18 February 2020 - Extraordinary

Extraordinary meeting of the 18th of February 2020. I'd like to firstly acknowledge the traditional custodians of this land, the Dharug people, pay respects to Elders both past and present. I'll now hand over to the General Manager to run through some procedural matters.

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. The recordings are made to assist staff in compiling the minutes of the meeting and to enable the podcasting of Council meetings. The provision of any information that is recorded is voluntary.

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

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Thank you, Mr.

Honourable. I would like to add that I would like to remind all councillors of the importance of the accurate and complete recording of all speakers at the meeting, and ask that prior to speaking, councillors please turn on their microphones and speak clearly into the microphones. Do we have any apologies, please? Councillor Rasmussen. Councillor Rasmussen. Someone like to move we accept the apologies? Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, all those in favour say aye. Declarations of interest, do we have any please? Councillor Richards.

Item three and item four. Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Three and four.

Any others, Deputy Mayor?

Item three, Mr Mayor.

Councillor Reynolds. Item three, Mr Mayor. Councillor Conolly. Item five Five

Is that it?

So you will all have to fill in a yellow form and remind me when the item comes up, because there's so many of you. Okay.

The minutes of the last meeting. Would someone like to move we accept the minutes? Moved, Mr. Mayor. Deputy Mayor, Councillor Garrow. All those in favour say aye. Declared carried.

I believe, Deputy Mayor, you wanted to move something at this

Stage. Yes, please, Mr Mayor. I'd like to move a procedural motion to change the order of business for tonight's meeting and move item 20 on behalf of Councillor Rasmussen, who isn't here, which is notice of motion 2 to the beginning of the meeting. The proposal to do this is in recognition of the significant loss of life that has occurred as a result of the bushfires that have burned right across this nation.

Do we have a seconder for that? Councillor Wheeler. All those in favour say aye. Aye. Carried. Councillor Lyons-Buckett, do you wish to speak on the matter?

Just briefly, Mr Mayor, I move this motion in Councillor Rasmussen's absence, and it has an additional point which is the same as the point as the items in the business paper, with an additional point leading in at point one, that Council acknowledge the loss of human life during the course of the current bushfire season, with the passing of a total of 33 people. Then with points two to four being the same as in the business paper. I think it's reasonably self-explanatory, and I know that we have all seen the tragedy of the loss of life during the fire crisis and on a— is there a problem?

No. Problem. They're just lining out who can speak and who can't on this matter.

Oh, okay, on a procedural. Okay, thank you. Obviously, the presence of the air fighter tankers in our local area, being stationed at Richmond RAAF, we all have been noticing them coming and going, and to know that one headed off to fight a fire south of Canberra and not come back was incredibly heartbreaking. And to the family of those men who had come from the United States to help us fight our fires, and to the Coulson Aviation family, we express our sincerest sympathy, as well as to the loss of both community members and RFS volunteers whose lives were lost in the fires that have just recently passed. On that account, this motion calls for Council to express its condolences and gratitude for the service via letter to the families of the men who lost their lives in our community, who were living and working out of our community.

And who were here protecting us and our properties, and to express and extend that condolence also to Colson Aviation, who provide the air tankers to our community. The fourth point is to observe a minute's silence in recognition of the tragic loss of life that has occurred, and I would call on you, Mr Mayor, to implement that. Thank you.

Thank you. Yes, sorry to interrupt. I was looking to see whether that was the procedural motion or not, but we've had the procedural motion, which was to move it. We're now looking at this motion. Do we have a seconder? Councillor Wheeler, are you seconding this? Any further speakers on the motion? Nope. Can I just add to what the Deputy Mayor has said that I think the community is extremely grateful for the work that was done over this season, and there are several other motions coming up about the bushfires, and I think we'll all going to be talking at that stage as well. So I thank Councillor Rasmussen for putting this up in the first place. It's unfortunate that he can't be here, and I thank the Deputy Mayor for now taking it on as her notice of motion. There are no further speakers. Deputy Mayor, would you like right of

Reply?

Not really , Mr Mayor, except to say that I know it was a particular

Issue with Councillor Rasmussen's history with the RFS. I know it was of particular significance for him, and I know that he would very strongly wish to pass on his condolences. Okay,

Thank you. So we're now going to vote on this, which means all those in favour please stand.

In favour of the motion, Councillor Ross, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Wheeler, the Deputy Mayor, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Tree, Councillor Richards, Councillor Calvert. Absent is Councillor Rasmussen, and I declare it carried. And while you're standing, I might now exercise point four and ask everyone if they join us for one minute silence to remember those people who died during the fire season. Thank you.

Thank you

Very much.

Councillor Richards, I think you wanted to move something at this stage. Yes,

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I was wondering if we could move a motion to bring forward, possibly while we're on the topic of addressing the bushfires, and it has been such a considerable amount of time since our last council meeting, to now come and talk about what's happened in our community since that time, bringing forward the notices of motion that are related to the bushfire crisis.

So you'd like to move your notice of motion, which is number 22?

Item number 22, please.

To now, and that would make sense because that puts it before the mayoral minute as well. Do we have a seconder for that? Councillor Conolly, anyone wish to speak against that? No. I'll put the motion. All those in favour, please say aye. Those against, declare it carried. So we've moved item notice of motion 2— no

Sorry, 4, which is item 22, up to this point, and I believe we had some speakers who wanted to speak on this item. Those speakers, I hope they're happy to speak now. Those

Speakers were firstly Lionel Buckett. Lionel here? Thank you. Thank you

Mr Mayor.

I'd like to say I'm from Bilpin and surrounds in the fires, and It

Was uplifting to see the mayor turn up at Bilpin Hall while the fires were still going. And the other person I would like to thank is Councillor Richards for the Back to Bilpin campaign. And most of that effort was done by her. Myself and Mike Spurling were assisting, but we really didn't have the energy to do too much of that work. And all of the businesses in the Bilpin area benefited enormously from that campaign.

So I haven't had time to look through further things, but those are the two things in my mind that I think should be very much appreciated and recognised.

Would you be happy if people asked you questions? That's fine. Any questions? Doesn't look like it. Thank you, Mr Bucket. Second speaker is Margaret Tadros.

Thank you, Mayor. My name is Margaret Tadrosse. My husband Simon and I own the Bilpin Fruit Bowl, and we have done for the last 35 years. The fire impacted our place on Saturday 21st of December. We lost probably about 40% of our farm, our trees, our netting, up to about $3 million worth of infrastructure. We're finding it very hard to get grants. When we find a grant that we're allowed to get, we find out that we're not eligible under some small criteria. We need the government, Council, everyone to start helping us in finding a way that we can come back from this. We've had a lot of damage. Well, people have been coming back, which is great. The back to Buildon campaign's been fantastic. But we need to look at the long term for the council to publicise Bilpin and promote it as far as the tourism side goes.

Not just now in the short term, but in the long term as well. I personally would like to see some leniency in subdivisions in the Bilpin area. Some people need financial aid now to get back on their feet, and the only way they can do it is if they can subdivide their properties now. We lost a lot of our water, and we were promised the water. We never got it, but now it's rained, it's all okay. Just more to our point is we would like to see some kind of help from council, federal, state. We've received nothing at all.

Thank you. Thank you. You happy to answer questions? Yep . Councillor Wheeler's got a question.

Mrs Tedros, what's the sticking point with the grants? Where do you get to when you—

I've got two businesses at the fruit bowl. I've got the pick-your-own farm, and I've got the shop. The farm was impacted. The shop was not impacted. Right. So the shop has to— the part that was impacted has to earn more than 50% of the income. That doesn't happen in our situation. So, and for us to come back from the loss of trees and loss of income from the farm, it's a seven-year wait now. We can't get trees for three years. And you

Lost a lot of your netting as

Well. We lost a substantial amount of netting. We got a quote two weeks ago. It was two and a half million dollars just for the netting. We lost 6,000 apple trees. At $30 a tree, $180,000. Seven kilometres of irrigation, seven kilometres of trellising. So we're very close to $3 million in infrastructure damage.

And is there funding to help you recover from any of that? Well

There was the $75,000 which we were not eligible for, and we're just waiting now to see if the Apple and Pear Association can lobby the government enough to assist us in giving us grants to redo the netting. Without that, this isn't something we did overnight. This is a netting we've done over 35 years. And

How

Long would it take for those trees and that area to recover again? Four years. After we get the trees. So it's a three-year wait, then four years for the trees to bear fruit.

So seven years.

Seven years minimum

Because you can produce from that site, that spot again. Yep.

Thank you.

Thank you. Any more questions? Councillor Ross Good

Evening, Madam.

Some weeks ago, I believe members of the federal government were down in the Batlow area.

Was there any particular announcements—were there any particular announcements, shall I say, made at that time which would help your industry or be appropriate for Bilpin ?

In the microphone.

No announcements were made. They keep saying they're going to do something, but nothing is done.

My next question would be, are you or your fellow horticulturalists in touch with the— Who are the culturalists in that area to try and combine your forces in any way as a lobby?

The DPI have been in contact with us a few times. Apple and Pear Association have done reports. They keep coming back with their statistics, but nothing concrete has been set to say, okay, this is what we're going to do for you. And we were the worst impact farm in the Bilpin district.

Thank you, ma'am. I'm sorry.

Thank you. No further questions. Thank you, Margaret. Thank you. Third speaker is Sue Guymer.

Good evening, everyone. Today I come here with mixed feelings, and I come here very conflicted. As many of you know, I've spoke out against RFS policies, land management policies now for 25 years. Since 1997, when I first witnessed on a thousand acres of private land what you all witnessed this time around. I was shooting then animals for three weeks. Some of the issues that we had, and where I feel very mixed and conflicted, is there's a lot of praise for the RFS, and granted there should be. There's some legends out there. But for us out at Colo, the mixed feelings and confliction come from all of the property loss at Colo came from RFS backburns gone wrong. That's where they came from. Backburns that the local community, with knowledge.

Two days ahead, advised for those burns not to happen in the predicted conditions. And they did. They went ahead, even with that local knowledge. I know that Billpin suffered that as well. So it's not a fire front and a disaster wildfire that got us. What got us was poor logistics and planning with the RFS. And it needs to be recognised and put on the table, especially if you want these communities to heal. It needs to be acknowledged. It's not just about praising those. There's another reason I feel conflicted standing here today with RFS, and there's some legends, and you want some names, I'll give you a name of a legend, which is Paul Bryan up at Colo. All right, there's a name for you. A couple of other names: Clint Smart, Hawkesbury Cat 1, Hawkesbury Headquarters Cat 1, legend.

Monty, Lower Portland. There's another legend for you. Those guys put in an 800 metre breakaway line that pulled Gospers Mountain up where I live. All right? But not through hazards thrown in the way because of other RFS. And I hate to inform you, but at 3 a. m. off the Federal Government satellite geoscience site, I picked up a hot spot at 3 a. m. I attended that hot spot with my neighbour, who I would put up him and his elderly father for seven days. I went down. The only people there were two RFS people on foot. Police were accord from that RFS worker trying to cover his own arse, trying to throw me under the bus. What he didn't know was all the pre-meetings, all the planning, and the fact that me and my neighbour were in charge of those lands.

And had liaised right up until 11 o'clock, three hours, four hours earlier. It was what he also didn't realise was I have a dashcam in my car, which caught everything. So that's in the hands with detectives. That'll probably get passed to RFS. Because image is important and media seems to be more important than letting my workers come through to help me on hoses, it'll probably get swept under the carpet. But you need to consider these things that have happened in the community when you want to go up and praise the RFS. And like I said, I feel extremely mixed. There's some guys there that are bloody legends, but there's these other issues too that have cost people in the Hawkesbury. Pretty much most of the people losses in the Hawkesbury are at the hands of the RFS.

That's sad. It makes it very hard for those people to praise people that should be praised. Anyway, I just wanted you to consider those things when you're considering these other things here. Yeah, that's about it.

Thank you, sir. Are you happy to answer questions? Any questions? Councillor Wheeler. Thanks

Mr Mayor. Ms Goma, how's your community doing? Colo was hit hard and for a long time. Yeah, I agree. And now you've been hit by flood. It's—

Well, it brings me to another point, you know, like I read the rest of this document, look at the size of it. I'm exhausted between fires and floods, not to mention just trying to maintain my own property, fix damage, you know, and do all that, and then try to work to continue paying the bills. And then you want to put policies, all of these policies, you know, this thick before us right now that are important land management and planning policies. Like I understand that a lot of these things, like the draft LSPS, when that was on public submission, we were waiting for a fire front come down on us. We got hit first. Who had the time for a 110-page document, let alone come in here and do a submission?

Now that document was written before this disaster. But one of the land management policies in there, or priorities, is national parks and state forests to stay in their natural condition for another 20 years. Well, we've been doing that since 1979 and the EP&A Act been established, right? We've had '94 fires, we've had 2001 fires. You guys, through these land management policies, we used to—my father was the president of the Australian Forestry Commission. We had 1,000 acres that I grew up on. That's now 17. Titles been spread out. Craig Burley bought one of those blocks of land. Now my land's fully encompassed west, east, north by Komal Roy State Forest. It was last burnt in 2001. So you want to create 20 years' worth of fuels in front of me, and then through the RFS and the Rural Fire— the Rural Fire Act, you want to then create land management policies under the PPP that restrict me as a property owner in managing hazard reduction burns on my own land for 10 years.

Then you want to allow me to clear 10 metres, and then you want to tell me, save my house. It's got to stop. So I think what we need to do, and I know you're under pressure, state government, we need these policies by this date, blah, blah, blah. It was written before this disaster. Let's just pull back. Let's just take a breath. Let's let our community recover . Let them get back to some kind of normality. Give them the time to look at these documents and assess them because they matter to the biggest asset in their life. You know, you guys are telling us what we can and can't do with our land, and it's threatening our life. That goes against your strategic plan. All I'm saying is, should we be pushing these three things through now, or should we be requesting the state government give us a bit of a repeat?

Not just for us. These are regional state plans going to every council. Everyone in this state should be given the opportunity to get their life back sorted, give them that healing time, and then give them the time to look at these documents properly, and then let us assess them properly. That's what I would like to see. I asked Nathan to try to see if we could get, you know, a stall on the draft LSPS that's going to be a regional state planning document, which all other documents, land management documents, are going to be under the umbrella of that. They're going to be amended to suit that document. This community needs the time to look at that. It should not be pushed through just because state government gives it a date.

You work for us. The Constitution states that the Commonwealth, two words, public assets and public services were given to the people. We pay bureaucrats to manage that on behalf, and we elect you people to oversee that management. It doesn't mean you have to go along with what they say. If the state government is saying something that's wrong for this area, especially given that 70 percent of it's national parks and wildlife, if something's wrong with that for the people and the businesses and the safety and welfare of everything here in the Hawkesbury, it's your role to tell them that. You're not there to work for them. You're there to work for us, and I'm not seeing that out of council and any of the policies, and I'd like to see that.

Thank you, Ms. Gleman.

Thank you very much. That was the last speaker on this matter. Councillor Richards, would you like to speak on? Yeah,

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'd like to thank Lionel, Margaret and Sue for coming here today and addressing the council. As three people who have significantly been impacted by the fires throughout this time in different necks of the woods, I thank you very much for sharing your experiences. And thank you, Sue, for being honest and raw because sometimes I think that it's, you know, good for elected bodies like ourselves and for the packed house we have here tonight in the chamber to hear those raw emotions. So I know it's difficult, but thank you. I think a word that Sue said in that, in the speech she just gave actually is one word that does ring true for our whole community right now. And since penning this notice of motion a little while ago, it's obvious to all of us that we've also had the floods since as well.

And I think the one word that Sue used that sums it up is exhausted. Our community is utterly exhausted right now. Not just those who live in the areas that have been impacted, but all of our volunteers, whether it is RFS, which this notice of motion specifically is written for, but also since then the SES, our emergency services, any of the military people who assisted on the ground, and of course average Joes like all of us who also decided to pitch in and help out. The whole intent and purpose of this motion was to provide anyone in the community who wanted to come up and share their story that option. It was put on the business paper tonight to allow any councillors who wanted to give specific notes of thanks to those who have worked hard and given up so much time and so much of their family time, especially over what is traditionally a holiday period.

