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In February 2015 this story will seem to many to have lost any shine that it might have had. With all of Launceston's fiscal problems beginning to be exposed any shine it might have had has gone. What ratepayer in an adjoining council would want to switch to Launceston with all the fiscal risks involved. Not to mention the Council's track record of unsustainable development overly ambitious civic empire building.

What has happened, and is happening, in Marysville in Victoria post their bush fires is an example of what happens when a council cannot see beyond the government gift horse and the longterm debt they create for ratepayers. In Marysville it happen quickly in Launceston it is unfolding slowly but nonetheless surely.

The time to amalgamate is now for sure but it needs to be equitable and the new Council/Councils need to be shot of the kind of past the current and past Launceston Councils have presided over.