If you live in the Canterbury Council area, and you’re interested in finding out more about the Greens and getting involved in our campaigns, come along to a meeting.
We meet on the second Wednesday of every month at 6.30pm at the Club Belmore, 427 Burwood Rd Belmore. Close to Belmore Station
If you can’t make it at that time there are plenty of other ways you can support The Greens in this area and help us make it a better place to live and work in.
Posted in Welcome |
3 Canterbury Greens attended NSW Greens inservice for Greens interested in standing for Local Council – Getting Ready For 2020. In attendance was Jioji Ravulo, Cr Linda Eisler and Marie Healy. The information from present and past councillors and Local Members of Parliament offered great insight and strategies into what it takes to be a local councillor and how to get elected.
Posted in Uncategorized |
Councillor Linda Eisler was able to get a unanimous vote at Canterbury Bankstown Council meeting to support a Climate Change Emergency and the 20th September 2019 rally.
The Express wrote:
Canterbury Bankstown will support climate change strike in Sydney
Canterbury Bankstown Council is backing next month’s global climate change rally, with a councillor revealing why she ‘was surprised to see it being passed unanimously’.
Lawrence Machado, Canterbury-Bankstown Express
Subscriber only
|
August 30, 2019 4:01pm
Thousands of students turned out to support a climate change rally in March in Sydney. Canterbury Bankstown Council is backing the next global climate strike on September 20. Picture: Britta Campion
Thousands of students turned out to support a climate change rally in March in Sydney.
Councillor Linda Eisler was surprised when Canterbury Bankstown Council overwhelmingly backed her call to join the Global Strike for climate change in Sydney on September 20.
The motion, tabled at Tuesday night’s council meeting, urges the federal and state governments to take urgent action on climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The Labor-dominated council has five Liberal members, with Ms Eisler being the sole Greens representative.
“When the motion was put out, I asked the councillors twice if there were any objections and there was none,” Cr Eisler told The Express.
“I was surprised to see it being passed unanimously and I thank all the councillors.
“It is an emergency and we have to protect the future for the children.
“Each week as I care for my granddaughter Sophia it becomes more certain the world she will become an adult in will be changing rapidly.
“We need to do everything we can to reduce the destructive impact that climate change will have on our planet.
“We need to leave a healthy planet for our grandchildren.
‘I’m proud that here in Canterbury Bankstown we have the courage to call this what it is, an emergency.
“As a retired teacher I am very pleased to see young people finding their confidence and being unafraid to voice their opinion.
“They see their future is at stake and they are reaching out to us to initiate change.”
Schoolchildren and adults have attended previous climate change rallies in Sydney in their thousands, including a group called Students Strike 4 Climate.
Cr Eisler, whose father George was sent at age 15 to Australia by boat by his Hungarian mum to escape the rising ride of Nazism in 1938, said she has always backed action against climate change.
“This is the first time the council is backing this strike.”
She will be attending the climate emergency rally on Friday, September 20, at the Domain and is encouraging others to attend.
The council will write to NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian, the federal and state members for Canterbury Bankstown, NSW Environment Minister Matt Kean and federal Environment Minister Susan Ley to take action on climate change.
Councillor Linda Eisler was able to get a unanimous vote at Canterbury Bankstown Council meeting to support a Climate Change Emergency and the 20th September 2019 rally.
The Torch published an article on the motion.
After being advised that the new Canterbury Bankstown Council will implement an Environment and Sustainability Committee I decided to talk to a manager about how it might work.
I was really impressed by some of the activities the former Bankstown Council has been carrying out. Canterbury Council was doing some similar activities but there are differences between what the two were doing.
Firstly we discussed the Litter Prevention Program. It started when the team wanted to know what they needed to do to change people’s behaviour. They decided to target the river areas where people regularly went and where there was significant amounts of litter. They asked people they saw littering whether they felt responsible for the litter. The majority did. A number believed that Council was also responsible. This led to a change of bins, and “The Pledge” where people made a commitment not to litter.