So this notice of motion gives that opportunity. It's an expression to acknowledge that there were lives lost and that one minute silence that we all did unanimously was a great reflection of how we feel as a council for the properties destroyed, not just the homes but also the businesses that have been impacted. And thank you, Margaret, for sharing that, as well as what's happening to your business. And there's clearly a long way to go in this, multiple tiers of government involved, a lot of money that's been donated across the board, whether it is to multiple different charities, local, national or state charities, and that money's got to get on the ground. And I think we all can appreciate that, and we've all got so many lessons that we have to learn from this experience on how to treat people on the ground, grassroots, as soon as we can when these sorts of disasters hit.

Undoubtedly, there's been severe wildlife casualties in all of this, and I think thanking the national parks and wildlife employees and the volunteers as well in taking care of our wildlife has been significant and has been beautiful to see that caring side of humanity come forward. So there is no doubt that our community has suffered. Severely and been impacted hard throughout these fire and now flood situations. There's been some heartbreaking stories, lives turned upside down, and I know that all of us here in this chamber, in our own little ways, have been committed to ensuring that we do our very best and help people wherever we can. So this notice of motion tonight, while you've probably read it all, I won't go into detail about it again, but it's to thank every volunteer firefighter who hugged their loved ones goodbyes as they walked out the door and left for a shift unsure of what lay ahead.

It's for every child who hugged their parent or for every older parent who hugged their adult child and left for the day or the night to put other people first. It's for every volunteer who rose at 4 a.m. to head down to Wilberforce HQ and packed 200 to 300 eskies a day, multiple times a day, cooking breakfast, lunch and dinners for our tireless volunteers. And for every community member who donated goods or services to our local RFS sheds. And there's been some fantastic stories of people, fantastic Hawkesbury community spirit in this area, who gathered together, acquired goods through donations, and sent them out logistically to the different RFS headquarters. And to see all that on social media was fantastic.

So this notice of motion is intended for anyone who wants to give thanks in any way. And thank you, Lionel, for where you are, for all of your help throughout the last few weeks and the things that we've—projects we've worked on together. It's been significant to see those results and just to know that there's good, decent people out there in the Hawkesbury. Thank you very much, and hopefully moving forward, in whatever we decide to do as a council or as individuals. That this is our time to heal. So thank you very much.

Thank you, Councillor Richards. Any further speakers?

Nope.

Would you like right of reply, Councillor Richards? No. In that case, we'll put the motion. If you're in favour of this motion, please stand.

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

Mr Mayor.

Yes.

Would it be possible for me to bring forward the other bushfire-related item 23, Notice of Motion 5?

Yes, that's possible if you'd like to put that up. Do we have a seconder for that? Councillor Wheeler.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr Mayor, and I don't think it will take up a huge amount of time, but I would like the community to be aware of it. This notice of motion relates to, it's to update the councillors and community and to pass something into the council system from a roundtable discussion that I attended at Parliament House, which was hosted by the organisation called BizRebuild, which is chaired by Sir Peter Cosgrove, and it is the membership made up of the Business Council of Australia. It was an incredibly interesting exercise, and I think that it may be possible to be assisting people like Mrs. Tabrossi, who said that they're falling through the cracks with the grants; they're not eligible for that.

And in hearing that, that was a thing I heard a lot from the people up in northern New South Wales about the fires, because of the drought, they weren't being eligible for any of the reaching the 50 percent of the income off their farm because, of course, the droughts were so affected. They had people off-site working, and they've been unable to access those grants as well. So I think this is another arm of recovery that is a little bit outside of the government sphere. It's made up of the 125 biggest businesses in Australia, and they are really willing to help, and they have a lot of money to help. And they basically want people to approach them with the information of what's been lost from within the community through the fires, and the aim is to re-equip, retool and get people operational again so that they can be involved in the rebuilding of our community, so that we use local contractors.

We want these contractors working so they can be a part of the recovery plan. And at this meeting, Senator Molan was was very, very staunch in saying that people need to be in the system. If they're not in the system, they're not going to get the degree of support that they may need. So if they're in the system through Services New South Wales, where you register, that will be trying to pair up the needs of people with the available resources. So just a couple of examples of what they had already done, this organisation in the Batemans Bay area, they had already re-equipped and retooled a stair maker who could then get back to work and start helping people on the houses that were being rebuilt.

So the reason I've brought this into council is because obviously I don't have access to that information, and the community is going to have to help us by providing us with that information. And so council obviously will have a mechanism to compile that. But the overriding sentiment of everybody at that roundtable was that the recovery, the speed of recovery, is so important. We can't sit around waiting and waiting and waiting for various applications to be processed and so on. The business council has a lot of money. There was a group there, the Group of Seven, which of course includes Channel Seven and Caterpillar and Coates Hire and people like that. And they actually have equipment that they can give people to assist in cleanups.

So this is merely a mechanism to get people into the system so that we can assist people get that level of help, because they can access the platform that's been built that says where someone's got something available, a resource that the community can use. And we really must be forthright in getting out there and insisting that we get this help for our people. Another issue, and that was also raised, Sue Gaima just raised that, and that's the exhaustion that people are feeling. People have been through a very stressed situation, stressful situation. And of course they're exhausted, they're worn down, and it's not the best state to be making decisions for your future when you're under such pressure and you're merely trying to exist and clean up your properties.

And so the Business Council of Australia was offering the provision of experts to assist people in the areas of accounting, in the areas of business planning, etc. So these are all things that can be accessed through this program. So I wanted the community to be aware of this, and it will now go to Council for, I expect, an officer to be able to compile this list and pass it on as soon as possible so that we can actually start accessing some of this big business money, I guess you would call it. So it will be a good thing for our community if we can get people re-equipped and retooled at the earliest time. And the general condition of it was that those people are involved in regenerating the local economy, which is of course our utmost priority in our areas as well as the welfare of our community in those areas.

Thank you. Thank you, Deputy Mayor, and thank you for representing me at that meeting. I think it was the same day as our Colo Heights recovery meeting. I'm glad you were able to go, and thank you for that detailed report and recommendation of action. I think it's very good. Do we have any other speakers? Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I think the Deputy Mayor has highlighted a number of key things here, and one is that people really need to be in the system. And sometimes that's very difficult for when people are traumatised, when they've lost a great deal. I spoke to one woman who had no idea that she had to register with Services New South Wales, and that was going to be quite difficult for her because she lives an hour and a half from Windsor and her computer had melted in the fire. So getting on to Services New South Wales was not something that was easy for her to do. It wasn't even on her radar. And I think Council has a responsibility to provide some outreach for people. We've tried to do that with community meetings.

As we heard from Ms Geimer, there are some members of the community who really feel quite disenfranchised, I think, by what's happened, particularly at Colo. So they're not coming to these community meetings, and that isolates them further. And it becomes a really difficult and actually eventually a very dangerous catch-22 for these people that I think council has to step in and act on. And I think the only way for us to do that is with some serious outreach where if we need to send people in to knock on doors, then I think that's what we're going to have to do. We need to allocate staff to this. We need to, and often people, I know that the state government and the federal government have talked a great deal about having case managers in place, but that doesn't happen until we've got people into the system.

And so we are either going to have to seek additional help from the other levels of government to get that outreach in place, to get those people into the system, or we're going to have to do it ourselves. And I think the time has come to do it ourselves. Colo and St Albans were impacted in October. It's now the middle of February. So, and people are still lacking in assistance. So I think we simply have to move on and break that gap. And I think once people have attempted to access something a couple of times and it hasn't worked for whatever reason, they give up. And so they need additional support then, particularly when they're exhausted and they're really mentally traumatised, then they need someone to step in and be their advocate.

And I think that's a worthy role for council. I think we need to use very agile forms of help at this point, and often bureaucracies are not particularly agile. So where we have offers from people like the Business Council, but we have offers from other councils, where we have offers from groups outside the, people are desperate to help. People who were only impacted by smoke are desperate to lend a hand to areas like ours, and we need to take them up on those offers. There is nothing wrong with taking people's help. There is a lot wrong with refusing it and being stoic and letting someone go without because we think we can carry the load ourselves. And I think often those, many of those processes that are not tied up in bureaucracy and the grants process and all of those things are often much easier to get on the ground.

What we do need to do overall is make sure that Bilpin, Colo and St Albans, the areas that were hardest hit by the fires, aren't lost in the magnitude of the disaster. So we've seen lots of footage of Mallacoota and the South Coast, and in those areas, the magnitude of this disaster is incredibly difficult to get your head around. My husband's family are from Conjola, and he's just come back from down there with his mother, and it's just, it's a moonscape. It's incredibly difficult. But that doesn't make it any less difficult for the people that we have here who have lost everything as well. And we need to make sure that we fight as hard for them as the people down on the South Coast and in parts of Victoria.

Thank you. Any further speakers?

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

Not necessary. Thank you.

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

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

Next item is the...

There or minute, and we have one speaker on the matter, that is Mr Michael Want. Mr Mayor, sorry. Yes, sorry. I was going to ask, should we, given that we've moved all the other notices of motion related to the fires, should we just move Notice of Motion 1 and Notice of Motion 6 to be considered next, given that they also relate to the bushfires?

Are you putting that up?

Yes

Do we have a seconder for that?

Well, I was going to make a similar point, Mr Mayor, that we just move all the notices of motion, which would also include Notice of Motion 3, and get them all done.

Notice of motion — we're doing bushfire-related motions, so you could move that if you want, but that's why we moved the others. Okay. So Councillor Conolly is looking to move Notice of Motion 1 and 6. 6. Do we have a seconder for that? Councillor Tree, does anyone wish to speak against that? No. I'll put it. All those in favour say aye. Aye. Declare it carried. Notice of Motion 1, do we have any speakers on these? No . Notice of Motion 1 is—

I'll move it, Mr Mayor.

Moved by— I thought it was Councillor Wheeler's.

No, it's a joint one. It's a joint.

So who's moving? The Deputy Mayor is moving, Councillor Wheeler is seconding. Deputy Mayor, you wish to speak on that? Yes

Thank you, Mr Mayor.

As we know, we all councils have been directed by the state government to prepare their LEP and their review and prepare an LSPS, which is a local strategic planning statement. Of the Greater Western Sydney councils, all but two were given funding to assist with this project, and the two that missed out were the Hawkesbury and Blue Mountains councils. Now, we are both councils that have been impacted by fire and flood, and I think that we all agree that we have quite a few anomalies within our planning system that need to be addressed. I do take on board what Ms Gymer said about enabling our community to contribute to their opinions on something like the local strategic planning statement. I do think it's really important, given that it's a visionary document , that we really should enable everybody to be able to put their case forward, and there will be further opportunities for that.

However, this is a request for the government to also deliver, and to call on Blue Mountains to join us in this call, to deliver us the funding that other councils were given so that we can move forward with repairing our planning documents. I was looking through them the other day, and I noticed that there are certain zones that we don't have here, such as the SP3 tourist zone, which I think could be well applied, particularly in light of what a growing burgeoning tourist industry we have. There are other various anomalies that were not translated into our previous LEP, but that we really need to look where we're going into the future, and I think it's very important that we do this. And without the resources, I think that we're being held back a bit, that we should be able to— Have our planning documents in a good state because we're now faced with a whole lot of people who want to rebuild after fire and flood, and I'm just looking forward to us getting them done in a state that gives clear, concise and certain information to our population into the future.

I did have some questions for Ms Perrin, but I'll have to find them, so I'll just do that.

Councillor Kotlash.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Yes, I'm speaking for this notice of motion. One thing I did want to clarify, though, is that if we did, if we were so lucky to get this extra funding,

I would expect that we wouldn't be obliged to have our planning documents done in a hurry, like was the expectations of the councils that got funding. So would there be an expectation that we would have to bring our planning forward?

Ms Perrin.

No, we're not identified as a fast-track council, so we would not be obliged to bring it forward. Thank you. In that

Case, let's go for it if we can.

Can we have no calling up from the audience, please? Any further speakers on the matter?

Councillor Wheelo.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I think this notice of motion highlights the fact that we have major planning challenges in the Hawkesbury that don't just affect views or housing styles or property values. Our planning challenges affect people's safety, particularly with respect to fire and flood. And I think it's pretty rich of the state government to deny the two smallest councils in the pool of councils that are being asked to rewrite the planning documents any funding, given that we have the least ability to rewrite those documents to begin with, because it means that we have to take staff off routine planning matters in order to rewrite those documents. It also then interferes with our ability to process planning documents, but it also has a significant impost in terms of how we consult with the community, because we're trying to get more blood out of the same stone all the time, and it's increasingly difficult.

We have done all the efficiency modifications that the state government has required. We are now running with as little fat in the system as we possibly have, and yet we're constantly being asked to do more and more, and it's becoming increasingly unreasonable. I hope that the Blue Mountains join us in this. They have the same constraints as we do with respect to fire. They have the same access issues with respect to fire. They have similar issues around tourism and business. And so if the state government is as serious in supporting communities as it has said it is over the fires, then it really needs to put some money where its mouth is. They're the ones with the big coffers. We're not. If they want us to do this strategic planning and the long-term planning for the future residents of the Hawkesbury, dealing with ongoing fires and floods that are increasing in intensity, with increasing urban heat, and with increasing development pressure on the outskirts of Sydney, then they really need to support us in providing a decent quality of life for the people who live here.

Thank you. Councillor Rossi, you wish to speak?

Yes, I'm just concerned by the comments from the speaker earlier from the public. I'm wondering if the mover of this notice of motion might give some thought, please, to including as an additional point some form of either a one year or a two year deferment to the submission of these documents be that we make representations to the Minister for Planning in that regard and seek possible support from Blue Mountains. The reason, I think, that was offered by the community person are valid. I'm also greatly concerned

That council resources are going to be stretched just to get roads back together again, let alone anything else.

There appears to be years of toil and trouble ahead even to get that sorted out on the unsealed sections of our roads.

Now, I would put a caveat on that. It comes up later in the meeting in regard to the LEP. I believe there has got to be some attempt by this council to facilitate the ecotourism element and any other element which will... Facilitate

Correct business activities which we are seeking to incorporate in the LEP that aren't there.

And the justification for that, of course, is the absolute devastation we've had both from fire and flood. And if we can negotiate our way through this, and I think it will certainly require negotiation, I would implore the mover to consider the relevant amendments, please.

Thank you. Deputy Mayor, are you happy to consider that?

I don't know that I am. Was it a time frame, Councillor Ross?

That is part one, please, Deputy.

And what were the others?

The other is, for instance, and this may not be the sole one, certainly ecotourism, I believe, is—

Councillor Ross, there's three of us in here have a conflict in that item that's on later, and I wouldn't put it in here specifically because this is a call for funding. Not that I disagree with it, I don't, but it's a call for funding to enable us. If we get the funding, I would imagine we'd then have a number of parameters specifically dedicated to that type of thing. And I don't think us putting a timeline would have any particular relevance with the state government at the moment. I think if we could get the funding, then we would have more resources to prepare the work to enable us to expedite it in that sense.

Thank you, Deputy. May I comment further? Vis-a-vis this— Notice of motion. Funding, yes. Delay of some formal order, yes, and I was just purely foreshadowing that when we got to the LEP discussions, that we need to be mindful of considerations of trying to

Improve the recovery situation. Deputy Mayor has decided to leave the notice of motion.

I'm sorry, I'm not sure I understood with the 12 months what Councillor Ross was referring to.

Well, I understand it. We are being asked to submit LSPs reports and documentation in fairly near future. In which case, I think the cry from the community is that, hey, this is just not good enough at the moment. We're not in a position to cope with it.

So you want it to be longer than to get it done faster.

I prefer a longer time span, and also the funding needs to be provided by the State Government to enable Council to do that, in accordance with other councils.

I agree with the funding. I'm not going to put a time frame in because I don't think that we can comply. But what I did have, Mr Mayor, if I may, was a series of questions that may, a couple of questions that may actually assist with the current time frame of the LSPs. May I ask those now,

Mr Mayor? Certainly can, yes. So for people to be aware, there's six phases of reviewing the LEP and preparing our LSPs, and I just wondered if we could hear what stage we're currently at and what that translates to in terms of getting a new LEP done.

