History

In the language of the Gamilaraay (Kamilaroi, Gomeroi) people; Guyra means 'white cockatoo' or 'fishing place'.  The Gumbayniggir tribe are the inhabitants of the eastern Guyra surrounding area identified by its Black Cockatoo's.  

Settlement by European farmers began in the 1835 when Alexander Campbell took up Guyra Station which encompassed the present town area.  The Guyra Shire has a population of 4,379 and encompasses an area of nearly 5,000 km2.   Situated at the top of the Great Dividing range at 1330 mtrs above sea level Guyra is predominately a farming community known for its Lamb and Potato Festival each January.   The town is located to one side of the Mother of Ducks Lagoon which is contained within the crater of an extinct volcano.   All rivers on the eastern side of the defunct railway line that runs through the town flow towards the Pacific Ocean, while those west of the railway line run west, ultimately to join the Murray River. 

The Guyra Shire Council was in operation for 110 years from 1906 to 2016.

A Discordant Match

Armidale councillor Margaret O’Connor remembers back to the time the announcement of the merger was made.

“There was this guy at the Guyra community meeting, I remember him standing up and saying “Look we’re working class people with a rural background.”

“We’ve got nothing to do with that town down there that’s full of academics and city folk.”

“There is just nothing we have in common so why are you making us join up with them.”  

“It was said in such a humble, honest way but it really hit the nail on the head” said Councillor O’Connor.   

Three months prior to the announcement Northern Tablelands MP Adam Marshall made his position public.

“I’ve never supported the proposal put forward by the government to merge Guyra and Armidale councils and the analysis of the full proposal has only hardened my view.”  

Councillor O’Connor says “The State government has been pestering Guyra to merge with Armidale for a long time.  There was a big move in 2002 to do it, same with Uralla.  They just don’t seem to be able to leave these little councils alone.”

Destination 2036

The process was escalated in 2011 when the NSW Government launched Destination 2036 in a two day workshop event in Dubbo attended by civic leaders from across NSW.  

In the Outcomes Report Ross Woodward, Chief Executive of the Division of Local Government said “Destination 2036 will enable the sector’s leaders to come together to reflect on the future and to plan for inevitable change in a holistic and strategic way. This will enable change in our communities to be well managed by the tier of government with most effect on peoples’ daily lives”.  

Minister for Local Government, the Hon. Don Page MP acknowledged the event as “the first time ever that NSW has seen this sort of strategic, creative and participatory approach applied to the many issues that face local government as we move further into the 21st century.”

The event was deemed a success after “almost unilateral support emerged for a draft vision for the future of local government.  This was complemented by some high level Directions, as well as emerging consensus on priority actions over the next four years.”

Yet it appears the back-patting bureaucrats couldn’t be further away from the will of people they represent.

“Our results on paper didn’t show that’s the way we should have gone” said Peter Stewart.

Fit for the Future:  The Criteria

To meet the criteria to be given the Fit for the Future tick councils needed to demonstrate they were financially sustainable; efficient; with the capacity to effectively manage infrastructure and deliver services; the scale, resources and ‘strategic capacity’ to govern effectively and partner with the State which Peter Stewart still strongly believes were met.

“I can’t back this with evidence only that the views of a lot of the people who knew a lot more than me including our Local Member, those types of people, that it was very much geared at the metropolitan really In Sydney.   But there was a procedure put in place that went across the whole of the State.  It required an assessment or a review, a fairly detailed review of a lot of things.  Finance was one of those, not the only one.  There was governance and various other aspects, obviously culture and other things.”

“I believe we were a scapegoat really, an easy target if a rural had to go.  Most other rural councils in a similar position weren't forced to amalgamate.  If you look at the results of the sustainability, there were others worse off than us.  To a large degree we were resource sharing which I think was a great system because it still gave us scales of economy whilst still retaining independence in terms of our governance which I think is a key thing of local government.” said Peter Stewart.

“The model that I believe would have suited and I think was the best of both worlds was to retain independent decision making powers of Council's elected members for local infrastructure, services, facilities and community representation whilst having legislative mandatory obligations and powers on regional decisions such as larger scale infrastructure and development projects including major road networks, water catchments, airports, regional sports facilities etc." 

“In the history of Local Government, if you are a council with a small rural population but have a very large geographic area you will always have a large network of roads and with a small rate base will always be dependent on external funding from State and Federal government.  That’s just the nature of the game and you can’t change that.   You can only go so far with improving efficiencies but you can’t change the sheer size of your road network.  So the whole formula was never, ever going to favour us and it almost put us in an impossible position to get a tick which was pretty tough I believe and there were other reasons therefore.” said Peter.

Process for assessing Fit for the Future 'flawed'

Prior to the official amalgamations the process by which council's were assessed Fit for the Future had itself been found deeply flawed in an Upper House inquiry in October 2015.  

Not only was the process flawed from the beginning it stated IPART was not fit for purpose for this job.

