10 September 2019 - Ordinary

To the ordinary meeting of Council, 10th of September 2019. I'd like to begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of this land, the Darug people, and pay respect to Elders both past and present. I'll hand over now to the General Manager for some procedural matters.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Members of the public attending the meeting are advised that in the event of an emergency, you will be asked to proceed in an orderly manner to the nearest exit, following the guidance of our wardens. I would also like to advise members of the public that in accordance with clause 5.18 of the Code of Meeting Practice, meetings of the Council are recorded. In the terms of the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act, this may involve the recording of personal information provided at the time of the meeting, and the recordings are made to assist staff in compiling the minutes of the meeting and to enable the podcasting of Council meetings. The provision of any information that is recorded is voluntary.

If any person does not wish to be recorded, they should not address or request to address the meeting. The recordings may be made available to other persons where such access is in accordance with the relevant regulations, and the recordings are stored on Council's record management system. For the benefit of those persons who will be addressing the Council tonight, it is expected that you will refrain from making any insult, allegation, or personal reflection against any person present or not at this meeting. This request relates to both your address to Council and any answers given in response to questions from Councillors. Finally, it is also requested that if any person in the Council chambers has a mobile phone, that they either turn it off or turn it to silent.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Thank you, Mr General Manager.

All right. Do we have any apologies or leave of absence requests? Yes, we do, Mr Mayor. We've got an apology from Councillor Garo, and we also have a leave of absence request from Councillor Rasmussen for medical reasons.

Do we have the dates?

The leave of absence for Councillor Rasmussen is likely to be in the order of the period 5th of September until the 24th of October at this point in time. Thank you.

Any, Councillor Conolly, you want to move the acceptance of the apologies? Seconded, Councillor Reynolds. All those in favour say aye. Those against. Declare it carried.

Any declarations of interest? Deputy Mayor? Yes,

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I am submitting a declaration for item number 164, and it's a pecuniary interest, but I'm submitting it under clause 4.37 of the Code of Conduct, which has an exemption. I'll read it out. Is that the first item? Should I do that now?

It's not the first item. Okay. Will you be planning to stay in the room?

Yes. Okay

Thank you. No other declarations of interest.

Confirmation of minutes. Would someone like to move?

Move we accept the minutes. Deputy Mayor, Councillor Zamprogno, any discussion? All those in favour say aye. Declare.

Carried. Before we move on, I would just like to firstly point out that earlier today, the wife of ex-Councillor Neville Wern died suddenly this morning, and I think we should perhaps, as a Council, send a letter of condolence to Neville Wern and his family. Any discussion on that? No. The other thing I wanted to mention is that tonight is a very full agenda. I urge you all to try and be as efficient and quick as you can to get through these items. If we don't, then we might have to end up coming back on another night, which I don't think any of us want to do. At this point, Councillor Wheeler would like to move a request.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I'd like to move a procedural motion that items 173 and 172, the two notices of motion, be brought forward. Item 3 relates to the passing of Professor Ian Jack, and item 172 is about the climate strike. The speaker for item 172 is a schoolgirl. I think we are in for a very long meeting, and I would like to bring that forward so that she can speak and go home. Item 173, I'd like heard first, if possible.

I accept that as a valid reason for making those two notices of motion urgent.

Notice is a motion urgent, and we will move to item 173 first. And we have one speaker, and that's Michael Edwards. Housekeeping, Mr Mayor, councillors, council staff and members of the gallery, good evening, and thank you for the opportunity to address you this evening and to add a few thoughts and reflections in support of the notice of motion before you recognising the passing of Professor Ian Jack. Professor

Jack was

A very well respected

And leading historian, having been very much active in researching, writing and publishing for a good number of decades on Australian and, more specifically, Hawkesbury's history. Ian's knowledge

Of the history of the Hawkesbury region far surpassed what we can read in the history books, probably because he authored most of them, or he contributed significantly to them. He was a very much esteemed and active member of Council's Heritage Advisory Committee, having served on that committee for many years and contributing to the promotion and celebration of our rich cultural and social history.

Ian leaves an incredible legacy to our community, both for the benefit of current and future generations, through his many well-researched and meticulously composed volumes of research and publications. And it is his works that have helped many of us gain a deeper knowledge and understanding and appreciation of our local history and the significance of the Hawkesbury where we live. He contributed widely to many academic and technical publications, including conservation management plans, interpretation strategies and assessments of cultural significance. One of his most significant works was his 2010 publication on Macquarie Towns, and he also advocated strongly for the protection and the state heritage listing of the Macquarie Towns as well.

I had the very great privilege of sitting under Professor Jack when I studied my Masters in Heritage Conservation, and Ian lectured numerous times on effective ways to undertake historical research and how to write local history, using examples related to the Hawkesbury. Ian always spoke so passionately about his research, and rather than just citing facts and figures, he had the very much gifted ability to bring history to life. He could present his findings in ways that were engaging and dynamic, leaving one wanting to know more. And it was his enthusiasm and passion that certainly fueled my own passions and desires to pursue local history, and as a result I myself have been prolifically researching and writing on the history of Pitt Town.

Ian was a true gentleman in every sense of the word. He was always quietly spoken and always, always courteous. He was always willing to offer assistance and always acted in a professional manner. And these were all characteristics which made him very much a respected colleague, mentor and friend. And finally, to quote from Ian's publication, Exploring the Hawkesbury: A Heritage Field Guide, this little fella here, he wrote, It's been a great pleasure to get to know the Hawkesbury and to communicate my own pleasure to others. Ian certainly did take delight in illuminating and giving a voice to our past. So it's extremely fitting, therefore, that Council recognises the immense contribution that Professor Jack has made to the local history of the Hawkesbury.

Thank you, Mr Edwards. Would you be happy to answer any questions, should there be any? Sure. Are there any questions? Doesn't look like it. Thank you very much. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I'll speak briefly. Do we have a seconder

Deputy Mayor seconding it. Thank you.

I'll only speak briefly. I firstly want to extend my deepest sympathy to Ian's wife, Jan Barclay-Jack. They were frequently seen as a package deal, the Jacks, and their work together on the history of the Hawkesbury has been a really extraordinary contribution to our understanding of this place. As you've heard from Mr Edwards, though, Ian is greatly respected both here and more widely in New South Wales and Australia as a member of various academic bodies, the National Trust and ICOMOS. He was a clever, decent, kind man who gave freely of his time and expertise. One of my first sources of info about my old house was one of Ian's books, and he and I chatted about the house often, but we never did agree on my kitchen floor.

Ian thought that it should have been left as dirt, and I have to confess that I'm very grateful that someone before I got there concreted over it. Ian served on the Heritage Advisory Committee for 28 years, which is quite a contribution or a sentence, I'm not sure which. His words as he left our last meeting were, Finally, we're getting something done, and I'm proud to have chaired the Heritage Committee in the period when that's happened. I feel that Council and the Hawkesbury have lost an ally and a friend, and I commend this notice of motion to you.

Further speakers? Deputy Mayor.

Just very briefly, Mr Mayor, and just to support what Councillor Wheeler has just said, Professor Jack was definitely one of a kind, and we were so very fortunate to have him in our midst. I had known him on a local basis, but also often spotted him on the grounds of Sydney University, near St Andrew's College in particular, and he was always walking along with just that particular look that he had, and you knew that inside of him he had that absolute wealth of knowledge that he was so generous to share with us on so many topics. So I join in the motion to extend sympathy to his family and thank him for his major contribution.

Further speakers? Councillor Reynolds.

Yeah, thanks, Mr Mayor. Just a couple of words. I attended the Rex Stubbs History Symposium last Saturday, and Ian was there, Ian and Jan, and the news of his passing has come as an immense shock. He seemed so well on the day. He was a wonderful and kind man. And he's left us all a wonderful legacy with his work. And I think that's something that we'll treasure now, and generations will treasure in years to come. Not many people know that Ian was a professor and a doctor of history, but he also founded the School of Historical Archaeology at the University of Sydney and was one of the first practitioners in the country of industrial archaeology. But again, it was something that he never bragged about, his academic credentials. He just got in and did things, and it's very sad that he's no longer with us.

Thank you.

Further speakers?

Can I just add then that I believe that a community can only prosper if it remembers and builds on its past. And we need people like Professor Jack to make sure we do not forget the efforts of those who preceded us. We will miss his dedication and hard work, but his memory will be reflected in numerous ways, including the Australian Pioneer Village, Hawkesbury Museum and Howe House. So I also would like to send condolences to the family. Professor Jack was a tremendous member of our community and will be sadly missed.

Any further speakers? No. Councillor Wheeler, do you want right of reply? I'll put the motion. All those in favour, please stand.

Favour of the motion, Councillor Ross, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Wheeler, the Deputy Mayor, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Tree, Councillor Richards, Councillor Calvert. Absent, Councillor Rasmussen and Councillor Garo. Declare it carried.

While you're.

Thank you, everyone.

Now move to item 172. We have two speakers. First one is Bill Snedden.

Thank you, Mr Mayor, for the chance to speak on this item. At the risk of being seen to be politically correct or something or other, I'm prepared to back this hook, line and sinker. Here's a poster for the Springwood Students Conference on Friday the 20th. Unfortunately, I can't be there. I have a commitment that was made a year ago. At the risk of seeming to be talk about the obvious, I'm speaking in favour of this motion item. I would be in favour of my children, my four children, going to it were they of school age, but they're now well past that. Quite frankly, what's going on in the world at the moment, particularly regarding the climate business that we're talking about here, is reminiscent of the Vietnam moratorium marches, at least the student activism that's involved, and didn't that little national issue work out well for Australia.

In tech college, as a chemistry student, I was taught about natural resource scarcity in the 1970s, especially of a little thing called the Club of Rome that was talking about limitations for materials. Progressively, we've been able to find more materials. Also, the oil crisis has been backed off by other technologies. But in particular, the lecturer that I was taught by was one John Brodie, and he is now Professor Brodie at Townsville University, Southern Cross University, and he is now researching climate change aspects of things affecting the Barrier Reef problems. I could also reference morphous and the problems of agriculture from back in the early industrial revolution areas. Part of those problems and shortages were offset in the Green Revolution with new technologies.

So everything is not all bad regarding some of these things because new technologies come on. But the marches and the activism from the students at the moment also is reminiscent of the campaign for nuclear disarmament of the 50s and 60s and 70s. But the issue of carbon building up in the air tops all of the above, and this will be the life issue for the students attending this meeting. I'm going to be long gone before the effects are really kicking in hard. We need to be taking actions, and in both personal and larger activities, we need to be doing something. I'd also reference the Weekly magazine I get, New Scientist, and there's at least two or three references to all of this business with carbon, global warming, et cetera, ways of tying things, ameliorating the effects, alternative energy, et cetera, in every weekly issue.

This is unheard of 10 years ago. There was nothing like this going on. So the actions that we need to take worldwide, quite frankly, are reminiscent of the Montreal Protocol that has successfully been dealing with chlorofluorocarbons in the atmosphere and destruction of the ozone layer. And just as a note, I was actually selling chlorofluorocarbons as part of a job that I picked up in the early '80s, so I am well versed with what's going on. We need to take these actions. I back the students 100 percent. The fact that they are not at school, but they're out there doing something useful, I thoroughly endorse. And also it indicates they have an understanding of the world and what's going on for them socially.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Snedden. Happy to answer any questions, should there be any. Are there any questions? No. Thank you, Mr. Snedden. Our next speaker is Ms. Chloe Tyrrell.

Good evening, Mr Mayor and Council staff, and firstly I'd just like to thank you for this opportunity to speak here tonight at Council. So tonight I will be speaking about the current motion—sorry, current motion—as an organiser of both the upcoming strike in Springwood and as an active member of the Macquarie electorate Student Climate Activists, or MESCA for short. So as students, we are all striking on the 20th of September due to government inaction on climate change and the effects that we will face as a result of this lack of action. Unlike our federal and state government, the Hawkesbury Council is leading the way for change and providing hope in the current climate crisis. To support this action, I think it is very important for the councillors to show their attendance or at least support the upcoming strike, because it shows us students that there aren't only—there aren't just denialists out in society and there are people who actually want to make change just as we do.

Ultimately, the students, we're not the ones in government at the moment. We're not the ones that can put laws forward, but we can push for them and we can push for action. And I think it's very important for the people who can actually make change to understand why we are striking and to see that we do have a voice and we know what's important in our world and we know what we want with our future. So here is the similar poster that the last speaker presented. If not already, I'd like for this to be displayed in Council, if that's all right. And yes, so the strike is outside the Springwood Hub next Friday from 11 to 12:45. There will be a variety of speakers, including the Deputy Mayor and Ms Wheeler.

And myself will be speaking as well. There'll be live music. It'll be a really good day for everyone to come together and put forward their wants and their needs for our future. Thank you.

Thank you. I assume there's no questions. Do you have a question? I don't think she wants to participate. Oh, she could. Would you like to answer a question, Ms? Okay.

You don't have to answer. Sorry.

Thank you very much for your address to Council. I know it's very nerve-wracking to get up in front of us and do that, so I completely commend you on that. You said in your speech you don't make the laws, obviously, but your ability as a student is to push for laws and action. You mentioned both in your words the inaction of the federal and state government. Can you tell me what you would, first of all, like the federal government to do, and secondly, the state government to do?

So we'd like the federal government to have a climate policy, which they don't already, to stop the development of oil and gas projects and just transition into the renewable sector. And for the state government, there is a current deforestation crisis happening. So obviously to do something about that rather than leaving it in the dark. Yeah, and there are plenty more that our government can do, and obviously we can see that there needs things to be done because due to nothing happening at the moment.

Can I get a follow-up?

Another question, if you've asked, yes.

Thank you. Other than protesting on a school day, are you prepared to do other things to make sure the government can hear exactly what it is that you want to say, and give me some detail about other measures you might take other than protesting on a school day?

Okay. So other measures locally. So we went to Kiwala Fest on Sunday to put our name out there and to promote the strike, but not only the strike, but to promote our push for the laws, as you've quoted me saying before. We're also having local initiatives such as tree planting days. So it shows that we are willing to organise things other than strikes to actually make a change in our community. We've met with Susan Templeman on multiple occasions, and Robin Preston. We also extended an invitation for a meeting with you. So that's, and those are our pushes. And we've met with council multiple times as well.

Great. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

This notice of motion — that was the last of the speakers, by the way — this notice of motion has been put forward by Councillor Wheeler. Do we have a seconder? I'll second

That, Mr Mayor

Seconded, Deputy Mayor. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I think it's worth noting that this isn't a bunch of school kids bunking off for a day trying to get out of a bit of work. These kids are protesting because they're really scared, and their families are largely broadly supportive of this, and they understand why their kids are so concerned and so willing to take what many consider to be really drastic action. And I don't think we should condemn them because they're at school or because they're missing a day of school. As they discussed at the climate forum last week, they spend something like 3,000 days at school. They missed half a day for the last climate strike. They'll miss a day for this one. As the mother of one of the organisers, Will, his mother said that he's learning far more doing this than he has in the time that he's spent at school.

And I don't think that's surprising. I think many people become politically active at school. I did. It's a time when I think you can be idealistic, but you can also demand that the governments that are supposed to act for your future do so. I think particularly in the last couple of years of your schooling, you're very future focused. And to be faced with a government that seemingly isn't interested in that future is gutting. We've got a federal government with no climate policy at all. We've got a state government where the treasurer stated clearly in budget estimates last week that he is a supporter of coal. And on the other side, we have these students, and we have their supporters, and they're no longer a small group of dedicated lefties.

They're the big four banks. They're Atlassian, Future Super, the University of New South Wales, the University of Technology Sydney, the Australian Medical Association, who has recognised that we are now in a climate emergency and that that climate emergency has dire health implications for people not just in developing countries. As I think it's been comfortable for us to think, but in Australia, here and now, and in the Hawkesbury every summer,

We've seen unprecedented fires burning in both New South Wales and Queensland. Just this week, we've seen disruptive weather. We've seen the worst devastation the Bahamas has ever seen. This is climate change, and it's happening now. It's not just young people. We've seen Mr Stedden, clearly not a young person, sorry Bill, and his sentiment that we will be long gone, and we will. For many of the current decision makers, we will be long gone when our children and their children are facing the consequences of our lack of action. There's nothing that these students are calling for that's outrageous. No new coal, oil or gas projects. Coal is dead in most of the world. That the Australian economy relies on it to survive is the product of some serious economic shortsightedness.

100% renewable energy by 2030. Achievable and highly desirable. And a just transition and job creation for fossil fuel workers and communities. And this is key, and I really thank the students for bringing this up, because what we're doing at the moment with our head in the sand approach to climate change and the phase-out of fossil fuels is leaving fossil fuel workers high and dry. They will be the Fuji film of the 21st century. They will be the car factory, the auto factory workers of Elizabeth left on the scrap heap. And it will cost governments a fortune to prop up these people and these communities if we don't act now. If we do it now in the next 10 years, then we can transition effectively.

So I commend this notice of motion to you. I'm sure we will see the usual red herrings and ad hominem fallacies thrown at it. The Gazette page is showing just how delightful deniers can be to a group of school kids. So let's see what happens now.

Any further speakers?

