8 December 2020 - Ordinary

Item is 245, and under draft net zero emissions strategy, and our first speaker is Helen Sabeziak.

Is Helen in the meeting? Hi

Helen, we're ready when you're ready

Just unmute at the moment, sorry.

Good evening, Mayor Conolly, Councillors, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Helen Sabeziak, and I am speaking for the release of the draft net zero emissions and water efficiency strategy document. I am representing Hawkesbury Climate Action Network. The shortened name of our group is Hawkesbury CAN. Hawkesbury CAN is a fairly new community group. We've only been meeting over Zoom since August 2020. Hawkesbury CAN draws together people who see climate change as probably the greatest challenge facing our planet. The unprecedented fires experienced in the Hawkesbury last summer, and indeed in many parts of eastern Australia, following a long period of drought and high temperatures. is a stark reminder that accelerated climate change is not some far-off thing in the future, but is something that is happening now. Thus the need for action.

But instead of just wringing our hands and panicking about climate change, HawkesburyCAN believe that we can work together with the local community and local government to develop strategies to reduce carbon emissions and to live more sustainably. So the focus is on action.

As for my involvement in HawkesburyCAN,

I'm a retired geography teacher and I've had a long-term interest in the environment and the interconnectedness of all things, in particular, the impacts of humans on the environment. And it is the negative human impacts that have led to accelerating climate change. As well as this, I now have six grandchildren, all aged five and under, and my involvement in HawkesburyCAN is motivated by a very deep desire to pass on to them a safer and better world.

Last week, some members of HawkesburyCAN met with Mayor Conolly to discuss his views on climate change. And once again, I'd like to thank Mayor Conolly for his time and his engagement with this conversation.

So, given that HawkesburyCAN is a community group whose focus is on taking action to minimise— The risks associated with climate change, we wholeheartedly support the Council's release of the net zero emissions and water efficiency draft strategy, and the plan to put it on public exhibition for no less than 56 days. We applaud the Hawkesbury Council for this positive action to address climate change, and look forward to a time when we have achieved net zero emissions and improved water efficiency. And I believe that HawkesburyCAN would like to make a submission. Thank you.

Thank you for that. Are you happy to take questions if the Councillors have questions?

Sure. I'm not pretending to have all the answers, but I'll give it a go.

That's okay. Thanks. Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Thank you, Helen, for that. That was a wonderful talk, thank you. And you just answered the question I was going to ask right at the end when you said that HawkesburyCAN will put in a submission. I would just like to compliment your group for its proactive stance and its approach to working with all stakeholders. I really admire how it's a multigenerational group. I enjoy it when I can get to their meetings, which isn't always, but just occasionally, and I did enjoy seeing a lot of you at the Resilience Forum the other week. But thank you for that, and thank you for being a community group that's engaging with everybody and really raising awareness about these very important issues.

So I look forward to seeing the submission from HawkesburyCAN and to see if you've got any additional ideas that we can be putting in with the strategy. So thanks, Helen. Thanks. Thank you, Mary.

Any other questions, councillors? No, thank you for that, Mr. Mayor

You're welcome.

That was the final speaker for the item. Does anybody wish to move anything?

Move the recommendation, Councillor Kotlash, seconded Deputy Mayor. Discussion, Deputy Mayor?

Councillor Kotlash moved it.

She didn't have a hand on at that point. Okay. Councillor Kotlash, did you wish to discuss?

There's not a lot to say. I think we've been over it quite a few times. I think that it's wonderful that we've got to the point where we have this document. It's a very important document, and I really look forward to the submissions coming in from the public. I think, in particular, one of the sectors we will have to work the hardest on is around transport, given the very large degree of emissions within our community, transport being very emissions intensive. I think that if we can encourage people to make that transition, and if we, as a council, make that transition as soon as is practical, it will make a tangible difference. I think that there's a lot, particularly around the water and other issues in there that we've been looking at for a long time.

And I think the really good thing is that it just comes together in one document and gives us a way forward how we can look forward to improving emissions reduction and heading towards that target, which hopefully we will meet a lot earlier than 2050. In fact, we will have to meet it a lot earlier if we're to sustain as a population in any sense, really. So I'll maybe comment again in reply, but thank you for that. Thanks.

Councillor Kotlash . Thank you. Thank you, Mr Mayor. Sorry, I wasn't quick enough off the mark before. Look, I have to agree with the Deputy Mayor. This is a great, a great strategy, and I was really pleased when I read the final draft. But in the process, it was quite obvious that the aim was to be consultative with all levels of government, and I think that was a really, really essential thing to do in such a strategy. And what I really like most about it is that the things that were suggested are very achievable, and we really have now the pathway to be able to achieve these emission reductions and these water savings. They're practical, and everybody can understand them. So I really urge anybody who's listening out there to this meeting, get hold of it and read it and give us your ideas.

It is one of the best strategies that I've read in a while. And, yeah , that's over to the community now to get involved. And well done to the consultant, and also all of us and everybody who had a part in its development. So well done. I think it's a great strategy. So get on board, everyone. Thank you.

Thanks, Councillor Kotlash. I can see, Councillor, really got your hand up. Is anyone, for two speakers, is anyone wishing to speak against?

If not, Councillor Wheeler

Thank you. Just a few points. I agree that this is a really useful strategy for council going forward. We've done a lot in the background without a strategy, and I think we need to be very grateful to the staff that have done that, particularly... The facilities manager, Lachlan McHugh, who has really taken on the transition of council from a fossil fuels-powered organisation to now an almost 100% renewably powered facility, and that really is quite extraordinary in a very short period of time. And not only has that come with really significant emissions savings, it's saved us a lot of money as well. And that's, I think that's the take-home message from some of this stuff, is what we know now about climate action is that this isn't just an eco-friendly feel-good.

There is really good economic imperatives behind these changes as well. I think this document has some really notable things in it. The baseline data about emissions in the Hawkesbury, I think, is really telling. You can see some of the impacts of how we live and where we live on our emissions data. So the fact that we are very car dependent, far more car dependent than metropolitan Sydney, because of our lack of public transport, because of the long distances that we cover, because of the size of the LGA, because of our need to commute to work and for people needing to take their children places and things. We have a very high car— Not only do we drive a lot, we've got lots of cars, far more than the average.

We also have a lot of single-family dwellings spread out, and they come with high emissions costs. So part of the lifestyle that we enjoy in the Hawkesbury with that quarter-acre block comes at an emissions price. What that means then is that the Hawkesbury needs swift and really supported transition to a low emissions future, because If you aid communities like ours, you get a fairly high bang for your buck. And I think that's a message that we should be taking to our state and federal representatives, that by assisting communities like ours, this is some of the low-hanging fruit that they could be picking off. The other thing I think is really noticeable in this document and around all the discussions that we've had is our recycled water as an asset rather than a liability.

We saw that going into the drought, with being able to provide stock feed. But now we see it, I think, as part of our regreening of the Hawkesbury. This really gives us a significant advantage over LGAs that either don't have access to or can't afford or don't want to use potable water, and we shouldn't be using potable water just to keep trees and parks alive. We don't have to make that choice. We have recycled water that we can and should be using, and that's a real asset for us. Some of the things that I would like improved in this strategy, and particularly, is that focus on new dwellings. We know from the housing strategy that the bulk of our dwellings will not be new into the future. We need to be talking about retrofit, and we need to be making sure that every opportunity we have for retrofit in this LGA is taken.

So that's supported transition of households to solar, to water-storing gardens, to less hardstanding, and the changes that we can make to our LEP and DCP around what we recommend and what we tolerate for development and changes to existing development as well. Because if we simply rely on new dwellings to make changes to our urban fabric, we're not going to hit our goals. I'm concerned that we still have 2050 in our language. We know that 2050 is too slow. The overwhelming scientific consensus is that if we haven't got this mess sorted by 2036, we are looking at mass societal collapse. So 2050 is too slow, and I'm really hoping that the community gets behind shorter targets. I'm very, very pleased to see the focus on urban canopy and urban forests, and this ties into the notice of motion I moved a couple of years ago to get an urban forest strategy and to increase our urban canopy, and I'm glad that that's being pursued through the liveability plan.

I think we're at the point now where a whole lot of our strategies are just starting to come together. That's a really exciting point to be at, coming into our last year as a council. Thanks.

Thanks, Councillor Wheeler. Any further discussion? Right of reply, Councillor Kotlash?

No, it was me, I think. Not necessarily.

I had Councillor Kotlash move the motion. I just went to you first because Councillor Kotlash didn't have a hand up for discussion.

Oh, okay.

So put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour of the motion are Councillor Conolly, Councillor Calvert.

Our next item subject to public address is 246. We have two speakers. The first speaker is Andrew Thomas.

Whenever you're ready, Mr Thomas.

Thank you very much, Mr Mayor. Good evening, Mr Mayor, councillors and guests. My name is Andrew Thomas, and I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to speak before you tonight on item 246, following the public exhibition period of the draft Employment Lands Strategy. Before I begin, I'd like to once again commend Council on the draft HELS report. I believe the report provides a comprehensive and balanced analysis with regards to the demand, supply, diverseified employment lands within the Hawkesbury LGA. I'd like to make a brief oral submission tonight in favour of the recommendation on item 246. Moreover, I'd like to briefly reiterate what I believe are several key points for Council's consideration, which have been raised in one of the written submissions.

Submission number three, submitted during the public exhibition period, advocates for the reasonable expansion of the Mulgrave Industrial Precinct and endorses the inclusion of a particular site for future use as employment land, as recommended in the draft HELS report. Importantly, in Figure 54 on page 125 of the draft report, the report identifies several areas for further investigation. It is my submission that the left-side investigation area shown in Figure 54 is the most suitable area for future expansion of the Mulgrave Industrial Zone. This particular investigation area, which is adjacent to Railway Road South and incorporates the subject property at 181 Mulgrave Road, Mulgrave, holds substantial strategic merit for use as employment land.

Crucially , this area, including the subject site, is not affected by wetland and is not considered to be significantly affected by flooding, bushfire or ecology. The area is arguably a logical extension of the existing IN1 and B5 zones, given the site's immediate proximity to existing employment land, the train station and nearby major roads. The development of this area could also be leveraged as a network hub to support the planned Greater Sydney Orbital Network. The proposal outlined in submission number three represents the efficient use of land, what I believe allowing sustainable development and would promote for the protection of other, more sensitive land throughout the LGA. A business or industrial zoning for the area identified in Figure 54 of the report on the left-hand side would provide an attractive and viable expansion employment lands in line with the draft HELS report.

In conclusion, I encourage Council to adopt the current drafting of the 2020 HELS report and to give due consideration to the expansion of the Mulgrave Industrial Precinct by rezoning the left site areas shown in Figure 54 of the draft report, including the subject site shown in the medium short- to medium term, rather, as part of Council's broader LEP review process. Thank you.

Thanks, Mr. Thomas. Do you have any questions if Councils have any? Certainly, Mr. Mayor. Councillor Wheeler.

Sorry, Mr Mayor, that's a legacy hand. But look, I'll jump in really quickly. Mr Thomas, what's that land currently used for?

It is—it's currently zoned RU1 primary production, but it's not used for productive production, and hasn't been for quite some time. So it's

My understanding from going past is that it's just largely rural residential. Is that correct?

Aspects of that particular investigation area are rural residential. The particular lots within the site that I'm specifically referring to at 181 Mulgrave Road is predominantly large plots of flat, open, well-accessed land that is not used. So it doesn't have any rural buildings or anything located on it at this stage, and hasn't been. Thanks. Thank you, Councillor.

Thank you. It doesn't look like there's any further questions, so thanks, Mr Thomas. Thank you. Our next speaker is Natalie Richter.

I'm just having— hi. Good evening, Mayor, Councillors, staff and community members. I'm just having a little bit of trouble with the camera.

That's okay. We can hear you, so—

Okay. Apologies for that. My name is Natalie Richter, town planner speaking for the owners of 27 Park Road Vineyard and 41 Park Road Mulgrave. This is to register support for the recommendations of the current draft Hawkesbury Employment Lands Strategy and report tabled tonight. We have recently been notified that Council has received a gateway determination advising Council to proceed with our planning proposal to rezone these sites to become employment land, in accordance with the previous and current drafts of the Hawkesbury Employment Lands Strategy. These sites form part of the investigation area for Mulgrave employment land expansion under the current and previous drafts of the strategy. The sites are within an established business and industrial precinct in Mulgrave and are well connected to roads and railway and can service residential areas. Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you. Happy to take questions if councillors have any. Certainly. Are there any questions, Mr Richter?

Doesn't appear to be any questions, so thank you for that. That was our final speaker. Somebody wish to move something?

Deputy Mayor, move the recommendation.

I'll move the recommendation. Thank you, Mr Mayor. Seconder ? Seconded , Councillor Wheeler. Any discussion, Deputy Mayor?

