August 2024
The Hon. Jeff Kennett AC
Stay Focused
We are well into the New Financial Year.
The only thing we can be sure of the cost pressures will remain for every service and product we need, as well as the challenge of attracting qualified staff particularly at a senior level.
Of course, providing qualified temporary staff is one of the reasons we at CT Management exist.
With 125 highly qualified Associates, 44 of whom are on active placements we have the men and women skilled in Asset, Financial, and Project Management, Service Planning and Review, through to Building Condition Assessment and Corporate Governance. Check our website for the full range of services.
While we remain a small business, we have over 28 years of experience and historical performance of hundreds of Municipalities at our fingertips and built up over those years.
Importantly our charges are much more realistic than those that will be quoted to you by any of the large financial or accounting firms.
Most of our Associates have local government experience so they know how the systems work, and what benefits should and can be achieved by good practices.
We head into an election cycle for local government in Victoria and New South Wales. There will be some change in the make-up of the personalities elected to Councils which is why we at CT Management are keen on forward strategies that can be continually implemented through and beyond local government elections.
Capital works only know a start and finish time and are completed more cheaply and on time if not subjected to electoral elections.
We will also see a State election in Queensland in October and a Federal election sometime after October and by around May next year.
Elections of those size do normally see a slowdown in activity, mainly because the focus by those contesting the elections, Government and Oppositions, are more focused on advocating their strengths in pursuit of being the next government. And the bureaucrats don’t want to make decisions.
For our ratepayers and constituents, the cost of living will continue to be felt harshly by many families and businesses. Even if there is a rate reduction before the end of the year, while that might lift confidence, the benefit of any rate cut will not be really felt for months after it is declared.
Of course, in November we will witness the US Presidential election, the impact on Australia and the world is unknown, and although the elected President will not take office till January 2025, they will start announcing more precisely what they will do when in office.
Australia is a large land mass, but a very small population, and while we are very confident, maybe complacent about our own opportunities, there is no doubt we always attract some collateral fall out from what happens in the rest of the world. Good and bad.
Then you add the uncertainty and sadness with what is happening in the Ukraine and Israel and Gaza, and we have activities well beyond our control. How they will play out over the rest of this financial year is anyone’s guess.
So regardless of what is happening in the rest of the world, and even in Australia, all we can do in reality is focus on our responsibilities and deliver outcomes to the best of our abilities. In the final analysis we work for our ratepayers and communities, and they are entitled to the very best of representation and service.
If we at CT Management can help any reader of this newsletter, please do not hesitate to contact us. I always say individuals alone achieve nothing, teams of people do, and we are part of many municipal teams now and will continue to be so in the future.
My message for the rest of this financial year is to stay focused.
Stay well.
The Hon Jeff Kennett AC
Chairman
CT Management Group