Councillor Reynolds

Yeah, just briefly, Mr Mayor, I attended the climate conference last week, I think it was, and the principal of Graceview Primary School spoke, and he made a point that resonated with me and that I had forgotten, in that when we were young and early days of high school... We were scared to death of nuclear war. We had Mr Brezhnev in the USSR huffing and puffing against various US presidents. You know, we were told that, you know, there was, you know, we were only a couple of minutes away from nuclear war in 1963, and nobody was backing down. And so we were literally preparing ourselves for nuclear war and what that would mean to us as kids and the world that would be left behind. And there was nothing we could do.

There was not a thing we could do. The only thing we could do was go to Sydney and take to the streets. And big kids were doing it, uni kids, and so we joined in. And it was like

An awakening. And to be part of such a force, almost a force of nature, to have a voice, a collective voice, was an incredibly powerful experience to young students. Because not only was it a cause to be protested against, it was a noble cause, because there was no argument that what we were doing was the right thing. And it's the same thing that we're talking about here tonight. There is no arguing that what these kids are doing is the right thing. And their families support them, their churches support them,

And a lot of instances their schools support them and their teachers. And I think to condemn these students for what they're doing is just pure ostrich politics. Thank you.

Any further speakers?

Councillor Kotlash.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I support this notice of motion, but I think there's a couple of things that really need to be said about how we go about this transitioning into a carbon-free world . And I think that no new coal and oil and gas projects probably isn't feasible at the moment. I'd love to see that happen, but I think that what's being asked here in point A of no new projects of this nature really flies in the face of point C, which is a just transition and job creation for fossil fuel workers, because I think we're going to have to be , I think we're going to have to step back and probably transition with new projects, but not in such a way that we have a view to keeping them as our sources of fuel and electricity generation.

So, I mean, look, I support this. I think it's great, but I don't like supporting things as clear-cut as this because I just don't think it's achievable. But look, I support these kids. I think it's great. Yeah, but a bit cautious about point A, but I wish them all the best.

Further speakers?

Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Likewise, I fully support what these students are doing. We, as Ms Tyrrell said, they did invite all councillors to come and meet with them. Councillor Wheeler and I did that, and with the planning staff, and we went through a number of approaches. They expressed their concerns, and they, when they had come and spoken at the motion to declare the climate emergency, they were following up and keeping us to account that we were going to actually be doing something about that, not just making a statement. So, they also spoke at the climate forum, which was held last week and was very successful. We may have to have another one because it was booked out and we had to turn people away.

And they spoke there. Chloe, who spoke tonight, Ms Tyrrell is in year 10. She's part of a group, some of whom are in year 12 and currently have obligations with their HSC. So, thank you for coming tonight and speaking to us. I , like Councillor Wheeler, I'm appalled to see the ignorant comments directed at these students by people who say silly things like, You shouldn't miss school, or Get back to school, or Get a job, or whatever. Children miss school all the time. People, you know, they miss it for sport or family reasons or leadership responsibilities. One of my daughters missed a huge amount of school because she was a debater and public speaker, and it certainly didn't have any impact on her missing any days school.

As Councillor Wheeler pointed out, they are supported by their parents, and we have heard the parents say that they see the value in having young people who are thinking about their future. They're doing the research. They don't just stand up and say anything that comes to mind. They've really looked into this. And of course, they know and they can see what lies in store. Today, the Australia Institute survey came out, which showed that 81% of people in Australia are concerned that climate change is getting worse and that they want more done about it. This morning on the radio, Greg Mullins, a retired commissioner of New South Wales Fire and Rescue, was speaking about the absolute devastation of the fires that we see.

Not just the 80 fires burning today, one week out of winter in Queensland, or the 65 fires that were burning on Friday in New South Wales, but the burning on multiple continents across the world at the moment. So this is unprecedented. It's never, ever been seen before. We've had the hottest July that's ever been recorded across the globe, and the last five hottest Julys before that were the previous five years. The world is getting hotter, it's getting drier, and we're seeing the consequence. So when you look at the disastrous proportions of what is happening, even if people don't believe the science, people are going to have to take on board the economic impacts that are going to occur. Who do you think fights these fires?

They're nearly all volunteers. So this is unsustainable that we can go for massive long fire seasons on a volunteer workforce to be doing all this firefighting. That's just one small impact. There's impacts, of course, on our health, as the Australian Medical Association has realised and finally come out and made a big shift and come out and said that this is a major crisis in health and will be a major crisis. In terms of the school strike, the Uniting Church schools are supporting their students to go ahead and strike, and a number of major companies as well as Councillor Wheeler mentioned, particularly Atlassian, who is actually paying their workers to go to the strike. So is that my time, is it?

Okay . 55 seconds. Okay. So I urge people to go along, support these young people. It's their future, and I'll be there speaking because they asked me to speak, and I'm happy to do that because I think that I want to support them to have a good future as well.

Councillor Sam Progler.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. There's a lot of doom and gloom in the world at the moment, and it's for that reason that I'm a great fan of writers like Steven Pinker. Steven Pinker is an optimist. He says particularly that the Earth is—the world is not falling apart, and that we're apt to make the mistake of looking at the harms around us in the world and thinking purely in terms of how low we've sunk rather than how high our standards have risen. Now, the thing is, as an educator, I'm always prepared to accommodate and encourage young people to get good and angry about the state of the world, because that's where change is birthed. But it's also true that people that get young and angry can also be naive and can have other people with more cynical motivations take advantage of their youthful enthusiasm.

So I think of what I see around me. I mean, I've just bought a new car. Well, that is to say I've ordered a new car. It's a hybrid, but the demand for this car is such that I'm going to have to wait four to five months before I can get my hands on it. It's going to emit half as much carbon into the atmosphere as the car that I'm driving now, and the reason that I've been encouraged to buy it isn't simply because I want to do something virtuous for the environment, but it's a very sound economic decision.

Well, I can't afford one at the moment.

We not interrupt, please. But

It's also true. Thank you. It's also true

That Australia's per capita carbon emissions are the lowest that they have been for 29 years. In 1990, the per capita carbon emission was 34 tonnes per person. As of September last year, it's 22 tonnes and falling. It's also true that our per dollar of GDP carbon emissions are the lowest that they've been since 1990. They were 0.8 of a kilo of CO2 per dollar of real GDP in 1990, and today it's 0.3 of a kilo and falling. And those figures come from the quarterly update of Australia's national greenhouse gas inventory from the Department of Environment and Energy. So I think there's reason to be optimistic about the future. And I'm also confident that both state and federal governments are heeding this challenge and that their policies are adequate to address this challenge without sacrificing Australia's economy along the way.

Thank you. Any further speakers? Councillor Tree.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I get really frustrated when we have this conversation because what happens is it always comes down to the polarising debate about whether climate change exists or not. And for me, I don't think it's important whether we believe it does or it doesn't. What is important is that we work towards doing the right thing by the environment, full stop. Like the argument, you know, you've got figures that support what you think, you've got figures that support what you think, but at the end of the day, we're missing the point. Instead of all, you know, having the two different camps, we should be all saying, okay, well, what can we do to improve what we're doing? Doing currently, and of course there's huge room for improvement.

There's so many issues regarding this, but, and I think, look, I do think it's important for young people to have a voice, and it doesn't matter if it's idealistic and not really practical to begin with, because those practicalities come through in the end because we can't just, you know, stop doing all of the fossil fuel things immediately. It has to be phased out. It has to be a practical approach. But it certainly should be something that we're working towards. It shouldn't be something that we say, well, it's not going to work, so we're not going to do it. We have to find a middle road where we're going to come to a point where everybody can see that we're trying to do what is right and most for the environment.

I do think it's funny that you're going to buy a car that's going to take so many carbon miles to come across the world to get to us to save a few more carbon things. I find that's really funny, but if it's going to be a good thing, that's great. But otherwise I think it's a bit of a funny thing to do. So in terms of having a day off school, Councillor Reynolds mentioned, you know, some peace marches in the park. I actually remember those because I was there as a young person. So I think whether we get it right or wrong at the time, I think it is important to have the opportunity to say what you feel. And as I said, whether you believe in climate change or not, that's not the argument. Everyone's got this argument, and that's why we stand on two different polar opposite sides trying to prove to each other what is correct and true about science.

And you'll find a scientist, if you want to find a doctor who'll tell you it's a great idea to drink and smoke crack, you'll find somebody who'll tell you it's a great idea. Same too with climate change figures. If you want someone to tell you that it doesn't exist, you'll find somebody who'll show you that. If you want somebody to show you that it does exist, you'll find somebody with the figures to back that, support that issue. But we must all be working towards a better outcome for our younger people and to a better outcome for the future. And I don't care if people want to tell me this is a Greens agenda or whatever. I still think it's a good idea that people are becoming, if there's an awareness, so that we can have some serious change sooner than later.

So, I like Councillor Kotlash. I do think that the wording of, you know, you can't do anything—I mean, you can't live without power. We've got to be pragmatic about it, but we do definitely have to be looking for better alternatives. So I won't be popular with a lot of people I know, but that's how I feel.

Thank you. Further discussion? No further discussion. Councillor Wheeler, right of reply.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Just to address a few points, particularly the no new coal issue . I think the climate strikers are aiming their sights firmly at the Adani coal mine. It's important to note that a lot of the coal that Australia digs up isn't for use keeping the lights on in Australia. Eighty percent of the coal that Australia produces is exported. That's why we dig it up—not because we need it, but because we make money out of it. That's the kicker. Australia is the third largest exporter of coal globally, behind such human rights benefactors as Saudi Arabia—top record there, Australia. So we can't sit around and say that we don't emit a lot because we're a small nation. If we were held responsible for the massive quantity of coal that we export, we would be a large global emitter.

It's not true that Australia's emissions have been rising for the last five years. To quote the per capita figure is a misuse of statistics. Australia's population has risen in that time, and you have simply changed the denominator to use a per capita figure. Australia's emissions, in fact, have risen every year for the last five years since the Liberal-National Coalition scrapped the carbon tax.

We have to confront—Councillor, I agree with Councillor Tree. We have to start somewhere. I heard an excellent quote from someone 10 years ago in the thought who was hopeful that we might actually start, that the resources that we have left, these existing coal, oil and gas reserves that we have now, are too important to waste boiling the kettle. We have to use those to transition, and if we don't have governments of all three tiers working together to enact that transition, we are going to be caught very badly short, not just in terms of transitioning this country or transitioning its workers, but in terms of Australia's ability to trade and function as part of the global economy.

So I'm pleased to see that there seems to be some support for this. I don't agree that people are broadly optimistic. I think if you speak to young people who have an understanding of the science, they're not optimistic at all. We are now at the point where the generation that comes after us will have a lower quality of life and a lower life expectancy than we have enjoyed. It will be the first time that this has happened in this country, and I think that is a deep, deep tragedy. The only thing that gives me hope at the moment is the fight of these young climate strikers. I went to the climate strike, the last climate strike in Sydney. I caught the train in with the kids, and when I stepped out at Town Hall, I started to cry.

I have— I felt very, very hopeless about the future of this country, and that was one of the few times that I have felt hopeful. What these kids are doing is extraordinary, and I am happy to offer them any support that I can.

Thank you. I'll put the motion. All those in favour, please stand.

In favour of the motion, Councillor Ross, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Wheeler, Deputy Mayor, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Tree, Councillor Calvert. Against, Councillor Samprogno, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Richards. Absent, Councillor Rasmussen and Councillor Garrow. Declare it carried. Thank you.

Now move to item 164, and I believe, Deputy Mayor, you'd like to declare an interest.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'm declaring a pecuniary interest in item 164. I'm submitting it under clause 4.3.7 of the Hawkesbury City Council Adopted Code of Conduct for the purposes of clause 4.3.6. The exemption from clause 4.2.9 is due to satisfying the criteria in clause 4.3.6, as the property in question, which falls within the investigation area, is my principal place of residence, and the structure planning relates to a significant portion of the council area. So no need to leave the discussion.

That's clear. Well

That was detailed because normally with a pecuniary interest, one would leave, so that's why I was explaining

We have two speakers on this matter. The first speaker is Mr Bill Snedd.

Mr Mayor, thank you. Regarding this, Councillors and gallery, I'm largely in favour of the items presented in the report, but I do have some concerns regarding certain areas that I'm good at. What I'm not good at, and will leave to others, is the vegetation and the landforms, etcetera. I've also discussed some of my concerns in this report with several of the staffers, including Mr Kearns here. I start with flood evacuation. What I'm concerned about is we are now dealing with significant development west of the river, something that we were promised 30 to 40 years ago was never going to happen, and we're now living it. Quite frankly, I'm being reminded of climate change and the ozone hole, etcetera.

We can do some things about what's going on, however. The first one that I'm really concerned about is flood evacuation. This paper is again indicating that we are wanting residents to move from high ground west of the river , people in safety, across a flood plain to the east. We're putting residents in danger doing this. I'm told that this is required by the state government with flood planning, etcetera, because if people are living to the west in flood events, we will be likely to be losing electricity supply to the area. I'm also advised by people on the Floodplain Management Committee and others that they're seriously looking at the moment and trying to get some sensible questions as to why there's not resilience of electricity supply from the west.

Apparently also, I'm told that the electricity supply at the moment is looking like being sourced out of the Redbank development, which again is going to fall over in significant flood times. We need some resiliency of electricity supply to the west. Now maybe one of the council things could be doing if we're putting a solar farm in, let's put it west of the river so in flood times it can actually feed into the grid out there. There's another reason for evacuating people, and that's likelihood of sewerage. Shutouts. Then there's also water supply. And then I'm told also there's more resiliency problems for residents, food supplies and other things that people need to live on in an extended flood time.

There's also the issue that there are effectively no medical facilities west of the river. So if you're living over there, and let's just think about Redbank, there's a whole lot of retired people out there and elderly people that are going to be in need in medical attention. So we are seriously saying that we're going to drag these people across a floodplain, putting them at risk to get medical attention? Where's the resiliency in this plan? And there's a few more things in this, but I would simply say that to drag people that aren't at risk out in foul weather across potential danger on a floodplain that we are not really good at predicting how quick things come up. I'd like to put in a quote that I remember from a long time ago, and it is simply, There lies madness.

So we need to be looking at some resiliency out west. This also points to lack of infrastructure and failure to spend on it. Now that we're shoving people out there because we're being forced to put more housing, et cetera, there, we're playing catch up with a lack of infrastructure. Also, I notice there's some reasonable traffic planning, et cetera, looking at that, and we're looking at to at least way past 2030. But again, this highlights the lack of infrastructure. Now, regarding electricity and water, where's the water going to be coming from? Because already we have problems with water supply up at Kurrajong. I regularly hear that in here. Sydney Water doesn't appear to be very interested in upgrading anything up there.

We also are— Doing all of this on blocks that I am told have to be, have the builders provide sewage. They're not being connected. And I have a significant environmental concern regarding thousands of people living on new septic or enviro-cycle type units up there. In the Blue Mountains, the EPA and State Government have been trying to cut down river pollution from sewage systems by putting in full sewage, as for, say, for example, Yellow Rock, Winmalee and all the rest of it up through the mountains. We didn't get our three-town sewage system via Sydney Water until the backlog system in the Blue Mountains was completed. I remember that. I was on the three-town sewage committee for here. So by doing this, we're going to be putting more nutrients into the environment.

The advantage of the new sewage systems that are going in are they're full biological nutrient removal systems that take out both nitrogen and phosphorus. Septic systems in the ground and enviro-cycles basically don't do this. So we're going to be putting more nitrogen and phosphorus into the groundwater and potentially going into our streams that then run into the Hawkesbury, with the risk in climate change of reduced flows, algal blooms, etc. in the river. Again, sheerly madness.

So another thing is, with climate change, I'm not seeing a whole lot about bushfire resistance and attention to the climate change requirements of people out there. The area is going to be hotter, and so there's going to be more need for water and power than we're even looking at now. So

Your time is up.

Thank you.

Thank you. Were you happy to answer any questions?

I certainly am, sir.

Are there any questions? No, thank you, Mr. Sneddon.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Mr. Michael Want

Thanks, Chair and Councillors. The NRDCWA is opposed to this item for the matter to go on public exhibition. This should be deferred, and for the following reasons.

Procedural fairness, incorrect information, emissions, the environment, and the approval for the bridges should be obtained before these any planning proposals are approved. Council's decision should not rely on hope, as Council did in the Redbank approval. In relation to the reasons, the NRDCWA has been raising issues with overdevelopment, traffic congestion west of the river, and planning proposals since about 2011. To read yesterday in the Business Paper that there were five very detailed items is procedurally unfair on the NRDCWA and at least the 4,400 petitioners who said no rezoning of land till the current traffic congestions are addressed. At the very least, the NRDCWA should be advised in a timely manner, offered a briefing, and enabled it to come to an informed decision.

Secondly, on the 19th of August, the NRDCWA, represented by Beatrice Insouci, Margaret Smith, Brian, and myself, met with Mr. Conroy. At that meeting, one of the items discussed was the Hawkesbury Traffic Study and its progress. Mr. Conroy informed us the traffic study details will be available mid-October. And he will come back to us and speak with the NRDCAA and also with Corb and the Bells Line of Road group. Mr Conroy confirmed that it would be acceptable to do that. We naturally understood the traffic studies would be finalised by October from that discussion, but Mr Conroy did not say that. In the business paper, page two of the traffic study confirms it is not completed. We certainly appreciate Mr Conroy's willingness to meet with community groups to assist the communication process, and he comes across to us with a good will and a can-do attitude.

After the August meeting, we took it that after the October briefing, the outstanding planning proposals and the study would then come to Council.

