Off the deep end
ON Tuesday, the Geelong Adver
tiser reported that Surf Coast ShireCouncil was planning on being fiscally responsible.
It’s going to spend $50,000 for a feasibility study into the use of $30 million of state and federal money.
To an outsider, this makes sense.
Everybody wants well-planned services, lower rates and local jobs, right? We all want consultation. We all agree we want sound economic management in local, state and federal government. That’s a given. So it was kind of shocking that this week (in the middle of the sports rorts affair) a federal Liberal senator was demanding the council agree to spend up big or get out of the pool.
Sarah Henderson lost the seat of Corangamite at the last federal election, but apparently she thinks she has the right to tell the Surf Coast Council how big its pool should be.
She wants a 50m pool with the money that Scott Morrison promised the region in the lead up to the last election. The Geelong Adver
tiser reported that the senator sent an email that left councillors in no doubt on her position.
“Should council not be prepared to include a 50-metre pool as part of an aquatic facility, then it is the Government’s intention to seek another proponent which can deliver on the Government’s commitment to Corangamite residents,” she wrote.
The cash splash promise was made before the federal election. It was a desperate act of a promise of investment in local community infrastructure. Corangamite boundaries had been redrawn and Henderson was facing a defeat.
The $20 million promise arrived among many other community sports announcements.
She lost her seat but PM ScoMo later gave Hendo a spot in the Senate.
So now the Senator is putting the thumbscrews on the locals. This demand is not accompanied by expert advice. It was an election promise, that’s all.
The council is doing the smart thing by being economically cautious. It’s one thing to cut the ribbon, it’s a whole other thing to make sure the infrastructure is maintained, cleaned and valued by the ratepayers.
The senator says she has conducted her own consultation but this sounds remarkably like the “parallel assessment” technique employed by the office of the former Minister for Sport.
When you’re divvying up money for community sports, why not speak to an expert? That sounds like sound economic management, right?
Most Australians have heard of Shane Gould. She was a pretty good swimmer; a triple Olympic gold medallist.
Gould now has a PhD in Australian Swimming Culture from Victoria University.
VU is a highly-respected centre of sports science and research and Gould believes that we’ve got it all wrong. She is calling for a rethink about how young people learn to swim.
Gould is of the opinion that we should be building 25m pools instead of the Olympic-sized reservoirs.
“If communities are thinking ‘We need to build an Olympic 50m pool’, I say ‘ No you don’t … You would be better off with five-lane, 25m pools,’’ she says.
So who to listen to? The former Olympian with a doctorate on swimming culture or the local senator who says she has done her own community consultation?
The election commitment was $20 million. It is topping up the State Government commitment of $10 million. This money is supposed to enable the installation of an aquatic centre. That’s what’s going to happen and a feasibility study makes sense.
The Feds should follow their own advice and get big government out of people’s daily lives. You promised the money, you won the election. Now get out of the way and let the locals get on with it.
Ross Mueller is a freelance writer and director