I never thought I would be unhappy to see the back of Nathan Rees as Premier of NSW.

The elevation of Kristina Keneally to the post of Premier sends shivers down my spine because she has a track record of cutting services and infrastructure in the local community.

In order to appease property developers (who line the ALP’s campaign warchest) Ms Keneally took away the obligation of developers to contribute to several infrastructure projects in the Holroyd community – projects designed to cater to our future growth.

Thanks to Ms Keneally our community is more than $658,000 worse off. Holroyd City Council can no longer get the contributions to fund $500k in public art to improve the appearance of the Merrylands Town Centre, no money to increase the supply of library books at the population grows and no money for a new communtiy bus.

It just goes to prove what Nathan Rees was saying all along – that any person who rolled him would be a “puppet” for Joe Tripodi and Eddie Obeid – backroom operators who have become infamous for their perceived connections to property developers.

But unfortunately Ms Keneally’s track record as planning minister doesn’t just stop at ripping money out of local communities. Her poor oversight of Part3A legislation meant that she failed to safely reconnect the Lower Prospect Canal Reserve cycleway across Reconciliation Road in Pemulwuy and the new exempt and complying development lawa mean that people who engage in dodgy and unsafe building practices will now be able to tear down and dump asbestos fibres without any regard for safety procedures designed to protect both workers and the local community.

By electing a new Premier, the state Labor Government has traded ‘incompetent and scandal-prone’ with ‘wreckless, dangerous and scandal prone’.

As the new Labor premier, Kristina Keneally brings a friendly face to some of the most regressive policies this community has ever seen.

I never thought I would be unhappy to see the back of Nathan Rees as
Premier of NSW.

The elevation of Planning Minister Kristina Keneally to the post of
Premier sends shivers down my spine based on her track record of cutting
services and infrastructure from the Holroyd community.

In order to appease the property developers who line the ALP’s campaign
warchest Ms Keneally has taken away the obligation of developers to
contribute to a number of projects in the Holroyd community – projects
designed to cater to our future growth.

Because of these cuts our local community is more than $658,000 worse
off. Holroyd City Council no longer has the revenue source to provide
$500k in public art for the Merrylands Town Centre, no money to increase
the supply of library books at the population grows and no money for a
new communtiy bus.

It just goes to prove what Nathan Rees was saying all along – that the
person who replaces him would be a “puppet” for Joe Tripodi and Eddie
Obeid – backroom operators who have become infamous for their perceived
connections to property developers.

But unfortunately Ms Keneally’s track record doesn’t just stop at
ripping money out of local communities. Under her reign as planning
minister she’s failed to safely reconnect the Lower Prospect Canal
Reserve cycleway across Reconciliation Road in Pemulwuy and she’s
allowed the unsafe removal and demolition of asbestos as part of her new
exempt and complying development laws.

By electing a new Premier, the state Labor Government has traded
‘incompetent and scandal-prone’ with ‘wreckless, dangerous and scandal
prone’. Kristina Keneally brings a friendly face to some of the most
regressive policies this community has ever seen.

At the last election I gave you, the voter, my personal commitment that I would fight the excesses of bureaucracy and red tape at Holroyd City Council -- this was at a time when Holroyd had been branded the second slowest council in NSW by the Department of Planning.

Since then Holroyd has implemented a development fast-track team to get the simple applications (business signage, carports, driveways etc.) out of the road so that the Council can then get on with the job of chewing away at the backlog of developments applications which have sat on the backburner. And as much as I’d like to take the credit for it, the real kudos goes out to a Council officer by the name of Greg Raft who in his role as Council’s Director of Environmental and Planning services has worked to turn around the culture in his department. Under Greg Raft doing business with Council has become both friendlier and more efficient.

Now is the time to build on that foundation and recommit ourselves to simplifying the maze of red tape that still exists. In today’s economic environment we need to do everything we can do to make Holroyd attractive for people to do business here. The competition for investment dollars has never been so fierce.

That’s why at the last Council meeting I brought motion CCL295-09 to the floor of the Council chamber for debate. This motion will put red tape simplification and reform back on the agenda by examining how Council can use extising initiatives such as SmartForms (and their competitors) to help simplify the red tap process involved in doing business with Council.

One of the time-saving benefits of SmartForms is that it will automatically adjust itself to cater to an applicant who selects the box that says they’re and individual so that they don’t need to skim through all the fields which only apply to business applicants or government departments. SmartForms tailor themselves to fit the individual user instead of imposing a generic one-size-fits-nobody approach.

