Defend your community land
On Tuesday, at 9.30am, full council will meet for the last time before the elections and will decide on the sell-off of 57 blocks of community land right across the shire.
Prior to this perverted LEP, such lands were protected, and required special ministerial approval to sell.
Community land is land that was either donated to the community, or which was required to be donated for open space or a special purpose, and which is supposedly protected and held in trust by council.
However, council decided that it would remove these protections in the LEP, and sell off such community land to fund its ambitions as a developer.
In other more just jurisdictions, if such land was truly no longer required, it would be returned to the original owners, or they would be justly compensated, as it justly does not belong to council at all.
But this council evicted justice a long time ago.
The administration here obviously believe that the current councillors will rubber stamp anything it wants, which would explain why it needs this sell-off and LEP passed before the elections as a new set of councillors could have withdrawn both.
Planning Minister Brad Hazzard promised the community: “I will not pass this LEP until the people are happy”, but has now ignored all community protests, and is about to gazette the LEP and also ignore his promise.
So it now looks like the community is to be betrayed on two fronts.
But it is election time, and therefore anything can happen. So make an effort.
If they intend to betray the community one last time, come to this meeting, and make them do it to our faces.
And remember their faces at election time in September.
Damien Rogers, Moruya