- Joined
- 3 July 2009
- Posts
- 27,638
- Reactions
- 24,526
Funny how the media are painting them as Left wing militants.
Funny how the media are painting them as Left wing militants.And how quick.
The current action by Victorian government and police has been a slow burn while protestors damaged property and threatened people during the last few months.
How could it get worse, they are peace loving left wing loonies, they never behave badly, they aren't agressive like those right wing neo nazi militant loonies. LolIf they don't crack down on them hard and fast, then expect it to get worse
Let’s face it, Melbourne is turning into a flat and miserable city
The riots and anarchist mayhem in the city streets of Melbourne last week – during which rocks and acid were thrown at police, injuring 27 of them – suggest a serious tear in social fabric.
But there may be more straws blowing in the chill south wind, indicating that the glory days are well and truly over when Melbourne, not so long ago, was ranked the world’s most liveable city, and for seven years on end. Let me rehearse some of them.
High birthrates are one sign of upbeat confidence in a society. Families who believe in the future are more likely to have kids. Over the past 15 years, the average Australian birthrate has slumped from nearly 2 to 1.63 children per woman during child-bearing years. Australia is now maintaining its population only with the help of immigration.
The Victorian rate in 2022 stands out, down to 1.51, compared with 1.71 in both NSW and Queensland. The difference between these states is telling, and indicative of some more general mood of pessimism in Victoria.
Brisbane has overtaken Melbourne in having the second highest median house prices in the country. Some in the media have used this statistic to question whether Melbourne is losing its mojo. Brisbane will also host the 2032 Olympic Games, gnawing away at the southern city’s reputation as the nation’s sports capital.
Melbourne’s CBD is struggling to regain its pre-pandemic vibrancy. Small business laments the slow return of workers to offices, underscored by a state government that allows its public servants to continue working-from-home – unlike its NSW counterpart.
A buzz used to characterise the urban hubbub generated in Melbourne’s idiosyncratic rabbit warren of laneways, densely crowded concentrations of eateries, cafes, bars, and alcove shops. Today, the milling throng is back, in pockets at times, but what of the old fizz that spiked the air?
Another component of the Andrews political legacy is the dominant presence of the CFMEU at building sites across the city and suburbs. It is as if CFMEU flags have become the city’s defining insignia.
The taint of corruption and organised crime is now added to the utterly excessive inflation of building costs that this union has been able to impose by its strong-arm tactics across its industry.
The Cain Labor government recognised the harmful consequences of corrupt unions and, in its era, took on the Builders’ Labourers Federation.
The current Victorian Labor government has done just the opposite, giving the CFMEU preferential treatment during the pandemic years, in effect collaborating in flying this deflating canopy of embarrassment across the city.
Further dampening public morale is high government debt. Melbourne did need significant infrastructure development after stagnant Coalition years, but cavalier Labor seemed to believe it could plunge into a swath of loosely costed mega-projects, borrowing without consequence.
The legacy today is that public initiatives of any size are frozen, and for the long term – by debt repayment, reinforced by the threat of international credit agency downgrading.
A grim, penny-pinching state government with no capacity left to innovate is not going to lift the general mood.
It’s worth remembering that the sharp surge in Melbourne spirit in the 1990s was triggered in good part by Kennett government spending big on debt-free infrastructure. There are other signs of loss of civic self-respect, in a city that used to pride itself on its municipal order and cleanliness. There is recurring complaint on talkback radio about the spread of unrepaired potholes, both on city and country roads – car suspension-wrecking potholes.
Further, political unwillingness to address the public eyesore of a graffiti plague suggests a lack of care about appearance – lack of self-respect. Then there is the increasingly visible human tragedy of homeless people sleeping on city pavements; and the mushrooming of sleazy corners where drugs are traded and injected. San Francisco provides the cautionary tale in civic squalor of where this can end.
“To let” signs on local shopping streets have started to proliferate as they did during the pandemic years, a symptom of ailing small business. Restaurants are closing. The atmosphere in public, like in many homes, reeks of recession.
Melbourne has a history of regarding itself as the cultural capital of the nation, pre-eminent in creativity and style, and at times with good reason. Today, arguably the most brilliant children’s television series ever produced in this country, and certainly the most internationally successful one, Bluey, comes out of Brisbane.
Compare this with Chris Lilley’s Melbourne-sourced Summer Heights High from 2007, or the pithy Jack Irish ABC television series shot in Fitzroy. To my mind, the best new Australian television series, Boy Swallows Universe, also came out of Brisbane.
Linked, there has been poor judgment in celebrating the best of local talent. For instance, the wonderful misty landscapes of 1930s Beaumaris artist Clarice Beckett have only recently found wide public recognition. Yet, for some reason the city’s National Gallery of Victoria chose not to exhibit the retrospective of her work. Geelong did.
