When Barry O'Farrell stood for election one of his many promises was "No forced amalgamations of Local Government Councils." Well Barry is a little absent minded about this promise as he is about many others. I wonder if O'Farrell will seek to quarantine his leafy suburb of Kuring-Gai. just as Joe Hockey is opposing the amalgamation of leafy Huner's Hill. What do they have in comon? Protecting property values. Why should your Local Government area be treated any differently?

Taurus

In Qld these forced amalgamations are already starting to crack. They were one of most idiotic policies they could dream up. If only voters realised how much this idiocy has cost us but still there are many supporting the policy & it's political authors.

I think the word labor, is a code for carnage, as whether they be state of federal labor, they have caused havoc every time have got into office.

Any state shoukd learn a valuable lesson from our beloved dill Pete and his quest to reinvent the wheel.

Labors new slogan should read

Rule one, if it's not broken don't fix it.

Rule two, refer to rule one.

Dear Taurus,

I think Barrel O'Farrell would argue that the population of his North Shore electorate is mostly Chinese and therefore does not need amalgamating because it is already culturally amalgamated with Hurstville and Eastwood.

I hear that Killara is to be renamed Kiralla so that the locals can pronounce it correctly.

Queensland's forced council amalgamations are not down to Labor, or any policy. They are all down to that vindictive B Peter Beattie.

Beattie decided to take water off the councils. He was desperate for water for Brisbane, having sat on his fat butt, & watched Brisbane's water supply run almost dry. He had already pinched water resources paid for by rate payers for council built dams from some councils, but wanted Gold Coast Hinze dam water for Brisbane.

Just in passing, I have always wondered why the state pays for Brisbane's water supply, & other councils have had to pay for their own. At least that was the case, before Bettie stole any water with in pumping distance of Brisbane.

He had also wasted so much money, he wanted the money from water for his budget.

The profit from water had always been an important source of income for councils, & Beattie wanted it. When the councils resisted, he went after them like a petulant child. Well you could say he showed them! Showed them what a vindictive slob he is. Payback was the reason for forced amalgamations, not any policy, or defendable reason.

Continued.

Cont.
In my shire the council had been spending most of our money developing its northern area, which had become Brisbane suburbs. The idea was to develop the infrastructure in this area, then use some of the rate income from there to fix up the rural areas, being short changed in the mean while.

Some rural residents were pretty unhappy with broken down bridges, & dreadful road conditions, but most could see the sense of concentrating effort in one area at a time.

Imagine their response when Beattie excised the now rate positive suburbs off us, & gave them to a Labor controlled council. To rub salt into the wound he amalgamated us with another rural shire, bankrupted when he stole their water to supply Swanbank power station.

To say Peter Beattie would be very unwelcome in my area would be putting it mildly. If he were to go bush walking around here, [can you imagine that bum & belly bush walking], & got lost, they would have no hope of raising a search party to look for him.

Dear Mr Opinion
I don't really think that Barry O'Farrell's desire to quarantine Kuring-gai and Killara is much to do with their ethnic mix. I reside in a suburb of the Canterbury local governemt area (LGA) with a very high asian population, particularly Koreans. These people work hard and strive to make this country their own, but that aside won't stop O'Farrell and co amalgamating this LGA with neighboring Council areas, and for questionable benefit. The winners, big business, particularly property developers. The losers, why the residents of course.
This is the way this current NSW State Government works and they should look at the current de-amalgamation process in Queensland.

Taurus

TAURUS

Dear Hasbeen,

Does your shire need any mosques and drive-by Muslim hitmen? We've got plenty in Sydney to go around. If yes, then maybe your Brisbane shire could amalgamate with Sydney's Canterbury-Bankstown.

Dear Taurus,

The smart ones are getting out of Sydney and leaving it to the 457ers!

Dear Mr Opinion
I leave the question of how 457 visas should be issued to those who have a better understanding, such as Brendan O'Connor. Back to the question of forced Council amalagamations, ask yourself these questions:
1.will Council services be reduced?
2.will I have to pick-up all the litter from my street and tend the garden at my local park?
3.will I pay more for less Council services?
The answer to all of these questions is inevitably "Yes."
For all the failings of State Labor, their policy of rate-pegging kept things in check. Over the last 100 years we've reduced the number of NSW councils from over 300 down to 152. Unless the State Government calls for Constitutional change to do away with its level of government(and that won't happen)then councils simply don't need to get any bigger, especially Barry's scared Kuring-gai.

