Fig 1. Plan overlaid on aerial view.
| Index | Affected Areas | Quick Review | Updated: 20141211 |
I thought I already had enough life problems, but then along come a bunch of armchair 'town planners', local government meddlers and selfish money-centered amoral property developers, and suddenly my home and all my hopes and ambitions are at risk of being destroyed. That's what the Bankstown Council's plan for the East Hills area means for me.
My home is right in the middle of an area the council proposes to change from its present 1 & 2 storey residential use, to 4-storey 'high density' residential. The usual methods will be used to force existing owners to sell and leave, yet no realistic sale price can possibly compensate me for the losses involved. Most affected residents will suffer similar loss.
Council's plan will ruin many lives. For reasons that are deeply flawed and dishonest, as I will show.
My response to Council: No. Absolutely no. I take this proposal as a literal declaration of war; an outright direct assault on my person, rights and property. Developers are already employing underhanded tactics to maximize their profit by the Council's planning changes. For instance the deliberate tormenting of two large dogs, for a year, intentionally to cause extreme noise nuisance to neighbouring homeowners. This is actual assault, enabled by and as a direct result of Council's actions. Only a fool would expect anything but an escalation of such tactics.
The plans are reminiscent of a forced population relocation order one would expect from a Communist dictatorship. Only dressed up in sensitive-sounding verbage and executed under colour of law.
Of the four area plans published by the council, I'll confine my detailed review to the South West one, and the East Hills area specifically. Since that's where I live. However I'll also comment on the wider socio-political context of these plans, and their underlying assumptions.
For a timeline and original documents see: Bankstown Council's planning evolution and documents.
The first I heard of these plans was in October 2014. Production of the Local Area Plans turns out to have been in the works since at least 2011. There were substantial 'Issues Papers' already prepared in April 2013, and quoting from those: "Early in 2011, Council asked the community what kind of a city they wanted to live in. This resulted in the Community Plan 2021." After looking into the origins (see timeline), it turns out the whole process began back in 2005.
It's disturbing to learn the Council has been working for over eight years to destroy the peace, homes and futures of many hundreds of their constituents, without making any realistic effort to inform the affected residents. The potentially benefitting developers knew from an early stage, of course. So much money to be made! Am I supposed to believe none of that found it's way to Council officers and elected representatives? The huge effort and costs of working up these plans was all done for altruistic and selfless reasons?
Ha ha, as if.
Here's their idea of a good thing for East Hills.
Fig 1. Plan overlaid on aerial view.
All the affected area is currently 2-storey. The blue area is commercial, but there are some residences above shops. In at least two cases the residents are families who own the property and run a shop, so those people will be losing their home and livelihood too. Apart from that small commercial group the entire area is standard suburbia.
The red shaded area comprises 12 blocks, all of which are currently 1 and 2 storey single residential homes. I think only 3 of those are rentals, ie the other 9 are all long term home owners like me. Some of the buildings are older, some are quite new. All 12 are to be destroyed and replaced with 4 storey high density housing. My home is in the red area. We bought and lived here since 1987, and built a large new home in 2000. Why don't you just paint a target on us and bomb from the air? Would save you a lot of trouble.
There are also approximately 80 blocks shown yellow, for "medium density residential" with a 3 story limit. For the existing residents that's as much of an eviction notice as for the red area. All those 1 and 2 storey houses will be sought by developers to be demolished and replaced with higher, denser structures. There'll be underhanded pressure from developers to sell, and anyone who resists will eventually find themselves surrounded by high unit blocks. And trapped since by then they'll have little possibility to sell. A single block isn't very attractive for developers, and no one else would want to buy such a hemmed-in block.
The curve of Georges River isolates East Hills on three of four quadrants, which means any shops in East Hills inevitably can have only 1/4 of the surrounding residential customer base expected in more geographically homogenous suburbia. In fact the fraction is even less than that, since the large shopping precincts of Panania and Revesby are close by, and literally everyone nearby will preferentially shop at Panania or Revesby.
The result is that East Hills is a 'suburb' in name only, and probably wouldn't even exist as a named entity if there wasn't an East Hills train station. Even that station really only exists because the train line used to end there, before there was a rail bridge over the river. The rail line is called the 'East Hills' line for the same reason — that used to be the last station on the line.
To illustrate, consider the relative magnitudes of urban areas along the 'East Hills' train line.
Fig 2. Relative sizes of urban vs commercial (gray) centers (in Council's dreams.)
There's no arguing with that curve of the river, making East Hills an isolated bump that will always and inevitably be 'small'. Council's glorious plan for East Hills is a recipee for urban blight - a cluster of unpleasant high rise residences, with a dead heart of failed retail shops. Colouring an area of a map blue and calling it 'mixed use', isn't going to make it commercially viable to operate shops there. Some may try, but they will experience the same fate as most of the other enterprises that tried to operate here - they'll go broke, leaving empty structures.
East Hills can barely support one pub, one small hamburger shop, a struggling news agent, a small chemist (who survives only due to all the pensioners who get their prescriptions there after seeing the local doctor), a tiny bottle shop, a hairdresser, a very low turnover petrol station and tyre service business, and a Chinese restaurant that amazes me it can stay open despite rarely seeming to have any customers. Oh, and old Fred who operates a kind of junk shop for something to do and people to talk to.
How many extra family incomes can this planned relatively small grouping of high and medium density housing bring to the immediate area? A couple of hundred?
It won't be enough to make the East Hills commercial area viable. For that you need kilometers of continuous housing on all sides. So you'll be placing a couple of hundred people in an area that still won't have close-by shopping facilities. Just a train station.
In 2000 we built a large new home on the block, replacing the small old weatherboard cottage. I had also owner-built with my own hands that studio I'd dreamed of all my life, then later added an adjacent storage shed, also by myself. All three buildings (house, workshop and shed) involved a great investment of time, effort and money, with initial cost, fitting out, and so on. The property is what real-estate types would consider heavily over capitalized, because we weren't building something to sell for a profit, we were building for our own utility and enjoyment for the remaining several decades of our lives.
