Janet Rice

The freeway, the bandicoots and frying and dying.  How Mr Brumby and Lester help us learn to stop worrying and love the bomb.

Once upon a time Mr Brumby and his government decided to build a big shiny new freeway to make it easier for them to get to their seaside holidays on the Mornington Peninsula.

Mr Brumby says ‘Don’t worry. We will do an Environment Effects Statement to show how the new freeway can be built without destroying the environment. We are so confident that we can do that that we don’t even need to wait until the EES is finished before announcing that the freeway will be built!.

Now, even though Mr Brumby has already said that the freeway will be built, we still get to play the EES game. So, the EES is written. People get to put in submissions. Aren’t they lucky to be able to spend their weekends doing such fun things like that!

Then comes the really fun bit of the game. This involves three lovely gentlemen getting together as a Panel. Their job is to say how well the EES has done in its quest of saying that we can build a freeway and protect the environment and reduce carbon pollution and create world peace.

The Chair of the Panel is a bloke called Lester who lives in Brunswick (Lester used to be seen as a bit of a greenie. Not any more.)

Lester and his Panel say  ‘Mmmm, The EES says traffic is increasing. Congestion is a problem. Population is increasing ( but not too much) . And what do you know! There is land that has been set aside for the freeway for a long, long time – almost back to when time began. Magic Freeway Land!