Government Madness


I'm sorry I let democracy down, but I didn't vote in the NSW local government elections on Saturday. But I have a good excuse, I swear. See, I've never bothered to change my electoral enrollment after moving 13 months ago. There's no absentee voting at local government elections, so in order to vote I would have had to travel out of my way to a suburb with no train station. "Screw that", I thought, "I'm having lunch in the City".

Actually, come to think of it, I've never voted in a local government election. I don't know why; I just haven't. Maybe it's been a subconcious protest against local government?

Local government is the pinnacle of evidence that Australia is over-governed. My current local government area covers an area of just 8km2, and has a population of 40,000. And it's still further divided into four wards. On Saturday, voters went to the polls to elect councillors who would be representing, in effect, a handfull of streets. (Incidentally, one poor hapless soul standing in Saturday's poll received not a single primary vote. Not even from herself! Not even from her mother!)

Anyway, multiply that by all the Councils in the state; each of which requires managers, workers, administration staff...and ask if we really need more than 15% of it. Surely they could amalgamate into larger super-Councils?

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Maybe in the long run, it doesn't really matter.

Sarah Palin has come out swinging, saying she wants to see Georgia admitted to NATO even if the U.S. has to go to war with Russia over the issue.

Russia still has nukes, people!

Who cares about excessive local government when we're all going to be killed.

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