Three-hundred
and fifty years ago a blind man was far more insightful than the sighted. Not
only did he write one of the greatest of poems, he fought for free speech and
freedom of the press though he could have been executed for expressing these
thoughts.
His name was John Milton, a venerated forefather of what
is now social media, the right of the common man and woman to publically debunk
elitism, political lies, the abuse of power, the tyranny of aristocracy and the
forced showing of undue respect to those who deserve none. All accomplished by
the power of the pen- and now computer.
Milton considered Oliver Cromwell, who assisted in executing
King Charles 1 as a hero of liberty and equality. Milton was certainly not a
Royalist, just like Prime Minister Malcolm
Turnbull today.
In the 1950’s the Wheatbelt was also
Paradise. Beautiful, long family trips
down dusty memory lanes, lined with lazily hanging eucalypts, for a pit stop with
home-made biscuits and tea hot from the thermos.
Waving in harmony with the whispering gentle breeze would be a wheat crop stretching
endlessly across the landscape.
This scene was not lonely but tranquil. A view of a broad church with blue
skies, a sprinkling of fluffy, cotton-wool clouds and fields of gold that was a
place for quiet reflection, peace and contentment.
Nothing has really changed that much in the allure of the bush other than the
shade from some aesthetically graceful trees are now but a bitter wood-chip
memory. Also many of the roads are no longer graded gravel- they are crumbling
bitumen lined with potholes.
But
is it still paradise? The rural countryside itself is!
However what of the people?
Men wore hats when they came to York and doffed them with respect to ladies in
brightly coloured floral dresses. The police Sergeant had automatic respect,
the Postmaster, the Stationmaster, the head of the Roads Board, the Country
Party Member, the Shire President, the School Headmaster and the local priest
and pastor- even if they were all absolute tools.
Now personal, political and public service respect is a memory, investigated
and sometimes rightfully destroyed by social media, for others than for those
who can actually prove they deserve some. Respect has to be earned the hard way
these days.
There is more ‘ICE’ in the Wheatbelt than the South Pole, and it is destroying
young adults, leaving them psychotic and dangerous, and sometimes dead. So do
the police deserve respect for this inability to control a deadly scourge?
And has any past Government Department bothered to tell you that Yongah Hills
Detention Centre in Northam is no longer a refugee camp? It should be known as
a high security prison filled with mainly vicious New Zealand Bikie Gang
Members, like ‘The Mongrel Mob’ waiting to be deported. (It will more than
likely become a holiday camp for Christian Tarou Chadwick on his way home.)
It has the occasional savage bashing of innocent people to prevent these
arseholes from getting bored. Yet some of the guards are still the ones who
were trained to look after women and children from Muslim countries and their
lives are being put at risk by Serco.
Any employee who dares to tell the public there are vicious bikies in the
Yongah Hills woodpile will get sacked by the company in a split second.
Then there is the Shire of York and its council so different in structure,
delivery and demands from five to six decades ago.
Does it deserve automatic respect because many have been taught to revere
authority and not to question its supposed Local Government God-given right of dominant
control and often hidden, personal agendas? That is the individuals call.
Should it be treated with disrespect or distain? That is also up to the
individual.
However the best way to treat the Shire of York is let the ugly financial
reality be publically known, not hidden by creative accounting and deathly
silence.
Currently the Shire has an internal income shortfall of $2.2 million this
financial year in rates and sundry debts. This will more likely get much worse,
not better.
Many thousands of workers who came to WA for the mining boom have returned home
so the State’s portion of the GST will get even smaller and it is claimed to be
an additional $1 billion ‘black hole’ in the WA economy.
Assertions are already being made that the WA economy is in its worst financial
state since the ‘Great Depression’.
Money allocated for both Commonwealth and State grant funding will be scarce
and what little there is will be granted only to the best and most needy
funding requests.
The Shire of York better be good at holding out the begging bowl, there are
likely to be 20 less government and semi-government agencies to plead with and
20% less local government executives to crawl to.
It better start thinking laterally. This is something that public servants are
not trained to do.
The Shire should have a legal axe to grind with Commissioner James Best,
because he was never hired by anyone for his farcical Chrystal ball gazing
called ‘Visioning’.
Best, as Commissioner, was all powerful. No Acting CEO could hire him such as Graeme
Simpson. He was employed and introduced to York by Brad Jolly because Tony
Simpson could not walk, talk, breathe and make decisions all at the same time.
The Shire Council was suspended so it had no power to hire anybody for
anything. The only one with the power to hire the Commissioner for York &
Visioning and (the fraudulent excessive-price purchase of a property) was the
Minister Tony Brad Simpson-Jolly who claims he did not.
So the Shire should collectively grow some cojones and demand our money back-
or put Best’s head on a platter. Simpson has already been dispatched back to
his bakery and Brad Jolly is part of nasty allegations of passed incompetence
in the Lisa Scaffidi affair.
York probably does not know how big its population is and what real volumes of utilities
such as water, electricity and gas it actually has to play with in the future to
attract development. It also might be short 200 or 300 ratepayers already- if
REIWA is right?
Does the Shire know if Western Power has, or could provide cheaply the
Headworks for enough ‘three-phase’ electrical capacity for half-a-dozen new power
hungry industries?
How many additional kilojoules of natural gas could it guarantee if it started
negotiating with a major new enterprise for York? And at what would be the
competitive price it could assist in establishing?
