Election year: you'll be promised one of these

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p2301-Hal-Duell By HAL DUELL
 
After a busy year in Alice Springs, it feels like 2015 closed with a sigh: The town looks to be in good shape. My biggest worry is that we are all dressed up with no one quite sure where to go.
 
Whatever programs have been put in place to forestall any re-enactment of the juvenile marauding witnessed last year are working.
 
Ditto for our growing awareness of public drinking.
 
With the usual business slowdown and family exodus normal for this time of the year, it’s clear to see that our roads, bike tracks and sidewalks are well maintained. Our Council is busy. Our rates pay for it, but they are busy.
 
All the empty shops are a worry, and yet talk simmers on about new centers such as the Melanka Towers. Maybe someone knows something that the rest of us don’t.p2301-kitchen-sink-1
 
Will we find a way to attract an Indigenous Culture Centre? Family positioning could nip that one in the bud.
 
Will we get the nod for a nuclear waste facility? Expect Jimmy’s mob to have something to say about that.
 
Will one of the many oft-touted mines actually open?
 
Will we reconcile the need for housing with all the empty public housing?
 
Will there ever be more than two or three planes in the recycle bays?
 
Where are we going? I think it’s a fair question, and one only time will answer.
 
Optimistically I look forward to watching the quiet influx of new arrivals affect our future. People from Africa and Asia have joined us, some for the long term.
 
p2166-Melanka-6They work. They are raising families. Their children are winning honors in the school system.
 
Expect a verbal 2016. With both a Territory and a Federal election due, the promises will include a kitchen sink.
 
PHOTO: The Melanka towers … promoters have turned mum, and not a trace of the sales office promised for last month.
 
 

2 COMMENTS

  1. Yes, our council does do a good job, although I think we could have done without the traffic calming obstructions along the Leichhardt Terrace.
    I can’t see too many people using the sole safeland barrier and the other obstructions are too wide apart to slow anything other than a large truck or caravan.
    Is this another huge cost to us like the crossing on the South Stuart Highway that appeared and disappeared almost as quickly?

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