Preservation Times
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_____________________________________ The PRESERVATION TIMES AN ENVIRONMENTAL NETWORK NEWSLETTER Volume 22 Issue 1 Autumn 2016 I have to Did you find return home for the anything to eat or a Cocky census. bed for the night ? No! I’m heading back down south to stay with my cousin. I’d rather be a refugee than starve to death. A PEEL PRESERVATION GROUP PUBLICATION Thank you to: Shirley Joiner, Linda Thorpe and our group members for there submissions and articles and support . Regards Coral. Be Published with PPG Please keep PPG members informed of Peel Preservation Group has finalised the Gift Membership. issues, wins and ideas, poems, stories This available to be purchased and given as a gift on and drawings etc. through our newsletter. special occasions. The next edition will be published in Summer This is a great way to share the Preservation Times and The deadline for this edition will be group membership with friends, family and colleagues. To purchase a Certificate contact the office - Mondays is 15th June 2016 the office open day at the PPG office. We have decided to make Coffee Mornings at the Office on Email contributions to The office: Mondays. This will hopefully make Mondays catch-up days with committee members and assist with the manning of the office. [email protected] Hope to see you at the Office on Monday mornings in the near future. The Next Coffee Gathering PPG is on the look out for suitable at Mandurah Quays sponsors who would like to pay for some on Sunday 3rd April. advertising space in our magazine. 2pm If you are aware of a suitable for a chat and (environmentally friendly) sponsor a catch-up. please hand their name onto Shirley at See you then. the office. Next Meeting - Check out the new website! With thanks to 2 wonderful students, Damian Thursday 7th April 2016 Cook and Riccardo Misino from Murdoch at 6.30pm at our office, University who updated our website for one of Suite 6 63 Ormsby Tce. their assignments. , We now have a great new format. All Welcome! http://www.peelpreservation.org.au Dear PPG Members, I believe that privatising our drinking water is the wrong solution to Colin Barnett's debt problem. Our water future is too important to risk. The state government has already sold the Water Corporation’s construction arm and even more recently, Prime Minister Turnbull threatened to reduce grants to WA if there isn’t more privatisation. This week has seen record-breaking temperatures. We also had the news that a major water pipeline burst, with more expected given the ageing infrastructure. The prospect of tighter water restrictions have also been raised recently. As a parent and a former public sector worker, I believe that our water should not be a source of profit for a private corporation - it should stay in our hands. Once these assets are sold off, they're gone. It's a short term solution and just doesn't make sense for our State's future. Now is the right time to stand up for water - it's one of our most vital needs and crucial public assets. Best wishes, Kylie Turner 1 PEEL PPRESERVATION GROUP—ANNUAL REPORT 2015 2015 – The year that is fast rolling to a close for us all, and is at the end for PPG, has been eventful in several ways. It is the year that PPG became a Registered Charity with the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission (ACNC) and approved for tax concessions by the Australia Tax Office. Fulfilling these recent requirements makes us fully compliant with regulations and approved to accept donations, which need to be shown on ‘financials’ (as always) but also shown on annual reports to ACNC. This year our donations have been allocated to cover the cost of our Public Risk/Property Insurance and also the phone and internet expenses. Picture the treasurer and the secretary trying to fill out all the forms, but we did win in the end! We are very grateful to David Templeman for his generous donation which came in at a time when we were increasingly aware of the risk of accident involved in the water testing program once it had been increased to monthly, and the urgent need to cover the valuable water testing meter and our even more valuable volunteer members. Our most obvious project this year was Plastic Free July with the display held at the Forum over several days and two successful screenings of the movie ‘Trashed’. Thanks in organising the grant applications goes to Linda as it involved a lot of effort at a time when the secretary was involved elsewhere. We also wish to thank the Rotary Club of Mandurah and the City of Mandurah for sharing our vision and granting us funds. We believe that they were spent wisely, and to great effect. Thanks too to all who worked setting up and manning the stall. It David Templeman was wonderful to see so many of the reusable green