Tradition doesn't foil Mayor's chance to "sell' her city

Jenny Houlihan is not stopped by tradition when given an opportunity to “sell” Shepparton.

City of Greater Shepparton Mayor,
Cr Jenny Houlihan.

The mayor of the City of Greater Shepparton exploited an opportunity at the University of Melbourne to talk about the benefits of living in Shepparton.

She was one of a panel of four, along with the keynote speaker at the Melbourne launch of Beyond Zero Emissions (BZE) report on a high speed train for Australia.

Shepparton is included on the route for the BZE-proposed train and Cr Houlihan was invited to attend and respond to questions about the importance of the train to regional areas.

Chair of Wednesday night’s event at the university’s Carillo Gantner Theatre was the chief executive officer of BZE, Dr Stephen Bygrave, who asked specifically about benefits brought to Shepparton by high speed rail.

Cr Houlihan thanked the keynote speaker, the Federal Member for Bennelong, Mr John Alexander, who has Liberal Party responsibilities for regional development, high speed rail and development of polices to address urban traffic congestion, for “almost” accepting an invitation to visit Shepparton.

The Federal Member for Bennelong,
Mr John Alexander.

Answering question from the chair, Cr Houlihan ignored tradition and told the near full auditorium about the wonders of life in Shepparton, rather than directly answer the question.

She talked about her council’s involvement with the project to date and in admitting that it now felt at little out of the loop, she was excited to be at the Melbourne event and hear Mr Alexander’s enthusiasm for high speed rail.

Cr Houlihan told those at the launch that she would like to “drag” him for Shepparton as we need to keep our community engaged and inspired.

She then talked about why it is great to live in Greater Shepparton, pointing to the fact that “our city” acts a major industry and employment centre pointing out that the city has many smaller towns nearby.

According to Cr Houlihan Shepparton services about 250 000 people around the area.

She said many in the audience may have followed our fight to save SPC Ardmona and, she added, we are prepared to fight just as hard to get high speed rail.

“We are reliant on a strong transport sector to support our activities and we are home to a very large migrant and refugee population, including many humanitarian refugees who presently have no other means of transport, particularly when they arrive, other than public transport,” she said.

Cr Houlihan said her council was thrilled when it saw is had been included on the fast train route and “don’t anybody try to get us off that, or there will be big trouble”.

She said the fast train will “quite frankly be transformational for our region, (it) absolutely will change who we are and what we do”.

Economic benefits from the high speed rail project will, according to Cr Houlihan, include the ability to attract other businesses to the area and allow for increased efficiencies of existing businesses, improved property values and increase the enrolment of students in existing tertiary institutions.

She said tourism in the area would benefit, the high speed rail was environmentally friendly and council had already considered matters relating to construction of the high speed rail and, she noted, council already has a strong working relationship with the Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority.

Alluded to the fact that council, and the people of Greater Shepparton, are proud of their rivers and waterways and “we know we want to keep the health of those” and in any infrastructure we will ensure that environmental features are proactively considered in any of the high speed rail planning,

“It is anticipated that a high speed rail station located at Shepparton will provide a significant impetus for population growth as people take advantage of the opportunity to reside in a well serviced regional city with lots of sunshine and open space and keep that in mind as you might be able to shift there one day, and we would love to have you” she said.

According to Cr Houlihan a very fast train would enhance Shepparton’s competitiveness and she could only see ”huge benefits” from the proposed high speed rail.

She argued that the high speed rail would better integrate our communities, ease congestion on our roads, as well as provide the foundation for a low-carbon activity econ

“Greater Shepparton needs to be a part of this and the direct benefit which will flow on form it is really exciting for us, – very pleased to be here to rt you from a regional city point of view and we will be with you all the way, please take us along for the ride,” Cr Houlihan said.

In answer to a question from Dr Bygrave, Cr Houlihan talked about the present poor public transport service to and from Shepparton and explored the massive benefits of a fast train to many in the community.

We should be concerned about limiting growth, not just closing roads

An idea beyond the comprehension of most never really found its way into the discussion at last week’s public meeting about the closure of Shepparton’s Andrew Fairley Avenue.

The Limits to Growth"
by Donella Meadows.

In our modern business world efficiency mostly equates with growth for it is through those improved processes that profits are further boosted.

The idea of efficiency/growth is good was never questioned for viewed through the prism of most, it is revered ground and to think otherwise brings only scorn.

