ACT TEAM CHARTER 1990

My Favorite Web sites

Angelfire Home Pages
Free Web Building Help

AIMS

The Active Community Team is a group of activists, working to ensure that the interests, needs and aspirations of the community's ordinary people are met by local government in Wollongong. By working for the election of independent community representatives, the A.C.T. seeks to ensure that the expressed needs of working men and women, the ethnic community, the aged, youth and the disadvantaged are met. The A.C.T. works for the elimination of economic and social inequality and for an environmentally sustainable region. The A.C.T. works in the interests of everyday people rather than in the interests of privilege, wealth and sectional advantage.

DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION

The A.C.T. believes that multiple member constituencies based on community ties and interests (wards) are the most effective way for communities to be formally represented. The A.C.T. believes that individuals and groups should not , and cannot, delegate their right to participate in all matters between elections and that community groups called Neighbourhood Advisory Groups would be an effective way of involving and empowering communities to plan, organise develop programmes and priorities for action within their communities and to remain meaningfully and consistently involved with local government decisions that affect them.

At Council level, the A.C.T. supports open council meetings with open deliberations on all matters except personnel and those involving legal action. The A.C.T. will work for a public grievance and question time at each meeting. Within the A.C.T. democratic participation will be encouraged and facilitated by whole membership discussion and decision making in such things as policy formation, membership, candidate selection and other important matters. The annual general meeting of members shall be the ultimate decision making body of the Team. The day to day functioning of the A.C.T. is the responsibility of the elected representatives in consultation with an executive elected by the membership.

FINANCING LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Until local government develops into a regional system (a system that the A.C.T. supports), local government should be funded jointly by guaranteed minimum Federal tax sharing arrangements and state grants for the development of specific programmes. Local government's ability to raise its own revenue through taxation procedures must be based on progressive principles and people's ability to pay. While ever local government retains its own taxing powers and whilst tax evasion and avoidance are widespread in the Federal taxation schemes, the A.C.T. is committed to a rating system based on improved capital values of all properties. The A.C.T. seeks to maintain and extend concessions to disadvantaged groups, with rate rises limited to national wage movements.

INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS & DEMOCRACY

The A.C.T. believes that the maintenance of a skilled, trained and properly resourced staff is an integral facet of providing services at the local level. The base level of services and works provision can, and should, be undertaken by the council workforce. The A.C.T. opposes the privatisation of basic services where the potential exists for the profit motive to over-ride public interest. The relationship between Council and its workforce can best be built on the principles of worker participation and involvement. The A.C.T. believes that industrial democracy can be best served by formal, regular input to decision making at all levels.

The A.C.T. believes that the trade union movement in the Illawarra has an important industrial, social and environmental role to play, and that planning at all levels will be best served by consultation with the co-operative workers and their organisations.

THE ENVIRONMENT

The A.C.T. is committed to the conservation of all remaining natural areas in the city and the rehabilitation of degraded sites. The A.C.T. supports the eventual acquisition of all escarpment land beyond the limits of current urban development and their inclusion in an escarpment park. The establishment of green corridors in an East-West direction, linking the escarpment and the foreshore, is an important environmental planning concern.

The A.C.T. is committed to effective and immediate pollution control with industry, especially, meeting strict and verifiable timetables for attaining acceptable levels of emissions. The A.C.T. is committed to educating and resourcing the community so that catchment management for the Illawarra's vast creek, lake and coastal systems is implemented rapidly.

The A.C.T. believes that local government needs to be the prime authority for recycling on a vastly expanded and sophisticated scale, and that joint action between governments and business at all levels is urgently required in regard to deposit legislation, product rationalisation and conservation of resources and energy.

The A.C.T. strongly supports the nuclear free status of our city.

TOURISM

The A.C.T. recognises the role tourism can play in establishing employment and community infrastructure, however, the region's basic attraction is its natural beauty which must not be compromised by any tourist venture. Tourism developments must recognise and emphasise public access to al foreshore and escarpment areas and the provision of accommodation which is affordable to working people. They must be compatible with local community character and must always serve the regions residents and well as visitors. The A.C.T. will not support tourist developments which destroy the historical, social or natural character of the region's communities and localities.

