AT the Inverell Club on Wednesday evening, as part his thank you address to a gathering of this town’s election support workers, Tony Windsor likened Inverell to Tamworth, but warned of the dangers in politicising local government,.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
“Inverell, in a sense, is a mini-Tamworth, in that its great strength comes from its people,” he said.
“Their great strength is that they have survived and thrived despite government rather than because of government.
“That doesn’t mean nothing has ever happened in either of those towns, but the basic business infrastructure in both is very strong.”
Mr Windsor said they were the two strongest communities in the electorate in terms of their attitudes to themselves. He said Inverell needed an airline service and more diversification for the town’s employment options.
“The other thing that I see impacting on rural towns, and you’ve got to be very wary of it here, is the politicisation of local government,” Mr Windsor said.
“That is the biggest killer of the voices of country towns that you can possibly see.
“This movement of ‘yay sayers’ from political backgrounds moving into local government and treating it as they do in Sydney, as a partisan part of representing the community.”
He said the historical strength of towns lay with genuine people consulting with each other to deliver solutions in the best interests of their communities.
“The bigger issue is that it plays into the hands of the city politics. We’re seeing it on the back of why some councils are being taken out of the game,” Mr Windsor said.
“And we’re allowing it to happen through this almost subservience of some of the councils to one side of politics.
“You’ve got to have the local government being the voice of the community, not the voice being filtered through a political dimension.”
Mr Windsor said no-one wins when little groups of people got together to plot getting rid of someone or other.
“I watched Narrabri for 20 or 30 years just eat itself, in terms of the gimmickry and craziness that goes on there,” he said. “If I were a resident of Inverell I would be guarding against that as much as you can.”