John Brumby is an idiot. He really, really is.

A trip to a zoo should lead to a sense of peace and connection to nature. This is perhaps, particularly true in relation to the Werribee Open Range Zoo. If that's too much to ask, it should at least be a relaxing day out with the family.


To some extent, it worked the way it was supposed to. The day started well, with a pleasant 50 minute drive across town. We met up with our good friends BT & Cruz, and their three delightful children, BGF (3), Dynamite (2) and Extreme (1).


After arriving and giving five excited children a few minutes to chase each other madly around and jump off high things, we took a bus tour of the zoo, with utterly awesome close up views of rhinos, hippos and giraffes, and the kind of unintentionally funny commentary from the driver that you just can't script.


Here's a few highlights from the commentary (note: not all commentary provided by bus driver)




Busdriver: And on the left, there are some bison. Very big animals. Big heads.



*Honey Bear and Cruz giggle for about five minutes*

....

Busdriver: It gets very hot in the desert...

....



Bundle: My daddy's funny!


Cruz: I'm glad you think so, Bundle

....

Busdriver: And on the left, there's a group of zebras. You will notice that they all have stripes.

INC: Look kids, those two zebras are having a cuddle

*general merriment ensues*

Busdriver: [commentary becomes far too explicit to put on this blog]

....

We were particularly thrilled that the rhinos did not charge at the bus, as our driver cheerfully informed us that these magnificent creatures could run at 60 km/h and I privated wondered if the bus could do the same.

We wandered from the bus to a very pleasant picnic area with a playground for the kids and tables for adults who wanted to chill out, eat a sandwiches and drink some Merlot, and a collection of replica african huts for the kids to explore after lunch. The thatched rooves were particularly useful, since I had already been asked to play the role of big bad wolf and chase the children all over the park. All those straw and sticks really give a guy something to huff and puff at.

I was also quitely relieved that there were no chimneys so I could not be called upon to attempt to climb down one.

Eventually, we resolved the whole situation when Bundle informed me that I could in fact come in to 'his house' so long as I promised to be good. BGF added that it was also a condition of entry that I must 'love them all very much' and then there were cuddles.

This was slightly more relaxing than Dynamite's response, which was to wave a stick at me and announce that he planned to 'use the force' on me if I came any closer.

After a long and leisurely lunch we checked out a couple of the walking tracks. The children did not quite pat an emu, but this was because we wouldn't let them, not because it was out of reach or anything like that. We saw lions, we saw monkeys, the children played on an abandoned river boat, we wandered back to the car and we drove home happy.

So far, so serene, and I would have stayed this way if it was not for our State Government's plan to give a whole bunch of this zoo's land to Village Roadshow to turn it into a theme park. In a stunning failure to understand who should pay who when land is exchanged, the State Government is also planning to subsidise Village Roadshow's new theme park to the tune of $100,000,000.

For those who have been wondering lately whether public/private partnerships are a good thing, the answer is 'not in this case'.

Perhaps we just need to give our state government a quick refresher in relation to the purpose of a PPP. The idea is that we, the people of Victoria, get something that we actually want*, and instead of paying for it solely using the money that you gouged out of us by way of stamp duty** a private company contributes to the cost and recoups its money through some sort of toll/massive government subsidy/both. This means that the government has more money available to improve education by increrasing teachers salaries, particularly if the teachers in question are very, very persistent.

The purpose of a PPP is not to take something that is publically owned and pay a private company $100 million to wreck it and then charge us greatly increased admission prices if we want to see what's left of it, all for no benefit to anyone except said private company as far as I can tell.

There is no way that this much land will ever again be made available for a public space like this, ever again. If we lose this zoo, we will never get it or anything like it back again.

If $100 million of our money is to be spent at this location, spend half of it improving facilities and saving endangered animals, and the other half giving free tickets to people who aren't Friends of the Zoo Members like us and can't afford the prices of $23 per adult plus no doubt something extra if your children are a little older than mine.

Do not spend the $100 million paying Village Roadshow to take this oasis of natural beauty and destroy it irretrievably.

John Brumby's talent for politics can be measured by his utter inability to lay a glove on Jeff Kennett in what seemed like about a million years of politics. I voted for this guy in 1996 on the basis that he was not Jeff Kennett. One of many excellent reasons to vote for anyone who was not Kennett was that Jeff's government seemed to be committed to taking public spaces and putting them in private hands for dubious and hard to measure benefits with no due process whatsoever. Brumby was happy to jump on the Save Albert Park bandwagon in opposition, but now that some other idiot resigned and left him in charge, we now have exactly the same thing going on, only this time it's in relation to a much more precious public asset.

Rumour has it that the Spring Street Assclown Collective's next plan will be to replace the penguin parade at Phillip Island with a giant screen where we can have nightly viewings of "Happy Feet".

In other words, the only difference between Brumby and Kennett is that Kennett was infinitely more entertaining and there was at least the illusion of an reasonable alternative.

