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From: Scotty on 29 Jul 2010 05:32
I felt that this was a good peice to put here, most of us pay rates, hate doing so and thought would
get some satisfaction from reading the below letter from Joe to the council.


_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


Dear council,

Thank you very much for your rates demand. I was excited to discover that my annual rates have
exceeded $2000 for the first time. Well done.
Along with the invoice you sent me a glossy brochure. It was called "a guide to your rates" all in
lower case letters, confirming that you are a modern and funky council. Well done again.

It was with eager fingers that I opened the guide and found a letter from you to me. "Dear
ratepayer," it began, "keeping rates affordable has been a key driver of this council."

Well now, I know what a key is and I know what a driver is, but neither piece of knowledge is much
use here.

The phrase "key driver" is a dead metaphor. More significantly, it derives from the world of
corporate jargon, which suggests that you think of yourself as a corporation. You are not a
corporation.

You are a public service. Indeed, you are actually my servants.

I am paying you to do a job for me. So rather than using the jargon that corporations use to cloud
the truth, I'd prefer you to tell me the truth straight up and unadulterated.

I'm afraid I haven't finished with that opening sentence. The verb "keeping" in the phrase "keeping
rates affordable" assumes that rates were affordable before.

Well they weren't. You admit as much three paragraphs later. "As well as our efforts to keep costs
down, many thousands of our residents have successfully applied for a rates rebate."

Now, I'm not going to dwell on the syntax of that sentence which implies, entertainingly, that your
efforts have applied for, and received, a rebate.

I am merely going to observe that if "many thousands" of people got a rebate last year, the rates
weren't, to use your own word, "affordable".

And if they weren't affordable in the first place, it's a nonsense to speak of "keeping" them
affordable.

Nor is that all. In your second paragraph you acknowledge that many ratepayers "are in difficult
financial situations right now".

This is a mealy-mouthed way of saying that they are poorer than they were last year. And so, you
say, "that's why we put such a focus on keeping rate increases to below 4 per cent."

I'm not sure how you can "put a focus" on something, let alone "such a focus", but your point is
clear.

You are boasting that because your customers are poorer than they were a year ago - and many
thousands of them were already too poor to pay your bills - you're only going to charge them 4 per
cent more. And this is called keeping rates affordable. I do hope you can see the flaw in the
reasoning.

If your customers are poorer than they were, and yet you increase the amount you charge them, then
the affordability of your rates must, by definition, have declined.

Thousands more ratepayers are going to find your bills unaffordable. In other words, your key driver
didn't drive you at all.

And you are trying to make me believe that a 4 per cent increase isn't an increase. You are not
being straight with me, dear council. And for $2000 a year I think I deserve a bit of straightness.

I realise that you perform thankless work.

My father worked for councils all his life, and he hated to hear from the public because all they
ever did was moan.

And I'll admit that I have never sent you a letter thanking you for the reliable water supply, or
for providing me with safe and well-lit roads, or for whisking my faeces away to the sewage farm.

That's perhaps a failing on my part.

But I have never sent you a glossily printed "guide to my feelings" that was actually not a guide
but rather a semi-literate piece of propaganda designed to conceal the truth and to paint me in the
best possible light.

There is plenty more I could pick up on in your "guide", but all I really want to say is please stop
trying to deceive me.

I am not a customer to be seduced.

I am your employer to be respected.

And if you truly wish to charge me as little as possible in rates, you could start by sacking your
illiterate propagandist, cancelling the printing of glossy brochures, and just stamping the top of
your rates demand with the words, "Rates have gone up 4 per cent Sorry."

Regards, Joe.


From: Mr.T on 1 Aug 2010 02:21

"D Walford" <dwalford(a)internode.on.net> wrote in message
news:4c54f24d$0$11124$c3e8da3(a)news.astraweb.com...
> When the majority of the taxpayers live in the major cities why
> shouldn't the Govt spend the majority of the tax collected in the area
> where its collected?

Then why are all the TOLL roads in the city, not vice versa?

MrT.


From: D Walford on 1 Aug 2010 03:02
On 1/08/2010 4:21 PM, Mr.T wrote:
> "D Walford"<dwalford(a)internode.on.net> wrote in message
> news:4c54f24d$0$11124$c3e8da3(a)news.astraweb.com...
>> When the majority of the taxpayers live in the major cities why
>> shouldn't the Govt spend the majority of the tax collected in the area
>> where its collected?
>
> Then why are all the TOLL roads in the city, not vice versa?
>
Because they are greedy bastards who can't get enough of our money.


Daryl
From: Kev on 1 Aug 2010 06:58
Toby wrote:
> On Sun, 01 Aug 2010 17:34:10 +1000, Kev posited in:
>
>> Believe me it definitely was needed, 3 lanes each way on that river
>> crossing was not enough 10 years ago
>
> Inclined to disagree.
> The bridge was fine - the approaches were and still are, fucked.
> We still get the Nudgee jam - and now it's on two roads. As for the
> Eight-Mile Plains and the other rot near Boganlea - that's gotta take the
> cake for stupid stuff this year.


No the bridge's 3 lanes were never enough
because the bridge is as steep as it is a B/Double is usually only able
to manage 30-40kph, So here is a truck doing 40. traffic wanting to do
80 so you have vehicles trying to merge right, this slows the middle
lane and then other vehicles merging to the right lane to allow the
others to merge middle
so you end up with traffic doing 50-60(and sometimes a lot less with the
way some of these idiots merge) instead of 80

The you also had the stupid idea of the Non stop toll lanes in the far
right only. this meant that loaded trucks had to work their way across
to the right while others exiting left stayed left, leaving 3 lanes of
loaded trucks

Look how it runs now Sth bound. no stopping speed limit driving till the
bank up at the roadwork site at Mansfield/Wishart

pity it's going to be another ten years before they have 3 or 4 lanes
Nth bound which bt then will not be enough


Kev
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