Tuesday, November 06, 2007
I love BNE
Brisbane City Council is soon to launch (here and here and here) its “green heart citysmart” campaign to make Brisbane Australia’s most sustainable city and to make it carbon neutral by 2026.

The CitySmart campaign will promote all of Council's sustainability initiatives and encourage people to get involved in use less power and water, recycling and reducing demand for motorised transport.

The campaign’s rallying call is a simple and powerful logo, design to instil pride in the city from its residents, featuring a green heart and the letters of Brisbane International Airport’s shorthand designation.

The green heart citysmart campaign has been accused of being a copy of New York City’s “I love NY” brand, which is specifically targeted at attracting tourists to the famous city.

Is the logo a copy? I dunno. I’ll leave that up to you:



Lawyers reckon it’s good to go.

There will soon also a website that may or may not be exactly the same as the Australian Conservation Foundation’s http://www.whoonearthcares.com.au/

All in all, I’m confused with the whole thing. I’m never quite sure whether I should be looking for my greenhouse information at ClimateSmart (Queensland government), ClimateClever (Commonwealth government) or CitySmart (Brisbane City Council).

Labels: Brisbane City Council, citysmart, climate change, global warming

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Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Don't like the answer? Don't ask the question
Late in 2006 the Labor caucus in Council used its numbers to commission a "Climate Change and Energy Taskforce" to report on how Brisbane could become meet the greenhouse gas emissions targets set out in the Kyoto Protocol.

The taskforce researched the science, asked expert and councillor opinion and consulted with the public.

It is chaired by Ian Lowe, emeritus professor of science, technology and society at Griffith University in Brisbane and President of the Australian Conservation Foundation; never one to espouse the ‘business as usual’ model.

There has been a few leaks, but the report’s recommendations were never going to stray far from pressing the need for smart growth, reducing energy consumption from fossil fuels and to stymie rapid growth in private car-use.

Indeed, an early draft of the report, presented to Cabinet on 5th February recommended that some (20%) CBD roads be closed to private through-traffic. This was helpfully reported in The Courier-Mail with the headline "City streets to shut".

As expected, both Labour and Liberal politicians clambered over each other to distance themselves from the report and paint themselves as best friends of the motorist.

A second leak from another Cabinet report revealed a whole raft of measures, all of which would require regulation and active government in public policy. Of course this all goes against current political trend of cutting red tape and allowing consumers and business to pollute with impunity.

The report recommends:

• Council becoming carbon-neutral
  
• mandatory rainwater tanks
  
• banning additional private swimming pools
  
• only one airconditioning unit per dwelling
  
• more bus lands to be added each year
  
• wind turbines atop CBD buildings
  

These are things politicians don’t want to hear. Telling people they cannot do something or must do something else is taboo in this political climate, regardless of the consequences.

Political reaction was as revealing as it was predictable. The Lord Mayor was ‘alarmed’ by the draft report. Not by what the science said mind you (as he is a self-confessed ‘climate change convert’), but by the extent of the policy recommendations.

Liberal Councillor David McLachlan described the draft as an "unacceptable impost on the way people live their lives" and would cost billions to implement. Again, our good Councillor is either demonstrating considerable intellectual obstinacy or he is being disingenuous with his electorate.

He should be disagreeing with the science, not the recommendations. At best he should be stating what level of global warming he is willing to accept in return for keeping his current lifestyle. Brisbane residents cannot continue on the current path, without facing the consequences.

The Labor caucus has been similarly dishonest. Leader David Hinchliffe labelled some of the recommendations as "loopy".

Our civic / political culture has been crippled by a pervasive have-it-all consumer culture. Voters are no longer citizens but ‘customers’. As such, government must give them all they demand and only an expanding GDP can deliver it.

Under no circumstances must customers be asked to adjudicate between competing priorities; to assess those nasty either/or questions.

Cabinet will consider the Climate Change and Energy taskforce report as a final draft on 12th March. It will decide whether the $70,000 report will be published for the ratepayers of Brisbane or – more likely – that the recommendations are so politically unpalatable the report will be kept secret.

But surely, it was clear that the taskforce was going to advocate some significant departures from the status quo and the curtailment of our current energy- and transport-rich lives. And as such, the report was going to be politically unacceptable. I doubt it will never ever see the light of day. Public money will have been wasted. The public interest will have been undermined.

