Water metering for Qld tenants

An interesting development in Qld - according to the Courier Mail:

LANDLORDS will be able to charge tenants for their water use under legislation to be introduced to Queensland parliament this week, Premier Anna Bligh says.

Cabinet today approved a number of legislative changes dealing with water that will be introduced to parliament this week, and be passed by the end of the year.

Among the changes are new measures aimed at making renters more accountable for their water use, and the banning of any council charges being applied to water from residential rainwater tanks.

The laws will allow landlords who have installed water saving devices - such as dual flush toilets and low-flow shower heads - in their rental properties to have individual meters installed to monitor their tenants’ water use. 

This will hopefully make price signals for water more transparent for tenants - folding water charges into a tenant’s rent makes price signals for water very opaque, which could be problematic when water is so scarce in Brisbane. I have always rented and I fully support direct charging of tenants for their water use and individual water metering. It’s not immediately clear to me how you put the incentives in to encourage landlords to put water-saving devices into units, but perhaps this is what is happening in the last para I quoted from the story.

2007 redistribution of Qld state electoral boundaries

From the latest enrolment figures for Queensland state Parliament electorates (July 2007 and August 2007), it looks as if the conditions for a redistribution of Queensland state electoral boundaries have been met. In both July and August, 35 electorates had (weighted) enrolments outside the plus/minus 10% of the mean enrolment.

According to this page, it looks as if another trigger for a redistribution will soon come into effect: more than 7.5 years has elapsed since the last redistribution came into effect (on 28 July 1999) and a year will soon have elapsed after the day appointed for the return of the writs for the third general election after the last redistribution (see Sec. 38 of the Act here for details).

As only one trigger is needed, don’t be surprised to soon see the wheels of a redistribution of Qld state electoral boundaries start turning.

I havn’t examined the current enrolments and enrolment trends to see the likely impacts of the redistribution but will do so shortly.

Update: I’ve briefly looked at the enrolment figures, and on first glance it looks as if the area covered by the current Gold Coast City (incl. Beenleigh) will gain a seat as will the Sunshine Coast, and that the Pine Rivers area will gain half a seat. The area outside south-east Qld will lose at least 1.5 seats (possibly 2 seats), and metropolitan Brisbane will either keep its current number of seats or lose one. I’ll include the enrolment figures below.

Internet voting in federal, state and local elections?

Recently, I received an e-mail alerting me this year’s elections to the American Mathematical Society Committee and reminding me that I can vote by postal ballot or over the internet. I vote in these elections each year and voted over the internet in their elections in 2006 for the first time. 

I suspect that many organisations allow their members to vote over the internet in their internal elections and I wonder whether voting over the internet will become an option in Australian federal, state and local elections and referenda in the near future?

Election day - 2007 NSW election

Election day is nearly over - there’s only another five minutes or so of voting. Who knows what the result will be - although the polls indicate that Labor will win overall, you never know - anything could happen!

My guess is that Labor will win the election and Clover Moore will win the state seat of Sydney, although there could be an upset (a lot of people were taking Greens HTV). (I’ve previously posted on what I think about Clover’s performance as an MP.)

It was a very hot day - I wilted when handing out HTV in the middle of the day, and enjoyed my second stint of handing out HTV in the shade of a tree. There was a cool change about 40 minutes ago and then it started bucketing down!

“Clover Moore ‘a hypocrite’ on donations from developers”

Here’s a very interesting story by Imre Salusinszky in The Oz:

QUESTIONS have been raised about independent MP Clover Moore’s source of electioneering funds, with a former campaign insider accusing her of hypocrisy over donations from property developers.
Norman Thompson, who volunteered three days a week as Ms Moore’s office manager during her successful 2004 campaign to become Lord Mayor of Sydney - a role she holds alongside her state parliamentary duties - said he became concerned at a $30,000 donation from a group called Living Sydney.

Living Sydney, a registered political party that has backed a number of independent candidates for Sydney city council, is financially supported by about 15 large property firms, including Mirvac, Meriton, Leighton, Westfield, Transfield and Lendlease.

