Led up the garden path Y
OU might not agree with every election result, but what’s the worst that could happen?
Elected officials don’t need to know too much about the issues they have to deal with, they have policy makers, speechwriters and spin doctors to do the heavy lifting, and the basics of public office are pretty straightforward:
• Act in the best interests of your constituents.
• Don’t do anything that wouldn’t pass the pub test.
• Spend “our” money like a caretaker would – carefully.
Yet despite recent declarations that the council would be more “transparent”, we’ve been lumbered with deals hammered out behind closed doors that are pungent enough to attract serious scrutiny.
The Jamie Durie deal sounded dodgy from the get-go, but was explained away as a component of the State Government’s Water Wise package to “educate” locals on how to be “water smart”.
But was education actually needed? With ratepayers taking up 85 per cent of the package within two months, crowds at local hardware stores, backordered stock and the NovemberDecember waiting list for plants, our council not only persisted in pushing this ridiculous cash-cow, but doubled down on it.
The Bulletin’s Madura Mccormack revealed this week that not only had the council handballed the Durie debacle to local businessman Carey Ramm’s Aecgroup, but that the marketing contract for the Water Smart Package had “blown out” from $241,100 to $831,814, due to “variations to the initial scope of works”.
What variations?
A council spokesperson applied this spin: “The Water Smart Package was always designed with a community education element in mind and we recognise that behavioural change is the toughest component of this.” Whose behavioural change?
The only behaviour requiring change is that of our bloodyminded council.
Don’t expect to be told what the extra $600,000 is for.
Forget expensive consultants, surely frontline council staff are the best source of community feedback on council initiatives?
They’ll know if something passes the pub test. And all the council has to do is listen.