Mary and Max is a claymated feature film from the creators of the Academy Award winning short animation Harvie Krumpet. It is a simple tale of pen-friendship between two very different people; Mary Dinkle, a chubby lonely eight year old girl living in the suburbs of Melbourne, and Max Horovitz, a 44 year old, severely obese, Jewish man with Aspergers Syndrome living in the chaos of New York. Spanning 20 years and 2 continents, Mary and Max’s friendship survives much more than the average diet of life’s ups and downs. Like Harvie Krumpet, Mary and Max is innocent but not naïve, as it takes us on a journey that explores friendship, autism, taxidermy, psychiatry, alcoholism, where babies come from, obesity, kleptomania, sexual difference, trust, copulating dogs, religious difference, agoraphobia and much much more.

Tickets are available through the Melbourne City Greens, for $25 ($20 concession).

Cathy has lived in the City of Melbourne for over thirty years. She went to Errol Street Primary School and University High School and her family has a long history of being active community members of North Melbourne, including being passionate North Melbourne Football club members.

Community, a sense of place for all and getting more representation for residents within Melbourne City Council projects are important priorities for Cathy, as is ensuring Melbourne is developed using the best available sustainable design practices.

To get in touch with Cathy, you can email her or call her on (03) 9658 9086.

If candidates other than Mr Doyle did not have strong recognition among voters, it is in large part a consequence of the major political parties not openly engaging in local-government elections. Yet the Liberal and Labor parties were certainly involved in the campaigns for Melbourne and other councils, negotiating complex preferencing deals between supposed independents, some of whom were “dummies” running to ensure the preferred candidate’s success. If candidates ran openly under Liberal or Labor banners dummies could not do their work, and the major parties should follow the example of the Greens in publicly declaring their involvement.

The paper also makes the point that:

In the City of Melbourne, Greens mayoral candidate Adam Bandt doubled the party’s share of the primary vote in this election, indicating continued growth in support for the Greens among inner-urban residents — a trend that may explain why a state Labor government did not change the law to remove the disproportionate clout of business votes, and why a newly elected Liberal lord mayor is confident he can work with the Government. 

It’s a sign of the times that Labor finds a closer ally in the Liberals than in The Greens. But as the issues of climate change, transport and Melbourne’s liveability become ever more pressing, we’re proud to offer a real alternative to the old parties. Read The Age’s editorial here.

Overall, we effectively doubled our vote since the last Council election.

We are delighted that Dr Cathy Oke has been elected to Council. She will be a fantastic representative for Melbourne locals.

On the leadership ticket, Adam Bandt and Kathleen Maltzahn got the second highest vote behind Robert Doyle. It is a great result that shows the growing strength of the Greens in Melbourne.

Some big decisions will need to be made over the next few years about climate change, transport and the future of the city. The strong Green vote this election sends a clear message to the new Town Hall to make Melbourne Australia’s most sustainable capital city.

For other councils voting on Saturday 29 November, follow this link.

You will get (or already have) two ballot papers in the Melbourne City Council elections: one for Council and one for the Leadership Ticket (Lord Mayor and Deputy Lord Mayor).

For Council, just mark ‘1′ above the line in the box marked ‘The Greens’.

For the Leadership ballot, our suggested How to Vote can be found by clicking ‘Read more’ below. The order you put your preferences is up to you, but YOU MUST NUMBER FROM 1 TO 11 OR YOUR VOTE WON’T COUNT.

You can find our polices by following the links on the right, or read the PTUA’s assessment here and The Age’s article here.

AAP has a good summary of the highlights of this policy. The highlights include:

• Council offering to buy the East Melbourne and Melbourne Central ABC Learning Centres;
• Fast-tracking the development of community hubs, including libraries, at Southbank’s Boyd High School site and Carlton’s Kathleen Syme Building;
• Defending all open space and parks used by local sporting groups from bad development (particularly the proposed east-west tunnel); and
• Advocating for the reduction of electronic gaming machines within the City of Melbourne.

