Melbourne@5 million

I moved to Melbourne in 2008 aware that its population was almost the same as that of New Zealand.

Now a new document (FutureMap: Melbourne 2030) imagines it @5 million, not merely @4 (See: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/the-australian-dream-of-how-we-live-is-due-for-a-revamp-20090407-9zj2.html) and challenges Melbournians – selected ones – to rethink their way of life,

It describes Melbourne being a “polycentric” city – and it’s the opposite to what you’re thinking if you’re from Auckland, which remains the world’s biggest Polynesian city.

As usual, the way to deal with the sprawl of it all in terms of transport infrastructure is to work near where you live, or vice versa, and for town planners to increase housing densification, supposedly with double glazing, along public transport corridors. Of course those will always be your public transport corridors, not ours, so Ringwood, Footscray and Dandenong will bear the brunt and not Toorak, Armidale and Malvern.

The article also speaks of the need to rethink “the great Australian dream” and that used to be, before we got greedy, merely the egalitarian ideal of a home of ones own. Sally Capp, Committee for Melbourne chief executive writes without any irony in the direction or Toorak that “today it can mean a mini-mansion on sprawling blocks with our city bulging at the seams”.

This leads me to the inevitable cross-cultural comparison. The old New Zealand dream of course was the old half-gallon, quarter acre pavlova paradise detected by Yorkie-pommie academic immigrant Austin Vernon Mitchell (1972) – and now, in Auckland at least, is owning a townhouse with a pocket handkerchief garden on one of the bits of the quarter-acre that the baby boomer generations sold off to urban sprawl. The recession, of course, has made it just that little bit more affordable for one and all, house prices having dropped 10 percent (See: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10565955).

And in 2030 I’ll officially become a pensioner (unless they change the ages, which I wouldn’t put past them) and I’m picking I’ll be in God’s waiting room in New Zealand and not Australia.

Picture of Last Week

The buzzwords of sustainable and organic have come to the Green House. The White House rather.

Michelle Obama, with lots of white help, dug up a y-shaped, 1,100 sq ft patch of the White House lawn to grow 55 varieties of vegetables, including “peppers, peas and spinach”, for the first family’s meals and state dinners. She’s a long way from Thomas Jefferson’s grazing cows on the White House lawn and 250 varieties of vegetables. She belongs, according to Andrea Wulf’s new book, The Brother Gardeners: Botany, Empire and the Birth of an Obsession, to a long tradition of presidential gardeners. (See, which means cut and paste in your browser: http://www.theage.com.au/world/the-rush-to-paint-the-white-house-green-20090403-9qps.html)/ Also see: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/ethicallivingblog/2009/mar/23/whitehouse-vegetable-garden-obama-allotment.

Still the cynics respond: “Michelle Obama’s garden is more about raising green ideologues more than green vegetables.” The fact that she was pictured reportedly wearing a pair of Jimmy Choo boots tends to back that up. It’s all about the photo op.

The Real Reason for Rotorua’s Attaction

A celebration of water, He Korowai o te Wai, is a showpiece at Rotorua’s Bathhouse Museum until early April. Poet/ curator Ian Wedde markets the display with the words: “All life on earth depends on water. Water also sustains human societies everywhere. It is now a critical resource – ‘blue gold’ – as humans place fresh water resources under stress’.  Any Melbournian would be forced into agreement and to go in search on water. New Zealand’s watery richness is apposite in a week characterised by floods galore – and by a new scientic revelation – a lost ocean linking New Zealand’s geohistory to New Caledonia’s (http://www.theage.com.au/world/lost-ocean-may-explain-nz-evolution-20090307-8rwl.html). Here at last is evidence for the mythical “Moa’s Ark” theory: some parts of New Zealand have always been above the sea surface not submerged. Hence, many ancestors of modern-day plants and animals have survived – like the land that time forgot.

On a lake, watery, bubbling Rotorua is a thermal centrepiece, its air always primevally steamed and sulphurous like the land that time forgot. It’s a cultural spa resort where for years folk have taken to the waters to cure what ails them.

