It’s all about creeping forward by degrees so as to minimise disclosure, in the hope that any bad aspects won’t be noticed.

Politicians are masters at it, business isn’t far behind, and so-called special interest groups are in on the act as well.

Pollies leak a little bit here, a little bit there, and when the “big announcement” comes, there’s

nothing new – we’ve been inured to the enormity of the total disastrous

disclosure.

Eurobodalla Shire Council did it with the

special rate variation.

It consulted, we rejected; it listed the benefits, we said we didn’t want them.

It went ahead anyway and it was all just too hard for us.

For a classic example of how business does it, we needn’t look any further than Unity Mining wanting to use cyanide to extract gold at Majors Creek.

First, get a mining permit that stipulates no on-site processing, then apply for a “variation” to do exactly the opposite.

Justify it by emphasising that the massive truck movements to ship the material for processing (virtually overlooked in the initial application), would no longer be needed.

What a win for the community, and as for Unity Mining, what fantastic corporate citizens.

The special interest group approach is to apply for a permit for an information stall to “educate” people in the notion of hunting.

Stipulate there will be no reference to, display of, or attempt to sell, weapons.

Once you’ve got the permit, apply for a variation that allows all those activities; and emphasise that hunting is vital for the control of feral animals. What great guys!

Other than a political turducken (take one spineless (deboned) local pollie (chicken), stuff inside a spineless state pollie (duck), then stuff that into a federal turkey), vigilance and noisy objection, I don’t have a solution but welcome ideas.

Doug Baldwin

Malua Bay