You can find The Greens’ full Community and Services policy, along with all of their other policies, here.

Regarding the ABC centres, Greens Lord Mayor candidate Adam Bandt said that centres should be run by council, and not for profit.

“It’s a basic social service that should be community managed,” he said.

AAP’s report continues:

ABC Learning, which provides care to 120,000 children, placed itself in voluntary administration last week and its banks have appointed receivers to the company.

Mr Bandt said ABC’s position showed “the appalling things that happen when looking after our kids becomes a money making business”.

Mr Bandt said he hoped other councils would follow his lead.

He said ABC childcare workers would have the opportunity to move to the new structure, guaranteeing all their entitlements.

We’re in a climate emergency and it’s time for governments at all levels to take urgent action. And as it gets harder to make ends meet financially, it’s time to cut your energy bills.

The Greens want to make Melbourne Australia’s most sustainable capital city. We will use the resources of Yarra and Melbourne councils to offer inner-city residents and businesses:

• A free audit and retrofit of dwellings to reduce energy consumption (and your power bills!) by about 30%. For low-income households, we will also provide free insulation. 

• Installation of solar hot water systems and solar PV panels on your dwelling. If you can’t meet the up-front cost, Council will organise installation and you can pay the costs back from the savings to your power bills so you won’t be out of pocket.

• In time, once the first two projects are established, ReMY (the new Renewing Melbourne and Yarra authority) will look at local renewable power generation, through means such as combined heat and power installing solar panels on public structures. 

The beauty of the scheme is that it largely pays for itself: Council meets the up-front costs so that action can be taken urgently, and ratepayers who take up the scheme can repay the costs over time and still save money! If every house in Australia did this, we’d reduce the country’s greenhouse gas emissions by 10%. As it is, Melbourne should lead the country, becoming greenhouse gas neutral by 2020, and hopefully the rest will follow. 
 
Most people want to do as much as they can to combat climate change, yet Federal and State governments seem to think the answer lies in higher power bills and coal fired power stations. And the current Melbourne City Council has spent over $50m of ratepayers’ money on the State Government’s convention centre, enough to pay for ReMY several times over!
 
Similar schemes are working overseas (see too here) and are now being explored in Sydney (see too here) and London. It’s time to get ReMY going here. In a climate emergency, we need Greens in local government.
 
Download a full copy of the plan here, and give us your feedback or questions by leaving a comment below.

It is due to be voted on this coming Tuesday (28th) in the upper house and to stop it, you must lobby the Liberal and National parties to vote for the Greens’ amendments.

Do you know anyone who is running for Council in the elections this November?

Are they active in a number of local community groups which are trying to convince governments to take action in their area? Are they the sort of person that regularly attends Council meetings or writes submissions, until one day they got so fed up they decided to stand for council?

This is a law against those people. It’s a law to discourage them from running, or to knock them out of voting if they are elected.

What’s wrong with this provision?

Councillors already have a responsibility to act in an ‘unbiased’ manner when dealing with certain types of decisions – such as applications for planning permits. This obligation arises out of common law and is well described in a government publication Ensuring Unbiased Democratic Council Decision Making.

The Government’s proposed new law goes much, much further.

Councillors can be banned from voting on any Council matter if they have previously chosen to “make an objection or submission in relation to the matter“.

• It doesn’t have to be a submission you made to the Council you are running for. If you made a submission to a state government review, your Council forming its position on the same review could be seen to be the same ‘matter’.
• It’s irrelevant what you said in your submission, whether for, against or neutral on a proposal. Writing the submission automatically gives you a conflict of interest.
• It doesn’t have to be a personal submission. You could be an office bearer of a group or other entity and be held responsible for the submission your group made.

Example: Katherine is a local councillor and also the Treasurer of the local Landcare group, who wrote a submission to the Minister for Water on a proposal to declare certain wetlands as protected. Later, the Minister writes to Katherine’s council asking them for their position on the matter. Katherine can’t vote.