As the world knows, Rotorua’s Kiwi-kitch semi-tudor now-Museum in the key vista point of the Government gardens was once a bath house. It has a mud-bath basement, now crammed with exhibits. A five-minute walk away, Queen Victoria Hospital provides all manner of physio-therapeutic services and treats patients with rheumatoid arthritis or those who merely need therapeutic massage. You can soak in the radium springs and the rachel pool, named after Guide Rachel.

Then there are the Polynesian Pools, the most touristy but still down-to-earth; The Art Deco Blue Baths, and the appropriately named Hell’s Gate on the edge of town. You can indulge in all manner of water and mud therapies and have a thorough pamper. There are in fact 18 mineral springs and hotpools to choose from in the thermal surrounds of Rotorua (http://www.nzhotpools.co.nz/regions/rotorua).

Meanwhile the real reason why Daddy likes to take his family to Rotorua is out: that sulphurous smell enhances male libido, if you believe the dailies (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10560563). Scientists at the University of Naples have found a link between hydrogen sulphide and male sexual arousal. Time to market to the lucrative Asian holidaymakers’ market.

Breathe in that whiff. We knew it had to be good for you.

Rationalising Earthquakes

It felt like an earthquake. The doors were rattling wildly and the floor was shaking and the venetian blinds were a percussion orchestra unto themselves. The human mind rationalises. It’s only a 4WD on the cobbled lane-way beside the house. In retrospect it wasn’t very rational. The lane-way is too narrow for a 4WD, synonomous as they are in the human psyche with noise and disaster. As it turns out it was an earthquake, my first Aussie earthquake, a mere 4.6 on the Richter scale. John Schneider (not the guy from The Dukes of Hazzard) from Geoscience Australia, says the the region has not seen an earthquake of that magnitude in over a decade.

This season has seen so many firsts in Melbourne. This is the first earthquake in 10 years. I did not even realise they were on tectonic plates. Still, after experiencing a dozen earthquakes in fiery New Zealand, and usually blaming them on the neighbours’ fighting again or an overenthusiastic washing machine or a rubbish truck passing at a gawdawful hour, this is nothing much.

But the walls of Melbourne houses already parched-split by over-hot conditions may not welcome this additional straining-jolting.

See http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/latest/5373621/melbourne-escapes-unscathed-earthquake/

Common Borders

As the two countries’ dollars reach their six-year low on the same day in history, New Zealand is becoming so much closer to Australia according to a raft of stories this week that it might as well become the next Tasmania.

First, we hear that Kiwis are crossing the Tasman at an alarmingly record rate of 1000 people per month.

Second, New Zealand has made a gift of 2 million dollars to the bushfire appeal. This monetary gift comes on top of the Kiwi contributions to firefighting and forensic identification.

Third, we hear that before 2015 the two nations will have a common border as far as airport check-ins are concerned. Immigration and quarantine procedures for people travelling between the two nations will become increasingly standardised. (See: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10559599). Since Australia is New Zealanders’ number 1 tourism destination, it makes a lot of sense. And every winter snow-seeking Aussies travel to Queenstown for a spot of ski-ing and it takes less time than travelling to Mount Beauty. Said Rudd, “We’ve decided rather than just have it languish in never-never land, to bring it into decision making territory.”

Fourth, already having the Australia-New Zealand Closer Economic Relations Free Trade Agreement under control, the two nations want to coordinate their responses to the recession. Kiwi political commentator Audrey Young has already suggested that there’s more than meets the eye, with both governments casting an eye over investment opportunities (See http://blogs.nzherald.co.nz/blog/audrey-young/2009/3/2/johns-very-expensive-idea-actually-kevins/?c_id=280&objectid=10559493).Boring facts:

• Australia is New Zealand’s biggest market, worth almost $10 billion a year, and its largest source of merchandise exports.
• New Zealand is Australia’s sixth-largest export market, with the corporate health of both bound by total two-way investment of $122 billion.

