The Generator news service publishes articles on sustainable development, agriculture and energy as well as observations on current affairs. The news service is used on the weekly radio show, The Generator, as well as by a number of monthly and quarterly magazines. A podcast of the Generator news is also available.
As well as Giovanni’s articles it picks up the most pertinent articles from a range of other news services. You can publish the news feed on your website using RSS, free of charge.
Former Defence Force chief Angus Houston says he is “under no illusions” as to how challenging his task will be to navigate a way through the border protection policy impasse.
On Thursday the Senate struck down a bill from independent MP Rob Oakeshott which tried to restore the Government’s ability to process asylum seekers offshore.
In response, Prime Minister Julia Gillard formed a three-member expert panel to reassess Australia’s approach to border protection issues.
It is the latest bid to end the political stalemate that has gripped Parliament since two asylum seeker boats capsized killing almost 100 people.
Air Chief Marshal Houston, along with former head of Foreign Affairs and Trade Michael L’Estrange and immigration lawyer Paris Aristotle, have been given six weeks to come up with a solution to the current deadlock – preferably one which will be acceptable to the Parliament.
Air Chief Marshal Houston has told the ABC’s PM program that he believes the panel will be able to navigate through the tough policy issue.
“I think we know where the high ground is and we will work that in the way that enables us to come up with the best options that we can think of after we’ve gone through all the material that’s available to us,” he said.
But he says his is aware the task will be challenging.
“I’m under no illusions. This is going to be a very challenging and very difficult task and I think that view is shared certainly by Michael L’Estrange, who I’ve had quite a bit of discussion with,” he said.
The Coalition has already vowed to stick to its own border protection policy regardless of the panel’s findings, but Air Chief Marshal Houston does not think that will restrict his job.
“I don’t think my hands are tied. One of the things that’s been emphasised by the Prime Minister is that we will provide independent advice. It won’t be partisan in any way,” he said.
“But clearly we will look at all of the issues, we’ll look at all of the policy options and we will provide independent advice.”
New ‘opportunity’
The former Defence Force chief says his experience with the issues from a Defence point of view will bring something to the table.
“As the chief of Defence Force I was involved in a number of the committees that considered some of these difficult issues for a considerable period of time. I have had that experience,” he said.
“But I think what we’re looking at here is an opportunity; I’ve been away from it for 12 months, Michael L’Estrange has been away from those closer to this for a little more bit more than that and I think we have an opportunity to go back and perhaps start from a lower level and work through the policy.”
Air Chief Marshal Houston would not be drawn on his opinion of the Opposition’s policy to tow back boats to Indonesia, which has been criticised as being impractical.
“I’m not going to make any prejudgments at this stage. It would be very inappropriate of me to say ‘well I think this, I think that’ and so forth,” he said.
“We are going to be looking at all of the issues; all of the options and, in the fullness of time, the views of the panel will become very clear and very evident.”
He says the issue of border protection is complex and he does not expect to be able to find a quick fix.
“There is no magic bullet here and we will have to work through [the issues] and hopefully we’ll be able to provide constructive input into the resolution of the very difficult issues in a context which is extremely challenging,” he said.
Boat disasters
Air Chief Marshal Houston says he is yet to sit down with the other panellists to discuss how to tackle the task they have been given.
“I think it’s important that we give it our best shot; 500 people dying at sea attempting to get to Australia is 500 too many. And I feel that very personally,” he said.
“I’ve been involved in a couple of the disasters that involved asylum seekers when I was the CDF and I’d just like to see those risks eliminated.
“We’ll give it our best shot to try and achieve an outcome where we can dissuade people jumping into unseaworthy boats to come to Australia.”
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has described the members of the expert panel as people of “great distinction” but says his party already has a boarder protection policy.
He has criticised the Government for outsourcing responsibility for its policy to the panel.
Air Chief Marshal Houston disagrees.
“I think the Government has to use every option available to it to resolve these difficult issues,” he said.
“What we bring to this is independence. We’re not partisan and we can make a considered decision on the advice that we will provide to government at the end of the process.”
“And hopefully – I know it’s going to be difficult and I don’t want to raise any expectations – but hopefully we will be able to make the positive and constructive contribution in the very difficult, intractable area.”
