We Need to Change Tack

Sailing provides a great metaphor for the challenge of our age.

When you change tack there is no implication that the tack you were on was not the right choice at the time – it is just that that cliff is getting perilously close!

The industrial revolution, the rise of capitalism and a century of technological innovation have indeed delivered ‘the good life’ for many across the globe. We have gone forth and multiplied and we now have full dominion over the earth. As a society, we now need to change tack.

It is not that we should be abandoning the pursuit of well-being. We simply need to change our approach.

Specifically we now need to acknowledge ecological constraints. This means being a lot smarter in how we achieve our goals.

We don’t need to abandon capitalism. But we do need to address market failure.

Profitability has, up until now, simply been a matter of selling goods/services for more than it costs to supply them. The purchaser gets the item, the supplier makes a profit and they both go away happy. But the rest of us, and indeed the entire biosphere, are all impacted to a greater or lesser extent.

This is the well known Tragedy of the Commons phenomenon. Because they don’t have a dollar price tag, natural and social capital get pressed into service to generate profits. Putting it another way, profits which are regarded by the entrepreneur as the justifiable reward for innovation and enterprise, often incorporate a massive environmental and social subsidy – the cost that we all have to pay to repair the collateral damage caused by the product’s use.

The trouble is, we are now reaching the point where the cumulative damage has pushed the various feedback systems that keep our planet habitable close to, or beyond, their safe operating range.

So how should we respond? Up until now being a good citizen has involved abiding by then law of the land and acting in a morally responsible way in our encounters with others. In this new era we citizens all have an additional imperative.

We need to live Socrates ‘examined life’

In particular we need to inform ourselves of the full social and environmental impact of how we choose to live our lives and reflect on how that impact could be reduced

The information we need may be not much further than a Google search away. Making sense of what we find and grappling with the inevitable trade-offs is not so easy In fact the level of inter-connectedness of our social, political, economic and environmental systems makes it very hard to decide what is the right thing as complex interactions between systems can lead to counterintuitive outcomes. What might appear to be ‘bad’ now may well result in a ‘good’ long term outcome and vice versa. We have to get comfortable with this uncertainty and be prepared to continually review our position as new evidence becomes available. I suppose this is what Socrates meant by his famous ‘examined life’ concept

Imagine how different politics would be if we all lived examined lives. For a start there would be a consensus across all parties that reflected the zeitgeist of the nation – an agreement that our primary goal over the next century was to enhance what I would term our ecological productivity. In other words, to maintain our current level of well-being, while reducing and ultimately reversing, the rate of depletion of social and environmental capital.

The failing of today’s politics lies not with the politicians but with all those vested interests who are doing very well thankyou happily, making profits at the planet’s expense. They have seduced us into mindset of perpetual consumption and they have got us believing it can go on forever. What politician would dare to challenge such an entrenched mindset?.

So that leaves you and me to take on the mindset changing task. To be effective we need to not just live an examined life, but explain to others what we are doing and why we are doing it.

There is a great new website to help kick the process along called OnePersonCan.org. Here individuals can record what changes they have made to their lives as a result of their thinking and reading and conversations with others. Take the survey yourself now and spread the word to others!

I am hopeful that the day will come when a critical mass of Australians will have committed to becoming change agents and will be on OnePersonCan.

How different politics will be then. In response to demand from the electorate, the primary focus of parliament will be national ecological productivity enhancement. Sorting out which policy initiatives, which infrastructure builds, which regulatory frameworks, which education and skills development programs, what forms of global diplomacy and international aid can most quickly diminish planetary risks while maintaining our well-being.

