How reading Keynes brought me to a Freeway

The day was a wandry. Saturday. The news dominated by the upcoming Australian Federal Election due to take place on 21st August. So, for the next weeks our media will be saturated with Politicians and Politicians impersonating themselves as they scramble to convince you to vote for their Party. Actually, it is our good fortune to have Elections, roughly every 3 years. These Elections, whilst robust, are free of corruption and conducted in an orderly, sensible and unimpeachable manner. In this country, we may grumble about the compulsory voting aspect (if you do not turn up to vote you can get fined), but we have a smooth running Democracy that may at times creak along, but works. I would suspect many other countries would envy our political system.

But today, it was a wandry. I had an opportunity to go along to the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) to watch a game of Australian Rules Football between two of the current top teams. Collingwood (known as the Magpies) and St. Kilda (known as the Saints). Both Clubs have a proud football heritage and a legion of fans. Collingwood, has one of the highest paid up memberships totalling over 57,000 people, who on average, pay between anywhere from $100 up to $600 per year to belong to the 'Collingwood family'. However, the idea of being in screaming mass of over 80,000 patrons was not my way of spending a Saturday afternoon, albeit with the excitement that such a crowd and a game generates. Collingwood easily defeated St. Kilda as it turned out.

Instead, I thought, a quiet day in the Plod house spending some time engrossed in a book. My current reading is a biography about the great Economist, John Maynard Keynes by British author, Peter Clarke. In my opinion, Keynes is one of the finest contributors to human development, especially in the 20th Century. I always recall a quote attributed to him in 1940: 'I am a highly teachable person. I learn from criticism and before now have laid myself open to the reproof that my second thoughts - which is an indication, some people think, of a dangerous instability of character.' His well known tome, 'The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money', for me is vivid as a political philosophy as it is applied by an empirical outcome, affecting profoundly our Society. Fortunately, following the reign of Monetarists, who with their greed and laissez-faire approach, have so near rendered the world economy impotent, the Keynesian model is becoming accepted practice once more. As my parents (then children) can all too well attest from their experiences of the Great Depression of the 1930s, leaving it to the so called 'market' alone is not necessarily for the good of the majority. Greed is NOT good.

However, as much as the Keynes book would stimulate my thoughts, albeit sympathetically. Daytime is for outside, even in winter. After a light lunch, I wandered off to see the local Football side play and do some hearty barracking (good for the lungs) in between sups of coffee and munching on some Madeira cake I had acquired the previous day from a Bakery near home. The match was a thrilling game, played with gusto, verve and sheer physicality (as Aussie Rules should be played). The match was between the team I follow, Albion (the Cats) and Port Melbourne (the Colts) ending up in a draw with each team scoring 14 goals 10 behinds 94 points (a goal is worth 6 points and a behind 1 point). It has been the only draw (this season) in the Competition (Western Region Football League) in which both teams play. I am nearly hoarse from cheering and yelling so much. But it was worth the croakiness. The Albion side is precariously placed at number 5 on the Ladder, anything below 5th place and you miss out on playing finals come end of August and thus a chance to win the Premiership.

The match was played at Port Melbourne Oval, which is a delightful suburban Football Ground. It is very unobtrusive, does not have the bells and whistles and the extravaganza that some of the higher league venues (such as the MCG) are fortunate to posses. For me, to get to this Ground, I undertook a picturesque trip. I catch a couple of buses and trains, finally alighting at the inner western suburb station of Spotswood, which backs onto the Yarra River near where the Westgate Bridge crosses. Spotswood was named not after some pompous landed Englishman or some obscure General who plundered the masses of India in days of the Raj. But after a rather drunken sod of a near illiterate Ferryman who used to operate a Punt in the very early years of Melbourne Settlement. Apparently, he was quite the larrikin rogue. Until given the wealth he accrued from his Ferry/Punt crossing of the Yarra River - near where the current Westgate Bridge is located - he became respectable enough in doddering old age to have a suburb named after him! Proof, if you live long to out distance your past and all your enemies and or contemporaries have died, you gain social respectability. Near where Spotswood plied his Punt is another, though much more humble operation that runs on most weekends, school holiday periods, some public holidays (or special events) and over the warmer summer months. It takes mainly Cyclists riding the Bayside Trail around Port Phillip Bay. This trail extends for about 50 kilometres. Walkers can also ride the Punt. You obtain one of the finest views of the Westgate Bridge and the Yarra River during the brief 10 minute crossing and I always take visitors on such a journey. Once on the other (or eastern side) of the Yarra River you find yourself in Westgate Park. This Park, located under the shadow of the Bridge, has slowly developed from around the late 1970s (when it was a Quarry in part, Industrial site in other parts and a no-persons swampy area in others). It has been extensively landscaped and is a haven for wildlife, literally under the nose of the Melbourne CBD. It is a fine spot to go on picnics and offers a number of enjoyable walks within its grounds. The Bayside Trail passes through on its way to re-joining the beach near Port Melbourne. The Oval where the game was played is a very short distance from the Westgate Bridge and an easy walk. The only drawback was that by the time the match finished near 5:00pm, the Punt would have long ceased operations for the day and this necessitated either a pleasant Tram ride or an equally as pleasant 4 kilometre walk back into Melbourne City in order to catch a train back out to the western suburbs from whence I had earlier plodded. I chose to do the easy walk through the leafy, now very middle class suburb of Port Melbourne. As you may have gathered, the suburb is so named because most of Melbourne's Docks are located within its municipality. Once, from the earliest time of European settlement, the suburb was very much of a working class (and lower) indenture. Workers who lived in often poor housing were employed on the Docks, often in terse conditions. It was, in effect, a look down upon place by more snobbish suburbs to its north and east. Many Government Housing Estates took root in Port Melbourne that also, unfairly, attracted opprobrium. Port Melbourne too, was once Australia's gateway from the world for newly arriving Immigrants (such as 10 pound Poms) who landed at its Princes and Station Piers, in the days when most overseas travel was via Ships. Station Pier still operates as Ferry terminal for the Tasmanian Ferries that daily ply across Bass Strait on their 12 hour journey to and from the island of Tasmania. In times of War (notably the First and Second World Wars), these Piers were the place where Troops embarked for overseas service, many, sadly, never to return. In recent times, visiting Warships now tie up at Station Pier along with the occasional Cruise Liner. I still frequent the Pier to occasionally going saltwater fishing (though I readily admit I am not much of a fisherperson as I tend to get absorbed in a book whilst waiting for a bite that most of the time slips off the hook due to my inattention). But it can be a pleasant way to spend a warm summer's afternoon and evening. Near the Piers, in what was once row upon row of public housing, is now multi-million dollar Apartments or Units. Most offering superb Bay and City views. The suburb, mostly, has become very gentrified or yuppiefied. Still, it is an interesting place to visit. But for me not to stay, as it can be a tad false and pretentious.

