Tourism and Community, or Tourism v Community?

As I've travelled around much of Europe over the past year, I've had occasion to ponder the nature of tourism, and what makes a great tourist destination.

The places that stand out as tourist destinations usually base their appeal on some combination of beauty, history, and culture, and have managed to make something special from whatever their circumstances have bequeathed.

Often - though certainly not always - this involves developing a signature event, that reflects, affirms, complements and reinforces the place's strengths.

In Newcastle, Surfest is an excellent example of such a signature event: it was developed and run by the local grassroots surfing community, and builds on the city's rich surfing history and beach culture. It helps to keep the city on the national and international surfing map, attracting competitors and media coverage from across the world, and showcases the city's beaches, our most striking natural asset.

Surfest represents a lot of what Newcastle is about, and it's proudly and quintessentially Newcastle.

The city's most recent signature event contender - the Supercars race scheduled for the East End in November - is quite a different beast.

The Supercars event was imposed on the city by the same state government that cut the city rail line, which now won't be available to deliver the crowds to the event.

The only relationship the event has with any local pre-existing Newcastle phenomenon is that it's in the same general area that was notorious for decades as a hang-out and informal speedway for out-of-town rev heads, until the council and the state government stepped in to stop it.

The Supercars event scrawls its signature across the East End landscape like a deep scratch .

I've written before about the enormous opportunities Newcastle has to provide what the tourism industry calls a "high quality tourism product".

Most Novocastrians would remember that Newcastle made the Lonely Planet's list of the world's 10 Best Cities to visit in 2011.

The Lonely Planet spiel muses on our beaches, our climate, our heritage buildings, our laid-back lifestyle, our arts scene and our history - strangely, not a mention of anything to do with fast cars.

In terms of developing our "product", the beaches pretty much do their bit just by being there. They'll do okay as long as we don't stuff them up with some of the silly pushes for privatising public space that we've seen over the years.

The climate also runs its own show, notwithstanding our fixation with exporting climate change to the rest of the world via our massive coal exports. But that's another story...

For the rest - the heritage buildings, the lifestyle, the arts and the history - they need help. Not a lot of help, mind. Just enough vision and political will to understand their tourism potential, and to foster the kind of environment that will allow this potential to thrive.

A lot of the spadework has been done. Community-based groups have pushed long and hard for the conservation of key heritage buildings and areas, and for formal recognition of the city's heritage assets.

They've often been dismissed, or even abused, as anti-development, and they certainly haven't always been heeded, but it's largely due to their efforts that Newcastle has what is generally recognised as the best collection of heritage buildings in Australia.

Cities elsewhere (such as Fremantle, in WA) with nothing like Newcastle's heritage assets, have managed to tap into the potential of their heritage much more successfully.

The key difference has been vision and political will.

Unlike Newcastle, Fremantle has had a succession of councils who understood both the conservation and tourism value of their city's heritage, and were prepared to commit the necessary strategic resources.

Newcastle is way behind in this regard, though there are some promising signs. The Council has a new "Destination Management Plan" that makes some promising - though very generalised - noises about the role of heritage in the city's tourism future.

The council election coming up in September is an excellent opportunity to ask aspiring candidates about their vision for heritage and tourism in Newcastle.

One of the obvious flaws in the new plan is its city-centric focus - it has little to say about heritage outside the Newcastle CBD, despite Wallsend's obvious assets.

In its own modest way, the Wallsend Winter Fair has become a signature local event for western Newcastle. Like Surfest, it arose from the grassroots community. It celebrates and respects the heritage, history and culture of its community, and showcases it to the local and regional community.

The Winter Fair represents a lot of what Wallsend, and Newcastle, are about, and its continued success is the perfect antidote to the Supercar Syndrome.

Long after the stain of burnt rubber from the Supercars has faded from Newcastle's streets, events like the Wallsend Winter Fair - events that are of the people, for the people and by the people - will still be there.

Long may they prosper.

