The Greater Sydney Parklands Trust Bill 2021 must be rejected in its entirety. My family and family company invested an enormous amount of time and significant funds protecting public land on Sydney Harbour Federation Trust sites and in maintaining community vigilance over them. I have also kept watch and participated in meetings, information events and submissions supporting the Callan Park Act for the present and future protection of Callan Park public parklands, history and heritage from privatisation and commercial development.
ABOVE: Callan Park, Lilyfield, Sydney, is uniquely enchanting in its heritage and history. The design and layout of the buildings and gardens were created to provide a refuge for contemplation, communal activities, and mental health recovery and accommodation for the insane. PHOTO: Michael Mangold
I know the Local Government Areas of Blacktown, Hawkesbury and Baulkham Hills, well. I grew up on Darug land. I know the Local Government Areas of North Sydney, Mosman, Willoughby, Hunters Hills, Canada Bay and Inner West, well. I have lived on Cammeraygal land for many years.
I know the issues and I understand the ramifications of the Greater Sydney Parklands Trust Bill 2021 carrying with it as it does unprecedented and centralised authority over publicly owned public parklands of all kinds.
I am a former company director of a digital analytics company where I also held various operational roles. I reactivated my teaching qualifications during the pandemic in order to contribute and give back to the community via the critical path of children’s education and training. I have worked closely with people from every generation, from children to seniors like myself.
I am a longstanding member of the Friends of Callan Park, the Headland Preservation Group, the National Trust (NSW) and Sydney Living Museums. I support the Alliance for Public Parklands.
ABOVE: Sydney Harbour and seawalls form a moat making it extremely difficult for kayakers and crabs to come ashore at Callan Park. The effect is opposite on developers and politicians always with avaricious eyes and plans for parklands. PHOTO: Michael Mangold
The Greater Sydney Parklands Trust Bill 2021 is designed to concentrate decision making power over the future use of the public parklands of greater Sydney solely in the hands of the NSW Government and to marginalise community consultation and alternative and / or dissenting public opinions and community visions in the process.
ABOVE: The NSW Government’s Sydney Parklands Trust Bill 2021 is the platform for a Medieval citadel to control public parklands centrally with absolute authority, opaquely with minimal accountability and avenues for community objections. PHOTO: Michael Mangold
Governments and ministers come and go. The most important determining factors (and the most unpalatable to politicians) in keeping public land in public hands for use by the public, are; public consultation and direct public involvement in the planning and administration of public parklands. Public land belongs to the people. Public land is not ‘spare land’ in wait of political agendas and sectional, commercial or private interests and exclusive uses. Taking the lead of First Nations Australians the overriding objective and operative for Greater Sydney Public Parklands must be to maintain the proximity of the greater public’s needs to the public parklands which can meet and satisfy them. This is the holistic and democratic approach compared to the whole of authority and central authority; bordering on authoritarian, approach encompassed by the Greater Sydney Parklands Trust Bill 2021.
The Greater Sydney Parklands Trust Bill 2021 seeks to increase and expand the authority of the NSW Government and minister of the day to make irrevocable decisions on the basis of ideology and political convenience. A bill that would take away flexibility in public parkland use and replace it with increased and expanded, opaque, centralised, and partisan authority.
The Greater Sydney Parklands Trust Bill 2021 incorporates the word ‘trust’ while eliminating the long established participation of members of the community appointed as trustees of particular parklands within their communities. Put simply the Greater Sydney Parklands Trust Bill 2021 would rezone public parklands and convert them to commercial real estate.
ABOVE: Sydney Harbour’s shoreline is the frontier of developer greed and political expediency. Real estate agents and landlord investors are ever ready to assist with lobbying efforts to circumvent public parkland boundaries and accessibility. PHOTO: Michael Mangold
The Greater Sydney Parklands Trust Bill 2021 ignores and represses peoples love of place and deep connections with public parkland spaces; from cradle to grave and beyond in the value placed on sense of place, shared experience and individual and community identity up, down and across generations. The awakening of the public to the meaning and ramifications of the deep and profound connection of Aboriginal Australians to Country makes the bill’s alienation and separation of people and public parkland even more pronounced and potentially catastrophic.
The natural, indigenous and built history and heritage of Sydney’s public parklands must be respected and taken into account in the future planning and administration of them. The effect of the Greater Sydney Parklands Trust Bill 2021 would be to circumvent public involvement and violate public ownership of public parklands at a point in human history when open green space is at a premium and pivotal to human health through exercise, passive recreation with family and friends, and peaceful leisure without consumer marketing.
ABOVE: This sign statement in Callan Park is self-explanatory. So is the faded bottom line’s ‘Heal Country’ call to action. PHOTO: Michael Mangold
The Greater Sydney Parklands Trust Bill 2021 ignores climate change, global warming, extreme weather, and the necessity to maintain and increase habitat and biodiversity for human well being and belonging as much as native animals. Western Sydney in particular is under enormous pressure with land clearing, loss of tree canopy and obliteration of native animal habitat with extremely dense and environmentally insensitive property developments in the Parramatta and Blacktown Local Government Areas. The current projections will see the populations in these areas increase by more than 100,000 people.
The Greater Sydney Parklands Trust Bill 2021 contains provision for 25 year leases to private commercial developments without ministerial oversight, including high-rise hotels and business hubs. This is unacceptable.
The Greater Sydney Parklands Trust Bill 2021 gives the Greater Sydney Parklands Board of political appointees the power to acquire public and private land compulsorily, exposing Local Government Area parks, reserves, playgrounds, and for that matter adjacent privately owned land to land grabs by the NSW Government and minister.
ABOVE: Glasshouse in Callan Park for propagating plants in the magnificently landscaped gardens expresses both the purpose and vulnerability of Sydney’s public parklands. PHOTO: Michael Mangold