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Backdoor bureaucrats
As reported in this edition the bureaucrats are trying to exercise unwanted control over the East Kimberley yet again. They intend to push through the gazetting of the 'Priority 1' area bounded by Kimberleyland Holiday Park, Lake Kununurra, the highway and the main channel. This is despite the Shire of Wyndham-East Kimberley, the Department of the Environment and the Water Corporation putting up thousands of dollars to research whether the area needs to be so large to protect Kununurra's source of drinking water. The land is prime land for development, both as private development and for community use. Instead, it is to be locked up in perpetuity because of a few green bureaucrats who for some insane reason want to make sure Kununurra continues to get its water from an area that contains an old rubbish tip, potential chemical risks and is covered in feral vegetation including leucaenas and neem trees. The Kimberley Land Council, needless to say, has yet again been involved in holding up the clearing of Aboriginal heritage over the area and now it looks like test bores will go in, but the area's fate will already have been decided by the gazetting of the P1 area. Some cynics believe it is the State Government pandering yet again to the minority dark-age mentality of the greens. |
Paternal Greens On the subject of the Greens, in this case the party, it is unbelievable the stance they took over the Mulan Community's agreement with the Federal Government. The community approached the government with the idea that it would seek to better manage its health problems by ensuring that children showered daily, the town's rubbish bins were cleared twice a week and houses were treated for pests four times a year. The government agreed to enter a partnership with the community and provide it with a fuel bowser that would make it more viable and save residents a 140-kilometre round trip to get fuel. The Greens, in particular Robin Chapple, weighed in with claims of paternalism. Hell's bells, if the Greens want to tell the community what it should and shouldn't do - that is paternalism. It's high time the Greens stopped looking at the world through a toilet roll and looked at the broader picture. Let's not forget that they have just been successful in sucking in the Aboriginal people of the Broome region on the subject of genetically modified cotton, along with their 'good old partner in crime' Carol Martin, who incidentally is an Aboriginal person from the Perth region, not the Kimberley. There is little doubt that Carol is out there fighting for Kimberley interests. But when she weighs in on an issue that is win-win for an Aboriginal community, it's time she was told to but out.
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