I think that this is, as a strategy, we've been over it. We've had the submissions come in about the various areas. I think I have expressed previously that I'll be interested to see how this ties in with the whole employment lands of the Greater Western Sydney region through the Western Parkland City. I think that we have something that many other places don't have, which is we have some existing areas that can be expanded for employment lands, and so I... I think that it's one of our important strategies. I do believe that with any strategy, should anything change, we can upgrade and update it. But I think with the work that's been done to date, I think that it's time for it to be adopted and to go ahead into our planning documentation. Thanks.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I agree with the Deputy Mayor. It will be nice to see how this joins with the plans for the areas that adjoin the LGA. I think it's important for us to provide additional areas where people who live in the Hawkesbury can work. We know that commuting is something that really reduces people's quality of life when they have to commute long distances. We do have some variation in employment, and I think that's helpful. We certainly could improve on that. I think it's important that we place our employment lands as close as possible to transport nodes, and that the two speakers that have addressed us tonight are both talking about properties that fit that requirement. They're on major public transport routes, and that then takes the pressure off local roads and people travelling through residential areas.

And because that's a big problem that we've got in this LGA, we've had a very piecemeal approach to placement of employment spaces and to rezonings, and that has meant that we end up with a lot of conflict of use. And hopefully broader strategies like this will allow us to reduce some of that conflict of use going forward. That's really what I'm hoping to see come out of this.

Thanks, Councillor Wheeler. Any further discussion? A right of reply, Deputy Mayor?

Not necessary, thank you, Mr Mayor.

Put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour of the motion are Councillor Conolly, Councillor Carver, Councillor Richards, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Zemprogno, Councillor Ross, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Tree. Nobody against. Declared carried. The next item subject to public address is 247, the Hawkesbury Local Housing Strategy. We have one speaker, Ms Elaine Roth.

The subject to public address is 247, the Hawkesbury Local Housing Strategy. We have one speaker, Ms. Elaine Roth.

I'm not sure if Ms. Roth is in the meeting. Cheers.

Ms. Roth, are you with us at the moment? Are ready for your address whenever you're ready.

I am. Can you hear me?

We can now, thank you.

Great. Good evening, Mr Mayor and Councillors.

Sure. Ms. Roth is in the meeting. Cheers. I

Am. I don't think you can see my video. I'm having issues as well, sorry.

That's okay. We can hear. Ms. Roth, are you with us at the moment? Are ready for your address whenever you're ready.

Yes, I'm here. Can you hear me?

I am. Can you hear me?

Yes

We can.

Okay, great

Good evening, Mr Mayor and Councillors.

I'm Elaine Roth, town planner from Urban... I don't think you can see my video. I'm having issues as well, sorry.

That's okay. We can hear. We might just adjourn the meeting for five minutes while we sort out our technical issues here. Yes, I'm

Here. Can you hear me

On replay there, so we'll just take a short adjournment Yes

We can. Take

The meeting offline for

A moment. I just need to stop the YouTube streaming. Elaine Roth. I'm just waiting for that. ... telecast in the background

Okay

I've sorted my technical issues, if that helps.

That's okay. We've just got to wait till we go live again now.

Okay, apologies. I

Didn't realise it was just a matter of having YouTube on in the background is the issue there.

Yeah, that was my fault, sorry.

So we'll just wait until we can go live again.

I'll just wait till I get a message that we are in fact live on YouTube and I'll let you know.

Okay, we're now live again. So the meeting, clearly the meeting reopened. Ms. Roff, would you like to proceed with your address?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Councillors. I'm Elaine Roff. I'm town planner from Urbis and I am representing five landholders at 1 Kermond Road, 53 Kermond Road, 29 Putty Road, 61 Putty Road and 45 Earl Street, Rylstone. The landowners are strategically adjoined to the Wilberforce Town Centre, and as a group they provided a written submission on the draft strategy. Their properties were earmarked as an investigation area as a medium to long-term opportunity for rural residential development under the Hawkesbury Housing Strategy of 2011, which was endorsed by Hawkesbury City Council at the time. Based on that strategy, the landowners have been investigating changes to the planning controls in the future LEP review process, which would reduce the minimum lot size from 10 hectares to 4,000 square metres.

Disappointingly, the draft housing strategy removes Wilberforce as an investigation area for reasons that have little or no merit. Council suggests that there is sufficient land already to meet housing targets. This reasoning ignores a key objective of the draft strategy, which is to increase housing diversity in the Hawkesbury LGA. Low - to medium-density residential land and large acreage lots are out of reach for most people in terms of price points, and not everyone in the community necessarily wants to live in large acreage or low- to medium-density housing. Some wish to downsize and some wish to upsize, but there is a lack of residential typology across the LGA, and it's a missed opportunity in the draft strategy to cater for more rural residential lots.

Relying on the medium-density residential in the existing residential areas actually fails to offer the diversity for Hawkesbury residents who wish to live a rural residential lifestyle. The Hill PDA report used to inform the draft housing strategy identifies a very low number of rural residential lots within one precinct only for the whole LGA. That's Kurrajong. This is not sufficient to achieve housing diversity and cater for those looking for a rural residential lifestyle. A 4,000 square metre lot opportunity would cater for a broader demographic and support housing diversity in the Hawkesbury. Council suggests that urban development should be limited to investigation areas. We agree with this, but we recommend that Wilberforce is reconsidered as an investigation area.

Future development on the site will be able to manage infrastructure and flooding, and will be able to maintain a rural landscape because of the size of the lots that would be created and the ability to preserve vegetation and character. There are no character or environmental constraints that should preclude Wilberforce as an investigation area to deliver housing. Council suggests that agricultural production land should be retained for such purposes. The Wilberforce site is currently not used for agricultural production, and it is very unlikely to be so in the future. A more orderly and economic use of the land would be rural residential, given its proximity to the town centre and desire to create housing diversity.

Council suggests that there is a lack of sewer connections. The proposed 4,000 square metre lot size would have on-site detention tanks and reticulated water infrastructure. This would mean that the sewer is managed on site, and so Council's reasons for excluding the area from investigation is not valid. Council suggests the land may be isolated during a major flood event and therefore should be removed as an investigation area. Flood planning levels informing the housing strategy were adopted based on 2012 modelling. The flood planning from 2012 shows that the site is unaffected during a 1 in 100 flood event. Council should be required to undertake further current flood studies and evacuation modelling before eliminating Wilberforce as an investigation area.

The Wilberforce site has similar site and flood characteristics to the recent Jacaranda Ponds rezoning, which was endorsed with an evacuation management strategy. Flood evacuation in Wilberforce can be managed in a similar way and would rely on Windsor Bridge and the Great Western Highway. Based on this, we therefore request that the Council not adopt the draft strategy until such time as the Wilberforce site is included as an urban investigation area, as per the 2011 strategy. We feel it would be a disappointing and counterproductive matter to remove it, given the work that was done as part of that strategy. We'd also request that Council undertake further flood studies and evacuation strategies to better inform its recommendations around Wilberforce.

We would also request that Council consider the merits of smaller lot sizes, particularly in the Wilberforce site, to support the town centre, the adjacent town centre, and housing diversity in the Hawkesbury.

Thank you. Thanks for that, Mr. Ruff. We happy to take questions if there are any? Yes . I actually have a question. You mentioned then a few times that the Wilberforce site was unaffected by that one in a hundred flood, and so on. So I'm assuming from that basis you've got an area in mind that you're talking about. And I just wondered, in that area that you're referring to, how many 4,000 square metre lots do you think there could be?

It's a site area that could probably accommodate 20 lots.

Thank you.

Yeah, and the flood— sorry, the flood comment was in relation to a flood map that was included in the 2011 strategy.

Are there any further questions, Mr Ruff? No,

Thank you for that. Thank you. Councillor Zamprogno.

You're on mute.

My apologies, I should know better. I'd like to move a form of words, and I'd provided them to Mr McElroy prior to the meeting. So, should I read that or...? Yeah, maybe just read that out while we get on. And then, so I'll read the form of words that I'm proposing and then seek a seconder. So the recommendation is points one through three of the recommendation in the business paper to adopt this residential housing strategy , and then new point four and point five being that Council recognises many submissions have raised the possibility of Oakville and Maraylya being an area for future residential development. As such, that Council should undertake consultation with the communities of Oakville and Maraylya to determine if there is support in the community for residential development in the future.

The consultation should be similar to the process used for the Kurrajong-Kurmond investigation area, in that it should seek to engage as many people as possible in these communities to gain an understanding of what type of residential development they would like to see in these areas, if any. And then point five, that the results of the consultation be reported back to Council for consideration. That being my motion, I'll seek a seconder.

Is there a seconder for that ?

Seconded, Councillor Richards. Thank you. I'll now speak to that. So, what I want to say is the work that we're doing here I regard as some of the most important that we're going to do in this term of Council, along with the renovation of our LEP and DCP. I welcome this housing strategy, and I note, for example, that it says that we will easily meet our five-year target of 1,150 dwellings, and the more speculative target of 200 dwellings per annum towards 2036, without any other areas beyond those that are already on our radar being gazetted or investigated or canvassed for future development. Indeed , I note that the housing strategy states that the 2036 population projection has been reduced to 77,000 people , which is only an increase of 10,000 from 2016.

Now, I don't want to make our debate on this question all about one specific area. This housing policy has far-reaching implications for the whole LGA, but in adopting this strategy, we cannot ignore the fact that there are some areas of our city that are feeling significantly greater pressure for development than others due to the proximity of intensive urban development, and I'm thinking specifically of Oakville and Maraylya. Now, the only mention that these areas get in our proposed policy is on page 123, where it says that there is potential in Vineyard to release unconstrained lands to the north of the existing Vineyard release area. But it then goes on to say that the final alignment of the Outer Sydney Orbital poses a significant constraint, and investigation, only the investigation, for release.

Cannot proceed until the alignment has been finalised. I agree with that sentiment, but I also agree that to give some certainty to this community, which is being seriously split between those who are for and against development, that we have to do better than this fairly cursory mention.

I note that of the public submissions that we received, only 14 were written and authored by people or stakeholders who expressed their own views, and that 256 people were prepared to sign a boilerplate letter, which was authored anonymously by a proponent of development who did not disclose to signatories that they would benefit personally from any potential rezoning of their land on the western side of Boundary Road. Clearly, there is a pressing need to know what the true sentiment towards future development is in these communities. Groups or individuals asserting that they speak for all or at least a clear majority of households in those suburbs cannot be doing so on the basis of any evidence that all landowners have expressed their view.

And indeed, for those who are in favour of development, what standard of development are we prepared to endure? On the eastern side of Boundary Road, the release areas of Box Hill North, The Gables, the Hills of Carmel have caused concern. There's road congestion, dust, construction noise, and the style of development resulting on the eastern side of Boundary Road is significantly poor in quality. Houses that nearly spill onto the road

With

Little

Frontages

No tree cover, no eaves, walls so close to fences you can't walk around them. I think of that standard as incompatible. With what we would want in the Hawkesbury, especially in lands lying adjacent to a national park. In fact, I think that what's happening east of Boundary Road is a tragedy. If we are to have development in the Hawkesbury, this is not an example I believe that even proponents of development would want us to follow. What I'm suggesting in this motion is that we task council staff to undertake some comprehensive consultation with landowners in these suburbs to work out what people really want, how they envision their corner of the Hawkesbury to look like in 5, 15 or 25 years from now.

I've spoken to Council staff and suggest that this be similar to the community consultation that we conducted in Kurrajong-Curmond a few years ago. And once the corridor issue is resolved, and it will in time, we cannot claim to be fairly representing the wishes of this semi-rural community, where there are still active agricultural and equine lands, until we've done a better job to work out what this community really wants. This policy does not put Oakville on the radar for future development. The Greater Sydney Commission is certainly against it, and the constraints are formidable. I decry the speculation that's occurring amongst people to try and increase people's expectations about the pace of development that might occur, and I think that at least asking this community what they want in detail is the best first step we could take at this time.

I commend it to you.

Thanks, Councillor Zamprogno. I would just say at this point that I support the motion. I agree that we can't just ignore the fact that we've got 260 submissions relating to one particular suburb that's not mentioned in the current strategy in any way. I think we have an obligation to do something more to make sure we're fairly representing what that community wants and that what we have is a proper range of feedback from that community. So I'd be happy to support the motion. Councillor Rasmussen. Pardon me.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I just want to foreshadow that should this motion, or the motion fail, amend fail, then I would be foreshadowing the— The recommendation of the business paper.

Thanks, Councillor. Councillor Richards.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I just obviously am supporting the motion that's on the screen in front of everybody here tonight, and I agree with most of the words that Councillors Amprogno and Councillor Conolly had said. The communities and suburbs of Oakville and Maraylya have been hit significantly hard in a multitude of ways, and while that is no excuse for supporting consultation with the community, one of our very fundamental jobs as an elected representative is to listen to what the community has to say. And the fact that we have received excessive, in terms hundreds of submissions from this community, shows that there is a further conversation to be had with the people of Oakville and Maraylya.

