Melbourne on the path to ruin

Haven’t written for a while, though there have been quite a few articles on population issues; I feel disheartened that nothing ever seems to change regarding the problems faced, and that governments and business remain in denial of overpopulation’s negative effects.

“Fast-growing Melbourne heading towards becoming Australia’s largest city”, H-S, 3/4. Dismaying news for my home city, and this will completely destroy its livability, despite the positive statement of the apparently-delusional Premier. At 4.35 million now, traffic on the roads virtually grinds to a halt at times every day, and public transport is beyond capacity. Victoria’s population has also been growing rapidly as a whole (from overseas and interstate), currently at 5,768,000, most of whom head to Melbourne. It has become too popular and this is ruining it. But all Premier Denis Napthine does is “welcome” the strong growth.

“Mumbai: Bright lights, tight city”, The Age, 21/2: article from February on the extreme overcrowding in an Indian city. The situation is quite horrifying, and the people questioned are obviously unhappy about their situation – “We have already reached saturation point. We’ve got skin-to-skin contact on the trains. How much closer together can we live without going mad? There is nowhere to walk, nowhere to throw a ball or have a picnic”. It is obviously extremely unhealthy both mentally and physically. The proponents of high-density living in other countries (including those in Australia) should read this as a cautionary tale: an ultimate outcome of uncontrolled population growth and urbanization.

There has been a lot of recent attention on foreign buyers purchasing residential property in Australia – estimated at one-fifth of all buyers – particularly those from China. Our lax laws encourage this, and it is a major factor in driving up property prices to ridiculous levels, along with strong population growth. Canada recently (and sensibly) cancelled its own 28-year-old visa scheme designed to attract wealthy foreigners to the country, so Australia is now the next easy target for buyers. Of course such attention inevitably attracts criticism that such concern is “racist”, but a government’s priority should be toward its own citizens in providing essential services – shelter is a basic human right – and in this it is failing. The trend is also fuelling unwanted demolitions and inappropriate developments in once-pleasant suburbs, as a columnist laments.

Some collected letters:

Oh, China, no!

China is considering allowing couples to have more than one child, due to demographic panic over an aging population and labor shortages – as well as wanting more consumers. This would result in 9.5 million additional births in an already very overpopulated
and polluted country. It will be an environmental disaster, considering that the country is already plundering other continents for resources (Australia and Africa being some).

As soon as a country’s birth rate goes into decline, its government seems to go into panic mode and do everything to encourage more births, no matter how this may negatively impact them in the future (see Iran). Those from a baby boom will one day be old too, and the cycle repeats itself.

Humanity as a species just can’t seem to commit to sustained long-term planning for the future – looking decades or even hundreds of years ahead. The type of society that is dominant now – a capitalist consumer economy – seems to preclude this. All that is heard as a policy in Australia’s upcoming Federal election is the mindless mantra of growth, growth and more growth. Any other way of thinking is heretical.

Embrace growth? No thanks!

“State government minister says Victoria should embrace growth”, Herald-Sun, 2/8. I read the statements by a Victorian State Government minister in this article with stunned disbelief. Despite all the problems population growth is causing Melbourne – which are acknowledged in the article – we should “welcome” it because it is supposedly economically and socially beneficial. Probably the only people benefiting from growth are parasitical property developers, as is mentioned near the end, as it means more homes being built (never mind the environmental damage from more land being built over). This is a prime example of a self-perpetuating problem: continually encouraging growth means that infrastructure and services are forever struggling to keep up, and never quite manage to. People are increasingly stressed from competing for dwindling resources, living space and jobs, which does nothing for the supposed “diversity” championed in the article – it’s more likely to lead to social disintegration.

23 million and counting

Australia’s population officially reached 23 million on 23 April; a milestone that was generally reported positively. The population is small compared to many other countries (as is pointed out with tedious regularity), but Australia does not have a great amount of habitable land, so most of the population tends to live along the coastline, and much of that is clumped into the major cities.

Melbourne is, unfortunately, leading the nation’s population growth, and the negative effects of this are ever increasing: chronic traffic congestion (is it a coincidence that road rage is on the increase?), increased housing prices, inappropriate high-density developments in suburbs, pressure on health care, public transport and other services … the list goes on. Little if anything about this manic growth is for the better. From my perspective – I live in a suburb of Melbourne – quality of life is definitely deteriorating and the stress from this is continual. The State Government makes nebulous promises about improving infrastructure, but at the same time they cut funding.

Much of that infrastructure seems to only involve building more environmentally-destructive roads – an example being this brief report from my local newspaper (also online):

Plants face chop

ENDANGERED vegetation will be removed to make way for the new Dingley bypass, despite objections from green groups.

Greater Dandenong Council has given VicRoads the go-ahead to rip out a large old tree and vegetation, classified as “of very high conservation significance”, from the 0.19ha swampy woodland in the Westall Rd reserve.

Four environmental groups have slammed the unadvertised proposal. They say an overpass should be built to protect them.

Engineering services director Bruce Rendall said the proposal was not advertised because no third party would suffer.

It is similar to the Westerfield heritage woodlands being bulldozed through in 2010 (see 10/7/2010, 24/10/2010 entries) for the Frankston bypass. Native bushland continues to be razed for so-called “progress” and one feels so powerless and frustrated that it can’t be stopped. The Australian Aborigines lived here for 40,000 years or more, but in all that vast span of time they never did as much damage as did the arrival of European settlers in the last 200 years. The estimated population of Aborigines before settlement/invasion was around a million or so – something the fragile landscape here could cope with.

Some recent letters:

High-density hell

Every time I visit Melbourne CBD (every few months by train) I am reminded why I don’t like cities and certainly wouldn’t want to live there as a resident! It is noisy, stinky and increasingly crowded, not to mention unbearably hot in summer with all the asphalt and concrete smothering the ground, the streets claustrophobically overshadowed by towering buildings. And this is the city again voted world’s most livable! I shudder to think what less-livable cities are like.

A new resident to the CBD made the mistake of complaining about how noisy it was – the main offenders being music venues – and oh was he castigated, both in the article comments and elsewhere (Reddit’s mostly-younger members being a predictable example). Well, seeing as governments are pushing for higher-density cities, this sort of conflict is going to happen a lot, so I don’t know why those castigating him were so offended. Is there any law that says cities have to be noisy, aside from fatuous bullshit about noise contributing to “vibrancy”? A lot of what passes for “music” is just loud noise pollution and the environment is better off without it.

