CAMPAIGN INSPIRES ‘YES’
If I ever had any doubts as to the wisdom of amalgamation, they’ve been wiped away by the one-sided, self-interested campaign waged by Kiama Council over the past couple of months.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
When the dust settles, I hope they tell us how much they’ve spent - including the staff hours.
It will easily run into the six figures.
Amidst all the hand-wringing and “we’ll all be rooned” malarkey, I keep asking myself one question. Why aren’t we hearing both sides of the story?
From where I sit, there are some very sound reasons - both practical and financial - for reducing the number of councils across NSW.
Call me naive, even stupid, but I’d have thought it would be in the community’s best interests for our elected local representatives to be encouraging us to make up our own minds, based on a balanced representation of the arguments for and against.Instead, they’ll be loitering outside the Pavilion on May 7 handing out No flyers that you and I have paid for.
The forthcoming referendum is the most cynical and calculated joke of this whole campaign. We all know what the result will be. The only people who will come out to vote in any numbers will be those who’ve been whipped into a frenzy of fear and loathing by Council’s propaganda.
The majority of us who couldn’t care less will probably be down the beach or mowing the lawn.
I, for one, will be going along and voting Yes - if nothing more than to express my anger at the way council has manipulated the debate and wasted our money.
The greatest irony for me is that in showing its true colours, Kiama Council has demonstrated exactly why it should be amalgamated.
Mark Bowmer, Kiama
PROMISES SUNK
Liberal Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells tells us that 1100 direct and 1700 indirect jobs will be generated as a result of the submarine build remaining in Australia.
However she fails to mention that this contract provides 4000 jobs for foreigners in their homeland and sixty years of debt for our child and grandchildren. With the added advantage that the submarines are not available for another fifteen years. Let's hope we are not invaded before then.
The job subsidy for the long-suffering taxpayer is $18 million per person, sounds like a welfare payment to a foreign company.
Meanwhile within the 15 year lead time when will the submarines builders be in need of Australian steel?
How will the Illawarra steel workers and the 2,800 prospective submarine workers feed themselves until the work starts? Fifteen years is a long time to survive on nothing but Coalition promises.
Ben Morris, Wollongong
LAW IS THE PROBLEM
Read the financial pages. The pages are full of ordinary people, amongst other things, asking financial advisors how to reduce paying income/company tax.
And those seeking the answers usually get positive advice contingent to their circumstances.
Recently, when President Obama was asked about the Panama Papers and tax avoidance, he had this to say: “It’s not that they’re breaking the laws, it’s that the laws are so poorly designed that they allow people, if they’ve got enough lawyers and enough accountants, to wiggle out of responsibilities that ordinary citizens have to abide by”.
As long as our laws are weak the public will take advantage.
The reality is the loss of taxation revenue can be laid squarely at the feet of government.
They are the ones that legislate.
If laws were watertight, without loopholes, there would not be a problem.
John Macleod, Berry