I think that adding the point four there shows the community that we have listened, that we want to have that dialogue with them, that we want to hear their concerns. I mean, as councillors, we all know that they've been hit significantly hard by this council with the rates, but also by the state government with the uncertainty of where the orbital is going to go. So there's been a multitude of ways that they've been affected, but most importantly, something that's not even the fault of this council is the development that's directly across the road from them as a result of decisions made by the Hills Council. Now that's completely out of our hands, but what that has done is forced a significant difference to their way of life that they were used to in Oakville with development on their doorstep.

Now, no one knows what the future is going to look like or what it's going to hold for the people of Oakville and Maraylya, but I think as councillors and as a council, we need to have that conversation with them. We must consult with their wants and their needs and listen to what they want for their future. Now, it doesn't mean it's going to happen overnight. It doesn't mean anything's going to happen at all. There's no decision saying what that outcome will be, but listening and actually being out there amongst them, hearing what they have to say, is a fundamental first step after receiving so many submissions. So I therefore support this recommendation. Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Councillor Richards, Deputy Mayor. Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'll speak against the motion as it is. Not that I oppose having those conversations. I think that we should, but I don't think that's the right format for it to go into this process within. I think that it's separate from adopting the housing strategy. The housing strategy has been through public consultation already. We've heard from the public, and yes, that may have given rise not just to issues around Oakville and Maraylya, but we heard our speaker also raise issues about another area that they thought should have been considered. So I think singling out something. And tacking it on to a motion which is adopting a strategy, I would have preferred to see it come as a separate subsequent round, perhaps of conversations for future discussions.

And I would think that when we're looking at areas that border the adjoining growth sector precincts, that we have to be engaged with the state government in doing this. We also do need the certainty around the M9 orbital, and the state government owes the people of Oakville and Maraylya, they owe them some certainty around that. Now, it comes and goes off maps. I've been in summits where they've said it's going to the Central Coast, they're working from the Central Coast down, et cetera. I think they have to come clean with the certainty, and that may well happen now that they're working around the rest of the M9 in the more southern areas below the St Marys, Richmond Road area. But I think that all of this needs to be done in a different format.

I mean, I just think that it's a good housing strategy that we've come up with. It's in line with the Western District Plans. It's in line with the other levels of government and what they've directed us to do. And so it's a very important document that's going into our planning suite of documents as we move into the LEP review. I think consultation on further development in areas is good, but I think that at this point, because we can't change this as it is going forward, so I think we should adopt the strategy, and then as a separate— Activity and future activity, we engage with, again, another round of doing this in line with any changes that come from the State Government, but most certainly in line with any future infrastructure provision and also constraints on infrastructure and constraints on provision of utilities such as water and sewer and so on.

I think that there's a lot more to be looked at, but I think the work that's been done on the local housing strategy is really good. I would like to see a higher affordable housing target included in there, such as what was put forward by St Vincent de Paul, but I think that it's up to the State Government to be setting those targets as well and directing us what we should be doing in that regard. So I do support further consultation, but I don't think that it should be attached to this strategy. And I understand the points that have been raised by Councillor Zampronha. Thank you.

Mr Mayor, Councillor Kotlash.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Can I start with asking a question, if I can, about the process of further consultation in the future. I agree with the Deputy Mayor that this, I won't be supporting this amendment because I think there has to be a process, and I'd like to hear from the Director of Planning, if I could, about what that process might be for further consultation in particular areas of our LGA.

Yeah, I refer that to the Director City Planning.

Thank you, through you, Mr Mayor. So generally, if Council were to adopt this resolution, then we would undertake that consultation as a separate standalone item and then bring that information back to Council for its consideration. The timing which to be determined based on resources and capability in terms of the rest of the work prior to the team. And then depending on that finding, you know, Council could then consider what, if any, changes it might make to the housing strategy. Or it might just note the information and then put it to the side for future consideration for the review of the housing strategy, which would be done at a future date, obviously not in 10 years' time, but it would be done in line with any other changes done by state government planning or any other work that we're doing that's pertinent that we need to, and the review.

And in that respect, you know, we could then also consider inclusion of other areas which is been raised by a previous speaker or anything else that is raised through the work that we're doing generally as a Council. So really at this point in time, we weren't anticipating doing any specific further consultation in regards to the housing strategy. But I do note if this were to get up, then we will take that and then looking at the findings, bring it back to Council for your consideration as to what next.

Thank you. That wasn't actually the question I asked. I wondered about the flexibility of the strategy to be able to incorporate future investigation areas, I guess

Is the question, will this be reviewed at some time? Is that the question? I

Guess. The question is about the flexibility of the strategy. It seemed to me that whilst the way I read it is that it ruled out investigation areas being identified at the moment, but it didn't seem to rule them out altogether. I mean, if things change, for instance, if the orbital is declared or proclaimed or whatever happens with that, then things will change. So I suppose the answer might be that we go to the strategy again and then revamp the strategy, put it on public exhibition and start all over again, which is just, that's okay. Would that be the process?

Yes. At this point in time, what I would anticipate that if the strategy were to be adopted, it would be in place for, you know, up to five years, essentially. The trigger for review could be it's been five years, we need to review it, or it could be the state government has changed our housing targets. Other work that we're doing, you know, requires us to look at the housing strategy. So there could be any other drivers that might say to council, okay, we might want to review that in three years or four years. So, but at this point in time, generally you'd set a housing strategy. It's seen as a sort of a medium-term document, not a short-term document. But as I said, we would work in conjunction with anything the state government directs us to, or other work that we're needing to do as a result of it.

Thank you for that. If I can continue now, Mr Mayor . I am happy with that. I think that that's an appropriate use of this strategy and- I think it's a little bit unfair, and enough on the people of Oakville and Moree to be actually asking them about what their preferences might be when we actually don't know where that might be in the future. I think that might be a disingenuous thing to

Do to them.

However, if, as the Director of Planning has said, if things change, I think I would be really happy to go and consult, and go and consult in any area of the LGA, not any specific areas at the moment, depending on what those changes might be . So I won't be supporting this amendment, but I'd like to flag an amendment if this doesn't get up, please, Mr Mayor.

So move an amendment or foreshadow a motion

I'd like to foreshadow an amendment to the original motion

Okay . Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I think this is a really complex problem. I agree with both the Deputy Mayor and Councillor Kotlash that this is perhaps not the place to do this. And I would urge Councillors and Poniard to bring this back perhaps early next year so that we can have a more nuanced plan of how we deal with this matter. I'd like to see this uncoupled from the local housing strategy, which I think we really need to endorse and get a move on with. These are the documents that are forming our strategic planning documents that we're required to have in place by the State Government, and we really need to move that along. I'm happy to consult with the people of Oakville. I think we need a far more nuanced plan for that space, and consequently I think whatever consultation that we do in that space needs to be quite nuanced itself.

Oakville has some distinct advantages as a future development site in that it's close to transport nodes. It's close to roads. It may be far closer to a road than many of its residents would like. It has flood-free access, but it also has some constraints. The orbital will be a significant constraint. There's a large national park, and there's excessive development on the hillside of Boundary Road. And I understand those Boundary Road residents feeling quite dismayed that their quality of life and the place that they thought they were committing to, many of them for the rest of their lives, has so radically changed from what they initially anticipated. And I certainly don't blame them for wanting to make some sort of compensation for that system.

You know, to move. Oakville will be the last space, I think, where people can live on five acres . On that side of the river, we are rapidly losing those spaces close to Sydney, and they form a function not just for rural residential areas, but for people who are involved in transport, particularly transport of goods, of food in particular, to market, and those small-scale agricultural industries like mushrooms and things that don't require very large land use areas, that do require provision of services and close links to transport, but also those sites where you can just park a truck without waking up the whole neighbourhood when you shuffle off in the morning at 3 a.m. And I think we really need to have a much more complex discussion about the future of Oakville that I'm not sure this point four gets us to.

But what I'm particularly concerned about with point four is our resourcing capacity and our ability to deliver this in a timely fashion, knowing that it will be run by the very same department that is really under the pump in terms of preparing all these documents for the state government, and that's what concerns me the most. If this comes back to council, and I hope that it does, it needs to have some information around how this will be done, how long it will take for this to be done, and how, in fact, council will find the capacity to do this without overstraining the staff that are already pushed to the limit now. On the topic of Wilberforce, which I know well because I live there, I just want to make the point that flooding mapping now is based on current mapping provided by the New South Wales state government, not by council.

There are noted issues from the state government with evacuation that council has to take into consideration, and there are also other concerns with that Earl Street site and the area from Earl Street up to Kurmond Road around remnant bushland and also the impact on Bushrangers Lagoon, which is in a fairly perilous state already. So I think council is making the right decision currently on those spaces, particularly given the articulated need for housing. I'm glad that those housing projections have been dropped to reflect the market. What I am concerned about in this strategy, however, is the lack of affordable housing targets, and I would like to see us put in a hard affordable housing target.

So perhaps in section 3.4, to include an affordable housing target of 15% of total floor space of new residential developments on private land, or 30% of all state-owned developments, consistent with the recommendations of the Suburbs of the Whole Society. We know that the state government isn't moving fast enough to provide affordable housing or public housing. We know that we've got a 10-year waiting list for social housing or public housing. We know that we have a significant problem with homelessness. If we don't put this into our strategies and our council documents, we will make no improvements. So I'm hoping—I can't currently support the motion that's on the table, but I will foreshadow that whatever comes up next, I will attempt to add that amendment.

Okay, so we've had three speakers for, three against. We still have quite a few councillors with hands up.

Councillor Reynolds.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Could I ask a question, please, sir? Yep Okay. Through you, does the motion as it stands, particularly point 4— Detailing the consultation regarding the type of residential development the community may or may not want. Does this, just by definition, designate the Oakville Moralia area as an investigation area?

Correct. Director, can you see planning?

I'm sorry, I just missed that last bit of the question, Councillor Reynolds, if you mind with repeating it.

Yeah, sure, no problem. The point four, as it stands, with the detail regarding the type of development they want, does this by definition make Oakville Moralia an investigation area?

Technically, no. I suppose it could be seen as a straight out community consultation process to get some information around the type of development that they're willing, if they need to see as the resolution is proposing. If it were to become an investigation area, then that would be subject to a further resolution of Council to consider, and any investigation area would entail doing other work in relation to, so our understanding the opportunities and constraints for it.

Okay. Just a follow-up, Mr Mayor, if I may. So it can be dealt with at a later stage in the method similar to Carriageon, Kermon, is that right? Yes

It could be done as a standalone piece of work, similar to Carriageon. Okay ,

Thank you. Mr Mayor, I would just like to speak against the motion as it stands. I agree with Councillor Richards that the sheer number of submissions... From Oakville Maraylya, relative to the total received regarding this strategy, shows quite clearly that the community wants a discussion around development in that area. But I don't think that this is the place to do it in the strategy, and perhaps we could do it later on, as the Director said, through a resolution of Council, or perhaps while we're doing the LEP. But I don't think this is the place to just single out Oakville Maraylya as not even an investigation area. So I can't support the motion as it stands. Thank you.

Thanks, Councillor Morrell. So we've had four against and three for. Are there any further speakers in favour of the motion?

No. Does everybody else still want to speak against it? Councillor Rasmussen, you're next.

Thank you, Mr Mayor, for that. Appreciate that indulgence. I have a couple of questions. One in particular, could I just ask how long the local housing strategy draft, one that we're considering at the moment, how long has that been in the incubation period? How long has it taken us to get it to this point?

Director City Planning.

Thank you. Through you, Mr Mayor. I can't tell you exactly, but it's certainly been a number of months where I'd probably say most of 2020, if not starting at the end of— well, actually would have started working in 2019 on this document.

Thank you. Good. Thank you, Mr Mayor. If I could just then follow on with— I think I've been calling for this sort of strategy for quite a long time in my time on council, and we've been struggling with it for a number of years about it because of the shifting targets and so on. So I think we really— sorry, let me also add that I agree with Councillor Lyons-Buckett and Councillor Kotlash that this is not an appropriate amendment for this particular time or this particular motion to deal with the housing strategy. I think we should get on with that first. Let's bed that down. Let's give the staff that assurance that they've got a document to deal with and to work with and to use in other areas, which are obviously going to be necessary.

Let's just get that sorted, and then we can come back and address those other issues because it's not just obviously on Moruya, but it's, as we've heard tonight, it's other areas that may be leading for us to have a much closer look at. And my recollection, too, is that the Kirimon Currajong investigation area, we did a whole lot of work on that, and my recollection is that there was a bit of a combined effort to give it a bit of a flick by some councillors. But look, that's history. I think we need to get on with this right now. We need to deal with it. We need to get these long, long, long incubation strategies. Let's get them sorted. Let's get them, you know, on the books, and then let's deal with the next stages of what we should be dealing with.

Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Thanks, Councillor. The rest, Councillor Reynolds, did you have a question or— No?

