Rainy Days are good for “Office Work”

Over the last couple of Rainy days, I’ve been spending a lot of time indoors. I started out the other day cleaning up my workshop, but as it had an earthen floor, sometimes it becomes quite muddy when the water runs through during heavy rain.

While my mother has been busy preparing the BAS statement, I’ve been around to answer her questions on what some invoices are for and where it should be coded. So, while I’ve confined indoors, I’ve been doing a bit of background work for my run for Council.

I’ve designed my campaign letterhead and I’m looking at quotes for corflutes as well as sorting out the back room of my FaceBook page. It now has a unique URL at www.facebook.com/kentforcouncil . It took me a long while to work out how to do that, but, now it’s full steam ahead.

I have also sent out my first media release to the local paper with the big announcement.... Look out world, here I come!

I’ve been giving some thought about this blog and how to operate it over the next little while. There is so much I want to post but, given that we are going to have a state election first, the last thing you all want is to be bombarded by council campaigning as well. I’ve decided that I’ll keep some “Semi regular” posts up until after the state election to give everyone a bit of a break. You’ll all need to keep your electoral strength up over the next 3 months!

On another note, with all this rain around, I would like to convey my support to those people who are facing what may yet be ANOTHER flood.... Hang in there people, we’re thinking of you!

Urban Development – We need to get it right

I went to Roma today to attend to some business and I ended up driving around on the north side of town. As I was driving back in along northern road, I noticed MORE new homes being built on the low lying land behind RomaVilla Winery. I commented to my friend in the car how foolish I thought it was to be continuing to build in the floodprone land along the creek after the couple of floodings it had received. He pointed out that these homes where being built on raised banks above the flood level and that what the developer had effectively done was built a levee bank altering the flow of floodwater through the town.

I made some enquiries to discover that the approval for this multi stage development was given by the former Roma Town Council prior to amalgamation and that, in spite of the fact that the community does not want it and that it would not be approved under the current planning arrangements, there is NOTHING that the current council can do about it. One must be careful what one says in public, for fear of retribution, but, to Paraphrase Shakespeare in Hamlet, “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark”. How and why this approval was granted will always remain one of life’s mysteries but Councils should NEVER approve these kinds of developments. There is no defence for this, you can’t defend the indefensible!

The decision to allow this development to proceed was disgraceful. It has placed greed before the good of the community. How is it a good thing to allow one person to profit in such a way as to inflict suffering on many others? There are times when you need to place the good of your community before the profit of individuals.

Mitchell refuse tip a load of rubbish

Anyone who has had cause to take their own rubbish to the dump will know that the state of the Mitchell Tip is a disgrace. It’s untidy, Smelly and difficult to access. But before we go crook at the council, I thought I would take the time to get some facts.

The Mitchell Tip for many years has been managed as a nice open pit into which the rubbish could be tipped and then backfilled and covered over. All that was left afterwards was a level patch of open grassland that caused no eyesore. The refuse was burned periodically to save space in the tip and extend the life of the pit. A front bund was in place to stop water from flowing in and a sump was installed to contain any water that did run in for pumping out or evaporation. All in all it was a reasonably neat and tidy place (to the extent that any dump can be)

A couple of years ago, the old tip filled up, so the council in due course set about preparing a new pit for the rubbish........ That’s when the trouble started.

As you know, the state of Queensland is governed by a bunch of people with no real practical experience who live far removed from what happens in the west in far off Brisbane. So when the application to the Department of Environment and Resource Management was received, they said that they could not justify the digging of a new pit for a town the size of Mitchell!

Pardon! Small towns aren’t allowed to have rubbish? Small towns are the ones that do NOT have access to recycling, and because of our location, everything that comes in to our town is packaged and protected for the long journey, creating even more rubbish.

I know the Council Environment and Planning department have worked hard to convince DERM that people who live in small towns DO have rubbish to throw away, but it seems that their efforts have fallen on deaf ears.

After much to-ing and fro-ing they have reached a “Compromise” You can dig down 1200mm or you can dispose of the rubbish above ground and cover it with soil. Excuse me while I swear, what clown thought that up? Instead of having a hole containing the rubbish out of the wind  that provided a level piece of ground when finished, we now have a pile of rubbish sticking up like a sore thumb blowing around the countryside and generally looking like what it is, a great big dump.

