Decorations could adorn shop windows but there appears to be a lack of any recognition of the season except the desire for us to buy merchandise from them. In a world that seems not only to be changing, but even to be dissolving, there are some tens of millions of us who want Christmas to be the same..

We will keep Christmas – keep it as it is… With the same old greeting, “Merry Christmas” and no other. “Let’s Keep Christmas” A Sermon by Peter Marshall. Peter Davies Ltd. London 1955. Come on Bowral retailers – give us some Christmas cheer.

Words are very important in information perception and that can be a battle in its own right. The use of the term “community consultation” is being badly abused in association to the Bowral Hospital PPP (public private partnership). 

There has been no community consultation, maybe a briefing or two to select groups or the provision of select information by parties with a vested interest but certainly no community consultation. But as I had said publicly, unless a community leader can harness the community opposition and challenge the State Government, the decision will be made without fanfare, without true community consultation, with almost no community input and be one that put the NSW Government’s privatisation policy first ahead of our community.

I have a simple question. Why is shifting funding to private health provision given priority over funding public health services?

Private health company shareholder dividends remove money from the provision of health services and are far greater than any purported claim of efficiencies offered by “private” enterprise. The American model clearly demonstrates this. It is near inconceivable that the Bowral Hospital PPP is the community’s best interest.

Trevor Fair thinks that volunteers should be immune from criticism (SHN November 23 Renal Appeal Answers).  But what if the charity they run falls short of the standards of disclosure, diligence and timeliness that the community reasonably expects?

The Southern Highlands Renal Appeal was launched in 2001.  At June 30, 2015 the funds held were $725,141, which included $195,734 collected only the preceding year (according to the brief financial statement filed with the ACNC).

In April 2010 the appeal’s founder Bob Barrett is on record as conceding that its objectives could not be met. Bowral Hospital would not get a dialysis unit because the plan lacked government support.

It is now 2016.  What, if anything, has occupied the attention of the committee in the last six years?  What exactly are the barriers to the use of the donated money for a worthwhile community purpose?  What will the committee do to overcome these barriers? When can the community expect to know the conclusion?

The relationship between a charity and the people it asks for donations is built on trust.  The foundations of trust are transparency and openness, from which informed decisions can be made.  To put it the other way round, silence, secrecy and mystery are the enemies of trust.

Volunteers are accountable for their handling of public money every bit as much as anyone else.  Were it otherwise, no volunteer-run charity could hope to be worthy of trust. The time is long overdue for a full and frank explanation from the committee of the SHRA.