The 43 Nillumbik residents selected to serve on the ‘Community Panel’ first got together on the evening of August 9, tasked with addressing the question: “What is the best way for us to manage Nillumbik’s Green Wedge now and in the future?” In other words, to review the Council’s 2011 Green Wedge Management Plan. Ten thousand randomly selected Shire residents had been invited to nominate as participants. Acceptance indicated a commitment to attend a schedule of five full Saturdays over three months. From acceptances, 40 plus a few extra were selected, 50% from rural addresses and the other 50% from Eltham and the townships, aiming to reflect the age and gender distribution of the Shire.
The first three days were largely preparatory. Selecting and hearing from relevant speakers on a range of green wedge related topics, and moving to the generation of a long list of issues of interest. This preparatory phase was criticized by some participants as inefficient and lacking focus – but it was a start.
Day 4 saw the Panel reduced to 33 members. Health and unavoidable issues had already taken their toll, but this morning additional attrition had been orchestrated by lobby group PALS, ProActive Land Owners, a closed Facebook group which we covered in ‘Whose PALS are they?’ back in August.
PALS wrote what they called an ‘Open Letter’ to Councillors, to the Nillumbik CEO and to ‘all Shire residents’, also posted on their Facebook page, complaining about the Panel process. How residents who are not members of PALS Facebook group might receive this letter is unclear. It relates that a ‘PALS Working Group’ was ‘convened’ to hear reports on how badly the Panel was going from disaffected Panel members. What it heard was not good, and included ‘how inhospitable and hostile the setting has been’. This was a surprise and quite discomfiting to the ongoing Panel, seeming to come out of the blue. Members we spoke to said they had seen no evidence of hostility and hardly any substantial disagreement, not surprising given the preparatory nature of these first three days.
Some of these departing members relayed their ‘reasons’ for leaving in phone calls to the organizers, and these reasons were summarized on a slide for the Panel, as follows:
Inadequate landowner engagement and under represented on the Panel
The initial plan was that the Panel should be selected based on the demography of the Shire, but PALS pressure on the Council increased rural residents representation to 50%.
Panel should not include representatives of the whole community, should only have been owners and residents in the green wedge.
PALS is a vocal lobby group who believe that they own the green wedge. They don’t recognize that without the city the green wedge concept would be meaningless, and that our green wedge is an asset of the City and the State.
Not had access to a balanced expert advice from a full range of speakers
Several Panel members have been critical of Panel processes, including the lack of early direction, and this extended to speaker selection. There were many interesting speakers, but in the absence of a prior question to answer their relevance to what was to come was sometimes lacking. But speaker selection was totally open, and most speakers suggested and available were engaged, including a prominent PALS spokesperson.
Panel has not been directed to focus on the green wedge to the exclusion of other areas.
It’s hard to know what this one meant. Did they see no role for the townships in supporting the green wedges?
One of the characteristics of PALS publications, whether it be this open letter or their 45 page pre-Panel submission, is that they are almost entirely devoted to criticisms of other groups, essentially on the grounds that the green wedge is no-one’s business but theirs.
Whatever one thinks of the merits of this Community Panel exercise as a way of updating Nillumbik’s GWMP, the fact is that the Shire is spending the best part of and perhaps even more than half a million dollars on having the community engage with the process. The process started last May with a program of community meetings involving community groups and individuals in information sessions, discussions over coffee and community workshops in various locations. The Panel process itself was designed and is being run by Mosaic Labs, consultants experienced in community panels. Panel members report no indications of attempts to influence review outcomes.
Other than surprise and disappointment, the reaction of the Panel to the departures last Saturday was to remark on the loss to the Panel process of their views. To observe that surely the place to air their perspective was within the Panel, since that is its purpose.
There is another level of concern to consider here. According to the ‘About’ section of the PALS Facebook page, it was set up by ‘local landowner Karen Egan’. PALS was clearly effective in supporting her as a candidate for Council at the last elections, because she’s now Cr Egan. As a councillor Egan has, unsurprisingly, supported the PALS line, even to the extent of playing a leading role in having Council override its planning officers recommendations in favour of the environment, notoriously in the case of 2 Pigeon Bank Road, North Warrandyte, a case with which the WCA was involved in support of the local community.
But for a Councillor to be associated with a lobby group which is attempting to denigrate and invalidate a major Council program is inappropriate, to put it mildly. Especially since it was Cr Egan who moved the motion, at the Council meeting in August last year, to proceed with the review. The community panel approach – then referred to as a ‘citizens’ jury’ – was recommended to “broker conflict or to provide a transparent and non-aligned viewpoint.”
It has been put about by Geoff Lawler, the consultant engaged by Council to advise on the entire project, that Council’s underlying aim here is ‘social cohesion’. Good luck with that.