Radical plans to overhaul Sydney’s rail system may come at a cost of comfort and convenience, writes Jacob Saulwick.
Sydney’s train system was built for places like Beecroft. It was built to allow people to live many kilometres north, west and south of the city centre and be able to hop onto trains near their homes and hop off where they work.
It was built so people could move from the Depression-era slums of The Rocks, Surry Hills and Paddington, and live where trees still grew and the air was clean.
These were the principles on which John Bradfield built the Harbour Bridge and ripped up the CBD to build the City Circle more than 80 years ago.
Advertisement: Story continues below
“Part of the problem we have today is that we have a clumsy 19th-century-focused double-deck system that keeps trying to have Band Aid solutions” … Gladys Berijiklian has launched a new model rail system to accomodate the system’s worsening crush of commuters. Photo: Brendan Esposito
The Bridge came to define the look of the city. But the Circle would also define the way people moved through it, allowing commuters from outer suburbs to enter the city on trains that would loop around, and then head to more suburbs.
At Beecroft station, about 35 kilometres north-west of the CBD and one of the suburban stations for which the network was designed, commuters this week told the Herald what they liked about the system.
”You want to be comfortable; it is about 50 minutes on the way in and I’ll usually study or look through work emails,” said Katie Pearce, a law clerk and student who commutes to either her city job or Sydney University.
”A longer commute than an hour would be quite an annoyance” … Alex Jones commutes to Alexandria. His trip, which involves changing trains at Epping for an express to Central and then a bus to Alexandria, would not change. Photo: Brendan Esposito
”I’ll go earlier if it means I will get a seat, I would rather not stand,” she said. ”I definitely don’t like to change trains.”
But this model, according to plans being developed by the state government, could be a thing of the past.
At a press conference last week to unveil the latest design for a rail line to the transport-deficient Hills district, the Premier, Barry O’Farrell, and his Transport Minister, Gladys Berejiklian, discussed changes to Sydney’s train system that run deeper than one new line.
“I’ll go earlier if it means I will get a seat – I would rather not stand” … Katie Pearce commutes to either the city or Redfern. Would need to change at Epping and Chatswood to get to the city. Photo: Brendan Esposito
”Part of the problem we have today is that we have a clumsy 19th-century-focused double-deck system that keeps trying to have Band-Aid solutions,” Berejiklian said.
And so she foreshadowed new operating patterns for Sydney’s rail network that would mark a philosophical break with the way it has worked since Bradfield’s day.
The changes are designed to accommodate the system’s worsening crush of commuters. But if implemented they will also mean a different sort of commute for tens of thousands of Sydney residents.
The promise will be more frequent trains. The downside will be less seating, fewer direct trains to the city, and more need to get off and change.
”I’ve been to Hong Kong; I haven’t been to some of the other cities that have fantastic public transport, but why shouldn’t we have that in Sydney?,” Berejiklian said. ”Unless we take the steps now it will never ever happen.”
The plan might be progress. But the risks involved have some wondering if Berejiklian and co really know what they are getting into.
It was only the quirks of NSW Labor history that meant O’Farrell and Berejiklian were the first politicians to announce this sort of overhaul of Sydney’s train system.
In late 2007, a former chief executive of state rail, Simon Lane, was brought back into the fold by the then Director-General of Transport, Jim Glasson.
Lane’s job was to review CityRail’s oft-delayed expansion plans.
The government’s then policy was to continue with the traditional CityRail model, but to supplement it with new lines to the south-west and north-west eventually connected by a second harbour rail crossing.
But Labor had an atrocious record of finding and allocating the money to these projects. So Lane, a British-born former rail executive in Singapore, looked for ways to prevent the need for a second harbour crossing.
And, with the backing of the RailCorp boss Rob Mason, he started work on schemes to try to turn Sydney’s railway system into something more like Singapore or Hong Kong.
The basic idea of what became known as the ”Simon Lane plan” was to stop running heavy double-deck trains that could run only every three minutes over the Harbour Bridge.
Instead, Lane argued in reports for Mason, RailCorp should convert to smaller single-deck that could run every two minutes, frequent enough to not require a timetable.
The new model could push more people over the bridge in peak hour, he argued, meaning the second crossing could be put off for decades.