• It could be a verbal submission you made by speaking at a council meeting. It doesn’t matter what you said, because the only necessary action is that you made a submission.
• It’s retrospective. Any submission you made in the past could knock you out of voting at any time on the future.

Example: Ian made a submission to his council’s proposed by-law on footpath trading rules. Some time later he is elected to council. Five years after the law was first created, Council considers running a review of the law. Councillor Ian can’t even vote on whether or not to review the law because he made a submission on the original version.

• It also applies to councillors attending briefings from staff members, not just formal council decision making meetings.
• It also applies to any Council employee who exercises powers under delegation.

If this Bill is passed, it will not lead to clarification of the law, it will create massive confusion. Elected Councillors face a breach of the Conflict of Interest provisions and fines if someone digs up a submission they wrote, possibly years ago.

It’s unneccessary. Existing legal provisions and guidelines cover this area. Clarifying the law is one thing, massively expanding its reach is another.

Please take action today by writing to the Liberal and National Leaders – ted.baillieu@parliament.vic.gov.au and peter.ryan@parliament.vic.gov.au and ask them to support the Greens amendments (see below) when the Bill comes to the Upper House.

Local Government Amendment (Councillor Conduct and Other Matters) Bill 2008
Section 78D
Indirect interest as a consequence of becoming an interested party
A person has an indirect interest in a matter if the person has become an interested party in the matter by—
(a) initiating civil proceedings in relation to the matter or becoming a party to civil proceedings in relation to the matter; or
(b) exercising a right under the common law, an Act or regulation to—
(i) lodge an appeal in relation to the matter; or
(ii) make an objection or submission in relation to the matter. [The Greens propose to delete this last line]

You can find the whole of the Local Government Amendment (Councillor Conduct and Other Matters) Bill 2008 online.

Deputy Lord Mayor candidate Cr Kathleen Maltzahn writes:

Three years ago this month, embittered former ALP leader Mark Latham gave a much-covered speech.

After eleven years in the Federal parliament, and six years as a councillor and then mayor, his message was clear. ‘I’m sure there are some young idealistic people interested in running for Parliament’, he said. ‘I have to say to you, as frankly and sincerely as I can, don’t do it’.

Politics, he said, was dirty, it was hard, and the political system was broken. ‘Today, the biggest problems in society, the things that cause hardship and distress for people, tend to be relationship-based’, he went on. ‘They are social issues, not economic.’

If you wanted change, he concluded, ‘don’t get involved in organised politics. Contribute to your community, your neighbourhood, your immediate circle of trust and support. This is the best way forward for a better society.’

I had been on Yarra council less than a year. It was long enough to know that some of what he said was right – large swathes of the community could seem apathetic, political involvement came at the cost of time with people you loved, political timidity and the slowness of change were striking.

Despite that, I was sure Latham was wrong, as I explained in a letter, ‘Why I ran for political office’, published in The Age on September 30:

Last November, after more than 20 years working in the community, I did what Mark Latham says not to: I ran for political office as a local councillor.

Why? From volunteering as a teenager at an old people’s home, to working with street women in Manila, to a best-forgotten stint as an assistant Brownie leader, to establishing an organisation to fight sexual slavery, I have enjoyed, if not always been financially rewarded for, working with the community.

But as anyone working for change in the community knows, there is a point where only elected officials can make a difference. People in the community have power to influence. Elected representatives have the power to act. It is not that community workers are not important, it is just that when they handball an issue, someone has to catch it.

Latham is wrong to set community involvement up against political office. Rather, he should look to people such as Nelson Mandela – or indeed Bob Brown – and advocate working in the community first. This model gives change-makers a grounding beyond petty party politics and an appreciation of what a difference good politicians can make.

Now, my term on Yarra council almost over, I’m standing for local government again, this time for Deputy Lord Mayor in the City of Melbourne. The limitations of politics – national, state and local – are as clear as they ever were; my own limitations as a politician are even clearer. But I still think Latham is wrong.