Thank you for

The question, Deputy Mayor. So we're in the final stages of the local strategic planning statement. So essentially, based on the time frame given to us by the state government, we need to have the LSPS completed by the end of March. So we've been on exhibition. We've received a lot of comments. We've amended the draft based on those comments. We have to go to the next stage of an assurance process of the Greater Sydney Commission, and then the document will be finalised. That is one step in terms of creating a bridge between the regional and district plan with our local environmental plan, and that is largely the role of the strategic planning statement. In terms of the review of our broader LEP, we're completing a range of other studies that will help inform that as well, in terms of our rural land strategy, employment lands and housing, and then we will commence a review of the local environmental plan and development control plan pretty much as of April.

And key to that review will be engagement with all stakeholders, be it community, councillors and obviously staff.

Another question? Yes. So is the current process limited by the amount of available resources that we have? And if so, would funding from the state government allow this process to be expedited at all?

Yes. I mean, essentially, if we had extra funding, we'd be able to engage a consultant to help us with some of that work. Some of the work we would want to do as staff, because the engagement with the community, engagement with staff, we wouldn't want to pay a consultant to do that. But in terms of drafting the documents and just, you know, formatting, et cetera, et cetera, having external sources to help with that would be very useful.

You've just answered my third question, which was how would extra funding help. Just as a comparison, if we were to have any other proposals go into the planning department for any other reason, would they be of a comparable time, or would they take longer or shorter time?

Aye. Exactly.

Yes, it depends on the complexity. How do they align with, you know, the intention of the regional and district plan , and how do they align with our strategic planning as well. So they look at all of those documents. Thank you.

Any further speakers?

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

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

In that case, I'll put the motion. If you're in favour of the motion, please stand.

In favour of the motion is Councillor Richards, Councillor Tree, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Kotlash, Deputy Mayor, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Ross, Councillor Calvert. Absent is Councillor Rasmussen. Declare it carried. We now move to...

Item notice of motion six. Councillor Ross, I believe that's yours.

Thank you, Mayor.

I'll need a seconder, I guess. Why not?

No, just , you can just start and tell us what it's about. Well, I thought we had a seconder, actually, didn't we have a seconder

No, it was only to get the change of the order of business, I thought, so.

Oh, okay. Do we have a seconder?

No seconders out there?

If there's no seconder, the matter will lapse. Councillor Ross, it looks like there's no seconder, sorry. Thank you.

Sorry, could Mr— sorry, Mr Mayor, would we be able to just have clarity, is what exactly is the state government covering in terms of fees? Is that only rates or is that for fees as well?

General Manager?

Yes .

So at the moment, the state government has advised that they're waiving the planning reform fund fee that all councils have to pay, and rates for impacted properties. We're still working through the details of that, and there's one more which I can't remember. Yeah

I'll have to— I'll look at an email, I'll come back to you on that one. Yeah.

Thank you. Mr Mayor, I'm prepared to second it so Councillor Ross can put his case.

Okay, I'd already declared it lapsed, but we'll let it go through. Councillor Deputy Mayor wants to second it now. Councillor Ross, would you like to speak on the matter?

Thank you, Mr Mayor, and thank you for my

Seconder.

This is somewhat out of order because it is really related to other business before the chamber in regard to the federal government grant of one million dollars awarded to councils, including Hawkesbury. As I understand it, staff are proposing that there will be a waiving of development application fees and possibly pre-submission meeting fees and so on, and that the remission of those fees would be drawn from the federal government one million dollar grant.

I am not in favour of that arrangement .

I believe that the matter of rates, the matter of development fees and such like are a matter between the council and the state government, and have got nothing to do with the federal government. I believe the purpose of the federal government one million dollar grant is actually to get money out into the community to do things, whether it be promoting business, tourism. providing more sources of water as a further resilience measure, and possibly other support measures in terms of the welfare and so on of our people. Road signage repair and rectification. Some tangible evidence that can be visually observed by the community as the contribution from the federal government to trying to return things to some state of what we might describe as normality and, in instances, improvement.

I believe firmly that the matter of development fees and so on and so forth don't fall within that category, and I suggest that Council has sufficient financial reserves in its grasp at the moment to enable those fees to be waived for a period of up to four years, to enable affected landowners to be able to have those fees waived. In case of where they are seeking to rebuild or re-establish , I just believe that the ethics of the matter require Council to dip into its reserves and support the community. We can go away and fight , or represent our situation with the State Government. They have given a six-month remission of Council rates only at this juncture, and we can talk about those things with the State Government at leisure.

But I think it is imperative that we get something done in the immediate future in regard to this $1 million and getting things done on the ground, and it will also support local employment, hopefully, as well.

Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Ross. The General Manager would like to comment on

This matter. Yes, Councillors, just to be clear, the advice from the Commonwealth Government in relation to this is in a letter that's attached to the paper, tonight's paper, and it talks about the $1 million that's been directed to Council via the State Government. It provides direct financial assistance, and I'm quoting from the letter now, to your Council so you can start addressing the recovery and rebuilding needs in your area. Local governments know their local community best and can direct this funding to where it is needed most. And what we're proposing is to put it towards waiving DA fees, waiving pre-DA fees, and engaging a planning consultant to work with residents and provide them with advice and assistance in preparing all their planning documentation. So it's the complete package to assist in the rebuilding.

Councillor Conolly. Thanks, Mr Mayor. I'll speak against the motion. Whilst I think it would be more appropriate to consider this with the entire report on how we intend to spend our— use our resources to address bushfire recovery, rather than just pull this one particular measure out on its own and deal with it individually. We've already got— I think we've got to put in perspective. This council has already projected at this point an $8.7 million deficit for this financial year. To say that we've got plenty in reserves and it's no big deal, I think, is a bit irresponsible. The Commonwealth Government provided these funds because they want to help our communities through a really difficult time.

Using those funds to target to people who actually have lost property, I think, is a really fair way to do that, to actually directly make sure the money actually directly gets effectively into the pockets of the people who have to rebuild houses and buildings by waiving fees they would otherwise have to pay, I think definitely fits the criteria. I wouldn't, you know, if for some reason we change our minds in or don't agree with the staff recommendation in the other report regarding the Commonwealth funding, then I would be inclined to revisit this. But assuming that that passes, I think that's fair enough. I'd also make the point that you could sort of argue, as Councillor Ross has done, that this might not be the exact— that, you know, that council could do this as well as spend the $1 million.

But I asked Councillor Ross and others a number of times, what is it you feel that isn't being done with that $1 million? All the things that have just been rattled off, supporting local businesses, tourism, recovery efforts, that's all in there as well. So unless we're missing something that we're otherwise spending this money on, I don't understand why we need to go and just spend money for the sake of it and plunge our council into even further deficit than we've already got.

Further speakers? Deputy Mayor.

Sorry, Mr Mayor, I was just wondering why there are no financial implications applicable if this is something that, I agree with what Councillor Conolly just said, that I think we were committed to this under the million dollar, which has now grown in size, I think, to include some other funding . I'm not quite sure why it would be considered there's not a financial implication for this motion, for this item.

General Manager? Yes, look, that's probably an oversight, Madam Deputy Mayor. Councillor Wheeler.

Could we have an indication of the likely cost of this item in that case? I presume it's the figure that's in the... I

Will say that it's very difficult to estimate this. We've made an allocation, but it assumes that people are going to lodge applications within a certain time frame. Some people will— look, we're already having meetings with residents about the rebuilding, but some residents will probably take some time to get to that point. It could be some years out. So it's very difficult to really project that accurately. We've made an allocation of a hundred thousand at this stage, but again, it's an estimate. Deputy Mayor.

Sorry, question, Mr Mayor . With the million dollars, is there any sort of time limit? So, because I see Councillor Ross is asking for this for a period of time, which of course it may take for people to be ready for, to be moving into that stage of their recovery. If we allocate an amount from the million dollars for this purpose, can it stay there for as long as it takes?

We've got to provide a progress report. We've had the letter from the Commonwealth. We've had a formal advice from the State Government there, they're distributing the funds, and there's a meeting coming up about the detail of how we're going to track and account this. So we've got another meeting in our report tonight. We talk about a further report in March. Hopefully we'll have more details then. Excuse me, Mr Mayor

Yes. I would be obliged if you would allow me to correct a misunderstanding on the part of the Deputy Mayor,

Please. Certainly

Councillor Ross. Yes, quickly. Deputy Mayor, I am not talking about these funds coming out of the million dollars. I am suggesting that they come out of Council's reserves, and that the million dollars be apportioned in other areas other than this. Okay, thanks. I understand

That. Thank you ,

Councillor Ross . Councillor Richards.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I think that, Councillor Ross, there's no intent against—well, there's no, in my behalf anyway, ill will against your intention. I think your intention is fantastic. However, it's the method that, for me, is the problem, and in that sense I would agree with Councillor Conolly because we were—well, most of us here were at that briefing we had last night, and we all know that the figures that were presented to us show that there isn't any — there's no beef left in here to be able to absorb that sort of a cost. But I think that the intent is fantastic, but I consider that debating this in item number eight, which I don't know if some people in the room are going to like me for this, but maybe we could bring it as the next item because we've touched on it.

We've touched on it so heavily under this notice of motion, and it actually addresses the question that is in this notice of motion and how we answer that. So, and part of what you're saying, Councillor Ross, is if anyone's got the business paper in front of them, it's page 96, where it's actually written down as in item number eight as part of the $1 million by the federal government. You'll have a look there at point B, which is waste, environment and planning, and that's where it mentions a $550,000 spend, which is $460,000 from the Commonwealth Government's $1 million and $90,000 from other sources. Point 2 of that part B stresses that that's about waiving fees and contributions, if I've read that correctly, General Manager.

So that is where, just so people can understand what's happening and what's on the agenda tonight in the gallery, that's where what Councillor Ross has put forward with great intent, that's where it's addressed under this item and whether we absorb that as part of the $1 million and additional funds now given to us by the federal government. So unfortunately, Councillor Ross, there's a little bit too much ambiguity in your notice of motion here, especially where you've also said to reinstate a structure affected by bushfire. And again, in another briefing, we've all debated whether a structure is legal and illegal, and we've got those issues that we need to deal with as a council as well when people come forward.

And of course, we have to deal with sensitivities and emotions when it comes to that. So I'm sorry, there's just not enough detail in this notice of motion there, but I do believe that a lot of that is addressed in item number eight.

Councillor Zamprogno.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Look, I join with the other councillors who have spoken to express my reservations about this. I've been approached by residents for weeks who have helpful suggestions like, Well, of course you need to be waiving... DA fees as a way of helping these communities get back on their feet, and I agree with them. So again, it's not a question of Councillor Ross's intent. It's a question of Councillor Ross's lack of attention when we've been given clear briefings and given a clear direction by staff about funding sources that have been allocated for this purpose. Unfortunately, the wording that's in this notice of motion binds us in a way that I don't want to see this council bound by, even if ultimately we manage to achieve that purpose through other means.

And if Councillor Ross's intention was to make it clear that these funds should come from some other funding source, such as council's reserves, his notice of motion doesn't include that form of words at all. So if that had been his intention, he should have put that form of words in his notice of motion. Therefore, with regret, I will be voting against the notice of motion.

Further speakers

Councillor Reynolds. A couple of questions, if I may, Mr Mayor. How many dwellings did we lose in the Hawkesbury in the fires?

24, Mr Mayor. 24.

So there'd be 24 DAs for replacement buildings, possibly. How many— General Manager would like to answer that. Yeah, I'm about to ask about our buildings, yeah. How many outbuildings and sheds?

Over 100 all up. I think it's actually in the report that Councillor Richards referred to.

So... On page 93, 24 destroyed and 13 damaged homes, one destroyed and four damaged facilities businesses, 65 destroyed and 30 damaged outbuildings, and 540 impacted rural landholders.

Any idea how many of the outbuildings, et cetera, would be classified as complying development

No,

Mr Mayor. No

Turn

Your microphone on, please. Oh, sorry. Thank you. Would the requirements needed to be met by DA applicants be more onerous than they were when they submitted the DAs for their original dwellings perhaps five, 10, 15 years ago? By that I mean, like, you know, new bushfire building codes, et cetera

I'm going to take a bit of liberty here for a moment. So we've been talking about where possible, and where it doesn't compromise health and safety, we've been talking about where possible trying to find ways to rebuild as is. So whether we can find an approval that we can build to, or some certification process, that's our objective. But the health and safety issue is going to be caught up in some of those new regulations that have come in place, some of the new standards. And that's the real challenge for everyone in this process, that the standards have changed in relation to some properties and some circumstances, and they will result in increased costs. Or increased studies. Now again, one of the things we're looking at doing is seeing if we can pool some of these studies so that people can just pull the study out and use it, rather than having to go and, you know, 16, 18, 20 people do exactly the same study or virtually the same study.

So we're trying to find ways to make this simple, to make it effective, but we do have to make sure that we don't compromise health and safety in the process. Thank you.

Councillor Wheeler, did you wish to speak?

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Just briefly, I agree with the bulk of the other speakers on this item, and I have to disagree with Councillor Ross that this isn't a priority. Surely for those 24 people who've lost their homes, getting them back in their houses as quickly as possible is a priority. So I think that this is a reasonable spend from the federal government's money. It's a relatively small portion of the federal government's money. It leaves us, I think we're up to 1. 3 million, 1.5 now. That leaves us $1.4 million to do the many, many other things that we have to do. And I think, as Councillor Conolly has raised, there isn't a lot of slush left in the system for funding this. Otherwise, what I think funding this out of the federal government money achieves is that there is dedicated funds put into a pool and quarantined for this purpose.

We're making decisions now. If we back this notice of motion, which lasts for four years, that is beyond the life of this council, that's expecting the next council to behave in the same way we would without having been through this experience with us. We don't know how many of us will be here at the table after September. If we quarantine that federal government money, we are then responsible to the federal government for the way that we spend it. And I think that is a useful safeguard for these people who need to have some security at this point to know that they won't have to pay these application fees when they come to council. So I honour the intent of Councillor Ross's motion. I fully understand what he's trying to achieve here.

I'm also concerned about the lawfulness of us voting for a notice of motion that doesn't set out the costs incurred under the Local Government Act. We are supposed to ask for a report to expend funds. There is no report here, and what we have is a guesstimate of the costs as best as we can. And that isn't, in terms of our responsibility under the Act, that isn't good enough either. But the advantage I think that we have here is that we have a comprehensive report that lays out how we will spend the money from the federal government that covers this item. And I think I agree with Councillor Conolly, dealing with this in isolation is probably not the best way to do it.

Thank you. Any further speakers? No. Councillor Ross, would you like right of reply?

Thank you, yes. Well, I'm very disappointed at the slippery misrepresentations of what I've put forward. Firstly, Blue Mountains City Council have this policy. It is in place. They have adopted it. They have gone through bushfires, as has our federal member in 2013, lost her house. So there's nothing unique about this. It's done in our neighbouring council, and we've got people up in the, no doubt, in the Bilpin area, Berambing, who are joining on to Blue Mountains, strangely enough. And all of a sudden, we've got some sort of notional boundary in the ether that means we have to deal with people in a different fashion. I don't accept it. I also don't accept the misrepresentations.

The federal government money of $100,000 is $100,000. That's it. Full stop. Now, if you want to know, no, this portion of the $1 million of which the general manager has spoke, he's put a figure of $100,000. That's it. The total cost of doing this program over the duration of four years, I would estimate between $600,000 and $750,000. Right? That's it. Over four years. So it's not a big outlay for this council.

Please don't interrupt. It's not on a per annum basis, maybe $150,000 to $200,000 a year. So what, in terms of the expenditure on this council? I can show you projects that are overrun by that in this council, in this term.

So this is nothing unique. Apart from that, the federal government is looking at the population, the populace, our 68,000 people, of whom a substantial number have been suffering as a result of these calamitous situations. Now, they aren't just the people who own property. There are people out there who don't own property, and are you telling me, as councillors, that we don't owe a duty of care to those people, or that they are not affected by these fires and what has gone on around them? They might have owned nothing. They might be out there sleeping under the stars. It doesn't mean they're free of any psychological health impacts or any other impact. Of course they're impacted. So it should come not out of money specifically laid out by the federal government for the whole of the population.