It also means that small-businesses will be able to do business with Council on their terms, rather than leaving their day-to-day operations to visit the Council on Council’s terms -- during their hours of operation, their queues and their time-delays.

I hope that by putting red tape back on the agenda that we can generate the ideas needed to make our local area an attractive place to invest and get Holroyd moving again.

Our community may be the home to a modern day aquatic and leisure centre under a major review of services provided by Holroyd City Council, Liberal Councillor Ross Grove said today.

Under the plan, council’s existing swimming pools at Merrylands, Wentworthville and Guildford will be closed down to make way for a central facility which could incorporate such features as an indoor Olympic-standard pool, water based entertainment, hydrotherapy, waterslides, spa baths and saunas.

“Our present system of maintaining three unattractive, 1950s-era pools simply isn’t providing value anymore for the ratepayers of Holroyd.” Clr Grove said today.

“We need to better target the resources of Council to make sure that the local community gets more bang for their buck.

“If we focus at providing better services at one central location more people will want to come and everyone will get more for their money.

“Today’s pool-user expects more than just a hole in the ground with a couple of jumping blocks and lane markings from one end to the other. They go to the pools to have fun and in order to do so they’re leaving Holroyd to head down the M4 to the aquatic centre at Homebush.

“In order to stay competitive we need to combine our resources and give the community want today – not what they wanted when the pools were built half a century ago.

“If we don’t take decisive action on this issue we’ll be stuck with three pools with declining patronage figures and an eight million dollar bill to bring these pools up to meet today’s minimum safety standards – that’s money I’d rather put towards a supercentre which can provide more services and cater to today’s community.

“Let’s take the steps to renew our infrastructure today so we don’t have to pay for the consequences of inaction tomorrow.”

The review is subject to a feasibility study and consultation with pool-user groups and the broader Holroyd community.

At Tuesday night’s Council meeting, Council resolved to invest $80,000 to upgrade the lighting on the western soccer field at Bathurst Street Park in Greystanes.

This investment will now bring the field up to the 100 lux standard required by Soccer Australia to play competitive night games.

Funding for the project came from Round 2 of the federal government’s Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program and compliments the Round 1 grant to upgrade the playground equipment at the same park.

Bathurst Street Park is used by a number of local schools, tennis groups, the Greystanes Groovers Playgroup, the Greystanes Soccer Club and the Greystanes Cricket Club.

These improvements will hopefully help facilitate healthier and more active lifestyles for our youth.

This is just a short note to let you all know that at last night’s Council meeting, we passed a raft of changes to Council’s tree management order by 10 votes to 1.

These changes will give local families more of those rights and freedoms they need to manage and maintain greenery on their own property.

Until this point, Holroyd’s TMO was one of the most rigid and extreme in NSW – the TMO was even more burdensome and onerous than so-called “green” councils like Ku-Ring-Gai, Blue Mountains and Leichhardt.

Under the changes, local residents will now be able take the following steps without having to seek Council approval:

• Adjust or remove trees within 2 metres of a family home or garage to help provide peace of mind for families who are concerned about dangerous trees
• Improve the spread of sunlight and lines of visibility by removing non-essential tree-branches up to a height of 2.4 metres
• Deal with an extra 14 undesirable species which have been added to the “exempt” list (such species include the controversial Camphor Laurel menace, the poplar species, and the firethorn)
• Remove or prune any liquidambar within 5 metres of the family home – the liquidambar’s root structure is notorious for breaking underground pipes and undermining nearby house foundations

We got these measures through by working with our colleagues on Council rather than against them. After so much bitter and partisan behaviour of recent months I welcome this change and hope it continues.

But let’s not forget how hard we fought as Liberals to get this issue on the agenda. We went through three council reports, three rescission motions, more than six hours of debate, six notices of motion and  a private councillor’s breifing on the matter to make this happen.

Changes aren’t easy to bring about, but it’s well worth the effort when you know that something you did will give local families more freedom and peace of mind for many years to come.

As part of Council’s resolution, these changes will not come into effect until the entire Tree Management Order is rewritten in easy-to-understand terminology so that everyone knows what their rights are. The rewritten TMO will then be considered as part of the incoming Development Control Plan which Council is set to discuss in December.

–ENDS–

Media contact: Ross Grove on 0412897130