Government matters. In Good and Bad Power: the Ideals and Betrayals of Government, English writer and public intellectual Geoff Mulgan explains it like this:

…[F]or the larger populations of cities or nations what matters most to human happiness is not the climate or the landscape, genes or national characters but rather the quality of the government in its widest sense, and the extent to which people can govern their own actions…According to the fullest analysis yet done of the many factors that explain widely varying levels of happiness in some fifty countries across the world, ‘the effects of the quality of government on well-being were above and beyond the effects flowing through better education, higher incomes and better health, all of which were themselves dependent on the quality of government’.

Latham’s response to disappointment with the current political system is to withdraw. Greens, in contrast, know that the harder politics seem, the more important it is that people of integrity get involved. At a time when climate change could lead to environment and social devastation, standing back is no answer.

At the 2001 Global Greens Conference in Canberra, a Columbian Senator and Presidential Candidate, Ingrid Betancourt, electrified the conference with her call to action. She dismissed the temptation either to withdraw from or to conform to destructive politics. Too much was at stake, she said.

‘We are not entitled to be marginal political forces. Neither can we satisfy ourselves with being support forces for the construction of temporary political majorities. We should look for power and obtain it…

We are flying the modern flat for the new humanism. Our fight is for the salvation of the planet. It is for the whole humanity’s survival: of its history, of its dignity, of its accumulated cultural richness and its diversity. This is our new frontier, an immaterial and universal one, [a] more dramatic frontier than the conquest of the new world, or than man’s first step on the moon, because to reach it, we don’t depend on our physical or technological efforts, but on our moral resistance.’

Less than a year later, Betancourt was kidnapped while campaigning for the Columbian Presidency, and was held captive in the jungle for over six years. Betancourt knew how high the stakes were when she got involved in Columbian politics. Her knowledge of the threat of traditional politics to her personally did not paralyse her. If she did not give up, how can we?

The answer to the poverty of Australian politics is to get involved and transform it, not to walk away.

After almost four years at the City of Yarra, despite the many constraints of being a part-time councillor juggling paid work and personal time with council responsibilities, I know that I have achieved more than if I had sat back and watched from the sidelines.

A list of some of what I have been able to do would include the following examples.

I successfully made the case for fully funding energy saving work in council buildings, so Yarra could not just talk about achieving zero emissions, but afford it. I introduced a support program for same-sex attracted young people. I worked with community members and council officers as Chair of the Disability Advisory Committee to keep access for people with a disability on the agenda, and celebrated with them first when council built accessibility into its Municipal Strategic Statement, meaning new houses built in Yarra would have to be accessible to people with a disability, and secondly when the state-government appointed panel recommended that these provisions be approved. I pushed for more funding for bike paths, building on the work of the first Greens councillors at Yarra, who by quadrupling on-road bike spending in their term pushed Yarra to the top of the chart for bike riding in the state. I gained unanimous cross-party support for advocating to the state government to fully decriminalising abortion, making Yarra the only council in the state to come out in support of women’s right to chose whether to continue a pregnancy. In addition to my own initiatives, I supported the work of my fellow councillors in a stack of advances, and argued against them when I thought we were going backwards. Along the way I’ve made mistakes, failed to get some change I wanted, and have a long list of other things I wish I’d done. But I couldn’t have done anything if I hadn’t been in there.

Now, with Mayoral candidate Adam Bandt and lead councillor candidate Cathy Oke, I want to see what we can do in Melbourne. After four years dominated by spin and circuses, with Cr Brindley the lone consistent voice for environmental and social justice, the City of Melbourne needs a new politics. It needs people who, rather than giving up on government, believe that, in Mulgan’s words, ‘Democracies out perform dictatorships, and states which fear the people are far more conducive to well-being than ones that are feared by them’. Greens policies put this into practice. Make this happen – vote Greens for the City of Melbourne in the November 2008 local government elections.

It’s time to make cycling in the city safe.

