November 20, 2014

by Dafyd Martindale

In November 2012 the South Burnett Regional Council was hit with a bombshell when it lost $1.4 million in State and Federal road funding grants.

The surprise cuts were delivered mid-way through the 2012-13 Budget. They led directly to the introduction of the $200 Road Levy the following year.

But not before the Council asked the Queensland Local Government Grants Commission to explain why it had reduced our region’s annual road grant by more than triple the State average.

We believe the Grants Commission was unable to provide any sensible explanation.

Councillors told us they introduced the Road Levy in the 2013-14 Budget because they felt they had no other choice. The sudden loss of $1.4 million a year had pushed their already stretched Budget to breaking point.

If they hadn’t done so, they said our roads would steadily disintegrate and residents would face increasingly long waits for repairs.

We believe them.

In the six years since the State Government forced Councils to merge and then threw all the costs of it back onto ordinary Queenslanders, the South Burnett Regional Council has trimmed its staff by 12 per cent.

Its operating costs are only 0.5 per cent higher this year than the combined four former Shires were before the 2008 mergers.

Remarkably, it has done this against a background of sharply rising business costs (electricity, petrol etc) and in the face of two major natural disasters (the 2011 and 2013 floods).

To its credit, it has also resisted the increasingly strong temptation to make up the funding shortfall by closing down community facilities such as swimming pools, halls and libraries.

And it has improved our region’s financial position from “weak” to “moderate”, which shows that despite all the problems it’s faced, it’s done a pretty good job of running a very tight ship.

So now – two years down the track – we think it’s time to ask the Queensland Local Government Grants Commission the question again:

Why are the ratepayers of our region – 25 per cent of whom rely on Government benefits for their income – being asked to cough up $200 a year to keep our area’s roads driveable when most other Queenslanders aren’t?

Why are we somehow of less value than our immediate neighbours in the North Burnett or Western Downs, who enjoy average road funding of $963 per head (North Burnett) or $574 per head (Western Downs) while we receive just $217 per head?

Why did the Grants Commission force us to wear a 10.9 per cent cut in road funding for the last two years while most other Queensland Councils only received a reduction of less than 3 per cent? (In 2012, Western Downs received a slim 1.2 per cent cut while the North Burnett enjoyed a 6.8 per cent rise)

And in an age when our State and Federal Governments can splash out millions to subsidise multinational mining companies with costly infrastructure, why do they expect South Burnett residents to pay extra for something as fundamental as roads?

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