My Profile

Michael Osborne was elected in March 2004 as a Newcastle Greens Councillor on Newcastle City Council and served from April 2005 to November 2005 as Newcastle’s Deputy Lord Mayor.

Michael was born in Newcastle and, apart from a few years working overseas on aid projects in the Solomon Islands and Vietnam, has lived in Newcastle all his life. He has three children and is an environmental engineer with management qualifications.

Michael is the current Coordinator of the Green Corridor Coalition, an alliance of more than 50 community and environment groups committed to the protection of biodiversity corridors in the Lower Hunter, including the state significant Stockton to the Watagans Green Corridor.

Michael has been an active volunteer in the environment movement since the early 1980s, and has been involved in many community-based campaigns, including campaigns to:

* save Newcastle’s rail line into the city and to revitalise the CBD,

* improve public transport in Newcastle,

* protect the community from inappropriate development, from buildings blocking the harbour, to high rise on the Royal Newcastle Hospital site and over-development in our suburbs,

* involve the community in developing the Lower Hunter Regional Strategy,

* protect our last remaining natural areas, and species threatened by climate changes,

* convince the State Government to pass specific wilderness legislation in NSW and protect the Barrington Tops wilderness.

Michael has also been involved in local organisations and projects, such as the Hunter Region Community Forum (where he worked with others to produce a community blueprint on the need for an integrated planning approach to public transport), and in organising events for charities such as The Wilderness Society and Oxfam Community Aid Abroad.