Take care with tourism
“Tourism industry slugs pensioners” would have been a more accurate headline for last week's article about Sapphire Coast Tourism and the funding of tourism promotion.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Bruce Leaver of SCT urges readers to examine a "discussion paper" that explores "options to secure more sustainable sources of revenue" to promote tourism.
A careful read of this "discussion paper" reveals that the source of funding SCT wants is nearly a million dollars from BVSC ratepayers.
Advertising one's business is a legitimate business expense and therefore tax deductible, so why is a supposedly "not for profit organisation" lobbying council to slug the ratepayers of the shire, the majority of whom are low income families and pensioners (check the statistics) an extra $39 in their rates to promote tourism?
What next?
A special levy for beef producers to advertise the benefits of red meat consumption, or maybe a special levy for Bega Cheese to advertise its products or what about the aged care sector, surely that is deserving too?
The "discussion paper" gives no real consideration to any other options such as SCT charging its members a realistic membership fee to pay for its own promotion, or lobbying state and federal governments to pay rates on public lands - ie NPWS, NSW Forests and Crown land - 75 per cent of the shire is publicly held land which pays not a dollar of shire rates.
Or maybe SCT should consider some old-fashioned fundraising ventures or grant applications like other "not for profit" community organisations.
According to Mr Leaver the local industry is growing at 10 per cent a year and is leading the nation in tourism growth so surely it can pay for its own promotion without slugging pensioners and low income families who make up the majority of BVSC ratepayers.
Mary-Ellen Turbet
Millingandi
Inability to deliver
The Bega Valley Shire Residents and Ratepayers Association (BVSRRA) flatly rejects assertions that “Council’s deficit of $1.9million was caused by changes made by the Abbott government to the way Federal Assistance Grants are delivered” in 2013/2014 (BDN, 28/11).
The reality is that, notwithstanding the one hand clapping by its auditors, BVSC’s performance against theoretical government performance measures, or suggestions that its unsatisfactory result was occasioned by the dreadful people in Canberra, could not be further from the truth.
While it is true the council’s grants revenue for operating purposes was $3.2million under budget, the fact of the matter is if that shortfall had not arisen, council would still only have recorded an operating result of $1.2million, or 14 per cent of its budget of $8.6million.
What council doesn’t want residents/ratepayers to focus on is its continuing fundamental inability to plan and deliver against a plan, as reflected in its budget.
A cursory examination of the audited financial statement for 2013/14 reveals that the primary source of council’s operating loss ($1.9million) was its $8.6million over-budget expenditure in operating expenses.
Indeed, to make the point even more obvious, had council contained its operating expenses to budget, it would have recorded an operating result of $6.6million or 77 per cent of its budget, even with the shortfall in grants revenue.
The BVSRRA continues to maintain that, in spite of all its huff and puff, BVSC is not able to deliver against the most basic of tasks – to manage against its budget.
As to the suggestion attributed to Cr Tapscott that over-budget expenditure on staff costs should “not be looked at as a negative by the community”, the BVSRRA simply says “nonsense”.
The BVSRRA has absolutely no doubt that councillors, including Cr Tapscott, would be much less forgiving of BVSC’s continuing disappointing performance if they were obliged to fund it personally.
The BVSRRA has posed a number of questions to BVSC regarding its 2013/14 financial performance and will be making further comments in that regard in coming weeks.
John Richardson, secretary
BVSRRA
Domestic harmony
I am concerned about the number of so-called experts that frequent television and other forms of media, pontificating about violence in the home, but never offering a solution.
We find that most nuptial maidens in Australia spend half their time in front of mirrors combing their tresses, plucking their eyebrows or cultivating long fingernails and the other half mesmerised and hypnotised by all the beauty aids they see on commercial television.
Young men are smitten by these nuptial maidens and many have taken the plunge when their new girlfriend has tearfully announced she has missed her monthly periods and he had only kissed once or twice.
We find that these young females have never peeled a potato, or seen water boil.
And these young men are condemned to a life of lumpy gravy, half cooked potatoes and peas in the same pot and a frying pan of burnt offerings.
Any suggestion to improve the diet is met with a plate of cold tongue and the same for his supper.
Is it any wonder that we see middle-aged men leaving chemist shops clutching their bottles of Mylanta?
I believe to improve domestic harmony all schools should provide cooking classes that all females attend and be provided with a certificate of competence, and that government departments, banks and other financial institutions take and note in high regard.
Ivor G Williams
Pambula