Taurus.

Dear Taurus,

As I've said elsewhere, and keep saying over and over again: either Barrel is a fruit cake or just hates the people of NSW.

Whichever one it is, we have no hope of expecting good government in NSW for a very very long time. So why not just give up and amalgamate.
And one day NSW could be both your State and your Shire!

Don't disregard this being at the back of Barrel's mind. Like I said, he's definitely a fruit cake!

Why thank you for the compliment Mr Opinion, I got out 40 years ago. My business was in Belmore & my home in Riverwood, chosen for its access to our motor racing circuits of the day. I also lived in Fairfield in the days when you took a cut lunch, & an elephant gun, before venturing that far from Circular Quay. If I were still there, I would be unlike to avoid trouble.

My son was not so lucky when posted to Sydney. He had his skull cracked in 4 places when attacked by 4 "Lebs", when walking home from Carlton railway station one afternoon. He was told by the cops that any investigation was most "unlikely" to find the thugs.

As for rates Taurus, mine have gone up by 45% since amalgamation. This has been blamed on amalgamation, & probably most of it is correctly attributed there.

The folk voting for de amalgamation have been told it will cost some thousands per rate payer to untangle the mess. Obviously much of these costs can be blamed at local government bureaucrats insufficiency, but I will always despise Beattie for it.

If he were to go bush walking
Hasbeen,
I always thought Keating might have easily become the first australian head of state to be knocked on the head & then Beattie. Lucky for those two the apathy of Australians.
That insufferable craphead has ruined Queensland for decades to come. I have to deal with the outfall of his council amalgamation on a literally hourly basis. It's dreadful to see so many disheartened good people because of that mongrel's egoism.

Dear Individual
I see Queenslanders are good haters, but you comment about Keating is way out of line. If you and many of your QLD mates could write to O'Farrell advising him of the error of his ways with him NSW Council amalgamation program you could assist NSW from suffering from your poor fate. What O'Farrell doesn't choose to recognise is also the body of evidence that is against amalgamations, such as detailed submissions from Prof. Brian Dollery. If NSW Council's tapped into their hidden Section 94 contributions and using the funds on core improvement programs instead of just watching the interest grow in their bank accounts, it could go a long way in resolvingtheir financial problems.

Taurus

VEOLI ENVIRONNEMENT

Dear Mr Opinion, hasbeen,rehctub, and others
I leave the subject of Forced Amalgamations in NSW for wider debate tempoarily, and commence a new post on the multi-national organisation VEOLIA ENVIRONNEMENT. This global corporation has spread its poisonous tentacles across 77 countries world-wide. Its main businesses include Water, Energy, Waste and Transport. This company is greasing the palms of conservative governments in this country to take greater control of their provision of services to Councils and other statutory bodies. This company will make further and further inroads into local and state government, and the profits will be taken out of this country. Australians, we must do whatever it takes to stop the wholesale rape of this country by greedy multinationals.

Taurus

I see Queenslanders are good haters
Taurus,
Why such idiotic reply ? You carry on like an off pork chop about conservative Government taking bribes in your next post yet when someone who has copped so much crap from those two politicians & expresses his opinion of them then you call them Haters ! No-one hates anyone, I'm simply saying that these two were such a detrimental influence, what's so hateful about that ? Ask yourself this question, what did many of us do to them to deserve what they did to us ? Just for your info I'd say that Goss has done more damage to Queensland than any other politician has to any other state. I don't hate him for that, I just would feel better if I weren't forced to keep supporting him for what he did to me. Same goes for big Goaf.

Dear individual, and friends
I obviously hit a nerve with my comment, but I dont think Beattie and Keating should be mentioned in the same breath. The Hawke-Keating Government is why the Australian economy is one of the most stable and admired economies in the world. However I raised the new issue of the take-over of many state and local government services by the multi-national VEOLIA ENVIRRONEMENT. How many state government and local government services do they control in Queensland? I know they would like to take-over the provision of all local government waste disposal services in NSW. Once they have the monopoly......they control the price.

Taurus