On the subject of ambition......

Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself

And falls on the other— 

[Macbeth, Scene VII]

The Ambition:

"I will be putting my hand up for deputy mayor and after doing that job for a year I will be running for mayor."  [Cr.Andrew Baker, The Daily Examiner, 20 September 2012] 

Of the 28,647 formal first preference votes, 11,899 voters (41.5%) did not want any previous councillors returned.
Five of the previous six councillors received a combined total of just 7,515 (26.23%) of the vote.
3,075 voters (10.73%) gave their vote to me (more than 40% of the combined votes of those 5). [Cr. Andrew Baker, The Daily Examiner, 24 September 2012]

The Reality:

[Clarence Valley Review, 19 September 2012]

Andrew Baker was not the first choice of 89.27 per cent of people who cast formal votes at the 8 September 2012 Clarence Valley local government election.

The Outcome:

On 25 September 2012 two councillors nominated for Mayor: Richie Williamson and Karen Toms. An ordinary voting process saw the votes go Williamson 7, Toms 2 in only one round - Williamson elected Mayor for next twelve months.
Andrew Baker is popularly believed to have voted for Toms.

The mayoral election was followed by four councillors nominating for Deputy Mayor: Craig Howe, Andrew Baker, Jeremy Challacombe and Margaret McKenna.

First round vote: Howe 4, Baker 3, Challacombe 1, McKenna 1 - McKenna eliminated.
Second round vote: Howe 4, Baker 4, Challacombe 1 - Challacombe eliminated.
Third round vote: Howe 5, Baker 4 - Howe elected Deputy Mayor for next twelve months.

Conclusion:

Although Baker is believed to have secured Toms' (and possibly Kingsley's) vote from the start , with McKenna's vote going to him in the second round, he lost any chance of Challacombe's support by the deciding round.
Baker was his own worst enemy. Already being viewed as generally unsympathetic to the Grafton demographic, he compounded this by alienating many re-elected councillors when he publicly bagged them a day before this vote.

So in the end he lost any hope of gaining his desired prize because he couldn't keep his finger off the send button on his email program.

Dowell, George and Saffin call for Telstra to invest in digital infrastructure for Lismore

Lismore Mayor Cr Jenny Dowell, Federal Member for Page Janelle Saffin and State Member for Lismore Thomas George with copies of the community petition outside Telstra’s Goonellabah Call Centre

Bipartisan call for Telstra to invest in digital infrastructure for Lismore

PAGE MP Janelle Saffin, Lismore MP Thomas George and Lismore Mayor Cr Jenny Dowell have called on Telstra to make a $3.4-million investment in digital infrastructure to compensate for closing its Goonellabah Call Centre later next month.

In a bipartisan front last Friday, the local politicians met with Telstra executives Peter Jamieson and Sue Passmore at the call centre to put forward a package of proposed initiatives and to hand over a community petition, signed by almost 6000 local residents, condemning the imminent retrenchment of 116 staff.

“First and foremost, our concerns remain very much with the affected staff and their families, and we were able to meet with staff to check on their welfare and to see whether they needed further assistance with redundancy, transfer or searching for alternative employment,” the politicians said in a joint statement.

“The call centre has been operating for 20 years and the economic impact of its closure is the direct loss of 116 local jobs, amounting to $3.4 million in salaries annually, and a flow-on impact to a further 290 local people’s jobs and incomes, amounting to about $11.9 million annually,” they said.

“Our proposal requests that Telstra CEO David Thodey and his corporation invest an additional year’s worth of salaries ($3.4 million) in a partnership with Lismore City Council to retrain affected workers, build new digital infrastructure to double or better broadband access speeds, and improve local businesses use of broadband.

“We are also asking Telstra to leave the call centre’s internal infrastructure intact to reduce any start-up costs should Lismore Council be able to attract another business to the purpose-built location.”

Ms Saffin, Mr George and Cr Dowell pointed to a recent council-funded study by the Digital Economy Group which found that the Gold Coast had far higher ratios of fixed and mobile broadband infrastructure than Lismore per head of population and by land area.

