Since late November 2017, each and every carton of soft drink and beer sold locally is priced from $3.60 to $5 more than in the ACT. Why? The culprit is “Return and Earn” the container deposit scheme – sold to us as the way to reduce litter in the state. But which remarkably does not accept containers that are broken or do not have their original label attached!

This state government initiative has told us we can claim 10 cent refunds from December 1 for all eligible containers returned.

In the whole of the Bega Valley we have only two collection points, one at Bega and the other at Bermagui.  During our Christmas shopping, the only reason for us to be in Bega, we tried out the container collection set up – massive reverse vending machines, paid for by you know who! 

Success, a bottle went through the glass machine and we received a 10 cent credit to our PayPal account!  Then to the next machine for all our plastic bottles – hold on what’s this:  “Assistance Required – Please wait or contact customer hotline.  We apologise for the inconvenience”. 

The blessed machine was faulty and according to our phone call, would be for some hours.  Who is going to take their container returns to Bega for a miserly 10 cents per item?  No-one. It is frankly not worth the effort.

The federal government is happy – it receives an extra 36 cents to 50 cents GST for every drink carton sold.  The state government pockets the rest to the tune of at least $600million per year. 

A great new tax has been foisted on us all under the guise of reducing litter!  Why our state government has not emulated Victoria, the cleanest state in the nation, is a significant question.

Victoria has reduced litter by almost 60 per cent over the past eight years.  Victoria’s approach combines public awareness with convenient infrastructure, identifying litter hot spots and installing appropriate bins to create social norms. 

Together with skyrocketing power bills, why is our state government blatantly increasing our taxes and cost of living through this container deposit scheme?  Surely the government has more important things to manage! 

Our Premier Gladys Berejiklian needs to do another “back flip” to cancel this ill considered scheme which taxes us all. 

Living nature is water, everything alive needs a drink! Future wars will be fought over water. Every major river system on the planet is under threat from greed stupidity and mismanagement.

All governments’ first priority is the delivery of good quality fresh water, then it is removing waste that is mainly sewage.

I look with disgust at the priorities of successive councils, developing their chambers, car parks, roads and so on, with calls to increase population and visitation from tourists, while all along hiding it seems from themselves and the consumers the exact state of the water supply and sewerage systems of the Bega Valley Shire.

What is the current state of all the water supply systems? What are the different types of pipelines constructed from?

Is there a futuristic plan for the effects of global warming on the availability and regularity of our natural water resource? What is the current cost of upgrading our water supply systems so we can have safe, non toxic, tasteless, clear, clean water.

How often does council send a worker to flush the Tathra-Bega water supply and how much does this cost the ratepayer?

Is it a priority to deliver us perfect water like it is at the supply source within our shire, and not the smelly toxic rubbish that is accepted as drinkable by successive councillors and council staff?

Why over many years has it not been a priority to deliver water and remove waste correctly?

Why did council deem it a priority to build new council chambers with nice plush chairs so they can then procrastinate over the adding or the maintaining of fluoridation into an inadequate water supply system?

Will bringing more population and tourism into the shire fix the problem? I don’t think so.

Will changing councillors or council practice fix the problem? Maybe, maybe not.

Can we tolerate this stupidity? Definitely not!