John Key and Kevin Rudd are new best friends, having done “some serious relationship building as they prepare an ANZAC response to the great recession” (See http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/solutions-aim-bring-nz-and-aust-together-2510106). The acronym ANZAC solidifies the wartime metaphor. The two countries can ration bacon supplies together and ensure there are enough stockings and stocking line pencils to go around for all of the women, transvestites and burglars.

A bat caught between a Key and a Rudd

Lastly is the move to “harmonise” (their word)  the Australian and New Zealand emissions trading schemes to combat global warming. With the two nations seeminly in disagreement over the Kyoto protocol, and both producing far more emissions than green countries ought to, this one might be the biggest challenge of all. Maybe the two nations can sell each other carbon credits.

The symbiotic interdependence of the two nations, despite the appearance of sporting and cultural rivalry, seems more evident in recessive times. Let’s hope that they can reclaim lost ground over benefits in taxation, healthcare and superannunuation.

Intones John Key, “I think the relationship between New Zealand and Australia has probably never been in better heart.” Just wait until the rugger season kicks off.

Bottoming Out

We all know that these are hard times. Some people call it Recession; others call it a Depression in the making. We all have to make sacrifices.

In New Zealand, it seems, ‘cheap vices’ like chocolate, ciggies, KFC and alcohol are not part of the austerity drive. Uplifting movies – today’s Slumdog is yesterday’s Golddiggers – belong in the same trend.

Sociologists have studied New Zealand: “According to the Wall Street Journal, virtually the only United States companies to fare consistently well on Wall St during the Great Depression were the purveyors of “cheap vices” like tobacco and sweets.” (See: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10558490). Kiwis are showing depression-era behaviours.

And cigarette and alcohol sales have actually gone up – the only things to buck the trend – since the recession/depression hit. It seems you can’t take it with you.

1. Figures released last Friday revealed alcohol available for consumption rose 3.4 per cent, showing that retailers were stocking up.
2. They also show that the number of available cigarettes increased 4.3 per cent, to 2.5 billion in 2008.

Great news for all the wrong people, as usual.

In the United States, the sacrifice has a somewhat different nature, as word comes through that no matter what they can’t afford in the recession/depression, Americans will not give up soft toilet paper (See: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/26/toilet-roll-america).

Writes The Observer: “The tenderness of the delicate American buttock is causing more environmental devastation than the country’s love of gas-guzzling cars, fast food or McMansions, according to green campaigners. At fault, they say, is the US public’s insistence on extra-soft, quilted and multi-ply products when they use the bathroom … Making toilet paper from virgin wood is a lot worse than driving Hummers in terms of global warming pollution.”

It seems that no matter how many jobs are lost, those who make and clean excrement will be guaranteed jobs.

"The one without a politician's face on it"

New Zealand’s Answer to ….

… Steve Irwin.

More on the ‘Anything you can do, we can do better’ Trans-Tasman rivalry. Here is New Zealand’s ski-surfing, jetboarding, Marlin-fishing wonder.

Read more at http://msn.nzherald.co.nz/section/1501119/story.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=10556772&ref=rss

Maybe he should read the one about the bronze whaler sharks who bit in half a spear-fisherman’s kingfish at idyllic Tawharanui, north of Auckland today.

See http://msn.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10556827

Did you know, by the way, that Russell Crowe is New Zealand’s answer to Russell Crowe?

Die the Good Life

So you want to live the good life, get back to nature, grow organic vegetables and olive plantations? So you want to be green and reduce your carbon footprint and sell excess brocolli at your local farmers’ market? So you want to be away from the polluting city and sit holier-than-thou on your lifestyle block and raise free-range chickens and their eggs? So you think that your bio-organic eco-sustainability is good for anyone but yourself?

Well, here’s news for you. You are now the object of the backlash.

Green is bad in Australia. Here is the logic. People were not meant to live amonst the trees and what in Australia is known as ‘the bush’ (a hard definition for Kiwis, used to dense green pungas, to come to terms with). People who live among the trees do so at their peril. Fire has been around longer than greenies. If you want to live a suicidal lifestyle, go ahead.

Further, those greenies who prevented controlled burn offs of the Victorian bush are as guilty as the arsonists and the Singaporean power companies.