How different business will look then. Companies that in order to make money need to harm human health, pollute the biosphere, waste resources, create social discord or negatively impact innocent bystanders or future generations will go to the wall – shunned by ethically sensitive consumers

If you would like to read further on any of these topics I would recommend the following books. They are all in Mosman or Stanton libraries

The God Species (2011) Mark Lynas (the planet’s ecological limits)
One Very Big Picture (2010) Syd Hickman (the use-by date of mindsets)
The Economics of Enough (2011) Diane Coyle (ecological productivity)
Leverage Points (1999) Donella Meadows (why mindset change is a pre-requisite)
The Biggest Wake-up Call in History (2010) Richard Slaughter (the process of global mindset change)
The Great Disruption (2011) Paul Gilding (how the future might pan out)
Natural Capitalism (1999) Paul Hawken (sustainable business)

NSW Planning Review

So far so good with the NSW Government’s review of the planning system. The current planning system was itself the result of a major review by an incoming government, It was introduced in 1979 and at the time was regarded as something close to world best practice. But community expectations have changed and the countless fixes that have been applied over the last 30 years, either to address perceived shortcomings or simply to railroad through the aspirations of the NSW government have resulted in a dog’s breakfast that doesn’t work for developers, doesn’t work for communities and doesn’t work for governments either at state or local level..

The review was one of the promises of the incoming coalition government. The two individuals conducting the review have impeccable credentials. Tim Moore, is a previous coalition government minister and senior commissioner for the Land and Environment Court and Ron Dyer is a previous ALP government minister. At first I was sceptical given the very short timeframe – the intention is to have a green paper of policy options published by the end of April this year and a white paper later on in 2012. My scepticism has turned into optimism now that I have read the issues paper. What has impressed me is that every issue raised in the extensive program of community forums conducted across the state in the last quarter of 2011 has been captured –in the form of 238 questions against which submissions are invited (by February 17)

Many of the issues raised are matters that have been of concern to residents and councillors alike in Mosman. I have been dismayed by the many serious shortcomings of the present system that up until now councils have been powerless to address. Needless to say Mosman Council will be making a comprehensive submission. Some of the issues up for discussion likely to be of interest to Mosman residents are as follows.

From eGov to WeGov

Dom Lopez has had a powerful and sustained influence on Mosman Council over the last 40 years. Now a new Dom has emerged who is representative of new thinking about how local government should operate. The new Dom is Dominic Campbell. He is based in the UK and not yet 30. He runs a consultancy called FutureGov.

A few weeks ago he was out in Sydney and presented his ideas at a workshop hosted by ACELG. Dominic’s basic thesis is that we are only in the first phase of a transformation that local government is undergoing as a result of web and social media technology. When a new technology emerges, it first gets used to make our current way of doing things more efficient. But there is always a second phase when we cotton on to the fact that the new technology opens up the possibility of a radically different approach. Digital technology initially caused vinyl LP’s to be replaced by CD’s. But then along came iTunes.. According to Dominic, eGov, where we simply do on line what we used to do with paper is the CD equivalent. He has given the name WeGov to the iTunes equivalent.

It is impossible to predict how WeGov will evolve, but there are some interesting precursors where government and the community work together in a relationship of trust rather than control where both sides have permission to experiment. An example would be the transformation of a traditional meals on wheels service to one where people who like to cook in a particular ethnic genre are matched with people of that ethnicity who cannot cook for themselves. (Project Casserole Reigate and Banstead Council in the UK). WeGov is all about new ways to design services, new ways to involve citizens, better use of resources and of course, saving money.

Have a look at the Social Innovation Market Place website for more detail. WeGov has the potential to bring radical improvement to our cities. The word cloud that goes with it includes the words open, relaxed, collaborative, transparent, engaging, authentic, fun, personalised, human, honest and sharing.

SHOROC was well represented at the workshop with Pittwater GM Mark Ferguson, Mosman Community Development Director Di Lawrence and Community Services Manager Niki Atmore and myself attending. You can view thw full presentation here

Last word on wards and councillor numbers

What happens when the whale fails to adapt

The extraordinary council meeting gave one more opportunity for the pros and cons of the issue to be aired. I welcomed that opportunity. I found Peter Abelson’s four page summary of the case for maintaining the status quo very helpful. Until last night, the debate on the issue had been more like trench warfare rather than each side listening to and responding to the arguments of the other side.