“As a regional area, we are particularly vulnerable to natural disasters – major floods, storms and bushfires -- relying on critical infrastructure to co-ordinate emergency services responses and keep people in contact during times of crisis,” they said.

“With so few towers in Lismore per head of population, the existing towers become congested easily and this is a matter of public safety and concern. We need to build community resilience wherever we can.”

Mr Thodey and his management team have been given two weeks (by Friday, October 5) to respond as to whether they will support the Lismore community with a digital infrastructure investment package.

Monday, September 24, 2012. Media Contact: Peter Ellem 0437 303 875.

Lismore City Council Digital Infrastructure Assessment Report - September 2012

What did Nationals candidate Kevin Hogan do?

This announcement was published online in The Daily Telegraph on the morning of 14 September 2012:

TONY Abbott has vowed to take $2 billion earmarked by the Gillard government for Sydney's doomed Epping to Parramatta rail project and use it to fund the completion of the Pacific Highway. 

By breakfast on the 15 September a number of other media outlets ran with this same story, coupling Nationals Leader Warren Truss' name with that of Liberal Leader Abbott.

There was a rather odd alternative view to the two Coalition leaders' public statements, in that the NSW Legislative Assembly Hansard on 18 September 2012 records Nationals MP Chris Gulaptis praising a Nationals candidate at the next federal election, Kevin Hogan:

The Nationals candidate, paid his own way to Canberra to meet with the Federal Nationals to convince them to prioritise the funding for the Pacific Highway duplication. That is the sort of commitment you want from a local member.

Gulaptis further defined this supposed altruism by telling the Coastal Views (21 September) that Hogan and other candidates had flown to Canberra the week before at their own expense in order to convince the Federal Nationals of the need for a new funding arrangement.

If this was indeed the case, then the absence of any mention of Kevin Hogan and friends during Nationals Leader Warren Truss’ previously prepared 15 September keynote speech to the Nationals Federal Conference in Canberra was noticeable.

As late as 20 September Truss was still not publicly crediting Hogan with any role concerning the promised Pacific Highway funding, either to the party faithful or APN readers.

Indeed, the last time I can recall Warren Truss personally associating Hogan's name with a specific road funding announcement was during Hogan's failed attempt to gain Page during the 2010 federal election - and that $10 million election promise concerned Bangalow Road.

The official silence concerning Hogan's supposed intervention was hardly surprising to those living outside of the forced hothouse of National Party politics; given the party conference was probably the main reason Hogan was in Canberra that week as it commenced on the Thursday- Friday.

After all he was a delegate to this conference at which no specific resolutions regarding Pacific Highway funding were made.

As for any sighting of this particular Nationals candidate in the corridors of power? Well, some of the conference program was held in the Nationals Party Room and various committee rooms at Parliament House.

When one looks at the timeline, the assertion that Hogan saved the day falls somewhat short  and exposes Chris Gulaptis' statement to the NSW Parliament as a blatant attempt to gild the lily to such a degree that he might be suspected by the uncharitable of deliberately misleading the Legislative Assembly. 

Now Mr. Gulaptis may think it acceptable to collude in political fibs told to voters in his electorate when it comes to the matter of jobs to replace those lost when he and his colleagues closed Grafton Gaol. However, it may be very unwise of him to treat the NSW Parliament in the same contemptuous manner - it is a political animal known to have very sharp teeth.

Is this the Stoner-George-Page-Gulaptis foot in the door to open all NSW North Coast national parks to hunters?

ABC News 19 September 2012:

The future of state government-owned land at Grafton is about to come under scrutiny, at a hearing on October 5.

An Upper House inquiry into public land management includes state forest and national parks is underway, and will hear local concerns next month.

Clarence MP Chris Gulaptis said one of the issues under consideration is feral animal management.

He said public comment is being sought on topics including fire hazards, public access and land acquisition.