There used to be an old saying, "Never look a gift horse in
the mouth."
Which suggested that anything that was offered for free didn't
need to be checked over too thoroughly. Just accept the gift and be grateful.
Good advice? Not necessarily.
Royalties for Regions, Lotterywest, and a myriad of other funding agencies might have a few qualities that align with
those of many gift horses.
The recently lauded Augusta boat harbour is one project that has the
community muttering about the lack of information on who will benefit or
whether this will be another drain on ratepayers. Nobody is saying that the new
infrastructure is a white elephant, but quite a few are asking why their
elected members are very quiet on just what the benefits will be for the
resident ratepayers.
How will it work for those of us who live permanently in this
shire? Is it just another asset that will need money spent on it?
Where are the explanations of how it will be used, who will be paying the charges, and how the
anticipated income it generates will pay for the ongoing maintenance?
It is always possible to get funds for capital works, new
exciting projects, but often they have associated running costs and within a
few years they will also cost for on-going repairs and renewal. This is why we need
clearly detailed cost/benefit statements before we commit to any new projects.
These must be written in plain English and offered for review before decisions
are made.
A recent embryonic planning concern is the Community Garden. It sounds a
great idea, but why do we have an experienced planning manager at the shire involved? Matt
Cuthbert is a lovely chap but if the community want a garden aren't they
interested enough to get themselves organised? They seem to have started as a bunch of volunteers in Busselton.
Matt was "Mr Community Garden" for Busselton, and the
garden there is absolutely wonderful.
However, his arrival in Margs and
subsequent CG initiative has raised a question mark over who is driving this
idea?
Did the residents decide they wanted this and they channelled their enthusiasm
through a councillor? Who is the councillor driving this project?
Have they stepped forward to promote the idea, to speak up on behalf of the grassroots initiative that prompted them to respond by making the proposal?
How many people have
been lobbying for it?
Is it more people than are complaining about the grading and
maintenance of rural roads here?
Is it more people than attended the CSIRO workshop and requested that the shire lobby for a change to the voting system?
Again the concern over the CG is not that the idea is intrinsically a bad one, most people really support community gardens. It is that the decision to place this project in the work schedule of the public servants before other initiatives that are outstanding does not appear democratic.
Are we, the ratepayers, paying for Matt
Cuthbert to send in a Lotterywest grant application?
Will he, or some other shire employees then manage the garden project
as an expensive ratepayer funded project.
What came first, the recruitment of Matt Cuthbert or the community lobbying their
councillor for a community garden?
Is his arrival in this shire just a happy coincidence for the councillor who was responding to the residents clamouring for a community garden to be initiated?
Was this just serendipity at work?
Prior to Matt's arrival had we seen requests for expressions of
interest in a community garden advertised in the shire’s community update articles? How many
people registered interest and where in the shire do they reside? A community
garden in Margs would not be a great benefit for those living in Augusta.
There are community gardens, garden clubs, and allotment
societies the world over that are initiated and self-managed by volunteer
groups that cost rate payers nothing. Human endeavours that can support
feelings of self-efficacy will always create stronger communities and more
contented individuals. Paid public servants delivering expensive projects
that serve only a minority of ratepayers, or worse still are perceived as serving personal interests of those public servants, can weaken social cohesion.
The glass crusher is a recent example of how our money, taxes and rates, were spent on an expensive project the administration promoted as a great benefit to the people of this shire.
It apparently wasn't.
Who got it wrong? Asking such a question is not a witch hunt but a reminder that the reason we pay what appears to be very high salary packages to managers is that they have management skills. Management involves much more than just the day-to-day operation of a service provider and one of the crucial areas for examination must be planning in all its guises. If management aren't delivering the performance they are paid for then it should be unacceptable.
The glass crusher was seen by the community as providing a solution to an
externality of the wine industry. The wine industry creates a problem by buying imported bottles and then have no mechanism to ensure that they are all
reused or recycled. We, the general public, paid for a supposed solution to
their problem by purchasing a crusher. This solution was proposed by a public servant. It was not a solution, but we still paid
for both the crusher and the public servant.
How much better for the health of our society if the local wineries had paid for
the proposed solution, if they had addressed the problem they were causing. Not the taxpayer, not the ratepayer, but the people
producing the waste that needed dealing with. Yes, we might have had a cost passed on to us, a few cents when we purchase a product packaged in glass, but that's a discretionary spend. Forcing every member of the general public, those who buy glass packaged products and those who don't, to deal with the waste problem of the food and beverage industry is perverse.
Horses are a big interest throughout this shire and there are many of us who understand horses, their costs and benefits. Next
time you are offered a horse, whether it's a racehorse or a show pony, check
its teeth. It might turn out to be an expensive acquisition, and if the shire are backing it there could be an impost on the
public purse that metaphorically continues to bite the hand that feeds it.
