Victoria Market, as we know it, is under threat. The City of Melbourne, along with the top end of town, has plans to reduce and gentrify our historic market, paying lip service only to its valued heritage and the important service it provides to the wider Melbourne community, in particular, its role in keeping food quality standards high, food prices down, while providing astounding diversity.
The Council’s intention is to:
sell off part of the market’s land for commercial development, road extension and other purposes
to build high-rise buildings at its immediate doorstep,creating tall walls and corridors around its perimeter
to shrink the market from 12 sheds to 5
to gentrify this historical market by cherry picking which traders will stay or go,
jeopardise &/or close small, family-run businesses by not renewing or extending leases beyond one year,
to create a gourmet food precinct and entertainment space.
In short the Council proposes to micro-manage a cultural change of the market, to change its size and shape and give itself free rein to make physical changes to its layout without further public consultation.
With NSW’s (read Sydney’s) population growing at a break-neck pace (see below chart), last month it was revealed that there was a revolt underway from within the NSW Liberal Party against the federal government’s mass immigration program and over-development across Sydney (watch video).
Save the date: Sunday 30 July 2017. Walk in St Kilda Road and Environs for National Tree Day. Walk in St Kilda Road grand boulevard on Sunday 30 July 2017 or join an information walk in St Kilda Road and Environs. There will be information meeting points along St Kilda Road, from opposite Victoria Barracks down to near the intersection of Toorak Road and St Kilda Road, manned at least from 1.00pm to 4.00pm., and planners, engineers, politicians, arborists, heritage consultants and others will be invited and available for information and discussion on St Kilda Road and Environs. Video inside explains what is at stake.
[Illustration from screen print of Prof Justin O'Connor's slide presentation.]The population and development behemoth is so multi-faceted that many of us feel like blind people trying to describe an elephant. Far richer than the bewildering 'policy porn' we are constantly subjected to by planners and growth merchants, the videos from this wonderful symposium provide vital clues to how we have been ambushed and sidelined by the nightmarish infrastructure juggernaut. "The ‘Creative City’ attempts to mobilise culture and creativity for city branding, urban regeneration and cultural industries growth, which also point to new forms of urban planning and governance. It has been closely associated with the “creative class” and the creative- entrepreneurial city in ways that have frequently become divisive and exclusionary, focusing on arts flagships, photogenic CBDs, and real estate profits. So too, cultural production has been reformatted under the rubric of the ‘creative industries’ in ways that foreground their contribution to economic growth. Increasingly calls have been for social justice, citizenship and the rights to the city, with a return of community and activist-focused arts activities, as well as new forms of ‘post-capitalist’ production communities." Source: 
Do you ever wonder what our society would look like if everyday people were calling the shots? If everyday people had more influence rather than a few privileged rich and large corporations? Would we have sold our public utilities? Would the centre of Melbourne look less like Manhattan; have less poorly constructed and dangerous residential towers? Would citizens be forced into selling off the backyards of family homes to pay their outrageous mortgages? Would we ever have allowed negative gearing and its looming financial tsunami?
Victorians and Australians need to initiate a new democratic process and hold to it. Residents' action groups now find themselves at the coal-face of democracy. They are the front line representing the future of our cities, states and this country. Their task is to identify, defend, and establish new property, community and natural environment rights and the implied citizens' rights that accompany these rights. We can no longer rely on the traditional environment NGOs or alternative political parties to represent us on these fundamental problems. They have been silenced by one means or another. Twenty years ago no-one would have contemplated making Planning Minister Mr Wynn's statements on drive-time ABC radio that we have to fit in 10 million more people in Victoria with four more million in Melbourne. This insane proposition is not the end of it by any means, either. Not only would Melbourne keep on growing, but most state governments are trying to force similar changes on their residents and the property development lobby has in the past admitted to the desire for something like 50 new mega cities around Australia, with eight new ones currently on the drawing board. The scale of these commercial projects will demand authoritarian regimes similar to China's. The 
3CR talkS to Michael Bayliss from Planning Backlash about the development woes facing Melbourne and how this issue will only become more serious in light of plans to further deregulate the planning system. Whether it is increasing densities in the inner suburbs or developing the urban fringe, we are not getting the standard of development that Melbourne requires as we proceed to a low carbon economy. (Article adapted from one published on 3CR at 
This article is adapted from a talk with power point given to U3A Deepene on March 15th 2017 by past president of VicTas branch of Sustainable Population Australia, now secretary, Jill Quirk, who is also now the secretary of Protectors of Public Lands Victoria. The talk explored the noticeable effects of rapid population growth and compared some past and current projections for Melbourne’s population to mid–century and beyond, considering what Melbourne on current trends might be like in 50 years. These comparisons, not usually available, make it clear how Victorian governments have increasingly snowed citizens with every successive plan for Melbourne.
Stop Press - Just received this minute. It seems that Josh Frydenberg, Federal member for Boroondara and Minister of Environment, has put an interim protection order on St Kilda Road, as it has been sponsored for National Heritage Protection. I knew this has been proposed by a leader of the Liberals and a leader of Labor. A number of us wrote to Josh urging him to do it. Great news!
Community outrage continues in the battle to protect the iconic Dandenong Ranges from inappropriate development following Knox Council’s recent failure to adopt the independent Panel recommendation for mandatory maximum height controls in the Upper Ferntree Gully Activity Centre. Knox Appropriate Development Alliance President, Catherine Kruse said that a petition to the State Government calling for their intervention is gathering momentum with interest from across Victoria. A rally is also planned for Monday February 27th at the Knox Council offices.
