HERE’S a question for our nine elected representatives on the Bass Coast Shire Council.
Can each and every one of you honestly say you are across the detail of the key reports and plans to be presented at the council meeting this Wednesday?
Here’s a selection of them:
• The draft Community Vision 2045
• The draft Council Plan 2025-2029
• The draft Annual Action Plan 2025-2026
• The draft Long Term Financial Plan 2025-2035
• The draft Asset Plan 2025-2029
• The draft Healthy, Safe and Resilient Bass Coast Plan 2025-2029
• The draft Disability Action Plan 2025-2029
• The draft Domestic Animal Management Plan 2025-2029 and
• The Governance Rules and Election Period Policy 2025
And if the readers’ eyes have already rolled back with a lack of interest after seeing that list, it was at just such a meeting of council that a disastrous course was set for spending upwards of $32 million on the Berninneit cultural centre in Cowes, a price we could not afford, especially when we had only $8.3 million in grant money coming in.
The old cultural centre in Cowes could have been fixed up handsomely for $2m-$3m and we’d have had much more capacity to undertake urgently needed projects in a bigger capital works budget and to match grants from government.
That’s why Phillip Island will not be getting a new sports oval anytime soon or that work will not commence on a new aquatic centre in Wonthaggi until 2028-29 at the very earliest, with no funding in sight for what is estimated to be a $41 million-plus project.
The Phillip Island aquatic centre project? Forget it! In the draft Long Term Financial Plan 2025-2035 to be presented to council this week, it’s not even listed as an aspiration in the next 10 years.
Those who turned out at the junior football finals at the Cowes oval last Sunday will have been left in no doubt about the urgent need for a new sports oval there.
There was no more room for cars inside the ground from early in the day and a massive crowd of parents, friends and players had assembled to watch the events. It was a great day, a celebration of one of the healthy activities we need to be providing our youth in the face of rising crime, the rising incidence of mental health disorders and the scourge of screen time that’s associated with damaging sedentary behaviour.
But there are a lot of other things in these annual plans and long-term plans which, for example, prioritise $4 million at $400,000 a year for the next 10 years for ‘Climate Change Action’, $3.5m for a
Fourth Bin Glass Recycling system, and $200,000 for a Phillip Island Transfer Station that isn’t planned to be built in the next decade, cost estimate $13 million, while there’s no meaningful funding for work to start on the Phillip Island Sporting Precinct until 2028-29.
The point is that in a $123.2 million total gross shire budget, funded by $81.5 million in rates and charges, a total of $87.5 million is already allocated to support Council services, including employee costs of $39 million for 351 employees, but with precious little left over for capital works.
In a reported Capital Works budget of $31.5 million this year, the shire’s administration had to be dragged kicking and screaming to allocate $440,000 to prepare a Functional Layout Plan for the Phillip Island Sporting Precinct, while most of the money went to building maintenance and roads. Highlights of a meagre capX budget included $1.9 million for the Wonthaggi netball pavilion, $2m for the Bass netball pavilion and $3.5m for the Inverloch to Wonthaggi inland pathway. Come on!
Here, for example, are some of the projects in the last LTFP: Cowes Cultural and Community Centre, Aquatics, Phillip Transfer Station and Depot, Bass Coast Dinosaurs Trail and Tracks and Trails, several of which were not funded and, of course, we know what a financial debacle Berninneit turned out to be.
Will we get the same hit rate from the new long-term financial plan?
We’re simply not getting any bang for our buck or priority on the projects we desperately need, and if the councillors haven’t got time to overturn these out-of-touch plans, they should call in a consultant who can review the proposals and give them some advice on a radically different way forward.
Finances are tight in local government, we know that, especially at a low-rating council like Bass Coast, which is why there needs to be a complete overhaul of the shire’s finances, service provision and project priorities.
Just doing the same’ol year after year is tragically, getting us nowhere.
