions are made in the shadow of the election care-taker period?

With Amcor's Fairfield plant and the Arthurton Road site just two big potential developments that are up in the air as we go to the State election, voters should suspect reassuring future commitments to consultation from the Northcote representative of a Brumby planning system that too often excludes a community say.

The planning equation needs to include more than profits for developers. We need sustainable communities, where housing is more affordable and provision is made for the disadvantaged.

The way we build these communities is through the democratic participation of the people who live in them. That's not happening. Lip-service is not enough, Ms Richardson. True dissent will not come from an MP within Government.

What I might also have said is that developers have been among the biggest donors to the Victorian Labor Party. That's why I've called for developer donation disclosures as part of the planning application process for big developments.

If you're concerned about planning and live in the electorate of Northcote, please consider my planning policies (and the others!).