10 December 2019 - Ordinary

Good evening everyone and welcome to Council's ordinary meeting of 10 December 2019. I'd like to begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of this land, paying respect to Elders both past and present. I'll now hand over 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. Recordings may be made available to other persons where such access is in accordance with the relevant regulations. 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, they are to turn it off or turn it to silent.

Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Thank you, Mr Conolly. I believe we have apologies from Councillor Conolly. He's representing the Council at another venue tonight. Would someone like to move we accept apologies? Councillor Zamprogno, seconded Deputy Mayor. All those in favour say aye. Declared carried.

Are there any declarations of interest? Councillor Rasmussen?

I think it's 2, thank you. Item 2.30, Mr Mayor. Item 2.30. Will you be staying in the room, or— No, I won't be, Mr Mayor. Okay. I'll try and remember that. Another one, sorry. Another— sorry. Deputy Mayor.

Item 2.27 and item 2.

36. 2.27, 2.36. Yes. Councillor Richards? Item 2.36. Sorry. Sorry, Deputy Mayor, will you—

I'll go out for both of them.

Okay, thanks.

Item 2.36, I won't be leaving. 2

36, you— Unless there's significant opportunity. Okay. Any other declarations of interest? No.

And Councillor Rasmussen, you were item 2.30, I think you said? Correct, Mr Mayor.

Want me to spell it out?

No, I'll remember it this time. Okay.

The minutes from the last meeting, do we have someone to move the minutes? No, Mr Mayor. Councillor Rasmussen, seconded Deputy Mayor. All those in favour? Carried.

Items are subject to public address. The first item is item 227.

Declaration, Mr Mayor.

Yes. And Deputy Mayor is declaring a declaration of interest and will be leaving the room.

Yes, Mr Mayor. Declaration of a pecuniary interest in item number 227. A relative owns a business in the tourism sector, which is the subject of potential change of permissible use within the zoning as part of the LEP amendment. I do this after checking, getting legal advice about that today. Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay. We have three public speakers listed. First one is Mr William Sneddon.

Mr Mayor, Councillors, gallery, thanks for the opportunity to address this. I'm going to substantially just read parts of this in summary. I'm concerned at the rural nature of our area being eroded, and there's certainly some hints from the staff here that they have significant frustration with state government with what is supposedly now to be a Parkland City. So pages 18, 19 in particular, I quote here, Council's experience to date in terms of the metropolitan rural area is that there has been no clear direction provided by the Greater Sydney Commission or Department of Planning, Industry and Environment. And this is particularly in this case in regard to a planning proposal for 27 and 41 Park Road, Mulgrave.

Apparently a relatively simple rezoning that's been recommended by Council and has gone through the approval panel . And council staff are actually telling you they've been waiting more than 12 months to get a decision out of Sydney. Now, when you go through what's involved here, this is indicating a double standard. If council was to delay a planning decision of a relatively simple nature once it's been decided by 12 months, I've got to imagine that State Government from Sydney, there would be hell to pay for this council. So there appears to be, to me, a very significant double standard. So council staff also go on and they discuss some of this, as demonstrated by this particular planning proposal and numerous meetings that they're not getting decisions.

They also say at the bottom of page 18, there is no clear policy position or directives of metropolitan rural area from the Greater Sydney Commission or Department of Planning, Industry and Environment. There's an inability to provide clear directions on land use planning matters to developers and landowners. There's an inability to provide increased local job opportunities through rezoning of suitable land. There are issues further of longer-term housing target and 20-year employment target of 16,500 additional jobs. This is not being appropriately dealt with by the people that the council reports to in town. So at the top of page 19, we go on and say, given the metropolitan rural area policy context particularly relates to land in rural or environmental zones, the elements of the current housekeeping LEP amendment that are impacted by this matter include function centres in rural and environmental living zones, and also ecotourist facilities in rural residential and environmental zones.

So generally, the paper apparently, at first glance, simply a recommendation to Council to vote these amendments to the Local Environment Plan. But I'm seeing deeper things in here. So we are meant to be the biggest of the, as I understand, rural councils in the area, barring the new

Section of Vineyard that's in the urban development zone. My concern here is that this appears to put into doubt, seeing as the two major planning bodies don't have a consistent policy regarding our rural lands, etc., where do we go as far as locking up the agricultural and rural nature of the Hawkesbury? There doesn't appear to be clear direction coming out of Sydney, whilst Council is attempting to do this with our documents. We don't have any apparently direction or locked-in policy from the State Government regarding what a lot of residents, certainly myself and I know a significant number of the councillors here, want for the Hawkesbury and have the long-term view of keeping the nature of the area. Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Thank you, Mr Snedden. Happy to answer some questions. Yes, sir. Did anyone have any questions for Mr Snedden? Doesn't look like it. Thank you very much. Would Mr Lionel Buckett be here? Doesn't look like it.

Yeah

I figured that.

What about Ms Jane Hughes? Is Ms Jane Hughes here? Doing the same . Okay. That's the end of our speakers then. Before we discuss the item, I think the Director of Planning wanted to say a few words to introduce this item.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. So in terms of this amendment, fondly known as the LEP housekeeping proposal, there are approximately 50 items, individual items within the amendment, some of which have sub-elements. They're mainly procedural, such as minor drafting, mapping errors, or mapping amendments, or additional land uses. However, of the 50 elements, there are four items that remain of issue: bed and breakfast amending a permissibility and providing additional controls, extension of the number of days of temporary use, function centres in rural environmental living zones, eco-tourist facilities in rural residential and environmental zones. What we're proposing is that the bulk of these we proceed through the next stage as procedural items, while continuing discussion with the relevant state agency around these four items that are outstanding, and that's the recommendation put towards Council.

But I also acknowledge that there are people who wanted to speak at tonight's meeting, so I leave to Council what they want to do now.

Councillor Richards.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'd like to put forward an alternative to the current recommendation in the business paper, and that is because I've been contacted by various individuals, and it seems that other people in the councilors in the chamber are of the same understanding that there were people that wanted to desperately speak on this item tonight. However, with the day that we've had today in the bushfires, they've been prohibited from doing so. As mentioned, Lionel is out there fighting fires, and a couple of other people who are keen to speak, especially concerning the ecotourism part, are actually defending their properties as we speak and wanting to maintain that. So my proposition tonight was to hold this item over to the first meeting back in 2020.

That way we can afford those people keen to speak the opportunity to do so. What I was also wanting to double-check with the staff is when this report, if we get the approval tonight and it does come back, those four contentious items, I'd like to know if it's possible—excuse me, this smoke's in my throat—to separate the items that are contentious into flooding and non-flooding zones, so we can actually see where the conflict is for flooding and what could actually proceed through without those flooding concerns. Thanks. Moving

An amendment?

Yeah, moving that as an amendment to defer to the first meeting back.

Seconded. I think she's moving it based on the answer to this question. That's why I haven't called a seconder yet.

Yes, we can consider that proposal, flooding and non-flooding issues. Okay,

Thank you very much. So I move the amendment to defer. Councillor Rasmussen is seconding it. Councillor Richards, do you wish to speak?

Nothing further than what I've already added. Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Anyone else wish to speak on the matter? Councillor Sam Progro.

Thank you, Mr Mayor, and considering that the motion before us is now merely to defer... Then it would be inappropriate to discuss the substantive nature of the housekeeping LEP, except to say that I think that there's a broad and justified perception in the community that this falls short of the ambition that we should have had for this LEP. The things that we've excluded, I understand and accept the rationale for their exclusion.

I think you're doing what you said you weren't going to do. And the question is, do we defer or not? That's the

Simple problem. I'll save my ammo then for next year.

Yes, please. Any other speakers on whether to defer or not? Councillor Ross.

I concur with the thought of deferral, please.

Thank you. No one speaking against it, and there's no other motion, no amendments. Councillor Richards was not an amendment; it's a motion. And do you have— no one else is speaking, so do you want right of reply?

Not necessary, thank you. Okay

Well then I'll put the motion. If you're in favour of the motion, which is to defer this till 2020, please stand.

In favour of the motion: Councillor Rice, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Tree, Councillor Richards. Absent is Councillor Conolly and the Deputy Mayor, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, and Councillor Calvert in favour too, sorry. Declare it carried.

Our next item is item 232. We have several speakers. Firstly, Mr. Les Sheather.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, councillors and staff. Firstly, I'd like to commend the council to have 42 submissions. Some might say the job's not being done well. I think that it's great that the community is involved, that submissions come forward. So thanks for that. I'm going to talk about sport, or the lack of recognition that's in the proposed document. I'm not here on behalf of the Sports Council, and I speak on my behalf. They put a submission in. I think it's 17 in the document. But the Sports Council's had an extremely good relationship with council in the past. I don't think we've burned too many bridges. I certainly don't want it to happen into the future. But in all council documents, we're recognised as sport and recreation areas.

And in actual fact, we've got two and a half thousand volunteers a week that look after the facilities that we manage on your behalf. We've got 30,000 on an average week that use those facilities. And during the presentation that was given, that I attended in the library, the museum and library were spoke about, about how many people are involved. About 10,000 people a year visit that. And 150 volunteers. And I thought, well, you know, like more than half our community is involved in sport one way or another, and we get a one-liner. And I would like to see in the documents this document that's going to go for another 20 years, and most of us won't be here in 20 years. Some of us won't, Councillor Rasmussen, but I'd like you to leave something behind for those people that will take your place, and that is that sport is a major contributor within our community and deeply involved in our community.

The other comment I made is about tourism. This council, over many, many years, has pushed tourism in a whole heap of directions. Very little has been in recreational tourism. And the decision that this council made to put that little park down in Governor Phillip Park that squirts a little bit of water up, and to extend the car park, you've only got to go down there any afternoon to see that one portion of our community and what effect that little decision has made to allow people to have so much fun. And the 30-odd thousand that I spoke about, that's not about big competitions. We've got women's competition in cricket and soccer now. The netball, the big numbers get there. BMX, we're getting 3,000 people on major days down there even.

But that 30,000 I was talking about a week that we provide for, that's without organisations like golf and, I was going to say off-road racing, but they got burnt out the other day, something that I'll discuss with our mayor and other people down the track. They lost everything. But we've got the go-karts. We've got Hawkesbury Showground, that something's happened every weekend. We're not doing anything much to give support to the amount of people that come here. And the direction within the document relates very much to a lot of things that council really don't have any say in. A lot of it's private enterprise. I mean, it's council's role and, I think, obligation to encourage direction for those businesses to thrive and the role of councils for that.

But in the main, council doesn't have a decision on how they react to that. The reaction will be great if there's opportunities for promotion and advertising and the like, and collectiveness to make those things happen. This is one of the few local government areas that don't have a caravan park , overnight stay. I mean, we call them caravan parks, but these days I guess they're a lot better than that. But if we're going to ask people to come to our city and enjoy their time and money and then send them home so that we've got our environment that we live in and love, then we need somewhere for them to stay. Our accommodation, most of it is ageing , but we need accommodation where people can come with a couple of kids or just a couple that can stay overnight, just somewhere to put their feet up, and we haven't got it.

The caravan parks along the rivers are a good example of how they do work. Del Rio is a good example. Golf course, all that sort of stuff down there. And, you know, so if we're going to promote the sort of things that encourage things that we can have some control over, you know, I think a caravan park or some overnight stay is something that council should really consider. The document itself—

Sorry, you've gone over time. Sorry I thought you'd throw something

At me, sir. I

Know how unusual that is for you. Unfortunately, you've run out of time. Are you happy to answer questions?

I apologise. Sorry.

Happy to answer some questions. Does anyone have any questions for Mr. Sheather?

Councillor Richards.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Thanks for that, Mr Sheather, and you always are a true advocate for sport and for sporting facilities in the Hawkesbury. Sorry to put you on the spot, but can you maybe give us some sort of an understanding of how far we're falling short of sporting grounds and facilities in the Hawkesbury? Just a brief idea.

Yep. We're getting about a 10% increase in sport a year. That's likely to increase dramatically with the development to our east. Our sporting grounds at the moment, and we've had discussions with your senior staff, that's been productive. We're on the limit of the grounds and facilities that we have. We've got more and more schools using it, and a whole heap of people outside our communities now, I mean organisations, businesses and the like that use our facilities. And the forward plans that we have, we have discussed with the general manager and senior staff about how we might proceed into the future with that. But we need a plan. These guys and you guys aren't going to be there forever, and whoever takes their place, we need to give them some direction. Thank you.

Some of us might be here forever.

I hope so.

Maybe it just seems like forever. Any other questions? Councillor Ross.

Mr Sheather, can you be more specific about what you're calling for? Sorry? Can you be more specific about what you're calling for? Yeah. Do you want two ovals, 22 ovals or— Needing pictures or what the heck do we want?

Yep. The need, I guess, we're looking for a complex similar to Benson's Lane. In the past, we've got cow paddocks like Don't Worry on the side of a hill, and the most recent ones was Colonial and Bounty. They're retention basins. Well , we haven't had rain in a long while. You only need a shower. They're the best facilities we've got, and we can't use them for home grounds because they're called off too often. So we need to complex. That helps a whole heap away. Parking and facilities is minimised because you can double up on everything. And they're discussions we've been having with your staff, but we need to put that into a plan. In the past, we've relied on developers to provide those facilities, and in the main, we've got left over land they don't want.

Pitt Town's a good example of that. And retention basins side of a filled-in piece of block. So we don't want that anymore. We need land. Sport's important. The requirements for sport to play on the grounds now is out of our control. Referees and umpires dictate whether they play on the ground or not. So if it's too dry, it doesn't happen. If it's too rough, it doesn't happen. So it's complexing we need to move to, and we need to do that in a way that hasn't been done before.

Thank you, Councillor Sheather. We're out of time again. Yep. Ex-Councillor Sheather.

Merry Christmas

Our next speaker is Mr. Andrew Thomas. Mr. Thomas here.

Thank you.

All right. Good evening, Mr Mayor, Councillors and distinguished guests. My name is Andrew Thomas and I represent a group of landowners who tendered submission number 24 during the exhibition period for the draft local strategic planning statement. It's on their behalf that I would like to submit this brief oral submission. While the landowners in question are principally in favour of the two proposed recommendations for item 2.22, in tonight's business paper, we ask the Council to consider amending the proposed response action, in particular to submission number 24, which in part currently states that the LSPS should not support spot rezonings, and that's found on page 14 of Attachment 1. I wish to clarify that the intent of the submission number 24 was not to achieve spot rezoned per se, but rather is to demonstrate the desire for the subject site to be included in Council's broader strategic review of the areas in question, particularly with respect to the implementation of the draft LSPS's planning priority number one, namely the provision of adequate employment lands in Mulgrave and South Windsor principally to meet the 20-year employment target for the Hawkesbury local government area of 16,500 additional jobs.

Importantly, the subject site's tactical merits are identified by the fact that it is specifically identified for further investigation in the Hawkesbury Employment Lands Strategy, which is adopted by Council in December 2008. In summary, therefore, we request that the site identified in submission 24 in Attachment 2 of item 232 be included in Council's broader strategic review. Accordingly, further submissions to this effect will be made in due course when Council considers the draft Hawkesbury Employment Lands Study early next year. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Thomas. Are you happy to answer any questions? Yes. Anyone have any questions? Mrs Perrin, did you feel inclined to answer Mr Thomas's question?

Thank you, Mr Thomas, for your submission. Essentially, any submissions that have been received that talk about specific sites— Oh, sorry. Is that better? Okay.

Thank you for that. In relation to the submissions that have been received that talk about specific sites or areas, essentially our response is yes, they will be considered as part of the other suite of strategic plans, be it the Employment Lands, Housing Strategy, Rural Lands Study or Open Space Strategies, etc. So the LSPS, as you know, isn't able to go into that level of detail. It is a 20-year strategy that talks about land use for the next 20 years, but any submissions that are at a more finer detail will be picked up as part of those other plans. Wonderful.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Thomas. The other two speakers are Mr Lionel Bucket and Miss Jane Hughes, and I assume they're still not here. That's the end of our speakers. Before we discuss this— Mr Spurren wants to introduce the item.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. So the local strategic planning statement is a 20-year land use vision for the local government area as a whole. Tonight's report is to bring back to Council the results of the exhibition phase that we went through, and receiving 42 submissions is actually a really good result for documents such as this. So we're very pleased about the variety and the range of people that came back and gave time to provide a submission. The local strategic planning statement still has a number of steps to go through before it is finalised. Essentially, we still have a technical health check to undertake, a further report has to come back to Council, and we still need to send it to the Greater Sydney Commission for the assurance process.

So this document will not be finalised until the end of March. In that process, there will be amendments based on the feedback from the technical health check potentially. We will be making amendments based on the exhibition phase, but ultimately Council and the community will be able to see a revised document in the middle of March 2020.