If this theme park gets built, I will dedicate every waking minute to removing John the Idiot from public office forever, and consequences, including the risk of the other side getting in, be damned.

Still, I don't want to simply be a naysayer here. If Village Roadshow think that there is a market for a theme park which justifies their investment, they are welcome to build the theme park and let the free market decide whether it was a good idea. If the State Government wants to give them some land to build it on because people in the surrounding area may receive an economic benefit, well, leaving aside the fact that Village Roadshow can afford to pay for the land like anyone else, they may want to consider the following 10 entirely suitable sites:

1. Coode Island

2. The area next to the aluminium smelter in Portland where the industrial park isn't

3. That area in Hastings where they wanted to build a nuclear reactor

4. The Deborah Triangle in Bendigo. With a bit of luck, this works the same way as the rather more famous triangle in Bermuda. I know at least one person named Deborah who refuses to go there just in case

5. John Cain Memorial Park. I know it's not big enough, but if you insist on completing Jeff Kennett's work for him, at least get the symbolism right

6. If it's a PPP, what more appropriate site than Laverton's Port Philip Prison.*** The Underbelly ride could be a particularly authentic experience

7. Avalon Airport. Because I like any plan that annoys Jetstar/may spare us any more of their appalling advertisements

8. That area next to the basketball stadium in Dandenong which claims to be a newly developed wetland but looks rather like a swamp, and not even a very wet swamp.

9. John Brumby's house

10. Any other reasonable flat bit of land between Melbourne and Geelong not current occupied by numerous endangered animals. Last time I checked, there were freaking heaps of sites matching this description.

The petition you are no doubt wondering about by now is conveniently located RIGHT HERE. Please join me in working to ensure that this latest attempt to wreck Melbourne is stopped before it's too late.

* Or at least someone wants, particularly when what we get is whopping big freeways instead of a sensible level of investment in public transport.

** Surely, for the $20,000 or so I recently paid, I should at least have received a stamp or two. Sadly, this was not the case.


*** See what I did there?

Lightning flash and everything is sharp and clear

So hey, yes, things are quiet around these parts, mostly because I don't want to produce depressingly morose reports on what may best be described as "This Present Suckfulness"* and I've been too busy/cranky/blah/etc to write about anything else.

So rather than dwelling on such things, here's some of the good stuff that's been going on lately...

1. I tipped 8 out of 8 AFL games and won the weekly jackpot. Admittedly, this would have been more exciting if the jackpot had been accumulating for more than two weeks, and/or if four other people hadn't tipped 8 out of 8 also. This reduced my share of the prize pool a little bit.

My actual winnings - $2.00.

2. My local shopping centre has awesome 'parents rooms' and the one I went to yesterday had a big sign on the door saying "Dads welcome". Technically they shouldn't have to say this but it made me happy anyway.

3. A week or so back, I wandered through a local market place and discovered some dudes selling Obscura Coffee. It's from the the only certified Fair Trade & Organic coffee group in Laos, it works very nicely with my espresso maker (see profile photo for details) and they sell it for the ridiculous price of $6.20 for 200g.

4. I took the boys on their first bus ride yesterday. The very kind young lady driving the bus presented the boys with their very own bus tickets. This made an already exciting trip an absolute thrill for the boys. They still have the tickets.

5. At the end of the bus trip we found Belgrave. Specifically, we found chocolate gelati for the boys and a pretty decent chai latte for me at the Puffing Billy Cafe. We will go there again.

6. I finally made it to Bunnings to buy a few essentials, including a shelf for the cupboard under the sink, which is essential in the sense that there was clearly a shelf there when we bought the house but not so much when we moved in. If anyone can lend me a saw then that would really make installing this thing easier.

7. It is reasonably impressive that a child who only turned two this month is already using whole sentences. But when, as is the case with my Cherub, one of those sentences is "Daddy, I love you sooooooo much" then everything else can be as average as it likes because there is nothing in the world that could have made me happier than that did.










* On the off chance that noted Christian author Frank Peretti ever reads this, he may get cross. Then again, having once read Piercing the Darkness right to the end, I DON'T CARE

Unbilled

For those who wonder what I do all day, it's mostly conversations like this...


Scene - somewhere near the photocopier. Empress is photocopying. Ginger is also there

*INC enters*

*Empress stares at INC with narrowed eyes*

*INC returns narrowed eyes look with interest*

Empress: So, we're communicating without words now

INC: I'm too irritated to speak. I'm just letting my irritation radiate

Empress: Yes, I can feel it from over here

INC: There is a village in northern Peru where then have never seen a computer. And yet they are feeling my irritation right now.

*Empress turns to Ginger*

Empress: He says the most inane things. It's very entertaining.

Ginger: Huh? What? I wasn't listening.



*fin*



And thus staff morale is maintained at an all time high for another day. The important thing, being the actual thing that is most important, is that I GOT PAID FOR THAT.

Oh no.......

I hate it when my eyebrows don't behave.























They seem to forget that I'm the one who raised them.