It doesn’t seem to matter whether the plan is for an airport, a road, a dam, a rail line, a tunnel, or a coal mine or something as simple, cheap and effective as shark nets on the North Coast of NSW, we have become a nation of whiners, whingers and Dr No’s.

Everyone wants the economic benefits of development but no one wants to be inconvenienced or have the proposed development near them, even when it’s in remote areas of Australia or clapped out buffalo country that no one’s ever heard of or perhaps only ever passed through or flown over on the way to somewhere else.

One example that comes to mind in recent times is the proposal for Australia to become a repository for the worlds spent fuel rods benefiting the economy to the extent of $1 million a tonne. That’s right, it’s not a misprint. A tonne.

It’s the old story. The fear mongering and whining builds to fever pitch with the usual array of suspects and self-appointed, self-interested “stake holders” and doom boosters saddling up for battle once again.
As predictable as clock work, environmental groups and lobbyists in lockstep with their likeminded political allies of the left will latch on to yet another cause for all manner of contrived and confected reasons pretending to care about a frog, an ornamental skink or the disruption and dislocation to people’s lives when in reality they couldn’t give a toss and of course they will be sought out for opinion, aided and abetted by the Marx Stream Media

By way of contrast its worth considering how Macau has built a $15 billion, 13 kilometre bridge to the mainland, all in just three years, from concept to completion.

A much smaller, less challenging project in Australia would be like wading through treacle and probably wouldn’t even get off the ground because of the constant war of attrition waged by the various activist and ginger groups and a timid, lethargic, pusillanimous political class with no vision, no imagination and no idea, that talk up a big game of agility and momentum but would rather just kick the can down the road than risk their cosy, comfortable, cloistered careers.