Making Safer Young Drivers

Our special workshop to help those supervising young learner drivers to be better and safer drivers is  filling fast – but we can still take a few more. We run the workshop in conjunction with the Roads and Traffic Authority. Disturbing statistics show young drivers between 17 and 20 are three times more likely to be involved in serious accidents.   We don’t want these trends to continue and that’s why we work with the RTA to try and overcome the high accident rate. 

The workshop focuses on helping parents and those who supervise learner drivers with safe driving messages and tipsthat they can use when teaching young people to drive.  The workshop is free and it will be held in the Central Library at Eastgardens on Thursday, November 24 between 5.45 - 7.45pm. You will need to book, which you can do by calling Yasemin or Patrick on 9366 3889.

A Call to Local Young Artists

I’m issuing a special call to all our residents aged 6 to 12 years for little help in illustrating the 2011 edition of our Report to the Community. We’ve done this twice in the past – in 1997 and again in 2003 – and each time we haven’t been able to meet the demand for copies. Parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles got copies of the two children’s editions. 

I still think my favourite comment from our local kids came from a Year 2 pupil in the 1997 edition who, above clouds, a big heart and a rainbow, said she liked living in our City “because it’s my kind of City.” Parks and playgrounds, our local environment, roads and streets, public buildings, kids at play, schools and right down to fishing, our local kids depicted our City in a simple and extremely effective way – also with great splashes of colour. The theme for the 2011 edition of the annual report will be “Our City through the eyes of Our Children.”   

The artwork can depict both the good and the bad!  Aspiring artists and authors might love our zoo in the Sir JosephBanks Park, but hate the big trucks that thunder along Botany Road. There is no part of our City, its day-to-day life, its environment and its place that will be exempt from this juvenile interpretation. 

All contributions should be sent to the Mayor’s Office, P.O. Box 331 Mascot, or dropped into my office at Eastgardens next to the Central Library.  Entries close on Friday, December 3. There’s no limit on the number of entries and following the completion of the report, which is distributed to all households during the first week of February, each child who submits an item for consideration will be invited to attend a special “Thank You” function I host and where each child will receive a special certificate.

Mascot Shopping Strip Upgrade

We’re now into Stage 2 of our upgrade of the footpaths along Botany Road in the Mascot shopping strip.  An example of the new paving that’s going in can be seen at the corner of Hollingshed Street and Botany Road.  We want to thank everyone for their patience with the footpath upgrades as we’ve tried to keep disruption to a minimum.  The end result will be a much improved stretch of Botany Road, similar to what we’ve done down in Botany.

Local Government Conference

Work and civic duties precluded me from attending the recent Local Government Conference (except for the weekend) where there were some important issues effecting residents, ratepayers and local government in general were discussed.  However, a lot of other topics, which I consider irrelevant to local government, were also on the agenda.  In our Council’s view collecting the garbage, keeping the streets clean and attractive, improving parks and playgrounds, protecting local environment and ensuring proper planning policies are far more important than uninformed opinions on international affairs, social engineering and interference in state and national issues and policies. While we are all entitled to express our individual views on any number of issues, local government should look after local people and issues. We are “local” if nothing.

Service or Process ­ or Madness

At last Council meeting, I presented a Mayoral Minute entitled “Service or Process?” in which I questioned whether taxpayers or ratepayers received value for money for many bureaucratic processes undertaken by the three tiers of government. 
 
Inherent in what I wrote was the question of whether a public instrumentality should, for example, spend $10 to save $1. Now I exclude any suggestion of expenditure to counter corruption in the theme or purpose of what I say – that goes without question. I do not claim any skill of prescience, but an article in an edition of the Sydney Morning Herald last week showed that, perhaps, I might have some. 
 
The article detailed reviews and audits that had occurred involving and revolving around the sale, via a web-based auction site, of two billiard tables from the staff recreation area at Parliament House.  The review followed questions from the elder ALP statesman in the Senate, Senator John Faulkner. I’ve known Senator Faulkner for some time and he has been unrelenting in his campaign for openness and transparency in government and in the oversight of public revenue and expenditure. But, in this case, I think even Senator Faulkner would bristle at what followed his questioning of the relevant government department responsible for management of Parliament House.
 
Following his questions, consultants PricewaterhouseCoopers were commissioned to audit the process. The audit found the process was within departmental guidelines but it did find some weaknesses in processes. What government could live without “process”?
 
These weaknesses in process, or processes, led to a broader review by a former public servant.  As well, an investigation into whether staff had breached their code of conduct was commissioned from the Centre for Public Management.
 
Not content with all these audits or investigations, a survey of the cultural heritage value of items in Parliament House was also commissioned.
 
The secretary of the department responsible for Parliament House said he was grateful that such an affair had come to light as it had identified deficiencies in the department’s processes – there’s that word again.
 
The key is in the detail.  Let’s look at it.  PricewaterhouseCoopers were paid $42,000 for its audit.  The review of weakness in the processes by the former public servant cost $30,000.  Then the Centre for Public Management’s investigation came with a price tag of $25,000.  Lastly, the survey of the cultural heritage value of items will cost an estimated $5,000.
 
All up, the cost to review the processes of the on-line auction of two redundant Parliament House staff recreation billiard tables cost taxpayers some $102,000.
 
Process, after all, must be followed --- and reviewed, and investigated, and audited, and reviewed again.
 
That’s all well and good and the bureaucrats are no doubt reassured that the $102,000 expenditure was justified – all in the name of process.
 
The only issue I have is that, the outcome (another great word for bureaucrats) of the on-line auction was that the two tables sold for $2,500 each – a grand total of $5,000.
 
The federal bureaucrats spent $102,000 to check if all due process was followed in the $5,000 sale of two billiard tables.
 
If that’s the outcome of process then leave me out of it.  I’m just a mug taxpayer who helps foot the bill – for process, of course.
 
This is “Yes Minister” to the nth degree – or bureaucratic madness. In Canberra, however, it’s normal process!

Your City - Summer Edition

Council’s spring edition of Your City will shortly be distributed to residents.  It is available for download at http://tinyurl.com/3qqakh9.

Mornings @ the Museum - Shopping

Shopping – something we all have to do, which some of us like while others do it under sufferance.  Shopping, especially food shopping, is perhaps the most prescient illustration of society and it’s one our Museum is about to showcase.  But before the exhibition the museum has organised another in its Mornings @ the Museum events that will get the community involved in our City’s history. 

A number of questions will be asked at Mornings @ the Museum and the answers will make the forthcoming exhibition even better.  Before the construction of Westfield’s Shopping Town, where did you go shopping? Did you go to a corner store where the shopkeeper knew your name? Perhaps you remember Quality Stores in Mascot which is now home to ‘Best and Less’.

The Museum is asking locals to come and share memories and memorabilia over morning tea. Information collected may be used in an upcoming exhibition on the history of shopping in the City of Botany Bay.  Mornings @ the Museum is scheduled for 10am Thursday 17^th November 2011 at the George Hanna Memorial Museum, Mascot Library in Hatfield Street.   

Bookings are essential, which you can do by calling 9366 3888. The Mornings @ the Museum series has been very successful not only putting locals in touch with our City’s history but providing more information and memorabilia to make our history exhibitions better.

The picture below shows shopping as it used to be – when, in my kids’ opinion, we were all in the dark ages.