bags we gave out actually being used. I know a dear lady in her 90s who uses hers regularly. As well as the grants for Plastic Free July we are pleased that, yet again, the City of Mandurah has given us a Community Association Fund Grant of $500 to assist with the production of the quarterly Preservation Times. This publication is available digitally but many recipients still prefer a ‘hard copy’ – perhaps easier to reads with a cup of coffee. In turn PPG sponsored the Environment & Heritage Group with funds to enable the Incorporation process and to obtain Dudley Dolphin. The newly formed Friends of Lake McLarty were also sponsored to gain a grant from Alco for works out at the lake. Also during July we won “most popular local group” and $300 (and some free burgers) from Grill’d. Thank you to Darren for organising this. Who says there’s no such thing as a free lunch! In PPG’s pattern of ‘having our say’ we wrote a number of submissions during the year: Bushfire Planning submission Peel Harvey Catchment Council Management submission Comment re. Tim’s Thicket Transfer Station Licence Proposal Comment re. Proposed Industrial subdivision Nambeelup Western Australian Planning Commission – submission Perth-Peel @3.5 mil. Peel Planning – submission Floodplains Limestone Mining at Myelup Submission Lakelands North As well as online support for campaigns to Save Beeliar Wetlands, Gt Barrier Reef etc. http://peelpreservation.org.au/ -check it out! Two clever Murdoch students came in to discuss our website and designed a fresh new site for us as part of their assignments. We just have to master the editing (which might take a bit of effort but we will persevere , we think Linda is winning!. Koby Anderson To add to the challenge we updated our Microsoft Office software and, of course, every update changes ‘things’ slightly. Another challenge was getting the NBN installed in the office. “Just get a new modem, plug into that and you will be right to go” he said. That was an enormous understatement but it’s all sorted now and hopefully so are the accounts for the changeover, or Dave will have torn out all his hair! It is hard to single out particular committee members for their contributions but suffice it to say, without Coral as Editor, The Preservation Times would struggle. We are glad that Linda keeps in touch while she is overseas as she works wonders on the internet from afar. Denis is a great support, and our new members are proving invaluable; Rachel and Darren for good ideas and being proactive, and Koby for his expertise and regularity with the water testing (between study and assignments). And, without Dave coming in to the office every Monday (except for a stint for surgery and recuperation) the accounts would not be in such good shape. We also thank him for his input in putting together draft submissions for members to add their comments. What a great team - well done all! Some of the Committee—Dave, Caroline. Shirley, Linda Future Plans Peel Preservation has applied for grants with the intention of holding another Plastic Free July event, perhaps in Halls Head or Erskine Shopping Centre. We are open to any ideas or suggestions as well as help when the time comes 2 Hi PPG Members, I am sending you this email as you attended a workshop on the Strategic Assessment for Perth and Peel (Now called the Perth & Peel Green Growth Plan) in 2013. The draft documents were released by the government late last year and submissions close April 8 2016. https://www.dpc.wa.gov.au/Consultation/ StrategicAssessment/Pages/Draft-Green-Growth-Plan- documents.aspx Kind regards The system also gives developers the right of appeal, Merril Halley whereas residents and communities get none. So, if the Species Conservation Manager – Southwest Australia developers don't get their own way the first time, they WWF – Australia appeal, and appeal, and appeal until they do get what PO Box 4010 Wembley WA 6913 they want, where they want it, regardless of the rules that govern the rest of us. And there is no limit to the number of times developers can appeal. For residents and communities, however, the limit is precisely “zero”. Which means that wherever you choose to buy, set up home, bring up your family, retire to – you’ll have no chance of stopping this happening to your community. DAP-Affected Communities of WA Here are just three of the many examples: The DAP recently approved a 29-storey building in South Please help us end this developers' free-for-all! Perth, in a maximum 8-storey zoned area – that’s nearly 4 We, the DAP-Affected Communities of WA, are seeking times the height limit! And they approved that building with your support to end a long and ever-growing list of bad zero road setback, thus destroying the amenity of the development approvals being made by the government's openness of the area with its 100-year-old trees.