Torturing facts to toe the anti-rail line

Rumours of an imminent announcement from the NSW Coalition government about the future of the Newcastle rail line are rife around town - again.
Forgive my skepticism, but don't be surprised if it comes as a silly season curtain-raiser, unleashed for formal public comment in the January festive fog, when the media goes to sleep and attention is on the cricket and the beach, or when many are away or enjoying family time with the kids on holiday.
On cue for this scenario, the former NSW Premier and current head of Infrastructure NSW, Nick Greiner, made local news in a recent speech to the Hunter Business Chamber, saying that the Newcastle rail line should be cut.
But there was nothing new in anything that Mr Greiner had to say about the Newcastle rail line
In 1990, Mr Greiner's government was the first to announce an intention to cut the rail line, despite a comprehensive expert report it had jointly commissioned with Newcastle Council (the Travers-Morgan Newcastle CBD Transport and Development Study) comparing the various options for the future of the rail line that rated keeping it as superior to the other alternatives on four out of five criteria.
That wasn't what the government,or the vested interests lobbying to cut the line, wanted to hear, so the study's release was accompanied by a brief announcement from the government and council-appointed steering committee recommending that the rail line be cut.
Since then, deliberately or unwittingly, advocates for cutting the rail line have repeatedly misrepresented the steering committee recommendation as though it was from the study report itself.
Unfortunately, this established a disturbing pattern of misrepresentation in a range of influential government reports and studies into the rail line's future over the next two decades.
A series of reports prepared under the Iemma Labor government during 2003 and 2004 by the Lower Hunter Transport Working Group, initiated by the then Minister for the Hunter, Michael Costa, culminated in advising that the line should be cut at Broadmeadow.
However, when Professor Graham Currie, from the Institute of Transport Studies of the Department of Civil Engineering at Monash University, reviewed these reports in 2005 he was highly critical of their methodology, data and analysis, and concluded that they provided "biased, flawed and misrepresented advice".
The most recent example in this lamentable tradition is the Hunter Development Corporation's Newcastle City Centre Renewal Report, released in March 2009, which supported cutting the line west of Stewart Avenue.
This recommendation turned out to be based on the (incorrectly) assumed view of Newcastle University that a university CBD campus would not be viable with the rail line in place, resulting in a $640million anti-rail error in the cost-benefit calculations on which the study and its recommendation relied.
It's clear that the option of keeping the rail line would easily win a corrected cost-benefit analysis, but the report's discredited recommendation is still widely quoted by anti-rail advocates, including the recently elected Lord Mayor, Jeff McCloy, and the Hunter Business Chamber.  Neither the HDC nor the current Coalition government has moved to set the record straight.
The strategy of the anti-rail campaign over the past two decades seems to be that if the facts don't fit, just distort or ignore them, and keep repeating the mantra that the rail line must go until people are eventually bludgeoned into accepting it.

Which council will be the real McCloy?

Many regular council watchers who attended the first meeting of the newly elected Newcastle Council were surprised that media coverage portrayed it as an example of how the council could work together.

This portrayal was based on a single unanimous decision about paid carparking in the Newcastle CBD.

In that decision, notices of motion from Liberal and Labor councillos arising from election commitments they made to stop the spread of paid parking in the CBD were combined in a spirit of cooperation.

It was certainly an instance of collaboration among elected councillors on a major issue (though the decision was made in the absence of any  information about - or consideration of - its impact on other council programs dependent on the projected parking income, and on a range of other council policies and strategies, such as city renewal, transport, cycling, and climate change, which will now have to be reviewed and adjusted over the coming months).

The vote had two immediate consequences: it stopped the roll-out of paid parking in the CBD, and it stimulated positive local news coverage for the newly elected council about how it signalled a new spirit of cooperation.

But other decisions at the same council meeting indicated a different possible trajectory.

Earlier in the night, the new council scrapped the previous system of rotating the Newcastle Deputy Lord Mayor position between all interested councillors over the four year council term. This usually resulted in each Deputy Lord Mayor serving a 4 month term.

It was introduced in the 1990s as a way of giving all councillors an opportunity to perform the role, and of defusing the back-room political wheeling and dealing that usually accompanies annual appointments.

