Building a lifeboat in Shepparton to survive the 'perfect storm'

To the Mayor and Councillors,
Economic difficulties have ricocheted around the world and although Australia, and by implication Shepparton, has avoided a direct hit, the collateral damage is growing as are the conditions for a perfect storm.
The City ofGreater Shepparton Council is one of many, but the most important of bulwarks to protect our community from the rigours of a failing and flailing economy.

The seven-strong City of
 Greater Shepparton Council, led
by its mayor, Cr  Geoff
 Dobson (right),
 who can build Shepparton into
 a "lifeboat city".

That “perfect storm” has arisen from a collision of circumstances that some skeptics still doubt – humans, that is you and me, have irreparably damaged our atmosphere causing huge shifts in weather patterns; our growth mandated economy is breaking down; the fossil fuels that underpin the energy on which the world as we know it depends are severely depleted, or becoming uneconomic or impossible to recover; and the technology that many pay homage to and declare our saviour, is bankrupt.
Bankruptcy is something that has crossed the minds of many recently and it is something that will devour entire communities in decades to come and so rather than scurry of to a secluded hut in the bush armed with a loaded gun and rations, people need to bond with their community and work with council to build hope and resilience.
Difficult times can best be surmounted if courageous and decisive leaders step forward and who better to do that than those already elected to such a role, our councillors.
Our unfolding future will be decidedly different from the immediate centuries past, which were awash with easily accessible and effectively free fossil energies.
Starting from today, council needs to build a community that will answer human needs and happiness without the fossil fuels that have lifted it to its present stature.
Food will be a priority and council needs to create several significant community gardens throughout the city; fuel being rare and expensive means significant effort should be applied to the creation of frequent, fast and reliable public transport and both cycling and walking should be made easier and encouraged; planning and zoning should encourage increased residential density in the heart of the city; and as the modern world edges towards collapse, council needs to instigate throughout the community, ways and means for people to learn about and understand the skills of yesteryear.
Applying the adage that it is never too late, council needs to engage with the community and so exploit our richest resource – people and their innovation and resilience – to build on the rich wisdom, and hard work, that fortified the Greater Goulburn Valley.
Difficulties beyond what is understood and expected will emerge with alarming rapidity and Shepparton, guided and cared for by the council can become what is known in post-fossil fuels era nomenclature as a “life-boat city”.

Villawood riots escape my understanding

Few of those born in Australia understand what it was that recently drove asylum seekers in Villawood to the extremes of riot. I don’t.
I do know that they would be confused that a country portrayed as free, fair, democratic, liberal and generous appears to be few of those things.

Villawood rioters make
 their point in the only
way they can.

After months of waiting to see evidence of those claimed traits, those at Villawood, their patience exhausted, resorted to all a denied person has left, violence.
Reaction to the riots has been varied; some, who deserve our praise, have turned out in numbers to protest on behalf of those in Villawood and some have roundly condemned rioters, arguing they should simply be sent back from whence they came.
Considering the latter view, it is important to remember that these people came here in the belief, and hope, that Australia was a better place than that they left.
The riots suggests those beliefs and hopes have been dashed and so it is time we looked to our supposed qualities and considered whether they are real or imagined.
Shepparton has a strong history of assimilation of the other, of blending cultures and holding open the door to a better life, or at least a life that is secure and has promise.
Although that maybe the case in the Goulburn Valley, something some would argue about, those at Villawood see only promises denied, hopes dashed and security of the wrong sort.
A few things about people, whatever their race or culture, are constant, but their way of life embeds patterns of living and habits making them different and often that does not sit well with others.
It is a belief of mine that nothing is neither better nor worse, just different and so before criticizing Villawood rioters, we need to consider how we would behave if confronted by such striking differences.
Not only is life different in the extreme for the Villawood internees, the length of their imprisonment has little by little, drip by drip, eroded their hope.
So consider for a moment that life in your birth culture and country has, for various reasons, often beyond your control, become impossible and despite the threats and dangers to your wellbeing, you, brimming with hope, choose to get to Australia as best you can.
The journey made, the risks endured you arrive at your new home only to be effectively thrown in jail and the unspoken promises made by this wonderful, democratic and generous country prove to be an illusion.
Armed with only patience and civility you wait, and you wait, and yet the promised decency and democracy seems to be only for those walking free on the other side of the razor wire: what would you do?