Lane left, but the concepts took hold to the extent that the day Nathan Rees was deposed as premier in December 2009, he was to have released a transport “blueprint” that included converting about a third of the CityRail network to single-deck trains as recommended under the Lane plan.
Rees’s blueprint called them “metro-style” trains. Last week, when O’Farrell and Berejiklian went public with them, they branded them “rapid-transit”.
Under Rees’s blueprint, as with O’Farrell and Berejiklian’s plan, the north-west rail link would be built for single-deck services.
Under Rees’s blueprint, as with O’Farrell and Berejiklian’s plan, the Illawarra Line to Hurstville and the Bankstown Line to Cabramatta would be converted to single-deck trains running at a higher frequency.
The main difference between the two plans is that O’Farrell and Berejiklian are actually going to build the north-west rail link.
And they have also committed, some day in the future, that there will be a second harbour rail crossing on which to run these single-deck trains.
But all these plans involve more than just replacing double-deck trains with single-deck. They also necessitate unpicking the historical model of Sydney’s train system that has allowed commuters to board trains in the suburbs and alight in the city.
Take, for instance, the O’Farrell government’s model for the north-west rail link, to be opened in about 2019.
The line will be built as a private shuttle between Rouse Hill and Chatswood, meaning the existing Epping to Chatswood line will be handed over to a new private operator. The concept means everyone on that line wanting to get to the city will have to change at Chatswood to get into town.
But it will also mean residents of suburbs north of Epping, places such as Cheltenham, Thornleigh and Beecroft, will have to catch three trains instead of one to get to the lower north shore and the city.
They will get one train to Epping, another on the new private line to Chatswood and a third train south from Chatswood. Commuters are unlikely to get seats on these last two.
Of course, forcing a few thousand people to change is not a disaster. Particularly when you are building a new rail line to suburbs that have never enjoyed one before. But Berejiklian’s department is also drawing up proposals for further interchange at other spots on the network.
Documents obtained by the Herald, and previously reported, reveal plans to force thousands of commuters on the Richmond Line to change at Seven Hills to continue to the city, and thousands of commuters at stations south of Epping to change at Central to continue to the city.
The idea is to require fewer lines to merge. Instead, the lines will run in simpler, shuttle patterns, just like they do in Hong Kong.
Dr Dick Day, a former general manager of planning and timetable development at RailCorp who was responsible for planning and development of the timetable for the Olympics, says the north-west plan might work if the second crossing was eventually built.
But in the meantime, there will be plenty of political heat when passengers are forced to stand up and change onto already crowded trains.
”The adverse impact on the very large number of passengers forced to interchange makes the minister’s decision to support the metro alternative without detailed public discussion truly heroic,” Day says.
Day is less impressed with the proposals to force passengers to interchange off the Richmond Line and from south of Epping. On his reckoning, these plans would have dubious benefit but could each affect about 4000 passengers an hour.
Dr Paul Mees, a senior lecturer in planning at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, is particularly scathing of attempts to try to make Sydney’s train system more like Hong Kong.
He has seen it happen in Melbourne. The operator of Hong Kong’s metro, MTR, was appointed in 2009 to run the city’s train system. It attempted to simplify Melbourne’s train patterns and provoked a furore.
”What happens is that people go to Hong Kong and they say: ‘Aren’t the people that run the system brilliant’,” Mees says.
”But they’re not, the way the Hong Kong system was designed was brilliant, which meant that idiots could run it. It is a completely inappropriate model to be using in a city that already has a legacy suburban rail system. What we should be doing is looking at comparable cities that manage to get their trains to run reliably.”
Mees nominates Paris, Zurich and Copenhagen as examples.
In the meantime, Berejiklian and her advisers, many of whom are the same people in senior positions under the previous government, continue to pursue the goal of a 21st-century railway for Sydney.
The chairman of Infrastructure NSW, the former premier Nick Greiner, has embraced the new model for the north-west as a victory for common sense.
”There is not and there will not be a god-given right for people to go to the corner of their street and get on something and get off where they work in the city,” Greiner said last week.
A NASA-sponsored researcher has developed a way for spacecraft to hunt down hidden magnetic portals in the vicinity of Earth. These gateways link the magnetic field of our planet to that of the sun, setting the stage for stormy space weather.