Efficiency/growth is not necessarily a good thing and to close a public space in the furtherance of its name is simply the wrong thing to do.

Consistent growth in a finite world is statistically impossible as unequivocally explained by Donella Meadows in her 1972 book, “Limits to Growth”, published by the Club of Rome.

About 200 people listened as the SPC Ardmona’s chief financial officer, Mr James Harvey, explained why the company needed exclusive use of the avenue; then to the Mayor of the City of Greater, Cr Jenny Houlihan, who talked about why, how and what processes the council had followed to reach its present position; and then the president of the Greater Shepparton Better Local Government Association, Mr Gordon Hamilton, talked about why his group opposed the road closure proposal.

Questions and discussed ensured, frequently damning the probity and processes of the city council, along with suggestion from a few of a conspiracy between SPC Ardmona and city council.

Sadly the idea that both organizations, along with the community, needed to settle on a future not aligned with efficiency and growth was never discussed.

Yes, we need efficiency, but not of the type that produces only profit, rather we need a style of efficiency that will ensure the resilience of this community as the world steps into an energy-depleted future, a future that science has shown will be hotter, drier and decidedly different from the energy-rich post World War Two decades.

Success in the future for this community, and all others on the planet, will hinge on what is known as ‘localism” – that is the turning inward of all villages, towns and cities to ensure they provide for themselves, wherever possible, all their food, energy and other critical needs.

Last week’s meeting uncovered a restlessness for here was something many saw as unnecessary, something that could be resolved with innovative thinking and something in which the benefit was not worth the cost.

Importantly, we are headed for even more interesting times for the realities described by Meadows in her Club of Rome book once hidden beyond the horizon are now in full view.

Rather than gathering at public meetings to discuss the closure of one road, we should be meeting to talk about building resilience and adaptation.

Civility and maturity are inexticably linked

Civil conversation and maturity are inextricably linked.

Language and its use, indicates something about the user’s wisdom.

That being true, Wednesday’s public meeting to discuss the proposed closure of Shepparton’s Andrew Fairley Avenue was civil, wise, and a sea of good sense.

From the chairman, former councillor and public thinker, John Gray, right through to the fork-lift driver who welcomed the closure, there was an admirable degree of decency.

Civility springs obviously from maturity, but Wednesday’s meeting had another ingredient, the little something extra that ensured it was rooted in the common man’s experience, and so wisdom borne of familiarity.

The meeting, called in response to a decision made at the March meeting of the City of Greater Shepparton, was held using a trestle table and chairs set out in a space usually occupied by buses at Ford’s Shepparton Bus Services Depot in the heart of the city’s industrial area.

The meeting’s reason for objecting to the avenue’s closure was articulated by the environment in which it was held – the road’s closure would dramatically increase costs and difficulties for the bus company – a sentiment reflected by nearly all at the meeting.

It was obvious that all at Wednesday’s meeting agreed that the community needed to stand with SPC Ardmona as it confronted competition from around the world, but most were concerned, and rightly so, that public space it seeks is precious and once sold to a private enterprise, it is lost forever.

Most thought that innovative planning and thinking could see the company retain, and improve on its competitiveness and the community retain its use of the avenue.

Although never mentioned, there appeared to be a status quo-style of thinking that aligned most at the meeting with the business as usual paradigm; a model that has, in the minds of many, taken the world down a dead-end street.

Wednesday night’s warm example of civility will be needed on a hitherto unseen scale as our community wrestles with a collision of circumstances, such as energy and resource depletion, an injured atmosphere, economic disarray and a burgeoning population.

Wisdom and resilience will be in high demand and rather than limping toward a solution that is about continuing what we have done for centuries and has not only seriously disrupted earth’s ecosystem, gouged the planet’s finite and irreplaceable resources, but has brought down a pervasive and alarming inequality, we need to do it differently.

The modern world is responsible for many good things, but accounts for the cost are coming and an even cursory examination of world events suggest we have to change our ways.

It is right and proper to protect the sovereignty of Andrew Fairley Avenue, but it should be just the beginning of a civil and mature conversation to protect what is public from private enterprise. 

Building has a life of 200 years, but is it renewable?

Tony Abbott makes his prognostications from a building in Canberra designed to last at least 200 years.

Australia's new parliament house
 - under construction in the eighties
 and designed to last 200 years.

