Letters to the Editor

Updated November 21 2016 - 10:54pm, first published 1:45pm

Not asking the real questions that matter to regions

IN THE DARK: Unless Melbourne centric governments are in direct and continued conversations with local councils, how will they know what is the highest priority?
IN THE DARK: Unless Melbourne centric governments are in direct and continued conversations with local councils, how will they know what is the highest priority?

Successive metro-focused state governments may well have had trouble getting a handle on the infrastructure and service needs of the regions but Regional Partnerships, this last incarnation of the various unelected and unaccountable bodies state governments, both Liberal and Labor, have created over time to represent us to government certainly takes the cake as the worst yet. Regional Partnerships' biannual "sticky note on wall" session, just completed, is apparently the evidence-based post-democratic replacement for listening to local state members and councils with an actual, but apparently unfashionable, electoral mandate. I don't want centrally-appointed government "yes men and women" to be the engine room of ideas for my city. They won't take the fight to Spring St for Ballarat or the region for an overdue fair share of infrastructure spend or understand our real aspirations. Regional Partnerships is nothing but a rubber stamp for poorly targeted pork barreling heading for a future election cycle that the tea leaves of a party focus group have indicated might swing a key demographic. Whatever it's inflated rhetoric, let's not take this seriously. If political parties in government want real regional input, come here and ask councils, water authorities and hospital boards. They'll give you actual answers.

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