Get ready to wind up your windows, hold your breath and pay your $4 toll, you're about to head into the Clem Jones Gas Chamber.

Unless we act now, Brisbane stands to lose a piece of prime, heritage-listed inner city parkland. Lord Mayor Campbell Newman now plans to take the parkland adjacent to the Howard Smith Wharves away from the public forever to make room for a giant hotel underneath and beside the Story Bridge.
Includes: Appendix: Countering Campbell Newman's spin
What you can do: Visit www.saveourcliffs.blogspot.com, ...

Almost invariably reporting of Australia's acute housing unaffordability crisis does not inform the public of its causes, nor help it to arrive at a solution. The ABC's report No relief in sight for Brisbane's renters of 20 June 08 is no exception.

See also: Rent gouging threatens Brisbane inner city retail community of 8 Mar 08

“The opposition of local communities on both sides of the river to the Lord Mayor’s ill conceived toll bridge proposal has been clearly and repeatedly expressed, most forcefully in thousands of public submissions during the now notorious project consultation process.”

Stop the Hale Street Bridge Alliance Media Release, 1 Jun 08

"One of the questions that is not put in the political process by either side of politics, let alone answered, is: Towards what are we striving to grow?" - Brendan Nelson.
for more, read "When growth turns into a monster" by Ross Gittins

Had the promises of the growth merchants over past decades been realised, Queenslanders, having had their population more than double from 2 million in 1972 to its current 4,258,351, would today be enjoying a blissful carefree existence together with unprecedented prosperity. Somehow, it has turned out differently and, almost every day, Queenslanders are greeted in the Brisbane Courier Mail newspaper with ever more stories which chronicle their declining quality of life.

Brisbane's Courier Mail newspaper recently posed the question "Have these been the most boring elections?". This triggered an exchange of e-mails which began when Independent Mayoral candidate James Sinnamon wrote an open letter to the Courier Mail's City Hall reporter.