30 August, 2018

There is an election coming & we have an Annual General Meeting

Wednesday 29th August
BRAG and other Boroondara Groups met with David Davis (Shadow Planning Minister) and John Pesutto (Shadow Attorney General) to encourage them to consider our recommendations for changes to planning regulations, if elected, to overcome the unacceptable and damaging changes made by the Andrews' government.
David Davis has already promised publicly and by letter to Boroondara Residents to reverse the changes to the Neighbourhood Residential Zones to restore the protections the earlier NRZ provided. But there are other changes needed to protect what we love about our neighbourhood and our briefing and a copy of the recommndations made to David Davis and John Pesutto at our meeting are attached above.
Professor Michael Buxton also attended our meeting and offered helpful thoughts on what we should think about.
Michael along with Kelvin Thomson (former MP for Wills) are our guest speakers at our Annual General Meeting on Thursday 20th September when we will have the opportunity to further our plans for changes to planning regulations, VCAT, etc.
BRAG is considering to campaign in the lead-up to the coming election because the Andrews' government has made very unacceptable changes to planning in Victoria including forcing 70% of all new development into the middle suburbs.His Planning Minister, Richard Wynne has criticized both Glen Eira and Boroondara in parliament saying "he would get us" His changes have gone a long way of achieving his promise by acting to force 70% of all new development into the middle suburbs.
It is clear that the "leafy eastern suburbs" are being targeted so we are urgng our 600 members to attend our AGM to hear what our guest speakers say and they will then be better informed on what actions they and BRAG should take.
Of course the elephant in the room is the massive rate of poulation growth of Melbourne (2.4%) which is three times that of comparible countries. But our poiticians are deliberately ignoring this as they tell us that poulation growth equals economic growth. They quote increase in GDP but ignore GDP per capita which is what affects us. That has been flat or going backwards for some time. Ask yourself are you better off today than say 10 years ago?
Watch this space.....

09 August, 2018

WAKE UP AUSTRALIA

Instead of relying on the property bubble pretending that our economy is strong, Australia needs real structural change in the way we grow our economy.Chinese money is creating this gigantic property bubble here and in other countries around the world but it is not doing us any favours.
We have gone mad building houses and apartment blocks, mainly for the new arrivals and Chinese investors,  but this cannot go on indefinitely. Australia's earnings of of $1.6 trillion is nearly 70% from services rather then producing goods. John Hewson said recently that the entire country is basically sitting around serving each other cups of coffee and smashed avacado. 
In the 1970's we really became a third world economy selling raw materials and food but left the industrial production slide. It was "she'll be right mate" but sooner rather than later there will be a massive adjustment and we will become just another banana republic as Paul Keating predicted.
Building houses is not enough, we need to enthusiastically develop our technolodgical skills and lift our sights to secure our future. No longer can we rely upon mining, for China is taking less and less resulting in revinue dropping significantly while costs continue to rise.
The old "she'll be right" attitude must change before it is too late.
We have previously pointed out that our governments have always used positive GDP growth as a measure to mislead us into thinking all is well, but the real measure is GDP "per capita" which is static or going backwards and restricting our salary and wages growth. So we are no better off today than we were 10 years ago. 
The first step we need to take is to reduce our migrant intake back to the 70,000 pa we used to accept in the late 1990's and early 2000's, which will still meet our international obligations, and the second step is to put a stop to Chinese investment in housing and buying up our farmland and other assets.  
Time to wake up Australia.......