Edgar Adams' Editorial

It talked about new initiatives to encourage economic growth and develop the Warnervale Airport as a regional airport, among other things.

We are wondering where they got their information from to promote what should have been a document with great credibility. If the NSW Business Chamber really wants to make things happen then it will have to stand the NSW Government up and that is highly unlikely given that they have done precious little to support employers.

The Chamber can be damned for sitting on the sidelines while this Government has waged a war of attrition against business through its OH&S laws and use of workers compensation to send small businesses to the wall.

We all want a safe workplace but employees have to contribute and that’s not how the Minister for Industrial Relations, WorkCover, the Central Coast and Education sees it. The employer organisations have sat back and done nothing.

Back to the Central Coast. When the Carr Government came into power in 1995 there was much hope in our region that our fortunes would change. A Minister for the Central Coast was created and the first thing he did was run a conference he called Central Coast – Moving Forward. Well, how much moving forward happened?

There has been no new land rezoned for residential or industrial development. The Central Coast as a region, from the Government’s point of view, now no longer exists. Our health is run out of North Sydney, education is run out of Newcastle as are the police and no other department has a regional Central Coast office either. The Federal Government provided the money to widen the F3 but the State had to build it. That goes back ten years and they are still working on it.

And then there is the small matter of Warnervale Airport. This airport would have generated employment for thousands as a regional airport. But in 1999 the local member Paul Crittenden introduced his own Private Member’s Bill virtually closing it down.

Prior to that CCBR paid the cost of a public meeting at Wyong Leagues Club in support of the airport. It was disrupted by activists from Sydney. No one wanted it.

In the next few years, or less, Warnervale Airport will become an industrial area and the Aero Club will be operating out of Belmont. It's been a case of Central Coast – Moving Backwards and all under the same Minister most of the time.

If the NSW Business Chamber wants to be taken seriously they should get their facts straight first and then stand the Government up. Not pussy foot around. The Central Coast desperately needs road infrastructure and it needs jobs.

Few regions have the potential that the Central Coast has but the State Government isn’t interested and unfortunately too many of our so called leaders just don’t understand. What is most frustrating is that it could all be turned around very quickly if our political leaders had the guts to make it happen.

Edgar Adams
Editor

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