LETTER FROM MELBOURNE

LETTER FROM MELBOURNE 

Saving you time. Since 1994. A monthly newsletter distilling public policy and government decisions which affect business opportunities in Victoria, Australia and beyond. 

WINTER EDITION 

16 MAY TO 18 JUNE 

ISSUE 134 

INSIDE 

Candidate Twentyman 2 

Solar panel debate(s) 6 

Desalplant bids closing 7 

3a until November 7 

Vodafone Arena name change 

(And Collingwood have not bought it) 10 

Magistrate says F--- in court 11 

2030 audit applies accelerator 15 

VIEWPOINT 

Give the Yarra a Flow 5 

EDITORIAL 

ALISTAIR URQUHART 

OUR WATER AND OUR YARRA 

Melbourne/Victoria led the Australian charge in the modernisation of energy infrastructure 

and use, with the privatisation of the energy sector which fortunately coincided with the 

start of the current information technology revolution. Still a long way to go, including 

smart metering and whatever else innovation may now or one day allow. And many 

people are working on it. 

The non-government/privatish sector think tank and city promoter Committee for 

Melbourne has a climate change taskforce. Its chairman Tony Wood (also of Origin 

Energy) believes Melbourne is on the cusp of a great commercial and social opportunity, 

by leading sustainability research within Australia, to explore the opportunities that 

adaptation to, and mitigation of, climate change will provide to Melbourne. 

Water is part of this opportunity, because one cannot think of energy unless one is using 

or thinking of the W word. And, apart from current pain, this is really good for Melbourne/ 

Victoria, because of all of Australia’s big cities, except a couple to the east of us, we have 

the least of it. And we are growing the fastest. We need to develop/sharpen our thinking, 

for broader acceptance. Not just for building North-South pipelines and Desalplants. 

But as many clever people are saying, to better use the water that is presently falling 

into or is within the City’s boundaries. We WILL lead the way, because many people will 

contribute to the big and smaller decisions. Not just the government. 

The cover photo of the City and the Yarra reminds us that we cannot just nick all the 

water for people, that we need to leave some for the environment around us and the folk 

who live in it. Including the Yarra eel which goes to breed off the Queensland coast.



14 Collins Street 

Melbourne, 3000 

Victoria, Australia 

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Editor 

Sub-Editor 

Copy-Editor 

Publication Manager 

Design 

Long Lunch Photographer 

Alistair Urquhart 

Hamish Brooks 

Robyn Whiteley 

Sally Brooks 

Fiona Greenwood 

Peter Harrington 

Letter From Melbourne is a monthly public affairs 

bulletin, a simple précis, distilling and interpreting 

public policy and government decisions, which affect 

business opportunities in Victoria and Australia. 

Written for the regular traveller, or people with 

meeting-filled days, you only have to miss reading 

the The Age or The Herald Sun twice a week to need 

Letter From Melbourne. It’s more about business 

opportunities (or lack of them) than politics. It’s not 

Crikey.com. We keep the words to a minimum. 

Letter From Melbourne is independent. It’s not party 

political or any other political. It does not have the 

imprimatur of government at any level. 

For context. It includes events and people and society, 

and the weather if that is important. 

Increasingly, Letter From Melbourne is developing a 

federal and national coverage and also an increasing 

synopsis of national business issues. 

The only communications tool of its type, Letter 

From Melbourne keeps subscribers abreast of recent 

developments in the policy arena on a local, state and 

federal level. 

You can read it on a flight from Melbourne once a 

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STATE Government and Politics 

Liberal purge and dirge 

Liberal leader Ted Baillieu challenged his critics 

within the party to put up or shut up or put their 

names to the anonymous media sniping. He vowed 

to cleanse the Victorian Liberal Party of the ‘plotters 

out to get him’. An opinion piece in The Age noted 

that the blogging campaign against Baillieu reflects 

a corrosive culture of disloyalty within Victoria’s 

main Opposition party. Senior Liberals warned 

him that his decision to hold an internal inquiry to 

identify and expel the ‘rats’ and ‘traitors’ he alleges 

were undermining his leadership would renew infighting 

and cause a party meltdown, The Australian 

Financial Review reported. Federal Liberal Alan 

Stockdale said the internet blog scandal exposed 

the evils of excessive factionalism within the party 

and that the history of factionalism had contributed 

to a culture where people see putting down their 

opponents within the party as perfectly legitimate, 

The Age reported. 

John Osborne and fellow Liberal staffer Simon 

Morgan were sacked for setting up the anti-Baillieu 

blog and felt that the move for their expulsion from 

the party was a step too far. Shadow Treasurer Kim 

Wells, a key Baillieu supporter, felt it would be 

outrageous if they were not dumped from the party 

for the ‘Baillieu MUST GO’ blog. The slanging match 

that erupted between the anti-Baillieu group known 

as the Kroger-Costello faction and the pro-Baillieu 

group resulted in the man himself saying that he was 

not going to let the parliamentary party or the Liberal 

Party be derailed by a few people who think their 

anonymous commentary is worth anything more 

than what the wider party has got to say. 

After it was revealed that at least seven key Liberals 

were involved in the blogging scandal and after 

receiving a report from Victorian Liberal Party director 

Tony Nutt that found advisers to two federal Liberals 

had engaged in inappropriate and destructive 

behaviour, Victorian Liberal president Dr David 

Kemp pleaded for a return to the values of decency 

and trustworthiness. Nutt’s month-long inquiry into 

the blogging affair did not directly implicate any MPs 

and cleared former state director Julian Sheezel of 

involvement. 

Meanwhile, Opposition transport spokesperson 

Terry Mulder was forced to rule out a challenge 

to Ted Baillieu’s leadership amid unrest over the 

blogging scandal. 

State campaign manager Susan Chandler was 

sacked over anti-Semitic remarks in an email about 

a party candidate at the last federal election. 

An opinion piece by Paul Austin made the point that 

the Opposition lost perspective following the scandal 

and let the Government escape attention for things 

it otherwise may not have. For instance, the myki 

smartcard ticket system had blown out by a further 

$350m, Victoria’s public hospitals are meeting only 

three of nine key performance targets and the cost 

of the project to widen the Monash and West Gate 

freeways had blown out by more than $360m. He 

also makes the interesting point that Baillieu is 

no more unelectable than were a couple of other 

prominent Liberals, John Howard and Jeff Kennett. 

Those two Liberal giants at various stages of their 

Opposition leadership were seen as hopeless. Both 

led their party to big election losses and both were 

dumped by their own party rooms. 

Split 

A June 28 by-election will be held in the safe Labor 

seat of Kororoit, following the resignation last month 

of Andre Haermever after a 16-year parliamentary 

career. Ted Baillieu has urged his party to run a 

candidate in the seat, which has a 25.5 per cent, 

two-party preferred Labor majority. Baillieu’s party’s 

ruling administrative committee overruled him the 

last time Victorian by-elections were held, but have 

gone with him this time, with Jenny Matic, 45, being 

nominated as the party’s candidate for the seat. 

Meanwhile, the right faction of the Victorian ALP has 

split over who should be the party’s candidate in the 

by-election. The 15-member executive voted 8 to 7 

for Darebin councillor and former Mayor Marlene 

Kairouz to replace Haermever. A day later she was 

effectively dumped when the right wing Australian 

Workers’ Union state secretary Cesar Melhem asked 

for national intervention on the ground that sections 

of the Victorian branch of the party acted against 

the rules by wrongly forcing the vote through its 

administrative committee. An ALP national executive 

committee agreed, The Herald Sun reported. Kairouz 

nevertheless emerged victorious a week later but her 

council’s view that the controversial road tunnel is a 

waste of money could put her into conflict with John 

Brumby. The split could destabilise the Brumby 

Government because the right faction dominates the 

Victorian ALP. 

Western suburbs youth worker Les Twentyman 

(who has worked with Victoria’s youth for around 40 

years) will contest the by-election to take advantage 

of the factional in fighting in the Labor Party, The Age 

reported. It looks like the Liberals will direct their 

preferences to him and he will pass his onto Labor. 

He well might win. 

Generous Lenders 

Victorian treasurer John Lenders has told NSW and 

Queensland business leaders to base their corporate 

headquarters in tax-friendly Victoria. Last month’s 

state budget took $1.4b worth of payroll tax, stamp 

duty, land tax and WorkCover premiums off business 

costs, making Victoria the most attractive base on the 

eastern seaboard, the Financial Review reported. 

Broadband 

State and territory governments have entered into 

the battle of how Canberra will award contracts for 

the $4.7b national broadband network. They have 

put pressure on Telstra to agree to competition 

reforms that could require it to separate its 

wholesale and retail arms to win the contract 

for the national project, which it has claimed 

duplicates a large part of its existing network, the 

Financial Review reported. The push has been led 

by NSW, Victoria and Tasmania, which firmed up 

plans to start aggregating their collective $500m 

a year purchasing power in telecommunications 

to reduce their phone bills. The NSW commerce 

minister said the huge buying power of the states, 

combined with their in-principle agreement to 

use the national broadband network, ensured 

that the network would be viable. 

Booms and crises 

Western Australia is facing a gas supply crisis that 

could deny the nation significant export revenue 

from the China-led mining boom at a critical phase 

in the economic cycle. Western Australia’s premier 

Alan Carpenter has warned he may need to invoke 

emergency powers to take control over all gas and 

electricity supplies after an explosion at a key mining 

site cut off one-third of the state’s gas supply, The 

Australian reported. 

Out 

The Victorian Government is considering a report by 

Beaton Legal Consulting on its outsourcing system, 

which urges the Government to reduce the size of 

its 34-firm panel when the time comes to call fresh 

tenders. In response, the Government is attempting 

to forecast its future demand for legal services, The 


CSIRO no 

The CSIRO has been forced to cut about 100 jobs 

and close two laboratories, one in Victoria, after its 

budget was effectively cut by $63.4m over four 

years. More detail in Letter from Canberra. 

Links in the chain 

The websites of 60 of Victoria’s 79 councils offer 

links to the state government’s business website. 

The www.business.vic.gov.au website connects 

businesses with information from more than 200 

federal, state and local government agencies, the 

Financial Review reported. 

The horse has bolted 

At times controversial and hysterical Herald Sun 

columnist Andrew Bolt has argued, in reference to 

the new Australian Institute of Public Policy, reported 

on in the last issue of Letter from Melbourne, 

that state-funded institutions just recreate state 

institutional thoughts. As a sign of the deteriorating 

relationship between the Victorian Government and 

Melbourne University, Bolt cites two incidents: the 

demotion of senior lecturer Paul Mees for criticising 

the Government, and a follow-up letter from 

Professor Nick Low of the University’s Transport 

Research Centre apologising for Mees and saying 

that his criticisms were contrary to the University’s 

desire to conduct relations with the Government in 

a spirit of partnership and collaboration. Bolt feels 

these two actions are out of keeping with the way 

academics should conducting themselves. 

Right to live 

A private member’s bill introduced by Greens MP 

Colleen Hartland, which would give mentally 

competent adults suffering from terminal illnesses 

the right to ask a doctor to help them die, is unlikely 

to win the support of John Brumby. He said he has a 

long-standing position of not advocating euthanasia 

laws, saying Victorian laws are the most progressive 

in Australia. Ted Baillieu said there is a need to 

change euthanasia laws. Labor, the Liberals and the 

Nationals have a conscience vote on euthanasia, 

but the Brumby Government is yet to decide if it will 

allow debate in the lower house, The Age reported. 

Right to live 

Victorian MPs will decide whether abortion should no 

longer be considered a crime in Victoria by the end of 

the year after a ground-breaking State Government 

commitment to bring on a conscious vote on this 

divisive issue, The Age reported. MPs will vote on 

three options that range from abortion during any 

part of the pregnancy, to controlled terminations 

before a certain gestation period. John Brumby 

believes in abortion on demand. It’s interesting to 

note that 20 years ago, when he was a federal MP, 

he opposed it. 

Problems in the Apple Isle 

New Tasmanian Premier David Bartlett leads 

the state after just two months as deputy. He 

distanced his administration from the pulp mill that 

outgoing Premier Paul Lennon wedded himself to 

and confirmed he would pursue a political ethics 

commission, The Age reported. Meanwhile, at 52 

and after 18 years in parliament, Lennon’s approval 

rating in a local opinion poll was just 17 per cent. 

And up north 

New South Wales Education Minister John Della 

Bosca has been stood aside pending and inquiry into 

statutory declarations and other things, following 

he and his wife, federal MP Belinda Neal having 

a tiff at their local restaurant. 

Probity concerns have been raised by a $50,000 

political donation from Sydney developer Mirvac 

Group to the Victorian ALP, while NSW-based ALP 

powerbroker Graeme Richardson was lobbying 

to get control of the Kew cottages site transferred, 


Nice tartan 

Victoria now has its own tartan. It incorporates the 

blue of the Victorian coat of arms and the Eureka 

Stockade flag; five white lines representing the 

Southern Cross; green for the olive branch on the 

coat of arms; and pink to represent the Common 

Heath, Victoria’s floral emblem. The NSW resident 

who designed the tartan said she was not paid 

anything for this 10-year labour of love. She is 

designing tartans for other states. The Victorian 

tartan will be available for ceremonial occasions 

but there is no requirement that it be used, The 

Age reported. Nearby, Victorian architect and keen 

Scot, John Reid, designed the Australian tartan 

some years back. It is smartly worn by former 

governor-general and keen Scot, Sir Ninian 

Stephen. Letter from Melbourne’s editor wears 

the Urquhart tartan when he plays the pipes in 

Melbourne. Watch this space. 

