Welcome to ‘Melbapore’

australia open for business - Google SearchIn 2013, after five years of politically sustained chaos the Abbott Government was elected to Canberra. Then ensued another two years of heightened chaos as the status quo, (that rump of very intensely conservative Catholics in the front bench) attempted to re-craft their version of Australia. A version of strident right wing ideology and very narrow mindedness. A version of government entrenched by punishment, and retribution to the poor, the meek, the unwashed, etc.. etc. And a bombastic sense of triumphalism for every “liberal” tradition that was quashed.

On that very day when Abbott declared his electoral victory, he declared, “Australia is open for business”!

Matthew Guy’s reign of error over Vic planning continues | Geoff Lake

Mathew Guy, ” Anything Goes” !!

Open for business was code. Code for, “Big Business, you may have been troubled by our regime of red tape and green tape, curbs imposed by the bureaucracy to protect, the environment, the public realm, the dis-empowered, the populace, but now, these barriers are lifted. We are about to embark upon an ecstasy of good ol laissez faire economics, and people who stand in our way will be branded, ‘un-Australian, wasters, leaners, and vigilantes’. On the final weeks before he was kicked out, Abbott and his front bench were at war with Australian law. Australian law, (and I paraphrase), “must be changed” because Australian law was restraining open slather on the environment, the people, and the troublemakers. These laws, must be repealed. That was what ‘open for business’ really meant. I suppose it came cheap with the free trade agreement. If you want free trade with China, you’ve gotta go ‘China’ on public participation. Which means if you’re rich and big, and an “insider’ you’ve get special treatment, a green light. if your neither of those, piss off! The first Abbott budget sent a clear message to the people; ‘we are contemptuous of you, your law, your traditions and the process of your Commonwealth’. The rest is history.

Now in Victoria, the briefly elected Liberal government went one step further, they didn’t even bother with an election for consensus on big projects, they got elected, and then announced that they would commit to a huge road project that the majority didn’t want, and were never asked about. But just in case they felt the public didn’t get the message that Victoria also was open for business the Planning Minister Mathew Guy set about lowering the bar on all major projects, anything over 100 million, and said ‘yes yes yes’. So now in 2015, Melbourne is the money laundering building capital of the south. Big money, not entirely 100 % Chinese money is pouring open slather and investing in some really fucking ugly buildings. Buildings that are so bad, you’d expect them to be in Dubai. It has rooted complete sections of the city. And there’s much more to come. What Rob Walker began in the sixties and seventies is now complete. The high point being the rezoning of Fishermans Bend, without consultation, without consensus, without hinting, as city, in which a few very rich people got very very much richer indeed.Toorak mansion worth $20m abruptly demolished despite heritage concerns

Other places, other capital cities have planning regulations, places, like London, Berlin, Paris etc. They recognise the value in “adding value” by quality control. But in Melbourne, any planning regime that restricts laissez faire unfettered capital and building is not on. Welcome to ‘Melbapore’. I could almost be sad, and say, ‘oh well there aint no thing as a free lunch, we enjoyed the mining boom, now it’s time for someone else’s fun”. I imagine, the disappointment we all feel for such ” loss’ on such a grand scale is akin what the first Australians must have thought when we fucked up their version of paradise.

‘Oh well that’s progress’.

Mathew Guy, has given my version of Melbourne away. I suppose there’s an irony in that. And remember this is Australia. What’ve we got? Manufacturing? Science? Creativity? Imagination? Nup!

There’s only one show in this country and that’s REAL ESTATE!!!

And isn’t that in a kind of way what we said when we declared that little spot along the Yarra as a place for a village.

1835 20 John Batman meets Aborigines.jpg | East Melbourne Historical Society

Developing Melboune; it’s our turn now.

‘We are contemptuous of you, your law, your traditions and the process of your commonwealth’. The rest is history.