The annual appointment system was recommended by council staff, without any explanation, despite the rotation system being the status quo in Newcastle.

The option to keep the rotation system was proposed (by Greens councillor Michael Osborne), but lost 7 to 6 votes, with the four Liberal councillors combining with three Independents against the four Labor and two Greens councillors.

The next major vote at the meeting was on a proposal to reverse the previous council's decision to give away the city's childcare centres.

This had caused significant concerns among some childcare centre management committees, who said that the decision had been made before they had been provided with sufficient information to judge whether or not accepting the council's "gift" would be viable for them, and without fully exploring and discussing other options, such as leasing.

The 8-5 vote to change this decision and undertake more consultation with the childcare management committees was supported by the Labor (4) and Greens (2) councillors, and by two of the Independents. The four Liberal councillors and Lord Mayor Jeff McCloy opposed the change.

So, as a glimpse into the future voting patterns and dynamics on the new council, the first meeting was really more a mixed bag than the love-in portrayed by the media.

I suspect this is a more accurate indicator of how things will be.

The council election and the "mandate" question

Claims of a mandate are an established part of post-election political manoeuvering. But they need to be taken with a good pinch of salt, and the recent Newcastle council election is no exception.

Jeff McCloy polled very well in the Lord Mayoral campaign, achieving 43.3% of the primary vote.

However, his campaign advertising blitz has raised questions about the extent to which he effectively "bought" the election through his capacity to vastly outspend the other groups and candidates.

Mr McCloy is now claiming his election as a mandate to cut the Newcastle rail line, and is now reportedly already talking to Macquarie Street about this.

The Liberal state member for Newcastle, Tim Owen (who publicly supported Mr McCloy's tilt for Lord Mayor), stated that he saw the council election result as a referendum on the urban design of the CBD.

But what does the election result really tell us in terms of any claimed "mandate", and what real status does it have as a quasi-referendum?

A referendum is a stand-alone vote in which voters cast their votes for or against a clear proposition.

Councils can hold such referenda or plebiscites in conjunction with council elections, but Newcastle did not do so for this election.

An election mandate to take certain action depends on a candidate being elected on a clear policy position that they were actively advocating in their public information and in public debate during an election campaign.

Mr McCloy was elected on less than 50% of the vote, and the material that he distributed to the general public during the election campaign appears to have been almost silent on the issue of the Newcastle rail line.

His widely distributed letter to ratepayers talked about developing and maintaining facilities for all, holding the council accountable, getting better value for money for ratepayers, providing 200 extra parking spaces in the CBD, establishing a street art program, and cutting council red tape - but not a single reference to the rail line.

A major opinion piece by Mr McCloy published soon after he announced his candidature talked about issues such as the need to fix Hunter St - but, again, didn't even mention the rail line.

The material distributed by Mr McCloy at the polling booths also said nothing about the rail line.

Mr McCloy clearly has a mandate to perform the role of Lord Mayor, to which he has now been elected. He can also legitimately claim an electoral mandate to attempt to carry out the specific policy initiatives on which he actively campaigned, and on which voters clearly voted for him.

However, claiming a mandate on less than half the vote, for an action that wasn't even mentioned in material distributed to voters, is stretching any reasonable notion of what constitutes an electoral mandate.

And that's without the added complication of how voters in the Newcastle Council area could legitimately "mandate" an action to remove infrastructure and services that directly affect so many commuters from outside the Newcastle council area.

Gateway challenges and opportunities for Wallsend

Anyone who watched the final stage of the Tour de France, as the riders entered the Champs Elysees past the magnificent Arc de Triomphe, has felt the power of a sense of arrival.

In architecture and urban design, the psychological and emotional impact and symbolic resonance of entry routes and gateway points has been recognised since ancient times. They can take your breath away, or make you feel welcome. Or not.

Cities around the world have recognised this, and have often deliberately designed entry routes and gateway points to create a powerful and positive experience of arrival.

For visitors, such experiences can provide a key first impression or an abiding memory for their encounter with a place.