The Greens’ plans

To make cycling in the city safe, the Melbourne Greens have already committed to significant measures for the CBD and for Swanston St. As reported in The Age today:

The Greens’ candidate for Lord Mayor, Adam Bandt, has already proposed making permanent bike lanes on Swanston Street, and a range of other measures to make cycling within the city centre safer.

“The number of bike trips to the city has tripled in the last five years, and it is only going to increase,” Bandt says. “Sustainable transport is about more than just lip service; the way to avoid tragedy is to separate bike traffic from other traffic. You shouldn’t have to be a road warrior to get to work on your bike.”

Statewide, The Greens’ ‘The People Plan‘ includes a massive investment for safe bike riding throughout greater Melbourne.

In memory of Carolyn Rawlins

This Wednesday 15 October, on Ride to Work day, there will be a meeting and gathering in memory of the cyclist who lost her life on September 18. There will be a group meeting on Swanston Street out the front of the State Library at 8:00am. At 8:10am, the group will ride slowly down Swanston Street to the Melbourne Town Hall, where there will be one minute’s silence. You are encouraged to leave a flower at the site of the accident (corner Bourke and Swanston) as the gathering makes its way to Town Hall. Pedestrians are welcome to join the group on the day.

The Greens today unveiled their transport plans for the City.

Click the above link for The Greens’ complete transport vision for Melbourne City Council.

As Bianca Hall reports in today’s Melbourne Times,

A GREENS lord mayor would lobby for public transport to run 24 hours a day and would curb the role cars play in the CBD.

Lord mayor candidate Adam Bandt said his party’s inner-city transport platform … would transform the CBD into a pedestrian and cyclist-friendly zone.

Key to The Greens’ transport vision for the City are:

• Making the tourist bus cost-neutral;
• Introducing a 30km/h throughout Council-controlled CBD roads, and on VicRoads-controlled roads after 8pm;
• Relocating tourist buses from Swanston St to Federation Square;
• Funding safe, well-lit taxi ranks in the city;
• Creating a pedestrian mall on Elizabeth St between Flinders Lane and Flinders Street;
• Removing the unacceptably dangerous Craigieburn line / Macauley Rd level crossing;
• Reinstating Swanston Walk;
• Abolishing the mayoral car and reducing the fuel consumption of the council car fleet;
• Reinstating the Westgate Bike Punt;
• Fast-tracking key commuter bicycle paths, and creating safer bicycle lanes;
• Opposing further reduction of CBD tram stops;
• Increasing the frequency of NightRider services to every 20 minutes; and
• Finally building the bus terminal on Lonsdale St, between King and Spencer Streets.

For the full Transport Policy, click here for the html format or here for the pdf format.

CLICK TO PLAY

The Victorian Greens have released a discussion paper and website proposing a major upgrade of Melbourne’s public transport system. The $14 billion blueprint allows Melburnians to go anywhere by public transport with high-frequency train, tram and bus services covering 101 major centres. This plan has huge benefits for the residents and businesses of Melbourne.

Trains

The Greens are proposing to create an inner city ‘metro’ that would allow faster transport within the near city areas, not just to the CBD grid. New stations will be available to city commuters in Fitzroy, Carlton, Parkville, Southbank and St Kilda Rd. These serve the fastest growing parts of the inner city, not just the CBD grid.

The People Plan includes new train stations for Melbourne – Parkville, Carlton, Exhibition, and Domain – and new services from Footscray to North Melbourne, extending the Upfield Line to Parkville, a new Doncaster to Parkville service, a service from Parkville to Melbourne Central, and a new service from South Yarra to Spencer St.

Trams

The Greens propose running most trams at five-minute frequency all day (7am to 7pm). It means people won’t be stranded or tempted to drive after a night out, shift workers can rely on public transport and weekend frequencies will often be just as good as on weekdays.

The People Plan includes new tram services from Docklands to Port Melbourne, Southbank to Moorabbin, Richmond to Southbank, North Melbourne to Richmond, North Melbourne to Brunswick, and Footscray to Docklands.

