Local Government Shhit-fukhury

This is a story of what Juice Media so eloquently calls ”shit-fuckery”. (Link to Juice Media below)

Government - at every level - is often doing dumb things that are counter to the good of the people (or will of the people).

My experience with shit-fuckery is close to home. Please allow me to share what is going on with my Local Government.

I live on the Central Coast of NSW and a few years ago the local councils of Gosford and Wyong were merged (amalgamated) to create Central Coast Council.

Neither of the original councils wanted to see their employees or election promises laid to waste. So they basically didn’t cut costs or get efficiencies out of the merger. Instead, in a few short years they found themselves in hundreds of millions of debts with the situation spiralling out of control.

The State Government saw this as absurd. It was. So the NSW State Government sacked the Central Coast Council and called in the administrators.

This is why my community has no mayor, council or councillors representing the people of the area. Nor is there likely to be local representatives for up to 16-months (elections aren’t required until September 2022).

A normally slow political process at NSW State level has hand-picked administrators that understand the opportunity inherent in a big debt and little local oversight.

The administrators are treating the council as they would a typical business, which is kind of understandable. But of course, the Local Government is NOT the same as a normal enterprise. Normal enterprises must run good businesses otherwise the customer can take their business elsewhere. Crucially as a local - we live here and can’t take our business elsewhere - there’s no alternative local council.

The above point is important because a local government has guaranteed income in the form of rates - because people have to pay rates. And far from people leaving the area, more are moving in from Sydney post COVID.

So unlike a typical business administration where debts and restructuring have a short horizon because competitors can step in, the local government debts can be dealt with over a long term arrangement. There is no need to rush. With a growing, long-term, guaranteed income stream a solution to any size of debt could likely be found.

Certainly there is no rule that says all the debts of the previous council need to be sorted before the locals get a chance to elect representatives again. That seems to be outright shit-fuckery.

Clearly though the State Government is keen to privatise any local assets that it calls “lazy assets”. The logic being these lazy assets can be sold so the debts can be paid. And then, business-as-usual can resume.

The problem is that the “lazy assets” they have identified are not all lazy.

Some are economically important and being sold at the wrong time - for the wrong reason. The Killarney Vale carpark is a bargain for the next buyer.

Some are ecologically significant green spaces that make the difference between suburban and urban living on the Central Coast.

Importantly there are wetlands and reserves on the “lazy list”. These are being sold despite such actions flying in the face of the States own environmental laws and locally popular policy to declare a climate emergency (that was declared 18-months prior to the council being sacked).

Others are culturally important like the local library at Bateau Bay or community centre at Norah Head - that has been used for early childhood care for over 43 years.

The list of lazy assets was not being shared with the community for input until a few days ago. Now we find that the administrators will decide on these by the end of this week (28th of May).

This doesn’t give the community enough time to organise alternatives like say co-locating the library somewhere else.

Instead the community are being sidelined by the administrators and State Government.

The community have no local government to call on. ??At best the community can appeal to the administrators in the remaining 5-days.

And that my dear friends is local shit-fuckery.

Not that all hope is gone.

There is a campaign to get locals formally objecting in sufficient volume that the administrators might take notice.

If you live on the Central Coast you can find out more about how to lodge your objections here. https://www.yourvoiceourcoast.com/asp

If you don’t live on the Central Coast, be grateful you only have your State and Federal levels of shit-fuckery to deal with.

Thanks Juice Media for the term https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKRw8GAAtm27q4R3Q0kst_g