Robertson

Robertson, this forgotten corner of the Wingecarribee Shire, is about to be "dudded" again. The Council has funded a Landscape Planner to develop a plan for our central area of playing fields - known as Hampden Park.

Most of the playing fields were developed by teams of locals, with their tractors, levelling the playing surfaces, etc. The Wingecarribee Shire Council is taking an interest in Hampden Park, and so the local community has assisted the planner to develop a formal plan for the Park. There are funds set aside for the development of the Park.

Sound good?

Oh, dear. How little you understand, dear reader.

The plot goes like this:

1. Council wants to sell two blocks off the side of the park;

2. Before it can do this, it has to vary the plan;

3. But there is no "plan" (remember the locals built most of the park themselves, in true Aussie fashion).

4. So, Council has commissioned a "Plan";

5. So that they can then vary the "Plan",

6. In order to sell off part of the Park.

7. Proceeds of the sale of land are destined to fund an "Indoor Leisure Centre" in Bowral, which was "promised" by a leading Councillor - who is about to retire, and wishes to see his "Leisure Centre" approved before he steps down.

So. Robertson people, who have co-operated with Council on the formal Plan for Hampden Park, are about to be "dudded" again.

Oh, by the way, the funds set aside for the "development" of Hampden Park are likely to be used up in fixing "drainage problems" in the Park, which Council will be required to fix, before the land adjacent to the Park can be sold. The drainage problems are not from within the park, but come from residential land east (uphill) from the Park (and the two blocks of land concerned).

The Net Result is likely to be:

* Some work might be done in the Park,

* but only to fix problems created by Council's own poor standard of development work (i.e., lack of appropriate Storm Water controls).

* Council will then sell the two blocks from the Park for "residential use",

* it will pocket approximately $500, 000 and

* use that money outside of Robertson - for a "leisure centre" 40 Km away, which is likely to be little used by Robertson people.

But don't worry, we will have a Plan for Hampden Park.

WHAT SHOULD WE DO?

OPPOSE THE THEFT OF PUBLIC LAND FROM ROBERTSON

OPPOSE THE WASTEFUL EXPENDITURE OF MONEY ON THE "LEISURE CENTRE"

REFUSE COUNCIL THE LEGITIAMACY TO STEAL PUBLIC LAND FROM HAMPDEN PARK

TURN UP TO ALL PUBLIC MEETING ABOUT THE L.E.P., AND HAMPDEN PARK, AND MAKE YOUR FEELINGS KNOWN.

No arguments from me good sir.

You might now see that what I have been saying for many years (in a flippant sort of way) is "now you know why they want our guns".

Australians think they are free and enjoy liberty - that by the way is what my forefathers fought and died to achieve.

Instead, we are enslaved to answer to various 'authorities' where we serve them, not they serve us.

Everywhere we suffer blanket rules, and stopped from thinking or exercising discretion - after all - "They" know what is best for us

Gun owners have been trying to point this out for decades but have been treated as some form of sublife such as amoebas. The result is that we get picked off one by one

I have seen it all before, been directly involved in it all before and very often.

The tactics used are nearly identical, and they are always designed to maintain 'authority' with control.

Change most often invites argument, and if argument is used in a democratic way, it is a good thing to develop good outcomes.

Sadly, the process is (as I said at a recent "hearing") "all arse about face".

It is either a deliberate series of acts to create that situation, or the people involved are incompetant.

Whichever it is, if you want to object, you have no opportunity to do so because again the process is skewed - written submissions closed on 8 Feb, but the hearings that finish on 20Feb, preclude the ability to object because submissions have closed.

THUS, ratepayers - the so called "silent majority" by one frustrated councilor, become deemed by default, to SUPPORT the whole concept.

Perhaps these quotations might mean something:

"First they came for the criminals and the mentally insane. As it did not affect me I did nothing.

Then they came for the Gypsies. I was not one of them, so I did nothing.

Then they came for the Jews. I did nothing.

Then they came for me! And no one was left to help me."

Pastor - Martin Niemoller, arrested and jailed for 8.5 years in a concentration camp by the Gestapo in 1937.

AND

"Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty, when the government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty, lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal. Well meaning, but without understanding." Justice Louis Brandeis - Olmstead v U.S. 479 (1928)

Keep your guns, history shows that one day they will again be needed as the only way to resist out of control authority.

Peter Cunningham