New Mayor and Deputy Mayor in Wingecarribee

The new Mayor of Wingecarribee Shire Council will be Clr Duncan Gair. The Deputy Mayor will be Clr. Ken Halstead. Congratulations to the new officeholders.

As I mentioned on this post a few days ago, I was sure there would be some wheeling and dealing going on, behind the scenes. I got it wrong, about who might win. I thought the Paul Tuddenham might get up, as previous Deputy Mayor, but he decided not to stand for the position. He was the last Councillor to scrape in. But, then again he was not the only one to be scrabbling for last preference votes.

Seemingly, Juliet Arkwright has not been "trusted" by the Business Leaders of the Shire. This is despite the fact that she and her Liberal Party team won more than twice as many votes as Duncan Gair and his group received (his group got only 44% of the Liberals' vote). Whoever actually decides the Mayoral candidate clearly regarded Duncan Gair as a "safe pair of hands" (event though the voters were less convinced). See the election results for yourself.

I know the Election is not a popular vote for the Mayor (it is in some Councils, but clearly the old Council did not trust the voters to make a sensible choice, and so the by-laws which determine the election procedures in our Shire were designed to not permit a popular vote for Mayor). It is interesting, isn't it? Democracy is not what you might think it is.

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I was told the outcome of yesterday's Council vote for Mayor and Deputy Mayor by the helpful person on the Council's switchboard, this morning. There is still nothing about any of this on the Council's Website, which is still in its normal dormant state.

The ABC local station still does not have a word about this on its website, (as of Tuesday 30/9.08 - 12:24pm) - but that's because the Southern Highlands News will not be published until Wednesday. The Journalists down there in ABC Illawarra at Wollongong tomorrow morning will simply read the "news" from the front pages of the local Newspapers, as they always do, and pretend that they have sourced it themselves. Try picking up the telephone, folks. The Council's phone number is on their website. That's how to provide a real news service to your audience - instead of news on delay ("Yesterday's News Tomorrow")

As I write this, (12 noon 30 September) the latest information they have is the Agenda papers for yesterday's Council meeting. I assume that the people who ought be writing the Minutes and publishing this information are too busy "getting to know" the new Mayor and Deputy Mayor, or even more likely, are locked into a room trying to decide how to deal with the new faces on Council, and working out how to avoid scrutiny over the now infamous Lehman Brothers debacle.

• "Wingecarribee Shire Council will have to apply to administrators of Lehman Brothers Australia for money owed by the failed investment banking group, according to legal firm Clayton Utz. A year after Lehman Brothers ventured into Australia by buying Grange Securities for $120 million, the Australian arm went into administration on Friday, owing creditors $800 million." Source Southern Highlands News - 29/9/08

The procedure of claiming not to be able to make any statements, in order not to damage their case in pending legal action has always been a smokescreen, behind which the Council management and former Councillors were equally happy to hide behind.

Let us please have some openness in Government.

If looking for some guiding principles for how the new Council ought be governed, this would be a good place to start, folks. It is from your own website:

Our Values
EQUITY, JUSTICE and CONSULTATION in our obligations;

PRIDE in our lifestyle and environment;

EXCELLENCE in the provision of services;

TEAMWORK, INNOVATION and CO-OPERATION in our business;

INTEGRITY, skill and DEDICATION in the achievement of our objectives;

LEADERSHIP in the growth and prosperity of our community.

Interestingly, the word "Openness" does not appear, but the rest of the statement of Council's values is reasonable - provided they live up to it. And by that I mean, especially, the Council's Administration, as well as the persons who have just been elected.

For the record, I repeat my call made last week to all the new Councillors, and Senior Staff.

We need a change in attitude from day one of the new Council.

Let us have government for the people of the Wingecarribee, by the people of the Wingecarribee - for a change.

By the way, I think senior members of the Council staff ought live in the Shire - for starters - to show some confidence in their own Administration, and to show some solidarity with the people they are meant to serve.

Wall Street Bail out is a fraud on the ordinary people.

The "Wall Street Bail Out" being proposed by the head of the US Treasury is a fraud on the people - in my opinion.

For the life of me I cannot see the point - let alone the moral justification of this vast expenditure.

Firstly, people who ought to know say that the US$700 Billion "rescue plan" will go nowhere towards covering the funds which have been lost. So, the US$700 billion will be gratefully received by the bankers, who will use it to comfort themselves, as they cry about how much more they have lost. Then they will ask for more, to cover their real losses.

But losses is the correct term. These people are NOT INVESTORS, they are SPECULATORS, or put more prosaically, GAMBLERS.

Therefore, I ask, why bail them out? - with taxpayers money?

When they won big - and trust me, they did, over the last 30 years - did they offer to give that money away to anyone else? I don't think so. Certainly not to the taxpayers, or the Government. These people led the way in covering their profits inside tax havens, and by accounting ruses. They invented the phrase: "Paying taxes is optional" - and by and large, it has never been an attractive option to the mega-wealthy.

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In biological terms, I am an evolutionist, and to me it seems that these people are like dinosaurs, objecting to a cloud of dust blocking out the sun - because it will lead to their extinction. However, they have ignored the fact that the huge comet, or asteroid, has already hit the earth. The process has already started.