Okay. Councillor Calvert.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I just wanted to add a couple of points to what's been said already. I have no problems with the strategies as it stands, but I do have some concerns about Councillor Sam Brogno's point four , inasmuch as what message does it send to the community ? And Councillor Sam Brogno has tried very hard to carefully word that point four so that it doesn't say that we're going to rush out and divide up Oakville and Maraylya. But I don't think it matters how carefully you word that point four. The people of Oakville and Maraylya, and many of them will take that statement there as Council is now going to look at developing Oakville and Maraylya. And I don't think there's any way you can word that in such a way that the community won't react like that.

And that's not our intention. I don't think that's Councillor Sam Brogno's intention either. So perhaps he could consider rewording that point four, because I think what he's trying to say is that we're not confining ourselves to what's in the strategy. We're not precluding other areas, and that we will look at other areas as time goes on. And maybe a statement such as that would be better than actually pointing and saying Oakville, Maraylya. And I do have great concerns, and I understand that there are over 200 people who have expressed some kind of interest, but I don't— I don't think we can mention it here in this strategy, and I'd like to see a more carefully thought-out process brought back at a later date.

Thank you.

Thanks, Councillor Carbett. Councillor Ross

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'm unable to support this amendment .

Firstly, it doesn't form part of the strategy as such. This is something outside the province of things that we've been talking about as a council. But what we have been talking about as a council are firstly the delays in getting development applications cleared, and secondly, the work that has already started on the LEP and DCP, which are requirements of the state government, I think, within the first half of next year. The devotion of any of council's resources to this particular element of a consultation, or however you might describe it, is inappropriate at this time. And apart from that, we have no indication as yet as to what the DPIE folk are going to say about the strategy as it has been already prepared. They may come back and seek further amendments, which will also drain resources further. So I would suggest that the

Councillor involved in proposing this this evening politely withdraw and think about coming back after we've— Got some more concrete information appropriate to the completion of the revised LEP and DCP, and at that time it would be appropriate for Council to indeed look at where the situation is and to indeed engage with the community. But at the moment, this is just not at all practical, not financially warranted, and unable to be supported. So thank you

Thanks, Councillor Ross. Are there any further speakers? If not, we have a right of reply, Councillor Zamprogno.

Thank you very much. Look, I'm aware that we are walking a fine line here. What I wanted to say in summary is that we can't do nothing. I have strong views about development in Oakville, for what it's worth, and I'm on the record. I'm against the subdivision of Oakville. But equally, I want to be a diligent representative for people in the same area. And when there is such acute pressure that is splitting our community between people who have a fatalistic attitude and think of development as a fait accompli, or people who can accept but without endorsing the inevitability of development and want us as a community and as a Council to have the greatest degree of agency so that we can have a kind of solution that we can be proud of.

The kind of solution that we would not be proud of is the kind of urban carve-up that we see on the east side of Boundary Road. But those people in Oakville, if they were asked, may come back to us and say that they would love for us to continue to advocate for detached dual occupancy. Or a large lot subdivision like Windsor Downs. And that would provide a buffer between the intensive development that we see elsewhere and the national park, and it would allow us to preserve some of the character of Oakville and Maraylya. But again, we are not going to get there if we do nothing. Now, I hear the concerns that are being expressed about this being tacked on to the urban housing strategy, and if anybody has even the slightest hesitation, then I would say that they should vote against this motion and endorse the recommendation in the business paper, and we will address this in a different form in the new year.

But I put this forward this evening because we can't be idle when that pressure continues to grow and continues to divide this community and leaves us with a really significant problem about how we articulate either the value of what we have and why we should keep it. And again, keep in mind that there is workable agricultural land, equine lands, passive recreational land, remnant Cumberland woodland, stands, wildlife corridors, wonderful bird life, and so on, and the needs of a growing Sydney. So I'll offer this up in the form that it's in. I hear you, and if it's voted down, I'll endorse the recommendation in the business paper, and we'll see what else we can do for that community in Oakville and Maraylya next year.

Thank you.

Thanks, Councillor. There's a few councillors with hands up, but that was right of reply, so unless there's any points of order, I'm going to go ahead.

Mr Mayor, I did foreshadow the motion.

Yeah, this one hasn't failed yet, Councillor.

No, no, but I'm just reminding because you're not reading my notes, so that's okay. Thank you.

Thanks. No, I did acknowledge at the time that you'd foreshadowed a motion. Yeah. So put

The motion. Thank you.

Put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hands. Favours Councillor Conolly, Councillor Richards, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Tree, not Councillor Reynolds. Against? Councillor Calvert, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Ross, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Garry declare it lost. And Councillor Rasmussen has foreshadowed a motion

Yes, I'd like to move the recommendation as specified in the business paper, Mr Mayor.

Seconder? Seconder, Councillor Reynolds. Any further discussion, Councillor Rasmussen? Well,

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I think a lot of it has already been said, but let's just, I'd like perhaps just to summarise what I think are the main points, and that is that this strategy needs to be dealt with right now by us. It's been through briefings, it's been out to the community, it's come back to us, and we just need to get on with our job of putting this strategy into play so that the staff and the rest of the community out there know where we're heading with the housing strategy. And the other thing is that if we start to flag now that we , I think even hinting at, as Councillor Calvert said, even though it's not said in so many words, it will be read as a subtext that if we're looking at Oakville potentially going out there asking people whether they want development or not, then that will be the subtext, and that's a dangerous thing to do.

So, Mr Mayor, I think at this point we just need to— Put this strategy down and let, yeah, let staff get on with it so that we have some sort of certainty out there about what we want to do with our housing strategy. Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Thanks, Councillor Rasmussen. I'll just speak against briefly. I don't want to sort of rehash the whole debate, but I would make the point that this is meant to be a medium to long-term strategy, and I don't think it's sincere for Council to adopt a medium to long-term strategy while several councils are making comments that we can just review it when things change. Yes, of course we can review any strategy when things change, but if it's a medium to long-term strategy and we have a community that has hundreds of submissions saying they want us to look at something, I would have thought it was exactly the time to look at it, which is why I was happy to support Councillor Zamprogno's motion, because I think it's entirely appropriate that when considering those hundreds of submissions, we would acknowledge that.

I think in that community, those people are obviously very interested, probably for communal reasons, and that the whole community might not feel like that, which is why I was happy to support that. Obviously Council's gone in another direction, but I don't think this strategy without dealing with that issue should be adopted, and happy with the strategy overall other than that, but I wouldn't support this motion.

Councillor Kotlash. Thank you, Mr Mayor. I had foreshadowed an amendment which was a point four to add to the recommendation in the business paper, and I was going to ask through you, Mr Mayor, if Councillor Rasmussen might be happy to accept my amendment. I'm not

Sure if it's just me, Councillor Kotlash, but the audio is not— Great . So if you could speak up, that might be helpful.

This happens every time it turns down. Is that better?

Yes , it is. Much better.

Sorry. On default turning me down. Could I ask, could I— I sent an amendment to staff earlier today about affordable housing. It's to attach to this recommendation, and I was just wondering whether Councillor Rasmussen might consider adding my point four. Am I allowed to put that up?

Yeah, we can show Councillor Rasmussen. You can either accept that or you can move an amendment.

Thank you

Just wait for it to come on.

Yeah, I just need to have a look at it, Councillor Kotlash, but it sounds on face of it a sensible, good amendment, a good addition. I hope you think so.

Yes, Councillor Kotlash agrees.

Good one.

Yeah, looks good to me. Thank you. Great addition. Thanks.

Okay, so that'll be the motion moved by Councillor Rasmussen and Councillor Reynolds, you seconded that, so you're still happy? Good. Any further discussion or against the motion? Okay. Right of reply, Councillor Rasmussen.

Mr Mayor, I don't think it's necessary. Thanks very much.

Put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour are Councillor Calvert, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Zemprogno, Councillor Ross, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Garrow. Against? Councillor Conolly, Councillor Richards, Councillor Tree. Declare it carried.

Our next item subject to...

Address is 256 Rescission Motion. And , oh sorry, our one speaker on the item is Mr Graham Eds

I'm not sure if Mr Eds, I connected now.

Thanks, Mr Eds, whenever you're ready.

You're on mute at the moment, sorry.

Still on mute. Not sure if you're aware. There we go. Okay

I'm unmuted now, I think. Yep. Good, thank you for allowing me to address Council on this matter

Yep. Do

You hear me now? We can, yep

Hello. Are you shuffling the papers ?

It has YouTube playing in the background still

A bit of a comedy of errors there. We can't hear Councillor Garrow, but just make sure, Mr Eds, that YouTube's not playing in the background because it does interfere, and then you can speak when you're ready.

Okay, I do have YouTube on on another computer. I might just get rid of that if... Yes, thank you. Okay, I've actually deleted that now, so can everybody hear me now? Yep.

Thank you .

Mayor Conolly and councillors, as you are aware, my name is Graham Adams, and I come before you to speak on the dissolution of Council's advisory committees, and in particular I speak against the rescission motion, item 256. I am aware that this proposal has been thrashed around previously to the frustration of some councillors, but there remains many unanswered questions of the proposal alternative. Councillors would be aware that I have many hats. Firstly, as a long-term resident and business owner; secondly, as a specialist heritage consultant that undertakes heritage studies and developments within the Hawkesbury and also further afield; thirdly, as deputy chairperson of Council's Heritage Advisory Committee; and lastly, as an architect within the building industry who proposes development within this city area on behalf of my clients.

I believe that the dissolution of all of the advisory committees will prove to be a retrograde step, and one that alienates community involvement in the proper and best practice development of the Hawkesbury into the future. Amalgamation of some committees may well be appropriate, but I am not sufficiently aware of their workings to discuss individual committees further. Within this proposal, are councillors saying that they individually or collectively have all of the skills to preside and make knowledgeable decisions for every Council advisory committee? Councillors in the past have labelled me And other professionals as anti-development, where in fact this is where I and others earn our income.

What is clear to me is that developers shy away from developing in the Hawkesbury, as they do not have confidence to provide quality development without reports that underpin quality development, and there are too many uncertainties, and it takes an inordinate amount of time to land approvals, again because of the lack of the quality in the LEP and DCP. And I acknowledge that this is the thrust of council within this newly formed working group. Councillors, are you aware that the Hawkesbury City Council does not have comprehensive heritage studies, cultural landscape assessments, archaeological assessments, etc., which inform rezoning, building height controls, protection of scenic landscapes and cultural landscapes, these vital things that feed into the local strategic planning statement and the new LEP.

Without further consideration to the amalgamation of council committees, what is proposed, in my view, will stifle community input and not be in the best interest of the Hawkesbury. There are unresolved questions of how these mega committees will work, and some of these have been highlighted in the email that councillors would have received from the Hawkesbury branch of the National Trust . Council's own strategic plan calls for this community involvement, and here councillors are seeking to deny this meaningful contribution and not reap the rewards from knowledgeable locals and business people. What community members need is to feel valued. This proposal put forward as the substantive motion, an alternative to the rescission motion, I predict will not achieve this.

It will deny the feeling of personal value in participation, particularly when the community is giving of its time and expertise. With this proposed model, why would the community want to be engaged and participate in long term within the committees and not have a vote?

Having control of the meeting agenda is a vital aspect of this satisfaction of being involved and in providing freely of your time. Item 10 indicating that Council will set the agenda diminishes this . Speaking now of the Heritage Advisory Committee, it is acknowledged that this committee is working well and has reprieved from amalgamation in accordance with item 13 of the substantive motion, thanks to one of our members, Councillor John Brogno, speaking up, and it is proposed to remain in its current membership and voting rights. This is well received. However, the reason for this committee to be so successful in part is good leadership with Councillor Wheeler as chairperson and the ability to retain interest and setting the agenda and the ability to vote.

However , the future inability to set the agenda is worrying, and proposed in the qualification within item 13, bringing the Heritage Advisory Committee in line with other newly formed committees. What is also worrying is the thought that councillors on the committee may well not have the interests of the committee's heritage agenda. Can the committee be assured that the future of the councillors that serve on the Heritage Advisory Committee will have the interest of heritage places, their protection and the enhancement into the future? I should remind councillors that the Heritage Advisory Committee has had the privilege of actually having other council areas come and visit us because we are a working committee and it is working so well, and they go away with rejuvenated interest, I believe, in setting up the Hawkesbury Heritage Advisory Committee within their area.

Councillors, in closing, I

Please do not alienate the goodwill of the community, the giving of their time and expertise, and make being involved in council's advisory committees a satisfying task. There is much deliberation that needs to be made. My vote is to further consider this proposal through council's briefing sessions. Thanks

Mr. Edwards. Happy to take questions if there are any.

Absolutely. I

Did have one question for you . Would you still be willing to participate in a committee that you didn't have a vote on, or if you don't get a vote, would you not come anymore?

Look, I don't think I'd feel satisfied at all if I didn't have a vote. If you put all the work into all of the background knowledge that you have to impart and then not being able to see it through, look, I wouldn't be interested in that. Okay.

Thank you. Any other questions?

