No end to the rises

I READ with much dismay the our council rates are again going to increase – up 5.5 per cent from last year and I also read with further dismay that our councillors have no regard for the additional impost they are putting on an already financially stressed community.
I see, according to the Pakenham Gazette of 29 April, the one councillor, Mr Collin Ross, who rejected the 5.5 per cent proposal, has been accused by his fellow councillor, Mr George Blenkhorne, of ‘living in non-financial cuckoo land’.
Mr Ross suggested that the increase be defined by the CPI but that was rejected by the rest of the council.
Another article within the same edition goes on to say that “the 5.5 per cent increase is 0.4 per cent lower than last year”. By my calculation therefore the increase over the past 12 months is 10.9 per cent.
I am very confident in saying that the tens of thousands of residents with this shire have NOT had a wage increase of that magnitude covering the same period.
So to Mr Blenkhorne and co – just how do you suggest the residents are able to cover this increased impost?
It would seem that Mr Blenkhorne and his colleagues sitting around the council table are the ones in ‘non-financial cuckoo land’.
Mrs Christine Hartigan,
Bayles.