Sustainability is mercurial, an ever retreating horizon. Just when you think you’ve arrived, you find it’s moved on, and yet again you have to rethink your strategy, your choices, your designs and specifications.
We don’t like getting into politics at the personal level at Envirotecture, although we sure jump in boots and all at the policy level. Therefore we are reluctant to say too much about Barry O’Farrell’s sudden resignation, or the personal histories and events that led to it.
But we are happy to leap onto the soap box and say this: a new Premier, with no apparent muddy history and a compassionate heart, must surely present a big new opportunity to get some things right with urban planning, land use and sustainability which have till now been very very wrong.
Here are our suggestions for things that are desperately in need of a more logical science based approach:
1. Building design: bring in the long-awaited upgrade of BASIX without delay. It has been ready for over two years, it has net cost benefit to each home owner and the broader community, so there is no good reason to delay. Big Money in the construction industry has caused the delay – that in itself is corruption of due process. Wipe that mud away and bring i in, now.
2. Urban planning: with the Badgerys Creek Airport now on the agenda, we have passed up another opportunity to advance way further ahead via very fast rail. This must be addressed one day – the sooner the better, so why not now, Mr Baird?
Assuming the airport is going ahead, it MUST be connected by heavy rail, and fully integrated into the whole Sydney network. No use waiting for years after the airport is built to bring rail to it, it must happen from the outset. And the link must loop northwards to connect with the north-west rail link. And that link MUST be built to accommodate the same rolling stock as the rest of the Sydney network. (At present it is proposed to cater only for single deck carriages, so every passenger must change at each end of any trip beyond Chatswood or Windsor – complete shortsighted stupidity!)
3. Water: Time to honour previous promises re protecting water resources (above and below ground) from the impacts of fossil fuel extraction – specifically open cut and longwall coal mining, and CSG fracking. Need we explain why? It’s about rivers, aquifers, and food security – stuff of such import that to allow any threat to them borders on the criminal.
4. Climate change: coal and unnatural gas (whether CSG or “natural”) are fossil fuels which we have to wean our economy off. Increasing the number of coal mining and CSG approvals (such as Wallarah 2 and Maules Creek) makes no sense, and any government which encourages this leaves itself – and the taxpayers – open to massive future damages claims, when the full impacts of climate change are felt. No government in Australia is yet taking this threat seriously, but here is an opportunity for Mike Baird to step up to what he knows in his heart to be true.
That’s a start. You can add more to your own list. It’s important that we let our elected representatives know what we expect – they are our servants, not our masters. Eddie Obeid and others may dispute that fundamental truth of democracy, and I’m happy to take him or anybody else on in an argument about democratic process and transparent governance.
Dick Clarke, Director.
The well-known and much loved champion of sustainable design in Australia has retired from the day-to-day at the company he founded in 1996, but he continues to offer wise counsel and unbridled optimism to the Envirotecture team. Dick continues to advocate for a better future in many voluntary capacities.
