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The real problem with councils is the replacement of the shire engineer with ten unqualified administrators.

A friend of mine was the Shire Engineer in a municipality in country Victoria. He complained that every time he attended a Council meeting he had to debate with ten other engineers.

I see where the ABC has called the lower house seat of Ngadjuri for One Nation with a TPP estimate of 56.9% over Labor's 43.1%. It was a Liberal seat loss. The ABC are usually fairly conservative on their calls, so they must think the numbers stack up. It's the first time One Nation has won a lower house seat outside of Queensland.

The problem with the council amalgmation was that the smaller councils were generally more efficient and debt free with money in the black. The larger councils were way more inefficient, more corrupt, broke and in massive debt. To balance the debt, the smaller councils were amalgamated into the bigger ones, along with their cash which on the books bailed the bigger ones out. The end result was ratepayers and residents pay more for less service. It was grand theft by any measure. A broke state government coming up with a scheme to bail out the worst of the bigger councils.

We have a big problem with councils here in Queensland and it got a lot worse when they amalgamated them into less but much larger councils. They're the weak link in the government chain and it would be good if the state government could rein them in. Over time they have gone from being servants of the public to thinking they are our masters and a law unto themselves. Our state governments over time have handed them way too much autonomy. In other states, the state government still has a fair bit of control over local government, but here they've just handed councils the keys to the lolly shop and turned a blind eye. They spend more time checking satellite images to try and extort revenue from ratepayers for some silly minor bylaw infringement than they do providing services. You always know when the rate bill is about to come out (every six months) as it's the only time they slash the road verge, twice a year two weeks before you get the rate bill. A lot of people are looking forward to the next local government elections to kick the deadbeats out. We have four year terms here now so it's a long wait. There's a bloke here who ran for mayor last time and just missed out. He's a local, and well known and liked community member and calls a spade a spade, so we're hoping he'll get in next time. I knew him back in the days when he was a pub bouncer. He'll be more value than the rest of the clowns put together.

MY FANCY CLOTHES.