DERM need to realise that it is an unnecessary, yet significant cost placed on council and ultimately Bourne by ratepayers for the refuse to be transferred to the Roma tip.

Imagine if all the rubbish from the outlying towns was to be taken back to the Roma tip for processing? Extra Time, wear and Tear, Fuel and wages for council and extra vehicles on the road for the public.

I believe that enough is enough, The state government seem to want us to be happy to pay to freight our goods into town, and then pay to freight the rubbish away again?  It makes no sense, the biggest limiting factor to the development and progress of rural and regional towns is not the state of the economy, the geographic isolation or the impact of climate, it’s the state government and red tape.

What does it take to be a Councillor

Last weekend, I was having a couple of beers at Dunkeld when the subject of my tilt at council came up in conversation.

I was speaking with Lex Mason, who was a councillor of the former Warroo shire up until it was amalgamated into the Maranoa Regional Council. I asked Lex about his experience in local government and if he had any pointers.

He offered me plenty of advice for which I am grateful.  Some of which is also good advice for life in general, so I’ve decided to share some of it with you:

Don’t be afraid to have strong opinions

People need to know what you believe in and what you think; no-one ever won the prise for being mediocre

Know your subject

If you are going to have an opinion on something, you need to know the facts BEFORE you form your opinion.

You can’t take back what you say

Make sure you say what you REALLY mean and try to make sure you cannot be misinterpreted.

Everyone is your boss

You need to treat all people as if they are your employer, being their councillor is like being their mechanic, you are providing a service and they have the right not to engage you to provide that service.

Be yourself

People need to know who you really are and what you are really like, no-one likes anyone who is insincere.

I particularly valued this advice from Lex, His experience as a councillor spanned a career of over 25 years and for all of that time he was respected by his constituents, his fellow councillors and the council staff.

I particularly hope that, should I be elected, I can be the kind of Councillor he was. They say that amalgamation has changed the role of Councillor, but there are some things that will never change.

The resources boom......

There has been a lot of talk recently about the resources boom and how it is doing great things for regional Queensland. While some towns have benefited greatly from the resources boom, for many others, it has passed them by.

Even a passing glance in Roma will confirm that it is definitely feeling the effects of the Coal Seam Gas boom. But travel just an hour South to Surat and it is a different story.

The Surat area has had an oil and gas industry in the area for many years, yet few of the resource companies have chosen to invest in the Surat township. Travel the road from Roma to Surat of an afternoon and you will pass a convoy of vehicles with red flags and yellow lights returning to the Roma township for the night.

The natural resource is being removed from the area, but no reinvestment in these areas is occurring.  Ask any of these resource companies what they are doing for the region and they will talk of the value of the industry to the state economy, they will talk of jobs and if you press them for the local benefits, they will talk of their investment in the airport upgrade. But what benefits are there for towns such as Mitchell, Surat or Yuleba?

Some benefits flow back to these towns through the employment of locals to work in these industries, but that can also create social issues as well. I have seen young blokes on their break with a load of cash in their pocket, sit at the pub and drink until the money is gone and it’s time to go back to work.

Council is in a position of influence with many of these resource companies, and they have an obligation to all in our community to share those benefits. We must ensure that we all benefit from the boom, not just a select few. What will be left behind when all the resources are gone?

Communities without spirit, have no heart.

For the last couple of days, I have been helping friends move house. We have been travelling backwards and forwards with truckloads of all sorts of pot plants, furniture and miscellaneous farm equipment. We were doing long, hot days with lots of lifting, shoving and pushing, but I was enjoying every minute of it as I always enjoy spending time with friends. I started to think about how your friendships create the strands that are used to build the social fabric of our communities.

How many of our community groups and events are based around friendship and fellowship? For many years, I have been actively involved in the Mitchell show and it takes a good solid week out of my time to prepare, run and clean up after. They are long, tiring days and I don’t receive a cent for my trouble. It’s not unique to me or to the show; it’s like so many other people who do so much for so many other community groups and events.  We do it because it brings us joy, we laugh and joke with our friends and at the end we all enjoy the event and the time spent together.

