When Hobsons Bay resident Jason Goroncy received council’s ’Budget at a Glance’ flyer in his letterbox, he was moved to put pen to paper and write a playful response in the form of a poem.
In the halls of Hobsons Bay, they’ve drawn their battle lines,
There’s squillions for the roads, while community declines.
Seven dollars ninety-nine for art, for books, for dreams –
Tell me what this says about our values, plots, and schemes.
Thirty-nine for every road, twenty-one for parks and play,
Nine dollars for the aged, the faint, the ones who’ve lost their way.
These numbers tell a story of a community that’s lost,
Where concrete speaks much louder, and compassion pays the cost.
Sixty-three million for the monuments we’ve planned,
While the homeless sleep in doorways throughout this promised land.
Where is the friendly shelter when the rain falls cold and hard?
Where is that stubborn hope when kindness seems forever barred?
Twenty-five million dollars flows beneath our very feet in drains,
While struggling families break apart under crushing financial strains.
No food banks in the budget, no refuge for the poor,
Just the thunder of construction shaking every weary door.
A mother reads to children by the light of shopping malls,
An artist paints on cardboard in abandoned bathroom stalls.
The programs fade to nothing while the asphalt spreads like flame –
These are the quiet victims of our civic spending game.
Twelve-ninety for the fragile earth that cradles all our dreams,
While thirty-nine pours concrete over rivers, fields, and streams.
The warming earth sends warnings through each rising tide and flame,
Yet still we pave our children’s paths with poison, steel, and shame.
Just pennies for the saplings that could clean our poisoned air,
While toxins flood our waterways without a cent of care.
No funds to plant the forests that our children’s lungs will need,
As chemicals keep flowing from our profit-driven greed.
Disability gets nine dollars in this cold arithmetic,
While millions fund the monuments to progress smooth and slick.
The numbers tell our story of a community grown numb –
Fine roads for all to travel, but life has been struck dumb.
Is this the cost of progress?
Is this what we are for?
At least the ledger’s balanced though humanity’s no more.