I found Peter’s elucidation of the governance challenge of local government considering their monopolistic role useful and I agree with Peter’s breakdown of the role of councillors, namely:
• strategic direction
• consumer feedback
• auditing of performance and, most importantly, through the election process
• providing some exposure to competition.

What Peter failed to provide was any argument to support the notion that bigger was better.

In my view the important competitive element would be sharpened both by having a smaller number of positions and ensuring that all elected needed to have support across the municipality.

2011 LGA Conference

Last week I attended the LGA conference in Nowra as one of Mosman’s official delegates., along with Anne Connon, Simon Menzies and Viv May. We were all disappointed by the fact that of the 160 motions submitted by councils across the state, only 50 were dealt with due to a failure to get a quorum on the last day. The earlier days were wasted debating politically motivated motions on issues that have only marginal relevance to local government.

Mosman had half a dozen motions on the agenda on topics covering graffiti, BASIX, certain parking issues, community energy consumption and local roads, There were interesting motions from other councils too. I was looking forward to debating those on on pets in rental properties, replacing parking signage by on-road colour coded markings, regulating Ausgrid boxes and many more.

All the motions that were not dealt with will now be handled by the executive.

But from my perspective at least, the conference was good value for money. There were two exceptional keynote addresses. Sandy Belford gave a great presentation on improving the image of local government, reporting on extensive research on what communities expected and wanted from their local councils and the language that councils need to use if they are to communicate effectively with their communities. While the talk was pitched at councils, it was equally applicable to councillors. I learned a lot.

The second keynote was from demographer and author Bernard Salt on ‘Envisioning a better way to live in the 21st century’. Bernard has a magic way of flipping between grand visions, illustrative anecdotes and hard nosed-data in a way that keeps is audience fully and enthusiastically engaged. You can find the power point of both keynotes here they are worth reading and digesting.

And as always with conferences, it was the opportunity to meet and talk informally with other councillors, from SHOROC and that represented the real pay-off

Why I voted to abolish wards

Last night I voted for the abolition of wards and the reduction of the number of councillors to six.

I did this despite the fact that every single speaker (from the many in the gallery) spoke in opposition to this change (and was enthusiastically cheered and applauded). Not only that, in the community consultation more submissions were against than in favour. Topping that, a straw poll conducted at Bridgepoint indicated that 90% did not want wards abolished.

My action needs an explanation

I did it because I made a judgement call, that for the majority of the electorate, this was not an issue that they felt was important enough to devote time to come to grips with. It is an issue that really does require considerable time investment to make an informed decision. For example which is more democratic, having all councillors accountable to all electors or having each sub-area of Mosman having its own voice? In terms of representation, is it more important to have sub-areas represented or demographic sub-categories? To what extent does the fact that ward councillors have a limited mandate and limited accountability compromise their ability to make strategic decisions for all Mosman? I could go on.

Some would argue, as Tom Sherlock and Libby Moline* did, that it was our job to educate the community on the issue in all its complexity and then hold a referendum, but I felt that people need to be motivated enough to engage in such an educational program. and that on this issue the vast majority simply had better things to do. Hence it was our responsibily as a councillors to do the hard yards on their behalf.

The danger of putting an issue to a referendum when the electors don’t have the time or inclination to do the necessary thinking through of implications was highlighted by a number of speakers at the meeting who lamented the fact that the in voting for a popularly elected mayor at the last referendum few realised that this would make 3 wards no longer viable. In fact this was explained but chances are most electors (remember voting is compulsory) made an “intuitive’ vote. Libby proposed what I thought was a great idea – having a referendum where you had three options, Yes, No and ‘Not a burning issue for me’. Sadly, this is not constitutionally valid

Isn’t this the whole point of a representative democracy? People get elected not because of their position on every issue – after all who knows what issues are going to come up? They get elected on the basis of their perceived competence and willingness to grapple with the big issue and come up with a position that they believe is in the best interests of the community as a whole, certainly not just the vocal few.

