Controversy abounds in St. Kilda this week. This hippy Latin Quarter of Melbourne seems to have awoken from years of marijuana induced slumber to realise that Capitalism has overtaken it. The City is booming with rich migrants (like my good self) and heaps of foreign investment. A lot of this finds its way to St. Kilda each weekend, if it doesn’t get way laded at the casino on route.
The cake shops and pubs are the main beneficiaries, although there a few novelty shops that do well too, like the one on my street that only sells dog accessories. Or the one that sells only one brand of sports shoe and only in one size and colour at that.
But while the good folk of St. Kilda are happy to rake in the shillings, they don’t seem to like it when the shillings ask for something in return. Two issues seem to be bothering the locals at the moment. The triangle development is an attempt by big business to build 50 or so shops on the last remaining piece of land in this suburb. Which would be fine except the land is about the size of a postage stamp.
At the same time the government have decided to dredge the bay. This seems to have created the fear that two hundred years of sludge are about to be dumped on the fair beach of St. Kilda, which already has several hundred used syringes and condoms to deal with. Given how dirty the beach already is, you’d wonder why they care. But I guess even bag ladies don’t like being rained on.
The St. Kilda festival was on last weekend and it allowed protestors against both issues to campaign amongst the thousands of young people who had come to drink and listen to music that was free. To my educated ear, I am guessing the music was free because no-one in their right mind would pay to listen to it.
There are many fine festivals around the world, which will specialise in Art, Music, Comedy or Film. They allow patrons to indulge in a feast of similar events. Like seven movies you’ll never see at the cinema over seven nights. Gluttony of comics at a comedy festival or six Shakespeare plays over a long weekend. They can be exhausting but they serve a purpose. The St. Kilda festival is not like this.
It just seemed to be there because people remember St. Kilda festivals from years gone by and vaguely remember having a good time. After two hours of wandering around concession stands and avoiding novelty stilt walkers, I found myself turning into the Steve Martin character from Trains, Planes and Automobiles. I wanted to hunt down the festival organiser, grab him by the throat and yell “if you’re going to have a festival, have a bloody point”.
So I wasn’t feeling very positive when the first petition was shoved in my face. The girl holding it looked like she’d just disembarked from a Greenpeace anti whaling ship. The development was the issue exercising her dreadlocked mind. I asked her where the development would be and she looked at me blankly before replying “St. Kilda”. I told her that I’d kind of figured that much out from the name. She looked a bit lost, so I pointed over her shoulder at the patch of waste ground that stood like a carbuncle between the grand old Palais Theatre and the newly renovated St. Kilda Baths.
“What would you suggest we do with it if the development doesn’t happen?” She turned to survey the weeds and rubble and said ruefully “I guess we should just leave it as it is”.
And that’s the problem with development. Big business gobbles up any free space available and seeks to fill it in the same way that nature abhors a vacuum. Being big business it will concentrate on fast food outlets and chain store shops. The council planning process will hoist some altruistic requirements upon them, like the inclusion of an ethnic fruit and vegetable market or a water fountain.
The sad thing is that most people’s experience of similar developments has been negative and so they would rather leave the plot empty and ugly and give St. Kilda the impression of being unfinished.
The irony of course is that the beach front is already filled with fast food outlets and chain stores. The conspiracy theorist within me feels the heavy hand of Capitalism on both sides. The loudest complaints against the development come from the existing business community. Like all good capitalists, they are happy to fumble in the greasy till, but will raise the ‘rent a mob’ of anti progress protesters whenever competition raises its head.
I had barely moved ten metres when an identikit protester approached me. She was adorned with “Save the Bay” stickers that nestled between her Greenpeace and PETA badges. If there is one thing protesters enjoy more than stopping something, it’s saving something. It’s a cause and happy are those who race to protect its flag.
The interesting thing about the bay dredging debate is that most scientists are in favour of it. The bay has an average depth of only three metres as I discover to my cost whenever I’ve gone for a swim. The water is so shallow; you expend more energy walking out to find depth than you ever will expend swimming.
The channel through which the big container ships pass is clearly deeper, but the scientists say it needs to be dredged or else trade will dry up and Melbourne will lose the rationale for its existence.
But science gave us GM foods, nuclear waste and Anthrax. So when Joe Soap is faced with a scientist on one side and a nice, articulate college student who claims that Pandora’s Box lurks beneath the silt of Port Phillip Bay and should stay untouched for fear of what it might reveal, then the sympathy will go with the college student.
I smiled and took the pen and signed “Charles Haughey”. As someone who knew everything about corrupt development, I thought it appropriate that he should start atoning for his sins from beyond the grave.
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