There were some unfortunate marital, health and family needs issues over the years, that greatly slowed progress. Much of the planned work is still unfinished, with the front yard landscaping in particular having been pushed to the bottom of the workorder list. But overall my workshop/studio is finally approaching the state I wanted it, where I could anticipate beginning the works intended to keep me occupied during my retirement. Things I've been looking forward to all of my life; of at last having the necessary time and facility. Bankstown Council, your timing is extraordinarily bad.
Ordinary people like myself make life-changing land purchase decisions based on what common sense and the zoning regulations say about how the surroundings will remain for the rest of their lives. A house is a major investment for most people, not just of money, but in lifetime years and effort. What's the point of having building regulations and usage zonings if they can be changed on a whim, in ways that utterly destroy the expectations of homeowners? If a homeowner ignores zoning rules, they can expect to be stomped on quickly and heavily. However if Council wants to 'ignore zoning rules', they can. By rewriting them as they please. What is a crime for little people, is a profit opportunity for the rich and powerful, eh?
When someone places trust in the constancy and fairness of the Rule of Law, and makes the major life commitment and financial sacrifices involved in buying a property to live and eventually retire on, then expends years of effort more to create facilities in support of their personal creative ambitions, they have a right to expect that no one is going to suddenly destroy everything they've worked for, and the ability to enjoy their home, by autocratic decision to convert the surrounding properties into 4 story high horrors.
Not to mention the inevitable campaign of dirty tricks from developers to 'encourage' selling and moving out. Don't even bother to pretend this doesn't happen. It's clearly already happening here, and has been for a year.
Then there's the Land Rates issue. You know perfectly well that rezoning will hugely inflate the government's land valuations in the affected area, and therefore Rates will inevitably rise. To levels untenable and impossible for existing resident families, thus forcing them to move.
This is outright extortion and demanding money with menaces.
Criminal acts performed under colour of law.
Bankstown Council's Plan with its massive zoning changes is effectively a declaration of war on all who live here, and that is how I take it.
If laws can now be changed by the powerful to suit their whims (based on profit, with a fake pretense of due process), then the Rule of Law is dead. Events in some other countries over the last several years have demonstrated that the Rule of Law has already died there, but I wasn't expecting to personally suffer it here in Australia so soon.
You do understand the inevitable result of allowing the Rule of Law to visibly fail, don't you? If not, I suggest you read some history.
If I had to move soon, it's essential to move somewhere equally close to her home. However she lives in Oatley, and land prices there utterly exclude me from that market, especially with only half of the sale price of my home.
The only place I could buy a large enough block of land to replace my workshops would be far away - out in the country somewhere. When relocating I'd have to move to such a place immediately, due to the volume of my technical equipment. Temporary storage is not an option.
If forced to move, I would absolutely choose to get out of the 'suburban hell', where one is hostage to the vagaries of noisy, inconsiderate neighbors, their barking dogs (deliberate or not), crap loud music, etc. Not to mention tiny average urban block sizes, or Councils and very restrictive building regulations they enforce when it suits them, or radically change when it suits them.
But I can't do that any time in the near future, due to absolutely having to live in short driving distance from Oatley.
You see there is a real bind there. Yet another way in which Bankstown Council's timing is a disaster for me.
So:
To those involved in this so-called 'Plan', I despise and loathe you. To me this is not a commonplace financial proposition, and I'm not interested in whatever you'd consider a 'normal offer price.' The price for you is $10 million dollars. An amount in proportion to the total sale prices of the planned high residential properties on these few blocks. But more importantly to me, in consideration of the hardship, stress, disruption, loss of years of lifetime, great difficulty and costs of establishing an equivalent replacement home and workshop. You shall not profit from your crimes, and I will not suffer loss due to your greed.
If you insist to build high density housing here, you'll do it purely for whatever faulty ideological crap you believe in, not for profit at my expense. You will not profit by this!
On a typical 400 sq meter block, the allowed limit of 70 sqm outbuilding(s) covers 17.5% of the total area. At 10.9% we're well below that. Note that we pay rates based on the large size of the land, but if we wanted to utilize it with structures up to the normally accepted area cover percentage limit, Council would flatly refuse. It was a struggle even to get approval for the storage shed that raised cover ratio to 10.9%. At the time I thought they were swayed by arguments of fairness, but now I believe I was mistaken. That was in 2005, so considering the timeline it's possible at least some of the councilors felt it didn't matter since within a decade it would all be redeveloped anyway.
It's quite a Communist attitude isn't it? If you're an individual and happen to own a sizable portion of land, through your own foresight and expense, the Council refuses you the right to make much use of it. But if they decide that land should be used in some way that benefits them, then they'll force you out with a stroke of a pen.
Fairness does not enter into Council's considerations. They'll pretend to be acting for 'social good', but it's a sham. All they really care about is money. If they see potential for higher rates, fees and kickbacks, then suddenly massive development, cutting down all the trees, and covering most of the land with hi-rise structures is A-OK with them.
Fig 3. Oh my god, you must keep the building coverage to a minimum!
They are petty too — when seeking building approval for the garage (my studio) at the rear, Council trimmed the permitted building length by a half meter. The adjustment was claimed to be "to keep the area under 70 sq m". Only after building it, did we discover that the 70 sq m limit actually refers to internal floor area, NOT the total footprint area to the outer faces of the walls. The original plan comprised less than 70 sq m internal, so there was no justification for cutting that length off the building. Of course the planning approvals officer would have known that, so they lied, in a very petty way, just to mess us around. It caused major problems for the internal layout, but what did they care?
Do you see the point? Council planning approvals officers lied, to reduce a 70 sq m building footprint by about 3 square meters on a 1200 sq meter block. The pretense of 'concern for land cover precentage' was an absurdity even then. But now, just 16 years later, they propose to cover the entire area for blocks around, almost completely in brick and concrete, all 4 storey high density buildings. What a bunch of hypocritical self-serving bastards.
This one thing alone demonstrates that all the 'environmental sensitivity' platitudes the council utters, are utterly cynical lying bullshit. Stuff they say when it suits them, but as soon as profit enters the equation all such concerns evaporate.
I also refuse to believe there is no personal profit motive involved. The developers circling like buzzards have known about these planning changes for years. There is precisely zero practical chance that money didn't change hands between developers and councilors, for 'inside track' information and influence.
