Mister Brisbane: Let's split
Why have one River City, when we could have many of them?
I was watching this excellent YouTube video about the history of London boroughs, and it made me think some more about something I’ve addressed before. I paid particular attention when vlogger Jay Foreman posed this question: “Why does London, or indeed any big city, need to split itself up into bits?” His answer, in part, is that “a supercouncil … would be bureaucratic and inefficient”. So, once again I ask: is Brisbane — which has had just one council for the best part of a century — too big?
Moreover, is it so big that it can’t function the way a council is supposed to function? Are our councillors too busy engaged in running a megabusiness that they’ve lost sight of the things, such as pothole-filling and rubbish recycling, that we expect to be their prime objective? And with everybody’s rates money going into one big pot, can the residents of one part of town be sure that they are getting a fair shake when it comes to council spending? Or is much of our hard-earned cash being directed to projects that have no relevance to our needs?
Is splitting Brisbane up such a crazy idea? After all, many Brisbaneites already consider themselves southsiders or northsiders, and ne’er the twain shall meet. Few of us actually wander too far from our own small suburban patch. Thanks to COVID-19, we’re not even going into the CBD much any more.
It could be argued that it would it be too expensive to have many councils all with their own councillors. Well, for a start they wouldn’t be earning anything like the salary of a Brisbane councillor, which is north of $160,000 a year (plus expenses that average more than $50,000). Maybe they shouldn’t earn anything at all. Perhaps we would we be better off with local representatives who did it just for the love of their city, and maybe a free lunch on meeting day and compensation for job-related expenses. However, I suppose, if they are not paid, then only the wealthy or unemployed and underqualified could afford to serve on the council — or those who hope to use it as a platform to make money through corrupt decision making.
So, maybe it’s not so simple after all. What do you reckon?
EDGE OF REASON
I’m using Microsoft’s Edge browser, which is pretty good. Except that is comes with Bing as the default search engine. Here’s what it came up with when I queried “population of Springfield, Ipswich”:
So, it gave me 11-year-old census stats and the startling “fact” that Brisbane is part of Ipswich. In their dreams!
Also, it got the abbreviation of kilometres wrong — it’s km not kms (and, yes, I know I mentioned it last week, because I am willing to die in that ditch). At least it got the post code right.
LOCAL HERO
Congratulations to Brisbane author John Birmingham, whose alt-history Axis of Time books are being developed into a television series tentatively titled Weapons of Choice. The series, written and executive-produced by Luke Sparke, is described as “a historical sci-fi military-techno epic drama”. It involves a military experiment from the near future that sends an American-led multinational armada back to 1942 and the Battle of Midway, a defining event of World War II.
MAD MARKETING
It seems every time I make a purchase or, as was the recent case, take a trip, I receive an invitation in my inbox to complete a “how did we do?” survey. I don’t mind doing surveys after a consumer experience, especially if it help makes the next one better. But I do mind when they are too bloody long, and dig way too deep into events I hardly even recall. Who really remembers the range of products available in a particular department at the supermarket? I only remember whether they had the thing I wanted to buy.
I gave up on one the other day, making me think that the marketing geniuses who devised it are only going to get feedback from people who have nothing better to do than fill in surveys. Or those who fill in the survey quickly, with scant attention, because there’s a reward for doing so, such as some loyalty points or the chance to win a shopping voucher. And, I would suggest, those people are not representative of the general population, and the data returned is worth squat.
IDLE MOMENT
Sometimes “old” media such as radio and “new” media collide. That happened over the weekend when I had a Twitter conversation with Monty Python’s Eric Idle while I was producing the Weekend shows on Radio 4BC. Here’s how it unfolded on Weekend Breakfast with Bill McDonald (with thanks to Spencer Howson for the video and tweet):
P.S. I nearly missed a listener’s email saying we should “Always look on the bright side” of Twitter, because it ended up in the Spam folder. True story.
FEEDBACK
On Cuisenaire rods, Gigi says, “every good child starting Grade 1 had a little set in their port”. Michelle says: “These were my favourite things in kindergarten and the reason I am the mathematical genius I am today. [Smiley face]”
Teacher MML says: “Yes! They are a staple in my classroom. Other teachers poo-poo them, but tactile resources are important.” Another teacher, Christine, says, in part, “Taught properly there are some amazing mathematical concepts that can be taught and modelled- sad thing was that most teachers were not taught or did not understand their potential. I only met one practitioner who used them appropriately and it was amazing.”
On Brisbane’s biggest blunders, from a few weeks ago, Shaz says: “Might be too late to respond (apologies just found this edition in my inbox) but I think Toowong Shopping Centre is right up there as an abomination. I fear the new casino and pedestrian walkway will prove to be another. Oh - which then leads me to thinking of the damage the expressway has done to the city side of the river and it’s even-so-important mangroves.”