"If you don't spend it this year, you can't have it next year." Our governments do not seem to know how to encourage good spending habits. Why would you penalise a department for saving money? Why would you not encourage common sense.
I hear stories about this all the time. Whilst teaching, it occurred in our school. Government funding was cut if you didn't spend your allocation. I heard a story about our navy burning fuel so that they didn't have any left over at the end of the financial year. My husband is now trying desperately to get a fence built so that he can receive a grant - he's already bogged the ute twice trying to get around in the wet.
And now we have no access to our closest town because our local council has decided to rebuild one of our major bridges during flood season. The Eidsvold Station Bridge is out. A sidetrack has been built to detour traffic around the bridge. The only problem with that is that it is now six feet under water. There are other ways to get to Eidsvold. But the roads have been cut up by trucks trying to get around that way and they are boggy and impassable.
There is now no work being done to the bridge because the water keeps washing away the scaffolding. There are no plans to finish the bridge or give us any alternative to get to town. All because the money needed to be spend this financial year? That's the only explanation being circulated at the moment. How ridiculous. Why else would you not wait until April or May to start the work?
So here we are: no mail, no groceries, no access for an ambulance to come through in an emergency. I'm supposed to have routine medical tests done this week to check on the progress of my pregnancy. I guess I'll skip these. I'm sure my obstetrician will not be happy about that. But what else do I do? We're just lucky that we have half a cow in the freezer, a vege garden and some chooks.
Well done North Burnett Regional Council. Here's hoping we don't need anything in town for the next month or so.
Great comment, Michelle! You and I understand commonsense, but it seems that once people are elected to Government, all commonsense has to be eliminated from thought processes and planning. It's sad that the North Burnett Regional Council can't buck the system and change the rules set by State & Federal Governments.
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