For instance the development application for townhouses behind the house on cnr Broe & Maclaurin, passed without notification of the owner of that corner house. Oh, that was an accidental oversight was it? The development was later stopped, supposedly on discovery of that 'oversight'. But more likely due to not being monstrous enough to suit the proposed new zoning height limit.
It's also terrible that aged people should be expected to spend their declining years cooped up in little boxes, with no yard of their own to sit and enjoy trees, grass and a bit of garden of their own. The whole philosphy and mindset of this 'must pack everyone in tighter' policy makes me sick. I consider the entire 'we need more people in Australia, oh but now we need to pack people in tighter' to be very foolish and shortsighted.
To me, a home with a good amount of open space with trees like I have with my lot at #5, is an essential ingredient of life. I flatly refuse to live in a tiny box packed in among other boxes. This is why I bought this lot originally. These blocks are becoming rare in suburban Sydney now, and eliminating more of the few remaining ones is NOT a good idea.
Because they think it's a great idea to cluster as many residential units as possible, very close to train stations. Superficially, it may seem like a good idea to place high density housing right next to train stations. So convenient and efficient, right?
But to anyone who's actually lived near a station there's an obvious flaw with this idea. Noise. The train noise is considerable, but that's not the major problem. What's really irritating is the public address systems on stations, which constantly make schedule announcements. These days there's also the many 'public safety and security reminders' bullshit, that is extra annoying on so many levels. Not to mention the train door opening and closing beeping.
If you want to see people going berserk, just subject a lot of them constantly to this innanity at the loud volume of station PAs. High density multi-storey housing close by train stations is not a good idea. In short walking distance from stations, yes. Right beside them - no. It's a stupid and shallow notion. As with so much else in these Plans.
As mentioned here and detailed here, there seems to be a correlation between ownership of properties in and near the 'red area', with the cruel mistreatment of large dogs. It's fair to suspect the intent is to deliberately create severe noise nuisance for neighbouring homeowners.
In the early years of my residence in East Hills, from 1987 to the early 90s, all the land highlighted in orange above was fairly natural bushland along the riverside. I'd quite often go for walks over the footbridge at the top of the picture, then walk South along the riverbank to Pleasure Point, or cross Heathcote Rd into the army firing range to the South of the road. All that orange highlight area was public land (under Liverpool Council jurisdiction) and zoned as riverside recreational natural bushland.
Then in the early 90s, Liverpool Council for some reason suddenly put that entire highlighted area up for sale, and it sold with a single bid, of (so I'm told) $100,000.
How many hundreds of acres is that? In 1987 I'd paid $101,000 for 1,220 square meters of land about 400 meters away on the other side of the river. Wow, what a great deal that guy got! How lucky for him!
But his luck didn't end there! He submitted a development application to Liverpool Council, for "one small cottage and to keep some goats". It was approved. He then promptly cleared almost the entire property (see pic above) of all trees, and constructed a really vast concrete mansion. The 'small cottage' itself is bigger than my entire land. It has a heliport on the roof, complete with hangar. The property boundary was fully enclosed with a chain mesh fence, and multiple dobermans set to roam the place as 'watchdogs'. There's camera security on the entrance gate. Very large piles of earth and building rubble began to accumulate across the site. For years (and still sometimes today) there was incessant heavy earth moving machinery noise, together with seemingly always at least one heavy vehicle backing up, with the loud "beeep, beeep, beeep..." such vehicles make while in reverse. Not to mention the helicopter coming and going at random times.
Well that didn't quite conform to the development approval, did it? But did anything happen? Was he required to remove the non-conforming structure, like anyone else would be? Fined for cutting down (hundreds of) large trees without approval? Nope!
Instead he later went ahead and built three more huge trucking warehouses at the Western end of the site.
It used to be that from the riverside park on the East Hills side, the river view was of natural bushland. It was another factor in our decision to buy here. Thanks Liverpool Council! Good job.
I've heard the guy who owns that property (which I'd consider to have been corruptly stolen from the people, since it was supposed to be public parkland), runs a trucking company that has had a great deal of legal trouble. Given that and the circumstances of his acquiring that property, it would be fair to guess he's a criminal, who just hasn't yet been caught in something serious enough to overcome his protective crony network.
I'm told he's the same person who recently bought the East Hills pub. So, Bankstown Council, are you attempting to best Liverpool Council's blatent record-breaking corruption effort? You may well succeed. A rezoning plan like yours, affecting hundreds of properties across the entire Bankstown area, is sure to attract enough criminal interest to make a solid try for a new record in bribes taken.
Or maybe... there wasn't actually any such attempt. Just the developer-owner instructing the 'tennant' (his employee) to report an attempt. Just a thought.
As I mentioned, over the next few days there were two more police visits to make much the same kind of warning — lots of local crime recently, be careful, lock doors and windows, etc. Hmm... all of a sudden, eh?
Then on Monday morning (from my notes of 20141124): I went to the shop next to the pub to get milk about 11.30am this morning. Lots of police cars around, and it turned out the pub had just been held up by four armed guys, who took off in a blue car (according to Fred.) Also according to him, the pub always sends their cash off to the bank around 10am on Monday morning. So lucky for them to be robbed just after all the cash is gone. Pretty silly robbers, not knowing that. OR... whoever set it up wanted it that way - a robbery for the statistics and scaring the locals, but no real disruption of the pub's cashflow. The pub having been bought by one of the developers wanting to buy more properties nearby. (Same guy who owns the 'heli-port mansion' across the river, thanks to massive corruption in Liverpool council.)
Well. If you're a developer and a criminal, I guess an obvious way to add more pressure on residents would be to encourage your criminal associates to get busy in the area.
For example a country property, which a developer spots and decides he wants to have it to build high density housing. He may or may not bother to make an initial offer to the landowner, who anyway would usually tell the developer to go take a hike.
The developer approaches the local council, with a plan for the block showing how many houses he can put on it. His plan will include construction of all required services - power, water, sewage, roads, etc. Those won't cost the council or utilities anything. On the other hand the council will get a lot more income from rates and fees. Plus you know, something from the developer for their personal attention.
