Last week, I focused in on the fact that we had spent one hundred and fifty thousand dollars on a good report from Pitt & Sherry. Ruining a good recipe, we then decided to add our own flavours and to create our own 140-page dish that no one can quite digest.

Lord Mayor, the State government current policy is no forced amalgamations. The state Government has asked Councils for their plans to be fit for the future, it did not ask Councils to dictate policy.

Rather than lecturing the State government on its planned reforms to Local Government, we should be getting on with doing what the State Government asked, and that is to provide our plans on how we will be fit for the future.

If we don’t, then it maybe it will be taken out of our hands.