THERE are lies, damn lies and statistics, but if you really want to muddy the waters, use percentages.
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It is good that there has been a 10 per cent increase in development application approvals and, in a thriving shire, that would be a significant increase, but in a struggling one it becomes a mere pittance.
Similarly, with the 23 per cent increase in the value of development, only one good Bunnings-type development will give a big, albeit distorted, boost to the percentages.
According to .id (the population experts), of the past 13 years of Eurobodalla Shire Council’s new residence approvals, the last seven years have been the lowest.
According to .id, in the first six years of the century the Eurobodalla Shire Council approved 821 more houses than did Bega Valley Shire Council, but in the past seven years the Eurobodalla has approved 138 houses fewer than Bega.
That is a turnaround of nearly 1000 new ratepayers that could have been living in the Eurobodalla by now if council had kept up the approval rate of the previous six years.
The data also shows there were 174 approvals in the best year of the last seven years, and 201 approvals in the worst year of the first six years.
So who is telling the truth?
I guess it comes down to how you interpret the data and what data you use to tell the story you want to tell.
Michael Johnson
Tuross Head