Job 

The Victorian Competition & Efficiency 

Commission seeks an Assistant Director, Reviews, 

to lead the Reviews Unit. www.careers.vic.gov.au. 

The Victorian Government Business Office is 

looking to establish a new core post in Kuala Lumpur. 

It seeks a Commissioner to head the post responsible 

to the Minister for Industry and Trade. melbourne@ 

horton-intl.com.au. 

Arts 

Cops in the gallery 

The art world called it a dark day in Australian 

culture when police seized up to 21 photos of naked 

children and said they would lay charges over an 

exhibition by renowned Australian artist Bill Henson, 

The Age reported. It was also rumoured that the girl 

photographed might be able to sue for damages



as an adult if she feels hurt by the experience. An 

editorial in The Age (along with a couple of letters to 

the editor) identified the crucial issue in the furore 

surrounding the photos as not the line between art 

and porn but whether a 13-year-old girl can give 

mature consent to being depicted in this way. 

Cate Blanchett and Melbourne University Publishing 

head Louise Adler were among the prominent figures 

whose names appeared on a letter condemning 

allegations that Henson ‘is a child pornographer’, 


Andrew Bolt noted in The Herald Sun that the 

arguments supporting Bill Henson’s pictures of the 

13-year-old girl were hollow and reeked of cultural 

hypocrisy. Harold Mitchell, former chairman of the 

NGA, observed in The Australian that politics and 

the world of the arts rarely mix (well) and that the 

nude is a perfectly legitimate art form. Malcolm 

Turnbull, who owns two photographs by Henson, 

was the most senior political figure to defend the 

artist, criticising police for invading art galleries 

and posing a threat to artistic freedom in doing so. 

Kevin Rudd and Brendan Nelson condemned the 

Henson photographs at the centre of the debate, 

with Rudd standing by his description of the 

photographs as ‘revolting’. 

In an anticlimactic development late in May, the 

Classifications board declared the Bill Henson 

picture that created the above fuss, ‘mild’ and safe 

for many children, rating it PG. The NSW Director of 

Public Prosecutions has since advised police not 

to press charges. Following this decision, Henson 

broke his silence and defended his photographs as 

a right to artistic expression and said that he was 

humbled to witness the depth of support he received 

for his work. 

$$ focus 

A campaign called ‘Masterpieces for Melbourne’ 

was launched by National Gallery of Victoria director 

Gerard Vaughan last month. About 200 people, 

including arts minister Lynne Kosky, Geoffrey Rush 

and film director Fred Schepisi, attended the launch. 

The aim of the campaign is to raise $150m by the 

gallery’s 150 th anniversary in 2011, and restore the 

gallery’s buying power. 

Banned: Van Thanh Rudd 

Melbourne City Council has rejected a painting 

submitted by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s nephew 

that depicts the clown Ronald McDonald carrying the 

Olympic torch past a burning monk. It was intended 

for exhibition in next month’s Ho Chi Minh City 

exhibition, which will show the lives and work of 10 

young artists in Vietnam. 

Oh mama 

Forty-year old Melbourne theatre institution La 

Mama Theatre is in danger of losing its lease as 

the Del Monaco family, which owns the building in 

which La Mama resides, is looking to sell. La Mama 

has a three-year lease, but unless it is able to raise 

the $170,000 deposit, it must start looking for a new 

home. La Mama’s loyal band of supporters have been 

desperately trying to find the necessary funds, and 

in a late development seemed to have succeeded. 

Running in the gallery 

As part of the next wave festival 300 hundred 

runners were invited to take part in a five-kilometre 

run through the Melbourne Museum. It was 

organised by the Toronto-based The Movement 

Movement, a collaboration between artist–curator 

Jessica Rose and choreographer–dancer Jen 

Goodwin. The pair formed their partnership in 

2006 with the aim of exploring art in civic spaces, 


Sold 

After 89 years as a family-owned business that 

dominated the art and collectables trade until the 

mid 1980s, Melbourne-based firm Joel Australia 

has been bought by Sydney-based Bonhams & 

Goodman. Joel will continue to operate from its 

South Yarra headquarters separately from B&G, but 

its offices in Sydney and Brisbane will be closed, the 

Financial Review reported. Its name will revert to 

Leonard Joel and it will continue to be run by Warren 

Joel, a third-generation auctioneer in the firm set up 

by his grandfather, Leonard, in 1919. 

Popular evenings 

Subscriptions for the Melbourne Theatre Company 

hit-a-five-year high of more than 19,000 last month. 

The MTC’s sales are nearly 700 more than 2007’s 

subscription numbers when ticket sales reached 

220,500. The latest success was the adaptation of 

Alfred Hitchcock’s film The 39 Steps, which sold 

out the Playhouse, The Age reported. 

Ten million of the best 

The National Gallery of Victoria had its ten millionth 

visitor last month. Last year the NGV drew 

1,654,189 visitors. 

Education 

Who needs ’em 

The new $60m Ultranet school software system, 

designed to allow parents to check their child’s 

progress through an online computer system, is 

being put out for a revised tender after the response 

to the original tender was not accepted by the 

education department. The system was a Labor 

promise at the 2006 state election and is quite 

separate from federal budget computer promises, 


The world’s gone mad 

Games such as kick-to-kick footy, chasey, hopscotch 

and even marbles are being banned in schools across 

Victoria, The Herald Sun reported. The bans are there 

because of a fear of injury and subsequent litigation 

from parents. A sample of bans in schools: Carlton 

Gardens Primary School has banned cricket bats and 

removed its monkey bars and climbing equipment; 

St Michaels Primary School in North Melbourne has 

banned children playing football and soccer in the 

schoolyard; Ascot Vale West Primary has banned 

games deemed ‘too rough’. Melbourne University 

researcher Dr June Factor said a primary school 

banned marbles because of arguments and noted the 

absurdity of this situation by asking how children will 

learn to resolve arguments if they don’t have any. She 

said the perception parents would threaten litigation 

if a child was hurt wasn’t based on fact. 

On track 

More than 43,500 students from both government 

and non-government schools and providers 

who completed year 12 in 2007 took part the 

On Track telephone survey. The data collected 

will help Victorian Government schools improve 

the education programs they offer as well as the 

support available to young people. It provides a 

broader range of information for parents and the 

local community, The Age reported, and listed most 

Victorian secondary schools. 

The number of school leavers going on to 

higher education has dropped to its lowest level 

in six years. More students are being forced 

to defer study because they can’t afford to 

support themselves. The number of students in 

apprenticeships, traineeships and employment 

increased, The Herald Sun reported. 

Testing times for nation’s kids 

A national exam testing the literacy and numeracy 

skills of Australia’s schoolchildren took place on May 

13. It involved 267,200 Victorian students in years 

3, 5, 7 and 9. Education minister Bronwyn Pike 

said reports would show how students performed 

in comparison with students in their year group and 

against the national average. 

Starting early 

The parents of kindergarten students will receive 

statements revealing their children’s interests, 

abilities and learning problems. The statements 

are designed to help prep teachers tackle learning 

problems earlier by enlisting help from education 

and health professionals. Meanwhile a Deakin 

University study has found that children as young 

as three are being bullied in Victorian kindergartens, 

and teachers are not doing enough to stop it because 

of the widely held view that three- and four-year 

olds are too young to deliberately bully others. Up to 

four children in each kinder class of 20–25 may be 

affected by bullying. 

Money money money 

The Victorian coalition has promised to make the 

state’s teachers the highest paid in the country, 

unveiling a $396m plan to increase the pay of 

teachers from kindergarten to year 12. This issue 

has been part of a recent lively debate in the media. 

Sub-continent down under 

An influx of students from India has put Melbourne 

at the centre of an $11b international study 

boom. More than 30,000 Indians are studying in 

Melbourne, with a third enrolled in hairdressing and 

hospitality courses. The Indians comprise two-thirds 

of all overseas enrolments in those fields, with most 

expected to seek permanent residency after finishing 

their courses. 

Dress up 

School principals are at loggerheads over whether 

the education department should have agreed to 

setting minimum standards of dress for teachers, 

VIEWPOINT 

GIVE THE YARRA A FLOW 

Leonie Duncan and Ian Penrose 

Photos by Shane Bell, courtesy of Environment Victoria. 

Ian Penrose 

(Yarra Riverkeeper Association) 

Leonie Duncan 

(Environment Victoria) 

In March 2006 the world’s eyes were on the 

Yarra River, a central feature of Melbourne’s 

Commonwealth Games opening ceremony. 

Fireworks shot colour across a twilight sky from the 

corrugated metal fins of 72 amazing fish sculptures 

that floated on the water by Federation Square, 

each fish symbolising a country competing in the 

games. Australia was represented by the shortfinned 

eel. 

You’d be forgiven for not knowing much about this 

native fish species – very few of its co-habitants 

of Melbourne do – but the short-finned eel is a 

fascinating creature. It called the Yarra River home 

long before John Batman came to town and can 

still be found swimming about today, anywhere 

from Healesville Sanctuary to Yarra Bend Park. 

When the eels are ready to breed they swim 

downstream, past the tourists drinking coffee at 

Southbank and out the mouth of the Yarra into 

Port Phillip. From there, they travel to the warm 

waters of the Coral Sea, a long 4000 km north. 

Their young – the little elvers – find their way 

home alone, travelling back down the east coast of 

Australia on the current made famous by the film 

‘Finding Nemo’. 

Our city’s river is rich with life and history like the 

tale of the short-finned eel. 

Many people who live in or visit Melbourne know 

little of the Yarra’s wonders. Some may have only 

experienced the lower reaches – where the river is 

swollen with the tidal waters of Port Phillip– upon 

a tourist boat or beneath Princes Bridge. Plenty of 

people paddle on the river with their rowing club or 

cycle and walk on its banks. Others have favourite 

spots to swim or bushwalk further upstream. 

Whatever the connection, all who know the 

Yarra agree it is one of our city’s most valuable 

natural assets. 

What’s more, in an average year 70% of 

Melbourne’s freshwater supplies are sourced 

from the Yarra’s upper reaches, allowing us to 

enjoy some of the best quality drinking water in 

the world. 

But we don’t just drink the Yarra’s water. We use 

vast quantities to flush toilets and irrigate farms. 

Each year Melbourne consumes about 500 billion 

litres of water, with residential use accounting for 

over half. 

Two active community groups, the Yarra 

Riverkeeper Association and Environment Victoria 

have been at the forefront of a campaign to have 

water returned to our struggling river. 

We were delighted when the Victorian Government 

– in a proud history-making moment in October 

2006 – listened to the concerns of scientists 

and the community and promised to provide a 

minimum environmental flow regime for the Yarra 

as a key action of its Central Region Sustainable 

Water Strategy. 

For a river like the Yarra, a healthy environmental 

flow – changing in rhythm with the seasons – is 

vital; it flushes along pollutants, transports nutrients 

to where they’re needed and provides fish with the 

right conditions to breed. 

Sadly – 18 months on – that promise is yet to 

be delivered. 

On Australia Day 2007 the government announced 

that the Yarra‘s needed environmental flows would 

not be provided until water restrictions were back 

to Stage 1. That could be many years away. 

Next, in June 2007, the government made a 

dramatic departure from its Sustainable Water 

Strategy with its decision to build an energyintensive 

desalination plant in Wonthaggi and a 

north-south pipeline to take – yet to be secured 

– water from the Goulburn River across the Great 

Dividing Range to Melbourne. 

Then in October 2007, the government decided to 

further plunder the Yarra with an additional take of 

10 billion litres from the river at Warrandyte. 

The Yarra River is under increasing stress from 

low flows. Its total flow over the last 12 months 

was only 22% of the average of the last four 

decades, and a tiny 13% of its average natural 

level. This is taking a great toll on the birds, 

fish, frogs and platypus that rely on a healthy 

environment to survive. 

Whilst low rainfall is one factor, the other is the 

huge amount of water taken from the Yarra. 

The river can never be healthy until water 

extraction levels are reduced. 

The people of Melbourne have become wiser about 

water at home, at school and at work and have 

reduced their consumption. We need to ensure 

these savings provide real environmental outcomes 

for our city’s great river. Furthermore, we need our 

government to help Melbourne reduce water use 

by large scale investment in water conservation, 

efficiency, re-use and recycling outlined in the 

Sustainable Water Strategy. 

Being sustainable means living within the 

available resources. Our current water usage 

is not sustainable and is robbing current and 

future Melburnians of a healthy Yarra River. 

And let’s not forget the short-finned eel and other 

creatures that call the Yarra home. Their lives 

depend on a healthy flowing Yarra.



aperium Consulting 

The Herald Sun reported. Victorian Principals 

Association president Fred Ackerman said a 

statewide standard was unnecessary, asking why 

such a rigid standard should be set across Victoria 

when it’s only a small number of teachers wearing 

things like singlets and thongs. He believes the 

rejection of the recommendation fits with the policy 

of uniforms and dress codes being the responsibility 

of school management. 

La Problem 

La Trobe University vice-chancellor Paul Johnson 

has warned that the university has an inadequate 

financial foundation to advance over the next 

decade. The financial woe has forced them to 

stop hiring non-academic staff, to make senior 

executives fly economy class and to slash 

administrative spending. 