Wherever you are, democracy needs awareness, vigilance and action

The different political cultures of different countries are always fascinating.

Australians tend regard politics as a taboo subject for casual or polite conversation, and many Aussies are surprised when travelling overseas, or when they meet overseas travellers, to find that this isn't the global norm, especially outside the English speaking world.

I've recently had the opportunity to experience three countries with very different political cultures and histories, and these experiences have convinced me that, for better or worse, 21st-century globalism will challenge the tendency in Australian political culture toward isolationism and apathy.

In Senegal, Africa's most enduring democracy, political awareness is relatively high, and political discussion very much the norm.

The family with whom I stayed in a village in the Casamance region of southern Senegal would regularly gather to watch the morning and evening television news and current affairs programs (both domestic and international) and engage in informed and energetic discussion with whoever happened to be around about what was covered.

The level of awareness about international issues, such as the conflict in Syria and significant political events in Europe and the USA, appeared to me to be much greater among these African villagers than among many Australians.

I had previously observed this high level of political interest and engagement when I visited Senegal in 2012 and observed the democratic election of its current president, Macky Sall, and his smooth transition to power from the country's former long time (but also democratically elected) president, Abdoulaye Wade.

For Senegal, this active political culture may be at least partly attributable to their French colonial tradition.

But there appears to be a similar level of engagement in Senegal's neighbour, the former British colony of The Gambia, Africa's smallest country. The Gambia's land borders are completely surrounded by the much larger Senegal, but it's post-colonial political culture and history has been quite different.

Gambian politics made news even in Australia late last year when its long time president, Yahya Jemmeh, who seized power in a military coup in 1994, was ousted in a surprise but decisive election victory by its current president, Adam Barrow.

The former president refused to concede, but reconsidered after intervention by the United Nations and a number of nearby countries (including Senegal).

When I visited this month, The Gambia was in the midst of subsequent parliamentary elections and many Gambians were donning T-shirts with political messages and slogans advocating democracy, and participating in vigourous political rallies, both of which would have been illegal, and ruthlessly suppressed, under the previous regime.

These political changes had imbued The Gambians with whom I spoke with a new spirit of hope and freedom, which swept the new regime to a landslide victory in the parliamentary elections, and reduced the former president's political party to a small parliamentary rump.

From what I know of the new leader and the state of his country, it's hard to be confident that he will be able to deliver on the hopes of his people, but his election may still be highly significant in the larger story of Africa's political evolution. Our Gambian taxi driver was convinced that democracy now had a firm and irreversible foothold in his country, and that the Gambian people would never again allow another dictator. Time will tell.

I'm now in France, in the run-up to the first round of its imminent presidential election. Few countries can claim such a decisive role in the history of modern democracy as France, and the Gallic fervour for political engagement is famous.

Just around the corner from where I am staying, a government building prominently displays the proud revolutionary cry of France's national motto: "liberte, egalite, fraternite", and even with my poor French I can discern the unmistakable signs of political engagement in overheard snippets of street and cafe conversations, and glimpses of posters and newspaper headlines.

France is a mature western democracy, and in the wake of Brexit, Trump, terrorism, and widespread conflict over national identity and the impact of refugees, the French presidential election will have international implications as a barometer of the global political zeitgeist.

Marine Le Pen, the far-right, anti-immigration leader of France's National Front Party, is tipped as almost certain to make the final round of the election - a run-off between the top two candidates from the first round - and may well become the next French president.

So much of politics is about momentum and morale, and the ripples of such a victory in a nation so symbolically significant as France, would certainly boost the political hopes and ambitions of right wing groups and parties around the world, including in Australia.

Unlike Australia, France doesn't have compulsory voting. Even so, more than 80% of eligible French voters turned up for the first round of the 2012 French presidential election, and if the size of the crowds for candidate rallies in the current election campaign are any indication, turnout will be similar this time around. This aspect of French political culture may well be the decisive factor in preventing a right wing victory.

