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.