No further questions. Thanks, Mr. Edwards. Thank you. So, Councillor, the rescission motion has been moved by Councillor Calvert, Kotlash and Richards

So I would ask councillors to, because we have a rescission motion and a substantive motion before us, we're going to have debate on the rescission motion. I just remind councillors to confine your comments in this debate as to whether or not we should rescind , rather than anything to do with the substantive motion, which will only be debated if the rescission motion is successful. So does anybody wish to— so I assume Councillor Calvert, Kotlash and Richards are moving that way. Does anybody wish to speak to it?

Mr. Mayor, I'll speak to it, thanks.

Yep. So go ahead, Councillor Garrow. I

Just wanted to point out that this item has been discussed by Council for up to four years now , and over the last two years in particular, it's been discussed at briefing sessions and at workshops. And at the end of that process, we also had a fairly strong, lengthy consultation process, which led us to the result that we have today in the business paper, and we had two weeks ago. So sending this back to another briefing session to me would be going backwards. We've already done that bit. It's time for us to move forward and rescind that motion from last time.

Does the cover. Any further speakers

Councillor Wheeler . Just some questions, if I may, Mr Mayor. Sure . I guess Councillor Calvert has answered one of them in that he doesn't feel that we need to discuss this any further, something that I obviously disagree with. So given that the intention is that we don't discuss this further in a briefing, and that many of these changes are not what we have discussed in the briefing, we have discussed the composition of committees to a degree and whether those committees should be restructured, but we haven't discussed the additional points raised in the substantive motion. And I guess I would like to know why we would be moving to something, to such a radical change that we have not had the opportunity to discuss. And in particular, the point raised by Mr Eds around removing the capacity of community members to vote on committees. So

That's what point I made earlier, Councillor Wheeler. The motion before us is whether or not we should rescind the decision to go to a briefing session. If we rescind— if we did rescind that motion, we'd then have a discussion around the substantive motion. But I don't want to have the same debate twice. So the first motion is whether or not we should rescind. So the discussion would need to be confined to— But if I could have adequate answers to my questions, then perhaps

We wouldn't need to go to a briefing. Sure. So who's

The question directed to? Well

I assume to the movers of the rescission motion, who don't believe that we have anything further to discuss at a briefing, as Councillor Calvert has just stated.

Okay. All right. Well, I think you can speak and you can raise questions which could be answered by other people in the debate if they wish to answer them. So I'd encourage you to continue to speak then. You can ask questions of the staff if you'd like.

So I also wonder the mindset behind us moving to a parliamentary-style system when we are clearly not a parliament. Sorry, that's my son emptying the recycling, and it sounds like we have been hitting the bottle very hard. And I will say that they are probably jars, in my own defence. So I have a number of queries about why we would be moving to such a radical change in structure. So lack of voting rights, putting five councillors on rather than a balance of councillors and community members. There's no community members on these committees, and how we would resource running this like a parliament. None of those things flow naturally from the discussions that we've had previously in briefing sessions.

Thanks, Councillor. I would just, not to delay the point, but just reiterate that those are all things to do with the substantive motion. The question is, should we rescind and deal with this now, or should we send it to a briefing session? So if we can confine further debate to that question. Councillor Rasmussen. Yeah

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I will do exactly that. In my time on Council, and it's been, I think, the sensible and also the protocol for councillors to bring forward a rescission motion, that they point out where there's been new material come to light since we debated this, as Councillor Calvert said last time at great length, and all the points he's raised were then debated at great length and pontificated upon, but then his proposal was voted down. Where is the new material that he is bringing forward to warrant this rescission motion? Thanks

Councillor Rasmussen. Councillor, any further discussion?

No further discussion. I'll right of reply,

Councillor Calvert. Thank you, Mr Mayor. I just wanted to add that a briefing session is designed for the staff to brief us on certain matters and give us information. If you really wanted to discuss this, then I would have imagined we would send it to a workshop. But a workshop is not what's been proposed. What's been proposed is a briefing session. Thank you.

Thanks, Councillor Calvert. So I'll put the motion. So the motion is that the resolution 295 from the ordinary meeting be rescinded. All those in favour of the motion, please raise your hand. In favour, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Richards, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Tree. Councillor Kotlash, against.

Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Ross, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Garrow. Did I call out everyone? Yep. So declared carried on the casting vote of the Mayor. So now that's been rescinded. Would somebody wish to move a motion in its place?

Councillor Calvert ? Yes, I'd like to move the substantive motion that's on page 95 of the business paper. Is there a seconder for that?

Councillor Kotlash. Any discussion?

Councillor Calvert? Yes, thanks, Mr Mayor. Look, as I said a minute ago, this concept has been around for quite a few years now. It's been discussed in briefing sessions and workshops, and at those workshops I was quite clear in pointing out that what I was after was a structure that was based on the New South Wales Parliament structure, where the committees that are set up are committees of council in this case, and the committee members are councillors. That is the structure I've always been pushing for, and I think I made that quite clear all the way through, yet some people are still seeming to be surprised by that. I think there might have also been some confusion because of the names given to the proposed committees.

I was originally going to just name them Committee 1, 2 and 3. The names were put there basically to just outline the kinds of responsibilities that the committees would have. They are not really meant to be a merged committee. They have— it is

One committee which has several

Issues, functions that it deals with. It's not a committee that has all the waste people and all the heritage people in the same room, or in the same bus, as was described last meeting.

What the way it would work is that if council was discussing an issue, let's say it was discussing an issue about arts, then in council or in a briefing session, it could be moved that this item be sent to a committee. So in this case, it would be sent to Committee One, and Committee One would advertise to the public that on a certain date, let's say 4th of March, Committee One will be holding an investigation into this matter, and all members of the public are willing— sorry, are able to attend. Members of the public can attend and give a formal written or verbal submission, or members of the public can attend and just take part in the meeting from the floor. You can even have debate from the floor based on the structure set by the chairperson at the time.

So the idea is that that goes to that committee. The five councillors would make a decision based on the information that's given to them. If the matter that is being raised is quite short and doesn't require a lot of thought, then the committee might make a decision right then and there and send that back to council and say, This is our decision on this matter. On the other hand, the committee might decide this is going to take us a lot more time. We might need two or three more meetings to discuss this and get those people back in and also maybe send out some special invitations to selected experts on the matter. Similarly, the committee might decide that this is going to take an even longer time, and what should happen is that a working group should be set up.

That working group could be composed of just members of the public, or it can contain some councillors, and the working group would be given a set amount of time to go away and come back and report to the committee and give a hopefully written report to the committee. When that comes back to the committee, that would also be a public meeting, and all the members of the public would be able to come along and take part in that discussion as well before it got sent back to council. Now, at the same time, in council, a matter might come up on something else that, like an access issue, which Committee One would also deal with. So that matter would get sent to Committee One. It would advertise another meeting where that matter would be discussed.

Once again, experts can come, all members of the public can come, and you can go through the same process. And maybe a working group will be set up there. So Committee One in this case would have two working groups running, one on access and one on arts. You wouldn't have everyone in the same room discussing the same thing at the same time. If , on the other hand, you had two small matters come up, one on arts and one on access, then what you could do is have a meeting one day, and at 9 a.m. you discuss the access part and at 10 a.m. you discuss the arts part. You don't have the same crowd sitting in there because it's the committee that's going to make the decision, and the committee is the five councillors that are elected.

Now, a council committee is designed to provide advice to council. That is its main role. And if council doesn't seek advice on any matters, then the committee wouldn't be meeting. If, on the other hand, a certain committee has a lot of things we require from it, a lot of advice, then it might meet quite often. Once again, all members of the public would be welcome. What we're doing here through this system is not selecting a small number of members of the public to get involved. We're opening it to all members of the public, and I can't see why people would be saying we're restricting the number of people that can get involved. We're actually increasing the number of people. And if you're a kind of councillor who supports progress, if you would prefer full public consultation and you prefer to give better advice to council, then I think you should support this motion as I put up because it is a move forward.

It's something that should have happened years ago, and it doesn't mean that there's less people involved. It means that there's more people involved, and that's what was always meant to do. Thank you. Thanks

Councillor Calvert. Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I actually don't think that we can pass this resolution tonight because I don't think it's valid, this motion tonight, because I don't think it's valid. We actually have resolutions from the 22nd of September which are to continue the current structure, the current councillor representation, the current community representation, and I would imagine that would have to be rescinded, as we are not able to have two resolutions that are incompatible going at once.

I would think that this motion would clearly supersede that motion, Deputy Mayor. You don't need to rescind every resolution that has been changed. I would

Suggest that you do. Okay

Well, I've ruled that it's in order, Deputy Mayor.

Councillor Kotlash. Thank you. Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'm speaking in support of this motion. I'll start by acknowledging Councillor Calvert and thank him for his progressive work on reforming our committees. It's well overdue, and I think the sooner we start implementing this proposed new committee structure, the better. It will serve Council better. It will be more efficient and targeted. It's outcomes-based. It will free up a lot of staff time and will importantly enable more input from members of the community, those members of the community that may not be able to commit to permanently sitting on a committee, but are nonetheless interested in particular issues. I see this as truly progressive and a major step forward for our Council.

I would also like to thank the staff for their work on this review and believe that the subsequent revisions that have been made will stand us in good stead for the future. One thing I particularly want to address is that there has been an unfortunate scare campaign about the changes that have been proposed around the Heritage Advisory Committee. I am mystified about the motives of those who spread misinformation aimed at inciting outrage that will cause anxiety and ill will in those in our community who love our heritage and, in most part, work hard to protect it. Can I say that there will be changes to the Heritage Advisory Committee , but these should not impact the good and valuable work that is done by the committee.

These changes are around how the core agenda is set and how meetings will be open to the public so more of the community can participate. Apart from these, the Heritage Committee will carry on as it has always done. That seems like a major step forward to me, and I really hope that people can take these changes on board and give it a go. I think this is a really big, progressive step forward. Thank you.

Thanks, Councillor Kotlash. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I'd like to move an amendment. Okay. I've sent the words through to Mr McElroy.

We'll just wait for that one.

So this isn't going to fit on the screen, unfortunately. It's a reworking of the substantive motion, which I hope forms a bridge between Councillor Calvert's. .. Ideas on committee restructure and what I believe and what various community representatives have presented to us as problematic sections of that substantive motion. So point one, I think remains unchanged. Point two refers to the restructure of the following committees, and point three establishes the following standing committees. You'll see they are largely, as Councillor Calvert has proposed, with the change of moving enhancing the arts from community services down to innovation and partnerships, where I think is probably a more comfortable fit.

What this doesn't do is dissolve the existing committees. It allows the members of these existing committees to move to the new committees with the rearrangement of those, or the amalgamation of those committees. It keeps the requirement for a councillor briefing on emergency matters, but brings that forward to a briefing session every two months. It doesn't make that an exclusive briefing, which I think is potentially more workable if we are to have them more often. I think in years like the one we've just had, every three months may be a bit meagre. Point six confirms the role of the council committees to provide advice and information to assist council decision making, that the long-term direction is set by council's community strategic plan, and that council may set short-term tasks for committees and provide.

Further long-term direction, but this does not preclude committee members or staff raising matters—sorry, there's a fall missing there—matters for consideration. So this allows the committees to maintain their agency in setting agenda items either through general business or through staff raising matters that they need advice on. This is particularly evident in some of the committees that I sit on, certainly been the case in the Heritage Committee and has been the case in the Environmental Sustainability Committee as well, where staff seek the advice and input of the committee members, and that's not something that Council is necessarily always aware of, or aware with the required level of urgency.

Point 7 allows for up to five councillors to be appointed to the standing committees, with additional community members added from restructured committees, and also seeks to place a dared community member on each committee where they choose to do so. That's particularly relevant, I think, for Environmental Sustainability and the committee that that will be amalgamated into, and also for the Heritage Committee, which has already been determined by the Heritage Committee that that will go forward. Where committees determine that there are gaps, and this has happened again in the past, we have sought to directly invite community representatives, and this provision will remain. Point 8 is largely unchanged, but it allows Council to receive a report looking at the outstanding actions of all of Council's committees.

I think that's probably a useful thing to do in the last period of our term and allows us to make sure that the remaining activities and resources that we have are prioritised to get that work done. Point nine talks about reporting requirements. I think this is done for some committees already. What really point nine is the responsibility of the chair. It's something that I seek to do as the chair of the Heritage Advisory Committee. It's sometimes met with eye rolling because I'm sure by that end of the meeting, everyone's would just like to toddle off. But I firmly believe that it's the role of the chair to discuss, to appraise the council of what the committee has discussed and what it thinks council should prioritise and act on.

That's the whole point of having an advisory committee. Point ten allows council to refer matters to the committee from either council meetings or briefings. And point eleven requires that the agenda be published in a similar manner, a manner to the way council meetings are currently published and from Councillor Calvert's substantive motion that all members of the public are welcome to make submissions to the committee and can attend and participate in the committee meetings, but only members of the committees will have voting rights. So that is community members and councillors to have equal voting rights. This is a two-way street where people are respected for their input, and we do not have a top-down setup where councillors make decisions at the exclusion of other members of the community, a point that I feel particularly strongly about.

