Anna Bligh

The editorial writers of newspapers from Rupert Murdoch's News Limited, including the Courier Mail and The Australian, are not shy in showing their contempt for public opinion whenever it runs counter to the powerful vested interests they represent. Examples from recent years include their support for:

• The privatisation of Telstra
• The privatisation of NSW's electricity generation
• 'Work Choices'
• The Iraq war
• The Mary River Dam_#main-fn1">1
• Queensland forced local government amalgamations

Naturally, in 2007, with local governments such as the Douglas Shire Council and the Noosa Shire Council receptive to the wishes of their constituents to stand up to developers, the News Limited editorial writers gave their full support to the Queensland government's forced local government amalgamations inspired by the Property Council of Australia_#main-fn2">2.

However, the hopes The Australian held out for in these amalgamations came unstuck when, on Saturday 15 March, anti-development candidates standing in the amalgamated shires were able to overcome the additional difficulties posed by their having to campaign in larger shires and were able to defeat candidates backed by developers. These included the Cairns City Council into which the Douglas Shire had been forcibly amalgamated and the Greater Sunshine Coast Council into which the Noosa shire had been forcibly amalgamated. In at least two other large local government regions, the Gold Coast City Council and Redland City Council, anti-development tickets won control in spite of extravagant developer-funded advertising campaigns against them.

In response, on 18 March an editorial entitled "Queensland faces a tougher job on regional development"_#main-fn3">3 was published. It commenced:

Queensland's local government elections demonstrate the difficulty that beset public administrators trying to manage the competing demands of population growth.

The 'difficulty' being that electors in those council areas were not prepared to put up with the further degradations to their quality of life necessitated by continuous population growth. As has become the established practice with the Murdoch Press, the question as to whether population growth is an issue over which affected communities should have any say, is not even posed, rather population growth is treated implicitly as a given over which no power in Heaven or on Earth can have any control:

... the Queensland (state government) must grapple with an influx of thousands of new residents each week and deliver, health, education and other public services.

In fact, the choice is being made, but instead of it being made by the affected communities, it is being made by politicians, like Queensland Premier Anna Bligh, who serve the same vested interests as does the Murdoch media. They include principally the aforementioned Property Council of Australia, whose members gain from population growth, through land speculation and property development, at the expense of the rest of the community, the environment and future generations.

To be sure, there is a moral ambivalence to this issue as many who oppose today's population growth were part of yesterday's additions to the population to those areas and the editorial writer seeks to gain from this the high moral ground:

... much of the growth comprises city refugees making a sea change to what they consider their own piece of paradise. From Cairns to Coolangatta, it was easy to detect a determined anti-development flavour to much of the voting on the weekend's election.

A 'flavour' that the editorial writer makes clear he/she wishes to be ignored by the state and federal governments. It is interesting that The Australian is silent on what the sea changers were seeking 'refuge' from, namely the over-crowding of Australia's capital cities, which has been greatly encouraged by the Murdoch media through its past promotion of population growth.

Of the triumph of Val Schier over the long-serving pro-developer Cairns Mayor Kevin Byrne, the editorialist opined, this "will test the state Government's willingness to use independent panels to make decisions on development applications". Supposedly 'independent' panels are made up of people who, unlike popularly elected councillors, are not accountable to the residents who will be affected by their decisions. In this way it is hoped that the opposition to over-development can be swept aside.

The editorial acknowledges that the "new batch of local leaders can legitimately argue that they have a mandate to resist change." It, nevertheless, concludes:

Amalgamation has happened, but given the weekend results, the reform push is clearly unfinished business.

Can we come to any other conclusion from this editorial except that the 'reform push' is expected to be 'finished' by the use of dictatorial state government powers to over-ride the democratic wishes of Queensland communities?

Footnotes

#main-fn1" id="main-fn1">1. See The Australian newspaper backs environmental vandalism in the Mary Valley of 5 Jan 08.

#main-fn2" id="main-fn2">2. See story Cate Molloy : Forced council amalgamations planned by Property Council of Australia of 7 Sep 07

#main-fn3" id="main-fn3">3. Unable to obtain URL for this editorial.

This article was also published on qlddecides.com as Saving the Regent - The Sinnamon plan. My response to the choice of that title was posted to that site and is included below.

In little more than a generation, Brisbane's skyline has been transformed into a ghastly inhuman wall of office blocks and high rise residential apartments. Today, much of Brisbane resembles a war zone as established business districts and neighourhoods are further trashed as this process is continued, along with a spate of more recent white elephant infrastructure projects, all at a horrific cost to our local and global environment.

