There’s a whiff in the air from Chewton

By a Castlemaine resident

(Editor’s note: some readers may be tired of the Chewton Pool debate, but the issue is not going away and this piece proposes the theory that Council has cultivated the seeds of deep resentment, confrontation, economic discrimination, and community disaffection …)

There’s been something ‘whiffy’ about the Chewton Pool debate, which until I read the most recent Mayor’s message I hadn’t quite been able to put my finger on.

The Mayor’s message (20 August) suggests ‘fair and open processes’ – but omits facts that don’t suggest it happened, such as: the illusory debate in response to community question time at the determining council meeting.

Solid community feedback from Council’s consultation process indicated that serious questions existed about the indoor aquatic centre, although the same process showed considerable support that outdoor pools should be retained.

Mayor Schier stated in his message of 6 August that the size of the community at Chewton does not warrant the replacement expense of a $2 million facility, yet quite happily kept on the agenda the possibility of spending seven times that amount for a year-round facility a mere 4kms up the road in Castlemaine.

A curious phenomenon emerged from that viewpoint. Despite being equidistant, Chewton seems further away from Castlemaine, than Castlemaine is to Chewton…!

Geographical bigotry?

What is that? Geographical bigotry? Urban prejudice? Demographic discrimination? Community bias? Or are some shire residents just more equal than others?

The council has had responsibility for outdoor pools as community assets for the entire 16 years that we have been collectively known as the Mt Alexander Shire. It is obvious that our council’s lack of planning, commitment to promoting, updating and even replacing community pools, suggests that council officials valued these assets significantly less than their respective communities.

Economic rationalist arguments, which diminish smaller communities’ assets, are perfectly understandable in their own way, but what sits less well is the very real end result:

Smaller (minority) communities are being forcibly assimilated: absorbed into dominant urbanised settings.

Assimilation, Australians remember as an historical political response as the best way to deal with ‘minority’ groups. Ignore their history, their community strengths, their traditions and culture – and if they don’t accept this willingly: enforce it. It is the polar opposite of affirmative inclusive philosophy, which recognises strengths, seeks to value diversity, respects traditions and maintains cultural differences.

Sixteen years ago Chewton was not in the same shire as Castlemaine. Within living memory there was a shopping strip: a central business district, and vibrant community-managed recreational and sporting facilities. Its sustainability started to crumble when building were demolished to widen the road into Castlemaine.

In his most recent message Councillor Schier states: Resilience grows when people of quite different views engage constructively with new challenges and find solutions. From a Council perspective, this frequently occurs in considering planning issues or questions around sharing limited resources on a human scale (which is what current issues around rates and pools are about, largely).

There was nothing ‘constructive’ in Mayor Schier’s casting vote to demolish the Chewton Pool. In fact, core Green values of decentralisation, economic and social justice, grass roots democracy, respect for diversity, and future-focused community sustainability were noticeably absent. Engagement might have occurred if the vote had at least reflected the community’s pleading for enough time to explore a range of potential solutions: without the imminent threat of demolition of their existing community asset.

Councillor Schier is talking the talk, but not stepping the hard yards.

Council, it seems, has learned nothing from the Castlemaine School of Mines buy back: a result of economic rationalisation, which will now cost us ratepayers a packet.

History has shown that assimilation as a response to a multi-faceted community construct was a dismal failure in “developing resilience and engendering hope” for indigenous and non-Anglo Saxon immigrants. It’s not working in rural areas of our Shire either.

So what would ‘affirmative’ inclusive policy look like, in relation to the pool at Chewton? (But the principles apply to all of our smaller communities.)

1)    Recognising that Chewton is growing. To support and maintain economic and social growth throughout the shire our council needs to invest and actively encourage development beyond the current CBD.

2)    Chewton, (despite some perceptions!) is a stone’s throw from the shire’s CBD. Although a distinct community, it is well placed south of the CBD to logically warrant strategic long term investment in community infrastructure. It is better placed than Castlemaine to service the smaller communities south of the CBD: Fryerstown, Faraday, Sutton Grange, Taradale, Metcalfe and Elphinstone.

3)    Chewton already has a well positioned pool close to sporting and parkland facilities, which have been supported passionately for more than 50 years.

4)    There is a community ready and willing to engage with Council on constructive solutions to Council’s dearly held “$2 million” upgrade figures, and its “cost per swim” arguments.

5)    A good robust inclusive ‘win- win’ discussion, followed by a solid business plan, council and community commitment could see something good come out of the debate: something that is more valued because of the ownership that went into it.

Instead, what Council has cultivated are the seeds of deep resentment, confrontation, economic discrimination, and community disaffection.

I couldn’t help draw a parallel with Saturday’s election result where there was a noted rejection of the economic rationalisations and spin of the dominant political parties. Now at a federal level, at least, we’ll be forced to accommodate the views of rurally based independents, country nationals and Greens.