Council Elections
Yeah I know, as dull as dishwater at the best of times. Queensland is going through a number of changes this time around though and the ALP State Government has trampled over the people of Queensland by restructuring the number of local councils in the State. Don’t get me wrong, it was necessary, but the way they have done it was not. In my area, we have now the pleasure of merging three local council areas in to one polyglot mess. These are three very disparate regions with three completely different outlooks, philosophies and residents. Take Pine Shire for example. A good if dull semi urban region with lots of light gree hippies and wide open spaces. Nice area really. While our rates are slightly higher than Brisbane, we get pretty good services and have no council debt. Naturally, the Mayor is a conservative. Then take Caboolture shire. Once again, nicely managed by a Conservative though a little bit of debt and much more rural outlook. Still, pretty well managed all round. Now thirdly we have the pleasure to be lumped in with the basket case of Redcliffe City (wtf?) council. Multimillion dollar debt and a quarter the size of the other two councils individually. Completely different outlook to the other two and diffierent philosophies.
Putting my conspiracy hat on for a second, I see this as a way for the ALP State Junta to pay for the debts of Redcliffe, and spread it across a much wider area. That way everybody gets to pay a bit more and the State Government can go off and waste our money for their own idiotic purposes like trippling the cost of a bloody bridge.
So once again, the ratepayers get shafted by the ALP. We really should be getting used to this by now, but as I have always said, you can’t legislate against stupidity.
One of the more cretinous candidates for the Mayoralty is believe it or not, using his membership of the ALP as a positive. It is on all his campaign literature and posters. Personally I can’t see it as anything more than a detriment, but we shall just have to wait and see the gullibility level of the residents of the new Moreton Bay Regional Council.