President's Address to Urban Transport World

The ALGA President, Geoff Lake, made a presentation to Urban Transport World international conference in Sydney on 23 February.

His presentation focused on the forecast 60 per cent increase in Australia's population to 36 million by 2050, most of which will be accommodated in our cities. This increase poses planning and infrastructure development challenges if we are to maintain, or better still, improve, the amenity and economic functioning of our cities. The age structure of our population is also changing, with a significant increase in the numbers of the elderly, which will also have implications for our transport planning.

In addition to the population challenge, we face uncertain access to oil and a need for our cities to reduce their carbon footprint. The President welcomed the increased involvement of the Federal Government in urban planning and infrastructure provision. He also called on local government to take a more coordinated approach using regional structures that give councils a stronger capacity to work with Federal and State governments on major infrastructure needs.

He highlighted local government's role of ensuring that services and facilities are provided at the local community level, and this means dealing with people on a more personal level. He gave two specific examples of local government responding to the needs of urban communities:

• By providing community transport; and
• by creating and encouraging healthy spaces and places

The full speech can be found here.

Councils giving communities a sporting chance

With Harmony Day on 21 March, councils across the country are being urged to join sporting codes and clubs to encourage people from diverse cultural backgrounds to participate in local sport.

The Australian Sports Commission recently released its All Cultures program to boost participation rates in sport by people from different cultural and language backgrounds. The All Cultures resource is free and available online

It offers information on coaches, trainers, volunteers and others who deliver sport and recreation programs or resources to people from migrant and refugee backgrounds. All Cultures is particularly significant to local governments because many councils manage sporting programs and facilities.

People from migrant and refugee backgrounds are often enthusiastic about sport and recreation, and like Australians everywhere, they want to participate in a supported and structured way. However, cultural differences, lack of awareness and sometimes institutional attitudes of some sporting bodies mean they are under represented on the field and in the clubhouse. This means that some people are missing out on the opportunities to reap the lifelong health and social benefits of sport that others enjoy. At the same time, grassroots and elite sports are missing out on the skills and greater participation rates that involvement of people from diverse origins can bring.

All Cultures is part of the Australian Sports Commission's approach to address this situation. It includes videos on multicultural sport programs and useful tips for clubs, coaches, sports administrators and venue operators. The website complements the All Cultures education and ambassador programs.

The Australian Sports Commission supports Harmony Day on 21 March. For more information click here.

Women ending poverty

On 8 March we celebrated International Women's Day with women's breakfasts, speeches, activities and more, on and around that date. The celebrations continue. Check the internet for women's activities all through the year near you. Go to the website and choose your city or town for events to attend.

In early November, a special International Women's Day Website will be launched. It will feature information about IWD Events, the theme, the project and much more. The theme is: "Empowering Women to End Poverty by 2015".

In 2000, Government Leaders from around the world came together and agreed on a powerful agenda for a global partnership to fight poverty - the Millennium Development Goals. Central to the achievement of these goals is gender equality. Without progress towards the empowerment of women, none of the other goals can be achieved.

One of the goals concerning empowering women to end poverty is to take action to promote greater involvement of women in public life. This goal aligns with Australia's Year of Women in Local Government. For more information about this, and for programs, grants and scholarships, please see the website

Last year, councils agreed to the temporary suspension of town planning procedures in order to fast-track major projects, such as public housing. The local government sector did agree to waive the normal processes because we understood the government's urgency to get that stimulus package going, for the good of the national economy. But the suspension of procedure was meant to be temporary.

As I told the Australian recently, it is not acceptable that some states are behaving as if the suspension of process is permanent. The government's increased contributions to infrastructure was welcomed by local government. But the commonwealth should not overstretch its powers into town planning, which is what is happening now. The ability of state governments to override local councils and fast-track public housing projects funded by the stimulus package is unfair to communities, who need to have a say in projects which have potential detrimental impacts on the places they live.

While there will continue to be pressure by the commonwealth and to some extent the state governments to reform planning processes, it is my intention to continue to strongly advocate the importance of appropriate planning processes and procedures in the interests of the broader community.

Cr Geoff Lake
ALGA President

Briefs

Report calls for more women in the transport workforce

A paper published by Women in Supply Chain (WISC) has called on the transport industry to adopt a culture which accepts women in the workforce. WISC is a voluntary group working to establish a networking environment for women in transport and logistics and to encourage integration of women in the industry.

Making women visible - the unseen gender in transport and logistics aims to promote discussion in the industry of the contribution women make. The paper looks at the training of women in the sector, attracting more women to the industry and impediments to their entry.

It also examines issues such as women's lower share of discretionary payments, occupational segregation, family-friendly workplaces and discrimination. The paper reports that while inequity and career barriers continue to be an issue within the industry, all workplaces should have diversity plans that address recruitment, promotion and retention of women.

WISC makes 14 recommendations for companies to ensure that women are able to compete equally for employment, promotion and training and to boost their retention of skilled women. At the launch of the report, WISC Chair, Nola Bransgrove, said she hopes businesses will use the report to review equality in their workplaces.

"We hope our recommendations will challenge individuals, the industry and government to be part of positive change for the better, both for women and the industry," Nola said, "But at the very least we hope the report will promote real discussion followed by decisions for positive change to take place. "Sometimes you just have to give things a good shake for others to consider change."

Legal equality for women

Substantive equality requires vigilance, determination and hard work, reports The Chronicle. The Women's Legal Centre (ACT and region) Inc was one of the first organisations in the ACT to opt into the ACT Human Rights Act compliance provisions. These women understand that formal equality ignores historical, cultural, economic and social realities and can lead to unequal outcomes. As a specialist, women-only service, they are doing their part to tackle gender discrimination and to promote women's equal enjoyment of human rights. This is achieved through their wonderful female volunteers, staff and with help from the ACT Government and the Commonwealth Attorney Generals Department. For more information call 6257 4377 or here.

Leadership for women

In Lyn Russell's opinion, more women need to take on leadership roles in councils and other male-dominated professions. As Cairns Regional Council chief executive officer, Ms Russell was guest speaker at the Cairns Business Women's Club lunch in honour of International Women's Day on Monday. Ms Russell told the Cairns Post, which sponsored the lunch, that just 5 per cent of the CEOs of councils in Australia were women. "That figure hasn't changed a lot in the last 15 years. The numbers have remained very low. It's lower in Queensland," Ms Russell said.

Out of 73 councils in Queensland, 14 women occupied the position of CEO. Ms Russell said that women had a different leadership style to men. "It's a more inclusive style and more intuitive and more people-focused," she said.

With 2010 being the Year of Local Women in Government, Ms Russell said she would like to see more women in leadership roles and entering non-traditional professions. Ms Russell, who has three daughters, also encouraged businesses to adopt "family friendly" and flexible working conditions.

Congestion charging

Passenger transport groups and academics have called for congestion charging to be part of the solution to the growing problem of urban congestion in our cities. The Bus Industry Confederation (BIC) and International Public Transport Association (UITP) issued the call after the State of Australian Cities report from the Government found that the avoidable annual cost of congestion will double to more than $20 billion by 2020, from $10 billion in 2010, and that the rate of car dependency in cities has increased faster than population growth.

Michael Apps, Executive Director of the BIC, and Peter Moore, Executive Director of the UITP, said that unless immediate and decisive action was taken by all Governments, our cities are in danger of grinding to a halt. "With business as usual it's only a matter of time before Sydney becomes Australia's Bangkok, a giant car park where moving a few kilometres can take hours," Apps said.

The report forecasts that Australia's population will grow to 36 million by 2050, and transport related emissions will grow by more than 20 per cent between 2007 and 2020. Professor John Stanley from the University of Sydney's Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies says that congestion charging should feature prominently as part of an overhaul of the road pricing and taxation system in Australia.

"We need a more accurate road pricing system which reflects the real costs of road travel, including congestion, health costs, air and noise pollution. This cannot be done overnight, but there is growing international experience on which we can draw. It is now time for a full investigation into how we can most effectively bring in congestion charging in our cities," he said.

For more information, please contact Professor John Stanley: 0418 992 227
Peter Moore, Executive Director, International Public Transport Association: 0404 052 635
Michael Apps, Executive Director, Bus Industry Confederation: 0418 487 930

Monitoring water use and carbon emissions

Penrith City Council has begun using software to help monitor, measure and report on its carbon emissions and water usage, reports Julia Talevksi in the Sydney Morning Herald. The council adopted the software to help meet its commitment to programs such as the International Council for Local Environmental Initiative's Water Campaign and the Cities for Climate Protection program. It also has obligations under the NSW state government's statutory Water and Energy Savings Action Plans.

The sustainability co-ordinator at Penrith City Council, Carmel Hamilton, says council staff had endured a lengthy data-entry process to record, format, monitor and report on carbon emissions and water usage. They can now capture the consumption data while the invoice for the water or energy bill is being processed. The council chose to adapt its existing TechnologyOne Financials system to carry out the environmental reporting tasks.

The council estimates it is saving at least three weeks each year in data collection. The executive chairman of TechnologyOne, Adrian Di Marco, says identifying an organisation's environmental impact does not have to be difficult or expensive. "Every organisation should start this tracking now because it is inevitable environmental reporting will soon be as common as the need to comply with HR and financial regulations," Di Marco says.