Thank you. The matter is now open

For discussion. Councillor Zamprogno. I'll

Move the recommendation in the business paper, Mr Mayor. We have a seconder

For that? I'll second that. Seconded, Deputy Mayor. Councillor Zamprogno, you wish to speak.

I do, Mr Mayor. Thank you. This LSPS is a significant document, and I think people have been wrong-footed because it's a new kind of document that sits at a level that we're unaccustomed to seeing, sitting as it does above an LEP but below a regional plan. The inquiries that have reached me are from people who have a real investment, a real sense of belonging to the community, and who are very interested in having that input into the future shape of our district, but wondered how this document would subsume and replace the community consultation that would ordinarily occur in relation to our rural lands, our residential land strategy, our agricultural and equine lands, and indeed our employment and commercial lands.

And it's instructive to me to see, as has been said, the number of submissions that have been received, and how we get a sense of how our own thinking might be evolving, and how at times it is at odds with what the rest of the community may want. And I'm going to spend the remainder of my time honing in on just a couple of those examples, and invite the Chamber to reflect on how we can move forward. Those of us who have taken an interest in local politics for a long time remember a process that we went through called Our City, Our Future, which had as its fruit a 1998 policy that set out, in much the same way that we've tried to consult here, The values that make our area so wonderful to live in.

It said, for example, in relation to development, and I'm focusing on development here, that fragmentation of land should be minimised, that consolidation of land contiguous with existing towns is to be preferred over smaller lot subdivisions away from existing towns and villages, that there shouldn't be subdivision along main roads or along ridge lines, and that tree coverage in any given site should be retained or enhanced. The values that were set down in that process over 20 years ago, I think are durable and agreeable to us even here today. And unless we move forward with this new document, an LSPS that clearly articulates the same kinds of values, then we're not doing the job that we ought to.

It's very significant to me that the community submissions contained a number of unsolicited proposals for development in areas that we have not considered before, including on the terrace at North Richmond, in Horrens Lane at Grose Vale, at Mulgrave Road at Mulgrave, as Mr Thomas articulated a moment ago, in Moralia between Neich Road and Dunns Road, which is interestingly the land encompassed by the playing fields and Moralia Hall, and most significantly a 165 hectare site in Oakville, roughly bounded between Midson Road, bordering the national park and Boundary Road. And these are not presently on our radar, and there is some expectation in the community that we would be considering these.

I have my misgivings about some of those proposals, and I can speak with some knowledge about the Oakville proposal because it's close to where I live. The area in question there is described in the submission as low constraint, but it is in fact land that was bushfire prone to the degree that two houses were lost in the bushfire of 2006. It's home to threatened ecological communities of remnant Cumberland woodland . And I understand the pressure that's felt in that community as they look on the other side of Boundary Road and see the subdivision that's occurring there. And there are people who either feel the desire to cash in or are forced off their land by the unfair taxation regime that's been imposed on them by the speculative land value increases and also by this council's policy as setting rates is concerned.

So I just wanted to raise that point among many that could be raised about our LSPS, and to say that when this comes back next year, I hope that we are able to clearly articulate those values that either answer the requests of those members of the community or else yields to them. Thank you.

Thank you. Very well timed, Councillor

Zamprogno.

Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Mine's not as well prepared or practiced. I probably go under or over five minutes. I think this is a wonderful document, or a wonderful opportunity, I should say, for us to have a document to put out our 20-year vision. And I'm very pleased that it's a fluid document that, from what we've been told, can be changed as various things change and so on. So unlike some of the documents that are very difficult to deal with any changes, it's an evolving document from what I understand. And that's a really good sort of document to work with, even though we're going to have an overriding vision. I think that's wonderful. I think that the, first of all, I really wish, and this sort of probably goes to Mr Sheath saying some of us are near the end of our life, could we in the future when we have a set of.

.. Submissions have numbers on these to match with the others because when someone referred to submission 24, we can't look in here and see 24. So thank you for that. Oh, is it? At the beginning. Oh, is it? Oh, I wouldn't see that. Yeah, new glasses. Anyway, aside from that, I think that it was good of Ms. Perin to clarify that this isn't the stage for looking at individual lots and lot sizes and so on, because I did notice a few of the submissions were probably what would be looked at at the LEP and the DCP stages. So I think overall, it's been a really great input from the various groups and agencies, such a wide variety of people discussing arts and the Cancer Council, housing, the Aboriginal community, all the various different aspects that we need to look.

And I was particularly impressed by the extensive and comprehensive submission from Hawkesbury Harvest. I think that they raised a lot of issues about our future viability of agriculture in this area and the changing face of agriculture in this area. And I think that we really do need to take on board what they've said about embarking on discussions to progress this before we get to the LEP stage, because I think that is something that seems to be universally supported, and I think we should pursue that. They have prepared a wonderful submission with lots of information. I also agree with the points that Les made regarding the sport. In the various discussions I've had over the time with the Greater Sydney Commission, I've been a huge advocate of having the open space and the capacity to have various sporting fixtures in this area as something that should be valued and something that we should be seen as being able to offer.

Because we have a lot of land that is flood prone and can't be developed, we can utilise it for other things, and sporting activities would be one of those, particularly as in the highly developed areas, parts of Sydney are losing all their sporting grounds and sporting facilities for the sake of development. So along with that, of course, we need the suitable accommodation to accommodate teams coming to play sport and so on. But I think that would be a good thing that we can tap into, given our proximity to Sydney . I learnt quite a bit from reading these submissions. Some of them were really, really well prepared, and they were really interesting to see the various parts of the vision that people were contributing to.

And I learnt something new, which was amazing, which is there's a thing called slacklining, which is a sport. So anyone who read the submissions would have seen the Australian Slacklining Association would like to carry out that. Am I going to play? You stand on a thing between trees. Yeah, so there's always

Something new to learn, and I think that we should be congratulating our community for embracing this opportunity and putting in such diverse suggestions for us to consider. And I look forward to us being able to see the next stage of it and to see how these have been shaped into a vision restatement, because I think that we have so much to offer in so many fields, particularly in tourism and diversifying that sort of part, as well as putting understanding where we need to protect the unique values that people hold so dear to themselves in the Hawkesbury when we're moving into the future. So I thank the community for their input, and I look forward to seeing more of this document.

Thank you. Councillor Rasmussen

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Mr Mayor, I want to also add my thanks and congratulations and commendation to the staff. I'm not sure exactly who put it together, but I guess it was a team of people who put it together, because I think it represents, in my mind anyway, a significant body of work that puts together the attributes of this wonderful area, and it gets it pretty much right in my book. However, having said that, what I did note, and I'm talking about here the preamble starting at about page 20 onwards , and there were some notable things that really pinged in my mind. And I think this statement, or this particular statement that I'm referring to here, and it goes on for a few pages, it could easily be a bit of a portfolio statement for the Hawkesbury in terms of putting our shingles out there for investors and young people to come and live here and enjoy life as we now do here as well, because we do need the investment in this area.

And I think it's a good investment statement in many, many ways. It really does paint the Hawkesbury in a good light. However, could I just add, and I'll be very quick because I did annotate quite a few areas, the World Heritage National Park and our wilderness areas, particularly the Grose River wilderness area, just does not get a guernsey, except it does come up, roll the pages, and there's a one-liner there. It talks about it, but up the front, roll in the region and its opportunities and challenges, I would like to see that somewhere up there, given a bit more prominence. Remember, we have 73% of the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area. Now that's a significant piece that we need to highlight.

The river, again, I know I'm on about this on and on and on, the river simply does not feature strategically in our mindsets. It is so much of our underlies our productivity, our success, our economic prosperity, and it has for many, many years. But everything else gets a bit of a guernsey. But I'm sure we could, with the skill that obviously is available to write this statement, we could somehow and other bring the importance of the river, and we have a big chunk of it. It goes from Yarramundi. All the way to Wiseman's Ferry, and there's a little bit in between that heads off into Borgan Hills. But the rest of it is ours, in the sense that it's within our LGA. So I think the river really does need a bit more of a plug in there.

And North Richmond and the villages that we talk about, and we pretty well list all the significant ones, I think, villages I'm talking about, North Richmond doesn't get a guernsey. That would probably, well, I think it should have a bit of a plug there. And tourism, in the beginning statement on page 20, tourism, we list everything else, you know, construction, manufacturing, agriculture, retail trade, equine, food, accommodation, health care, social assistance, public administration and support services. Oops, tourism doesn't get a guernsey there. Now I would have thought that, given the emphasis that we have always had on tourism, that it should feature. And again, if you roll the pages, you know, local advantage.

Again, I asked the river go in there, please. Let's get some words around the river and how important it is and how it underlies our economy and our agriculture and tourism and those sort of enabling things that go on from there. I wasn't sure what a tourism gateway is, or gateways. I'm not sure what that is. Maybe there's an explanation for that. There's a couple of little spellos, leader instead of leaders. We talk about connectivity in terms of roads and transport and all that hard infrastructure, which is good, but smart technology and fast broadband doesn't get a guernsey. We are still back in the, I don't know what the age is, maybe pencil and paper or something. We just need to get into the smart technology and fast broadband.

If we can possibly get there, I think that's important. We talk about the hinterlands and rural villages being important for agricultural lands. What about the fertile riverlands? They are a significant resource, really significant resource, but it doesn't get referred to in that sort of context. And I really would like to see, you know, fertile riverlands, or whatever terminology you want to talk about, emphasised there. Agricultural precinct at the aerotropolis, that is a big issue. It is a big issue. And there's no real dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot from the Hawkesbury to the aerotropolis. It's not in there. I'd like to see that on page 24 somewhere in there.

Councillor Rasmussen.

We're over time. You're

Over time

Okay, thanks very much.

Thank you. Any further speakers? Councillor Richards.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Councillor Rasmussen, well spoken. You've actually identified a lot of things I had on my list. No, I think it's— I concur. So you actually have identified a lot of things that are significantly missing from the document. I've been very upfront with the staff about my misgivings on the LSPS. There is absolutely no secret that our current LEP has holes all the way through it. And what happened in 2012 have left a lot of residents and a lot of small business owners in our LGA significantly lacking in permissibility to do their business, or in the ability to do other things with their land. And our LEP isn't speaking loud enough. And I'm so pleased that we're going through this process to ensure that by June 2021, I think it is, we have our new LEP ready to go and submitted.

And for us councillors sitting here now, and the new councillors elected next term, that's going to be some significant work, and we have to get that one right because let's be honest, we did not get the last one right. And that is why we have items coming to council, such as the first item tonight, which was a housekeeping LEP, and we've had way too many housekeeping LEPs come to this council since 2012. I still have, as I said, misgivings with the LSPS. It's not, it doesn't speak loud enough to those issues already identified. To me, it doesn't have an end goal. I know it's supposed to be an overarching document and then it leads down a certain path for more definition, but I'm still, I've still got a lot of open-ended questions about it.

To me, it doesn't answer what we are exactly planning for. It says we need X amount. The Sydney Commission says we need X amount of homes, or the City Deal says we've got money to spend on town centres, or, you know, it says nice up-here statements, but I know that it's going to channel down into the LEP, I get that. But I still think it's speaking broadly enough. Not broadly enough. There was one submission in this document here, this thick document we had, that sort of hit the nail on the head for me. There's no spatial layout. So we're not telling people, right, this is our LGA, this is, and we're still waiting on documents to feed into this LSPS. So we don't have, I think it's the employment lands strategy or certain other documents.

So I can't support something tonight that hasn't given me the full suite of information. So I think we really need a spatial layout. We need something to say this is the boundary of where we're going to allow or rezone for more employment lands or industrial lands or where it's going to be. People need a visual, they need a map. I think motherhood statements don't speak loudly enough. And I think the fact that, I think it was out of these 42 submissions, we received rezoning proposals from people in this area shows there's actually a significant level of confusion in the community as to what an LSPS is. And I think that we need to, as a council, be educating our community a lot more on what this process is.

And again, how do we do that? Because I think that we do go out there online, on Facebook, we're sending out information in rates notices, we're putting adverts in newspapers, but I think that people are still confused with the path that we're taking. And where we're heading. And I think that, yeah , there's a lot of confusion out there about what LSPS is. Now, part of tonight's recommendations is not just to receive and note the submissions, but it's also to endorse the proposed actions. And at this point, where I'm still sitting on the fence about the direction this LSPS is taking, I won't be supporting the recommendation tonight. I know we've got a lot of work to do, but as I said, all those points, especially the spatial layout of where things are going to go in our LGA and the fact we don't have those supplementary documents that actually speak that, I won't be proceeding with that tonight.

But I look forward to a really intense learning process for the councillors moving forward. And then when we do come to the point of adopting the LSPS and we've got all of that information in front of us, I'm sure that's when we can have that more detailed and broader conversation. Thank you.

Further speakers? Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I think we have to keep in mind that at this point this is an evolving document and this is one stage in its evolution. So we're not at the final document yet. And I assume that the staff are taking on board the feedback from the community and also from the councillors while we're sitting here. And I think it's probably—we're on a time constraint that isn't of council's choosing, and I think it's unfortunate that we're in this process while a significant portion of our community are otherwise engaged in something that is far more pressing than a council meeting, preserving their homes. So I think we may have had some more feedback had we not been in the middle of this crisis.

I agree with Councillor Rasmussen that we do need to talk up the national park. Particularly from a tourism and a local economy perspective, Blue Mountains does really well out of brand recognition, but also out of state government funding and special provisions for all sorts of things like sulphage carting and things where they talk up the Blue Mountains National Park and everyone falls over at the importance of it, and yet we have more of the national park than they do, and everyone seems to forget that we've got it until there's a bushfire on, and then they interview the mayor of the Blue Mountains, because what would we know? So I think we do need to own this space, but we also need to talk about the river.

It's the very basis of our identity, and it needs to be front and centre in all of our planning, not just around flood, but around how we use the fertile land that the river gives us, the recreation spaces that the river gives us, and also the tourism potential of the river as Sydney becomes more and more crowded and what we have becomes increasingly remarkable. There really are some excellent submissions. I want to thank those who took the time to put them in, particularly the Dharug Land Council, Shelter New South Wales, Hawkesbury Harvest and Wentworth Housing, and also Western Sydney University. And I note that they mention the new Hawkesbury Ag School relocating, which we found out today isn't going to happen, and I think that's a great shame.

I do want to answer a couple of comments made about the Greens, big G, little g Greens, and our lack of fire management. It really saddens me that people who genuinely care about the environment have been misled by misinformation put about by climate change deniers and those with vested interests regarding the Greens' hazard reduction burning policies . The Greens' policy is very clear that we are highly supportive of hazard reduction burning and Indigenous land management, which includes burning to reduce the risk of bushfires. It's a lie that the Greens have prevented hazard reduction burning. The Greens are not in power in this council or in this state. It's a lie that all councils are inner city hipsters who don't fight fires or look after them.

We've got members and supporters defending their homes right now. To quote the Greens Mayor of Glen Innes, Seven, it's climate change, not the Greens. And I'll cheerfully pit her 25-year service medal as a frontline RFS volunteer against any pot-stirring right-wing commentator or MP. What we have here is a balancing act: the need to balance the desire to retain local character that we value and the push from other levels of government and their changing priorities, and the desire for some landowners to develop their sites. We need to keep the focus strongly on local identity and local needs, regardless of the state government's priorities. It's our job to represent the Hawkesbury, and I hope that this will be front of mind for staff as they redraft this document going forward.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any further speak? Councillor Ross.

Thank you, Mayor. I see this as rather a vexed issue. It just occurred to me that in my Callow youth, we all knew about Sydney having a green belt. We're , in a sense, and I think I

Can attribute that sort of thought to one of the prior speakers who indicated that the 1998 situation held quite some salient points. Which retain their relevance today, and I think that is true. But like the rest of us, that particular individual is in an interesting situation where, at a meeting a few weeks ago, there was a

Suggestion that certain matters go before a gateway process, which to me contradict the very thoughts being expressed here this evening. So this matter is not easy to deal with.

I believe it's an overview document and should express in an overview fashion the aspirations of this council and local government area to retain and hang on to what it sees as being important, to the extent that I think we are all rather concerned about the onward march of development spreading to areas which are totally inappropriate in terms of distance from larger centres, in terms of lack of transport, in terms of lack of infrastructure such as sewerage and so on. And what some folk want to do is

Just exacerbate the current difficulties we have as a nation in facing a changing world and

A lack of inclination to understand that they are part of a society which has to address this, and we're all going to have to take a haircut, whether we jolly well like it or we don't. Very simple.