That's what they had in mind, in my opinion. It should come out of the council reserves because we're dealing with our own council people. The federal government money should be ring-fenced to go to do works in the community on behalf of everybody, everybody in the community, not just a selected group of property owners in this instance . I have compassion for the property owners and council by following the. .. Adopting the notice of motion, as has Blue Mountains City Council, be showing reasonable compassion to people. So I am very disappointed in my fellow councillors who aren't prepared to stand up and look after the total populace we have, and the social contract that there is implied in all of this has to be respected.

I'm here to respect it, and I'm here to work for the people. And I'm very disappointed if this won't pass on this occasion. Thank you.

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

In favour of the motion, Councillor Ross and Councillor Reynolds. Against is Councillor Garrow, Councillor Wheeler, the Deputy Mayor, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Sam Probyno, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Tree, Councillor Richards, Councillor Calvert. Absent is Councillor Rasmussen, and declare the motion lost. Now, did someone suggest we move item 8?

Procedural motion, Mr Mayor. Yes . Well, I'd like to seek your indulgence to move a procedural motion to consider Notice of Motion 3, Item 21, and that is both for the courtesy of those who have come to speak on that item and also to round out our consideration of all of the notices of motion so we can move on to other things.

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

Councillor Ross.

Anyone

Wish to speak against it? I'll put the motion. All those in favour say aye. Those against

Do you want a show of hands? Sounded

Like the ayes have it.

That's it, sir. That's it. Well done. The

Ayes have it. So we're bringing Item

21 forward.

Item 21 has one speaker, Jacqueline Taylor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor and councillors, for the opportunity to address Council. I'm here to seek support from Council regarding a community consultation meeting with respect to DA 0513/19 at 95 Old Pitt Town Road, Pitt Town. As part of the Environment Planning and Assessment Bill Amendment of 2017, we ask that we as a community of Pitt Town have the right to be informed about planning matters that affect us. We also request the opportunity to participate in planning as early as possible to enable community views to be genuinely considered. Community participation should be inclusive, and Council should seek views that are representative of our community. Council should encourage effective and ongoing partnerships with the community to provide meaningful opportunities for community participation in planning for our town.

That said, a few residents have come together at a small meeting, along with some representatives from the Pitt Town Progress Association. The general consensus was that Pitt Town would welcome the opportunity to discuss this DA with Council. We have concerns about the notification period of being over Christmas and New Year. The radius of notification was relatively small in comparison to the size of the DA's impact on the community. The ability to continue to make submissions even though the official exhibition date has now closed, and the DA review process and the next steps at planning panel level. More specifically, our concerns with the DA are that this would bring increased traffic and road safety at the site, the inadequate parking, the bulk and scale of the structure, noise and lighting impacts for nearby residents, the lack of town water and sewerage at this site, the proximity to the Skyville National Park, the subject site sitting along the flood evacuation route, the future use of this as a commercial venue and the numbers of attendees expected, and lastly how this will affect Pitt Town's rural landscape.

We would appreciate the opportunity to have a face-to-face meeting with Council to learn how these concerns will be acknowledged by Council and going forward at the planning panel. We'd like to work cohesively with Council about this project. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Are you happy to answer questions? Are there any questions? Doesn't look like it. Thank you for your speech, Councillor Zamprogno.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'm bringing this notice of motion on behalf of the affected community, who asked me to make this representation. It began as a representation to seek a formal extension of the community consultation period, and after discussion with the General Manager, I've changed the form of wording merely to ask that Council staff will make themselves available at a public meeting yet to be convened so that local residents can be better acquainted with the details of this application. That would be on the proviso that the General Manager was able to make a statement publicly, as he has to me privately, that submissions will continue to be received and processed and given equal weight even though the public consultation period has formally closed, and that that period will continue up until the conclusion of the staff report to be presented to the Planning Panel .

It is not my intention to enter into an extended consideration of the merits of the DA because, as we all know, we will not be considering the DA or its merits. It will be considered by a Planning Panel, and that of course opens another issue that I have strong views on relating to the democratic accountability of our planning processes, but that is a debate for another time . So I'm seeking the support of my fellow councillors to at least hear that declaration if the General Manager is able to make it concerning the ability for people to continue to have their Views considered, and also that council staff will make themselves available in the way that I've requested.

General Manager would like to comment, I think. I would like to confirm that Councillor Zambrano has accurately summarised council's normal custom and practice, and that is that we formally exhibit for a period of time, but we will continue to receive submissions and accept them right up to the point where we're finalising the report, and that will be the same situation in this particular instance. And I'm happy to make that statement, and I'm happy to explain that to the community at a meeting if that's what's required.

Councillor Conolly. Thanks, Mr Mayor. I actually had a question just on that point. I understand it might be council's normal practice to continue to receive submissions, but would it not be more appropriate to, if council wants to ensure that public submissions will continue to be received, it would seem more appropriate for council to extend the date for submissions rather than to announce that informally we'll keep taking them. And, you know, take the general manager's word, but it's hard to believe that a submission received the day before the report's delivered will be taken into the same consideration as one received while the report and recommendations are in formulation. So I would sort of suggest to the mover that perhaps we move to extend the date for submissions

I'd like very much to do that, but I promised the general manager that I wouldn't

General

Manager. Look, there was a contextual discussion with Councillor Zambrano in relation to this, and I'd be happy to share that with Councillor Conolly at a later date. It is our custom and practice, and to start making exceptions for one application and not another creates problems. I think we treat everyone the same, and it is our custom and practice to continue to accept submissions despite the fact that the formal exhibition period has closed. And that's a normal practice in local government right around Sydney, from my experience.

Councillor Tree . Thank you, Mr Mayor. I don't think that—I think there's a precedent for other occasions when we have extended the exhibition period for other things due to the timing of the holiday period. So I'm just wondering, can we—

So we do extend the exhibition period over Christmas holiday periods and things like that. We actually add, formally add time to the exhibition period. Again, that's something that we do every holiday period, and those provisions applied in this instance as well. But the issue is that people felt that that extended exhibition period had closed and they couldn't make submissions any longer. And I just advise Council that that's not the case. We will continue to accept them.

Thank you.

Councillor Conolly. Thanks, Mr Mayor. I'd like to move an amendment, which would be the motion in the paper, but instead of point two, that point two would be that Council extend the deadline to receive submissions, or whatever the correct wording is on the exhibition period, until the 31st of March 2020.

I'll second that. Seconded

By the Deputy Mayor

I don't mean to—I take everything on board that was said, but I just, I do feel it's inappropriate for Council to announce that we'll continue to informally take submissions when we could just quite simply formally accept submissions and have the exact same impact.

So the amendment's been moved and seconded. Those people who wish to speak for or against the amendment, please

Yep . Right. Deputy

Mayor, sorry.

Thank you, Mr Mayor . Yeah, I'll support that amendment. I do understand having an open-ended thing might be okay for some things, but clearly this is going to be a situation that is very... Major for people in the vicinity, it's potentially quite controversial. And I think it sort of highlights the flaws in us no longer having any participation really in the planning process. And I can see why Councillor Zamprogno has brought it forward to try and ensure that there is adequate consultation in this area. I think I'm not quite sure of the hesitancy of putting a specific date on it, but I think that if there's a date and that's still another month, then people know there's a deadline. If they don't, it's quite true, people will leave it till the last minute, and then they'll put one in the night before, and then they'll consider that it has not been included in the report.

So I don't really know why there would be . I'm not quite sure what the amended motion was. If we could see the amended motion, that would be good, because the other thing is, yeah, I think also if Councillor Connelly or Zamprogno, whichever motion, yes, sorry, Councillor Connelly could include that, I think we do also need to make it extremely clear about the process with the planning panels in this instance in particular, to know that what role, and we have asked for this before, specifically what role do councillors have and by what mechanism would we perhaps put forward our, as a council, any opinion that we may have on that. I understand that individual councillors can appear before the panel just as a resident as such or as a councillor, but not representing council.

I just think that the community in this instance may need a more detailed and a more succinct explanation of the role of councillors in this whole matter.

Further speakers on the amendment. Councillor Richards

My question was regarding the motion, well, part of the motion, which I guess is still part of the amendment. Where it says that council staff attend or convene, I was wondering if Councillor Zamprogno was happy to clarify whether we are attending a meeting already that's going to be already held, or that staff are actually going to set up an individual meeting and convene it, because I was just trying to think of a way to do this with minimal cost and time and effort, and was wondering, and I don't know if there's any representatives—there are actually representatives from Pitt Town Progress Association in the audience—but whether one of their upcoming meetings we could actually just be an agenda item where staff come and address the Pitt Town Progress Association and they put the invite out to the wider Pitt Town community that staff are coming to address this topic.

I don't know if that's something that might just actually be better than convening a meeting with staff just on this one topic, but attending a Pitt Town meeting that's already part of an ongoing association. That's just an idea I had for whether you could consider that

I can clarify for the council's benefit on your indulgence. So I formed the wording in that way because it had not yet been determined how that meeting would occur, and the options are that council convene the meeting, in which case council would have carriage of who was allowed to speak and the form and location of that meeting. I would prefer that it was held at the instigation of the Pitt Town community. I'd made my own suggestion that it be held under the umbrella of the Pitt Town Progress Association, but they have not yet adjudicated on that question. I simply suggested that they would be a trusted and well-organised and well-respected body to have carriage of this matter, and that will be a decision for them. And I'd prefer to leave the wording as it is because that then gives us flexibility depending on how that discussion turns out.

Councillor Richards, we're leaving the wording as it is. If we're

Leaving the wording as it is, what are we actually voting for though? Because as councillors we need to know what's then the action item. So what's the action that you want council staff to do? Are they going to write to the Progress Association asking them for their feedback before we then decide whether it's a— Sorry , you want to put a different— yep. Councillor Connelly is going to add to his amendment based on what I've just said. Thank you,

Councillor Richards.

Councillor Connelly, would you like to add to your

Amendment? Yes, please, Mr. Mayor. So that's a very good point, actually, that I would actually change point one to be that council staff attend any public meeting convened to provide information related, as it is. I don't want to move a motion that we're going to convene a public meeting at our cost on one particular DA when we don't do it for any other DA. If people really want— if people in that area want us to meet a meeting, they'll convene one. So I think we just say council staff attend any public meeting convened

So when it's finished, typing's finished, tell me whether that's what you meant.

That's it. Deputy Mayor, you're happy with that change? Yes,

Thank you

Councillor Richards, you're happy with that change. Good. Councillor Ross

I wish to express my grave concerns in regard to element one of the notice of motion. At what point in the process is the public meeting to be held? Is it to be held on the basis of the document submitted, or is it to be held on the basis of after council planning staff have reviewed it as against legislation and other compliance requirements that may be required to be complied with and which also may not have been taken care of by the applicant? I mean, there just seem to be too many variables in all of this. As much as I would, and do firmly wish the community to be fully involved , you're going to have to be, I think, a little bit more cautious about organising a meeting with staff and the public, because it depends entirely upon the point in time and the point in the process which has been arrived at when the meeting is called.

So, Councillor

Rossi

Are you suggesting a solution to that,

Or you just wanted to not vote for it

I would hope that the mover of the motion might give it some thought to this in his...

Notice. Move of the amendment, Councillor Connelly. Do you want to give some thought to that in your amendment? No. No, he doesn't. He gave it thought, and he's decided not to change it. Thank you. Any further speakers? Councillor Ross, you speak

Yes, the only point I would possibly add there is that a public meeting prior to the panel hearing date, possibly at the stage of Council's finalisation of its considerations, Council staff considerations, more or less as an update,

If you like. Could

You take all that in, Councillor Connelly? Can I

Provide a small short explanation of it? I think there's maybe a misunderstanding about what's currently proposed. So currently, we're not proposing Council take any affirmative action to organise this meeting. What the motion is saying is that it's Council's intention that should Council receive an invitation to a public meeting convened by the community, that Council staff should attend. So I don't think it's up to us to dictate back to the community when and where they should hold their meeting and on what basis. It's just trying to convey the intent that Council would expect that Council staff would attend any public meeting convened by that community.

Thank you. Any further speakers? Councillor Kotlash

Thank you, Mr Mayor . I'm not in favour of this amendment or the notice of motion. I think we're in dangerous territory if we don't stick to the processes that we have. And I have to say that I agree with Councillor Ross that if Council staff were invited to a public meeting, and I appreciate that that would be low cost and that seems to be a solution to that predicament we're in before, but— But that puts our staff in the position where they will probably be asked to make assessments of various things about this project that they may or may not be in a position to answer. And I just think that it, I'm just, I just think we have to stick to the process that we go through for any application that we have.

And this may well be a big thing. It might be something that is going to be big for that community, but we do deal with these sorts of things from time to time . I don't agree that we should extend the period for public exhibition because we have already done that. My understanding is that we have taken that into consideration over the holiday period already. So I don't support the amendment, and I don't— we're just talking about the amendment now, aren't we? I'll leave it at that for the amendment. Thank you.

Councillor Wheeler

Thanks, Mr. Mayor. I hear Councillor Kotlash's concerns, and I do share the concern that she's expressed about putting staff into a situation that Council doesn't control. What we do have, though, is a community group, a well-respected community group that Council has now had a fairly long and trusted working relationship with, who have done this before about another fairly contentious matter at Bootles Lane. I attended that meeting. It was extremely well run. It was, all sides of the story were given the ability to speak, and they were treated respectfully. And I think that's, I think that really is what we're after in this process. We've seen similar, we've seen discussions of a similar DA descend into not only chaos, but some fairly disgusting vitriol.

And I would hate to see this go the same way. This, and I want to commend the speaker for dealing with the issues around the application rather than a whole lot of background noise. I think she did an excellent job. This is, this is a development application. It's not about a particular religious group. It's not about a particular culture. It's about none of those things. It's about a development application. And I think— I think what we have from the Pitt Town Progress Association is a clear commitment to work well with council to hear the community's concerns. Apparently their first meeting is the— the next meeting is the 3rd of March, which— sorry, the 2nd, sorry. And that would then allow, I think, people to ask questions.

If the staff don't have answers to those questions, they can take them on notice and get back to the community, with time for people to then deal with those responses in a submission. And what we'll hopefully get is better informed, better directed submissions. My only concern with this process is that we're effectively, we're not extending the period of public exhibition, we're reopening the period of public exhibition. And I think because this is a planning matter, because all planning matters have the propensity to get us into court, I think we need to be honest in the motion. So I would suggest a wording change. I won't die in a ditch over it, but I would prefer that point 2 said that council reopen the period of public exhibition until the 31st of March, because that's a reflection of what we're actually doing.

And then my other concern— I can see Councillor Conolly is happy with that. My other concern is whether this then extends the period of this application so that we're getting into deemed refusal territory, which as we know removes the community's ability to speak on the matter, but also costs us lots of money. So

Councillor Conolly is happy to accept reopen. Okay, and Deputy Mayor, you're happy to accept that? I

Am subject to the clarification about the deemed refusal terms.

That's another question. So there's a question about whether that takes us into time for deemed refusal. Do we have an answer for that

So, sorry. In answer to the question around deemed refusal, I mean, essentially, as the General Manager indicated, we can, staff can attend this meeting that's convened by the Pitt Town Association and staff will be there to answer questions as much as we can while we're in an assessment process. Staff will continue through the assessment process. The applicant, it's really, we find ourselves in the situation now where applicants can, after a certain amount of time, yes, they can lodge an appeal with the court assuming a deemed refusal and we'll start down that process. So we'll be ready for whatever path this takes. But ultimately Council staff will just focus what's in their control. We can give more information to the community as required, but, and we will just continue with our assessment process as we are doing.

Answer your question? Sort of. And I've got one more question, and the staff may need to take this on notice, but it seems that there is some confusion or some vagary around the hours of business for this applicant. So if we could get some clarification from that to concerned community members, perhaps via the Pitt Town Progress Association or from a public statement from Council, that would be helpful. I

Have a question too, if I may. If the period is extended to 31st of March, will that change the date at which it goes before the panel?

Through the assessment process, and at this point in time we haven't received all of the referrals, so essentially we do the notification. Through the notification process, issues are raised. Through that process, there might be additional information we need from the applicant, at which point, with some applications, depending on the changes that are required to any application, we might end up renotifying anyway as per our current process. If there's no changes to the application, we will just continue down the path of the assessment. At this stage we're looking to submit this to the Local Planning Panel meeting around May, but it does depend on the nature of the comments we've received back and which we haven't undertaken an assessment yet.