"While IPART has significant capacity to analyse the finances of local government, it does not have the demonstrated skills or capacity to assess the overall 'fitness' of councils as democratically responsible local governments," the report said.

"The scale and capacity criterion was a flawed criterion ... and accordingly assessments of councils' fitness based on this threshold capacity are not well-founded,"

As published in the SMH Oct 29, 2015 Committee member Peter Primrose said IPART's findings were limited by the terms of reference.

"It was a set-up from beginning to end".

Voices from the community

Gordon and Pam Yeomans, started Black Mountain Nursery in 1985, which Gordon describes as the MDK system; Mum, Dad and the kids.  “That is the best system out but it’s being killed off with these big corporates.  Councils, since the merger, have become incorporated and that puts a completely different slant on everything.”

The Yeomans have been hit with 60 new fees and charges since the amalgamation.

“One of the reasons is that Armidale is a city council and we were a rural council.  So that was the first thing we were hit with.  The other one was is that our rates were less than Armidale because we never had the overheads they did so straight away I could safely say with what’s happening now, our rates have gone up 300% plus.”

As for being deemed not ‘Fit for the Future’ Gordon Yeomans is still shaking his head “Peter (Stewart) didn’t tell me this but we had something like $14-15 million in reserves.”

However, for the Guyra community it’s about more than money.

“You’d always see from the General Manager right down through the lot of the staff, if you went up the street shopping or you went to the club, you’d always see them and you might say the grass is getting a bit long in a certain part of town or a pothole or whatever“ says Mr Yeomans.

“You never had to go onto ‘Have Your Say’ and put it through a system.  You just spoke to these people and it was done.”  

“Even through to the service clubs, the Lamb and Potato Festival, the council would go and look after them.  If they had spare time they’d help them with shifting rubbish or whatever.  They were part of the community.”

“I loved it when those guys were here.  You could go in and talk to them.  There was no better service” remembered local businessman Tony Mills.

Rates

Councillor Margaret O’Connor recalls “What happened just prior to the announcement of the merger, I think there was a kind of poll taken, the Guyra Shire Council said in order for us to stay independent we need to increase our rates by 33% and the community, by some kind of local polling, said yes, yes we are happy."

"Well now Armidale has put up the rates by 50% but our primary production rates on farmland because of the combination of that 50% increase or 58% increase, over three years, plus what they call ‘harmonisation’ means that our rates are in the vicinity of having doubled, so it would have been cheaper for them to pay up their 33% and I think they probably figured it out."

"Guyra people are very canny.  It would have been much cheaper to stay separate and pay the 33% increase and have control over it and be an authentic rural council than have to be now paying 100% more if you’re a primary producer and 58% more if you are just a householder to have no representation, almost no representation and basically seeing a lot of your money being hypothecated down to festivals and airports and things that are extremely tangential or no benefit to you.  That’s the proposition and I think it’s reasonable for Guyra people to say I don’t want to be part of that, and a lot of them don’t.  They love Guyra and good on them.”  

Voices from the community

Moving to Guyra from Sydney was about escaping from the rat race and building a quality life  with plenty of space for real estate agent Phil Henry and his family.  The encroaching bureaucracy has his undivided attention now and he believes there’s a motive to move people off the land evidenced by the sharp rate increases and insurance premiums.

“It’s happening already with just your rates.  The rates not being in accordance with CPI or the Valuer General’s formula.  Speak to any of these people on the land and in the next couple of years their rates are going to be astronomical.  Now if you’ve got a pensioner or a woman living on her own in residential Guyra they can’t afford their rates and their rates are on par with Sydney rates.”  

“I remember an old dairy family down at Kellyville and they were able to out sit all the development and the rates were being increased to try to force them off their land so that Landcom could develop all the housing estates.  They couldn’t beat them at it so they redirected the main water supply and that killed them.  In the end they couldn’t force them by rates so when they redirected the main water supply they couldn’t run the dairy anymore and then that was it.  Forced them out.  It’s dirty politics.” said Mr Henry.

“State govt is forcing councils, it’s all about money grabbing or extortion as I like to call it, so you’re not allowed to have a caravan on your acreage anymore.  You can’t do this, you can’t do that.  It’s all getting silly.  They’re trying to create income revenues.  You have to go through the DA process, pay an exorbitant DA fee for such a minimal structure whilst we’ve got a housing crisis.”

The Economic Rationale

The economic rationale behind the forced mergers contained in the Coalition’s “Fit for Future” policy argued that economies of scale would drive costs down, despite the Coalitions ‘no amalgamation’ campaign platform back in 2011.

Included in his rebuttal of the reforms in 2016 Adam Marshall said “The purported financial savings, which underpin the proposal, have been shown to be wildly inaccurate on every measure, using out of date financial figures, assumptions which aren’t relevant to either council and it’s missing some key data.”

“Also, both Guyra Shire and Armidale Dumaresq Councils agree that the proposal won’t strengthen or provide any substantial savings above the current shared services and administration model.”

