April 2000 Messages from the Executive

The Carr Government’s plan to allow 8,000 houses to be built on the former Australian Defence Industries Site near Penrith – known to many Sydneysiders as the St Marys munitions factory – will result in the ecological death of the largest remaining stand of Cumberland Plains Woodland, an ecological community placed on the NSW endangered list. There is less than 10% left of the original woodlands, scattered in many fragments across Western Sydney.

Noel Plumb
Executive Officer

Oh, I can hear the ministerial advisers, the developers and the complacent bureaucrats scoffing already – alarmist, immoderate, unbalanced … Well, someone has to say it, because otherwise Sydney and the planet will lose yet another irreplaceable part of our natural heritage due to greed and a lack of vision by our politicians.

As with many significant sites on Sydney Harbour, an accident of history preserved a precious place from destructive development because it was used for defence purposes. But now the Commonwealth Government wants to sell many of these un- used defence lands, and the Carr Government is applying a double standard to Western Sydney.

At Middle Head, Georges Head, North Head, Cockatoo Island and Woolwich, the Carr Government is refusing to give the Commonwealth the planning consents which would let these sites be broken up and sold off for development. But at St Marys, the Minister for Planning, Andrew Refshauge, is pushing through a rezoning which will put an 8,000- house suburb on the 1,500 ha site and destroy the endangered woodland.

The rezoning does include a park of 630 ha, but this area is doomed to fail as a conservation reserve. It is essentially the flood- prone land identified as a reserve in the initial Lend Lease master plan for the site with a few scraps of woodland thrown in. It will be a fragmented area surrounded by intensive urban development, dissected and disturbed by major infrastructure works including drainage lines and roads. There will be 2 million tonnes of fill imported to the site. This situation is a certain prescription for the ecological death of this area, and a major blow to the restoration of environmental values, waterways and natural areas in Western Sydney.

The people of Western Sydney are treated as second-class citizens by this plan. The ADI Site is more significant as a conservation area than any of the harbour sites. It has enormous landscape and cultural significance to the people of Western Sydney, for its value as passive open space and the restoration of both the natural environment and the living amenity of the west.

Western Sydney has been deprived of quality open space. It has received only a fraction of the attention to the protection of its remnant natural areas com- pared to the more fortunate parts of Sydney in the north and south. It would be an act of hypocrisy by the Carr Government to sacrifice the ADI site to a housing development driven by the Commonwealth Government, while steadfastly, and commendably, refusing the sale and development of land by the Commonwealth on the harbour foreshores.

Plans of Management

F or most of its history, the National Parks and Wildlife Service could be justifiably criticised for giving only scant regard to the importance of plans of management (POMs) for national parks. Most parks and reserves, including those that had been dedicated for two decades or more, have had no POMs in place.

In recent years things have changed and the number of parks with adopted POMs have increased substantially. For example, in 1997-1998, 15 plans covering 29 areas were adopted followed by a further 15 adopted plans covering 22 areas in 1998-99. Another 18 plans were placed on public exhibition in that year, with many since being adopted.

This big improvement has resulted from a number of factors: a government commitment that new parks should have a POM within three years of their dedication; a systematic approach to addressing older parks that have had no plans in place; an advisory council that has dealt efficiently with reviewing the public submissions on each exhibited plan; and Ministers for the Environment prepared to sign off on plans.

However, with the mooted review of the National Parks and Wildlife Act, it is proposed to change one of the important planks in this successful system. The white paper outlining the proposed changes alters the role of the Advisory Council from reviewing submissions on POMs of national parks, to merely auditing the implementation of adopted plan decisions. This change would emasculate the Council's role and eliminate input from the predominant community and scientific representative body at a crucial point in the planning process. The suggested alternative of having the advisory committees review the submissions would result in inconsistencies across the State, and either a whitewash of strong community and scientific involvement or undue influence of parochial and vested interests.

The NPA, along with other peak conservation groups, is opposed to this change. If, as anticipated, it is included in the draft review Bill, NPA will need your support so we can maintain the Advisory Council's strong role in contributing to the sound management of our national parks.

Stephen Lord
Senior Vice President
and NPA nominee on Advisory Council

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