Whatever the outcome, my experience here and in Africa has confirmed my conviction that, from Senegalese villagers, to Gambian taxi-drivers, to French cafe-goers, to antipodean Australians, the right and responsibility for building a better, more democratic world, belongs to all of us, and will require our awareness, vigilance and action.

Hamiton Carnivale celebrates Newcastle cultural diversity

Beyond the obvious appeal of the food, fun and fanfare of Beaumont Street’s annual Carnivale lies the more serious message of celebrating cultural diversity.

With the resurgence of right-wing jingoism around the world, it’s hard to think of another time when that message has been more necessary.

Statistically, Newcastle doesn’t rate highly on the cultural diversity scale.

2011 census figures indicate that less than eight percent of the Newcastle council area’s population come from a non-English speaking background, compared to more than 18 percent for the whole of NSW.

Fewer than 13 percent were born outside of Australia, compared to more than 25 percent for the state.

However, the figures also suggest that the city’s cultural diversity is increasing.

The 2011 ABS statistics indicate that, of those who were living in Newcastle but were born overseas, 25 percent came to Newcastle between 2006 and 2011.

Historically, outside Newcastle’s dominant white Anglo-Celtic population, immigrants of European origin have provided the basis for whatever modest claim to ethnic diversity our city has had.

The legacy of Italian and Greek families who came to Newcastle during the 1950s and 60s is still obvious in Hamilton.

More recently, our cultural diversity has been boosted by the arrival of Asian, Middle Eastern, and African people, particularly – though not solely - through the number and mix of overseas students studying at the University of Newcastle.

Suburbs around the University (such as Jesmond and Birmingham Gardens) have emerged as the city’s most culturally diverse communities.

All this and more can be gleaned from Newcastle Council’s Community Profile, available on the council’s website.

While Newcastle might not be able to mix it statistically with the multicultural heavyweights, it’s held its own in supporting cultural diversity.

In 1997, when Pauline Hanson picked Newcastle’s Civic Theatre as the venue to launch One Nation in NSW, local citizens who were outraged at her message of ethnic intolerance organised a counter-event to celebrate cultural diversity in nearby Civic Park.

The thousands who attended this celebration easily outnumbered those who turned up to support Hanson, and the Cultural Stomp became an annual event.

Two years later, when Hanson contested the federal seat of Newcastle, Novocastrians again sent her packing, despite massive publicity for her campaign in the local and national media.

In 2004, a neo-fascist group’s attempt to incite race-hatred in and around Islington (primarily directed against African refuges) backfired badly when local communities rallied to emphatically affirm Newcastle’s support for multiculturalism, resulting in the council formally declaring the city a Refugee Welcome Town.

More recently, in response to the rise of yet another incarnation of right-wing nationalism in the form of the so-called “Reclaim Australia movement”, local groups such as the Refugee Action Network (RAN) have organised well-attended “Unity in Diversity” days that have attracted a wide cross-section of the Newcastle community.

In 2015, Newcastle Council reaffirmed Newcastle as a Refugee Welcome Zone, and developed a Multicultural Plan that aimed to promote and celebrate Newcastle’s multicultural diversity, and to integrate this with the city’s economic development.

That plan is still being rolled out, but Hamilton’s Beaumont Street Carnivale – which preceded the council plan by many years - stands as an enduring local example of how to combine community, business and cultural diversity.

While sampling the simple delights of this year’s Carnivale, think for a moment on how its success is part of the larger story of our city’s achievement in rejecting racism and embracing diversity.

In a world where racism and nationalism are again on the rise, it may bring some comfort - perhaps even inspiration - to appreciate that we at least live in a city that has so firmly, consistently and creatively celebrated cultural diversity and asserted its vision for a multicultural community.

Trump and "getting the job done"

The post-mortem analyses of Donald Trump’s shock victory in the US Presidential election are still running hot as I write.

How the world will cope with a racist, sexist, xenophobic climate-change denier as the President of the world’s most powerful nation is entirely uncertain.

