Richard C Butler
Readers will be comforted that in some parts of the country, local newspapers arent all pathetically postrate to large corporations.
The background …
ALTHOUGH THE Tasmanian Times pages are justifiably full of issues concerning the proposed Gunns Mill, Tasmanians should also be aware of a similar act of violence against the landscape in Victoria , with the dredging of Port Phillip Bay .
And when we go back to investigate close proximity to ‘Root Cause’ we find that useless and inadequate individual Peter Garrett is close to the action on this one too.
As so appropriately appraised by Geoff Cousins, the (then) shadow minister without a shadow was quick to put his moniker on approvals to dredge the bay.
Part of that action involves the dredging of 2.11 million cubic meters of toxic mud from the base of the harbour near the Yarra River, and the burying of it further down the bay near Mordialloc, in a large clay bome off shore in the middle of the bay. This might sound OK but when one checks out the detail its as big as the volume of a couple of MCG;s – that is millions upon millions of cubic meters of toxic mud. We don’t know where else to put it – it will be dump ed out of the shipping lanes, back into the bay.
It will be housed in a cute oversized mud-castle , with a lid about half a meter thick.
Imagine doing that on dry land. Its a bit like emptying your septic – onto your back lawn.
Whilst the dregding is going on – those newspapers with half a miligram per thousand kilos of courage (not like The Examiner which has none) publish photographs which make the usually beautiful bay look like a house paint spill.
The environmental issue with Port Phillip Bay Dredging doesn’t stop there either. The whole reason for the dredging is to bring in deeper draught and bigger capacity ships into Melbourne and entrap the inward shipping movement to Australia . Why ? Because of the revenues t hos big ships bring Melbourne Ports. The cost of goods in Queensland, New South Wales and everywhere else is impacted. Because if we bring ships into Melbourne at discounted costs – they wont go to other ports – and then we have to transport the goods they carry by road on trucks. Linfox trucking magnate Lindsay Fox thinks the dredging project is stupid – and his company stands to benefit substantially from it. This is because he understand the weaknesses include roads and land based infrastructure.
So the water isnt deep enough, we dont have a place to put 2.11 million cubic meters of toxic waste – except back in the water – the roads wont handle the extra truck rolls, and the air wont handle the massive increase in carbon emissions.
Victorian Premier John Brumby is clearly annoyed as hell by the impudence of those prepared to question the intelligence of the decision . “If you want to make Melbourne a backwater like Adelaide, continue to protest, ” was the message. He must have been taking advice from Paul ‘the scroat’ Lennon.
Now that’s interesting. The Victorian government is upgrading its public relations to the Stone Age.
In the meantime, this strangely silent – determined to smile at all costs politician Peter Garrett has hit the ground running in Canberra – except he’s going into the wrong office !! Hasnt anyone told him that his job is not to emulate Eric Reece and Lang Hancock ?
It’s almost Pythonesque. Garrett isnt the minister for the environment – where that role means caring treasuring and protecting. He’s the minister for developing the environment – where that means corporate largesse wins, and the environment loses.
Although Garrets spastic dysfunctional on stage twitches were once a useful prop for his poetics on corporate society , those impulsive twitches have retreated to his sense of rightness – and are as useful to the environment as Osama bin Laden is for airline safety.
He has shown us he can make decisions, but no-one has taught him how to make the right ones.
Bridges are burning Peter. Bridges are burning.
