Budget Land

In tabling the 2017 Federal Budget in May, the Treasurer made a big deal out of a scheme to release a parcel of Defence Dept. land in the Melbourne suburb of Maribyrnong to enable development of a housing estate to help alleviate a severe shortage of stock in the current Victorian market. On the face of it, the proposal  would potentially allow construction of 3000 homes in an attractive river-side environment... forming what could become a new and desirable suburban area out of an otherwise waste-land.

It's only now, several weeks after the Treasurer and his government colleagues have been basking in the aura of their wonderful 'gesture', that we learn the site is heavily affected by almost 100 years of pollution with by-products of a munitions factory established in 1908. To restore the site to suitability for human habitation is going to cost 'someone' tens of  millions of dollars in clean-up costs and a waiting period of between 2 and 6 years before actual development of housing can begin!

Still, we could start thinking up names for the housing precincts of the future. Asbestos Acres, Hydrocarbon Heights or even Toxic Towers come immediately to mind.