Fairer Australia Campaign Public Meeting

Tracey Scheitel

Chairperson, Wyong Landcare Network (Wycare)

I'd like to acknowledge the original ancestors and custodians of this land the Darkinjung clan.

Good evening and thank you for coming along tonight to listen to some of the issues that face the Central Coast and especially the Wyong Shire in this election time. I'd like to thank the organizers of tonight's forum for inviting me to come tonight and speak to you about my concerns for the environment on the Central Coast. When I was asked by Ray to speak at tonight's forum I asked myself firstly if I could stand up here and present to you my understanding of the issues that face the Central Coast and then I thought well what do I actually know about the issues and so I began to think about them and realized that I actually know quite a lot because I have been a volunteer land career for over eight years.

I emulate the words of Sylvia Turner who is a long time advocate of helping the environment on the Central coast where she says and I quote 'I have the strong belief that we are put on this earth for some reason. I believe everyone has the responsibility to give something back to our planet, our environment not destroy it with greed, apathy and an uncaring attitude. We weren't made the highest order animals for nothing. We have to care for what is less able to look after itself. I think this is called 'stewardship' Unquote.

In order to prepare for this speech I had to do a lot of research to confirm what I know is true 'Our environment is in crisis'. I read a number of council documents from years ago, a book called the Tuggerah Lakes way back when, Central Coast Catchment Blue print documents, Council Management papers and local newspaper articles. One book which has stood out in my reading is the Pictorial History of Wyong Shire by Edward Stinson. I was particularly impressed by his observation of the local Aboriginal people of the area at the time and I quote were he talks about the people who he met in order to write his books, quote 'these were cronies of my father who were here when practically the whole of these areas were still great forested wilderness in their virgin state that had been effectively protected through thousands of years of occupation by those most exemplary of conservationists, the indigenous Aborigines, who never polluted and never destroyed their natural environment. Although considered to be among the most primitive of all human beings they had wisdom enough and knowledge enough to utilize their resources to their advantages without damaging them and without depleting them'.

So why do we have so much trouble doing this?

The overall essence of what every one of these documents was saying was that the ever increasing population on the Central Coast is the major contributing factor to the environmental problems that we have here today.

The facts are:

Fresh water is running out, there is severe water restrictions on the East coast of Australia, and especially here on the Central Coast.
The fresh air that we breathe is contaminated with man made pollutants like car exhausts and factory fumes.
Our river systems are degraded by mismanagement.
Our fish stocks have been diminished requiring farm fishing to replenish supply.
Our land has been grossly degraded by salination.
Our whole weather pattern is changing because of the green house effect.

Why has this situation arisen?

Because we have removed a huge percentage of trees from our planet. It is a well documented fact that Wyong shire began because of the timber industry unfortunately the rapid decline of the forests of this area has contributed to the many problems that we face today.

You might say, but hay, what else were we supposed to do, we had to survive and grow and feed our families. And I would be the first to agree but, now we are facing the problems which have slowly been developing in response to our need for survival.

Why are we short of water, it's not because of the lack of rain because Australia is a dry country anyway. It's because we waste water, we don't think before we use it, we don't think about were it comes from before we wash the car, and water our gardens etc.How low do our dams have to go before the federal government legislates to bring in compulsory water saving devises in all our homes, schools, factors and businesses ones which have already been implemented at a state level with the introduction of Basix in our new and altered homes?

Why is the air we breath becoming so toxic? It seems an obvious answer, too many cars on the road, not enough measures being put into place to control factory fumes etc. You only have to drive down the F3 every day to Sydney to see the pollution that is created by over use of the motor car. But what incentives are there in place to help this situation. I for one would love to work on the Central Coast but I was sent to Sydney by the Education Dept. It seems to me that different government departments aren't talking to each other to try and solve a problem that is affecting all of us. Implementing the Kyoto protocol would go a long way to remedying this major problem affecting our cities.

The degrading of our river systems.
This is an interesting conundrum. The other night I was watching a Current Affair where Ray Martin took us to the Hawkesbury River to have a look at the problem of the over growth of the salvinia weed in the river. This is a major problem for local fisherman and tourism. He went on to tell us that the problem is due to the over feeding of the weed by pollutants, nutrients coming from the Penrith district, I believe he said sewage and then at the end he asked 'why would you put sewage in a river?'

