Remember when: Mayor Sir Bruce Small slammed his council’s own budget as a “Chinese puzzle”

A RECORD $13.3 million city council budget for 1969-1970 was condemned as a “Chinese puzzle” and praised as a “Robin Hood” budget.

Gold Coast History: Gold Coast Bulletin 1969, July 15. Front page.

Gold Coast Bulletin, Tuesday July 15, 1969

A RECORD $13.3 million city council budget for 1969-1970 was condemned as a “Chinese puzzle” and praised as a “Robin Hood” budget.

Both descriptions were made in debate before the council approved the 6.66 per cent increase to the city’s general rate.

The increase jumped the general rate from 3c in the dollar to 3.2c, an extra 2c on every $10 of unimproved capital valuation of a ratepayer’s property.

The Mayor, Alderman Sir Bruce Small, made the Chinese puzzle reference during an attack on the budget, which he said demonstrated “a spirit of recklessness”.

Ald. Small sparked off a fiery, gavel-thumping debate at the beginning of the council meeting when he read a mayoral minute and moved that the general rate remain at 3c.

He said the budget had been framed while he was absent in Tokyo and that a few of its major items had shocked him.

“My suggestion is that the status quo should be observed on this subject,” he said.

“But I confess that having been presented with my first copy of the budget on Friday afternoon I have been amazed to see the evidence of an abandon, almost a recklessness with which the spending of money has been approached.”

Meanwhile the cost of repairing damaged public telephones on the Gold Coast was $3000 a year, or around $60 a week.

The district telephone manager, Mr N.B. Dow, said the issue was causing the Post Office a lot of unnecessary expense.

There were nearly 200 telephones on the Gold Coast at the time.