So the council rezones the land. Then up the rates dramatically, based on the valuation as if there were actually houses on the land.
The landowner can't or won't pay. He starts accumulating council fines.
The council knows exactly what the landowner owes them, and likely they also know all his other
financial details. They pass all this information to the developer.
The developer then makes an offer to the landowner, knowing he's in debt and going under, and how much he owes. The offer will typically be even less than the original offer (if any.)
Fairly rapidly the developer wins, and gets the land. The original landowner is ruined, if he didn't already commit suicide or something.
This scenario is common, in fact the usual case. And it repeats over and over because we Australians have
way too much trust in authority, and also are generally peaceable types. No one ever takes more direct
action such as slitting the developer's throat, burning down the local council offices, etc. Because that would
be un-Australian, right? You shouldn't take the law into your own hands, right?
Never mind that the law is already firmly in the hands of those who would rape and destroy you.
Fig 6. Things they don't mention.
Anyway, point is they were seriously intending to subdivide it. Such environmentally sensitive types.
At the SE corner there's also a big field that used to be run by a vegetable farmer, but that ended long ago. Now it's an abandoned field inside a fence growing only weeds, with a derelict old building in the center. No sign of any plans for this.
At the NE corner there's a large works depot used by the M5 expressway operating company.
The entire East Hills redevelopment would easily fit in this Area B, displacing precisely zero existing homeowners.
In the South West Local Area plan there's a one page mention of Kelso Tip, on page 67. Can be summarised as:
You'll notice I overlaid a copy of the East Hills rezoning area (blue, yellow and red on their plan) onto the Kelso Tip area, at the same scale. This gives an idea of the relative area of the tip vs the East Hills plan.
The only thing they truly care about is money, and maximising the amount of it channelled into their own pockets. That can be best achieved by creating situations in which developers need to 'influence' Council, and the larger the potential developer profits if their 'influence' is successful, the better for both of them.
Never mind if that process causes hardship and destruction for hundreds of existing Bankstown residents.
In contrast, the idea of investigating whether a huge open space like Kelso tip could be converted to high density housing, without disruption to anyone at all since no one now lives there, is never mentioned. Why? Because there's much less potential for such a proposal to generate brown envelope cashflow. Council sells surplus land to developers, who build apartments. Where's the kickback in that?
There are actually some reasonably strong advantages to allocating the former Bankstown Tip to high density housing.
See An Alternative Proposal.
It is outrageous and unacceptable that they can do this to existing residents, when they know who and where we are, but they can hide behind anonymity. It's the literal equivalent of being physically assaulted by an invisible ghost. It is utterly unjust. If Bankstown Council refuses to reveal this information, it is siding with and enabling those doing the assaulting, which makes the council one of the assailants.
By protecting the identities of owners of #3 Maclaurin Ave and #653 Henry Lawson Drive, Bankstown Council is also protecting those responsible for contriving the continual torment of two dogs, for a year.
I suggest at the next Bankstown council elections, those who supported the redevelopment should be voted out of office, regardless of their party or record on other issues. The entire development proposal across the Bankstown area is intrinsically hostile to the interests of existing residents. The plan is encouraging involvement of criminal and quasi-legal activities. Councilors who supported it have shown themselves unworthy of office, and any such support should be punished via the ballot box.
Furthermore, given the political context in which this push for ever greater housing density exists, the underlying rationale for the plan is vacuous and without logical merit. Australia's population does not naturally increase 'by itself', but only due to Federal Government policy on immigration. It is entirely a choice. The entire housing squeeze is an artificial and deliberate product of extremely unsound goverment policy, motivated fundamentally by personal profit but shrouded in ideological terminology.
Frankly, this guy and his autocratic, detached attitude reminded me of some kind of Communist official, casually handing down directives certain to cause massive suffering, couched in ridiculous double-speak, while being totally oblivious and uncaring of the disastrous effects on 'the peasants.' He is what I meant by 'armchair town planners'.
In other times and places such a person might end up with his head on a pike, or find himself hanging from a lamp post, or standing in front of a firing squad. A fully justified fate too, in my opinion.
Anyway, here are a few views of the homes of people whose lives Bankstown Council will ruin. All these homes will be bulldozed, in conformance with the Glorious Golden Future Plan. Some of these people may be happy with the money they receive for selling their home, but I expect most will not be. Putting someone in a position where they have to sell whether they like it or not, is coercion. By passing these rezonings, you are forcing people to sell, and don't pretend to yourselves that isn't so. Everyone in the affected area is going to experience both a gradual winding up of underhanded tactics to 'encourage' them to sell, and should also be aware that there is a time limit on this 'wonderful offer'. Those who don't sell soon enough to please the developers will suffer a horrible living environment, greatly reduced potential sale prices in future, and yet untenably high land rates. There's going to be a lot of suffering and loss caused by your 'Plan.'
Look at these pictures, you miserable Council shits, and contemplate the evil you are doing. Each one of these shows multiple family homes, and every home in these photos will be destroyed. By you. These are all in the East Hills rezoning area. They are just a very few of the hundreds of homes across Bankstown you're destroying. Were the bribes worth it? What gives you the right, you goddamned psychopaths?
Click on the thumbnails and look at them!
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We don't want your stupid rezoning plan, or your 'green streets' meddling, or your armchair town planners with their repulsive mentalities and tedious pages of waffle, or your criminal crony developers and their obnoxious standover tactics, or your exploding land rates extortion. Please go away and leave us alone. Preferably, go away and kill yourselves. Make a positive personal contribution to the population pressure issue.
These assumptions are deeply flawed.
To see why, I'm afraid we're going to have to look at a few graphs and numbers. I know, boring. Just bear in mind these numbers are supposed to be justification for planning abominations resulting in thousands of ordinary people across Sydney (and probably in other cities) being forced to lose their homes. You'd think the numbers had better stand up to scrutiny. (Spoiler: they don't.)
First let's consider the 'continued population rise'.
| ABS | Australian Bureau of Statistics. http://www.abs.gov.au |
| NOM | "Net Overseas Migration", ie the difference between number of people leaving and coming in. Currently it's always a positive number, with more arriving than leaving. |
| TFR | "Total Fertility Rate" The number of births per female. |
| Replacement Level | The number of births per female required to sustain a fixed population. |
| Natural Increase | Rate at which population grows; the net of births minus deaths) |
The Replacement Level for Australia would be 2.1 [ref 6, pg 12, Trends in the total fertility rate]
Fig 8.