There was a quite vitriolic post on Reddit – Urban Sprawl now biggest impediment to Economy – where those who objected to high density/urban consolidation being touted as the ultimate solution to our woes got downvoted and called NIMBYers (the usual predictably tired insult). They are anti-backyards (a wasteful allotment of space according to their philosophy) and think everyone should live crammed into apartment towers with a park or two providing lonely oases of greenery. I have given up arguing with people of that mindset as they have a quasi-religious conviction that high-density is the only acceptable way to live. Not so – reducing population growth would enable people to live in detached houses with gardens and backyards, and contain urban sprawl – it would also ensure that land is retained for local food production. But this alternative solution is unthinkable to high-density advocates.

I also found disagreeable this later related post, You want housing up, not out? – the HD advocates (I really need a catchy name for them) want to brainwash children into their cult:

My idea is to use an art/design competition to harness the imaginations of older children and effectively use their drawings as covert propaganda for the type of places we want to exist, after steering their little minds towards what we want them to draw. It’ll be asking primary school children to draw how they foresee their dream Australian lifestyle, or dream city in X amount of years. What will streets and cities look like? How will people live?

This Sustainable Living webpage from NSW Save Our Suburbs gives arguments against urban consolidation. (They don’t, however, advocate restricting population growth; rather, they encourage regional decentralization.)

My little utopian vision is of cities being mostly depopulated, and people living in smaller regional towns, each having its own sustainable power and food supplies, and connected by high-speed rail and Internet. A slower, environmentally-friendly and more relaxed society. I would like to see a “small, smart and sustainable” future for Australia; I emphatically reject the “big Australia” and frantic unsustainable push for endless economic growth that currently has us trapped.

Melbourne in 2050: unlivable

“Still liveable?”, The Age, 22/11. This in-depth article looks at the rapid growth of Melbourne – predicted at the current rate to reach 6.4 million in 2050 – and the failure of the State Government to keep up with the infrastructure required to support such numbers. New suburbs are being built on what was once farmland at great distances from the CBD, and the residents there have virtually nothing in the form of access to public transport. The current planning system favors developers at the expense of livability issues, and there is no move to change this. Of course, the basic problem is the relentless population growth the city has been inundated with – and neither State nor Federal Governments appear willing to tackle this issue by reducing the too-high immigration rate, and discouraging the high birth rate – too radical for our growth-based economy to contemplate. One academic quoted in the article does not believe population growth is a problem:

The state government’s 20-minute city proposal is “a complete pipedream”, says Carolyn Whitzman, associate professor in urban planning at Melbourne University. “Whether Melbourne has 4 million or 6 million people, we’re not travelling in a particularly equitable direction,” she says. “I don’t necessarily see population growth as a bad thing, it just has to be managed properly. Currently, we live in a socially divided and environmentally unsustainable city.”

Realistically, population growth is almost never “managed properly” – certainly not by Australian governments – and with most cutting funding such management is even more unlikely.

From a commenter in a related article:

Still more articles agonising about strategies for adapting Melbourne’s moribund infrastructure to cope with future population explosion, all predicated on the unspoken and unchallenged assumption that population growth is inevitable and sacred. None of the learned commentators and politicians dares mention the obvious solution – limiting population growth, which could be done with social pressure on parents to limit family sizes, and governments limiting immigration. Why the collective dread of mentioning this obvious fact?

– boxchester, Melbourne, November 22, 2012, 11:48AM

I feel like starting a Mattew Guy hate page on Facebook or something! The Planning Minister comes across as arrogant and condescending in his statements, such as this opinion piece: “The metropolis our forefathers built will continue to be vibrant and exciting”, H-S, 22/11, a relentlessly optimistic extolling of Melbourne’s continous expansion. (I would like to declare a fatwa on the word vibrant …) He is of the opinion that huge skyscrapers make a city “sophisticated” – “Mr Guy dismissed those who complain about over-development, saying: ‘If Melbourne is too successful, maybe they should move to Adelaide’.” (source) – presumably Adelaide is not yet wrecked as Melbourne? “Taller buildings, he said, were a symbol of a growing nation, a strong economy and can ‘define a city’.” (source) He wrote a rather patronizing opinion piece in today’s Herald-Sun: “The metropolis our forefathers built will continue to be vibrant and exciting” (behind a paywall, reproduced below):

Collected letters

Another round-up:

31/7, H-S:

Slower growth

THERE is nothing virtuous about perpetual growth — it is a cancer eating away at the world’s environmental balance, its diversity, its flora and fauna and its moral compass.

Once there may have been a need for growth, but that need has passed and growth is now more about wanton greed.

The planet is all we have and in a more enlightened and responsible era, growth will be condemned.

– Bruce Mullinger, Kurnell, NSW

2/8, The Age:

Growth is abnormal

IRRESPONSIBLE levels of population growth, encouraged by state governments, have resulted in increasing difficulties for residents, particularly in the outer suburbs (“Northern growth corridor residents driven to despair”, 1/8). It is negligent in the extreme to send people to the outskirts where infrastructure is inadequate. There has clearly been a lack of foresight as to how the city can continue to function with never-ending growth.

It is a no-brainer that transport infrastructure and services such as kindergartens are required before people move in to an area. If the necessities are not put in place first, the people of Melbourne will be living in a constant state of deficit of those elements that make a reasonable urban life possible. According to demographer Graeme Hugo, Australia’s annual rate of population growth is more than three times the average of advanced countries. It is time our politicians and planners stopped treating this as normal.

– Mark O’Connor, Lyneham, ACT

A related article from that link noted that almost 1000 people a week are immigrating to Melbourne (from interstate and overseas). No wonder traffic has become almost gridlocked in many areas, and housing unaffordable.

Melbourne was also recently voted most livable once again. The city is still much better than many others in the world – one reason being its relatively small population and low-density layout – but its livability is rapidly being eroded due to population growth and urban densification.

4/8:

Planetary predators

BARNABY Joyce is right when he says the $244 million threshold for an assessment of a proposed farmland purchase was so high it was ridiculous (“Hands off farm: Coalition”, 3/8). Globalisation has given rise to planetary predators trying to pry open weak national borders. Foreign owners of agricultural land will give priority to their populations, and only sell the leftover to Australia.

There is also prevalent an assumption that because we now produce more food than we need, this scenario will continue, despite climate change and global population growth.

Brazil and Argentina, poorer nations than Australia, have limited foreign land grabs. No agricultural land can be bought by foreigners in China. Australia is a leader in harnessing the short-term profits from globalisation, to our detriment.

– Vivienne Ortega, Heidelberg Heights

Selling off valuable arable land to other countries is foolish in the long-term for food security reasons. I wonder, though, if the government has plans to re-appropriate the land if the food security situation ever gets really dire?

14/8:

Discard convention

THE simplest and obvious solution to the boat influx is to withdraw from the 1951 Refugee Convention. Having an international organisation dictate to us on this global problem is inappropriate and contrary to our sovereign interests. We should be free to make a deal with Malaysia or Indonesia.

People smugglers see Australia as a “rich” country, an “immigration nation” and a soft target for resettlement. Yet this country is losing jobs, thousands of people a year are being turned away from housing and homelessness services, infrastructure is under pressure, and food security and environmental concerns in a continent largely composed of semi-arid desert are growing.

We should discard the UN convention and replace it with an orderly processing queue offshore. We could easily accommodate more refugees if we slashed our heavily imbalanced permanent skilled migration program, and our family reunions and unlimited temporary employer-sponsored intake.

– Vivienne Ortega, Heidelberg Heights

18/8:

Sort out our backyard

MICHELLE Grattan makes a valid point about the need to provide services, education and training for asylum seekers on Nauru and Manus Island (Comment, 17/8).

However, we need to look at the wider picture in our own cities. In Melbourne there have been reports of troubled youth in western suburbs who don’t have access to these services, education and training. A report on housing shortages for the disadvantaged this week highlighted further problems. Surely we need to look after our own backyard before we provide money for refugees who may or may not end up coming here. There is a limited amount of government money; it should be spent first on much-needed infrastructure to help those already living here.

– Irene Ritchie, Balaclava

I have been mostly refraining from commenting on the farcical situation involving asylum-seeker boat arrivals, but the situation is well and truly out of control (nearly 7000 arrivals this year alone). I can only feel exasperation at weak-willed Government policies that are all but encouraging this. Some idealistic fools in the Green political party are just as bad on this issue – they practically want to throw open the borders to all. Another concern is that many already in Australia are becoming a part of a disadvantaged underclass here. To put it bluntly, we can’t take in everyone in the world who wants to come here, not if we want to retain some quality of life and maintain the public services and welfare systems we have now. My own policy would be to withdraw from the Convention and refuse to take any illegal/boat arrivals (I could imagine the outcry at that!) – only accept applications when done the proper way.

I am also baffled by those who support illegal immigration (which is a massive problem in the USA) – they don’t seem to understand the meaning of “illegal”. Problem is, if you criticize their policy you get branded as “racist” and “xenophobic”, even if this never enters your argument.

If you’re thinking of moving to Melbourne …

Please don’t! That’s my reaction when I see threads on that topic on forums such as r/Melbourne, though I refrain from saying thus as I will inevitably get downvoted. I might sound churlish, but almost 1000 people a week are arriving, as reported in The Age and Herald-Sun today: “Growth pains on the city’s fringe” and “Booming in the ’burbs” – the latter reproduced below as it is not online:

THE booming outer suburbs have helped Melbourne post the biggest population gain of any capital city in the past decade. Almost 650,000 extra residents moved to Melbourne in the 10 years to June last year, pushing the total population up 18 per cent to a whopping 4.17 million. Census figures released yesterday show the top five areas for growth nationwide were all on Melbourne’s outskirts.

South Morang recorded the biggest increase, with the number of residents up 32,200. Point Cook, Caroline Springs and Tarneit in the west followed with growth figures of more than 20,000.

Demographer with id Consulting, Glenn Capuano, said affordable housing within 25km of Melbourne’s centre was helping lure residents from Sydney, where prices were much more expensive. An economic downturn in southeast Queensland was also behind the influx. It is expected to push Melbourne’s population to five million by 2025.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics figures showed inner-city development was further fuelling the population increase. The Docklands recorded the state’s fastest growth, with the area’s population almost 40 times higher than it was in 2001. Taylors Hill, Cairnlea, Point Cook and Tarneit were the next fastest.

Property Council of Australia (Victoria) executive director Jennifer Cunich said more infrastructure was needed for Melbourne to keep pace with its rapid growth. Ms Cunich said toll roads and government partnerships with the private sector were among ways to accelerate investment.

Rachel Mcminimee, who moved to Tarneit from the Dandenongs with husband John 10 years ago, said access to work and the city were big drawcards.

Melbourne’s population gains dwarfed increases in the state’s regional population, which rose about 6 per cent to 1.37 million.

Perth was the nation’s fastest growing capital, with the population up 26 percent, ahead of Brisbane. In NSW, 75 per cent of the state’s population growth was in Sydney. The city now has a population of 4.61 million.

Road traffic has become horrendous and infrastructure is simply not coping – and governments will never manage to catch-up with the unwanted growth. I have lived here all my life and can emphatically assert that quality of life is eroding rapidly and the crowding is extremely stressful and anger-inducing. We are not yet at the level of crowding of megacities of the world, but it seems that government and business wants to make Melbourne that way.

Miserable Melbourne

The 7:30 Report for 27/4 featured an infuriating interview with Planning Minister Matthew Guy. Dismayingly but predictably, the only message he emphasized is finding ways to “accommodate” the increasing population, not try to reduce growth. Increasing population by immigration and birthrate is “sustainable” – yeah, right (not!) He and others in government and business are clearly trying to brainwash citizens into regarding growth as inevitable. Marvelous Melbourne is fast becoming Miserable Melbourne. An earlier article, “Make room: state population set to soar”, The Age, 24/4, gives no good news.

Please go away

This is my reaction to yet another series of articles in today’s The Age that almost celebrate Melbourne’s extensive and excessive population growth.

“It’s my kind of town, say 666,000 new Melburnians”. That’s how many people have been added in the last decade. No wonder transport and infrastructure are near collapse. This growth has been deliberately encouraged by politicians and businessmen in the name of profit. Melbourne used to be a fairly pleasant place to live – at least, in comparison to many other cities – but this livability is being increasingly eroded. I am angry and fed up with the situation, but I am not in a position to move, and there is nowhere else to go in any case.

“Melbourne struggling as population booms to more than five million by 2025 and 6.5 million by 2050”, H-S, 25/3. A similar article from last week (the Google search page links get around the annoying recently-introduced paywall for now). Here are the alarming statistics:

Land grab

“Farm sale just like winning Lotto”, H-S. This is a dismaying trend around Melbourne and other cities, of farmers selling off valuable arable land to developers. They obviously don’t care about what will happen to their land or the environment (some of the land was initially put aside for native grassland); they are only greedily focused on short-term gain. We will all suffer for this in the future, and indeed are doing so now as the city relentlessly continues its cancerous population and urban growth.

“Celebrity heritage protesters should butt out of planning issues, says lobbyist”, H-S. The Committee for Melbourne chief executive criticized celebrities for supporting anti-development groups. The CFM is essentially a front for developers and business, neither who have interest in preserving the amenity of neighborhoods. A comment I sent in:

Developers are doing a lot more to “ruin the future of Melbourne for the future population” with their ugly high-density apartment towers! Residents should have every right to defend the livability of their suburbs, and if celebrities can aid them, so much the better.

“Brace yourself, highways to hell coming”, 5/2. Population growth and inadequate public transport are seeing freeways frequently gridlocked with increasing traffic. All the Government can think to do is scar the landscape with more roads, not tackle the problem at its source.

Collected letters

Yet another round up of letters, mostly from The Age, on population and urban planning issues:

High-rise hell

Some letters from the last few weeks:

6/11:

Ever-thinner slices

THE latest United Nations human development index (“Not quite Norway, but still a great place to call home”, theage.com.au, 3/11) shows it is clear that a nation’s population has little relationship to its ultimate economic strength. Countries that are better off per capita than Australia are smaller - Austria, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Norway.

High immigration is the key driver to a “big Australia” but is this likely to make Australians better off? No. According to the Productivity Commission’s annual report for 2010-11, two benefits often attributed to immigration, despite mixed or poor evidence to support them, are that immigration is an important driver of per capita economic growth and that it can alleviate the problem of population ageing.

Among the 187 nations surveyed, Norway, Australia and the Netherlands topped the annual index while Congo, Niger and Burundi - with the highest population growth - came last. A rapidly increasing population mostly serves the interests of a few rich businesses, and produces more taxpayers for the government. For the rest of the public, it means our capital and social capital is cut into ever-thinner slices.

– Arthur Bassett, Blackburn South

16/11:

We always pay

THE controversial north-east road link connecting the ring road and the Eastern Freeway remains a threat.

It’s all about perpetual growth, and removing obstacles. “Big Victoria” requires monolithic concrete infrastructure and transport access for the (mainly) imported goods to all the mega-stores and shopping centres. It also requires ignoring peak oil and common sense. Corporate Victoria has the power to hijack our government’s agenda.

The link would destroy parklands, wetlands, heritage artists’ sanctuaries, Yarra River walking tracks, havens for wildlife, picnic areas, and sporting facilities.

Without government funding, this tunnel/freeway would involve tolling and private operators. The costs - including the loss of Melbourne’s intrinsic values - are always passed on to average Victorians.

– Chris Hooley, Viewbank

26/11 – these are in response to a 25/11 letter, reproduced below them:

Still happy to fight

I’M SORRY the people of Toronto either had no success in protecting the sunlight on their balconies or were too dispirited to even try (Letters, 25/11). The people of Melbourne still have a bit of spunk left to speak out about unwanted high-rise and other developments that are seen as disadvantageous to them. Canada, like Australia, suffers from high population growth and developers flourish and dictate terms in such an environment.

– Jill Quirk, president, Sustainable Population Australia (Victorian branch), East Malvern

At mercy of speculators

WHAT’S good for Toronto is not necessarily good for Melbourne. Most Melburnians don’t appreciate high-rise human “termite mounds” (as one Southbank resident called this blot on the landscape) overlooking and overshadowing our Yarra River and surrounding residential neighbourhoods (“Southbank skyscrapers ire”, The Age, 24/11).

These apartments are probably not even for sale in Australia. With another big Southbank development, apartments were sold off the plan overseas. It seems we poor suckers are at the mercy of developers and property speculators.

– Lewis Prichard, Hawthorn

Rankings have message

MELBOURNE the most liveable city in the world? Too right. So, to all the planners, developers and councillors, why would you want to change it? And just where did those cities jam-packed with apartments, crawling traffic and block buildings abutting each other with no garden in between rank? All the way down there.

– David Cathie, Mordialloc

The letter from Toronto:

Get over it

TO A Toronto resident, the controversy about a skyscraper in Southbank seems almost quaint (“Southbank skyscrapers ire”, The Age, 24/11). The location for this building is the centre of a major metropolis, right? If the tower is well designed, everyone should just relax and get used to the fact that big cities have big buildings. And Freshwater Place residents have to get over themselves. Do they expect the city to stop growing just to spare them the hardship of less sunlight on their balconies? Perhaps they should have opted for property in Poowong instead. Ironically, an article about a proposed 240-metre residential tower in downtown Toronto also appeared in the Toronto Star: “Toronto’s skyline heads for the clouds”. The article quotes the architect as saying, “I think 100 storeys is completely do-able in Toronto; that’s sort of the next generation of height.” The residents of Freshwater Place should check out the accompanying photo and prepare themselves for their future.

– Michael Harris, Toronto, Canada

“In city's middle-ring burbs, many towers rise”, 26/11. The dismaying sight of high-rise towers is now beginning to blight many suburbs, no thanks to the dysfunctional planning laws. People who oppose them are derided by architects and developers as “NIMBYs”, but the towers are an ugly eyesore and have a dehumanizing effect on the landscape over which they loom arrogantly. They block out sunlight and the sky, and give one a feeling of claustrophobia. They are touted as being enviromentally-efficient, but virtually all current structures require vast amounts of power and water imported from elsewhere, and certainly could not be self-sufficient. They are primarily built for investors and to make money, not to help the environment.

A quote regarding such structures from a science fiction novel:

She glanced down between her boots through the transparent deck of the ship as it passed over the center of Jejeno. The city was both a tribute to isenj engineering skills and an indictment of their stupidity. The forest of asymmetric towers – bronze, brown, copper, tan – and narrow streets created endless canyons. Shapakti said that it was an echo of isenj origins as termite-like animals living in giant mounds, but Esganikan had seen almost identical soaring buildings in the images of Earth. It was how greedy species built: it showed space was at a premium because they had filled it and out-priced it – yes, she understood Earth’s economy now, she understood it very well – and they didn’t care about the intrusion on the landscape. It was a statement of their contempt for all other life.

– Karen Traviss, Ally

Paving over Victoria

The continuing development and destruction of Victoria’s green spaces leaves me (and many others) in a frustrated rage. The current Government continues this policy, wanting to put up for development the Green Wedges around Melbourne – corridors established over 3 decades ago to provide some environmental breathing space. Unfortunately the deliberate encouraging of population growth (approximately 90 000 people a year) has these areas under threat. The Planning Minister, Matthew Guy, is proving as developer-friendly as his predecessor, Justin Madden, was. Some recent articles from The Age:

• “Review threatens to destroy ‘Melbourne’s lungs’ ”, 30/7
• “Open spaces to shrink as Melbourne grows”, 8/8 – public parks are also under threat.

Some letters:

Land grab

If there is one job occupation I have come to loathe and despise above all others, it is that of property developer. Opportunistic scum who care nothing for the environment or sensitive architectural design and are only out to make a profit – I would like to see them rounded up and burned at the stake! My neighborhood, like nearly all others, is being ruined by developers buying up homes, razing them and their established gardens and building enormous eye-gougingly-ugly monstrosities (I have a website page about this). On a wider scale, the open land around Melbourne is being concreted over with new housing developments by developers; this has future implications for food security (prime farmland being built over) and the environment (the loss of vegetation). The city is growing like a metastasising cancer and nothing is being done to stop it – yet again, population growth is the prime cause of this.

Some articles from The Age on this topic:

“In defence of the suburbs”, 12/10/2010. The loss of backyards barely rates a mention in urban policy, but they provide valuable room for vegetation and wildlife.

“State's boom on ‘shaky ground’ ”, 28/10/2010. Victoria’s recent growth has been due to population growth and construction – neither of which can be sustained indefinitely. “But the researchers warn this population increase to approximately 90,000 people coming to Melbourne each year has ‘led to delusions of endless growth’ within the Brumby government and the business community.” And residents are paying for this dearly as quality of life degrades.

“Developers scramble for land”, 6/11/2010. Developers are greedily buying the land released by the expansion of the urban growth boundary. “RMIT associate professor of planning Michael Buxton said sprawling cities were energy-consuming, economically inefficient, environmentally destructive and led to social polarisation. ‘The Victorian government has abandoned planning and is handing the city over to developers,’ he said.”

“Growing pains: Victoria’s population explosion”, 20/11/2010. An overview of why Victoria has had so much growth. The author regards it as a positive. I certainly don’t – being popular is not a good thing in this case as it is making life increasingly stressful for residents.

“Labor’s high-rise dystopia”, 24/11/2010. One reason that the Labor government was voted in was that they promised to discard Jeff Kennett’s free-for-all urban planning. But they well and truly reneged on that promise, and proved to be just as bad as the Liberals in favoring developers.

“Design trend takes child’s play out of backyards”, 25/11/2010. As house sizes have increased, backyards have all but vanished. Playing in the backyard was one of my favorite activities when young.

“Land shortage, price hike link a myth, claims academic”, 6/12/2010. Claims by developers that more houses need to be built because of shortages are misleading; the main factors are negative gearing that favors investors, readily-available home loans and the first home owners’ grant are factors.

“Planning must be for people, not developers”, 6/12/2010. Both the Kennett and Bracks-Brumby governments were influenced in planning policy by developers, who donated to both parties (a law should be brought against this!). Unfortunately the new Premier Ted Baillieu is also developer-friendly, so the ruination of Melbourne and its surrounding lands looks to continue.

“Melbourne heads north to Kalkallo”, 8/12/2010. More of the depressing same. Future generations are going to curse us.

Collected letters

A backlog of letters from The Age concerning environmental destruction, population growth, immigration and new PM Julia Gillard.

22/6:

Two letters on the Green Wedges, remnant volcanic grasslands now under threat from development no thanks to Brumby & Co.

Land grab stance is a pox on the two major parties

Before the 2006 election, Liberal, ALP and Greens MPs surveyed by the Green Wedges Coalition all supported the government policy to protect green wedges, “including the present boundaries”.

The uniformity of the major party responses suggested they had their respective campaign offices’ approval.

It is therefore disappointing for those who want green wedges protected for their environmental, recreational, and landscape values, open space and sustainable agriculture, to find the government proposing to move in Parliament today to amend the urban growth boundary to remove 43,600 hectares of green wedge land for urban development, among other controversial proposals in planning scheme amendment VC67 (“Greens warn of planning changes”, The Age, 17/6).

Equally disappointing are Coalition MPs’ comments that they will not oppose this disgraceful land grab, which will destroy

4600 hectares of western basalt plains grassland, up to 900 hectares of grassy woodland (plus giant red gums) in the Merri and Darebin Creek catchments and 4000 hectares of the south-east food bowl, where productive market gardens double as southern brown bandicoot habitat.

The Greens seem to be the only party whose MPs stick to their election policies and principles. No wonder polls show their votes increasing.

– Louis Delacretaz, Sassafras

Hold our urban boundary

Thankfully, Premier John Brumby has woken up to the fact that the population boom he has created is threatening Melbourne’s liveability.

Now that he is spending $59 million to promote regional development as a more acceptable alternative to overloading the city, he surely has no need to push urban development out into the green wedges.

Let’s hope that this means Mr Brumby will now withdraw his draft planning scheme amendment VC67, which proposes to expand the urban growth boundary to take 43,600 hectares of green wedge land for urban development.

– Arnie Azaris, joint co-ordinator, Green Wedges Coalition, Sunbury

Losing our liveability

Proposed amendments to the Planning and Environment Act to increase development around public transport networks, represent another shocking assault on Melbourne’s liveability and amenity.

With the Brumby government trying to feed the endless hunger of developers for high-rise, high-density housing, it fails to recognise that many of the train and tram lines in Melbourne are well and truly at capacity already.

If that is not bad enough, the green wedges that have been preserved for decades, to provide Melbourne’s “lungs”, will simply be sliced and diced by developers. This will have a detrimental effect on air quality for future generations.

With all this infill and loss of green wedges, open space for recreation will become a thing of the past. If these amendments are passed, our way of life and liveability will be lost for all eternity.

– Mathew Knight, Malvern East

23/6:

Region’s no answer

Distributing growth to regional cities won’t prevent further expansion into Melbourne’s urban growth boundary and nor is this a preventable solution.

The numbers of people moving to regional Victoria have always been minimal. The great majority of new arrivals to Victoria prefer to settle in Melbourne. John Brumby might think he’ll buy your vote with promises to “relieve the pressure” on Melbourne, yet - with 2000 people choosing Victoria as “the place to be” each week, most settling in Melbourne - this is a pipe dream.

If, by chance, 43,600 hectares of land within Melbourne’s growth boundary was saved from development, then 43,600 hectares of development would simply be allocated elsewhere. Don’t assume that your regional cousins want to lose their green wedges or liveability either.

– Shaun Dumbrell, Williamstown

28/6:

Gillard’s firm hand

Australia’s growth rate is not “natural” but driven by immigration. People have been silenced on the issue of population growth because they might be labelled racist. This is very clever political control.

The issue is not about race but about caring for our nation, showing responsibility for future generations, balancing environmental resources, ensuring the survival of indigenous species and existing without continually stretching basic infrastructure.

Our present growth rate is about property developers’ greed. Let’s hope Julia Gillard, who has shown some common sense (“Gillard rejects ‘Big Australia’ ”, The Sunday Age, 27/6), is not overpowered by commercial forces.

– Vivienne Ortega, Heidelberg Heights

Don’t blame men or motherhood

Hariklia Heristanidis (Letters, 26/6) says women with children, unlike Julia Gillard, can never have the drive and single vision to compete with men to be prime ministers. If true, is this asymmetry peculiar to the Australian psyche and way of life?

Since 1960, when Sri Lanka’s Sirimavo Bandaranaike became the world’s first female head of government, there have been more than 60 women prime ministers, presidents and heads of state, many of them mothers with young children. The widowed Mrs Bandaranaike’s children were 17, 15 and 11 when she was elected prime minister. She was prime minister three times (1960-65, 1970-77, 1994-2000) and one of her daughters (also a mother) became Sri Lanka’s first female president.

Closer to home, the first woman to occupy New Zealand’s highest office, Jenny Shipley, is a mother of two.

We shouldn’t blame men or motherhood for gender imbalance in high offices.

– Hendry Wan, Matraville, NSW

Could we please use the term “child-free” in preference to “childless”. I doubt Julia Gillard feels she is lacking anything at the moment.

– Joanna Unferdorben, Brunswick

29/6:

Slow migrant intake

Julia Gillard’s policy statement on population is thoughtful and well judged. The rate of population growth is fundamental to every aspect of public policy, from health and education to greenhouse gas emissions. Slowing population growth will ease the difficulty of ensuring availability of water, housing and rail and road transport, and constrain destruction of biodiversity.

Communities need sufficient time to absorb immigrants: the social adjustments can only be gradual. Reducing the numbers will reduce the risk of potential conflicts. One reason there is opposition to accepting the tiny number of asylum seekers is resentment about the total immigration rate. Slowing the intake of migrants would reduce the perception of competition for jobs and housing. This might contribute to greater willingness for Australia to take a fair share of refugees from violent and repressive places.

– Professor John Langmore, chairman, Anglican Public Affairs Commission

7/7:

Opening floodgates

One important fact has been overlooked by the bleeding heart do-gooders among Age readers. The main body of asylum seekers are male. What will be the first thing they do following the granting of residency? Send for their wives and other relatives. So we end up with more immigrants who have more children.

I count myself to be lucky to live in Australia, having escaped from Britain where this kind of uncontrolled immigration has wreaked havoc with services from education to health. Read the British newspapers and see what Australia could become if you shrug your shoulders and let it happen. Stating this is not being racist. It is fact.

– Anthony Toone, Hampton East

England certainly does have huge problems with immigration; the irony is the writer has, in his own words, “escaped” for a better life, just as the genuine refugees seek to. The spillover effect again.

A sustainable population is one based on natural increase, not massive immigration. Skilled people and a quota of refugees is all we should allow.

– Philip Squire, Ashgrove, Qld

8/7:

Most desperate targeted

Why all this fuss about refugees? Don’t people realise that the people who are flooding our cities, inflating our real estate values and putting strains on our community facilities are the legal immigrants: 180,000 so far this year?

Why don’t politicians mention the 50,000 overstayers who come by plane, not by boat? It is the above groups who are stressing our social and physical environment.

We certainly need a population policy for sustainable development rather than a policy of scapegoating the most desperate.

– John Addie, Ringwood East

On inane comments by the Melbourne Lord Mayor, who thinks the city’s “vigorous growth” (in reality, barely-contained chaos) is a good thing:

Doyle is dreaming

Lord Mayor Robert Doyle, like all proponents of a larger Australia, uses emotive words such as “vigorous” (The Age, 4/7), which is supposed to conjure images of this wonderful, youthful-energy-filled utopia that will overcome an ageing population and a lack of skills.

In reality, what you will have is overcrowding on a Third World level, increased crime, shortage of housing, unsustainable rents, water restrictions, a filthy city (look at any sprawling metropolis overseas) and horrendous traffic jams.

As a frequent visitor, I can attest that it is easier and quicker to drive around Sydney.

– Warwick Kent, South Cronulla, NSW

Shrinking towns

A thread at MetaFilter, “Wolves, neo-Nazis and Germany’s population crash”, had links to articles about towns facing demographic collapse (in this case, parts of Detroit being bulldozed into farmland, and some towns in East Germany being deserted). I can’t see this as a bad thing (and bear in mind that the world’s population continues to increase inexorably). There’s a comment comparing population control to eugenics:

Exactly. More evil has been done in fear of a Malthusian crisis than has ever occurred from a Malthusian crisis. The Irish Potato Famine was partly a result of British policy that allowed it to occur – while millions died, the Brits exported food from Ireland – all those starving people were a “natural” purging of over-population, they thought, Malthus said so! Many other examples of self-fulfilling Malthusian prophecies. A lot of modern-day environmentalism is (uncomfortably) rooted in Malthus and Eugenics. One can see it even in some of the posts in this thread – it’s hard to touch Demographics without sounding like a colonial-era racists, so much of what we take as common truth is actually a holdover from 18th and 19th century racist and colonial mindsets.

There hasn’t been 7 billion people in the world before, though, so such a crisis is only a matter of time. A more informed comment:

One of the worst consequences of the imminent population peak would be if we lost our nerve and started encouraging more reproduction.

We’re – that is to say, all of humanity in general – is poised to dodge a bullet, if we don’t (in some sense literally) fuck it up.

Population growth cannot continue forever. We’ve pulled a bunch of neat stunts to keep the unprecedented population boom triggered by the Industrial Revolution going, but they have come at extremely high ecological cost. Those bills are just starting to come due, in the form of anthropogenic climate change, topsoil depletion, salinification, aquifer and groundwater depletion, soil and ocean nitrification…it’s a long list.

It would be incredibly stupid to encourage people to breed in order to preserve economic systems that were stupidly premised on continual population growth, rather than fixing those economic systems to cope with decline. A growing population is nothing to brag about.

We’ve held off Mr. Malthus for centuries and in all likelihood we can probably do it for a few more, with sufficient cleverness: built a ton of nuclear reactors, bioengineer salt-tolerant crops, desalinate seawater when the groundwater runs out, learn to love carp. Climate change might require some desperate measures, since it seems doubtful we’ll resist the temptation of all that coal and shale oil…I wouldn’t want to own real estate in Bangladesh. But most of our current problems probably can be solved, at least individually.

But many of those “solutions” will inevitably create their own problems – just as the Haber-Bosch process, which saved first Europe and later Asia from famine in the 20th century has created a host of problems that we’re going to need to tackle in the 21st – and there will be other, completely new issues. More and more balls to juggle, and we only need to drop one to create a true disaster.

So the question is not whether we can keep the whole growth mess trucking along for another century or so, the question is why would we want to. Why, when we have it within our reach to go another route: let the population begin to slowly decrease, while using productivity gains to maintain and spread the standard of living that right now only a small minority of humanity can hope to have.

If there is one thing – one single thing – that Western civilization has figured out in the late 20th century, it seems to be a way to stop population expansion without going down the traditional, bloody paths of war or famine. Women’s rights, reliable contraception, secularism, environmental awareness, retirement systems – whatever the magic ingredients are, they seem to finally be working.

