Going Off About The Rails

Hello and welcome to the blog Aotearoa (New Zealand), South Africa, India, and France...and to everybody else...here's to staying on track today whilst Going Off About The Rails...and I am of course referring to the Rail Lands Retail Agenda...but first...(oh, here we go-Ed)...down in the cheap seats...

Selling Australia Post: would see massive price increases in places like Mt Gambier and probably a scrapping of many services where it's not profitable, eg, because of transport costs over long distances...(you mean somewhere that's say 450kms from the nearest capital city would probably lose it's services-Ed)...possibly...(well, Mt Gambier is 450kms from a capital city-Ed)...yep...(so you're saying prices will definitely go up and possibly services will be cut altogether-Ed)...precisely...

The nicest thing I have to say about ACCC Chair Rod Sims and former Chair Stephen King is that they are the best opinion money can buy...their 'advice' is crassly politicised, completely subjective and flies in the face of reality...if those 2 gentlemen would kindly crawl back under their respective rocks they'd be doing us all a favour...and what does this 'advice' say about everything else the ACCC touch?

Breaking News: And the ABC Local Radio (Stuart Stansfield) is about to run a story (it's now about 7am) about why Mt Gambier City Council is spending $1.5million on "a hole in the ground"...and this follows on from The Border Watch article Friday 3rd January 2014, 'Transformation on track' in which Council tries desperately to counter what I've identified on this blog about the Rail Easement and related massive, costly, and completely unnecessary earthworks on the Rail Lands site...again, a situation that would be hilarious were it not so serious...

Quick Summary: When the Rann Labor state government 'gifted' the central Mt Gambier Rail Lands to the City in late 2004/early 2005, the site had not been commercially used for some 15+ years, with only the very occasional 'tourist train' running through there, and nothing at all for a decade now...this  happened before I moved to Mt Gambier in early 1997, but many people I've spoken to identify this freight line closure as being the work of a local trucking magnate keen to get freight onto the roads where he would profit...


From the moment that 'gifting' happened a group of vested interests viewed that site as their personal property and they immediately started planning to build a massive extension of the Lakes Plaza on it and their self-importance, selfishness and greed have completely dominated Planning and Development around Mt Gambier with devastating results...(don't forget Grant District Council's corrupt, nepotistic decisions in re-zoning a serving Councillors land to allow Bunnings on Millicent Rd with adjacent residential sub-division-Ed)...good point, but I think that happened in conjunction with City Council who were desperate to stop Bunnings on Penola Rd.

I have covered this so extensively and thoroughly in previous posts that I am confident in saying to regular readers that debate re the Rail Lands Retail Agenda is now closed...all due respect, but it is no longer open for discussion...it is what it is and it ain't nuthin' but a thang.

I would like to think that regular readers will in good grace accept this 'Discussionary Closure' and related 'Declaration of Factualness'...the RLRA may well be my name for the collusion, corruption, and deceits that have been committed in pursuing the RLRA, but the RLRA is clearly very real, and there's simply no better way to describe the RLRA than, well, the RLRA...my opinion is irrelevant, the RLRA defines itself...(alRight aLReAdy...ah no, now you've got me doing it-Ed)...


But the very first point to make is that nothing needed to be dug up and/or moved on that site...all it needed was 6 inches of top soil and some lawn seed, a few well planned saplings to kick things off, and a bitumen bike track along the Rail Easement, all of which should have happened in 2005...further minimal works, eg, renovating the Old Rail Station, a music amphitheatre, etc, could have been done in stages...instead it's 2014 and we've got nothing...

Secondly, Council itself has acknowledged that they don't know who's liable to replace all of the infrastructure, rails, sleepers, etc, that they have spent a fortune ripping up and removing, and I don't believe that they have 'official permission' to move the Easement...it's either abject lunacy or a glimpse into a deeper deceit...(a deeper deceit?-Ed)...it all makes sense if the key players have had a chat behind closed doors and Council's been given the nod that Rail will never be returning to Mt Gambier...

