End Feudal System?

The CSIRO reports from the $500,000 "Sustainable Futures" project were completed in 2005, and have never been referred to by the Augusta Margaret River Shire. Ask why?

After eight years of nagging the shire did make the reports available on their website this year. But they chose to turn the text based PDF files, that were easily read and searchable, into one huge image file. To do this one, or more, employees must have gone to considerable trouble and spent much time in close communion with a scanner. Ask why?

However, as the shire continues to be developed in ways that place a social, financial  and environmental burden on residents I believe that one of the items hidden in these reports needs to see the light of day. 

By creating a petition it may be possible to gauge the level of local support for change. It might not work, but nothing ventured...... And as this is my first foray into the world of online petitions I'm learning fast and beginning to see potential for us to use these quickly produced off the shelf products to ask many other questions of our community. Ask anything?

The wording of the Representation-for-Residents petition is as follows;

The Petition

In 2005 the CSIRO “Sustainable Futures Project” identified that absentee property owners were exercising considerable influence on the decisions made by the Augusta-Margaret River Shire Council. Councillors were representing city based ratepayers who had land holdings throughout the shire. Metro-centric decision making, favouring those who had financial investment in the shire, was adversely affecting the prevailing culture, to the detriment of those who reside here.
This shire had historically been populated by a strong, self-reliant, and socially cohesive community, that lived a sustainable lifestyle based on reciprocity. 

One of the recommendations from the CSIRO project was that the Shire of Augusta-Margaret River should lobby the State Government for changes to the electoral system that would restrict voting in local elections. so that each person could vote only once in local elections, in the constituency of their primary residence. 

Those signing this petition request the Shire of Augusta Margaret River initiate a project to expedite this change, to ensure that our local community has "Representation for Residents" as a matter of urgency.

If you support a change to one vote only per person in all local government elections then please support this petition, just click on the button and add your comments too.

It would also be good to ask your councillor, and Mr Evershed, AMRShire CEO, if the CSIRO reports can be placed on the shire website in the format they were produced by the CSIRO, as PDF files.