Meet the candidates
AS announced in the Tribune on August 10, the Yass Rostrum Club and Yass Chamber of Commerce will conduct a Meet the Candidates meeting at Yass Memorial Hall, Wednesday, August 24 at 6.30pm.
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This will give the 32 candidates standing for the forthcoming local government election and the public an opportunity to meet each other and gain information.
It is anticipated each candidate will be given three minutes to speak on their ideas and policies, but as there are so many candidates, we are unable to take questions from the floor, as we have at past meetings.
However, the Chamber of Commerce will be given the chance to ask a couple of questions of a very general nature. After the individual speeches, each candidate can go to a dedicated part of the Hall and field questions from the public.
It is impossible for us to contact each individual candidate, so please regard this as your invitation to come along if you are standing.
If information is required, please phone Judy Trindall on 0402 256 299, or Linda Thane on 0428 497 813.
Judy Trindall, Yass Rostrum.
Accolades for great music
WHAT an amazing performance of the Combined Choirs' Concert at the Soldiers Club on Sunday, July 31, exhibiting the joy of music by not only the senior musicians and singers, but the audience in its entirety!
Accolades and tumultuous applause must also go to the instigator of this fabulous entertainment, being of course the Maisie’s Choir's conductor/accompanist, Jacqueline Hansson.
Marianne Van De Voorde.
PM’s glaring ineptitude
SOME time ago I wrote to you to say I thought Tony Abbott was 'the worst Prime Minister' Australia had ever had and I was delighted when subsequently Malcolm Turnbull overthrew him. I hoped our nation would get back on course. I'm bitterly disappointed with Malcolm Turnbull, however, as much of what he has done since taking office has simply been a replication of what Abbott was doing, or nothing at all!
Turnbull has shown glaring political ineptitude and his leadership seems to be anything but secure. The interminable 'Double Dissolution' process, which was supposed to confirm his Prime Ministerial position, was an absolute disaster and he's scraped through with a majority of one after he appoints a Speaker (whoever that will be, it’s got to be better than Bronwyn!)
Then he went against his own Foreign Minister's advice in his churlish refusal to nominate Kevin Rudd for Secretary General of the United Nations, a job that Rudd probably wouldn't have got, but for which he was worth a nomination as a former Australian Prime Minister (twice).
The plebiscite on same sex marriage seems to have gone into the too-hard basket along with the intention to include a mention of our indigenous First Nation people in our Constitution. Then there's his reluctance to address Australia's continuing shame at the treatment of many genuine asylum seekers on Manus Island and Nauru.
Recently, his trigger-finger appointment of the wrong Royal Commissioner to inquire into the disgraceful treatment of young indigenous boys in the Northern Territory had to be reversed and his inability to get his Treasurer to produce an even viable Budget has failed.
Last week he demonstrated that he can't even count in the Census debacle, for which he says “heads will roll”. He is where ‘the buck stops' and the first head that should be rolling is his.
Through all of this, the greatest tragedy of our so-called democratic electoral system is that we waste half of our elected MPs in Opposition.
It seems to me that many of the Shadow Ministers are more competent than the actual Ministers who have that role.