From the desk of Roland Rocchiccioli – 11 October

The forthcoming council election is not the time for a donkey vote!

THE advent of social media has changed the ethos of our lives, forever. Everyone has a megaphone to the world. Hoi polloi was never more raucous. The people’s voices are ricocheting off the corridor walls of political power. The hordes are gathered at the gates but whether the vox populi is being heeded is a matter for conjecture. The growing restlessness would suggest not.

There is an inherent danger in political demonisation. The alacrity to censure must be measured; however, politics was never more cruel and the incumbents more stridently bombastic; nor the notion of them-and-us more prevalent in our society; the will of the people less important; and the readiness to redefine the limits of their powers more disturbing.

The Federal Court judge’s scathing criticism of the Acting Minister for Immigration, Alan Tudge, and his illegal treatment of an Afghani refugee, is frightening in its legal implications, and should send shock waves through the community.

The doggedness to stonewall the politically unpalatable question is unambiguously shameless. The preparedness to deliberately ignore is taut to snapping. Government has become short-term in focus. The aggregate desire to stay in power far outweighs the quest for good governance. Party inculcation has curbed the freest of spirits. Independent thinking is outlawed.

Such is the hubris: if you enquire what they ate for breakfast, they will tell you about the chicken sandwich they are planning for lunch.

The foibles, pomposity, and self-aggrandisement of local government inspired the literary genius of Gogol, Dickens, and Shakespeare. By comparison, we are over-governed. In its current form, local government is anachronistic; a relic from a by-gone time-and-place which no longer effectively serves purpose or people. Part-time incumbents is its albatross.

The litany of Ballarat council procedural transgressions is sombre and magnifies the shortcomings of an antiquated arrangement.

Merit notwithstanding, the lackadaisical accounting methodology applied to the restoration of the Gatekeeper’s Cottage was, at best, problematic and fiscally arrogant.

The swirling controversy surrounding the Botanical Garden’s Fernery, coupled with factional vitriol and face-saving contradictory explanations, needs impartial clarification. The never-ending apportioning of blame is tawdry and speaks volumes about the prevailing council ethos.

Council is still to provide a satisfactorily comprehensive building explanation for the Cole’s, Peel Street North, portico.

The Ombudsman’s less-than-flattering recent report confirmed many of the community’s worst held fears; highlighted shocking incompetence, nepotism, organisational failures, and insinuates an alarming lack of attention to detail. To plead ignorance of the fact is an abrogation of sworn responsibility.

The disturbing lack of due employment process, and the causal dismissal of the former CEO, further corroded public trust in pivotal government. By simple mathematical extrapolation, severance costs for removal of the questionably contracted senior employees might easily total $1 million.

How a senior employee was able to audaciously steal almost $200,000 of taxpayers’ funds using fraudulent invoices is incomprehensible.

The Ballarat council’s insouciance surrounding the railway station redevelopment debacle was deplorable.

Taxpayer funded jaunts, pretentiously strutting the world stage, serve little, if any, tangible purpose. Openness and transparency, even at a local level, is being supplanted by evasiveness.

There are those councillors whose time has expired. Re-election for another term would amount to voter torpidity and visionary stagnation. Local government is not a sinecure.

It is imperative: Agendas and service performance records of those proffering themselves for representation be meticulously scrutinised. Strident inflexibility should not be confused with strong leadership. Like thieves in the night, fundamentalism comes in multifarious forms and packages. Their ‘yes’ does not carry more weight than the people’s ‘no’. Always, there is room for compromise.

This is an important election. Across the free-world, historians, philosophers, and political scientists are debating the long-term survival of democracy in its existing form. Voters must, as matter of urgency, deliberate seriously before they cast their vote. The greater good of the electorate is at stake.

Don’t be a donkey. Be informed before you decide!

Roland can be heard on RADIO 3BA, every Monday morning, 10.45, you can also contact him via [email protected].