The number of cats and dogs abandoned and euthanased in NSW is appalling. 48,000 cats and 68,800 dogs have been impounded annually since 2008/09 and 30,300 cats and 21,600 dogs euthanased in 2010/2011.

What sort of a society are we when we treat our companion animals as commodities and euthanase so many of them as ‘surplus to demand’? Change is needed and it is needed urgently.

The Government established a Companion Animal Taskforce to recommend measures to reduce the high rates of pet abandonment and euthanasia. It is important to send in submissions so that the Government knows the community wants swift and decisive action on this issue.

Click here for the submission from the Greens NSW.

You can make your own submission here. Submissions are due on Sunday 1 July. 

Add your photo to the “Don’t Shoot! I’m a bushwalker” campaign to stop our national parks being opened up to recreational hunters.

Nightcap National Park on the NSW North Coast will be one of the parks impacted. Nightcap is one of the state’s most spectacular national parks – protected for nature and for people to enjoy.  It is not a game reserve for amateur hunters.

Tell Premier Barry O’Farrell: “Don’t Shoot! I love my national parks.”

Download and print this poster here, then upload a photo of you at your favourite national park to my Facebook page (and email me a copy too! cate.faehrmann@parliament.nsw.gov.au)

Once you’ve added your photo to the campaign. Use the form below to register your protest directly with the Premier. A written petition can be downloaded from my colleague David Shoebridge’s campaign page here. And you can read more about the Premier’s deal here.

 

Dear Premier

Please do not allow recreational hunting in National Parks. Please don't open up some of our precious natural areas to amateur hunters for the sake of electricity privatisation. Our parks, native animals and public safety are too important.

The justification based on feral animal control is false. Amateur recreational hunting is not an effective way to control feral animals. Feral animal control requires well designed, sustained, targeted and humane eradication strategies. No mainstream conservation organisation supports recreational hunting for feral animal control.

Instead, please support more resources to the National Parks & Wildlife Service to control feral animals professionally and humanely. National Parks are there for nature, they are not hunting reserves. This is a very dangerous precedent that if approved changes the face of National Parks forever.

Please do not sell out our National Parks and environment.

Yours sincerely

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I gave this speech in the NSW Parliament on 21 June 2012:

We live in a world where iPhone cases can be bought for $US2,680 for raw titanium, or $US3,810 for gold, or $US4,430 for something called black carbon, while more people go hungry every day than the populations of the United States, Canada and the European Union combined. We live in a world where, for every Altruistic Precision iPhone case sold, the company Brikk will donate one metric ton of rice to “those in need through select NGOs.”

iPhone ‘Altruistic Precision’ case

We live in a world where people who buy a phone cover for $US4,430 can feel that they are making the world a better place. According to Oxfam, the number of people in the world without enough to eat could soon top one billion. That is one in seven of us. The World Resources Institute states that some 1.3 billion people are living on less than $US1.25 per day with 900 million facing hunger.

Here in Australia, the Australian Bureau of Statistics [ABS] Australian Social Trends for March 2012 found that in 2009-10 1.6 million children aged 0 to 14 years—38 per cent—lived in low economic resource households, with 3.3 million people aged 15 years and over—19 per cent. And conditions are getting worse, not better, for people from low socioeconomic households. After adjusting for inflation, the net worth of low economic resource households had not increased significantly since 2003-04, while the average net worth across all other households had increased by 29 per cent.

Meanwhile, you can buy a Magic Mushroom USB key by Swiss jeweller Swawish with white gold, emeralds and white diamonds for $36,900—if you can afford it.

Or a dessert in a New York restaurant described as: “A fine blend of 28 cocoas, including 14 of the most expensive and exotic from all around the world with five grams of edible 23-karat gold dished up in a goblet lined with edible gold, the base of which is an 18-karat gold bracelet with one carat of white diamonds, all eaten with a gold spoon decorated with white and chocolate-coloured diamonds, which can also be taken home.” And it will cost you is $25,000.

Or you could buy a toilet encrusted with Swarovski crystals—72,000 pieces of them—for $130,000, while one in seven people in the world go to bed hungry tonight.

When one person can buy a dessert for $25,000 while almost one billion people do not have enough to eat, it is time to admit that things have gone seriously wrong.

According to the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the average total remuneration of a chief executive officer of a top 50 company listed on the Australian Securities Exchange in 2010 was $6.4 million, or almost 100 times that of the average worker. Meanwhile, company profits as a share of national income are now back to the record levels of 2008, while the wages share is the lowest since 1964.

One measure to address inequality is capping chief executive officers’ salaries. The Australian Greens have suggested capping them to 30 times that of the average wage paid to that company’s employees and for a top marginal tax rate of 50 per cent on salaries over $1 million a year.

Other measures that could be implemented right now if governments were courageous enough would be an estate tax, increasing taxes for higher income earners, increasing the unemployment benefit and other welfare payments and increasing taxes on multinational coal and oil companies so that they begin to pay their fair share of the common resources they exploit.

We all know that, with multibillionaires in this country in charge of traditional media or taking on those that do not agree with them, it would be a brave government that takes genuine measures to address just some of the worst excesses of inequality. But they will need to very soon and for that to happen the nation needs to have a conversation about growth, and we need to have it now.

We need to have a conversation about growth if we are to have any hope of making a significant dent in the gap between the rich and poor. As Economics Commissioner at the Sustainable Development Commission and author of the excellent report, “Prosperity without growth? The transition to a sustainable economy”, Professor Tim Jackman, writes:

The global economy is almost five times the size it was half a century ago. If it continues to grow at the same rate the economy will be 80 times that size by the year 2100.

An economy 80 times the size it was in 1960 would be a disaster for the majority of humanity and would mean irreparable damage to our planet. So we must have a conversation about growth.

We are seeing the earth ripped apart, species wiped out and the earth’s delicate climatic system wrecked so that multimillionaires can become billionaires and so that billionaires can top the most rich lists.

This is happening to support our houses with five bathrooms and too many clothes and too big waistlines, while 1.3 billion people are earning less than $1.25 a day.

The Occupy Movement is one response to the displays of obscene wealth we are witnessing across the globe. So too is the rapidly growing movement of resisting consumer culture, buying local and reconnecting with local communities.

It has become extremely urgent for governments to be open to new economic and societal models, ones that recognise the value of community wellbeing and health over increasing shareholder dividends and wealth creation. Governments should be leading the debate in this regard, but they are not.

Perhaps, like climate change, they will scoff, delay, deny and delay some more. In the meantime all of us who are comfortable now need to challenge how we have become so and we need to start thinking of ways we can give away much more than one ton of rice.

The Hon. CATE FAEHRMANN [3.25 p.m.]: The stated main purpose of the City of Sydney Amendment (Central Sydney Traffic and Transport Committee) Bill 2012 is to provide for effective coordination of transport and traffic management in Sydney’s central business district. A new Government-controlled committee will be established and certain roadworks and traffic control works will be referred to it for approval by the relevant roads authority.

Unfortunately, the bill has very little to do with improving transport planning for the Sydney central business district and a lot to do with scoring political points. The bill is the Government’s tactical political response to a concerted campaign from sections of the media against the City of Sydney and its excellent promotion of active travel options in order to tackle congestion, specifically the part-completed cycleway network. This cycleway network, despite still being only a hotchpotch of disconnected links, has already increased cycling by more than 80 per cent during the morning and afternoon peaks.

The bill is a cynical political move from a Government that is yet to get any significant runs on the board when it comes to Sydney’s worsening traffic congestion, which is estimated to cost our economy a massive $8 billion a year by the end of the decade. The great irony of this bill is that, by contrast, the City of Sydney has an excellent record of initiatives and action that address worsening congestion. But an even greater incongruity in this move to discipline the City of Sydney is that all significant works already require approval from the New South Wales Government.

The Hon. Dr Peter Phelps: I hope the Daily Telegraph is listening to this.

The Hon. CATE FAEHRMANN: I am sure it is.

DEPUTY-PRESIDENT (The Hon. Natasha Maclaren-Jones): Order! Members will cease interjecting.

The Hon. CATE FAEHRMANN: This committee is simply an additional layer of unnecessary bureaucracy from a Government that is so obsessed with removing red tape. The Greens’ advice to the Government is to stop pandering to the anti-cycling media campaign. There are quite a few lessons that could be learnt from the City of Sydney and from The Greens’ active transport “Changing how we move” initiative if we want to go that far. That would go a long way to evolving the way Sydneysiders get to work and help to get people out of their cars and around the city in a safer, cleaner and more relaxing way. Currently the New South Wales Government is doing little to reach its own very modest active transport targets. The NSW Bike Plan is available for viewing on the Roads and Maritime Services website and it clearly states that the Government will encourage more and safer cycling to increase the share of short trips by bike in greater Sydney for all travel purposes to 5 per cent by 2016 and double the use of cycling to get to work across all of New South Wales between 2006 and 2016. Building a cycle network is one of the most appropriate ways to encourage cycling as it allows cyclists to be separated from vehicle traffic and pedestrians, increasing safety and reducing the risk of an accident.

Around the world, cities are moving towards greater participation in cycling for travel purposes. It will come as no surprise to hear that Copenhagen and Amsterdam are the world’s top cities for cycling but what members might not know is that Tokyo is rated fourth. Barcelona, which six years ago had no appreciable cycling in the city, is now rated third. It is clearly possible to turn around a city in a short time and make it a great city for cycling. In Copenhagen in 2007, 36 per cent of commuter trips were by bike and 90 per cent of people owned a bike. But in Sydney in 2005 bicycle trips accounted for only 1 per cent of trips per day, although this is increasing, with about 4 per cent of people in New South Wales using a cycle for non-recreational purposes in a week. As I mentioned earlier, at last count the City of Sydney found that there had been an increase of 83 per cent in cyclists in the morning peak, and 82 per cent in the afternoon peak from March 2010 to March 2012, despite an incomplete cycle network.

More bad news for New South Wales is that it has the lowest participation rate of cycling for transport for all States and Territories. Metropolitan Sydney has lower rates than in regional areas, which is unusual in Australia, where cycling tends to be more popular in the largest cities. Cycling for commuting purposes attracts only some 13 per cent of all cycling trips in a typical week, so there is a long way to go for New South Wales and Sydney to catch up with advanced cycling cities such as Copenhagen and Amsterdam. Even New York, which is rated twentieth, outdoes Sydney. So if we are to live up to our reputation as the truly global and liveable city we should be then far more is going to have to be done to improve cycling rates in Sydney. Why is there not more cooperation from the Government on action to build more cycleways?

I have already mentioned that avoidable congestion will cost Sydney $8 billion a year by 2020. This figure gets bandied around by many, including the Government and the NRMA. Serious changes need to be made if we are to reduce the impacts of congestion on productivity. We cannot continue our obsession with motorways and widening roads which simply clog up within years; we need a paradigm shift. A big part of this will need to be encouraging active transport such as cycling and walking. The City of Sydney has been doing great work on active travel. Meanwhile our Minister for Roads and Ports the Hon. Duncan Gay has repeatedly stated that the current cycleways are in the wrong place, without stating where exactly they should be.

One of the few authorities in this State that has been actively promoting congestion-busting cycle networks, the City of Sydney, is now being slapped down by a Government that is more worried about its response to media campaigns that actually doing something about our clogged city. One of the main arguments bandied around against the city’s cycleways is around the reduction in street parking. It is not widely understood, however, that parking on city streets is actually a sure way to increase road congestion. Apart from the success of clearways that operate on main roads during peak hour, roadside parking reduces the flow of traffic in adjacent lanes. This is clearly outlined in the traffic management guidelines of Roads and Maritime Services. On top of that, 10 bikes can park in the space of one car.

In 2009 PricewaterhouseCoopers reported to the former Roads and Traffic Authority that there is a benefit-cost ratio of 1.8 for building the missing links of the Sydney Metropolitan Strategic Cycle Network. This was based on demand forecast data and the quantifiable benefits of active travel, assuming a 20-year evaluation period and a 4 per cent discount rate in view of the social capital value of cycleways. PricewaterhouseCoopers concluded that this work was economically viable at full risk adjusted capital costs. So what is not to like about increasing the cycle network in Sydney? The benefits are many. Cycling leads to improved health, improvements for the environment, lower congestion, independence for children and other socially disadvantaged groups, supports tourism, and provides greater access to jobs and services. Bike sales have outstripped car sales for more than a decade and cycling provides employment opportunities. This study used World Health Organization methodology to estimate health benefits and showed that it provides a very positive benefit-cost ratio of 3.1.

