General News
12 March, 2024
Editorial: Gritty issues are dominating new year
FOR some in our local communities there was no clean break from one year to the next - summer storm floods put an end to that customary hiatus that would normally allow time for reflection and contemplation. The storms in late December and January...
FOR some in our local communities there was no clean break from one year to the next - summer storm floods put an end to that customary hiatus that would normally allow time for reflection and contemplation.
The storms in late December and January also, perhaps, served as a potent and ominous sign that there will be big issues on the agenda across our Loddon communities in 2024.
The first two months of a new year have seen the launch of an investigation by Agriculture Victoria into farming practices at a farm near Newbridge.
There are local concerns about poor, and some would say declining, standards in mobile phone and internet connectivity.
For the first time that many are able to remember, Coliban Water put out the call to limit water use on hot days - if high 30s can be classified as hot when many residents retain vivid memories of successive days of an expanding mercury going over 40 degrees.
Living memory has also been tested with news that the northern half of the Loddon Shire is without a permanent police presence. Stations at Pyramid Hill, Serpentine and Boort without a regular officer, some say for the first time.
And there have been the “unfinished business” issues of the VNI West renewable energy transmission line project and Loddon Shire enforcing, for protection of shopkeepers and itself, federal disability access requirements around displaying goods on footpaths.
Now this week there is the news that the new Donaldson Park complex cannot get a certificate of occupancy after failing a fire hydrant test - depending on who makes the analogy, the difference between tested pressure and mandated pressure is either the contents of a pot of beer or maybe a pint in the old measurement language.
Unlike some questions to government ministers and departments, Loddon Shire has been open and provided answers on the Donaldson Park conundrum. What was to work in theory doesn’t. The pre-construction tests developed specifications to meet government-mandated pressure requirements.
Council has no choice but to comply with those requirements, stringent and perhaps designed by desktop modellers for application on big construction projects in Melbourne. We wonder, did those requirements go through the four layers of approval that Loddon’s October 2022 flood recovery works are to negotiate?
Four layers! A waste of time and resources. For sure, government money must be properly applied and acquitted. But four layers? Seriously, the administration of government bureaucracy only adds to delays and costs in starting, let alone completing, repair work.
The issue was raised with Premier Jacinta Allan two months ago by this newspaper. And still there has been no improvement to the approval process. The state says it’s up to the feds. Here’s betting the feds say it’s up to the state.
In the country, people just want to get things happening. Red tape makes progress more than difficult and is clearly frustrating and annoying in the bush where things can already take too long.