On behalf of the Socialist Party I invite all people on this SP Council email list to come and march this Sunday at the May Day rally. It starts 2pm at Trades Hall (cnr Lygon + Victoria St, Carlton South). SP stall from 1.30pm.

Over 500 families are one waiting lists for Child Care in the City of Yarra - it is even worse in other parts of Australia.



The Socialist Party is campaigning for extra resources for child care in this years Yarra budget.



Come to a public meeting this Wednesday on the issue which will explain how bad the problem is, how we got here, and what can be done about it.



This Wednesday, April 27th, 7.30pm, Builders Arms (upstrairs), Gertrude St, Fitzroy

Guest Speaker: Liz Conor (Mothers in Intervention and long term campaigner for child care)



All welcome, rsvp if you need help with child care.

This media release was sent out by CAG yesterday. I fully support it

Stephen Jolly





COLLINGWOOD ACTION GROUP

26 CAMBRIDGE ST COLLINGWOOD VIC 3066

www.smithstreet.org/cag



INFORMATION RELEASE

Friday 15 April 2005



COMMUNITY CALLS OF MP RICHARD WYNNE TO SAVE SMITH STREET



The planning controversy that has plagued Smith Street for over a year has

entered a new and dangerous phase for the community. While Yarra Council

finally knocked back Banco’s plans for a multi-storey high-rise tower block on

Smith Street in February, the developer then appealed the decision to VCAT. A

directions hearing is scheduled for 22nd April 2005.



Collingwood Action Group is now urging local MP Richard Wynne to make good his

promise to save the community. Spokesperson Cliodhna Rae said Wynne is on the

public record promising he will ask the Planning Minister to call in the

application.



Wynne has been vocal about opposing Banco’s proposal for Smith Street, referring

to it as an ambit claim. He has argued it is too large and out of scale with

Smith Street’s built form; downgrades heritage; increases traffic; causes

overshadowing and overlooking; and selectively uses Melbourne 2030’s

principles.



Ms Rae warned the community that CAG had received legal advice that we would

lose if this case went to VCAT. The advice pointed to a string of recent VCAT

decisions approving massive high-rise developments just like Banco’s in inner

Melbourne areas.



CAG believes Smith Street is even more vulnerable to over-development because of

Yarra Council’s planning vacuum. Some 2 ½ years after Melbourne 2030’s

implementation, Yarra had done nothing to develop a Smith Street Structure

Plan. Its efforts to rush the process were roundly condemned at a recent public

meeting. The community rejected Yarra’s draft Smith Street Urban Design

Framework and the process as ‘severely flawed’, demanding a fresh start with a

community driven Steering Committee. This week Yarra endorsed the Committee and

it meets soon. Members include CAG, community groups, National Trust, traders

and Councillors.



The only thing preventing Banco’s development from going ahead is the Planning

Minister Rob Hulls intervening and making a decision, based on a

community-endorsed Interim Structure Plan for Smith Street. Ms Rae stated, ‘For

this we need Richard Wynne’s help to put pressure on the Planning Minister’. CAG

urged the community to lobby Richard Wynne and the Minister for Planning before

it is too late. ‘People should start phoning, writing letters and emailing our

politicians demanding they protect the community from rampant over

development’.



FOR MEDIA COMMENT

Collingwood Action Group, Cliodhna Rae

Yarra Councillors, Steve Jolly

State Member for Richmond, Richard Wynne

This Wednesday, April 20th, at 7.30pm at the Union Club Hotel, 164 Gore St, Fitzroy the Northern Suburbs branch of the Socialist Party is hosting a public meeting on the raid with me the main speaker. Please come along to discuss this and what the lessons are for the future. Also we will look at the possibility of legal action.

Comrades

The last week has been one of the most intense of recent times in the Yarra City Council area. It's not every week that the Mayor, myself, and Yarra Council are on the TV news, the Age, all the radio stations, and the local media over not one but two main stories. The heightened political interest was reflected in the Council meeting on Tuesday which went from 7pm to 11.37pm with up to 100 local people in attendence.



What are the issues?

