Also, lets not forget his behaviour with the development of the Block, where the Aboriginal Housing Corporation was allowed to put half as many Aboriginal people in the space as the other companies were allowed white people.

I could go on - the point is it is simply ridiculous to claim that Sydney-siders’ dislike of Sartor is not based on his bad decisions and dodgy dealings and instead based on their bias and nimby-ism… Although, if you came and spent time in my rat infested Darlington backyard for a week I imagine you would be saying “not in my backyard” as well…

Instead of fighting it we should ensure that real estate developments meet the highest environmental and aesthetic standards and the infrastructure is upgraded to the point where, for example, people no longer feel compelled to own a car but only need to hire one occasionally.

Fact is people in the East want some breathing space just like Westies want a backyard.

The reason it’s a phoney argument is Sydney is full. Sure there is a bit of extra capacity in re birthing of old industrial, and air space rights over heavy rail nodes and renovations. But the trajectory downward in the graph is probably as much to do with saturation and infrastructure capacity constraints.

The scenario you are getting here is a nationwide version of what Sydney likes to do to Bondi. All access little responsibility. Everyone’s playground but ratepayers pay the lion’s share of upkeep.

Similarly the country wants/likes Sydney as a global gateway. It likes Sydney doing all the multicultural induction work and stresses and strains of that. It’s happy to have 4 million people copping chronic air pollution 300 days a year. And they like to visit often enough.

But no way do they want to take the immigration load, or give up their extra GST subsidies from the largest population centre. Frankly it’s not just Green Party voters who are noticing the racket going on whereby certain rich folks (yes developers and mall owners) and their politician mates, all have holiday homes in Bowral and the Hunter a long way from Sydney while the rest are being crushed by their mortgage in the metropolis.

In the inner west of Sydney, where the Greens run the local council of Leichhardt, much to the delight of the Sydney Morning Herald, all development is regarded as inherently evil and refused as a matter of routine. Of course that means people are forced to live way out west, where their carbon footprint is far worse for our planet. But at least they’re not damaging anyone’s views, or taking valuable parking spaces. And of course refusing developments and restricting supply force existing property prices ever higher.

Nothing could be worse for a green voter than someone building anything anywhere near them. Especially on waterfront real estate. That, apparently is the will of Gaia.

And thank you Bernard, for explaining everything so succinctly. It’s why I just renewed my subscription to Crikey. I have buying and reading the Herald for 30 years and have never had it explained to me why the city they report on and are supposed to understand, is so stuffed. They’re part of the problem. I think now can now finally, break the habit of a lifetime.