News briefs

Greens Heritage Policy

The NSW Greens Heritage Policy was launched on Friday by Greens City of Sydney Councillors Irene Doutney and De Brieley Newton, alongside heritage activist Jack Mundey.

Made in response to the threat of the planning developer driven Planning Green Paper of the O’Farrell Government, the initiative commits a national political party to the preservation of physical and cultural heritage in NSW communities.

Under the Policy, community members can raise petitions of 5,000 signatures at the local government level and 10,000 at the State level to give interim heritage protection to threatened sites and culture while more work is done either by Council or the Heritage Office.

Preference deals

Preference deals for the City of Sydney elections have been announced in the prelude to Saturday’s ballot. Living Sydney and Labor have made a deal to preference each other first, while Liberal and Independent Dixie Coulton will also exchange preferences.

The Greens have snubbed Clover Moore MP, listing the Lord Mayor fourth on their preference list. They will direct their preferences to the Housing Action Party first, followed by Labor. Flyers for Ms Moore have claimed no support from the Greens; an accusation refuted by prominent Greens members.

Youth advisory panel

Living Sydney’s pledge to create a youth advisory panel on Council has received official support from the Greens.

“A core part of Greens philosophy is having communities in control of the decisions that affect them,” Greens Councillor Irene Doutney said. “For some time it has bothered me that the City had no regular forum to get the views of young people on matters that affect them.”

Ms Doutney said she hopes Living Sydney will respect views on the panel, even if they clash with their own policies. Council is already developing a plan for such a panel after a motion to this effect was moved by Ms Doutney and unanimously passed in August.

By Chloe-Lee Longhetti