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Credit: Illustration: Megan Herbert
DEVELOPMENT
″Melbourne is speeding towards a megacity future of 10 million people Is this the future we want,″ asked the story ″Growing pains″(26/10). But this question has been asked before.
In 2013, the University of Western Australia’s Urban Design Research Centre published Made in Australia – The Future of Australian Cities, which considered a future Australian population of 62 million in 2110. It asked where they would be accommodated.
It found that if we want to avoid sprawling, congested megacities we need to start developing mega-regions connected by high-speed rail and broadband communications.
In 2018, the Australian government standing committee on infrastructure, transport and cities released its Building Up and Moving Out report that said we need to densify our cities and develop our regions with a high-speed rail network connecting the principal urban centres.
Unfortunately, the Allan government has chosen to ignore regional development as part of its population growth response. This is possibly driven by its blind commitment to a Suburban Rail Loop development rather than better transport connections to regional centres.
The result will be a sprawling, congested Melbourne as prophesied by UWA in 2013.
Jeff Moran, Bacchus Marsh
What Melbourne means to me
Melbourne is different from a lot of other cities We are the green state.
People walk in our public gardens. Marvel at our architecture. From tiny Victorian terraces to grand, red brick Edwardians and California bungalows, all suburbs are serviced by community shopping. The local butcher, the green grocer, and in recent years, the all-important coffee shops where communities meet and socialise.
These are the reasons Melbourne was voted number one in the world as the most liveable city.
On any given day, l can walk into a local cafe and see different age groups, chatting, laughing and enjoying their environment.
Right now, we have to help the unhoused people of Melbourne and build affordable housing for the current population.
Adding more people to a system that is straining doesn’t make sense.
I urge the people of Melbourne to fight for this city and challenge the state government’s growth plan.
Sharon Hendon, Glen Iris
... and, what it means to me
Your correspondent (Letters, ″Not a Garden State welcome″, 26/10) wonders what not having an airport train, taxi touts, graffiti, roadside rubbish, weeds, traffic jams and an abandoned Ferris wheel mean.
It means: Cosy state deals done with toll road operators, it means that driving taxis is a tough way to make a living, it means that
among us are those that think it is acceptable to throw rubbish
from their vehicles, it means that it is spring, it means that
among us is a subculture that thinks it is acceptable to deface
public and private property, it means that we have traffic jams
like every major metropolis, and it means that questionable
business decisions are sometimes made here instanced by the installation of a defective Ferris wheel on the edge of an industrial zone.
Damon Ross, St Kilda East
On the beach
What consideration has been given to the effect of rising seas on the positioning of growth areas in the planned expansion of Melbourne, particularly in beachside suburbs?
How long will it take them to be flooded?
John Edwards, Mount Waverley
Poor planning outlook
Urban planner Nikki Taylor (Opinion 23/10) appropriately asks: “How can you contradict well-considered and developed structure planning with something that seems like planning on the run?“
Do politicians really believe they know better than expert town planners and architects? These people have years of study and experience and an understanding of what is necessary to create a healthy living environment.
Politicians appear to think they know better, especially when expert opinion conflicts with political expediency and perceived advantage.
By the time the predictable consequences of poor planning become glaringly obvious, and everyone’s problem, it will be someone else’s political problem. Rectification may be impossible or prohibitively expensive.
The obsession for endless growth is madness. Even the world’s most congested, polluted cities would at some point have been “liveable” before becoming “unliveable”.
Melbourne is being unnecessarily condemned to the same fate. Pearls before swine.
This vicious cycle will require more and more doctors, psychologists, police and charities to deal with the fallout.
Joe Di Stefano, Geelong
Growth trajectory
Congratulations on the feature article questioning the growth trajectory of Melbourne. It is a pity that this discussion did not start 20 years sooner (″Growing pains″, 26/10).
I do find comments by the state Liberals to be mischievous and ironic. Mischievous because it is the Commonwealth government that drives immigration, the main source of our population growth. The states have to deal with the consequences.
