Brisbane has been in its present location since 1825. If the "green" answer to "how can we stop floods in Brisbane" is "well you shouldn't have built a city there in the first place, so nyer" then I don't think that's the kind of attitude that's going to do wonders for the cause of environmentalism.
Seriously though, to the extent that there's fingers to be pointed they should be pointed at the folks in charge of the Wivenhoe Dam. But hey, I'm not a dam engineer, so maybe we really do need a second dam.
Well, the riverside of Brisbane is mostly private property, including the CBD. Unless you're going to forcibly confiscate private property, people are not going to leave of their own accord - and even if they do, others will be happy to move in behind them. So it's a choice of leaving things where they are, or suspending democracy, private property and freedom of choice and doing a dictatorial thing like clearing all the houses and buildings along the river and creating a park. Even if you did it under existing laws, the amount of money required to resume all the properties would be immense. Everyone of those riverfront homes is worth at least a million dollars. The buyout and demolition would far outweigh any reconstruction costs.
These people know they live in a flood zone. There are flood markers all over the place and every property purchase inclues a 1974 flood report as to the level of flooding in the particular property. People choose to live in these place of their own free will in the full knowledge the river might one day come and flood them.
So a wide green belt along the river might be a good idea. But it's also completely impractical and only good as a theoretical talking point.
Serious question. I don't have a horse in this race, and I don't know the specifics of the Australian system, but:
"These people know they live in a flood zone. [...] People choose to live in these place of their own free will in the full knowledge the river might one day come and flood them."
Doesn't this end up being the usual privatize the profit, socialize the risk scheme? People enjoy their property on flood-free years (which I understand to be most of them). In a flood, the society sticks together, volunteers, the government steps in and helps out the flooded areas. People who live above the flood level, who might have chosen to do so consciously because of the flood level, get little reward for their risk avoidance.
I don't mean to sound heartless and I am sure it is horrible to have your house under water -- but isn't this an issue at the end of the day? Is there a factor I am not aware of? Is there an overall shortage of suitable, natural-disaster-proof land? Do you get flood insurance and pay back for the help received?
I did answer this before but the internet appears to eaten the comment. I'll be more brief this time.
>Doesn't this end up being the usual privatize the profit, socialize the risk scheme?
In short, there's very few locations which don't have advantages of a greater public pool of funds to assist in disaster.
You might say this but I'll counter by saying that all residents of San Francisco are privatising the benefits of living in such a nice city, while greater California and the USA are socialising their risk of living in an earthquake prone area. The same goes for tornado country, or most of florida with Hurricanes, or wherever, really.
So while you can probably argue the technical merits of such a statement it quickly can be applied to just about anyone, anywhere, and starts to look absurd.
I would object if people living in flood zones were automatically provided with government funds to rebuild. While the government might donate money to the general cause of rebuilding (much of which goes to hardship funding) they don't directly underwrite private property. So the person with the most risk is the one living next to the river. As long as they don't expect or are promised help, then you're not socialising the risk. If people volunteer help after the fact, that's a different thing.
> Even if you did it under existing laws, the amount of money required to resume all the properties would be immense.
IANAL, but as I recall, the guarantee that forced acquisition occur on just terms only binds the Commonwealth, not the states. Queensland may not have just-terms laws, and even if they do, Parliament would be able to suspend them.
IANAL either, but anything that happens with regards to forced property acquisitions also means the person with the confiscated property has to be compensated fairly at full market value for said property. And the cost of acquiring all the riverfront property along the Brisbane and Bremer Rivers would be astronomical.
So they only way to resume the properties and provide a benign area for flooding is to either (a) borrow or tax a lot of money for the acquisition or (b) suspend the laws and steal the properties from their owners by means of modified legislation or other force.
I'm not saying that forced property acquisition should never occur, clearly there needs to be cases where this happens ('The Castle' notwithstanding). But to forcefully acquire all the property along the Brisbane river? Another flood mitigation Dam would be a lot cheaper and keep a lot more people happy, and provide more water for droughts. Queensland is still woefully under-equipped for long dry periods. Wivenhoe was designed to mitigate flood waters and guarantee supply until 2000. SEQ needs another large dam.
> IANAL either, but anything that happens with regards to forced property acquisitions also means the person with the confiscated property has to be compensated fairly at full market value for said property.
What you say is true of acquisitions made by the Commonwealth. The Federal Constitution makes that explicit guarantee (Section 51(xxxi)) -- incidentally the High Court have taken the view that "just terms" does not necessarily mean "at market rates". My parents got diddly poop for land compulsorily acquired by the Whitlam Government near Darwin.
But the states are not bound by that guarantee and each State Constitution may or may not have requirements for just terms acquisition by the states. Moreover, State constitutions are generally amendable by State Parliaments without requiring a referendum, making them much less robust to policy pressure than the Federal Constitution.
If it so happens to be that Queensland's "just terms" rules are in an amendable constitution or are an Act of Parliament, then there would be no legal barrier to the Parliament removing or drastically reducing compensation for compulsory acquisition of land.
However I suspect land along the Brisbane river will not be acquired because of the politically poisonous nature of compulsory acquisitions generally.
i'm constantly floored by the scale and quality of infrastructure in japan, and not just tokyo even out woop woop they have rail, road, water and telco infrastructure that makes our efforts look feeble.
amazing shit you can do when you run public debt at close to 100% of GDP :)
And when you have population density. It makes economic sense to provide better services when you have x number of people per m^2 as compared to the Australian density.
I'm a big believer that Australian cities should be bearing this in mind and building up rather than out.
Seriously though, to the extent that there's fingers to be pointed they should be pointed at the folks in charge of the Wivenhoe Dam. But hey, I'm not a dam engineer, so maybe we really do need a second dam.