And especially from Penrith into our River why is this being allowed to happen and why does it take the likes of Ray Martin to tell us on National Nine News before anything is done about it. The story was again repeated on Sunday night were they stated that the local authorities are now going to spray the weed, but is this right answer?

The Murray Darling river system is another system that is rapidly declining in quality as is the Snowy mountains river system. To name but a few.

The land is quickly being destroyed by salination. You only have to look at area such as Wagga Wagga, Dubbo, and Penrith to see the effects of salination on the land. Why salination occurs is because of logging and deforestation. The loss of old growth forests are a national disgrace. When will Gov't realize that we must keep these forests alive and well in order for us to stay alive and well? Although I know that the National Heritage Trust is helping to combat salination in many areas of Australia, it is necessary to address the reasons why salination occurs to really be of benefit.

The green house effect is something that all government should be thinking about and trying to do what ever it is possible to slow this process down before it has major detrimental effects on our population.
As well as over population on the Central Coast there are other more recent concerns the community has such as, the Exploration of natural gas of our foreshore, coal based methane mining on our land, mining of sandstone at Somersby for continued construction in Sydney, and the mining of coal under Tuggerah Lakes. This kind of land usage is unsustainable without proper government control and community consultation to protect this very sensitive environment.

So how can we as a community help any or all of these problems facing our environment today? What is happening to the Central Coast is happening all over Australia and the world. The problem lies foremost in the continued increase in demand for land for housing the growing population and it seems that the State and federal gov't are determined to keep this phenomenon happening here and I for one think it is wrong. The demand must be slowed, an alternative area needs to be found to cope with this population boom and better urban planning must be implemented in order to save what we still have to offer new residents. People move here for the lifestyle however this so called lifestyle is quickly being eroded away. We are already confronted with serious environmental problems that we have not solved yet because of increase in population and we are now facing the possibility of over 45.000 more people coming into just the Warnervale area in the next five years not to mention the rest of the Central Coast. So far to date the urban planning footprint that we currently leave is disgraceful.

So who is to blame as a community we see that greed is the accepted standard and the environment is something that can seriously get in the way of making a fast dollar. Many members of Landcare, Bush care, River care, Dune care groups are frustrated by local council who do not seem to respond to local community wishes but to the agendas set by Canberra, Macquarie St or to the whims of council bureaucrats.

A new role which I have recently taken on board is the chairperson of Wycare which stands for the Wyong Landcare network it is run by volunteers and was conceived, with the help of Council, as a response to the growing numbers of Landcare groups in the Wyong shire who did not have a direction or guidance to carry on the vital work that they are doing in this area.

Bush regeneration is not new, but it is thankfully a rapidly growing pastime. The aim is to restore as much as possible of the original ecosystem that existed before white settlement. The key to this is a good plan, patient and a unilateral commitment from all three levels of gov't to generate support for volunteers who are dedicated to helping to preserve what we have left of this environment. In most parts of Australia and especially the Central Coast little remains of the original vegetation. It's common to have only small pockets of bush land and natural corridors left.

Our goal as land careers in Wyong Shire is to stabilize the environment, providing for the regrowth and the natural cycle of native species to regenerate. But we cannot do this without the continued support from all levels of government to continue to supply us with a land care officer who can oversee the work our volunteers are doing. There needs to be a rethink on some management plan initiatives such as the conservation strategy which, I might add was rescinded by council. This would go a long way to protecting and managing all areas of the Central coast including farm land. There needs to be a restructure of the local council to acknowledge and value the efforts that volunteers do which compliment the already continuous maintenance of the area which council is responsible for.

But it is not all doom and gloom. I must applaud the efforts of members of the local community over the years that have had a goal and a will to help to restore the Central coast. I applaud some council initiatives to try new planning programs to develop new areas that are environmentally sensitive like the new plan for the Warnervale town centre and I applaud the state and Federal Government and council for having the faith in dedicated volunteers who initiated the Wycare concept and are committed to making it work.

It is these initiatives which the Federal Government must continue to fund and encourage in order to try and fix the massive problems that we face on the Central coast.

I ask all the candidates tonight what you are proposing to do to continue to provide assistance to our volunteers to encourage new members and develop new alliances with policy to help not hinder the environment?

I will leave you now with one final thought.

Most of you people here tonight are grandparents or ultimately will become grandparents. The question you've got to ask yourself is, 'What am I going to leave my grandchildren, a desert, a grossly degraded environment or are you going to do something about it now before it's too late?' It is everybody's responsibility not just a dedicated few.

Thank you.