Part 3A of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 Caters for Dysfunctional Personalities

In incorporating Part 3A into the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 (the Act) the N.S.W. State Labor Government has invalidated: all threatened species listings; all heritage listings; all Aboriginal cultural heritage listings; and all N.S.W. environmental protection agencies. (In the case of the latter, jobs and at least one department – the N.S.W. Scientific Committee – which were made pointless with the enactment of Part 3A are being maintained; yet one of the motives behind the introduction of this amendment to the Act is the notion that Part 3A projects contribute to economic growth.) Even Commonwealth listings of N.S.W. Rare and Threatened Species and Heritage are rendered ineffective by Part 3A.

Cryptostylis hunteriana – a saprophytic State and Commonwealth listed native orchid species growing on the foot of the Alum Mountain. Attempts at relocation (transplantation, translocation) will kill this species. Photograph © M. Carrall.

The power to sign off on Part 3A project proposals is in the hands of just two people from the one department: the Director General, Department of Planning (currently Robyn Kruk), and the Minister for Planning (currently Frank Sartor – email: office@sartor.minister.nsw.gov.au).

In the case of those projects where an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) has been produced, there is no prerequisite for the Minister to even peruse it, let alone investigate its accuracy.

On the whim of the Director General and the Minister for Planning, albeit with advice from ‘experts’, immeasurable and unwarranted environmental destruction is taking place in New South Wales and United Nations Treaties which have been ratified by Australia are being contravened.

(U.N. complaint procedure: http://www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/chr/complaints.htm.)

In the case of the Pacific Highway Upgrade, Bulahdelah, although several alternatives are available, not limited to but in particular Option A – a perfectly viable, cheaper route and the safest one for road users – to the west of the township, the Director General and the Minister for Planning have given their consent for the N.S.W. Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA) to use Option E, an internal deviation, and (but not limited to) to:-

• destroy Australian heritage which is of National heritage value (ref.1);
• eliminate two non-relocatable relics of the above: a boiler wall (which, contrary to the RTA’s propaganda, is directly in the path of the proposal) and a brick crucible;

• eradicate most – if not all – of the Alum Mountain Park – a public recreation area which delineates and conserves the site of a former mine processing plant of National heritage value (and which the RTA publicly stated in Newsletters 3 and 4 would not be affected by the proposal);
• mutilate the principal and historically recognised (ref. 2) aesthetics of a small country township;
• decimate a small country township’s principal tourism attraction;
• obliterate most of and scar and pollute the remainder of the highest usage section of said tourism attraction;
• cut off public vehicular access to the summit of the Alum Mountain;
• rob Australian citizens of their culture and their natural wealth;
• increase flood levels (ref. 3) and, despite the RTA’s denial of same, have the potential to adversely impact a wetland classified as significant under State Environmental Planning Policy No. 14 (SEPP 14) – Coastal Wetlands (ref. 4);
• sandwich residents, including children in two schools, between two sources of air and noise pollution;
• turn a residential street where a hospital and a nursing home are located into a highway access road (with an estimated initial usage of some 2,000 vehicles per day);
• put humans and their lives at risk from boulder and rock fall hazards which do not exist with any other route options (ref. 5);
• put humans and their lives at risk from the hazards of land slides and land slips which do not exist with any other route options (ref.5);
• decimate terrestrial flora and fauna habitat (both actual and potential) of a National level of conservation significance (ref.6);
• destroy plants which are listed on threatened species registers, including orchid species which cannot be successfully transplanted or propagated and annihilate the Type Site of Rhizanthella slateri;
• eradicate a geological seepage-zone habitat area which is inhabited and frequented by an unusually wide variety of fauna, including: Microbats; the Blue-bellied black snake; Glossy black-cockatoos; the Red-tailed black-cockatoo; White-headed pigeons; the Green and golden bell frog and many others; the Brush-tailed Phascogale and the Powerful owl; and to
• put the Alum Mountain’s population of squirrel gliders at risk of extinction (ref. 7).

  And the RTA’s internet publicised major ‘reason’ for wanting to use the only route which would incorporate all of the above and more? It’s a blatant and ludicrous falsehood: that a power transmission easement (which is vegetated, not as the RTA falsely claims, ‘cleared’) discourages animals from moving to the area on its western side (ref.8).

This King Parrot from the Alum Mountain was photographed in the residential area on the mountain’s lower foot (west of the power line easement). Photograph © E. Carrall.

With Part 3A, the Act no longer serves as a preventative to the realisation of projects which are founded on unintelligence/negligence/corruption. And with a killer Act which itself displays contempt for the environment and for human life, it is to be expected that working on Part 3A projects will be particularly attractive to those with dysfunctional (e.g. authoritarian) or depraved (e.g. sadistic) personalities.

This year, during RTA surveying on the foot of the Alum Mountain, Bulahdelah residents found a Vietcong-style spiked trap. Its sharpened spikes, which were firmly embedded into the ground, were made of small branches from saplings hacked by the surveyors:-

A Vietcong-style spiked trap with sharpened branches from saplings slashed by RTA surveyors. Found by Bulahdelah community members during RTA surveying.

References:- 1. The RTA document: Bulahdelah (Alum Mountain) Alunite Site-Complex, A Cultural Heritage Assessment with Reference to the Proposed Bulahdelah Pacific Highway Upgrade Route. 2. Rachel Henning (19th century) and H.M.R. Rupp (early 20th century). 3. Page 7.25 of EIS Technical Paper 8 – Water. 4. EIS Technical Paper 8 – Water. 5. Soil Landscapes of the Dungog 1:100 000 Sheet – Department of Land and Water Conservation, Sydney. L.E. Henderson, 2000: page 9: ‘Mass movement occurs on steep slopes, particularly the Alum Mountain Volcanics, which are also prone to rockfall’. 6. EIS Volume 4: 3.5 Overall Conservation Values of the Study Area – 3.5.1 Terrestrial Conservation Values. 7. EIS Volume 10: Conclusions. 8. The Parsons Brinkerhoff Upgrading the Pacific Highway website: http://www.pb.com.au/bulahdelah/index.html where it was previously stated, “…The significant advantage of Option E over other options to the west of the town is that the cleared power transmission easement is immediately to the east of the alignment. This cleared easement already discourages animal movement to the west of the easement.”