Around ten years ago the Shire of York did not know how much access water
supply it had to provide to a Halal abattoir that was to be established.
What it did not have would cost $3 to $9million to deliver and the project sank
like a stone.
These days any new comers are not investing in a business, but buying a
property as a stairway to heaven.
The trains are long gone, there is one, each-way bus to Perth and no buses to
Northam and no taxi. Tourist buses are now non-existent.
For
these few new arrivals (if any), it is a case of watching the grass grow and
the paint peeling off the facades in the main street. And look for a plot with
a nice view as your final resting place.
York has the second highest unemployment rate in WA of nearly 8 %, the average
age of the community is the second highest in the state, its average household
income is one of the lowest and its rates, by comparison are astronomical.
The YRCC, with much of its concept still being defended vigorously by the
Shire, has caused an overall debit of $15.2 million, to service 300, but with
repayments made by an entire population which has, as a couple of non-generous and
generous guesses of between 2,900 to 3,400 people.
In Port Hedland they have spent $35 million on community facilities such as basketball
courts and a water playground for a population that is currently around 17,000
but was estimated to reach 50,000, by including reasonably close communities
and the continuance of the mining boom. That did not and will not happen.
Paul Martin has been CEO of Port Hedland and now York. So you could ask him who
he thought was the bigger bunch of economic idiots.
The question is it the council that spent $15 million including a small
donation from Royalties for Regions on 3,000 people for the YRCC?
Or is it the council, with some R4R help, that spent $35 million on 17,000?
It is all a matter of calculating proportional, population, economic lunacy
The Port Hedland developments occurred around 2010-2012, when Paul was
CEO.
‘The Real Yell about the YRCC of York’ has
certainly got its point across.
Probably no matter what- it will cost everyone in York, ratepayer or
two-year-old toddler, $5,000 each to pay off the debt as it stands today with a
diminishing, mainly poorly paid population to pay for it.
This does not including future maintenance; restoration and payment of loan
interest and possible future capital investment that could see the debt grow to
$30 million by 2035.
Effectively, there are no changes that can be made that will make it much less
than a millennial millstone. I think everyone has indigested that!
Maybe Kasey Chambers or Lee Kernaghan can be convinced to do a gig at the
Convention Centre. After all costs are taken out including ‘security’ you may lucky
enough to gross $10,000 per concert. That should cover all up YRCC costs for 10
days.
It is touted that competitive neutrality begins when a local government
business has an annual income above $200,000. What commercial businesses are
LGA’s allowed to provide in competition with the private sector to anywhere near
that income level, whether gross or net?
I believe the response from any potential entrepreneur to the Shire in this
instance should be read the affidavit, GFY, and then see you in court.
Currently the costs of running the YRCC centre is annually miniscule compared
to the amount required to be spent to bring York back to life. York has no
financial capacity other than to face at least a five-year, dirt poor, annus
horribilus and Paul Martin knows it.
The way that the Shire of York is currently economically structured, if the
population fell to 2,000, everyone will be paying a minimum domestic household
rate of $3,500 to $4,000 per property that is valued at an average of $250,000,
with a rental payment average per week of $200 and around $450 if you have a mortgage.
That is just to keep the debt payments below $2 million per annum each year.
You can toss the financial fairness of estimated Gross Rental Value and
Undeveloped Land Value, in York, in the bin with your totally overdrawn credit card. And the Shire better not raise rate
valuations this coming Financial Year one iota!
Just to keep a rusting roof over your head will add up to minimum outgoings of
between $500 and $750 for many, prior to water, gas and electricity rates being
paid and then finding the money to buy
something so the kids can eat.
Then there is the mooted $200 per annum increases in electricity prices and an
investigation into Brendon Grylls’ Royalties for Regions Fuel Credit Card
system.
In
the end York will be totally reliant on its Shire Public Service Executives to
keep the pack of wolves from the door.
Ms. Suzie Haslehurst is an interesting case regarding her employment. For 11
years she was the CEO of ‘Magabala Books Aboriginal Corporation’ until 2012, she was also engaged at a high level with the ‘Arts’. This all deserves great
praise but there are no direct links with Local Government administration here.
However she did shift to the Shire of Broome to become Manager of Community
Development joining the Acting CEO of Broome, Paul Martin in 2013 then again in
York in 2016.
It appears that arts and culture and related events are going to be high on her agenda to save York.
Firstly York’s proposed Motorcycle Festival is a huge biannual event in
Northam, 40 kilometres down the road. It has been for many years. Whether they
dumped it because it was a waste of time and money, York is going to find out.
If it is to be operas like ‘Tosca’ and ‘La Traviata’ at the York Town Hall that
could well be an underwhelming success.
Proposals such as bringing the WA Museums collection of farming artefacts
and memorabilia to be displayed in York for the next four years has fallen
on deaf ears.
York’s Involvement in the development of the ‘drone’ industry to assist in
broad acre farming problems was placed in an Avon Waste bin. It is now too late
as others are doing it.
Lighting up York on long weekends as a magical fantasy land with both
children’s, historic and Avant Garde projections blazoned on buildings,
streetscapes and the Avon River appear to have been rejected by the Shire of
York’s ‘flat-earth’ committee.
Nearly five years after writing Paradise Lost, Milton wrote ‘Paradise
Regained’.
It is up to the Shire of York Council to see if it has the ability to regain
paradise.
The pressure is certainly on and the current truth hurts.
David Taylor
