2012.03.25

To the Editor of The Islander:
In regard to your splash of headlines and editorial in The Islander 22.3.2012.

You demolish Cr Chirgwin who has yet her side of the story to tell, instructing her that she’s “unfit to continue” and that “it’s time to go”. Are you unbelievably “courageous”, à la “Yes Prime minister”.

Strangely, I am not aware of an election looming: it is a long time to go to the next LG elections.   It is the ratepayers who elect members on and off council.  Apart from one vote it certainly isn’t the Editor of our newspaper.
Many commentators are blaming personal attacks by Labour for some of its losses of seats in the Queensland elections and that should be a lesson to be learnt.
From your media bashing, it looks like the elected members on Council who vote as a majority block armed with their “code of conduct”, demand of ratepayers and thinking Councillors in the minority to think twice, before speaking out about policy and making any suggestion that there is a problem with the way the council is performing.
Instead of the executives of Council engaging investigators and legal eagles at ratepayer’s expense, with no right of reply, I say: toughen up, grow up, embrace the criticisms, look for the truth and only then will mountains become molehills.
Surely this newspaper and some at Council aren’t so imbued by power they have to resort to such nasty printing as we see in The Islander.

What is the purpose of all that? As a reminder: shouldn’t the Mayor lead impartially by not seeing everything litigiously?

Shirley Knight, Penneshaw

[This letter was published in a different version in The Islander of 2012.03.27]