And second part of the question is, does that mean we will be accepting submissions up till May, as we do now?

Yes, we accept. It is our normal practice, as it is with most councils, to accept submissions throughout the assessment process up until the time of determination. So

Would you say that changing the date doesn't make any difference? Submissions are still going to be heard up till May?

Yes, that's what I've advised Councilors.

Thank you. Deputy Mayor

Just a question, just something that was just raised with me, Mr Mayor, regarding point one. Is this the amendment, isn't it, up there, isn't it ? Yes. Just to clarify, Council staff attend any public meeting. It's not quite clear that any public meeting relates to the application for the Hindu Temple. If that could just be just modified, Councillor Conolly, if you would agree to that. But it says to provide information related to DA. It doesn't say that the meeting's being called for that

It could be like a Stamp Collectors meeting, and we could be there trying to give them information

Exactly, it could be

Okay.

And imagine that.

Yes. I'd

Be willing to change that. If you could just change that to clarify that specifically. It was brought up that it could be another progress association meeting in another town, and they might not be interested in hearing about it, so.

Councillor Conolly, would you change that? Yeah

So we'll say Council staff attend any — Public meeting convened to provide information related to DA, that number, where it is relevant. Unless there's some other suggestion. Is

That satisfactory, Deputy Mayor? Yes ? No?

I crave your attention, Mr Mayor.

Hang on, we're waiting. If we see this written up there, and I still want Councillor Conolly and the Deputy Mayor to approve this change.

Mr Mayor, I wish to raise a point before this is put on the board.

Yes, Councillor Ross

I wish to have the DA number confirmed. The DA number as shown on the business paper and/or the notice of motion is DA 0513 Oblique 19. The DA number quoted on the screen is somewhat different, sir.

Thank you. Can we have a look at that please, Mrs Perrin

So is it right now? Is that correct?

And have we got the last change in there yet, Councillor Connolly's change? Is that in there? Councillor Conolly, can you tell us what that change is again please

At the end of point 1, instead of a full stop, put a comma, and then the words where it is relevant. At

The end of point 1, comma, where it is relevant.

Yeah, I think that's what we're getting at.

So Councillor Conolly and Councillor Lyons-Buckett are both happy with that change. I'm asking you.

I am. Councillor Connelly has an answer.

Yep. That change. The change is now on the board. We're okay with that. Any further speakers on the matter

No.

The right of reply goes to Councillor Zamprogno

Do we need to put the amendment, Mr Mayor? Oh , all right then. I think this is more than I could have hoped for. I had always hoped that there would be some formal extension or reopening of the public consultation period, and with the support of my fellow councillors, it looks like we've achieved that. I want to offer an apology in advance to the Pitt Town Progress Association because although I've suggested that they act to convene this meeting, I've put the suggestion to them, but they haven't yet adjudicated on that question, and I don't want them to feel that this chamber is trying to railroad that body and to set the agenda for one of their meetings. It's simply my expressed hope that the Progress Association will take this under their wing because they are such a respected and level-headed body within the broader community.

I'd

Also emphasise that the people that have approached me have brought to my attention very clear planning concerns relating to this DA. Nobody has mentioned to me any other basis, religious, racial or otherwise, to object to this, and that's the way it should be. And I'm hopeful that with the support of my fellow councillors that the Pitt Town community will be better informed and will feel that their concerns will be heard for a greater period of time.

Thank you. Now I'll move the amendment. All those in favour of the amendment, please stand.

In favour of the amendment are Councillor Ross, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Wheeler, Deputy Mayor, Councillor Sam Procopio, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Tree, Councillor Richards. Against the motion, Councillor Cottlash, Councillor Calvert. Absent, Councillor Rasmussen and declare it carried. Now the amendment is now the motion. I'll put the motion. All those in favour, please stand.

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

Now the next item.

The next item, I believe, unless someone wants to change this, is Mayoral Minute.

And there's one speaker on the matter, and that is Mr Michael Want

Thank you, Councillors and Mr Mayor. Councillors, I support the sentiments of the Mayoral Minute, but I'm also deeply disturbed by it because, to me, it looks very similar to the notice of motion moved by Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Deputy Mayor, and Councillor Rasmussen at the November 26 meeting, except for points one and two. Now I will explain. Councillors, I attended the November meeting and listened to the contribution from those councillors who opposed that notice of motion. I was alarmed with their contributions. Comments like, Unnecessary, not in our domain, where's the money coming from, we can't identify evacuation centres, wait for the usual review at the end of the bushfire season, etc.

The stories tonight from the people who spoke must move us in relation to what had happened, and it puts us to reflect what's happened. Councillors, not one single amendment was proposed by those who opposed the Deputy Mayor and Councillor Rasmussen's notice of motion. The proposed motion was voted down by the two major political parties, five for and six against. And as you know, I am a member of the Labor Party, and I was disappointed. This notice of motion was voted down right in the middle of the catastrophic fires happening, and I wondered why councillors did not support the notice of motion. The Midnight Oil song came to mind, The Beds Are Burning.

Councillors, if it was not up to scratch, why did not someone make some amendments or addendums? Only one amendment was proposed on that night, and that was done by the Progressive Councillor Reynolds. Councillors, I acknowledge, and it's clearly evident, the mover on reflection has had a change of mind, and that's a positive. So I'm asking those who opposed the November notice of motion to think again and follow the example of the mover. Surely our communities are better served by removing the political processes. The addendums may be required to this notice of motion, and I make no comment on that. My major concern, councillors, are the community wants our politicians to work together for the benefit of the community, not vote on the basis of who moves or seconds motions. Councillors, you are here to represent the interests of the community, if it pleases.

Thank you. Happy to answer questions. Yes. Any questions? Thank you, Mr. Wong

The mayoral minute, as in front of you, I won't read the whole mayoral minute, but the general thrust of the mayoral minute is that firstly, there was a lot of good work done by the RFS and volunteers during this extremely tragic Christmas and New Year period, and Council did its best to be part of that process and help where it could. But when we started looking for our plans, our policies, our procedures on emergency situations, we found that we just didn't have any. I found that council had inherited a situation where there were no plans about who should do what and when they should do it. So what we decided to do is to, as I said 12 months ago, we decided to look at all our policies and go through them and update them.

What I'm suggesting here is this is a policy that perhaps we should have already updated. We were found wanting in this department. We had no clear policies on how to tackle the situation. We relied on history, we relied on the goodwill of people, and eventually our staff did a fantastic job and council also did a fantastic job, working together to fight the enormous emergency that we had. But we can't let that continue. We can't go into the next emergency with no plans and no policies. What I'm saying here is we need to get together and maybe, Mr—miss this bit. All the councillors should get together and work now to create a policy that goes into the future, a policy that makes sure that future councils aren't put in the situation that we were put in over the Christmas and New Year period.

To let that happen again would be tragic in the extreme, and I'm hoping that all councillors will work with me to make sure we don't let that happen. As you know, we're also looking to update the RFS headquarters at Wilberforce and make that into a multi-function building which can be used by police and ambulance and council and other services west of the river for any emergencies, whether they be fires or floods or anything else. So that's all part of our program, and I'm asking councillors to support. A review of our policy, led by our new fire recovery coordinator, and I'm asking councillors to please take part in that so that we can have a better response next time. And I'm hoping we can do that as soon as possible because, as you know, the fire season's not over yet and people are predicting another flood in a couple of months' time, if not sooner.

So the sooner we get this done, the better. The other thing we found out during the fire was that people said, Well, why don't we have a mayoral appeal? Why don't we set up a mayoral appeal? And we tried to do that, only to find that setting up a mayoral appeal is a long, complicated process which has to go to the Australian Tax Office and can take up to six months to be finalised. So there's no way we could set it up in the few weeks that we had. So we were left with our hands tied in that event as well. So all this needs to be looked at, and I'm suggesting we put it all on the table and review all our policies and start with the mayoral appeal and then start with our policies of providing procedures for our staff.

So this mayoral minute is not about what the RFS do or what other emergency services do. It's about what council does in response to emergency situations. That's what this is about, and it is not meant to be a criticism of anyone out there who worked out in the field. Just the opposite. It's meant to be, We're sorry we couldn't provide you with an up-to-date policy or platform that perhaps matched what you were doing. So that's what it's about, and it's about not letting it happen again. We're also looking to have a thank-you event in the next little while for the RFS people and the volunteers, and I can announce now that that thank-you event will be run on March the 29th in Richmond, and it'll consist of a street parade with an event at Richmond Oval afterwards.

And I implore you or invite you all to attend on Sunday, March the 29th. Anyway, Councillors, I commend this Mayoral Minute to you. Are there any other speakers, please? Councillor Zamprogno.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I applaud the sentiment behind this Mayoral Minute, and I endorse it, and I'm happy to vote for it. We have been tested in this community recently, not just with fires, but with floods as well. And I note that your wording includes all disasters and our emergency responses. There were some small shortcomings in the emergency response that we had to the floods as well, possibly not on the part of Council, but on the part of other agencies whose institutional memory had dimmed because of the long absence of floods from our district. I am interested, Mr Mayor, you had mentioned at some point that there would be a review after the dust had settled and that it would have more of a regional character.

Your Mayoral Minute only refers to an internal review of Council's policies. Could you help us understand whether this is separate to a regional assessment of the disaster response?

Yes, they're separate events. This is about an internal review of what we did and how we did it as a Council.

Further speakers? Councillor Ross.

I'd like to seek your

Guidance

Or comment upon what matters would be germane in this area, because— We were briefed, I think, by a representative of the Office of Emergency Management, or whatever they call themselves, and we saw a huge plethora of committees and organisational charts, and I think it was the councillor who just spoke and said, Well, what's the role of councillors? Ah, we don't need you. We don't need you. It's

All going to be sorted out at the state level. Now, manifestly, that's not true. Each of the two upper echelons

Of government have shown

Not to have contingency plans or risk evaluations of any sort that were durable under the circumstances. And it then comes down to the point where, as we are now seeing,

Council is, in a sense, deeply involved, but at the same time, it's like council is deeply involved with both arms tied behind its back and is, in a very real sense, being prevented from doing things by other levels of bureaucracy who are still trying to sort out what they're trying to do. So I'm just wondering if you could elaborate, please, further for us.

I don't know whether I understand your question, Councillor Ross. Would you like to simplify it for me?

Yes. Could you instance a particular circumstance or situation which you would see your notice, your Mayoral Minute addressing,

Rather than in a generality, in a more specific instance, to give us some comfort about that,

Please? Well, as it says in the text of my Mayoral Minute, if you examine what other councils do, particularly the Blue Mountains City Council, they have an emergency response team that, when there's an emergency, a number of their staff are trained and updated with training to immediately respond to the emergency. They even have a distinctive uniform that they put on and go out into the field and look at the emergency and start working on it straight away and making an assessment. They also have a policy which clearly dictates who does what. For example, the Deputy Mayor goes to all the changeover meetings at the headquarters, and the Deputy Mayor is the one assigned to send out texts to all the other councillors to keep them informed, and to council staff to update their Facebook page and their website.

So the roles are all allocated of who does what and when they do it. We don't have such a role statement for our staff or our councillors, and I'm not looking to dictate what that would be. I'm looking for us to work together to decide what those roles would be.

Any further speakers?

Councillor Conolly. Thanks, Mr Mayor. I'll support the motion. I agree this is required at this point. I was surprised, again not to be critical of things I don't understand, but I was surprised during the recent flood event, the amount of reports on social media of, I'm at this road, there's water over it and nobody's closed it yet. And I think it's what Councillor Zamprogno said, it's a loss of institutional and organisational memory around, you know, we really should be—there should be no challenge. A small flood like that, I mean it's a challenge, but it shouldn't, in terms of organisationally knowing who's closing what roads, who's inspecting what and what's going to have to happen, who's coordinating with the RMS and at what time and how that happens.

That should all be fairly straightforward and it should run smoothly. It's going to happen. It hasn't happened in a while, but, you know, historically it's going to happen every few years. It shouldn't be this major catastrophe where we have no idea where anyone's going or, you know, it shouldn't be where there's water over roads and nobody's closed them. There's not really a reason for that. So I think we need to look at what's happened, because I can certainly remember 2012 or 11, whenever we had that small,

Really small one. 2013. You

Know, we still had daily, you know, half-hourly updates. You know, everything was closed in an order. Everything happens quite smoothly, whereas this time I think a few people were caught off guard. Thank you. Further speakers?

Councillor Richards.

Just a question, please, Mr Mayor. Do you have, or are you going to anticipate a timeline for this review to be conducted? Can we give it maybe six months or something like that so that we have an end date?

I haven't put an end date in because I think it depends on a number of factors, including the fact that we haven't finished the bushfire season yet. We may— We may not find time in the near future, but my wish is that we start it as soon as possible and finish it as soon as possible. Six months would be good. But I don't think we can actually dictate that either, unless you want to add it to the motion.

No, my concern is just that, you know, the community has been through quite an intense period, and I guess that they would be looking towards our level of government to have done something proactive and productive like this, but would like to probably see that sooner rather than later.

Well, as you know, this council only has about six months to run, so my ideal would be for us to have this finished, have this finished so the next council would have it on the shelf to use and not be stuck in the situation that we were stuck in. So yes, that would be my ideal end date, yes. Any further speakers? Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Firstly, we must acknowledge and thank the magnificent efforts of the emergency services personnel, particularly our incredible RFS volunteers and the extensive network of supporters within and beyond the Hawkesbury area. It is right that we review our practices and procedures. I certainly welcome a review and look forward to providing input to it. I also acknowledge the multiple points I raised in a notice of motion last year being raised here to be included for consideration, and I welcome that. I hope this review will be broad enough to examine the mechanisms by which the three tiers of government can better work to ensure our communities are not only protected during the events but supported throughout the crisis and afterwards.

In this crisis, I think we fell short. I believe our community expected much more from us. I also believe we had opportunities and the capacity to do, and to still be doing now, much more to support the amazing work our combat agencies do with on-the-ground protection. We are the membranous layer through which our community must receive the required assistance from other government organisations. It is never good enough to engage in buck passing and waiting for others to come to us with information, suggestions and solutions. We need to be the advocates and seek out better results for our community. Of course, the emergency services performed well in their duties. We would be very concerned if they had not, given that this is what they train for and are equipped for; that they are largely supplemented by a volunteer workforce, many members of whom remain inadequately compensated, and some carrying lifelong trauma and significant losses, requires rectification.

Any review must surely articulate the expectations for our volunteers to be treated fairly and equipped to a level which enables them to perform their duties safely and as effectively as possible. This includes ensuring ample supplies of water in remote locations and, in fact, in any locations outside of the reticulated water network. The terms of this review need to be very carefully structured to ensure we have adequate community, adequate feedback from our community regarding the gaps and inadequacies identified throughout the fire, then flood events. It is crucial it is viewed within the parameters of our changing climate and the manifestations associated with that. I have brought several motions to the Chamber this term calling for improvements related to emergency management in the Hawkesbury.

This includes my notice of motion on the 26th of November last year. I was disappointed that motion was voted down by the Liberal and Labor councillors, as our community must always be at the forefront of our decisions and we must not deny the implementation of their needs on political grounds. One of the biggest issues we have witnessed during this catastrophe has been loss of communication. A previous motion of mine called on investigating funding for portable battery-operated radios to enable people access to information when power and telecommunications are lost. Mount Irvine resident Tommy, they relied solely on a transistor during the catastrophic period. The resolution also called on ACMA to sort out a single licence for Hawkesbury radio to enable local broadcasting during times of emergencies.

On the day of the worst flooding here, that station was broadcasting pre-recorded music, then nothing but white noise after that. The motion also sought an emergency management guide be prepared, which could have been extremely useful to many people, especially newer residents who had not previously been exposed to fire or flood. We need these tools to help our community. I don't believe we've necessarily satisfied the provisions of the State Management Plan. Our Local Emergency Management Plan has a component with secret details within it, whereas I understand some need for confidentiality, I believe councillors with local knowledge of place and community should have input to this part of the plan.