Buses

Melbourne needs a high frequency bus network to complete the provision of an integrated public transport network. The Greens are proposing to upgrade 448 km of bus routes to high frequency. These buses would run every 10 minutes from 6am to Midnight and every 20 minutes from Midnight to 6am, seven days a week. They would provide an additional 30.2 million km of bus service each year connecting train stations and Activity Centres.

Greens Deputy Lord Mayor Candidate Cr Kathleen Maltzahn writes:

Over five years ago, I stumbled across slavery in Brunswick St Fitzroy. It was shocking, but not surprising. It wasn’t the first time I’d found out about slavery in Melbourne’s inner city. It wouldn’t be the last.

What was shocking was how long it took for the federal government to respond. It took from the raid of the brothel in mid-2003 to a High Court decision that was handed down on August 28 this year for this case to be resolved.

In between, the five victims endured a committal hearing, two trials, an appeal to the Court of Appeals and the High Court case. Finally though, they have been told that yes, what they experienced was slavery, a crime against humanity.

So what does that have to do with local government?

Local government is often derisively described in terms of roads, rubbish and rates. Of course, it does those things, and during this climate change emergency, it can be argued that how well we deal with those three things will be determine how well we survive into this century. Transport is one of the biggest uses of energy, the culture of consumption fuels climate change, and where we find the money to deal with these challenges is an important question.

But local government is more than the three Rs. The Victorian Local Government Act 1989 tells us that:

The primary objective of a Council is to endeavour to achieve the best outcomes for the local community having regard to the long term and cumulative effects of decisions.

To do this, the Act says, councils ‘must have regard’ ‘to promote the social, economic and environmental viability and sustainability of the municipal district.’

Which means that social justice and human rights are very proper concerns of local government. For a party like The Greens, that has social justice as one of its four pillars, being involved in local government makes a lot of sense.

And for someone like me, who has fought against sexual slavery for many years, local government opens up whole new ways of doing something.

This week, at Yarra Council, we will vote on a motion I initiated to compel every brothel in Yarra to display a sign saying sexual slavery is a serious crime, explaining what this covers, and saying where women can get help.

Greens Councillor Fraser Brindley will initiate a similar motion at Melbourne.

This takes the landmark international High Court decision and translates it to the grassroots.

It will means trafficked women won’t have to hope that help will come to them – without leaving the brothel, they will know both that what is happening to them is a serious crime in Australia and that help is available.

I know from trafficked women I have worked with that this can make a huge difference – too many women just don’t know how to escape once they’ve been trafficked.

I believe state government should bring in a similar regulation to cover every brothel in the state, but I know this won’t happen overnight. At a local government level, in contrast, with the right people on council, change can happen quickly.

Getting the right people on council to make smart decisions about roads, rubbish and rates is crucial. But Greens councillors don’t stop there – we can take the great social issues of our time, and make a difference at the local level. With a Greens Lord Mayor and Deputy Lord Mayor, and Greens councillors on the City of Melbourne, we could put social justice at the heart of every Melbourne decision.

Links

• www.projectrespect.org.au
• For more information about and coverage of the High Court decision, go here.
• For more information about the role of local government, read the Australian Local Government Association’s “Declaration on the role of Australian local government” here.
• Recent media coverage:
  • The modern face of slavery, ABC Online, 28/7/08, Kathleen Maltzahn.
  • Sex slavery everywhere, writer warns, Canberra Times, 23/9/08
  • Melbourne brothel owner jailed…, Guardian.co.uk, 28/8/08
  • Sex slavery case Australian first, Lateline, 28/8/08 (video and transcript)

Swanston Street is an inconsistent mess. When it comes to traffic in Melbourne CBD, we need to move people without petrol. The time has come to actively prioritise bike, public transport and foot traffic. And that means limiting car and tourist bus access.

