Bega Valley Shire Residents Ratepayers Association Inc

INCORPORATION NUMBER: INC9897717

ABN: 72578074139

Correspondence to:

The Secretary,

70 Bournda Park Way,

WALLAGOOT. NSW. 2550.

Media Release

Re: Simply no credibility ….

While the Bega Valley Shire Residents & Ratepayers Association (BVSRRA) is happy to ‘tip its hat’ to Cr McBain for her willingness to ‘step-up’ & apologise for council’s stuff-up over the proposed increase of the airport ‘head tax’, it believes that the apology would have been far more credible if it had been made by the senior council executive responsible & if the explanation offered for the ‘error’ was at least credible.

In confirming that the proposed increase in the passenger landing fee should never have been incorporated in council’s draft 2017-2018 Budget, Cr McBain acknowledged that council was aware of the mistake & had hoped to rectify the error “through a Council meeting process”.

Cr McBain’s explanation is hardly plausible given that the draft budget was placed on public exhibition on May 14th, 2017, the Merimbula News Weekly reported the proposed head tax increase two weeks later on May 30th, while council wrote to Regional Express (Rex) a further two weeks after that on June 13th (only last Tuesday) suggesting that Rex might like to make a submission to council in respect of the draft budget; the day before the window for public submissions closed!

Really?

Does council really believe that a professional organisation like Rex is really that dumb? Is the community so easily taken in by council’s glib but non-sensical explanations? We don’t think so.

Not content to play ‘fast & loose’ with its self-justification, council openly tries to further deceive both its business partners & the community by alleging that the proposed 4.5% increase in the head tax was in line with the CPI when, in fact, it is actually more than double the annual CPI of 2.1%.

While council will doubtless endeavour to resurrect its ‘relationship’ with Rex (yet again), the reality is that Rex has been shown yet again that council simply cannot be trusted & that it regularly speaks from both sides of its mouth.

The BVSRRA believes that council lacks the relationship & commercial management capabilities & management integrity essential for it to effectively develop & maintain critical relationships with business partners such as Rex.

While Cr McBain has opted to take the fallfor council on this occasion, the BVSRRA would argue that the real accountability for this mess rests with a member of council’s highly paid all but invisible executive group.

However, as the BVSRRA has made clear on numerous occasions, genuine accountability is not only built around recognition & reward for performance, but tangible consequences for non-performance.

For further comment on this issue, please contact Fraser Buchanan on 0429 881 836.

John Richardson

Secretary/Treasurer

Bega Valley Shire Residents & Ratepayers Association

Tel:0264945669

Email:

Website: