MORE GRIEF
During the next four years, (after being approved on Wednesday night) the Ballarat City Council plans to ignore our suffering. Most of us have a roof over our heads, food on the table and clothes on our back. Yet we're still suffering.
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I know we're suffering because the World Health Organisation tells me so. Our suffering consists of at least 10 symptoms compared with other OECD countries: lack of trust, lower life expectancies, higher infant mortality, obesity, mental illness, lower education score, higher teenage birth rate, higher homicides, higher imprisonment, less social mobility. An attempt to do something about these symptoms is not in the statutory Council Plan (CP) but on another radar screen called the Health and Wellbeing Plan. This is in spite of what the Local Government Charter instructs councils to do: "to improve the overall quality of life of people in the local community".
Explanations accompanying the CP indicate that the council bureaucracy are aware of our suffering and have not advised our councillors on how it could address our pain over its term in office. The fatal flaw in this CP, as in its predecessor, is that its engagement with the community is not at the level where remedies for our suffering can be worked out. This can only be done through having conversations at the locality level. Mention of some localities is made in the CP; all localities both urban and rural of this city need to be consulted. A proper consultation in each locality consists of providing a clear understanding of the thorough analysis of the demographics of that locality and the framework within which prompted opinions may be couched. The consultation process has to be managed professionally. The results of this process have to be framed not as 'motherhood statements' or aims but as outcomes so that Council can be held accountable properly.
Community consultations as with medical consultations have to provide opportunity for conversations. It looks as though we'll have to put up with another four years of suffering. .
Paul Gordon-Smith, Black Hill