(Oh my god, you could be right...nobodies making any official noise about this Easement moving nonsense because it's not even real...and that would explain the Council getting state government approval to re-zone the site to City Centre/Retail/Commercial/whatevs...but then why move the easement at all?-Ed)...well, if you did want to keep that 'never-to-return' a secret then you have to follow through with maintaining at least the appearance of an Easement...it doesn't need to be workable if it's never going to be used.

(Fair enough, but why dig a huge trench?-Ed)...well, I'd guess that any sub-soil contamination that would have otherwise remained undisturbed had Council not dug it up...(yes-Ed)...would all need to be removed prior to building anything on that ground to avoid fumes leeching up into said building...(yeah-Ed)...and that 'contaminated waste' needs to get dumped somewhere...(so?-Ed)...so why not kill 2 birds with one stone...get rid of the waste you have to move to build your shopping centre, and then dump it in a 'fake' Easement trench to continue that particular deceit...(omg-Ed).

Here's Stewie: trotting out the Council deceits on behalf of his mates...and the first cab off the rank is the Caroline Land Fill (Rubbish Tip)...(ah damn, I thought it was going to be about the Rail Lands and the Easement nonsense-Ed)...so did I, but don't go anywhere just yet...Council's Operations Director Daryl Sexton is stating that this $1.5m Landfill project is very complicated and urgent and needed to be planned well ahead of time...(hang on, Council suddenly declared this desperate need for a 'New Cell' as part of their Budget 'Consultations' last year, and a justification for doubling their own borrowing capacity...there was no 'long term planning'-Ed)...well exactly...

Then it's the Old Hospital Demolition and all the usual flim-flam about how it's all super and right on time, etc, and then finally, bingo, onto the Rail Lands...and Daryl spewing nonsense about how they've been doing a lot of shifting of dirt to dig up 'contaminated' soil and then rebury it and 'seal it so there's no future contamination', blah, blah, blah...and not one single word about moving the Easement...didn't even mention the Easement...the entire discussion is solely about digging a "trench" to be filled with contaminated soil...hilarious...

As I've previously jibed, how fortunate for Council that the contaminated ground lies exactly in the configuration and at the precise depth that is necessary to engineer the sub-structure for the moved Rail Easement...the whole situation is so convoluted and so corrupted that Daryl can't even name what Council itself has previously explained it was doing, namely, moving and retaining the Easement. 

It's so glaringly obvious, so grossly unnecessary what is being done on the Old Rail Lands that Daryl can't even speak to it...and if you don't believe me and you get the chance, go and have a look at the 'works' and you can still clearly see the deep, curved trench that has been 'engineered' where Council is moving the Easement, as they have previously repeatedly identified themselves.

Time and again Council has bleated out the Easement excuse in explaining away their total lack of action on the site and have openly discussed their alleged justification for moving it...and I have no problem with the idea that Daryl carefully avoided even mentioning the Easement so as to avoid the issues I've raised in the blog...it's so bad he can't even own his own justification and actions.

I genuinely believe that this interview/omission was about trying to 'suck oxygen' out of the Easement  and Retail expansion issues by focusing on the alleged contamination because Council is copping such a caning about this whole project, not least of all because of what I have identified on this blog.

Don't Know, Couldn't Prove It, Don't Really Care: but it has been put to me by others that the only reason Council has done anything at all on the Rail Lands is because I've been giving them such a hammering about it on this here blog...but it's basically irrelevant because all Council has done is use ratepayers money to clear the footprint for the shopping centre they are still absolutely obsessed with...(wasn't $1.7m 'granted' to Council so it's not really ratepayers money-Ed)...well, yeah it is because be it government grants or straight from rates, whatevs, that's ratepayers money, every cent Council spends is ratepayers money regardless of where it comes from...(fair enough-Ed)...

And I've just realised how long this post has gotten, so sorry, so more RLRA,

Tomorrow: The Rails, The Rails. 

(Congratulations, you've done a whole post about what you said you would, and still not got to the post you started 5 days ago...that's good work, even for you-Ed)...I'm just using my words, sob, just using my words...

I am Nick Fletcher and this is my blog...cheers and laters...