The Franklin Forum

20-Feb-2022

Outside of election cycles the prospect of finding five MPs of different political persuasion talking in the same hall about important issues raised by the public is unlikely!

Forum

But that is exactly what happened on Sunday 20th Feb 2022 in the Huonville Town Hall.

At the event, called the Franklin Forum staged by Circular Economy Huon, all five lower house representatives for the electorate of Franklin attended.

Questions previously submitted by the public covered a range of topics including how to make housing affordable for local people, improving public transport in rural areas, dealing with waste to turn it into a usable resource, and, when we can expect State Government to release a Tasmanian circular economy strategy.

Unlike the gladiatorial segments from ‘Question Time’ we see on TV there was a spirit of respect between each of the politicians. They discussed how they work together on important issues like family violence. As several members pointed out, there are philosophical differences between them, but that doesn’t mean they can’t work together.

The session closed with the politicians identifying projects and issues they could work on collaboratively in the Huon Valley and lower Channel during this term of office. There were three issues they suggested;

Building a network of tracks across the region for active transport on land and water,
Improving public transport across more isolated areas of the region
Dealing with family and sexual violence

These issues are of tremendous importance to the region and require careful consideration before getting them underway. (It’s also important to remember that these projects are on top of their normal work load.) To see how each of the initiatives are progressing it was decided to hold a follow up public forum in about six months. By this time the basic outline of each of the proposals should be in place and we can decide if extra assistance is needed from the community, councils and other agencies.

So it was both an informative afternoon and one which established expectations for some great outcomes in the future by politicians working collaboratively with each other and with the community.

Click on this link to hear a recording.

Questions

Here are some of the questions submitted from the community,

How will you support locals and visitors in the Huon Valley who choose healthy, low cost, low emissions, Active Transport options?
How will you support the Huon Valley to learn from other Council areas which have successfully fostered innovative enterprises to convert what is currently seen as waste into value-added materials for re-use and remanufacturing?

are there any plans to deal with re cycling old clothes/rags not suitable for /mixed textiles not suitable for donation to op shops

Do you support the vision of an integrated transport network in the Huon valley that will optimise the use active transport, car sharing, bus and private vehicle transport modes.

How are you advocating for regional communities to be included in any plans to make public transport, park and ride and active transport more affordable and accessible and why is government so inept in this space?

How to make housing affordable for locals? Should locals be proritised for housing?
Why no park and ride at Sandfly and Grove?
Where to park to catch bus at Grove now?
Your views on biomass energy?
How about a regular repair cafe in Huonville ?

River based public transport: preserving and protecting riverside infrastructure to allow this future development. Sustainable bushfire prevention, addressing climate change.

What are your plans for increasing resources and improving planning for the growing Huon Valley area?

What is your stand on logging old growth forests vs plantation logging only

What overall strategy are you advocating to inform all decisions of policy in the context of waste and resource recovery?

When is the circular economy policy and strategy going to be published?

Where’s local, sustainable food production in the mix?

Home

Home