Actual TFR for Australia is currently around 1.9 and has been below replacement level since 1975.
[ref 6, pg 12, Trends in the total fertility rate]
If that was the only factor, Australian population should be nearly static or falling slowly.
Fig 9. Curiously, this graph from [2] shows Australia's population natural increase as a near-constant around 40,000 per year. How can that be, with a TFR below replacement level, where it's been for over three decades and is likely to remain indefinitely?
Also note that the gray line is a remarkably constant value over the 4 years shown, considering all the other variations. Why?
Both those questions lead to the subject of immigration policy.
Fig 10.
Those sources contain quite a lot about immigration; past and projected future numbers. Here's another graph from [ref 6, pg 25, Net Overseas Migration.]
But wait, what? Here the Natural Increase is shown hovering around 150,000 per year. Eh?
Remember that these are all from the ABS. They are official government figures. So one must wonder, what is it with these 'natural increase' graphs? Why don't they make sense? Fig 9 was at 40,000 over 2010 to 2014; now Fig 10 shows it around 150,000 from 1982 to 2012. An overlapping interval, yet huge discrepancy in the number. And either one is remarkable, given a TFR below 1.9 since 1975!
The ABS document Population Projections [6] presents three 'series', based on high, medium and low assumptions of future NOM. These values are:
Fig 11. That really stands out here, doesn't it? [ref 6, pg 26, Observed and assumed net overseas migration]
"We're going to do three projections, all assuming barely any significant change. After all, it's government policy! Why would that ever change? Or anything happen in Australian politics or the wider world that caused a sudden change. Couldn't happen! Never mind that it did change massively a few years before."
There must be a sign at the entrance to the ABS offices:
Thou shalt not question the government's immigration policy! Or even hint that it could be questioned.
But I was still searching for where that mysteriously high (40K or 150K) natural rate of increase comes from. I read comments here and there that it's due to 'past sharp population increases, leading to larger numbers of relatively young women.' OK.... but with TFR having been below replacement level since 1975, surely that argument is wearing thin by now? And why are the natural increase graphs so flat?
Also, really, how would we know if the ABS graphs of persistent natural increase are factual, as opposed to (say) just made up to pretend less increase is due to immigration? If so then apparently they should try harder to avoid making up inconsistent values.
Population Projections [6. pg 3 & 9] lists three projections of TFR:
Fig 12. For instance, on [6, pg 37] there's this, in which the 'natural increase' factor for Series C falls below zero.
Oh god, the horror! But never fear! Quote: "In Series C natural increase [goes negative] Despite this, Australia's population is projected to continue to increase, as the assumed level of net overseas migration in Series C (200,000 people per year) outweighs losses in population due to natural decrease."
<sarcasm>NOM saves the day!</sarcasm>
It's becoming clear that in government minds the idea of stable or slightly falling population is a terrible thing. Let's leave why that might be till later.
For now there's still the mystery of where the natural increase comes from. You'd think the ABS would explain that clearly somewhere, or perhaps I'm missing it. Let's look elsewhere...
Fig 13. At this interactive Flash animation:
Population pyramid. Via the ABS website.
(Or click the image. Requires Flash.)
If you don't have Flash, see the core graphic as an
animated GIF (800KB). Blue=male, red=female.
In this graph, as an age group rises upwards the only way for the numbers of that generation to expand (ie grow horizontally) is if more people of that age are added from an external source. (ie immigrants.)
From the 1970s through to the 1990, that's what we see — relatively stable numbers in each age group as they age, until they enter the years of increasing mortality.
Then around 2006, the mid-20s age group suddenly starts bulging outwards. You can see it best in the Flash interactive, by running the slider back and forth around that time.
This bulge corresponds to the large spike in immigration from around 150,000pa, to 300,000pa over the 2006-2009 interval. (See Fig 12.) So it appears most of those immigrants were in the 20 to 30 age range.
But notice down at the bottom — as soon as that 20-30 age bump starts growing, signifying lots of immigration in that age range, there's also another bump appearing at the births line. The two matched bumps are very clearly formed by 2014. After that the graph is a projection, so not necessarily anything like what will eventuate.
So that's it? There's a small bump in the TFR around that time (Fig 8) but it doesn't seem enough to create that sudden large increase in births. More like an effect than a cause. Seems like new arrivals all decided to have children soon after arriving, and because there was a surge of new arrivals then, the result was very noticeable in the birth stats.
And there's the answer to the question 'where does the natural increase come from?' It's because new arrivals are predominantly in childbearing age, and they then have children. Which births are then counted as natural increase.
The unexplained positive 'natural increase' figure is a direct consequence of immigration and nothing else. Immigration is solely responsible for the rising population, and if reduced greatly, would quickly result in Australia arriving at a stable or slowly falling population.
That the ABS presents two radically different figures for natural growth (40,000 and 150,000) and the graphs for both are so stable, makes me wonder about 'lies, damned lies and statistics'. Which value is correct? Or are they both lies? Is one right, and stable because the government is regulating immigration permits to achieve a fairly stable natural increase rate? But why? Surely the total population growth rate is more important to keep stable? Since that's the number that guides requirements for infrastructure, housing, jobs, etc.
In any case, the point is that immigration totally rules Australian population growth. Without immigration, population would rapidly stabilize, possibly with a slight downward trend. Immigration is deliberately used to boost population, and regulated to achieve target values. It's entirely a policy choice whether to achieve rising, stable or falling population. A choice many countries do not have, but surely wish they did.
That leaves Motive. In politics, that involves the pretended justification, the actual motives, and whether the electorate can be convinced to accept the pretended reasons are valid and not think about the real motives (thus maintaining 'opportunity'.)
Exactly why is the Federal government setting NOM (immigration) at such high values, that it's felt necessary to ruin hundreds of peoples lives in each the the local council municipalities across Sydney (and probably other cities) to create denser housing to fit in the increased population?