If you don’t like the answer, really, you shouldn’t ask the question.

Labels: Brisbane City Council, Sustainability

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Monday, February 12, 2007
Lord Mayor's tunnel vision falling apart
It is a big day in Council tomorrow for Lord Mayor Campbell Newman. He must come clean about how much his TransApex tunnel plan is going to cost the city.

He has been forced by the Labor majority to hand down a report of forward estimates. It will be a big thick document, no doubt plenty heavy enough for the Labor group to beat him repeatedly over the head with.

In the heady days of the election in 2004, Newman promised Brisbane voters that all five tunnels in TransApex would cost around $4.5bn. The first prong (already underway) - the North South Bypass Tunnel - is costing $3bn - a blowout of around 230%.

The storm clouds are gathering. It has already been reported on Channel 9 that the news is not good for Newman and rates will have to go up by more than inflation to help pay for the tunnels.
If this happened, Newman once promised he would resign. Lets hope he keeps this promise.

Queensland Greens published this, this evening:

Labels: Brisbane City Council, Campbell Newman

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Monday, February 05, 2007
PPP - Protected Private Profit
Shares in River City Motorway (RCM) – the private consortium that will build, own and operate Brisbane’s North South Bypass Tunnel – have continued to slide in value - now down more than 20% on their initial offering.

The North South Bypass Tunnel (NSBT) is the first vector of TransApex, Brisbane Lord Mayor Campbell Newman’s $12bn plan to build a series of tolled tunnels and bridges under and over the city. It will be built using mostly private funds in a public private partnership.

The latest fall in share price is a result of brokerage firm UBS declaring it had doubts over RCM’s traffic modelling, which forms the revenue basis of the $3bn business plan for NSBT. UBS recommends investors reduce their holding in RCM. UBS said it lacked confidence in the figures and competition from other roads and the value proposition offered by the 10-minute time saving did not stack up.

RCM engaged consultants Maunsell to provide the traffic modelling for NSBT. Maunsell’s methodology was based on a number of projects being delivered, some of which have been virtually canned, and others that remain politically disputed.

Not surprisingly, RCM has stuck to its guns, as did Bell Potter, the brokerage firm that helped RCM with its IPO, both saying the usage predictions in the IPO were sound. However, Bell Potter also recommended a “buy” on shares in Sydney’s Cross City Tunnel, which went into receivership last week, with traffic levels well down on what was originally predicted.

Despite the doubts on usage predictions, RCM’s investor relations paint a much more positive picture of the future, projecting continual growth in NSBT usage, from the 100,000 trips per day on its 2010 opening to 135,000 trips in 2025.

Their presentations boast of Brisbane’s “high car dependency” and “poor public transport” as selling points, and the harbinger of investor profits.

In contrast, Wikipedia describes Brisbane’s public transport system as “extensive”. The Lonely Planet guide calls it “world class”.

As a promoter of the NSBT scheme, Brisbane City Council places itself in a ludicrous contradictory position. Its political vision is one of promoting public transport, yet on a partner’s website (RCM) Council peddles its own transport policy failures as badges of honour, so it does not scare investors.

And just to make sure the tunnel attracts the necessary customers and doesn’t go horribly wrong, like in Sydney, RCM is promising a glossy advertising campaign, to ensure Brisbane residents get the message that cars are good.

Public Private Partnerships are not inherently flawed, particularly in the era which followed the fiscal “discipline” of the 1990s, which precipitated massive delays in public infrastructure projects, just to deliver tax cuts to the middle class. However, in the case of NSBT, the private sector incentives are wholly contrary to public interest, as the project’s success is dependent on the continued failure of transport policy by the project’s promoters.

Worse, Council is also likely to aid and abet River City Motorway returning a profit. First by ensuring surface road conditions are amenable to encouraging drivers to use the tunnel and secondly by being liable to compensate RCM should Council make improvements to public transport which impact NSBT patronage.

Council has not made the details of its contract with RCM public (despite assurances that it would), so as yet there is no disclosure of any compensation clause. However, it remains highly likely that Council (and Councils 45 years into the future) will remain tied to restrictive clauses, which will curtail its ability to improve transport, lest it jeopardise the profitability of NSBT.

Labels: Brisbane City Council, transport, tunnels

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