As editor of this online publication, I am conscious of trying to bring fair and balanced information to the community of Tamborine Mountain. There have been a number of stories about the proposed Beaudesert library by people opposed to the spending of 6.6 million dollars to move the library 200 metres.
I admire Bevan Pressler – he is in my view a model citizen in so far as Australia has such a person. I admire his tireless work to gather a petition with more than 4,500 signatures of people who are opposed to the library. This petition now represents one in six adults living in the shire, an amazing result for a democracy such as ours.
Despite this, I am uncomfortable taking a position on the library without more information about what the proposed library is to be what it seeks to achieve and why the Council seemed so hell-bent on pushing the proposal through despite intense and prolonged community opposition.
So I wrote to the Mayor, the CEO and several councillors who are supporting the library inviting them to give me the positive story so the Daily Star could be balanced in its coverage.
I sent this request to them:
"We want to publish something that puts the case FOR the library in clear, understandable and even emotional terms:
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The benefits of the library to the community now and in the future
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The reasons for consolidating the community facilities in a single place (reducing the unnecessary & ugly spread of the Beaudesert town centre)
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The fact that even though libraries are changing – IT is making them more important not less important
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Libraries remain a focus for those young people seeking academic advancement – especially when they are good libraries
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A library does belong in the centre of a township so it acts as a community focus with meeting rooms etc
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In places with good libraries, there is anecdotal evidence that utilization rates are going up not down
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Sometimes you do have to invest in the future even when the returns may be uncertain."
I felt I had almost crossed the line of impartiality in this request but I was desperate for something that would tell the community of the "vision" the council had for what good a world class library might do for Beaudesert and the Shire.
At first things went well. Cr Richard Adams contacted me and on Monday I had a good long chat with him and he gave me his perspective.
The thing is, whilst Richard strongly supported the concept of the library and that now was a good time to commission the building of it (lower construction costs because the builders are not busy) he had very few hard facts about the library.
For the facts about the library he said, I needed to enlist the help of Council itself.
I'd anticipated that and had already been promised material but as our publishing deadline drew near, the media department at the Council kept on delaying the delivery of basic facts and an illustration of the proposed library.
Then late yesterday afternoon, the Council Media Department called me and said essentially that I know we promised, but we have nothing for you. Tough luck about the story.
Here we have a Council determined to push through a library proposal despite huge community opposition without a single piece of paper to release to the media.
How can that be when the Council has a huge planning department, a media department with many trained journalists working in it and ever expanding administrative staff numbers, and yet it does not have anything to hand to justify one of the most expensive and controversial projects in recent history.
What is going on at the Scenic Rim Regional Council?
I wrote to the CEO Craig Barke and to Cr Richard Adams (who I thanked for at least talking with me) and said:
“With the level of controversy surrounding the new library I must confess to some surprise that the Council is not all over the story with positive material to counter the rather well organised negative campaign. I have two well researched negative stories that I spiked in order to give the positive story a run.
I hope you do not think me too direct, but it should not be so hard for me to be balanced in the reporting of this issue.”
I say again, why is the Council making it nearly impossible for balanced reporting to take place on this issue?
Is it simple arrogance that they have the numbers stitched up in Council and so they do not need to actually justify the decision?
Is it simple incompetence? Or is it a deadly cocktail of arrogance and incompetence?
We await the opportunity to put the positive side of the Beaudesert Library story.
In the mean time, it would be wise for the Council and Councillors in support of the Beaudesert Library proposal not to whine publically about media bias!