By Graham Pike

It appears that a small group within that elected and non-elected entity we call collectively Kiama Council is at war with the Municipality’s ratepayers.

The group seems to be overly sensitive to and unnecessarily publicly challenging of any criticisms – in the course of what we still regard out here in the Municipality as free speech - of perceived Council shortcomings made by ratepayers directly and through The Bugle newspaper.

Why, for example, are they so increasingly antagonistic towards The Bugle, for publishing ratepayers’ letters and expressing its editorial opinions as any newspaper has a right to do and our local newspaper has been doing for 120 years or more?

Now we have the spectacle of a councillor, through a motion presented to a meeting of Council, seeking to have Council spend its time and overspent resources on chasing the motivations and opinions of the owner of The Bugle. Is the councillor going to seek the same from Rupert Murdoch or Nine, the owner of the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH), for example? Murdoch’s newspapers and the SMH are, like The Bugle, vehicles for the flow of news, opinions and ideas through the community and despite what anyone in Council or the community may think of them, they are essential for free speech and, indeed, democracy.

And all this from a Council which is currently asking us for our help in formulating not a community antagonism strategy but a “Community Engagement Strategy”.

Graham Pike

Jamberoo