Cairns Regional Council – Cash-strapped!

Last year, I established that the Cairns Regional Council was so broke that it had no money to seal a single driveway, despite an initial undertaking to do so.  Now we learn that the largess of our elected council, most ably demonstrated by their decision not to levy development application charges, has now put them into a position which, in any normal business, would almost equate to bankruptcy.  If the reports in The Cairns Post are to be believed, the Council is out of pocket in the sum of 14 MILLION dollars.

It seems clear enough, at least to this writer, that every ratepayer within the area of the Cairns Regional Council is footing the bill for this largess and it is US who will end up paying for it with higher charges – and less chance of services such as a simple driveway.

There seems to be no quick fix for this, so how about this for an idea :-

Every ratepayer within the boundaries of the Cairns Regional Council area shall be shareholders in those developments approved by Council.  Effectively, it is us who have given that 14 million dollars to the property developers, so we must be entitled to a share of the profits from the enterprises.  All those in favour?

AYE!