History of Armidale / Guyra Amalgamation

“I was very involved and I went to all of the community meetings, absolutely every single one” said Councillor O’Connor.  

“There was a meeting in Walcha, Guyra, Uralla and Armidale.  The community response in Armidale was very muted and like ‘ok, whatever!’ And hardly anybody turned up to that Community meeting.”

“They had an officer from the State government appointed by the Office for Local Government and they were called something like ‘moderator’.  They were sent to talk to the community and potentially relay the community sentiment back to the then Liberal National government.  The OLG, Office of Local Government, actually suffered quite a substantial shrinking at that point” recalls Councillor O'Connor.

“One of the odious things really about the process is that it was all undertaken by these shadow figures from Premier and Cabinet, none of whom if they ever appeared in person, had a card that properly identified them, because they’d all been seconded from some other department and were there in a sort of ‘fly-by-night’ capacity,  “Oh well I’m actually from such and such a department.  Here’s my card but that’s not up to date.  I’m actually Premier and Cabinet.  I don’t have that card.  See you later.  That was if you ever saw them.  Truly.  They were quite shadowy but everything was being done by Premier and Cabinet.”  

“So it was on this forced merger project basis rather than anything substantial or solid or permanent.  If the OLG, the Office of Local Government, had of been running it that would have been a known office with known departments and quantities and its own culture that was understood but this sort of task force had no substance to the public so they appointed these people to come.”

Academic Analysis

A number of years ago Joseph Drew, Professor of Local Government at the University of Newcastle, revealed conclusively that the forcibly merged councils in NSW have not made the promised savings.  Drew’s research, based on four years of financial data, shows the amalgamated councils have in fact increased costs by approximately 11%.

“You’ve only got to look at the extremely large special rate variations for most amalgamated councils and the ones that haven’t already put them through are about to.  We are talking 50 or 60 percent.  You’ve only got to look at peer reviewed research in the best journals in the world; Public Management Review the best journal in Europe, the Australian Journal of Public Administration the best journal in Australia, Public Administration Quarterly one of the better journals in North America showing, by a range of extremely distinguished academics, with sophisticated econometric empirical evidence that unit cost, expenditure per assessment for amalgamated councils when we exclude all other factors, unit costs went up by over 11%.”

“The first paper was three years after amalgamation, the next one four years after amalgamation, the next one five years after amalgamation and they all hover around that 11% mark.  So you’ve got the scholarly evidence that said it increased unit costs by 11%, we’ve got the IPART evidence that it resulted in special rate variations 30, 40, 50% and if you look at the financial statements you can see that most of these councils have very limited unrestricted cash.  Some of them have negative unrestricted cash but it’s quite obvious, it doesn’t matter how you want to portray it, the facts are that the amalgamations resulted in bad financial outcomes which were entirely predictable, entirely avoidable and was indeed predicted by myself and Emeritus Professor Brian Dollery.”

“Ministers and regulators were keen to have less local government’s to administer from a work burden perspective.  Some people believed in the economies of scale story and I can only assume they never listened to the second half of my Econ 101 lecture about what is called Diseconomies of Scale also” said Professor Drew.  

“Some people believe in the extremely crude effort by commercial consultants which wasn’t peer-reviewed.  We don’t know who the people were who wrote these documents and what their qualifications were.”  

“I personally stood in front of the Local Government NSW Conference in 2015 and stated that I had eight papers in A-ranked Journals, the best Journals in the world according to our Federal Government, showing that it would be a fiscal disaster.   The Minister and Premier at the time were there.  I offered to come down in my own time, for free, to walk them through the literature because I said I didn’t want communities to be damaged and that offer wasn’t taken up.  They then secured KPMG to do the work for the forced amalgamations” said Professor Drew.

In November 2020 the Sydney Morning Herald exposed the failure of the controversial policy, revealing the amalgamated councils had lost $1.03 billion in three years reporting the NSW Labor Party was pushing for an inquiry into the ‘doomed’ council merger policy.  

“A popular and democratic option would be to allow councils to de-amalgamate” says Professor Drew cautioning “this option would not be popular with the regulators but something that has been done many times before in Australia and is something we know how to do”.  

He has called for the commercial consultants involved in the Fit for Future failure to be held to account.  

“All the assumptions were clearly wrong.  Now we can show or prove it” says Professor Drew.

Save and Grow Guyra

Local advocacy group Save and Grow Guyra formed 8 years ago to challenge the amalgamation they were forced into with Armidale Regional Council.  

Chairman Rob Lenehan explained “Ron Hoenig, the State Labor local government minister, has recently taken a hatchet to the local government legislation which to the lay person looks like it prevents any group like ours even trying to apply for a demerger because they refuse to fund it.” adding estimated costs of deamalgamation to be in the vicinity of $15 million.

In an extraordinary development in May 2024 the state government teamed up with the Opposition to pass its own undemocratic bill which gives the Minister for Local Government, Ron Hoenig, more power over the process than affected councils or communities.