You could have the most tip-top community facilities, activities and services, but without a cohesive community spirit, you will still find your community dysfunctional.  One of the often mentioned issues in some of the Central Queensland mining towns is that of the lack of community spirit leads to any number of social issues such as alcoholism, drugs and many social crimes.

We need to remember this when we are planning our communities and planning for future development. The MOST important thing is to maintain a high level of community spirit. What is the point of building well designed communities, replete with all the required services and facilities, if you have no social fabric. How hard would it be to live in a town when no-one else wants to be part of it?

Hey mate, what did you get up to over the school holidays?

This afternoon, a friend from town has bought two of his sons out to Kandimulla to do a bit of bush bashing and spotlighting in an old 4wd Suzuki that they have specially modified for the purpose. They were all smiles and anticipation as they drove off in their little yellow terror complete with roof mounted spotlight, stickers and bulbar.

It made me start to think about youth activities and what a kid living in town gets up to over the school holidays. For many years, council has run a number of school holiday activities with things as diverse as movie making lessons to talent quests and triathlons.

Many people say that young people of today rely too much on other people to provide them with their entertainment instead of having the initiative to make their own fun. While there may be some truth in this, one of the largest reasons that kids don’t make their own fun is because society will no longer let them. I think back to when I was a kid, riding my pushbike around without a helmet, building cubbies in the bushes and grass on the riverbank and jumping feet first into the murky waterholes in the river on a hot day. I can even remember at age 12 belting along the Muckadilla-Ashmount road in an old grey EH Holden sedan and getting excited because while trying to see how fast we could go, at 70 mph, we hit a patch of corrugations that gave the radio such a shakeup that it finally started to work! I guess I was luckier than a lot of others because I grew up in the bush.

Even the mere mention of such activities causes most parents to break out in a cold sweat! To allow a child to undertake some of these activities would see the parent branded as “irresponsible” before you could blink!

Many years ago, I was Mayor of the Booringa Youth Council and we actively planned and promoted activities FOR kids run BY kids. We ran activities such as Pool parties, Movie nights and even at one stage operated a kids FM radio station in conjunction with the school, Sadly though, the Youth Council has since folded.

10 years ago, we had a scout troop in Mitchell and in Roma, I was Scout leader for the Mitchell troop for a number of years and I remember taking the kids canoeing, abseiling and night orienteering, but I ended up giving it away when it got to the point where in order to spend 4 hours canoeing, you would have to do 6 hours of paperwork at least a fortnight in advance and send it all off for approval before you could even think of putting a canoe in the water.

Both Mitchell and Roma have lost their Scout troops, Mitchell has also lost its youth council. If we are stopping kids from being able to have their own spontaneous fun, then we have an obligation to provide opportunities for them. I don’t want to suggest we go back to the days before soft fall in playgrounds even though we grew up without it and didn’t get hurt (Much).

Council provides funding for a school holiday programme and a number of other activities, but I think I would like to see more done. We need to ensure that we keep our kids engaged in their community in order to retain them in our community. Kids are our future, what is the point of building our communities if we are alienating our future? Surely, failing to do so is dooming us all to failure?

Gone to the (Golden) dogs?

There was lots of numbers and statistics in yesterday’s Blog, so I thought I’d focus on something with a few less numbers in it today.

As some people know, I sit as a landholder representative for the Dunkeld region on the Maranoa Regional Council Wild Dog Advisory Group.  In an effort to raise the awareness of the wild dog issue in the Maranoa region and to provide an incentive to persons to control wild dogs, we decided at a recent meeting to develop a programme to promote and encourage people to undertake trapping and shooting programmes by having an annual competition to reward those persons who take the time and effort to undertake dog control and present their scalps.

There are also a number of people who, while they may be controlling wild dogs, are not presenting their scalps for Bonus payment. The programme that highlights the process for scalps may encourage these people to take part and allow us to identify the true numbers of wild dogs within the shire.

We have decided to call this programme the GOLDEN DOGGER awards! It’s all just a bit of fun aimed at de-stigmatising the wild dog problem in the shire. We are hoping to get some little trophies made up with “Gold” dogs on them and present them at some council function (perhaps Australia day awards?) next year. Imagine having a little trophy of a golden dog as a conversation starter in the pool room.

