Time For Greens To Show True Colours

By Duncan Horscroft on March 27, 2012 in News

When are the Greens actually going to contribute and do something other than whinge incessantly about how we should live our lives in an environmentally-friendly fashion?

It’s bad enough having Bob ‘Up And Down’ Brown dictating to the Head Ranga how our country should be run, let alone having the local myrtle brigade constantly telling us what we can do in our own backyard while not doing anything about their own.

With Waverley Council flush with funds from recent rate rises and beach parking pass increases, they have tried to upgrade their image in the local Bronte village by installing planter boxes outside the shop fronts in Macpherson Street.

It’s a great idea and it is certainly aesthetically pleasing to see the colourful array of flowers in full bloom.

Even Stevie Wonder would’ve known where the boxes came from when they first arrived because they still had ‘Charing Cross’ boldly emblazoned along the side.

Surely poor old Charing Cross has suffered enough since the opening of Westfield at Bondi Junction, now they have to suffer further detriment by having their plants pulled from under them.

But Charing Cross’ loss is Bronte’s gain and we will happily let our neighbours come down and smell the roses anytime they want.

So what does that have to do with the Greenies, I hear you ask?

Well, sitting with a couple of mates at the trendy Three Blue Ducks café recently we was observed how lovely the flowers looked until our eyes cast further afield to see the ugly unkempt growth at the base of the existing trees along the street.

Now call me skeptical, call me irresponsible, but surely one would assume the people responsible for the planting and maintenance of these new planters would also have something to do with the upkeep of the existing flora.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there has been a new ‘Green Planter Squad’ set up to concentrate wholly on these new boxes, while the ‘Base Of Tree Maintenance Brigade’ is left to its own devices.

Seriously though, we are told by a local government body that has been propped up by the Greens’ vote that we can’t even cut down feral trees in our own backyard.

We are also expected to pay for the upkeep of the council nature strips in our streets, which a lot of house-proud people regularly do by employing lawn-mowing businesses to maintain them.

I refuse to do mine because I don’t believe it is my responsibility and it’s easier to direct someone to my house by saying “it’s the one with the weeds growing on the nature strip outside”.

If the Greens are serious about their policies they should get off their bureaucratic backsides and take a walk around the municipality and see the appalling state of some of the overgrown backstreets and do something about it.

It’s all fair and well the Greens telling everybody how lovely a neighbourhood looks with all the trees, but when you look below the canopy all you see is a pile of bull-dust.