Question of supply

The Free Times (October 13) gave us a report on the public meeting that had been held to discuss the problem we have with the water supply for our town. Apparently the meeting was not well attended.
One could be forgiven for thinking that the majority of us would have forseen the outcome and had stayed home in front of the TV.
As the report stated, the problem with the town’s water supply has been very clear for over 20 year. Iit is not that long back that the Stanthorpe Shire Council was worrying us all with the warning that we may have to import water daily and that we, the ratepayers, would be watching our rate notices climb.
The cost of bringing the town’s water supply up to something like adequate for the people living and working in the district has reached $80 million and it has been estimated that, with a subsidy of 40 per cent of the cost from the Federal and State Governments,wes ratepayers would be required to pay an additional $1170 per year .
The problem has now become a party political caper with the LNP blaming both the Federal and State Labor Governments, who have serious financial costs to cover, for not rushing to contribute to the cost.
For those of us that give some thought to how our town, State and Country is run, a  look back some five or six years will remind us that the Howard LNP Government that was in control of Australia for 12 or 13 years were boasting of up to 30 billion dollar surpluses in their annual budgets.
Taking that into account and the fact that we had an LNP Federal Member, a state LNP member and a Shire Council whose political allegiance was obviously LNP, it is reasonable for us to ask why we are still waiting for assistance from the present Governments.
There is no doubt we need assistance to improve our water supply but it seems that we are also in need of some new politicians to represent us.
G H Gilmour
Stanthorpe