[rc white]

After lobbying for many years for the tunnel, (which is still as far as I know loosing money), the local action groups have been after a scrubber system in the tunnel exhaust stack for quite a while, no luck so far.

Our local federal member is Joe Hockey and until the election he was accompanied by John Howard in the adjacent seat.
The state member and local council are also coalition and withought the ex prime minister in the adjacent seat to wield the financial stick, and Hockey somewhat of a pariah, I doubt whether Lane Cove will receive any goodies from any government in the near future, (there are those who swear the airliner traffic over Lane Cove has also increased since the election, our skies used to be notably quite, I have noticed it also).

All of this of course has nothing to do with the issue, but then again maybe it does.
In the sustainability debate the left is generally seen to be on the side of the angels.
In the capitalist vs. socialist debate I have often pointed out that an original definition of socialism is the belief in "redistributing wealth by the action of government", and by this definition most politicians, (even George W.), is a socialist, it is just that they believe in redistributing wealth in the direction of those that vote for and support them.
This puts the erstwhile socialists in a bit of a bind since if they do redistribute wealth toward their supposed constituency, corporate interests who own the media make sure they don't get elected; or perhaps I am just being overly cynical....
rcw