Nevertheless, after watching the Football game and plodding back into the City where I caught a train back towards home, a chum called me on the mobile Eau-de-Cologne. Want to get some Fish n' Chips at your favourite place in Yarraville, Plod? Fancy even to have to ask, was my reaction. I immediately diverted for Yarraville and with my friend we sat in the small Park near Yarraville Railway Station (deserted due to the line being closed for trackworks over the weekend) and mooched away on our Fish n' Chip booty. After a brief visit to the Sun Bookshop nearby (I just can't help myself), my friend mentioned to me that he knew of a pedestrian crossing not too far away over the Westgate Freeway that might offer me a photographic challenge. Let us then go, I proffered!

It was a walk of well over an hour about 5 kilometres before we reached this 'nearby' Footbridge and what a place it turned out to be! The Westgate Freeway links Melbourne and its south-eastern and eastern suburbs with the western suburbs and onto Geelong (the second largest City in Victoria some 40 kilometres distance) by crossing the Yarra River over the Westgate Bridge. It has a nominal distance of about 14 kilometres (including 2,582 metres of the Westgate Bridge). It is a massive Los Angeles style Freeway of between 8-10 lanes and a number of exit and entry points. Constructed in the 1960s, it opened in progressive stages through the 1970s and was fully functional when the Bridge opened in 1978. When planned, it was envisaged up to 40,000 vehicles would use the Freeway and the Bridge. Now, up to 180,000 vehicles rumble along its length and this is expected to rise well past 200,000 within the next handful of years. In the morning peak hour, well over 21,000 vehicles were clocked on the Freeway! A major upgrade of both the Freeway and Westgate Bridge is being undertaken at present costing near on $2 Billion (that is $2,000,000,000) Australian Dollars. Astonishing, and all just for cars and trucks, sigh...

Arriving at the Footbridge, which is located about 1 kilometre from the last exit point before reaching the Bridge proper (Williamstown Road) I wondered what have we here? The narrow (wide enough for two people side by side) Footbridge ramps up over the noise mitigation walls (which line the length of the Freeway) to provide a pedestrian link between suburbs rendered asunder north and south of the motorway. Houses on both sides are a mere stone's throw away from the Freeway. I can only presume very hardy or perhaps very deaf and blissfully unaware types live in the houses which surely must have layers of double glazing (or more) on their windows. Once on the Footbridge, which has a length just less than 100 metres and is about 20 metres above the Freeway, you are greeted with a site that I found near apocalyptic! The noise is deafening (I had to shout to talk) as the traffic thunders beneath in both directions at speeds up 100 kilometres per hour. It is a sight that could either be distressing, be madness or for some, of urban beauty and functionality. It was just organised chaos to me! In the distance, facing eastwards from the Footbridge, you see the curve of the Westgate Bridge soaring about the Yarra River with its multitudes of lights, signs and of course rampaging vehicles, changing lanes tooting horns all going on all sorts of anonymous journeys. Setting up the camera is not for the fainthearted if you are uneasy about height, least noise. You could feel this thin sliver of a Footbridge literally wobble and you hoped the Engineers got the design right with respect to stress and vibration. Taking photographs I thought may be a problem, especially the long exposures needed due to this wobble, so it was trial and error. The only barrier separating me, my friend and my camera on its tripod from tumbling to the Freeway was a rather nondescript, aluminium rail that rose to just over a metre in height! I half expected to see the Constabulary too. As of recent times, people have been criminally dropping rocks and in one case a large bluestone boulder, off similar Footbridges over other Freeways in Melbourne. This, as you can imagine, has caused serious injuries to drivers and passengers whose vehicle (namely the windscreen) has been struck by these dropped missiles. But I suspect this is a popular (to a degree) photo spot and probably well known to Authorities in this regard. After about an hour of snapping away (and brief escapes off the Footbridge just to get away from the noise and the wobble). I reckoned I had enough exposures on the SDHC to warrant a retreat from this location inspired of Sodom and Gomorrah. Time for a coffee, I claimed, reeking with the aroma that came from the vehicle fumes permeating my clothing. It certainly is an astonishing location and a testament in madness to the urban landscape. I'll not be in a hurry to return either!