CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
Tens of thousands of Independent voters are this week starting to regret abandoning the Liberal Party, and wondering if Peter Dutton actually might have done a better job at protecting their interests.
This comes as the housing crisis debate heats up right across the nation, with political parties now expected to walk the walk after campaigning heavily on delivering the housing supply in every election campaign since the pandemic ended.
With state governments reluctantly declaring that the most appropriate locations to build medium density housing is actually in the more spacious inner-city suburbs with plenty of transport options and scaleable service hubs – a rebellion is now rumbling in heritage-listed town halls around Australia.
The teal-voters who make up the loudest voices in these leafy utopias, are now starting to realise they may have bitten off more than they can chew.
By contributing to Labor’s demolition of the Liberal Party, they now have nobody to obnoxiously fight against any form of social policy that may cause them slight inconveniences.
Once upon a time, these affluent suburbs were Liberal strong-holds, which is why none of them have high-rise buildings.
But now, after throwing their support behind the alternative social justice candidates, the affluent inner-city suburbs are no longer protected from progress.
Because some types of progress can affect your property value.
“Don’t get me wrong, I believe in climate change and I hate racism” says one local, John (66).
“But I just don’t think our five story supermarket will be able to service 1000 new residents. Do you know how much soft drink these people consume?”
Right across the country, puffer vest-wearing men and resin-jewellery-wearing women are trying to weave a very brittle argument about ‘the character’ of their communities.
Some are even going as far as arguing that building medium density mixed-housing on unkept parcels of inner city crown land would violate ‘heritage laws’
However, some are just being honest.
“Poor people will feel out of place here” says Deborah* (name changed)
“I would just feel sorry for them. They don’t even serve Tooheys or VB in any of the pubs around here. Surely they’d be more comfortable in a flight path suburb. I don’t think we’d even have enough pokie machines in this suburb to service 200 new social housing dwellings”
