Remember Terry what's his name, deputy premier, & Anna's head kicker.

Remember the big hoo-ha, before he retired. The definitive plan for South East Queensland, with its "urban foot prints" scattered all over the place, to suit developers, & thousands of private land holders denied the right to subdivide in future.

This was it, the next 50 years cast in stone. Well, it's been a pretty short 50 years.

Today the announcememt of a new & wonderful plan. Trouble is, it looks an awful lot like the old one, with a new stuff up.

The new Flagstone looks a lot like the old one, which has been going for years. Hundreds of homes, schools & other stuff, but it's all a new idea of course.

Then Yarrabilba, that's the old Hancok's pine plantation. It was on the old plan too. Owned by Delfin, with an approved in principle plan for a 55,000 people development, they are chaffing at the bit to get started. It's the government who have been telling them they can't start for 15 years. Well they were last week, anyway.

What do you know, everything old is new, again. Must be something going on that Anna & company don't want the news hounds to notice.

But then the sting. A new government body, the Urban Land Development Authority, to take over development of these privately owned developments.

God help us, with all the major stuff ups we have seen by public servants recently, do they really believe that public servants are capable of development work. What odds they'll be 19 years late, & be the only developments ever to loose money.

Hope you don't want to buy a block of land in the near future.

Within ten years Hasbeen there wont be any land remaining across most states to develop, including most farming or grazing land. Plans by Developers and Government worked on twenty years ago. Do not be surprised when developers overseas and here get their hands on the NT, the remainder of QLD and NSW. Expect thousands of buildings, new towns populated to the hilt.

If the past twenty years is any indication, we will be driving through towns and cities once again. Towns sitting right alongside the highways for people to enjoy 'ugly grey or brown identical buildings' be it townhouses or homes. The latest generation, given the economic climate, unfortunately cannot afford to be at all fussy regarding the type of structure they purchase or lease; a legacy dating back to the late 90's.

The reality is, planning is a very complex task which operates on a different temporal scale than that of political tenure. Political tenure is usually secured in the first place by targetting voters and making plans that get votes. Its always great to hear Anna is going to build yet another tunnel in Brisbane, or sell the rain from the clouds (before its fallen) to the French (OK I made that last bit up). Though the roads and hospitals in the north really need to be fixed, at least there will be plenty of football stadiums in Brisbane.

Queensland has done a lot of work on planning and on sustainability and it is there to see on public sites.

How can the States plan effectively when the federal government continually blows them out of the water with shocks like Kevin Rudd's 'Big Australia' with population doubling that would put an over-fertile Third World country to shame? What State Premier hasn't complained about the foolishness of large scale immigration and been told 'never you mind' by the federal government?

Then the Feds, who have no plans themselves (it as all do as I say, not do as I do), cap it off with stunts like rolling Anna Bligh on a dam that had been through long gestation and consultation. Fly in, spring a cowardly surprise on the State government and fly out again. At the time cities in Qld had mud instead of water in their dams and the future was very bleak.

If the brick bats should be aimed at anyone it is both of the major parties in Canberra, where it is all care and no responsibility.