-harnessing technology 

to serve your organisational goals 

Tender 

Sustainability Victoria seeks contractors for the 

management and operation of programs to support 

and promote behaviour change in Victorian schools 

that will lead to significant reduction in resource use. 

www.tenders.vic.gov.au. 

Leaders required 

Curriculum Corporation International is owned 

by all Australian Ministers for Education. They 

are currently seeking a program director. www. 

curriculum.edu.au/positions. 

Yarra Valley Grammar seeks a principal. www. 

oppeus.com. 

Xavier College seeks a principal. mel.search@ 

ezi.net. 

Environment 

New opening 

Healesville’s Worawa Aboriginal College, which 

closed in December, reopened on May 28. College 

Conservation 

president Lois Peeler said the closure had a positive 

effect, forcing the College community to assess and 

evaluate FINE the AUSTRALIAN whole operation and HAND make adjustments CRAFT Sunnyside up 

so that there is more emphasis on student welfare, According to The Age’s Adam Morton, a subsidy 

discipline and learning outcomes. 

scheme for people who put solar panels on 

IDEAL PERSONAL AND CORPORATE GIFTS their homes has been condemned by Victorian 

Teacher shortage 

TIMBER BRONZE PEWTER GLASS local KOORI governments. ART The JEWELLERY Municipal Association of 

The Age reported that Victoria will need to recruit Victoria wants Premier John Brumby to adopt a 

teachers from interstate and overseas to avoid more generous scheme, believing that the current 

a shortage of high school teachers. President of proposal discriminates against the poor and does 

SHOP 13 THE BLOCK ARCADE 282 COLLINS ST MELBOURNE 

the 

P 

Victorian 

9663 9883 

branch www.australianbydesign.com.au 

of the AEU Mary Bluett has not give households who install solar panels 

questioned whether overseas recruitment would certainty they will make their money back. From 

be the best way to tackle the shortfall, saying Asian next year, households generating energy in excess 

countries, Britain and New Zealand were already of what they use will be paid 60 cents a kilowatthour, 

nearly four times the standard retail rate of recruiting Victorian teachers. 

17 

FINE AUSTRALIAN HAND CRAFT 

IDEAL PERSONAL AND CORPORATE GIFTS 

TIMBER BRONZE PEWTER GLASS KOORI ART JEWELLERY 

SHOP 13 THE BLOCK ARCADE 282 COLLINS ST MELBOURNE 

P 9663 9883 www.australianbydesign.com.au 

Level 27 

101 Collins Street 

Melbourne VIC 3000 

+61 3 9653 9692 

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Canberra ACT 2601 

+61 2 6243 3628 

www.aperium.com 

cents. Energy minister Peter Batchelor won cabinet 

backing for a scheme that will offer the premium 

rate only for energy fed into the grid. The alternative, 

supported by environment minister Gavin Jennings, 

would reward both energy fed into the grid and that 

used at home. Brumby said that broadening the 

scheme to this extent would have increased power 

bills by 10 per cent for non-solar homes, placing too 

large a burden on low-income families. Ninety per 

cent of Victoria’s 79 councils disagreed with this, 

voting at council meetings to extend the subsidy to 

cover all solar energy produced by homes and small 

businesses. Modelling by Environment Victoria found 

the rise in electricity bills under a more generous 

scheme would be limited to about a dollar a month. 

Commenting in The Age, manager of policy and 

research with the St Vincent de Paul Society Victoria 

Gavin Duffy writes that the Government’s electricity 

feed-in-tariff is socially regressive. Federally, the 

May budget has means tested the $8,000 rebate 

for the installation of solar panels ($100,000 income 

fading to nothing at $150,000). Thus disappointing 

manufacturers in the sector. 

Green miners 

Anita Roper was announced as chief executive of 

Sustainability Victoria, after a career in New York, 

where she worked for Aluminium producer Alcoa 

and in London for the International Council on Mining 

and Metals. Sustainability Victoria’s chairman, Mike 

Waller, a former chief economist and environment 

policy director with BHP Billiton, appointed her. Roper 

was in charge of Alcoa’s global sustainability agenda. 

In Victoria, Alcoa’s aluminium smelting operation 

is one of the biggest industrial greenhouse gas 

polluters, using 21 per cent of the state’s electricity, 

which mostly comes from brown coal. 

Carbon capture 

The Victorian Government has set aside more than 

$130m to capture and bury the carbon dioxide 

emissions produced by brown coal electricity 

generators. Writing for The Herald Sun, The Eureka 

Project director Tony Cutcliffe says that this 

process could be described as STB (subterranean 

time bombs). Knowledge of the deep layers of the 

earth is still heavily reliant on scientific conjecture 

and accordingly, he believes, there is no absolute 

guarantee that the poisonous gas will stay put. 

Editorial 

Co-chairman of the Committee for Melbourne’s 

climate change taskforce Tony Wood believes 

Melbourne is on the cusp of a great commercial and 

social opportunity by leading sustainability research 

within Australia. The Committee of Melbourne has 

established a climate change taskforce to explore 

the opportunities that adaptation to, and mitigation 

of, climate change will provide to Melbourne. So far, 

the taskforce has experienced an unprecedented 

level of participation from about 80 of its members 

and will release its final report in July. The longer 

that Australia delays the move to adopt sustainable 

practices, the greater the costs will be. 

Down there 

ANZ has decided not to finance the $2b Tamar Valley 

pulp mill planned by timber giant Gunns Ltd. The 

Herald Sun believes they have been unable to agree 

on terms, which has led to the Greens declaring 

the plans dead. However, writing for the Financial 

Review, chairman of Australian Ethical Investment 

Naomi Edwards warns the Greens that Gunns 

should be able to find some other organisation to 

provide the cash. 

Extinction 

Key habitat areas in Victoria continue to decline, 

putting up to 1000 species of flora and fauna 

within the state at risk. A report entitled Land and 

Biodiversity at a Time of Climate Change reveals 

some endangered animals will be wiped out if 

the Victorian Government doesn’t invest more 

money and resources in saving them. The report 

recommends pursuing private investments to 

restore crucial habitats. 

Energy 

Fair enough too 

A report by the state energy and water watchdog 

showed the number of complaints about utilities 

companies jumped 12 per cent during the second 

half of 2007. Energy and water Ombudsman 

Fiona McLeod said customers had returned to 

her office after contacting their energy company 

up to six times. The 8152 complaints were mostly 

about billing mistakes and generally applied to 

the electricity companies Origin Energy and AGL. 

Consumer Action Law Centre spokesman Gerard 

Brody said some energy companies did not regard 

a call from a dissatisfied customer as a complaint. 

Hmmm 

Energy companies Alinta and SP AusNet have 

applied for exemption from Guaranteed Service 

Level regulations that say they must pay customers 

up to $300 each for extended loss of power. More 

than 400,000 homes in north and east Melbourne 

were without electricity for up to five days after 

strong wind brought down poles and wires 

across the city on April 2. The companies said the 

circumstances were extreme and they should not 

be held responsible for the blackouts. The attempts 

to avoid the payout, which could reach $3m, have 

angered welfare groups, families and businesses, 

The Herald Sun reported. 

Coal to oil 

Entrepreneur Alan Blood is behind the Australian 

Energy Company’s project to turn the nation’s 

large reserves of brown coal into oil and fertiliser, 

suggesting Australia could replace all petroleum 

imports by doing so. The plant in the La Trobe valley 

uses coal gasification and condensing technology, 

and its backers say all the carbon dioxide produced 

will be stored beneath the sea, making it a clean coal 

project. Watch this space. 

Not so smart meters 

In late April, the Essential Services Commission 

criticised the Victorian Government for not properly 

considering its $2b plan to install ‘smart’ electricity 

meters in 2.7 million homes and businesses across 

Victoria before it promised to do so. The Commission’s 

independent chairman John Dawkins said the 

wide-scale deployment of the meters and the use 

of current infrastructure are more complex and the 

impacts more pervasive than had been previously 

envisaged. He also said that 2012 deadline for the 

roll-out cannot be met; changes in the National 

Electricity Market rules needed in Victoria for the 

roll-out could be delayed until there is a firm policy 

commitment from a majority of jurisdictions in the 

NEM. The ESC has published a revised timetable 

for the planning stages of the roll-out. ESC director 

Andrew Chow said uncertainties about technology 

and the functioning of the meters would undoubtedly 

have an impact on the project and its costs. 

The orange-bellied parrot 

Japanese company, Matsui acquired 100 per cent of 

the shares of Bald Hills Wind Farm Pty Ltd, a special 

purpose company that held the development rights 

for the planned 52-turbine project near Wonthaggi. 

The project has been delayed for some time due to 

a perceived threat to the orange-bellied parrot. The 

project will cost $300m and be ready to operate 

from 2011, The Australian reported. 

Stalled 

NSW Premier Morris Iemma’s $15b plan to partially 

privatise the state’s electricity industry has stalled 

with a debate on enabling legislation being deferred 

in favour of further talks. 

Eventful 

The Australian Institute of Energy (https://pams. 

com.au/aie) with the Royal Society of Victoria 

held a joint seminar on May 22, with a Victorian 

public servant presenting on the Victorian 

Energy Efficiency Target (VEET) and a federal 

public servant speaking on the Energy Resource 

Efficiency Program (EREP). Also Victorian senator 

Lyn Allison spoke on her recently introduced 

Energy Efficiency Trading Scheme Private 

Member’s Bill. It is unlikely to come about, at 

least partly because she leaves the senate on 

June 30. Her speech approximated her recent 

first reading speech on the subject. 

An earlier seminar presented by the AIE Melbourne 

branch on the future of Gippsland Oil and Gas/ 

the Kipper Gas Project was held at the Monash 

Conference Centre in Collins Street. 

Water 

Desalination 

Jo Chandler, a senior writer for The Age, wrote an 

interesting article discussing the merits or otherwise 

of desalination. Useful to the debate is the information 

that desalination is long-established, core technology 

in the Middle East. Within four years it will provide 

80 per cent of Israel’s drinking water. Summarising 

some views of Professor John Langford of 

Melbourne University’s Water Research Centre, 

Chandler notes that Langford provides conditional 

support for the plant in Victoria. He believes it must 

be powered, either directly or through purchase of 

equivalent energy, by renewable sources. He also 

feels that Victoria should pursue recycled water as 

part of a range of solutions to water shortages. 

Within the think tanks of water expertise, desalination 

is far from universally embraced as a pragmatist’s 

panacea. Melbourne’s houses and roads make 

several times more water than the proposed 

desalination plant, in rainfall run off. 

Still restricted 

Water minister Tim Holding announced the 

extension of the current stage 3a water restrictions 

until November, which allow limited garden watering 

to continue and some sports grounds to be watered. 

They are being kept in place to ensure the record 

water savings in Melbourne continue; 34 per cent 

less water was used per person in 2007 compared 

with the 1990s. Stage 3a water restrictions were 

first introduced in Melbourne on April 1, 2007 and 

have enabled businesses including nurseries, car 

washes and landscape gardeners to continue to 

operate during the ongoing drought. Stage 3a or 

modified stage 4 water restrictions are in place in 95 

towns across Victoria; 63 towns are on stage 1 water 

restrictions; 70 are on stage 2; 41 are on stage 3; 97 

are on stage 4. 

Country stiffed 

Country Victorians are paying more for their water 

because of a $250m blowout in the cost of the 

Wimmera-Mallee pipeline, the Auditor-General 

has found. The $440m price tag of 2005 has now 

increased by 56 per cent to $688m. The report said 

the cost rise had resulted in the Grampians Wimmera 

Mallee Water Authority significantly increasing its 

debt and the water prices it charges customers,



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The Age reported. Premier Brumby admits his 

Government has cut corners to deliver the project 

ahead of schedule. 

Thought it was already dead 

In 2006, the Victorian Government committed to 

capping water extraction from the Yarra River by 

Melbourne Water (for city use) at 400 billion litres 

and so reserve 17 billion litres as environmental 

flows for the river. An additional 10 billion litres has 

been allowed to be taken from the river because 

of a slackening of the harvesting conditions. State 

Water Report figures show that between 2004–05 

and 2005–06 catchment inflows declined by 42 

per cent, from 1009 billion litres to 590 billion litres. 

Water minister Tim Holding said the Government 

constantly monitored the Yarra’s health to ensure 

the river could withstand the temporary reduction in 

environmental flows, The Melbourne Times reported. 

See viewpoint. 

Water rations 

In an interesting opinion piece for The Herald Sun 

Brendan O’Reilly argues for water rationing over 

water restrictions, believing people who are frugal 

with water don’t necessarily receive any benefits 

for their actions. Only half whimsically, he writes 

that water restrictions are making the problems of 

obesity and global warming worse. The more time 

people spend outside watering the garden the less 

time they spend inside in front of the plasma TV with 

the airconditioner on. 

Poor waterways report 

The Port Phillip and Western Port Catchment 

Management Authority has released the 

Melbourne Environment Report, which rates the 

urban Melbourne area poorly in river health, water 

quality and the strength of proactive community 

groups. Yarra Riverkeepers Association spokesman 

Ian Penrose backed the findings, The Melbourne 

Leader reported. 

What’s that in your drink 

National Water Commissioner Chloe Munro said that 

that governments need to be thinking of how they can 

tackle the negative attitudes many people hold on 

the consumption of recycled water. Melbourne Water 

has invested $300m into upgrading the Eastern 

Treatment Plant (ETP), yet the Victorian Government 

has refused to even study the prospect of recycling 

water for drinking, The Age reported. Environment 

Victoria spokesperson Leonie Duncan has urged 

the Government to immediately begin a study into 

recycling the ETP’s water for drinking purposes. 

