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Daggy dad clichés, mendacity and evasion The Byron Shire Echo Volume 34 #33 • January 22, 2020
Watch out! It’s biased Everyone has a bias – it’s a natural human condition. It’s always a surprise to hear a political actor complain that The Echo is biased. The issue is really about fairness, not bias. Judges have bias, as do police and educators. No one is immune; it’s all just a well orchestrated charade to keep the population placated while those who run the joint don’t get found out. Imagine if the unwashed masses actually knew that? Likewise, all government strategies and plans that underpin policy and law are also geared for outcomes, or bias. Take for example, Council’s holiday letting policy, now on exhibition. It’s called Short-Term Rental Accommodation (STRA), and aims to formalise using a residential home in Byron Shire as holiday accomodation. After years of inaction from the state government (owing to Airbnb lobbying and the fact that many political actors own holiday rentals), they finally announced a policy last year. Graciously, these overlords of local government allowed the limiting of letting in Byron Shire to 90 days per year. But the map that accompanies Council’s strategy suggests 365 days in some parts of the Shire. When asked why Council didn’t present the lower limit of 90 days, planning staff replied that, ‘Precincts for higher day-limits have been included as an option, although this may be reconsidered or revised for the final planning proposal, taking into account feedback from the community’. So it’s up to you, dear resident, to make sure that your neighbours aren’t advocating for year-round holiday letting. That is, assuming you like to live within a community. Yet finding that out appears impossible, because there are no provisions for declarations of interests in this submission and survey process. When asked why, planning staff replied, ‘We have received submissions from a wide range of people on both sides of the debate. All submissions will be considered on planning merits’. The Byron Residents’ Group make a similar point about the survey in a recent press release: ‘…Although the survey asks for your postcode, it doesn’t ask if you are a holiday letting host or not. Airbnb contacted people prior to the last NSW state election, and told them to vote for the coalition, who have created the 365day short term letting legislation. Airbnb will no doubt be lobbying the hosts of the 3,000-odd whole homes that are listed in Byron, and telling them to make a submission.’ It goes on: ‘Did you know that 1,331 listings for entire homes in Byron are listed by only 359 hosts? This is not just local people making some extra money, this is an industry that has its hooks in our Shire’. It’s a tough balance to get right where individual freedoms don’t impinge upon the freedoms of others. Unfortunately, the Byron Shire councillor majority have form in the area of putting developer interest over community. Just before Christmas, they waived through a massive-scale rezoning of rural lands to commercial. That looks like a looming clusterfuck, and was among one of the worst decisions in years. Submissions for the STRA close January 30 and the documents can be found at www.byron.nsw.gov.au. Three cheers for community! Hans Lovejoy, editor
I
t was almost a throwaway line. In the course of his friendly chat welcoming David Speers to the ABC, Scott Morrison mused that his climate change policy was ‘evolving.’ And since, as usual, he had nothing substantial to say in his ramblings but the commentators, speculators and fortune tellers seized on the remark, investing it with genuine significance. Was our leader finally ready to face reality? Would he confront the knuckle draggers, Flat Earthers and self-interested fossil fuellers and do something serious? We waited in hope and anticipation. But of course, yet again, we were disappointed. When ScoMo said things were evolving, he meant exactly that. And like any disciple of Charles Darwin, he knows that evolution is a long, slow process – it is not noticeable over a couple of parliamentary terms, or even a human lifetime. The mutation that triggers evolutionary change may be a sudden one, but almost all mutations do not survive, and the few that do take many generations to be embedded, to supersede the less fit species that they replace. The dinosaurs lasted some 250 million years without any discernible progress – indeed, they were brought to environmental extinction before they could overcome their inertia, a thought for Morrison as he contemplates the herd of cold-blooded reptiles in his party room. So roll on evolution, but for the foreseeable future it will be business as usual, as Morrison was quick to confirm when asked about the interview. This does not mean he will be totally inactive – the political climate change has at least forced him into that. But it will be little more than tweaking, smoke and mirrors, distraction and spin. The prime minster now insists that his government fully accepts that climate change is happening. But it is patently evident that many of his backbenchers and a large chunk of his ministers accept nothing of the kind, and there is lingering suspicion that Morrison strongly sympathises with them – that he is even denying his denialism. So he is eager to offer money to a range of victims; from multi-billion agribusinesses to singed koalas, which looks like a safe bet – although there are risks even in that, given the rushed process. After all, he definitely does not want a repeat of Kevin Rudd’s pink
batt insulation scandals. And the rest of it is little more than the usual waffle. When the inevitable inquiries report, there will be much talk of resilience and adaptation – palliative care as the patient goes steadily downhill.