A few examples of major closures: Caltex refinery at Kurnell, copper refinery in Wollongong, Newcastle steel industry, Wallerawang power station, Kurri Kurri aluminium smelter, Alcoa, Kandos cement works, Ford, Holden, Shell refinery at Rose Hill, Electrolux, Bunnerong refinery, Coalcliff and Corrimal cokeworks, only one blast furnace left at Port Kembla, every industrial estate with many closed businesses...
Google 'australian industrial decline'
Besides, Australia used to manage perfectly well educating/training all the skilled workers it needed. Pretending you can sustain a country by 'importing the skills', is stupid, an admission of failure, and the kind of cheating defeatist attitude that guarantees the country is f*cked anyway.
| Australia | 23,698,757 |
| Netherlands | 16,892,000 |
| Sweden | 9,757,000 |
| Austria | 8,587,000 |
| Switzerland | 8,219,000 |
| Denmark | 5,662,000 |
| Norway | 5,172,000 |
| Ireland | 4,622,000 |
| Australia | 23,698,757 |
| China | 1,367,451,000 |
| Indonesia | 253,696,000 |
| Japan | 127,067,000 |
| Philippines | 101,895,000 |
Also, it must be pointed out that an age distribution skewed towards old people is a problem that fades away naturally in less than three decades (I'm allowed to say this because I'm in that demographic.) In contrast, overall population exceeding resource limits is a problem that does not just fade away quietly. It creates numerous serious side effects.
This is the Law of Unintended Consequences. Finding it necessary to evict thousands of people from their homes, as part of a grand social engineering plan to redistribute housing space resources, is just one example of the unintended consequences. Even that one alone will be the start of a cascade of undesirable side effects, because don't think you can utterly piss off so many people, destroying their homes and lives, without repercussions. This will come back to haunt you. Not just via the disillusioned people from this first 'round', but by creating a precedent of massive urban theft and extortion, shattering everyone's faith in reasonable expectations of zoning stability, and so on. You're making a public show of being willing to commit massive injustice, on the middle class, the stable home owners. That has an effect. In all of society, these are the people you should most avoid pissing off. (Hey, unless you are following Marxist doctrine, in which case that's exactly what you'd want to do.)
Also, by enabling an orgy of quasi-criminal activity among developers, you create another whole category of future problems. Once they are done with this phase, do you think these people are going to just quit and mind their own business the rest of their lives? No. They'll have an appetite for massive urban 'rebuilds' by whatever means, and there's going to be a trail of woe from that. It's the kind of thing that leads to real social unrest. I thought the idea was to make things easier for the pensioners? Instead these actions head society in a direction that isn't going to be comfortable for anyone, and certainly not for poor old pensioners.
Of course if you want to kick away several of the foundation pillars of stable Australian society, then this is how you do it.
So it is with high immigration — to truly understand why it exists you only have to look at who benefits financially.
What would happen if Australia's population was stable or slowly falling? Why, house and land prices would be dramatically lower. Far, far lower than now, because high prices cannot be maintained against a market surplus. Ordinary people would easily be able to afford to own homes, and many would simply inherit a home.
What's something that most politicians have in common? A: they are mostly pretty wealthy. And a lot of their assets tend to be real estate. Their mates and major donors are also heavily involved in real estate investment.
Simple isn't it? The government maintains immigration at levels as high as it can electorally get away with, because doing so keeps the housing market tight, and that keeps the prices going up. Which directly benefits the pockets of most politicians.
Never mind that this is a huge conflict of interest — the national wellbeing of Australia and Australians, vs the personal asset spreadsheets of the politicians. Yet so long as they can convince people that high immigration is for the pretended 'other reasons', no one will do anything about it.
Another group vehemently opposed to lowering immigration, is the banking/investment class. With a stable/slowly declining population, these people would be very unhappy about the loss of return on their present real estate investments. Also in general upset about losing a lucrative field of investment (non-productive speculation actually.) They would do anything to avoid such losses. But then we were just mentioning bribery of politicians, weren't we?
This is another of the choices that sort wise governments from rapacious Elitists. Should real estate exist to satisfy the housing and productive needs of the people, or is it better used as a medium of financial speculation to serve the greed of the already wealthy?
At present in Australia it is very much the latter. By deliberate choice, implemented at root via the Federal Government's high-rate immigration policy, executed at local level by toadying bureaucrats like Bankstown Council, and fully supported by developers with no moral qualms about how many people's lives they ruin.
It will be interesting to see if the situation changes, now it's come to throwing thousands of people out of their homes on the blatently false pretext that 'population increase demands it'.
Plans like these are going to be tried on in similar form across Sydney and probably in other cities as well, since they originate from State Government initiatives which in turn are likely responding to Federal Government directives.
I hope the public are sufficiently shaken awake and shocked on seeing these plans, to finally put an end to the whole massive immigration policy bullshit. And everything that derives from it.
But I'm not confident it will. Australia is renowned for its apathy.
Instead I'm fairly sure I'll lose my own home. Directly due to a Federal Government policy I always knew was completely insane and a betrayal of all Australians, but thought would never cause me any direct personal harm.
Wrong.
When looking into issues of real world vs flawed beliefs, it's important to consider why flawed beliefs occur.
Unfortunately many people are a lot less rational than they give themselves credit for. There are common logical errors all of us are instinctively prone to, called Cognitive Biases. There's a long list of well known Cognitive Biases. It takes determined effort to avoid these errors, if one wishes to at least try to think more clearly.
One of the innate human cognitive biases, in this case a fundamental instinct, is a conviction that increasing population is always a good thing. But just because evolutionary psychology makes us want something, as 'good for the tribe', doesn't mean it's appropriate in today's world.
A recent Australian review of the 1972 work Limits to Growth has underlined that there are limits, and we are straining them.
Limits to Growth was right. New research shows we're nearing collapse
The study (PDF 2MB)
Continuing to raise Australia's population without regard to sustainable environmental limits is very unwise. Even if everything seems to be going swell, walking closer and closer to limits is asking for trouble. If there's any way at all to keep safety margin, it's best to do so. Because unexpected things happen.