And ironic because it was the Liberals under John Howard who ramped up our immigration numbers. Previously, our net migration was around 70,000 to 90,000 per year, numbers that we could cope with.
Barry Lizmore, Ocean Grove
Concrete solutions
Could it be that the real agenda of the Jacinta Allan’s Labor government is to set in concrete forever the contract signed for the Suburban Rail Loop, by proposing an acceleration of activity centres around rail stations?
Christine Baker, Rosanna
Goldilocks solution
We have major housing challenges, but we have a climate crisis. I have not seen a single mention of climate and sustainability in last week’s announcements and debates about the Victorian government’s housing initiatives.
New single residences on suburban blocks in greenfield sites far from transport infrastructure are bad for families and bad for the environment.
Twenty-storey apartment buildings have far higher upfront and ongoing carbon footprints than lower-rise buildings, and create an awful urban environment. Neither is the Goldilocks solution that we need.
We can surely house Melbourne’s growing population with a combination of medium-rise housing around transport hubs and increased multiple-occupancy on existing suburban blocks.
Richard Barnes, Canterbury
Rob Peter to pay Paul
It’s an old saying and applies now to first home buyers, stamp duty and land tax. The latest rort suggested by the politicians is to abolish stamp duty and instead apply it to land tax.
Reduce land tax? Oh no, give home buyers an advantage, Paul in this case, and lump the payment onto existing home owners, poor old Peter, who has to pay for everything
First home buyers find it hard to make their first purchase. But it’s always been hard, not just suddenly now.
A more equitable stamp duty solution would be to make stamp duty payments staggered over a number of years. For example,
4 per cent stamp duty (adjusted accordingly) could be paid in four annual 1 per cent payments, which could also be derived from weekly direct debit to further ease the investment slug.
The stamp duty ″duties″ if the property is sold before the repayment period is completed are passed to the new owner, making
it an almost ″pay as you go″ system. This system will provide a more competitive and affordable market. It is fair, equitable, and achievable.
Peter Smith, Hawthorn
Gravy plane
I enjoyed reading Joe Aston’s article on the Qantas Flight Club, aka the Gravy Plane, in Saturday’s Good Weekend. It’s always enlightening to see how our hard-earned taxes are spent by those in charge. Although not mentioned in the story, I also think I now know how Albo’s dog got his name. Many, no doubt, will remember Dorothy’s famous line in the Wizard of Oz: “Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas any more.” Quite.
Jill D’Arcy, East Melbourne
Unfashionable advice
Want the government to do something about the cost of living? Why not do something for yourself? Don’t look at a million-dollar house in the city, try a $500,000 house in a regional town with clean air, no crime, and safe play spaces for the kids.
Buy a $20,000 used car, not a $70,000 panzer truck. Shop at Aldi, not Coles/Woolies. Holiday at home or locally, not Bali or France. Recycle clothes, electronics and furniture. Consider not having kids, they gobble up money.
Stop blaming a government for your decisions.
I know it’s unfashionable, but take responsibility for your life.
Mick Webster, Chiltern
Chant of Jimmy Clements
The poignant story of the Wiradjuri man Jimmy “King Billy” Clements, as told by Tony Wright, (“The chant of Jimmy Clements: I’ll do the honours on my ground, thanks” 26/10) is arguably a metaphor for the at-times somewhat mercurial but inevitably blighted historical relationship between whites and Indigenous people in this nation.
The 1927 protagonists outside the opening of Canberra’s first Parliament House played out a mix of compassion and hard indifference in relation to the Indigenous man’s proud intervention.
The white policeman objecting to Clements’ rough clothes and bare feet took the default racist position, but, interestingly, the well-dressed white crowd recognised and strongly defended King Billy’s inherent dignity and decency.
Fast forward to 2023 and we saw early polling in the Voice referendum strongly in favour of the Yes vote only to be countered by a descent into disinformation and a degree of racism.
Jon McMillan, Mt Eliza
Aged help reduction
I am concerned with the new limits in cleaning and gardening hours in the My Aged Care bill. These limits are a reduction in allowable care. Cleaning has a new limit of 52 hours per year, one hour per week. Currently, there is no limit, and is based on need.
