Media Centre - Overhead Cabling
Overhead Cabling
Published 11/9/2009
"How's the serenity?"
So said Daryl Kerrigan while relaxing at Bonnie Doon in our family's favourite Australian film, 'The Castle'. The joke is, of course, that the serenity is broken immediately by the loud electronic buzz of a bug zapper.
Still, as we sit on the front or back porches of our own personal castles, we can all relate to Daryl's call to relax.
But residential serenity is being increasingly endangered by some new Government programs.
One of the problems with the Rudd Government's plan to build a Julia Gillard Memorial School Hall in every primary school around the country is that there have been a number of examples of councils and planning authorities being bypassed in the haste to roll out the projects.
Just this week in Federal Parliament my colleague Andrew Southcott, the Member for Boothby asked Julia Gillard about the ridiculous situation in Unley where specially designated trees of significance were chopped down to make way for a Building the Education Revolution project.
Other residents have been astounded to find out that a towering building was being constructed flush against their fences, but as the planning rules have been effectively suspended for these programs, the Council is powerless to stop it.
Local radio has been covering a number of stories about inner city Adelaide suburbs where schools are being told to use all available space, including by building multi-story halls right on their fence lines, even if those halls will then look directly into neighbouring residential back yards.
These are the problems that arise when central Governments make decisions that leave councils, planning authorities and local residents overrun.
I was watching a news report some weeks ago about the roll-out of the Rudd Government's $43 billion "Ruddnet" - a Government owned, taxpayer funded internet company. This announcement came without a business plan or any modelling, costing, pricing, or details on how it would be rolled out.
The Government has begun a Ruddnet trial in Tasmania and I was flabbergasted to see that they were connecting homes with ugly overhead cabling running along electricity poles.
Now we understand that 70% of the Government's $43 billion internet plan will have to be strung up by new overhead cabling.
Adelaide's beauty is enhanced by the street trees that line so many of our suburbs. Way back in the nineteenth century Adelaide's suburbs were systematically enriched by the planting of trees along the street sides. Today, despite the drought we've all been suffering through, our urban ecology provides a rich collection of life that improves our standard of living and enhances our local environment and biodiversity.
The sad fact is that to make way for the ugly overhead cabling, there will be a need to hack down a lot of street trees so the Rudd Government can achieve its internet rollout.
In many suburbs in my electorate we have stunning established street trees shading the roads. Our local environment is important to our quality of life, and we owe it to our children to preserve it and improve it.
In this day and age it is ridiculous that the Rudd Government is going down this track. After we have worked so hard in the last decade to ensure that new cabling is underground, it would be a disaster if that work was undone just because the Government didn't properly cost their election commitment.
We have tried to get answers from the Government about their specific plans, but have had no response. Responding to a recent Freedom of Information claim in relation to this matter, the Department replied that Senator Minchin would have to pay a fee of $23,851 to process the claim. So much for open and transparent Government!
This week in the Parliament I will again call on the Prime Minister to rule out the mass installation of overhead cables to achieve his Rudd-net plan. The community's concerns for protecting our urban environment must come first.
More about Overhead Cabling
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