I think to move in the opposite direction where we exclude community members from voting, we might get more people attending, but their engagement— Thanks

Deputy Mayor. Yeah, sorry, Councillor, go ahead

Sorry, Mr Mayor. Yes, sorry. On point 11, I think we might get more people attending without voting rights, but their engagement will be far more superficial. I think this is a workable way forward. I hope that councillors can support this. It tidies up our committee structure. I've consciously tried to do this so that it doesn't make additional work for staff. I believe that Councillor Calvert's proposal to base council's work on the New South Wales parliamentary system isn't workable given the staff resources that we have. Part of the key aims of this restructure was to make less work for council staff, and I hope that this can do that whilst tidying up the structure and moving council's objectives forward.

Thanks, Councillor Wheeler. Can I just clarify one point on the amendment? So , I just wasn't sure about if it's written the way that you intend. So, is the intention that the meetings would be open to all the public, but only some public would have a vote? But I think that's how it reads at the moment. The

Members of the committee would, so members of the public can come, listen, and certainly have input into the discussion, but they wouldn't have voting rights. This has happened on the Heritage Committee in the past, where we've invited people to come and address us. They've stayed for the discussion. They're invited to stay for the duration of the meeting if they wish to. They rarely do, because our meetings are quite lengthy. But I have to say, the Heritage Committee, I think, has voted once in its three-and-a-half-year term. But those members are able to contribute to the discussion, contribute to consensus, but they don't have voting rights, and I think that's quite reasonable. But I think the members of the community who are members of those committees, because they have a particular level of expertise, should be afforded the same voting rights as councillors.

We have a vote in this chamber. We don't need to completely control the voting rights in council's committees as well. Thanks

Just wanted to clarify that point. Wasn't sure. Councillor Kotlash. Legacy hand

I beg pardon. Okay.

Councillor Rasmussen. Yeah

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor, I'm speaking against Councillor Cowan's motion.

Currently restricting our discussion to the amendment that's before the chamber.

Okay. In that case, I'll reserve my comments. Thank you. Okay.

Is there any further discussion on the amendment?

Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I’ll speak in favour of the amendment. I think that it’s an improvement. I still ideally would have rathered a little bit more workshopping or briefing, mainly because I think there are still gaps. But I gather that we can add to that. One of the deficiencies in the proposal, and one of the deficiencies in our current committee structure, is that we don’t have any form of committee oversight of either our third-party organisations that we are representative on, and we don’t have anything that really is an oversight on financial, apart from the audit. Now, I’m not on the audit committee, so I may stand corrected on that, but I’ve had a good look at what other councils do, and I haven’t found one council that does this.

All the councils I’ve looked at have advisory committees and so on, but nobody bases it on a parliamentary system because simply we’re not a parliament, so we don’t legislate and we don’t need to have that. So I think that Councillor Wheeler’s suggestion that we basically , I guess what it’s saying is we’d be voting in principle to make these structural changes, but we’re waiting until we get back the information in the report of the outstanding activities and so on from a report that would come to council early next year, which would outline what’s outstanding from those committees. And I mean, we really need to see that first because there may be some committees where there’s a lot of work that hasn’t been done and that those committees might be lumped together, and that might be then unworkable to do it in that way.

So I think to have that report back would be good. And I certainly don’t think that we should be dismissing committees before we have some that sort of information and before we have... We have that firmly in place. I also think that there's not a lot of difference in that structure to an actual council meeting, except for, you know, reducing the number to five councillors. I was in a committee meeting last week, which has five councillors on there, and there was only two there. So would that have meant that two councillors were voting on whatever was being put forward at that stage? Because we have councillors involved in committees at different levels, and some people do a lot of work for their committees, and they work with the people on the committee.

And I think that we want to maintain that because we've seen the value that comes forward in some of these committees. And if we've got something called an innovation committee, innovation's about experimentation and ideas coming forward, and who's going to put those forward? I mean, are we just suddenly, if we don't have a business item in council or something, are we just going to raise them as notices of motion? Are the staff going to do them? Many of the good ideas I've seen come forward in committees have come from the community members that are on those committees, particularly in the floodplain committee. Some of the issues that people have raised, I have never heard discussed within the council chamber or in any reports in the council.

They have come from members of the community that have identified who are on the committee from various parts of the Hawkesbury, and they raise issues that they see firsthand, and they bring them to the council. So I think that there's a real value in getting that perspective from people across our LGA. I know and I agree that we do need some restructuring. We can do this better, but I don't think that what was in the business paper or what was in the substantive motion is what the research into the committee structure brought forward.

I just think it's important that we don't change it too radically before we have a report. I think the Councillor Wheeler's motion is a commitment to some changes. It's a commitment to moving forward with it, but it's not simply dissolving things at the end of this month and then returning, like next year, and deciding what we come up in place. That would be policy on the run, and that's something that's criticised in this chamber over and over. And I think that this is a workable amendment to get a better result, and it encompasses some of the substantive motion, but it's added to with some constraints that will make it fairer on our community. It will maintain community involvement. We want the input from our community because that's who we represent. And so I'm happy to support Councillor Wheeler's amendment. Thank you

Thanks, Deputy Mayor. I'll just speak briefly against the amendment, just to a point that was raised there. I mean, this process has been going for two years. We've had multiple briefings. This substantive motion was first seen two weeks ago, and everyone's had two weeks to look at it and work through it. So I don't think we can be accused here of having policy on the run. I think this is most—I think if we go out to the public and tell people in the community that we've spent two years looking at our internal committee structure and we need more time to make a decision, I think they'd laugh in our face. I don't think anyone would be concerned we were acting too quickly on that. The reason I wouldn't support the amendment is because I think it does what this substantive motion was incorrectly criticised for, which is it actually lumps in these people all on one committee.

So it takes the members of community members who volunteered to be on an Access and Inclusion Committee and puts them in with people who wanted to be on the Human Services Committee and the Civic and Citizenship Committee, and makes them all sit there throughout all those matters when there might not be any particular reason that they would have an interest in all those matters. I also don't think it's a very good solution where, you know, I think we have to acknowledge first and foremost that we are the elected representatives of the community. We are community members on those committees already. We went to an election and said we want to stand up and be the representatives of our community, and we were elected.

So I don't think you can have a situation where you've got elected representatives, unelected representatives voting, and other members of the public who may have more expertise who have come to address the committee not getting a vote because they didn't put their name down to be on the committee for four years. I don't think that's a workable solution. I don't think that's fair or particularly good governance. So I don't see that this amendment is better than the substantive motion, so I won't support it. Councillor Ross?

Thank you. I support the amendment. I don't find any comfort in what has just been said. And frankly, it just surprises me that you are going to disadvantage people who contribute their time and effort, particularly in the disabilities area. And for heaven's sake, we need them to inform us as to what the particular needs of that community are. And we've got a Jolly Royal Commission going at the moment, which is very explicitly pointing to grave deficiencies across the board. We have not , I believe, afforded sufficient consideration of those folk and their right and ability to be able to contribute. And furthermore, I seem to recollect some months ago that the Minister for Department of Planning, Industry and Environment was mandating that councils, including our own, are going to have a community participation plan, because the government sees that they want more participation from the community.

But goodness sake, what are we trying to do, stifle it? We should be promoting it. And a lot of the good ideas, as the Deputy Mayor said, do come from within the community. We also need the technical experts to be brought along as well, in some cases in, for instance, waste and sustainability, from EPA or government or wherever , even private industry, to help advise and bring us up to date with all of the current goings on. An area such as waste at the moment is critical in terms of this council and the rest of the nation in terms of global warming and the matters to which were referred earlier by the Hawkesbury CAN Group. I just find that the proposal was unacceptable. Amendment has at least a degree of more acceptability, and I would much prefer to vote that, and I sincerely hope that all councillors give consideration to the public.

Thank you.

Councillor Ross. Councillor Reynolds.

Yeah, thanks, Mr Mayor. I think I'm speaking in favour of the amendment, Councillor Wheeler's amendment. I must admit I'm quite pretty arrogant to say that because someone won, you know, a council election and managed to scrape in with a quota or a half a quota or whatever, that that gives them the right to, or gives you the right to vote on issues in which you have inferior knowledge or experience.

That is just me, the height of arrogance for an elected official. I don't see how

What possible advantage could council gain by restricting committee members' expertise to a few select topics chosen for them by council.

It can't be a single person, for example, who claims to care about heritage in the Hawkesbury, who cannot see the value in the fully functioning heritage committee, and where you have experts who don't have a vote on issues that are obviously important to the heritage in the area, and they're restricted to councillors who may have a particular... Party policy on something or a particular agenda , it's making mud out of clear water. And that's what we're trying to stop here, or Council Wheeler is trying to build the bridge over.

For any councillor, you know, who campaigned on a platform of Proper community consultation to

Reduce the amount of community involvement in that council is a backward of Olympic proportions. I mean, people may say, Oh, but we can have working groups and we can have other committees, and this committee will then, you know, provide down into all these other committees as required. I must admit, I found Councillor Calvert's explanation of how it would work totally confusing, and I think most people would see that that's why we would need a briefing in that regard. It was nothing like any of the things that we were briefed or discussed, briefed by staff or discussed during our briefings on the matter.

I just find this quite staggering that

Council and council laws would not allow us to get maximum value from our committees. We must allow them to bring their superior understanding of issues and matters to our attention unrestricted. Not only does this strengthen council, but it engages, empowers the members of our committee and our community by council setting the agenda,

Restricting the ability of community members to bring items of importance to the committee and then through that committee there to council. I mean, it is possible, for example, that if a council wanted, if that council had a bloc with a certain voting majority, that they could, you know, say there is no agenda for that committee, and so effectively shut that committee down. I mean, we remember back in 2012 where the council resolved to no longer take advice from the Heritage Committee.

This is what's happening here, but it's heading down that track. And I just, Council Wheeler's amendment is good middle ground. I'm quite surprised that it has been written the way that it was, but I thank her for it. And I think that it's, as I say, a good middle ground. It's a good compromise. It's workable, and it shows respect for those people who've donated so much of their time and their knowledge and their expertise for no financial gain, and we're paid, they're not. And they undoubtedly spend more time preparing for committee meetings than we do. And to disrespect them in this way is, I find, just, you know, a local council is where the rubber hits the road. Smith

Expired, Councillor Reynolds, I'll get you to wrap up there.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thanks. Councillor Rasmussen. Yeah,

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'm speaking in favour of the amendment, and I just, yeah, a thought just came into my head which reminded me of an amateur hour that I... used to listen to from time to time. It just seems to me that the only reason we are even debating this better , much better, much more carefully thought through amendment is because we had such an appalling proposal to exclude community involvement on our committee structure. For years and years and years now, this council has tried, and sometimes not very successfully, to engage our community much more in local democracy and getting input from the community. And here we are. This is clearly radiating a culture, if it gets through, a culture of excluding the community, of ruling from the top, governance by the few, and then somehow or another deigning to get input from , you know, the great unwashed out there.

I just find it appalling that any councillor would bring such a committee structure for us to vote on. I really do. It's sad that this has come from, yeah , it's come from that quarter. I really do find it very sad. However, the amendment, I think, goes a long way towards at least assuring the community that we do want them, we do want their input, and we want as many and as deeply felt and articulate, skillful inputs as we can get from any corner and anybody in our community. We should be applauding. Rather than denouncing and excluding community input, I just find it really appalling. But anyway, the amendment is there, and let's just, councillors, let's just hope that we can all understand that this amendment is certainly better than anything else on offer.

Thank you. Thanks

Councillor Rasmussen. Councillor Garrett.

Yes, I'm supporting the amendment, and I have to agree with Councillor Reynolds. This amendment is a really good middle ground, and it's really disappointing. Sorry,

Councillor Garrett, we can't hear you very well. Do you want to just sort of speak really loudly? We should be able to get it.

Okay. I just take my headphones off. Can you hear me better now?

That's better. Yep. Okay

I just wanted to agree. I'm supporting this amendment, and I wanted to agree with Councillor Reynolds and pointing out that this amendment is a really good middle ground and really disappointing if it's not going to be supported. I find it a huge insult to the members of our community that have worked so hard on the committees thus far. Today I received an email from Dr Ian Nound, who's the association secretary and CEO of Hawkesbury Harvest, the Harvest Trails and Markets, and a committee member of the Tourism Advisory Committee, and he's asked me to read it out as he was unable to attend this evening. So I think his words express it quite clearly. I cannot attend in person tonight, but I'm highly troubled by the proposed dissolution of our Tourism Advisory Committee and , along with it, formal industry and community representation at committee level.

The proposed action sends the wrong message to industry and community as our shared future under council stewardship of tourism via the proposed Innovations and Partnerships Committee. The existing committee representatives have endured a frustrating three years while we saw at the State Destination Management Plan planning DMP process for the Hawksbury. We agreed to support this and contribute constructively for this duration. The final phase was to determine how its legacy would be coordinated and delivered and by whom. It was somewhat surprising, in my view, that Hawkesbury City Council took on the responsibilities and put their hand up to take the lead role. Resourcing for this effort was well understood as a potential block to council being effective in its strategic role.

