The signs are that for 2023 Greenslabor politicians and their hangers-on will continue to gaslight and dump on those who cherishes the city’s neighbourhoods. The new normal for Greenslabor is to be vexatious and frivolous with the truth.
Late last year at the site of the raising of London Circuit, four blokes pretended they knew how to use shovels (City News 26th Nov 2022). Sods with shovels!
Taking the lead from this stunt, in mid-January this year Canberra YWCA staged a similar fake performance on the former cherished community site – now cleared of everything – alongside Ainslie’s Bill Pye Park.
This buffoonery included three Greenslabor ministers. Four of them performed for the camera as they pretended to dig the first sods for the work on nine social housing units to be run by the YWCA. Silly sods they were!
Near neighbours were not invited. They knew that the work to clear the site was finished last year and nothing else has happened up to when this piece was written.
The four well-paid loiterers used their selfie-media stunt to make new-normal vexatious and frivolous claims about the project’s development application.
They reinvented the facts around the evidence-based decision of the appeals tribunal to throw out the development and that the planning authority had approved the YWCA’s housing development despite so much of it not matching the authority’s rules.
There were four people making clowns of themselves.
On the left was ACT Greens’ Rebecca Vassarotti, ACT Minister for heritage, the environment, homelessness and housing services. She is overseeing the de-greening of the city, last year she ineptly misplaced the ACT’s Heritage Council, and she ignores environmental issues such as Lake Tuggeranong’s years of smelly and poisonous green stuff along the shorelines hindering children having fun.
This environment minister failed to notice that the Ainslie site had the greenery removed. This is her party’s de-greening policies at work.
Next along was Yvette Berry, Minister for Housing, who makes divisive statements about residents stopping social housing. Absolute rubbish! This Greenslabor minister cleared massive numbers of social housing from the Northbourne corridor and the inner south.
The profits from those sales paid for the Barr-Ratt tram (not replacement social housing). Social housing was not included in the many towers replacing the blocks of social housing. Many of the original housing flats were homes for elderly women and women with children.
Her defence tactic has been to gaslight residents who argue that social housing should follow the government’s rules, that they should not be cramming too many onto blocks (as is the case with the YWCA) and that social housing should not be future heat islands (as most are).
On the right was the rarely seen ACT Minister for planning. Most residents would not have clue what he does. He is brought out to sign off on developments that have failed his planning rules and have been found to be questionable by the administrative appeals tribunals (as was the YWCA development).
The Chief Minister, Andrew Barr, who hovers over his ministers, is proud of Mick Gentleman because he does what he is told to do.
He is doing almost nothing while the ACT Government’s planning regime is being dismantled by Andrew Barr and his planning chief so that more developments can happen according to the whims of the get-rich-quick developers. This ensures votes from that sector.
The Chief Minister’s and his ministers’ vision for Canberra is unchecked development – forget climate change, good design and biodiversity.
The gathering of these three Greenslabor ministers was the achievement of Canberra’s YWCA. Together they carried on like upper class toffs sending a clear message to residents about who was in charge. In case you missed the message, it is Greenslabor and their best friends.
Autocratic and arrogant fiefdoms fall once the leaders rely on self-gratification through silly selfie-performances such as was carried out that day in Ainslie.
One last observation. Various social media pages reported that the leader of the ACT opposition, Elizabeth Lee, attended this foolish event. Are voters now to accept that the Canberra Liberals endorse Greenslabor’s tricky spin on social housing and their vexatious treatment of residents?