In “Clown Hall Part 2: Labor digs in for development” published in yesterday’s Crikey, your anonymous “Ashfield council insider” throws a lot of muck at a Labor candidate who is a principled, progressive and active trade unionist. Alex Lofts has no truck with property developers. His record as an environmental activist to help save NSW’s south-east forests speak for itself.
Alex Lofts recently helped organised opposition to a development application from Proud’s on Parramatta Road, which he believes threatens Summer Hill’s heritage. He spoke at council on this matter and at the Land and Environment Court hearings.
For Sunday’s meeting Summer Hill ALP invited the developer and a local urban planner to begin a community consultation process about the mill. I produced the “expensive” leaflet (it cost $480 to have 5000 printed). All our campaign funds are raised locally. We take no money from NSW Labor for this campaign and no money from any developers.
There was one heckler trying to make a scurrilous connection, who I assume wrote the yesterday’s libelous drivel.
We put on an ALP meeting to initiate community consultation. I spoke at the meeting emphasising we have no connection with the developer. We didn’t hide it was an ALP meeting (well spotted those ALP posters!). I had not met Michael Easson until the meeting on Sunday.
Anyone who knows anything about the inner-Sydney ALP would know that Summer Hill branch is one of the most leftwing branches in NSW. (I am branch secretary.) Look at the previous article I have written on Crikey on the ALP. Look at my own website. Though this is my political opinion alone and not that of the branch, you might get a bit of an idea about the general tenor of our branch’s politics given that they will have me as branch secretary.
To say that Rae Jones was there to praise the developer is a sick joke. Anyone who knows Rae will know he is a principled, pro-community activist. He helped establish SHAG (Summer Hill Action Group), which defeated a developer’s attempt to build a 10-storey high rise in Summer Hill. His actions and those of SHAG helped establish Summer Hill as it now is – a good community with minimal developer impact.
Rae spoke as a warning to the developer. You can’t mess with Summer Hill. If Michael Easson and EG Funds propose a development at odds with the community we will fight it tooth and claw.
Summer Hill ALP does not support the development, nor do we oppose it. We haven’t seen what is on offer yet, but if EG Funds carries on as they are suggesting, it may not be a bad outcome. We may get a Greenway from the harbour to Cooks River and we may get the light rail extended. But we are not going to be suckered in by a developer’s sweet words at the beginning of a process.
We are rightly wary and sceptical about developers. Especially former ALP “heavies” who have moved to the big end of town. That is why we must organise the community.
Summer Hill ALP sees it as our job to galvanise the community to make sure that the developer doesn’t get a free run in what will be a very important development. If the community is not organised to put its views forward, we will be run roughshod over. If the development is in keeping with what the community wants, we will welcome it. If it is contrary to what is good for the community, we will fight it tooth and claw. Summer Hill ALP has a track record on fighting bad development and bad developers.
We have zero support from the developer in the local election. To infer otherwise is just rubbish. If the “Ashfield insider” has knowledge to the contrary, let him or her come forward and have the courage to do it under your own name.
Marcus Strom defends the Summer Hill branch of the ALP, saying it is “rightly wary and sceptical about developers. Especially former ALP “heavies” who have moved to the big end of town”. The obvious question arises: if the Summer Hill branch is so wary about developers and the former ALP “heavies” who represent them, why does the branch remain affiliated to the NSW ALP?
The NSW Labor Party funds the bulk of its election campaigns from the generous “gifts” of property developers (over $10 million in the last 5 years) while the NSW Labor government re-writes the planning laws based on a wish list handed to it by the developers’ lobby groups. NSW politics has become so compromised that this is considered acceptable, so long as the donations and the wish list are delivered in separate envelopes.
The Liberals are not quite as favoured, only $6 million over 5 years, but they don’t get to make the decisions on the big projects.
Against this background it is extraordinary now to watch all the “local Labor” and “local Liberal” candidates in the upcoming NSW council elections piously proclaiming their disdain for developer dollars while their party headquarters continue to rake in the dough. If they were really opposed to political donations from property developers they’d resign from the parties that take the money and run as independents.
Chris Holley
Disclosure: I’m a member of the Greens and have worked on the Democracy4sale research project. I am not, nor do I know who is the “Ashfield Council Insider” referred to in Marcus’s article.
It seems to come as a shock to Chris Holley that there are people in the ALP with progressive politics and some backbone. And rather than seek paths for joint work where possible, he just says “resign”. This is not a very serious approach to politics.
I think a look at the NSW state conference will show that there are plenty of branches and ALP activists and unionists who share such an opinion.
Some of these people will be candidates for local elections on September 13.
It may come as a shock to Chris Holley that many progressives in the ALP believe in being in a party that has the overwhelming majority of organised labour affiliated to it. Social change will come because of the actions of the majority of working people, not through the inner-city intelligensia.
It is interesting to note that at least two of the lead Green candidates in Ashfield are not even members of trade unions.
Those differences aside, where our interests overlap, I look forward to Ashfield Labor and the Green Party co-operating on Ashfield council.
There were 1,500 hundred arrests over the south east forests of NSW to close the Eden chipmill (more than the Franklin River conflict) so maybe he was one of so many. (A couple were mine since 1992) But methinks this is a hazardous policy issue to rely on Marcus.
The SE Forests probably got Carr over the line in 1995 but in a testimony to the ALP’s ‘credentials’ between 2,500 and 3,000 trees from SE NSW and East Gippsland are still cut down every working day (like today 20 August 2008) to supply the Eden chipmill. It may be this is involves the footprints of the ALP Right on the face of such as Marcus Strom and Alex Lofts here. More here: http://www.chipstop.forests.org.au/
That’s what the ALP brand also means in this grey world. So if these guys in Summer Hill are brimming with good faith the same can’t be said of their Party and that’s a worry. (party non aligned here)