Different types of bins were trialled for a year. People won’t use bins that aren’t easy to use, are overfilled, or that are dirty to touch. Every summer staff would target popular areas of high litter count and ask people to put rubbish in the bin, then take a pledge to not litter. Photos were taken and displayed.
After 4 years the scheme was evaluated and, as a result, expanded.
Next to be targeted were spots where takeaway food packaging was dumped. Many people didn’t think what they were doing was littering. There was a trial of flashing signs in some key areas, such as parks: two weeks of “Do the Right Thing”; one week of “Fines for Littering Apply”. Surveillance teams operated at different times and on different days, including Sundays, for a number of weeks.
Town centres were targetted next with similar programs. All three programs have had a positive impact in reducing litter.
Meanwhile a project initiated by the former Canterbury Council has received a NSW Excellence in the Environment Award for a new recycling initiative program. The construction of new apartments generates a lot of packaging and material that is thrown out. Bays were made available to store the unwanted materials and extra collections were organised as needed.
Canterbury Bankstown Council will set up a Program for City Resilience within the context of one for the whole of Sydney. City resilience is about anticipating the inevitable events that cause disruption and then developing strategies to reduce their impacts to the greatest extent possible.
The Council also has a focus on energy, combining the “Our Energy Future” program with the “Our Solar Future” program.
Finally we discussed natural resources. Work is being done on catchments and biodiversity with: ibis plan, rabbit control, habitat boxes, National Tree Day, and backyard biodiversity.
I still think that the merger of the two councils has led to a municipality that is way too big, but in regard to environmental and sustainability issues, I am excited about combining Canterbury’s activities and knowledgeable staff with Bankstown’s. I’m hopeful the new committee will have plenty to do to assist and support working to improve the sustainability of our environment in Canterbury-Bankstown and beyond.
Cr Linda Eisler
Posted in Community, Council | Tagged Community, Environment, Local Government, Local Services, Open Space, Recycling, Trees, Water |
It was a tough struggle with attempts to undermine Linda’s support base in the old East Ward.
Not only did the Our Local Community appear to be an alternative choice to The Greens’ policies in the old East Ward suburbs, but an unscrupulous campaign to undermine her well deserved reputation for integrity, honesty and transparency was carried out. A leaflet was sent out two days before the election claiming she supported high rise development. Three examples of support for medium rise development were cited, ignoring 7.5 years evidence of fighting the good fight. It was a fake leaflet in all senses of the word, including a fake author, fake address, fake printer, and no phone number. A protest has been lodged with the Electoral Commission.
Fortunately, Linda’s good work survived these attacks and actually galvanised communities to rally around Linda.
Linda has said that she would like to see communities organise themselves like Ashbury and Hurlstone Park as examples of community associations which inform their Facebook readers of upcoming issues like potential rezoning, Sydenham to Bankstown rail changes. Hurlstone Park also email members with information and get togethers.
When on council Linda established links with groups like Wolli Creek Preservation Society, Cooks River Valley Association and Canterbury Bowling Club. She could then alert them to issues coming before council, and they could contact her with issues. The Association was able to activate members much quicker than Linda could.
Linda believes the best way to empower communities is to establish local networks within communities based on suburbs, the old telephone tree concept. Once there are networks established we can begin to develop links between communities, like the Bankstown-Sydenham Alliance fighting the Metro.
Linda would also like to see Canterbury ward residents get involved with Canterbury Greens:
Local Group Meetings:
Club Belmore
427 Burwood Rd
Belmore
6:30pm every second Wednesday of the month
Bankstown residents should contact Bankstown Greens
Adam Tran
0403 805 493
convenor@bankstown.nsw.greens.org.au
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Posted in Campaigns, Community, Welcome | Tagged Children, Community, Community Engagement, Elections, Environment, Freedom, Health, Heritage, Local Government, Local Services, Open Space, Technology, Transport |