In the case of the ward issue, councillors are particuarly well equipped to make the decision. After all at every Council vote they can observe at first hand how ward loyalties sometimne get in the way of good governance.

I read through all the submissions and taking into account who made each submission and what their likely motives were (another judgement I know, but unavoidable) I came down on the side of reform. One of the gallery speakers made the point “Why would councillors every vote to reduce their own numbers?” My answer is when they make the decision on principle rather than self interest.

At the council meeting I used my 3 minutes to explain as best I could my position. A key factor in my judgement call was the very small (albeit decicated) percentage of the electorate who chose to make a submission despite wide advertising. If my judgement was wrong on this issue, the electorate will have every opportunity to punish me at the next election!

How does Mosman compare with other councils?

Each year the Department of Local Government publishes statistics that allow councils in NSW to be compared. The date for 2009/2010 has just been published.

How does Mosman fare? In particular on what measures is Mosman a ‘stand-out’ well away from the average?

With only 8 sq km we are one of the smallest in area. Only Hunters Hill at 5.7 sq km is smaller. We are also small in terms of population. Mosman has 28,000 residents, close to Lane Cove with 32,000 and Manly with 40,000 but much bigger than Hunters Hill with 14,000. On the other hand Blacktown has 300,000 and most of our neighbours are much bigger – Warringah (144,000), Pittwater (59,000), North Sydney (63,000) and Willoughby (69,000).

We sit mid range in terms of population density at 3300 per sq km. Much lower than Waverley (7425) and North Sydney (6087) and just a little it more dense than Lane Cove and Manly.

Some of the other standouts are not so intuitive. Mosman experienced one of the lowest population increases of any municipality in Sydney between 2008/9 and 2009/10 at 0.59% . Most of our near neighbours grew by more than 1% and Auburn by 3.7%. The percentage of our residents from a NESB background was also one of the smallest in Sydney at 14% , bigger than Manly’s 12.5% about the same as Leichardt. All of our near neighbours have significantly higher percentages. Willoughby for example is 30% and Kuring-gai 21%. Highest in Sydney is Auburn coming in at 49%.

It is hard to make meaningful comparisons of measures such as average rating per residence. Mosman’s is $1079 about the same as Manly, Hunters Hill, Kurng-gai and Leichardt but much bigger that municipalities with a big commercial centre like North Sydney ($453) and Willoughby ($755).

Different councils have a different ratios of income source between rates and charges. Mosman for example derives three times as much income from rates than it does from charges which is about average. Outliers at either end of the spectrum are North Sydney with a 1.95 multiplier and Hunters Hill with 8.6.

There are also different spends per capita on various forms of service. Willoughby spends $68 per person annually on environment and health compared with $7 in Hunters Hill and $41 in Mosman. Spending on recreation and leisure is highest in Lane Cove at $143 per person. This compares with $33 in Hunters Hill and $90 in Mosman, slightly lower than Manly ($105) and North Sydney($118). Spending on community services is highest in Waverley at $166 which compared with Mosman’s $75 and Hunters Hill’s $32. The number of residents in each municipality served by each FTE staff member varies for comparable councils from 121 in Waverley to 257 in Warringah with Mosman near the average at 168.

Living in each different municipality would be the only authentic way to make comparisons on the value for money that residents get for their rates and charges. The comparative figures put out by DLG do show that what Mosman collects and spends is comparable with our neighbours. There is certainly no evidence that small councils are inefficient.