“This is a slap in the face to local communities who have been campaigning tirelessly to restore local democracy for the past seven years” says NSW Greens MP Dr Amanda Cohn.

“Even after a council goes through producing business cases, Boundaries Commission analyses, and a referendum, the Minister still has the power to veto the community’s decision.  Is this the kind of local democracy Ron Hoenig stands for?”

“Rather than work with those communities and the cross-bench in good faith, the government’s undemocratic bill has been rammed through with the support of the Opposition who created the mess of forced council amalgamations in the first place” Dr Cohn said.

Rob Lenehan says “The Local Government Act is full of various sections and what Hoenig has done is draw out Section 218cc of the Local Government Act, which was instigated by Labor themselves when they were in opposition and got this amendment bill through which simply said if a forcibly amalgamated council, which in our case is ARC, the new council, was in agreement with either a demerger or some form of separation within their new council, the government was bound, if it was successful after going to the Boundaries Commission, they were bound to fund it.  Now they are in power, they’ve had a complete turnaround and Act 218cc now says, amongst other things, that they’re not going to fund it so they’ve renigged on their own amendment to the Act.  All this is by the by for us because our submission for SAGG, that’s in the hands of the minister at the moment, is under 215 of the Act.  At this stage, that [Act] has not been tampered with.’ Mr Lenehan explained.

Although he has visited other regions under the pretext of demerger Minister Hoenig continues to deflect from the Guyra community’s submission for a demerger.

“I don’t think anyone is genuine about helping the disgraceful state that forcibly merged councils are in at the moment…not all of them but 50, 70, 80 percent are in financial trouble as we know.    It’s just bewildering behaviour from a government who are floundering and I think they’ve bitten off more than they can chew with this demerger issue.   It’s full of cracks at the moment.    So what I’m saying is, whilst all of that is happening, let’s show, from our community through Save and Grow Guyra, that we are still here and we are ready and vigilant and watching them for whatever move they make that we need to be there.  A lot of this government action has to be watched and we’re lucky we have an active committee that are pretty good at that” said Mr Lenehan.

Councillor O’Connor says “From the State Government’s point of view it’s just about fiscal sustainability and robustness but there is so much in terms of cost shifting that they are disingenuously refusing to be responsible about but anything they say is problematic including what they say about mergers and demergers.  Until they face up to their own financial, ruthless cost shifting to local government they have no right to talk about sustainability as a limiting factor on Council’s ability to have their own voice.”

Moving Forward:  An academic perspective

Professor Drew sees three options to move forward.  

“Option number one is that you allow de-amalgamation and natural justice dictates that the people who caused the problem would need to pay to fix the problem.  The illustration I always give people is if I run up the back of your car because I’m negligent even if I’ve got a backseat driver who’s telling me what to do and I listened to them in good faith, you’d hardly expect to have to pay to fix my problem that I caused.  That’s called natural justice.”

“The State Government might have had a backseat driver called KPMG, I don’t know who they want to blame it on, but they did the action and it has caused damage that’s beyond dispute unless you want to dispute all academic literature so natural justice would ordinarily imply that the State Government needs to fix the problem, and that they would pay for the de-amalgamations.”

“From my reading of the Hansard that was the intent of the legislation when it was introduced when Labor was still in opposition.  That was certainly the intent of the State Government at the time and the former National party minister prior to leaving office about the deamalgamation, she had approved one de-amalgamation (Cootamundra-Gundagai) and the intent was obviously they would pay.  So option number one.  They allowed the amalgamations and they pay to fix it.  That will cost a lot of money.  It’s an expensive mistake but I don’t see why they the citizens of these local government ought to pay particularly given that a lot of them were against it.”

“Option number two.  We’ve published in three of the best journals in the world.  There’s ongoing costs of around 11% per unit.  Pay compensation.  A new untied grant, new money.  Not the Federal Government FAG (financial assistance grant) money, but new money of 11% into perpetuity.  That’s the cost of the amalgamation, why should the citizens of the amalgamated local governments bare the entire cost?”

“Option number three.  We just keep having these massive rate increases and we keep having amalgamated councils running out of money and this will just keep happening because they are now, sadly, structurally inefficient.  So no one should think you get your one big rate increase. and it disappears.  There’s lots of amalgamated councils that have had one big Rate increase and are now planning a second” says Professor Drew.

The Great Reset

The question remains.  Is Fit for the Future fit for the community?  Futurist Gihan Perera describes the future as digital disruption, the hybrid workplace, climate change, the rapid growth of AI, SMART cities to name just a few of the changes ahead in this process of recolonisation.

At the same time as Premier Mike Baird was announcing the amalgamations in accordance with plans for local government reform, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was announcing the plan for ’30-minute smart cities’ to be a new goal for Australia creating a new decentralised model for society where life is lived within a 30 minute bus serviced bubble subsequently revealed to be the vision of The Great Reset dependent upon catastrophic climate predictions to usher in epic world change to save the planet and ourselves by 2050.

