Both Wollongong and Shellharbour councils will be missing when Prime Minister Kevin Rudd hosts a Building Australia Fund function in Canberra today ( Tuesday ), which is another kick in the guts for the region.

This once proud city the home in times past to the largest industrial site of its type in the Southern Hemisphere and rated one of the nation’s top cities is almost becoming a thing of the past.

And this on top of being told in no uncertain terms on a recent visit here by the State’s new Premier Nathan Rees that we won’t want to hold our breath for funding for necessary projects.

A Labor bastion for years it seems the party has turned its back on Wollongong, in particular, and what do we hear from our local politicians? NOTHING!!

Wolves’ plight another setback

The news that the Wollongong Football Club is on its knees financially is just the sort of thing we already beleagured Wollongongites don’t want to hear.

And this only a couple of months after the soccer club won the NSW Premier League grand final.

Soccer has gone through some heady days down this way over the years from when we basked in the success of the Wollongong Wolves in the nation’s then top competition to nowadays when we have been holding our own in the State’s Premier League series.

I can remember those balmy times when Charlie Yankos, Stuart Young and our own Matt Horsley and Scott Chipperfield were starring in the biggest arena of the time.

The then named BHP Wolves were regular features on national television and they attracted good crowds to Brandon Park.

Which leaves us with another question. Where does this new scenario leave the bid for a South Coast team in the nation’s A-League series?

Where’s its real importance   

I can’t help thinking as I drive past those city council workers who are busily upgrading the footpath on Crown Street between the hospital and the cheap petrol outlet, why has this been given priority treatment?

From my experience it’s a footpath used by only a very few, and I’m also thinking that it received an upgrade within the past three years.

Surely there are more important priorities for ratepayer funds in our city!

Facelift for Cabbage Tree pub  

I’m told on pretty good authority that work will commence soon on a major facelift for the Cabbage Tree Hotel out Fairy Meadow way.

For years a favourite drinking and eating hole the hotel is expected to have another floor added and become a brighter light as we travel north.

New role for Senator

One of the two Liberal Party Senators that represent us down this way Helen Coonan has just been appointed Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs as well as holding on to her other role in the Senate as Manager of Opposition Business.

She says in her latest newsletter she is looking forward to her new role and in keeping tabs on the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd who, she suggests, has virtually sidelined his own Minister and taken over the role of foreign affairs himself.

The Senator also reminds us in her newsletter of Rudd’s recent political gaffe in which his private conversation with President George Bush was reported which, she says, breached a long standing convention reaching as far back as anyone can remember.

Why should we have to suffer?

The ongoing saga concerning the future of our harbour is just another kick in the stomach for locals.

Why, I ask, should ratepayers have to suffer the further dithering of what must be the most incompetent group to ever lead this State?

The Minister for Lands Tony Kelly announced the formation of a local advisory group to help settle the future direction of the harbour, but at the same time said submissions already before his department wouldn’t be viewed or discussed by this group, and now he is restating this position.

This despite one of our local administrators being on record as saying the public would have a say in what happens.

And have the “local committee” met, and if so have they had any ideas they might like to make public?

It’s time our State Governor appointed administrators to oversee the running of the State!!

No punches pulled

The first part of an ABC television series on the “Howard Years” was a ripper, and I can’t wait to see what’s coming next.

No punches were pulled as the story of those first years of John Howard as Prime Minister unfolded, and it was obvious then that Peter Costello didn’t like him and was going to be a thorn in his side.

And what a goose it made Peter Reith look.

Well done the ABC, we need more of this type of television for not only was the opening show a no punches pulled look at politics of the time, but it was also a valuable history lesson.