LOCKYER COUNCIL

ACCORDING to the budget handed down by the Lockyer Valley Regional Council, residential properties are going to be milked for yet another rate increase, 2.5 per cent.

This comes on top of last year’s increase, when Mayor Tanya Milligan spouted at the time that the increase would be an average of $120 per year. My rates increased by $150 per year.

The following rates bill then increased by a further $54 per year.

It is worth noting that there will be no increases for their narrow-based constituency, the business community.

When attending the May meeting of the LVRC, I discovered the real reason for this exploitation of residential property owners and the tenants who pay rent on such properties.

The developers of the backpacker hostel being built near Grantham and obscured from view by a large hill, have had infrastructure fees totalling $429,100 waived by this appallingly unrepresentative council.

They did not use the term waived, they were merely giving the developers a “one hundred per cent discount”.

It is just scandalous that the residents of this region have to subsidise this development.

It is time for Local Government Minister Sterling Hinchcliffe to intervene by imposing electoral reform on such councils.

This entire council gets elected by about 40 per cent of the voters, and at the recent by-election held to replace the new MLA for Lockyer, the new councillor was elected by about 20 per cent of the voters.

Not good enough, Minister Hinchcliffe.

GRAHAM WESSLING, Gatton