Urban Development Professor Mike Berry from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology was skeptical describing the idea of decentralising our cities to create more accessible living as nothing new and likened it to having to turn around a battleship.  ‘The difficulty is that most economic, cultural and political forces are working in the opposite direction adding that policies that have worked towards it have been ‘spectacularly unsuccessful’ in changing the trajectory of urban sprawl.’

Agenda 21 / 2030

The purpose of Destination 2036 from its inception was to create a bold vision for a preferred future for local government and the identify the path to achieve that vision clearly there are questions to be answered.  The stated purpose of the attendees of this workshop was to develop a shared view on the “right models” for local government and to create new relationships of trust within and between local and state government to deliver what they deem as ‘great local government’ into the future.  

According to Bernie Cotter of Environs Australia, one of the guest speakers at the two day workshop in 2011, local governments in Australia and around the world are increasingly becoming lead agencies for an agenda premised on ‘sustainable development’ in accordance with their adherence to the Agenda 21 vision of the World Economic Forum, the United Nations through their 17 Goals for Sustainable Development and various other globalist stakeholders and corporations.  Their mission is to completely reform society worldwide under the push for Net Zero 2050 referring to the reduction or elimination of carbon emissions and the rebuilding of a new economy based on renewable energy; in accordance with the climate change and global warming narrative.

The World Economic Forum says to build cities ‘Fit for the Future’ we need to think differently.  

“As a global community, we need to collaborate across private sectors, agencies, departments and jurisdictions; we need to think differently and be committed to connecting the solutions. Through greater sharing of the knowledge of the current solutions our world is capable of, and by creating more connected sustainable solutions, we can leave a legacy fit for the future.”

Published on the website of the World Economic Forum and Medium the vision statement authored by Danish Member of Parliament Ida Auken of the future the world is being herded into under Agenda 21 / 2030 paints a concerning picture.

“Welcome to the year 2030.  Welcome to my city - or should I say, “our city”.  I don’t own anything.  I don’t own a car.  I don’t own a house.  I don’t own any appliances or any clothes.”

“Everything you considered a product, has now become a service.  We have access to transportation, accommodation, food and all the things we need in our daily lives.  One by one all these things became free, so it ended up not making sense for us to own much.”

“In our city we don’t pay any rent, because someone else is using our free space whenever we do not need it.  My living room is used for business meetings when I am not there”

“Once in a while, I will choose to cook for myself.  It is easy - the necessary kitchen equipment is delivered at my door within minutes.  Since transport became free, we stopped having all those things stuffed into our home.”

“Environmental problems seem far away, since we only use clean energy and clean production methods.  The air is clean, the water is clean and nobody would dare to touch the protected areas of nature because they constitute such value to our wellbeing.”

“When AI and robots took over so much of our work, we suddenly had time to eat well, sleep well and spend time with other people.”

“My biggest concern is all the people who do not live in our city.  Those we lost on the way.  Those who decided that it became too much, all this technology.  Those who felt obsolete and useless when robots and AI took over big part of our jobs.  Those who got upset with the political system and turned against it.  They live different kinds of lives outside of the city.  Some have formed little self-supplying communities.  Others just stayed in the empty and abandoned houses in small 19th century villages.”

“Once in a while I get annoyed about the fact that I have no real privacy.  No where I can go and not be registered.  I know that, somewhere, everything I do, think and dream of is recorded.  I just hope that nobody will use it against me.”

Yet this vision seems incongruous with the personality and identity of the Guyra community where discussions on the local community Facebook page range from a request for a copy of Joe George’s life story, the one written by Gloria, or the whereabouts of escaped flocks of sheep, cattle, dogs and cats sprinkled with more vexing issues relating to the deamalgamation, the great train debate or the wind farms encroaching on prime agriculltural land.

Moving Forward:  The pathway to Common Law

Local farmer Peter Heagney has started to take an interest in Common Law over the last four years, as have many other Australians, who have witnessed and experienced unlawful behaviour from governments here in Australia and around the world.  

“I’ve really got my L plates on when it comes to Common Law but I’ve got a distinct interest with the shenanigans that have been going on for the last three or four years because I know that things aren’t right and the governments are acting in a belligerent fashion.”  

“We have to bring back our Common Law which was won by the blood of many good and honest people.  We have to re-establish that and work out where we stand in the law and reign them in.”

“There’s a woman in Alaska called Anna von Reitz, some people call her Judge Anna.  She does very well but in the end we need to consider whether we are stating the law to the lawless.”

Anna von Reitz describes herself as "...a Great-grandma from Big Lake, Alaska, who can read and think like millions of other Americans and for whatever reasons-- mostly a 17 year-long battle with the IRS--I decided to research the mess this country is in and how we got here."

