Court complex construction announcements ignore unfolding realities

Recent announcements to spend $73 million on a new court complex in Shepparton ignore quickly approaching realities.

Part of the existing and soon to be
 replaced court complex in Shepparton.

The present need is blatant, but unfolding needs are not near so obvious.

Administering justice within the walls of what exists in High St is, from all reports, staggeringly difficult, but the tightening of world realties will make it impossible, even after digging deeply into our pockets to build a “sheer concrete and glass” court complex.

The collision of world events, which will be upon us within a decade or so, will demand, even on a regional basis, decentralization rather than the energy-intensive centralization of institutions, even something as seemingly remote from energy as our courts.

Resources upon which we now habitually depend and undergird our modern lives are finite and yet we continue to reinforce institutions and create processes whose usefulness and durability depend, and hinges upon the false belief of the infinitude of those resources.

Even within just decades, a brief time compared to the more than 70 years of what exists has served our community, the movement of people around even the Goulburn Valley will become increasingly difficult, and expensive.

Rather than investing in and building one monolithic structure we need a totally decentralized legal system in which justice can be administered in all the smaller centres that make up Greater Shepparton.

Many argue, from a position supported by indisputable facts that the world has already passed that moment from which oil resources inevitably decline to become fearfully expensive and so the province of the wealthy.

The burning of fossil fuels, deforestation and the breeding of animals for human consumption, have damaged our atmosphere and extensively changed weather patterns to such a degree that we will have to live where we live.

Meaning that travel, even in a limited sense within the Goulburn Valley, will be more difficult, expensive and time consuming, suggesting the administration of justice should be dispersed in our smaller communities rather than a centralized, shimmering concrete and glass complex in Shepparton.

Ideas driving Shepparton’s new court complex are from the dying energy-rich carbon era and so rather than further embedding those, we should be working toward and building an institutional and structural system that will endure in an energy-poor post carbon society.

Electricity produced by renewable energy will ultimately be abundant, but only if we stand together and disable the intent of Australia’s present decision makers and so a mosaic of court houses linked by the National Broadband Network will provide local justice for local people, in local institutions staffed by local people.

It means more jobs for more people in more places throughout Greater Shepparton and builds resilience in more communities wrestling with the dilemma of the post-carbon era.