The categories that are available are

·         Golden Dogger

The main prize – Most number of scalps presented in the 12 month period open to all people in all areas of the shire. The winner of this category would most likely be the winner of one of the other categories below.

·         Inside Dogger

Most scalps taken from inside the barrier fence - Open to all trappers and shooters. It is anticipated that this category would most likely be won by a professional trapper or shooter

·         Outside Dogger

Most scalps taken outside the barrier fence - Open to all trappers and shooters

·         Novice Dogger

Most scalps by a person either inside or outside who has not won any section previously

·         Junior Dogger

Most scalps presented by person aged under 18 yrs

·         Most active Landholder – Inside the fence

Restricted to landholders for scalps presented by them caught inside the barrier fence.

·         Most active Landholder – Outside the fence

Restricted to landholders for scalps presented by them caught outside the barrier fence.

·         Most active Roo Shooter

Restricted to Professional roo shooters for scalps presented by them caught either side of the barrier fence.

Wild dogs are a huge issue in the Rural and Peri-Urban parts of the shire and anything we can do to control the problem has a positive impact, not only on the rural industries in the shire, but also in maintaining the biodiversity of our natural ecosystems.

The long and winding road.....

I had to travel to Roma today and as I had to do a job South of Muckadilla on the way, I travelled all the way from Kandimulla on council roads, a mixture of dirt, gravel and bitumen.

It made me think about transport infrastructure. For many people in rural and remote parts of the shire, roads form the single most important part of service delivery by council.

Council controls 5,602 kilometres of roads, being 1,293 kilometres of bitumen, 2,732 kilometres of gravel and 1,577 kilometres of formed of roads. With an annual maintenance budget of $1.2 Million it works out at $214.00 per kilometre.

If there was one good to come out of the massive flooding experienced in 2001/11 it was the allocation of $40 million to be spent on flood repairs and upgrades to the roads of the shire. Coupled to the $8.21 million council has allocated from their own coffers for capital works, I would hope that, this will allow for better roads requiring less maintenance into the future. All this means that in the current financial year, council will spend $49.4 million on roadworks within the shire. In the coming years, the continued cost of maintenance of these roads will become a priority.

Council will have to keep in front of the ball looking for innovative techniques and work practices to do more with the limited amount of funds available. One way to fund the increasing cost of maintenance is to "Jack up the fees and charges" but the best way to address this is by looking for different work practices and technologies that allow you to do more with less.

Use of things such as Goetextiles and Pavement Stabilisation as well as careful selecting of road building materials allows for the building of longer lasting roads while the use of innovative staffing arrangements and the maximising of the plant fleet help to reduce the cost of doing the work in the first place.

It has been said that "Council is not only about Roads, Rates and Rubbish anymore."

But to some people that is still the most important part.

Customer service standards

I had cause to phone the council today as I wanted to speak to the CEO about the nomination process. The lady who answered the phone was professional and polite, as you would expect. I told her what I wanted and she said she would put me through to the CEO's PA who, you guessed it was unavailable.

I asked if they could call back and the reception lady said she would pass the message on and see if we could organise an appointment. I've been poking around the house all afternoon waiting for the call back.

It made me think about what people’s expectations are. Years ago, when I did my Aussiehost customer service training we were told that even if you cannot resolve an issue with a customer, they will at least feel that they are valued and that their concerns have been listened to if you treat their query with professionalism and empathy. The most important customer is the one standing in front of you (or speaking to you on the phone). Even a bad call can end with a positive note if handled correctly.

I know that some of the council’s staff have completed Aussiehost customer service training and that it has made a difference to those people who have completed it. Don’t get me wrong, I have no complaint with council staff in the handling of my query....... I am still waiting for the call back though!

Blogging

Well here goes, my first attempt at Blogging.... I hope to be able to offer you this insight into Who I am and What I'm thinking about. I hope it will show you all what I stand for, what I beleve in and why you should vote for me at the upcoming Maranoa Regional Council Elections.

So

Welcome to my BLOG!