The NRDCAA understood from a Council meeting about 18 months ago the studies that would be undertaken in relation to the planning proposals, etc., had to be completed before these matters were to be determined.

We have a recommendation from officers of the Council relying on hope. That is not a firm basis for making decisions that affect thousands of people on a daily basis. Groups like BLAW, Corb and ourselves wanted to participate, but need to be encouraged, respected and listened to. Incorrect information. At one point, the business paper refers to Glossodia having 580 dwellings. In item 165 to 168, they refer to 250 dwellings. The plan at page 13 also refers to 250 dwellings. One must be incorrect. Further, there's no mention of organic growth, and why not? The plan at page 13 advises the traffic interim advice relies on the Grose River Bridge being operational in 2027 and all will be okay. The new bridge was going to be built when approving the Redbank development.

Councillors Conolly and Tree were absolutely certain, as was the developer. Of course, at that time the community was unaware of the ICAC investigations and the comments therein at Chapter 32 and Mr Bassett being named as an affected person along with others in a subsequent chapter. Mr

Wont's been warned about this in the past and I don't need to go down this path again. This is just ridiculous.

Thank you, Councillor Richards. Mr Wont, can you stay relevant to the topic, please?

That is very relevant.

I don't think personal attacks or mentioning previous councillors are relevant in this case. This is a factual situation, sir. Please stick to the topic.

I'll continue. As the NRDCW said at the time, the bridge approval should be sought and gained prior to the Redbank approval. We have the same message to Council regarding this bridge and the planning proposal items. We should not make decisions based on hope. The residential land strategy says we should preserve the unique and high quality natural environment of the Hawkesbury. The previous Council ignored that. This Council should not follow their example. The Mayoral Minute reflects the State Government and others' position on the 2050 emissions target. We heard the debate tonight from the climate change strike. If Council is serious about emissions, they would not be building a bridge across the Grose River, which is a declared wildlife river under legislation.

At page 18 of the Business Paper, Council speaks about exceptional landscapes and waterways, heritage, natural beauty, wilderness, environmental assets, rural character, colonial history and many more great aspects. But it is only talk, make-believe. This is not what's happening, Councillors.

Excuse me, Mr Wont, your time is up. You happy to answer any questions? I am. Councillor Conolly. Thanks, Mr Mayor.

I don't know if I misunderstood, Mr Wont, I thought you just said that council's not taking emissions seriously because it's building a bridge over the Grose River. Is it your contention that any significant waterway cannot have a bridge across it?

I said if council is serious about emissions, they would not be building. I didn't say what you said.

Sorry, just to clarify then, Mr Wont, why would emissions be higher or lower if there was a bridge across a particular river?

Because you'd be going knocking down trees. Yes, I know you don't agree with that, but that's what goes on. Look, up at Redbank, where heaps of trees have gone.

Just to clarify, I've got one more follow-up. Another question? Yeah. Why would the location of that bridge, sorry, determine whether or not the emissions were higher or lower, in particular to any other location? Or is it your contention we shouldn't build any bridges across any rivers if they're going to knock down any trees?

No, what I've said is that the Grose River is a wild river under legislation, and it should be protected and looked after and loved.

Thank you. You've asked it three times now. Any other questions? Thank you. Councillor Richards has a question.

Thank you, Mr Wont. You continuously come in here as a member of the NRDCAA. I've got a few questions relating to that organisation. What is your exact title in that group at present? Michael Wont. You're titled. Do you have a role? Yes. Is there a president? Is there a chain of—

Oh yes, I'm vice president. You're

The vice president. Thank you. How many active members are there?

I can't tell you that.

The vice president doesn't know how many active members there are of his organisation?

I'm not sure what the point of the question is, but—

It's a relevant question. You're representing a group. You don't have to answer the question, Mr—

But there was 4,400 people who signed a petition. No

No, no. My question is relative to the— do your members pay a financial contribution to be a member every year? Is that part of your constitution? I do. I asked about your members.

Councillor Richards, are you sticking to the topic here?

He's representing a community organisation, and I'm

Just asking questions about the community organisation. The topic is not the community organisation. Topic is the structure plan. Would you

Stick to that? Point of order, Mr Mayor. Yes. I actually disagree with that. I think it’s entirely relevant. If someone comes here purporting to represent an organisation, it’s entirely proper that that person might be asked about, does that organisation exist and how many members does it have and who are you actually speaking for,

If they want to be treated specially. And that’s already happened. I just don’t want this to continue as a—

I don’t

Know about the NRDCAA.

Yeah, I do have quite a few,

Thank you. Are they all about NRDCAA? I don’t know

About the organisation, and if there’s a gentleman here saying he’s from an organisation I don’t know about, then I need to know about that organisation.

Can you summarise it into one more question?

Can I please get from you, if you were summarising into one question, let me begin. Are the members financial? How many financial active members are there? The frequency of the meetings, and how many actually turn up to those meetings? Point

Of order. I’ll take it on notice at the time.

You’re the Vice President. Point of order, Mr Mayor.

I don’t know these answers. Point of order. Can I— Mr Want does not have to answer these questions. Thank you

Point of order, Mr Mayor

Thank you. Yes, point of order.

I believe that when somebody comes to speak, they sign a thing to say they represent an organisation, and that is with the authority of that organisation. So I don’t see any need for any particular interrogation. As a

Councillor who doesn’t know about that organisation, I have every right to ask

Sorry, can you stop now please?

Yes, please.

Deputy Mayor, sorry, that’s not a point of order. I go back to what I said before. We finished with questions.

I’ve exhausted my questions, Mr Mayor,

Thank you. Mr Want doesn’t have to answer. Are there any other questions? No, thank you, Mr Want. The matter is open for discussion. Do we have anyone who wants to move anything? Councillor Tree. Move

The recommen— oh, actually, yeah, move the recommendation, Mr Mayor.

Moved by Councillor Tree, seconded by Councillor Conolly. Councillor Tree, you wish to speak to it?

Just a few things. I feel as though this has been around for a really long time, and some of the arguments that have been put up for knocking it back just seem a little bit ludicrous to me. Considering the argument is, when the power goes out, we'll have no power west of the river. Well , that's the same. The power goes out in the floodplain area before the rest of the— west of the river, I mean, at the same time. I mean, if there's a flood and everyone's underwater, we all lose power. So I don't think that's an argument, and I don't think it's a realistic expectation to think that when the power goes out, everything has to be perfect, because as we saw over the weekend, if— I mean, I don't know if there was anyone who was not affected by the power outage.

It was as widespread as Auburn and Blacktown, and almost everyone I know was affected by the power outage, and that happens in life, and we deal with it like we did last week. Things are not ideal. In relation to the congestion west of the river, that is so much better than it has been previously with the new roadworks, and that new bridge that is going across the Grose River, which is part of a VPA, so nobody can wriggle out of it. And I'm sure council's doing everything they possibly can to facilitate and support the process, along with the RMS, because otherwise that would be very disappointing if they were not doing that.

There are people in old homes in— people in old homes in Richmond. In fact, people west of the river are better off than people who are over here in the floodplain because we actually can drive a little way and get to Lithgow if we need to, or, you know, like it's— or go across through Bell there and get to the mountains. So it's sort of like they're just arguments for argument's sake, I think. In relation to— there was another point being made. To suggest that we shouldn't be putting these few homes across the river is a bit of a nonsense because we currently have a policy to permit infill in floodplain areas and granny flats as we speak. So, you know, we're happy to let those be built down here where it actually can flood up over the roof, whereas across west of the river there's no chance of that happening.

So the other thing is these people have put this in, it's just going to go out on public exhibition and then we have a look at it again after that, I think. What are you talking about? I just think it's a bit redunculous.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I think it's the council that's put it in, not people.

I applaud the work that's been done in this investigation. I think that it's thorough and comprehensive, and I think it's an extremely welcome advancement in our suite of planning information. It's just a huge shame that it wasn't done earlier. As we saw the— first of all, could I just ask what length of time the exhibition period is that it would be going out on?

Mr Conroy? Miss Bereen?

Minimum 28 days. So minimum 28 days. Could I ask at this point that that be an extended period, given the volume? It is a lot of material to read through. If we could have an extension on that to maybe 40 days or something. Through you, Mr Mayor, yes, we can do that. Okay, thank you, or 43, Councillor Connelly wants. Thank you. I think when we look at pages 15 and 16 of the business paper, we can see the timeline of how this situation has arisen and how it has been dealt with. And there's no doubt that it has been absolutely steeped in uncertainty. And with many changes going on all the way through until we got to this point. So in the regional land study, a residential land study was adopted in 2011, but unfortunately it was adopted and the supporting studies were never carried out to enable the assessments to be adequately done.

And along a similar time, landowners were approached by private planners offering to assist with carving up their properties, and we've seen the unfolding of a situation of indecision follow on from then. So I'm very pleased that we've actually moved into having some documentation to enable proper assessment of the situation. So when that strategy came out, it said that it provided a strategic direction on the location of future housing. However, additional detailed studies and structure planning will be required. So eight years later, we've got a draft policy for that, hopefully with an extended exhibition period so people can comment on it. The strategy recommended further investigations for general low density or medium density residential areas around Richmond, Hobartville, North Richmond, Wilberforce, Glossodia and Windsor South Windsor, not Kurmond or Kurrajong, but that's what we saw.

And because of that, the council didn't know what to do at the time. So after two years of bungling about with it, they decided to do this investigation area. So this has nothing to do with the current council or the current staff, and we've had to fix it. And this series of studies goes a long way in delivering a very good framework for us to work from. But I feel it's important to have pointed that out because we have had a very messy situation. We know that we're not targeted for significant future growth due to our constraints, and we also have a need to protect our valuable land for agriculture and tourism, and we're also faced with limited infrastructure and public transport. These themes come through in the state planning policies that apply to this, and we know that that is the situation.

We know also that provision of housing into the future will ideally come through development in and around our major townships and transport routes rather than from the rural residential development. The investigation area itself was defined eventually due to the inconsistent application of the one kilometre from village centre radius rule that existed. And the definition of village centre actually did not relate to Kurrajong or Kurmond because they were called neighbourhood centres. And so therefore I've never considered that they are actually even part of this strategy because they weren't the areas. Anyway, we've gone ahead. But I think that we've got a set of studies now that planning proposals can be assessed against.

But we have to remember that we were criticised by the planning panel for the deficiencies in the approach of this council to the Kurrajong-Kurmond rezonings in the area, and the issues of infrastructure still remains. We've got no timeline on the proposed Grose River crossing, and we have no firm funding allocated to construct a third crossing of the Hawkesbury River. I'm happy for this to go out on public exhibition so that people can comment on what they think about it. And I'm also keen to see these studies in relation to any future zoning changes, which would better reflect the suitability of any subdivision in that area. Spot rezonings not a

Good thing.

The planning minister has openly spoken, and I'm pleased that we've now got properly supporting documents. Thank you

Any further speakers

Councillor Connelly. Thanks, Mr Mayor. I'm also happy for this to go out on exhibition. Maybe there's some things that could change, but I certainly think a period of exhibition and to hear from the people who are likely to be submitting applications and other people who live there as well about what's right or wrong about it would be good at this point. I would, you know, I would like to say that— I think it's important that we see this through. When it came to Council and we spoke about it in a briefing about the money we were going to be spending on this particular area to do these studies, significant dollars have gone into a study that is, as we can see here, likely, if everybody took up their potential, likely to result in an extra 200 lots.

I said at the time, I think we should just not do it. We should just not do that strategy, and those 200 lots are just not worth the investment of the ratepayers' money. But Council decided that it wanted to invest the ratepayers' money in developing this area, and that was a decision of the majority of Council. So given that's what Council decided, I think it is important now we see this through, we put it on exhibition, get feedback, make any changes required, and now that we've, as I said, spent all the money from our ratepayers on making this development a priority, I think we now have to see through that development.

Further speakers?

Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor, and I want to thank the Deputy Mayor for extending the exhibition period. This is a very large volume of work, and I think the community needs time to get their heads around it. It's a surprisingly good read, especially pages 13 to 16. I didn't think any of you were likely to find such a comedy of errors in a Council business paper, but there we have it. Starting with the residential land strategy and its aims in 2011, I'm sure that the Department of Planning and Infrastructure didn't imagine how they would be twisted to unlock this area for subdivision. I don't think that anyone knew in 2015 that investigations within Kurmond Village was code for subdivision without proper consultation, consideration of constraints or social impacts.

A flood of proposals followed on. They were approved willy-nilly. Chaos ensued, particularly traffic chaos. More proposals came in, and there was a clear expectation that those proposals would be passed. In 2016, when this council was elected, eight of us stated publicly that we would not approve development west of the river without better infrastructure. And then it started: the accusations of unfairness, of wasting people's money, of unprofessionalism. But the cold facts are stated in this report. This is a heavily constrained area. It was picked seemingly on a whim for subdivision without doing the studies to back that area up, without committing any money to investigate the area properly, and now we've got a mess.

And I say to the NRDCAA who live in the area most heavily affected by this mess that it's too late for this council to simply shut the gate. We have to have a way forward, and this is that way forward. It's evidence-based. It's clear. There's clear considerations of the constraint which affect the area, and it's the standard we should be adopting across the whole LGA. I hope the community take the time to read this. I hope that they are buoyed by the findings of the biological diversity, the importance of views, and the consideration that's been given to maintaining, as far as possible, the quality of life of the people who already live there. This, I think, is the best outcome that we can have for the area within the confines of the planning legislation that we have to function in.

It gives Council's Planning Panel the documents that it needs to work in, but most importantly, it gives Council a way forward to work out what we do with planning across the whole LGA. And I think now, with planning decisions taken out of our hands, that's really, really important. Any

Further speakers? If not, Councillor Ross.

Thank you, Mayor.

I would have to support this

In that I believe we are in a cleft stick and without very much option, frankly, in view of past actions by past councils.

The matter that also concerns me, frankly, is if my fellow councillors would like to take a drive from Colo High School, Redbank Road and traverse through that area along Greggs Road up to Grace Vale Road, the extent of tree removal, particularly, shall I say, on the southern side of that route , is just absolutely astronomic. I've had a report today of the latest little infraction in that area.

Unless we can do, as a council, Something in the way of being able to try and preserve the natural beauty and vista of these areas. Not only are we doomed in terms of climate change, but we're doomed in terms of the lifestyle people are going to be able to achieve in anything that happens from here on out. It is just appalling.

You drive down through the new works at the lower end of Griggs Road, and one now gets beautiful visions of all the lights from Redbank. Previously all one could see is a tree-lined vista. It was like God's hedge. We don't get it. It's gone.

Even if

People decided that they'd undertake some tree planting, it'll be another 40 or 50 years before we see anything like it. And heavens knows, with the amount of rain that we're not getting, goodness knows that you can propagate anything. It'll just end up being a dust bowl.

We really do have to do

A lot better in terms of, if any of these developments go ahead, of being able to ensure that what occurs on site is actually in compliance with the approvals given, and not turn the other shoulder, shall we say. And I applaud the youth in their earlier endeavours, and may they continue. They're the only hope we have. It's an absolute travesty to see the way this area is being denuded of its greenery.

And I've been around the place for 50-odd years.

Regrettably, Mr Wont, we have to support this. Let's hope it can be done in as decent and as respectful a fashion for everybody, including the existing residents, who surely deserve their amenity. Thank you.

Further speakers? Councillor Tree, right of reply. No,

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Okay

In that case, I'll put the motion. All those in favour, please stand.

In favour of the motion: Councillor Ross, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Wheeler, Deputy Mayor, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Tree, Councillor Richards, Councillor Calvert. Absent: Councillor Rasmussen and Councillor Garrow. Declare it carried.

We now move to item 165. We have three speakers. First speaker is Alison Amor.

Good evening, Mr Mayor, Councillors. I have spoken here before. My name is Alison Amor and I come from 42 Bells Lane, and I'm speaking in regard to the application to subdivide that property. Our consultant, Glenn Falson, is unavailable tonight and suggested I come here to the meeting and answer any questions that might arise from our application. This subdivision application has been a long and difficult process. I'm hearing from Councillors that they consider it to be very difficult and long as well. 42 Bells Lane was the property of my parents. My husband and I have lived at the home as their carers for some years, and we remain living there today. The property was bequeathed to my brother and me upon their deaths to facilitate distribution of the estate upon their deaths.

My father commenced inquiries about subdividing the land following the invitation letters that were sent to the community regarding the Kurmond Kurrajong investigation area. An application to subdivide with a cheque for $25,000 was lodged in March 2016, more than three and a half years ago. There are people who have been waiting for longer than that. Council officers at the time recommended to allow the development of the site into five lots with a minimum lot size of not less than 4,000 square metres, and recommended at that stage that the proposal be forwarded to the Department of Planning and Environment for a gateway determination, subject to the different studies about fauna and flora, etc.

The initial hearing of our application was delayed because of a resolution in June 2016 relating to another planning proposal. Then there was a meeting in November 2016, which Council resolved not to accept any further planning proposal applications within the area, but to continue processing proposals currently lodged prior to November 2016. And our application fell into this category, that it would be that they would continue processing. The first hearing of our application did not happen then until January 2017, 31st of January. The proposal was then put on hold pending traffic reports and other studies that were supposedly to take about six months. Eventually the application was put to the IHAP panel meeting in October 2018, and this panel once again recommended that the proposal be submitted to Gateway, but there were conditions, and one of them was that we wait for 24 months and wait again for the studies and the reports that had been mentioned some years prior, and hoping that these would be completed.