I hope that this will be part of the review. With regard to the provision of services to assist people deal with the trauma, of which there are many, this has not been met. In the absence of an evacuation centre or disaster welfare assistance point, we had no trigger to get these services. While respecting that church members and chaplains provide a valuable service to those in need, that is not for everyone and they don't necessarily have the adequate qualifications. Fortunately, we are seeing the step-by-step program starting to roll out now, but it is 14 weeks since the catastrophic fire day when we saw Gospers Mountain fire impact Colo Heights. That is far too long to wait. This review must investigate why there was no evacuation centre established during the fire crisis.

We need an answer to that because we had a situation of people being instructed by the RFS to leave their homes and they had nowhere to go. Last week in the floods, an evacuation centre was set up immediately at North Richmond, and it was just the thing that would have been welcome and suitable for the fire situation. In the absence of any centralised point of contact or information, we have witnessed confusion, uncertainty and added stress on our impacted community members. Councillor Garrow and I were at the Richmond Club on the 21st of December when many locals came seeking assistance and reassurance during the crisis. I would like to present my summary of that day to the review so that people could hear about the despair, anxiety and the gaps despite the club doing their best at short notice to become a safer place.

Councillors must be informed about these issues. On my previous notice of motion, a councillor labelled my motion ill-conceived and unnecessary, saying we don't need guidelines for defining councillors' role and we don't need another layer of bureaucracy by having a committee. The Mayor said we would do a report, then consider the things I had raised, but here we have the same ideas put forward as the basis for a review. I'm pleased about this and welcome it proceeding and leading to much needed improvements in our emergency protocols. We could have started it earlier, but better late than never. And I would ask, Mr Mayor, if you would consider adding an additional point to your Mayoral Minute, would be that an update on all outstanding motions related to emergency management be incorporated into the review.

I have no problems with adding that point. Any further speakers?

Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. The Deputy Mayor has raised some valid concerns about the period that we've just been through. Mr Mayor, would you mind asking the gallery to be quiet? It's extremely difficult to concentrate at

The moment. Yes, sorry. The gallery is distracting the councillors and I'm having trouble hearing some councillors. So the role of the gallery now is to listen and not communicate with councillors or with each other. So could you please keep quiet while the councillors are speaking? Thank you.

I'm sure the gallery can vent their spleen on Facebook later. We don't need to hear them swearing at us while we're trying to get a point out. What we experienced during this fire period was incredibly traumatising for many members of the community. One of the things that I found the most difficult to deal with through the process was the failure to evacuate. At no stage were our residents given an evacuation order. They were instead told that they could self-relocate. They were told that they could go to a safe place. Now, a safe place is just that. It's a place in the community where you can sit for a while. And I'm very grateful to the Richmond Club for opening their doors to their manager, Michael, who the first time the Richmond Club was called upon was a Sunday night when the fire hit parts of Bilpin and the road was closed.

There were no provisions whatsoever made by the state government, the proper authority, to allow people somewhere safe to go. So people were turning up at the Richmond Club. One couple arrived, realised that they were going to have to sleep in a chair, and booked into a hotel. Said that they would be back the next night because they couldn't afford two nights in a hotel. They actually couldn't afford one night in a hotel. Another man arrived having been separated from his wife. She was on one side of the fire front. He was on the other. He was clearly distressed. He also looked like spending a night in a chair. So

This is manifestly inadequate. To organise bedding for these people, I rang a local homeless service, the only volunteer organisation to work over the Christmas period, while we were in crisis, I will add, and asked her because I knew she'd come through to deliver some bedding and toiletries for people so they had somewhere safe to sleep for the night and a bed to lie on. The Richmond Club agreed to put on a dry tab so that people could eat without having to pay for food in the club, and they were happy to keep the facility open and to open up the showers. This is not what people should be coming to when they lob up having been told that the road is closed and they can't go home. People are already distressed enough.

They don't need this on top of it. We saw it again the next week. Fortunately, Hawkesbury Helping Hands hadn't come to pick up their bedding and toiletries in that week because they were too busy dealing with homeless people coping with extreme heat. So the bedding was all there for the people who weren't able to go home or chose to self-relocate from Bilpin. So we've seen a real lack of ability to provide a safe space, in contrast with the South Coast, where they had evacuation centres set up well before the fire front hit. When they lost power, it was Council who organised the local circus, who used to a-gist here and now a-gist down there because it's just too hot here over Christmas, to bring their generators across and power the evacuation centre so that people could have a feed and a light at night.

So when the state government fails, Council steps in, often because we're the only ones who are still able to get here, often because we are the level of government that people lean on, and we have to be prepared for that. It's not good enough for us to say that our documents aren't up to scratch. We should be deeply ashamed that we entered a fire season that we have been warned about, that fire chiefs have been warning about for six months, and we entered a fire season having, on the 26th of November, voted against doing all these things because some of you thought this wasn't important, and we left our community high and dry and us scrambling to plug the gaps. That's just not good enough.

We have made the community more traumatised than they needed to be as a result. We've been caught on the back foot. I'm very pleased that we have admitted that we've been caught on the back foot and that we're willing to do something about it, because that's where we need to go next. We've seen the same with flooding. All the same things that the Floodplain Management Committee have told the state government repeatedly about sewer, power, roads, telecommunications, all came to pass. We've still got residents who haven't had a phone connection for three months. Who's going to tell them to evacuate, given that we're relying on telephones to do this? We have been caught extremely flat-footed. We have to take these learnings.

We need to do it quickly, while they're still front of mind, while people are still hurting and willing to tell us about them. And then we need to lock in a really comprehensive plan and an ability to execute that plan, with the funds behind it to do so. And then we need to move forward.

Thank you.

Councillor Conolly. Thanks. If I could just respond to that briefly, Mr Mayor. I think, look, a lot of what was said there was very true and should be concerning to all of us. But I think it's really poor form to suggest that if we'd voted for a review on the 26th of November 2019, that we would have had a review, considered the recommendations and implemented changes in time for these bushfires. I don't think what we need is further politicisation of these issues and trying to score political points off people's pain. We need to be honest and realistic. If we'd adopted on the 26th of November to conduct a review, we'd probably be starting it about now. And, well, we were going to set up a committee, sorry.

If we were to set up a committee on 26th of November, Council would not have been in a position to make any decisions to do anything differently over that period. That is the truth. Those are the facts. So I don't think it's right for us to sit here and say, because of that decision on the 26th of November, that's why people rocked up to the Richmond Club without any facilities. That's not true, and it's just seeking to cause—

Point of order, Mr Mayor: misrepresentation.

I haven't actually— I mean, first of all, I don't believe that is a point of order, but you can rule.

It's a point of order which the Deputy Mayor can address at the end of this conversation.

I would point out, Mr Mayor, I haven't actually attributed any comments to anybody, so quite literally there can be no misrepresentation, but the Deputy Mayor can disagree.

But I'm sure you will. But my point being, there's some valid points there, and I'm willing to consider, you know, if people want to honestly look at what happened on that meeting and whether that motion should have passed, that's fair enough, and that's accountability and that's genuine political discourse and the way the system works. But to suggest to the community that the outcome would have been different in December had we passed that motion at the very end of November is dishonest, and it's just not the case.

Thank you, further speakers?

No further speakers, Councillor Garrow.

I just wanted to follow on from something that Deputy Mayor spoke about. One of the failings of the recent fire events that we had was this lack of emergency evacuation centre, and residents being told that they were not told to evacuate; they were just told to go to a safe place, which simply wasn't good enough, what was on offer for them. I myself stood at that door for six hours, and I had people collapse in my arms. I had to all but carry some people to a lounge to sit down, to give them a glass of water, which was all that was on offer. The Richmond Club went above and beyond, and were put in a position that they shouldn't have been put into either. There was the gentleman at the front desk that day had his own family's home under risk, and his family at home, and he couldn't leave to go and help his own family.

We had people sleeping on the floor for the night. We had extreme mental health conditions put into a back corner of a gym with their cats, and told just to sit here because you're not an emergency evacuation centre, because we didn't have enough people to warrant it. Now, I know that there was a lot going on around the entire nation, and whether we had 20 people or 200 people, every single one of our residents that needed help should have been getting the help that they deserve. Now, the very next day I returned, and there were still people sleeping on the floor. We had people with medical conditions that didn't have their cancer treatment medication that couldn't get back. We had people who had no contact with their family members, and then we were told that they could go home.

Oh, no, now you can't go home, you can go home, because the state government services weren't giving us the information effectively that we needed to get. So myself and some other members of staff and our MP got in a car and drove them back up the mountain to see what these blockages were on the roads. And guess what? There was nothing. These people could get home, but there was a complete lack of communication, a complete lack of attention to our residents that needed this help just as much as everybody on the South Coast, just because we weren't the quantity that they had. We have people that are hurting every single day, and our state government and our federal government are not giving them the attention that they deserve, and it's disgraceful.

Any further speakers? Councillor Richards.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I think it's a point to make at this point in time that there are always going to be failings and there are always going to be lessons learned from any emergency situation. That's why it's an emergency, and people respond accordingly as they can as the emergency unfolds. And we can sit in here and we can highlight all these things that went wrong, and fantastic, all of us made an effort to ensure that we looked after our community during that time. But this whole review is to actually look at those things that went wrong and those failings and actually put that all together and hope that next time it is going to be better. And whether that's a federal government's fault or the state government's fault or our fault as a council, this is what that review is going to do.

It's going to review the season that just has been, look at what happened, and hopefully... Put some things in place that are actually going to make sure that next time we can get that communication out. Or even if the review says we can write that letter to the state government and say, Hey, as a community we identified A, B and C didn't quite go to plan, so maybe we can hopefully next time identify that and actually put in place something that's going to fix up those issues. So I think that that's the perfect place for that review to happen. I hope that there's a chance for all of us as councillors to be able to have input into that review, whether that's one-on-one interviews or whether that's however that unfolds.

I guess that's quite ambiguous here, but I hope that that is the case. I hope that there's maybe an announcement out to the public to say, Would you like input into this review? to possibly put in a submission into that. I don't know where your scope, how far your scope is going to be on all of that, but I think gathering that information is quite crucial in moving forward and making sure that when we have a situation like this again, that we actually are ready for it and can address it. I just want to ask again, Mr Mayor, another question about the working group in point 2A. You've said this review might include creating a working group to assist in the review, so that would need to be done before the review takes place.

What mechanisms will you put in place to actually select people to be on that working group?

I hadn't gone down that track, but I'm assuming we would call for volunteers, firstly from councillors and then maybe from other groups. But I must stress it is mostly about reviewing our policies, so council staff and councillors would be the main members of this working group. We would also have information gathered during the process, talking about other agencies, state agencies, federal agencies. That is all bound to come out. But if we tried to make this an overarching review of how everyone behaved during the fires, this would take 600 people in a room, so that is not my aim. My aim is to make it small and direct and make it mostly about council policies and procedures.

Councillor Richards, you've finished. Thank you. Any further speakers? No. I'll exercise my right of reply. Firstly, I thank you all for what you've contributed.

Even those who appeared to be rather non-supportive of this mayoral minute, I believe you actually supported it because what you were telling me was there were no clear directions out there, and that's what I'm trying to fix. This council inherited a situation where there were no clear directions on a lot of matters, and I think it is our responsibility to make sure that future councils don't end up in the situation that we're in.

I must point out that any decision I made previously about evacuation centres or anything else was not made on a political basis, and I resent people saying that we have, I have politicised this situation. I deliberately did not. I must point out that I was also at the Richmond Club during that time that the people were there, and I also spent time with the police in their emergency centre, and it's the police who decide whether to have an evacuation centre or not. Council's role, and see, I found this out during the fire, council's role is to have evacuation centres ready. We did have evacuation centres ready to go, but the police said don't open them, and people have put criticism on council saying, Why didn't you open the evacuation centre?

Well, we temporarily opened one at Wilberforce. And we copped a lot of flak from the state government for doing that because we were told clearly, that is not your job, that is our job. So we were told to pull our heads in in terms of opening evacuation centres. I would have loved to open several evacuation centres, but council doesn't have that role, according to the State Emergency Plan. The police have that role with the state government. I did, during the conversation with the police people, say, look, we really need to open this. But they, when we talked to the RFS involved in the fight at the time, they told us, and they showed us on the map that the fires were aiming directly down Grose Valley and probably would have gone through North Richmond.

So one of the places we were considering was North Richmond, and we were advised, no, don't open North Richmond because the fire is probably going that way. Then we considered University of Western Sydney, and that was all ready to go as well. But then we got told the fire, if it continues down Grose Valley, may jump the river and may be in Hobartville in Richmond in under two hours' time. So there was no point in opening an evacuation centre there either because it would also be overrun. So this was all tossed around, and decisions were made, but I'm pointing out there was no structure to it. It was made by the goodwill between the people talking at the time, and council couldn't go in there and say, this is our policy, this is what we do, because we had no policy.

And that's what I'm trying to correct, and I ask you to support this, and I thank you for your support. It will be— Open to

All councillors to be involved in how it works. I'm not dictating how it should work. I'm happy to listen to any particular way that you want to make this work. I also want to point out that yesterday I went to a meeting with Senator Susan Ley, and there's a review committee looking there at our bushland and our ecosystem and what can be done to try and get us back to where we were before. That is a tremendously big problem and council is part of that. There's also a regional review going on about all the way the emergency services interacted with each other. We're part of that as well. So I'm offering this review of what we're doing as an extra. This isn't our only response. This is just a response to what we do as a council.

All those other reviews are still going ahead and we are part of them. Thank you for that. I'll now move the motion. All those in favour of the mayoral minute, please stand.

Mr Mayor, I had a point of misrepresentation to address Thank you very much. Just with what Councillor Conolly said, I know he didn't specifically name me, but he premised an entire statement on something that was incorrect because the notice of motion wasn't calling for a review. It was calling to set up a disaster welfare assistance point, which of course is included in the state plan. So we didn't need a policy. We just needed to decide to do one. But the point was, you were saying we were making an issue of it. Had we done that then, we would have avoided a lot of things. We would have had a centralised point of information and we could have helped our community.

Mr Mayor, that's just extra debate. That's nothing to do with misrepresentation

That is Deputy Mayor's point of misrepresentation. We don't need to debate it anymore. Thank you. All those in favour, please stand. In favour, the Mayor O'Minett, Councillor Richards, Councillor Tree, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Sam Brogno, Councillor Cottlash, Deputy Mayor, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Rice, Councillor Calvert. Absent is Councillor Rasmussen. Declare it carried.

We now move to item 003. Sorry, yes, item 003 , and I believe there are three councillors who wish to declare an interest. Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I declare a pecuniary interest in item 003 due to a relative operating a business which could be potentially affected by the changes within the LEP amendments. So

You'll be leaving? Yes

Councillor Reynolds. Aye, Mr Mayor, I declare a pecuniary interest because the documents show that our home is still impacted by a reserved acquisition by the RMS. You'll be leaving too,

Councillor Richards

I'll

Be leaving the room as well. Significant non-pecuniary associations with local residents that fall into the categories in the item, and also work voluntarily on tourism campaigns with people who fall into that zone.

Thank you, and we still have a quorum. We have three speakers on this matter. The first one is Margaret Tadaros . She gone home?

She was here.

Gone. Second speaker is Lionel Buckett

I sent some documents into Council to ask that they be copied for the councillors. Could I know where that happened? Yes,

It did.

That included the gateway determination?

I believe so. General Manager? All the information. Everything you sent was distributed. Right.

I thought it was very important for transparency and for decision making that councillors have those documents before they make decisions on something as important as this. So I'll continue on. We are so lucky to live in a world heritage area. There is no other place on the planet like the Hawkesbury District. We are so lucky we have smart, creative politicians and policy makers who made ecotourism possible. And we are so lucky to be surrounded by councils like the Hills and Blue Mountains that have implemented ecotourism since 2012. These councils have shown how easy and workable ecotourism is. But with luck also comes the unlucky times. We were unlucky that ecotourism was accidentally left out of the 2012 LEP.

