Image: As presiding deity for this talk here is Bill Peterson, the mayor of Fitzroy, being arrested in his mayoral finery in 1977, at a protest against the F19/Eastern freeway—back when police still wore ties. It was because of these protests that the freeway now stops at Hoddle St instead of running all the way to the then Tullamarine freeway, now City Link.

Address to the CIS hearing for the East West Link, 10 April 2014 – Andrew Kelly

My name is Andrew Kelly. I am a resident of Fitzroy, but where I live would be well back from Ground Zero, should the project go ahead.

For the last thirty or so years I have been teaching ancient languages at various American and Australian universities. I’ve never been involved in sustained political action before, but I have thrown myself into the campaign against this project.

Like many others, I’ve done this because the project, like Ralph Nader’s Chrysler, is bad under every heading. Different things have moved different people to come out against it, but for summary we can arrange the project’s failings into concentric circles of woe, depending on the range and immediacy of those impacted. Continue Reading…