But the fact Council had a dedicated advisory group, input from key industry sector players at least meant the thrust would have industry support and guidance by an internal group with business and industry voices. The proposed changes formally remove the Strategic Tourism Trust of local and regional players. Under the proposed model, this brain trust will be externalised and may make submissions where they believe their input is generally valued or perhaps taken seriously. But will have limited opportunity to challenge and critique within the body convened to make decisions of import to the futures. The subsummation of tourism into the more ambiguously named Innovations and Partnerships Committee simply says that what has been accepted over the last couple of decades as the importance of tourism to the health and prosperity of our region does not warrant a dedicated committee.

I note the Heritage Committee will be retained. And as this is just one of Hawkesbury's pillars of attraction, one wonders how it will be leveraged for the benefit of the visitor economy. Indeed, I am left to wonder if Council intends to retain the mantle as region's key tourism coordination and planning body. If the proposed motion is passed, then the Mayor on behalf of councillors ought to not only thank the existing committee members for their service, but also apologise, dismantling the direct mechanism of input they enjoyed as part of their existing committee, and for their wasted patience as we sat for three years as it took the perit DMP to be completed. As I said at the onset, this move sends the wrong message to business and community as to Council's stance on the key role that tourism has played in this district's attractiveness and prosperity, and needs to play as we come out of 2020.

In this context, it is hard to fathom what this move is really about. I hope the decision of this motion manages to make it clear to us all. And then, of course, there is the inexplicable resignation of Mr. Peter Conroy, a widely respected general manager and a breath of fresh air as far as my circles were concerned. Again, unfathomable, and therefore deserving of some very frank and open explanation. Thank you.

Thanks, Councillor Garrow. Any further speakers on the amendment?

There being none, we'll put the amendment. The amendment moved by Councillor Wheeler, seconded by Councillor Lyons-Buckett. All those in favour of the amendment, please raise your hand. Favour are Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Ross, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Garrow. Against? Councillor Conolly, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Richards, Councillor van Progno, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Tree. Declare it lost and the casting vote of the mayor. So we return to debate on the motion. Are there any further speakers?

Councillor Richards.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I support the motion now on the table. Part of being an elected representative is to partake in reforms. What is proposed here tonight is indeed a reformation that I believe to the betterment of the operations and the productive nature of Hawkesbury City Council. After four years now as a participant on multiple committees, there is, in my opinion, a frustration when after that four years little may have seemed to have been achieved, despite the goodwill and good intentions of members. Now, that's not something across all committees. I'm just saying that there is definitely that consensus in some committees, and I've definitely had members speak to me in regards

To that statement. What is proposed here tonight condenses and solidifies a streamlined process. It identifies a clear purpose and in effect should deliver more distinct and achievable outcomes. In fact, it makes the committee process more accessible and inclusive than ever before. Traditionally, the community had limited input into agenda items and no ability to attend and participate other than the members already elected to the committees. Now, once a committee is given a problem to solve, essentially the agenda is public, the meeting itself is public, and members of the community can attend and speak on items of interest to them. What a way to allow everyone to be involved. What a way to demonstrate transparency with this council, like never before.

What a way to say to all of the community, hey, you are important and your views matter. Come and join us. Additionally, the burden of the staff is considerably less, both in terms of time and in terms of cost. They have a clear direction and our ability to conduct business is more professional. As you can see from the amended motion we have before us contrasted to the one from two weeks ago, the Heritage Advisory Committee is included in this process. That is because, as I said in the last matter that I spoke on, we do need to listen to the community. Now, we have been inundated with emails and correspondence from members regarding their Heritage Committee and, of course, from a speaker tonight and speakers a fortnight ago.

So we have listened and we have included that into this new motion here tonight. So in totality, I support the motion on the floor, and I look forward to an approach that is more inclusive, more constructive, more efficiently, and mostly more transparent. Thank you.

Councillor Gary.

Okay

Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Look, I have to strenuously disagree with this motion. It does none of the things that it purports to do apart from restructure council's committees. And as I said previously, I can understand the desire to do that to a degree. I certainly appreciate the points Mr. Now raised about, and I really understand the frustrations of the Tourism Committee. They have been given a really poor deal, I think, and have been incredibly patient. With Council in waiting for us to find a way forward. But we are now at the point of throwing the baby out with the bathwater for the rest of these committees. I'm flattered that the committee that I currently chair, Heritage, is surviving this shambles because a shambles it is.

It's unrepresentative. It will be open to gerrymander by subsequent councils. You may believe that this Council won't do that, but if this structure remains, we have seen that happen before on council committees, and Councillor Calvert will know it well, where progressive councillors were systematically excluded from council committees. Mr. Eds knows it well too because it's the only time in the 30-year history of the Heritage Advisory Committee that his expertise was excluded from that committee as well. Deliberate act to remove dissenting voices from council's advisory committees, and this mechanism, where five members could be from a single party, if we got to that state on council, would do exactly the same thing.

It doesn't, as Councillor Ross has raised, it doesn't allow for standing members with voting rights from various representative groups, people with disabilities in particular, First Nations members in particular, industry representatives, all excluded from voting. Now, they might come, they might turn up and say a few words, but they are not part of the decision-making process if they don't have an equal say with councillors. Elected representatives are not the same as members of the community. We forfeit those rights as members of the community when we are elected and we make an oath or affirm under the Local Government Act that we will act not in the best interests of our particular representative group, but of the LGA as a whole.

And that means then that we are not the same, and we have greater access to information. We are paid. And we have a voting right in this chamber. It's ludicrous to think that we should get a double up on those voting rights. There is expertise on the Human Services Committee from people working in that industry that we can't replicate. This is not consistent with our CMP, where we told the community four years ago that we would value open and clear communication, listen to the contribution of every individual, and value differences in people and their perspectives. Should we add at the end there, but not give them the right to vote on anything? Perhaps we should have. I want to read quickly a part of a statement given to me by Erin Wilkins, a representative of the Darug community.

My people need to be represented and heard across many issues and areas relating to council decisions and actions on our traditional lands. As a statement to be heard tonight from just one representative of the local Aboriginal community, I do feel that if these committees are dissolved or merged and only be compiled of councillors and not inclusive of external community members, then the voice of my people, the Darug people, the people that have been here on the very grounds you are meeting on for over 50,000 years, will not be substantiated. And as history repeats itself, our people will be pushed to the side and disassociated once again. In 2020, there are no Aboriginal councillors in Hawkesbury City Council.

Where does this leave our country, our people, our sites? Unprotected and voiceless.

We cannot run parliamentary committees. I don't know what experience you have with parliamentary committees, Councillor Calvert, but I work for an MP who sits on several. They take an extraordinary amount of work. They run for months. They receive lengthy submissions, up to a thousand pages of submissions to be read. People are then selected for interview. The contents are transcribed. They are reported. There are dissenting reports prepared. They're presented in Parliament, debated, and then the resolutions disappear into ether. We do not have the staff to run this system. This will not reduce work for staff. It will make life extraordinarily difficult for our staff. Parliament runs a whole department based on committees, and parliamentary representatives are paid an additional $10,000 for each committee that they have to sit on, and they're given

Staff. Time has expired, Councillor. Let's get you to wrap up,

If you can. Thank you. I'm pleased that heritage has been recognised, but this is not the only committee with expertise. And as you've heard from Mr. Eds, that expertise is freely given because people have agency. We are about to lose that agency, and that is a very, very sad and shameful thing.

Thank you, Councillor Rasmussen. Yeah

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm obviously voting against the motion before us, and I want to strongly support the comments that Dr. Nailed in those comments read out by Councillor Garrow. He expresses very clearly and succinctly and compellingly the sentiment that I have as well about tourism. And those of us who were on the Tourism Committee, last one that we've just had, would know from all of the members there, the operators who afforded Council great accolades in what they have done in terms of tourism, beginning to reformat , re-energise the tourism operators and the tourism sector, and the growth of new jobs in the tourism sector, and all of those aspects. It was great joy from my point of view, anyway, to hear those spontaneous, genuine and certainly heartfelt comments of support for Council and what Council was doing and so on.

Now, Mr. Mayor. If we, if we fluff this, if we fluff this, we are not going to get a lot of these experts, operators, time poor, really hardworking, many of them small business people. We're not going to get them back. Be assured of that. If you are for small business, you will not do this. You will simply take it upon yourself to understand that this is not what small business, particularly the tourism sector, would want. It simply is not workable for them. Councillor Calvert said, Are we going to have a meeting during the day or whatever, he said. Well , let me tell you, Councillor Calvert was part of council when I was some years ago, where we had meetings during the day. It was really, really hard for hardworking community members to attend.

They just can't afford it. What is it about this the councilors don't understand? Hardworking people do not have time to come along during the day any more than they are able to add any more time to what they have already said that they would commit to. Tourism needs to— I'm glad, please, really pleased that heritage has been pulled out of this mess, this burning wreck that we're obviously about to descend on us, this burning wreck of a community involvement. So I'm glad that something survives, or might survive this. But I think what we should also have is tourism at least, and I would argue also the infrastructure committee . I don't know how many of you remember , but to get the infrastructure committee up— Infrastructure, right, guys.

This is what the community has been championing and asking and pleading for us to address seriously, not to plonk it down and in amongst some other group of whatevers. That is not what they've asked for. It's taken 25 years to get an infrastructure committee up, and now what are we going to do? We're just going to snuff it off and God knows what will happen to it. I mean, seriously, let's not do this. Let's not adopt this burning wreck of community involvement. It's taken too long to get to where we are. Let's not have this wreck descend upon us. Thank you.

Thanks, Councillor Ross.

Thank you. I won't support the motion. Couldn't possibly support it. If it goes through, I foreshadow that within the conclusion of three months, I will be putting up a rescission motion against this motion. That's point one. Point two is the absolute insincerity of the motion before us. Here we have the heritage committee being looked at in one light and the rest of the committees being looked at in another light. This just is absolutely appalling, appalling. But goodness sake, what do you people think you're doing about the community and its involvement? You're just throwing them out, saying, Oh well, to hell with you. We don't want to listen to you. We don't want to hear you. We don't want to see you.

Well, we're destined to make a lot of mistakes going along this road. And it certainly doesn't stand up to the attitude of the state government as it's now put to us. We need to address that as well. And I believe that the councillors who are promoting this should go away and seriously think about their own positions. This is not what I would call community involvement or engagement at all. You are throwing the people, you're just discarding them. Why don't you turn around and actually sit down and actually do some hard work? I mean, in the initial stages at the 24th of November, there wasn't even an emergency committee there. It was only that I wrote to the proposer of that plan after 5 p.m.

on the day of the meeting that all of a sudden an emergency committee came up. Oh, dear, oh me. I mean, this is all just nonsense on the run. It is deplorable. The community is against this, and I hope you seriously think about this prior to casting your vote because you will be wearing this.

Thank you, Councillor Ross. Councillor Reynolds.

Thanks, Mr. Mayor. I wasn't going to speak again, but, you know, the issue of council, of voting majority on council having the ability to veto items that go onto any committee's agenda is really dangerous.

And preventing members of the committee... be they councillors or members of the public, from raising matters to be discussed in general business is censorship of the community on a standard I don't think that we've seen before.

You know, I'm probably going to repeat myself here, but, you know, we're all aware that the committees are filled with members who are experts in their specialist fields. It's highly likely that our committees have a far greater breadth of understanding and knowledge of their specialist fields, not only the members of council but also members of staff. What possible advantage could council gain by restricting their expertise to a few topics chosen for them by political apparatchiks on this council?

To get maximum value from the committees, we must allow them to bring their superior knowledge and understanding of issues unrestricted. I mean, imagine if the Access and Inclusion Committee were unable to ask council to consider more funding to bring our public facilities up to the minimum legal accessibility standards, which they did just recently with public toilets. And this is the thing, of course, when the committee reports, the minutes come back to council, council can decide not to accept them, as was done in that case. So you're double dipping here. You're getting to set the agenda, and then when the committee report comes back, you're getting to decide whether to throw it out or not.

You can disclose of anything, dispose of anything you don't want already. You know, while this thing allows committees to retain a presence, not only does it limit discussion to topics selected by council, But provide council with an option to effectively retire its committees altogether. By failing to set an agenda, this council could sideline the committee it chooses, this time without the social media furor and unfortunate negative publicity that was generated at the last meeting. This isn't only disingenuous; it's completely unacceptable.

To ignore the staff recommendation for committee reform, which was based on a thorough review of committee functionality, and sought to better align the committees with the strategic plan for a proposal which appears to have been constructed on a political whim insults our staff, our committee members, and severely diminishes this council's relationship with the community. And I'm

Just flabbergasted that this council, which came in, especially the majority of so-called progressives on this council, which came in with promising greater transparency and greater community involvement. And here you are suggesting the exact opposite. Thank you.