It’s hard to imagine it ending well, and difficult not to imagine Trump being the architect of his own undoing, in some way that is impossible to specify, but almost certain to happen.

Many commentators have speculated that his campaign successfully tapped into the growing anger and frustration of a declining, mostly white, American middle-class, who, as Bernie Sanders - Hillary Clinton’s key contender for the Democratic nomination – declared, are “tired of establishment economics, establishment politics and establishment media”, and just wanted change.

Whatever it was, it wasn’t “politics as usual”, and the ripples – or tidal wave - will be felt around the world.

Some commentators are already pronouncing the death of neo-liberalism, and its failed policies of deregulation, privatisation and free trade, and the wealth inequality, loss of jobs, and environmental destruction they’ve created.

Unfortunately, it’s been easy for right-wing demagogues playing patsy-politics to whip up and direct the pain and anger felt as a result of these policies at vulnerable scapegoats (refugees, immigrants, ethnic and religious minorities, and even women).

It’s a classic case of victims victimising victims.

Australia, of course, is a different case. In so many ways, Australia has built a better society than America, especially with our much more effective social safety-net.

But the warning signs are there.

Australia, too, has its losers from neoliberalism, and its governments captured by neoliberal ideology.

Australia, too, has its far-right extremists (e.g., One Nation) who target vulnerable scapegoats (refugees and Muslims), as though they are the cause of the problem.

Like Trump, they tap into insecurity and discontent, but provide no useful or humane vision for a better society.

In the US, Trump supporters rallied behind his superficially clever “Make America Great Again” slogan, which taps into a general feeling of nationalism and discontent (message: “America used to be great, isn’t any more, but will be again if you vote for me”) but is so meaninglessly malleable that it can be pitched and interpreted in any way to suit any listener (“great” in what ways, for whom and how?)

Does “Get the Job Done” ring a bell? (message: “the job isn’t being done, but could be if you vote for me”. But what “job”, for whose benefit, and how?).

In that case, “the job” ended up having more to do with handing over envelopes of money to politicians in the back of a Bentley, and handing the city’s rail line to developers.

We know how that turned out, but in the 2012 Newcastle Council election the slogan resonated with voters who were so disenchanted with what they had and just wanted change.

The Donald Trumps, Pauline Hansons and Jeff McCloys of politics are snake-oil salesmen, trading on the genuine and understandable anger of people at politicians and governments who have continually let them down to serve the vested interests they really represent.

The grievances these “I’m-not-really-a-politician” politicians play on are real, but the analysis and “solutions” they offer are as vapid as the slogans and clichés they peddle.

Inevitably, their support wanes, and they fade to be replaced by the next charlatan hawking the next empty slogan and pointing at the next hapless stool pigeon.

We won’t create a better society by blaming and lashing out at victims, but by developing a vision for an equitable, compassionate and sustainable society for those with whom we share the planet, and for those to whom we’ll pass it on.

Questions hang over handling of residential development plan in green corridor

Newcastle Council recently rejected a controversial residential development proposal for the last significant area of bushland between the Blue Gum Hills Regional Park and the Hexham Wetlands – but not without raising questions about the associated planning process.

For many years, a community-based organisation known as the Green Corridor Coalition (GCC) has been advocating conservation of the 26 hectare site with the uninspiring title of 505 Minmi Rd, Fletcher.

Since 2009, the landowner has been trying to have the site rezoned to allow a mix of residential and conservation land.

The council rejected the rezoning plan at its June meeting, after a decision it made on the plan in December last year resulted in confusion.

In their report to the December council meeting, council officers recommended endorsing the plan, and told councillors that if they wanted to reject it they would have to “request that the Minister for Planning and Environment allow Council to discontinue the proposed amendment”.

By a majority vote, the December council meeting decided to “not proceed with the planning proposal”, and, following the officers’ advice verbatim, to request “that the Minister for Planning and Environment allow Council to discontinue the proposed amendment”.

At the time, the impression was that the request to the Minister would be a simple rubber stamp process.