So I think this bears a lot of thought, both individually and collectively, to try and come up with what might be seen as an overall perception of things. My hope, personally, is that we can do that because I have a fond hope, maybe, that this schizophrenic government may well be,

Shall we say , counselled to a degree by the Greater Sydney Commission. They seem to have shown, even though they report ultimately to the Minister for Planning, shown a bit of character of their own and have some feeling towards the

Hawkesbury LGA, providing many of the , if you like, tourism, recreation and other, if you like, lifestyle and resuscitation . Locations that will enable the ever-growing numbers of people living in close quarters to at least get away from it and experience something akin to real nature and natural

Habitats and areas. So that's my hope. Whether it comes to pass or not, I think time can only tell. But based on the way one sees the increasing number of documents being placed on one on top of the other, and it being very difficult to determine what is the priority or where it lies and how it lies and what is the overall scheme of things, one would have to wonder. Thank you. Just in closing, may I raise a question, please, at page 64 of the business paper. There appears to be some difficulty in the enunciation of what the timetable says in the lower part of that page . After the date of 22 November 2019, it's unclear as to what the progress is in that area. I would seek clarification, please.

Sorry, could you just repeat your question in reference?

Certainly. Page 64 of the business paper. Yeah. About eight-tenths of the way down the page, you come to November 22, 2019. There are some dates beyond that which seem to have become mixed or confused in some fashion. Okay

The sequential development of things just doesn't appear to be occurring.

No. So at the time of printing this report, these were some of the dates that we were working towards. But as of this afternoon at 5:30, we received an amended time frame from the Greater Sydney Commission. So essentially at this point in time, we're scheduled to do a technical health check now at the end of January, the 30th of January. We then have to— Pardon ? Then we then have to meet, have the assurance panel meeting in March. Between that, we'll be bringing the report back to Council in relation to the amended LSPS, recommending that we then send the report to the GSC for the assurance panel process. So this table is incorrect now, based on some information we received today.

Thank you, Mayor. This is a revelation to which nobody, I think, in the chamber was aware. And it was not my, to my knowledge, that this had occurred. I was talking about specifically a change in the order, an apparent discrepancy in the order of things on the document.

They're just out of order in the table.

Right. I would need to ask a further question, Mr Mayor.

Please do.

Thank you. I was at a committee meeting yesterday, and we received a synopsis of the rural land strategy, I believe it was. Does that mean now that the input of the full document in terms of the rural land strategy or any other strategies that are going to support the LSPS are now, in a sense, being short-circuited, and we're going to have to take some fairly hasty-tasty action to try and resolve the situation so we can comply with the LSPS requirements

Handed down this afternoon?

At this point in time, based on the discussion with the various consultants, we're planning that they're still scheduled to be able to bring those studies to Council early in 2020, so they're still informing the Local Strategic Planning Statement.

I might just ask a follow-on question to Mrs Perrin. If the dates are wrong in that table, that doesn't alter the recommendation on page 70 in any way, does it?

No, it doesn't.

So we can carry on with that recommendation? Yes , we can. Councillor Rasmussen. Yeah

Just a question, Mr Mayor. On page 33 of the statement, the LSPS statement, where there are pretty pictures in it, it lists a couple of acronyms, SIG and LIGS. I think they should be spelled out initially, because I don't think the average... The President would understand what that means.

Thank you.

Sorry, is there a question?

Councillor Reynolds. Yes, thanks, Mr Mayor. I just have a couple of questions for staff regarding issues raised by Councillors Zamprogno and Richards regarding uncertainty of land use and rezoning in the LSPS. As I understand it, this document before us tonight is to consider the public submissions made. We're not actually approving the draft LSPS tonight. We're just accepting the public submissions.

That's correct, yes.

Going by the timeline, we will consider the draft LSPS itself in about February next year?

Correct.

Okay. And the LSPS itself, as a document, doesn't deal with rezonings as to, for example, as Councillors Zamprogno raised concerns about rezonings around Moralia Hall and the like. That has nothing to do with this document. That has to do with the LEP?

Yes. So anything in relation to particular sites or areas will be considered as part of the other studies, whether they're rural strategy, land use strategy or employment land strategy, or further on as we review the LEP.

Okay. So those particular matters aren't in the draft LSPS, and they're not part of the issue that we're dealing with tonight as far as public submissions go?

That's correct.

Thank you.

Supplementary question, Councillor Ross. Yes,

Thank you, Mayor. I'm just a little confused by the terms of recommendation two. Could you try and explain to me what that means, please?

Essentially, in Attachment 1, which summarises all of the submissions, staff have gone through, assessed all of the submissions, and then proposed an action in relation to addressing those submissions. So that's the action that we're asking Council to endorse, those actions that we're proposing.

Thank you. In that case,

I just draw your attention to what appeared to be a submission by Sydney Water that was in amongst the responses.

I was a little bit bemused by the officer's response to that, and I'm just wondering if it would be possible to allow me to support this recommendation that the Sydney Water matters receive, and their representations receive further Consideration by the staff, because we apparently have something in the order of, looking at other documents in the meeting tonight, something like 10,000—

Should be in the form of a question, Councillor. Yes.

There are other matters which might be germane and therefore would be

Appropriate for staff to consider. Would you not consider that

Alteration to your response, please?

So essentially you're asking, can we raise other issues with Sydney Water that are pertinent to the rest of the local government area that may not have been raised as part of this process,

If that's the question

Sydney Water appear to have raised some issues to which I don't believe

Sufficient gravitas has been added, and I would wonder if it would not be possible for you to reconsider your recommendation or your statement of action or staff response in regard to their representations, please.

Yes, we can consider that.

I'd be very grateful.

Supplementary question. Please turn your light on.

Thank you. Item 3. Would it be possible, please, that the second word submitters be altered to state respondents, please?

Councillor Sam Parogno, you're the mover of this motion. Are you happy to make that change?

It's a fairly trivial change. I don't object. I do wonder as to the purpose, but...

Deputy Mayor, a seconder, you're happy to do that? Yes, that's fine. That will be changed, Councillor Ross.

Thank you. I don't wish to mangle the language any more than it's already been mangled by others.

Yes. Any further speakers on this? Can I just add that I was also very impressed with the quality of the submissions. I think it will provide us with a great deal of data and information going forward, not just for this process but for many other processes that we undergo in council. So it's been a very worthwhile accumulation of information, and I look forward to being able to use it. No other speakers? Councillor Zamprogno, right of reply.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'll respond to some of the comments specifically of some of my worthy colleagues. As relates to Councillor Wheeler's comments relating to fire hazard reduction, it's significant to me that as busy as people are in Colo, with as much on their plate, with the immediate peril of fire at their heels, they've taken the time to call me and to say, you know, we've been looking at the planning priorities in the LSPS, and planning priority 13 speaks to the need to maintain environmentally sensitive places in their natural condition, and took the time to ask me whether that meant that this LSPS presupposed a particular policy relating to hazard reduction, and I couldn't answer them.

I suspect that hazard reduction lays well outside the remit of an LSPS. Nevertheless, that concern was held. In response to Councillor Reynolds, I am... The fact that the LSPS public consultation process brings out of the woodwork so many unsolicited proposals from quarters of the community, perfectly entitled to their view, perfectly entitled to advocate for the subdivision of their property. But this kind of speculation does a number of things while we dither and work out what we think about that. It causes speculative increases in land values. It causes divisions in those communities, creates an enormous amount of heartache for people who wonder whether they're about to be the next victims of Sydney's ever-encroaching urban sprawl.

So the very fact that this brings such things out and into the public domain means that we have to continue to advance this process, especially considering we now live in a world where these kinds of matters, once they get to a certain point, taken out of our hands entirely, given to unelected and unaccountable planning panels. And even though the community come to us, like the community in Glossodia recently, expecting that we would have some agency or input into that process, we have to tell them that we have no agency whatsoever and that the people that will determine the fate of that particular planning proposal are beyond the reach of democracy. They can't be voted out. They can't be sacked by the people.

I'd like to encourage Councillor Richards to reconsider perhaps her opposition to the opportunity to advance this process tonight, especially in light of what our Director of Planning has been able to tell us about the timetable moving forward. And Councillor Reynolds is correct in that this is simply an opportunity for us to advance the process. It is not a final endorsement of the LSPS. There are a number of technical Health checks that are conducted on the LSPS, now that we've reached this juncture that we've considered the public submissions. And for us to oppose the advancing, that the wheel should continue to turn, I think rather causes the same kind of government paralysis and delay that we as Liberals have been arguing against for the last three years.

There are plenty of things that I don't like in the LSPS that I think are undercooked. Councillor Richards drew attention specifically to the fact that the document before us doesn't have a particularly spatial component. In making that point, she simply borrows the conclusions of Submission 42 from the Woolworths Group, where they said that the LSPS should identify future growth infrastructure and centres in spatial form in order to more clearly express where the development can occur. Well, I agree with Councillor Richards, but equally I don't feel that we need to put a knife in the process and defer the whole thing until next year, when there's a well-established process of taking this back to the government departments that have oversight over this process, that this is a work in progress, and that when we have the opportunity to come back to this and look at it in March, that those defects that we've all identified in the document tonight will be addressed.

I don't think that delaying the process by declining to support the recommendation before us advances that at all. Thank you.

Thank you. That was right of reply. I will move the recommendation. If you're in favour of this recommendation, please stand.

In favour of the recommendation is Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Kotlas, Deputy Mayor, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Rasmusson, Councillor Ross, Councillor Calvert. Against: Councillor Tree and Councillor Richards. Absent is Councillor Conolly. I declare it carried.

We now move to item 244, Mayoral Minute. We have one speaker, Mr Michael Schultz. Is Mr Schultz here? Please come forward.

Turn that microphone on. It's

All working. Good evening. Thank you, Mr Mayor, councillors and council staff. By way of introduction, I am currently the senior deputy captain and president of the Wilberforce Rural Fire Brigade, and I've been asked to speak tonight on their behalf in relation to our current fire station at Wilberforce. For

The information of the meeting, our current fire station is located behind the Hawkesbury Fire Control Centre at Wilberforce on Macquarie Road. As some of you would be aware, I have been a strong advocate, a very strong advocate, for a new fire station for Wilberforce for over 15 years. However, it hasn't happened.

And due to many issues, a lot of road blockages, I haven't had any support from whole levels of government, and I'm very pleased tonight that the Mayor has put his Mayoral Minute forward because it directly relates to the issues I've got at our fire station. A lot of it relates to the lack of suitable land. However, identified and looked at many sites around Wilberforce to build a new fire station in 15 years. Firstly worked at Rex Stubs on the matter. That's how far it goes back . We haven't been able to find anything suitable until probably about 2010 when Councillor Bob Porter and myself worked hard to secure a block of land at North Wilberforce, locally known as the truck stop. However , it's Crown land managed by Council on behalf of the Crown.

We encountered an Aboriginal land claim, which held back the process for another four years. I worked with Robin Preston and Dominic Perrottet, and we were able to have that claim extinguished . Again, through many, many letters to various people and the Crown lands itself, I made personal representation to Crown Lands through the RFS as well, to have that site given to us to build a new fire station. We encountered more roadblocks, to the point where I had to get a ministerial audit on Crown Lands to send their final requirements back to Council in order to obtain that land for a fire station. I believe our letter was written to Council in December 2018, and I was told at a recent community meeting at Wilberforce by Council staff that it has been received, which outlines the requirements that Council need to do to secure that block of land for our brigade.

However , I was also told there could be at least another three to five years before Council could do anything about it. So that's now 20 years.

Okay, so where are we at now? We're currently in a very serious bushfire emergency. Our brigades have been working around the clock , and the facilities we currently have are completely inadequate. We have three walls and two garage doors. We are a contemporary, what they call village 2 fire brigade, which we carry specialist breathing apparatus and rescue equipment. We have no toilet. We have no hot water. We have no air conditioner. We don't have any storage areas or suitable storage areas. In fact, they're quite dangerous, and we have no way of cleaning our breathing apparatus. We have to clean it on the floor in the dust. The fire, the RFS are aware of this problem, have been for many years, and councillors are aware of this problem, or some of them are, in this room tonight

So we currently also have a number of near misses where children have nearly been run over by the fire truck because the Wilberforce Public School are right next door, and due to an emergency response, sometimes those children run towards the fire truck. I've pushed and talked about this matter ad nauseam with no support. I have children that go to Wilberforce Public School.

This is affecting recruitment, and it's also demoralising our brigade members to the point where we're struggling now to get a sufficient response to emergency incidents . Both for the information of the meeting, we are not just a bushfire brigade. We respond to motor vehicle accidents, structure fires, gas and chemical leaks, oil spills, you name it. We do everything Windsor Fire Brigade do, who get paid for this. In conclusion, I'd just like to say, whatever you want to call it, but for the meeting I'm going to say we're the drying climate , we are going to see more frequent and intense bushfires. We must act on this issue now and not wait another five years, and it ties right in with the mayoral minute that if you are considering to do something with the fire control centre, you must help us at Wilberforce build a new fire station.

It's important for the future that we build resilience in our community for emergencies, because there's going to probably be a lot more of them. And I mean that by providing better facilities and empowering our emergency services to have the best available resources to do their job. Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Thank you, Mr. ..

Are you happy to answer questions? Absolutely Any questions? Councillor Zamprogno. Thank you

Mr Schultz, for a very good presentation. You and I both know that the current fire control is in its present location as a kind of an anachronism, in a building that it was never intended for, but was adapted in a very post hoc fashion. If we had our time over, and you could choose any location in the Hawkesbury LGA for a fire control facility, forgetting the sentiment that we might hold for that location, is that the best location, or would another location that was equally accessible to both the Putty Road and Bells Line of Road perhaps be better?

Yeah, thanks, Nathan. Look, I thought about this issue long and hard, and I would suggest, given that we use helicopters a lot in firefighting these days, and we need a lot of access to those, the pony club site at Wilberforce—there's a block of land which used to be the old Hawkesbury High School site. It lies between Ironbark Close and the pony club. It is currently vacant and run down, full of weeds. I'd suggest that'd be a good site because straight across the road is the Woodlands Park where they're landing the helicopters as we speak. The other site that I would consider is Skyview National Park, and in fact that has been one of the areas that has been touted as a potential site, given again it's got large tracts of land and room available for helicopters and suitable-sized facilities for a fire control centre.

Councillor Rasmussen. Thank you, Mr Mayor. Mr Schultz, thanks very much for that presentation, and I can feel the passion and the frustration in your voice, and I've seen it over some years now, as you well know, and a strong supporter of what you're attempting to do. Can I just ask you, you mentioned, and if I've got it wrong, you'd let me know, you said your recruiting was— It was difficult because of the circumstance and the poor facilities and so on. How is that impacting your response, your early responder or your first responder situation?

Thanks, Paul, for that question. Look, can I tell you now, probably less than 10% of our brigade membership is people that actually live in Wilberforce. We've been bolstered by people coming from South Windsor, Bligh Park and Richmond to support us. But if our pages were to go off now for a call, we'd probably have probably six at best we could call on who live in the area, including myself. Wilberforce, unfortunately, is perceived by many as being serviced by New South Wales Fire and Rescue. And when we turn up, often we get asked how much we're getting paid and are you on overtime. We present a very professional outfit. As I said, we're fully trained in breathing apparatus, structural fire, internal and external firefighting and internal rescue.

So when we turn up, we've got the gear and we go inside and people think we're paid. So that's the problem with recruitment in Wilberforce is we don't have a good facility. So when we invite people up, they take a look around and say, Why would I hang around here when there's no toilet? I want a cup of coffee. There's no hot water. You know, so there you go. Thanks

Very much. Deputy

Mayor, you had a question.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Schultz, and thank you for your efforts in the fires and your brigade as well . I've been out to your site and you've showed me the dangerous, I would call them unacceptable conditions of some of those areas. You share the site with the headquarters. If they were gone, would that site still be suitable for you? Or I know you deserve a new shed, I'm not saying that for a minute, but if there was nobody there and you used those facilities, would that be adequate

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Look, my concern really is that the primary school is right next door. At kiss and drop-off times, 3 o'clock, 9 o'clock, children are running past that fence. We often get called at that time. I've had to sit in the truck and be very careful. You turn those lights on, it's like bees to honey. The kids go, they go running to the fire truck. So no, no, the current place is totally unsuitable. We've worked with the RFS and the local member. We've got a site identified at North Wilberforce, as I said, known as the truck stop, but we've got road blockages which only the Council can fix. Council staff sitting here tonight know what I'm talking about. They can fix it, and they can fix it sooner rather than later, and that's what needs to happen. Thank you. Okay,

Thank you. Councillor Wheeler. Thanks, Mr Mayor. Mr Schultz, what sort of call-out numbers is Wilberforce answering, and could you give us an idea of what you're doing?

