SYDNEY'S PHANTOM NEW 24/7 INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT THREATENS BLUE MOUNTAINS WORLD HERITAGE STATUS

Doubling Sydney’s population is now opposed by NO main political party – though there is some political resistance to some of the disastrous new transport options fueling it in main cities like Sydney (ie by the Greens).  Mainly such opposition is to old “solutions” Westconnex superhighway whose interchange currently impacting on the oldest part of Sydney Park – which is about to widen one exit road, heading madly through narrow roads to the eastern suburbs.  The Greens, apparently, still fail to acknowledge that Westconnex is all about building up road links to the old Mascot (Sydney) Airport.

(Since initially writing this article as a draft in late August, the Baaad NSW Govt had finally admitted on TV that Westconnex is indeed about building up the old Mascot Airport – while planning no rail link to the supposed new 24/7 International airport near Liverpool – at Badgery’s Creek). The federal Turncoat conservative Govt pretends to back the building a new International airport out west (near Liverpool) at Badgery’s Creek – with no overnight curfew on any flights there.

The unlikelihood of this Cargo Cult of a project to ever go ahead, is indeed seen in the refusal of the Abbort/Turncoat federal Govt to include ANY rail-link to Badgerys Creek Airport – with the private owners of Mascot Airport still able to exercise its right to “built” it, or not. Those private owners are the same (Turncoat’s old Macquarie Bank) that opposed building a Very Fast Train from Sydney to Canberra, as part of their deal to buy Mascot airport. By then, the Labor  federal Govt had built a Third Runway – later causing a large part of Sydenham housing to be demolished.

Meanwhile NO main political party (again including the Greens) is publically calling for that Very Fast Train section to be urgently built from Sydney To Canberra (let alone north towards Gosford as well). As mentioned, Macquarie Bank had ensured the Govt would not build it once they bought Mascot Airport. To sweeten the deal, the ALP federal Govt had built that Third Runway – sending many more large planes north of the airport. The UPE was involved in the “community advisory committee”, set up by the Govt – tasked supposedly to gather views of locals about dealing with the resulting noise.

As part of Save Our Sydney campaign, we made a half hour documentary about the resulting double cross, involving demolition of whole blocks of housing under the new runway. It is called “The Planes That Ate Sydenham” – though this excellent movie has yet to get any public screening during the twenty years since it was built. An expert points out that the Third Runway was built by the Govt specifically to delay the building of a new international airport at Badgerys Creek – a “solution”which had long been ALP policy.

This gross betrayal helped launch the Greens as a force in Sydney inner city seats, where its former “safe seat” MP’s are now falling over each other to implement inner-city-centric policies, like “gay marriage”. Meanwhile urgent policies like starting the serious decentralisation of increasingly overpopulated Sydney with the long planned Very Fast Train are being sidelined.– are being ignored by the major political parties. Building the cancelled section to Canberra from Sydney (Parramatta will do) through Campbelltown and Goulbourn to Canberra – with an International Airport, say at Goulbourn - would allow people to live outside Sydney, without losing speedy physical access to it. The only alternative it would be to urgently drastically cut Australia’s world beating high migration rate. Without such high migration, Sydney’s population would be decreasing – as so many residents keep leaving it for cheaper and better regional areas.

A Goulbourn international airport would allow 24/7 in bound longhaul flights for overseas tourists – who could either shoot in to Sydney in 30 minutes by VFT, or stay overnight/day at a local hotel, which would be far cheaper than in Sydney. Meanwhile, locals who are leaving Sin City (Sydney) in droves for cheaper housing (with backyards) in the regions – will still be able to commute by VTR, to Sydney jobs. Sydney is only growing uncontrollably because most of Australia’s crazy high migration rate – is drawn there by the ethnic ghettos created by earlier migrants in this “world” city. These migrant cities are losing any coherent cultural identity – creating distinct non-English language groups around various “CBD”s across an increasingly population dense Sydney.