There has to be at least a semblance of a response to the near universal view that Australia is not only lagging behind the civilised, world but bludging on it. Mungo MacCallum We will look at more prevention, which will mean, in practice, more ruthless land clearing, and no doubt tougher penalties for arsonists and looters. And there are strong indications that our minister for stuff-ups, Angus Taylor, is planning to revive the idea of carbon capture to make coal slightly less polluting, with the added benefit of encouraging the big polluters, the fossil fuel magnates, to ramp up their production. We may also talk up hydrogen, and hydro power and burning waste to fuel electricity generation. But not much for the things that are actually working, mainly wind and solar. However, there has to be at least a semblance of a response to the near universal view that Australia is not only lagging behind the civilised world but bludging on it – not doing its bit with the ludicrous excuse that because we can’t solve the problem on our own, it is better to do nothing – to go full emissions ahead until everyone else does the job, and then, and only then, will we sign on. As the rest of the world watches bemused as the bushfires blaze on, and offers us comfort and succour, our government continues to play down the issue – nothing to see here except, of course, our unique environment, so drop over and we’ll slip another shrimp on the barbie just as soon as lighting of barbies is permitted. But the backlash is not just coming from pesky foreigners – they should mind their own bloody business – the country is our toy, and we can break or burn it if we want to, by jolly jingo. It was
all going along nicely, until NewsPoll arrived last week and spread a bucket of vote retardant across the coalition in general and Morrison in particular. The two party vote of 51 to 49 in Labor’s favour can be dismissed – that was the default position for many months before the last election and Bill Shorten still lost, as we will never forget to remind the bed-wetters. But the drop of eight points in ScoMo’s personal approval rating can hardly be ignored. This is not a statistical aberration or a blip within the poll’s margin of error; it is a dive, a plummet, back to the worst numbers of Bill Shorten, whose unfailing unpopularity presaged his defeat. Morrison’s numerous apologists assure us that it will be washed away when – if – the fires are actually extinguished, but there is a far grimmer possibility, which is that the Murdoch columnist Graham Richardson’s constant refrain is coming true: the mob has found him out, that our leader has finally been exposed as a double-dyed phony, superficially mouthing profundities. Morrison is just hopelessly shallow. This is the way it looks from where I sit; I have watched all the 30 prime ministers since Menzies and I have never seen one so inadequate. Billy McMahon may have been more risible, but even he had a version of economics and policy and usually tried to implement a coherent free-enterprise agenda. Morrison offers nothing but daggy dad clichés, mendacity and evasion. There is no point in accusing him of insincerity – he has nothing to be either sincere or insincere about. As always, Shakespeare said it best: ‘…a walking shadow/ That struts and frets his hour upon the stage/ And then is heard no more. It is a tale/ Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury/ Signifying nothing.’ The anti-hero Macbeth was despairing of life in general, but he knew a doomed and despised leader when he saw one. Actually that would not be so bad – ‘nothing’ could be seen as an unfortunate pause, common in the long tale of the struggle for survival of the fittest. ScoMo is a throwback, a reversion to the primeval ooze from which intelligent life eventually emerged. Darwin would discard him. And perhaps, just perhaps, the mob is considering that this may not be the worst option.
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