Blog Archives

Cr Danny Claridge "environment & climate plans need substan-tial review", plus Community Wellbeing Frameworks & budgets

30/10/2022

At the first Sustainability group meeting in October, we heard from Cr Danny Claridge about the upcoming review of Council's environment and climate change adaptation plans. These plans were first prepared around 2013 and Danny suggested they were in need of substantial review. He indicated that staff working on the review would be keen to hear directly from people as the redrafting was proceeding.

At our second meeting we talked about the concept of 'community wellbeing' which has been in the news of late as the Federal Treasurer has mentioned that some principles and measures were to be included in the Australian budget. We noted that Community well-being is essentially the same as the sustainability concept. We looked at the ACT's community well-being framework and how it linked to their budget and noted some other places (NZ, Scotland and Bhutan) had already gone down this path.

John Lane

Reading: https://www.act.gov.au/wellbeing/explore-overall-wellbeing

Tuesday's Budget to include community well being measures...

19/10/2022

Next Tuesday, the Federal Government will bring down it's first budget since being elected. The Treasurer has announced that the budget will include some community well-being measures in addition to the using gross domestic product as the measure of our country's 'progress'. We don't know yet what community well-being measures will be included or what funding will be directed at programs to achieve these measures.

Now we have talked generally about this before, but at this session I'd like to pose the question, has the concept of community well-being killed of sustainability as a concept? The following link to an article from The Conversation provides a little background.

Looking forward to seeing you on Friday, 21 October at 10:00 am.

Regards

John

https://theconversation.com/wellbeing-its-why-labors-first-budget-will-have-more-rigour-than-any-before-it-187160

Cr Danny Claridge on Benalla Rural City's Climate Change Adaptation Plan & Environment Plan

15/10/2022

Cr Danny Claridge met with the group at our session on 7 October 2022 to discuss changes to the Climate Change Adaptation Plan and Environment Plan.

Key points he made were:

Both policies under review at present along with the City Community Plan
He expects the reviews will result in effectively new plans, rather than just updates
Staff will be preparing drafts with these going to council before public release for general public review/comment
Public submissions will be considered by council along with any changes to the draft.
Finalised draft will then be adopted by council
Danny is looking for initial ideas on how to make these plans better documents with relevant policies/action
He suggested we could contact the council staff doing the work (Bronwyn Chapman and Nathan ?) to put ideas forward while the plans are in their formative stages of preparation

A number of other issues were raised in a Q&A session. These included;

Danny was negative to the idea of council sponsoring a community power hub. He thinks there may be technical issues with the network that would mitigate against it.
But he indicated that council is part of Municipal Association of Victoria’s bulk power purchase scheme (available only for council’s own power purchases)
Council can only encourage sustainable subdivision design as there are no state planning controls requiring developers to apply sustainability criteria when designing their subdivisions
Danny advised that the new local government act requires councils to adopt circular economy principles
Council considering a tip shop and repair cafe at the new waste transfer station
Council feels it has limited capacity/expertise fully enforce the state vegetation clearing regulations but will investigate if clearing actions are brought to their notice. He mentioned a number of exemptions in these regulations relating to regrowth and planted vegetation make compliance difficult

John Lane

Benalla's Climate Change Adaptation and Environment Plans

7/10/2022

A reminder that we'll have Cr Danny Claridge join us on Friday 7 October to talk about the planned review of Benalla's Climate Change Adaptation and Environment plans.

For your pre-reading, here are the links to the action tables from each plan:

Benalla Climate Change Adaptation Plan - Action Table
Benalla Environment Plan - Action Table

I hope you can find your areas of interest and that you have your questions and comments ready.

Looking forward to seeing everyone on Friday.

John Lane

Stock & Land

Sustainability (& Stock and Land)

Full sustainability is only achieved when our society achieves this in three spheres of our activity: Social, Economic and Environmental. Sustainability in each of these three spheres is far from being achieved. This has become the concern of governments and ordinary people world-wide and has resulted in many questions about the sustainability of our present lifestyle.

This course aims to explore topics such as global warming and climate change, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, clean energy options, the challenge associated with population change, sustainable agricultural practices, water use, natural resource use, energy efficient building design, improving the social condition of people, wealth distribution and various economic issues. No prior knowledge of these topics is required, just a general interest in the issues around sustainability.

Note: In 2026 the Sustainability Group will continue to be combined with the Stock and Land Group. Some sessions will be devoted to Stock and Land issues.

Convenors and contact details

John Lane
0474 936 460

Meeting Times

1st and 3rd Friday
10 am to 12 midday
U3A Meeting Room 1

Convenor 2008-2021

John Lloyd - Thank you John!

Local Links

Benalla Sustainable Future Group:

Renewable Energy Benalla - website