• Emily Pankhurst - ‘deeds not words’ - in court facing trial for seeking to get women the vote.
I call “garbage” on Sydney Council’s declaration of a ‘climate emergency”.
Here's why.
I put out my bins about once a month, usually almost empty, and never with food.
• Bloke with an 80 litre bin (on the left) and a 50 litre bin (on the right)
Last week, when I asked to get the smallest bins, 50 litres, or no bins at all and to be charged less the Council officers, including the ones who provide the bins and set the rates, said they would not reduce my rates nor would they charge me a $nil rate if I stopped using bins; the least I could pay for the 80, 70 and 50 litres bins was the same rate of $323.
Last week I was given a 50 litre bin (a mistake as it has another suburb and street address on it) and the photo shows it beside the 80 litre bin.
If the Council was fair dinkum that there was a 'climate emergency’ one of the first things they would do is provide a financial incentive and reward urgently for citizens who stop or reduce their waste.
Without such action it's just more 'blah, blah, blah'.
• Sydney Council bin charges in red ink in 2018 and 2019
Sydney Council had the highest increase of all Sydney metropolitan councils in waste charges this year, 12.5%
What does ‘emergency’ action look like?
Here’s an example of what happens when people accept in their day to day life that there is an emergency.
During WW2 the technical TAFE college in Ultimo, Sydney, NSW operated 24/7 to train women to be plumbers, electricians and do jobs the men had left to go and fight.
Who can imagine any local council, or a TAFE, doing that nowadays?
Which female councillor, state premier and any male politician, many of whom, male and female, will criminalise demonstrations by law this week, remembers that it was female demonstrators - females - who chained themselves to Westminster Parliament to get the vote for women and who paved the way for females to vote to get elected . . . .would todays male or female polly know what an emergency or courage is?
Consider, for example, Emily Pankhurst:
“Emmeline Pankhurst was a British political activist and organizer of the British suffragette movement who helped women win the right to vote. In 1999 Time named Pankhurst as one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century, stating "she shaped an idea of women for our time; she shook society into a new…”.
“The Suffragettes fought militantly for the right for women to vote and adopted the motto ‘deeds not words’. Pankhurst didn’t think that speeches about women’s suffrage achieved anything, so the Suffragettes focused on direct action.
Like many suffragettes, Emmeline was arrested on numerous occasions over the next few years and went on hunger strike herself, resulting in violent force-feeding. In 1913, in response to the wave of hunger strikes, the government passed what became known as the 'Cat and Mouse' Act. Hunger striking prisoners were released until they grew strong again, and then re-arrested.
And which councillor, politician, male or female, remembers where their privileges came from and were fought for by deed, not words?
“In 1886 Pankhurst was involved with the strike of girls working in the Bryant and May match factory. The girls worked 14 hours a day and were fined for dropping matches on the floor.”
. . .
In 1918, the Representation of the People Act gave voting rights to women over 30. Emmeline died on 14 June 1928, shortly after women were granted equal voting rights with men (at 21).
“Although the Suffragettes had suspended militant activities, the outbreak of war actually helped the Suffragettes’ cause. Women did jobs typically done by men and did them just as well. The vote was extended because of this, a trend towards increased suffrage for men too and an imminent election.”
• Garbage in, garbage out, whether its a ‘climate emergency’ declaration, or food waste
Garbage and food waste is the third single greatest contributor to water and energy use and to climate pollution, as the United Nations graphic shows.
So, what would emergency action look like?
How to cut rates and garbage this year of 2019
This is what emergency action would look like.
Any Council serious about taking emergency action to stop Earth’s collapsing climate collapsing even faster could do these things this November; resolve to:
1. Stop buying huge - bigger - new garbage trucks like the shiny ones just bought by Sydney Council, and which don’t work as well as the old ones due to having a larger turning circle
2. Don’t commission external reports, consultants, studies
3. Special emergency council meeting in November to:
o introduce emergency rates to reduce garbage and provide financial incentives for property owners who reduce their garbage
o offer a nominal garbage rate for property owners who compost food
o introduce emergency training for councillors, garbage collectors in composting and recycling with increase in pay to those who enrol in the fast track training option to be offered as part of the training package
o amend performance measures in staff and external contracts, and in the councillor and mayoral and deputy mayoral allowances which increase pay according to the amount of garbage reduced and decrease pay according to the increase in garbage
o special progress report to property owners on results by 20 December 2019 and every month thereafter
o create additional jobs to detect fraud and illegal garbage dumping and to impose maximum fines for wrongful garbage pollution
o offer priority in those fraud prevention appointments to garbage collectors who know from first-hand experience how garbage really works and what fraud is occurring
The law in NSW gives clear powers to Councils to take emergency action through their rating powers.
In summary, NSW laws allow councils to:
Make a variety of garbage rates
To make rates for an ‘actual service” - ie for a nil service or for a reduced service.
Section 502 of the Local Government Act says:
“Charges for actual use
502 Charges for actual use
A council may make a charge for a service referred to in section 496 or 501 according to the actual use of the service.”
Will Sydney City Council – any council which has declared an emergency, or government – take emergency action this year to stop garbage pollution?
Or will it be Instagrams, Facebook, happy clappy newsletters, smiling faces and words not deeds as usual?
I think we all know the answer; it will be garbage as usual. Garbage politics rules.