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More urban vegetation is urgently needed in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney to protect residents against the likelihood of extreme temperatures by 2060, a new report claims. Commissioned by the Australian Conservation Foundation and prepared by the Monash Climate Change Communication Research Hub, the report says that without more urban greening and concerted climate action, Brisbane+

The NSW Government has opposed plans for an electric scooter trial in Sydney despite local council support for the devices to be trialled there. Transport Minister Andrew Constance recently told Budget Estimates in the NSW Parliament that he was “not in the mood” to have e-scooters on Sydney streets, even though his department, Transport for+

Local and state planning policies need to be better aligned if city or state-wide development objectives like housing supply targets are to be realised. In a new information paper on short-term planning and zoning policy reform options, the Productivity Commission also canvasses “more flexible and adaptive land-use regulation”. Moving to fewer and more broadly stated+

The Federal Government has announced a $1.2 billion aviation and tourism support package with 800,000 subsidised airline tickets as its centre piece. Under the Tourism Aviation Network Support (TANS) program announced on Thursday, the public will be offered up to 800,000 discounted airline tickets to 15 key tourism regions. These include the Gold Coast, Cairns,+

Airports at Orange, Ballina and the Sunshine Coast have reported strong passenger growth as airlines boost their services to these and other regional centres. South-east Queensland’s Sunshine Coast Airport has gone from having two domestic routes pre-Covid (to Sydney and Melbourne) to seven, with the addition of Adelaide, Canberra, Cairns, Emerald and Newcastle. Orange, in+

The Federal Government has proposed a suite of national actions, including greater consistency of kerbside bin collections, to deal with problematic plastics. Launching the first National Plastics Plan this week, Federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley said it was time to change the way plastics are produced and consumed – and that states, industry, and consumers+

South Australian company Reclaim PV Recycling has secured development approval for the country’s first solar panel recovery and recycling facility in suburban Adelaide. Reclaim initially hopes to process about 70,000 panels a year at the Lonsdale facility – and to establish facilities in other major metropolitan areas “in the next one to two years”. The+

Eight Brisbane City Council waste trucks have caught fire this financial year, prompting warnings from Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner. At least two of the fires were started by lithium or lithium-ion batteries, which are commonly used in laptop computers, mobile phones, and power drills, and which can spontaneously ignite when overheated or damaged. In all+

Regional Express (Rex) says it plans to terminate several NSW services as well as its Adelaide-Kangaroo Island route after government subsidies end in March. The decision follows Qantas’s launch of 26 new regional routes, including eight which overlap with Rex’s existing network. In a statement to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) on Monday, Rex deputy+

New technology using video footage and machine learning to automatically assess road conditions is being trialled at a NSW local council. The technology, which has the potential to deliver superior data whilst also saving time and money, is trialled by the Central Coast Council, in conjunction with the Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia (IPWEA)+

Local governments have until 10 June 2021 to notify the Department of Foreign Affairs of pre-existing “non-core” foreign arrangements. These are arrangements they entered into with foreign entities before 10 March 2021 – and include sister city arrangements. Additionally, local governments must – from 10 March 2021 onwards – notify the Foreign Affairs Minister before+

Wagga Wagga Council has commissioned a report to explore the “benefits” and “consequences” of not renewing the lease on its Commonwealth-owned airport. The council’s lease on the airport land expires in 2025. Councillor Paul Funnell said the request for the report was due to insufficient grant funding to properly upgrade the ageing airport. The report+

Federal ministerial responses to motions submitted by councils for debate at the 2020 National General Assembly have been published on ALGA’s website. Although the 2020 NGA was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic, ALGA agreed to consider the 153 motions that had been submitted by councils for debate. After deliberations by the Board of Directors+

Lilliane Brady, NSW’s longest-serving female mayor and a forceful and effective advocate for her hometown of Cobar, has died aged 90. Cr Brady served on the shire council for 38 years, 20 of them as mayor, and told the ABC’s Back Roads program earlier this month that she planned to retire in September. Cr Brady+

Bans on purified recycled water for drinking should be lifted so that all supply augmentation options can be considered in the future, the Productivity Commission says. In a draft report into national water reform, the commission has also called for the removal of exemptions granted to the minerals and onshore gas industries from water consumption+

The Commonwealth can cement Covid-19 recovery by giving greater support to councils, the Australian Local Government Association (ALGA) said this week. In its 2021-22 Pre-Budget Submission, ALGA urged the Morrison Government to prioritise local jobs, infrastructure investment, and community wellbeing initiatives. Economic recovery from Covid-19 and the 2019-20 droughts, floods and bushfires is imperative –+