Here is an article that spells it out: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25051341-601,00.html

Go back to the city and stop dreaming.

Smoke gets in your lungs

This is no romantic 30s ballad. One unforeseen consequence of the Victorian bushfires is the fact that as the week has progressed from the so-called Black Saturday to today, a full week on, smoke has been increasingly prevalent in the air. Emerging from an air conditioned concert hall yesterday night, the first thing you are aware of is distant smoke. That log fire smell is homely for an hour or so – pine fragrance, gum burning like aromatherapy. But when you have to breathe it for hours on end without respite, when it is in your house and the city is covered in haze, you think of getting a WW2 gas mask, or a SARS mask, or an aqualung. It’s a little like being a passive smoker in a bar.

This is not a place for asthmatics at the moment, and at university we have to take a special class in dealing with asthmatic students. Not to mention grief counselling.

Everyone’s accepting, patient, stoic. They do not think that the stench of death is there in the city smokes. I think I may have read too many Wildred Owen poems as a teenager.

The country has turned on a spirit of charity that calls to mind the stoicism and pride of WW2. donations flow. Generosity of spirit dominate the gloom. The givers outweight the takers. We will not let these terrorists dampen our spirits. The Telethonic celebrities were out en force to surf the tides of grief. TV’s Ellen, married to an Australian, poured, and Nicole Kidman, more batlike than ever, oozed. People responded with generosity of spirit. The analogy comparing the fires to 9/11 continues implicitly in calling the site where the alleged arsonist started the Churchill fire as Ground Zero. There is a determination that the spirit will overcome.

Nature’s Revenge

I am a member of the generation that stayed out of the water after Jaws in 1976 when it hit Dunedin. The same year, I remember fleeing from Warrington Beach when the shark bell rang. When a fin was sighted, the fiendish bell would jangle and a scene from the movie would be re-entacted. It was wonderful.

Even before Jaws, I loved those eco-distaster movies about the revenge of nature. Of course Godzilla had been meeting the slime creature and other deformed friends for a long, long time, and the Triffids were a literary creation. My friend the Kracken, like many of the movie monsters, had a fascinating long mythology older than the Loch Ness Monster’s, the Yeti’s and Joan Crawford’s Troglodite. Usually the villain was nuclear power or some greedy corporate polluting the waters making freakish monsters (Prophecy), giant ants (Empire of the Ants, perhaps I can list Them!) and Joan Collins’s head-to-neck ratio (also Empire of the Ants). Usually there was a moral and a money shot where the head of the corporate learned the meaning of the literary cliche “the biter bit”.

There were many ferocious feral fables: Day of the Animals, Grizzly, Crater Lake Monster, Frogs, Tentacles, Slither, Ssssss, Venom, Bug, Alligator, The Swarm/ Killer Bees, The Day of the Lupus (bunnies!), Willard and Ben (Michael Jackson was never scarier), latterly plagues like The Reaping and then there were the parodies. Stand up Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. I think I saw Shelley Winters get chomped more than anyone else, and creatures were able to make a meal of the late Shelley post-Poseidon. It’s a long long list of movies, and I loved the ones where people got eaten while naked (Piranha) because it meant the moral was about the evils of skinnydipping and gave rise to those titty slasher movies after Halloween. Aussie, it should be mentioned has Long Weekend in about 1977, and lots of movies about crocodiles; New Zealand has, naturally, Black Sheep. The genre extended to incorporate man made objects like skyscrapers, cars/trucks and rollercoasters, but the money shots were never as gratifying when the terror was a slab of falling concrete.

Nowadays, it’s all come true. First, there was poor iconic much loved Steve Irwin. Now the sharks are hot media property again, chomping their way through swimmers, surfers and pleasure craft users in Australia and New Zealand. We read about it with relish: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10555617 … See also: http://media.theage.com.au/?rid=45757

Nature’s revenge has come true. The Greens were right. It’s not just that people in wesuits look and smell like seals (there was always something fishy about this one). Overfishing and global warming have conspired to bring those prehistoric wonders back to a beach near you.

Get your own revenge at the local fish and chip shop.