AMALGAMATION: 17 JANUARY 2017

Troy Grant … seems to have learnt nothing from the Orange By-Election debacle

Last Thursday I had the rare chance to have an almost one-on-one lunch in Molong (at the RSL Club) with Troy Grant, State Member for Dubbo and until quite recently the NSW Deputy Premier and State Leader of the Nationals. After lunch, I wrote the following letter and send it to him via one of his minders. No response has been forthcoming so I think the case for publication is justified.

Hi Darren, Here’s something I’ve penned following today’s lunch at the Molong RSL Club. Could you please pass it on to Troy for me. I regard it as an open letter but will pay Troy the courtesy of allowing him to write a reply before I publish it.

Dear Troy,

I write to you following our discussion over lunch today at the Molong RSL Club and what I regard as your somewhat spurious claims regarding the Orange By-Election of November 12.

As you admitted, booths in the heart of Cabonne overwhelmingly voted against the National Party, with swings of 58 per cent in Molong, 60 per cent in Manildra, 52 per cent in Cudal, 55 per cent in Mullion Creek, 47 per cent in Cargo and 60 per cent in Cumnock. In none of those booths did the National Party vote top 20 per cent, whereas Andrew Gee had previously garnered 70 per cent or more of the vote.

You alluded to towns and villages on the margins of Cabonne as having somehow supported the move towards amalgamation. A glance at the figures quickly reveals this to be nothing but a delusional porky — Canowindra a swing of 40 per cent, Eugowra a swing of 35 per cent, Yeoval a swing of 39 per cent. Hardly the sort of results that provide Baird with a mandate to proceed with the amalgamation of Cabonne into Orange.

And what about booths in Orange? The results there for the Nationals are nearly as disastrous — swings of generally between 30 and 43 per cent, with an average swing of 35 per cent.

No wonder you and Picolli chose, or were ordered, to fall on your swords. Despite your protestations, an arrogant Government did regard Orange as the ‘unloseable seat’.

The results, quite simply, are a damnation of the Coalition’s leadership and, more specifically, of the forced-amalgamation agenda being driven by that leadership.

If the Orange By-Election didn’t wake up your side of politics to reality, I fear that nothing will and foreshadow an absolute demolition derby in the coming General Election.

Once again, I urge the Coalition to listen to the voices of the people and abandon the abhorrent and quite heinous policy of pursuing forced amalgamations and the consequent destruction of perfectly well performing councils.

I look forward to your prompt reply.

Yours sincerely, John Rozentals, Editor, Molong Online