Mount Barker Courier - 13 August 2025
Control, Confusion, and the Loss of a Local Icon
Commencing countdown, engines on.
Processing the latest telemetry from the Courier's 13th August release.
Let's sort the signal from the noise.
For maximum cynical effect, the online version comes highly recommended.
If you’re reading this on email, click the header image to open.
First up:
Campaign for Councillor
For those that may have missed it.
Why I'm Running for Councillor
The campaign is off to a strong start, with print materials now in design and set for distribution over the next two weeks.
I’m looking for volunteers to help with letterbox drops in Hahndorf, Echunga, Meadows, and South Ward Mt Barker township areas. If you’re able to lend a hand, please get in touch — your support will make a real difference. 🙏
Buzz Off, Council
Page 1, 4: Bee Backlash
How gracious of council to ‘allow’ residents a say on whether they can keep chooks, bees, or livestock on their own land. In a region built on hobby farms, smallholdings, and self-reliance, this isn’t “consultation” — it’s government overreach with a bow on top.
Where exactly does council get off telling ratepayers how they can use their own property? The Hills lifestyle has always been about space, self-sufficiency, and the freedom to manage your patch as you see fit. When 89% of locals say the idea stinks, the only “further consultation” needed is a shovel — to bury this by-law for good.
If this isn’t what residents have asked for, then who exactly is pushing it?
The push certainly isn’t coming from the 89% who opposed it. That leaves a very small minority — or perhaps a mindset in council that thinks the Hills lifestyle needs ‘managing’.
Councillors should spend less time policing henhouses and beehives, and more time fixing roads, parking, and the issues people actually care about.
Our Land, Our Stock, Our Call
From Control to Common Sense
P5: Multi-dwelling blocks proposed
The State Government’s Future Living Code says you might be “allowed” to build an extra dwelling on your own property — provided the councils think it’s viable, appropriate, and in keeping with “the character” they’ve decided you all love.
What the council fails to mention are the genuine factors that need to be weighed here: the Hills’ role as a critical watershed area, the importance of preserving amenity, and the traffic and infrastructure pressures that come with increased density. These are real considerations — not just excuses to clamp down.
Councils need to switch from “control” mode — where every opportunity is taken to control what ratepayers can do with their land — back to genuine planning, something that seems to have been lost long ago.
How did our councils become so unbalanced?
Signals from the Letters Page
Page 6: Your View
From Beehives to Backyards to Browsers — The Net Keeps Tightening
👉 I’ve only reached page 6 and this week’s Courier has already served up two very different stories — but scratch the surface and you’ll find the same thread running through them: more rules, more hoops, and more control over how we live.
“Bee Backlash” (Pages 1, 4).
Multi-dwelling “test case” (Page 5).
Now we learn from my “Papers Please” submission that under-16s will be banned from social media without Digital ID from December. Sold as “protecting kids,” it’s another step toward normalising ID checks for online access — the infrastructure for mass surveillance by another name. This is about control, not safety.
Whether it’s your bees, your backyard, or your browser, the pattern is clear: more of your choices are being decided elsewhere. And unless more people push back, the only thing guaranteed to be “protected” is the power of those making the rules.
It’s definitely time to pick your line in the sand
— and make sure they know you’re standing on it.
So I’m off topic — back to the other letters.
Pointless rules: A letter challenging the E&RD court’s ability to overrule the Council Assessment Panel. It’s worrying that those with money and power can bend the system to get what they want.
Future predictions: A slightly rambling submission from G Inkster calling out decades of failed climate alarmist claims.
Good news: A letter full of “renewables” claims that can be dismantled with ease. Sadly, the only good news here is that Donella isn’t running our energy policy — otherwise Chris Bowen would have some real competition.
When Council Can’t Even Council
Page 10: Councillors walk out on meeting
Mt Barker Council’s August 4 meeting collapsed when the Mayor, Deputy Mayor, and two councillors walked out before a confidential item could be debated. Two more councillors followed soon after, leaving no quorum and forcing the meeting to be postponed — twice.
From the outside, it’s not hard to see council as opaque and largely free from accountability to the ratepayers. Factions and cultural dysfunction appear to be alive and well — and while residents are tied up in debates over bees, backyards, and housing, the chamber itself can’t seem to keep its own house in order.
Politics, Power, and the Public Purse - Revisited
Last week P13: Local couple sues Premier for $2.3m
This week P10: Digances not guilty
My Spidey senses weren’t wrong — the former Labor MP was not found guilty.
All charges dropped. Suppression orders in place. Everyone walks. Sure, nothing to see here. The Premier seems to be wearing a suit made from pure Teflon.
Final Cut - Farewell to a Local Icon
P8: Butcher shuts after 60 years
It’s with great sadness that Hahndorf farewells the generational, iconic business that was Max Noske & Sons Butcher. A complete tragedy in every sense.
R.I.P. Tim — you’re in a better place. Your “paddock to plate” legacy will live on in the Hills, at a time when it’s more important than ever before.
Hot Mess
P3: Hot coals sparks refuse truck fire
Pro tip: “Completely extinguished” doesn’t mean “still glowing but probably fine.” The blaze forced a truck to dump its load in the middle of Stirling — a pile of smouldering rubbish in complete disarray.
Strangely reminiscent of the goings-on inside the council chambers lately…
Comic Relief
Control Tower
That’s enough from me.
Hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s commentary.
I suspect a renewed nation-wide rebellion against the pervasive resistance of councils to inputs from their ostensible constituencies is growing fast. Only needs a network of articulate voices from across the nation to be a genuine and substantial threat to their continued existence - at least in their present form.