The analogy breaks down, however, because these people brought this disaster upon themselves, unlike the dinosaurs, who did not ask for the asteroid or comet to hit the earth.

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I am not the only "crazy" arguing against the "bail-out" of the Bankers. (source: Mike Adams - of the suspiciously named "Truth Publishing")

• "The key tipping point here will be when foreign banks stop buying U.S. debt or, just as dangerously, when foreign banks start SELLING OFF U.S. debt.
• "Either one will trigger a landslide rush to dump U.S. debt, flooding the market with useless paper that no one wants to buy.
• "Germany, China and many other countries are already calling for an end to the American Empire. And sadly, China actually has a way to accomplish that end. All they have to do, right now, is start a fire sale of U.S. debt, and the American empire crumbles within days."

DJW Comment: The only thing which may save the Americans is the fact that China needs the Americans to keep buying the cheap consumer goods which China is producing.

Wingecarribee Election - the fall-out is not yet clear

This came to me tonight from Cam Ford, well known campaigner against the sale of public lands in the Shire, to pay for the madness of the intended "leisure centre".

I am publishing this here under Cam's policy of asking that it be forwarded to other interested residents.

Denis Wilson


Dear Concerned Residents;

Driving in to Moss vale from the north these days, it would be hard to miss the large sign advertising Lennon Brothers Circus. From a distance it could quite easily read “Lehman Brothers Circus”, which rather neatly sums up the whole disastrous legacy that our outgoing Council’s Financial Committee has left us; in particular the foolish “Parks for Pools” Leisure Centre scheme; which has now fortunately been decisively rejected in the recent Poll.

In itself, I don’t think the idea of a Leisure Centre was necessarily a bad one; it was the ham-fisted handling of the funding model which was a disaster. The high-handed proposal to cut up and sell off vast parcels of our public pools, parks, reserves and other green spaces put the general public offside immediately, as they were never even allowed to have a say on the sale of almost half of the properties on the list.

No matter how the proponents of the scheme tried to bulldoze it through by subsequently fiddling with the formula, their arrogant “all-or-nothing” attitude did little to help their cause and was ultimately to be the cause of their defeat.

Now, I admit I’m no economic genius. But If, say, the Financial Committee could have found a way to partially fund the Leisure Centre from Council’s original $30 million investment fund, combined with the sale of the old Mittagong Sewage Treatment Plant, developer contributions, added fund-raising programs etc. - perhaps even a modest loan - instead of throwing the whole $30 million down the Lehman Brothers black hole, then perhaps we might have had the Leisure Centre, retained all our parks and reserves, still had money in the bank, and kept the ratepayers relatively happy.

Of course, 20-20 hindsight is a wonderful thing, and the incoming Council will now have to deal with severe economic restraints and a suspicious electorate. Perhaps the first step in regaining public confidence would be for Council to immediately re-zone all the parks, reserves and larger open green spaces on the Leisure Centre hit-list as dedicated public recreation spaces in perpetuity, so that they would be safe from any further threat. Smaller spaces; say single building block sized lots - little patches of green in an otherwise monotonous suburban streetscape - could then be rezoned on their merits and with regard to community wishes. Perhaps neighbourhood mowing rosters could help save maintenance expenses on these small blocks.

This would leave perhaps three or four properties out of the twenty on the final Leisure Centre hit list – including the Mittagong Sewage Treatment Plant – which could be sold; an idea to which one would imagine very few people would object, and those funds put towards upgrading and covering Bowral Pool. It may not be the ideal solution but it is time to put aside past differences and move on.

Sincerely;

Cam Ford

Lehman Brothers goes bust after WSC Elections.

The news of the Wingecarribee Shire Council election results spread fast. The "Old Guard" have failed to be re-elected. The first reaction to this news was seen on Wall Street, the financial sector of New York.

Over there, the news that one of their favourite clients, the Wingecarribee Shire Council "Old Guard" had been thrown out of office sent brokers from Lehman Brothers into a spin.

Is this the world-wide repercussion from
former Councillor Murray's electoral defeat?

(a satirical view)

Lehman Brothers is apparently the 4th largest investment house ("bank") in the world. It is regarded as an "Institution" in the world of finance - and nobody seems to really know how costly their collapse will be for others. The world of finance literally does not know how much money is tied up, and where. It is a catastrophe too large for the US Government to rescue them from, unlike the previous bail-out of Bear Stearns.

But the directors of Lehman Brothers have sought the protection of Chapter 11 of the US Bankruptcy laws.

We in the Wingecarribee Shire know that thanks to some ill-advised investments, we the people stand to lose money.

We already knew that we were going to lose those Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs). Now we will probably lose the entire tranch of funds invested with Lehman Brothers - some $57 million.

It makes the loss of $2.55 million on the first "deal" with Lehman Brothers whereby they bought back our $3 million investment in one group of their CDOs for $450, 000 seem trivial in comparison.

Who is responsible? In truth it must surely be all the Councillors of the former Council, and the General Manager.

Lets hope the new bunch do a better job. They could hardly do worse.