Down the coast 

Barwon Water could remove water restrictions after 

tests found that a bore field near Anglesea could 

boost the region’s supply by 30 per cent. The bore 

field project would cost $70m and lead to the removal 

of restrictions by 2010. Seven to 10 gigalitres could 

be supplied each year for up to 50 years to Geelong, 

Bellarine Peninsula, Torquay, Angelsea, Winchelsea, 

Lara and Bannockburn. To go ahead, the project still 

has to pass final environmental tests, The (Bellarine 

Peninsula) Independent reported. 

Still going 

Victoria’s economic growth could be weakened and 

the hoped-for rural recovery undermined, because 

disappointing rains had failed to break the longestrunning 

drought in the state’s history, the Financial 

Review reported. 

Rat up a drain pipe 

Premier John Brumby opened a $180m 86-kilometre 

water pipe to Ballarat. The goldfields Superpipe 

will carry water from the Sandhurst Reservoir near 

Bendigo, to White Swan Reservoir near Ballarat, which 

has a level of about 7 per cent. Nearby, Brumby has 

surprised many country and other folk by calling 

the protesters outside parliament house, who were 

against the North-South Pipeline, liars. 

Cattle farm renovation 

Melbourne Water is seeking expressions of interests 

for an Agricultural Business Opportunity to become 

partner in collaboration with Melbourne Water through 

a transition period to refine Melbourne Water’s Western 

Treatment Plant Land Use Strategy and subsequently 

operate the 5,000ha primary production property, 

and to achieve the objectives of the strategy. www. 

melbournewater.com.au. 

Price of life 

Victoria’s statutory water regulator, the Essential 

Services Commission, has released a draft decision 

on Melbourne Water’s proposed waterways and 

drainage prices for the 2008–2013 period. www.esc. 

vic.gov.au. 

Clear thinking 

Consulting engineers GHD has won $30m in contract 

T: 1300 759 247 

F: +61 (7) 3860-6056 

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work for providing 18 months of technical and 

engineering advice to the Wonthaggi desalination 

project. It was also chosen to provide planning and 

environmental advice at a cost of $2.46m. 

Interested 

The Victorian Government is calling for expressions 

of interest for the delivery of the desalination plant 

near Wonthaggi, together with all associated ancillary 

and incidental activities. The project will be a public– 

private partnership and will involve the finance, 

design, construction, commissioning, operation, 

repair, maintenance and handover of the desalination 

plant and associated infrastructure to facilitate 

the production and supply of desalinated water to 

Melbourne and potentially parts of the Westernport 

and South Gippsland regions. Applications close July 

24. www.tenders.vic.gov.au. 

Gaming 

World’s worst pokies 

Australian poker machines are generally regarded as 

‘the most avaricious and dangerous in the world, and 

allowing them in suburban spaces is almost unique. 

This practice continues because governments, 

large public companies, and pub and club operators 

have become addicted to the money,’ Charles 

Livingstone of the Department of Health Sciences at 

Monash University wrote on The Age opinion page. 

On a winner 

According to The Age, Victoria leads the country in 

gambling-related fraud. More than 150 Victorian 

gamblers have stolen $102m since 1998 and 

accounted for almost 40 per cent of the national 

total of $269m, according to a report by forensic 

accountants Warfield and Associates. 

Oh dear 

The Victorian Government’s handling of the gaming 

industry has come under fire, with Tatts Group 

chief executive Dick McIlwain warning it might 

quit Victoria when the new licensing system starts 

in 2012. Mr McIlwain, whose poker machines 

and lottery businesses were overhauled in recent 

government reviews, claimed he had been waiting 

nearly three years to have a new product approved, 

the Financial Review reported. 

Sorted out 

Former (20 years ago) Victorian Labour 

treasurer Tony Sheehan’s private consulting 

firm was paid over $1m for helping Intralot win 

the Victorian gaming licence. Sheehan is now a 

lobbyist and private business consultant. He and 

Intralot managing director John Katakis both 

denied any knowledge of documents detailing 

the payments, but did not dispute the Sheehan 

was being paid an annual fee as an Intralot 

director, The Herald Sun reported. 

Sort it out 

Victorian Gaming Minister Tony Robinson has told 

Intralot, the Greek-based global gaming company 

with a $300m stake in the Victoria’s lottery industry, 

to sort out its business relationship with more than 

700 retailers or face heavy fines. It’s just weeks 

before the official launch and none of the retailers 

that will sell the company’s products has signed 

agency contracts, according to the Lottery Agents’ 

Association, the Financial Review reported. 

Health 

Trolley toll 

A severe flu season, gastro outbreaks and a nurses’ 

strike have been blamed by the Victorian Government 

for its failure to meet six of its own nine hospital 

performance targets between July and December 

2007. The report was interestignly released on 

the same day as the federal budget, and included 

information indicating more than 45,000 emergency 

patients were waiting on trolleys for more than eight 

hours and 85,000 were kept waiting four hours or 

more in emergency departments. 

Mixing experts 

According to The Age, Victoria Police has confirmed 

that it had been asked by the Transport Accident 

Commission to investigate the now former head 

of The Alfred Hospital’s trauma unit, Thomas 

Kossman. The release of the final report by an 

expert medical panel in May, brought an end to the 

seven-month inquiry into Professor Kossman. Other 

investigations, including one into systemic failures 

exposed by the Kossman affair, are continuing, and 

are likely to lead to major reforms of Victoria’s public 

health system. 

123-133 Thistlethwaite St. 

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Dr Nurse 

Federal health minister Nicola Roxon announced 

a comprehensive review of health-care provision in 

Australia that included a reappraisal of who the right 

health professional is in certain situations. This could 

mean that nurses and other health professionals 

could soon take over some of the functions of GPs, 

putting the government on a collision course with 

the nation’s doctors. 

It all helps 

Victoria has secured $245m in federal money, from the 

Rudd Government’s $1b disability election promise, 

to support an extra 8,000 people with disabilities 

living in the state. The states and territories agreed 

to contribute an extra $900m to the total funding 

pool, giving Victoria a total share of $478m over four 

years, including this year’s state budget allocation of 

$233m. The funding would pay for more than 7,000 

individual support packages, 1,650 cases of respite 

care and 70 extra supported accommodation places, 


Robot doctors 

According to The Age, in an Australian first, hospitals 

in Bendigo, Swan Hill, Echuca and Mildura are about 

to use ‘virtual doctors’ to help treat emergency and 

critical-care patients. The $12m comes at a time 

when specialists are in short supply in the bush. The 

hospitals will be equipped with trauma units that can 

be wheeled to the bedside and connected, via a highspeed 

Telstra link, to a human specialist at a major 

Melbourne hospital who can remotely control a highdefinition 

camera to examine the patient, and talk to 

the patient and local staff. 

Troubled kids 

A new report says that an increase in family turmoil 

is behind the surge in out-of-home care cases, The 

Herald Sun reported (who would have thought!). 

There are 149 residential care facilities in Victoria for 

those under 17 who are at risk of abuse at home. The 

facilities are run by DHS and community groups, and 

about 7 per cent of kids taken out of their homes are 

sent to these facilities. The number of children in outof-home 

care has increased by 49 per cent in Victoria 

and 102 per cent nationally over the past decade, 

however Victoria still has more children in residential 

care than any other state. Child safety commissioner 

Bernie Geary said the youths are hard to handle 

because of their troubled family life. 

Now behave 

Hospitals including Royal Melbourne, The Alfred, 

St Vincent’s, Monash and Western are using 

written agreements (behaviour contracts) to curb 

unacceptable behaviour of patients (some of whom 

are seriously ill), The Herald Sun reported. 

e-Health 

Progress on a national electronic health records system 

has been slow. The federal government has new 

support measures for the system. Deloitte Touche 

Tohamtsu will deliver a proposal for a new national e- 

health strategy in September as governments around 

the country attempt to get back on track efforts to 

build electronic patient records for all Australians. 

The Victorian Department of Human Services has 

contracted (the contract is worth $1.3m) Deloitte to 

complete the plan, the Financial Review reported. 

TAC show crash 

An editorial in The Herald Sun said that the Transport 

Accident Commission is using public funds 

inappropriately by tipping $4m into a prime-time, 

reality TV show about car crashes called Sudden 

Impact, which will screen later this year on Channel 9, 

when the money should be being spent to help people 

who have been injured in car accidents. 

Different kinds of junk 

The vast majority of parents support a ban on 

advertising junk food to children, particularly on 

television, according to a survey released by consumer 

group choice. 

Nurses aboard 

Expressions of interest are sought for four registered 

nurses and two community members to fill upcoming 

vacancies on the Nurses Board of Victoria. www. 

health.vic.gov.au/pracreg/appointments.htm. 

Jobs 

Aspire, a Pathway to Mental Health Inc. is a 

non-government agency that provides non-clinical 

rehabilitation and support, health promotion programs 

and family support to more than 400 people with 

mental illness in the south west of Victoria and across 

Tasmania. It has a budget of $3.6m and a headcount 

of 56. It seeks a new chief executive officer. career@ 

brookerconsulting.com.au. 

Epworth HealthCare seeks an Executive Director 

for the Epworth Medical Foundation. susan.wardle@ 

epworth.org.au. 

Feeling good 

The Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee 

invites submissions about the Public Health and 

Wellbeing Bill 2008. 

Investment 

Business 

Hybrid car on road to Melbourne 

Toyota will produce 10,000 hybrid Camrys a year at



its Altona plant. The federal Government’s longterm 

plans for the car industry centre on its $500m 

Green Car Innovation Fund. Kevin Rudd awarded 

the first $35m from the fund to Toyota to subsidise 

production of the hybrid Camrys from 2010. The 

Victorian Government has committed millions of 

dollars (saying that it would be less than the $150m 

the deal was expected to add to the economy) as 

well, and has promised to buy 2,000 for its own 

fleet to help secure the investment. The new cars 

are expected to cost around $4,000 more than 

the standard Camry price of around $30,000, with 

drivers saving about $1,000 a year in petrol bills, 

The Age reported. The Toyota deal could create 

more than 1,000 jobs. There were 4,948 hybrid 

cars sold in 2007 in Australia, which was up from 

3,174 in 2006. The 1,707 hybrid sales to date in 

2008 represents about 0.5 per cent of the market. 

An Age editorial believed the federal Government 

has made wise first use of its green car fund by 

allocating money to help build hybrid vehicles in 

Melbourne. This new investment has attracted 

many opinions. 

Shrink fibre 

The Age’s Ben Schneiders reported that Victoria’s 

$1.2b textile and fibre sector shrank by nearly 25 

per cent in the four years to 2006 while estimated 

employment fell by nearly 15 per cent. These 

figures appeared in a Deloitte report that showed 

the industry, the largest in Australia, is suffering 

from intense competition from Asia. Surprisingly 

the outlook for profits is upbeat. In areas such as 

fabric finishing and wholesaling and retailing, more 

than 80 per cent of producers surveyed expect 

earnings to grow over the next five years. 

The review of the textile, clothing and footwear 

industries, underway since March, held a public 

consultation in Melbourne on May 22. www. 

innovation.gov.au/tcreview. 

To Russia with love 

Victoria’s Agent-General in London, David 

Buckingham, said trade and investment 

opportunities for Victorian business include 

Russia’s dynamic consumer market and contracts 

for the London Olympics. 

www.kovess.com 

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m 0412 317 404 

PO Box 1412 

Central Park 

East Malvern, Vic 3145 

Same arena, different name 

Vodafone Arena will be known as Hisense Arena 

from July 1 after the Chinese electronics company 

won a six-year naming rights deal with Melbourne 

Park, The Herald Sun reported. Hisense Australia 

distributes electronics and household appliances 

and recorded $7b in sales income in 2007. 

Hall of famers 

Automotive component manufacturers made up 

five of the 11 companies inducted into the Victorian 

Manufacturing Hall of Fame this year. The Hall of Fame 

showcases companies whose innovative solutions 

to manufacturing challenges are world class. The 

11 companies inducted were Aerostaff Australia, 

Aisin Australia, Armstrong World Industries, Basell 

Australia, Ecotech, FMP Group, Hilton Manufacturing, 

Injectronics Australia, Lumen Australia, SGE Analytical 

Science and Schiavello Group of Companies. Luke 

Dwyer, general manager of OzPress in Ballarat, was 

named 2008 Young Manufacturer of the Year. The 

awards were presented by Minister for Industry and 

Trade Theo Theophanous. He said manufacturing 

contributed $29.6b to the Victorian economy but 

faced a number of challenges including climate 

change, the strengthening Australian dollar, skills 

shortages, rising input costs and global competition, 


Axed 

More than 500 jobs will be lost when Holden closes 

its Fishermans Bend four-cylinder engine plant that 

makes its 27-year-old Family II engine, which is 

exported to China, Thailand and Korea. The decision 

to shut the plant came a day after the Productivity 

Commission called for auto industry support to 

be cut, saying Australia could afford to lose one of 

its major car makers. The plant had been running 

at 50 per cent of capacity and the Australian 

Manufacturing Workers Union said that the decision 

was not surprising, The Herald Sun reported. 

Progressive Business 

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There are five breakfasts throughout the year, the 

first was on March 26 and the last for the year is on 

December 3, info@progressivebusiness.com.au. 

