David Penberthy: Councils embark on flights of fancy that stretch well beyond core business of rates, roads and rubbish
I get it with single-use plastics. I get it with discarded fishing line and the plastic rings that hold six-packs together. But why ban balloons, which pose no environmental threat?
It emerged this week that West Torrens Council – having presumably solved all outstanding challenges involving potholes, waste collection, road upgrades, development applications and rates management – had decided to turn its attention to a more pressing concern.
Principally the release of balloons into the environment under the sinister guise of children’s entertainment.
It is not yet clear what the scope of the council’s deliberations will be on the balloon question.
Will it be limited to professional helium-filled ones? Or will we see a more zero-tolerance approach, extending to balloons you blow up yourself with your mouth, the tiny water balloons you fill from the tap in lots of 100 and the thin ones that clowns fold into sausage dog and dinosaur shapes?
The idea is being pushed by Councillor Graham Nitschke, who told me yesterday he’s not even sure how many balloons are released in the council area each year.
Perhaps the suggestion of a ban could be considered a pre-emptive strike if the balloon problem really starts taking off, so to speak, in Adelaide’s west.
His impetus – in fairness to the man, he is being sincere – obviously goes to the question of environmental impact.
Cr Nitschke has approached this issue in the context of the Marshall Government’s crackdown on single-use plastics for parties and picnics: The forks, knives and plates that can end up in landfill, or being left behind on beaches and in parks by messier revellers.
I would respectfully suggest that he is confusing two issues here. A couple of weeks back, I had a chat to Mark Van, the manager of the famous Peter Van the Party Man store, about the changes he was already making in terms of single-use plastics.
“The Government’s ban isn’t a problem for us as we have been doing the right thing and phasing them out anyway,” he said.
Mark explained that the store now stocked bamboo plates and cutlery or straws made out of biodegradable cardboard or pasta, rather than the old plastic things that end up clogging stormwater drains.
On the balloon question, Mark explained there were no environmental issues with balloons anyway, as they are not made of plastic but biodegradable rubber or latex. Once released, the balloons shatter into tiny pieces after drifting up into the iciness of the stratosphere.
We will find out in a few months if the West Torrens Council believes that Cr Nitschke’s plan is worth backing, with a report into the proposed ban being sought by councillors by the end of the year. Personally, I can’t see what the fuss is about. I get it with single-use plastics. I get it with discarded fishing line and the plastic rings that hold six-packs together. But if someone can show me proof that there are dolphins swimming around with their beaks stuck inside inflatable love hearts from Valentine’s Day, maybe we should extend the conversation.
Admittedly, there is a problem with helium balloons in terms of helium being a finite resource but that’s not the basis on which the council is considering the ban.
There’s a more pertinent point here, however, and it’s this. You know how some managers have that motto on their office wall that says, “Don’t sweat the small stuff”?
The reverse motto appears to have been picked up by the local government sector as its own mission statement as it embarks on continuing flights of fancy that stretch well beyond its core business of rates, roads and rubbish.
Indeed, the very use of the three Rs is itself a red rag to a bull to some councillors, who regard it as insulting that they should somehow be prevented from their apparent higher duty of shifting Australia Day or banning Christmas.
Earlier this year, I wrote favourably in this column about how the Local Government Association had moved to streamline its annual conferences to make it harder for frivolous or eccentric motions to clog up its conference agenda.
The backdrop to that was the attempt by some members of Gawler Council to declare a worldwide climate-change emergency.
The LGA rightly pointed out that councils had every right to examine their own policies and practices on the basis of achieving carbon neutrality but could save the lofty international grandstanding for those attending the next round of the Paris talks.
In light of some of the rattier ideas we have seen emanating from councils of late, the LGA would do well to have an even sterner conversation about the need for councils to keep a much steelier eye on local bread-and-butter issues that affect people’s daily lives and hip pockets.
I was talking to a friend the other day about her decision to run for council last year, when she was elected, and how at times things can go quickly off the rails with meetings sidelined by irrelevant discussions about things like the wording of the prayer.
It’s Mitcham Council that really set a new low with the carols nonsense. The weirdest thing about it was that anyone with a scintilla of intelligence could have seen that a measure that was ostensibly designed to defend multiculturalism, in pulling funding for the carols on social inclusion, was actually going to harm it.
Every Muslim person I know was shaking their head about it, saying the decision was wrongly held up in some quarters as proof that Australia’s way of life was under siege from Islam, when not one Muslim has ever complained about Carols by the Creek anyway.
These forays into activist social policy, backed up by zero evidence, have the net effect of damaging a sector where most people are focused on doing their jobs.
If West Torrens wants to do something for the environment, a better gesture would be to ban the use of corflutes, the thick plastic campaign posters used at election time, that were all over Henley Beach Rd at last year’s poll. And they can save us all the hot air about the balloon-led devastation of the world’s oceans.