Update 2, Thanks for the amazing support.

Hello Folks,

First, thanks so much for the support to date and your efforts in further distributing on the petition. I am amazed at the numbers we have hit.

The end goal is to have at least 4 of the 7 councilors support adding more Primary Production rate categories and bring the "rates in the dollar" for these categories more in line with peers.

For anyone contacting their councilor, (and I encourage people to do so) they may tell you a new rating reference group will be set up. To pre-arm you, they said the same thing last year, the opportunity has now passed before this budget. Waiting for group to be established may mean another 12 months at least before change.

I will be following up with all the councilor's next week.

Charlie McKillop, ABC far north radio, will try to get the Mayor or CEO to respond following my interview with her last Friday morning, Charlie is aiming for Monday morning, it be interesting to see if / how they try to defend the undefendable.

I hope to get story running in the QLD Country Life soon to further raise awareness. I expect more discussions with them next week.

The initial response from Shane Kunth was positive, I'll follow up further next week.

In regard to the paper from the Council that accompanied the recent rates bills. I noted with interest the last dot point of the "summary of changes for this financial year's budget" saying they had decreased primary production rates to 28.2% of the total gross rates.  In the 2016 report they refer to, the first year's target was 27.2% with a desire to hit 25% as soon as possible, 6 years on and the first target has not been met.

A reminder the full paper submitted to council can be seen by entering bit.ly/GrazingRatesCCRC into google or any other search engine. Unfortunately, it's long and wordy, however a quick skim of the graphs paint a pretty good picture.

Anyone needing to contact me can do so via email, rates.equity.ccrc@gmail.com.

Thanks again,

Jason.