It absolutely floors me that there are people who, when faced with what looks to me like the triumph, the saving grace of high-impact technological civilization in the face of so many obvious downsides and failings, so much oppression and industrialized death, want to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by encouraging people – paying them outright, in some cases – to have more babies. Insanity.

My suburb, and city, are experiencing just the opposite – a demographic explosion. Traffic is horrendous; we seem to live in a semi-permanent construction zone due to constant demolition of houses and gardens with big ugly crowded dwellings built to replace them; violent crime and vandalism are increasing drastically no thanks to a higher population of ill-disciplined youths. For me, all this is extremely unpleasant and stressful. I find myself fantasizing about much of humanity being decimated by some virus epidemic; or of waking up one day to find all other humans had disappeared. Of course I would not last long either, but at least my environment would be peaceful in the interim. I want this chaos to end, to be destroyed.

Letter, The Age, 22/3:

We all pay a high price for growth

Alan Davies called for a more evidence-based analysis of the issues associated with growth (“Problems with fringe-dwelling are peripheral”, The Age, 19/3). He failed to offer any evidence that growth, either by sprawl or infill, improves any aspect of our lives.

Although Davies regards it as trivial, urban development claims more arable land globally than desertification, salination and erosion put together. Ten per cent of all arable land was lost to development in the 15 years to 2000. Australia’s high-quality horticultural soils are scarce and mostly localised, not coincidentally, near (or now under) our major cities.

The only argument for population growth is economic, but it benefits few at the cost of the many. A Florida study found that every dollar of benefit generated by new development cost between $1.38 and $1.72 for required additional services.

Another Florida report found that the fastest growing counties had the highest growth in taxes — to pay for all the infrastructure. The costs of growth, in environment, lifestyle, climate change or even just cold, hard cash, are much greater than the costs of ageing.

– Jane O’Sullivan, Chelmer, Qld

Ageing alarmism

The topic of Japan’s shrinking and ageing population seems to be brought up on a regular basis in the news. This lengthy article (via) at a Japan blog is a somewhat gloomy portrayal of a town with a declining population. But the country’s population is still over 127 million crammed onto 4 small earthquake-prone islands, so surely a population decline should be viewed positively! As for the ageing component: “Japan is the robot capital of the world. They will be fine in my opinion” remarks one commenter.

“The Singapore Solution”, National Geographic, 1/2010. On the success of Singapore.

Perhaps the most troubling problem facing the nation is a result of its overly successful population control program, which ran in the 1970s with the slogan “Two Is Enough.” Today Singaporeans are simply not reproducing, so the country must depend on immigrants to keep the population growing. The government offers baby bonuses and long maternity leaves, but nothing will help unless Singaporeans start having more sex. According to a poll by the Durex condom company, Singaporeans have less intercourse than almost any other country on Earth. “We are shrinking in our population,” the MM says. “Our fertility rate is 1.29. It is a worrying factor.” This could be the fatal error in the Singapore Model: The eventual extinction of Singaporeans.

“Overly successful”? Again, with a high population density – nearly 5 million crammed into a small living space – a successful birth rate reduction program should be cause for celebration. But the “aging population” alarmist hype has led them to unwisely encourage an increased birth rate again.

“Congestion the ultimate cost of people ingestion”, The Age, 28/2. The dismaying fact that politicians are addicted to growth because it makes the economy look good. The immigration rate last financial year was an absurdly high 285 000.

Despite changing rhetoric, the reality is our leaders remain hopelessly addicted to population growth. It is a drug they are unlikely to kick any time soon. Size, for some misguided reason, has long been equated with importance. But there is another, more intrinsic reason for the addiction. Population growth is one of the simplest ways for a government to boost economic growth, which is in turn regarded as a key measure of political success. More people means more houses, more cars, more food consumed and more petrol burnt. All this is dutifully recorded by the Bureau of Statistics as an increase in Australia's gross domestic product, which is in turn associated with prosperity. An apparently circular need to feed economic growth with population growth represents a significant flaw in our political system.

Letters, The Age, 2/3:

Wonderful news for investors

Melbourne’s property market record sales (The Age, 1/3) is wonderful news for investors, real estate agents and land developers, not to mention all the stamp duty revenue for the state government. All this population growth, manipulated by Kevin Rudd’s fetish for a “big Australia”, has created a land and housing “boom”, and people in this growth industry are becoming wealthy. The demand for housing is caused by population growth driven mainly by immigration.

We used to be a land of home owners, the “lucky country”. But not any more. Even professionals are being locked out due to excessive competition. Where is the justice if a few elite become wealthy at the expense of the general public?

– Vivienne Ortega, Heidelberg Heights

Population policy now

Here’s a simple solution to the ever-deepening problems of housing affordability, suburban sprawl, high-density development, traffic congestion, over-development of our beautiful natural surrounds and an increase in Australia’s carbon footprint: an independent population policy.

– Shaun Dumbrell, Williamstown

SMH, 6/3:

Limit immigration and our traffic woes will ease

The Herald’s front page article (“Life not so great in the fast lane…but now Labor wants to fix our cities, too”, March 5) shows graphically what can happen when a metropolitan area, in this case Sydney, has an uncomfortably large population: bumper-to-bumper traffic. Thirty years ago Sydney had space. You could drive around comfortably and buy a home without selling your soul.

Opposition political parties will tell you that governments are failing to maintain and upgrade infrastructure to keep pace with need. But what they and the governments won’t tell you is that the need is generated by population growth, and the main source of that here is excessive immigration numbers. This has nothing to do with race and everything to do with numbers.

Seeing what Australian governments over the past 30 years have failed to do, and noting the Prime Minister’s enthusiasm for another 15-20 million residents over the next 15 years (and be assured, the Libs intend the same), do you believe any future government will do better ? Already Rudd has raised the need for new taxes to fund hospitals. He and the opposition know that population growth creates increased demand for services but does not deliver the extra money to pay for them.

If population growth causes congestion and infrastructure problems (to name just two of a long list of negatives), why are federal governments persisting with immigration policies delivering record high numbers here?

– Vince Patulny, Kambah (ACT)

Growth and greed

Three population articles in today’s The Age, two of them pro-growth.

“More people does not equal trashing our environment”: a minister (for migration) argues that population growth (though immigration) can be accommodated for with adequate planning. Given how hopeless the Brumby Government is at planning anything, his is wishful thinking. More immigration might seem to boost the economy in the short term, but those people will in turn grow old, and require even more people to support them – where does this end? We do not have infinite space, jobs or resources, and stating that people should curtail their standard of living is unacceptable – the most severe water restrictions will be futile if the population keeps increasing.

“Green wedges lost in the woods”: a representative from the Master Builders Association of Victoria says urban growth should continue, that people should be able to build big houses, that grasslands are “barren” and thus should be smothered over with housing.

