In bed with Corporate Industry

 

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You will pay for trying to protect your community

A few months ago we, as a not for profit community group in Kwinana, held a presentation, with special guest US professor Paul Connett on the dangers of incineration, at the Kwinana Requatic Centre. 

 The requatic centre is a community owned building so a few days before the presentation I wrote the the Town of Kwinana (TOK) (our local council) CEO and asked for the hire fees to be wavered or subsidised.

The usual procedure is that the Town gives Kwinana Community Groups a function venue once a month free of charge. We have not had a free venue in over a year, becuase I use my house for most meetings and during the warmer months we have used parks or other public places. 

I recieved a response from the TOK CEO saying the venue fees would be reviewed after the meeting. I thought this odd at the time and sent emails to some of our people saying that this seemed a case of if council like what we say they might reduce or cut fees, but if not, which was extremely likely seeing our council has been keen to force an incinerator on the local community for many years.

There are currently no household waste incinerators in all of Australia, because communities have rejected incineration.

 So it seems community groups in Kwinana only get support or assistance from our Town Council if we tow the line and don't dare speak out against the views of the council.

We recieved the below invoice from the Town of Kwinana and have since under protest paid this bill. We have paid the price for trying to protect our community from its own council.

The council didn't even have the decency to let us know that our request for the waving/subsidy of  function venue hire fees had been rejected.

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