1. The counter terrorist exercise in Collingwood.

Last week at dawn dozens of 'anti-terrorist' specialist forces from several agencies including the Victorian Police launched an unannounced exercise in suburban streets in Collingwood. Residents were awoken by helicopters, stun grenades, and machine gun fire. Many thought it was the Hoddle St massacre relived and didn't leave their homes for hours afterwards as they weren't sure if it was really over or not.

The security forces had planned this operation for six months yet hadn't organised a proper letter box drop to inform the residents. Worse still, they didn't announce to residents when it was finished.

Windows were blown out, asbestos dislodged in a old TAFE building, and residents traumatised.

Outrageously some Council officers were aware of the event and actually provided free traffic management to these over-resourced agencies without informing the Councillors or residents. We learnt through hearing the noise ourselves or from being telephoned and emailed by residents!

At the Council meeting two senior police and gave pathetic excuses and half-hearted apologies. Council resolved to seek an apology, compensation for damage, payment for the upcoming Council-organised councilling meeting for residents this Tuesday. We also put in place new processes so that the public and Councillors are fully involved in any request for such an operation in the future. As a Socialist Party Councillor I reject these raids in any event. The money would be better spent on the domestic violence terror that is a lot more real than Bin Laden in the City of Yarra.

This Wednesday, April 20th, at 7.30pm at the Union Club Hotel, 164 Gore St, Fitzroy the Northern Suburbs branch of the Socialist Party is hosting a public meeting on the raid with me the main speaker. Please come along to discuss this and what the lessons are for the future.



Collingwood Football Club

The bosses of this club have left Victoria Park in a mess and want to walk away from their lease with Council. Rank and file Collingwood supporters are horrified that the likes of Eddie Maguire could put profit before the beloved home of this great club (I barrack for Carlton, but what do you do!).

Council voted to endorse a community-supported Master Plan for Victoria Park which opens it up to the public and local sporting clubs, keeps the historic stands, and has plans for the social club. This answers the lies of Collingwood bosses who say 'why clean up our mess if Yarra Council are going to bulldoze the site?'

It may take action from Collingwood supporters and the Council to get this over the line, ie get Collingwood bosses to come to the party. I will be raising with my party and with locals the possiblity of leafleting upcoming Collingwood matches and a public meeting on the issue.



Banco/Council's alternative plan for Smith St

Yesterday I chaired the first meeting of the Steering Committee tasked with coming up with an alternative plan for Smith St's future development for Council to vote on in July. It was agreed to take on Paul Mees as one of a number of experts to assist the Committee. This will help a lot.

The Steering Committee's next meeting will get down to the main game of discussing height limits, set-backs, low cost housing, heritage etc that we want in this part of Yarra. What we agree will be put to the State Minister for Planning for approval and will provide a template for the upcoming similar plans for elsewhere in Yarra.

I am confident that as long as community groups like the Collingwood Action Group and ward Councillors stay in control of the process we will get a result. The alternative is picket lines on Smith St.

The other issue concerns Banco going to VCAT (the unelected, undemocratic, pro-development state planning appeals tribunal that the ALP refuse to abolish) to get them to overturn Council's refusal to support their rotten plans for Smith St. We must work rapidly to ensure Council's legal case at VCAT is as strong as possible and, more importantly, we must keep the pressure on the local State MP and the Minister to 'call in' the application (take it out of the hands of VCAT and put on the Minister's table) and then sit on it while the Steering Committee finish their job.



Liquor Licensing

For years local and community activists like Ian Quick have campaigned against Council's weak liquor licensing laws that are so loose we now have up to 5am trading by one club in Brunswick St. It's becoming a get drunk and pick-up or vomit place rather than the live music/cosmopolitan/grungy place it was. The rot has to stop. Council made a small step forward on Tuesday with the establishment of a committee to come back with recommendations as to how local law can be improved. Unlike past committees which were toothless, this one has the political will of a majority of Councillors and the residents and will achieve results I believe.

An issue UNiTE (the casual workers' campaign) will be raising in the upcoming period is the restriction of liquor licences to outlets that have dodgy health and safety and industrial relations policy. Watch this space.