Thanks, Councillor Wheeler. Okay, yep. We're a village brigade, so we're doing probably, this year will be in excess of 200 calls, and who knows how long that's going to go on with the bushfires. It's every day. It's five times a day at the moment. But we do everything from motor vehicle accidents to, and we took on breathing apparatus five years ago, so we do equivalent role to Windsor Fire Brigade. And we enter buildings, we rescue people from buildings, we rescue animals, we assist SES, we work at road accidents, we do storm and tempest, floods, everything. Being a village brigade, we're quite active, sometimes three calls a day, and it's challenging. And one could argue that perhaps we need a fire and rescue station out there, but I would suggest to you that you put a fire and rescue station out there, it's going to cost the community a lot.

And all we're asking for is a suitable facility, which we believe will grow our membership and be resilient in the future with a drying climate.

Council Reynolds. Yeah, thanks, Mr Mayor, and thanks, Mick. It's been a while since I've been to Wilberforce, and I think it was 2007. What vehicles do you have there? What category vehicles do you have on hand? Thanks

Councillor Reynolds. We have a Category 1 tanker, which is a 3,000-litre Isuzu tanker, but then has breathing apparatus and other specialist equipment on there. So it's set up for village and bush. It's a bit of a hybrid. We also have a Category 7 Mitsubishi — it's an Isuzu now. They're both relatively new. It's a four-seater, and it's only that carries about 1,000 litres. And they sit in our current little box. As I said, you can think two roller doors, three walls, and that's it. No room around them. Many of the councillors here tonight have seen that. The point I want to make there is we should have a personnel carrier. The fire control officer cannot issue us a personnel carrier to transport our firefighters to the fire ground at the moment, because we have no room to have it. And she said to me very clearly, until you get a new fire station, you're not getting a personnel carrier.

That was my next question, if you had a PC vehicle.

No, we do not. And it's been very clear, it's on the public record, she won't give it to us because there's nowhere to house it. So we have to use our private vehicles to drive to the fire ground often. We've fought that recently and they've given us a bus, but we have to fight every time.

Okay, so you've got no PC. When you — so basically there is a shed, and when the vehicles are in the shed there's no room, so you have no place for, like, meetings or training?

Absolutely not. We train and meet in the building, and that's where our meetings are conducted on a dusty, dirty floor, which unfortunately is full of cockroaches and mice. So

It's not sealed?

No, and we have water back flooding from the station because it's on a slope behind us. We've got some drainage improvements done. We've made council aware of this for many, many years. But in a serious rainfall event, we have half — not half a metre of water, but a lot of water comes right through and floods the place

When events are on, such as when we're going through at the moment, there is no relief, there's no air-conditioned room, there's nothing for crews who are returning or crews that are going out to get relief.

Absolutely not. And I would refer to Councillor Zamprogno, being a member of VOCAL, would know the facilities that Oakville have and what Tennison have and other contemporary brigades,

And

Know what's important for firefighters when they come back, both our male and female firefighters. When they come back, they need a bit of R and R, a place to cool down. We actually—we were on standby on that catastrophic day recently, and we were asked to sit in our fire station all day in that hot weather.

Yeah, yeah. I'm in Grose Vale Brigade, I know what you're going through.

So, no, I'll leave it. Thanks, Mick. That'll do. I'll talk further when we discuss it. Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Schultz.

Thank you very

Much for your time

I'd now like to put the mayoral minute forward, and I thank Mr. Schultz for making us aware of the issues at Wilberforce Station. I think most of us were already aware of those. But right now is the time to highlight such things, and I thank him for doing that. My mayoral minute is about the headquarters, the Rural Fire Service Control Centre. I've been there a number of times over the last week, of course, and I've been there many years ago, and over the last few years I've been there quite a few times. And every time I go there, the place looks more run down and more inadequate for what we want to do. During the times of crisis, what you find is that they have to bring portable buildings in because there's not enough room in the main centre.

And so in the portable buildings, you've got people who are running certain things, but in order to talk to the people in the front office, you need— People to run backwards and forwards across the school playground. It's just not adequate. It's not 21st century. It's really 19th century kind of activity going on there. And the volunteers and the staff who are running the headquarters, the control centre, have things bad enough already. They've got so much to do, and to give them an extra burden of a facility which makes things more difficult for them, I think is just ridiculous in this day and age. So I'm putting this forward because I think it's about time we bit the bullet and tried to find a new fire centre, a new fire control centre.

I did speak to the member for Hawkesbury, Robyn Preston, during the last couple of weeks. She is very interested in having these discussions and looking for resources to do this. She would like us to look at having a centre which may be used in a flexible way so that it may house other emergency services. For example, the police, if there's a flood on, the police would need a—they don't have a place on the other side of the river where they can be located. Perhaps that could happen at this centre. So there's a whole lot of discussion that needs to yet take place, and what I'm trying to do is get this out there, get it on the table, get the discussions going, lobby both the state and federal government for money so that this can happen.

And I know that's not going to happen very quickly. It's not going to happen overnight, but we really need to start the process. And right now, I believe, is the right time to start the process because people can see how valuable this resource would be. If we were to wait till quieter times in the middle of next year, then people tend to forget. It falls off. You get other priorities, and I know how terrible that is, but that's what tends to happen. Right now it's in everybody's face. They can see how important this is. Perhaps we can make a start on this, get things moving. And what I'm asking here is we actually initiate formal discussions, not just have a chat with someone, but sit down, formal discussions.

What would this look like? Where could it be? Council could easily be the body that provides the land for this, for example. That could be our input. That could be what we discuss. That could be what we bring to the table. And I'm not against that, and I'm sure most councillors wouldn't be against that either. But that's the kind of formal discussions we need, and I'm asking for these to go forward, and I'm asking for your support to push this now if we can. Any further speak?

Councillor Ross. Thank you, Mayor. As you probably—well, as you do realise, I sent you an email earlier in the day. I was out at the fire control centre in mid-November, and the current emergency was then well underway.

The site was inhabited by about 30-odd vehicles of various descriptions, and there were also three large vehicular coaches out on the street frontage. That adjoin the frontage of the school. The site was totally occupied by not only the buildings and the vehicles, but there are also makeshift cool rooms, portable cool rooms there. There was a tent city mess as well.

It's totally inappropriate. That area is a residential area. It should be respected as a residential area. We've got to get the heck out of there, not only for safety, but for the amenity of the local residents, whose welfare we also have to consider. I call upon you, sir, on behalf of this council, to modify your mayoral minute to incorporate both a headquarters operation and a local brigade facility, and to be of sufficient size also to incorporate aerial landing facilities for helicopters, which could be used by both RFS and Health or other agencies as would be required. And in addition to that, I would like to take this occasion to suggest to you, sir, that we as a council should promote or suggest that — We are indebted to all of the volunteers and community who are out there facing this current crisis. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Ross. I was, in my right of reply, was going to go, as you have said, about the volunteers. I will still do that. And the other matters you raised, I'll mention those in the right of reply as well. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Following on from Councillor Ross's comments and also from Mr Schultz's presentation, I'm hoping that you will allow a point three to be added to the mayoral minute. If not, then I will move an amendment. The point three would state that Council fast-track the relocation of the Wilberforce RFS station to a new location, ideally within 12 months.

I'm happy to do that, Councillor Wheeler, but I fear that, you know, other ones could keep being added and we'd end up with a very long list. But in this case, Wilberforce is in that same piece of ground, so yes, it would be relevant. So yes, I'll add that. Did the people over there, staff over there get the gist of that? Yep.

And perhaps following on from Councillor Ross's comments , a point four, that Council formally thank the contribution of the Fire Service and other emergency services workers during this time of crisis.

Happy to do that. I've been working on a press release, which is sitting here with scribble all over it, which should go out tomorrow, which in fact does that. But I'm happy to add that as a point four here as well.

Any further, Councillor Richards?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Without doubt, I'll be supporting this. It's the sentiment of it is spot on. And after having visited the site there myself, and actually calling Karen Hodges when I was first elected— oh, sorry, is something wrong? No. When I was first elected back in 2016, I think I went out and started 2017, I rang her and I said, I think that in our role, we need to understand how our community works. And I didn't understand at that point how an RFS, how it works, how an emergency goes once an emergency is declared, how that works. And I really wanted to get that personal understanding, and she was kind enough to tour me through every nook and cranny of that building. And that was some of the most invaluable information that I ever have learnt.

And very fortunate enough on the weekend as well to be there with the Prime Minister of Australia and also the RFS Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons, and have the Prime Minister briefed on the current fire and also listen to Shane. And to listen to Shane in person is remarkable. It's one thing to listen to him on the telly at night when you're watching the news, but his knowledge is absolutely fantastic. And, you know, Karen Hodges and her team out there, and also all of the other emergency services personnel across all the different classifications, as well as the volunteers, and having spent some time there meeting them. And these people don't have a clock-off time. They just get there and they work.

And even setting up a computer for myself, we were borrowing cords and trying to find spare power points and couldn't get the Wi‑Fi, and apparently it's a well-known joke the Wi‑Fi is down out there all the time and doesn't work. And we do need to ensure that if The quantity of bushland we have in our LGA, that we have a head office for our rural fire service that fits the bill. So, you know, I think that the size and the scale of the current fire on our doorstep has highlighted the need to bring this one forward and start that conversation. I'm pleased that you've had those prior discussions with our state member, Robyn Preston, and that you have discussed that with her and that she's well aware of this mayoral minute and that it wasn't sort of sprung on us.

Although I will concede, Mr. Mayor, that again , a little more notice of your mayoral minutes, actually making the cut-off for the business paper would be much

More sufficient instead of the day before. But that's not part of this point

Here. I made that point clearly on your last mayoral minute. But I just think that doing so gives more members of the public time to come and comment on these issues, and that's what it's all about. It comes down to accessibility and transparency. So all for this. I think we need to, as I said, start that conversation, proceed down this path, see what we can do. There's just one question that I'd like to finish with, and I know I've spoken to Mr. Organ about this before. Can you just clarify for us how the funding works again? I know the funding comes from state, but we also have some sort of role in that implementation. Can you just step out for the councillors what our role is in that whole pathway, please?

Mr. Organ. Through you, Mr. Mayor, I'm assuming you're talking about capital works such as a new fire station. So the normal arrangement is that the state government, through the RFS, would fund the actual building construction. They put that into their capital program for whether it be a local fire station or for a fire control centre, and they would put that into their program. Typically what has happened is that council has been responsible for providing the site, which, probably stray a little bit, but that's probably been part of the problem. It's a bit of an anachronism that you've got to find either a piece of Crown land or a piece of road reserve or something that council owns, and we'll put the fire station or the fire control centre there and refer to the current centre as the old Colo Council.

Building. So again, that's probably one of the difficulties. We're probably still in that mindset that council's got to provide the land and then the state will provide that. And we've had some discussions with RFS about maybe breaking that mould to say, hang on, let's get the right site rather than shoehorning it into somewhere where it's not really required or is going to have other difficulties. So again, that's the typical thing. Council is responsible for the maintenance of those facilities afterwards, so we own them. So we would own the facilities and we're responsible for the ongoing maintenance after the state's capital contribution.

Just briefly to finish off, thank you very much for that. I think that's important and everyone knows how that all works. And just a supplementary question: would there be sites right now that would fit the scale of such a headquarters that you could identify, or could we maybe add, and I don't want to add to your mayoral minute too much, but maybe add the fact that we would need for something of this scale to actually have the discussion with the state government about purchasing a properly located site rather than something we've already got up our sleeve that might not quite fit.

I think if you read point two, we're going to try and identify potential sites, and that doesn't leave out what you're saying. Yeah, that could be what we end up with. If

That's what that means

Yes,

Sorry

If that incorporates that, I'm happy with that.

Okay. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor.

I think one of the reasons that I've added the additional points to the mayoral minute is that, and I think it's important that we don't lose either issue in this, in what has now become a composite mayoral minute. And I don't want to detract from what you presented to Council initially, but we have this immediate problem with Wilberforce, which they've been trying to identify, as we heard, for more than a decade. And so, given what we now know, we have to act, and this would appear to be the most appropriate time to do so. If we can't get a discussion going of adequate emergency services facilities this week, we probably should give it up as a bad job. I went out and visited Wilberforce a few weeks ago and met with some of the crew, and I was really staggered by the whole site.

So I didn't go into the headquarters facility. That was— I went out on the catastrophic day, which was a great time to go and talk about whether your fire truck actually fits in the shed, and at Wilberforce it doesn't. But it was interesting to see they were ramping up activity on the site, and you could see that that co-location isn't working for either party on the current site. And it's certainly been an ongoing concern with Wilberforce Public School having the fire station there. As Mr. Schultz says, it is like bees to a honey pot, kids and fire trucks. And Wilberforce is terrific with the school. The fire engine's always at school activities. The kids climb all over it. They have a great time.

It's unsurprising that when it's parked out the front with the siren flashing, they think it's an open invitation. But what it really does is show that this site no longer meets basic OH&S. So Wilberforce doesn't have any air conditioning. Headquarters has been without air conditioning for three days. Imagine doing that sort of work day after day after day on no sleep in a room where it's 35 degrees and the air con doesn't work. None of this is good enough anymore. I think this presents a real risk to Council that we have these buildings that we own and maintain, and they simply don't meet basic work health and safety. Wilberforce RFS shed is a disaster waiting to happen. I worked as an army medic.

The fact that they're washing breathing equipment apparatus on the floor is... That's disgraceful, and we need to act on this quickly. This isn't... I think it would also help for us to go and have a look at the facility that's been set up in Katoomba, which is a facility that provides space for all emergency services to work in a time of crisis. And I'm sure they'd be happy to tell us about how splendid it was if we offered to go up there. But it would give us an idea, I think, of perhaps the scale of the facility that we're looking for. And perhaps the local member might like to accompany us to give us an idea, so that we can give her an idea of what we're keen on. And it would then perhaps provide some facility.

Apparently, the SES can work with them out of the site. The Salvation Army can come and provide support , and other agencies can come in and see what immediate support is needed in the community. I think it's important to note that this isn't just about the immediate function of volunteers. It's about safety, morale and community resilience. We can't make it rain, which I think is probably the only thing that's going to fix the current problem with the fire, but we can make sure our emergency services have adequate and modern facilities. We're deeply indebted to these people for their service, particularly in the last couple of weeks. Their efforts are nothing short of heroic at the moment.

I was bellyaching about reading the business paper in an air-conditioned room. I mean, that just seems so self-indulgent, given that they were all standing on a firefront, covered in heavy equipment and clothing to protect them from the fires. And I'm moaning because it's a bit hot in my office. Clearly , an inner city hipster.

Thanks is woefully inadequate for what we owe these people, but I do want to thank them sincerely for what they're doing for our community at the moment.

Thank you

Councillor Rasmussen. Thank you, Mr Mayor. Mr Mayor, I don't necessarily want to give everybody a bit of a history lesson, but I do recall the fires in 1994. I happened to be at the base at the time, and I do recall that what I did and what several other people did was to scout around for the best place that we could set up a command and control centre, a very large one, because it was clearly going to take quite a response to get this fire under control if we were going to have any success with it. And it became pretty obvious at that stage that the Wilberforce setup just wasn't sufficient. As a consequence, the whole base was turned over, and the whole of the facilities, all the command structure, all the facilities, the briefings, the technology, was all handed over—not so much handed over—but was made to work to fight the fire in 1994.

Big operation. Lots of aircraft, lots of people, lots of things happening. I wrote in my report after that that the Wilberforce—and it was a paragraph, no, it was a bit more than that, in fact a couple of pages—that the Wilberforce centre just was not inadequate, and the local community should seriously think about setting up a facility which would cater for emergencies such as these. So then let's fast forward. We've had a couple of big ones in between, and we're still talking about it. The fires in the Hawkesbury have been around for a very long time. Not necessarily on this scale, and I hope they don't continue on this scale, because there's not going to be anything left. However, it is just amazing.

There has been no— I've only been on this council for 25 years— there's been no appetite or identification for a Wilberforce fire headquarters centre ever , as far as I can tell. Serious discussion in this chamber. Let's identify something. Let's do something about it because it is important and we need to do something now. Haven't seen it. I've raised it a number of times. It's got nowhere with previous councils. And I'm not going to point fingers at particular councils because that would be silly. However, I do think we need to understand that the funding and the effort required to do something like this just hasn't been there. Nobody's had an appetite for it. Nobody. Very sad, given the community and everybody wants to, you know, pat themselves on the back and sing merry songs and all the rest of it.

That, I think, is pretty sad. However, we are where we are now and we need to move forward. And I do think, you Mr Mayor, for the mayoral minute, I think it needs a bit more detail. I mean, we talk about formal discussions. Well, it sounds a little bit like yes minister stuff. It's not going to cut it. I don't know what you mean by formal discussions. Can we define, let's set a timeline, let's work out who we're going to talk to, when we're going to talk to them, and what the achievements are going to be and that sort of stuff. There needs to be, otherwise we'll be talking about this— I'll be dead and gone. Les, are you still there? I'll be gone a long time ago, mate, and maybe you too. But anyway, I don't wish that on you.

