Let’s turn this New Year’s resolution stuff on its head for a moment – take the focus off ourselves and onto the people who could make the coming year so much better for all of us.
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Starting at the local level, wouldn’t it be great if our council could catch up with its neighbours and introduce a green bin service? It’s something our readers clamour for every time we publish a story about rubbish removal and we understand why. For so many of us, keeping the garden trim would be so much easier if we could easily get rid of the green waste without having to load up the trailer and get to a tip.
We’d like to see our councillors spend less time fighting each other on ideological or party lines and put more effort into solving local issues. We’ve said it many times and will say it again – council is not a play pen for parliamentary aspirants. The time wasted on point scoring (which most residents find pointless) could be better used coming up with solutions.
We want council to improve the sometimes achingly slow development application approval times.
At state level, we want to see improvements in health care. We’re keen on an upgrade of Shoalhaven Hospital – it’s long overdue – but we also want to see birthing services returned to Milton Hospital so southern Shoalhaven mums don’t have to make the perilous drive up to Nowra under already stressful circumstances.
We want to see Macquarie Street open meaningful dialogue with Canberra to help get the Princes Highway made safe south of Nowra. We want the NSW government to lay some serious money on the table ahead of the state election to ensure we are not talking about the same thing next year.
Federally, we want to see a bipartisan approach to highway funding so no matter who is government, Canberra comes to the party. We were heartened by the joint statement to this effect by Deputy PM Michael McCormack and Shadow Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese in early December. It showed a level of political maturity often lacking at the highest levels of government.
We want less introspection from the major parties – the politicians should can the factional bloodletting and leadership changes and get on with the job they’re elected and paid handsomely to do: governing.
We want real action on climate change. World leaders need to realise it’s not about America First or China First or Russia First. It’s about the Earth First.
