photo credit: quinn.anya
We’re lucky to have supporters like David Pecotic flicking news summaries like this our way. I thought it about time we shared them, infact we should start our own e-news bulletin!
A series of news snippets you can sample or click through.
Big Smoke beats the rest | The Australian
[Cities are where innovation, adaptation and early adoption happen. Cities and local precincts are often the locus of creativity and new ideas, and we need to pay greater attention to the innovative properties of place.
However, the question of why this is the case is left unanswered: and without that, innovation and its rewards will not be socialised but end up largely as unearned income – and it is this which unnecessarily concentrates cities in upon themselves. After all, the continuing advances in IT effectively mean that cities can no longer be defined solely by their geographical boundaries … ]
‘Cap and trade’ creator swings to tax
[ONE of the creators of a ‘cap and trade’ system to cut pollution now doubts the practicality and effectiveness of his own program.]
A quiet revolution: City governments tackle global warming
[One reason why LVT and other “bottom-up” forms of funding would be an effective strategy against the MACC (malignant anthropogenic climate change) – and why constitutional recognition is long overdue: “It appears that while Australia’s federal and state leaders are stuck discussing the introduction of the emissions trading scheme some of our local governments have been trying to do something about the impact of human activity on global warming. What remains unclear, however, particularly in federal systems like Australia, is how climate change policies developed by our city governments will be worthwhile, or even negated by the actions or inactions of the other levels of government.”]
Falling house prices in India
[“House prices in big Indian cities continued to fall during the first quarter of 2009, having begun to slide in 2008. Households are deferring purchases in anticipation of further price falls. Property developers are trying to entice buyers through price cuts and other incentives – usually to no avail.” Ominous, no?]
Dexus Property Group’s shares dive after $1.46bn loss
[INVESTORS punished one of the country’s largest landlords, Dexus Property Group, yesterday after it reported a full-year net loss of $1.46 billion and signalled further vacancies and rental declines.]
Myer site cost hike: Melbourne
[THE cost of developing the former Myer department store site in the heart of Melbourne has increased from $1.2 to $1.4 billion, three years before the completion of the project.]
CAMRA – Cultural Asset Mapping in Regional Australia
[An innovative project that we could plug into in the future (still in development)]
Spirit matters | The High Court passed up the opportunity to clarify important issues in its judgement on the NT Intervention, by Tessa Meyrick in High Court Watch
[Reggie Wurridjal and Joy Garlbin, traditional owners of the Maningrida land in Arnhem Land, joined with the Bawinanga Aboriginal Corporation to claim that the five-year lease created over their land as part of the emergency intervention constituted an “acquisition” under section 51(xxxi) of the Constitution. Compulsory acquisitions of property made by the Commonwealth are constitutionally required to be on “just terms.” According to the plaintiffs, this requirement was not satisfied by the compensation schemes laid out in the challenged legislation and the five-year lease was therefore invalid.
In response to this claim, the Commonwealth lodged a demurrer – a special pleading asking the Court to pre-emptively dismiss the case on the grounds that the facts alleged by the plaintiffs do not show any legal cause of action. In a 6-1 majority, the High Court accepted the demurrer – denying the plaintiffs a right to present their challenge in a trial – and ordered the plaintiffs to pay the Commonwealth’s court costs.
Answering the plaintiffs’ claim head-on, the Commonwealth submitted that either no acquisition of property had taken place or that what had been acquired was not “property” or “prope rty capable of being acquired” within the meaning in s51(xxxi). And, even if there had been a relevant acquisition of property, the compensation schemes in the Acts amount to “just terms” in any case.]
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