LETTERS
Letters - 300 words maximum and including full name, address and contact number - can be sent to The News, PO Box 588, Hastings 3915 or emailed to: team@mpnews.com.au
Housing crisis caused by long term being moved to short stay The rental crisis in Australia’s regional townships and hamlets primarily results from long-term residential housing stock becoming short-stay accommodation (“Car-sleepers rise amid housing crisis” The News 18/5/22). Regional realty was once about housing the community, but today’s driver is the remote investor snapping up properties for short term rental. The impact is unoccupied homes, hollowed out communities, and regional businesses losing the local workforce who have to move away to live. The issue of course is global, but pragmatic policies are now in place the world over. Simple yet effective restrictions are archetypal. In specific residential neighborhoods, rentals of six months or less are illegal, short-term rentals of an entire property are banned, and hosts must live at the short-term rental property at least six months a year. These tight laws evolved because, like here, the short-stay gold rush has caused the same crisis in communities worldwide. Crucially, the policies have sharp teeth. Fines can be around $20,000 in several countries, such as the United States and penalties for advertising an illegal rental can be $7500. We should have learned from the hard lessons of others. Russell Kenery, Red Hill
Return to Eden Hooray. The election is over and letters from the candidates’ friends and family, back slapping and back stabbing, are finished. Give me back my newspaper which reports on the issues of the kangaroos, the boards in the pier and the sniping councillors. Judi Loughridge, Rosebud
Honour pledges According to the Mornington Peninsula Shire Council’s “pledge tracker”, [the elected Liberal MP for Flinders] Zoe McKenzie has pledged millions to the shire. Zoe touts herself as someone who gets things done. Now that she has won the election, it is time for the shire council to demand that she delivers on her promises. Please keep us informed of the delivery. Lee Seldon, Somers
O’Connor’s gift [Independent candidate] Despi O’Connor’s decision to continue her campaign [in the seat of Finders] despite the likelihood of her being ineligible to nominate, threatened democracy. This is because of Australia’s preferential voting
system. The right thing for her to do was to acknowledge her mistake and step aside. If her aim was to have an independent elected in Flinders, which is what she stated she wanted, she should have shown her support for Dr Sarah Russell, the Voices of Mornington Peninsula endorsed independent candidate. Unlike Ms O’Connor, Dr Russell is confirmed as eligible. If Dr Russell had been elected there would have been no High Court challenge and no by-election. By staying in the race, Ms O’Connor not only caused a great deal of uncertainty, which voters hate, but she also undermined preferential voting. If she had stepped aside, her preferences would have been given to the next candidate. She has given a gift to the Liberals. Gerard Heijden, Rye
Save Western Port On several earlier occasions I have raised the topic of the state Labor government’s long term plan to industrialise Western Port and turn the Mornington Peninsula into a safe Labor seat by housing large numbers of new workers to serve these industries. Partner in this crime is the Mornington Peninsula Shire Council with its insatiable appetite for rate revenue driven by staff who have no connection or interest in the peninsula. Death by a thousand cuts describes the strategy perfectly. The Port Philip side is already a lost cause; an extension of Melbourne suburbia. The Western Port side is, by comparison, largely intact, but it is sinking steadily before the march of “development”.
What we badly need on council are people dedicated to truthfully protect and defend the peninsula that we know and have known with all the attributes that make it one of the most desirable places to live and relax in. We don’t need housewives with time on their hands. We need business people with a track record of leadership, judgement and achievement. The saying is “if you need something done get a busy person”. Barry James Rumpf, McCrae
Deadly consequences On 13 May, the Unites States mourned 1,000,000 citizens dead from COVID during the pandemic of the last two and a half years. How sad, and how bad is that? We in Australia remember about 7000 dead from the same cause and during the same time. We, and our governments, deserve some credit for this proportionately lesser result. We were fortunate in Australia to be living on an island and also the federal government deserves some thanks for closing borders for a long time. However, of these 7000 victims, only 2000 died in the first two years of the pandemic when the state premiers were more in charge, particularly in Western Australia, Queensland and Victoria. When they opened up the interstate borders at the behest of the federal government, 5000 died in four months. We most probably had to open up borders and lift many restrictions to continue living in our world, but it does bear thinking about. What value do we put on human life? Mary Lane, Mornington
COMMENT
Shire’s carbon neutral backflip By Hugh Fraser* MORE than six years ago Mornington Peninsula Shire Council resolved to commit to achieve carbon neutrality in its own operations by 2021. This resolution built on earlier work by successive councils since 2001. Twelve extensive climate change community consultations were held throughout the shire in 2008. These conversations were held up as an exemplar of successful engagement with the community in adaptation actions. Council then launched its commitment to a sustainable peninsula and management restructured with each directorate enjoying “sustainable” in their titles. The actions which management pursued were significant - with substantial expenditure on drainage, fire management and reduced potable water use. The Eco House at The Briars, Mount Martha was constructed. Climate change adaptation opportunities were said to be “embedded” in management process. But were they? Down the sustainability track after
