It’s one of the perplexing things about right-wingers. They hate change, but they love knocking old shit over to make way for newer shit. Hence the confusion over a story that cropped up in the Herald Sun overnight railing against developers in Melbourne.
The yarn was headlined: ‘History lost: Almost 41,000 Victorian properties bulldozed in five years: VBA’
“In the City of Monash, the state’s demolition capital, 3,209 properties were flattened or part-destroyed from 2016-2020, the equivalent of a decent-sized new housing estate every year, new figures from the Victorian Building Authority show.
The Boroondara, Whitehorse and Glen Eira council areas also notched more than 2,000 approvals to bring in bulldozers in the period, with Moreland, Kingston, the Mornington Peninsula and Bayside not far behind.”
If you follow the trials and tribulations of the Herald Sun, it’s a perplexing story… and not just because it appears to be timely, relevant and accurate. Why, all of a sudden, is the official rag of the nation’s arch capitalists/property developers suddenly objecting to old stuff being bulldozed in the interests of profit and progress? Did someone slip some MDMA into the Cool-Aid? Has the Herald Sun drifted off-script? And has anyone told Andrew Bolt?
A closer inspection of the story provides an explanation for the Hun’s newfound lefty activism.
“2 Haverbrack Ave in Malvern, the former Melbourne home of Sir Robert Menzies, was demolished last week.”
Now that makes a lot more sense. Sir Robert, the darling of conservative politics, lived at the address after his retirement.
The story is a genuinely good scoop delivered by the Herald Sun over a week ago, but apparently ignored by everyone else. Hence the follow-up piece expanding on the issue and targeting the City of Monash… which just happens to be a Labor-aligned local council.
Mystery solved.
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