On the local government/local heroes driving our future

OK it’s not unusual – for us or anyone. But when you start digging deep into a topic, it’s amazing how interesting it becomes, sometimes revealing an underlying complexity that belies its public profile.

There’s the technical aspects that are challenging enough when you’re talking about saving the planet. And then there’s the human side of getting ideas socialised, embraced and then so deeply committed they’ve quietly rolled into unstoppable momentum.

Call it grass roots, where all the best revolutions happen.

Local government is both the breeding ground and the enabler of these long slow often quiet transitions that aim to reshape our world. Whether generated by community or not for profits, it’s the job of local government to listen to the people who elected it and pays for it and to act.

Come to think of it, all levels of government are charged with the same agenda. Not leaders – but followers of the people.

So if you want to know what’s coming down the pike, take a close lingering look at local government.

Quite often you will find them well stocked with local heroes – not a lot, sometimes just a handful or even just one or two – but with enough passion and commitment to public service to quietly, doggedly change the game.

We confess that for many years we’ve been frustrated by what you might call the Great Wall of Silence that media people, trained way beyond their ken, have thrown up around local government, and every other level of government, come to think of it

To be fair none of us want the curtain pulled back too far lest the makings of the smoke and mirrors that keeps us going shrivels under the glare of unfiltered sunlight.

But once you organise an event and give the stage to some of the most inspired and brilliant people we’ve come across in this space, everything changes.

The topics that this cohort of talent and passion say it is working on and which have inspired our list are the challenges we all face. There’s housing, electrification, solar energy, batteries, EV charging rollout, recycling and waste solutions, community facilities and the many ways to help generate “healthy, happy and sustainable” communities and vibrant local economies – you can’t start from a better place than local councils.

Because these are the folk who best understand what drives the people in their communities. They also understand how to negotiate the shoals of sometimes entrenched opposition to change and how to patiently work their way through.

Think about the greenie tactics now used by anti renewable infrastructure campaigners. OK they really care about nature but do they realise that the biggest threat to whales is not the offshore windfarm but the slowly cooking oceans?

If you’re the campaign strategy leader from Rewiring Australia that we spoke to on Thursday, you will know to use kid gloves and handle the uncomfortable tactics these people are working with not to mention the heartstrings they tug, so similar to the ones you employed in more conventional green campaigns from the past.

In the inner cities and regional areas too, coalitions across councils are doing heroic work by leveraging each other’s skill sets to bulk buying power, influence and networked brains trusts to achieve results. Despite always being generally hobbled by extraordinarily tight financial restrictions.

In Melbourne there’s the Merri-bek City Council that stretches from Victoria all the way to working with Orange City Council in NSW to help electrify their area. There’s the Council Alliance for a Sustainable Built Environment with a coalition of 28 councils in Victoria that work to improve the quality of the built environment. Should be state government’s role, you’d think.

And in Sydney’s eastern suburbs we were blown away by the work achieved with a partnership between Randwick, Waverley and Woollahra councils, but with programs and skills able to be shared way further afield depending on the different needs of the local communities.

The program runs through a huge list of achievements, from “Solar My School” running across entire regions, EV charging and composting that saves the councils millions on waste management. (And builds up local biodiversity).

Next is the aim to tackle electrification and the net zero transition in apartments – the biggest elephant in the room with 50 per cent of people now or soon to live in this housing option that is continually sidelined by the official programs.

At Blacktown the city council which says it has the largest population in New South Wales and “the youngest and most culturally diverse” has an ambitious net zero aim with its new buildings and has itself now come up with a list of 10 principles to meet to ensure sustainability. Maybe not to Green Star standards, as budgets are forever constrained, but a way to measure that the best possible outcome has been achieved.

Again, the principles will be shared at our event on 10 September. We will also be fortunate to hear from Queensland and how that state is handling the massive rapid growth that’s hit it as the southern states became too expensive and others were lured by the sunshine and warmth.

All very well, but how does a state manage the extra sudden strain on its resources, both financial and environmental? And about how it has a planning/zoning system that’s different to most.

Cover photo:  Bronte public school, Solar my school program Image: Derek Feebrey for Waverley Council