Hello Moldova, Indonesia, Ukraine and the United States of America, and welcome to the blog...and thanks y'all again for the feedback and for reading the post yesterday about the feedback...and a barrel-load of hilarious mixed metaphors and jolly japes today as is always my want re Mt Gambier City Council.
Apologies that this post is late and short..and not constructed with a
specific copy of Council's Proposed Budget in front of me, but rather
based on general observation, media reportage, etc...and I haven't done my 'research' about specific quotes, etc, either...a thoroughly slack effort all round relying on memory and why I will do RIRHBJCB Part II tomorrow and a further one later in the week.
What I can say is that Council is going through all the motions, makin' all the right moves, emitting the correct noises, eg, a large ad repeatedly in The Border Watch referring to their Budget and their burning desire for the good folk of Mt Gambier to have a genuine and considered input to the decision processes that define the City's future...(bahahaha you crack me up-Ed)...
But First: I always feel uncomfortable discussing how Aboriginal people are affected by issues or what they think about stuff, but it does need to be acknowledged the role of Aboriginal soldiers serving in action in both the World Wars and other campaigns before they were recognised as citizens, and with Terra Nulleus even as people...Aboriginal soldiers received none of the support that other Returned Servicemen were entitled to, eg, soldier settlement land grants, medical benefits, pensions, etc.
In what coverage I've seen there was very little commentary about this, mostly on the ABC/BBC (and then on the radio) and certainly not on commercial TV networks...but again I'm one person and could have easily missed stuff...please Interweb search more info about Terra Nulleus and it's implications...it is yet another issue of Aboriginal Australia that needs to be front and centre of the current debate not waved away as a quaint anomaly of a history rather forgotten...I was alive when Terra Nulleus was still in place...
Council Meeting Stuff: sorry to have forgotten this...at the April 15th meeting former Councillor Byron Harfield and former CEO Greg Muller were "deleted as authorised signatories" of the Junior Sports Assistance Fund but I'm fairly sure that only a few meetings ago Council changed it's 'Pecuniary Interest ' requirements to (by my estimation) allow Greg Muller to be part of the JSAF...I covered that in previous posts...apols if I've mixed up funds or something...I'll check, again, and post.
Also CEO Mark McShane was still absent (Compassionate Leave?) on the 15th but I believe he has stated that Council intends to spend another $700,000 at the Old Hospital site...(I thought it was$200k for the Old Laundry revamp-Ed)...and apparently $500k for benches and trees and shizzle I'm sure...it has all the hallmarks of the Main Corner and Library cost blowouts...if you accept as unnecessary all of the massive land works of ripping up rails and digging huge holes then filling them in again, etc, to get flat ground back to being flat ground, which is exactly what Council has done at the Old Rail Lands, then that in itself is already a massive project cost blowout.
But that's only the case if Council genuinely were going to put parkland across the site, which they're not, because it's completely necessary ($2m+) expenditure if you're planning to slap a slab a' shopping centre right across it...and I just cannot believe any part of Council's handling of the Old Hospital project and their figures on budget, etc...and there's still the issue of the legal action against the Receivers, which will inevitably involve Council who made the contentious re-zoning decisions...it just goes round and round...
I do literally fall about laughing when I hear/read Council bangin' on about 'Financial Plans' and 'Budgets' because they have a proven track record of doing what they individually feel like in the moment and completely ignoring that which doesn't conform, throwing insane amounts of money at equally insane whims and fancies, making up the numbers to suit...and when these decisions are made about benefitting a few choice individuals, that's where that behaviour is by definition rabidly rorting and routinely de-frauding, and generally just rooting Mt Gambier right into the ground...
And I am of course being highly irresponsible when I suggest that Council has some sort of Magic Lamp that they rub when their gross financial mismanagement and gross internal corruption renders the Cities coffers empty and they need more money, because there is no magic involved...in last year's Budget they just doubled their own borrowing capacity to $12million and started throwing ratepayers cash at a new series of ludicrous projects...
