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Weekender Column 72

The time has come for my Christmas wish list. It is quite a short list. I want just one thing. Technically the one thing that I want is actually nothing. The minor problem with the nothing that I want is that there is currently something where I want…
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Weekender Column 71

I ran into someone the other day whom I hadn’t seen since our schooldays together. After he finished school he could hardly wait to leave Dubbo. He had many ‘issues’ with Dubbo and planned his move away to find his new and better li…
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Weekender Column 70

Picture a hot day in the middle of summer. Your kids traipse behind you, brows dripping with sweat, feet aching. As you walk past another family, their children look noticeably more refreshed as they lick their ice-creams and hold their ice-cold soft…
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Weekender Column 69

I received a call during the week. It was from a person who receives their TV signal from either the 150kW Mount Cenn Cruaich transmission site near Coonabarabran or the 350kW Mount Canobolas transmission site near Orange but not the 2kW transmitter …
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Weekender Column 68

There has been a lot of discussion lately about NSW returning to the Number One position amongst the States. I have personally always ranked NSW Number One – even through the dark years of State of Origin domination by Queensland – but th…
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Weekender Column 67

The Minister for Local Government, the Hon. Paul Toole MP, may well have been thinking of JFK’s famous quote lately. “Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.” The Min…
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Weekender Column 66

Councils across the State bear a huge and often unfair burden – community expectations. In my experience members of a community, particularly in regional areas, turn to their local Council for a range of solutions that are well outside any semb…
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Weekender Column 65

On 17 and 18 August 2011 over 350 representatives from every Council across the State descended on Dubbo for the Destination 2036 Workshop. Thus began the process of creating a stronger and more viable local government sector. After 1,120 days of con…
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Weekender Column 64

Long-term planning. Sounds boring. In a society where instant gratification (or nowism) is the norm, it is hard to define just what period of time people understand as ‘long-term’. To give you some idea, a recent survey examined the viewi…
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Weekender Column 63

I am sure many of you have had a similar experience when involved with volunteer committees or not-for-profit boards. The original reason that the committee/board/organisation was created was a very noble and worthwhile cause but in the process of ge…
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Weekender Column 62

Add two plus two and, unless your mathematics is particularly poor, you receive an answer of four. It seems simple enough but in the real world, I am a firm believer that you can add two plus two and receive an answer anywhere from zero to ten. This …
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Weekender Column 61

Lobbying. The term itself conjures up images of old men in bowler hats smoking cigars in a smoky, dimly-lit room while money changes hands in brown paper bags. The practice seems dirty and corrupt and there are many examples where it has been proven …
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Weekender Column 60

Rules, policies, laws? Bah Phooey! All of these silly rules we come up with are consistent with phrases such as ‘Nanny-state’ and ‘Overly restrictive’ and ‘Use some common-sense’. People generally want flexibility …
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Weekender Column 59

Maybe it is the continuing onset of GOMS (Grumpy Old Man Syndrome) or perhaps it is the continuing disappointment in the selfishness of society but I have been becoming more frustrated lately with people and their luggage on flights. Each time you bo…
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Weekender Column 58

As any good parent, I am keen to ensure my children receive a well-rounded education before they venture forth into the world. School only provides a minor part of this as there are a range of life skills that I believe need to be passed onto your ch…
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Weekender Column 57

I called a friend’s mobile today and it went to their message service. “Hi. The person you have called is not available. Please leave a short 10 second message after the tone and we’ll send the message as a text.” This message…
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Weekender Column 56

Regional areas have an image problem. For metro dwellers, there is a fanciful notion that any location outside ‘the City’ is ‘the Bush’ and our sometimes ill-informed City cousins assume that all of the downtrodden residents o…
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Weekender Column 55

For our Anzac Day long weekend I want to play a game of hypotheticals. Let’s pretend I have a spare $2 million of loose change sitting in Council’s coffers and I am struggling to work out what to do with it. Maybe we could distribute the …
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Weekender Column 54

I recently had a look at the spread of population density in New South Wales and Victoria from the period of 1911 through to today and I found it absolutely fascinating. In 1911, there were hundreds of small communities in the wheat/sheep belt from M…
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