IS NEW LIFE - LONG "CENSUS" JUST A POLICE STATE GONE FERAL?

Security high rise public housing is being overlooked in the 2016 Australian Census. Such as Redfern Sydney tenants who apparently often didn’t receive the anonymous Coded letter addressed to each unit – (ie without their name). This means they probably didn’t get information about how to request a Census form be posted to them – with many not online at home.

These letters may never have been sent to them or were stolen or disguarded (?) as being just unaddressed junk mail. In addition, Census folk don’t seem to be following up, prior to the September deadline – their hand-delivered Census forms to tenants who hadn’t logged-on or rung up for a form in August.

One long time public housing tenant felt that Census workers wouldn’t be allowed through High-rise security – unless they already know someone in the high-rise building. One female Census worker was seem in late August before 6pm in inner city Sydney, crying in some distress that her partner wasn’t around to defend her against someone who had just tried to rape her.

This whole debacle was  partly caused by the negligence of the Federal government in cutting back funding for this Census – so the ABS then cutback on staffing to deliver/collect the census forms all on one night. There is also the increasing resistance to many people disclosing many personal details on the Census form – now it is to be kept for 4 years.

A local Government councillor (or employee) objected to how the Census was now going to be used to track people throughout their lives – surely a gross breach of trust from the Government ( he now refusing to fill in the Census form). The Census has previously been only used to collect data, not help spy on where people move to different addresses throughout their lives and other details that should remain private.

The Census, in addition, it also becoming less and less relevant for its supposed purpose for data collection to help design services for different areas. Already Sydney City Council’s “social plans” acknowledge that Aboriginal people usually avoid filling in Census forms – due to their past treatment by Government agencies. Now it seems that the ABS is now also failing to even include many low income people in public housing (not to mention homeless).

Yet another bungle by the Turncoat Government – though the ABS cutbacks were probably brought in by the previous Abbort mini – Government. Either way, the Census is now wildly seen as Big Brother exercise – that like Australia’s weird “compulsory” voting, is being increasingly rejected by citizens who want their democracy back.  

Demand letters to residents from ABS in September - threatening large fines for them supposedly not filling out a census form , point them to a phone their phone number (which they answer with a recorded message saying it is too busy to answer). This situation was witnessed by Redfern Legal Centre, who are offering to help people fined in this exersize in an increasingly police state environment 

ALP SHORT-ON POLL STRATEGY

By mid June, only weeks from the 2 July Federal election – after weeks of campaigning, Bill Shorten let slip his supposed radical election strategy. On ABC TV, he acknowledged that the conventional wisdom for Australian election campaigning for the major parties duopoly was for the opposition party to run dead (ie use a small-target strategy of no new policies).

It seems that with the change from Abbort to their new saviour Turnbull as “leader” in 2013, Shorten thought he would not win the double-disillusion election – and so brought out some Big Gun policies that he would normally keep quiet about until ALP won an election.  Abbort brought out things like delay dole for six months and Unions Royal commission.

The Shorten ALP team’s hidden contentious “nasties” (not meant to be revealed until the first year of a new ALP government) – were to be not just a revenge-style Royal Commission into the Banking/financial sector. Bill now promised paring back of the untouchable middle-class privilege of multiple housing ownership, the sacred negative gearing tax concessions.

We were contemplating writing to the ALP, before the early election was announced – to suggest that they make some kamikaze type promises if they win, just not those type of conservative ones. Instead we have lobbied both ALP and the Greens about several seriously radical proposals – almost all of which we put in a poster for the 2013 election.

Our key one was about starting the construction of the Very Fast Train (VFT) rail infrastructure – in particular the long mooted section from Sydney to Canberra through Goulbourn. This was first proposed before Mascot airport was sold off (whose Banking purchaser killed it off) so there must already be plans about the exact route, if not complete land acquisition.

