LOCAL Growth Management Strategies are the instruments by which the Beattie government will affect its grand vision for south-east Queensland.

They are the last will and testament delivered on the deathbed of the old local government structure that has served Queensland for more than 100 years. But rather than being the past’s gift to the future, LGMS will come to be seen as the nail in the coffin of fundamental democracy in this state.

Produced at the point of a gun, they rob soon-to-be amalgamated south-east Queensland local authorities of any free will.

By the time citizens of the state’s most densely-populated region have a vote at next year’s local government elections, the right to determine the nature of their communities will have been lost.

LGMS are the instruments by which the government will mandate its vision to double the region’s population. The South East Queensland Regional Plan defined the area of urban growth; LGMS will dictate its densities.

But rather than wait until next year’s local government elections, only eight months away and to be contested on yet-to-be-known boundaries, the government has demanded the LGMS be produced now by councils that will never be held accountable for their impact.

The rush to enshrine in law these extraordinary planning documents, which will straitjacket the development decision-making process for the next 20 years, robs the community of any say in its future.

It certainly ensures that any chance has been lost to make next year’s local government elections a plebiscite on the Beattie government’s growth-at-all-costs suffocation of our lifestyle and community values.

Once gazetted, the LGMS will hand developers certainty in the value of their assets, but will leave the rest of us to wonder just how and when the largest investments of our lives will be compromised.

As I mentioned last week and has been reported in this newspaper on several occasions, Caloundra’s LGMS has already been bought and paid for by the very developers who will most benefit from its intent.

Maroochy’s document was completed behind closed doors and is already with the state government.

Noosa’s document will be reflective of its population cap, but just how that fits with the state’s plans remains to be seen.

The elected representatives of the old order know the contents, but those most affected by it must wait for a short window of opportunity to have their say, which will then be considered at the whim of the state government.

Why the construction of these documents could not have waited until after the new elections is a question local government representatives should have put forcibly to the government.

Because while we have the power to punish those involved in their construction when that vote is taken around March, 2008, we will have lost all power to alter their content or effect.

The timing of the delivery of the LGMS makes absolutely certain that neither the government nor its partners in their grow, grow, grow strategy will have to face the will of the people until after these property rights are enshrined.

It is democracy, Queensland style, for the new millennium, and it stinks.
The government has consulted extensively with those who will benefit from its policies, but has shut out those whose considerable investments are about more than just the capitalisation of the dollar value of their assets.

Anyone offended by this process has just a short time to make their feelings unambiguously clear to their local government and state representatives. If we care about our lifestyles and truly care about our democracy we are going to have to start making a lot of noise in a hurry.

Should Local Growth Management Strategies be postponed until after the local government elections in March? Tell me what you think by emailing me at bill.hoffman@scnews. com.au

Time to end the Paris prattle

ON another note entirely, who else is heartily sick of the constant commentary about the worthless minutia of the lives of a bunch of spoilt kids in the United States?

Newspapers, television and radio deliver a constant stream of Paris prattle in the belief that you are actually interested.

Please tell me we’re wrong. My wife thinks that this celebration of the mundane is harmful to our youth; that it sets their standards way too low. But I’ll need more than her word for it if I’m ever going to win this argument.

Write to me at bill.hoffman @scnews.com.au with your thoughts. I promise I’ll make them known.