But while it may sound like a good basis for a bad British sitcom, this is the kind of humour that loses its zing when you live every day with the impossibility of holding a joint tea party, let alone collaborative capital works of the kind so desperately needed in the Oxford St Mall. And don't even think about planning. For Waverley, Bondi Junction is the primary urban centre. Thus arrive view-guzzling uglies like the two Meriton towers fronting Syd Einfeld Drive, broadside to the view, backside to the town centre. For the mall, this mixed parentage has led to year after year of blatant neglect of which the end is nowhere in sight.
People do go there, doggedly loyal because if nothing else the mall has real air, real sun.
But it's desperate stuff. Nothing childish about that. Either way, although in theory the mall upgrade will open with the Westfield centre mid-2004, there's no plan and no money allocated, so don't hold your breath. Planning inquiries are not like other commissions of inquiry. Their job is not to illuminate who's done what to whom, which might get really interesting, but rather to act as quasi consent authorities in their own right, assessing the issues ab initio and advising the minister accordingly.