I don't want to be have my grandkids or my great-grandkids talking about this in years to come. We just need to pull it down to the ground and do something, and define what we're going to do. And it's just so sad. And I do want to really, really call out to the guys that are, and the ladies that are up there fighting and defending and doing all the things that, you know, good Australians will do when the chips are down. And, you know, as someone said, the fires are, you know, clipping at their heels and so on, and defending property and animals and, you know, and the sadness of the loss of life, the native life and the whatever it is. It's just amazing just how well they do. I've been through it in 1994.

I remember being in a Black Hawk helicopter and I was chucked around like a piece of ember . And those machines are fairly powerful. These fires are serious, and we need to take them seriously. This is a good move, Mr Mayor, and I thank you for bringing it forward.

Thank you for your support, Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. We all know, all of us who've done any work out at the fire control centre do know it's quite archaic. It's small. It's pokey. What I would like to see happen is for them to actually come to us with a proposal because we don't know the future of what they're planning to operate there. I think this mayoral minute puts the onus on us doing the investigations. I think we really need to know what they're intending. We must bear in mind when we're speaking of emergency services that we're still no closer to having any ambulance services west of the river. We've still got outstanding issues that we have to look at that all tie in to where we were told that the state government were putting emergency hubs and locating things in centralised positions.

This issue has come up before. Former Councillor Payne and I have done a lot of discussions about having the headquarters moved and looking into things. At one point it was going to combine with the SES, and so we really need to know the model going forward of what the emergency services are intending to operate. Would it be like what Cootamundra's got, which is run by the police and then used by other agencies, and they also have a councillor in attendance when they're running theirs on each shift? And then, or is it going to be something really big? Because I would think the fires aren't going to get any smaller. We're going to need to. We've got these longer fire seasons. So will we actually be having to have a more presence of people making these decisions?

And if we're wanting to equip it with the latest, the sort of equipment they have down at Homebush in their RFS, which is an amazing place to go and see, or in Queensland where they've got the central control centre, we need to know from them before we participate at all what exact- Exactly the future of emergency management is going to be like in the Hawkesbury, and whether they would perhaps be thinking, is it a regional thing or is it simply for the Hawkesbury area? So I think the first step would be to actually get a proposal of what they're exactly meaning. Otherwise it would be a futile exercise to just say put it here and then find out that they want something totally different. So I think it needs to swing round the other way.

I do think the priority, though, is dealing with the Wilberforce, the relocation and the fast tracking. This has been going on as long as I remember, and I have been there, and it is unacceptable that these people that give their time voluntarily to go out and protect our community have to have substandard facilities. They really need to be able to work , you know, they need to be able to work well. And I think that, so hopefully that fast tracking of that can occur and they can get their new shed, and it will be safer and it will be better for them in their operations. Also, we know how long a shed. I know the Freemans Reach shed took a very, very long time to get their shed. I hope that, and Wilberforce have waited long enough.

I just think that really needs to be a priority before we have these other things. At our last meeting, it wasn't considered to be a priority to investigate anything for helping our community in terms of having a disaster point. But I fully support this because I think we have to put these things forward. And hopefully down the track, people will see the need for the interim where the gap is between the emergency response and what we should be doing for our community, which is a shame that we couldn't progress that forward as well. I think that in terms of the centre being set up to facilitate ongoing cooperation between council and the emergency services, we have that all documented. As we also heard last meeting, it's not our place to be, you know, putting these things forward.

It's all the RFS controlling it, and there's a local emergency plan that dictates what the roles of all the various stakeholders are in that. So I think that goes without saying. I hope that we can find a proposal and get some clarity over what exactly they need so that this can be progressed forward. Without doubt, all the people involved in the emergency response are doing a magnificent job, and they all deserve to have the relevant funding, if that's from state government, which I believe most of it is, as well as what council puts in. But I think that the state government have to come to the party and give us some decisions about what exactly they see the role of us in their future emergency services management into the future.

Councillor Sam Progner.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Of course, we should all support Mayoral Minute of this type, and thank you for bringing it forward. This is vastly overdue. My familiarity with this facility comes from the fact that I used to work there. In my late teens and early twenties, I used to be a volunteer at the fire control, and I became intimately acquainted with that facility and its shortcomings even a quarter of a century ago. I remember exploring the basement where there were still some colo shire records that had been archived before the amalgamation of 1981. It was rather a creepy space. Our family have always been deeply involved in the RFS, and we still are. And, you know, the fact that we are such a fire-prone LGA at the fringe of Sydney and that we have a facility like that badly needs redress.

I rather fear, however, that your beautiful thoroughbred of a Mayoral Minute is being transformed into a camel before our eyes . What I'm sceptical of, what I'm concerned about, is that it's very easy, with the best of intent, to put in something like 0.3 that we should relocate Wilberforce Rural Fire Service. That is a very significant budgetary implication, and under any other circumstances, we would take that on board in a very deliberative fashion and we would seek to scope out the cost of a new facility and the appropriate time frame within which that should occur. I doubt very much that we're going to make it happen any faster by putting 0.3 into this Mayoral Minute. And in the same way, since, Mr Mayor, you're very action-oriented in the minutes that you put forward.

What we really need to do off the back of this Mayoral Minute is to do some work to scope the best location, whether it's Wilberforce or elsewhere, and the likely cost of a new facility, and to use that as our rationale for going with our cap in hand to another tier of government and to tell them that this is what we need. If we don't have that case, then we're unlikely to get relief. And if what I'm suggesting requires some financial expenditure in an upcoming budget or a reallocation of budget so that the necessary work can be done to put the most compelling case, I would certainly support that, and I expect that off the back of this Mayoral Minute, that might come to us next year in this term of Council.

So I certainly hope that that's the case. Thank you.

Further speakers? Councillor Reynolds. Yeah, thanks, Mr Mayor. Just a question to start with for Mr Organ. You stated that the State Government funds buildings for RFS, but Council generally provides the land, is that right?

That's been the traditional funding arrangement and current funding arrangement

Okay. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I was led to believe that fire control officers, the various fire controls in the state, fall under, like, Rose Hill jurisdiction, the state jurisdiction. They're not like brigades, which are, you know, largely funded by council. Is that right? Or does council actually fund fire controls as well?

Council's ultimately responsible for rural fire management. Essentially, the state provides additional resources to fire control centres. So typically there'll be ongoing grants for refurbishment and those sorts of things of fire control centres. But generally it's still the state providing, whether it be a station or a centre, it's the state's providing the capital for the building.

But we don't manage it .

We're probably a little bit of an anachronism here. As I said, there's been other facilities built elsewhere, and what the funding arrangements for those would be, I don't know at this stage. Again, we've got this historical anachronism that we've provided a building, the Colo Shire Council offices, and that's where it is under. Council had sole and total responsibility for fire management.

Thanks, Mr Organ. I thank Mr Mayor for bringing this Mayoral Minute before us. I think it's very important. I agree we should initiate formal discussions with the state government. I think that the various emergency agencies will probably be quite focused on other things for the next month or two. Regarding what's actually required in terms of a new fire control, but I do support the intent and the spirit of the notice of motion. I do support point three, where I think we have, you know, we've just heard we have a brigade that is in desperate need right now.

You know, Councillor Zamprogno's comment that, you know, it should be put off and we can deal with it, you know, down the track. I mean, these guys have been trying to deal with this for 20 years. You know, the fact that we have these men and women continuing to operate in such appalling conditions, you know, is testament to the dedication they have to the community. And from Mr Schultz's description, it almost sounds like the fireground is a more comfortable place than Wilberforce fire shed, and I find that quite staggering. I think it would be negligent of us as a council and responsible for our RFS brigades in these matters

Not to expedite the relocation of Wilberforce brigade as soon as possible. I feel so strongly about it, I think even if we had a bigger shed up at the depot, that we should put them up there where at least they have a toilet and give them some place where they can actually get some relief in between shifts. As for, you know, funds, I know the brigade that I was in raised money to build its new shed. I know Blacksand Ridge Brigade and Kurrajong, they raised money through raffles to build their sheds.

I know, for instance, Schofields Brigade, they raised all their money to build their new shed. I don't see, well, number one, I don't see why they should have to raise the money when we're the ones that are supposed to be paying for it. And as I understand it, we have the money to pay for the Wilberforce, new Wilberforce shed now. They have the money. So it would, you know, I am absolutely frustrated that these men and women are sitting out there and, you know, squalor, while we, this council sits here and twiddles its thumbs and appears to look for handbrakes as to why they can't have their new shed. And

It's quite infuriating. Thank you.

Further speakers?

No. I'll take my right of reply then. I'll try and answer all of the issues that were raised, starting with Councillor Reynolds. I don't think anyone's putting any handbrakes on this proposal for Wilberforce, and I think it's just the opposite. Now , of course, obviously we're going to work out what the RFS would like to see. I mean, this is not something we're going to impose on the RFS. This is going to come from the ground up. They're going to tell us what it should look like. And obviously we're going to work out who we're going to talk to, who we're going to discuss this with, and what the timeline will be. I mean, that's all part of the discussions. But the thing that I think is different here is that I'm asking Council to take a leadership role and drive the project.

I think that's what's not happened in the past. It's been like a game of table tennis where the ball's been hit backwards and forwards. It's yours , now it's mine. Council, I'm asking through this Mayoral Minute, will take the leadership role, drive this project and make it happen. That doesn't mean we're going to impose what we want on the building. We're going to listen to everyone who could be involved in this and take all that on board. And in the end, once it gets momentum and gets going, Council may end up just standing back and letting it all happen once the RFS takes it on and money is identified. Our role might be just to watch it. But our role right now is to start it and drive it, and that's what I'm trying to do.

For Councillor Zamprogno, as I have an affinity towards camels. They are

Ships of the desert. They are very useful animals . Now, by putting this point three in there, I don't think that negates points one, two or four. Those things can still happen. We don't have to not go ahead with the headquarters because we're working on Wilberforce. Those two things can happen at the same time. So I'm quite happy to put it in there and I— I don't see the thoroughbred disappearing in this case, Councillor Sam Brogna. This whole issue is going to get more important because, as you know, we're looking to have more bushfires in the future. Now, whether you agree with climate change or not, all the experts say there'll be more bushfires, and I think it might be time that Council and other groups offered more than just thoughts and prayers in response to that.

Quite a few prominent Australians are doing that. I'm looking for Council to drive a project which will be long-lasting and which will allow Council to, allow Hawkesbury, sorry, to have a purpose-built facility which will last for quite some time. As far as Council is concerned, over the last month or two, many of our staff have been out there at Wilberforce doing work, answering telephones, doing a whole range of things, our equipment's being used, the showground has been open, it's open again now for animals. We, as a Council, we've been really generous with it. We've been giving everything we can, and that will continue because that is our role in this, to be generous with all our resources, because our resources are the community's resources and we're all in this together.

And if anyone can think of any other way that Council can contribute, then please let me know. I wanted to, sorry,

I wanted to, as Councillor Ross— Mentioned , talk about our volunteers. It's interesting, Councillor Ross sent me an email and said he urges me to have a Churchillian speech about the role of our volunteers. It's interesting that he used that phrase because when you go out there to the headquarters, it is a bit like a war. They have maps and they're looking at the enemy, and the enemy's coming this way, then it's coming that way. What do we do if they go here? It really is like a war room, and they need as many resources and space as possibly we can provide. And at the moment they're working with facilities that just aren't allowing them to do that. And on top of that, most of the people out there are volunteers.

The ones I've spoken to have been doing 12-hour shifts. And what does that do to their family? What does that do to their work? You know, they're giving up their work. And I want to thank the employers who let them go to do this. It's a really big deal in the Hawkesbury area. And we wouldn't be anywhere without these volunteers. They're out there saving lives and property because they're generous with their time and they want to support the community. It shows what a great community Hawkesbury is. In some ways, disasters like bushfires and floods bring us together, which is unfortunate that it has to be that way. But our community stands up to these disasters and knows how to do it. Therefore, it's important that we, as a council, provide as much support as we can to those volunteers and to the community, which is what my mayoral minute is all about.

As I said, I'm working on a press release to go out probably tomorrow, which will thank the community and talk about all the things that have been happening. And to Mr Schultz from Wilberforce, I'll promise you this, that after your speech tonight, I will follow up on Wilberforce. I'll track it. I'll try and make sure this point number three actually happens in the next 12 months, because you pointed out that what you've got there at Wilberforce is very substandard, and we really need to do something about it. So thanks for bringing it to our attention. And I want to thank all the councillors who've added to this discussion, added to the mayoral minute. I think we have a strong case here, and I invite you to join me as we drive this project forward over the next 12 months or so.

I see this as a joint council project which all 12 of us can work together on. That's the end of my right of reply. So I'll now put the mayoral minute. If you're in favour of the mayoral minute, please stand.

In favour of the

Mayoral minute: Councillor Ross, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Samprogno, Councillor Tree, Councillor Richards, Councillor Calvert. Absent is Councillor Conolly. Declare it carried.

We now move to items on block. I think we only have one item on block, item 2.3.7. Move, Councillor Rasmussen, seconded, Councillor Samprogno. All those in favour say aye. Declare it carried.

We now move to item 2.28, Councillor Tree.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Move that, please.

You move the recommendation. Do we have a seconder for that? Item 2.28

Pittwater— Pitt Town Water, sorry. Yes. Pitt Town Stormwater.

Seconded by Councillor Richards. Councillor Tree, you wish to speak to it? Oh

Not really, Mr Tree. Oh, Mr Tree. Oh, no dear. It's

One of those nights

No, it's just to go out onto public exhibition, so I think it's pretty benign. Thank you.

Okay. Any further speakers? Councillor Ross. I have a series

Of questions, Mr Mayor.

I'd like to have clarified the statement in the lower part of page 24 of the business paper, which says, part of the contribution area four catchment has recently been developed, including the basin, and the draft contribution plan has been prepared based on that situation. Could I seek clarification of that, please?

Mrs Baroon.

This is the recently completed basin as part of 44 Mitchell

Sorry. So this basin was constructed as part of the development in the Caddai Precinct. So it's been constructed as part of that development, but there's areas of the overall catchment that still need to be developed, and the contributions plan needs to collect money for that. For the particular works in terms of the basin, the upsizing of infrastructure to service the basin and the acquisition of land for that basin.

Further questions, Councillor Ross? Can you push the light on, please?

Thank you. I'm a little bit perplexed by that answer.

You say that there's work being done there by Council in that area, presumably outside of that zone four in the reserve.

So the actual works themselves were undertaken by the developer as part of that subdivision works, and the actual basin itself is outside of the catchment area that's identified as part of the plan. So the contributions plan is collecting money from the catchment area, but the actual wetland treatment, if you like, is outside of that catchment area.

Could I clarify that the developer also had approval to conduct that work in a reserve?

At the time of the works were undertaken, it wasn't a reserve, so it will be dedicated to Council as a reserve, but at the time of the actual works, it was in private ownership. When would that change occur, please?

The conditions of approval detail when the change occurs, especially in— Time to the final construction of the overall subdivision, essentially.

Just following on that point, which is all new to me tonight, does that mean that Council will have to move rather swiftly to not have it be considered to be community land as opposed to operational land?

So when the plan comes to Council to endorse, that's when it has to be assigned community or operational. So that's not at this stage yet. And this report doesn't deal with that matter at this stage because that's not before Council at this stage yet.

But that would be land that is owned by Council as opposed to the Crown. Is that correct?

So it's land that's dedicated to Council, yes. On that.

Now, could you tell me please, what is the risk if there is an overflow beyond the bounds of the catchment basin?

Are other properties being endangered?

So the design of the basin is basically in line with the stormwater management strategy for Pitt Town, so that's considered the overall... Catchment area within Pitt Town, and that's why, and this is basically a sub-catchment of that overall Pitt Town strategy.

I understand that on page 24 of the business paper, the diagram there showing Area 4, which the detention basin is located on the, I guess you'd say the southern side down towards Mitchell Road. Beyond Mitchell Road there is apparently another, is that Cattai Road? And then there are residences or private property on the other side of Cattai Road.

Does that— is there an inherent risk in that situation? In other words, is that detention basin supposed to remove all of the drainage from those other five blocks?

The basin essentially deals with the development flows, so the change to the flow pattern and as a result of development of that precinct, and basically leaves it as the natural flow that existed before the basin was constructed. So there's no net increase in overall stormwater that discharges from the site.

Is there any danger of an overflow?

So... The basin is obviously designed to particular storm events. So if there's a storm event that's above the design event, then there is a risk.

Thank you. I notice that we've had two engineering consultants employed on this job. Have they considered those risk profiles, please?

So the design of the basin has been in accordance with relevant standards and to the particular design storm event.

Why are five lots not being fully treated?

So part of the overall catchment area can't all drain to the new basin that's been constructed, and they can't drain to another part of the overall Pitt Town area. The plan actually deals with that in terms of increasing the standards of the wetland that's been constructed by having higher standards in terms of that overall treatment.

The diagram on page 26 doesn't indicate a wetland.

Could you clarify that, please?

So there's essentially a label at the bottom of that diagram. Oh, sorry. Right.

You are saying that informally the untreated areas in

S2 and 3 will flow by natural

Means through to the detention basin outside of 4?

Yes, outside of 4, but not the wetland that's part of this particular contributions plan. To another wetland, is that correct? They're basically drained to other areas of the Pitt Town catchment, yeah.

Not shown diagrammatically here, pictorially.

No, only the diagram on page 26, which indicates the location of flows.

And I gather you must be satisfied that that will operate successfully?

So the contributions plan has been formulated based on the Pitt Town stormwater strategy, and we're comfortable with that, yeah .

Now, when it comes to assessing the relevant contributions per lot,

S2 and 3 in particular. Because they have an , shall we say, an untreated element, are they going to have to pay the contribution based on their total land area, or the reduced land area as afforded only by the treatment?

They pay the contribution based on their land area of their particular catchment. Total? Total catchment, yep.

So, in other words, they're subsidising the rest of the

Landholders in the other allotments.

No, the square metre rate is consistent across the whole of that catchment. So whether you're in SC1—

But SC1

Is totally treated in terms of the two blocks that are shown. There's an internal rate, I gather, between SC3 and SC1.

It's the same rate whether you're in SC1, SC2 or SC3. That's detailed in the draft contributions plan. Okay

That's acceptable in

This sort of situation, is it? It's consistent with the Pitt Town stormwater management strategy, yep.

The black line shown through areas SC2 and 3, does that denote the current

Point of order, yes.

Pipeline?

I don't know whether this is point of order, but could— Because Councillor Ross's questions are really quite detailed, and because we're voting tonight on putting this on public exhibition, can I suggest that those sorts of questions may be able to be dealt with in a submission in between times? Because I'm finding the discussion a bit hard to follow. It's very technical, and I don't think it adds to the recommendation, which is to put this on public exhibition. Thank you.

I understand what you mean, and technically that's not a point of order because Councillor Ross is able to ask questions. But Councillor Ross, you could have, I believe, sent these questions in beforehand. Plus, when this comes back from exhibition, you can ask the questions then if your issue still exists. And you can also contribute when it's on exhibition and ask the questions then. Do you have many more questions to ask?

One more question. Okay.

Turn your microphone on, please. One

Further question, if I could. The costs shown in the draft contribution plan, are they current, or I notice that they're shown as anything as far as going back to 2015, or have they been modified by whatever means subsequently?

So these costs will be CPI'd, but we're very confident in terms of these costs because these basically came from the Schedule of Works associated with the actual construction of the basin.

Thank you. Any further speakers? No. Councillor Tree, do you wish to have right of reply? No,

Thank you, Mr Mayor. No

Not necessary. In that case, I'll put the recommendation. All those in favour, please stand.

In favour is Councillor Richards, Councillor Tree, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Calvert. Against is Councillor Ross, and absent is Councillor Conolly. I declare it carried.

Item 229, Council Tree.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'd like to move the recommendation.

Do we have a seconder for that?

Councillor Kotlash, thank you. Councillor Tree, you wish to speak to it?

Just briefly, Mr Mayor. I think that it's, when you've got a new development, it's important to have facilities in place such as childcare centres. So I just think that this is a very sensible way forward to, as the recommendation just says, to rejig the schedule as noted on page 33. And I think that it's, again, a fairly benign recommendation.

Thank you. Any further speakers? Councillor Ross.

I'm very concerned that the 300 lot differential between the point at which the site is to be selected, if you like, and the point at which construction is to begin. I don't believe that's appropriate. I believe it is far too long, and upon what basis has that been sought, please?

That's a question, is it? Yes. General

Manager. Mr Mayor, the original milestone for part A of the childcare, which is milestone at clause, or item 16.6B, was at milestone 301. That was the lot. In June 2017, Council resolved to change that milestone to lot 601. The rationale for doing that was to secure a better position for the childcare centre. At the time the agreement was originally executed, it could not be known exactly what the stages would be or where the optimum sites would be. By Council changing it to lot 601 in June 2017, Council was able to ensure that a position near the neighbourhood centre was secured for the childcare centre, and that was regarded as a good outcome. The original agreement provided for a 300 lot difference between milestone 1 and milestone 2, and milestone 2 should have been changed in June 2017 at that time to maintain that 300 lot difference , and that didn't occur; it was an oversight at the time, and this is more an administrative correction.

So it still retains the 300 lot difference between milestones 1 and 2. It should have been a change that was made in June 2017.

Any further speakers? Councillor Ross. I

Question the rationale of the 300. Why is it 300? Surely with the development of the site as it has obviously progressed to, that there is the demand there, and in fact what may occur is an overloading of possible community facilities in the interim for an extended period, which would be better taken up by the— Construction of this particular facility, as at an earlier point.

Is that a question , General Manager? Mr Mayor, the 300, as I said, the 300 lot differential was the differential that was in the original agreement. We've got a better location now, near the neighbourhood centre, and it's appropriate to maintain that 300 lot differential. That's the latest point that the childcare centre can be provided. It can, of course, be provided earlier than lot 901, but that's consistent with the current differential in the current agreement. Further speakers?

Councillor Richards.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I had turned my light on at the start of the debate, but you didn't look at me, so I just wanted to put it on the record now that after further consideration, I just want to note a less than significant non-pecuniary interest. I'll be staying in the room.

You just weren't looking.

Just keep ignoring you, I know . Any further speakers?

Councillor

Reynolds. Yes, thanks, Mr Mayor. Just a question, probably for the General Manager.

This VPA was drawn up before this term of Council. I'm just wondering why a location for a childcare centre was not part of the original planning of the development. When you know where houses are going, why would you need time to— Figure out where the childcare centre was going.

It's generally the case that developments don't proceed as they are originally anticipated. The planning doesn't take into account a lot of the details that come into play over the subsequent implementation. And in the case of this development, there's been an issue to deal with water supply that has resulted in the whole configuration of the development being modified. And you may recall about this time last year, we considered a fairly substantial amendment, and again that was based on the water supply requirements of Sydney Water, and it has changed the way in which the development has rolled out. And it's not an unusual thing, and in this case, as I said, changing the lot number has ensured that we get a lot near the neighbourhood shopping centre.

Further speakers? Councillor Tree, you wish to have right of reply? No,

Thank you, Mr Mayor.

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

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

Item 2.3A, Councillor Rasmussen, I think you were declaring an interest. Yeah,

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Mr Mayor, I have a pecuniary interest to declare on this, and the reason and the nature of the interest is I own a piece of land affected by the proposed Grose River crossing bridge,

And I'll be

Leaving the room.

Councillor Richards.

I'll also declare a less than significant non-pecuniary interest, but I'll be remaining in the room.

Thank you. Councillor Tree.

Thank

You, Mr Mayor. I'd like to move the recommendation in the paper. Okay. There weren't any other interests out there, were there? No. Councillor Tree's moving the recommendation. Do we have a seconder?

No seconder . Councillor Zamprogno. Councillor Tree, you wish to speak? I think we've talked about this a million times, Mr Mayor. Let's wait and see what everyone else says.

I

Don't need to bring that up.

Any further speakers? Councillor Zamprogno.

Yes, Mr Mayor. Through you, a question. I'd like the General Manager to speculate. If we assume the best case scenario, if we assume the best case scenario that this revised route was endorsed and everything proceeded in the way that we hoped that it will, in what year will this bridge be open to traffic?

That's almost impossible to answer that question, and the reason being that whilst we've got milestones, it's the rate at which the development proceeds that determines the speed with which we move towards the milestone, and— In the early stages of the development, I think it's fair to say that it was proceeding steadily, but in more recent times, with the current economic climate, land sales have petered off a little bit, so it's not progressing as quickly as it did in the initial stages. And I can't predict when those conditions would change. And I think to speculate is dangerous, because it just raises a position that is purely guesswork.

Through you, Mr Mayor. Mr Conroy, I'm actually going to press you on this point, because what you've just said still permits us to extrapolate. Is it fair to say, for example, that this bridge could take another eight years to reach that point? Would that be an unreasonable assessment?

General Manager. I will press back and say I think it's really dangerous to start talking like that, because we really don't know what the future holds, and it really is just speculation. But people will hear numbers, and they will grab it and take it as, well, that's what the Council said, and then that becomes a real problem, because that's what the Council said, and I'm not saying anything.

Councillor Ross Thank you, Mayor. I'd just like to raise a point of procedure. I believe I heard a fellow councillor indicate a less than significant pecuniary interest in this matter. Is that, Councillor, also required to indicate why, for what reason that was done?

I think you might be correct, Councillor Ross.

Could I call upon you, sir, to use your good offices to secure the correct information? I will

Use my good office to do that, Councillor Ross. Councillor Richards, could you please answer

That? So happy to go there. I live in Redbank, but I only rent in Redbank, which is why it is non-pecuniary. And you can thank the State Shadow Minister for Women for exposing that in Hansard.

Sorry,

What was that?

Councillor Richards. After

Your mate decided to expose— Excuse me, Councillor Richards,

Can we not talk across the room, please? That last part of your answer was not necessary. All we wanted to know is why you're declaring an interest, okay? And we got that. Thank you.

Councillor Ross.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I was rather concerned at being bullied on this occasion.

Bullied. Bullied, sir. Yes. A verbal assault.

By me? Thank you for that, Councillor Ross. Do we have any other speakers on this matter?

Mr Mayor.

Councillor Ross.

Could I crave your attention for the matter at hand? Thank you. Yes. Thank you.

I received a piece of paper on my table here tonight to indicate that— Certain community members are possibly otherwise detained in preventative measures within the community and would have liked to have spoken on this occasion. I gather that won't be happening, unfortunately. Can

I ask you what won't be happening?

That the matter won't be deferred, as was 227, I believe.

It still can be deferred.

Well, I could move an amendment, sir. Well, you'd do that. With your good graces. Great. So you're moving

That the matter be deferred. Do we have a seconder for that? Councillor Wheeler. Councillor Ross, would you like to explain why you want this matter deferred? Oh

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I have received a written statement from Beatriz ... I'm sorry. ... Instasi. Okay. Ah, right. Okay, yes. Beatriz. To her friends. NRDCAA, saying that unfortunately, due to the current crisis going on in terms of fire, that neither she nor another person who might care to speak on behalf of that organisation is able to attend the meeting tonight and does feel that deferral would be a preferred course if Council were to... Be able to offer that situation

Please.

And would you like that deferred to any particular time, such as the next council meeting?

Yes, I would believe that the next meeting of council would be the appropriate moment

For those things

To be. Any speakers for or against the amendment? Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Speaking for the amendment, I think we afforded members of the community for the first item of discussion, the LSPS, a deferment for the same reason. This is something that will affect people. You can see from the submissions that there is significant community interest in this, and I think allowing them to come and address this council on the matter is part of allowing democracy to run its course in the area, and I think we should do that. It's very unusual for Redbank to be before this council and not have a speaker, and I think that shows where our community is tonight.

Other speakers? Councillor Tree. Against the amendment, the reason why the bridge isn't closed to where it was, you know, drivability is because of obstructions, and mostly by the very noisy minority groups, people in the noisy minority, who have formed groups to represent not what the wider community want at all. And if any of them were here to speak tonight, they'd just be saying the same old thing, saying we don't want it here, even though they didn't want it in one place, and now another suggestion has been made and they don't want it there either. I think what the wider community want, meaning democracy and what the majority would like, is for the bridge to be built, and it would make a really big difference for, you know, anybody who wants to use it, rather than to sit here and be obstructive at every step of the process, which is exactly what has happened with it.

There are a number of people who don't want this bridge to be built because then they could say, See, we told you so. They don't want the bridge to be built so they can blame everybody else for all the problems with the traffic. This bridge is a really good solution. The RMS want it. The general manager has said that he wants it, although I'm wondering , and I'd be very happy to be proven otherwise. It's just time to get this happening . It's ridiculous, conversation after conversation and everything. What is it saying to do? It's telling you to receive the report. We're big people. We know what the people who aren't here talking feel about the situation. You don't need them to come in and tell us again with that.

My position hasn't changed. I'm sure yours hasn't. We should probably just vote on this tonight because the community, the wider community, you know, more people than the people who come in and talk about this issue, want the bridge.

Councillor Reynolds. Thanks, Mr Mayor. Question for the general manager. At which time, at what point in the lot yield is the bridge to be constructed?

I thought I brought the VPA with me, but I haven't.

If

I remember correctly, isn't it about lot 1200?

I'm happy to go and get the agreement if Council wants to give me— No,

That's not necessary. The point, could you, Mr General Manager, tell me roughly how many lots, what the lot yield is to date? How many they've sold? We're at approximately lot 550. So we're at lot 550. 550. And the bridge doesn't have to be constructed until around lot 1001, if I understand it correctly. So I can't see any merit in Councillor Tree's argument that putting off and deferring. I doubt they're going to sell 500 lots before the next meeting. So I think that there's no requirement. There's no reason why this matter can't be deferred and democracy actually happen and allow people to speak, even though that may be against the wishes of some people who don't like democracy.

It's not democracy. Mr Mayor, can I ask a question, please? Councillor Tree, you have a question. I just was wondering whether it could be explained that there's a lot of preliminary work that needs to occur prior to the actual construction, and that there needs to be a very long and laborious process which has been stalled at every possible junction, from what I can tell. Is this a question? Yes . So could it be outlined to Council so they understand that it's not a matter of we can't just wait until those 500 homes are sold, because then you'd have to start the whole process then, which would then extend it out further. It's just stupidity. General Manager, would you like to answer that question?

Through Mr Mayor, the process that's been outlined is that the Roads and Maritime Services and the developer would like to enter into an MOU to endorse an in-principle location for the bridge that confirmed the fundamentals of the revised alignment, in its location, the funding and the timing. And then that would then allow for the amendment to the VPA to be prepared and exhibited, and for the various documents, studies, drawings to be prepared. And as the councillor has said, there is a timeline that is involved in doing all that work. There's quite a body of work to do before we get to the point where we go out to an approval process, and in the event there's an approval, then the tender and construction.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'll speak in favour of the amendment. I think that if we afford that to one group of people, we have to do it to both. Otherwise, it's grossly unfair, regardless of what you think. And I don't think a lot's going to happen over the Christmas period with this not going ahead. I mean, if we get back onto it on our first meeting back, I don't think a lot would have happened in that interim because of the shutdowns. I do have a number of questions from the report. I might put those forward so perhaps in the interim or for the next one, the answers could actually be ready for those. The first question is regarding, will this— so the document will come back to us once the MOU has gone through. Before signing, won't it? Question. So you're putting these on record, or you want the answers now? Well, I'd like the answer to that first, yes. So

The resolution is about giving staff the direction to go and prepare that MOU and to bring that back to council. Okay

Thank you. All right, I'll just say the questions then; you don't have to answer them. With regard to the first point on page 44, limiting Redbank's financial contribution to the cost of original Navua, who will fund the balance if there is one? That's one question. The second question is under the next section, the developer, Roads and Maritime Services and council will develop detailed documentation including plans, studies and a draft amended voluntary planning agreement. Who will pay for the costs of this, and how much may council have to contribute to that, both in staff time and in ratepayer money? What is the relationship with the Richmond Bridge project? If we go ahead with this, would that eliminate the options in the Richmond Bridge duplication which are north of— not north— towards Grose Vale of the existing bridge?

South, thank you. South of the existing bridge, would that automatically eliminate those from consideration because it would seem that they won't put three bridges in a row there?

So they're the questions that I was going to ask, and it would be good. The other thing is— I think asking us to commit to limiting the financial cost without ever seeing any costings is quite problematic. I've just got huge concerns with that. I'm happy to see estimates of what they may be for the two routes. But without that, I think we would be neglecting our duty to make a decision because we don't want our ratepayers to be saddled with a cost if that other bridge costs more. It may be shorter, but there could be issues with it. And I just don't like going blindly into making a decision like that when there's no costings. I just don't think it's the right thing to do, particularly if you have read the VPA, and when you look at the merits of the VPA as described in the explanatory notes, it says that the merits of this VPA, that it satisfies the New South Wales Government's requirement that all urban development proposals outside the Sydney Region Growth Centre are at no cost to government, thus enabling the development to proceed.