I remember the first time I saw Newcastle. It was at night, and I drove in via the old Pacific Highway route, through Charlestown and over the ridge-line before the City Road descent . Not exactly the Champs Elysees, but the spectacle of the lights of the city spread out below did the job for me.

The F3 Freeway changed all that. Now, the first impression most new arrivals have of Newcastle is the Newcastle Link Rd and the Lake Road/Thomas Street roundabout at Wallsend. The first significant building they encounter is the F1 Hotel.

As a gateway to create a sense of arrival it has its problems. True, drivers can glimpse the pleasant greenery of Wallsend Park, but there's nothing that - either directly or symbolically - conveys to a visitor that they are welcome, or have arrived at a place that might have something special to offer.

This presents both a challenge and an opportunity.

Development will inevitably spread along the Link Rd (and who picked that as the name for our main gateway route?). How we develop and maintain that route, and what we do at the key entry point, will determine the first impression many visitors will have of Newcastle.

We need to seize this opportunity before the chance to do something significant passes us by.

This issue emerged at a recent community workshop conducted by the Wallsend Business Improvement Association as part of updating its strategic plan for the Wallsend Town Centre.

Workshop participants noted the potential to present what Wallsend has to offer to visitors entering Newcastle from the F3: its rich history and heritage, its "country village" character, and its proximity to major emerging eco-tourism attractions such as the Blue Gums Hills Regional Park and the Hunter Wetlands.

To complement this, participants saw opportunities to promote the new Tramway Cycleway from Glendale to Wallsend, to find new ways to present the area's history and heritage, and to develop new accommodation and visitor facilities in the area.

These ideas could form part of a Newcastle Gateway Strategy, aimed at recognising and taking advantage of Wallsend's gateway status and potential.

This will have to begin with the basics. At the moment, this key entry site doesn't even provide basic information for visitors to find out what the area has to offer.

The need for some sort of conveniently accessed visitor information facility emerged as one of the key points from the Wallsend workshop.

How the new council that is elected in September responds to this will have a significant impact on the future commercial health and character of both Wallsend and the rest of Newcastle.

Rates a social justice issue

We all care about council rates when we receive our rates notice from the local council asking us to pay up.

But as an issue, council rating systems are a topic that make most people's eyes glaze over faster than you can say "ad valorem".

That's unfortunate, because it's a key issue for anyone who cares about social equity and public services.

Most people are aware that rates provide most of the funding for the services that councils provide, and that the amount that a ratepayer pays is linked to the value of their land.

One common misconception is that a council receives more rate revenue if land values in their area go up. In fact, in NSW that isn't the case, because the state government restricts the total amount of rate revenue that a council can collect (called "rate capping").

Leaving aside special levies (such as the waste service charge) that are usually included in rate bills, rate capping effectively sets the size of a council's total rate revenue "pie", while other factors (including land value) determine how this pie is divided into the individual slices that each ratepayer pays.

Probably the most vigorous debate about council rates is whether the amount each ratepayer pays should be the same for everyone (i.e., a base rate) regardless of ability to pay, or whether it should be linked to some "ability to pay" indicator, such as land value (i.e., ad valorem - or "according to land value").

Those who see rates as simply a "fee for service" tend to argue that everyone should pay the same amount; those who see rates as a kind of tax tend to argue that the amount that individuals pay should reflect their ability to pay.

In NSW, at least half of each residential rate assessment must be based on land value. The other half can be either ad valorem or base rate.

Comparing the two, the greater the ad valorem component, the less that people who own relatively lower valued land pay. With a greater base rate component, owners of lower valued land pay more, and owners of higher valued land pay less.

Because people who own lower valued land tend to be poorer than those who own higher valued land, a base rate tends to shift the rate burden on to those with less ability to pay.

Newcastle Council has adopted the maximum possible base rate of 50%. This tends to advantage wealthier ratepayers (who own land above Newcastle's average land value) at the expense of ratepayers who own land below the average value.

Of course, land value can be a blunt instrument for this purpose, and not everyone who lives on higher valued land does have a greater ability to pay. Councils have developed hardship provisions to accommodate such exceptions.

Local democracy needs a change of heart

Anyone who reads a newspaper, attends a public meeting on a local issue, or has the occasional chat with neighbours who are hot under the collar about what the council is doing with a local footpath or park, knows that local democracy can be a lively thing.

