I WONDER if those who provide succour to the itinerants and ne’er do wells who flock to Gawler consider the consequences that they inflict on Gawlerites who work, raise their families and contribute to our general amenities and who would like to enjoy them without vandalisation and rubbishing of them.
Once again Clonlea Park is both rubbished and vandalised.
Ordinary people contribute in various ways to the recognised standards of common pro- priety.
We do not disobey the “Clonlea Park is closed at sunset signs” and we certainly do not camp there for weeks on end close to the freebies that are offered by the suckers, well intentioned as they no doubt are, who succour them with free food and comfort.
Causation cannot be proven but correlation certainly exists.
The world is not formed by good intention but by motivation.
The itinerants are clearly motivated by the free food in Pioneer Park each week and the free amenities and sustenance distributed by the Salvos on the riverbank, less than a stone’s throw from this latest rubbish tip, and there are always other such encampments forming and being disbanded within walking distance of these motivating facilities, conveniences and freebies.
Council has a difficult job and I think that they do it rather well.
But when I am told they find it hard to show the itinerants are camping, I would have thought a tent being up and occupied for three weeks in Clonlea Park was a bit of a giveaway.
I suggest the giving out of free food to beggars in council parks be banned and any consent, explicit or implicit, be removed from those that do that.
I suggest that costs be sought for ratepayers from those who hand out free tents and swags for the inevitable clear up of the rubbish by council that is left behind by their recipients.
These people must be moved on before they trash our town further.
Their presence is creating a spiralling downfall in public amenity.
I do not say that they unbolted valuable infrastructure and caused its vandalization, but I do say they are part of creating the general rubbishy climate in which such things are being normalised.
John Bolton, Gawler East
