A Duty of Care - Burn-outs

“Our community is our customer and is at the centre of everything we do.” MidCoast Council

A modern, well-ordered democratic society is about people at all levels in society and government working together to make life healthier, safer and generally better for us all. It’s about being open to people in need and responding without questioning the price or the calling. It’s about being a responsible member of a civilised society.

It’s not about, “That’s not our job. Go away and leave us alone. Find someone else to sort out your problems”.

In North Arm Cove, we do take responsibility. 

We look after the environment through clean-up days. 

One resident in particular, spends many hours a year picking up the discarded plastic oyster-lease debris that litters our shoreline. He doesn’t ask for acclamation or pay for his efforts. He does it out of a sense of a duty to his fellow man and to the environment. 

There are many examples of our residents quietly and generously giving their time in similar ways. 

NAC has a reputation in NSW as a small community which raises many thousands of dollars each year for charities via the efforts of residents who put in huge amounts of time to organise events. 

Yesterday I checked the records. Hundreds of hours are spent each year by community members just simply cutting the grass on council property. And they trim the edges using their own tools. They even collect petrol in their own cars to keep the council mower going. 

Why do they do this? Is it because these people have nothing better to do with their time? 

I suggest it’s done in an effort to keep our rates down by reducing the financial burden on our council so that it’s affordable for the council to support us in other ways when we need it.

What would happen if we withdrew that support? My estimate is that it would cost the council something approaching $30,000 a year to provide an alternative means for getting this work done. That's $30,000 that could go towards solving issues that benefit our community in other ways.

So where does that leave us in our relationship with the MidCoast Council - with their operating surplus of $40m and net budgeted $13.5m surplus - and with these burn-outs?

We have to ask what kind of a local government it is that we are paying for that has become so blind-sided and obsessed by the need to accumulate money – our money – such that they won’t even fork out for a measly camera to help identify the selfish dickheads that are hurting people, intimidating and threatening our community, damaging our infrastructure and, in my case, destroying my property?

(Please excuse my language!)

Tony Hann