I might add here that I am not a property developer. We have not been property developers. All we are doing is trying to keep

The property in the family.

It's now September 2019, and I'm pleased that there is some progress, and I welcome the recommendation being made to the meeting. We are, however, disappointed to be excluded from the recommended 4,000 metre square minimum block size, which applies to the property immediately next to ours. And it would appear that the reason that ours is excluded is to do with the views and vistas from Bells Line of Road. I suggest that councillors visit our property, as the proposed new lots are barely visible from Bells Line of Road, and I would refer to the images G and I that are within the report. There would be minimal change to the views and vista. I've lived in the Hawkesbury for 40 years plus—well, actually more than that because my father was Air Force and we lived here at other times.

I've always loved the area, and I want to stay here. Once again, we are not property developers, but we would like to stay in the area. My son has recently bought out my brother, his uncle, of his share of the property in the hope that we can stay in our home. I understand a lot of the arguments that are being made, but let me tell you that I love the Hawkesbury probably as much as any of you do, and I think that there's a bit of bloody-mindedness going on, and it's very disappointing to be part of the

Changing of the goalposts all the time. There are only a handful of the people left,

And why we are having to pay for this is just beyond me.

Thank you anyway. Are you happy to answer any questions? Oh, sorry

Yes.

Deputy Mayor has a question.

Thank you, Mr Mead, thank you. I was just wondering, when you first started you said you had invitation letters to divide your land up. Who were they from? No,

It wasn't an invitation letter as such. It was an invitation for people to talk about... The Kurrajong, Kurmond, and I wasn't— I didn't get the letter at that stage, my father did. There was an investigation area.

As a result, people put in, you know, made inquiries, etc., and then people started putting in applications. They were being accepted, and they were going through, and we put it in on the strength of that.

I understand that, but were they from the council, or were they from planners?

We certainly never got something from a planner. Okay. We got it—my father responded to an invitation from council. Okay, thank you.

Councillor Conolly has a question Yeah, thank you. Thanks, Mr.—thank you for that. Just wondering what's happened since the local planning panel made these suggestions. Have you done work on trying to amend your proposal to meet this, or you don't want to, or

Look, my understanding was that they accepted the proposal as it stood. It wasn't at any stage suggested to us by the IHAP committee or panel that we needed to change our proposal. From the beginning, when we first put it in, we had never had any queries or any recommendations to change the proposal. It, to me, was accepted as is, subject to some of the studies being such as flora and fauna, bushfire, etc

Sorry, just if I could, Mr. Mayor. So, but since that local planning panel, has council been in contact with you a lot in terms of working on— No.

Any further questions? Councillor Richards.

Thank you very much for that. Just one quick question. Part 2 of the recommendation lists a couple of things. Point A says it needs to increase the lot size. You have on page 43, five lots as the proposed plan. How many lots would that then give you based on the Planning Panel's recommendations?

Well, we are— You haven't assessed that yet? Well,

It would be lucky to be three. I mean, technically we are just under three hectares.

Thank you. And the other list of reports in Part 2, has there been any part of the process prior where you've been required, Council has asked you to provide them at any other point? No. Only now?

Not even now. Not

Even now. Councillor Reynolds, do you have a question?

Yeah, thanks,

Mr Mayor. Thanks, Mr Zamprogno. Just picking up on something Councillor Conolly said. The Planning Panel, which the business paper tells us submitted the recommendations 18th of October last year, the first point, as Councillor Richards pointed out, is to provide a minimum lot size of one hectare. You weren't aware of that?

We were certainly not made aware of that. As far as I was concerned, the IHAP looked at it as we had originally put it in, and they, from my understanding, accepted that and it just went through, and we had to wait for the 24 months, which was.. .

Okay, so, but you are referring to the report back from the planning panel of October 2008? I

Don't think I ever was given a copy of the report. Okay.

Okay,

That's what I was meaning. Yeah. Okay , thank you. Okay. No more questions. Thank you, Mrs. Amel. Thank you. Our second speaker is Mr. Andrew Edwards.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Deputy Mayor, Councillors, Council staff. I'm here on behalf of Glenn Falson. He was only made aware of this late last week, and his wife's quite ill in Melbourne, so he wasn't able to make it. And I've tried to get up to speed since lunchtime today, so excuse me if I'm a bit behind. My understanding—well, Ms. Michael was quite explicit there. My understanding is Council put out a circular to all the residents of Kurmond, Kurrajong, advising them of a potential change back in 2011, and those residents, some then approached planners. There was no doubting of the planners to residents. The residents approached planners. It has been going on for a long time. I probably haven't got much more to say other than any questions you want to put to me of a technical nature on the layout.

In terms of Councillor Connolly's questions, we haven't been able to respond to the IHAP report until it was presented to Council. So we can't make any submissions on that until Council have accepted it and moved forward.

Thank you. You happy to answer questions? Sure. Any questions? Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Sorry, I wasn't suggesting Mr Falson had done that, but we have had people stand there and tell us they had letterbox pamphlets about coming in to have their land divided up.

Councillor Reynolds.

Yeah, thanks, Mr Mayor, and thanks for coming in and speaking to us. Were you aware of the contents of the local

Planning report from October last year?

As of lunchtime today. Okay, so you weren't aware that there was a request to increase the minimum lot size to one hectare until today? No, not until today.

The concerns I have over that, and particularly this application, is it is 2.9 hectares. So at one hectare, they're only going to get two lots. When you consider all the other planning proposals that have been approved and rezoned, as we'll see, some of them are quite often down to 4,000 square metres. So I think it's a bit unreasonable all of a sudden, considering this one was lodged back at similar time as those, that they're now forced into one hectare, and in this instance might only get two lots, when you've approved 4,000 square metre lots previously.

Councillor Richards.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. As a planner, and in your experience of planning and doing rezonings, are these reports listed in the business paper and as part of the recommendation normal standard reports you would submit as part of an application?

As part of a development application, certainly. You'd address them in the rezoning, but you might go, depending on the site, right into those, getting those full-blown reports.

So you're saying, in your experience, rather than for the rezoning, they'd be more applicable in the DA portion? Definitely

Be required in the DA portion. They may be required at the rezoning stage.

But Council at no point prior has ever asked you, in the years that this has been going on, to provide these reports until now.

My understanding is no. Thank you.

Any more questions? Thank you, Mr Edwards. Thank you. Our final speaker is Mr Michael Want.

Mr Want, can I ask you to try to refrain from repeating what you have said in previous items, thank you.

Yes, I'm going to speak on some of the things I missed out on. Chair and councillors, all these items should be deferred till the traffic study is complete and transport is using a bypass of Windsor, Richmond and North Richmond. Only then we will be able to declare we truly want to maintain our exceptional landscapes, waterways, our heritage, our natural beauty, our wilderness, the environmental assets, the rural character, the colonial history and many more great assets.

I also just want to mention, in relation to comments made earlier on in relation to the voluntary planning agreement, no one can wriggle out of it. The Redbank Voluntary Planning Agreement, most of those clauses have a clause which says if the parties agree, the agreement can be changed, and I know it has been changed, so the part about the can't wriggle out is just not correct. I also support Councillor Lyons-Buckett's and others' comments in relation to the process, and also Councillor Ross, but the whole theory for the NRDCWA is the traffic study is not completed. So how do we make decisions when a study isn't completed, when, as I understand it, a decision was taken by Council that they should be completed?

And I know it's difficult, but that's the situation. And in relation to the NRDCAA and property developers, property developers aren't the target. The target are governments who make the rules. They should make rules that don't have huge gaps that creates the problems. That's where it all starts. And in relation to the 4,000 square metres, 4,000 square metres is nothing out in the rural areas. It's called a rural area on the other side of the river, and 4,000 square metres is not rural. So I'll just leave it at that and suggest that all the items be deferred if it pleases, Councillor.

Happy to answer questions. Yes. Are there any questions? Councillor Reynolds.

Yeah, just regarding the traffic study, Mr Want, you realise that the traffic study was an LGA-wide study. Yes. Okay. Are you aware that the traffic modelling of Stage 2 for Kurrajong-Kurmond investigation area and this planning proposal has been done?

Well, my understanding from reading the business paper is Stage 2 is not completed.

No, I realise that Stage 2, the LGA-wide section of Stage 2 is not complete, but this section of the traffic report relating to this planning proposal is complete.

I'm not aware of that, Councillor Reynolds. But also the concerns for us is that the bridge, we know what the Redbank situation was, and 2027, it's nine years away. I mightn't be here then, but I doubt we'll ever see a bridge across the Grose River I doubt that. Okay,

Thank you.

But we're relying on that bridge to support the traffic studies, and I think that's not wise. Okay,

Thank you. Further questions? Councillor Ross.

Good evening, Mr. White. Councillor Ross. I might just throw a question back to you. You made comments in regard to the state government, with which I totally agree.

The shoe is being put on the wrong foot at this time in the life of councils across the state, because councils are being asked to, without any knowledge of — Is this a question, Councillor Ross? Yes. Could you make it a question, please? I certainly will. Would you agree that government would be well advised in this particular landscape to have decided upon a final route for the third crossing of the Hawkesbury River, because it could possibly impact this area, and we may not be aware of that? Would you be— am I correct in understanding that that's one of your concerns underneath all this? Yes

It is, Councillor Ross, but in relation to the third crossing of the Hawkesbury River, there's discussions going on with the RMS. And a number of community groups, including our own, in relation to that process, and that's going to take further steps in the next couple of months. But I think, I think I just wish more people would say, think about our three levels of government. We should get rid of state governments. We just should get rid of them altogether. We've got state governments, councils and— sorry, local government, state governments and federal governments, all doing some of the same things. If you take the recent federal elections, we had the federal government running around spending money on parks. That's not their role.

This is not really relevant to the topic.

I'm trying to help Councillor Ross with his

Question. He asked about the bridge.

Yes.

Could you answer that, please? Yeah

Well, I think I've given the answer, but eliminate state governments would be a big plus, Councillor Ross.

Any other questions? No? Thank you, Mr Wont. Matter is open for discussion. Councillor Kotlash.

If I could just start with a question, if I can, on the recommendation on page 100— oh no, sorry, on 67 in the business paper.

If we were to allow this application to go to Gateway, could the things that are listed as things that need to be addressed be done post-Gateway? Apart, I expect, from 2A , which is about the minimum lot sizes, but the other things seem to me to be aspects of this application that could be negotiated after a post-Gateway.

Mrs Perrin.

Through you, Mr Mayor, yes, potentially that could happen. Okay. So that brings us to the— So

You're moving something?

I would like to move a motion that we allow this application to go to Gateway.

The wording would be very similar to the wording that was presented to Council in item number five on the 31st of January 2017. As far as I can— Is that

The motion? I need a seconder. Oh

Sorry.

Councillor Conolly, thank you. Yes, please continue.

Thank you.

As far as I can determine from my thorough reading of this item in the business paper is that nothing much has changed, or it seems to be that

What was asked for in 2017 really is the same . It could be the same tonight. For instance, if we— it says in the motion that was put to Council on the 31st of January 2017, it says, Council will support the preparation of the planning proposal to go to Gateway. It says, with a maximum lot yield from subdivision of five lots, subject to the submission of further studies for consideration in relation to flora and fauna, bushfire protection, on-site effluent disposal. So because this application has, in my opinion, had such a rough trot, and we've asked this applicant to, it seems we've asked them to now jump through more hoops. I think we really need to

Let this go through and address those issues, as I said before. For instance, the slope now seems to be an issue for access, whereas in the business paper of January 2017, that seemed to be a minor problem that could be done at a DA level, or at least a site-specific level. So that wasn't deemed in January 2017 to be a deal-breaking aspect of the proposal. But we're going to hold it up before the gateway assessment and get this applicant to do all of those studies without much, it seems to me, without much benefit. And I just, when I was investigating this, the details, I guess, of the land,

When it was talking about significant vegetation on page 57, and then you look at that map and it has a little corner of the lot with this presumably significant vegetation, and then you look at the aerial photograph on page 58. There's not a lot of vegetation actually in that area. So it's just even that part of the— and also there's an extract from the Office of Environment and Heritage Biodiversity Values Map, which also has a corner of the property supposedly in need of some sort of vegetation . assessment, but yet it just seems a very minor point, and I think this can be dealt with at the DA level. So I just think we have to

Allow this to go to Gateway and after that, if Gateway thinks that we need these further studies, then so be it, and then we can go forward. But I don't think it's fair or reasonable to expect this particular applicant to wait more time. This is unacceptable. So I'd like you to support this motion. Thanks.

Councillor Conolly. Thanks, Mr Mayor. I'm quite happy that Councillor Clough has moved that. I thought the recommendation— well, can I ask a question first, actually, Mr Mayor, perhaps? There seems to be some confusion. The minimum lot size, the proposal to have a minimum lot size of one hectare has not come from the Local Planning Panel. That's my understanding. That's come from Council. Is that correct, Mrs Perrin

Through the discussion with the Local Planning Panel, they were a bit concerned about the minimum lot size, which is why they essentially said we need to go away and do all of the planning work, look at all the constraints and considerations that would then inform our proposal when it came to Council. But when we were having the discussion, they were concerned about the lot size.

Sorry, if I could, Mr Mayor, just to clarify, looking just at the resolution of the panel, which is obviously the public document, Part B was that the proposed subdivision not exceed five lots. Mathematically, they couldn't have wanted a minimum lot size of one hectare, or am I missing something about that report?

That is a question. It's possible, Mr Mayor, that I'm missing something.

No, not to exceed five lots is the agreement, but they were concerned around the five lots themselves anyway. Yeah,

Thank you. Thanks, Mr Mayor. That's what I was sort of getting at. I was going to say that the recommendation seems a little bit slightly contradictory, in that one is that we support the recommendations of the local planning panel, but then 2A is that we significantly change from what the local planning panel resolved, which was that there should be a maximum of five lots, which obviously gives you a much smaller lot size than one hectare on a three hectare property. I agree with— and I was just ticking off, as Councillor Kotlash was reading the recommendation of the first meeting, I was ticking off everything that Council had already suggested we ask for, that we had to wait two and a half years to get—or sorry, close to two years—to get to this point, that then the local planning panel said, yeah, you should ask for these things.

Well, we were going to back in 31 January 17. Certainly, I don't think there's any problem with sending it to Gateway. If Gateway wants these things, if the department needs these reports, the department will get them before they make a decision. They're not going to say, Oh, we don't need to because Council didn't ask for it. So I think it's good that we've told the applicant now that we will want that before we make a final decision, but I don't see why it would need to hold up the next stage of assessment. So I'm happy to support the motion.

Further speakers? Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I was going to support the recommendation in the business paper, but I'll speak against the motion as it is. I think that it just simply defeats the whole exercise we just went in through in approving for public exhibition a whole suite of studies that have been done for the sole purpose of assessing these applications, and that was a really good thing to see. And what had come out of that was the recommendations that were before us. I'm very sorry for the applicant that they didn't know that the planning panel report was online and available from a couple of weeks after the IHAP was heard. So back in 2018, I recall reading it then, and it's a shame that they didn't know that it actually lists the specific studies, and it says that they are to be completed and the LEP amendment process be 24 months out.

So luckily it's not that long before it's going to this stage. But those studies are listed there in point C, so I am really sorry that they would get to a point of today and only be hearing about it now. Perhaps there needs to be better communication with planners or something so people aren't put in that position . Some of us attended this site on our, I think, wee four here and Councillor Zamprogno. We attended the site. We went around all the planning proposal sites, and we had a good look in the context of these studies that had been done. It is very obvious and very unfortunate that we have such hodgepodge development in that area, where it is actually a minimum lot size of 10 hectares, but there aren't a lot of 10-hectare lots in that section there.

On, I'm just looking, the vegetation mapping that Councillor Kotlash referred to, it does actually say there that it was found to not be as significant as, even though it is endangered ecological community under the Biodiversity Conservation Act, that it wasn't considered to be significant because of the small amount of it. The lot size amendment is all that the LEP is calling for, not a rezoning. So from these studies, I'm gathering that we are going to be actually applying rezoning in this area in our LEP when we update our LEP. We've still got a situation that none of the infrastructure is guaranteed yet, and the request for more reports, I think, is actually advantageous to the applicant because when it goes to Gateway, it is going to be assessed.

If our plan that we just adopted in item 164 is what our plan is, then it would be advantageous to have supporting documents to go with their application. Point 3 of the recommendation here, which said for an amended planning proposal to be returned to Council, I thought was good because that would show that the applicants have worked with our new framework and that we could actually be doing what we have just adopted, which was to have those studies as our framework for the assessment of planning proposals. I thought the applicant was happy with the recommendation. That's what I thought she indicated, despite the delay that she has had to endure and the family has had to endure, and I'm sorry for that.

I don't think that we pass things because people have been having a rough trot and it's a long time. I think we pass them in line with our planning frameworks, and that is what we've developed and spent the money to develop, and that is how we should be doing things. So unfortunately, I can't support it without the recommendation as it was listed because I think that satisfied our direction of how our planning should be.

Councillor Kotlash, do you have a question?

Yes. May I ask a question? Thank you, Mr Mayor. I've been trying to find the reference to it in the structural plan, the draft structural plan, but I'll just ask. My understanding of the way we were going to proceed with the structural planning is that smaller lot sizes would be accommodated closer to the town centres, and they would get bigger the further away they are from the town centres. So could I get some comment on why we wouldn't accept 4,000 square metre lot sizes in this particular lot , since it is quite close to Kurmond and that other little part that's obviously very small lot sizes. I'm sorry I don't have the scale on this map to point that out. Thank you.

