Please forgive my lack of attention toward expanding the pages on this site. It has been my pleasure to be responsible for publishing the Integrity insert that is being printed each week within the Gympie Life. This takes a lot of time and prevents me from putting in the effort here that I’d like to.

I hope you understand.

Regards

Greg

This election is important.

Because local Government is important. Far more so than most people realise until they are encouraged to fully consider it.

Because this current Council is falling far short in its most basic duties, let alone being the leader and innovator that modern pressures demand of it.

Because the amalgamation with Kilkivan and part of Tiaro Shires will nearly double the management area and require complete rewrites of all major policy.

The demands of this last matter will amplify current Council deficiencies to levels that should be avoided if we don’t want to hurt ourselves.

The list of current concerns is long and every item on it deserves attention within the election. It is worth checking to see if candidates even know about them let alone what to do about them.

However two issues are at the heart of all others. Necessary improvements cannot be made without these two being fixed.

Open, honest and respectful community engagement.
How can the needs and expectations of the Shire’s residents be met if they are never talked to? Or if when they are, the process is patronising, simplistic and insincere?

As things are, people are not being talked to before things are decided. They are not being listened to or taken seriously when they are affected by problems arising from those unconsulted decisions.

An important part of this will be returning Divisions so that local people are guaranteed locally known, locally informed representation.

Clarity and efficiency of Council policy and function.
The policy framework in Council is a mess. All of the primary documents are cartoon versions of the real thing.

The Budget is a rubbery thing with far too much in it that is impossible to properly define.

The Operational Plan should be a blueprint that defines, schedules and measures progress upon all of the Shire’s active and projected works. There are shopping lists that have more definition than the Plan now in effect. It is no surprise that roadworks, sewerage upgrades, community facilities, etc. are slow to arrive and then often with cost blow-outs.

If the Planning Scheme was a bucket it couldn’t bail out a bathtub. The security and amenity of residents and business owners everywhere in the Shire are at risk. Opportunistic and completely unsustainable development is currently left free to drive through the Scheme’s gaping holes as it likes. This poses very serious risks for the Shire and everyone in it. And it is not just lifestyle that is threatened. Mid to long-term economic solvency is being undermined.

Good policies do exist in isolation and in fragments. Thus they are generally ignored or, at best, used inconsistently.

The fact is that this Council has slipped off onto a path that leads somewhere other than the broad public interest. It suits itself and it panders to people it thinks are important, rather than the people who really are important – the ordinary residents, ratepayers and business owners of this Shire.

I know what is wrong, and I know how to begin fixing it.

One absolute priority is to ensure that integrity prevails as a standard in all that Council does. Which is why I have joined a group of independents who also know what is wrong, who have already made agreement on the basic principles required, and who have the experience and the skill to do the work.
I ask that you recognise and support this genuine effort made on your behalf.
The alternatives to it are -

even more secrecy and neglect from those who have proven their addiction to it, or

the uncertainty of randomly selected people who haven’t got any idea yet on how they might work together.

The immediate workload upon the Council is too great to endure either more mischief or well-meaning indecision. What is very clearly wrong must be fixed ASAP, and the new Shire has to be gotten off of its trainer wheels very quickly.

I apologise to Kilkivan and Tiaro electors for concentrating on Cooloola issues. In explanation let me assure you that you do not want your hopes, dreams and investments to be hastily stitched onto a very sick elephant.