Tree Protection Laws - An exemplary case of good intentions making bad policy...

In response to Boroondara Council proposals to control pruning and removal of trees.

A Leafy Middle Class Suburb in Melbourne Australia is following the international trend of punishing the innocent because of their own inability to control the guilty....

The Law sets out to protect the "Leafy Suburb" of Camberwell by bringing the management of all trees of certain size or character under the protective control of the council. Great Idea ? A superficial and simplistic reading would say "yes". I would say a resounding "NO !" for a range of reasons...

Council bureaucracy is already vastly overdeveloped and costing residents more and more for "non core" business - everything from international trips for the CEO to encouragement of cultural diversity. Who the hell do they think they are ? The UN ?
One strategy to ensure the bureaucracy grows (and thus broaden and raise the career possibilities for officers) is to create more and more regulations that require information collection, issuing of permits, site inspections, conflict resolution, fee collection, etc etc.
Tree registers and procedures are a glaring example of this type of self-serving over governance.
But what about the trees ? Tree loss is a real issue needing council action. But where are the trees being lost ? The overwhelming losses occur due to the council's inability to do its core job of preventing overdevelopment of house blocks. I f maximum site coverage was nearer 50% as it used to be, there would be plenty of room for trees !!! Now that council is allowing subdivision to cover around 80% of land, there is no room for large trees without compromising safety or building structures.
The most prevalent modern strategy for attacking community problems is to make everyone pay for the irresponsibility of the few. Think about graffiti, crime, family breakdown. Responses don't focus on correcting the deviant group, they focus on making everyone pay or change behaviour to cope in "this day and age". Tree laws are just the council's way of making everyone pay for the irresponsibility of a very few developers.
The tree laws are another example of council treating its residents like slow learners. This initiative was defeated last year through widespread community opposition. The career bureaucrat just bides his time. The proposal is reintroduced again and again. Eventually, opposing voices are literally exhausted by a process that only career bureaucrats have the time to sustain. Democracy dies. Managerialism rules.
Once again, we hope the exhausted citizen has the energy to rises from the armchair to prevent "public servants" from extending their self-serving empire.