So in the draft structure plan on page 30 is a plan that highlights, you know, on the consideration of all the pieces of evidence that we've had in terms of the landscape character study, the views and vistas assessment design guidelines, constraints analysis and opportunities. You know, assessment of all those, that's the areas that we've indicated that we feel 4,000 square metres has potential, and areas outside of that is the one hectare. So that's, and I guess primarily in the areas the one hectare is primarily the issues are obviously the pastoral character of the landscape. You know, the views and vistas across the valley is what's informed that.

Councillor Reynolds. Yeah, a question, Mr Mayor, for staff. The recommendation is that there be a minimum lot size of one hectare, but as the applicant and the other speaker, I can't remember his name, pointed out that the subject site is 2.992 square metres—sorry, hectares. I just did a quick calculation. So we're talking about one lot size being about 60, 80 square metres short of a hectare. Would that be a problem if we had two lots of one hectare and one lot of 0.992 hectares?

Through you, Mr Mayor, following discussion internally, no, we would consider lots, approximately three lots for that site.

Okay, so it wouldn't be two lots if this recommendation went? We would consider three lots.

Yeah, and if I may, there's been a conversation about the applicant not knowing about the details of this. This is a conversation we had with the applicant, who is Glenn Falson, who was at the local planning panel meeting. So I just need to clarify that he was at the panel meeting. He was asked questions. He was aware of all the information. Council staff had a subsequent meeting with Glenn Falson to take him through that discussion. And at that point, we had a discussion around reports that would be required. He understood that that could be a requirement and that, you know, at some point through this process, they would have to provide that information to whether it's to council or to the gateway process.

So you're saying that the representative of the applicant or the applicant himself was aware of this? Okay. Thank you. Mr Mayor, I speak against the motion, against Councillor Kotlash's motion, and speak for the recommendation. Just echoing the words of the Mayor—Deputy Mayor, sorry—we spent a lot of time and a lot of money getting these documents done, and we just resolved to accept them and put them on display. And it seems now we're just ripping them up and throwing them away and doing whatever we want. I don't think that that is a wise thing. I think that it sets a precedent that, you know, this suite of documents were there to give certainty to future developers so that people, if they wanted to buy a block and subdivide it, they knew exactly the policies that would be in place because there haven't been any up until now.

And so to just disregard them completely is pretty bad form, considering that we just approved them.

Thank you. Further speakers? Question?

A question, if I may, Mr Mayor.

Am I right to say that our structural planning report is a draft? So we're putting a draft planning report up for community consultation. So presumably that means that it can be changed.

You're correct. Councillor Tree. Thank you, Mr Mayor, and I think it's not yet adopted. So these ones, I think we had said we were going to address them because — of the investigation and things that had been done, and I think it was the previous Director of Planning who had instigated the whole investigation area into Kurmond and Kurrajong and all that sort of area with a view of doing this. This was not brought forward by any councillors at the time. So I just wanted to ask a question, because I'm a bit worried about this bridge now. So regarding the VPA, has that been changed, and so there's no bridge involved?

Mr Mayor, no, the VPA is still intact, and we're still working with RMS to bring that bridge to fruition.

So would I be safe to think that that should happen?

Yes, you should.

So Council's not actively working against getting the bridge put in place. The RMS are not actively working against putting the bridge in place. The other signing parties not actively working against the bridge, Mr Mayor?

That's correct. No one's working actively against the bridge. I

Hope that's very true. Thank you, Mr Mayor. Just in relation to these particular issues, I do feel as though I'm supportive of Councillor Kotlash's amendment because I would not be wanting to put my hand in my pocket. I wouldn't put a dollar out thinking that it'd be a worthwhile investment for any planning proposal to be brought forward to this place before I have some sort of surety. So what I would be thinking is that if we put this forward and then it came back and then people might have had some sort of sense that, you know, some sort of real sense, that would be far better for the applicant. So I'm very supportive of that. So thank you, Councillor Kotlash. Otherwise you're playing roulette with your money, I think.

Councillor Richards. Thank you, Mr Mayor. My first question was going to be exactly what the motion said, but I can see it's just come up on the board. So if I can summarise that with the staff, please, that the motion basically says that it will proceed to Gateway as it currently stands, and the required reports will be sought at the DA process. Is that it in a nutshell, just for those present in the gallery or whatever who don't quite get it? Yes. Yes, correct. Okay. So can I also ask before I speak that the one hectare that we've been discussing amongst ourselves requirement is actually at Council discretion. The desire to increase the minimum lot size to one hectare was at Council discretion, rather than a requirement of some sort.

It's not a requirement by the State Government, although we are adhering to State Government planning outcomes. So the constraints was also guided by all of the other constraints when we looked at the Kurmond-Kurrajong area.

But the one hectare was Council's decision to increase that. Lot size, which decreases the yield. That was a council's decision.

Based on the analysis of work done, yes. Yeah, okay

Thank you. I'm going to be a little bit all over the place. I don't think I've ever made so many notes on anything that's come before me, so forgive me, that's come to council. Essentially, I'll be supporting the motion, the recommendation now that Councillor Kotlash has put up on the board, because for the amount of times that we've had exhaustive debates on these Kurrajong-Kurmond matters, we've basically said the same thing. You may not agree with the, you know, us that were elected in this current term and weren't in the last term or whatever, you may not agree with where the direction was going, but unfortunately that was the direction that was put by a majority of councillors, and the residents of the Hawkesbury who fell into that area went down a path that was open to them to go down.

The resolution that was put forward to council back on, in November 2016, is still a current and present and standing resolution. We've had applicants now sitting on their hands, not being able to do anything because of the debating of this council. Now you're saying that we've just agreed to put a structure plan to public exhibition. That's right, it's a draft structure plan to public exhibition. Now let's go back and look at that resolution from November 2016, point five: Council not accept any further, further, keyword, planning proposal applications within the Kurmond and Kurrajong investigation area until such time as the structure planning in this report is completed. Further, here it is, structure planning going to public exhibition, that's for further applications.

Point six, a still current pending resolution: Council continue processing the planning proposals within the investigation area that have received support via a council resolution to proceed to a gateway determination, and any planning proposals currently lodged with council as at 29 November 2016. Am I correct that this one falls into that category? Yes, right. So thank you, I'm speaking, Deputy Mayor. So, I'll have a giggle. That's mature, professional as always. So, quite frankly, I'm going to support this motion here because you can't ask members of the community to go out and spend, and forgive me if I'm wrong, $3,000, $4,000, $5,000 per report, dig into their pockets further, all of that expense to come back once that's done on a period of approximately 24 months put forward by a planning panel.

I don't know where that time frame comes from and what that's supposed to encompass, 24 months. Wait another 24 months, dig into their pockets further to come back into this chamber for another debate where it could get knocked on the head. Now, I know that people take a risk in putting these applications forward like this, that they could be approved or they could be denied. But seriously, how much more patience do you need to test of these applicants who've gone through this process? So, you can't ask them to do that. You can't ask them to go ahead and not give them any level of some sort of certainty. Not that they can have certainty, but you can't, as I think the first speaker said, who's the applicant, you can't change the goalposts.

You can't start a game of soccer with one set of rules and at half time decide to change what the rules are for the rest of the game. So, I'll be supporting the motion that's put up on the board and I'm happy to do so based on those reasons.

Thank you. Any further speakers? Councillor Ross. Question, please, Mayor. Question, yes. The Council has decided to proceed with item 164 and put— The plan, the draft plan out on exhibition. If at the conclusion of that exhibition period, and after Council staff consider that report,

Would I be correct in believing that there may be some possibility of some change, possibly in the final recommendation before adoption as a result of that process, Mrs Perrin?

Through any exhibition phase, we will assess any comments that come back, and that may influence a change in direction or it may not.

Thank you. Mr Mayor, I ask a further question. Why, in these planning items beyond item 164 , Scheduled for discussion tonight, have they been brought forward at this meeting when we are talking only about a draft item going out on exhibition ?

Ms Perrin.

We were conscious that we've got a number of planning proposals that we needed to move through that have been on hold, and we made a decision to progress some of the planning proposals because they were ready to move forward. Right

Just express my concern that I don't think it's appropriate that we discuss these tonight without the public exhibition having been concluded and staff having determined whether or not that's the final position which they wish to put to Council. Any further speakers?

Councillor Wheeler. Thanks, Mr Mayor. Could I ask a couple of questions first, please? So what does Council do in the brave new world of planning panel decisions? What does Council do with those decisions? Where and how do we publish that information following the panels?

Only when it comes to Council. For planning proposals, the process with the local planning panel is we go to them for advice, and then that advice is captured in any report that we put to Council.

But in this instance, the applicant was informed directly.

In all planning proposals, the applicant is part of that discussion, so the panel can ask them questions of the application.

Would there be an instance where the applicant wouldn't be aware of the decision of the planning panel? No. And one further question, if I may, Mr Mayor. What weight does the panel's advice have in this context? So we go to them for advice, not decision. What weighting does that advice have for Council when it makes its decision?

As much as Council wants to place on it. Right

And yet they're supposed to be the noted experts in planning, and we're not supposed to have any idea. So I'm not sure that the State Government can have it both ways.

We've just— it seems to me, and I feel for the applicants in this instance, but I can't support the recommendation on the board. I could support the recommendation in the business paper, but not what's on the board. We've just approved a draft structural plan for Kurrajong-Kurmond. We're still waiting on the traffic study. We were supposed to wait for that document before we made this decision, and yet we have it in front of us, and in a month we're supposed to get the traffic study. So I'm a bit confused as to why Council is being put in this position. This adopting of documents and then throwing them out when they don't suit the purpose, or don't suit what Councillors would like to do on the night, is why our DCP isn't worth the paper that it's printed on.

If the community is going to have any confidence that the Kurrajong-Kurmond study will have any impact on the planning decisions of this Council, we need to adhere to it. Whether we've adopted it in draft form or whether we've adopted it in its final form, we've just all voted to support it, but now all of a sudden we've decided we don't like the minimum block size.

This is processing. This is what processing looks like. We've had this discussion before. Processing does not equal approval. This is a speculative development. All speculative developments come with a sizeable windfall for the applicant, whether they choose to realise that windfall at that point or not, and therefore they come with a cost. Stating that the applicant has paid a lot of money and therefore should have an expectation is like going into the casino with 50 bucks in your pocket and being peeved that you came out with 50 cents.

And then the talk of changing the goalposts. The state government changes the goalposts all the time. It changed the goalposts with the introduction of IHAPs, with changes to housing targets, with its requirements for us to complete various documents that are consistent with the Western Sydney District Plan. The previous council hospital passed this application to this council, and now we are dealing with it as we are best able. We have a recommendation from the planning panel that I think we should stick to. I don't think we should go back on our decisions for what we want for the Kurrajong-Kurmond investigation area. It's based on a very large volume of work, which I would think addresses some of what the applicant has been asked to provide.

I'm sure the planning panel didn't ask for these things just for additional reading material. I simply can't support this in the form that appears on the board.

Further speakers? If not, Councillor Kotlash, right of reply.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Just a couple of points to hopefully close this off.

With the structural planning draft that we've just voted to put on for consultation and exhibition, that was clearly for future planning proposals. We are now talking about a planning proposal that we've had on the books since March 2016. It almost, you know, it's so close to being acceptable

Depending on the outcomes of those particular studies that have been listed, which we've also listed in the motion.

You know, we have to get—I agree that we have to get our processes much more tightened. Now, some in this room are happy to refuse the application on the basis apparently that there was insufficient infrastructure . In those terms, we were talking about traffic. Well, at the time, we didn't know that. We didn't know what—I've got the floor, thanks.

Godly has the floor, thanks.

We didn't know what the traffic study was going to reveal. But some in this place were happy to refuse this application on the basis of—I've got it here—there's insufficient infrastructure to support this proposal. That was just rubbish. You didn't know that. Now we have some studies come through that say that— Point of

Order, Mr Mayor. Misrepresentation.

So, Councillor Reynolds, who's being misrepresented? All right,

Sorry. Me for one

And everybody else who actually didn't reject this proposal but deferred it.

I'll listen to your point after Councillor Kotlash has finished.

The second point that, you know, you were happy to refuse on was the viability of agricultural land and the contribution to suburban sprawl. Like, let's, you know, when we talk about process, let's get our processes right. You know, that was just so inappropriate at the time.

Now, I think we just have to, you know, look at this, what we've got in front of us. It's not so far from the structural planning that we are going to adopt for future projects. So, you know, I mean, anyway , I'll stop there. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Reynolds. Your point of misrepresentation?

Yes, Mr Mayor, we did not refuse this application. We deferred it as part of the processing procedure, waiting for the documents which are in this report and the recommendations based upon.

Thanks for that. I will now put the motion. All those in favour, please stand.

In favour of the motion, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Samprogna, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Tree, Councillor Richards, Councillor Calvert. Against the motion, Councillor Ross, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Absent, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Rasmussen. Declare it carried.

Move to item 166. We have several speakers.

First speaker is Mr Andrew Edwards.

Thank you, Mr Mayor, Deputy Mayor, Councillors. This one's almost identical to the last one, lodged around about the same time. All the issues very much the same. I'd just like to clarify what was raised before in that while I wasn't aware that those reports were required, Mr Falson may have, but at the same time we're not going to engage and have those reports done because we can't act on the IHAP recommendations until it's been approved by Council. So even though Glenn, or I wasn't because I was only aware of this today, but even if Glenn was aware that the wastewater report and the flora and fauna report was required, there was no point undertaking them until Council had accepted the IHAP recommendation.

And once again, as with the last one, back in four years ago, Council had agreed to proceed to process those applications that were in the system, and we're now three or four years later and

Nothing's happened.

You happy to answer questions? Happy to answer questions. Doesn't appear to be any questions. Thank you, Mr Edwards.

Oh, sorry, I did have

You did have a question? Yes.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Deputy Mayor, thank you for that. I'm just wondering if, have you since read the planning proposal, the IHAP report? Yes. And it says the proceed for gateway determination subject to the following completion of the following site-specific studies by the applicant, and it lists all those things. So that would assume that says to do that subject, proceed to gateway after those are done. So you're not accepting what the IHAP people

Said. Oh, no, I'm accepting what the IHAP was, but we couldn't go and get those reports done until Council had accepted the IHAP recommendation.

Oh, I see what you're saying. So you were aware you had to do them before it goes to gateway. Before it goes, yes, absolutely, and we've just voted—

Not a problem on that. The problem is we couldn't do them six months ago or three months ago until Council had accepted the IHAP. That's unfortunate. Thank you.

Yep . Thank you. I understand. Any further questions? Councillor Kotlash. Any other questions?

Councillor Wheeler. Mr Edwards, you may not be aware of this, given that Mr Falson isn't here, but Council gave all of these applicants the opportunity to withdraw these applications. Are you aware of that?

I'm aware of that.

And knowing that Council had changed and its attitudes to development west of the river had changed with a new Council, and your applicants decided to continue with

This application. That's right, yes, because at that stage there was a motion there that the ones that were in the system would continue to be processed. Processed

Yeah. Yes

Processed. Do you understand

Processed to mean? Well

Processed means it would go through the process of either being refused or approved. Thank you. There was no guarantee. Although they were asked to withdraw it, it wasn't a withdrawal that if you don't withdraw it it will be refused. It was just an option to withdraw.

Any further questions? Councillor Ross.

Mr Edwards, I gather Mr Falson is your principal or employer?

No. No, I work for McKinlay Morgan Surveyors. Glenn Falson is a planner, and we were asked by Glenn Falson, 2013 , 2014, to prepare the plans for his rezoning application or planning proposal.

Right. Am I correct in believing that they, or Mr Falson, has given you authority to speak on his behalf on the application? Yes. Yes. Thank you.

Any further questions? Thank you, Mr Edwards. Second speaker is Mr Michael Want. Okay, thank you.

Chair, I don't wish to speak further, thank you. Okay,

Thank you. Matter is open for discussion. Councillor Kotlash.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'd like to propose a motion similar to the one for the last item, that this matter be allowed to go to Gateway for an assessment,

And then after that Gateway can determine whether there needs to be any further assessment.

Do we have a seconder for that? Councillor Conolly. Councillor Kotlash, you wish to speak to it?

Yes. It is very similar to the item that we've just discussed at length. Again, the requirements in the recommendation that have come in the business paper talk

About things, for instance, the slope of the land, the location of the building envelopes, the assessment of the significant vegetation and the riparian vegetation, et cetera, et cetera, which are the things that I asked the question in the last item whether these things were able to either be done post-gateway or to be done at a development application level. So I think that this is another one of these proposals that has been in the pipeline for a long time. It was in the pipeline, and I'll just quickly get the date. Sorry, this was put forward in February of 2016, so it was before the amendment to not process any more planning proposals until we had more studies and before we had our structural planning done.

So the same principles are involved with this planning proposal. I think it should go to gateway. It should have an assessment and— Again, it's very close to, you know, the requirements that we had sought from planning proposals back then at that time, and I think that it needs to go forward, and I don't think the applicants should be made to wait for another round. We might, you know, as I said, post Gateway, they might have to do these assessments. So I put that recommendation forward. Thank you.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Again, I was pleased to see the recommendation in the business paper and would have happily supported that, but I will speak against the motion as it is. I'm very disappointed, and I'm wondering whether we're ever going to accept the IHAP recommendations or if we're simply going to ignore them every time we get one. I'll remember that for when people want to rely on one coming forward. The business paper has clearly been based on the framework that we just outlined, so all the work the staff has done has been based on that, and this was to be the new approach. We had a briefing on it. Nobody raised issues when we were briefed on these exact things. I don't know why not.

It's left till the night to change it, and I think that it would be better for everybody if people raised things prior to just doing this on the night, when we knew very clearly that to assess these planning proposals, we were going to be using a framework from the studies that were carried out. If I can just read the recommendation from the Local Planning Panel. Which we know is made up of representatives from the state government and from state planning, to which we're complying with their directions, and we have one community member on there, but the other three are from the government list. In regard to this matter, the Hawkesbury Local Planning Panel recommends that the planning proposal to amend the Hawkesbury Local Environment Plan 2012, 98 Bells Line of Road, Kurmond, proceed to gateway, subject to the following.

Firstly, that the LEP amendment process be 24 months to allow time for Council to complete its strategic planning for the investigation area, including the whole investigation area to be evaluated for appropriate zoning, the expectation being that it shall be predominantly R5 large lot residential. Secondly, the completion of development control plan for the Kurmond Kurrajong investigation area. Now we know these plannings are well underway, and we're not going to be waiting, I expect, for the DCP because that won't be ready, but the other planning has been done. Point B, that the proposed subdivision not exceed four lots. Point C, and this is them saying that this proceed to gateway subject to the following: completion of the following site-specific studies by the applicant: environmental design, site capacity, bushfire assessment, flora and fauna, traffic impact assessment, wastewater feasibility, infrastructure requirements and funding.

And then it goes on with the other points about trying to get money from the state government, etc., for our planning, which we've been unsuccessful in doing. I think given that the whole notion of reform in planning was to get the advice of the planning panel, and I understood that that was what we were meant to translate. And I've sat in this chamber for seven years hearing people say that they follow the recommendations of the staff because of what's put forward, and then we've had an about turn on that. So I do really sympathise with the applicants, but it wasn't us who were— It's not funny, Councillor Conolly. What, that I sympathise

With— No talk across the room, please. The

Fact is that this is something that we went through in the first item regarding this with the investigation area that we were saddled with from previous councils, and because of the absolute misapplication of the Hawkesbury Residential Land Strategy, and then we are trying to fix it. And in trying to fix it in good faith and going with this procedure, I was prepared to support these to have those go through. But I won't support it bypassing what the planning panel has recommended because they are supposedly the experts and our staff have done it in accordance with their direction.

Thank you. Councillor Conolly, can I just double-check that you seconded this? Yes. Yes. Thank you. Thanks

Mr Mayor. I tend to agree with Councillor Wheeler and what she said on the previous item, that putting an application before this council is about as reliable and consistent as going to the casino with $50. But it shouldn't be that way, Mr Mayor. It has been that way, but it shouldn't. But people aren't prepared to be fair and consistent, in my opinion. This proposal was lodged in February 2016, so that's over three and a half years ago. And some people here think it would be appropriate to make an application lodged in February '16 wait for a study to be adopted that hasn't even been put on exhibition tonight, wait for it to be adopted, and then make it comply with that plan that's going to be adopted some point off in the future.

Point of misrepresentation, Mr Mayor.

We'll listen to that at the end. Certainly not trying to misrepresent. Maybe I've misunderstood, and I hope that's the case, because it seems that a lot of people are arguing that we're disregarding the work in the structure plan and that somehow the structure plan should be applied to these applications, and that's what I'm referring to, in that we have done all this work, yes, and we will have a structure plan at some point that we're going to adopt, but you're not being fair and consistent if you're trying to say that an application lodged in February 2016 should be assessed against a structure plan that's probably going to be adopted late 2019, if not 2020. That is moving the goalposts.

That is a definition of unfair and inconsistent. Yes, we've got a structure plan. Yes, that will be a good guide to assess future applications, and it's got a process to go through yet. It's not adopted yet, so you can't determine that this does or does not comply with it because it has not been adopted. So to say that we're wasting the work of the staff, no, we're not. The work is not finished yet, and that will be a good guide for the future.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Point of misrepresentation.

I wasn't actually— oh, sorry

I just stopped for your— No, I didn't. If I stopped for your interjection, Deputy Mayor— Councillor Conolly was waiting for you to finish talking. Well, the Deputy Mayor has a habit of loudly interjecting when other people are speaking and then being outraged when it happens to her.

As do you, Councillor Conolly. Councillor Conolly,

Please continue with this item. Something's

Just said something over there. I don't know what it was, Mr Mayor. I don't know. I think someone was— It

Was me, and I said, ‘as do you.

I think someone was loudly objecting to the fact they were accused of interjecting, Mr Mayor.

I'm not accusing of interjecting. Okay,

Thank you.

Please continue

With— It's just the noise. I leave the chamber. I'm so confused. But anyway, Mr Mayor, the point is this has always been, in my opinion, and we're not going to agree, but right back from November 2016, this has not been fair. Applications were lodged because Council was dealing with them consistently. People, I understand, and maybe validly so, think they were dealing with them incorrectly, but Council was the one that instigated this. Council had said, We want to see these applications. Council spent 18 months approving these applications. Then after Council elections had not stopped, nothing changed in our planning documents, nothing changed in our policies, but the way Council was assessing them changed.

And some people thought that was fair to impose new conditions on applications that had been lodged under a different council, and when that council had been dealing with them in a particular way. We were told in November 2016 these reports are likely to be six months, maybe a year away, and then will be processed in them again. Here we are, the first ones to come back to us in September 2019. You can understand why people don't feel that Council's been acting in good faith and doesn't really want to deal with these applications. We can argue forever that deferring them was processing them. I don't think that carries any weight in the community. Deferring them is clearly not. But whether it was or it wasn't, nobody's going to believe there was good faith to deal with these properly when they were told six to 12 months, and they don't even get back to Council for two and a half years after that.

And at the meeting it comes back to Council, you've got people arguing that we should defer it longer so that we can go and get these more studies. Especially, and the irony of it is, the recommendations to Council back when these first came to Council were to go and get these studies. And Council suggests that we should make people wait two and a half years and then tell them they can't go to Gateway until they go and get these studies. Gateway will determine if they need these studies, and there's no danger in letting them go to Gateway. It's not like the Department of Planning is going to say, Oh, well Council didn't need a flora and fauna assessment, so we won't bother asking for one. They will ask for it if it's required, and it won't proceed until they get it.

But it doesn't need to come back to Council and go through this political mess over and over again.

Thank you, Councillor Conolly. Can I ask all councillors, when one councillor has the floor, can no one interject please? Any other speakers? Deputy Mayor.

Could I please raise my point of misrepresentation, which I assume was directed at

The misrepresentation happens at the end of all the speakers. Not after that speaker. Any other speakers? Councillor Zamprogno.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I think some of these applicants from this area have waited so long they must feel like the character Joseph K out of Franz Kafka's novel, The Trial, in the sense that they're always being told to come back tomorrow, and that the reasons, the roadblocks that are put up seem so mutable. And I believe that the real reason is that there are people in this chamber who simply have resolved in their heart to say never, ever, and will always put up some additional or new or novel reason to change the goalposts and put this off to the never-never. They will accept the authority of a planning panel when it suits their purposes, but when it doesn't, they'll rail about the authority of the planning panel being necessary or unnecessary.

I have not been a supporter of planning panels because I think it's fundamentally not democratic, regardless of what subject expertise people on planning panels have. We live in a democracy, and people have a reasonable expectation that decisions that are made that affect them are made by people who are democratically accountable. Now, if this is one of the few remaining areas in which we retain some prerogative to be able to take on advice and then deliberate among ourselves and then from time to time come up with a different judgment, then I embrace that responsibility. I'm happy to support Councillor Cutler's motion.

Councillor Richards.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I am supporting Councillor Kotlash's motion, which is in line with the previous matter. I'm not going to go and say a whole bunch of things that I've already said, apart from a couple of points. A couple of interesting arguments have been put forward in the chamber tonight, especially that one should not bypass a planning panel's assessment or advice. And forgive me if I've got that wrong, I'd love to hear the audio play of that comment again, because you can't make a comment like that when it doesn't suit you tonight, but in another meeting, in another week or another week down the track when you don't like the advice of that panel, then do that. I mean, chopping and changing that assessment is crazy.

And the other thing that I would like to refute is the comment made that the attitude has changed with this council. That is an assumption and a huge misrepresentation of individuals in this council. What has it changed from? From what and to what? I mean, sorry, but I would like to think that this council continued to operate in a method of good faith, of equity, of fairness, with an understanding and open mind to look at applications on their individual merits. To say the attitude has changed with this council is nothing more but bogus

Councillor Ross.

Thank you, Mayor. Well, apart from the three flat earthers, let's clarify things.

Sorry, who are the flat earthers?

Is that a point of order?

Five minutes of this. You claim to be misrepresented. Point of order

Mr Mayor. That's an incredibly rude— He started with an insult

Very much . Please. Do you claim to be misrepresented?

I'd like to know who the three flat earthers are that he is referring to and what he means by that.

You can wait till the end of the speakers and express your misrepresentation then. Thank you, Councillor Ross.

Thank you, Mayor. I hope I got time out for this. Thank you

Let's go back a tad.

2011 , a process was started. There were no resources put to it. It fiddled-faddled back and forth in a council of which one of the people across the room was a member. And then apparently Council at that stage put it out that there was a possibility of these planning proposals going forward. But at the same time, the same council declined to find the wherewithal in terms of resources and application to

Bring these things to pass.

Finally, in another term of council, to wit this,

The resources have had to be found to address these.

If we go back to the original headline statements at 2011,

The item 1.6.4 is a respectable and reasonable response. To that

Set of objectives set at that time.

It is, in my opinion, a falsity to claim that the goalposts are being moved as these other people are claiming. I'm sorry, but that is not the case.

Now, I will not be able to

Vote in favour of any of these proposals because I believe the process is

Unethical, in that a draft proposal at 164 should be allowed to go to exhibition, be brought back, determined and put to Council, and then these planning proposals or whatever be considered in their right and proper order in time and process. We're talking about process. Processes are there for specific purposes and reasons, and they are important, as much as it may be time consuming and a pain to put up with such things. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Ross. Can I remind councillors that just because you have a point of order doesn't mean you have the right to shout over top of me when I'm addressing another councillor. Are there any other speakers? Councillor Tree.

I was just going to ask a question, please, Mr Mayor. So I think Councillor Conolly brought it up. Would it be, I mean, would it be good practice or standard practice to actually assess something based on something that may or may not be passed in its suggested form tonight, like we have, like would it be- Would it be proper process to assess something based on something that hasn't been on a tool or instrument that has not yet been adopted? Or, you know, would that be appropriate, Mr Mayor?

Mrs. Berrin

The question wasn't to you, Councillor Ross.

I understand the sentiment. I suppose in terms of the studies that we've done, we're not anticipating—it's all data, it's all facts that we've been assessing. Based on that, we've crafted the structure plan, and in fairness, we see that that's giving a framework for us to assess the current planning proposals. And I understand it hasn't gone through a process of, you know, being exhibited and formally adopted. However, the data and the studies that we've done to, you know, get to this point won't be changing. So we felt it was okay to use the information provided.

I understand that for further future applications, but these people have been in the process for, you know, up to three years. So I'm just thinking if they're thinking that it's meant to go in a particular direction, and then they're getting to a point where we're asking them to submit a whole heap of reports, I'm just wondering about the fairness of that process.

Irrespective of whether we do a structure plan or not, those reports would still be required at some point in this process. Oh

I understand that, but what I mean, I'm just saying we're not going to be basing it based on the future .

I don't think it's fair that they should produce the reports until they know whether they're going to have any luck into the future, because if they have to have any luck into the future, they're going to have to reproduce the reports then. So I don't think it matters whether they produce them— you know, like it's a bit semantic for me—like whether they produce them now or after. I think if they know that they're going to be able to go forward, then that's when they should be able to produce the reports to move forward anyway. So I'm just trying to figure out why we're actually arguing about it. Because this is exhausting.

That wasn't a question. That was a statement. Yes. Any other speakers? Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Just to address some of the things that have been raised, there is a danger in letting these go through to the gateway. I think it was Councillor Conolly who said that there was no danger in letting these go through to the gateway. There is a danger. We've sat in this chamber time and again. We're about to do it on the next item where things come back to Council that have gone to Gateway, and then we get the same old argument when there's recommendations for changes to those proposals, that they've gone through Gateway and we therefore should just approve them because it's taken so long and these people have spent so much money. There seems to be an attitude on the other side of the chamber of pre-empting Council's decisions and assuming that when you put an application into this Council, that the default position is to pass it.

That's not how it works. That's not what processing looks like. That's not our job. I'm deeply amused that some people are so happy to support subdivision in other areas, but so firmly against it in their own. The attitude to development on this Council has changed. Councils change at election time, just like governments do, and their attitudes change at that time. It doesn't mean that we don't support fairness or equity. What it means for councillors like me is that I don't support subdivision of rural lands, and I made that abundantly clear at the time of the election. That should be no surprise to anyone. That's why the fact that Council had changed and its attitude had changed was the reason that applicants were given the choice to withdraw.

You can't sit in this Council and tell everyone that IHAP's are fine and then ignore the recommendations when they come to you and it doesn't suit. That's exactly what you're accusing us of in the reverse. The Department of Planning is clearly speaking through the people that it put up to be on these planning panels. If you remember the process, we had a very, very limited selection of the people that we were able to put on panels. Three out of four members come from recommendations of the Department of Planning, not from this Council. If they tell us that these studies need to be done, I think we probably need to pay attention to them. And as the Director of Planning said, these recommendations are not based on the attitudes of Council.

They're based on data. They're based on serious concerns about the minimum lot size, about the slope in the case of this development, and in significant vegetation and riparian vegetation on some of the blocks that have been mapped out. These aren't things that the staff have put up because they wanted to appeal to the attitudes of a few of the people in this chamber. They are data-driven recommendations from staff who we should trust understand what they're doing. That's why we pay them. That's why we hire them. And that's why we get them to write these lengthy reports that we all, I hope, read before we make decisions in this chamber. So I could support the recommendation in the business paper, but I can't support the recommendation in the motion.

Thank you. Any further speakers? Councillor Kotlash, right of reply. Yes

Thank you, Mr Mayor . I'll just address a few of the things that have been said. If you argue that the

Independent planning panel's advice needs to be accepted, that flies in the face of— Of the argument that if we wanted to send this to Gateway now, you know, we're just rubber stamping this decision . I am not rubber stamping this. I just think that this particular item is not very far away from the recommendations that were made by the panel. Now, the panel is giving us advice. We don't have to take that advice, and it's so, you know, we just don't have to take that advice. As far as I could figure out, there's four lots. There's four lots in this particular proposal. Two of them are within the category of lot sizes that the planning panel recommended. One is 5,000 metres squared, and the other one is nearly 800 metres squared.

So we're not talking about tiny subdivisions here. This is within the realm of acceptable sizes for rezoning. The arguments about the riparian vegetation and the environmental sensitivity is irrespective of whether this goes to Gateway now or it comes back. We need those studies, and we need to be able to assess those and assess them on their merit, assess them on the data that we will be provided with. So I can't accept that the reason that I'm putting this alternative motion instead of the one in the business case is because I think that this should go through because these poor people have put their application in. That is not true. I have a duty to assess everybody's planning proposals in a fair and equitable way, and that's what I really think that's what I'm doing.

And I don't think that it's a turnaround. It's hardly a turnaround from what the panel have said. It's very close to what the panel have said. You know, we're not rubber stamping anything. It's not a turnaround. Let's just get on and give these people a break. It can go to Gateway now, and they can do their studies, and then we can assess it. I'm really not happy that I've been, you know, this has been described as just rubber stamping. It's just not. This application is worthy of to be processed and continue. Thank you.

Deputy Mayor, you claim a misrepresentation.

Thank you, yes, misrepresentation from Councillor Conolly as he was gesturing towards me. I did not say that we were waiting for the study to be adopted before it can be assessed. I said that this report, the reports in here, have been assessed. If you've read it, you'll see there's columns of it. Landscape character study. The whole thing is based on that, and it's based on the various state government policies and the planning panel advice. So that was a total misrepresentation to say that we are waiting for it to be adopted before we assess against it.

It's already been

Assessed against it.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Councillor Richards, you claim a misrepresentation. Well

I asked Councillor Ross to refer to three flat earthers on the other side of the room. I'd like to know who they are and what he means by that.

Okay, that's not actually misrepresentation.

I actually said it was a point of order, but anyway. Okay.

It's actually

A question.

You wish to move on. We've had our right of reply. So now we have to put the motion. All those in favour of the motion, please stand.

In favour of the motion, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor. Sam Progner, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Tree, Councillor Richards, Councillor Calvert. Against the motion, Councillor Ross, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Absent, Councillor Rasmussen and Councillor Garrow. Declare the motion carried.

Now move to item 167. We have three speakers. First speaker is Roslyn Goody. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Mayor and councillors. I am another applicant in this rezoning. I won't speak for long, but we have already a small house on a heritage farm, which is a very beautiful heritage farm, and we look after it very well. And I might say that we are planting a lot of trees. It was not tree planted when we moved in 29 years ago, and we've now made it very beautiful, and I look after the environment very well. The portion of land that we want to rezone and divide and have another house already has a house on it. It was the old dairy. It has a car there. There was somebody in it when we moved in 29 years ago. I don't see it's going to make any difference to the Bells Line of Road. There's a car there already.