ALP Deputy Leader, Tanya Plibersek personally indicated early in the election campaign that completing the NBN had priority – which opinion polls later showed was far less important to voters. The ALP, through her and “cities” shadow Minister Albanese failed to respond in writing to us on this and other important proposals in our 2013/2016 “WHY VOTE” posters.

Since the Greens also didn’t respond in writing to our poster and letters to them on the VFT and other proposals (except our arts ones seemed to prompt them to suddenly get on TV with policies in response) here is our election strategy for the public to see. We wished to propose that at least the ALP propose building the Sydney-Canberra phase of the VFT.

This should include Goulbourn as an intermediary stop for it, as originally proposed – where an International Airport with 24/7 access be built. Any construction of an airport at Badg-ery’s Creek should not have 24/7 international aircraft access due to existing dense residential population around it. VFT would quickly get international passengers to Sydney. 

Any airport in western Sydney would destroy the hard won Blue Mountains World Heritage status as planes would be constantly flying over it. Since any real kind of construction won’t start at Badgery’s Creek for several elections off – the VTR could easily be earlier construct-ed through Goulbourn to Canberra from say Parramatta, once the ALP/Greens win in 2019.

So the kamikaze type promises made by Shorten/Albanese for the 2016 should have been to start building the VFT from Melbourne/Sydney/Brisbane.  That could have been to urgently start building sections of the VFT to ease overpopulation by decentralisation (ie unafford-able housing) in the eastern cities, accelerated by building Goulburn International airport.

Instead, the ALP and Greens effectively failed to give the voters a real alternative to pointless “concrete bank” concentration of more freeways and tin-pot driverless trains and dinky trams on public streets and parks in the cities. Obviously no amount of such expensive “infrastructure” will be able to cope with projected doubling of population within decades.

Effectively, the ALP/Greens have accepted the idea of high immigration concentration in these increasingly unaffordable and environmentally degraded cities – rather than plan ahead for major intercity VFT infrastructure. We wanted to suggest to the ALP and even the Greens, to propose in the 2016 election that they would start the VFT, at least from Sydney.

Given that the ALP would likely lose that election, they could then appear to drop that proposal by conducting a “small target” strategy at the next election – when they could try and avoid talking about it specifically. Instead, they were already avoiding talking about VFT and foolishly run just building NBN as their signatory policy (+Banking inquiry, tax gearing).

Unfortunately, the Greens then also failed to grasp the nettle and lead their campaign with VFT – but stuck with bottom draw policies like onshore boat-people processing, gay marri-age plus copying ALP goofy policies. Curiously, the Greens have long advocated the VFT to Canberra at least, as well as a new International Airport at Goulburn – so what happened?

It seems the ALP is trapped in a time-warp of thinking it is a mass party, though its chief backers – Trade Unions keep having its industrial worker base decimated by “free trade” agreements with low wage countries. Besides a growing workforce of part-time workers, unable to afford union dues – the movement is being taken over by female occupations.

This feminisation of ALP politics was heralded by the Julia Gillard PM years – where she squibbed the mining boom tax but shot to international fame by calling the Opposition leader a “misogynist”.  The electorate soon came to hate her so much that the PM she disposed of (as his Deputy) had to be returned to try save the ALP from poll annihilation.

Meanwhile the Greens married the Gillard ALP after the 2010 election, though they never divorced or even separated from the Unions first. The Greens still fancy themselves as the left-wing mistress of the ALP – though the official Conservative coalition have been seeing eye to eye with the ALP for so long, they should just elope. Shouldn’t the Greens grow up!

Showboating “policies” like gay marriage don’t seem to be increasing tolerance for that minority community – nor do guilt games thrown at the mainstream public on “invasion”, to get a treat-ie. Most Australians are either descendants of "convicts" from brutal land-enclosure evictions of tenants farmers in Ireland/Britain centuries ago or else migrants since from those and other lands.