Why Australia needs a Zurich-style blower ban

Australians, gather round. There’s something monumentally important happening in Switzerland. No, they haven’t invented a new cheese, nor have they finally discovered what to do with all those cuckoo clocks. What they have done is far more impressive: Zurich has just voted to restrict leaf blowers. Yes, after a city-wide referendum, 61.7 per cent delivered a big – and beautifully quiet – YES to slicing the leaf blower tyranny down to three months a year.

Let’s set the scene. Zurich: famous for world-class chocolate, meticulous gardens, and citizens who, if they get woken up before sunrise, will unleash more fury than a Bunnings sausage sizzler that’s run out of onions. The Swiss have spoken: petrol leaf blowers are getting the boot, electric ones only allowed October to December, and the local wildlife – hedgehogs, lizards, birds – can now go about their business without being hoovered up by a bloke in a high-vis vest with a machine more suited to an airstrip.

Now, for years in my little patch of Australian suburbia, the fight for Sunday morning peace has raged. Our local warrior isn’t Swiss, but he might as well be: Julio. Decent guy, mid-forties, lawn that would make the groundskeeper at the MCG weep with jealousy. But every Sunday at 7am sharp – precisely when wrinkling one toe outside the doona feels like a crime – Julio fires up his mower. Cue the dulcet tones of ‘early-morning two-stroke opera’. Then, as if auditioning for Tradie’s Got Talent, the leaf blower comes out. It’s so loud it could drown out a magpie swooping season. If you listen closely, you can actually hear the collective groan of the neighbourhood, right before someone’s front fence shakes loose.

Leaf blowers aren’t just noisy; they’re domestically divisive. And, just quietly, they don’t solve anything. Julio’s leaves never actually disappear – they embark on a cross-boundary adventure, ending up on the next driveway. Which, of course, triggers another neighbour to buy a leaf blower. Suddenly, everyone’s got one. The local wildlife, meanwhile, is in a witness protection program. And you? You’re considering noise-cancelling headphones as essential homewares, right next to the fly screen patch kit.

The Swiss say they want clean air, less particulate matter floating around, and peace for the little creatures under the shrubbery. Here we just want a sleep-in and an uninterrupted Kayo replay of the footy. Zurich’s leafy lead ought to be followed nationally, starting with my council, who killed off the idea of a quiet Sunday when they upgraded the playground next to Julio’s lawn.

Look, the world will always have heroes: firefighters, paramedics, anyone who volunteers for school canteen duty. But now, the Swiss have given suburban stay-ins a new champion: the right to sleep past seven, no earplugs required.

To those who say such bans are “un-Australian,” remember the real Aussie spirit: looking out for your mates, respecting the wildlife – and never starting up power tools before 8am unless you’re saving someone from flood, fire, or a malfunctioning Bunnings sausage steamer. So, I say good on you, Zurich. Long live the Sunday snooze, and may our future suburbs hum gently – not roar like a pit lane at Bathurst.