Family businesses the business 

The Victorian Family Business Awards are hosted by 

the Family Business Association’s Victorian Branch. 

The awards give entrants a chance to see how they 

perform against accepted Family Business Best 

Practice principles. Some of the winners this year 

included Thomastown-based cheese company 

Pantalica, Woorinen-based stone-fruit packer Cutri 

Fruit, Melbourne’s David Shave Human Resources 

and Murphy Transport Solutions, based in the 

western suburbs. 

More prizes 

Entries are now open for the 2008 Governor of 

Victoria Export Awards, covering a range of 

categories including the agri-business award; Arts, 

Entertainment and Design award, Education award, 

Emerging Exporter award; and the Information and 

Communications Technology award. www.business. 

vic.gov.au/awards. 

IT 

ITogether 

The Victorian Centre for IT Excellence venture is 

to begin on July 1 and merge existing technology 

services across the portfolios of Premier and 

Cabinet, Treasury and Finance, Sustainability 

and Environment, Planning and Community 

Development and Primary Industries. CenITex’s 

structure is still unclear. Its interim chief executive 

is Peter Blades and advertisements are out for the 

permanent position, jeanette.kieruj@ewkp.com. The 

government-owned outsourcer has been funded out 

of the $14.7m allocated to improve productivity and 

efficiency by consolidating services and purchasing, 

the Financial Review reported. 

Nice buy 

Melbourne IT has bought an internet services division 

of web security company VeriSign for $53.5m. 

Melbourne IT will take on a net debt of $40m for the 

purchase, acknowledging the hard work to ensure 

the acquisition did not interfere with its integration of 

WebCentral, a company it bought in 2006 for $64m. 

Tenders 

The Department of Human Services seeks 

expressions of interest to redevelop the DHS 

Service Agreement Management System. www. 

tenders.vic.gov.au. 

The Department of Primary Industries 

Minerals and Petroleum Division seeks to 

improve information delivery mechanisms by 

implementing a new search and delivery channel. 

www.tenders.gov.au. 

Meanwhile 

There will be an industry briefing for prospective 

vendors for the Victorian Registration and Licensing 

(RandL) Project on June 24. RandL will build a 

sophisticated licensing system to modernise 

delivery of registration and licensing services for 

VicRoads and another selected agency. RandL@ 

roads.vic.gov.au. 

Job 

The Victorian Government seeks a commissioner 

for Law Enforcement Data Security. www. 

kathleentownsend.com.au. 

Agriculture 

Hmmm 

Victoria’s farmers have accused supermarkets 

of selling products from the same suppliers at 

different prices depending on the packaging, The 

Herald Sun reported. A Coles spokesman said the 

allegations were simplistic and inaccurate while a 

Safeway spokeswoman was more blunt, saying the 

claims were nonsense. See Letter from Canberra 

on this issue. 

Don’t fence them in 

The Victorian Environmental Assessment Council is 

trying to push farmers off 1,725 riverfront grazing 

licences in a bid to create hundreds of river red gum 

reserves and national parks. Properties adjoining 

crown land abutting the Murray, Avoca, Goulburn, 

Campaspe, Loddon, Ovens, Kiewa and King rivers 

face losing their 35-year grazing licences and being 

forced to survey and fence more than 1500km of 

river frontage. VEAC’s draft River Red Gum Forests 

Investigation has recommended a five-year phaseout 

of domestic stock grazing public water frontages 

(1,260 licences on 12,100ha), with broadacre 

grazing on national parks and nature conservation 

reserves to end immediately (43,000ha), The Weekly 

Times reported. 

Eventful 

The Centre for the Study of Rural Australia, 

related to the Marcus Oldham Agricultural 

College, held a lunch focusing on reinforcing the 

importance of agriculture and education, at Garry 

Morgan’s 101 Collins St business forum facility. 

We must believe it 

Australia’s livestock export industry, in the 

mainstream media, explained that it is improving 

animal welfare standards overseas. www. 

animaltransportcare.com. 

Justice 

Bloody heck 

Early last month Magistrate Jonathan Klestadt 

dropped the f-bomb in court when sentencing 

a burglar with more than 20 pages of priors. The 

schoolgirls present at the hearing may have been a 

little surprised to hear this coming from the bench 

but in a written statement Mr Klestadt apologised 

and explained himself. ‘When sentencing a person 

before the court, especially when imposing a 

lengthy prison term on an habitual offender, it is 

imperative that the court speaks directly to them, 

and in language that will be readily understood 

and have the greatest impact on the offender,’ he 

wrote. ‘It can only very rarely be appropriate to use 

vulgar expressions in open court. However, in some 

cases the use of such language can have far greater 

impact on the consciousness of an offender than 

more prosaic expressions.’ 

Shot down, or not 

Despite the state government’s pre-election deal 

with the police union to provide them with semiautomatic 

handguns, police chief Christine Nixon 

said she doesn’t want her officers issued with 

these high-powered weapons. She has since 

softened her stance a little, following an external 

weapons advisory committee concluding that 

the standard .38 Smith & Wesson revolver was 

no longer adequate. She nevertheless still felt 

factors such as cost and kind of firearm needed 

to be considered. The move to a semi-automatic 

handgun has nevertheless gone ahead. Letter 

from Melbourne feels such an important decision 

should be left to our elected representatives. 

Who returns to prison 

Published last year by Corrections Victoria, a 

research paper entitled Who returns to prison 

has found that criminals in the age bracket 17–24 

are more likely to re-offend and be re-imprisoned 

than any other age group. Most are back behind 

bars within two years of being freed from jail. The 

likelihood of re-offending correlates with time spent 

in jail, with those who have served shorter terms 

more likely re-offend. The Herald Sun reported that 

police insiders believe jails are breeding grounds 

for young delinquents and there are calls for the 

worst among them to be electronically monitored 

after their release. Corrections Commissioner Kevin 

Anderson said young offenders were separated 

from the mainstream prison population to prevent 

their being exposed to hardened criminals. 

New Human Rights Charter 

Victoria’s parole boards want Attorney-General 

Rob Hulls to extend their exemption from the new 

Human Rights Charter because they are worried 

inmates who are still a threat to society will use it 

to fight decisions to keep them locked up. Hulls told 

the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee the 

boards believed that compliance with the charter 

would be unworkable. 

Perspective 

Former super-intendant Tony Warren, who won a 

Lord Mayor’s award and the Australian Police Medal 

after cleaning up the King Street nightclub scene 

more than a decade ago, has blamed the rise in 

city violence and drunkenness on a lack of police 

resources and too few arrests. He also says that 

there is a lack of consistency in police leadership, 


Snub 

The chairman of the Victorian Bar council, Peter 

Riordan, SC, snubbed a formal welcome for newly 

appointed judge of the County Court, Barbara 

Cotterell. She has been appointed in a part-time 

capacity and it is this that the bar is opposed to 

because it threatens the independence of the 

judiciary. Permanent judges are appointed until 

compulsory retirement at age 70. Judge Cotterell, 

a magistrate for 18 years, will sit for five years, 

The Age reported. They appoint part time judges in 

New South Wales. 

Hinch lynch 

Police are investigating whether Derryn Hinch 

should be charged with contempt of court after he 

publicly identified two sex offenders whose names 

have been suppressed by the County Court. The 

Director of Public Prosecutions, Jeremy Rapke, 

QC, wrote to Christine Nixon asking for the matter 

to be investigated. 

Underbelly series 2 

Melbourne gangland lawyer Zarah Garde-Wilson 

has been cleared of four charges of giving false 

evidence after a protected police witness turned 

against the prosecution. After the witness’s unhelpful 

performance, the Victorian Director of Public 

Prosecutions was forced to withdraw the charges 

against Garde-Wilson. Her clients have included 

Tony Mokbel and Carl Williams. 

Former detective Paul Dale, a prime suspect in 

an underworld double murder, is facing a possible 

jail term after admitting he had misled the Office 

of Police Integrity public hearings while trying to 

defend allegations that he interfered in a murder 

investigation in which he is a suspect. 

Victoria Police suspended Sergeant Linehan a day 

after he appeared at the OPI hearings to defend 

himself against allegations that he undermined the 

work of Taskforce Petra. Petra was set up last year 

to investigate the 2004 execution-style killings of 

police informant Terrence Hodson and his wife, 

Christine. Hodson was killed after a police dossier 

revealing his role as a police informant was leaked to 

the underworld shortly before he was due to testify 

against Mr Dale over a drug-house burglary, The 


The Age reported that Victoria Police Force Command 

ignored warnings from its own corruption investigators 

four years ago to segregate an investigation into the 

double murder, because of concerns it could be 

undermined by serving officers. 

10 

11



The retired judge who presided over the OPI hearings, 

Murray Wilcox, QC, attacked the culture of gossip 

and blind loyalty within sections of the police force. 

He made the comments on the final day of the 

hearing into the issue mentioned above. 

Pardon 

Colin Campbell Ross has been pardoned for the 

rape and murder of 12-year-old Alma Tirschke 

in December 1921. Ross, who always maintained 

his innocence, was hanged in the Old Melbourne 

Gaol in April 1922. John Brumby condemned 

capital punishment. 

New appointments 

Magistrate Christine Thornton became a judge of the 

County Court. Solicitor and VCAT member Annabel 

Hawkins, Office of Public Prosecutions solicitor 

Jennifer Trengent and barristers Martin Grinberg 

and Bernard Fitzgerald became magistrates. 

For whom the Mokbel tolls 

Tony Mokbel has returned to Melbourne safely, 

trading a Greek jail for a Barwon prison cell. 

Job 

The Police Association of Victoria seeks a 

secretary, www.michaelpage.com.au. 

Melbourne 

Democracy in good health 

The Herald Sun’s city editor Ian Royal has noted 

the increasing number of people hitting the streets 

in Melbourne to protest any number of issues 

confronting society and the environment. For 

instance in only the last few months people have 

taken to the streets over the north–south pipeline, the 

desalination plant, dredging of the bay, pensioners’ 

rights and cabbie safety. These have been followed 

by a protest about the (ridiculous) 2am CBD lockout 

on pubs and clubs and a number of protests over 

the proposed extension of clearway hours. The word 

ridiculous was added by our younger sub-editor. 

2am lockout 

A group of 48 licencees has launched a legal attack 

on the Brumby government’s plan to introduce a 

2am lockout on clubs and bars to curb alcoholrelated 

violence. Licencees want it postponed 

until they have had time to challenge it, a process 

that could take months. The group claimed, in the 

Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, that 

the strategy was indiscriminate, unfair and too 

sweeping, and that the timing removed any hope 

of challenging it. After hearing the preliminary 

arguments, VCAT president Justice Kevin Bell 

ordered mediation between the licencees and the 

Liquor Licensing Commission. 

Letter from Melbourne believes that the picture 

on the front page of The Herald Sun on June 2, of 

a man being kicked by a bouncer, or perhaps just 

regaining his balance, following the 2am lock out 

will become one of those photos, that will reappear 

over the years. 

Early June saw mediation in VCAT provide more than 

130 clubs, bars and hotels with a lockout exemption. 

Police Minister Bob Cameron said that nightclub 

owners just can’t wash their hands of the problems 

that occur on the streets. 

Congratulations 

Melbourne is to get its own chamber of commerce 

again. The city’s chamber vanished in 1991 

when it was amalgamated with the Victorian 

Employers’ Federation to form the Victorian 

Employers’ Chamber of Commerce and Industry. 

The Melbourne City Council, Invest Victoria and 

VECCI the will contribute around $100,000 to reestablish 

the body after 17 years. 

Moor is less 

Owners of boat moorings or inner-city car park 

spaces will no longer be able to vote for Melbourne’s 

next lord mayor unless they live or own a business 

within the electorate under new laws that have 

gone before State Parliament, The Age reported. 

The rules, covering all council elections, have been 

rushed in following unrest over revelations that 

owners of hundreds of car parks and boat moorings 

would have been entitled to vote in November’s 

council elections. 

Sister cities 

Cr John So has led a 20-member business and 

council delegation on a 10-day trip to China, India 

and Japan. So took office in 2001 and is now 

Melbourne’s longest-serving mayor. He visited 

Beijing and Melbourne’s sister city Tianjin, where 

he visited that office’s 10th anniversary party and 

spoke at the Asia Society’s corporate summit. He 

went to Dehli to formalise a city alliance there and 

then travelled to Osaka to plant a tree to mark the 

30 th anniversary of that sister-city agreement, The 

Herald Sun reported. 

Bombs embedded in report 

The Age’s environment reporter Adam Morton 

has noted that buried in the fine print of Sir Rod 

Eddington’s transport report for Melbourne is the 

claim that there has been no significant change 

in fuel efficiency in cars on our roads for 40 years. 

The average age of cars in Australia is 12 years and 

in Victoria we are able to drive our cars until they 

can go no more, whereas Sydney residents must 

have their cars checked every year. An interesting 

development in Denmark is taking place in reducing 

carbon emissions from roads. Taxes on electric cars 

have been abolished and within 18 months, one in 

six Danish car parks will have power outlets. 

