Prepare. Act. Survive.

This is the new refrain to guarantee fire safety this coming fire season.

So far, it feels a lot like being in the scouts. You get to feel responsible without having any real responsibility other than staying alive. You get to talk about survival and consider the grim prospect of mass tragedy. If you're sufficiently enthused, you can join a volunteer brigade and get a uniform.

It's all very self-sufficient. Self-sufficiency is a good thing. But in terms of fire safety, so is a collective effort, and so is having the government constructively engage. Recent state-sponsored efforts to prepared Victorians for the coming fire season leave a lot to be desired.

October 11-18 is Fire Action Week. For you and I, this is a week to begin preparing for the summer ahead. For the State Government, it is a week of telling you and I to begin preparing for the summer ahead.

Fire Action Week has seen any number of compelling intitiatives to ensure we are fire safe and fire ready. For example, Monday's Age contained an 8 page lift-out on how to 'be prepared'. Step 1 (not listed in the lift-out) was 'be prepared to read through the Sports section to obtain your lift-out'. Non-readers of the Sports section of The Age should feel free to perish.

We have also had John Brumby's Fire Action Week Address:




However, the real cracker during Fire Action Week has been the implementation of the 'Probably Best to Go, Unless You Really Want to Stay and You Are Adequately Prepared, Except if it is an Emergency, in Which Case for God's Sake Don't Stay' policy. Formerly, Victorians were encouraged to decide early whether in the event of wildfire they would stay and defend their property or evacuate. The bushfires of Black Saturday earlier this year exposed a fatal disparity between understandings of the preparation needed to stay and defend a property, and the reality of a widespread lack of preparation. Now, Victorians are being encouraged to Stay and Defend unless it happens to be a Code Red day, in which case, they should evacuate. So long as it is not too late.

Others have already deeply criticised the confusion which will surely result.

But in part the issue here is not so much that the State Government needs to vastly improve the effectiveness of its communication techniques. It also lies in the government's willingness to ensure there is adequate fire coverage from professionals as well as citizens. Earlier this year, an independent Board of Reference recommended the State Government increase the number of professional CFA firefighters. In August, Premier Brumby acknowledged there would be 700 'seasonal' firefighters deployed this coming summer.

This is a measure which falls some way short of the recommendations required to ensure we are adequately protected this summer.

There is a need for more professional firefighting coverage across Victoria.

Wherein lies the value of delay?

Ethics, Terminology, and Christine Campbell, MP

Meet Christine Campbell, MP.


Christine is the State Member for Pascoe Vale, which encompasses Pascoe Vale, Pascoe Vale South, Oak Park, and the western districts of Coburg.

Her profile reads much like that of any other apparatchik: concern, compassion, community-mindedness, early age, community groups, member of, many years, keen involvement, electorate officer.

However, Christine's story has a curious theme: ethics. Yes, although her constituency mail has her fascinated by 'jobs jobs jobs', in fact she is frequently concerned with 'the dignity of the human person', and is currently studying a Masters in Bioethics.

How bloody fascinating.

What a relief to have a polly who isn't writing their own prognosis on how the first way can be combined with the second way to create the Third Way to salvation.

Yet how is this concern for ethics manifest?

As a member of the 2nd coolest creek gang going around (Friends of the Merri Creek, of course), is she raging against the degradation of the Merri?

Mmm, no.

As a member of the Moreland Bicycle Users Group, is she lurking at intersections, casting guilt-trips at single-occupant cars?

Mmm, no.

In fact, Christine is concerned about abortion, in particular the devaluation of a human life in embryo form. Kudos for Christine for stating her views; she makes no bones about the fact she believes motherhood begins with pregnancy. Her views are not held by M.Shriek, and at least for the purposes of this initial observation of Christine's interest in bioethics, we are concerned with terminology, not rationale.

In particular, her use of the term 'abortion industry'.

Now, terminology is a funny thing. We all use it with different meanings, and goodness knows the discourse surrounding abortion has been punctuated by regular use of heavily-laden if not downright nasty terms. 'Abortion industry' is one of them. It implies an industry which actively encourages poor contraception, unsafe sex, and accidental pregnancies purely in order to make a profit. 'Abortion,' says Christine, 'is about both a woman and her unborn. Abortion can never be about one or the other'. That's a noble sentiment, so long as we bear in mind that there is no Third Way in bioethics either - you cannot synthesise a woman and her unborn to concoct an 'abortion industry'.

Why should this get my goat? Because the kind of people who use the term 'abortion industry' are people like David Duke. The same David Duke who argues that the 'abortion industry' is run by 'extremist jews'.

M.Shriek eschews guilt by association. But M.Shriek also implores with Christine to watch her terminology, lest the unwitting mistakenly connect her to the profoundly unsavoury opinions of people like David Duke.

All the best to Christine Campbell, MP.

Edgars Creek

This is Edgars Creek. Less pretty but more geologically significant photos can be found here.

The creek runs 17km from Wollert to North Coburg, where it meets up with the Merri Creek, which itself is a tributary to the Yarra River. At the Edgars/Merri junction is a 6.5 hectare tract of open space - mostly parkland, native vegetation, and a golf driving range. Previously the land had been earmarked by VicRoads for the now-obsolete F2 Freeway project.

Now obsolete?

So we've got all this space and nothing to do with it?

Let's have a party and invite the world!

Alas no. The land is retained by the State Government, which has generously offered to sell the land to Moreland Council for the princely sum of $10 million. Failure to purchase will see the land sold to developers.

