Bob Carr infuriates me to such a degree that I am writing this prior to morning coffee, after tossing and turning all night. Bob Carr was certainly NOT in my political bed this morning when I woke up.

I think he is quite sinister. Let’s ask the question: exactly who is Bob Carr in bed with? I think his bedmates don’t change often. They are always developers.

Cast your mind back to the dying days of the Unsworth Government. Back in the late 1980s, the bookish and at that point almost boyish Environment Minister was Bob Carr. He had one last task before his government was defeated by the Greiner landslide. He approved the development at Circular Quay that infamously became known as the toaster.

Bob Carr loves to flash his environmental credentials by making National Parks at the back of whoop whoop. What about the bloody built environment in Sydney? He doesn’t care about that.

His dream is to make all the foreshores a continuous strip of over priced cafes topped with similarly overpriced apartments. Just wait and see. Those working port areas will become Circular Quay east writ large. It will be truly hideous.

Maybe there will be some mock references to that old thing called “shipping” in the apartment designs or commercial facilities. Like maybe there will be a pub called “The Wharfie” where they sell Americana type food with Australian names. You know, like the Stevedores Burger with upsized Wharfie Fries. It will be truly awful.

Interspersed around the foreshore will the the ubiquitous Sydney cafes. Here they will borrow heavily from Italy. Why, there may even be a whole Italian flavour in a big section of water front. Why not even build an apartment and shopping place modelled after Porto Fino in Italy? The only thing that will be genuinely Italian will be the multinational Milan-based coffee company supplying the endless mountains of beans needed for all this nonsense.

We will end up living in a Disney-like town. There will be references to things that once were, but somehow none of it will be real. A total fantasy land imagined by Bob Walt Disney-Carr.

You will sit at the remodelled Luna Park which would be by then a collection of South American style theme bars, looking at yet another yacht go by. As you stroke your greying beard you will say:

“See that expensive yacht going by – it looks good, but I remember when giant ships would come past here. I remember when this was a working port.

“Ships would come from around the world and unload their cargo. See over there, near that aging block of flats and tired old cafe, that is where once hundreds of people worked. You know, Governor Phillip said it was the finest harbour in the world. For more than two centuries it was a great trading port.

“Then early in the 21st century we had a Premier called Walt Disney-Carr. He decided to kill the port and send coals and ships to Newcastle, which would then come back to Sydney by road.

“See all those old flats? He approved them. Those windswept barbecue areas between the flats that no one goes to – he also approved them. At the time some people thought it was an advance, but we really lost part of our heritage when he did that.

The reality is every night Bob Walt Disney-Carr gets into bed and wakes up with developers. For him there is no confusion, because this is where he feels most comfortable.

Are there no limits to the numbers of flats and waterside cafes in Sydney?

Bob Carr loves to walk, but this nightmare foreshore he envisages is a place he’ll never go. He will stick to the natural walks along the coast by Maroubra, while the rest of us will stroll along poorly constructed fake heritage wharfs, cafes on one side and marinas on the other. Most of the time we will stroll in the shadow of blocks of flats. Oh sorry, I mean luxury apartments complete with high tech security and European appliances.

So many granite benchtops and Miele ovens.

The mind boggles. I’m going to buy some shares in Miele today. Small European ovens have a great future in the small flats of Sydney. I might also buy shares in Illy coffee, a company whose future in Sydney seems assured.

The new cargo cult, courtesy of Walt Disney-Carr.

Please excuse me, I have to rush off to work and earn a living in Switzerland. As I enjoy my morning coffee in a real setting, I’ll also muse about whether Sydney will be worth going back to one day. Maybe I’d rather stay somewhere authentic that cares about its heritage.

See Your say for more reader opinion of Carr ending Sydney’s proud history as a working port.

Harry is an executive at a US multinational company and is based in Switzerland. He writes a regular column for Webdiary.