The North Melbourne station name change is needless tampering
THE dismal decision to change the name of North Melbourne station to West Melbourne proves our elected officials would have lost by now if this were a real life version of computer game Sim City.
Opinion
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THERE’S little doubt that, if this were a real life version of the popular town-planning-themed computer game Sim City, our elected officials would have lost by now.
In that game, the player uses the hand of government to build roads, deal with waste problems and plan schools in a bird’s eye view of their imaginary city.
Even a teenager playing Sim City in between earnest attempts to unlock the parental controls on their home desktop would not make such silly mistakes as our State and Federal governments have recently made.
MORE: Names of Melbourne’s Metro Tunnel stations to be revealed
In Sim City, for example, you would probably face serious consequences if you paid $1 billion for no East West Link, no matter the alternative you later put forward.
And you would not think of spending something like $120 million polling your people on a social issue when you should show leadership and decide a policy for yourself.
I can’t think of what circumstances would lead you to get halfway through a game of Sim City, only to find out you were never eligible to play at all and you have to start over again.
Today’s announcement that North Melbourne station will be renamed West Melbourne, and the new station at Arden St will become North Melbourne instead is the sort of decision that again makes you wonder who’s playing the game on our behalf.
The decision, revealed along with the names of other new Metro Tunnel stations, will not only cause lasting confusion, but will taint the existing North Melbourne station’s history and the memories held by its countless patrons.
Already you can imagine rail users agreeing to meet at outside North Melbourne station.
“You mean old North Melbourne or new North Melbourne?”
“I mean the station in North Melbourne.
“You mean the one really in North Melbourne? Or technically in West Melbourne?”
“I mean the latest North Melbourne station.”
It is true that North Melbourne Station (the old one) is technically in West Melbourne, much to the delight of West Melbourne residents who are able to say they live near it, fudging their postcode at northern suburbs dinner parties.
And it is true that the new station at Arden St is truly in North Melbourne.
But it will never be North Melbourne Station, to its patrons or in the imagination of Melbourne’s populace.
The name of a place that carries meaning accumulated over 158 years (and is printed on countless maps and signage) cannot be transferred like a title to another location.
There is more to a name than a precise point on a map or a literal description of its purpose.
Imagine, for example, if a factory opened in South Yarra that made jam. Imagine, too, if it was called the Jam Factory and the old Jam Factory — now an institution as a cinema and shopping complex — had to be called something else.
It would make the new place the Jam Factory in name only, despite its function, and people would still take “we’re going to the flicks at the Jam Factory” to mean the old place.
As such we shouldn’t be surprised if, instead of calling it West Melbourne, rail users start calling it something like “the real North Melbourne” despite its technical location in West Melbourne.
This weird decision is a symbol of the tendency of governments to strike down decades of accumulated wisdom or tradition for the sake of nothing.
Recent examples of renaming parks and other landmarks away from John Batman, a pioneer who is now described as an invader in some circles, at very least have a political purpose, however ugly.
The reason for renaming North Melbourne station for the sake of geography, somehow to lessen confusion when it’s operated just fine since 1859, is not good enough.
The sad part is that the station name change casts needless doubt over a project that might well streamline the train services through Melbourne and ease congestion in the sort of way that would get big points in Sim City.
No matter how promising that project is, mistakes that wouldn’t be made by a teenager weaken public confidence.
Every person at every level of government should wield their power sensibly or stop playing the game and let someone else have a go.
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