I challenge an able-bodied person to clean a three-bedroom home in less than four hours a week. The proposed reductions in cleaning services will leave many elderly people living in unkempt homes. Gardening will be at 18 hours per year, or two hours per six weeks.
Capping the cleaning to one hour per week and the gardening to two hours every six weeks will mean some people will end up living in squalor. Therefore, it could be deemed that they are unsafe at home and therefore need to be in a nursing home. One of the core purposes of My Aged Care is to facilitate ageing people to continue living in their own home.
Jennifer Frank, South Morang
Michelle Obama’s oratory
It may be former first lady Michelle Obama’s first contribution to the campaign trail, but it packed a decisive punch through the gendered double standards at vivid display in the US presidential race. (“Let me warn you’: Michelle Obama comes out swinging against Trump”, 27/10).
Indeed, why is Kamala Harris being held to a higher standard than Donald Trump along a rule of thumb akin to “boys will be boys”?
Indeed, rising above her antipathy for politics because of the high stakes to her beloved country (and international relations), Michelle Obama’s oratorical remonstration that “we expect nothing at all” from Trump – a “convicted felon” and a “predator” – while Harris must “dazzle us at every turn” by not being too much of anything (i.e especially angry) while simultaneously being “intelligent and articulate, to have a clear set of policies”, is on point.
Jelena Rosic, Mornington
Fire containment
Your correspondent (Letters, 26/10) calls for additional large tankers and a fleet of drones for firefighting.
Large air tankers don’t ‘extinguish fire’, they help ground crews build containment lines.
NSW does indeed have a Boeing 737, operated by an overseas contractor. Victoria chooses to lease comparable aircraft and there is no current issue over it doing so.
However, the Inspector General of Emergency Management’s report into the 2019-20 Black Summer bushfires questioned the effectiveness of large aircraft in our fire environment, and there is a strong view among local operators that smaller aircraft are more effective because of their faster turnaround times and accuracy of delivery.
Drones are becoming increasingly capable, but with more than 8 million hectares of the state covered by forests, and even more by grassland, it would require a massive fleet to provide early detection of outbreaks. The existing seasonal fire towers, crewed by experienced operators with much local knowledge, are remarkably effective.
David Edwards, Werribee South
AND ANOTHER THING
Housing
There has been so much hype of late regarding high-rise in the suburbs with no mention whatsoever of all the high-rise Housing Commission apartments that have been part of Melbourne’s landscape for more than half a century.
Peter O’Brien, Newport
Politics
Here’s a warning from an elderly feminist: the Queensland election result will embolden right-wing conservatives nationwide. Women’s bodily autonomy is now on the line (″Crisafulli claims victory, promising to ‘honour’ contract with voters″, 27/10.
Jane Ross, San Remo
Then Victorian premier John Cain built an unrivalled reputation for integrity and honesty in government; for an Australian prime minister to accept free Qantas upgrades for personal travel is tacky and tawdry.
Paul Custance, Highett
So Albo goes to the Qantas Chairman’s lounge. And Albo buys a house for $4.3 million. Is this really news? He is the PM of the country. He is allowed to. It is not sensational news.
Ross Hosking, Blackwood, SA
“Heat on PM to explain his perks from Qantas”, (27/10) – but not from other politicians, who enjoy or aspire to similar ″benefits of office″.
Lawrie Bradly, Surrey Hills
Our compulsory preferential voting system rocks, with AEC boundary adjustments to avoid gerrymanders and party scrutineers monitoring the count. Pity the council elections went awry (″No democracy sausage, no sizzle in council elections″, 25/10).
Greg Curtin, Nunawading
Furthermore
A couple ″downsized″ to a property in Fitzroy (27/10). It cost just under $3 million, four levels and had four bedrooms. One has to ask, what is downsizing in today’s terms? Tom Stafford, Wheelers Hill
And finally ...
Watching Michelle Obama speak at a Harris rally (Sunday morning) was jolting – is there a better public speaker on Earth? I truly doubt it.
Richard Pentony, Hawthorn
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