Today Jill Quirk, President of Sustainable Population Victoria, deplored the Victorian government's irresponsible growth policies.
The Victorian Government plans to extend Melbourne's growth boundaries, benefit major property developers whose profits may well have fallen with the global economic crash, as speculation on housing met with predictable limits.
Brumby pushing people envelope to breaking point
But the Brumby government is again pushing the envelope by pushing the boundaries of common sense and democracy to keep the illusion of profitable growth going.
As Mervac, Delfin Lend Lease, MAB Corporation, the Dennis family and Villawood queue up to a development-mad Premier for dispensations from only recently extended boundaries,[1] Victorians are reeling at their government's extremism, the Labor Party's supine acceptance of a dictator at the helm, and the tragic impact on our social and natural environment.
Victoria is running out of water. Public transport is stressed beyond any prior experience. Sparse and disconnected native flora and fauna reserves and bitterly defended "Green Wedges" of open space are being criss-crossed and dissected with a rash of extremely expensive multi-lane toll-ways and housing estates. Although population growth is out of control, along with transport and water, the Premier's way of dealing with these terrible problems -- which his government caused and continues to make worse -- when they are raised in Parliament, is to reconstruct them as if they were great triumphs, simply steam-rolling every objection.[2]
Road-makers part of the problem
The spread of housing depends on the rolling out of roads. Railways aren't quite so popular because you cannot just keep adding to them in order to supply new suburbs. With roads it is a lot easier. Nonetheless, Peter Newman is famous for pushing new railways, the better to connect them with light rail and new roads - and more houses and more people.
Huge corporate developers stand to gain from Melbourne people's distress
Pointing to headlines in the Age, Ms Quirk said, "Look who's happy about the extension of the urban growth boundary-BIG-NAME property speculators!" They were celebrating yesterday, with the proposed stretching of Melbourne's city limits, which brings despair to the actual electorate. The stretching is, according to the Royce Millar article, "set to deliver windfalls of many millions to some of Australia's largest developers". Shaking her head in disbelief, Ms Quirk quoted the title:"Property giants pop cork over city stretch."
Ms Quirk reminds us that, "In case anyone had not noticed who is likely to benefit for population growth while the average person is struggling to cram himself into the morning train to get to work- it's the big end of town who do not have to catch peak hour trains! Neither do these people have to worry about the cost of water as it inevitably becomes a scarce and expensive commodity into the future."
Government catering to anti-social forces
President Quirk says, "The property developers are self serving and the government is reprehensible in catering to their greed by pushing for greater and greater population growth. They thumb their noses at the rest of us and treat wildlife whose habitat gets destroyed with total disdain."
"Melbourne will never be better than it is today as it is on a rapid downhill journey to greater overpopulation with no end in sight and the loss of all amenities that made it a unique liveable city."
To contact Ms Quirk email the author of this article.
[1]http://www.theage.com.au/national/property-giants-pop-cork-over-city-stretch-20081202-6psg.html?page=2
Property giants pop cork over city stretch - article by Royce Millar, December 3, 2008
[2]http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/downloadhansard/pdf/Assembly/Jul-Dec%202008/Assembly%20Jul-Dec%202008%20Daily%202%20December%202008.pdf
Questions without notice, Tuesday, 2 December 2008 ASSEMBLY PROOF 3, "Population Growth".
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