Anger over 'impossible' Green Growth Plan

The Perth and Peel Green Growth Plan, which was officially released earlier this year, details the state government’s plans for development and environmental conservation in the face of increasing population.

Members of WA Labor have accused the state government of providing illegible maps that provide little to no detail to both public shareholders and local councils over how certain areas will be affected, including already-existing wildlife areas in the Peel Region.

It follows leaked information that showed the Western Australian Carnaby’s Black Cockatoo population will decrease by half under the plan.

Shadow environment minister Chris Tallentire said detailed maps must be part of the full disclosure of the plan, so the public can make informed comments.

“The public comment process is fast losing credibility,” he said.

“Community members are not being given the information they need to make considered comment.

“It’s already apparent from leaked documents that the plan needs a substantial overhaul. If that doesn’t happen half of Perth’s endangered Carnaby’s Cockatoos will be lost.”

Mr Tallentire also urged the government to extend the official deadline for public comment, which is currently set for April 8.

Member for Peel and shadow minister for local government David Templeman said it was virtually impossible for local government councils to make proper submissions without detailed plans on how the process would take place.

“This is a crucial strategic plan for the future, including Peel. It’s actually imperative that local governments make submissions, because they have to be included in the process,” he said.

“It just seems to me very strange that the maps that are meant to identify and highlight areas of importance, and effectively they’re of very poor quality. It’s just bizarre.”

Mr Templeman said he worried that the lack of information provided showed the state government saw local councils as “low priority”.

“Whether it’s to do with the Black Carnaby’s population potentially being decimated under this plan, or issues over how environmental protections would be applied, you’d think that the government would want public and council submissions, and actively provide the information to make those submissions. But what we’re seeing is nothing like that.”

The Peel-Harvey Catchment Council have organised a workshop to be held on Monday march 21 to aid public shareholders in making submissions, with Murdoch University associate professor of environmental assessment Angus Morrison-Saunders attending.

“My role is to go into what an environmental impact assessment is and how it applies here,” Mr Morrison Saunders said.

“I want to empower them to put in the right sort of submission that will be effective. Because what no-one wants is just people disagreeing with the plan or saying they don’t like it, that’s not helpful.

“If people understand what the plan is trying to achieve, they can make an educated decision.”

Mr Morrison-Sanders said he did believe that proposals like the Green Growth Plan needed to be explained in much more detail than it has up to this point.

“The thing about strategic proposals like this is that they’re big, far-reaching plans, ones that look far into the future and more or less give a picture on a large scale,” he said.

“People are instinctually short-term thinkers, so it’s often tough to get a lot of people thinking in the long-term. But this is very important; people need to know what the details of the plan are, and what they can say about it.”

Mr Morrison-Sanders also said the deadline for submissions was much too short to allow proper deliberation.

“It really needs to be pushed back, we’ve only got a few weeks from this point, and the whole plan is huge – I printed it off the other day and it’s a number of sections,” he said.

“Asking people to go through all that in such a limited amount of time is difficult.”

The Department of Premier and Cabinet has been contacted for comment.