LETTERS: Standing up against high-rise

CONGRATULATIONS to Councillor John Learmonth for speaking out at the Bundaberg Regional Council Briefing Meeting on Tuesday (NM, 19/09).

JEWEL BARGARA: New artists impressions of a proposed high rise on the Bargara esplanade have been released as part of the developer's response to further information requested by Bundaberg Regional Council. Picture: Contributed

Answers needed

CONGRATULATIONS to Councillor John Learmonth for speaking out at the Bundaberg Regional Council Briefing Meeting on Tuesday (NM, 19/09).

For a second time the council planning officer clearly spelt out the reasons why the application is non-compliant with the planning scheme, and recommended it be refused.

The mayor and councillors need to explain exactly why the applicant has persisted with his demands for nine storeys, and whether at meetings where council staff and selected councillors met with the applicant he was told that nine storeys would not get approval because it was non-compliant with the planning scheme, and was not acceptable within the declared Turtle Sensitive Zone.

Rugby union

VIEW GALLERY

Will the rest of the councillors who have visited China this year now join with councillors Bill Trevor and Scott Rowleson in declaring a perceived conflict of interest and withdraw from voting on the application for the nine storey development at Bargara?

As Cr Learmonth said, the application should be thrown out.

A full investigation is needed into the whole process including full disclosure by the council of meetings and discussions held with the developer here in Australia and in China.

PAM SOPER

Bargara

Key question

I WAS disturbed to read that certain councillors have opted out of voting on Jewel's development at Bargara, on the grounds that they may have eaten a dinner paid for by Jewel.

Surely the crucial question the councillors will be voting on is whether the project adheres to the town plan, of merely three years ago, rather than who paid for dinner in China some time ago.

I would think that if a councillor has a clear conscience about "interest", who has "never discussed any development with him", must be capable of ignoring such a negligible "conflict of interest", rather than repudiating the chance to commit to a decision one way or the other.

Since our councillors make regular delegations to China, the day may come when they all have to recuse themselves from a decision.

ROSLYN CAIRNS

Bundaberg North

Focus on education

NEWSMAIL correspondent Jon Carman (NM, 08/09) made some excellent points in his Letter to the Editor regarding the Independent Public Schools program.

The QTU has a long-held, publicly-stated view that the IPS program introduced by the Campbell Newman State Government was another of their initiatives that caused damage to state education.

Member for Bundaberg David Batt has initiated (yet another) community petition, this time asking local residents to sign on to support the IPS initiative, which is highly curious for a regional member of Parliament to undertake from two perspectives.

With the conclusion of the Federal Government funding agreement for the IPS program, the current State Government has initiated an independent, expert review of the program by private consulting company, PotentialPlus Solutions, to make recommendations on its future implementation.

As a Member of Parliament, one might expect Mr Batt would wait until the outcomes of an expert review have been announced, before "jumping in" to support IPS, or at the very least indicate what information he has used to reach his decision.

Certainly, a preliminary review of the IPS program completed by the Department of Education in 2015 found no evidence of improvements in student outcomes attributable to the IPS program and highlighted significant negative consequences for school staffing arrangements.

And that leads to the second inexplicable aspect in Mr Batt's support for IPS, as more than 80 per cent of the 250 IPS schools are located in metropolitan south-east Queensland. Mr Carman correctly highlights that IPS schools have capacity to work outside the teacher transfer system to their advantage, which is to the disadvantage of other schools in regional and country areas like the Bundaberg district.

This is a significant reason for the increasing difficulties regional and rural schools are having in completing and maintain a full complement of staffing.

As a regional LNP member, it is strange that Mr Batt would throw his support into a program that predominantly advantages the teacher staffing arrangements of city schools, to the detriment of those in his own electorate.

ALLAN COOK

president

Bundaberg North QTU