The main formula for progress by conservative Council candidates is based on land development. Because of the financial crisis land development is suppressed. Experts say this trend is not likely to change for a number of years.
At a recent Meet the Candidate Forum the question was posed: “What strategies other than land development do you have to promote jobs?” The respondent, who had presented conservative ideals, appeared to have no alternative strategy.
Even so, land development mainly attracts workers from over the border, which incurs extra local infrastructure costs to accommodate them. However, these workers take their wages away to spend on the Gold Coast, and we are left with paying higher rates to fund this infrastructure. We need to keep the money here.
Katie Milne and the other Greens candidates have identified this. They are proposing that Council develop an Economic Strategic Plan that unwraps the potential of each community’s wealth of knowledge and unique assets by :
•respecting our vibrant and diverse rural areas and ensuring that they remain sustainable economically
•meeting the needs of the present without compromising the livability of the future
•be smart by seeking to understand the interconnections between the environments, our way of life and our means of making a living.
Many of the Greens candidates in the coming Council election have built successful businesses that have brought wealth into the Shire. They have the strategies to keep the money here.
Lyn Dickinson
Pottsville