According to the report of PricewaterhouseCoopers report—providing mobility to all who are physically capable of riding a cycle or an electric cycle—cycling is one of the lowest cost transport options available, meaning that individuals from more socioeconomic groups and more locations can be upwardly mobile. It allows access to areas not covered by public transport and at times and routes convenient to the traveller. It opens up the city to those without access to a car. Additionally, bike paths have negligible impact on social environment, unlike major roads, which can cut communities in half. I should stress at this point that encouraging cycling is not automatically punishing motorists as the Daily Telegraph may have us believe. The easier it is to cycle, the more people will get out of their cars, making it easier for those who have no option but to drive.

An issue that arises time and again in transport forums across the State is that more people would cycle if separate cycleways were available so that they could feel safe on the roads. This bill will create an unnecessary and bureaucratic hurdle for active travel improvements, and all for the sake of a political point-scoring exercise. The City of Sydney already works with Transport for NSW, Roads and Maritime Services and so on. All cycleways must be approved by them already. The locations of some of the more contentious cycleways were all approved by the Roads and Traffic Authority prior to their construction.

The Hon. Duncan Gay: That’s not true, Cate, and you know it. That’s a fib.

The Hon. CATE FAEHRMANN: I ask that the Minister for Roads and Ports address that matter in reply. The Minister is yet to explain why these cycleways are in the wrong place, and why the former Roads and Traffic Authority approved them and where else they should have gone. Why this additional committee? The committee to be established by the bill was announced by the Premier on 4 April 2012. On 3 April 2012, the day before the announcement, the front page of the Daily Telegraph was headed “Clover’s CBD Carjack’. Then it had a double-page spread about cycleways being in the wrong place after a concerted attack for many, many months by the Daily Telegraph. It ran an “On yer bike Clover” campaign, with urban affairs reporters informed to provide daily attacks and news stories on Clover. It is incredible. We know that there have been News Ltd journalists camped outside or waiting outside her home to get stories. The campaign against Clover in the lead-up to this was absolutely disgraceful. On 3 April 2012—

The Hon. Dr Peter Phelps: She’s only in politics. She is untouchable?

The Hon. CATE FAEHRMANN: I am not saying she is untouchable but this is a concerted campaign by News Ltd that followed up the next day—

DEPUTY-PRESIDENT (The Hon. Natasha Maclaren-Jones): Order! The Hon. Dr Peter Phelps will come to order.

The Hon. Lynda Voltz: Point of order: It is impossible for the Hon. Cate Faehrmann to speak when the Government Whip continually interjects during speeches.

DEPUTY-PRESIDENT (The Hon. Natasha Maclaren-Jones): Order! I remind members that interjections are disorderly at all times.

The Hon. CATE FAEHRMANN: That was on the front page of the Daily Telegraph on 3 April 2012 headed “Clover’s CBD Carjack”. It is incredible that the Government responded in less than 24 hours. If this was not a response to a concerted media campaign on this I do not know what it is. It was very unusual really. The next day the Daily Telegraph front page heading was “Barry says ‘No Moore’”. Within 24 hours the Government has a solution.

Reverend the Hon. Fred Nile: Point of order: The Hon. Cate Faehrmann has made certain allegations against the Daily Telegraph, which is responding to community concerns.

The Hon. Lynda Voltz: To the point of order: Members should not take a point of order to make a debating point.

DEPUTY-PRESIDENT (The Hon. Natasha Maclaren-Jones): Order! I do not uphold the point of order.

The Hon. CATE FAEHRMANN: The article on the front page of the Daily Telegraph related to this matter quoted the Premier eight times. I am sure all members understand the media and how journalists work. It is absolutely extraordinary for anyone in politics—the Premier or members of Parliament—to be quoted eight or ten times in an article and to be on the front page.

The Hon. Duncan Gay: They obviously supported what he said.

The Hon. CATE FAEHRMANN: I say the Daily Telegraph supported what the Premier said. I think it was a joint effort by the Daily Telegraph and the Government on this issue.

The Hon. Penny Sharpe: Point of order: The Minister for Roads and Ports and the Hon. Dr Peter Phelps continue to interject during this debate. I ask you to call them to order.

DEPUTY-PRESIDENT (The Hon. Natasha Maclaren-Jones): Order! Government members will refrain from interjecting.

The Hon. CATE FAEHRMANN: The City of Sydney was only quoted once in that article. It said that the Government already signs off on all of its transport proposals. What have we got after a concerted attack from the Daily Telegraph over many months against the city’s bike lanes and Clover Moore “Clover’s CBD Carjack”? The next day the Premier is quoted, “Barry says ‘No Moore’”. That was an extraordinary joint effort by the Government and the Daily Telegraph.

It is obvious to me, as it should be to all members, that this committee, regardless of its practical function, will be little more than an exercise in political point scoring against a council that is extremely popular with its constituents, communities, commuters and city businesses. The Greens hope that, whatever this traffic and transport committee does, the City of Sydney will continue to be leader in active transport solutions and that many more people will cycle to work and get the most out of the network of cycleways which is being built and which is of enormous benefit. In 10 or 20 years we will wonder what the fuss was all about. In fact, there would not have been a fuss if it were not for the Daily Telegraph‘s campaign about this issue.

Independent Scientific Audit on Marine Parks Recommendations

Responses needed by 30^th June.

I know we are suffering marine park submission fatigue but the NSW Government needs to keep hearing the message that marine parks are important, are supported by local communities, that they work and that we need more of them. Our motivation must match that of marine park opponents.

Responses can be submitted here  or emailed to yoursayonmarineparks@dpc.nsw.gov.au  and must be received by 30 June 2012.

Some matters you may want to raise in your submission:

• That you strongly agree with the Panel recommendation that the current system of marine parks as established in NSW be maintained and mechanisms be found for enhancing the protection of biodiversity in the identified gaps.
• That you agree marine parks are needed in the Hawkesbury and Twofold Shelf marine bioregions.
• The establishment of marine parks receives solid support from an overwhelming majority of the Australian scientific community.
• Australia has long standing international obligations to establish a system of protected areas.
• NSW committed to the implementation of a National Representative System for Marine Protected Areas (NRSMPA) in 1998.
• There is substantial evidence worldwide and from Australia that marine parks and reserves are effective at conserving biodiversity, particularly where extractive uses are excluded.
• That the Government should immediately remove the current moratorium on new marine parks to achieve this – noting the Panel statement that the…recommendations made in this report do not in any way preclude the possibility of new marine protected areas being proposed in NSW.
• That you want to see the government enact immediate 1500m sanctuary zones at the grey nurse shark’s small critical habitat sites along the NSW coast.
• That you agree with the Audit’s comment that “NSW has an opportunity to establish a management framework for its Marine Estate that will future-proof it against public policy failure and natural catastrophe, while at the same time providing for a balanced and equitable system of the management of all the demands we place on the resources of the NSW Marine Estate”.
• That you believe the Panel’s recommendation for governance of the NSW Marine Estate to be reorganised by bringing the entire estate under one legislative and administrative structure requires further consideration because there is also strong merit in separation between the agency that has the mandate to regulate for conservation and the agency that regulates resource use.
• That you agree there would be benefits to establishing an independent Scientific Committee to provide guidance on managing the NSW Marine Estate.  Given the scope of research required to fill our knowledge gaps concerning marine species and ecological systems and the fundamental importance of research to underpin sound decisions on marine resource use, the establishment of an independent Scientific Committee is a sensible strategy.
• That you agree with the Panel’s recommendation for research into the threat fishing poses to the conservation of biodiversity in NSW and the environmental protected values of the Marine Estate.
• That you agree with the need to extend the Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting (MER) system to include a greater focus on marine, estuarine and inshore environments (R5).
• There are significant knowledge gaps that should be filled including:  better information on the ecosystem effects of fishing and the integration of this information into the annual stock assessment of commercial and recreational fishing; and recreational fishing (including distribution of effort, catch, discards of by-catch and ecosystem impacts) must be evaluated and the results of that incorporated into marine park management.
• That you agree with the Panel recommendation that local Indigenous knowledge and expertise be explicitly incorporated into the establishment and ongoing management of NSW marine parks and the NSW Marine Estate and the establishment of an Aboriginal Liaison Officer and Aboriginal Cadet Program in each marine park.
• That you agree with the Panel recommendation for the NSW Government to mandate better integration of land-use planning regulations with the NSW Marine Estate and marine park management.
• That you look forward to the Government immediately revoking the moratorium on new marine parks and sanctuaries as an immediate first step towards ecologically responsible management of the state’s marine estate.