By raising money, carrying a lantern or donating, you’ve shined a light on families facing blood cancer, showing them they’re not alone even in their darkest hour.

The Leukaemia Foundation provides families with blood cancer with emotional and practical support, information and educational resources to beat blood cancer.

Almost $600 has been raised by the wonderful Sussex Inlet community! Thanks to you, patients will receive transport to and from medical appointments, hundreds of regional families will be provided with free home-away-from-home accommodation near their treating centres and you are helping more Australians with blood cancer survive and live a better quality of life.

Thank you for your support as together we will be there to provide every family with the support services they need to beat their blood cancer.

With your help we’re lighting the way forward.

As ratepayers, we all need to make our councillors and council’s general manager aware of our dissatisfaction with recent extreme and indefensible rate increases.

When discussing rates they seem unaware of the community dissatisfaction that exists and the hardships created by the rate increases.

We make three points:

In 2016 General Rates Fund Rates were $69 million. Total General Fund Only council employee costs were $63.5 million.

In the last 10 years our council rates exceeded the rate peg in six of these years and in that time council rates increased 61 per cent. CPI increased only 32 per cent. Council employee costs increased 60 per cent. Almost double.

In the last two years council rates increased 7.4 per cent. CPI increased 4 per cent. Council employee costs increased 19 per cent, almost five times CPI.

Little wonder council needed to increase the rates in 2017/218 by 13.2 per cent to counteract these large employee cost increases.

Having illustrated our dissatisfaction, we would add that, to our knowledge, not one of the successful councillors in the last election advised us, in the lead-up to the election, that they intended voting for the massive increases in rates now being introduced.

There has been no publicised requests from these councillors  for the general manager to introduce staff efficiencies and reductions that could lessen wages.

Even the most casual council observers can perceive many such economies of scale.

And finally, with such well paid and talented staff at council, we are flabbergasted at the continuing use of expensive outside “consultants” almost at a whim.

Malcolm Turnbull’s Snowy 2.0 plan is a rort. It will line the pockets of the wealthy with millions of dollars. It is not needed.

Snowy Hydro has increased its generating capacity to mammoth proportions from 4100 MW to more than 5500 MW. The increased capacity has been achieved by a steady acquisition of gas-fired power stations at Laverton and Traralgon in Victoria and Colongra in NSW. There are also smaller operations at Port Stanvac and Angaston in South Australia. Also, a large-scale solar generation plant in SA will come on line in 2018.

Economically, the Turnbull proposal Snowy 2.0 would not benefit this country:  the company he intends to build the new power station (SMEC) is foreign owned and the power grid company engaged to build the transmission lines (TransGrid) is 64 per cent owned by foreign investors from countries such as Canada, Abu Dhabi and Kuwait.