Sue Clark, Principal/Director of TPR Property Group, above, decided to say her piece in this week’s Huon News, page 8, Wednesday April 13th 2016.
Included in her piece was this statement:
“The majority of people that I speak to, all agree that the only way to solve this problem with council, is for the mayor to do the honourable thing and step down.
“I was totally appalled at the way the mayor spoke over the airwaves when interviewed recently by Mick Newell.
(• Make up your own mind … Listen to Mick’s Interview: HERE )
I can only suggest Ms Clark needs to listen to this interview just one more time – she must surely be confused between Michael Newell and our popularly-elected Huon Valley Mayor Peter Coad.
From my perspective Mayor Coad defended (what I saw as) the belligerent attacks from Michael Newell with total professionalism, the utmost decorum and at all times maintained his polite and gentlemanly manner befitting a person in his position.
It is ironic that TPR is currently running a series of radio advertisements with 101.7FM – the very station that to date has ignored what I understand are many public comments against Michael Newell’s broadcast.
Then there were what I believe were suspect “Dorothy Dix” questions to Cr Mike Wilson who just “happened” to call into the station at the right time during what I believe was a media stunt.
And let us not forget the highly-edited interviews of “some six supposed Main Street residents” expressing their “representative” views of the Huon Valley (that oddly appear to me to have been recorded in a studio environment and not walking down the street as Michael Newell suggests).
Enter Councillor Ken Studley (below) …
The other irony that simply cannot be so readily dismissed is that Cr Ken Studley is of course the Sales Director of TPR and to quote a line from the TPR website:
“He (Ken) lives locally with his family and is an advocate for honesty and integrity in the industry.”
We have a real estate agent as a Councillor who also happens to be one of the the Heart of the Huon bloc … the “Fantastic Six” that are doing their utmost in attempting to discredit the Mayor and working diligently – it appears to me – to reject the findings of the two month+ Board of Inquiry Report.
Perhaps worst of all, our Fantastic Six and their “unbiased” supporters are simply not listening to the voices of the “New Guard” which I believe are for sound governance, and law and order.
Times they are a changing folks…
We now want and desperately need some good civil governance … fortunately we now have more and more residents in our Community who simply want honesty and transparency … and the Fantastic Six and their ill-informed followers have truly had their day in my view …
Satire: Geoffrey Swan
EARLIER on Tasmanian Times …
• Naive at best. Appalling at Worst
• Geoffrey Swan: It’s an exciting time to be a local council …
Following the recent High Court decision ( April 14th 2016 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-14/council-secures-right-to-charge-seabed-rates-in-high-court/7325730?section=tas ) and Mercury ( April 15th 2016 ) that now paves the way for local Councils to impose levy rates on marine leases – this is of course a good news story for the residents of the Huon Valley given the numerous offshore leases held by the Huon Aquaculture Company and Tassal.
I have today written to our local Council to again remind them of the significant volume of water being extracted daily from the Russell River and the Little Denison River in the operation of two very large freshwater hatcheries.
The Huon Aquaculture Company hatchery situated alongside the Russell River in Lonnavale extracts 26 Megalitres per day, every day of the year, into their now antiquated flow-though ponds used for keeping their prized brood fish.
The Snowy Range Hatchery, currently up for sale as a “lifestyle business” for some $3m+ is on Denison Road in Lonnavale extracts 21 Megalitres per day, from the Little Denison River, again 365 days of the year.
It is my understanding there have been “no charges” whatsoever for any of this pristine mountain water in the past 15 years or more. They also, in turn, discharge similar volumes of water that contains all the effluent (sewage) from their fish ponds back into these once pristine mountain streams – so arguably there is also an opportunity to also levy a “sewage” charge!
Yesterday I spoke with TasWater in order to clarify the approximate costs for fresh water and as a comparison I was advised that any “farmer” wanting to irrigate in the Huon Valley would be on a contract fee of around $360 per Megalitre – this being an average cost as farmers all have individual contracts.
Given this information, I have suggested to Council there is an immediate and urgent opportunity to investigate their legal and opportunistic options to increase the Huon Valley’s much needed revenue stream.
Based on the charge of $360 per megalitre, this equates to an annual fee to the Huon Aquaculture Company of $3,416,400 and a fee to the Snowy Range Hatchery of $2,759,400 per annum. And let us remember that HAC floated in November 2014 for around $430 million – which makes $3m+ little more than spare change in the bottom drawer.
Based on these two rivers alone, not counting the other rivers where aquaculture companies are taking huge amounts of fresh water, this is a staggering $6,175,800 per annum. It would certainly ease the pain of the $4m dollars lost by the Huon Valley Council during the global financial crisis and would greatly assist our local Community.
Why is it that only the shareholders benefit from this booming industry – time to spread the spoils.
• Geoffrey Swan: It’s an exciting time to be a local council … … Given this information, I have suggested to Council there is an immediate and urgent opportunity to investigate their legal and opportunistic options to increase the Huon Valley’s much-needed revenue stream. Based on the charge of $360 per megalitre, this equates to an annual fee to the Huon Aquaculture Company of $3,416,400 and a fee to the Snowy Range Hatchery of $2,759,400 per annum. And let us remember that HAC floated in November 2014 for around $430 million – which makes $3m+ little more than spare change in the bottom drawer. … Based on these two rivers alone, not counting the other rivers where aquaculture companies are taking huge amounts of fresh water, this is a staggering $6,175,800 per annum. It would certainly ease the pain of the $4m dollars lost by the Huon Valley Council during the global financial crisis and would greatly assist our local Community …
… Heard from GM of 101.7FM today … apparently at the instigation of the GM following my letter of complaint Newell apologised on radio on Wednesday.. I have requested an audio file and/or transcript. Stay tuned.
Comment 22
• Sleepless in Franklin in Comments: #8 Been busy but (also having audio skills) finally had a chance to put the audio of “Huon Valley Residents chat with Mick” through a decent forensics tool (iZotope RX4). Yes, heavily edited, as it sounds. Of course it would have to be edited to a certain extent, but the question is how – and was there any intent to deceive or exaggerate using truncated or out-of-context responses. More thoughts on the edits later after a bit more work. Spectrograms show at least two (possibly more) different background signatures. IMO the first and last grabs have at least indoor (if not studio) ambience.
