Fear and loathing — but more for the media and the US than for China

Rob Addington writes: It is always worrying when it comes to China, given its history of invading other countries… Oh wait! That’s the US. (“Fortunes of war: why the Australian media won’t change how it writes about China“) Why are we fearmongering about our biggest trading partner?

Roger Clifton writes: We should be more afraid of our media than of China. In 2011 after a nuclear accident in Fukushima in Japan, the media pumped the line “We’re all gonna die!” It sold newspapers and clickbait even more as fear spread. The world media, including our own, joined the chorus: “They’re all gonna die!” Attention-hungry politicians in Japan and worldwide jumped on the bandwagon, terrorising their populations and each other. 

Prime Minister Naoto Kan was advised that it would be a social and economic disaster to evacuate Fukushima but he knew he would not stop the panic if he didn’t. Medically unnecessary, the evacuation killed a further 1000 frail people, the media frenzy was sated and the panic subsided. Meanwhile the people had been kept blind to the fact that there had been no significant threat. Indeed, no-one died from radiation, but the butcher’s bill levied by the media was a historic crime committed by the very watchdogs who should have been protecting their people from fearmongering.

Stephen Dunn writes: We should be more fearful of the hegemonic United States than China. The US in its death throes of world “leadership” is a bigger threat to international peace and order. Compare the two. Great swathes in the US are slipping into poverty, life expectancy is declining — in the “best” country in the world. China has lifted 700 million out of poverty over the past several decades. Our biggest trading partner is China. We live in the Asian area. It makes sense to tie our future to this region, not to the distant US and UK.

Margery Clark writes: I am more afraid of the US and its provocative and aggressive stance on China. I believe the Albanese government and the Australian media are totally out of touch, and I am very uneasy about Australia’s foreign policy. Experts such as defence and intelligence analyst Professor emeritus Hugh White and Australian historian and academic Clinton Fernandes are right on the money, as was Paul Keating.

Ray Schriever writes: We should definitely be concerned about China but not in the manner that the current narrative is running. We should be worried that Australia’s clever people are busy selling our assets, our produce and our intellect to such a rapacious customer. How long before we are the mid-20th century Arabs of the Middle East who were sitting on an enormous reserve of oil but getting very little for it. When they finally woke up they successfully regained control. We won’t be in the same position because the entrepreneurs have sold or leased our bounty on contracts we wrote. No doubt a minority has fared very well but overall we have let the few engage in a very stupid game.

Australia has been involved in the two major wars in the 20th century. In both we were a minute force and ill-prepared. In both we were used without respect by our allies whose commanders really had no idea. We need if anything a completely different concept of defence, not offence.

Steve Brennan writes: Yes we should be afraid of China, but the precondition turning the dial is the US, our own internal political mess and the media. Labor embracing AUKUS was a dumb idea and purely political, just a vehicle to make selected, privileged entities even more rich than they are. And Labor is right behind it. The idea of a war with China is simply insane.

Australia is behaving not like a strong, independent country but rather like a desperate country grasping at whatever comes its way. So what the media are doing with their warmongering narrative is irresponsible and stupid. I just refuse to read that rubbish and Paul Keating telling them they should hang their heads in shame couldn’t be any more on the money.

Bert Furmston writes: It’s China’s President Xi Jinping’s ego we have to be afraid of. While China professes to follow the world’s rules-based order, the persecution of the Uyghurs, the Sinicisation of Tibet, the border creep along the Indian and Bhutan borders, the seven-dash line, the militarisation of atolls in the South China Sea and the claim to Taiwan all speak of a rogue country.

Home truths

Phillip Burnham writes: Your article is a little simplistic (“The YIMBY movement is shaking up Australian politics amid the housing affordability crisis“). I live in inner-city Melbourne, and most of my street is medium- to high-rise residential developments. I don’t assume a NIMBY position automatically, and support appropriate developments, but my immediate neighbourhood has its share. Some apartments in my street have balconies with built-in flower beds, and are constructed around a large internal garden, giving residents more natural light and access to outdoor space. Most apartments, however, don’t.

Parking is another issue. Despite many people claiming they want to live in the inner city to avoid driving, they still want a parking spot, or two. (The various social media based around my neighbourhood have daily pleas for additional parking places. It seems the minimum one park per residence is not adequate for some.)

Planning cannot be underestimated. And that includes a fair bit of community education and consultation, as well as better-equipped council town planners. Importantly, bodies such as the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) need to maintain a proper balance instead of what is clearly a pro-development bias. Banning barristers and other “guns for hire” would be a good start to redress that imbalance.

As I walk around my local streets, I see some developments which are nothing short of a blight on the streetscape, and some which fit their location beautifully. I wish I was able to be an effective NIMBY to the former but happy to welcome the latter.

Nic Maclellan writes: One danger for the YIMBY movement is that property developers and the planning industry are co-opting legitimate anger about the housing crisis, lack of public housing investment and lack of affordable rental properties. They seek removal of regulations that are designed to get better outcomes from the planning process.

As one example, the website of YIMBY Queensland is full of buzzwords: “design excellence”, “sustainability”, “innovation”, “community dividend”. However, buried at the bottom of the page is the fine print: “The YIMBY Qld initiative is proudly brought to Queensland by leading Brisbane-based consultancy Wolter Consulting Group, who are spearheading the movement in Australia.”

YIMBY Queensland’s co-founder Nathalie Rayment is in fact an executive director of this Queensland-based urban planning and development consultancy. Rayment is a member of the Property Council of Australia’s committee for cities and Olympics roundtable, and vice-chair of the Housing Industry of Australia planning committee. Great credentials for a grassroots community campaigner.

Similarly, the Melbourne New Progressives describes itself as “Progressive pragmatists, building a YIMBY Melbourne for all. Melbourne chapter of the Centre for New Liberalism @CNLiberalism, part of the Progressive Policy Institute @PPI.” Could it please explain why this Melbourne “progressive” group is a chapter of a US think tank, with offices in Washington DC, London and Brussels?

Adam Ford writes: The housing debate is rapidly degenerating into an absurd form of tribalist name-calling rather than nuanced discussion of where the policy settings should properly be placed. YIMBYs (do these people actually think yes is the opposite of not?) can in my experience be as damaging to reasoned debate as NIMBYs are supposed to be.

For instance, the Jonathan O’Brien quoted in the article has been spouting about the almost non-existent limitations that heritage places on development, and this seems to have become a favourite straw man for YIMBY types online because comprehending the zoning issues that directly impact the upzoning capacity of massive swathes of our metropolitan areas seems too difficult for them.

In the same breath NIMBYs are constantly guilty of trying to dress up what are essentially specious anti-development views as being concerns about “heritage”, and so you wind up with all parties to the process missing the boat on the real issues. 

We need to get away from these silly binaries and move to a more sophisticated level of debate. It is local councils, planning and appeals panels that make the decisions rather than the much-derided NIMBYs. If people want to be useful about promoting better decision-making in planning then the locus of analysis needs to shift from name-calling anyone who inputs a negative view about a development … [to] planning policies and processes.