The PM’s predictions, even considered generously, might apply to the next 20 years; just a tenth of the life of our “new” Parliament House opened in 1988 in Canberra.

Architect Romaldo Giurgola faced constraints in creating Australia’s new administrative home, among them that the building must remain viable for 200 years; an idea deserving applause and one, you would hope, would apply to decisions made by the occupants.

The ideas, policies and processes they consider need to be arrived at and seen through the lens of the long-view; that is they need to look far beyond the damaging limitations of the electoral cycle and plan for a future far exceeding the limited horizon of modern politics.

Writing in the “Clock of The Long Now: Time and Responsibility: The Ideas Behind the World’s Slowest Computer”, Stewart Brand discusses ideas that go well beyond the 200 years mandated for our 1988 parliament house.

He argues that we should all, and that includes politicians, be thinking thousands of years ahead.

The Shepparton-based group, Slap Tomorrow, has its ideas and hopes clearly rooted in today, but are sharply aware that tomorrow is going to be decidedly different place in that it will insist in on a fresh approach to living.

Conscious that energy in all its forms allowed for the creation of what exists today, but understanding traditional forms of energy are finite and in serious depletion, Slap Tomorrow is organizing a public September forum at which energy will be discussed.

The keynote speaker for that event will be the associate professor from the University of New South Wales, Mark Diesendorf, who presently teaches environmental studies and was the author of “Sustainable Energy Solutions for Climate Change” published last December.

Writing in his new book, Prof Diesendorf, who like the Slap Tomorrow group is conscious of existing societal dynamics, said that without credible visions of a sustainable future and strategies to achieve them, it will be impossible to avoid devastating, irreversible changes to earth’s climate.

Discussing the transition to an ecologically sustainable, energy secure future, Prof Diesendorf said there will be “winners and losers”

“Jobs in fossil fuels will decrease, while jobs in energy efficiency, renewable energy and public transport will increase,” he wrote.

He discussed the need for government policies to ensure a socially just transition away from a fossil fuel-based society to one relying on renewable energy.

“Unfortunately,” he wrote, “some governments articulating the dogma of ‘leave it to the market’ appear reluctant to make any effort to smooth industrial transitions”.

Parliament House will be there long after Mr Abbott has left the building and we can only hope that somewhere in his legacy is a flicker of renewable energy.

Our first duty is to our health, for without it everything becomes irrelevant

Without your health everything else becomes irrelevant.

A person who is both mentally and physically intact is as well-equipped as they can be to confront and deal with whatever challenges life might present.

Shepparton-based group, Slap Tomorrow, is concerned unfolding changes to our climate threaten community health and so has arranged for four speakers to visit the city on Thursday and discuss how we live in and deal with a climate different from that with which we are familiar.

Your health is, of course, your business until, that is, that moment when “your business” becomes someone else’s business and so is a measurable cost to society.

Climate change, shown to be unequivocally real and a clearly a result of human activities, will unquestionably injure our health and as is the case individually, be a measurable cost to society.

Rather than taking the Federal Government’s present course of dismantling everything that helps us understand and mitigate climate change, we should be working to build a nation that instinctively lessens the damage and creates a resilient society.

We, that is you and me, have elected a national government that sees itself beyond the limitations of science and although it claims acceptance of climate change, its behaviour suggests something quite different.

Extreme weather events, worsened by climate change, throughout Australia have produced obvious massive physical damage, but largely invisible has been the health costs that often don’t appear until months, or years after the event.

Health, as is the case with so many other things, is not something you appreciate until it is gone.

Climate change has the potential to erode our health, not just individually, but in penalizing all of society and although we all lead busy lives, each of us needs to spend a couple of hours learning about how we can best understand and behave in a different climate, particularly if we value our health.

Listening to and learning from the quartet coming to Shepparton on Thursday can be the edge of a local individual response, but nationally it is somewhat more complex as our present government has declared Australia “open for business” taking us down a path contrary to what is needed if Australia is to play a meaningful part in easing the causes of climate change.

Australia was, until recently, among the leaders in climate change mitigation, but Tony Abbott and his cohort have dismantled our global warming-defence infrastructure, exposing us to the mirth of the world and hugely risking the health of Australian’s.

The wealth of a community is not truly measured in acquisitions and wealth, rather in that same community’s general health and a broader wellbeing that is remote from the celebrated profit and growth mandate of our market driven system.

