From Melbourne
21.3.83
Dear Alan
The
big news here in recent weeks has been the election and the bushfires. The
election result was fairly predictable; it was apparent the Liberals had run
out of steam and they seemed bereft of new ideas. Not that there are going to
be many dramatic changes under a Labor government. Australia hasn’t moved to
the left, it’s more that the Labor party has moved to the right. The essence of
Australian politics is to capture the middle ground and that is what the Labor
party has done. There’s not the euphoria and desire for swift change of 1972.
Just as well, they won’t make the same blunders in their haste to bring in the
new society.
Despite Hawkes glorious image and popularity I
doubt that there will anything but gradual change. That means they’ll have to
be in for some time for there to be any significant changes to Australian
society. Just a nibbling of the edges. The next year or so unemployment will
remain high, taxation won’t be cut (despite election promises) and inflation
will probably drop only marginally. There won’t be any great improvement until
the Australian economy gets a full head of steam.
Still
the average Australian who has a job is doing fairly well. And for those who
aren’t doing so well there will probably be an improvement in social services
to some extent.
South
African politics must look rather different for Australians. I don’t see that
the majority of SA voters would be in the middle. From this distance it appears
that there would be more polarization over there but how left is left over
there? I saw a recent gallop poll that showed South African blacks to be
basically conservative but that the majority believed their society would only
improve through revolution.
The
election result was more or less expected but the devastation of the bushfires
surprised most people. We should have expected it due to the length of the
drought but too many people were complacent. When the temperature reaches 43
with a howling gale and low humidity it’s a very explosive situation and that’s
what happened on Ash Wednesday. The fires which ultimately destroyed over 400
houses at Macedon actually started only about half a mile wide of our house
just past the poultry farm.
The
open ground round the poultry farm
divided the fire and it passed down both sides of the house. It was travelling
towards the Lederberg gorge when the wind changed and bought it back across our
land. Most of the trees we’ve been nurturing for about five years were burnt,
the long blackberry hedges just disappeared and the timber lying about finished
as piles of ashes. The CFA men did a great job and saved pour house but
couldn’t suppress the fire. From the time the fire got into the forest it took
only fifteen minutes to get to Macedon. Apart from all the buildings that were
destroyed, six people lost their lives. The wonder is that the loss of life
wasn’t greater.
The
sight of miles of burnt out forest is very depressing but it is amazing to see
the trees starting to throw out new shoots already. We were at Trentham last
weekend and t looks as though we night save about 50% of our trees. Heavy rain
started falling today (the first for months) should help greatly.
We have
been restricted in getting about for weeks as we had our car stolen from our
driveway early in February. It was recovered a couple of days later near the
Maribynong river but without a gearbox. Apparently the gear-box of the
Commodore is attractive for drag racers.
The car
wasn’t damaged much apart from the gear-box but it took about four weeks for it
to be repaired. Thankfully the Mini is still chugging along and it proved very
useful.
Everybody
is well at present and life goes on much the same. The football season starts
this Saturday (too early) so Melbourne returns to “normality”. Football, like
lost sports, seems to be concerned only with money and we could see a waning of
interest.
Kindest
regards Dad
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