Support for local government and community repair schemes should be a cornerstone of any future Right to Repair framework, an ALGA submission says. Right to Repair is a regulatory framework entitling consumers to have their consumer durables repaired by a repair shop or service provider of their choice, as well as being able to repair+

The Upper Hunter Shire Council has approved changes to its ambitious plan to put the Scone Regional Airport on a sustainable footing after years of financial losses. At a special meeting on 7 January, a Council committee supported changes to the construction of the planned terminal, including reducing the building’s overall footprint by 260 square+

More markets for recycled materials are needed to build a circular economy, says the CSIRO – along with less contaminated waste streams, and a greater reprocessing capacity. In its Circular Economy roadmap for plastics, glass, paper and tyres, Australia’s national science agency says there is no single “silver bullet” for transitioning to a circular economy+

Federal environment laws should be amended immediately to allow states and territories to deliver “single-touch” environmental approvals, an independent review has advised. But the new arrangements must be subject to rigorous, transparent oversight by an independent environment assurance commissioner and underpinned by legally enforceable national environmental standards. The significant environmental law reform is one of+

Regional Express is planning to introduce new routes as well as increase services to country centres to support its new capital city services starting in autumn. The airline will begin flying between Sydney and Melbourne on 1 March with a Sydney-Brisbane service scheduled for after Easter. It eventually hopes to have at least 10 Boeing+

The outlook for Australia Day activities organised by local governments remains fluid, with many councils reviewing planned events because of Covid-19 health concerns and crowd restrictions. In late November, ALGA News reported that Canterbury Bankstown, Liverpool, North Sydney, Inner West, and the Hills Councils in NSW had all cancelled events – as had the Perth+

The NSW, Victorian and South Australian recycling industries are in line for $73 million in grants as money from the Commonwealth’s $190 million Recycling Modernisation Fund (RMF) starts to flow. The Federal and NSW State Governments today announced a $35 million grant round for recycling companies, and earlier this week, the Federal and South Australian+

Four hundred forty-five councils, or 83 percent of all local governments, have now provided data for the 2021 National State of the Assets (NSoA) Report. This is an increase of 13 percentage points in the overall participation rate since 2014, and eight percentage points since 2018. The Australian Local Government’s Association’s NSoA project has regularly+

The Commonwealth should expand its regional infrastructure spending to drive economic recovery – consulting with local and state governments to avoid a one-size-fits-all approach. This approach would help underpin economic recovery from the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Senate Economics References Committee said last week. In the final report from its inquiry into the+

A unified waste management approach across the states and territories is critical to developing a national circular economy, a new federal parliamentary report says. Developing a national framework which features an appropriate blend of regulation, incentive-based actions, taxes and levees, and long-term policy certainty, would foster innovation and lead to new opportunities that will create+

Local government planners sometimes fail to appreciate that valuations of coastal wetlands as disaster risk-reduction ecosystems can improve decision-making. To help address the failure to adequately consider valuations, the Federal Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment has published the results of a study into the economic valuation of the disaster risk reduction services provided+

Australian and New Zealand Health Ministers have failed to agree to allow fresh fruit juice with no added sugar to score up to five on the Health Star Rating (HSR) system. The ABC has reported that last Friday’s Ministerial Forum on Food Regulation voted down a proposal by Federal Agriculture Minister David Littleproud that fresh+

Greater collaboration will be necessary to ensure packaging and plastic waste in remote and regional areas are properly managed in future, a new report says. To that end, the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation (APCO) paper identifies 22 opportunities for improvement across capability development, waste collection, transportation, recycling, and end markets. These include actions by all+

Fact sheets setting out carrier obligations before and during 5G infrastructure installations are being developed for local governments, utilities, and infrastructure owners. The information will help parties understand their right to object to proposed activities and the timeframes for making objections, the Federal Government said this week. The Government was responding to a Parliamentary inquiry+

Several councils in NSW and WA have cancelled their Australia Day events, blaming Covid-19 restrictions and ongoing health concerns. Canterbury Bankstown, Liverpool, North Sydney, Inner West, and the Hills Councils in NSW have all cancelled events – as have the Perth metropolitan councils of Armadale and Bassendean. It is believed other councils are reconsidering Australia+

Telstra payphones with large digital screens are not “low-impact facilities” and the company must obtain council planning permission to install them, the Federal Court has ruled. The decision overturns a previous Federal Court ruling that allowed Telstra and its outdoor media company business partner, JCDecaux, to install large digital billboards as part of a roll-out+