Sunday, September 6, 2009
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Wollumbin (the cloud catcher) is the mountain at the centre of the volcanic caldera which formed the beautiful Tweed valley in Northern New South Wales. This is my tranquil home land. I chose to live here for the close proximity to national parks and rain forests. Close to Byron Bay and the Gold Coast and yet remote enough to be a wilderness region abundant with diverse wildlife, unique flora and fauna.Unfortunately some people want to turn this Paradise into a raceway. Please read on.
No Repco Rally
This is a public letter by general practitioner Dr Fiona McCormick.
As you may have heard, the Australian leg of the World Rally Championships is to be held in the Tweed and Kyogle shires every other September. September is of course the height of the breeding season for the animals living adjacent to the route (which actually traverses a National Park).No less than 12 previous acts of the NSW Parliament have been overridden by the passing last week of a bill to enable this event to take place. These include the Crown Lands Act 1989, the Motor Sports (Public Safety) Act 1985, the Protection of the Environments Operation Act 1997, the Local Government Act 1993, the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979, the Forestry Act 1916, the Water Management Act 2000, the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974, the Fisheries Act 1994 and various Road Transport (Safety and Traffic Management) Acts.At this stage the "rally area" and "rally period" mentioned in the Motor Sports Bill enacted last week have not been defined, meaning that the disruption to local residents and wildlife may be rather open ended. The Environmental Defenders Office solicitor informed me at a meeting on Saturday that the section referring to "adjacent roads and lands" can actually include private property, meaning that potentially our farm or parts of it could be subject to this act during the (so far undefined) rally period. As the Bill makes it clear that it is up to Minister for State Development Ian Macdonald to define the exact conditions which he is going to impose on the rally, I encourage you to write to him and ask for specific conditions such as noise abatement and speed limits to be applied.If you need any inspiration to get started, I suggest you read the "Motor Sports (World Rally Championship) Bill 2009" which is available through the NSW government website:http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/nswbills.nsf/1d4800a7a88cc2abca256e9800121f01/328dd61732cd3e50ca2575d7002bf404/$FILE/b2009-060-d25-House.pdf
While some of you may enjoy motor sports, I am asking you to sign this online petition because of the cynical subversion of due process which has seen the NSW government step in and enact special legislation to ensure this event takes place, completely bypassing the usual development application processes and thereby making a mockery of local government planning controls.As a medical practitioner I have to add that the risk of road traffic accidents on our narrow gravel roads due to copycat driving is just too high to countenance this event proceeding (there is well documented evidence of an increase in traffic accidents and fatalities on other public roads which have been used for motor sports), and as a Climate Project presenter I feel that for a government to subsidise the profligate burning of fossil fuels in this day and age is a complete anachronism. With one hand our State government funds road safety campaigns and rebates for energy saving appliances while with the other it has an $8 million shortfall in funding to our local Area Health Service at the same time as funding this rally to a tune of around $10 million over 10 years... If nothing else this represents extremely poor budgeting and prioritisation....
It would be much appreciated if you could forward the link to the petition to as many people as possible: it can be signed by anyone intending to visit this region as well as those living in the Tweed and Kyogle shires.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
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