Councils, as the level of government closest to the community, are meant to nurture this most grassroots sphere of democracy.

Points in the council charter in the NSW Local Government Act state that councils must facilitate the involvement of members of the public and users of facilities and services in local government, and exercise their functions according to principles of equity, access, participation and rights.

Lofty sentiments, but reality can be very different, as Newcastle Council has shown.

The long-running Laman St fiasco, in which the council was prepared to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on legal action to impose its will rather than a trifling amount on an independent assessment of the trees, has been the most prominent symptom of the breakdown between the community and the council - but it's by no means the only one.

Soon after the current council was elected in 2008, it took the axe to many of the previous council's community participation programs.

Most controversially, it cut the city's network of Community Forums, which provided a means by which residents in local neighbourhoods could meet to discuss local issues and hear from councillors and council officers.

Soon after that, council staff were banned from speaking engagements at community group meetings.

On-site inspection meetings - in which councillors, council officers, and members of the community would meet to discuss development applications or council proposals affecting a particular location - tapered off, and have now been dropped entirely.

The current council has held a record number of closed councillor "workshops", where councillors and council staff get together to discuss key issues behind doors closed to the public.

"Community representatives" who did not live in Newcastle and had no networks in the local community were appointed by the current council to council committees.

According to the council's website, its Guraki Committee (which advises the council on Indigenous issues) has no community representative, hasn't met since September last year, and has no meeting scheduled for this year.

In its latest move on community consultation, Newcastle Council is proposing to reduce its requirements for notifying development applications to strata title owners.

If adopted, the proposal will mean that instead of notifying individua l strata title owners and occupiers, the council will notify only the owner corporation of a strata lot.

The staff report that recommended this change to the council meeting said that it would assist in delivering the council's "Open and Collaborative Leadership" strategy.

As Mohandas Gandhi once said, "the spirit of democracy is not a mechanical thing to be adjusted by abolition of forms. It requires change of heart."

You can have your say on the proposed changes to the notification requirements to strata title lots under the Newcastle Development Control Plan until Monday 21 May 2012. See http://www.newcastle.nsw.gov.au/council/community_consultation/public_exhibitions

Many unaware of local flood risk, says Newcastle council study

As we witness the devastating impact of floods on other communities around Australia, it's a sobering fact that flooding already affects more than 1 in 3 properties in the Newcastle council area.

According to the Draft Newcastle City-wide Floodplain Risk Management Study and Plan released by Newcastle Council last week, 25,000 properties in Newcastle - approximately half the total properties - may be flooded in the future.

The study states that an extreme flood event in Newcastle would leave about 15,000 people in a life-threatening situation, with insufficient time to reach safety, either stuck on roads transformed into hazardous floodways, or having to take refuge in buildings that could collapse from the floodwaters.

"Many people will be unaware large parts of Newcastle could flood in the future, including the people who live in those areas," the study says.

The plan proposes a $3.7million five year program focussed, as a matter of short-term priority, on saving lives.

The proposed program comprises a suite of public awareness initiatives, flood prediction and warning systems, planning controls, a certification system for flash-flood-free refuges, property works, and maintaining and updating current systems for dealing with flooding.

The five year plan also has its eye on longer-term concerns, aiming to develop a "strategic position" that will decide between abandoning or rescuing low-lying areas/suburbs (such as Carriington, Maryville and Wickham) within the next 50 years.

The city's western catchments (Ironbark Creek and Dark Creek) are recognised as having the most acute areas for flood risk in Newcastle, primarily because the Wallsend and Jesmond town centres have formed flooding "pinch points".

The plan is designed to complement the Wallsend Flood Plan, which has already been adopted and will be implemented concurrently.

"It is expected that effective flood management will not be achieved unless there is strong political support for such actions, and this will only occur if the community are active and engaged in the issues, and are placing pressure on the local, state and federal politicians to act and respond with good governance on behalf of the community at large," the plan says.

The plan document - which includes a compendium of maps of areas subject to various flood scenarios - will be placed on exhibition by Newcastle Council for public comment from 19 March to 27 April.