Thursday 2 September 2010

'Building the Education Revolution' stinks

The Australian reports this morning that two of the most senior officials handling the federal government's troubled schools stimulus scheme in NSW, are also partners in a private company that delivered the disastrous $30 million Bedminster waste system in Cairns.
  • "Top Building the Education Revolution NSW bureaucrat Bob Leece and Rebecca Wark, who is in charge of overseeing the scheme in northern NSW, the most trouble-prone BER region in the country, are the sole directors of private "waste management" group EWT.

    During the plant's first year of operation, its Bedminster rubbish digesters repeatedly crashed and two were placed "out of commission indefinitely".

    The Environmental Protection Agency ordered the plant to reduce odour pollution following problems with biofilters, which had to be repaired at a cost of $100,000, and the Cairns City Council issued the operating company with a "performance breach" based on contractual issues.

    After repeated public stoushes with the Cairns City Council, and ongoing operational problems, EWT in 2006 sold the plant to another private operator for $5m. Cairns ratepayers were subsequently slugged with a $550,000 rate increase to cover extra costs of running the troubled plant.

    In February this year, the plant was again rendered inoperable after a large section of suspended concrete collapsed. It remains out of action.

3 comments:

williamsandrew said...

CORRUPTION CORRUPTION CORRUPTION Stinks to high heaven!!!

:Kevin-John: Morgan. said...

Failed waste management people are seemingly in charge of the new Education Revolution?
Kind of makes sense really.
Nobody wants to know enough about the Buckminster waste system or how to fix it correctly, just as nobody wants to know enough about fixing the education system in this country, CORRECTLY.
I do!
The people responsible for introducing the Buckminster system should be prosecuted, just as the people responsible for the ancient and backward "edumacation" system of this country should also be prosecuted.
Cairns residents are slowly being dumbed down, not only by the fluoride in their water, but the spin placed on the truth of events taking place around them.
Remember, the dumb ideas from down South, come from people who have had fluoride in their water for decades!

Alison Alloway said...

Thanks for this Mike. This is one of the reasons why our bloody rates went up. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!