(Submission inside) Plans for the proposed underground railway from north west to south east of the city are not yet finalised. On Friday the 13th the Minister of Planning said the location of the proposed Domain station may be moved and yet the Age announces 14th Jan that work would begin on Monday the 16th. This is clearly vandalism. They are going to start destroying trees and moving gas and sewer lines at the Domain. Remember that St Kilda Road is heritage listed and Heritage Victoria have received thousands of objections and Heritage Vic have not yet made a determination. One has to wonder how much pressure they are under by this State Government in their determination to start digging. We are sick to death of hearing them say they are 'shovel-ready'. How dare the government say that the damage to St Kilda road will be worth it for the advantage the rail will give. The necessity for this rail is being questioned by respected planners in Melbourne. There are far more important road and rail projects that are needed first. 
You are deep in an enjoyable conversation when suddenly a loud blustering person arrives, diverting all the attention of your group to her. She shows no curiosity as to what you were discussing before she arrived, relating a story about herself as though assuming everyone had been waiting for her arrival to come alive ..
George Soros funded and orchestrated the refugee crisis in Europe, opening the gates to allow refugees and terrorists into the continent. Soros’s agenda has always been about destroying national sovereignty and national borders. 
Video and text of Sheila Newman's speech at the Animal Justice Party's event, "Policy basis for Kangaroo treatment in the ACT," 5 April 2016: Harvesting, damage mitigation and culling probably actually accelerate population growth in roos because the smaller ones survive and adapt by sexually maturing earlier - which speeds up fertility turnover. Since 2003 DNA studies have shown that ACT and southern NSW roos, both male and female, migrate at significant rates and for longer distances than the ACT model assumes. Migration has probably been mistaken for fertility, rendering ACT roo counts unreliable and invalid. The ACT needs to stop culling and widen its research base to consider various genetically based algorithms that naturally restrain fertility opportunities in kangaroos.
Saturday April 23 rd at 1.00pm to 4.00 pm. Venue: Hawthorn Arts Centre, 360 Burwood Rd. Hawthorn Vic 3122. Members and non-members are welcome to attend. Speakers are: Mark Allen, Founder, Population, Permaculture and Planning; Dr Katharine Betts, Population Sociologist, Swinburne University; Hon Kelvin Thomson MP, Environmentalist and high profile sustainable population advocate; Rod Quantock, Environmental activist, Much loved comedian. M.C. SPAVicTas President Michael Bayliss. Audience Q&A and discussion will follow (Free parking behind venue or at nearby Glenferrie Station). 
It is just possible that the terrorist attack warnings by both the PM and ASIO head, Duncan Lewis, and the announcement of a hefty hike in defence spending was just a coincidence. But for those cynics who claim otherwise, let me point out that at this very moment we already have more than 1000 (perhaps as many as 4000) terrorists running riot in Canberra and doing so with the full knowledge and encouragement of our government. 
Estonian House, West Brunswick, 24th February
I went to the one [meeting] at Pascoe Vale neighbourhood Community Hall. People were hostile. They [Council staff] said they were seeking community input for their submission. One resident said;
Moreland residents are presently being treated to a new round of ‘consultations’ throughout the municipality, and being indoctrinated by Council staff on the assumed benefits of residential rezoning (radically increased residential densities) and of neighbourhood activity centres as a central feature of the ’20-minute city’. Under this new feudalism, it is expected that residents will access all of their basic material needs and services within a 20 minute walk, bicycle trip, or by public transport. Superficially this may seem a nice idea. On closer scrutiny it is fanciful, so expensive that the necessary additional infrastructure will never be provided, and little more than a pretext for an atrophied Australian business culture dependent upon population growth and capital widening; incapable of building a genuinely modern economy.
This article contains a speech by Kelvin Thomson, critical of a motion to change environmental law by George Christensen, Member for Dawson, Queensland. Monday, 8 February 2016, House of Representatives, Chamber Speech, page 22 Hansard proofs.
Australian comedian Barry Humphries' humour identified and targeted a world of pleasant streets and gardens that is now under threat. We've stopped laughing, but is it too late?
Video inside: The Kennett era in Victoria represented a neoliberal makeover of government, state and local. Swept to power during a global property collapse in 1992, the Liberal premier imposed radical and rapid transformation without electoral platform or forewarning. It was a classic case of the international phenomenon documented by Naomi Klein in Shock Doctrine. This talk focuses on the transformation of the core municipality of greater Melbourne – the Melbourne City Council in its historic context. It was disempowered and its citizens disenfranchised between 1992-9 to give the Growth Machine of property interests and state government free rein. That Machine emerged from the mid 1970s, being reinforced under the previous Labor government, 1982-92, as the manufacturing sector was phased out federally; cranes on the skyline was Premier Cain’s catchcry. Kennett capitalized on a political and institutional tradition in which property interests (entrenched in the Victorian Legislative Council) dominated from inception. Other Australian colonies were founded by government rather than land seekers.
This article is the text of a speech by Sheila Newman about how Kennett Government policies pushed up population growth in Victoria and Australia. Whilst many people remained for a long time under the impression that immigration numbers were a Federal domain, he began the practise of using regional migration definitions to attract people to urban Melbourne. He also de-toothed Victorian industrial law, affecting wages, condition and enforcement. The new interpretation of regional migration was adapted by other States and territories. Kennett's attack on Victorian industrial laws would ultimately pave the way for Workchoices and a much less effective system for ensuring that imported workers were not paid less than Australians, creating a new pull-factor in Australia.
UPDATE 29 September 2015, Click 
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