Tweed land zoning needs review

A rethink of the council's land zoning is needed to ensure Tweed Shire can create the jobs needed to prevent the region lagging further behind the rest of the nation. That was the message from Tweed Economic Development Corporation CEO, Tom Senti, at a public forum held by the Northern Rivers board of Regional Development Australia. Andrew MacDonald from the Gold Coast Sun wrote that Mr Senti presented research commissioned by his organisation, which suggested an additional 25,000 jobs were needed in the shire by 2031 to ensure a workplace participation rate of 50 per cent.

This figure is above the current Tweed WPR of 42 per cent but still well below NSW (62 per cent) and Australian (65 per cent) averages. Mr Senti attributed the low workplace participation rate to a combination of above-average unemployment and a high proportion of elderly residents living in the area.

To achieve the necessary jobs growth, the council needed to move away from simply rezoning land as residential to accommodate the growing population, which was expected to double in size to 160,000 by 2031. "There is a need to embrace planning approaches which encourage the broadening and diversification of local economies adopting a master-planned approach to encourage new investments across a broad base, including the accommodation of commercial office developments," he said.

By doing so, the region has the potential to encourage larger companies to set up operations and bring jobs to the shire, he said. Mr Senti's suggestion was one of many which will be passed to the NSW Minister for State and Regional Development, Ian McDonald, by the Regional Development Australia board during a meeting next month.

Gosford lighting

Gosford Council will install LED car park lighting at its administration building in an attempt to reduce its carbon footprint, according to the Central Coast Express. Councillor Peter Freewater congratulated staff on energy efficiency improvements already made, which have reduced the council's annual energy cost by $12,000 and greenhouse gas emissions by 254 tonnes since 2007/08.

Over the past six years the council has introduced lighting and IT up-grades, improvements to lift technology, changes to the heating/cooling systems and the reduction of incoming heat through windows. The car park project has the potential to reduce electricity consumption by 78 per cent.

Councillors gagged?

Gympie Regional councillors are preparing for a brave new world of enforced silence and complex new rules, which in some cases may make council unworkable, writes Arthur Gorrie in the Gympie Times. The new Local Government Act, coming into force from July 1, will ban councillors from expressing dissenting views other than at public council meetings, a process which itself has been seriously eroded under the Dyne council's new system of private rehearsal meetings where consensus is developed before public meetings are held.

Several Gympie councillors are believed to be concerned that the combination of the two could mean that voters will not know where councillors stand on issues, with councillors virtually subject to a "cone of silence" on any public comment outside the meeting room. Others are worried that extended conflict of interest rules may prevent them voting on issues affecting the interests even of relatives they do not know and whose interests they are not aware of.

Councillors spent yesterday being educated on the new rules at a special session at the pavilion, organised by the Local Government Association of Queensland. LGAQ lecturer, Tony Goode, said that the association, which represents councils across Queensland, was working to educate councillors before the changes come in. Goode said that there would also be new rules affecting the powers of Mayors.

Government partnerships

SA Councils' innovative work on financial sustainability and asset management has contributed to an announcement of $1.65m in Commonwealth funding, according to SA's Local Government Association. The LGA today welcomed the announcement by Federal Local Government Minister Anthony Albanese of the funding to further boost financial and infrastructure management support to SA Councils.

The funding proposal was jointly submitted to the Commonwealth by the SA Government and the LGA and builds on the LGA's $1.4m Financial Sustainability Program over the past five years. "I believe this is a recognition by the Commonwealth of the leading work being done by SA Councils surrounding infrastructure and asset management and financial sustainability," LGA President, Mayor Felicity-Ann Lewis said today. "This once again demonstrates the benefits of stronger partnership between State and Local government and will now bring the Commonwealth into this particular partnership."

Mayor Lewis said the program would see comprehensive audits of Councils, further work on joint service partnerships between Councils to achieve economies of scale and on the ground assistance. Mayor Lewis said that the LGA would seek added funding from the next State Government to support other aspects of the work.

"This is the first investment of serious funding by Commonwealth or State government directly to support Local Government reform for more than 10 years and adds value to the Commonwealth funding for infrastructure projects provided by the Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program."

Managing population explosion

Managing the population explosion expected in the next 15 years is one of the big challenges facing the Bundaberg Regional Council, according to the News Mail.

Deputy Mayor, Tony Ricciardi, said projections predicated a population growth of 50 per cent in the region in the next 15 years. "Where Gladstone has the mining industry propping it up, we rely heavily on the rural sector, with sugarcane and horticulture, such as macadamias, the major players - we've got the biggest tomato industry in Queensland," he said. "That gives employment to a lot of the backpackers and labour in the Bundaberg region."

Cr Ricciardi said the other major growth sector was the ageing population. "We have to be mindful of that and plan ahead in areas such as aged care," he said.

The region was also a growing tourism market, and all these factors would contribute to the growth economy. "The council has started a new regional feasibility plan, but that will take two to three years to complete," Cr Ricciardi said.