At present Mosman has more politicians per resident than any of our neighbouring councils apart from Hunters Hill. The proposal to reduce to 6 councillors plus the mayor will still leave us over represeted coampared to North Sydney, Willoughby, Warringah and Pittwater but slighly deprived when compared with Manly and Lane Cove. The reduction will save Council $44,000 a year in direct costs. Much greater savings will accrue from the 20% reduction in staff time needed to service the reduced number of counciloors

Mosman 101

OK, you have been transferred to Sydney and the company is renting a house for you in Mosman. You have got to the point where you have moved in and everything is more or less organised. It’s your first weekend in Mosman. What’s the best way of discovering the place? My recommendation is to spread the pleasure over several weekends by systematically working through eleven short walks that begin and end on the route of the Mosman Rider. The round trip on the Mosman Rider is itself a wonderful way of discovering Mosman and a good way of meeting and chatting with fellow residents

Each of the eleven walks has its own A4 leaflet which maps the route and describes points of interest. These can be downloaded from www.cefemosman.org.au/Discovering-Mosman.html. This website has lots more detail about the heritage items along the walk as well as photos and links to videos of long time residents telling their stories.

The Mosman Rider is free and runs every 30 minutes from 8 am to 5.30 pm. You can track it in real time at mosmanrider.inf

The walks are not just for new arrivals. No matter how long you have been living in our suburb you will discover something new. And when next you have visitors from out of town, consider sending them off on their own discovery tour equipped with one or more of the walk leaflets and the mobile phone app for the Mosman Rider

Reclaiming the street

In other parts of the world there is increasing recognition that local streets have a function that extends far beyond providing vehicular access. They are also places where residents and their visitors walk, garden and socialise and where children play, ride bikes, roller skate and skateboard. On occasions they can even be used for street parties. In the UK, for example, a local street can be designated a “Home Zone”. In a Home Zone the road space is shared between drivers and other road users, with the wider needs of residents, including people who walk and cycle, and children), in mind. The aim is to change the way that streets are used and to improve the quality of life in residential streets making them for people, not just traffic. In a Home Zone, changes are made to the layout of the street to emphasise this change of use, so that motorists perceive that they should give informal priority to other road users. Home Zones turn residential streets in valued public spaces, not just a space to service the movement of traffic. They foster a sense of community, reduce social isolation, particularly amongst the elderly, increase opportunities for children’s active and creative play, increase natural surveillance and thus deter casual crime, and encourage walking and cycling within the local area and to nearby destinations.

In Mosman a good start was made 20 years in clearing our local streets of rat runners by judicious road closures and traffic calming measures. In my view the time has come to take the next step and establish Home Zones. Of course not all Mosman Streets are suitable, but that shouldn’t stop us from pressing ahead with the many that are.

It is going to be a long hard slog. In Australia we don’t have any legal recognition of Home Zones, instead we have a dogs breakfast of concepts including “residential speed zone”, “local traffic area”, “shared zone” and “high pedestrian activity area” which are poorly understood. We would do well to replace the first two in the Australian road rules and introduce in their place Home Zones based on the UK legislation (or that of The Netherlands or Germany). Once the road rules have been modified power needs to be given to local councils to declare and configure streets as home zones without the need to gain RTA approval.

At the forthcoming Local Government Association Conference, I will be moving a motion, endorsed by Mosman Council, that councils be give the power to designate at road at the bottom of the RTA hierarchy (ie not an arterial or a collector) as a home zone.

Sign Clutter

The UK approach - line marking is enough

Why do we need to have so many signs in our streets telling us what we can and can’t do. They are ugly to look at, add to visual clutter and very expensive for councils to erect and maintain. It is not as though it is an inevitable consequence of our legal system, as other countries, with similar legal systems. have much less obtrusive signage. How lucky for Europe that text signs there are impractical due to the multitude of languages. Symbolic signs can be tiny. As soon as you spell things out in words, as is done in the US and Australia, big signs are needed and they need their own poles. In my dreams I imagine a time when all regulatory signage is removed – in its place some form of indication – using colour or texture – that the adjacent space has regulations governing its use. It would be up to anyone using that space to find out for themselves what the regulations were. These days with GPS enabled smart phones it would not be hard to find out. As a transition, yellow lines, broken single and double could be used to indicate that parking restrictions applied in a particular zone and small embedded in the kerb, or streetlamp poles could spell out the detail of the restriction.