We are unlucky to have a council administration that has a very limited capacity. And we were unlucky to be burnt out so badly this black summer, which brings us here tonight to ask you to do your housekeeping. This housekeeping is a simple document according to the Greater Sydney Commission. They are just as perplexed as the community as to why over the past eight years it hasn't been publicly advertised and implemented. I know this because I have had many long conversations with the planners responsible for Hawkesbury. Clearly there are political reasons why Hawkesbury hasn't done its housekeeping. These reasons have been speculated to be anything from an incompetent council administration to councillors who are fearful of it causing further litigation regarding function centres on the lowlands.

Well I'm here to say we don't care about past reasons. Bilpin has been burnt out and we need your help now. We need ecotourism now. Ecotourism allows us to provide accommodation for people who have responded to hashtag Back to Bilpin. We've been doing everything we can to promote tourism because this will save our farms and properties and provide jobs and income again for our families and communities. Tourists want to stay and we can accommodate them with ecotourism. This isn't rocket science. Tourist accommodation is good for everyone. If ecotourism is good enough for the Hills and Blue Mountains, it's good enough for us in the Hawkesbury too. So we are saying we need ecotourism to stay in the Hawkesbury Housekeeping LEP.

So vote for Option 1 so Bilpin can recover. And if you can't bring yourself to do this because you're concerned about the advice from the General Manager, then do this: defer the matter to the next meeting. Ask for a copy of the legal advice your administrators are relying on when they tell you to take ecotourism out of the Housekeeping LEP. Judge for yourself if it's valid or not, because we are telling you it is not. Bilpin community needs you to stand up for us tonight. So does Colo, Wisemans Ferry, St Albans, Upper Colo. They are all affected by this same Housekeeping LEP. Thank you for hearing us.

Thank you. Happy to answer questions.

Any questions? No. Thank you, Mr Bucket.

Next speaker is Jane Hughes.

Good evening, Mayor and Councillors. I am addressing you this evening to ask the Council adopt Option 1, which is to continue the approved gateway determination for ecotourism facilities with consent within the Hawkesbury LGA. There is a strong and growing demand for unique and experiential accommodation across the hospitality sector. There is also an awareness and sensitivity in regards to the environmental impacts of more permanent style dwellings in areas of environmental and significant value. I agree with the premise that regards residential intensification of RU1 and RU2 zones as undesirable. The loss of prime agricultural land to intense residential development should be of great concern, and all encroachments and changes to land use in these zones deserve cautious and deliberate consideration.

According to Regional Australia Institute, 400,000 people moved from Australia's capital cities between 2011 and 2016. This migration is growing. Conflict over more passive land use versus agricultural land use has become an increasing problem within the Hawkesbury LGA. Land clearing, dam building, pollution, noise, odour, etc. are all making it harder for farmers to conduct traditional farming within the Greater Sydney area or metropolitan rural area. If the aspiration of the Greater Sydney Commission objectives is to maintain the rural-urban interface, then consideration must be given as to how practically this can best be achieved, given the changing nature of property ownership and land use.

Some land described as RU2 is not conducive to intensive agriculture, but is conducive to eco and agritourism. The zoning and land uses for these areas need to better reflect and respond to these potential new uses. The rapid growth of Western Sydney and its close proximity to Bilpin District has seen a huge surge in day visitors to the district. There has also been a significant increase of people from Greater Sydney seeking experiential or ecotourist accommodation, as well as other tourist and hospitality facilities within the district. The Bilpin District faces the reality that the agricultural nature of the district has changed significantly in the last two decades. Bilpin is now primarily rural residential.

This conforms with the main land use within the Hawkesbury LGA, which was reported as 86%. Bilpin was once a thriving orchard area boasting approximately 70 commercial orchards. It now has only six. These remaining orchards rely almost entirely upon day visitors for their financial viability, most of whom come from Greater Sydney to experience a working orchard and to pick their own fruit. This use is now more aligned with agritourism rather than intensive agriculture. The current RU2 LEP only allows for detached farm stay accommodation. This stipulation is rendered largely irrelevant because of the diminishing working farms in the district. It also completely ignores the world-renowned wilderness nature of this area.

If the objective of the MRA, Metropolitan Rural Area, is to maintain the rural nature of Hawkesbury and the Greater Sydney areas, then land owners should have the option available to them under the LEP to submit compliant, well-designed and sensitively located eco accommodation to the Hawkesbury Council for consideration. Alternative and passive streams of revenue should be encouraged as a way of defraying the costs associated with acreage. Good land stewardship should be a collective community goal, and providing the most sustainable financial means of doing this should be a priority. The revenue generated by ecotourism gives owners an opportunity to keep investing in the maintenance and upkeep of their land.

Another benefit is that in many cases, the eco and agritourism model encourages the continuation of some agricultural practice, if only to enhance the rural experience. It goes without saying that hospitality and accommodation facilities provide employment for local residents. By the Hawkesbury Council's own reports, it states that traditional agricultural practice and employment is on the decline within the Hawkesbury LGA. This may help mitigate such a decline. If we as a community are not well positioned and prepared for the changes that are already taking place, then the economic wellbeing and condition of our local communities and environment are at risk. We have a tremendous opportunity to create quality eco accommodation in an area that is rapidly and deservedly growing in popularity and reputation .

I urge councils to adopt option one so that the planning proposal is moved to public exhibition as soon as possible and does not languish for another five years, thereby causing a tremendous opportunity to be fecklessly squandered. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Are you happy to answer questions?

No questions. No questions. Thank you. Councillor Kotlash.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'd like to put forward a motion, please. I think the staff have the wording.

Motions on the board. Do we have a seconder for that? Let's read it first.

You might need to scroll down, Jodie.

Yeah.

If you scroll that — oh, not that far.

Will I read out the changes? Yes,

Just explain how it differs from.

In point 3, after the full stop in agencies, this to include exploring with the Minister for Planning and the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment the opportunity to amend the LEP standard instrument to distinguish between rural lands affected by flood and rural lands not affected by flood. And adding a point 4, that Council meet with a local State Member to gain support for the proposed amendment to the LEP standard instrument to distinguish between rural lands affected by flood and the rural lands not affected by flood. So the essence is that we try to expedite this position we're in now where we can't move forward.

I don't think we have all that on the screen yet.

Point 3 and point 4, Jodie.

I think we've gone into another item,

And that's not what I want.

It's disappeared.

Well, on the basis of what was read out to you, does anyone wish to second it?

Still waiting for the screen.

The part where it adds to point three. So, no, it's those same points are there. It's, sorry, it's complicated. It's probably easier if you can read it yourself.

I had some questions, Mr Mayor, if we could address them while that gets sorted.

Yeah. We could do that, yes. I'm just waiting.

It should be after zones. It should be the next one. And continued process, there it is. Stop.

There it is.

So it's really the addition of that differentiation between flood affected and non-flood affected.

It keeps—

It's a moving festival.

Okay. Do we have a seconder yet?

No. Doesn't look like we have a seconder. Councillor Conolly, you want to ask questions, but we don't have a motion. I can move a motion , Mr Mayor. You move what?

Assuming, has that lapsed, Donald

That motion has lapsed because there's no seconder. Okay. I would like to move.

I've got questions about it before I'm willing to second it.

The mayor wanted a motion before he allowed questions. That's why I was going to move something. You

Could second it first.

I'll second it for the purposes of— Good

Now you can ask questions. Councillor Wheeler.

So I guess what I would like to hear, because what we're trying to do here is progress the bulk of the document, is my understanding, so that we don't disadvantage everybody who's encompassed by these changes to the LEP, because we foresee that the state government— this is my understanding of the situation— we foresee that the state government will knock back these three particular issues and therefore hold up the whole process. Is that right? Is that a question ? That's the start of the question.

Mrs. Perina, do you want to answer that?

Yes. So currently the planning proposal is 50 items with various sub-items and, as you can tell from the report, most of these have got their procedural matters that we're looking to progress. Three items have received more feedback or concerns from state agencies, so the potential risk is the planning proposal as a whole could, you know, take a lot longer to move forward while we're trying to resolve these three items. So those other matters could get held up as well.

So my next question is, does this motion satisfactorily separate those items out so that the other items can progress and we can continue to deal with these problem issues

What we're proposing is that we continue, we keep those items within the current planning proposal , but acknowledging that we need to have further conversations with those state agencies, looking, exploring opportunities of alleviating their concerns

No , sorry. No, sorry, you've had your turn, Mr Buckett, sorry. Councillor Wheeler, do you have any other questions? Not at this point, Mr Mayor. Thank you. Councillor Cottles, do you wish to speak to your motion?

Well, the way I saw it is that if we separated, if we tried to expedite this, I suppose, by having the state government look at land that is impacted by flood and not, that we might be able to move forward with the deliberations about these three items that we're debating. That's as simple as it gets. I don't know what that, I don't know why that would be. That's the reality of the situation. We're going to have to go down this route at some stage. So, I mean, I just thought that that was quite a glaring thing that we have to come to grips with. We have to start to make those decisions. That's , I don't have any more to add to that than that. This is hopefully going to

Move this along. Thank you, Councillor Conolly.

Thanks

Mr Mayor. Can I move a procedural motion that we invite that last speaker to address us for another minute?

The last speaker for another minute. Yep.

Based on what? Based on the— There's some contested information here, and I've actually felt that this report is not of great quality, in that everything is general information. There's no actual correspondence from any state agencies. There's no real formal outline of exactly what's going to happen and exactly what point in the process we're at right now even. So I probably wouldn't, I wouldn't feel, given that the information is being contested, I wouldn't feel comfortable making a decision without just at least giving the opportunity to hear if there's a feeling that we're not getting the correct information. The

Speakers have already spoken on the matter, Councillor Conolly.

Yeah, well, I'm asking to move a procedural motion to allow them to speak to that information that's been raised.

Yes, you want to move that? Do we have a seconder for that?

I'll second that.

Several people. All those in favour of that, please say aye. Aye. Those against? No. Looks like it's carried. So which speaker did you want to get back? Well, who wanted to speak ?

Mr Buckett, you're being invited to address the— what did you say? Inconsistencies. I

Said contested claims. I'm not adjudicating at this point.

My discussions with the planner from Greater Sydney Commission and from planning, if you knock out those three things, they're lost from that LEP. So you can discuss them, but they'll come back, because a gateway, once it's done, it can have things taken out of it, but it can't be intensified or changed. So you take them out. Well, it looks like you're still talking about it. They're gone from the LEP. The planner tells us that for state government, that council should be asking them about this, not forward thinking. So we have an email from the planner at state government in charge of Hawkesbury, who's saying, hey, council aren't talking to us about this. They should be asking us about this.

They should not be forward guessing Greater Sydney Commission. And if you look at the document, the gateway, it's signed off by the delegate for Greater Sydney Commission. That to me says why they're not in the list. So it's, you know, it's a what if situation. So if you know that and you do option one, which is the normal process, and they do knock out those three things, or one of them , then it's nothing lost, because option three, you're knocking out the whole three. So, you know, that's a logical thing. And those documents that I copied, they should have been on this tracking way back at the start. So there hasn't been work done on this. So the council officers told me initially they didn't want to do it.

They just wanted to wait for the new LEP. We can't and shouldn't have to wait for the new LEP. We're told now that's the middle of 2021. But with the history of how long council takes to do things, that could be like many more years than that. And this is something that has been passed and can go ahead, and it is being done because these things were mistakenly left out of the 2012 LEP. It's highly likely they'll put the whole lot of them in. On my opinion from talking to all these planners.

Any questions of Mr. Buckett? Councillor Wheeler, you had a question. Mr. Buckett

You referred to an email. Have we got that in our package?

No. Right. But I do have that.

Any other questions ? Based on that, Councillor Conolly, are you trying to move something?

I wanted to ask a question, if I could. Yes. I wanted to clarify— You

Asking Mr. Buckett a question? No

Sorry. Thank you, Mr. Buckett. Thank you. Appreciate that.

Thank you

So my question was, firstly, is it correct to say that if these three items are removed from this planning proposal, that they cannot be put back in and will require a fresh planning proposal to go through Gateway again? Mrs. Perrin.

If we remove them completely, yes, it would be a new planning proposal, or we put it as part of the broader LEP review. We're not proposing to remove them completely at all

Yeah. Okay. Can you elaborate on that, please, on what that means to remove them but not remove them

From the proposal? From— essentially, we're still seeing this part of the overall, the current planning proposal, but what we're doing is acknowledging the feedback that we've received from the state agencies in terms of their concerns. So we're saying it's still part of the same bucket. We've heard these issues. There's 47 items, you know, which are largely procedural that we recommended we proceed with while we continue the conversations with the other items to see are there other amendments that could be made to allow these to proceed.

So— sorry, can I have another question? Yes, yes. So I guess I'm just trying to understand the possible outcomes. From this process, is it correct to say that the possible outcomes are that a decision is made on these 47 outcomes, the planning proposal is finalised without those three, and those three have to start again, or they get a refusal on those three items and they have to start again, but we're not giving them the option of approving all 50? Okay.

So we could recommend that the current proposal just goes with no changes. The minister, because we don't have any delegation to finalise this, my understanding is the minister could then say, Yep, okay, as Mr Buckett is saying, we're fine, GC is fine, everyone is fine, off we go, consultation proceed . We could proceed with the whole, you know, without making any changes. The minister could turn around and say, No, I'm considering the feedback from the state agencies, that they're valid and I'd like to remove these and, you know, proceed with the others . Or council could do where we're proposing to take them out slightly to continue the conversation, acknowledging, you know, the feedback we've received from state agencies, we have to respect that feedback , and we're saying, Yep, we're acknowledging it. We don't want to lose them completely. Can we continue the conversation? So

Mr Mayor, can I just ask a question? Because this is, and I understand a little bit of the frustration and the criticism, but this is very ambiguous. Where do these three items go once the planning proposal gets approval from the minister and those 47 items go through and it becomes part of the LEP? Where are those other three? Are they requiring a new planning proposal?

So if this gets finalised without those items, then yes, they would require a new planning proposal, or they become part of the broader LEP. So,

I mean, I'm just struggling to understand. If either

Way, that could still be the case. Yes .

To be honest, whatever option Council recommends, there's a risk either way. We'll work with whatever Council recommends, and ultimately we know we still need to have discussions with state agencies about these items. I'm

Just, I'm still a tad confused about the advantage of flagging that these three items have issues and not asking for them to be included. If the other 47, if by doing that the other 47 go through quickly and that ends those three, that's no different to having those three refused?

My concern is if they sense that Council is not taken into consideration some of the feedback from state agencies, my concern is, would we put at risk the other items which are fairly procedural? Okay.

Thank you for that. I'd like to move an amendment then, Mr Mayor. Yes

Please.

Well , my thinking was just to move points one and two, but I might take some advice from the staff. The intention is to give effect to option one in the business paper, that we continue the planning proposal as is. I believe by just moving items one and two from the recommendation, that will achieve that.

General Manager or Mrs. Perrin, you've got a comment on that

So option one is continue the planning proposal as is. That's the option that you're looking at

No, we'd need a new recommendation. So essentially, the recommendation would be continue with the planning proposal as is, with all matters being considered as part of the planning proposal.

Okay, then I would— Move then just item 2, because I mean, I would imagine we can fix up the bed and breakfast accommodation while we're doing this. So, and would we still want to reflect the release of the Sydney Region Western District Plan in the amendments?

We're required to.

Yeah, so that's why I suggested points 1 and 2 of the recommendation. But do we have a point 1 above that that is, council does not wish to make any other changes to the planning proposal and wishes to proceed other than the next two points? Is that what we're—?

This is— This

Is why I was actually a bit confused in the earlier question what point we're at, because is it actually a requirement for council to make any decision right now, or should it just be proceeding?

I'll just work on some words.

So, but what Councillor Conolly put forward is workable. You've just got to have the words.

Yeah, essentially, if the view of the council is we want to proceed with all items as current as is, then we'll just develop some words and ask for you to consider

Do we have a seconder for that, Councillor Tree? And I am aware you want to speak, Councillor Tree, but Councillor Conolly is putting this amendment

First . I'll speak briefly to it then, if that's okay. It would seem that, and we've had a number of briefings on this, and I've been trying to get it straight in my head what exactly the advantage of doing this would be. I would have hoped when the report came there would be some correspondence from the state government advising us that, obviously the attachment is there with the State Agency comments. And that's why I was trying to ascertain whether there was actually a requirement for council to do anything right now. And from those answers to those questions, I understand there really isn't. The process just needs to be followed, that we continue with our planning proposal. There's no requirement for council to do anything at this point, as I understand it.