These are fairly unsafe foundations. They are demonstrations of a common thinking error known as Normalcy Bias. The title of this section refers to the farcical characterization of normalcy bias as "I have only seen white swans, therefore all swans are white." This reasoning works until you encounter a black swan.
Here are a few potential Black Swan events that may occur (some would say certainly will.) Any one alone will utterly invalidate the foundation assumptions of the Plans. All are global developments, over which Australia has zero control.
There's no sign that the planners even conceived of any of these. Which is another sign these people should not be having anything to do with social forcasting and manipulation of other people's lives. They are very ignorant.
| Date | Infected | Dead |
| Mar, 2014 | 104 | 62 |
| Apr, 2014 | 194 | 116 |
| May, 2014 | 360 | 216 |
| Jun, 2014 | 670 | 402 |
| Jul, 2014 | 1,247 | 748 |
| Aug, 2014 | 2,319 | 1,391 |
| Sep, 2014 | 4,313 | 2,588 |
| Oct, 2014 | 8,022 | 4,813 |
| Nov, 2014 | 14,921 | 8,953 <---- We are here. Real figures likely higher. |
| Dec, 2014 | 27,753 | 16,652 |
| Jan, 2015 | 51,621 | 30,973 |
| Feb, 2015 | 96,016 | 57,610 |
| Mar, 2015 | 178,590 | 107,154 |
| Apr, 2015 | 332,177 | 199,306 |
| May, 2015 | 617,849 | 370,709 |
| Jun, 2015 | 1,149,199 | 689,519 |
| Jul, 2015 | 2,137,510 | 1,282,506 |
| Aug, 2015 | 3,975,768 | 2,385,461 |
| Sep, 2015 | 7,394,928 | 4,436,957 |
| Oct, 2015 | 13,754,567 | 8,252,740 |
| Nov, 2015 | 25,583,494 | 15,350,096 |
| Dec, 2015 | 47,585,299 | 28,551,179 |
| Jan, 2016 | 88,508,656 | 53,105,193 |
| Feb, 2016 | 164,626,099 | 98,775,660 |
| Mar, 2016 | 306,204,545 | 183,722,727 |
| Apr, 2016 | 569,540,453 | 341,724,272 |
| May, 2016 | 1,059,345,243 | 635,607,146 |
| Jun, 2016 | 1,970,382,153 | 1,182,229,292 |
| Jul, 2016 | 3,664,910,804 | 2,198,946,482 |
| Aug, 2016 | 6,816,734,096 | 4,090,040,457 |
20141130
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/29/ebola-infections-west-africa-16000
The number of people with Ebola in west Africa has risen above 16,000, with the death toll from the outbreak reaching almost 7,000, the World Health Organisation (WHO) says. WHO warns figures may be significant underestimation.
Note: current world population is around 7,000,000,000
If Ebola is still going strong into late 2015 the figures will accellerate due to systemic social breakdowns.
There've been a series of close calls with pandemics lately. Now plague (the black death) has broken out again in Madagascar. This kind of stuff is going to keep happening. Seven billion people on Earth, playing Russian Roulette.
I'd say development plans based on an assumed 20 year continuation of population pressure in Australia, are probably unsound. Even if Ebola does not make it to this country, it is very likely immigration will be severely curtailed for many years. Initially by travel bans in 2015/16, and in subsequent years due to a dramatic drop in global population. Already all travel from West African countries to Australia is banned. Radically reduced immigration will pull the rug out from under property valuations.
The problem is, war between Russia and the US-proxy (and Nazi) government in Kiev would almost certainly go nuclear, and spread. It would be Russia and China against the USA/NATO. Australia is in the unfortunate position of hosting several US bases critical to the US nuclear CCC complex, and these bases would be taken out in any nuclear exchange. It's possible that as an increasingly sycophantic US ally, we'd lose a few major cities as well.
In which case the whole matter of redevelopment along Sydney rail corridors would be moot. Or rather, radioactive dust.
We live in a world accumulating many tensions, secrets and social dissatisfaction. The potential for sudden explosions of change, triggered by single points of information release is growing and amplified by the Internet. So far the Elite-owned mainstream media have the public consciousness mostly under control, but as with a steam boiler lacking a safety valve, that can't last.
It wouldn't take much change in Australian society to end the 'immigration as a real estate price inflator' scam.
Sounds lovely, right?
For those who didn't realise it, the Council document name "Community Plan 2021" may be an allusion to something called Agenda 21, originating from the UN. Here's an original UN document and a reference from the Australian government. Both those use nicely ambiguous language, making them bland and harmless sounding. But google and youtube searches will soon show you what Agenda 21 is really about.
That's a deep and dark subject that I won't delve into here. However it's a real thing, and don't let anyone fool you into dismissing it as 'conspiracy theory'. A key element of Agenda 21 is to maximally depopulate as much country area as possible in the Western nations. By evicting people from country (outback for us) towns and homes, and packing people into a few major cities via highest possible housing densities. People are far easier to control when they have few assets and no means of escape. Having no land of their own, and no space for even the most basic kind of home workshop, makes people fundamentally more dependent and malleable.
Also from the Globalist population-reduction viewpoint, epidemics spread so much more effectively in high density population centers.
The name "Agenda 21" refers to the 21st Century, not year 21 in the century. However the namers of "Community Plan 2021" chose '21' as a random choice? Well maybe. Funny coincidence it's about packing people into cities as tightly as possible.
Whether the evolution of this planning process had anything to do with Agenda 21 or not, one must consider whether the difference between the true and pretended motives qualifies the process as a conspiracy. Just because a series of reports were made public, doesn't mean it isn't.
It's natural that groups of people get together, discuss things among themselves, then take action. That's how everything works, privately, in business and in government. There are many ways in which such group discussion and action can diverge from ideal. For instance group-think can take over, causing the entire group to believe and act in ways that are not fact-based. Many of the cognitive biases involve faulty logic and beliefs acting within groups.
Perhaps it's possible that everyone in the State government and local councils who were involved in the entire chain of production of these Plans, were unaware that population increase is predominantly a result of immigration; that immigration is a policy choice; that criminal behaviour and corruption would surely be involved when forcing thousands of people to quit their homes; and that the entire plan just happens to align with the objectives of Agenda 21. Perhaps the whole process was just an extreme example of nutty group-think.