"If you really are serious about knowing how to restore the Republic and your freedom you need to put some effort into knowing how our freedoms are being robbed from us by fraud, lack of full disclosure, deception, threat, duress, coercion, and intimidation every day of our lives and have been for over 100 years by the criminals who have hijacked our government, wealth, and heritage for their own gain and evil intentions." says Anna von Reitz.

“This woman is awesome but she is just one woman taking on the might of globalist thugs and bullies, if I may say so.” says Peter Heagney.

“Maybe we need to disregard some of these directives that are coming down from the WEF and the UN as best we can and if people see what we’re doing them maybe we’ll gain strength from that.”

“We’ve got to come at them from a number of directions I believe.  There’s a battle Royale going on.”

Many people who have been trained by the World Economic Forum or the United Nations have key positions throughout society now to implement The Great Reset worldwide under a process known as Operation Lockstep, many don't know the roots of the directives they are implementing.

“There are some good councillors there on the council who I believe haven’t yet joined the dots.” said Peter Heagney.

“Guyra has a hundred years plus of successful history as a rural based council for rural people and if you look at Guyra and Armidale, even though they are close geographically, they are poles apart in many other ways.   The people have fairly ordinary blue collar jobs, we don’t have a lot of money to spend so we know the value of money.  We have a basic honesty and we are a very loyal group of people.  Chivalry still does exist.”  

Peter Heagney is witnessing the changes occurring within the farming community first hand.

“The farms are amalgamating, becoming bigger and more corporate focussed.”

“I’ve been on the land all my life.  The old school bus that ran past our place was packed with young kids and now it drives past and there might be 10 on the bus whereas once there was 30 or 40.”

“The amount of produce that used to come from this area was astounding.”

Betrayal

The disappointment and frustration of watching this blatant corporate takeover of our lands and our homes is evident.

“The majority of people around here are like National party zombies.  I see it as being like a mass psychosis where they think ‘Oh the Nationals will always look out for me.  I’ll be right.  Go Barnaby.  Oh poor Adam…he’s resigning’ and I shake my head and think ‘You have no idea’.” says Mr Heagney.

“Adam Marshall’s representation here was nothing more than feeding the chooks; he was just throwing little things to people ‘Oh you want a toilet block on your Polo Crosse ground, here you go or you want this little thing…here you go…that’ll keep you quite’ and everybody thinks he’s wonderful but it’s our money anyway.”

“His representation has been a disaster, an utter disaster.  Our goods and services have shrunken away.  Hospitals, amalgamation super school in Armidale, the Guyra amalagamation.  He’s already signed off on the Renewable Energy Zone.  That’s why he’s going because he knows there’ll be a lot of heat on his tail.  He’ll get a little pat on the back and a nice corporate job.”

Adam Marshall, announced his decision to resign on May 13, 2024 during a meeting of country mayors in Inverell.  In August it was announced that Origin, Australia’s biggest energy utility had hired the retiring National Party state member for the NSW Tablelands as its new senior government relations manager to help “thread the needle” of the shift to renewables amidst calls from farmers branding Marshall as a “traitor” and a “turncoat” for quitting parliament to take up the job with an energy company midway through his term.

“The government is masquerading as government but they are corporations anyway” says Peter Heagney.

“People think it’s government but they are just another branch of the corporations.”

“They are becoming more and more blatant because they have so much more power now.”
“We are just products now" says Peter.  "Our sweat equity is traded and our earning capacity and the psychopaths right at the top of the pyramid have decided there’s too many of us and that they’re going to try and get rid of a fair few of us.”

Weak, compromised representation and complacent, disconnected people have enabled the globalist takeover of Australia but there is a strong contingent of people ready to reclaim, revitalise and restore the country, the region and particularly Guyra to a place fit for farming, families and the thriving community it once was.

One Guyra community member at the Council consultations for the Regional Plan reminisced "We had one of the most social towns of all time when we had the abattoirs.  We were a close knit group, everyone worked hard and played hard and then it closed.  I think they were selling houses here for $30K thirty years ago when the abattoir closed." (1996)

Armidale Regional Plan 2040

In late 2019 early 2020, a time when the Guyra community was under duress affected deeply by drought and fires, the Armidale Regional Council invited the community, individuals, groups and businesses to have their say to create the Armidale Regional Plan 2040 under the direction of the NSW State Government.  The aim was to “create an overarching strategy and vision for the future, reflecting the priorities of the community and give certainty around the direction of plans and growth for the next 20 years” focussing on economic growth and employment, education, health, tourism, arts & culture, housing, sports, recreation and open spaces, transport and connectivity, agriculture, sustainability, biodiversity and SMART city.

The Armidale Regional Council commenced a public exhibition of their Regional Plan known as Toward 50,000 in March this year announcing it plans to attract 4,000 jobs by 2040 and increase the population by 10,000 more people which will require substantial housing.  The plan identifies priority areas for controlled environment horticulture, renewable energy industries and manufacturing which can help drive the growth of the region to support a population beyond 50,000 people.

