Posted in Editorial

As we go to press it is exactly six months to the next Local Government Elections. Saturday 4th September 2021 promises to be a defining day for the Central Coast which has endured four years of infantile petty politics and mismanagement across the board resulting in the appointment of an Administrator on 30th October last year. Looking at the fifteen councillors that we voted in only two should be considered for re-election if they should choose to run Councillors Greg Best and Bruce M...

With 2020 now behind us a quick look back would have to tell us that (a) Australia has handled the COVID-19 pandemic exceptionally well and (b) we are lucky to be living on the Central Coast. It was the same at the start of last year when this region dodged a bullet with the catastrophic bushfires.  We escaped what could have been our own catastrophe had they not been stopped at Mangrove Mountain.  With that in mind and trying to get a handle on what we might expect as we move...

It started with the most devastating bush fire season in history although for our region it could have been much worse. By February storms and floods in early February saw parts of Wamberal Beach and North Entrance beach washed away and all around the lakes extensive flooding causing the Government to declare a natural disaster. And came COVID-19 that saw the state locked down and borders, state and international, closed. That was March and it went on until June and beyond that too. ...

It has happened.  At 3.30pm on Friday, 30th October the Minister for Local Government suspended Central Coast Council and appointed an interim administrator. This Council could no longer pay the wages or pay its suppliers and had wracked up a deficit of $84 million (could be more, could be less who knows?) This is how it works with government. But if this Council was a company the Receivers would have been called in and the directors could all be looking at going to gaol for tr...

So, having been dragged into admitting that copper, as lauded by the wonderful former Minister for Communications and Broadband, Malcolm Turnbull, our Federal Government has finally conceded that fibre optic cable is actually faster.  The result being that the Government will now spend billions more completing a job that should have been done properly in the first place. One of the lasting legacies of the Abbott/Turnbull era will be how our country went from potentially being a world ...