Naturally the people who have been using the open space for the past 30 years are a bit annoyed. They have become rather attached to Edgars Creek.

And so have a lot of other people. The Kelvinator, the Greens, Friends of the Merri - it seems everybody loves Edgars Creek except the State Government and VicRoads.

Send State Environment Minister Gavin Jennings and VicRoads an email and tell em not to be misers - gift the land back to Moreland City Council, so it can continue as open space for public use!

Further information can be found from the Friends of Merri Creek.

The Coburg Initiative

Coburg is a place of varied characteristic: diversely populated, hills and vales, lots of kebabs and walnuts.

'Initiative' is probably not one of Coburg's better known characteristics. 'Adapting to circumstances' might be rather more accurate, if the conversion of Pentridge Prison into a luxury apartment village is anything to go by.

Hence M.Shriek was slack-jawed with amazement to learn of The Coburg Initiative. Sufficiently slack-jawed to ask: 'what is the Coburg Initiative?'

The Coburg Initiative is a plan. Not just any plan - it's an action plan. An action plan to implement a Structure Plan - the Coburg 2020 Structure Plan. It is, if Moreland City Council propaganda is anything to go by, a plan 'about new jobs, housing, services and retail' which 'will lead to improvements to the public realm', provide a focus on 'new connectivity between people and their places of work, culture, sport and leisure' and will celebrate and preserve 'the things that make today's Coburg great'.

M.Shriek hopes readers will agree that that all Sounds Great.

There are a few caveats on the execution of the Coburg Initiative. The first is that the plan will be actioned by Equiset, a Grollo Group subsidiary. The second is that the Coburg 2020 Structure Plan is based on the Melbourne 2030 Strategic Plan for sustainable growth - the same Melbourne 2030 which Premier John Brumby appears to have gone extremely cold on.

M.Shriek hopes readers will agree that that all Sounds Rather Worrying.

On the whole, M.Shriek can only conclude that one way or the other there will be a great deal of relief once the Hon.Prem.J.Brumby has actually faced the voters in the polls. Being the kind of Premier who jettisons without notice previous strategic plans and policies for sustainable living should prove much easier to pull off with some sort - any sort - of popular mandate.

The Feds: Feeney and the Kelvinator

Moreland is lucky enough to host two federal politicians. Senator David Feeney has recently settled just across from the Post Office Hotel, while Kelvin Thomson, Member for Wills, has long been located just around the corner near the Coburg RSL.

Moreland Shriek powerfully endorses both the Post Office and the Coburg RSL, and some of their gloss may yet rub off on the feds.

Feeney, as he is known to those who hope that calling him 'Feeney' will somehow impart characteristics similar to Chuck Feeney (but not Tom Feeney), has only been in parliament since mid-2008. The jury is still out on Feeney, but he does have the inestimable good fortune of being married to a top-notch legal eagle who goes by the fabulous name of Liberty Sanger, so it is safe to assume he will make a very good case indeed.

The Kelvinator, as he is known to the friends he has not yet met, is a bit of a dude and an all-round champion. He's tall and bald and lean and mean, and he gives a big damn about Edgars Creek. He also mixes it up with the local hoods: Tony Mokbel, Phil Cleary, Bob Hawke. All came before the Kelvinator, yet only the Kelvinator remains.

He has also lately been having a stern word with high school students about population control. But more of that later. First, there are more important matters to attend: do you prefer the Post Office Hotel or the Coburg RSL? M.Shriek readers will immediately realise the importance of this question. M.Shriek suggests the answer is crucial to political fortunes in Moreland.

Being concerned about political fortunes in Moreland, M.Shriek thought it wise to put this question to both Feeney and the Kelvinator. But in the spirit of good faith, we do not resile from stating M.Shriek's position:

Hocking draught with respect for tradition is important, and both the Post Office and the Coburg RSL honour tradition in their own unique way: one through homage to the seediness of Moreland's penal past, the other through respect for a retired serviceman's need to sit somewhere with guns on the wall and quietly drink cold beer.

But M.Shriek prefers the Coburg RSL - it has lawn out the front.

It is Coburg, after all.

The City of Moreland

This is the City of Moreland: People's Republic and bastard child of Jeff Kennett.

Moreland was born in 1994, a secular trinity of Brunswick, Coburg, and Broadmeadows. Today the City of Moreland is ruled by 11 moderately evil High Councillors.

M.Shriek may have more to say about them later - if they're lucky. Be it enough for now to say they are led by the great rumbling benificence of Mayor Lambros Tapinos. M.Tapinos and his comrades found power in November 2008, so they'll be around for a while.

In the meantime, 142,000 Morelanders will labour for the perpetual prosperity of the republic, and the righteous advancement of garish propaganda all around the world.

Brunswick 2010: Jane Garrett

Jane Garrett will be Labor's candidate in the Brunswick 2010 elections.

Jane is currently National Coordinator of Union Services for Slater & Gordon Lawyers, as well as a Councillor for Nicholls Ward on Yarra City Council. Jane was elected to Council in November 2008, but she will have to resign her position to contest Brunswick. Alas this means Jane will not be around to 'do her bit to build community well-being' in Yarra. Nor will she be able to fulfill her desire to 'ensure that Yarra residents are able to access quality child care across the municipality'.

It would appear Yarra's loss is Brunswick's gain. Certainly the response from her rivals within the ALP has been surprising in its lack of venom. Former Premier Steve Bracks has dipped in with his support.

Congratulations to Jane on her preselection.

M.Shriek will watch her campaign for Brunswick 2010 with great interest.