Large homes have long been the obvious signs of affluence, success and in many cases, fertility. These are all social virtues that should be supported.

Greed is good, in short? What a load of self-serving bullshit. Large homes are environmentally-unfriendly and far from being “efficient”.

He was responding to an earlier article, “We need more green areas, not people”, 12/1, by a member of the Green Wedges Coalition.

“Reality check on growth”: by Bob Birrell, says that such a population increase will destroy quality of life for Australia’s citizens, and that the 35 million population projection is over-inflated as high migration programs have historically not been sustained. Both State and Federal Governments, however, have vested interests in maintaining growth:

Those involved in the building needed for the housing, services and employment required by new residents have a direct interest in high population growth. They include Victoria’s state government leaders, who are aware that the state’s main growth industry is city building.

Relying on building stuff can’t be sustained forever, though (as much as the industry would like it too). Mr. Birrell notes that:

Pursuit of the migration-driven 35 million target will generate increasing vexations as governments struggle to accommodate the extra numbers. Opposition will increase, as will critical attention to migration policies.

Many of the responding comments to the first two articles are quite good (and acerbic!). It is reassuring at least to see that commenters share my concerns about unrestrained population growth, though few politicans do, aside from Kelvin Thomson.

Some recent letters on the same topics:

6/1:

Preserving our green wedges

I am heartened that Planning Minister Justin Madden has stated “we are not in hurry to move the urban growth boundary” (The Age, 5/1). Melbourne has outgrown its optimal size, both in population and the surface area it covers. Our green wedges need to be preserved for their ecological value and food production. With the problems of “peak oil” (increased demand but plateauing of supplies) and the need to reduce our greenhouse gas production, it makes sense for farmland to be within closer transport distance. For example, the extensive market garden area on the south-eastern edge of Melbourne supplies much of our fresh produce. It has rich soils and a reliable rainfall. It should be preserved as a national treasure, not an area to be paved over for housing.

– Kit James, Melbourne

A defining moment

At last, democracy in action. Reading that the Government’s ridiculous decision to destroy our green wedges and further turn our once most-liveable city into a monstrous urban sprawl is being put on the backburner, due to Coalition and Greens resistance, is a breath of fresh air.

This is true bipartisanship that will shape what a 21st century Melbourne can be at its best. Let us build more efficiently, effectively and environmentally, improve our land use, curb our hunger for huge backyards and McMansions, and stop developers’ greed getting in the way of good planning. The challenge is upon us.

– Paul Bugeja, Caulfield North

Victoria has a population crisis, not a water crisis. By attacking the symptom (less water) rather than the cause (overpopulation), we live in a fool’s paradise while resolving nothing.

– Luke Hooper, Northcote

7/1:

Yes, there is a choice

Poor old developer, Delfin Lend Lease (The Age, 6/1), unable to open up more grasslands to flog off unsustainable future ghettos. Apparently the only way to afford a home in “Melbourne” is to buy one of its houses and enjoy all the future driving, health and social costs thereafter. There are no shortage of alternatives; for example, living regionally (it’s quicker to get the train to the CBD from Geelong than Berwick) or doing without a backyard and living near a park instead. But, as they say, it’s all about “My Choice”. Well, I would like the choice (having decided to live in a modest house, with no yard) of my countryside to remain as country when I escape town occasionally, rather than becoming one massive sprawl of obese housing estates so that private companies can flip a quick profit.

– Patricia Bakacs, Seddon

10/1:

Vanishing dream

While developers, investors and state government stamp duty coffers grow fat on Melbourne’s property boom (The Sunday Age, 3/1), we should all spare a thought for the average home buyer. With the median home price now $481,000 and rising, the Australian dream is becoming unachievable for the average Melburnian. While the Prime Minister and Premier crow about population growth, the next generation is slowly being locked out of the property market altogether, due to the spiralling cost. And those who are braving the market and purchasing a home are generally saddled with a massive mortgage, that may never be paid in their lifetime.

A debate on future population and migration levels is long overdue, along with a number of initiatives to direct growth to regional towns and cities.

– Mathew Knight, Malvern East

David vs. Goliath

“Bushland owners to fight bid for overpass”, The Age, 11/1. The owners of a heritage-listed bushland property are to fight the State Government’s compulsory land acquisition for a freeway bypass (mentioned in my 16/12/2009 entry). I really hope they can win as the Brumby Government are environmental vandals. The Save The Pines! website is a support group.

A letter, 12/1:

Warped priorities

I sympathise with Simon and Joyce Welsh whose heritage-listed property, Westerfield, has been compulsorily acquired for the Frankston bypass (The Age, 11/1). It seems the State Government is hell-bent on destroying ecosystems and remnant habitat for the sake of its sacred freeways and other developments. Local governments, too, collude with developers to mount unrelenting attacks on the environment. Apparently all that is required to tear down a “protected” tree in the suburbs, for example, is for a developer to apply for a permit. The result is an increasing loss of habitat as vegetation makes way for McMansions. We need governments who have greater vision than building freeways, lining the pockets of developers or hosting events.

– Tim Hartnett, Mont Albert North

Much of Victoria’s wilderness has been destroyed already – the forests that once covered it decimated since the arrival of European settlers – so it is vital that remnant bushland be preserved.

Back in 2006 a 400-year-old River Red Gum was felled to make way for a freeway. I will quote my 23/6/2006 journey entry from then:

Another tree murdered! This one a 400-year-old River Red Gum:

Tree was there first, but it had to go

Liam Houlihan, 23 June 2006

A 400-year-old tree that threatened to stump the Eastlink tollway has been chopped down by road builders. Dandenong council rallied to save the ancient River Red Gum, but was refused a last-ditch attempt for heritage protection.

Eastlink builders felled the tree about 9 a.m. yesterday, clearing the way for work to continue on the Dandenong Southern Bypass. Road builder Thiess John Holland said there was no feasible way to save the tree, near Hammond Rd, Dandenong South.

Dandenong Council admitted an oversight meant they had failed to protect it earlier. “I feel very sad today,” said Cr. John Kelly, who led the push to save the tree. “Unfortunately, we didn’t get our interim heritage order.” He said he was now pushing for the council to investigate whether there were similar old trees needing protection.

The tree was lopped just two days after its plight came to public attention.

“That might have quickened the process up,” Cr. Kelly said.

The main body of the tree was lifted onto a truck by a crane yesterday afternoon to be taken to council offices. It may be made into sculptures or art or erected in the ground with a plaque.

A tree that had been growing long before the first European settlers arrived here is now no more, no thanks to heartless developers and the overpopulated state’s insatiable need for more roads. It was rather isolated, the only tree near a busy road and housing developments. Perhaps it was once surrounded by forest.

This cartoon by Mark Knight provides some perspective: