As we crack 50,000 hits this week we’ll just say that we’re glad everyone has stuck with us. Keep the contributions and comments up and lets keep the pressure on our leaders to do the right thing by us their constituents!
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Have any of you noticed the change that has taken
place since amalgamation?
Well firstly hard copies of council’s agendas are not
available to the public! There are three (3) copies in
folders which can be shared by those in attendance.
This is in the interest of cost cutting.
Council agendas don’t appear on line until late on
Tuesday afternoons (some times you have to phone
up and ask). Even then you cannot access the
officers reports. There is a note on screen “Please
contact Agenda Unit on (07) 4197 4437 if you
require access to an attachment.” If you don’t
contact the office by 1700hrs, you won’t get them.
So what do we have? Limited access to public
information. Little if any time to format questions,
little if any time to read officers reports, in fact
exclusion from the process.
Open & Transparent Council. What’s that?
John Neve
I understand your point John. But openness and transperency of what?
It would appear that either, the Councillors are getting most of their information in informal settings or the Council is being run by the executive with the elected members only refered to when they are required to give approval of an action. And all the time the public is kept in the dark.
For example - what has the works department been up to since amalgamation? We are never told. There are no reports to the meetings of any of the activities of the departments. The Councillors may be being briefed in private but it is the reports to the meetings which are the only means by which the people can actually find out what the council is doing.
Personally, I doubt that most of the Councillors are aware of what their employees are up to, in the main, but this goes with the ‘director’ concept of councilling. But, the ratepayers have a right to know what is being done, in dcetail, with their money and the only way this can occur is in the departments, and sub-departments, reporting to the council meetings.
At the moment the Fraser Coast Regional Council is being run in a more secretive manner than the Masonic Lodge.
Amalgamation is achieving its objective - the removal of the most represenative and accessible level of government.
And without a whimper from the silent majority!
SUSTAINABILITY BEGINS AT HOME
$25.00 a year for an environmental levy is 50 cents a week, that’s a very small financial burden for creating a budget for ‘Caring for Country’ in the Fraser Coast Region. The revenue created from the levy will allow us to leverage federal funding from the Federal Governments National ‘Caring for Country’ programme .
We are now a regional council area and we need to manage our regions natural resources, having a management fund from a regional levy ensures that we can manage the issues correctly and that the management is spread regionally, so that all the regions environmental assets are managed. The fund would allow us to encourage private conservation on Freehold land , ratepayers who own biodiversity properties ( remnant vegetation/bush) welcome incentives such as small grants to protect Koala habitat, replant ecosystems , fence the creek off , remove exotic plants and put up nest boxes for tree hollow dependant species .
The fund would allow us to manage council owned lands to ensure that council leads by example and sets the standard required to meet the Man and Biosphere nomination. The Fraser Coast Region contains 127,000 ha of freehold remnant vegetation (bush), the majority of this vegetation cannot be cleared under the Vegetation Management Act 1999, so it will be essential that we can encourage and assist landowners to manage this biodiversity, for the regions future economic, social and ecological well being.
Of this amount, 26,398ha occurs in the Hervey Bay area, 5729 ha in Maryborough, 50,500 in Tiaro and 43,200 ha in Woocoo therefore the bulk of benefit from any proposed levy would be spread evenly across the region and no specific area would benefit above any other.
It would be a very wise investment for the region when we consider the potential for climate change factors modeled by CSIRO for the region.
But why an extra levy - impost - on ratepayers. Why can’t the necessary money be taken from general revenue and specifically allocated for these environmental purposes.
Amalgamation was suposed to be all about saving money. So the regional Council should be able to find the money, especially as rates are going up.
Maybe they could postpone one of the ridiculously expensive ‘entrance statements’ and achieve these more worthwhile objectives.
Roger Curry said in his statement
“consider the potential for climate change factors modeled by CSIRO for the region.” Roger can you tell me where the CSIRO get there data. It is from one source only. It comes from a very political organisation within the UN called I.P.C.C. (Inter govern(mental)Panel for Climate change or my version (Idiots Pretending to Change Climate. Notice they dont include Government.
There is no independent scrutiny here so they whatever they feel like with no redress. It is frightening when you notice this organisation on every Govt. web page in the world. If you control the language, you control the debate. If you control the debate you control the media. If you control the media you control the people. Roger is the earth cooling? Are the artic and antarctic ice shelves expanding?
Has the global temp from Jan 2007 to April 2008 dropped .74 degrees which is the quickest drop in global temp since instruments were used. Are sea levels slowly dropping? It hadnt snowed in Iraq for centuries and the winter in China was terrible. All this info comes from the 4 institutes that monitor the earths temp. I have a 100 pages of data that says global warming is the greatest scientific scandal of our time. Andrew McNamara’s climate report is false as he said the earth has been warming since 1950. Ive seen the latest charts from these organisations and Andrew has got a lot of explaining to do as the CSIRO is under investigation because they wont release their computer modelling that came up with these false Temps.
Al Gore said the debate is over. What debate? Did I miss something. If there wasn’t a debate it is about to start. Penny Wong should step down for lying as the Majority of scientists disagree with AGW. Actually 31,027 have just signed a petition saying so. You are a learned chap. How can Carbon pollute? Carbon dioxide is plant food. We inhale O2 and exhale Co2 so we are polluting so it is a tax on the air we breathe. Greenhouse gas is harmless as it contains 95% of water vapour. If AGW is what you say it is then why are we saturated and inundated by the mainstream media 24/7 with the words “Climate Change” 300 times a day. It is propaganda to condition us mentally to be fearful of speaking out against this ghastly project that the Govt.is hell bent on carrying out no matter what the consequences.
I dont use my real name as there will be retribution when I make this all public shortly. Roger I challenge you to a public debate on this very serious matter. If you refuse then it is all true what the “deniers” are saying. There is no debate at the moment in the mainstream media but in the blogs it is “Deniers 77% “warmists” 20% Dont care 3%
Andrewbolt4eva says “I don’t use my real name as there will be retribution when I make this all public shortly”!! Andrewb, it is all public now, you know about it. I also note Andrewb, you don’t answer questions!! You only make statements, are the questions too hard?
Hi Jonangel,
I was hoping Roger would answer my last blog. I was
talking about a subject that is not in the public arena and should be. The reason why this is a totally 1 sided debate in favour of the global warming supporters.
Hopefully this should change in the future and we have a scientific debate before we committ ourselves with trillions of dollars to something that might not exist.
You said that I dont answer questions. What was the question and I will try to answer it.
It seems that even the Brisbane Courier Mail is now intrigued by the way in which FCRC splashing funds out on high priced cars and accessories for some.
See the rather large article on page 18 of the CM today (25/07/08 ) for details.