Now, this was a huge selling point of the people who sold this. I'm off questions now, I'm speaking. Yeah, are you speaking on why we should defer? Yes, I'm just giving the information so they can help find the answers. Well, the amendment is— All right, well I'll speak against the motion then. I'll shift it and speak against. We're not speaking on the motion. All right, well I'll be quiet till we come back on. Speaking on the amendment, and I thought you were speaking on the amendment by saying— We can't make a decision now because the costs aren't there. I was saying that, and then I was saying that because— The next bit you got into, I wasn't sure that you were still— Well , the point is that the selling point of this development was that it was to be at no cost to the government and that the infrastructure was to be covered by the developer.

Now, that's okay if that's going to retain— if we're going to retain that position. But the minute there's something that's limiting their contribution without any indication of what the council's contribution may be, to me that is a problem, and I would like some more information, if possible, on that. And therefore we should defer. Therefore we should defer so we can get that information .

And I've got another question. Could I just have that— To go on record? Yes . Yes . Could we just have an explanation of what the delay has been with this project? Because publicly it has been said that it is the fault of this council when the new council was elected in 2016. Now, the fault of the councilors is the implication. Could we have an explanation from the general manager or planning of what exactly the delays have been since then? Thank you. If the amendment is lost , hopefully your questions will be answered then . If the amendment is won, then your questions should be answered at the next meeting. Thank you. That

Is adequate.

Any further discussion? Councillor Richards.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'll be speaking against the amendment, and for anyone across the chamber to infer that that means I don't stand for democracy is absolutely ludicrous, but anyway, well known for that. So I think this, we have to just go with the recommendation, the business paper. This matter, compared to the housekeeping matter that was deferred, they're completely different issues and completely different historical contexts. And this matter has come to the chamber time and time and time and time again, and we know exactly where the NRDCAA stands. We can basically write the script word for word on what the speech would be and who would deliver it. So these are completely different issues, and to say they're par on par is completely wrong.

So I would not be deferring this item tonight. The community deserves a bridge. We need to get this one going. This was promised as part of the development. Everyone needs certainty and surety around the fact that it's going to happen, and it is a long drawn-out process to get to that point. Let's make it start happening now.

Councillor Kotlash, did you have your light on before?

Councillor Reynolds. Thank you, Mr Mayor. I speak in favour of the amendment, but I have a question to add to the Deputy Mayor's list. If the project was to go beyond the financial costs of the original route through Nepean Reserve, who would be liable for the balance? Would it be Council, the RMS, or another New South Wales government agency, if that could just be added to the list?

Further speakers? Councillor Kotlash.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Just a question. If we don't defer this decision tonight, it's my understanding from the recommendation that there will be other opportunities that people will have to be able to put forward their opinions, I guess, yet again on this project. So

This is a tricky one because I can see the argument that we have granted a deferment for one item, and if we don't for this, it's maybe seen as being unjust . But could I just get some clarification on the opportunities that we will have in the new year to have these matters addressed by members of the public?

General Manager.

There's two primary opportunities, I would think. The first is point five, where the recommendation is that we advise the community of the points one to four above, which are a reflection of a previous round of community engagement whereby we held two community forums: one in December, where we presented a whole lot of information; a second in April, where we came back and said, based on that information, this is what we're proposing to recommend and this is why, which is what tonight's meeting is about. And then there's the formal consultation process as part of the approval process. So when we get to the point where we've got formal plans and applications out and available, they go to formal community consultation and people have their opportunity to have their say, and then a decision is made on the merits of that application.

So as I see it, there are two opportunities for further input going forward.

Another question, if I may. Thank you, Mr Mayor.

If we resolve this recommendation tonight, will you be doing— I just, there's quite a lot to this recommendation, so I'll just get you to clarify for me. Would you be starting this process immediately?

Elements of it would start fairly soon. Drafting the MOU to bring back to Council, I think, is the critical element. Once that's been executed, that then gives everyone the confidence to go and do all the other things that are flagged in this recommendation. But I think the drafting of that MOU is the most critical short-term task.

Thank you. Just a third point following through on that. So you would envisage that you would start that process before Christmas?

I believe there would be some desire for that to happen from the other parties, yes.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. On having heard that, I will not be supporting the deferment. I think there's going to be enough opportunity for members of the public to have their say, and I think that we really have to get on with this process. And I imagine it will be long and drawn out, and there will be ample opportunities. So, yeah, so I won't be supporting this deferment. Thank you.

Deputy Mayor, do you have your light on? Doesn't matter. Change the mind.

I'd like to say that—

Is it possible to ask a question, Mr Mayor?

A question. You can do that.

As I understood the General Manager's statement made in reference to the prior questions ,

The next opportunity for Council to discuss this matter is at the point of the

Presentation of a draft MOU.

And would it be possible at that juncture to amend

The terms of the MOU were it not satisfactory to the elected Council?

General Manager. The Council will make the decision on the MOU, and it will be Council's final decision. Officers just put documents in front of Council for their consideration. However, I think we need to remember that the MOU is exactly that. It's a document between three parties, and it has to be to the satisfaction of the three parties. So it is a document that Council will certainly have input into, as will the other two parties.

Councillor Ross. Thank you. As I understand it here at—

Point three, little a, page 46,

There is,

Shall we say, a definition

Which implicitly indicates the quantum of the developer's financial responsibilities towards this project.

Could I please be informed as to how this state of affairs has been arrived at? Because I'm not aware of it having been voted upon by this Council. General Manager

So the current agreement has two provisions in it. One is to construct the link from

Redbank through to Springwood Road across the Grose River via Nepean Reserve, and the developer is responsible for constructing that. However, in the event that that doesn't go ahead, the developer is then responsible to pay a sum of money, and 95% of that money goes to Roads and Maritime Services and 5% go to Council. That's the current clause in the current voluntary planning agreement, and that's the limit of the financial exposure of the developer under the current agreement. And so we're working within that funding envelope, not to go beyond the current financial obligations in the current agreement.

Councillor Reynolds. Question, Mr Mayor, to the General Manager regarding his last statement. As I understood, the developer, as he said, was liable for the, under the VPA, to construct the crossing of the bridge. Nepean Reserve and the approach roads, regardless of the cost. Is that correct? That’s correct. Okay. Following on from what you, your statement, am I to understand that they’re

Referring to point 3A, limiting Redbanks’ financial contribution now means limiting their contribution to the proposed new route to the cost

They would pay if the Nepean alignment did not go ahead? That’s correct, less the funds that they’ve already expended. So, for example, if the, I think from memory, it’s about 23 million, if the bridge wasn’t built, the developer was going to pay that to the RMS, 95%, and we get 5%. So with this new route, the developer will contribute, if it’s the same amount, 23 million dollars towards the new route?

The cost of building the road and the bridge is more than the 23 million? Yes. And that’s the limit of the financial obligation. The current cost of building that route, less the funds that have been expended. The 23 million is only relevant if the parties fail to agree.

Okay, so Redbanks’ financial contribution towards the new alignment will not just be the 23 million dollars?

No, it’s the cost of the current alignment over Nepean Reserve,

Less the funds that have been expended. Who arrives at that cost? A quantity surveyor. Quantity surveyor. Is that a private quantity, or is that the RMS, or? It'll be a quantity surveyor that's to the

Mutual satisfaction of the three parties. Okay, thank you.

Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'd like to foreshadow an amendment.

We already have an amendment. That's why I'm foreshadowing. If this one goes down, I want another amendment. Okay.

Councillor Ross, you've already spoken on this matter. Question . Question. Okay.

The answer provided by the General Manager a moment ago mentioned a quantity surveyor.

When— sorry, at what point will that quantity surveyor assess the cost of the project as was originally scheduled to occur through Navua and Yarramundi reserves? And did that include any

Land acquisition as part of the project as was initially envisaged, please?

General Manager.

There

Was only minor, if any, land acquisition that was proposed in the original Navua Reserve crossing. It went over public land primarily or along existing road reserves. I would imagine that the quantity surveyor would not be engaged until after the MOU was executed.

Another question. Yes

Sir. I would just like to seek clarification on that point, because I believe I may have misheard an earlier statement from the General Manager, in which I believe I was told at that time that those costs and values had already been assessed. Is that not correct,

General Manager? Sorry, can I just get some clarification on the question?

Thank you. With your indulgence, Mr Mayor, I'm seeking clarification of the point that your most recent answer, Mr General Manager, was that costs are yet to be ascertained for the initially envisaged route. However , I had, to my understanding, and I am not infallible, I'm quite fallible, I had understood from yourself, I believe in a conversation earlier time, to

Which the response to the same question, in effect, you indicated that

The

Value of the project using the existing route had already been subject to valuation and— Essentially was a known number,

And I

Just find a contradiction between the two responses, and I'm just seeking clarification of your current understanding of the current position, please.

General Manager. I'm assuming that the council is referring to previous conversations some time ago, and if that's the case, we at a staff level within Council and RMS have made a very high level assessment of the two routes, and based on that, we believe that the Nevoa Reserve route is a more expensive route to construct. But we also appreciate that the developer has expended funds in relation to the existing route, and if that route doesn't proceed, those expenses will be sunk expenses and will have to be taken into account

Supplementary question. Thank you, Mr Mayor. I take it from the General Manager's response that there is no definitive costing of the project as originally envisaged,

Held by Council or any of the parties to the VPA, and therefore will be subject to some future evaluation as agreed by the parties to the VPA. General

Manager, have an answer to that? Council certainly doesn't have a definitive estimate of the cost of the current Nepean Reserve route. I don't know what information in any detail the other parties have. The only information I've got is the information I've given, and that relates to the high-level assessment by RMS and Council staff. And I think that's all I can say at this stage. Thank you.

Can I seek just one more point of clarification?

Is it the same question again? Not quite. You've asked the same question.

No, if I may, Mr Mayor. Different question? Yes. Okay. Because I'm asking it on a different occasion.

Now, the question I have to pose is that, is Council aware of the developer having a definitive cost of the original project as originally ascribed at their... I think

The General Manager just told us that he's not aware of what the developer has.

No, I disagree. The General Manager stated that he was speaking on behalf of Council in regard to Council's knowledge within its own borders , ranks, not knowledge of what the developer may have in their own

Holding. Well, I'm pretty sure he answered that, but I'll ask the General Manager one more time.

Just to be clear, Mr Mayor, I'm aware of what information we've got within Council. I'm aware of conversations that we've had with RMS. I'm not aware of any other information.

Thank you.

Different question.

Yes. Could I inquire as to why it's necessary for there to be an MOU and not a straight-out changed or an amended VPA, just over the whole lot and be done with it

General Manager .

The process going forward is going to involve quite a lot of work in terms of drafting an amendment to the VPA, drafting applications, doing studies, and the parties to the matter all want some degree of security in relation to various aspects. And the MOU was seen as the best way of giving everyone that comfort. So it's a statement of intent, and it's outlining the principles, and it gives everyone the confidence for moving forward to do the more detailed work.

Can I just say at this point that I see no harm in waiting till the next meeting to discuss this matter, because the bridge itself is not going to show up until we have well over a thousand lots sold . That's going to be quite some time yet, so there is really no hurry to push this through tonight. And not much is going to happen over Christmas. Traditionally, Christmas is a time when not many decisions are made. And the last thing we should be looking at is being criticised for not including the public at every stage. If we were to leave the public out, even though, like other councillors, I'm pretty sure I know what they're going to say and who's going to say it, they still have their right to come in here and do that, and I want to give them that right.

And because of the bushfires tonight, some people indicated they weren't able to do it. So it's a small matter. It inconveniences us a little bit. It's a small matter to delay this. It inconveniences us a little bit, but it makes sure the public are able to express their opinion as they're entitled to. I don't want to be seen shutting out the public at this stage. I think everyone has spoken on this matter. We're talking about an amendment. The amendment was moved by Councillor Ross, but Councillor Tree, you have right of reply. Thank you, Mr Mayor. This is just another example of the obstruction I was talking about, I believe, under the guise of, or under the veil of, you know, the right to contribute to conversations on matters that we...

It shouldn't even need a conversation. This is part of a VPA. It's a , what do you call it, it's a legally binding document. The bridge was promised as part of that whole development and that process. You didn't want it in the Nepean Reserve, so now you're going to say you don't want it wherever it's going to go. It doesn't matter where the options are. It's never going to be good enough because it's never about the issue. It's all about that always about the... Point of misrepresentation, Mr Mayor. Just shush. Point of order, Mr Mayor. Point of order, Mr Mayor.

It's not a classroom

Can we stop shouting across the room? I'll take your... I'll take your point of order on board. Councillor Wheeler, are you saying you are misrepresented?

I think it's probably broader than just myself, Mr Mayor.

Well, in that case, we'll continue. Councillor Tree, can you continue? I seem to remember a time when we were sitting in here and Mr Eds was here telling us how nobody else could possibly contribute anything further to what work he and the Historic Committee had done because it was superior to anything anyone could contribute. I remember that. Point of order, Mr Mayor. That was said. Point of order , Mr Mayor, I believe Councillor Tree is denigrating a member of the public. I'm just making the point that it's okay when other people who are aligned to a different group of people — I wasn't denigrating, I'm just saying that's what he said. It was a statement of fact. I'm answering the point of order, okay?

Deputy Mayor, as far as I heard, Councillor Tree said Mr Red said this at a meeting. That's all she said. That wasn't denigration. I don't think he said he was superior. Well, he may have. Do you know different? I don't know different. Councillor Tree, please continue. He may not have used the word superior, Mr Mayor, but he definitely said that he didn't believe that anyone could have contributed anything further to an already excellent report. I think that

Councillor Tree has the floor. Please don't interrupt. And I think we all know why you want to ask the question about the Richmond Bridge and the possibilities of it being moved down south, and it comes back to the organised obstructions and thoughtless behaviour that doesn't even consider the impact on families. I think that

This is a very boring position to be in every single time we come in here when I'm telling you the community, not the people that you talk to necessarily, but the community, the wider community, the normal people, mums and dads who aren't political activists, who want to get about their business, get to and from work and get there in a quicker time, they're not interested in the semantics of all of the rubbish that goes on in here. I cannot believe that we are at 10 o'clock at night and we're still talking on, well , this, any of this. You all think you're so much more important than you are. Anyway, Mr Mayor, I think that it's important to note that there were no costings for your very special electric charger for cars notice of motion, and yet we were all meant to go blindly with that one.

And I think that we need to definitely move forward with this, and I'm really disappointed that you didn't have the intestinal fortitude to do that tonight, Mr Mayor, because I think that it would have been good had we been able to get moving on this, on this, because it's been stalled. It's been stalled and stalled and stalled through lots of... It looks benign, the way we ask a question, the way we manoeuvre something around, but it's all been obstructive and purposeful to make it difficult, in my opinion. Anyway, so I'm very disappointed. That was right of reply, and now I will put the amendment. All those in favour of the amendment, please stand.

In favour of the amendment: Councillor Ross, Councillor Garrick, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Bucket — Lyons-Buckett, sorry — and Councillor Calvert. Against is Councillor Cottleash, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Tree, Councillor Richards. Abstained is Councillor Conolly and Councillor Rasmussen, and I declare it carried.

Would you second it? It's the LS, Local Land Services.

Do we have

A seconder? Councillor Wheeler. Councillor

Ross, do you wish

To speak?

Thank you, sir. I would suggest that my colleague, Councillor Rasmussen, would be an ideal person to represent the council and the interests of our local agricultural community in working with Local Land Services, sir.

Indeed he might be, but I might ask the general manager if he might comment on how many people can stand for this position.

I don't believe— sorry, Mr Mayor, I don't believe there's actually a limit, so I think we can put forward more than one candidate, and then the powers that be will select whom they believe might be the most appropriate candidate or candidates.

So the motion— sorry, what we're asking for you now to do is to speak on the motion. Not to necessarily nominate councillors. Does anyone wish to speak on the motion? Because if it gets passed, we will then nominate people. Councillor Zamprogno.

Yes, Nado, a question and seeking some clarification. What the general manager says is intriguing, but doesn't match the wording of the recommendation. It says we should nominate a candidate, and I'm wondering that if we advanced more than one candidate, who would make that decision, and based on what criteria? And in what sense would that decision process be transparent and accountable?

We can only put forward candidates or a candidate, and then the State Government actually selects the membership for the various committees. So there's a central Sydney committee, which is probably the one that we most logically sit within, and we've got the option of not nominating or nominating, but it's Council's call what they want to do.

So my understanding, Councillor Zamprogno, is we can nominate one or more. I think that's what it was saying. That's what General Manager was saying.

Question, just with regard to that. So if more than one councillor was to nominate, is it something that Council would be giving a supporting letter to each candidate, or would we just be giving the Council resolution that we decided that someone could nominate?