Trapped in a vacuum of imagination

Shepparton is trapped in a vacuum of imagination.

Worse than that, we have so enthusiastically pursued what it is we already understand and are comfortable with, that we now find ourselves stumbling about in a blind canyon.

What the Goulburn Valley needs is imaginative leaders; those who understand the choices that confront not just people here, but society generally.

The history of conflict; conflicts whose costs are measured in millions of lives, serious disruption to many of those left alive and a financial cost beyond measurement, is simply a matter of poor choice and the failure to imagine that there was, and is, a better way.

Shepparton faces challenges which are simply a microcosm of the malign difficulties presently facing the world and the challenges they present can be eased, or avoided completely, by making the right choices.

The City of Greater Shepparton council has set out to “Make Shepparton Greater” listing commerce, health, justice and transport, both road and rail, projects as priorities on which both it and the community should focus.

The enthusiasm and excitement about this idea is to be applauded, but with restraint for although the projects are of themselves worthy they contribute little to building a Shepparton that will endure the unfolding differences ahead.

Rather than building on what exists, all of us, from the council down, should be stepping back, learning about how the world is going to unfold and understanding that the creation of a resilient Greater Shepparton, one able to withstand the inevitable shocks spinning off from energy depletion, and food and water shortages arising from a damaged climate, demands imagination.

What do we do?

Rather than constantly expanding our boundaries, we should imagine ways of moving people toward the centre of the city, making walking and cycling nor only easier, but preferable because it is both quicker and cheaper; we need to develop a public transit system, not only within the city itself, but one that links-up all the towns and villages that make up the Greater City; we need a complex mosaic of community vegetable gardens throughout the city; frequent (monthly?) programs should be aimed at helping people understand why we need to embrace resilience and within that begin to talk about the importance of sharing.

We don’t forget, however, about the health or justice aspects of Making Shepparton Greater, but we make them part of city whose maintenance is less energy-intensive.

We have a choice – we can follow the energy-intensive business as usual trajectory or we can use imaginative thoughtful ways of living that will see us break the business as usual mould; consider and implement renewable energy and in contemplating sustainability, build a resilient community and, in doing so, “Make Shepparton Greater”.

Asylum seekers are many things, but not 'illegals'

Asylum seekers are many things, but they are not “illegals”.

They are mothers, father, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, aunties, uncles, friends and people, just like you and me.

They are people with families, friends, hopes and dreams and just like you and me, they laugh, they cry, they feel pain and they bleed.

Our government has attempted to demonize the relatively few people, on world terms, who have sought asylum in Australia by constantly referring to them as “illegals”, but it is critical to distil fact from fiction and remind ourselves that they are not are not breaking the law.

It legally legitimate to seek asylum in another country no matter how you get there, and it makes no difference whether you arrive with a first class flight ticket or you simply breast-stroke up to the beach.

Our rejection of asylum seekers – and we can’t seek refuge in espousing personal beliefs of not objecting to refugees, for they are being treated harshly by the Australian Government and it is “our” government – questions our decency and humanity.

The people who seek refuge here have done nothing illegal rather, what is illegal, or certainly bordering on it, is the manner in which we detain these effectively innocent people, lock them up and in doing so deny them access to the wonderful egalitarian values that we trumpet with glee as being a symbol of Australia.

Everything about how we treat asylum seekers throws into question the values that have made this country great.

My shoulders droop as I hear the latest in the sad saga in our treatment of asylum seekers and felt especially emotionally injured when Prime Minister Tony Abbott said no one who arrives by boat will be settled in Australia.

We are witness to a strange and almost unconscious extension of our White Australia Policy that officially ended in 1973 and whether or not we realise it, we are still uncomfortable and nervous about “the other” and so our rejection of the asylum seeker is the de-facto continuation of that offensive idea.

True, many generations of Australians have worked enthusiastically and hard to reach our present level of comfort, but genuine success will always elude us until we learn about and understand that personal richness is to be found in sharing.

So rather than slam the door shut in the face of anyone seeking asylum, we (and that means the government and by inferences that is you and me) need to stop private enterprise profiting from the desperation of others; check their credentials quickly, not years as is currently the case; send back the few who have blemished records; and quickly allow the remainder, many of which are highly skilled and valuable people, to join our communities.