Renewable Energy Zone

At a community meeting recently at the Guyra Bowling Club a number of representatives of New England communities including lawyers, scientists, environmentalists, activists, farmers, mums and dads, Rob Lenehan, Chairman of Save and Grow Guyra Ratepayers Association, thanked strong rural voices pushing back against the renewable energy zones and the wind farms in particular acknowledging the devastation about to be unleashed on the Guyra community.

“After listening to everyone here tonight it brings me to the point that we need to resist these things no matter what.  We don’t want them at all.”

“We don’t fit in with ARC’s plan, where they say ‘Shut up Rob’.  I’ve been told ‘deal with it mate, we have no choice, we have to do it’.   That’s bullshit.”

“Armidale Regional Council have had every opportunity in the world to resist this.  They never have.  Hands up anyone who was consulted by ARC in any way, shape or form prior to the New England region being designated by Government as a renewable energy zone.  Pretty sure there’s no one.”

“After hearing everyone speak tonight, there’s only one way out of this…it’s to resist.  People power has got to win this.  We’ve got to band together and I can assure you that our incorporated body will support any actions against the renewable energy zone in total.”

“We have a forthcoming local government election.  I implore everyone to really think about how they vote.”

Fit for the Future around the world

In the UK 'Fit for the Future' has been used for a similar outcome with a ‘sustainability’ and environmental focus, Net Zero 2050 in a collaboration between the sustainability charity, Ashden, a global partner of the World Economic Forum and the National Trust.  According to the Fit for the Future website it has evolved into a thriving sustainability network since its inception in 2012.  The call to action is presented with an urgency by Hilary McGrady, Director General of the National Trust.   

Trotting out the well rehearsed and approved lines on climate they say “We have a responsibility to do everything we can to address climate change, which poses a bigger threat to the places, nature and collections we care for than anything else.  Working together is the only way we can move forward, and Fit for the Future has consequently never been more relevant and necessary.”

New Zealand are preparing to be 'Fit for a Better World' under the silent globalist agenda being enforced through all levels of government.  They aim to achieve sustainability goals by reducing biogenic methane emissions to 10% below 2017 levels by 2030 and to between 24% and 47% below 2017 levels by 2050.   

Agenda 21 / 2030 / United Nations 17 Goals for Sustainable Development

Everywhere you see ‘Fit for the Future’ you’ll see words like ‘Sustainability’, ‘Climate change’ and ‘Net Zero’.  Open the door to the scientists, academics and activists who are currently silenced and you’ll discover an entire alternate world, a different paradigm lifting the lid on the mycellium web that  is Agenda 21, woven into every facet of our lives to affect radical transformation of our society instigated by unelected international bodies operating through all levels of government.

The United Nations 17 Goals for Sustainable Development are the foundation upon which the new future will be built in alignment with Agenda 21; a blueprint for the next 100 years with milestones at 2030, 2035 and 2050.   These goals, at first consideration, are a noble and desirable strategy to aim for collectively and they are at the core of every institution and corporation moving the world  unconsciously towards a dystopian agenda; the elimination of private land ownership and people who are just described as “useless eaters.”

Whistleblower Rosa Koire was the executive director of the Post Sustainability Institute.  Prior to her death in 2021 she was a forensic commercial real estate appraiser specializing in eminent domain valuation.   Nearly 30 years of experience analyzing land use and property value enabled her to recognize the planning revolution sweeping the country.  While fighting to stop a huge redevelopment project in her city in America she researched the corporate, political, and financial interests behind it and found UN Agenda 21. Impacting every aspect of our lives as a comprehensive blueprint UN Agenda 21/Sustainable Development is a corporate manipulation using the green mask of environmental concern to forward the globalist plan.

“It’s the action plan as the UN calls it to inventory and control all land, water, minerals, plants, animals, construction, means of production, energy, education, transport, information and all human beings in the world“

“In a nutshell, the plan calls for governments to take control of all land use and not leave any of the decision making in the hands of private property owners.” said Rosa Koire.

Agenda 21 was introduced at the Earth Summit held by the United Nations at the Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro Brazil in June 1992 although the roots of this strategy date back to 1962.  

Representatives of 178 nations plus the Vatican agreed to this action plan.  

According to the website of the Parliament of Australia in a chronology of Australian climate change policy (2016) the conference was attended by Labor minister for the Arts, Sport, the Environment and Territories, Ros Kelly, MP who brokered and immediately signed Australia onto the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).  

“A Liberal Government then continued the momentum, negotiating on Australia’s behalf, in deliberations over the Kyoto Protocol to the UNFCCC and signing the treaty shortly after. However, the same Liberal Government later refused to ratify the Protocol, claiming that doing so was counter to the nation’s interest.”

Agenda 21 has been sold by the United Nations as a non-binding voluntary agreement but Rosa Koire disagreed.  

