It's like something out of Utopia - the satirical TV show, that is, not a state of near-perfection.
An official, tasked with saving a poor, innocent tree, will hear nothing against said tree, regardless of the damage it might be causing.
Even as the tree in question has roots that are slowly eating through a much-loved suburban home, even if its limbs threaten to fall and maim someone, even if its trunk is swaying precariously over a garden in which small children play.
No tree will be cut down, and it's this official's job to dispute any shred of evidence that this tree is anything but majestic and worth saving.
It's the true saga currently playing out at a home in Hackett, a scenario that would seem preposterous to anyone who hasn't experienced this particular corner of Canberra's labyrinthine, complex and dysfunctional bureaucracy.
The Pragasam family's home is steadily cracking down the front and into the floor, and a number of engineering reports have demonstrated that it's the roots of a much-loved and particularly large gum tree that are causing the problem.
But the ACT's Conservator of Flora and Fauna is refusing to allow the tree to be removed.
The overriding part of this sorry saga - and all the similar sagas playing out throughout Canberra's tree-lined suburbs - is that no one actually wants to cut down a tree.
But when trees threaten the built environment, reason rather than ideology should prevail.
Canberra's impressive urban forest - its streets lined with oaks, elms, pines and eucalypts - is one of its greatest drawcards, and part of the Garden City ethos that was part of the capital's very earliest plans.
But Canberra is a planned city characterised by constructed streetscapes. Trees are planted with a view to living a long life, but this isn't always possible.
Most of the trees in question are not old-growth specimens that have stood sentry for hundreds of years. They are trees that were saplings planted in optimistic new suburbs in the last 60 or 70 years.
Canberra's early planners were pragmatic; the streets needed trees, but some would eventually need to make way for newer developments down the track. Crucially, also, a new tree can always take an old tree's place; regeneration and renewal has always been part of Canberra's planting strategy.
The ACT government's mission to grow Canberra's tree canopy is important, and worth sticking to, but this policy fails when lives and livelihoods are threatened.
The same goes for quality of life; a family can't live in a house that's falling apart.
