Service Medal Outstanding service in Local Government NSW Australia awarded to Peter Astridge

Order of Australia Medal presented by the Governor General

Airport noise

Airport noise

If planning for the future ever became a real priority for NSW and Federal Governments, Sydney airport must be moved outside the city. Sydney could gain an efficient airports system that would be able to handle all future traffic and enjoy proper living standards for all.

Sydney’s airport site at Botany could provide 900 hectares of prime bay side land for new housing, parkland, water sports and employment and the inner and sale proceeds could provide for three airports outside the Sydney basin connected by fast rail to north, south and west locations.

The noise curfew which is seven hours long and the movement cap at eighty movements per hour is now again under attack by authorities and was put there because people need uninterrupted sleep at night. The movement cap was introduced when there were so many planes flying over Sydney’s residential districtsl that people revolted and the Government decided to limit the impact of aircraft noise on our homes, hospitals, schools and public buildings.

The existing airport will be at maximum capacity in about another ten years and it is completely unclear what the Government of the day will do as it will be too late. As the Airport gets busier, the supporting road and rail infrastructure will become even more congested, outdated and the delays will be more frequent.

Should the airport remain in its present location the end result is pressure applied to end the curfew, cap and noise sharing arrangements to provide more capacity on Sydney Airport for future years.

To delay the inevitable any further with expensive knee jerk decisions will leave the problems for future generations. Sooner or later, Sydney airport must move outside Sydney.

Take back from the State Government our Municipalities

The new state government’s 10/50 tree clearing policy is being abused in most municipalities all over NSW and was applied by the state by stealth and with no consultation along with many other disastrous policies such as their abysmal planning system etc. The state government’s cost shifting onto your Council rates has been gaining momentum for the last decade with the heavy increases in Electricity Street lighting costs, general levies, SES and fire brigade levies. All have been weighing heavily on your rate notices, as do the state government’s rate pegging controls on councils.

For the past decade the state government has strangled the powers of councils in many ways to make a small amount of councils become financially unsustainable with the intention to taking full control of all councils in NSW with a “one size fits all” policy. The leading NSW politicians keep on telling us they are trying to make this a better state.

The state government has been making councils ineffectual for eventual takeovers, mergers or amalgamations, into a smaller number of mega councils all over NSW forming a second echelon of state bureaucracy. This is now becoming a reality with a black cloud hanging over our heads. I believe they intend to take control and swamp “yes minister candidates” with their political donations into the forthcoming elections in two years time which will be worse than the last council elections if there are any. This will make it impossible for keen interested local people who love their area and homeland to support, guide and advise local government or to have a say on how we live and protect our quality of life.  

No one can say “bigger is better”. However, the state government thinks fewer councils will give them a greater control and less people to talk to with power to force and restrict what you can say and do. I notice the opposition is very quiet on all these subjects and we may need to dig them up and to know what their policies are well before the next State elections in March next year to stop the rorts and save NSW and its local municipalities from a disastrous future.

New Planning Reform

NSW residents are being forced out of their local planning process, with the Joint Regional Planning Panels set to begin determining a wide range of development applications within a month.

The Panels will marginalise councils and communities even further in a process where local input is paramount, and where plan makers must be directly accountable to the community.

Planning Brad Hazzard claims to be building the best planning system in Australia and that claim is highly debatable.

The State Government seems keen to seize control of development decisions with very little consideration of council or community views, there is something quite Orwellian about this entire process. The Panels are an unnecessary duplication of bureaucracy and will not, as claimed, de-politicise the process.

The Panels are taking a role that is currently handled, generally very well, by NSW councils, they are introducing another layer of bureaucracy and NSW residents will have to foot the bill. The Minister assumes his appointed members will be less susceptible to outside pressures than councillors, but in reality the only difference is that they won't be accountable to the local community. In fact, it seems the only person they will be politically accountable to is the Minister."

The Minister has the power to remove all of a council's planning powers at any time without referring to Parliament. These Panels now have a framework for dictating strategic planning in our local communities.