Meet the Candidates Events, and Travel Around the Snowy-Monaro Region
by Reuben Rose
The ‘Back To Basics’ team (Group F on the ballot) of candidates for the local council elections has been on the road, to travel to some regional centres to talk about our election platform. As we drove the 110 km to Bombala, a small town on the southernmost part of the Snowy Monaro Regional Council region, I was struck by the challenges that a centralized bureaucracy has in overseeing projects several hundred kilometers apart. From first principles, it is likely to fail and in practice it does!
Until mid 2016, each local council was responsible for a much smaller area and things seemed to work much better. Recently one local told me that (after the amalgamation) getting access to the local hall changed from a system where he could just go to the council office, collect a key and sign a book - to one where he had to go online, enter by a digital portal, put in many details and a business number, and then answer 50 questions. He finally decided that rathering than organising the local hall as a back up for bad weather for community events, that he and his group would take their chances and if necessary, stand out in the rain.
Bad Systems Will Beat Good People 100% of the Time
A wise man told me many years ago that bad systems will beat good people 100% of the time. We have seen this first hand as the three councils (Bombala, Cooma-Monaro & Snowy River Shires) amalgamated. What has developed is a bureaucracy where you can’t talk to anyone and you have to contact people and submit applications through a “portal”. One small council that had $10 million in reserves, now has nothing as the money was all swallowed up in administration and they can’t even maintain their local town pool. It gives support to President Reagan’s famous quotes about government departments:
“No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth!”
Following forced amalgamation, the three smaller councils found that even more revenue was necessary. As such, the now large amalgamated council supported a more than 52.48% increase in property taxes over the next four years. This was brought in as a ‘Special Rate Variation’ applied by the council and far exceeding the standard rate requirements. This outrageous proposal, which came from council management, was supported by all but two councillors (Luke Williamson & Louise Frolich).
The Back To Basics team running for council said “enough is enough”. We want to get a number of independent local people onto council to put a brake on council spending and get the council BACK TO BASICS - focus on rates, roads and rubbish.
In investigating the budget, we discovered that 100% of the revenue from rates is used to pay council salaries. Then there are “grants” from the State government for special projects and this looks like a winner for the area. However, when you examine the situation more closely, you will find out, that while the capital cost may be met for the projects by government funding, council is saddled with the ongoing maintenance costs which in many cases may be very significant. Unfortunately many projects are never accurately costed. Of course, this is then thrown back onto ratepayers.
Meet the Candidates in Bombala
As mentioned, we traveled to Bombala (August 24th) in the southern part of the council region to share our election platform with the locals. Bombala is an extremely pretty rural town on the banks of the Bombala River, and is the home of the platypus. There was a “meet the candidates” event where local people were invited to ask questions of the various candidates for council. Unfortunately, many of the candidates did not turn up at all. Three of the eight groups running did not send representatives (C, E, G), and only 2 of the 12 independents turned up. However the candidates present gave their best. Each of the 12 candidates provided a short overview about why they were standing, and this was videoed by the organiser for the record.
Figure 1. Some of the candidates standing for the Snowy Monaro Regional Council at the Bombala Club on 24th August, 2024.
Many of the candidates believe that drastic change is needed in the way that the council functions. It was the conclusion of most people present that the amalgamation of the three councils had resulted in an exponential increase in bureaucracy, a deterioration in the service provided, and substantially less responsiveness. Worse still, money was being wasted and ill concieved decisions were being enacted by the current council.
To me it is clear - THOSE WHO CAUSED THE PROBLEM, CAN’T FIX IT!
A new group of councillors is needed and our group of six candidates is committed to improving the governance and decision-making processes of council so that decisions that force more cost on the ratepayer can be prevented.
For the interest of Back to Basics readers, below is video of my short speech to the Bombala residents about why I was running for council.
Figure 2. Video from the Bombala “Meet the Candidates” Meeting on 24th August, 2024. Reuben Rose speaks about the critical need for change on the local council.
Shut Out from the Jindabyne Bowling Club
After the Bombala meeting we drove the 90 min to Jindabyne where another “meet the candidates” meeting had been scheduled at the Jindabyne Bowling Club. Unfortunately we were confronted by an officious club manager who demanded that we all scan our driver’s licenses and have them uploaded to a government database. We all declined to become part of the Digital ID infrastructure and so the meeting adjourned to a bar across the road.
Campaigning is challenging and I can only wonder at how Donald Trump has kept on going with a campaign that already has been runing more than one year.
Running for council is much simpler than running for the US presidency and we only have three weeks of campaigning before the election date. To date our “rallies” have attracted just a handful of interested residents.
It is challenging to get our message out to the community and we are hoping that with this substack, podcast and website, our core message - BACK TO BASICS : RATES, ROADS, & RUBBISH - will get around the local community.
This is a critical hour for the communities in this region, so please help people become informed and pass this substack on.