SINCE moving here permanently almost two years ago, I don’t like a lot of the things I see about the place I used to like and enjoy. On many occasions I came here with my family for holidays or stayed over on my way to and from places connected with my profession.
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I see a council that seems less concerned about the interests of the residents and more concerned about pandering to other interests such as developers. People I speak with are upset at the trends where developments which are unsuitable are foisted upon residents because they no longer have a say in what happens in their community.
They are fed up with unelected officials making decisions and the control of council decisions being taken out of the hands of the elected councillors to whom the residents look to protect their interests.
The issue of fuel prices is a constant source of extreme annoyance with motorists I speak to because prices in Port are well above those in Wauchope – the answer I’ve heard is that because there is a cost of transport of fuel into Port! Well then, what is the reason when there is at least the same distance of Wauchope from the highway and Port?
It seems that our two major grocery retailers control fuel prices in Port and when other fuel retailers drop their prices that they find that there is no benefit because the major retailers also drop their prices.
That’s leaving aside the issue of the major drop in the price of oil with little reduction in the price of fuel. Our votes seem to be meaningless.
If people are truly fed up as it seems, the only solution is at the ballot box in the next council and state and federal elections.
No longer do we need to put up with spurious excuses, the failure of the council to consider residents interests, the mantra of the Abbott era still being spewed up by our elected representatives who are occupying their sinecures, safe in knowledge that their electoral margins will safeguard them from retribution.
Get up the people of Port Macquarie!
Demand a fair go and demand that residents’ interests become paramount in decisions now taken without consultation and without the involvement of the councillors elected by them.
And demand that governments, State and Federal, have regard to the interests of this community.
Average income earners in Australia are seen as the milk cow for the Federal government!
Denis McGrane, Port Macquarie