“It’s been written into the laws of your countries all the way from China, all Western and Middle Eastern nations all over the world through a collaboration of governments, corporations, organisations and Foundations.  It’s a global plan but it’s not an international plan.  International means between nations but this plan erases Nations.  It’s a global plan that’s implemented locally so it has a different name everywhere but it’s the same plan.” says Rosa.

“Every aspect of your life is affected so it’s in your school curriculum, it’s in your Planning and Building Department, it’s in your court system, in your health care system, it’s everywhere but they never call it Agenda 21.  You’re going to see it as Regional Plans.  Whether it’s Hanoi 2030 or Horizon 2050 in Canada for example they’re all the same plan.”

Indigenous People being used to Implement Agenda 21
 
Crown prosecutor Josephine Cashman was an inaugural member of Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s Indigenous Advisory Council and served as the Chair of its Safe Communities Committee until 2017.  In 2018 she received the UTS Faculty of Law Alumni Award for Excellence.   She learned about Agenda 21 which she describes as a blackmail operation for an international plan to use “Indigenous Rights” to steal the developed countries wealth, resources and liberty.   

She has revealed taxpayer funds are siphoned from Aboriginal Australia by corrupt Aboriginal corporations controlled by the UN.  The corrupt corporations own all UN Communal Native Title land, preventing Australians from private property ownership that keeps Aboriginal people and increasingly all people in 3rd world conditions.  

By using UN Communal Native Title that will cover all of Australia by 2030 our private property rights will be stolen using a "phoney UN ‘Human Rights’ system, UNDRIP, UNESCO, WHO and 40,000+ NGO’s in order to steal Australia’s wealth."

Josephine Cashman has since turned whistleblower and works tirelessly with a committee of Aboriginal Elders in a process of truth-telling as they call for an end to foreign interference in Australia.  

Elder Tanya Hunter says “When people know the truth their plan fails” pledging #wethepeople will decide the future for our children by protecting all Australian’s inalienable rights, auditing Aboriginal funding, exposing fake Aboriginal claimers, preserving Australian history, voting No to divisive globalist strategies like The Aboriginal Voice to Parliament and all Treaty and UN heritage laws.  She calls for the abolishment of Native Title and all indigenous specific laws.  

Elder Sissy King acknowledges the plan by the globalists to conquer the nations of the developed world, including Canada, USA, UK, NZ and Australia, only works by dividing the people.  “Let’s fight together not each other” she says.  

Australia is NOT FOR SALE says Elder Allan Coe urging all Australians to come together to stop Australia falling to this globalist agenda that plans to leave Australia impoverished and enslaved to debt.

“We have to stop the government funded crooks” says Allan, acknowledging that the same methodology that’s being used in Australia is used in Africa where over $900+ billion in resources is exported while Africa is $150 billion in debt and the African people are starving.  Enabling this in Australia is UN interference using UNDRIP and UNESCO’S UN Heritage laws.

“We need to unite as one” says Elder Tammy King from Wilcannia and she urges all Australian’s to support the elders of One Voice Australia as they fight against tyranny.  “Be brave” she urges in a heart-felt plea.

The Critical Gap

In his Master Thesis of 2016 titled Fit for the Future, (Not) Fit for the Community, Khandakar Al Farid Uddin observes a critical gap still exists between those who oppose the Local Government reforms and those who are compliant.

That gap can be defined in many ways but the core issue is localism vs. globalism.  The objective now is to allow the two paths to co-exist.

The Great Reset is simply the great rehash of the old plan; a purge of humanity, the concentration of wealth and power, the great reveal of willing dictators, the great reallocation of resources, the great digital revolution of the surveillance State.  

There is a sense of urgency rising now in people and communities.  Politician George Christiansen has sent out an SOS warning “we are at the edge of a cliff and the forces of globalism, censorship and tyranny are pushing us over.”  

“The attack on free speech is now in overdrive and they won’t stop until every dissenting voice is CRUSHED.”

For the Children

In a note dropped into the letterboxes of Guyra’s residences early this year, the plea from the anonymous author was palpable and captured the essence of the message of the resistance.

”In 2024 people of old age and younger are concerned for their children and grand children’s future.  We remember the hard years and times but confidence in the future remained (in us).  Our trusted leaders have eroded our confidence through changes they have brought about in our World.  We want and need confidence in our Politicians and Confidence in our Communities Future.  We need to believe they are for us!  We need to work for a good Society for our children and their Children. 2024?”.

In his summation of the battle Guyra is engaged in to retain independence, local Independent candidate Billy Wood explained “It’s been a very long process for everyone and understandably many people have just run out of steam, run out of energy, run out of life trying to fight what was pretty much an absolute disgrace in the face of all democratic reasoning.  Our voice was completely ignored in the future of Guyra and the amalgamation.  As we all know 92% [voted YES to a demerger] at an election.  That’s the democratic voice speaking right there and it’s still ignored.   We have to work out what the best strategies are to get the best outcomes for Guyra and for our community and for our families.”

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