Months passed, and when the Green Corridor Coalition started asking questions of the NSW Department of Planning and Environment about what was happening in response to the council’s request, the Department indicated that the legal effect of the council’s request to the Minister was that it was now up to the Minister to make the decision on the matter, and that that decision might not correspond with the wishes expressed in the first part of the council’s December decision.

But the GCC also discovered that the advice from council officers on which the councillors had based their request to the Minister was incorrect, and that the council had the legal authority to determine the matter without the need for any request to the Minister.

This authority derived from documents discovered by the GCC but not mentioned in the officers’ report to the December council meeting.

The GCC immediately brought this to the attention of a number of councillors, who raised the matter at the June council meeting for a further decision that noted the intent of the council’s December decision, acknowledged the documents confirming the council’s legal authority to determine the matter without the need for any request to the Minister, and confirmed the council’s rejection of the rezoning plan.

The relationship between local and state governments on planning and development issues is often fraught and unpredictable, and how the Minister or the Department will respond to the latest council decision is yet to be confirmed.

However, as at least one councillor commented at the June meeting, why did the December planning report fail to provide councillors with all the relevant information? Why were councillors incorrectly advised that rejecting the plan required a request to the Minister?

This wasn’t the first time that questions had been raised about the way that council staff were handling this matter. 

In October last year, the landowner’s consultant (a former council officer) was present at closed staff briefings to councillors on the proposal, while GCC representatives were permitted to address a council Public Voice session only after elected councillors intervened on their behalf.

It’s an excellent case study into why an elected council is such an essential part of local government. On at least two occasions, the intervention of councillors acting on behalf of the community helped to redress significant deficiencies in administrative action.

The rezoning proposal for 505 Minmi Rd may or may not be settled, but the questions hanging over the handling of this matter by the council administration are far from resolved.

Senate voting reforms make preferencing easier and safer

With a federal election on 2 July now looking pretty much inevitable, voters will need to know about recent changes to the Senate voting system.

These changes don’t affect voting for our local federal parliamentarians in the House of Representatives (the smaller, usually green, ballot paper).

However, Senate voting (on the larger, usually white, ballot paper) will now be quite different. Instead of having to number a single box above the line, or many boxes below the line, voters will now be asked to number at least six boxes above the line, or 12 boxes below it.

These changes replace the previous registered ticket system, where parties and groups with above-the-line boxes determined the distribution of Senate preferences, usually as a result of complex negotiations between them.

Due to gaming of the registered ticket system, which often produced odd preference flows that would surprise many voters, micro parties could get elected to the Senate with a tiny primary vote.

In the last Senate election, for example, the No.1 candidate on the Australian Motoring Enthusiasts Party’s Victorian Senate ticket, which achieved only 0.51% of the primary vote, was elected in this way.

Under the recent changes, voters themselves will directly control their Senate preferences, just as they do in House of Representative elections.

In practical terms, this means that instead of numbering a single box above the line on the Senate ballot paper, voters will indicate their own above-the-line preferences by numbering at least six such boxes in their order of preference.

If you vote above-the-line, when your ballot paper is counted your preferences will be allocated down each of the relevant groups in the order you indicate.

So, if the group to which you give your first above-the-line preference has six candidates, your preferences will be allocated in order down that group as though you had numbered it one to six below-the-line.

Then, the group to which you gave your second above-the-line preference will receive your next preferences. 

If your first preference group had six candidates, the candidate heading the group to which you gave your second above-the-line preference would actually receive your seventh preference, and so on, proceeding down each group in the order you’ve indicated above-the-line.

In past Senate elections, the vast majority of voters have voted above-the-line, and this is still likely to be the case in the forthcoming election.

However, if you don’t want your preferences to be allocated to candidates in the order that they appear in their groups on the Senate ballot paper, you can instead vote below-the-line, where you will be asked to number at least 12 boxes. 

If you do this, you can number candidates in any order you want, and your preferences will flow to the individual candidates in exactly the order you indicate.