The group reported $139,000 in donations from developers in 1999 alone.

Santo Santoro to resign from the Senate

According to this story on the SMH web-site, Senator Santo Santoro is going to shortly resign from the Senate:

“I will make that advice formal at the close of these current two-week sittings, giving both the Queensland Liberal Party and the Queensland parliament time to appoint my replacement before the commonwealth parliament again meets.”

Biffo in the NSW state election!

An amusing story appeared on today’s SMH web-site about postering shenanigans in the state seat of Sydney for the upcoming election.

An iron-pumping Liberal Party candidate and a political rival have allegedly clashed on a inner Sydney street over campaign posters.

Liberal candidate for Sydney, Edward Mandla, had encountered colourful Sydney lawyer and independent candidate Malcolm Duncan allegedly attempting to pull his posters down about 12.45pm yesterday near the corner of Glenmore Road and Flinton Street, Paddington.

…

According to a police report lodged by Mr Duncan, reported in the Daily Telegraph, Mr Mandla got out of the car he was driving and confronted Mr Duncan.

“I was just standing there and before I could move I felt Mr Mandla come up behind me and thrust his upper right thigh into my bottom and between my legs … on reflection I think he may have been aiming at my testicles,” the statement reportedly read.

According to the Telegraph, Mr Mandla denied he attacked Mr Duncan, claiming it was the barrister who attacked him - shoving him and almost injuring his eye with his long pole.

Of course, Malcolm Duncan has no chance of winning, and Edward Mandla has almost none. The Greens and Liberals have the most posters up around William St, Potts Pt and Elizabeth Bay, but I’d be surprised if they have much impact, apart from reminding people that they exist!

Inner-Sydney transport plan

This SMH story refers to a plan for improved public transport in inner-Sydney prepared by Chris Stapleton, a “transport expert who designed the bus system for the Olympics.” for 10,000 Friends of Greater Sydney. I’ve only read the SMH story, but it sounds as if, amongst other suggestions, a metro system has been proposed in the medium-to-long term for inner-Sydney, which, as I’ve mentioned here, I quite like the idea of.

The plan would revamp Sydney’s bus system, creating more intra-community routes. Buses would run every 10 minutes.

A new metro rail system would use existing heavy rail and new lines. The trains would be short and single-deck, reducing the time needed at stations for passengers to get on. The metro trains could run every 10 minutes.

The metro system would operate up to 15 kilometres from the city centre, above and below the surface. It would run to the airport and under Military Road. Light rail would run to Bondi and from Rozelle to Drummoyne.

Anyone who’s been to other large cities (although some would dispute that Sydney is a large city) are very familiar with the benefits of metros/subways. It’s entirely conceivable that inner-Sydney would benefit as well. And we have to ignore the entirely understandable self-interested protestations of the company that runs the existing light rail line.

The debate about light rail in inner Sydney

Over at Lavartus Prodeo, a recent thread has touched on the debate about light rail in inner Sydney: my comment, which I’ve edited a bit, was in the following vein:

The debate about inner-Sydney light rail seems rather opaque.

Why do people want another way to get around the CBD and inner city? Possibly because the heavy rail is a suburban mass transit system and not that conducive to getting people around the inner city quickly and the bus system is unreliable and subject to delays as it uses the same network as do cars and other vehicles (ie roads).

So what do people want? A faster, more efficient way of moving around the CBD and possibly inner city. Light rail seems to be a cause celebre: but light rail isn’t the only way of achieving this.

Selling off the Crown St reservoir in Surry Hills

According to Chris Harris, the Greens Deputy Lord Mayor of the City of Sydney and Greens candidate for the state seat of Sydney in the upcoming NSW state elections, Sydney Water has decided to “subdivide the Crown St reservoir in Surry Hills and flog off the portion facing Crown Street (estimated value $12m–$14m). They have ignored the pleas of the local community and propose to sell it to a developer.”