Scientists in working in Western Greenland have found evidence of an asteroid or comet impact early in the Earth’s history. At three billion years old, the crater is a billion years older than the previously oldest known crater.
Large parts of Africa’s savannas may well be forests by 2100. The study suggests that fertilization by atmospheric carbon dioxide is forcing increases in tree cover throughout Africa. A switch from savanna to forest occurs once a critical threshold of carbon dioxide concentration is exceeded, yet each site has its own critical threshold. The implication is that each savanna will switch at different points in time, thereby reducing the risk that a synchronous shock to the earth system will emanate from savannas.
Scientists in working in Western Greenland have found evidence of an asteroid or comet impact early in the Earth’s history. At three billion years old, the crater is a billion years older than the previously oldest known crater.
Large parts of Africa’s savannas may well be forests by 2100. The study suggests that fertilization by atmospheric carbon dioxide is forcing increases in tree cover throughout Africa. A switch from savanna to forest occurs once a critical threshold of carbon dioxide concentration is exceeded, yet each site has its own critical threshold. The implication is that each savanna will switch at different points in time, thereby reducing the risk that a synchronous shock to the earth system will emanate from savannas.
Using studies that span the last three decades, scientists have compiled the first evidence-based comprehensive study of the potential for tsunamis in Northwestern California.
Using studies that span the last three decades, scientists have compiled the first evidence-based comprehensive study of the potential for tsunamis in Northwestern California.
South Australia says upstream states have agreed for modelling to be done of returning more environmental flows to the Murray-Darling river system.
SA Water Minister Paul Caica says the Murray-Darling Basin Authority will be asked to model a return of 3,200 gigalitres annually, which is 450 gigalitres more than proposed in the revised draft Basin plan.
The agreement on modelling has been reached at a meeting of state and federal water ministers in Canberra.
Mr Caica said South Australia had long been calling for the 3,200 gigalitres to be considered.
“This is a small but very positive step forward and it’s something we’ve been asking for for a period of time,” he said.
“We’re very pleased that the Ministerial Council today has requested the Murray-Darling Basin Authority to model that figure.”
NEW ”bold and daring” planning laws will end the practice where complaints from individual residents can block or modify proposed new developments, the state government has revealed.
Within weeks the government will release a revolutionary overhaul of the 33-year-old planning act that the Planning Minister, Brad Hazzard, said will end uncertainty faced by developers who buy land not knowing if their plans will be approved when they submit development applications.
“It will be a case of full steam ahead” … Planning Minister Brad Hazzard.
Mr Hazzard said he was determined to end the current practice where individual development applications turn into ”site-specific planning wars” and introduce a system where communities agree in advance on building types, heights and densities for a whole area. Once such agreements were reached they would not be varied and developers could get on and build.
”The government’s direction will be around giving communities a voice upfront in the strategic planning of their areas but, having done that strategic planning, it will be a case of full steam ahead,” Mr Hazzard said.
With new home construction rates at 50-year lows, Mr Hazzard told a Housing Industry Association breakfast the new laws would give developers the certainty needed to build.
With public trust in the planning system shattered by the previous government, he agreed that it would be a challenge to get enough residents involved in discussions that would determine what developers could build where under the new system.
”We will have to make sure communities switch on at a much earlier stage, make sure they actually listen to the fact there’s a strategic plan going on in their area but, having done that, those who provide the housing, those who provide the offices, business spaces should know that if they provide this particular parcel of land they can get on with it,” he said.
Developers welcomed Mr Hazzard’s plans but agreed it would be difficult to get enough community members involved early.
”The core thing the industry is calling for is certainty,” the NSW executive director of the association, David Bare, said.
”I agree [getting community involvement] is a challenge, but it’s one we have to try to address. I don’t claim to have all the answers on how you do it, but the minister also made the point people need to stand up and take notice.”
Mr Hazzard said two former NSW government ministers, Tim Moore and Ron Dyer, had given their report to him on the planning system but the government only agreed with parts of it and had decided to delay releasing it until it had finalised its position.
”And I can tell you that when we release both the independent review and the government’s response to that it will be bold, it will be daring and in my view make a major difference,” Mr Hazzard said.
