Caravan Park Owner in Murray Bridge

Or a hospital matter


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If anyone comes snooping around a camping area late at night, suspect criminal intent and call the police immediately. Then when the abuse starts if it is this reported person, he may be charged with an offence. The more police reports, the higher the chance of action being taken.

Just watch how now you will get the standard reply from the tightwads who will declare that they spend LOTS of $$$ in the town so they deserve to camp for free or very little fees at the towns ratepayers expense ,and then complain when the C/van park closes giving the council free rein to increase fees without competition ,

Popcorn anyone?

I use showgrounds whenever I can- its less hassle, usually less people and more reasonably priced than the ripoff CPs in WA. It's more expensive here than any other place we've been in Oz.

The shire has no business operating costs for the showground, unlike the caravan park owner - the showground operating costs are lumbered onto the local ratepayers and hidden in the councils overall operating costs.

Your absolutely correct Ron!

The shire receive there Electricity, water, public liability insurance, workers compensation insurance, employees wages, employees superannuation, advertising, rubbish disposal, maintenance etc costs all for....

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

I think you will find they allow camping at Showgrounds etc to raise revenue to make the site financially viable. How many local Showgrounds would turn a profit and be there if they didn't. Not many would survive on a three day local fair and the occasional circus.

By the way I would love for you to name the Council that did what you allege.

Renting the Town hall to the local Ballet Teacher is a bit different to running an Earth Moving Business out of the local Council Depot.

If the residents were "effectively joint owners of the council plant" why were they paying to hire it?

How dumb are they? A bit like owning a dog and doing the barking for it.

Cheers

Anthony

Anthony, if the shires were running a business, in the form of tourist accommodation, they would be obligated to run that business at a profit - or they would rapidly accumulate increasing losses until they were bankrupt.

As it stands, shires can compete with caravan parks and other town businesses by hiding the true operating costs of their tourist accommodation sites, in the overall operating costs of the shire.

Then we have "creative accounting" by shire CEO's who can manipulate figures to show anything they like.
Shires get huge income via Govt grants, the income from their ratepayers is usually only a smaller percentage of their income.
They have no need to show profits - like all Govt entities, they spend to the level of grants and rates that they get.

It's called a "level playing field" when you are trying to work against unfair competition, who do not have the same cost structure as you - nor have any need to produce a profit to survive.

In the case of the shire council that dudded me - I was doing all the shire road clearing (for road widening), and all their gravel stockpiling - and they got excellent value for money spent. They did not own a bulldozer, nor a low-loader.

However, the shire CEO decided that they could do the work with their own bulldozer more cheaply, and showed dodgy figures to councillors how cheaply they could do their own work with their own bulldozer. They accordingly bought their own bulldozer.

The shire CEO did not include the additional cost of having to purchase a low loader just to transport their own bulldozer - and he didn't have to justify his bulldozer purchase in the following years, by producing the ACTUAL OPERATING COST figures for their bulldozer and low loader.
As result, he couldn't care less what their own bulldozer was costing in operating costs, as compared to my previous contract bulldozing costs.

The shires name is irrelevant at this point. This episode was in the early 1980's, and it's water under the bridge.
There's only about 4 businesses left in that town, when there were double that number when I lived there - and the shire has had a good hand in ensuring that.

As to the ratepayers hiring plant and paying for it - well the CEO decided that every operating hour of the plant incurred an hourly depreciation cost, so that was where the hourly hire figure for ratepayers came from.

Cheers, Ron.

Alloy c/t
I know where you are comming from, but would you pay $65 a night for a powered site at Bremer Bay?

I have read the comments and its made me think where am I living. I live on a island called Australia. Our forefathers fought and died for our freedom. Now you get people arguing the toss over OUR rights as Aussies to camp where we want.
Its called freedom of choice people. If you want to get stitched up staying of a 3 x 3 metre bit of dirt for mega bucks good luck to you. Or you can be smart and use the local free option. The economic result is the same. The majority of people that stay in these towns spend money in the town. The Caravan park owner is a fool to himself. it will get around the country "Dont" stay at this park.

I wouldn't pay 65 for a site anywhere let alone Bremer bay.
When we travel we usually seek out low budget or privately owned/operated CPs. If a show ground fits the bill, good. That's the beauty of the net.
We don't need manicured gardens on monster playground, or 5star camp kitchen. Just hook up for water, power and a dunny.
Never had a problem finding what we were seeking around the country.