Tram Stops

Trams are being slowed down by the ever increasing car usage in Melbourne. We need policies to move people from car use to public transport and bicycles or even motorbikes/scooters. The car lobby has many supporters in the major parties and on Council (especially the engineering departments) and they have stopped even minimal reform like changing traffic lights from 90s to 60s turn around.

Privately owned Yarra Trams are finding it harder to get their subsides from the State Government as trams are slower than ever. So their solution is to rip out stops to speed up trams!! Council have been asked to allow them to take out two stop on Victoria Parade. We must have an overall plan for transport and not give into the short-sighted profit-driven demands from Yarra Trams.

On Tuesday I showed a dodgy map given to me by Council's Planning Department that conviently left out one of the tram stops to go! This is either due to incompentancy or too close a relationship between Yarra Trams and Council officers. Either way it must end.



Workers' rights

Council passed a resolution from to get the CEO to report back to the next Council meeting as to how many of the subbies and contractors used by Council have EBAs with the relevant union and stick to OHS and IR law. Council currently pays for a non-union subbie to paint the Richmond Town Hall (including on Easter Sunday!). The ALP Councillors are happy for their party to accept $1 million a year from the construction union, the CFMEU, but less happy to stick to union conditions and the work calender agreed by the union and the vast majority of employers.



Youth March for Real Jobs and Justice

Council vote to support the UNiTE-organised march on June 24th. It is vital that young people organise against the attacks by the Howard Government. The action on this last day of school term will lead into the union rally on June 30th.



Cheese Grator

Two years ago, under massive community pressure, Council knocked back an ugly development in Fitzroy nicknamed the Cheese Grator. The developers went to VCAT and overturned this decision. However two years on they haven't been able to sell enough units to justify beginning to build. They had to go back to Council officers in the last few weeks for a two year extension. Outrageously, (I discovered and made public on Tuesday), Council officers OK'd this extension without discussing it with the residents or Councillors. I have told by way of excuse that as the builders demolished something on the site last year, that is considered starting construction and that therefore triggers four years extension of the approval. If this is true our laws stink and must be changed. Even so we should have been told. What is going on in our Planning Department?



Budget

Councillors are about to start their discussions and debate on this years budget. We in the SP expect to be well and truely rolled on this issues by the neo-liberal majority. We will put in a good fight but are also preparing an alternative budget that puts ordinary people's needs first and thereby mobilises people to put maximum pressure on State and Federal Government to reverse their cuts to Council. Watch this space for more news on what is the most important debate we will have on Council this year.





Please come down any Saturday from 12 noon to the SP Council stall outside Safeways in Smith St, Collingwood if you want to catch up with me or SP on any local or broader issue. This week we are campaigning on Child Care.

Comrades.



At the Planning and Community Development Committee meeting last night Councillors unanimously accepted a report that, amongst other things, establishes a Steering Committee of Councillors and community group reps (from CAG, 3068 etc) to oversee the development of an interim structure plan (a set of controls and rules over development) for the Smith St area. This marks the end of the beginning of this bitter process over Smith St and the start of the real work - working out what type of city we want built in the next years.



Last nights decision stems directly from the CAG resolution passed at the public meeting on March 23rd which sought to get community control or at least greater influence over this process. CAG and others (including SP) believed that Council should have started the work to get a community-endorsed structure plan many months ago. Now at the last minute, Council tried to rush it through undemocratically. The legacy of the March 23rd public meeting is that the community flexed their muscles and now are part of process, not on the outside with their noses on the window.



I was reported in the Melbourne Times today as warning the State Planning Minister, Rob Hulls, that if he approved the Banco development we would take to the streets. He would be better adviced taking our advice: 'Call In' the Banco application (that is take it out of VCAT's hands and make the decision himself, as he can do in emergency situations), and then wait until our Steering Committee and Council sort out our alternative for the area (an interim structure plan). We aim to have the plan ready for Council approval in June which will mean very tough work starting almost immediately. The Minister can then use the interim structure plan to modify Banco's application.



