Myopic fools

“City to ‘grow’ 134,000 homes on farmland”, The Age, 30/7. I was infuriated enough to send a letter to the paper, but so far it hasn’t been published:

The Brumby Government and Opposition have demonstrated that they are nothing but environmental vandals in thrall to greedy developers by allowing expansion of Melbourne’s urban boundaries. Their short-sighted stupidity of allowing more open farmland to vanish under housing just beggars belief, as it threatens the city’s future food security and will increase pollution.

Letters in response:

31/7:

Victorians a rum lot

Well, it’s official. As we have suspected, state planning is not informed by sound policy and community interest but by big developers.

Liberal and Labor MPs have agreed to cover more than 4000 hectares of our highly productive horticultural land with tar and cement (“Green land cut back as Melbourne grows much, much bigger”, Online, 29/7)

So much for “allow[ing] time to assess the social conditions in new communities on the perimeter of the city” (“Gazing beyond the fringe”, The Age, 6/1).

So much for the advice of Australian agriculture, energy and environment specialist Julian Cribb, who believes we must stop building on arable land because future worldwide food shortages will make even climate change pale into insignificance by comparison.

Out with commonsense and democracy and in with political expediency. If it’s true we get the government we deserve, Victorians must be a rum lot.

– Rosalie Counsell, Harkaway

Housing on urban fringes is not cheap

The state government and the opposition are deluded in believing that housing on our urban fringes is cheap. Most of this proposed housing development is kilometres from train lines, and buses, where available, are slow and infrequent.

Casey and Manningham are examples of municipalities where families average more than two cars to get to work, schools, shopping, health and recreation services. The cost of running even two cars in the outer and fringe suburbs is $400,000 over 20 years; three cars is $600,000, according to our national motoring organisations. These costs will rise as oil prices increase and governments impose emission taxes.

Another cost the government and opposition have forgotten is the $100 billion required to service 134,000 new dwellings, mostly from the public purse. No wonder the land bankers and political donors are laughing.

– Brian Buckley, North Carlton

Some earlier collected letters:

11/7:

Big isn’t better

Regarding “Size does matter, Doyle tells PM” (4/7): Cr. Doyle stated “Sydney and New South Wales are losing people”. This is not the case. Sydney continues to grow at 50,000 people a year, according to the ABS. Perhaps the councillor means Sydney is not growing as fast as Melbourne. If the councillor sees the population rates of the cities as a competition, I am happy to have Melbourne win! Who wants higher density, less public space and fewer resources per person?

– Nicholas Car, Hornsby

Crowding not the answer

Melbourne’s lord mayor, Robert Doyle, argues for the inevitability of population growth.

Overseas immigration contributes nearly two-thirds of national population growth and can be changed almost instantly by federal ministerial decision. There is absolutely nothing inevitable about immigration-fuelled population growth.

Population growth benefits the few while the vast majority pay the costs in reduced housing affordability, congestion and pollution.

– Jenny Goldie, Michelago, NSW

14/7:

Population reform

Tim Colebatch’s article (The Age, 13/7) on Australia’s complementary problems of involuntary under-employment and our skills shortage is a valuable contribution to the public debate on population policy.

I endorse Labor MP Kelvin Thomson’s 14-point plan for population reform. Components include increased funding to tertiary and vocational education, while reducing skilled immigration, and funded by the nearly $3 billion that could be saved by ceasing the baby bonus and limiting child support payments to only the first two children of any couple.

– Kit James, Melbourne

28/7:

Why small is better

In the long term, freeways and buildings are not important. Our quality of life depends on good health, education, access to housing, open space and a healthy environment. The money spent on resource-sapping infrastructure for rampant population growth would be better invested in providing better quality services for a smaller number of people.

– Jennie Epstein, Little River

27/9:

Inequitable scheme

My wife is due to have our third child in January. She recently went back to work after taking unpaid maternity leave after the birth of our second child.

Under the government’s paid parental leave scheme, she will not be eligible for any payment. The rules state: “The primary carer must be in paid work and have been engaged in work continuously for at least 10 of the 13 months prior to the expected birth or adoption of the child, and undertaken at least 330 hours of paid work in the 10 month period”.

While I appreciate the need for such rules, they exclude families such as mine where our only error was to have our children too close together. Other than to take maternity leave, my wife has worked full-time and continuously since completing her education.

– Richard Morris, Viewbank

[If you are having financial trouble, why the hell are you having a third child? You are selfish in expecting government handouts to support this.]

Mr. Abbott, some single, childless people – even women – know what a struggle it is to raise a mortgage and pay grocery bills.

– Patricia Watkinson, Hawthorn East

H-S, 25/7:

City has become too clogged

Several years ago I bemoaned the loss of parkland as grand sporting blots on the landscape were developed to the southeast of the city.

Now it’s even worse. Once you could see the river from Flinders St. Once you could see the river and the city from the Bolte Bridge. Once I felt comfortable in the city.

No more.

You ask why there is an increase in crime in the city? I would suggest that the systematic enclosure of a once-proud and open city is partly to fault. Let there be space and let us cherish that space.

Australia is not Singapore or Hong Kong, but our decision-makers are trying to make us exactly that, and I resent and reject that.

– David Becroft, Mulwala

The io9 sci-fi site had an entry about a short story, Amaryllis, that I found a bit irritating as it is about the theme of rebelling against the system – in this case, one that has instigated population growth control. I previously mentioned a series of novels with a similar theme (16/7/2009 entry). I commented:

The main character struck me as selfish – putting her own wants ahead of others and the society she lives in, never mind how it might affect or inconvenience them. So I could only feel irritation, not sympathy – she would deserve whatever punishment they might mete out.