General Manager. The applicants will need to... Well, the candidates will need to fill in the nomination forms and outline their suitability for the role. So the role's call for experience in governance and a whole range of other issues, and it's about candidate or candidates that best satisfy those criteria.

Can I just ask, is there anybody else that actually wanted to nominate before we continue with this conversation of adding additional nominees?

No, you can't. We're discussing the motion. If the motion is passed, we will then seek nominations. So is there any more discussion on the motion, Councillor Rasmussen?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor, I think this is worth pursuing for a number of years, to my knowledge, and I've kept a bit of an interest in this part of the State Government's operations, is that the Hawkesbury area has not either had a representative or not been represented or that will, according to my farmer friends. So I think it is worthwhile, if we can finally get to some point, that we do put someone forward, because I think it would be beneficial to the farming and the agricultural community of this area. Whether it's me or someone else is neither here nor there, but I think we should endeavour to get someone on this board.

Councillor Ross has moved the motion. Did you want to clarify the recommendation so that it might read something like that the nomination of representatives to the Local Land Services Board be considered?

Or alternatively, that only one nomination be considered.

Would you like to clarify what it says?

Yes. Judging the climate of the room would suggest that a singular representative might be suggested as appropriate on behalf of, or be offered on behalf of Council to approach the application.

The process will still be that other councillors can nominate here, and we will have to select one. Okay.

Is that what you mean? Okay. Councillor Wheeler, a seconder, are you happy to make that change?

I think we probably need to see a— if we only go through that process, we would probably need to see a timeline.

A timeline for what?

Is the intention that we do that now, that selection process?

I think it is.

We nominate one to put forward.

Due on

Friday.

Can I ask a question first? Do we know if there's an advantage in putting more than one applicant forward, or if there's a disadvantage if we— are we, will we be splitting the vote if we put more than one applicant forward, or will we be advancing Council's chances of getting someone on if we put more than one applicant in? Does anyone know?

General Manager

Do we know the answer to that? I've had no experience with these boards. I can't answer that question.

It seems to me the board is going to select, and I don't see the problem in sending several names and they select. I don't think that splits. But Councillor Ross is moving the motion, and you, Councillor Wheeler, are not happy to second his latest version of it.

I tend to agree with you, Mr Mayor, that we might be better off putting a number of people forward. I do see Councillor Ross's point that we could sort it out ourselves as well. But we're making this decision blind at the moment. We don't know how many candidates we've got. We don't know whether we're about to have a discussion of who those candidates are and who will be the best. So I think perhaps we could settle the motion and then deal with the next bit. I would be more comfortable with that.

The next bit depends on what the motion says. Councillor Ross, your seconder doesn't want to second what you just put up. Your seconder would prefer that your recommendation should be that we nominate a number of

Okay

Thank you. And Councillor Wheeler is happy with that. We have that on the board somewhere. Right. So we all know where we're at.

Thank you. Any further discussion about the motion itself? If not, Councillor Ross, you have right of reply.

I don't think it's necessary.

Yes, well, it's necessary for us now to stand up if we support this motion. In favour of the motion: Councillor Richards, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Ross, Councillor Calvert absent is Councillor Tree and Councillor Conolly.

Declare it carried. Now can I.

All for nominations, please. Councillor Zamprogno.

Mr Mayor, in my current role as Chair of HRCC, I've had the opportunity to see a wider view of biosecurity and weed control related issues, and I think somebody with some expertise in that field would be an advantage. I would like to advance Councillor Kotlash's name as a nominee because her role on the Regional Weeds Committee, as I perceive it, has a significant overlap with the responsibilities that this board position would entail.

Thank you. Councillor Kotlash, are you happy to accept that?

Thank you , Councillor Zamprogno. Yes, I am. Thank you.

Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I nominate Councillor Rasmussen. I think that he has a long history of working in this area, and I think he has probably been on similar committees, not the boards, but on similar committees in the past. I actually read through the requirements, and I think he fits all of them. I looked on the recruitment package, and it was calling for various experience, and I think that he would have all of that experience to do that, should he so wish.

Councillor Rasmussen, you accept that nomination? Any other nominations?

No. Well, we have two nominations, Mr General Manager. We put those two names forward. They will apply through the recruitment process. So yes,

Mr Mayor, we'll need to work with those two candidates to have them complete the relevant documentation so that we can put them forward.

Thank you. Move to item two.

Three three,

Which is

All good.

Yes. Do

We need to vote for those two?

Done. I don't think so. Item 233, I think Councillor Richards had an interest in item 236 Yeah. There weren't any interest in 233, were there?

236. Yeah

Okay, Councillor 233, Councillor Ross, are you moving that?

Correct.

Do we have a seconder? Second that. Councillor Rasmussen and Councillor Ross, you wish to speak.

Thank you. The only reason I wish to speak is that the

History of what has brought this to light and brought this policy to consideration of Council does, I think, warrant some explanation. And I'm a little disappointed that staff have not afforded my fellow councillors that opportunity, so I'm going to have to step in. This is flowing as a result of an internal audit conducted by our contracted internal auditor, Centium, and it was first flagged to the Audit Committee in late, I think, December 2018. It's particularly relevant as a policy area because of the upcoming. Vineyard developments, where we are likely to see a number of separate agreements having to be reached because there is no overall site developer being conducted by one organisation or company or whatever.

So there'll be quite a lot of possible agreements struck in regard to Vineyard potentially. We may also have Jacaranda Ponds and any number of others. So this is something that really does need to be done, and I applaud the staff for having this prepared. I gather it's taken quite a bit of time and probably a lot of effort with the legal eagles in doing so, and I commend it to my fellow councillors.

Thank you. Any further speakers? Councillor Ross, you actually have a right of reply if you want it.

I shall avoid the opportunity, sir.

Well chosen. I'll put the motion, item 2.3.3. All those in favour, please stand. In favour is Councillor Ross, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Richards, Councillor Calvert. Absent is Councillor Kotlash , Councillor Conolly and Councillor Tree. Declare it carried.

Item 2.3.4, on-site sewage management plan.

I'll move that, Mr Mayor.

Moved by Deputy Mayor, seconded by Councillor Wheeler. You wish to speak?

Just briefly, Mr Mayor. I've got no issue with the policy itself. What I'm wondering is, it is an area that creates quite a bit of confusion in the community. And what I'm wondering is if, when it goes out on exhibition, if we can have some sort of explanatory message go with it. We need to get it through to the public how important it is that this is done. And there's always an issue going on with the people who have their biocycle that gets regular, or any of those on-site disposal systems, which they have to pay a contractor to come and inspect, and then they have the council inspection, which is separate. But people don't understand that, and that's correct, isn't it, that they have to have both?

I don't know if we don't have one. So I think that that is one area that I think we just really need to make these things that it says in here about the public health issues and so on, and just make that clear, that even if you have a contractor doing that, which is for the operation of it, that you also have to have a council inspection. The other thing is to point out that the dual occupancy have the double charge for the two, as it says in here. I just think making that clear, it's just something that I see come up time and time again. People say they're charging me $150, but I already pay a man to come every quarter or something like that. So thank you. That was all. Not a problem with the policy itself.

But did you want to add something to the recommendation about this pamphlet or leaflet or whatever you said? If

The staff feel it's necessary for me to put that there, but I'm just thinking that... I'm happy to, but..

General Manager says not necessary.

Not necessary, I don't think.

Any further speakers? Councillor Ross.

Thank you. I'm not at all impressed by this document, and I believe it's inappropriate.

Just moving to the so-called policy document itself, there appear to be changes in terminology or phraseology between pages four and five.

On page five, the question is, who performs the inspection?

Sewage Management Facility Program Coordinator. And when I go over to page four, this person coordinates the day-to-day inspection activities, maintaining budget and ensuring program is on target. So I don't think he'll be out in the field.

So there's some anomalous situation arising there. And then on page five, the next identified role

Is Council's Sewage Management Facility, oh, Technical Officers. Could be more than one.

Now, we don't have any indication as to that title or that office being in the roles and responsibility slots . So we have an anomaly there.

I question that. Then we go to table two.

On-site

Sewage management system risk classification criteria. Now, before we start that, let's have a look. What are we actually inspecting? As I understand it, we would be inspecting all of those 10,000 installations, which could be anything from a private home, a school, a hall, a public lavatory, an aged person's home. All of those matters could be in purview of this type of inspection.

The criteria used here for the basis of risk

Has no indication as to the type of premises that we're talking about. It has no indication as to the level of utilisation of those particular amenities. So, in other words, you've got a school with maybe three or 200 or 400 who knows, all, of course, having the same requirements as everybody else, and, of course, possibly placing demands on those facilities which are way different to a public toilet up at Freeman's Reach or somewhere else where a similar inspection might be required. So, I believe these... These risk criteria are inappropriate. And when I go back to page six, up at the top, applications that require a wastewater report. It says in line two under that area, systems for properties sizes of 4,000 square metres or less. But we look down at the risk criteria, we've got 4,000 square metres or greater.

So we're not even sure what we're inspecting. I just think this needs some more work, please, before we go and put it out, because it's just not going to pass muster.

Thank you, Councillor Kotlash. You wish to speak? Yes,

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I agree with Councillor Ross on this one. It's really, I found it really hard to figure out what it meant. I think it's nearly there. It just, I guess, needs further explanation. I won't go into the details, other than that I won't repeat what Councillor Ross has said. I think it needs to be tightened up a bit. And for the paragraph about dual occupancies, really all it needs to say is for applications for on-site sewage management system where there are more than one system. It doesn't matter if it's a dual occupancy or attached, or it's just about how many systems you have, and I think that's what the Deputy Mayor was alluding to before. It needs to be spelt out that it's about the systems, not about the, you know, whether it's dual occupancy or not.

Yeah, I was— look, I won't go on, I think. Look, it's better than what we've got, I guess, but is there a question, I suppose, is there any scope for another iteration of this document?

Mrs. Perrin?

The option is we defer this, make the changes, bring it back, and then place on exhibition, or we place on exhibition and make the changes as a result of the exhibition process. But

Thank you. I actually knew that and I'd got ahead of myself. Thank you.

So the choice is you could move an amendment now to defer it, or you can wait till it comes back and speak at that point. So you'd rather wait till it comes back?

I think that— I'm assuming that there will be some submissions. If by chance there's not, I guess the recommendation might read that it comes back to council irrespective of that. Sorry, I'll just get the page.

Yes, it will come back.

Yeah. It just says in point 3 of the recommendation on page 78 that in the event that no public submissions are received, so could we maybe just take that out? That's not necessary in an amendment. Who moved it?

So—

Do you want to take that out? Take the line, ‘in the event that no public submissions are received.’ Sorry, Mr Mayor, having conversations across the chamber.

I think it still comes back to council anyway. Mrs. Perrin, I'll ask you.

Yes. No, we can amend recommendation 3. So following the public exhibition, we'll report back to council.

Right. And, Councillor Wheeler, you're also happy with it? Right. We have that changed. Mr Mifsud? Right, it's been changed. Councillor Ross.

I propose an amendment to that.

Okay.

I would seek deferral and improvement to the draft before we send it out, in view of the fact that this is an area which is going to draw public attention, as we would like it to, and for not to put out the best understanding we have of what is going to actually occur in the field is not

Professional .

You're moving an amendment that we defer. Do we have a seconder for that?

No seconder, Councillor Ross, I'm afraid. So your amendment lapses. We go back to the motion as it lapses here. Go back to the motion as it

Now appears on the board. Are we happy with what's on the board?

Deputy Mayor, is that— Yes.

Okay. Any further discussion on that?

If not, Deputy Mayor, do you want your right of reply?

Not necessary.

In that case, I'll put the motion. If you're in favour of this motion, please stand. In favour of the motion: Councillor Richards, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Rasmussen, and Councillor Calvert. Against is Councillor Ross. Absent is Councillor Conolly and Councillor Tree. Declare it carried.

Move to item 2.3.5. Do we have someone to move that or something on that? 2 .3. I'll move that, Mr Mayor. Councillor Rasmussen. Do we have a seconder? Councillor Garrow. Councillor Rasmussen, you wish to speak? Yeah

I do actually, Mr Mayor, because I think there's quite a lot at stake here for Council, in my view. Having sat through a lengthy discussion at the Internal Audit Committee recently and looked at the analysis that the staff provided at that meeting, and I must admit I do have to thank the staff for putting in quite a bit of effort, because if you read through the framework, there is actually quite a lot in it, and trying to interrelate all the bits and pieces that are proposed is quite a difficult task. Let me say up front, though, this is going to be quite a significant change to how systems operate at the moment.

My estimate, or my feeling is, that community members probably will not want to nominate for the Internal Audit Committee. Some of them may, because they've got the so-called criteria qualifications which the State Government has now put forward. And if you look at those criteria, they're quite onerous. And normally, the people who would have those qualifications would be people working in the profession. And because of that, and that's a panel of state-approved internal auditors who can nominate, or who can nominate if they wish to, and they will also get paid.

So there is quite a financial impost burden on council ratepayers as a result of this, if it gets through, and I'm sure it will, because the government is determined to force it through, I think. So there's going to be quite a financial impost. And I estimate, and staff have given me some guidance on this, that we're looking at around about the 50, maybe more, thousand dollars per annum to take on this additional task . And furthermore , community members may or may not pre-qualify on the conditions that the government has set up for the panel. They may not get onto the panel. And also, councillors are not welcome on the committee either. So there's going to be quite a big change. And furthermore, it also requires a quality assurance system to be set up.

Now I don't know how many of you had anything to do with quality assurance systems, but I've set up quite a few of them in very large organisations , and they are not cheap to do. There's quite a lot in it. Now the general manager says we're on the pathway to do that, and that's great to hear. However, there is quite a significant cost impost, that is dollars, as well as staff. Effort. Now, we're obviously going to have to appoint someone to deal with this. There is a chief audit officer who, again , is a staff member but is responsible to the audit committee. Anyway, it goes on and on and on. There is quite a bit in this, and I think it's worthy for councillors to understand that yet here again, we've got a shift from state to local government and the cost impost that that gives us.

We did that when the Auditor General took over the role of internal and external audits, and we're doing it, and that cost us about $100, 000. We're doing it yet again with this system. So these dollars and cents really could be much better spent, I believe, on our fire services, for instance, or any other community benefit that the ratepayers give us money to deal with. So, Mr Mayor, I don't think that we can do much about it because I think the government is hell-bent on shifting the cost onto the ratepayers. But I think we just need to be aware that the staff will have quite an impost and a burden to deal with this. And , yeah, the internal audit committee with councillors and community members may well be a thing of the past.

Now, will that be better? Will there be $50,000-plus better value given to that committee? Not sure. Time will tell, I guess. But, yeah, councillors, you should just be aware of it and have a good read of it because it is quite important for this council.

Further speakers? No further speakers. Councillor Ross.

Thank you, Mayor.

This potentially is the end of local government as we know it. And

The reason I say that is that

The independent panel being suggested to be members of this committee are somewhat parallel to the local planning panels.

All care, no responsibility, and there's also no provision for any local or community involvement at any stage in this process. It also excludes elected councillors.

Where is the local knowledge and continuity of understanding of the area, or even regard for the area? It's going to be a tick-the-box job. And if you look at the external auditor general, they have very little knowledge about local government.

The numbers that they look at and the— Perception they have is more aligned to state government instrumentalities like Transport for New South Wales or Department of Education or whatever it might be,

Dealing in substantially bigger numbers on an individual assessment, if you like. So therefore, a council the size of Hawkesbury doesn't , if you like, rate in the game plan as far as being of any significance, just become an also-ran. The removal of the community involvement is

Quite astounding as a situation, and it points to a quite schizophrenic approach by government. I mean, two months ago we were down at the national conference where there was an agreement reached between the state government and local government to say, Oh well, we're going to be buddy buddies and we're going to work and collaborate together and we're all good souls and we've got a life together. And here we go, we're undermining it, and we just see this all the time.

Contradictory actions by the state government in whatever field. You know, one minute the planning's doing something, the next minute it counteracts it or alters something or does this or does that. Transport for New South Wales is no better. Hopeless. The Office of Local Government is a hopeless instrumentality. The state government has defunded. All of the regulatory agencies in the most recent state budget. So that's another sign, you know. We don't want to know about anything of a regulatory nature.

Wait till we get out of office and somebody gets bitten, and the next government can pick up the pieces, you know. It's like this bit in building business. Totally, totally akin to that. I'm very much opposed to this. I do endorse the recommendations of staff. I'd just like to suggest two things. The first is that on the second last point on page 83, that after the word plans, three words be added, and they are scope of assignments.

And I would also like to suggest a further point , noting that there is no community representation provided for in the panel suggestion.

Councillor Rasmussen, are you happy to make those changes? Yes, I am. And Councillor Garrow? Yes. I might ask General Manager, are those changes possible?