A small, but welcome, pause from this breakneck pace of over-development occurred when Labor Premier Anna Bligh on 23 February, as reported in Brisbane's Courier Mail Newspaper, responded to a public outcry against the threatened destruction of Brisbane's Regent Theatre. The 80 year old Regent Theatre was to be effectively destroyed in order to make way for an AU$800 million 38-storey commercial high-rise at the back of the Regent Theatre. However, Premier Bligh used rarely enacted legislation to stop this. The legislation allows the Queensland Government to force the private developers, Multiplex and ISPT, to keep the Regent cinema operating regardless of whether or not they wanted to.

As welcome as Premier Bligh's stance is, it is sadly out of character with her overall record. Anna Bligh and her predecessor Beattie who have embraced a 'growth at all costs' mind-set which has no regard for the preservation of Brisbane's quality of life or the well-being of future generations. Both the Queensland Labor Government and Campbell Newman's Liberal Brisbane City Council administration have ridden rough-shod over community objections to many other inappropriate infrastructure and housing developments. These include the Suncorp Stadium, the Hale Street Bridge, the North South Bypass Tunnel, the Airport Link tunnel, Brisbane Airport's second runway, the conversion of the publicly-owned Yungaba migrant hostel into a private gated community, Minnippi Parklands, the Traveston Dam, the Wyaralong Dam, etc. In 2005 the residents of Maleny endured an invasion of 150 Queensland Police so that the Woolworths supermarket, opposed overwhelmingly by local residents could be built.

However, on this occasion, instead of ignoring the wishes of the Brisbane community, the Queensland Government has supported them and even the equally pro-development opposition leader Laurence Springborg has endorsed Anna Bligh's stance.

However, another force for relentless over-development, namely Brisbane's Courier Mail newspaper, owned by US citizen Rupert Murdoch, has chosen not to relax its stance and has harshly criticised the Premier in an editorial "Protection in name of popularity" of 26 February.

The Courier Mail editorialists believe that the right of the developers to profit from the further disfigurement of Brisbane's skyline is more important than the wishes of of Brisbane residents to retain what little is left of their heritage. It stated:

... but does that then give the State Government the right to dictate to a profit-driven private sector developer what sort of business it can or cannot operate on the site? Presumably, one reason for the proposed redevelopment is that a 30-year-old four-cinema complex is a less profitable use of the land than a 38-storey office tower.

From the point of view of society at large, few profits are to be had from these projects. Instead, they merely facilitate the transfer of wealth out of its pockets into the pockets of the likes of Multiplex and ISPT, whilst massive quantities of greenhouse gases are pumped into the atmosphere, particularly during their construction phases, and the earth's scarce and diminishing stocks of fossil fuel and metals are exhausted. In no more than a generation, these high rise structures will be inoperable as the necessary fossil fuels become ever more scarce and will stand just as much as monuments to to the folly of today's political and business leaders as do the pyramids built on Central America's Yucutan peninsula stand as monuments to the folly of the leaders of the failed Mayan civilisation.

The Courier Mail editorialist then argues that the taxpayers of Queensland to make up for the shortfall in profits:

Now it is quite possible that the developers might be able to rethink their proposal and decide they can make it work, with the Regent intact. However, if Ms Bligh feels so strongly about preserving the whole of the theatre complex, then perhaps she should be arguing the case for some sort of government underwriting – not something we would support – rather than simply sticking it to the private sector, as it were.

In reality, the evidence shows that it is today's taxpayers and ratepayers, as well as future generations, who subsidise the profits of developers, because they are forced to foot the bill for the infrastructure made necerssary to service such developments.

The editorialist also effectively accused Premier Anna Bligh of pandering to populism, when it asked:

But is it possible that this whole exercise is less about protecting fond memories and more about good old-fashioned, politically motivated playing to the crowd?

The Courier Mail editorialists no doubt prefer leaders who know better than 'the crowd' itself what is good for them, hence their past support for the North South Bypass Tunnel, the Hale Street Bridge, "Work Choices", the privatisation of Telstra and Queensland's Energex electricity company, high immigration, the Iraq war, the Traveston Dam, forced local government amalgamations, etc.

James Sinnamon
Independent candidate for Lord Mayor of Brisbane

Comment posted to qlddecides.com:

Thanks Jason for posting this. The original article is entitled "Saving the Regent Theatre earns Queensland Premier the wrath of the Courier Mail" and can be found at http://candobetter.org/node/342

However, the article is not actually a plan to save the Regent. That appears, thankfully, to have been done by Premier Anna Bligh. I meant to use the occasion to give due credit to a politician in whom I otherwise see very little of merit, also to comment on the anti-democratic pro-developer stance of Brisbane's Courier Mail newspaper.

Whilst normally supportive of Bligh, when she does the bidding of powerful vested interests, the Courier Mail was hostile to the Premier's out-of-character decision on this occasion.