The main sticking point last night was whether or not the Steering Committee would use the work already done by Council officers as the basis for their deliberations. The Mayor and the Planning Department were concerned that this work would be ignored or torn up by the Steering Committee and we would never finish the interim structure plan on time.



On the other hand community groups believed there were weaknesses in document (I outlined the key ones at the public meeting) and they didn't want to be tied alone to it. In reality this issue is a storm in a teacup in that no-one seriously thinks we can ignore the work done by Council officers already, especially the data accumulated - however the work submitted by experts such as Miles Lewis and groups like 3068 will also play a vital role.



We want an interim structure plan finished on time, that has strict height controls, setbacks, heritage protection, and provision of low cost housing and social services in all bigger developments in Yarra. This will give clarity to developers (who need us more than we need them) and more importantly give protection to residents.

Comrades

This is an article I wrote for the April 2005 issue of SP's newspaper, The Socialist...





Making socialism relevant



First of a regular column in 'The Socialist' from SP Councillor Stephen Jolly, Yarra City Council, Langridge Ward (Collingwood, Fitzroy, Abbotsford, Clifton Hill, Alphington and South Fairfield in Melbourne)



I was asked recently by ALP Mayor (of Yarra City) Kay Meadows as to how our party views the role of a Councillor: “Are you still an activist or are you now part of governing Yarra?”



It’s a fair question and has been discussed inside the Socialist Party itself and between SP and our other Councillors and MPs worldwide in our sister parties in the Committee for a Workers’International. We believe that the job of a Socialist Party Councillor is to be the voice of ordinary people, raising their concerns on a bigger stage than would be normal; to use the position to help mobilise the community to affect change; and to raise the socialist alternative to the neo-liberal mantra of the major parties.



The Socialist Party is starting this process in Yarra City Council but obviously similiar concerns and the same kind of response would apply in councils and at other government levels throughout Australia. Where I (as 1 socialist councillor amongst 9) can affect change directly I will obviously do so and we are very proud of the many small victories we have won since the November 27th election (see web site details below) - however big victories will only come as a result of community mobilisation.



A SP Councillor can fast-track such mobilisation (be a catalyst even), but they cannot replace it.



The number one task for me at the moment is reflecting the needs of the public housing tenants (there are over 94% people unemployed on the Collingwood estate!). I chair a new Youth Advisory Committee that intends to present to Council in April a series of actions to help find jobs and training for working class youth, boost youth programmes and services, and most importantly involve young people in the provision of services.



Another huge issue is Child Care, with over 600 families on the waiting list for a place in Yarra. The local community is beginning to organise a campaign to get more child care places in Yarra and SP has been part of this process, and I will fight on the inside for big improvements to child care in this years budget.



Council held a big public meeting on the Banco development in Collingwood on March 23rd and planning department officers presented their alternative for the area. This meeting came about because of SP pressure and we support the resolution that was passed on the night from the floor that rejected the top-down approach of the Council and demanded community control of the process (a 9 person committee was elected to this effect). We intend to work with the local community, in particular the Collingwood Action Group, to ensure Council’s alternative plan has strict legally enforcable limits on heights etc and strong guidelines in favour of low cost housing and big developer contributions to social services in the area.



Much of my time is taken up with bread and butter issues of planning, parking, noise and traffic issues. By being responsive on these issues, I can build up the credibility for socialism and our way of operating. However I also get calls on issues as diverse as apprentices, Aboriginal rights, and even a call on what Yarra Council intended to do to stop China invading Taiwan!



Our weekly stall outside Safeways in Smith St, Collingwood - every Saturday at 12 noon - is getting a better response everyweek.



What’s clear is this: we have done some good work, but we need more socialist councillors and more community action to take things to the next level.



I urge all readers of The Socialist to visit our SP Council web site at socialistpartyaustralia.org/council/ to keep up to date with the issues.

The public meeting on transport organised by the SP, Greens, PTUA, CBC Melbourne and other pro-public transport groups have been changed from 7th April 2005 to Thursday 5th May 2005 from 7pm at Bowling Club, Edinburgh Gardens, St. Georges Rd, North Fitzroy.