Edgar Adams' Editorial

Mr Della Bosca had been Minister for the Central Coast as well as Minister for Everything Else for most of the life of this Government. Member for the Entrance, Grant McBride was Minister for the Central Coast for a few years but that is all.

Now we have the Premier as the Minister for the Central Coast and to assist him in carrying out his duties in that respect is our Member for Wyong, David Harris.

By taking on this position Mr Rees has raised the bar and he will have to perform to our satisfaction otherwise the Labor Party will pay a heavy price in eighteen months time at the State Elections. To put it bluntly, we are tired of part-time Ministers.

In spite of what the highly parochial Mayor of Wyong has said about this appointment, I think the Premier will do a good job within the constraints that we have to acknowledge. He was clever enough to appoint an excellent and passionate Parliamentary Secretary to assist him. Mr Harris is in effect our Minister and he has a direct line to the Premier, and he says he will use that.

A few days before his appointment as Parliamentary Secretary, Mr Harris made a passionate speech in Parliament about our need to be recognised as a region. We have reported on that in this issue. Whether it was coincidence or not, we don’t know. In any event, we now have least one person who has a total focus on our region and that is something we have never had.

The Federal Government is moving towards harmonizing the OH&S laws which is a good thing – we think. Right now though, the NSW Government is the fly in the ointment because they want the whole of Australia to be controlled by their model where every employer is automatically guilty of a criminal offence when an employee is injured. At last someone has had enough. We should all follow a case in the High Court at present known as The Kirk Case. A NSW farmer is appealing an a criminal conviction and fine. The outcome will be very interesting.

Our congratulations go out to Coast builders, North Building and Construction, Stevens Construction and Seascape Building for winning their category in this year’s MBA Awards of Excellence in Building & Construction. Too often mediocrity is accepted as the way to do business because its easy and people take the least line of resistance. However, it is an attitude that doesn’t work in the long run and those businesses who think its okay soon fail. These companies were competing against the best in The Hunter, Central Coast and Mid North Coast regions so we should all be pretty proud of them.

This month we feature the Central Coast Grammar School which is celebrating its 25th Anniversary this year. CCGS is one of our region's leading education institutions but more that, it is a leading Central Coast business with an annual expenditure of around $20 million and employing some 160 people. It came about as a result of the visionary thinking of a group of leading business people and now a new group of visionaries are at the helm and looking forward to another twenty-five years.

Edgar Adams
Editor

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