We're not asking for more than one house to be rebuilt in place of the house that's there because it's a fairly appalling little flat-roofed, and it will make a huge improvement in the lane anyway. This was passed. It's been going on since 2015, I think, ours. Council meeting on the 9th of August 2016, the planning proposal was supported, and the gateway determination approved on 23rd of September, I believe, 2016. It's now September 2019. We've had the heritage reports. Have been favourable, the effluent, the every report we've paid for, it's cost us over forty thousand so far. I don't see the problem.

I just don't see the problem.

Thank you. You happy to answer questions? Should there be any questions? You happy to answer questions? Any questions? No. Thank you very much. Thank you. Our second speaker is Andrew Edwards.

Mr Mayor, Deputy Mayor, Councillors, this one's a little bit different to the last two in that it's got gateway approval, and the recommendation is only now to amend the LEP. So if you read through the reports, you'll see that, interesting

Compared to the last two, there's a comment there that while the planning framework for the Kurmond-Kurrajong investigation area is still being developed, this planning proposal is considered to be generally consistent with the intended outcomes of that framework. And also it's interesting to note that it was exhibited and there wasn't any objectors. And once again, I'm just here representing Glenn Falson, who can't be here, so I'm happy to answer any technical questions anyone might have.

Any questions? No. Thank you, Mr Andrews. The matter is open for discussion. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Move the recommendation in the business papers. Seconded, Mr Mayor.

Deputy Mayor. Look ,

The applicant is correct. This is a very beautiful property. It was one of the properties that we visited on our little bus tour of these planning proposals, and it is a very striking property. This is a good outcome for the heritage item on the property, and as the applicant said, there's really no impact, as there's already an existing dwelling. I would hate to think that this would be an encouragement for people to knock up a second dwelling and sit in it for a while so that they could argue that there was no impact down the track. But in this case, an existing building, an old dairy, has been reused as a dwelling, which is fairly common on farm properties, I think, and I think this is a good outcome for this property as a whole.

Any further speakers?

Councillor Tree.

So is it like a dual lock, Mr Mayor?

Mrs Perrin.

From my understanding, historically there were two dwellings there, so I don't know the full history of the site.

Excuse me, I couldn't hear.

From my understanding, historically there were two dwellings there. I don't know the full history of the site.

Any more to say, Councillor Tree? No? Any further speakers? Councillor Reynolds.

Yeah, thanks, Mr Mayor. I'd like to thank the staff again for the work in providing the recommendation and the way that this one... Fits in with the draft structure plan.

I think I'll leave it at that. Thank you.

Any more speakers? No. Councillor Wheeler, right of reply.

Not necessary, Mr

Mayor. Not necessary. In that case, I'll put the motion, which is a recommendation in the business paper. All those in favour, please stand. In favour are Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Tree, Councillor Richards and Councillor Calvert. Against is Councillor Ross. Absent is Councillor Rasmussen and Councillor Garrow. Declare it carried.

Move to item 168. Two speakers. First speaker is Mr. James Henry.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor and councillors. A. N. Henry is what I'm known as. I've been a veterinary surgeon in the Hawkesbury since 1967, and we built the 25 acres in Kurmond in the late 70s. We built a veterinary hospital to service the then thriving dairy industry and the local farmers and pet owners. The acreage is no longer necessary in the dairy industry because, sadly, it's finished in the district. The last one closed about five years ago. The land is not viable for any other agricultural pursuits and is difficult to maintain. I made my application in 2013, so when

The council asked for our

Reactions or whatever, but that's all been gone over already. I'm not going to dwell on that. And at the meeting of council on November 16, it was resolved and supported that any proposed proposal lodged at this stage council would continue processing. Well, over the last five years, I mean, I'm a great Hawkesbury fan and in particular I love Kurmond. I'm not going to see Kurmond ruined, but I think that my application is good for the area. It'll maintain a better standard and looking after the properties. It's too, I mean, for instance, 25 acres is far too much for me to look after at the minute. I've built a house on the property on Bells Line Road, and I would just love to see out the rest of my life there. So I'm not going to ruin it.

It's been a big stress for me, really, the whole thing. And I appreciate the council staff helping me lots of times, and I have great admiration for their patience. And I don't know how you can be as patient as you are. That's all I want to say.

Are you happy to answer questions, Mr Henry? Any questions? No. Thank you very much Our other speaker is Andrew Edwards.

Mr Mayor, Deputy Mayor, Councillors, I'd probably not much more I can say about this one, exactly the same as the last one.

Ian's been looking forward to this since 2013, so I think he's going to be a very happy man once it gets approved. It started off as much more, much greater number of lots than what it is now. It's been cut down and cut down and changed over the years. We, through the whole process, we've tried to oblige what the council planners have wanted, and I think what we've got now is probably the best we're going to get. And if anyone's got any other technical questions, I'm happy to answer them.

Are there any other questions? Doesn't look. Yes , Councillor Reynolds.

Yeah, just, I don't know if you can answer this one, and perhaps Mr. Falson should be asked. Mr. Henry's application was made in 2013, so I'm just wondering what the hold-up was during the three years before this council came into effect.

Backwards and forwards, changes in layouts. We just kept getting asked for more and more information every time we submitted something. We'd submit something and be asked for something different. Okay, thank you. Thank you.

Any other questions? No. Thank you, Mr. Edwards. That's the final speaker. Councillor Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I move the recommendation in the business paper.

Seconded by Councillor Conolly. Deputy Mayor, you wish to speak?

I do indeed, thank you. Mr. Mayor, this is an example of how planning is done when we do look at things that we've been looking at tonight. This is an application, of course, that's already been to Gateway and it's back. And Mr . Henry and Mr. Falson have worked closely with council staff, and they have come up and been agreeable to get a result which is much improved, I have to say, on the very first versions that went in. And I think something that, as Mr. Henry pointed out, is suitable for that location, and the proposed layout is is much better than what it was because it does have the protected land that has been put aside there, and the smaller lots up closer to the road. I think that this is where we were trying to head, and it is unfortunate that people get tied up in it.

But what we want is this is our area, and we want it to be the best it can be for the future and the best outcomes, and to be able to have some development within the constraints that we have got. I think that it's in a vicinity where there's quite dense housing already and some proposed denser housing, and so it's not an application that, you know, is without the studies, which in the two previous applications, the first two applications, we have that information now because it's been done. It's been through the gateway and it's come back, and then we've had the advantage of using this new framework to work with the applicant to actually have a much, much better outcome than we originally had.

And that really is what it's about, and that's what we are seeking to do, to rectify any anomalies that existed before and to have proper planning into the future for our area.

Thank you. Further speakers, Councillor Wheeler.

Just a question, if I might, Mr Mayor. The community title lot that contains the vegetated strip at the bottom of the slope, how is the long-term management of that block funded and regulated?

Mrs Byrne. Mr Kearns. Those arrangements will be subject to future development application processes and will be assessed as part of that. So this is the actual planning proposal to amend the LEP that effectively allows the ability to lodge the development application.

So at this point we just have to accept that that will be dealt with later and should probably work.

Can I also ask a couple of questions about the existing dams that I think are on—so I'll put my glasses on, I can't see it because there's dams on lot two

And on lot five. Are they going to be—is the plan to keep those or to fill them in?

This proposal doesn't propose any filling of dams.

Thank you.

Any further speakers?

No. Deputy Mayor, would you like a right of reply?

No, thanks

I'll put the motion then. All those in favour please stand.

In favour of the motion, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Sam Provan, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Tree, Councillor Richards, Councillor Calvert. Against is Councillor Ross and Councillor Wheeler. Absent is Councillor Rasmussen and Councillor Garrow. Declare it carried.

That's the end of the items with public speakers. We now move to item 163, the Mayoral Minute

Something I said.

Thank you, Councillors. The Mayoral Minute I'm putting up is about moving us towards zero emissions. This came about for a couple of reasons. First reason is that WesROC asked for a report from all its member councils about its position on emissions reductions. And I went through that report and saw what the other councils were doing. Hawkesbury was looking rather sad in that list because what we said was that we plan to become a carbon neutral council, and there were no details other than that of when and how. So I thought it might be quite good two things happen. Firstly, this council sets a strong direction towards zero emissions as a goal. And secondly, we then take that to WesROC and see if we can get all the councils in Western Sydney to combine and work together to aim to have all the councils in Western Sydney zero emissions, and all the community if we can as well.

And that was what this Mayoral Minute is about. It might be short on some detail because it's actually just a very generic Mayoral Minute. And it's about trying to get the timing lined up across Western Sydney with all the other councils. And probably there will be reports coming forward. I know Council already does do a lot in this direction, but we have no overarching policy on the matter, and I'd like to see this not only become a policy but built into our community strategic plan in future. It gives us a framework upon which we can measure our success. At the moment, we're doing lots of good things, but they're bits and pieces, but we have no way of measuring whether we're achieving our goals on a grand scale.

So this will give us a direction and a way of measuring our goals. That's what it's all about, and I hope that you support it. Are there any other speakers?

No rush to speak. Okay. Councillor Kotlash.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I commend you for bringing this forward. It's a wonderful idea, and you're right that I think that Council are doing quite a lot in this area, and we don't really measure it. Well, we don't really sort of showcase it. And when I was reading this, what came to mind was the methane , and I'm not sure of the technical term, but the methane burning facility that we have now at the— Yes. At the gas

Flare

Thank you, Councillor Ross. The gas flare at the waste management facility, and it's really phenomenal how much carbon that's keeping out of the atmosphere, and— So I think that, you know, proceeding with this is really a great idea, and we really do have to knuckle down. And having heard Chloe Terrell earlier, you know, we really have to knuckle down and do some good things. So I'm supporting this Mayoral Minute. Thank you.

Any further speakers? Councillor Richards.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Thank you for, I guess, in your Mayoral Minute, highlighting the New South Wales Government's climate change policy framework and the targets that it is setting by 2050. It would be amiss to say that people don't support the environment and protecting it. They do, especially myself. It's just done in a sensible way. And I think that this climate change policy framework, I would have liked to have seen it attached to the Mayoral Minute. I did have to go and find it and have a look at what it meant. But I'm very happy to see that the New South Wales Government is actually making this a priority and putting it forward. I would disagree with some of your more motherhood statements in your Mayoral Minute.

I'd certainly like to know what a most catastrophic outcome would be. Defining that, that could amount to a whole bunch of things. But the fact that, yes, we have a current state government who's put this policy framework into place is definitely a good target to reach for.

Thank you, Councillor Richards. Any Deputy Mayor?

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Of course I support moving to a net zero emissions organisation, hopefully sooner than 2050. I just had a couple of questions first. The first one would be: would it be possible from staff to have an update on the outstanding resolutions that we have relating to climate change? Because there's a number of them I know we've already had which are outstanding, and just to have an update on how they're progressing would be good. The second question is: what current policies do West Rock have on climate change?

Staff will have to take the first question on notice, and I'll probably have to take the second one on notice. Our WesROC policies are all on the website. I can go there and get them for you. That's— Oh,

Well, I can find them if they're on the website. I didn't see any, though.

Okay, well, I'll check that.

Thank you. The third one was, what would occur if not all member councils did not take up the invitation to commit to becoming emissions free by 2050?

Well, you're asking a question that is out of my control, but I would suspect that from the list I've got of all the other councils, all of them are doing something, and some of them are actually well ahead of us. I don't anticipate any problems with the member councils, but if there are, then we'll have to deal with that at a WesROC level and move ahead without that one or two.

Okay. All right. Thank you. It's just that I don't actually think that abrogating our responsibility in this area to WesROC is necessarily the best way to progress forward. I'm happy to support part one of the mayoral minute, but points two, three and four, I think just—I don't know why we would write and ask to have it put on the agenda of WesROC. I would have thought it would have already been there. And inviting members to commit, I was concerned to see that you would want anyone to abide by our timeline because we would have to be one of the slowest councils in Australia in dealing with climate change, and so abiding by our timeline would be a bit scary for most. And also, I think there's nothing wrong with those things, but I don't think that's the way we should go forward because we have declared a climate emergency, and— If we've got no substance in a motion like this, then it's not of any real use.

What we need to do is, our primary concern is to create a climate emergency action plan where we prioritise resources within our council as to how emissions reduction will be possible and achievable. So I fully support reduction of emissions, naturally, but I know that some councillors don't, and in fairness to the councillors that don't, I think they probably are after an outline or something of what this would involve in terms of how much direction and resourcing it would require. So I think just sending it off to WesROC isn't really what we should be doing right now, although I have no objection to WesROC dealing with it. But we've really got a more important thing to deal with if we're really to live up to what we have said we're going to do.

So we don't want to lose autonomy over the process. We don't want, you know, if we send it to WesROC, WesROC has a massive disparity in the action already being taken, as you said, and also in the amount of resources some of those councils have. So I did look up all the council policies, and of course Blacktown's been doing it for years, and they've got a 2030 target to achieving net zero emissions in their energy use for operations, and they've been transitioning their fleet and they've been doing all those things. So they're enacting a policy called responding to climate change in line with the Paris Agreement, but we now know that that trajectory is not sufficient to prevent us exceeding the two degree increase.

So we really should be looking at doing something more urgently than that. And then on the other end of the spectrum, there's Lithgow Council, which is a member, and I couldn't even find any environmental policies on their website, but definitely nothing to do with climate change. And in fact, last year they sent a delegation, the mayor, the deputy mayor and another councillor, to Josh Frydenberg. to advocate for the confirmation of coal-fired power to continue. So I'm just not sure that doing it through the WESROC Councils is the best way to put it through. I think that what we should be doing, and there's only two councils in WESROC who've declared a climate emergency, so I actually think it would be better if we work with the other councils and through a facilitative group such as the Cities Power Partnership or somebody who has the capacity to facilitate, to jointly form an emergency plan.

There's been one done by Darebin Council in Victoria, and we can feed off that sort of thing, because the action—we've really got to start taking the action. We can't say we declare a climate emergency and then just sit here and do nothing. What we have to do is so much more than putting on solar. We need transition in the transport sector. We need the agricultural sector review, and we need to comprehend the localised impacts of what's really going to happen here. Anyone who can't see the emergency, they mustn't get out enough. But the fact that this mayoral minute echoes the New South Wales Government policy of achieving net zero emissions by 2050 is of huge concern to me, because they continue to support fossil fuels and approve new coal mines and things like that, and I think that that is not a plan that I think we should be following.

And I would prefer we came up with our own in line with our local needs and our decision to declare an emergency. So I've been asking for EV chargers here since 2012. We've not made progress in that area, so we need a policy to deal with that. By all means, WESROC should come up with a strategy for Western Sydney, but we should not abrogate our responsibility to them, because they should probably already be looking at all of this, and we have to do what we need to do and have control of— All of that. But I'm happy to—I've got no real issue with it. I just don't think it goes anywhere near what we actually need, given that we have declared a climate emergency.

Any further speakers?

Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I , like the Deputy Mayor, am a bit shocked that the New South Wales Government is held up as some sort of authority in this space. This is a government who recently approved the Wallarah 2 coal mine, which sits in the Central Coast's drinking water catchment and will be responsible for the export of thousands of tonnes of coal, not for Australia to keep the lights on, because apparently that's desperately important and we couldn't possibly do that any other way, though South Australia seems to manage to quite well, but for export for its foreign owner to profit from. The same New South Wales Government, whose Treasurer, well known to this Council, stated last Monday on the public record in Senate estimates, when questioned about the contingent liabilities from coal-fired power stations, I am a supporter of coal.

Hardly something to be getting really excited about. My biggest issue with the mayoral minute is that I simply don't think it's ambitious enough. I think talking to WesROC is a good idea. I think working with WesROC is a good idea. What I suspect will happen is when we go and compare ourselves to councils like Blacktown, we'll actually be quite embarrassed by our inaction over the previous terms of Council, because we know on this Council that we are seriously playing catch-up with very, very limited resources. I would like to see Point 1 more ambitious. 2050, even the state government thinks that 2050 is a goer. Surely, surely this council is not putting itself in the same group for climate action as the New South Wales Liberal government.

2030 is the scientific consensus of the time that we need to have met zero emissions in order to stave off catastrophic climate change. You want to see what catastrophe looks like? Go up to Tenterfield and have a look. There, in the middle of a climate change-induced catastrophe, they have no water and they have fires burning out of control. 2050 doesn't cut it. I think it would be great to have a discussion with WSROC about what other councils are doing. What I'd really like is for that discussion to feed back to this council, or for council to be able to attend that discussion as observers and hear what other councils who've been working more actively in this space have done. So I don't know if you'd consider those changes, Mr Mayor, but at the moment this is a mayoral minute about our interaction with WSROC, and I think we need to go further.

We need a priority action plan. We need a climate action. Plan, we need to know where those reports are up to. I'm happy to undertake to work with the Deputy Mayor to bring a climate action plan forward,

But we need to go further than just talking to surrounding councils.

Thank you. The General Manager would like to answer some of those questions.

Look, this is a really complex issue for this council, and it's complex because it's very easy to make statements, but the real proof of the pudding is putting the funds aside to do the work. Now , at the moment, we don't have people dedicated to this area. We've got one vacancy that we're filling at the moment, and then we'll start doing some work. We found some money to put into photovoltaic and renewables and LED lights, and the idea was that that would generate some funds that then council would have the discretion to put into a revolving reserve that we could use for other projects that would generate more savings and more capacity. However, the prices in electricity have meant that that opportunity is not there just at the moment.

