Archive for June 8th, 2009

Being a globetrotting sort, I rather fancy attending the biggest property event in Australia - Congress 09, which happens to take place on the idyllic Hamilton Island on Queensland’s Barrier Reef in September. Hey, it’s all in the interests of international research - and keeping my Aussie wife happy.

Lots of seminar stuff on free markets, the global stimulus package, infrastructure spending and urban planning. There is also golf, deep sea reef fishing around the Whitsunday Islands and a pamper day at the spa. Where do I book?

Oh hang on, I’ve just discovered who the keynote speaker is, 12,000 miles away from his natural habitat. It is, wait for it, Ken Livingstone, the former Mayor of London.

Is Hamilton Island a haven for newts? Or is the cheque, even in Aussie dollars, big enough to persuade Ken to travel to the other side of the world to deliver his words of wisdom – more red lights, more road works and more congestion charges – to a country with a little more open space to work with than England’s capital?

Good luck to Livingstone if people are prepared to pay for his thoughts; in the same way that Americans fork out huge sums of money to listen to the politico-spiritual musings of a former British prime minister who led us illegally to futile wars.

Livingstone is making quite a profitable habit of helping the world sort its urban planning problems. He is already consultant to Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, advising on infrastructure and transport in the capital Caracas.

Does Livingstone in his presentations dare hold up London as the template for master urban planning?

As the Aussies would say: “Strewth!”

As Livingstone’s successor Boris Johnson would say: “Crikey!”

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