In previous Senate elections, below-the-line voting carried some risk of inadvertent informality (which means the ballot paper couldn’t be counted), due to the high minimum number of candidates that a voter had to indicate, and the consequent risk of making an unintended error.

Under the new system, voting below-the-line will be much easier and less risky. It will be interesting to see how many more voters take up the below-the-line option in the coming election.

However you intend to vote, preferences often determine the outcome of elections, especially in the Senate, so if you want your vote to be fully effective, you should use the preference power you have.

Information on the new Senate voting system is available from the Australian Electoral Commission website, at http://www.aec.gov.au/Voting/How_to_vote/files/senate-how-to-vote-2016.pdf.

Will this council's legacy be scandal and broken promises?

At its February meeting, Newcastle Council drove the final nail into the coffin of election commitments aimed at making the council more democratic, open, transparent and accountable.

Regular readers of this column may recall that democracy and open government was a key issue in the two council by-election campaigns in late 2014 and early 2015, which stripped the former McCloyal conservative bloc of its council majority.

During those campaigns, Labor and The Greens agreed to mutual preference recommendations on the basis of a 10 point “Open GovernmentReform Package”, with a list of structural and procedural changes “intended to restore community confidence in the council and the office of Lord Mayor, and to establish systems that ensure the highest level of transparency, accountability and probity in our City’s governance”.

At the end of last year – more than a year after the reforms were pledged - the achievement score on the 10 point list was zilch. 0/10.

At the council’s February meeting, Labor councillors joined Liberal and Independent councillors to defeat measures proposed by The Greens that would have given some substance to those commitments.

Problems experienced under the disgraced McCloyal council bloc were a primary stimulus for the reform proposals, so it’s hardly surprising that the McCloyal die-hards (Liberal and Independent councillors) didn’t support these measures – they never have. 

But for the Labor councillors, this was an epic (though not entirely unexpected) backflip.

Despite election promises in the Open Government Reform Agreement*:

• Councillors and council staff still meet regularly in secret sessions (called “workshops”) closed to the public and the media, but not always to developers and other vested interests,
• The Lord Mayor has not kept a public diary outlining to whom she’s been talking,
• No changes have been made to get rid of unreasonable administrative restrictions that impede councillors from properly representing the voters who elect them,
• No effort has been made to establish a network of council-supported, community-based groups or committees who represent the interests of residents in the local communities
• No internal council ombudsman role has been created to independently investigate and respond to complaints about council administration
• Community members and groups still have the same (limited) opportunities to address the elected council, administered by council officers who strictly vet and control this system
• No attempt has been made to revitalise and expand Council’s ailing and depleted committee system
• The elected council still meets on a monthly cycle, rather than a fortnightly cycle
• Significant community assets (including significant trees) are still removed with no or little consultation with residents
• The council’s website is now harder to navigate, and less accessible, especially archival material, such as past council meetings.

[* The listed points here correspond to the 10 points in the Open Government Reform Agreement]

A number of reforms were proposed by The Greens (Councillors Therese Doyle and Michael Osborne) at the February council meeting, but were voted down by Labor and conservative councillors. 

The sad fact is that, despite the change in the council’s political complexion, and despite the political promises, very little has actually changed in the way Newcastle Council operates since the days of the McCloyal bloc ascendency. 

If anything, some aspects (e.g., the website) are even worse.

One positive change evident at the February council meeting was a new audio system, which at least made it easier to hear how councillors were rationalising these backflips.

Little wonder that – unlike their Port Stephens neighbour – Newcastle Council has been unable to rouse many in its community to care enough to stand up and defend them against the state government’s ill-conceived, ideologically driven council amalgamation agenda.

That agenda looks as though it will push the next council election from September this year into March next year - another full year of the current council.

It will be a disappointing thing indeed for Newcastle if the key legacy of the current council’s tenure is the scandal of the Jeff McCloy regime, and the broken promises of the Nuatali Nelmes period.