That is the 'our country is run by idiots, not scheming, thieving, psychopathic bastards' argument. Personally I think the two cases are not mutually exclusive.
Another thing that happens routinely, is that groups of people will discuss, plan and do things that are 'not of purest heart.' From mildly gray stuff, through to deepest evil and illegality, it happens. This, by definition is a group of people conspiring. When someone else is investigating the visible events, who was behind them and why, that's 'conspiracy theory.' Those doing the investigation are literally by definition 'conspiracy theorists'. They are attempting to uncover the truth of events, and that process involves finding, evaluating and correlating evidence, formulating theories based on the evidence available, then making further investigations based on those theries, to prove or disprove them. All detectives and criminal investigators are 'conspiracy theorists'.
Do you have a feeling of your mental shutters slamming closed at the mention of that phrase?
If you're ever going to understand anything about the way the world works, you have to get past that reflex. These might help:
Fig 14. (Click) Here's the first notification I had of Council's Plan. Dated 7 Oct 2014, it sounded innocuous. Probably something about traffic islands and a new fountain outside the library. Since this is Bankstown not the Gaza Strip, the thought of government announcing they're going to bulldoze hundreds of homes including your own simply doesn't occur to one. Metaphorically or not.
It mentions a 14th Nov deadline for comments. The accompanying flyer listed three 'drop-in sessions' for face to face discussions, on 27th and 29th Oct, and 1st Nov. The one on the 29th was just down the street at East Hills (lack of) Business Center, so I thought I'd go to that. Then something came up that day and I couldn't go. That left the last one, 10am to 12pm on Saturday 1st Nov. OK.
That morning I got engrossed in something else till 11am, so didn't get to leave till 11:15am. It wasn't till I got in the car and paid closer attention to the listed location details that I realised something was wrong.
The address printed on the flyer is garbled — it's a hash of two entirely different places. But which one was it?
I'm writing this section on the evening of Wed 3rd Dec, with just two days to go before the new deadline of 5th Dec. To show the garbled address here, I thought it quickest to download the flyer PDF and use that. Fetched it from the Council's site (see Sources) and.... ha ha ha! The block listing the meetings is not there. See for yourself. (click for large images.)
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 |
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| Paper flyer, front. | Paper flyer, back. Garbled address. |
PDF flyer, back. No addresses at all. |
Anyway, That morning I went to the Macarthur Ave Revesby shops first. No sign of any council staff there, and I spent 20 minutes walking around the entire area looking. I knew where the other possible interpretation of that address was, so I headed off while there was still just enough time to get there. This time, success, with about 10 minutes left. That's where I had the conversation with Mr Armchair Townplanner, and his considerable surprise that anyone would mind suddenly discovering that their home is the planned site of a lovely 4 storey high block of units. Hey by the way, this ground has nearly 30 years of my family's and my pets buried in it. Of course they're not as highly rated as human graves, but I thought I should mention it. Oh, and the huge gum tree? The one that used to have my kid's treehouse in it, yes, that one. You'll have to go through me to cut that down. I guess we're all Aboriginal now.
Mr Townplanner said that yes, there'd been a 'clerical error' with the address. He said they'd stationed someone at the Macarthur Ave shops to redirect enquiries. Well, maybe they did, and the guy decided to quit early. I don't know. I'm sure the address mistake was just a very stupid error, and not deliberately intended to reduce the number of people getting a copy of the actual plan, with only 14 days to go till the comment deadline of 14th Nov. Besides, five weeks from 7 Oct till 14th Nov should be more than enough to comment on the impending destruction of your home, right? It's not like anyone would go into shock or denial or severe depression for weeks when faced with such news. So what's the problem?
A while later I received a letter saying the deadline for comments was extended till the 5th Dec. Quite a relief, since there was no way I could have responded in any adequate way by the 14th Nov.
A pity I didn't make a note of when that letter arrived though, as it's dated 24th Oct. I'm sure I didn't get it till early November.
Which is all a rambling way to get to the point — did Council actually expect that from midway through October, until 14th Nov (or even 5th Dec) is in any way adequate time to respond to a plan that proposes to demolish hundreds of houses (including your own)? Say 4 to 6 weeks, for people who obtained the Plan immediately they were informed of it. Though really, with the original deadline and typical delays the available response time for most people would have been more like 1 to 2 weeks. To respond to something Council have been working towards since 2005, unbeknownst to the vast majority of the Bankstown public.
Yes, apparently Council is serious, because that's what they did. Complete with accidental obfuscations like a garbled meeting address, and absurdly inadequate response time window. Like I said, either world class stupidity, or too clever by half.
And I tell you what, Bankstown Council, after I'm done with writing and submitting this, the next thing I'll be doing is looking into the potential for a class action lawsuit, joining all the hundreds of Bankstown residents suffering direct and severe damage by your plan.
The Plan severely and negatively impacts my home, property utility and life plan in general, and is equally destructive for many hundreds of other homeowners. Similar planning process across Sydney and interstate will negatively affect many thousands of homeowners. It is outright land theft and extortion under colour of law, dressed in deceptive social engineering terminology more at home in a Communist dictatorship.
No, for many people their home and land is not fungible, for whatever personal reasons they may have. You, government planners, have no right to question or ignore those reasons.
My land, home and workshop are not fungible. They have inestimable practical and emotional value to me, that cannot be simply exchanged for some monetary price. The reasons are complex, and none of Council's business, so I don't feel a need to detail them here.
As someone who has not contributed to worsening Australia's population difficulties (my family raised the optimal two children), I feel it is extremely unfair to personally now suffer such massive lifestyle hardship and stress as a result of others' greed and stupidity, manifesting in a Federal Government policy of excessive immigration, and all the follies that flow from it.
The only acceptable course of action is for Bankstown Council to completely drop the idea of widespread zoning changes. Yes, that would mean Council would have to tell the State Goverment "Sorry, your request for dramatically increased urban density is declined."
However realistically, I do not believe Bankstown Council will take heed of the objections of residents, given the overall tone of superiority and entitlement-to-meddle exhibited in the Plan document. This suggests the only workable avenue of self defense for all Bankstown residents will be via coordinated legal action.