But we're hopeful with the new contract that we'll be able to come back to council and give council that opportunity. I don't think there's a lack of desire for us to do it. It's having the resources in terms of staff and the resources in terms of budget. All of the councils that are doing significant work in this area have both of those things in place. We've been only working on this for two, three years, and we're still gathering momentum. But that said, the report does talk about things that we are doing. It does talk about a target of 2050, if not sooner. And 2050 is a common target across all state governments in Australia. And that's, again, it's a starting point for something, if not sooner.

So I would really recommend that councillors just give staff the opportunity to do some work on this and to do some work in terms of funding and resources as well, so that we can start generating some real traction and progress. I think it's important that we maintain that perspective. And finally, I think it's important that, as the report says, we do work with all other levels of government. So in the City Deal with Commonwealth, State and Local, we're also working at local City Deal, we're working local government across Australia in other forums. We've got to keep working in those forums. So I think there are some very valuable points in this document.

Any further speakers? Deputy Mayor.

Just a question. So as a council, do we have plans for the development of an integrated strategy to address climate change? And in that, would that in fact be an emergency action plan, or would it be possible for us to bring what we see as an emergency action plan? The reason I'm asking is that we understand the limitation of resources, and therefore we're not going to have money for that, but also because— As a council, we are going to have to prioritise into the future where we spend the money. So do we have, is that what is being developed by the council, an integrated plan or a climate emergency action plan, or both?

So our intention is to bring an integrated plan back to Council. We can start doing some of that work by the end of the year, and the appropriate forum for us to move that forward on is in the budget. So in next year's budget, we'll be looking at bringing forward some actions and some funding opportunities to address those actions, and we see that as the appropriate way to move forward on this, building on the work that's already happening

Just a question, if I can. Am I right in saying that we wouldn't have been able to do the LED light years ahead project if it wasn't for WESROC? I mean, it seems to me that—

No, that's not correct.

No.

Okay. So WESROC have the program . We were the only council that took up the program.

Oh, right.

And we've managed that internally. But again, we found a funding source that we could use to do that. It doesn't matter if WESROC have got a program or anyone else has got a program. You need the funding to do it. We had to find the funding, and it's in the order of about a million dollars to do that. Now, we found that in the 18-19 budget. Through that, we did the photovoltaic cells, and then we did the LED lighting scheme. And both of those are going to significantly reduce our energy costs going forward. Councilor [unclear name].

Thank

You, Mr. Mayor. I concur with Councillor Richards. If you're citing New South Wales state government policy, how could I refuse you?

And the point that I would make along the way is, and citing the photovoltaic program as an example, in the best principles of Adam Smith, we're not doing this simply because it's morally virtuous, but because it's a very sound economic decision. And I think if it's a sound economic decision and reflects the changing state of the costs of energy and of maintaining older technology or replacing it with newer technology, I think the argument makes itself. So in that sense, I'm perfectly happy to accept the thrust of your mayoral minute. I would remark to Councillor Wheeler, who has referred on a number of occasions this evening to unprecedented and catastrophic and entirely climate change-driven droughts, bushfires or hurricanes, is that both droughts, hurricanes and bushfires have been around for some time.

Further speakers?

Councillor Ross. Point of misrepresentation, Mr Mayor

Okay, thank you.

Councillor Ross, your light is on.

Did you wish to speak? Thank you very much, Mayor.

Thank you. Well, I

Concur with Councillor Wheeler . Twenty-thirty has to be the magic number.

And whether we like it or not,

If we're hoping in any way, shape or form to approach anything like a one and a half to two degrees, and not five or six degrees, we've got to head straight for 2030 and make it happen, every one of us.

Current government policy is being apparently lauded. I suggest you might go and have a look at the Darling River system

Complete catastrophe. That is a catastrophe. Having to take fish out of the river to try and find somewhere to put them so that they'll even survive.

Just disgraceful. And then we talk about land clearing. That is the greatest travesty of all time. Disgraceful . Absolutely disgraceful.

And we're going to end up with a west of the nation looking like the Americas in the 1930s,

With a dust bowl everywhere.

And we'll get back to the lovely summers we've been having, you know. Come down to South Windsor and I'll show you 48 degrees in a summer afternoon. That's lovely. If

That doesn't result in death of a lot of senior people, I would be very surprised. I fully agree with the AMA. And the declaration this week that the climate situation is just untenable as it's now presenting to us and becoming a very severe concern. And we only have to have,

And so help me, I don't want to see it, some fires start out west of us and have a blow-up day, and my goodness, you just won't be able to stop them. No, we've all got to do something about 2030, and we've all got to do something about the constant vandalism of our native vegetation, even here, South Windsor and Kurrajong this week, within the space of two days. Terrible.

Any further speakers? Councillor Reynolds. Thanks, Mr Mayor. I just want to say I appreciate the spirit in which the mayoral minute is brought, but I do have an issue with the target of 2050. Blacktown has a target of 2030 for net zero emissions from the electricity, fuel and gas they use. I think that they've set the bar, and I think that that's—I could support this if it said 2030 and we went in line with Blacktown. And I'd hope that you would consider changing that to 2030. Thanks. Any further speakers? Councillor Tree.

I was just going to say, Mr Mayor, do you know what? Blacktown has a lot of things that we'd really love to have, and that's because their per-person budget's a lot larger because they've got a lot more... People living there in a huge, huge budget compared to what we have to work with. So it's a bit hard. We need to find another council that's as poor as us and compare to them and to see whether they're, you know, directing all of their funds to become sustainable. 30-30 does sound like a— 30-30, 30-50 sounds like a long way away, but 30 didn't sound like a long way away when we were expected to all have electric cars. And I thought of, you know, where are we going to put all of those cars?

I don't know. It's a real problem. I'm supportive of the mayoral minute. I think it's very important that we do strive for it. I think something's better than nothing. And I think sometimes we need to, you know, realise that we've got a— we might like a silk purse, but we've definitely got a sow's ear, and that's probably what we're going to be able to spend.

I think that was support. I'm not sure. Any other speakers?

I'll exercise my right of reply then. I'm quite amazed at the response I've received to this. I think it's been—the mayoral minute has been mostly widely misunderstood. Firstly, the point A says 2050, if not sooner. The if not sooner was meaning that we will follow up on this and have an action plan developed, which could lead us to a date much closer to now, like 2030. 2050 was just because it meant the state government has set that framework, and we must also, I think, at least, at least work with the state government's timeline. That's all that that means. I would like to see our timeline be a lot shorter, and I think— The mayoral minute allows for that.

The whole idea, as I said right at the beginning, is that this is supposed to be a beginning. It's supposed to set a direction. Action plans will follow. It was not meant to have details. I wasn't going to sit up for three weeks writing action plans that might be a hundred pages long. It's really just meant to be a simple statement that this council wants to pursue zero emissions. And the question to you is, do you want to pursue that or don't you? The answers I got seemed 50-50 at best. That's all it's trying to do. Action plans will follow. The general manager has also already told us about some of the things that are happening within the council. He's looking to allocate resources, develop those action plans.

But at the moment, this council does not have a stated direction about zero emissions. I wanted to correct that. The second thing is, WSROC works by its member councils taking items to it and then getting WSROC to discuss them. That's all this is meant to be, a letter to WSROC saying we're doing this. Would WSROC like to consider also doing this? I was in no way abrogating our responsibility to WSROC. It does not say that in here, and I did not mean that. And I'm really surprised that people misread this whole thing. It's a very simple statement of direction, and I hope you all embrace it and all those other things that you mentioned, that they can be addressed. Okay? So that's being the right of reply.

I'll put the mayoral minute. All those in favour, please stand.

In favour, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Samprogno, Councillor Connelly, Councillor Tree, Councillor Richards, Councillor Calvert. Against is Councillor Ross and Councillor Reynolds. Absent is Councillor Rassmussen and Councillor Garo. Declare it carried.

Move to item 170, the council elections. Someone like to move something on that?

Deputy Mayor.

I'll move it.

Deputy Mayor moved it. Do we have a seconder? Councillor Tree, thank you. Deputy Mayor, you wish to speak?

Not so much on that, because I know we went over it in the briefing, but I did just have a question related to the subject, and I wanted to know who the decision-maker is who makes these sort of rules . I'm assuming that it is the Electoral Commission, but whether we can include, when we're next liaising with them, or I'll bring a notice of motion forward, that we request either investigations or exemptions from the excessive amount of pre-polling given the number of polling booths on the day in this area, or a decrease of polling booths. Can we tie, I know we probably can't tie that in with this thing, but can we please be provided with who would make that decision and if there's any— Yes.

I'd be suggesting that that needs to come forward as a notice of motion, because I think that would be separate representations that we would make based on some experience.

I'd just like the info.

Councillor Conolly. Thanks, Mr Mayor. I actually believed at the briefing that I had raised and had broad agreement that we should at least look at what the other options are. So I was a bit disappointed to see that we hadn't done that. We've said in the report, option one, council engages an electoral service provider to administer its elections, and then three paragraphs about why we didn't consider option one. But it would have been, I think, to make proper decision-making, it should have actually been reported. The costs, indicative cost to use another provider would be this, and it would be this much cheaper. But, you know, council staff might still recommend that it's not worth the, I guess let's use the term negative publicity of not using the Electoral Commission, but I would like to know.

General Manager? Mr Mayor, it's very difficult for us to do that because we don't even know what the New South Wales Electoral Commission are going to charge. So at the moment, they've, I think we've circulated a document.

So councillors have got a document on their desk. It's a confidential memo, and it just indicates that until IPART make a decision, we can't get a confirmed cost from the Electoral Commission. So we've got no basis for doing any comparison, and we've had a further update, I think today, saying that they still can't provide us. So we did take on board that, but we had nothing to gauge any proposals against. So that's why we've recommended that at this stage it's the New South Wales Electoral Commission, based on their original quote, which is what our submission is on the IPART as well.

Sure, I can understand that, but I mean it wouldn't have been, with respect, I don't think it would have been a case of if the costing had come through from the Electoral Commission yesterday, you could have called the Australian Election Company and got a quote over the phone. So clearly this would have had to be something that happened, you know, back when the briefing was, and we just obviously decided not to go down that road at that point, which is disappointing considering council had asked informally anyway for that option. But I feel like we're at a point now where there's really nothing we can do about that. So without any other information, we'll just have to go with the recommendation.

Thank you. Any further speakers?

Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. So my understanding is that we need to get back to—

We need to have a decision on this now, and that we can't wait any longer for any further information from IPART. Is that correct?

Mr Mayor, we've put the report up tonight. We've got until the next council meeting to make a final decision. We don't have to make it tonight, but at the moment we don't have any further details, and we're not sure when we're going to get them, and we didn't want to just land the report on the council colt. Now council can defer it pending some additional advice if it becomes available over the next fortnight, or it can make an in-principle decision tonight.

Councillor Wheeler. Yeah, like Councillor Conolly, I'm a bit uncomfortable with— I'm particularly uncomfortable with going ahead with something that we don't have the costings for, given that IPART has indicated that they're going to be so bloody expensive, and that they are working in what's almost a monopoly apart from one other provider. I would much prefer to go with the New South Wales Electoral Commission. I think there is a public perception of fairness that comes from using the Electoral Commission. But the price is steep, and I think I would be much more comfortable if we at least had a comparison with something else, or we knew what we were committing ourselves to. I would really like to defer this in the hope that we've heard back from IPART between now and then, knowing that if it comes back to us, we will probably just accept this report as it is.

I don't think it will make additional work for the staff, and hopefully it won't make additional reading for council, but it will hopefully have a number in it, and that would be really nice, because this is a significant increase to what we had budgeted previously.

Deputy Mayor, it's been suggested that this be deferred.

I'm happy with that.

Wish to withdraw

On that basis. Yes, I'll withdraw.

And Councillor Tree, you're happy to withdraw that too? Oh , thank you. Moved by Councillor Wheeler, seconded by Councillor Conolly that this matter be deferred

Could I, if I could, Mr Mayor, just slightly more specific that the motion would be that it's deferred for further information, including a comparison from other providers.

Okay.

Did we

Get that? Yeah.

We'll do it. General Manager said we'd do what we can do.

It would only need to be an indicative quote, I think, for comparison. Surely they must have a scale of fees based on voting. Councillor Ross.

Thank you, Mayor. I may be rather dumb, but

The recommendation pertains only to sections 296A

And 296

Sorry, the attachments are 296A and 296B. The recommendations all pertain to 296 section, but that I don't think is correct. I think if that could be just validated for us, please, before we come back to that. That

Recommendation is no longer being discussed. No, but there'll be

There'll be certainly a continuity of thought

So when it's brought back, you'd like that matter addressed.

Yes, sir.

We can do that Thank you. Any further discussion? Okay. No further discussion. Councillor Wheeler, would you like right of reply?

No thanks, Mr Mayor.

I'll put the motion. All those in favour, please stand. In favour are Councillor Richards, Councillor Tree, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Ross. Absent is Councillor Brassmussen and Councillor Garrow. Declare it carried.

Item 171.

Councillor Kotlash?

Move the recommendation in the business paper, please.

The recommendation in the business paper.

With— sorry. With a recommendation, sorry.

Sorry, Councillor Kotlash,

What did you

Want to move, sorry?

Sorry, I wanted to move the recommendation in the business paper with an amendment, if I could, please.

I think if you just read out the motion you've got there, that might

Do it. Yep.

That both the one and two recommendations stay, but we just add clause 3.1 of the Code of Meeting Practice be amended to facilitate council making adjustments to the placement and frequency of council meetings over the course of the year. Excuse me. And the next point that I'd like added is clause 11.5 of the Code of Meeting Practice be amended to allow councillors who are present in the chamber to raise their hands in favour of the motion, in favour of the motion of amendment being voted on.

You've got that there in writing? Yes . Could we get that? You've got it?

Yes, I think that's already been. Thank you.

You're moving that. Do we have a seconder?

Is that a yes, Councillor Connelly second? Ask a question. You can ask questions. I'm

Just not sure how that point one differs. From the recommendation point one.

Is it just that we're not including 3.4?

It's, I think the difference in point one is that it just, rather than referring to attachment one, it just summarises the details in attachment one, which is basically the frequency and those things. Yeah.

Councillor Kotlash, you wish to speak to that?

Well, I think that's fairly self-explanatory. No, I don't.

Thank you. Any other speakers?

No other speakers. Councillor Conolly.

I only to say, I think it makes, once it's been pointed out, it makes a lot of sense that we should have, Council should have the ability to set its own meetings. It shouldn't require a change to a code to go next year to come back and be adopted every time we want to, if we want to change the time of the meeting from 6.30 to 7. It seems to be ridiculous we would have to do all that. So I think this is just common sense and allows a decision on the broader things we discussed to be made at some point in the future.

Any further speakers? Councillor Kotlash— sorry, Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I find this report fairly depressing, actually, particularly the bits that say that we don't have the skills and staff to carry out some of the things put forward by advisory committees that Council has put in place with the object of getting their advice and guiding Council on its actions. Worse than that, I'm not sure that I have any hope that we will have. The staff to carry out what are effectively core council functions,

And that's a really unhappy place to be three years into a council term. I'm not quite sure why we are rejigging this. I said this in the briefing. Why we are rejigging this three years into a council term to go with a community strategic plan that we prepared three years ago, or at least we've had in place for two years, when the next council will rewrite the CSP themselves. And it may not suit what we've come up with for their meetings. I also think it's bad faith for the people who put their hands up to be on committees only to find that those committees are going to be rejigged.

I'm not entirely sure that the school holidays are harder. I no longer have a child at school, but my recollection is that often school terms are more logistically challenging than school holidays, particularly as kids get older and need support through exams. But my biggest concern is with the clause that says that we'll decide when the meetings are, and we're not actually telling the community when those meetings are. So we're putting this out to consultation, but we're not actually saying anything except that we're not going to do what we currently do. And I think that's very unclear to community members. We're required to meet at least 10 times a year. So are we just going to meet 10 times a year?

Are we going to meet every four weeks? Are we going to meet every three weeks? How long do we intend to have between council meetings before that becomes problematic, before it becomes too difficult to defer? I mean, we've just seen an example of where it was useful for council to be able to defer something and deal with it within two weeks. Under this potential meeting structure that we actually have no idea of, we may not be able to do that. I'm not sure that this meets the community expectations of what it expects from the councillors that it pays to turn up and represent them twice a month. It also makes no mention in the recommendations of Of the hard work and dedication of committee members to assisting this council in achieving things that it doesn't have in its current skill set.

And I refer to the Heritage Advisory Committee, which is extremely successful, but is lumped in with all of this reorganisation because it doesn't suit. Now that's deeply insulting for a committee that meets every two months, works extremely hard, has two spinoff working groups. There's no mention of that. There is some alignment between the Heritage Committee and the Town Centres Committee, but there is a little bit of overlap, but they are quite different in their goals. And the Heritage Advisory Committee would become quite unwieldy if it had to deal with all of that extra stuff. It would also put an undue emphasis on urban and built heritage, where we've had a long battle to include rural and Indigenous heritage in the focus of all heritage groups .

So I can't support this recommendation as it stands. It's simply far too amorphous, and I find parts of it quite insulting. Any further speakers?