Willoughby favours solar

Willoughby Council is urging residents to install solar panels to reduce their household carbon footprint and save on electricity bills, reports Alex Ward in the North Shore Times. To make a small-scale solar PV system affordable, the State Government has set up a "gross feed-in tariff" that pays the PV system owner about $1,500 a year for the power that is generated.

The solar PV (photovoltaic) system is a grid panel that is mounted to the roof and transforms radiation from the sun into electricity that can power appliances or lighting in a house. North Shore residents can buy the system from climateclevershop.com.au at discounted rates, saving up to $5,110.

By harnessing the sun's energy with a 1kw system costing about $8500, a household with solar PV panels not only saves money in the long run, but also can save about 1.5 tonnes of greenhouse gases a year, considerably reducing the household's carbon footprint.

Willoughby residents can attend a free workshop in April about converting to solar energy. For information phone 9777 1000 or click here.

Improving safety in WA

Wanneroo residents who work to improve road safety can now be recognised in the 2010 Human Spirit Awards. The City of Wanneroo, in conjunction with the Western Australian Local Government Association and RoadWise, are calling for nominations.

The awards recognise the efforts of individuals or groups who work towards saving the lives and reducing road trauma. Nominees could include school crossing attendants, parents involved in road safety issues, local police officers, cycling groups and community members.

Award winners will be honoured by the City at the annual Blessing of the Roads ceremony of April 1. Nominations close on March 15. Application forms are available from the City's Civic Centre at 23 Dundebar Road in Wanneroo or by calling Karen Delves on 9405 5072.

Fairfield recycling innovation

Fairfield Council is trialling the use of mulched construction waste to patch up Delgarno Rd in Bonnyrigg Heights. If it works well, the council will use the mix at Lyell St, Bossley Park, and Garfield Rd, Horsley Park. Mayor Nick Lalich said the recycled mix could be used right across the Fairfield LGA if the trial was successful.

"The trial on Delgarno Rd in Bonnyrigg Heights is the first in the area to use 93 per cent recycled construction and demolition waste rather than quarried rock," he said. "This is a great example of how waste materials can be recycled back in to the community rather than being dumped in to landfill."

The road mix is blended at the Sustainable Resource Centre in Wetherill Park. The centre has previously mixed recycled materials for the construction of the Nalawala Sustainability Hub at Fairfield Showground. Minister for Climate Change, Frank Sartor, said almost half of all construction waste could be recycled. "By recycling these waste products in to roads, we are making a significant dent in the amount of dumped materials," he said.

Watershed Workshops in Sydney

Ever wanted to know how to live more sustainably but can't get past separating your rubbish bins? The Watershed has organised a series of workshops about skills allowing us to be kinder to the environment, held at Newtown Library except for the following: Learn to grow your own food in small containers with a No Dig Gardening workshop on March 13 at the Tom Foster Community Centre, Newtown.

At the library, you can create your own cleaning products with a Natural Cleaning and Home Detox workshop on March 16 and 20. Renovate your home with less of a carbon footprint with an Eco Choices for Home Renovators: Session 1 & 2 on March 23 and 30. Baby Care can be done sustainably as well. Learn how on March 27.

To book, and for more information please telephone The Watershed on 9519 6366 or email watershedworkshopsmarrickville.nsw.gov.au and include your name and daytime contact phone number.

Skippy is our number-one icon

Skippy has knocked out Matilda the Boxing Kangaroo, as well as Phar Lap and Fatso the Wombat, to be voted Australia's most iconic animal. A total of 836 people responded to an online VetShopAustralia survey, with Skippy the Bush Kangaroo attracting the most votes - 29 per cent. Legendary racehorse Phar Lap was second with 21 per cent of votes, while the dog that said "bugger" in a Toyota commercial came third with 15 per cent, ahead of Simpson's Donkey (12 per cent), Matilda the Boxing Kangaroo (9 per cent) and the Dog on the Tucker Box (4 per cent). Eight per cent voted for Mr Percival from the children's book and film Storm Boy, while Fatso the Wombat from the long-running drama series A Country Practice lagged the field, pulling just 2 per cent of votes. AAP

Native seeds free

A Free native plant and mulch giveaway will be held for those living in the Bankstown local government area on Saturday, March 20. The plants have been cultivated from seeds collected from local bushland. Residents will need to show proof of address upon entry at Bankstown Council's waste management facility at Bransgrove Road, Panania, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. For more information, call (02) 9707 9999.

Seniors' photography competition

Residents have until Monday to register for Wollondilly Council's snappy seniors competition. People are invited to submit photos showing seniors out and about or being active in the community. To find out more or download an application form, visit www.wollondilly.nsw.gov.au. Forms are also available at the council's customer service centre, Picton Library and Mobile Library or by phoning 4677 1199.