Flying fox bureaucracy stinks
EVERYBODY in Soviet Russia had both the right and responsibility to work even when there was bugger all to do.
The creation of completely pointless jobs was a hallmark of the communist regime.
People desperately underqualified (or over-qualified) were performing jobs that did not need to exist, all in the pursuit of achieving full employment without discrimination.
You might go to a shop, find one person standing there to weigh your ration spud, another to put it in a bag and a third to take your food stamp, all of them glaring at you with hateful eyes.
The Queensland Government is finally catching up to Joseph Stalin in its pursuit of installing a bureaucratic state where even the dimmest numbskull can get work pushing paper for the utter sake of it. Exhibit A. Some genius in the Department of the Environment has made it illegal to pick up a stick.
A dirty great big branch fell from a tree packed with flying foxes outside the heritage-listed Cairns City Library in mid-December. It has sat there for two months. Rather than pick it up — keeping in mind this is just dead wood blocking a footpath — barriers have been set up all around the perimeter to keep the public out.
Cairns Regional Council has been told shifting the branch would be a hangable offence, as would mowing the grass outside the library which is now waist-height and climbing.
Even better, the barriers have blocked off eight car parks in the CBD, which will remain out of action until such a time that the bats decide to find a new roost.
I could quite realistically go down there with a mate and a ute and have the branch on the way to the dump in about three minutes.
The flying foxes are a few metres overhead up in the living part of the tree, as one might expect.
Removing a dead branch on the ground would not affect them whatsoever — although mowing the lawn might scatter a few of the snakes that are no doubt waiting among the blades to strangle the last squawk and guano skerrick out of the creatures.
Yesterday I had a call from CBRE Cairns director Danny Betros, who did not see as much humour in the situation as I did.
“The State Government is having a Yes, Minister moment,” he said.
“We’re in a situation where we’ve got a branch that’s now fallen off the tree, it looks s***house, they’re blocking the footpath, they’re blocking eight carparks.
“They’re not even allowed to go in and remove a branch that’s got no bats in it.
“They’re not allowed to mow the grass.
“The most minor of the minorities is dictating what should happen in our beautiful city. “This is insanity.” Fair enough, bats are having a hard time.
They have been dropping off their perches en masse in heatwaves and face widespread loss of habitat.
Just this week the spectacled flying fox was upgraded from vulnerable to endangered status as a response to heightened concerns about its future.
But here’s the thing — flying foxes do not live on the ground.
It would take no effort at all to drag away a broken old dead branch, but instead we set up barriers.
Congratulations, comrades, for the outstanding work.