Barry Humphries was very much a Melbourne boy. On live stage in his beloved home city, he would quiz audience members on which suburb they lived in, and in which street – usually familiar with its features. He celebrated the grainy colours and fibre of its vast suburbia in his comedy, starting in Moonee Ponds.
Yet, when he died as arguably the greatest creative stage talent Australia has ever produced, incisive social satirist, brilliant side-splitting comic wit, his Dame Edna an international superstar, the state government showed no inclination to host a public funeral. That went to Sydney. What has happened to Victoria’s cultural antennae?
This survey is provisional and impressionistic. There are counter examples. One I would cite is the extraordinarily high aesthetic quality of recent apartment buildings in Collingwood. A collective architectural tour de force has transformed one corner of the inner city.
This may, however, reflect the now past pre-eminence of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology Architecture Faculty in the 30 years Leon Van Shaik was professor and dean – with him crafting its philosophy, its teaching, and its high morale. That RMIT produced generations of talented and inspired architects.
A city is like a football team, in that its being in form depends on a collective spirit or mood.With a city, the mood is more elusive and diffuse, spread in complex tendrils through all the myriad different nooks and layers of community, family, work and leisure, influencing ordinary day-to-day doings as it does spectacular creations and performances.
The question that follows: how flows the Melbourne spirit today, presses for an answer. My sense is that the mood is flat, even grim.
John Carroll is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at La Trobe University.
And the dumbest was re electing the same bunch of clowns for the last three elections.It's funny that a lot of the realities we talked about on asf are coming home to roost. All these dumb ideas that wasted billions are finally catching up.
Do we want or need people of this ilk in this country. Send back to whence they originally came from. Or are they just rent a rabble hiding behind their tea towels.Two of Melbourne’s largest pro-Palestinian rally organisers have become divided after the embarrassment that ensued from the violent clashes with Victoria Police this week.Tensions between “The Liberation Crew” and “The Sit-Intifada” flared as they disagreed over some of the violent ways in which the rallies were conducted.Hardened activists belonging to Sit-Intifada were largely responsible for promoting violence during the three-day protests outside of the Melbourne Exhibition Convention Centre.“I do wish it on you,” he told police. “Because you are complicit, and if it happens to you remember me, remember what I’m saying to you. you are part of this crap system.“I say that they deserve to see the suffering the children from Gaza see, the whole system. Every single one of them.”It’s understood Mr Al Azhari has become a wealthy man from his steel distribution business in Victoria, with a wide range of lucrative local government project contracts.The behaviour of these activists didn’t sit well with The Liberation Crew, who say it had no regard for peaceful protesting and for the cause of the Palestinian movement.
View attachment 184271
Ihab Al Azhari obstructs a horse at the anti-war protest. Police mounted unit charges protesters at South Wharf.
Or is it a case of best the devil you know rather than the devil not known.And the dumbest was re electing the same bunch of clowns for the last three elections.
Mick
Obviously not on this occassion. LolOr is it a case of best the devil you know rather than the devil not known.
The problem is that the same wef junkies are on both sides.And the dumbest was re electing the same bunch of clowns for the last three elections.
Mick
My oldest son, who seems to be at the age of caring about politics, reckons an MP called James Paterson seems switched onThe problem is that the same wef junkies are on both sides.
Federal is probably the worst between Dutton and Albo. Those two are joined at the hip. Every now and then you get an outlier on ether side that seems more based in common sense. But they seem to get corrupted along the way.
Right now there's a strong jump to authoritarianism. Locking down freedom of information and destroying rights of citizens by using wokeness and dei as a cover. Meanwhile living standards are being trashed.
Globalist neo cons are desperately trying to hold onto power. Luckily I feel there's already a shift.
My oldest son, who seems to be at the age of caring about politics, reckons an MP called James Paterson seems switched on
Haven't seen anything of him will have to look him up, but thte are some really good people in the lower ranks of the Liberal Party. If only we could get them up past the chinless cretins in the leadership.From what I have seen of him so far, I have to agree.
Patterson is not technically a part of Victorian politics, as he is a federal senator, but he is elected by the cits of Victoria.My oldest son, who seems to be at the age of caring about politics, reckons an MP called James Paterson seems switched on
I haven't looked into it, as he hasn't popped up in any articles, so obviously hasn't any clout, also these days I'm just past caring.
Both major parties are beige politics with absolutely no vision or gonads.
Australia is probably past the point of no return, in its steady slide down the world rankings, of developed countries, where it finally settles on the OECD list is the only point of conjecture IMO.
Just my opinion.
Does the Hyphen still weld any power these days??117
Haven't seen anything of him will have to look him up, but thte are some really good people in the lower ranks of the Liberal Party. If only we could get them up past the chinless cretins in the leadership.
We can only hope notDoes the Hyphen still weld any power these days??
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?