February 4, 2016
by Anne Miller
When is S-BRAG not SBRAG? When it’s the South Burnett Residents Action Group, it seems.
Confused? Let’s try to guide you through the split which has occurred recently in the local ratepayer action group …
The original South Burnett Residents Action Group was formed by Don Pinwill, from Tingoora; Terry Gordon, from Gordonbrook; Ralph Percy, from Windera; plus four other people in 2014.
They dubbed themselves S-BRAG and set up a website, www.southburnettresidentsactiongroup.com (created in August 2014), later replaced by the shorter and catchier www.sbrag.org (December 2014)
According to this second website, branches were started in Wondai, Nanango and Kingaroy.
S-BRAG hosted a “Candidate’s Debate” in Nanango ahead of last year’s State Election, and forums on the Rail Trail (in Wondai) and the Nanango Streetscape (in Nanango).
Pages for SBRAG Wondai, SBRAG Nanango, SBRAG Kingaroy and SBRAG Blackbutt (a renamed “Woolworths for Blackbutt” page) appeared on Facebook. Posts indicated the group intended to field candidates in every South Burnett Division at the March 19 Council election.
However, southburnett.com.au suspected not all was happy within the organisation’s ranks late last year when the following appeared on www.sbrag.org:
An open letter to all members of The South Burnett Residents Action Group Inc.
The Management Committee wishes all our members, and residents of the South Burnett all the best for the festive season. We are looking forward to a productive and fruitful 2016 and with your support, we can initiate changes that will make our community a better place for all our residents and ratepayers.
An important issue that has been brought to my attention:
I have been told that a couple of our members have been making serious allegations against our Management Committee, claiming that the Management Committee has made major changes to our Constitution without the permission or knowledge of our members.
These allegations are completely false.
Our constitution was registered with the Office of Fair Trading on 14th February 2014. The only alteration to that original Constitution was made in April 2014 after the foundation members voted to apply to the Office of Fair Trading to add a clause to section five (classes of members) of our Constitution which read “any person so invited to join by resolution of the Management Committee”
The South Burnett Residents Action Group. Inc did not have any members other than the seven foundation members until our first public meeting on 26th May 2014. (Wondai RSL)
If anyone approaches you with these or similar accusations, ask that person to document their alleged complaints and present their complaints at a SBRAG meeting.
If they fail do do this, then it is a clear indication that they have a personal agenda that is not in the best interests of the South Burnett Residents Action Group. Inc.
Information pertaining to the Constitution of the South Burnett Residents Action Group. Inc can be obtained from the Office of Fair Trading.
regards
Terry Gordon
Secretary
SBRAG Management Committee
Soon after this appeared we noticed the Nanango SBRAG Facebook page had been renamed “Nanango & Districts SBRAG” and the old website www.southburnettresidentsactiongroup.com had been retitled in the same way.
Rumours began to spread that there had been a rift between the three original founders of the South Burnett Residents Action Group – with Don Pinwill and Terry Gordon on one side, and Ralph Percy on the other.
We attempted to confirm this. Mr Percy hung up on us; while Mr Pinwill was more forthcoming, saying Mr Percy was no longer part of the South Burnett Residents Action Group.
southburnett.com.au was also told that Council Division 1 candidate Caroline Haskard, who had chaired the S-BRAG Wondai and Nanango public forums, was now president of Nanango & Districts SBRAG.
Then on Thursday, we received an email from South Burnett Residents Action Group secretary Terry Gordon which said, in part:
Also for your information, Nanango and Districts SBRAG Inc. is in no way connected or associated with the South Burnett Residents Action Group Inc. Their office bearers were once members of SBRAG, but have resigned to form their own organisation to promote Ms Haskard in her bid to become a Councillor. Their inclusion of the letters “SBRAG” in their title, we believe, is a deliberate attempt to mislead voters in the upcoming Council election.”
He attached a document that indicated that Ralph Percy was now Treasurer of Nanango and Districts SBRAG Inc. while Brooklands resident Grant Newson was Secretary.
To put it simply, southburnett.com.au believes from searching business records, there are now:
1. South Burnett Residents Action Group Inc. (although oddly, on the ABN Look-Up site the name is actually spelt “Residentss”) whose officials include former Australia First party officials Don Pinwill and Terry Gordon. This group’s original nickname was “S-BRAG” but officials have often also used “SBRAG” in correspondence. Its presence on Facebook appears to have disappeared. Their website, ironically, seems to be www.sbrag.org
2. Nanango and Districts SBRAG Inc. This group’s officials include former Greens candidate for Federal and State seats Grant Newson, and original SBRAG founder (and South Burnett Council Watch publisher) Ralph Percy. This group appears to have taken over the SBRAG Nanango and Blackbutt pages on Facebook. Their website, even more ironically, seems to be www.southburnettresidentsactiongroup.com
Still confused?
- Footnote: Mr Grant Newson announced on Thursday his intention to run for South Burnett Mayor. We have contacted Mr Newson in an attempt to do a report about his candidature.
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No wonder this group is known as ‘The Hillbilly Social Club’. Are we really to believe this group is to hold Council to account? They can’t even hold themselves to account!
If they can’t manage themselves how can they manage the multi-million dollar enterprise that is the SB Regional Council? Political agitator groups quite often end up imploding – hopefully harming no one else but themselves.
The people involved in this group have destroyed any personal credibility or reputation they might have once have held in the community with their disgraceful behaviour over the last two years. If they’re now falling apart, all I can say is good riddance.
Not being familiar with the inner workings of either organisations, the split as presented represents a diversity of views and opinions held within each organisation. These two groups have worked together in the past and will continue to do so well into the future as circumstances dictate.
The simple fact is to advance the interests of landholders, environmentalists and the general community, relies on co-operation more then recent history would suggest; the Rinehart dairy proposal and water usage and the impact of mining on farming land to dust and health concerns from mining and its proximity to Kingaroy.
We have an aged population of retirees and a business community with strong self-interested views. Farming is being concentrated in fewer hands each year as large operations out-compete and acquire small family farms. The rise of lifestyle farming whereby farm owners, their wives and children, for one reason or another are forced or choose to seek work off-farm to maintain their income stream, the downside being that unemployment and under-employment within country towns has increased.
Today’s youth, often referred to in less then flattering terms, lack the basic opportunities to employment that older generations had enjoyed, whilst those fortunate to be employed suffer from low wages and poor working conditions prompting the best and most capable to seek better prospects further afield.
Not one business in this Shire has ever refused to serve a welfare recipient or acknowledge the contribution these payments make to local economies. Tourism, farming and retail alone will never produce enough jobs to stem unemployment growth without a solid manufacturing base, a convenient oversight in local politics today.
The LNP see employment as a political tool to manipulate public opinion and division within communities to maintain its own power base. It should be remembered it’s the LNP National Party that control the chessboard in the South Burnett today, not the reformists.