PLANNING & DEVELOPMENT

The A.C.T. seeks to encourage and develop each community's rights, needs and abilities to be closely involved in the planning and determining of the level and style of development of its natural and built environment. Formalised and regular input from local residents with local knowledge expertise is too often ignored. Communities need to be encouraged, assisted and resourced to actively plan their area's own development outside the hothouse atmosphere of impending inappropriate developments. The needs of the disabled must be continuously addressed by Council in consultation with the disabled.

COMMUNITY SERVICE

General

The A.C.T. believes that communities and their neighbourhoods are the base unit to which resources need to be allocated, rather than the traditional centralised and hierarchical patterns of expenditure that have dominated Council's spending in the past. Each community has a right to a basic level of community services: roads, footpaths, drainage, kerbing and guttering. These levels should be attained before schemes of aggrandisement are embarked upon for any location. The A.C.T. would like to see a forward works programme published.

Transport

The linear nature of the city, together with the poorly developed public transport networks, make the provision of public rail, bus, mini-bus and conveyor systems and urgent need. Publicly owned and/or subsidised mini-bus services to link with arterial bus services and a revamped interurban rail system are a major priority. Multi-user government, or joint venture funded, conveyor systems are the only acceptable long term solution to the transport of coal from the urban fringes where rail networks are either not practical or desirable.

Each community has the right to a basic level of road, footpath and cycleway construction and maintenance, both within and linking it to other communities. The A.C.T. opposes differential levels of funding according to sectional interest.

Recreational, Sporting & Cultural Facilities

Each community has the right to a level of facility and service provision commensurate with its size and needs. Minimum standards must be set for levels of open space, both for active and passive pursuits. Pools must be provided on the basis of equity and access. Community facilities such as libraries, halls, sporting fields, leisure centres and the like must be funded and organised on a decentralised, community or sub-regional basis. The A.C.T. sees the provision of a basic standard of such facilities as a public responsibility, funded by general revenue and/or developer contributions and not by a user pays principle.

The special needs of the aged, the young, women and the disabled, together with minority or ethnic groups have a right to special consultation and consideration in relation to the provision of such facilities.

Housing

The A.C.T. is committed to the expansion of the Community Housing Trust as the prime organ for the provision of emergency short and intermediate term accommodation, refuges and an increasing stock of low income housing. Council must seek to expand its role in the public housing area.

Childcare

The A.C.T. will actively pursue all government funding and assistance with childcare subsidy, and resource community networks and groups which fill this role. The provision of facilities must also be on a community needs basis.

Community Centres

All newly built community centres must, as far as possible, act to bring communities together by being multi-purpose and user facilities rather than duplicate existing facilities and/or serve single interest functions. The A.C.T. believes that youth and the aged are the most needy in terms of facilities at the moment.

Nursing Homes

The A.C.T. believes that local government should forge a stronger role for itself in the construction, management and development of services for the aged. It can and should become directly involved, not only in the provision and delivery of senior citizen's facilities but also in nursing homes and hostel facilities. Strong participation in home and community care programmes is also the responsibility of local government.

Community Support and Service to the Disabled

The A.C.T. sees an urgent need for Councils to oversee and implement the upgrading of access for the disabled to all public facilities such as libraries, pools, halls, shopping centres, major offices etc. The provision of disabled facilities in all new public developments and major private building is paramount. Urgent reviews of existing access to transport facilities, public facilities and large private institutions (e.g. banks, N.R.M.A., supermarkets etc) needs to be undertaken.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

The A.C.T. believes that the Illawarra's most urgent need is for full regional employment based on a diversified and expanded manufacturing and services sector. Industries and enterprises which relate to the regions resources and assets are ideally placed to succeed and be supported. Those assets such as coal, its port, ethnic diversity, natural beauty of its escarpment and beaches and its proximity to Sydney should form the basis of socially useful and ecologically sustainable employment. The A.C.T. believes that value added industries based on such resources can, with long term planning and regulation, lift the regions economy to a level which will provide its people with an acceptable standard of living.

- note Kerrie Christian - has proposed that the section about Regional Government vs separate Local and State Governments needs changing - her personal view being that Wollongong Council doesn't need to grow any bigger by taking over neighbouring Shellharbour Council