How a MAJOR blunder may have cost the Brisbane Lions the AFL grand final: ‘It’s ludicrous. They had no idea!’
- Brisbane Lions were victim of a poor decision in the grand final
- The Lions fell to a four-point defeat to Collingwood at the MCG
- READ: Craig McRae reveals incredible baby news
- The Brisbane Lions may feel cheated after a late call in the AFL grand final had a significant impact on their premiership chances.
After Lachie Neale was tripped by Oleg Markov as Brisbane approached the forward 50 during Saturday’s dramatic, frenzied finale against Collingwood, the Lions were given an opportunity.
However, Lions star Zac Bailey appeared to be oblivious of the advantage call and continued to play when a free kick would have been more advantageous.
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“We have just passed a law that will enable property owners to build up to six homes on a property where there currently stands a detached house,” Montgomery says.
“Because we want to solve the affordability crisis, the climate crisis and the sociability crisis at the very same time.
“And that means not forcing millennials and young people not to move to the urban edge.”
Both cities are trying to find the missing middle accommodation – not high-rise accommodation, which is too expensive, and no longer detached homes.
“We just legalised what we’ve called multiplexes. It legalises four- to six-storey apartments on almost all of our arterial roads,” Montgomery says.
“But also in some locations for two blocks away from these arterial roads.”
Montgomery says this is part of a newer sense of equity in design.
“For the longest time we just built apartments along noisy, polluted arterial routes. We treated renters poorly. We’d build a wall to protect them from noise and traffic.
“We’ve realised that’s not fair, so we are beginning to build those apartment buildings off the arterial roads.”
Back to basics, however. How do you know if a city is happy or unhappy if your job is to make it a happier place to live?
“The way you find out if a city is happy or not is you ask people how happy they are,” Montgomery says.
“I am not being facetious. The World Values Surveys regularly poll people around the world and asks them two questions: one about happiness and another question about them to rate their own wellbeing.”
On 2021’s World Happiness Day, Australia was viewed as the world’s 11th happiest place to live and Canada the 14th.
In 2019, a survey by Brisbane City Council of 2400 residents of Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, Perth and south-east Queensland areas found Brisbanites reported a 93 per cent quality-of-life rating, compared with Melbourne and Perth residents, who reported an 89 per cent rating.
Sydney’s residents reported a 76 per cent rating.
Sixty-six per cent of Brisbane residents agreed the city was “a better place to live and work” than it was five years ago, while only 45 per cent of Sydney residents felt the same about their city.
For Montgomery, one value matters more than any other for there to be happiness.
“That is trust. The degree of trust that people have in each other.”
He refers to the familiar “will a stranger return your wallet if you drop it in the street” question.
“As it turns out, people’s answers to that question still reflects their happiness to their community.”
Charles Montgomery is a keynote speaker at the 2023 Asia Pacific Cities Summit in Brisbane from October 11-13. The theme of the conference is shaping cities for our future.
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