Changing faith 

Analysis of 2006 census data prepared for the city’s 

church leaders found that fewer people identify as 

Christians, down from 66 per cent to 59 per cent over 

the decade. The Christian Research Association’s 

Phillip Hughes said 32 per cent of people identified 

as non-religious or did not say, while 13 per cent 

declared they were atheists. The fastest growing 

faiths over the decade have been Hinduism (up 157 

per cent to 41,000), Buddhism (up 107 per cent to 

126,000) and Islam (up 62 per cent to 103,000), 

The Age reported. There are 40,000 Jews, up 12.6 

per cent. Catholicism is still Melbourne’s dominant 

religion with over 1 million adherents, up 7 per cent 

over the decade. Hughes found there was a move 

away from identifying with particular churches, but 

this wasn’t always a movement to no religion. 

The crystal ball says … 

Port Phillip Council will be investigated for spending 

$600,000 on a corporate change management 

consultant who advises the use of pranic healing 

(harnessing life force to recalibrate energy fields) 

as well as astrology. Over four years, the council 

paid Caroline Shahbaz over $600,000 to advise on 

refocusing operations, including key performance 

indicators and a revised corporate plan. The 

government will look into how such a sum was 

paid to a consultant without the work having been 

tendered publicly. Under Victorian law, any local 

government contract worth more than $100,000 

must be advertised by formal tender, the Financial 

Review reported. According to The Age, Shabaz’s 

unorthodox methods led to formal staff complaints 

of bullying and intimidation, an external legal 

investigation, staff counselling and bitter ructions in 

the council administration. 

Shabaz is also doing work for the Victorian parliament. 

She has an $80,000 contract to mentor senior public 

servants and run staff development workshops in 

the Department of Sustainability and Environment, 


Moving along nicely 

A draft report (The Future Melbourne report) was 

commissioned by the Melbourne City Council in the 

interests of community development within the city. 

It included suggestions such as cheaper parking 

for smaller and more efficient cars, a public bicycle 

scheme, closing some CBD roads at the weekends 

and making Melbourne a ‘wired’ city, with internet 

access in public buildings and even on trams, The 

Herald Sun reported. 

About write 

The latest Global University City Index — which 

measures cities on their ability to establish strong 

universities — has Melbourne in fourth place, 

slightly ahead of Sydney and trailing London, Boston 

and Tokyo. Leading business and university chiefs 

have warned that while Melbourne’s liveability 

and attractiveness to foreign students are key 

strengths, the city is constrained by the lack of 

government investment in university research and 

infrastructure, The Age reported. RMIT University 

developed the rankings. 

Influence at different ends 

The East–West (Eddington) tunnel is becoming a 

council issue with the approaching council elections, 

even though the state government is the one to say 

yea or nay over the development. 

Noooo! 

Almost a quarter of all property owners in the City 

of Melbourne will have council rate increases of 

10 per cent next year, despite policy capping 

the overall increase at close to inflation. The 

council has resisted making the most of soaring 

property values by limiting the rise in its general 

rates revenue in 2008–09 to 3.5 per cent, the 

Financial Review reported. 

As above 

Some Victorian councils have raised their valuations 

of homes by up to 50 per cent causing a large jump 

in rates. Council figures show that homeowners 

in some suburbs could face large increases while 

neighbouring areas can expect rate cuts. The 42 

Victorian councils that have revealed their draft 

2008–09 draft budgets want to put up rates by an 

average of 5.5 per cent. 

Rug up 

Melbourne is about to experience its coldest winter 

in a decade. Bureau Climate Services manager 

Harvey Stern said winter daytime temperatures in 

the past 10 years had been significantly above the 

average of 14.3 degrees, but this was likely not to be 

the case this year. 

Essential workers 

A study by BankWest has found all Melbourne 

council areas are too expensive for nurses to buy 

houses in and in 70 per cent of Melbourne council 

areas housing is too expensive for essential 

workers such as teachers, firefighters, police and 

ambulance officers. 

Pure Kitsch 

The model Tudor village in the Fitzroy Gardens 

turned 60 this month. It has recently been given a 

lifesaving $250,000 makeover. It was a present from 

Londoners, grateful for our butter when they were 

being bombed. 

Parking and penury 

A Herald Sun survey of 70 parking sites around the 

city has found the average cost of weekday parking 

between 8.30am and 5.30pm was about $14. Private 

operators Secure Parking and Wilson Parking run 

most of central Melbourne’s car parks, whilst the city 

council runs sites at City Square and Council House. 

High parking charges are seeing some commuters 

make use of the free parking at shopping centres 

such as Chadstone and Highpoint and taking public 

transport from there into the city. 

Nearby, the Australian Competition and Consumer 

Commission has been asked by the transport minister 

Anthony Albanese to look into the car-parking costs 

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Perth and Sydney, amid worries that travellers are 

being ripped off. The cost of parking at Tullamarine 

is the second highest in the country and compares 

unfavourably even with the international hubs of 

London and New York. A short stay at Tullamarine 

costs motorists $10 per hour compared with $8.50 

at Heathrow and $6.55 at JFK, whilst a long-term 

stay in an undercover car park costs $40 per day in 

Melbourne, $33.60 at Heathrow and $16.40 at JFK. 

Car park a zoo 

The Melbourne Zoo has now joined the parking 

fracas. As of next year, visitors will have to pay $2 to 

park for up to five hours under a council proposal to 

raise $135,000 a year. The five-hour limit is to deter 

the estimated 200 commuters a day who use the car 

park as an unofficial park-and-ride, and catch a tram 

or train from the nearby Royal Park station. Visitors 

to the zoo who stay for longer than five hours will 

be granted a passout to move their car or purchase 

another parking ticket. 

Call it dumbo 

The first ultrasound of pregnant elephant Dokkoon 

has thrilled Melbourne Zoo’s keepers. The 15-yearold 

Thai elephant was made pregnant by artificial 

insemination; it took eight months of attempting to 

impregnate her this way for it to work. Her pregnancy 

will last about 22 months. 

Peanuts 

Melbourne zookeepers and horticulturalists believe 

the Government is not paying them enough. They 

say their salary of $41,000 is 30 per cent below 

the national average and that zoo management is 

exploiting their passion for working with animals. 

With that in mind, Zoos Victoria seeks a director of 

communications. www.zoo.org.au/hr. 

Classest greetings 

The Melbourne Greeter Service, a tourist guide 

service, will be closed on July 1, after 11 years of 

operation. It is being replaced by another service 

for corporate visitors only. It is believed commercial 

tour operators pressured the council into dropping 

the service to protect their own businesses. The 

Melbourne program was set up in 1997 and has 

been manned by 27 trained volunteers who provide 

guided orientations around the city for international 

tour groups. 

Her former glowery 

The National Trust has launched a public appeal to 

restore the Skipping Girl Vinegar neon sign to her 

former glow. The nine-metre-high metal and bakedenamel 

sign, which sits above Victoria Street 

in Richmond opposite the Victoria Gardens 

shopping centre, needs $60,00 worth of work. 

The sign was erected atop the Skipping Girl 

Vinegar factory in 1936. 

What’s in a name 

In the Melbourne White Pages directory, the top five 

most listed names have changed very little in the 

last five years. This year is hardly different, except 

the Nguyens have knocked the name Williams out 

of second place. The Browns, Joneses and Williams 

have held onto their positions in the top ten, but the 

Sings have made a surprise appearance, knocking the 

Taylors out of seventh spot, The Herald Sun reported. 

Come to ‘just drinks’ at Letter from 

Melbourne, ladies 

A large article in The Age by Simon Castles discussed 

the problems facing single women in their 30s looking 

for a partner in Melbourne where, it appears, there is 

a man drought. 

The misogyny show 

ANZ withdrew advertising from The Footy Show in an 

apparent protest against its attitude towards women, 

The Age reported. Nine chief David Gyngell has 

committed the program’s staff, including Sam, to antidiscrimination 

training. 

Big wheel 

The Southern Star Observation Wheel at Dockland’s 

West is expected to open in November. The 21 curved 

glass capsules that can each hold 21 people, have 

arrived in Melbourne and are ready to be attached to 

the wheel. The 30-minute ride is expected to cost less 

than $30. 

Getting together 

The Victorian Club is has moved temporarily to the 

Naval and Military Club. 

Heavens above 

Fr Steve Curtin SJ has been appointed the new 

Provincial of the Australian Jesuits. Fr Peter Norden 

has left being the Parish Priest at Richmond and is 

now in Sydney. 

12 

13



Congrats 

The partners of Mills Oakley Lawyers took out an 

advertisement in The Age thanking their staff and 

clients for being named Melbourne Law Firm of 

the Year in the 2008 ALB Australasian Law Awards. 

www.millsoakley.com.au. 

Geelong 

Las Vegas 

Friends of the Zoo, which has more than 67,000 

members and contributes $1.7m annually to 

Zoos Victoria, is mounting a campaign against 

the Village Roadshow bid to develop a theme 

park called African Safari World (that’s original) 

at Werribee’s open range zoo. Former Werribee 

Zoo director David Hancock said rhinoceroses 

should not be combined with roller-coasters and 

warned the amusement park would become a 

white elephant, The Age reported. Another former 

director, Peter Stroud, expressed concerns 

about Village Roadshow’s ability to manage the 

zoo’s exotic animal collection. Friends of the Zoo 

president Christina Dennis said the Victorian 

community had been locked out of discussions 

despite her organisation receiving more than 

8,000 signatures for a petition that it began. 

Zoos Victoria chairman Andrew Fairley has also 

expressed reservations. The Western Region 

Environment Centre has called on Premier 

John Brumby to reject the proposal on the 

grounds that it is not ecologically sustainable. 

The director of the centre, Harry van Moorst, 

claimed noise and light from the park would 

interfere with breeding programs at the zoo 

and alter the animals’ natural habitat. If it goes 

ahead, the African Safari Park is likely to rival 

the biggest parks on Queensland’s Gold Coast, 


Long live democracy 

Geelong Mayor Bruce Harwood has attacked the 

state government’s takeover of council planning 

powers as being done through a very undemocratic 

process. The state government had 

announced that it would appoint a committee 

to make planning decisions on key projects in 

areas of metropolitan significance, including 

Geelong. A government spokesperson said the 

government was yet to reveal how much of 

Geelong would come under the new planning 

committee. The takeover follows controversy 

over Geelong’s council in recent years, including 

developers secretly funding councillors’ election 

campaigns and the state ombudsman ruling 

that the city’s planning processes were open 

to perceptions of corruption, The (Bellarine 

Peninsula) Independent reported. 

Can’t be that big 

Geelong Football Club president Frank Costa 

plans to build Geelong’s tallest building: a 15- 

storey skyscraper at 65 Mercer Street. To be called 

Water Marque, the building will be nearly double 

the height of Geelong’s eight-storey Mercure Hotel 

(current tallest). The $65m dollar building will have 

80 serviced and 77 residential apartments, The 

(Bellarine Peninsula) Independent reported. 

Butts booted 

Geelong recorded a 28 per cent reduction in cigarette 

litter during the recent Butt Free City Week. Ten cities 

participated in the event, with an average littering 

reduction of 21 per cent. Ric Hubbard, of the Butt 

Littering Trust, said that cigarettes had become as 

popular with city dwellers as dog poo since smoking 

bans had been introduced in enclosed public areas, 

the Geelong Advertiser reported. 

Sinking ship good for divers 

HMAS Canberra, which is to be scuttled off Point 

Londsdale and Ocean Grove in March, has arrived 

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Job 

Hepburn Shire Council is seeking a chief executive 

officer. www.hepburnshire.com.au. 

Planning & Building 

As in Dubai 

Norman Foster, the architect who is regarded 

as ‘Mr Landmark’, has been hired to put a unique 

stamp on Australia’s biggest and most expensive 

office and housing block at Docklands. Foster + 

Partners would shape the $1.5b scheme proposed 

by Middle Eastern investment company Sama Dubai 

for Collins Street, The Age reported. The proposal has 

been controversial due to the involvement of former 

VicUrban chief executive John Tabart, who helped 

put together the scheme of Sama. Sama insists 

Tabart is no longer involved in the Docklands project 

and is now based in London. 

Melbourne 2030 

In a comment for The Age, Royce Miller observed that 

Melbourne 2030 was at least an acknowledgement 

that the city needed managing. He writes that the 

strategy was built on three key premises: restricting 

growth through an urban growth boundary; making 

the city more compact by encouraging housing 

in designated activity centres; and a dramatic 

boost in public transport use. He believes that the 

implementation has been poor on all three fronts. 

An Audit Export Group report on Melbourne 2030 

found the implementation of the strategy lacks 

community support, leadership and funding from 

the government. They nevertheless find it a strategy 

worth pursuing, saying that the policy had not failed 

but rather had not been fully implemented. Chaired by 

Melbourne University’s Rob Moodie, the group also 

found that the plan had not done well in attracting 

development away from the city fringes. 

The state government responded to the audit by 

putting 26 key shopping and commercial hubs 

under the control of Development Assessment 

Committees, legislated for by the government. Five 

centres — Preston, Camberwell, Coburg, Doncaster 

and Geelong — will be targeted for the new system 

this year. The strategy reflects growing concern 

about how to house and provide services to a surging 

population, The Age reported. 

Several inner-city councils and the Opposition are 

not happy with the plan, accusing the government 

of ignoring residents’ concerns about inappropriate 

development. The Development Assessment 

Committees will be comprised of two local and two 

state government representatives, and an independent 

chairperson agreed to by the government and the 

Municipal Association of Victoria. The committees 

will make planning decisions for the centres once 

made by councils. Municipal Association of Victoria 

president Dick Gross said the introduction of the 

panels was not welcome news but at least the state 

was taking more responsibility for implementing its 

own policy. However, he said, it is not negotiable that 

when a Development Assessment Committee makes 

a decision, the affected council must be a member 

of that committee. In The Age, Kenneth Davidson 

observed that the government could have made 

the policy more palatable to local communities by 

ensuring the developments occurred in conjunction 

with the upgrading of heavy rail services to minimise 

congestion. 

