Note :-this was published (in full) in the Somerset newspaper on Wednesday 10th February, 2016, and published (in an edited form) in the Kilcoy Sentinel newspaper on 11th February, 2016. Due to acknowledged editorial error by the editor of the Kilcoy Sentinel, what has been published in the paper in simple terms - "does not make sense". The Kilcoy Sentinel editor has offered to publish a correction in the next edition of the paper on February 18th, 2016.
Without claiming to know the exact percentage, at the present time, the greater majority of teenagers who complete Grade 12 at high school in Somerset end up leaving the region to find a job or undertake tertiary education somewhere else. Besides coming back to visit family, the greater majority of the greater majority never come back to live in Somerset full time - ever again.
Given there's a dearth of small business enterprise and stand alone industry in Somerset, and barely any jobs on offer, who can blame young people from moving away and not coming back?
Besides a select few big employers, like Woolworths in Fernvale, a fair guestimation would be that 90% of the other scarce employment opportunities in Somerset are "in-house" and taken up by close family and friends in very small family owned businesses.
Somerset definitely needs them, but it also needs new enterprise and new industries, which can generate jobs which don't currently exist here and boost the local economy overall.
My sincere endeavour as a councillor in Somerset would be to work hard at the most grassroots level possible to give a hearing to any practical ideas from locals who have a voice as to what new enterprise and industry they believe can materialize and succeed in Somerset and package those ideas into a practical, no-nonsense argument which I would present to council as an individual at every opportunity given to me.
As a truly "independent" councillor candidate, I just want Somerset to progress and prosper, without any inappropriate development. I don't want the region to continue to be an economic basket case which is failing to offer a future for the younger generation.
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