Council Amalgamation and civil liberties

These are: - 1. The longer letter by Gill Burke headed “what now?”; 2. The short letter by ex-councillor Paul Cockram headed “Should I stay or should I go?”, and 3. The notice for QPRC or Queanbeyan-Palerang Regional Council. 

The Editor was quite right to place these together as they need to be read carefully in conjunction. 

Gill Burke’s letter is amazingly long for the Braidwood Times and the Editor must have thought is unusually important to publish it without pruning. How right she was.

Paul cockram’s letter was too short because it raises a fundamental problem of civil liberties which is now facing every retiring councillor of every amalgamated Council in this State.  As things stand, these councils have no elected representatives and will not have for some considerable time. Councillors, all of whom are elected by democratic ballot have been thrown out without ceremony. Now they are being asked if they would be willing to serve as “Community Representative”, together with other unspecified persons. There is no hint of any electoral process, so ratepayers’ opinion will not be canvassed. 

This raises the fundamental question of legality. Instead of elected representatives, ratepayer are being asked to rely on the capacity if paid officials to select the members of these committees. 

In short, the members will be subject to the whims and fancies of the new Councils.  This is surely unrepresentative representation with a vengeance and opens a large can of worms labelled ‘favouritism’, ‘horse trading’ etc.   Meanwhile we dumb ratepayers are expected to carry on paying up as if nothing has happened. It all looks like creeping domination by a central authority which is accountable to nobody. 

We have see it all before ion a larger scale and much further away. Indeed we have had to fight in two World Wars in order to stop this kind of thing. Then, the threat came from outside and was clearly visible, in German Europe it was called ‘Anschuss’, an ugly word describing an ugly process. In Mussolini’s Italy, gangs of ‘Bovver Boys’ were sent around the villages to ‘persuade’ people who did not agree with Mussolini to come around to his view with the aid of a compulsory dose of neat castor oil. The result was the same. 

Here we are facing something more subtle because it stems from within. Councillors and others who serve on these Committees will be little better off than paid State Public Servants. 

As for Paul cockram’s dilemma, please, please think what you are doing. Don’t touch the business with a ten foot barge pole, old chap. If you, or indeed any other ex-councillors goes along with it, then from the word ‘go’ you will find yourself morally compromised. 

A Shepherd

Braidwood