An editorial in The Age noted that the year 2030 is 

rushing to meet the city and if Melbourne wants 

to keep its liveability, challenges must be tackled 

now. An opinion piece by Professor Rob Adams, 

director of design and urban environment for the 

City of Melbourne, noted that Barcelona provides a 

sustainable city model that we can follow. 

Meanwhile, steep labour costs and run-up in key 

commodity prices could slow construction of highdensity 

residential dwellings placing pressure on the 

2030 plan, which includes the creation of dozens of 

activity centres across Melbourne. Developers are 

being put out by a range of costs, levies and taxes 

and unwillingness by consumers to pay higher 

prices for apartments in suburbs zoned for highdensity 

development. Construction and property 

consultancy Rider Levett Bucknall warned that the 

rising costs will impede the aims of Melbourne 2030, 


Beyond 2030 

Early last month The Age, in partnership with 

Melbourne University, published a 20-page 

clear critique of the Melbourne 2030 blueprint, 

entitled Beyond 2030. Edited by Mark Baker and 

Royce Millar, the publication looked at planning, 

transport, housing, water, energy, culture, 

prosperity and wellbeing. 

Controversial 

British author and architect Austin Williams said 

(in one of the recent, annual Alfred Deakin Lecture 

series) that money spent on sustainable living is 

wasted and inhibits creativity and the potential 

attractiveness and comfort of homes and offices. 

The Alfred Deakin Lecture series has run for its eighth 

year. Convened this year by Robyn Archer, the free 

lectures, over 10 days in various locations around 

the city and state, covered topics ranging from DNA 

to deep space. There were 18 lectures in all. 

Idea of the month 

General manager of business development at 

Archicentre David Hallett wrote an article in The 

Herald Sun in which he made a case for thinking 

seriously about putting residential apartments 

above supermarkets. He says there is a lot of 

undercapitalised land throughout the suburbs in 

the form of single story supermarkets and their 

carparks. Such sites are generally located near 

public transport and close to a range of recreation 

and community facilities. The areas thrive in 

trading hours but are otherwise dormant bitumen 

paddocks and food storage warehouses in prime 

residential locations. 

Spinach Triangle 

John Denton, the Victorian government architect, 

has said that the Port Phillip Council should not 

have been left to oversee the $300m development 

of St Kilda’s triangle site. He said the council was 

always going to struggle to balance local interests 

with inventive ways to finance the development, and 

that it should have fallen to the state government 

or some other body distanced from local politics to 

manage the redevelopment, The Age reported. 

Renamed Groburg 

Grollo family company Equiset was announced 

as Moreland City Council’s partner in the council’s 

ambitious $1b Coburg rejuvenation project. Equiset 

will transform a 12-hectare site at the intersection 

of Bell Street and Sydney Road. The plan includes 

putting Coburg station underground and building 

apartments, office space and shops above it. About 

20 per cent of 1,500 new dwellings will be reserved 

for affordable housing, which is expected to add 

substance to the Melbourne 2030 planning strategy, 


Brand spanking new 

Planning Minister Justin Madden has launched 

Melbourne’s newest suburb, ‘Williams Landing’, 

which is to be built at the former Laverton RAAF 

Airfield southwest of the city. The new suburb will 

accommodate up to 2,000 new homes and the 

developer is set to offer a range of new smaller house 

sizes to increase affordability and sustainability. 

The Herald Sun has revealed that in Melbourne’s 

growth corridors, particularly in the west and 

southeast of the city, housing estates are opening at 

a rate of nearly one every month. Sixteen housing 

developments having more than 200 blocks have 

opened in the past 18 months. 

Meanwhile, $9m has been allocated to help the 

introduction of a new Urban Growth Zone across 

Melbourne’s outer suburbs. Of the $9m, $5.5m will go 

towards the master planning of 37 new communities 

over four years and $3.5m over two years will be 

used for the mapping of native vegetation sites 

across the growth areas. 

Happy Dick Gross 

The Municipal Association of Victoria president 

Cr Dick Gross has welcomed the premier’s 

announcement to re-focus and build on its Moving 

Forward strategy for regional and rural Victoria. Cr 

Gross said it was pleasing that many of the initiatives 

will target key challenges facing local government 

such as skill shortages, infrastructure, development 

drought and climate change. $15.9m has been 

allocated for the development of a new direction in 

regional planning. 

Quick 

Ian Quick, president of Save our Suburbs, an 

organisation that represents more than 400 

individual members and 60 community groups 

across the state, says more community groups 

are joining his planning lobby group every week, 

because more people are becoming angered over 

the impact of the state government’s planning laws 

on their local areas. 

Aged debt trap 

The Age discussed a new report prepared by 

14 

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AMP–NATSEM, Wherever I lay my debt, that’s 

my home, on housing affordability. It showed 

the number of people aged over 60 still paying 

off a mortgage has doubled in a decade. Also 

interesting was the rate at which housing 

prices had increased — by 400 per cent over 

20 years while income had risen a meagre 120 

per cent. 

Nice 

Grocon will build a $50m inner-city homeless shelter 

for the state government and forgo a $15m profit, 

The Herald Sun reported. The building will go up on 

an Elizabeth Street site and it will house up to 120 

homeless people. 

Architecture competition 

A public housing design with rooms that can be 

added and removed according to demand has won 

a state government competition to transform a 

Dandenong estate in Jesson Crescent. The design is 

by Brunswick-based Bent Architecture and is for a 

village-style redevelopment where 15 town houses 

will replace six concrete home. 

Give that back 

The state government has infuriated Coburg’s locals 

with a plan to sell off the suburb’s only parkland, 

a 10-hectare area of bushland between Merri and 

Edgars Creeks. The land was acquired compulsorily 

10 years ago by VicRoads for a freeway project that 

never went ahead. VicRoads wants to sell the land 

on the free market but Moreland Council, having 

maintained the site for 30 years, believes the land 

should be given to the council. 

A different property problem 

Under one option for the proposed 18-kilometre 

cross-city road tunnel in Sir Rod’s $18b plan to solve 

Melbourne’s transport problems, 496 properties 

between Footscray Road and the West Gate Freeway 

would have to be acquired and demolished. A second 

option would require the acquisition and destruction 

of 226 properties. Sir Rod wants construction on the 

road tunnels to begin in mid 2012 and be finished 

by 2019. 

According to The Age, a report released by 

economists and planners SGS found the two options 

plus a cross-city rail tunnel would reduce property 

values by $1.6b and $782m respectively. However, 

it also found that construction of the new road and 

rail tunnels would inject $3.7 worth of benefits into 

the west’s poorest suburbs, in the form of increased 

access to jobs and services. 

Twenty years on 

Huge tracts of Melbourne’s inner parkland have been 

lost to development, according to a Sunday Age 

report. Carlton Gardens, Yarra Park, Albert Park, Royal 

Park, and Melbourne Park have all lost significant 

space from their original boundaries, to projects 

such as the Grand Prix, the National Tennis Centre, 

the Melbourne Museum and the Commonwealth 

Games Village. 

Archaeological work worth $20m 

State government laws introduced on 28 May 2007 

mean that any relatively undisturbed land that is 

subject to building proposals must be searched by 

experts to see if there are Aboriginal Heritage sites. 

Huge residential corridors through Dandenong, 

Pakenham and other areas, mainly close to 

waterways, are subject to the Aboriginal Heritage 

Act, The Herald Sun reported. The archaeological 

work itself is costing up to $20m and is delaying 

projects for up to one year. 

Not going swimmingly 

In an opinion piece for The Age about Moreland 

Council’s proposal for a new high-tech swimming 

facility to replace its outdoor swimming pool, Dr 

Clare Wright, a postdoctoral research fellow in 

history at La Trobe University and author of Beyond 

the Ladies Lounge: Australia’ Female Publicans (and 

sometimes a member of the brains trust on the 

ABC’s The Einstein Factor), writes that existing public 

infrastructure must be maintained (if retro-fitted for 

energy and water efficiency) rather than quietly 

abandoned or expediently buck-passed. 

More design shops, at last 

According to the Financial Review, Melbourne 

Airport is planning more than $500m of nonaviation 

commercial property development as 

it seeks to get a return on several hundred 

hectares of surplus land. The privately owned 

airport — whose major shareholders are AMP, 

Deutsche Asset Management, and Hastings Funds 

Management — has about 350 hectares available 

for commercial property development. 

The detail 

The Victorian Auditor-General’s Office has released 

two related publications — one called Planning 

Permit Application: Assessment Checklist and the 

other Planning Scheme Amendment: Assessment 

Checklist — designed to help councillors and 

planning staff fulfil their obligations under the 

Planning and Environment Act 1987. 

Sport 

Stynes to the rescue 

Brownlow medallist and Melbourne Football Club 

great Jim Stynes has taken over its presidency. 

The four-time best and fairest winner will fight to 

secure the club’s long-term future in Melbourne. 

On taking the position, Stynes said that in the 

club’s 150th year it needed to take a stand. The 

AFL has questioned Melbourne’s viability and 

stuck the finger up at tradition by threatening to 

take away the Queens Birthday game between 

Melbourne and Collingwood. 

Hear hear 

Tasmanian-based commentator Greg Barnes, 

writing for The Herald Sun, questioned why 

the AFL is reluctant to seriously entertain the 

idea of a team based in Tasmania rather than 

western Sydney or the Gold Coast. He says that 

Tasmania’s population of 500,000, is twice the 

size of Geelong and its people are passionate 

about Australian Rules football. 

Systems dynamics 

Wind tunnel testing of policies 

Providers of consulting services 

to commerce & government for 

more than 30 years. 

Business 

Technology 

Underbelly series 3 

Victorian chief steward Des Gleeson and 

Racing NSW chief executive Peter V’landys 

have both said they are prepared to re-examine 

any evidence given to them regarding alleged 

gangster Tony Mokbel’s involvement in the 

racing industry. 

Meanwhile, the State Government has moved to 

reassure punters about the integrity of Victorian 

racing, following the allegations that Mokbel had 

laundered millions of dollars through the industry. 

Racing Minister Rob Hulls said the judge he had 

appointed in March to review the integrity of the 

industry had the power to investigate the latest 

allegations and refer any evidence of criminal 

activity to the police, The Age reported. 

Tourism 

Vision 

contact: Saroj Godbole 

m. 0425749360 

e. saroj.godbole@ponteglobal.com 

We knew it 

The 2008 edition of 100 Greatest Trips, 

published by the US edition of Travel + Leisure 

magazine, features just one city in its list of top 

trips to be had in Australia, New Zealand and 

the South Pacific — Melbourne. Combined with 

March statistics from Tourism Australia, which 

showed that in 2007, Melbourne earned more 

from domestic tourism spending than Sydney, 

the latest Victorian triumph is likely to rattle the 

Sydney tourism industry, The Age reported. 

How many New Zealanders voted 

The Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park failed to 

register a vote in an internet poll to find the best 

tourist attraction in Victoria. More than 21,000 

Victorians have so far rated the Whittlesea Country 

Music festival and Geelong’s National Wool 

Museum ahead of the Grand Prix. According to the 

voters, Victoria’s top three tourist attractions are 

the Great Ocean Road, Wilson’s Promontory and 

the Blues Train at Queenscliff, The Age reported. 

Job 

Destination Gippsland Ltd seeks a chief executive 

officer. www.destinationgippsland.com. Nearby, 

expressions of interest are sought for the Gippsland 

Coastal Board, there are three vacancies. www.dse. 

vic.gov.au. 

Transport 

Action 

A $20b transport action plan is being drafted by 

the Brumby Government and will be released in 

November as part of the government’s broader 

response to Sir Rod Eddington’s east–west 

transport inquiry. Transport minister Lynne Kosky 

said Melbourne’s public transport system had 

experienced in two years the patronage growth that 

was expected to take until 2016 under the old plan. 

The government has recently established a transport 

energy branch and is working on strategies to reduce 

transport emissions, which are likely to be included 

in the transport plan, The Age reported. 

Finessing Rod’s tunnel vision 

It looks as if the federal government is going to 

contribute funding to help the Victorian government 

respond to Sir Rod Eddington’s proposals to ease 

traffic congestion on Melbourne’s roads. The federal 

government has already committed $12m for 

the feasibility plans and the state government will 

announce towards the end of the year which projects 

will move to the feasibility stage. 

Meanwhile, party members at the ALP state 

conference endorsed a motion that called on the 

state government to ban any new major transport 

projects, such as the road and rail tunnel that Sir 

Rod Eddington proposed, until the preparation 

of a metropolitan transport action plan. State ALP 

president and member for Maribyrnong, Bill Shorten, 

said critics of the plan wanted to tackle congestion 

by praying and hoping population growth went down. 

Roads minister Tim Pallas spoke in support of the 

motion, which noted that the government’s transport 

plan had become outdated by growth in employment 

and population. Delegates also questioned why it was 

necessary for the state’s surging population to grow 

by a further one million by 2020, placing additional 

pressure on already strained infrastructure. The audit 

of Melbourne 2030 recommended an update of the 

government’s Melbourne transport plans. 