If elected in November, The Greens will do three things:

1. Immediately implement Associate Professor Nicholas Low’s recommendations for Swanston Street, namely:

i. Create a diagonal pedestrian crossing on the corner of Flinders & Swanston Sts.

ii. Give trams along Swanston Street priority at all intersections.

iii. Ban taxis and tour buses from Swanston Street, and restrict non-essential service vehicles to night and early morning. (Exceptions will be allowed for vehicle access for elderly or disabled passengers, and for taxis after dark.)

iv. Create designated bike lanes the length of Swanston Street.

2. Create 4 tourist bus pick up/ drop off points at north, south, east and west points within the city.

We’ve spoken to tourist bus drivers. In fact, we have one on our council ticket. They don’t want to be in the city centre jousting for space with pedestrians and bikes.*

3. Within the first 3 months of taking office, invite community consultation on broader reforms for traffic in the city centre, including:

i. Turning Swanston Street into a pedestrian centred space by replacing the bitumen with bluestone from La Trobe to Flinders Street, also thereby encouraging more street level retail/café style activity.

ii. Creating designated north-south (e.g. Elizabeth Street) and east-west (e.g. Little Lonsdale Street) car-free streets. Bikes would be encouraged to use these streets.

iii. Creating a car free, pedestrian and tram friendly open space on Elizabeth St between Flinders Lane and Flinders Street.

Current Greens councillor, Fraser Brindley, has been pushing for years for a new approach to Swanston Street, one that separates bikes from buses.

The Age calls it ‘an ambitious plan’. We just think it’s time to turn the CBD into one of the greenest and most attractive places in Melbourne. We’re basing our plan on expert recommendations, but if you think that the plan needs tweaks or modifications, we’ll listen: give us your comments and we’ll take them on board.

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Finally, our hearts go out to the cyclist who was tragically killed in Swanston Street recently. You won’t be forgotten.

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*Since the release of the above statement, Melbourne City Council has voted to approach Federation Square with a business plan to relocate large tourist buses to the Russell Street extension behind Federation Square. The Greens strongly support this move, and elected Greens will vote for a bus pick-up / drop-off zone on the SAFEST CBD street should any move to Federation Square be unsuccessful. For smaller tourist buses, The Greens remain committed to ensuring that the safest pick-up / drop-off arrangements are in place.

For The Greens’ full Transport Policy for Melbourne City Council, click here.

While John Brumby pursues polluting projects like a desalination plant, the real solutions are much simpler. We need to begin looking at all our local spaces – roofs, parks, streets – as potential water catchments. We must advance and fund new projects, like The Greens’ proposal to remove the depot from the Fitzroy Gardens and replace it with a wetland, using otherwise lost water to irrigate the gardens.

With Melbourne City Council’s administration putting together such important initiatives as the Total Watermark strategy, it is vital that the electors of Melbourne ensure that the next council contains the political will to fully fund Total Watermark’s goals and increase spending on water-saving measures for parks and on water-catchment infrastructure so that our city can become more self-reliant.

Water-saving measures at the users’ end are just as important as water-saving measures out in the major catchments. Shockingly, the Victorian state government still allows logging in major water-catchments. According to its own estimates,

20,000 ML of water would be saved every year if logging were phased out in the Thomson catchments by 2020. This is enough to supply 80,000 Melbourne homes for a year.*

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While environmentally conscious MPs in state and federal parliaments continue to push for the cessation of logging in catchments, the Melbourne Times this week referred to The Greens’ plans for water-saving measures in Melbourne city: plans which were prompted by dissatisfaction arising from Council’s recent under-spending. (Green’s water-saving measures, page 5, 10/9/08)

Please also share with us your thoughts on water use in the City of Melbourne in the comments section below.

Links

Total Watermark – Melbourne City Council’s water catchment strategy – here (.pdf, starts page 5)

Your Water Your Say – desalination plant protest group – here

* Australian Conservation Foundation – factsheet on logging in Victoria’s water-catchments – here (.pdf)