six years, council intervened in 2014 requiring an audit of the shire’s carbon footprint. Management revealed that, on the application of abstract “sustainability principles” embedded in management process, the shire’s carbon footprint in its own operations had not diminished at all! Adaptation of good practice requires a definite start and finish to projects. It was obvious to council that practical projects and a defined target date were required more than the application of abstract principles and management processes. It abolished the precatory and confusing directorate titles of Sustainable Organisations, Sustainable Communities, Sustainable Environment and Sustainable Infrastructure. Council required incoming CEO Carl Cowie – who had a strong background in the corporate sector - to come up with a practical no nonsense alternative but descriptive functional directorate names. Local government titles of “directors” were done away with, and management restructured under the CEO with corporate titles of chief operating officer (COO) and
chief financial officer (CFO) - and he succeeded in attracting top commercial appointments to these positions. He dispatched a shire officer to the Paris 2015 World Environment Conference COP21. On her return, he established a specialist climate change, energy and water team in a commercially-oriented restructured shire management. The carbon neutral action plan was endorsed by council on 10 August 2015. On 8 February 2016, council committed the shire to achieve carbon neutrality in its own operations – that its net greenhouse emissions being equal to zero – within five years (by 2021). This commitment was repeated in the 2016-2020 council plan and most recently by the current council in its 2021-2025 council and wellbeing plan. Shire management then followed through with much good work – energy efficient shire buildings, rooftop solar PV rollout, street lighting bulk LED and other initiatives avoiding emissions through integration of environmentally sustainable design. The
shire’s initiatives made it compliant with the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy. John Baker was appointed shire CEO in late 2018. He had had extensive experience in UK local government as “lead partner” with both Ernst and Young and KPMG. He inherited what he described as a “very impressive team at the shire”. The executive management team old style – and previously abolished by council - local government titles of director were reinstated and restructured four times 0ver the next three years. The entirety of the inherited executive team is now no longer in the employ of the shire. To give fresh momentum to its climate change initiatives, on 13 August 2019 council adopted the declaration of a Climate Emergency. By August 2020, it was among the first councils to have a climate emergency plan. The shire has a national and international reputation in leading on climate change initiatives. Carbon neutrality in the shire’s own operations with practical projects in the shire has proved elusive.
It failed to do so by 2021. Instead, it budgeted in the 2021/22 financial year to finance projects reducing emissions in China, India, New South Wales and Queensland and consequently the shire was certified as a carbon neutral business. The policy of council is to “maintain carbon neutrality accreditation for the Shire’s Operations”. However, in an extraordinary and dysfunctional backflip on 10 May council, by a majority vote, resolved to remove from the 2022/23 budget - on management’s recommendations - the allocation of $200,000 for “carbon neutrality – climate active certification and carbon offsetting” (carbon credits). *Hugh Fraser is a barrister, Mornington Peninsula Shire councillor 2012 – 2021, he represented the Shire at the UN Paris 2015 World Environment Conference COP 21 and the delivered the Australian Capital City Lord Mayors’ “Climate Statement” at the opening Plenary session of the UN Madrid 2019 Climate Change Conference COP25.
Peta Murphy wins second term in Dunkley PETA Murphy has won a second term as the member for Dunkley. As of 22 May, a day after polls closed, the incumbent Labor MP is comfortably ahead. With 66.5% of the vote counted Murphy is about 10,000 votes ahead of Liberal Sharn Coombes on the two-party preferred vote. Labor enjoyed a swing of 4.2%, with the margin between the two major parties now at 7%. Murphy will now represent the electorate while in government, after serving out her first term in opposition. Before Saturday’s election Murphy told The News “there is no doubt that the rising costs of living, climate inaction and a lack of integrity in the current government are uppermost in people’s minds”. “I will continue to lead by example,
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bringing honesty, integrity, and a commitment to fairness to everything I do,” she said. “Labor will make it easier to get ahead with cheaper child care, fee-free TAFE and 20,000 new university places, take meaningful action on climate change and introduce a national anti-corruption commission.” The Greens claimed more than 10% of the first preference votes in Dunkley, with the United Australia Party coming in with more than 5%. Anti-vax independent Darren Bergwerf, who took to Facebook to claim victory before the polls had closed, was yesterday (Monday) sitting on 4%. In the leadup to the election, Murphy made multi-million dollar commitments to projects in Frankston, Carrum Downs, and Mount Eliza. Brodie Cowburn
RETURNED Labor MP for Dunkley Peta Murphy and her supporters celebrate at Frankston Bowling Club on Saturday. Picture: Gary Sissons