... WILL THIS $ 500,000 EFFORT QUALIFY AS THE TAJ MAHAL OF THE AVIARY WORLD?
ASK anyone what they’d do with $ 10 million and you probably wouldn’t find two answers the same – but whether you’d buy a private island, a Bentley, a brewery, a Melbourne Cup racehorse or a whopping great television ( for your new mansion), most of us would get serious bang for that kind of buck.
But while the general public are very well aware of the value of items we spend our hard earned on, governmental attitudes appear clueless about what money can actually buy in the real world.
Take the aviary in the Queens Gardens. The much- loved, quirky addition to an already magical botanic garden was unceremoniously stripped of its resident birds and marked for demolition.
An outcry from locals saw a swift backtracking from Townsville City Council and after a period of deafening silence came the announcement of a new, improved aviary, a new rose garden, and the return of the birds. Nice one. But the budget? A cool $ 500,000.
Just to clarify, that’s for the demolition of the old aviary, construction of a new rose garden where the aviary used to be, removal of the old rose garden, and construction of a new aviary where the rose garden used to be.
Engineers estimated this Sir Humphrey- worthy shuffle at half a mill, but with large- scale birdhouses generally made of timber and chicken wire or equivalent, and a new display home averaging around $ 250,000; will this $ 500,000 effort qualify as the Taj Mahal of the aviary world?
Massive poles support an ineffective shade structure and enormous concrete slabs anchor simple park benches to the ground in my nearby dog park, while monstrous lights installed along the river in Mundingburra ended up unpopular, oversized versions of the original design. Surely someone is having a lend of us, with over- engineered ridiculousness that pads out quotes and provides no bang for our buck on top of angst at the sheer waste of it all.
This frivolous spending isn’t limited to Parks and Gardens either, this week the council announced a tender going out for a 26- month marketing campaign to change resident’s negative perceptions of “Brownsville.”
The lucky recipient will provide “graphic design, digital marketing and community research”, with a key inclusion to provide information on the Haughton Pipeline Duplication Project.
Mayor Jenny Hill has promised delivery this September, so what are the other 22 months of propaganda for?
Don’t forget that $ 10 million already earmarked for Jamie Durie to inform us nuffies how to use water wisely, with the total cost of the campaign to come out of the hard- won $ 225 million water funding package from the State Government. Bloody Nora.
This cash could be used for any number of initiatives that could improve Townsville rather than just our perception of it; instead we are to be victims of a push to “promote positive behaviour changes among residents”.
Gee thanks, but we’ve been in drought, we already know how to save water; so how about the council looks at its own wasteful ways? Redirect this colossal waste of money towards something useful, awesome or enlightened; and perhaps leave off the pointless marketing exercise until the next election.