Outgoing Mayor uses Bligh press release to express rage ...
... at 32,330 NO voters.
The Poll was held on 29 July 2006 and the outgoing Mayor's blind white rage still burns.
See - Water Futures blog - outgoing Mayor press release.
Those 32,330 voters cost her everything and she will now get to spend her days in the back blocks of Tasmania.
It's going to be a far cry from what she'd hoped for the next few years and what she'd planned.
But it was not to be.
Democracy stood firmly in her way.
That and the fact that her recycled water project was so dodgy it wouldn't have brought $15 on eBay.
So her rage burns on.
Watch her post-Poll reaction here - Outgoing Mayor's post-Poll comments.
Even as they are dragging her out of the Herries Street building next month, she's be screaming 'those damn NO voters'.
On 15 March, voters get to send her a final farewell by burying her recycled water plans once and for all ...
posted by Concerned Ratepayer at 6:45 AM
10 Comments:
You can bet she will be screaming a lot more than "dam".
If she is up to her usual form it will be:- blip blip blip voters
10:37 PM, January 25, 2008
Her rage has blinded her but I guess she has never really seen the voters in Toowoomba. It's always been about her. But by one press release she has literally screwed the three ladies and Ramia and will make voters very nervous of Jones and Taylor. They will be looking for people who are clearly going to represent them on the issue of recycled water.
11:31 PM, January 25, 2008
Di says her plan was the most cost effective.
Remember this from the paper?
Mayor Thorley said in Council Chambers "If you've come to council to see accurate costs, you've come to the wrong place, Cr Manners," to which Cr Manners replied "I suggest it's time for change"
11:42 PM, January 25, 2008
Thorley's message to all no voters - you're stupid and I know best.
12:10 AM, January 26, 2008
The people have to remember that she is leaving and all the hatred will hopefully go with her!!
The cost of alternate water projects is as follows:
The real cost or the inflated cost of Kevvie and the State Government.
We want a Mayor for the people and not a puppet of the State.
Manners is our man!!!
8:35 AM, January 26, 2008
The Chronicle:
26 Jan 08
‘A lot of money no longer in our hands’
TOOWOOMBA Mayor Dianne Thorley was gutted last night.
Despite being a supporter of drinking recycled water, she laments the costs to the city.
“Through the whole water debate I did discuss that if we were to get water from anywhere else that it would be a right and privilege for the well-to-do and a luxury for the poor and disadvantaged,” she said.
She insists a recycling plant at Wetalla was cheaper than the cost of bringing recycled water 40km up the Range.
Once linked to the South-East Queensland grid, private corporations will take over the dams with a gross value of $410 million and the sewerage network worth $295 million.
Also swallowed up into the State Government coffers will be the city’s lucrative water contracts with New Acland coal and the Millmerran power station.
“That’s a lot of money that could have been used by this community and will no longer remain in its hands,” she said.
Cr Thorley said the Water Task Force, which included ‘No’ vote supporters Clive Berghofer, Commerce Queensland’s Ken Murphy and irrigator John McVeigh, had signed off on the pipeline from Wivenhoe Dam as being the best option for future water to the city.
“We will get what I predicted and I suppose it will be the legacy of Clive Berghofer, Snow Manners, Rosemary Morley, Peter Taylor and Ian Orford it will be their legacy now that we will be drinking Brisbane’s recycled water at a bigger cost than what it would have been if we did our own.
“It makes me very sad those people, for their own political gains, put fear into my community and tried to pretend the world was going to turn all rosy and everything was going to be wonderful and they were going to save everybody.
“It is very sad and I am appalled for this city.
“To me the city needs water at the end of the day and the recycled water debate has all passed and we are going to have to be part of the south-east corner grid to secure our water for the long term.
“The sustainability of the whole region depends on that now as they shift water around the whole region.”
Cr Thorley agreed water was needed as soon possible and the Premier should be thanked for that.
The futility of the past two years frustrated and dismayed Toowoomba’s water and wastewater portfolio chair Joe Ramia when he learned of the State Government’s plan yesterday afternoon.
“We tried to do up here what the Government is going to do.
“Had we done it then it would have been cheaper and we could have avoided all of this.
“The sad saga behind all this is that had the people accepted the (recycled water) plan, seen it as being our only Option and realised it was inevitable, they would have had to pay a lot less for water.”