(Wouldn't mind so much if it was a rubbing, don't mind a bit of a rub...it's this being hung upside down by the ankles and shaken to see if, after Council' and the bloody government have had there filthy, thievin' mits in ma' pockets all year, what small change I do have left falls out-WPORP)...sorry WPORP, have we met before?...(yes, frequently...I'm the Way Pissed Off Rate Payer...we met at all of those Budget meetings this time last year, walking down the Main St, at the supermarket, pretty much wherever you go really-WPORP)...ah yes of course, I beg your pardon...
Doesn't matter how hard Council tries to polish the propaganda or paint over the rust there is a stain that won't be denied, constantly seeping toward the surface borne on a tide of rising discontent...and this blog does play some small part in that...for example, no-one who gives half a damn and is reading the blog believes Council's bumf about the Rail Lands Parklands because it's all here...
Which Stain?: disdain is the appropriate emotional, rational, and practical response to any document presented by Mt Gambier City Council...their numbers cannot and should not be trusted, their intent is ne'er but self-promotion and profit, and they are so mired in their own agendas and nepotism that I don't think they could navigate themselves away from it even if they really wanted to...
(Well now that's not very appropriate, its a gross exaggeration albeit based on substantive fact...it's like saying that every politician you've ever met is corruptly implicit in the St Martins Lutheran School Child Abuse Cover-up...well, maybe that's a bad example-Ed)...no, no that's a perfect example...it's all about context...(oh here we bloody go, always with the 'it's about the context'...what's next, 'Crunch time'?-Ed)...steady on...it's the contextual difference between saying the patently ridiculous, eg, all police officers in South Australia and all Lutherans are paedophiles, just because both organisation's hierarchy are clearly involved in the pro-paedophile corruption of the St Martins Cover-up.
I treat any 'average Joe' worker-ant Peeler (British Home Secretary Robert Peel introduced the first official 'Police Force' in London in 1829, who were hence known as 'Bobbies' or 'Peelers') or work-a-day God-botherer with due respect because more often than not they're just people doing people stuff...I'm always respectful and polite...pretty much...
Bottom line: there are people on Council who are working hard with genuine intent, it's just the damage being done at the pointy end by a definable handful that's really stuffing it up for everyone else...that's were my ire resides and my barbs are fired, but this Budget stuff is an exercise in ifs, buts, and maybes, and the idea of genuine public consultation is a patent nonsense.
Not A Word Of A Lie: this morning I was just headed out, loading the dog into the car, etc, when someone prank called the Adelaide ABC Radio Talkback Gardening Show...happened I reckon as last call of the morning so about 1030hrs or 1100hrs....started with something about this young callers neighbour who had this plant that everyone wanted to buy, including this guy's parents, but nobody knew what it was...wasn't really listening at first but was thinking that sounds a bit sus, then 'he's talking about grass and I don't mean lawn' and went back inside to hear him describe it, and he said it's got a spiky hand-like leaf...
(Aaahhhh he was talking about gunja mun, sweet Mary Jane, de' Chronic-Ed)...sorry what?...(a marijuana plant...he was talking about a marijuana plant...his neighbour has one and everybody wants to buy it? spiky hand-like leaves?-Ed)...exactly, that's what I said, 'grass'...(bloody hippy-Ed)...anyhoos, yes I sussed it pretty much straight away, but it took the talkback folk a little longer...I missed the exact moment that the ABC announcers realised, but at some point they clearly did and politely said take it to a nursery and concluded the call, but it went on for maybe 2 minutes...hilarious...
Enough for today and the proper Budget stuff tomorrow.
Tomorrow: Um, The Budget Stuff
And what's not in there again, eg, the covered pool issue, the other $6million for the Rail Lands Concept Plan, etc.
I am Nick Fletcher and this is my blog...cheers and laters...
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