OPINION: The real issue council candidates need to address

Are they missing the mark on election campaign platforms?

I AM surprised by our current council nominees' proclaimed goals, and not only by their primary focuses, such as street parades or bus timetables, but also by what's omitted. That's because the thing absent from any candidate's policies I've heard so far has the potential to permanently seal Ipswich's fate.

There are many things a district or town can survive. A region can survive corruption for instance. Sure, it mightn't be healthy, but plenty of cities have coped well after the infliction. Cities can also recover from high crime or high debt. And you can also find cities that rejuvenate after high unemployment. However, there's one thing that guarantees a long-standing ghetto status. And that's waste facilities.

Nowhere in the western world, will you find a single suburb or area surrounding even a normal tip that's desired property.

Nobody with any money or other options wants to live or shop in smelling range of such a facility, or an area known for such facilities. And when you up the ante by adding toxic materials, or waste facilities where those hundreds of kilometres away are permitted to dump their garbage, you're declaring the area a residential wasteland. A well-to-do suburb next to waste facilities, I challenge anybody to find such a thing in the western world.

Between the previous council, the State Government, and the administrator, Ipswich has been earmarked as waste central, coming to a suburb near you.

If I was a candidate, complete and absolute opposition to any waste facility near any Ipswich residential district would be top of the policy list, because no district can survive being a waste dumping ground, which makes the silence from any candidate I've heard so far the more bewildering.

B.D. BRANCH

Ipswich