Cr Ramia said his predictions of paying double or triple the current costs for water were not meant to frighten people, but were instead an accurate analysis of the situation.
“Toowoomba is now going to see how much all this is going to cost. They have to realise that this sort of infrastructure is going to drive up prices.”
Cr Ramia admitted the recycled option was not the most ideal source of water, but one that was South-East Queensland’s “emergency option”.
“At least this will secure Toowoomba’s water source forever in an emergency,” he said.
The downside, however, was the actions of the State Government which were indicative of their “law unto themselves” attitude.
“Now they’re going to seize our water infrastructure and we’re at their behest.”
1:33 PM, January 26, 2008
The Chronicle:
26 Jan 08
‘Political stunt’ hard to swallow for objectors
‘NO’ VOTE supporter and mayoral candidate Snow Manners simply said “we don’t want their recycled water”.
“That money would be better put to use on the Darling Downs water grid and feasibility of Emu Creek Dam which basically is water that will end up in Wivenhoe Dam but save us the cost of getting it back up the hill.
“The announcement is a political stunt so the Toowoomba local government election isn’t fought over water.”
The Water Futures plan, which still includes the bores and the Wivenhoe pipeline, are designed to deliver 5000 megalitres of water.
“We have a licence to take that from the Great Artesian Basin and we can do that for a lot less than $70 million or whatever.
“We can finish our bores for less than $20 million and get the 5000 megalitres a year that we are looking for,” he said.
Cr Manners insists it will rain. “I’m not saying we can be complacent about that. We need to push ahead with our bore field.”
To look at Wivenhoe pipeline as a long-term solution, he says, is crazy. “It’s taking water away from Brisbane, it’s opening Pandora’s box that this region will become part of the south-east Queensland grid which we don’t want as our assets will fall into the hands of a privatised water corporation, and it has a recycled component with it that this community adamantly refused to accept and I respect their decision,” he said.
If voted mayor, he will make an appointment with the Premier.
“The Downs region needs to be independent of south-east Queensland. We need to look at Emu Creek Dam and we need to look west for our water supplies.”
He believes the south-east focus should be growth in that area.
Bluntly, Cr Manners said: “Anna, wait until after the local government elections please. I’ll come and talk to you then.”
Millionaire developer Clive Berghofer said “it’s not what people want, but what they tell us we need”.
Surveys in Brisbane were similar to Toowoomba with 62% opposed.
And Mr Berghofer says he’s not leaving Toowoomba. But he won’t drink the recycled water.
He has a tank under his house and hasn’t turned on his city supply for 20 years. “
If everyone did that we wouldn’t need Wivenhoe,” Mr Berghofer said, suggesting the money should have been spent looking at securing water from Norwin.
“They don’t want to listen to us.”
Vocal recycled water opponent Rosemary Morley refuses to concede defeat on the issue, despite the State Government being adamant the plan will go ahead.
“That will be a decision made by the new council,” Mrs Morley said, referring to the Toowoomba Regional Council which will be voted in on March 15.
“We rejected this and can’t just let the State Government bully us.
“This is far from over.”
Mrs Morley said the announcement would be greeted “with absolute dismay” by Toowoomba. “The anger over this will be palpable.”
Her position on recycled water has not changed since the Toowoomba plebiscite in mid-2006.
“No-one willingly drinks from the sewer,” she said.
Mrs Morley said the Bligh Government’s move was designed to “impede the election of candidates who stand against” recycled water.
“It’s a ploy to scare people,” she said.
“There’s no way they can honour what they’re saying. They can’t build it in that time and they can’t create enough sewerage to support the system.”
1:36 PM, January 26, 2008
Full points to Snow and Rosemary for being consistent in their views and being the only people prepared to take on Thorley and Bligh.
3:15 PM, January 26, 2008
The dying days in office of a woman desperate to seek revenge. It's just sad.
5:16 PM, January 26, 2008
Thorley better watch out. She's getting close to breaching Section 394(2) with her press release.
Misleading Voters
Section 394
(2) A person must not for the purpose of affecting the election of a candidate, knowingly publish a false statement of fact regarding the personal character or conduct of the candidate.
Does she want to leave Toowoomba with a conviction?
7:07 PM, January 26, 2008
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