A year ago an episode of üA Country Practice I chanced to watch had the Friends of Tree Park chaining themselves to a huge tree in protest at plans to develop the park.
I think now that the image is entirely out of date: noisy, selfish NIMBYs chaining themselves to a tree to prevent reasonable town-planning objectives being pursued in the broad public interest.
I shall be offering the producers an updated script which shows a changed role for both sides, set in Wandin Valley.
The futile protest is out. Chaining yourself to a tree does no-one any good. The network of “”friends” does not exist among the people opposed to development. The people opposed to development are quite disparate. Only some are selfish opponents of the vacant block next door being developed. Nearly all of them are idealists. Many of them don’t mind some development, but they want some intelligence applied to it. They want it done in the broad public interest to improve the lives of the people who live in Wandin Valley.
These people are no longer the rat-bag demonstrators. They have computers and degrees in economics, town planning, biology, law and a raft of other disciplines. In fact they have more education and skill between them than the Wandin Valley Shire Council, the town clerk and the council’s planning staff put together. You know what these rural town council’s are like.
But they are not “”Friends of the Wadin Valley Heritage and Environment”. They are not friends at all, in my script. One or two people use the movement to gain credentials to get pre-selection to stand for the council election, or even for state parliament. And they have long debates about whether education or economics should be the dominant issue in the copious submissions they put in to the council and the state Government.
They clash over whether the submission produced on the Apple Mac with graphics will be a better presentation than the one done on the Toshiba with economic modelling supported by two PhDs in economics. And their aims are diverse.
No, in my script, the “”friends” and networks are on the other side. Well, “”mates” would be a better word than “”friends”. And on that side there are few if any idealists and many selfish individuals.
The Wadin Valley Council, like most rural councils, is not full of very bright people. So their bureaucrats run the Valley for them. The councillors like it. They look good in the weekly paper. They will get re-elected. The bureaucrats like it. It gives them power and influence among all the moneyed people in Wandin Valley.
So when someone in the Valley wants to build on a heritage site or knock over a few fibros in the centre of town to put up a shopping centre or a block of flats, because they are mates with the council’s bureaucrats, the thing can be done. And they can discuss it over a few beers in the Skulduggery Bar at the Wandin Valley Hotel. It’s in the open there. One of the councillors might wander past for a few beers. And people on the council’s administrative staff can join the natter which ranges over football, the dreadful state of the Valley economy and the need for new development work.
There is no need for any Apple Macs or Toshibas to detail the merits of the new shopping mall and high rise or the amenity of the people who live there. Its merit is obvious.
The town clerk and his staff work well with the supposedly independent state Government planning authority. They both have offices in the same street in Wandin Valley. Indeed, they can work together to get some state Government special money to make the development costs cheaper and the profit margins higher.
And the council’s bureaucrats have made sure the rules are made easy for those who want to put up the shopping mall and high rise. Sure, plans are posted on the council-chamber notice board. But from start to finish, no-one seriously imagines that complaints will change the pre-determined path.
The council’s bureaucrats do not do much economic modelling. They do very little genuine environmental work. They get on with the job. And jobs in Wadin Valley are important. The councillors want it that way. The councillors do not realise or care much now about what sort of town the people will have the 20 or 30 years, because they will not be standing for election then. Nor do the bureaucrats, because they would have retired by then.
The only trouble with my script is that üA Country Practice producers demand a happy ending, and I am having some difficulty working that in. Ah, I have it: perhaps a working party could come from Wandin Valley to Canberra to see how things should be done.