Other than address, other than perhaps address some of those issues around the bed and breakfast while we've still got the opportunity, I would think the outcomes possible are the 50 items go in and 47 get approved, three get knocked back, in which case we're no worse off than if we hadn't taken them out, or that 50 go in and some other number come back out. But I can't see an option where we're worse off for having let the planning proposal go through. It doesn't make sense. If 47 of them are primarily procedural, it doesn't make sense that the state government will decide to penalise us for having put in things that are controversial and refuse our procedural items. That doesn't really ring true to me.

So I don't see any great risk as such. And in the absence of any advice from any formal statements, even in the report, to explain what that risk is, because there really is nothing in the actual report before us to really justify that, I can't see why we would change. This is a decision of council to move forward, so I don't know why we would change it at this point before we even get an answer on the basis that we might not get the answer we want.

Thank you, Councillor Conolly.

Just pointing out, Councillor Conolly, I have difficulty hearing you sometimes. Maybe your microphone is not pointing in the right direction or something. Councillor Tree, you wanted to speak? Oh

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I was just going to do what Councillor Conolly has done, purely from the perspective of if the people who are greatly the most affected by being left out of something and are happy to run the gauntlet of being included in it. You know, I think, as has been highlighted, the risk outweighs the danger of anything because if they're not approved through this process, then they're going to have to start all again anyway. So I think it's definitely worthwhile going with option one. And, you know, the council's all about supporting people and tourism, and yet our policies often don't reflect this particular position. And I think that what we're about to get now is probably a pretty good outcome if all, you know, everything willing. So thank you, Councillor Collins. Councillor Sam Prognow.

Thank you

Mr Mayor. I want to rail against what I perceive as years of lost opportunities. The fact that this wasn't included in the LEP that was birthed in 2012 is an oversight that sits before my tenure on this council. But what I'm hearing very much from the community is a desire to engage in totally legitimate forms of economic activity that make them good stewards of the land, and it's precisely the kind of thing that we should be fostering in this district as part of our overall economic plan. And to find that since coming onto council, so many things that I thought I would be able to have some agency in the change thereof, that we could have detached dual occupancy, and then that was wiped off the card, that we could have a more generous definition of secondary dwelling, and then that was wiped off the cards, that we could perhaps, in a non-retrospective way, excise caravan parks from RU2 and RU4 zoned land and bring ourselves into alignment with our neighbouring councils and avoid some problems thereby.

None of that has happened, and I was assured that the mechanism by which we might be able to effect some change in this term of council was through the housekeeping LEP, because the big thing, the renovation of the entire LEP, lay further down the track. Only earlier this evening, we were talking about begging another tier of government for some extra funds so that we might be able to begin the process of expediting the process of renovating our LEP because we're so short on resources to be able to do that ourselves. I agree with Councillor Conolly that if we don't press our case now, the opportunity that these people have to engage in ecotourism and other forms of economic activity is going to be lost.

It's going to be lost for years, and I would rather take our chances in putting what we have before the Minister and instead of treating this process like it's buying a lottery ticket and that we just close our eyes and stick it. Let's tick it through the whole and hope that we get a good response, that this actually results in some kind of dialogue. So instead of pulling the lever and coming up with nothing , is that we can get something back that's more collaborative and that we can hopefully get the whole thing through. But certainly if we don't take the opportunity now to press that case, then the opportunity is lost and it is lost for years. So if option one is affected by Councillor Connolly's amendment, I heartily endorse it.

Any further speakers? Councillor? Make one really brief point that I did forget to make. A really brief point.

Brief question point.

Yeah. So the brief question was, I do recall in 2015 , or whenever this was first submitted, there was actually another planning proposal to deal with these things, some of these things independently, and there was intense pressure to lump it in with the housekeeping LEP. So to come back years later and be told, you know, it's going to hold up the housekeeping LEP, it doesn't seem like we'd be dealing fairly with the community. Thanks

For that point. Any further speakers? Councillor Ross.

Question. If I could, Mr Mayor, to the planning people am I correct in believing that there is a gateway proposal sitting in the bureaucracy in regard to equine activity on the Richmond lowlands from Bells Line of Road heading towards the Windsor and Cornwallis area

Yes, we've got a couple of planning proposals that are awaiting. You know, feedback or processing with the state agencies. Sorry, can you not hear me? Yes. At the moment we've got a couple of planning proposals that are with the state agencies for processing, moving to the next stage.

Do I take that

As affirmation?

Yes. Yes, it is. Could you microphone on again, please.

Pardon me. The next question relates to a gateway determination dated the 19th of February 2016. Do you confirm that the document that has been provided to councillors under the name of Marcus Ray, Deputy Secretary , dated that date and giving information about a determination is an accurate document?

Sorry, I'm not sure what document you're talking about.

I have a gateway determination.

This one of the ones Mr Bucket gave us? Yes.

Okay.

Is it accurate? I'm just wanting to confirm that that material has credibility and could be the subject of a question, please.

What was missing was some advice that we'd received from Infrastructure New South Wales, but ultimately, yes, some of that information we've seen before. So

Yes. As I understand it. There was a gateway determination made . Part of the determination was that there were subsidiary agencies with whom council had to make contact to seek their conjunction of thought, if you like, with the Department of Planning's acceptance of the gateway proposals. And that, as I understand it, and I would like your confirmation of this, that all of those eight or whatever they were number of subsidiary agencies were contacted by council and that only a limited response was received, and that is sufficient to enable, should council have decided to do so, to put the matter on public exhibition if there was no negative response.

So in terms of the gateway determination, the gateway determination did indicate a number of agencies that council had to consult with, and correspondence was forwarded to all those agencies. A number of those have responded, but not everyone. And especially, the gateway determination also included correspondence from Infrastructure New South Wales, which raised issues in terms of particularly regional flood evacuation issues within the Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley, and that highlighted that their preference was the planning proposal... was deferred pending further work that the state was doing in respect of planning within the Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley.

Right. I further understand that

The gateway determination

Elapsed, but then is it correct to understand that there were a number of, at least one if not two or more, extensions granted by the department to retain the in-life, shall we say, activation potential of that gateway determination?

That's correct. A number of extensions have been granted in terms of the gateway determination. That's not an uncommon approach. There's a number of planning proposals that do require further time to complete, but extensions have been granted.

Thank you. Is it correct now to believe that the last extension concluded somewhere in the early part of 2019 and has not been followed up?

No, I don't believe that to be the case. I believe that it is still current, but I haven't got the exact date with me, but I believe it's still current.

What I'm seeking to ascertain, sir, is whether the gateway determination, whose genesis was the 19th of February 2016, through means of extension is still current and available for council. To proceed with.

That's correct. It's still the current gateway determination that we're acting on.

But you're saying something different in this material that you've put before us tonight.

Is that a question?

I don't — if you're telling me that that gateway determination is current and valid and could be operated upon, why is this report coming to Council?

Simple.

Essentially, we have to raise the issues that we've received feedback on. Obviously, Infrastructure New South Wales has raised issues. We've obviously got the release of the Sydney Region Plan and the Western City District Plan that Council has to consider as part of finalising the planning proposal, and that's why it's been brought to Council for consideration.

Thank you. I contest that, and the basis upon which I contest it is that there was a determination made 19 February 2016. The determination was obviously based upon the then bureaucracy and regulation and rules and whatever in place — regulations.

If that gateway determination... Has life,

That determination has been made. It can't be surely overturned by subsequent events when it has been determined.

So, in other words

We applied, presumably the rules were followed, the bureaucrats came back and said, Go for it.

We've prevaricated, but apparently done the other agency contact. To me, it seems as if the only missing link in the chain is that, through whatever reason, this council has not proceeded to put the matter on public exhibition for an ultimate determination and getting back to the minister, if it is still alive.

I'll take that as a question.

Got an answer to that?

I'll highlight that the section 9.1 ministerial directions requires councils, regardless of the date of the gateway determination, to— To reflect the region plan and district plan. So we have to reflect that in the planning proposal.

Was that a relevant consideration on the 19th of February 2016, sir?

No, the region plan and district plan came into effect in 2018.

Precisely the point I'm raising.

If you get the Guernsey on one set of rules, whatever

The changes are laterally

Are of no consequence in this instance.

And apart from that,

The standard LEP template

Includes ecotourism, as I understand it, and it was said so in the minutes of the meeting of the 15th of March in 2015. That's why the gateway determination must have come through so smartly , would you not agree?

Do you have an answer to that?

Essentially, we've been operating under the information that we... the discussion, we've

Had these discussions around, do we need to, you know, take into account ministerial directions that come in after a process has started? To all intents and purposes, the advice that we've been given when we're dealing with the department or state agencies or whoever, that we actually need to take into account, you know, different ministerial directions, which is what we've done. However, going back to the proposed amendment in terms of the recommendation, we've got the Councillor Conolly, we've got the proposed revision up for your consideration. To all intents and purposes, it's put to Council for their consideration. We can proceed with that discussion. Happy

With that

Wording, Mr Mayor

Councillor Ross, did you have a new point to raise rather than labouring that point?

The question is, why is this matter being brought forward in this manner when we already have a gateway determination that is, according to staff, alive and actionable by going to public consultation? I don't understand that.

I think an answer was given, unless there's another answer. No, an answer was given to that question, and you keep asking it, you get the same...

Sorry, I didn't...

I would like to hear it again so I can absorb it.

Well, okay. My understanding is that the answer is we have to take into account ministerial directives after the event. I'll hand it over to Mrs. Boren.

Do you have an answer to that?

Okay, so I'll read out the Ministerial Advice: Implementation of Regional Plans.

Planning proposals must be consistent with a regional plan released by the Minister for Planning.

So despite the fact that the regional plan and district plan came in after we'd started this LEP amendment, we, based on this ministerial direction, we must take that into account. That is the reason why we are bringing the information back to Council to advise you of the impacts of these plans and how that is affecting the advice that we're receiving from the different state agencies.

That's the answer, Councillor Ross. Are you going to ask the same question again? You're not happy with the answer, but that is the answer.

Sorry, Mr Mayor, it's the answer provided by staff. I find it particularly unconvincing. Okay Unconvincing.

Thank you. Councillor Wheeler? And

I'd like to draw other councillors' attention to it in the chamber now.

I think we all noticed. Thank you, Councillor Wheeler.

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

I think we already have an amendment. You want to foreshadow an amendment? That's why I'm foreshadowing one. If this one is lost, is that— Yes. Would you be keen to tell us what it is?

Sure. What I'm hoping to do, and could I have Councillor Kotlash's words up ? I know we're talking about this amendment at the moment, but if I could have Councillor Kotlash's original motion, that would be helpful.

Because what I'm trying to do is find a halfway point that hopefully meets —I think Councillor Kotlash and I have particular concerns as pertains to flooding, and that may be because we sit on the Floodplain Committee and we have seen the pictures of what's going to happen to certain bits of the Hawkesbury. What I'm attempting to do is— so

The simplest thing, I think, would be to remove point C from 3. That would allow ecotourist facilities to proceed with the rest of the LEP, but would allow us to continue the negotiation process about function centres, particularly in flood-affected—on flood-affected land, because that is the sticking point.

For me, that is the sticking point. I've got no objection to ecotourist facilities whatsoever. I agree. I really want to congratulate Ms Hughes for her excellent presentation that really outlined why we need these facilities and the benefits for the Hawkesbury and for our ongoing viability

As a... Councillor Wheeler, this is a foreshadowed motion. Yes, and then I'm going to speak on the other one. Okay, Councillor Sam Progner.

Yeah, it's a question that's related to that, and like Councillor Wheeler, I have no in-principle objection to ecotourism, but it is true that a specific objection that's been raised is, well, if you approve this in this generic form, there are certainly a number of sites that would be totally unsuitable and reasons are given, and the lowlands are quoted as an example. But would it not still be true that an individual DA under these new zonings would still be subjected to a whole heap of additional checks and balances relating to the merits of that application, including on matters like flood affectedness? I mean, I understand what Councillor Wheeler's concern is, and it's been voiced to me as well.

But is this the appropriate time to be flagging that? Because my understanding is that if we try and get this through in its generic form, any application in a particular place would still be subjected to a whole heap of other checks.

So are you suggesting a solution?

Well, I'm asking that question of staff that my understanding is correct.

Mrs Perrin.

Yes, once these uses are permitted in these zones, then they would be subject to whatever the DA requirements are to justify assessment of a whole range of matters.

Then, because my hunch has been confirmed, I would suggest that even though it is an entirely valid concern, this isn't the time or place for that, and therefore it's irrelevant to conflate that issue with what's before us this evening.

Correct.

In your opinion. Right. Thank you. Councillor Tree

I completely agree with Councillor Zamprogno, because the same argument could be had about ecotourism anywhere, which could be subject to flooding or subject to bushfire. I don't think this is the part in the process where we have those conversations. I think we need to send it all away, and then as people put in DAs, then it would be considered at that time. I don't think it's the appropriate point at this juncture. So, still supportive of the amendment that Councillor Conolly has put up.

Just a point of order, Mr Mayor. Yes. We seem to now be discussing debate on the foreshadowed amendment. No , we're not. Well, that's what everyone is discussing. I was just going to draw your attention to that because I imagine you're not going to let me speak on it right now, but if we were going to debate that, I would want to debate it, so maybe we could condemn—

No, we're not debating the foreshadowed amendment at all. I was going to ask you, Councillor Conolly, a question about what Councillor Kotlash included in the original motion about asking the state planning to look at our rural zones and make them different according to whether they're flood or not flood. My understanding is that could still be added to your amendment, and it doesn't— Councillor Tree seems to think, and Councillor Zamprogno seems to think it will somehow hamper— Your part of the amendment, I see it as an extra thing that runs parallel and has no influence on what you're putting forward. So based on that, would you be interested in adding Councillor Kotlasher's point to your amendment?

The only thing I would be worried about, and I'll take some advice from the staff on whether this would ever be looked at, we might say that we don't want to conflate the two issues. My concern would be, what if the department ever looks at the fact that the reason we were asking about flooding was because of this application, and therefore those two issues become conflated and linked. So your answer is no? I'd be happy to support that motion. I just would rather support it as a different motion.

Okay, so no is your answer. Okay. So we're still debating Councillor Connolly's amendment. I think most people have spoken on it.

Does anyone else wish to speak on the amendment?

Councillor Wheeler, I think you—

Question, if I might, Mr Mayor . We need to have the revised LEP to the state government by the middle of next year. Do we have a timeline from them on processing that new LEP?

No.

Any further speakers? If not, we have right of reply. Councillor Kotlasher, that belongs to you. Excuse me, do you want to speak? Yes

I foreshadow a further amendment to the motion.

Second foreshadowed amendment. Can I make a point of order, Mr Mayor? I actually believe right of reply should be after the vote on the amendment, because should the amendment not become the motion, people are actually free to move further amendments. And therefore the right of reply should be once the final motion is being put.

Would you like to say that again? Sorry, I believe the correct procedure is that the right of reply should be right at the end of the debate, so it should be after this vote, because if this motion does not become— sorry, this amendment does not become the motion, then anybody is free to move a further amendment and this debate could continue. So I think you need to vote on whether the amendment becomes the motion first.

I'll stand corrected. We'll do it that way. So, is there any further— Councillor Ross, you wished to speak on the amendment,

Did you, or you didn't? Councillor Ross?

I was wanting to foreshadow an amendment to the motion.

Okay. Well, I won't ask you what it is. We'll wait and see what happens to the amendment, okay? I'll

Be stummed.

So, Councillor Conolly, if it's all right with you, we're going to vote on the amendment now. Is that— Yes. If you're in favour of the amendment moved by Councillor Conolly, please stand.

In favour of the amendment is Councillor Tree, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Calvert. Against is Councillor Ross, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Wheeler. Absent is Councillor Richards— sorry, against is also Councillor Cotlass, sorry. Absent is Councillor Richards, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Reynolds and Councillor Rasmussen. Declare the motion

Carried. The amendment carried.

So the amendment has become the motion.

At this stage, Councillor Conolly.