Infrastructure sector ugly up close 

According to The Age, New York-based corporate 

governance service RiskMetrics Group has 

criticised Australia’s infrastructure sector. It singles 

out the Macquarie Model that Babcock & Brown has 

mimicked, critiquing the high debt levels, high fees, 

paying distributions out of cashflow, overpaying for 

assets, poor disclosure, many conflicts of interest and 

other poor corporate governance. The RiskMetrics 

research is not going to please the sector nor the 

state and federal governments as they have mostly 

privatised public assets via these structures. 

Tickets up there 

Smartcard maker ERG Group lodged a $200m 

counterclaim against the NSW government over 

the state’s failed Tcard integrated public transport 

ticketing project. The claim was filed in the NSW 

supreme court in response to a $89m suit the NSW 

government’s Public Transport Ticketing Corp lodged 

against the Perth company last month, the Financial 

Review reported. 

The ACT government invited comments on its public 

transport Smart Card Ticketing System, www. 

procurement.act.gov.au. 

Just about had enough of this 

The myki ticketing system faces yet another 

delay, possibly until 2012 at a cost of $350m to 

taxpayers The Age reported. A new five-year State 

Government contract extension with the operator 

of the existing Metcard ticketing system, OneLink, 

shows the old ticketing system could be around 

until 2012. Transport minister Lynne Kosky said 

the government drastically underestimated the 

complexity of introducing the new system across the 

network. The extra $350m is up 70 per cent on the 

previous $500m price tag. 

Meanwhile, Gary Thwaites, who worked in the 

Department of Transport’s public transport division, 

has been named the new chief of the Myki project. He 

has 15 years experience in the public sector and has 

expertise in project management. He has worked on 

projects that have delivered communication systems 

to the emergency services, The Age reported. 

Taxi! 

The state government’s taxi watchdog is taking as 

long as three months to deal with complaints about 

taxi drivers, The Herald Sun reported. 

A draft report by the Essential Services Commission 

has recommended a new system for determining 

fare increases based on the rises of taxi specific 

running costs such as LPG, which has been 

increasing in price above inflation. The report also 

called for new taxi regulations to include vehicle 

standards and customer service standards as well 

as a performance-monitoring report to be developed 

and published every six months to reveal things like 

waiting times and customer satisfaction. 

Hmmm 

A small advertisement for a big issue confronting 

the city over the next half decade: the Port of 

Melbourne Corporation invites tenders for the 

provision of annual truck survey data collection, 

analysis and reporting services. Priyan.Wijeyeratne@ 

portofmelbourne.com. 

Rail 

Infrastructure last 50 years, then… 

According to The Age, a $500m upgrade of Victoria’s 

northeast rail corridor will improve rail freight 

and passenger services between Melbourne and 

Sydney. The package from the Rudd and Brumby 

Governments includes the upgrade and conversion 

of 200 kilometres of broad gauge track between 

Seymour and Albury to standard gauge; construction 

of the Wodonga rail bypass, to remove the rail line 

from the centre of the city and build a second singletrack, 

five kilometre bypass of Wodonga; and three 

V/Line passenger locomotives and 15 passenger 

carriages refurbished and converted to standard 

gauge. This will help boost freight capacity on the 

main line between Sydney and Melbourne, which 

is Australia’s biggest interstate freight corridor, with 

freight volumes expected to increase by 70 per cent 

in the next 20 years. The Commonwealth’s AusLink 

program will provide $45m for the program, while 

the rest of the money will come from the Victorian 

Government ($171.3m) and the Australian Rail Track 

Corporation ($285m). 

Aha 

The Victorian Government is considering buying 

overseas technology that would warn truck drivers 

through their radios when trains were approaching 

level crossings, The Age reported. 

Just don’t bother 

It’s getting harder to find a parking spot at train 

stations. Most suburban car parks are full by 7.30am, 

while streets around stations are clogged with cars, 

as the sharp rise in rail use places further strain on 

public transport infrastructure, The Age reported. 

Connex pitches in 

Connex has a $10m plan to improve its customer 

service, with extra staff at North Melbourne and 

all city loop stations, replacement seat covers for 

a third of its fleet, more regular cleaning of trains 

and a customer information centre to be built at 

Flinders Street Station to help with record numbers 

of commuters. 

Crush and crime 

An article in The Herald Sun has reported that the 

state’s peak rail union is demanding the state put 

full-time staff on at least 56 Melbourne stations to 

protect and help commuters in the crowd crush. 

Melbourne’s busiest unstaffed stations include West 

Footscray, which has seen a 108 per cent increase 

in patronage over the past six years; Hallam, a 97 

per cent increase; Kananook, 92 per cent; and 

Thornbury, 69 per cent. 

Bee-line for V/Line 

Patronage on V/Line trains has jumped over 50 

per cent in the last two years. And even though V/ 

Line has added 89 customer service staff across 

all lines in that time the Rail, Tram and Bus Union 

says understaffing on the Geelong line is putting rail 

attendants at risk. Geelong had 234,000 passenger 

trips in March and is the busiest regional line. 

They look nice 

Melbourne has five new trams on loan from France, 

rented in a three-year $10m deal to help meet 

booming passenger numbers. The C2 class trams 

can carry 240 passengers and are painted bright 

yellow, a colour owners Alstom insist that Yarra 

Trams keep for the duration of the lease. The threeyear 

rental deal gives Yarra Trams and the state 

government time to order a new fleet. 

Nearby 

Yarra Trams proposed cutting peak services on some 

lines and reducing routes by several stops, to feed 

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extra trams onto the lines with the worst crowding, in 

a draft report called the Forward Capacity Plan. The 

State Government told Yarra Trams not to go ahead 

with the report, fearing a negative voter response to 

the reduction of service on some lines. 

Lesson: always contest fines 

Yarra Trams withdrew nearly a third of 10,609 fines 

contested by passengers in the year to February, The 

Age reported. 

road 

Congestion tax ‘working’ 

The state government’s congestion tax on longstay 

car-parking spaces in central Melbourne has 

garnered more than $100m over the three years it 

has been running, but the government has revealed 

it has no idea what effect the charge has had on 

reducing congestion or greenhouse gas emissions. 

The tax on about 50,000 car spaces is being handled 

by the Department of Treasury rather than the 

Department of Transport or VicRoads. The charge of 

$820 on each car-park space will add almost $40m 

to state coffers next year, about $5m of which will go 

to the Melbourne City Council, The Age reported. 

Thoughts 

EastLink opens on June 29 and the $4.96 toll will be 

charged from Sunday July 27. ConnectEast general 

manager James Tonkin said the tolls could only 

rise by the CPI once a year. This is in contrast with 

CityLink, whose tolls rise four times a year by the 

CPI or 4 per cent, whichever is greater, The Herald 

Sun reported. 

Seeing red 

Traffic signal cycles are set to speed up by 10–15 

seconds across Melbourne’s CBD under a council 

proposal designed to give pedestrians more time 

and opportunities to cross intersections. However, it 

will mean more red lights for motorists. Traffic lights 

in the city currently run in 90-second cycles with 

some 120-second cycles at major intersections. 

Green peas 

Under a new system, probationary drivers will spend 

12 months on a P1 licence, and the next three years 

on a P2 licence, with a green P-plate. Existing P- 

plate rules — such as zero blood alcohol — will still 

apply for all P-platers, P1 licence-holders can carry 

only one passenger aged 16-21, The Age reported. 

We knew it 

A report into perceptions of road safety in the 

state found one in four drivers on Victoria’s roads 

say they break speed limits regularly and only a 

visible police presence will slow some motorists 

down. Government research also shows that 40 

per cent of drivers attempt to undermine speed 

cameras by warning other drivers when they spot 

one, The Age reported. 

It’s big, whichever way you look at it 

The Queensland government has struck a $4.8b 

deal with a private consortium BrisConnections to 

form what it is touting as Australia’s biggest public– 

private partnership, to build the nation’s largest road 

infrastructure project, The Australian reported. 

Life in the bus lane 

Two bus lanes, each stretching over 20 kilometres 

through Melbourne’s east, would be built under a 

plan submitted by Bus Association Victoria to the 

state government, to take advantage of congestion 

and environmental benefits created when EastLink 

opens, The Age reported. The proposed zones would 

run from Mitcham Road, Nunawading, to Cheltenham 

Road in Keysborough. 

More reasons to get on your bike 

The economic value of cycling has been revealed in 

a Melbourne University report written by Professor 

Rob Moodie and entitled Cycling: Getting Australia 

Moving. Cycling saves more than $220m a year in 

health care costs and almost $64m from lessening 

traffic congestion. 

air 

Not so innocent 

Australia’s newest international carrier V Australia, 

stable mate of the domestic Virgin Blue, will call 

Sydney home. It’s believed part of the arrangement 

involved Virgin agreeing to spend an average of 

$1m a year for the five-year term on an international 

marketing campaign focused on inbound travellers 

to NSW. The Brumby Government is refusing 

to reveal how much it offered multi-millionaire 

Richard Branson in its losing bid. This follows 

the Bracks Government coming under fire for 

refusing to detail incentives offered last year when 

domestic carrier Tiger Airways chose Victoria as its 

home, The Age reported. 

Over at airport 4 

Avalon Airport’s $30m bid to build an international 

terminal has received a setback, with the defence 

department (which owns the land) rejecting the 

planning application from airport operator Linfox. 

The decision is also bad news for Malaysian budget 

airline AirAsiaX, which was considering flights 

between Kuala Lumpur and Avalon from late this 

year, The Herald Sun reported. 

ports 

Lashing, Dutch style 

Royal Boskalis Westminster, the Dutch company 

dredging Port Phillip Bay, was unhappy with its 

treatment from a Victorian parliamentary committee, 

believing its reputation was being threatened by 

baseless attacks and that Melbourne had won a 

cheap deal by current global standards, The Age 

reported. The company also warned an upper house 

committee that it risked scaring off international 

business if it set a precedent by publishing sensitive 

commercial information revealed in its contract with 

the Port of Melbourne. 

Community 

Queens birthday honours 

A notable recipient of a Medal of the Order 

of Australia is retired scientist Tim Ealey, 81. 

He has worked in inland Australia and has an 

Antarctic glacier named in his honour. He is now 

working with school children to plant mangrove 

seedlings in Westernport Bay. 

Interesting editorial 

The policy director of the Per Capita think 

tank and author of a forthcoming Per Capita 

paper The Problem of the Child-free Commons, 

Michael Cooney, made a case in The Age 

for the Queen’s Birthday public holiday to 

be renamed Kids Day as a way of creating a 

focus for national thought and conversation. 

He says we should celebrate the central role 

of education in children’s lives and give the 

holiday true meaning. 

Choking on their own rage 

Community groups claim they are being gagged 

by councils and the state government to silence 

their criticism of controversial issues such as 

toxic waste dumps and transport policy. They 

say they have been invited to join council-led 

organisations, then forced to sign confidentiality 

agreements banning them from speaking to 

the media or circulating any information from 

the group without consent, The Age reported. 

Tullamarine toxic dump activist Kaylene 

Wilson refused to sign a gag clause which was 

a condition of her joining a new committee set 

up by the Environment Protection Authority to 

monitor the clean-up of the site. Local residents 

wishing to join a new Hume City Council 

community group will also be banned from 

speaking to the media on behalf of the group. 

Chooks displaced 

The chickens at the North Richmond community 

garden will take a nine-month holiday while 

their quarters are upgraded because of the 

discovery of mild soil contamination. The 

discovery prompted the state government to 

redevelop the public housing allotments in 

Belgium Avenue, including an expansion from 

96 plots to 120, underground tanks for 150,000 

litres of rainwater, clean soil and raised planting 

boxes to make things easier for the disabled, 

The Age reported. East Timorese gardeners 

will move their seeds, herbs and plants to a 

smaller temporary site in Highett Street, North 

Richmond. Cultivating Community is the nonprofit 

organisation that oversees Melbourne’s 

22 community gardens. 

Kelpie muster 

Up to 10,000 people went to the Casterton 

Kelpie Muster on the long weekend in June. 

Hill climbs, sheep musters and a Kelpie parade 

precede the annual Casterton working dog 

auction, with 70 of the finest dogs sold to 

Australian and international farmers. Breeder 

Jackie Merchant’s dog, Beloka Red II, sold for 

a world record $7,400. The sum was donated to 

the beyondblue foundation for depression. 

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Alan Collins, writer of the novel The Boys from 

Bondi, aged 79. Jean Marjorie Manning, first 

woman to be elected to the Hawthorn Council, 

pharmacist, aged 94. William Arthur Angliss, 

pastoralist, Rotary club member, aged 97. 

Robert Molesworth, farmer and community 

leader, aged 66. Robert Duncan Somervaille, 

AO, lawyer and businessman, aged 86. Roy 

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David MacLean, lawyer, aged 50. Dr James 

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Employers Association Secretary, campaigner 

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Brailsford Francis, instrumental in the formation 

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Melbourne business, policy and and Victoria. cultural If news you’re and a events frequent in 

traveler Melbourne or and expatriate, Victoria. it’s If you’re a must-have a frequent when 

keeping traveler or tabs expatriate, on Home.’ it’s a must-have when 

keeping tabs on Home.’ 

Leith Doody 

Regional Leith Doody Director - Europe, Middle East, Africa 

The Regional Australian Director Trade - Europe, Commission, Middle East, Australian Africa Consulate-General, 

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LETTER FROM CANBERRA 

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