Creating communities what does that mean? It sounds so cosy,
comfy, warm and snugly, but is it a wolf in sheep’s clothing?
Back in April 2007 our shire suddenly became a big fan of an
organisation named “Creating Communities”
We were encouraged to engage with these consultants and bare our souls to them,
sharing our dreams and aspirations so that planning for this shire would give
us just what was wanted.
Just what was wanted? Mmmmm......... it sounded, well a
little too good to be true.
I asked our local newshound to ferret out when the contract
for the “Creating Communities” project
was approved by Council, was advertised, what tendering process had been used,
where was the specification for the research published. Could we all see it all?
Was it going to be open and transparent?
Well, actually no.
No openness and no transparency.
This was not something that Council had to approve because
it was FREE!
The developers were paying for all this free research and
subsequent reports and advice on how to create a community here in this shire.
Throw out the independent CSIRO research that had been
published in 2005, and for which we paid $500,000, and embrace the developer
funded “Creating Communities” project
that the developers specified and paid for. He
who pays the piper calls the tune.
Upon hearing that this research was funded by the developers
the people of Karridale gave a collective groan, or at least those who had been
paying attention did, the others just clapped their hands and nodded, saying, “Goodee
– it’s free!”
When the shire planning officers saw what an ungrateful
bunch of rustics we were they sought to reassure us that “Creating Communities” were a bona fide social research group who
really knew their stuff.
They offered us testimonials to prove that we were just
luddites unable to readily embrace change. Testimonials that would prove that “Creating Communities” were really,
really, genuinely able to change the entire community - if they got a big
enough fee of course. But we didn’t need to worry about the cost because it was
FREE!
“Creating Communities” were cited as being used by
Satterleys and so we have to accept that they are big players. Check out the
Waneroo Report.
Page
221
CLIENT: Oh okay.
BURKE: and he then sends them
all in. So
GRILL: But they’re all
different letters.
BURKE: All proper letters.
All different.
GRILL: They’re all signed by
different people.
BURKE: See if you take …
GRILL: And they’re all mainly
all their own thoughts.
BURKE: Yeah.
GRILL: But if you feel it’s a
bit tough for him Brian we should really think about bringing in Creating
Communities or someone like that.
BURKE: Yeah. Do you know
Creating Communities?
CLIENT: No. Who are they?
BURKE: Yeah. Well we’ll talk
to you about that but, that’s all expense but Julian’s right. If we get strong
opposition then we should look at making sure we get a maximum result which
means using the best people we can. Creating Communities is a group that we use,
Satterley uses, Australand uses to try to get in the community the support for what
we want to do.
CLIENT: Okay.
BURKE: So they do that. At
High Wycombe for instance, we have in three weeks we had a total of about two
thousand four hundred letters, and we sent one copy to the council the
original, the CEO and then a copy to every councillor so one councillor in one day
got four hundred and fifty letters in a letter box. All copies. But we, we won.
I was completely convinced. If Brian uses them they must be good.
And so when they produced the third revision of their report in 2012,
for Nick Logan, I scrutinised the Karridale information. They really had done
something special where Karridale was concerned.
Whereas the shire, and the Australian census office, had shown a figure
of 291 for Karridale in 2001, Creating Communities had got that down to a mere
30 persons by 2006.
Why would this be?
Could this be so that just 10-11 people discussing the development
plans would seem like a fair representation?
Whatever the reason be on your guard, if the “Creating Communities”
team turn up in your part of town Brian could be there too.
