Bass Coast Shire bungles again

Bass Coast Shire must be the most incompetent council in Victoria. Surely none can be worse? Every year we have paid an exorbitant business registration fee to the shire. Last month they sent a notice saying that the shire no longer had any role with the registration of egg farms. “All businesses that sell eggs now fall under the jurisdiction of the Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources”. They advised to disregard the registration notice which had been sent and a refund would be arranged if payment had already been made. This morning we received a text from the Shire demanding payment of the business registration fee! Councils, State and Federal Governments all go out of their way to make life hard for small business.

Vic Government ignores food safety

We had our food safety inspection by our local council (Bass Coast Shire) Health Officer yesterday and all was well. Our grading room, cool room, delivery and egg handling procedures were all demonstrably OK.

But I couldn't help myself. I referred to the recent post I put up here and how outraged I felt that in Victoria ALL egg sellers are not legally required to record the temperatures at which their eggs are stored.

We do it as a matter of course – we have a detailed Food Safety Programme which is a key part of our operation. Many farms in Victoria don't bother with records which show their temperature control procedures or their egg cleaning methods (and if eggs are dirty there is a farm management problem).

I received an email from Heather Haines, Manager, Evidence Program of FoodSafety Victoria who said “The new Primary Production and Processing standard does not, in fact, specify that eggs should be transported and stored at cool temperatures Although temperature control is not specified in the standard, cool transport and storage of eggs (along with the control of humidity) are recommended in several industry codes of practice and state government, for the reasons you discuss".

I was gobsmacked! It seems that all those clowns who are transporting eggs for many hours or days in unrefrigerated vans are not breaking any laws. As temperature control “is not specified” they can ignore it – and they do. There are heaps of examples of eggs being transported at uncontrolled temperatures for many hours to markets in Melbourne and other places. It maybe be OK in cool conditions – but I am disgusted that the Victorian Government allows it to happen when temperatures higher than specified levels encourage the growth of bacteria and pathogens. Why wait for the problem to kill people!!

Dumb Bureaucracy!

We've been having an ongoing battle with Bass Coast Shire Council about our postal address for the last 18 months or so. Over the 30 years we have been here, our address has been Stanley Road, Grantville. But a couple of years ago the Shire decided to do some township boundry realignments and, in their wisdom, we suddenly became part of Glen Forbes.

No problems - we don't care where the Shire says we are physically located. But the mailing address is a different thing. The Shire started sending things like Rates Notices to us at Glen Forbes. The problem with that is that access to Stanley Road is from Grantville, not from Glen Forbes - so the mail was seldom (if ever) delivered if it was addressed to us at Glen Forbes. Our Bank also sent statements etc to us at Glen Forbes - none of them reached us - until we convinced the bank to change our postal address back to Grantville.

We have no idea how much mail has gone astray in the past couple of years thanks to the combined bungling of Bass Coast Shire and Australia Post !

We suggested the solution to Bass Coast Shire when this issue first arose because of their incompetence – leave our location address as Glen Forbes if that's how they get their jollies, but change our postal address back to Grantville - as that's the only way we get mail delivered.

They couldn't have cared less, even when I advised that if we didn't receive rates notices we obviously couldn't pay them. Staff weren't interested and the Shire Mayor (who happens to be our local councillor) was less than helpful.

Bureaucracy sucks.

Here's an email received today from Australia Post:

I am contacting you as a result of difficulties you have experienced lately in having your mail delivered in a timely manner to your property. I have visited the local area in an effort to establish a resolution to this issue. As you are aware, Rural Road Numbering was implemented in your area some time ago in accordance with the state-wide Rural Addressing System. Using your address greatly assists emergency services and other utilities to find your property efficiently, including Australia Post. Although your property is within the Glen Forbes Locality it cannot be accessed by the contractor who services the Glen Forbes area. For this reason and to help us deliver your mail on time to the correct destination, it is necessary to change your postal address to a Private Bag address. This will enable our operations to be more efficient and prevent your mail being delayed.

This is the solution we suggested to Shire ages ago. Leave our residential address as Glen Forbes but continue sending our mail to us at Grantville, as that is the only way it gets delivered.

It's nice to have a win now and then – but lets hope this works!!!

As for the comments about the Rural Addressing System making it easier for emergency services to find our property – how can it be more efficient to tell them that our address is Glen Forbes when the only access to the property is from Grantville?  Our local CFA guys know that Stanley Road is in Grantville, not Glen Forbes, but brigades from further away wouldn't have a clue neither would the State Emergency Service, Police or Ambulance crews. So presumably they would head to Glen Forbes and then ask for directions from locals ..... so much for efficiency.

Thank you Bass Coast Shire.

Rates notice saga continues

The saga of our rates from Bass Coast Shire looks likely to continue for a while. I had another 'phone conversation with another lady from the Shire today.
Apparently the Shire data bank has our property listed as being in Glen Forbes (which is fine, I don't give a hoot where they say the property is). But I couldn't get an explanation from her why they can't send the rates notice to our postal address - which is Grantville.
Not hard I would have thought!

Bass Coast Shire rates notice stuff-up

It's that time of year when council rates notices are sent out and it's always interesting seeing how much the local council wants to take out of our pockets. But this year we don't know - yet. Here in Bass Coast Shire we don't get much for our rates - so maybe this year they've decided to give our farm a rate holiday.

The rates notice hasn't arrived!  Unfortunately I don't think they are being generous. Last year, for some inexplicable reason, they decided that our rates notices should be sent to Stanley Road, Glen Forbes (which doesn't exist) instead of our real address in Grantville with a 3984 postcode.

I had a conversation today with a very pleasant lady from the Shire - but it didn't resolve anything. Why on earth do they have to fiddle.  Grantville has been our address for around 30 years. But we are happy not to receive rates notices - as long as they don't expect any penalties for late payment.

Wonder how long this will take to sort out !!!!