Thanks, Councillor Reynolds. Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I think that this motion includes some really, really major changes, with absolutely no consultation with the public that people are saying they want to involve. If we want to engage with the public and make a major reform, then we should be consulting with the public. Now, we've had some consultation with the individual committees, but we have not taken this to the public. I'm fully supportive of changes to structure and to reform things to make them work more efficiently. However, we have to do this in line with our people. I mean, this sort of thing might, on the face of it, look as if we're going to involve people more, but it doesn't give any detail of how that would work, and I don't think it will work.

I'm thinking of the committees I'm on, and I think the loss would be so significant that we simply couldn't get the information that we're currently getting with this sort of a structure. Because why do we want to have a parliamentary structure? We're not a parliament. We don't need parliament doesn't have these sort of advisory committees because we are a product of the parliament. We are a product of the state government, and we're directed in policy, and we're directed to do things based on what they want us to do. So, in other words, we don't have to have committees like a parliament has a committee. It just simply isn't our function, and I just think there's no reason why we would go down that path.

The other thing is that we would have so many things that would be retrospective, because we would be waiting for this process of going to a meeting. We'd be waiting for Council to get an agenda. We'd be waiting for someone to raise something in Council to then go to a committee. What happens to the spontaneity? of people who raise something in a current committee structure that they bring forward and that we can then incorporate into a strategy, into a policy, or we can simply raise it as an issue of concern. And many of these things are issues of concern. I have no idea how having a quarterly briefing on emergency and disaster management could possibly— I don't even know what it is. But who would set that agenda?

Would we just go every three months and see if something had to be said? We've got a huge amount of work to be doing in that area, and we need to be having the workshops and completing the issues surrounding emergency management. We are living in an area in a floodplain where there is forecasts of heavy inundation of rain, and we still haven't revised our emergency management stuff that we were supposed to do before. I think—I don't know how the public are going to be involved in setting the agenda, as somebody said. I can't imagine what—we're going to have anyone from the public sending in saying they want something on an agenda. That's simply unworkable. And who will be responsible for chasing that up and deciding who has value in putting their thing on the agenda?

I just think there's too many flaws in this. We will be systematically excluding the public from the process. But also, there's no addressing of the role of agencies and experts really in this. And the input of agencies—to be able to sit and speak to people like the SES or to disability sector workers—is really, really valuable. So unless there's something that they have as a regular thing that they know they're going to go and commit to, how will we just suddenly expect them to come to a meeting if somebody has set an agenda and passed a motion that we should have a committee meeting on something? I just think this is incredibly flawed. I don't have a problem with the underlying—what I think is the underlying intent.

I have a massive problem with how it is being implemented. I just think it's— It's just poor governance to make a decision to dissolve committees before we even have another structure in place. We haven't even looked at the objectives or the aims. We've done none of that, and yet there's a motion here that says right to all those committee people and dissolve the committees at the end of December. So we essentially are turfing them out. Many of these are Section 355 or similar committees, and we are just turfing them out, and as if to say, we don't need an advisory committee because five councillors are going to decide it all for you. I think it's poor form, and it's very, very disappointing.

Thanks,

Deputy Mayor. Councillor Zamprogno.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I wanted to be towards the end because I was very genuinely interested in the spectrum of views here. So I want to say that I'm in favour of Councillor Calvert's motion. I was not a fortnight ago. I was in support generally of the package of reforms to our committee structures, but I drew a bright line relating to the status of the Heritage Committee, and I want to thank Councillor Calvert and other councillors for being prepared to reconsider on that point. I think that there's way too much pearl clutching going on here, because ultimately this could be an experiment that runs for all of about eight months, and then there will be an election, and the disposition of the new chamber may be different.

So if this new structure kicks in in February, and there's an election in September, that gives us eight months in which to conduct this experiment and to see whether it yields a benefit to the decision making . of our chamber, and I'm happy to conduct that experiment. If the next council is of a different disposition, that's perfectly within their rights to declare the experiment a failure, but at least we'll know at that point whether this new structure improves our decision-making or not. Now, as it relates to the Heritage Committee, I'm going to take the magnanimous view that the change of heart has been because of the quite overwhelming support that I've received and which has been relayed to the other councillors about the value of the Heritage Committee.

And I want to recognise Neil Renard from the Colo Shire Family History Group, from Peter Sharpley from the Hawkesbury Historical Society, from Carol Edds from the Hawkesbury Chapter of the National Trust, from David Griffiths and Margaret Wyborn from the Kurrajong-Comleroy Historical Society, from Frank Holland, and from Cheryl Ballantyne and Jenny Lloyd, none of whom, I might add, are making self-serving submissions on this question because they are already members of that committee. Those people are not members of the Heritage Committee, but represent really serious organisations that have a stake in the preservation and promotion of our heritage and history here in the Hawkesbury, and sounded the alarm about the loss of that expertise.

In addition to that, there were representations I did receive from members of the committee, and a joint letter from all of the community members of that committee. And I think the best passage from that says that the Hawkesbury , the Heritage Advisory Committee, really does bring together the best qualified and informed group of citizens on matters of history and heritage at no cost to council. A point that I've made along the way is that if we had to pay for these people's advice, we couldn't afford it. And I did think of the Heritage Committee as something separate and something special. And because the motion before us now has the ability to Preserve the Heritage Committee, then I am generally in support of the package of reforms.

What I would say along the way, though, is to dispel a couple of

Red herrings. One is I don't share the view that these committees are being consolidated or disparaged because they are seething hotbeds of activism. I don't mind a committee acting as the conscience of council, and if they occasionally come up with a contrarian or challenging view, I don't see that as an act of sedition. I see that as them doing their job, and I'm perfectly happy for all councils to receive frank advice from the community that might occasionally challenge the orthodoxy of council or get under the skin of individual councillors. I think we're all big enough to take that on board. I'm also committed to these committees having an ecumenical spread of councillors as their members, and I'm also committed to, if the agenda items for these council committees have to run the gauntlet of being put on the business paper and then running through the chamber, so that we ensure that what those committees do is aimed at our needs, our decision-making needs in the chamber, is that I will generally be disposed to permit any item that would otherwise be put on the agenda by staff, for example, to come through unless a very compelling reason was offered why it was irrelevant to put before one of those committees.

So on that basis, I think this is something that we can support and then see how it goes and then reconsider in September. Thank you.

Thanks, Councillors and Progne. Yeah, I might just speak briefly in favour of the motion as well. I think there's a few things that need to be said here. I share the view that perhaps there's some huge reactions here that are maybe missing the point. I agree with Councillor Rasmussen that, you know, for people, the people that we're trying to get to are probably time poor. They're not necessarily going to be available to a four-year commitment to attending every committee meeting, regardless of what's on the agenda. So those are the people we're currently not talking to. But if there's an issue on the agenda of a committee that's of particular relevance, I think I come to a different conclusion to Councillor Rasmussen.

I think they're far more likely to come to that meeting if they can just come to that one meeting, address the item that's most relevant to them, rather than have to commit to a four-year term. The purpose, I think we have to remember too, the purpose of committees is not for community consultation. We have a whole lot of other community consultation, and we're reaching a tiny, tiny proportion of the community via our committee structure. It's a handful of people that are included, not the broader community. So the purpose of this is not for community consultation, and I think I'm not sure what Councillor Ross is referring to in terms of the community participation plan. If he thinks that a committee structure like ours is enough for the community participation plan, I think that's clearly not going to be the case.

The community participation plan needs to include much broader community participation than the handful of people that are selected to be on our committees. This structure will—I don't know how you could read it any other way—the structure does open up the committee meetings to be public meetings to allow everybody in the community the same opportunity to participate, not just those that are selected by councillors at the start of a term, but the whole community. And I think it's perfectly—I think it's perfectly correct that council should be determining the agenda items of the committees. The committees exist—again, the committees don't exist for community consultation. The committees exist to help, to assist council to make better decisions on items that require further investigation and expertise.

And council—there is a cost to those committees. Council is expending resources in that committee structure. So council should be determining which matters it requires its committees to go and expend resources into investigating and seeking out that expertise. It shouldn't be up to unelected community officials to decide that for the whole community. That's not good governance. I think this is a really positive change. We're going to have open, transparent public meetings that allow people to speak, the whole community to speak to councils, councillors, without the current restrictions of, you know, five minutes, two minutes for questions, you know, in a really official setting. It'll be open slather.

The chair will be allowed to go on for as long as required, a lot more involvement from the community. I respect Mr. Eds and his answer was he wouldn't participate if he couldn't vote. I do suspect that's not the view of most community-minded professionals that attend these committees. I think they come along because they think they've got great things to offer, and they want councillors to be aware of the information that they possess. I think they'll—and I think Councillor Wheeler said there's only been one vote in the last three years, so it's clearly not about voting. I can't actually remember any committee member—any committee meeting that I've been on where they've had a contested vote as such.

It's not about that. There might have been one, I've probably forgotten now, but, you know, on the time I've been on committees, I can't remember a single contested vote that needed to be decided by a vote of committee members. So I don't think it's really about voting. I don't believe that most people who are participating would be so put off by the fact that they don't get a vote that they wouldn't come anyway. I think we're underestimating our community if we think that. I think Councillor Rasmussen said these people won't come. I think that's an underestimation of our community. We've got a lot of people who want to give, who want to be involved, who might not be willing to commit to a four-year term, but given if they've got expertise and an interest in a matter that's being considered by a committee, I think they would come.

And I think you might be surprised by the interest from our community, Councillor Rasmussen, and I hope so. Any further discussion?

If not, right of reply, Councillor Calvert

Thank you, Mr Mayor, and I fully agree with your comments just then. I am rather disappointed at some of the arguments that have been put up here tonight against this motion. The arguments, many of the arguments tended to be just emotional arguments based on misunderstanding or myths or even fear. And several councillors have said, Why are we excluding the community? One councillor even raised his voice and said, You're excluding the community. Well, actually, we're doing exactly the opposite. We're including the community. We're trying to widen our committee so that all the community can be involved, not just a small selection of the community. So people who say we're excluding the community just don't seem to understand what's being put forward here.

Now, councillors, we are elected to make decisions, and that's what we're there for. But it's important that we make those decisions based on good advice and good information. So what this proposal does is gets our committees to provide us with that information and that advice. And it may take a while. It may take longer than normal. But then what we're doing is getting good quality advice, and I can't see how that is a problem either. The more good advice we get, the better it is for us and the community. Now, just because this model is loosely based on the New South Wales Parliament model doesn't mean we're going to go into all the things that they do and have a great infrastructure that spends thousands of dollars.

That's not what is meant by the fact that it's loosely based on the New South Wales Parliament model. And that's just another bit of scaremongering by some people to get... Get this taken off the table. All members, all people who go to the meeting can contribute. They can contribute through formal submissions or just speak from the floor, as the chairperson allows. Now, normally that's what happens at committees now, and we don't have to have a vote. The only time I've had a vote in a committee is when something's been really contentious, and that is not very often. But when there is a vote, it's the councillors in this model that will have the vote, and what they're voting on is their interpretation of what the community has just told them.

It's not them voting on what they think is best for the community. It's them voting on what the community has just informed them. And what can be better than that in terms of getting more people involved in the decision-making process? Ideas can still come forward from the committees. In fact, more ideas should now come forward. People can say, while you're discussing a matter, ideas can come up, and those ideas can be incorporated in the report that goes forward to the council. Whereas now, I believe a lot of ideas that come up in committees just disappear. We don't get to see them. So ideas should flow more easily through this process. It's definitely not policy on the run. It's policy that's been formed over a couple of years.

And yes, we've made a few changes in the last few weeks. And what's wrong with making changes based on what the community has told us they would like to do? I don't see that as a problem either. Others are telling me that this system will disadvantage people. In fact, it's just the opposite. No one gets disadvantaged. All those who contribute now can still contribute, and we welcome them to do so. And they will get invitations to come along to these meetings. And if they're experts in the field as well, they'll also be invited. So what you get is increased public involvement, not reduced public involvement. And if the members of the public would like to see an item go to the committee, well, there is a way to do that.

You talk to your friendly councillor and you say, I would like this matter to go to a committee. The councillor brings it up at a briefing session or in council and tries to and gets it put forward to a committee. So items are not locked out. Council determines the agenda. If it's a good idea to go to a committee, then it will go to a committee. I also took a bit of, I found it insulting that some people suggested that I would stack the committees in terms of political councillors . That's not what I would do at all. In fact, that was what was tried to be done to me in 2018, but when I became mayor, I made sure that didn't happen, that we had a selection of councillors from all political persuasions across the committees.

And that's what I hope would happen here. The five members of the committees would be people who have expertise, information, have experience in that area and can contribute significantly, not politically. As someone said, when the matter gets to council, that's when the politics can come out. I'm not trying to put politics into the committees. I'm trying to take it out of the committees. So look, all the arguments I heard just didn't stack up, and I urge you to give this a go. Get behind it because it will give us a much better result for the community and for the council. Thank you. Councillor

Carver, we've put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hands. In favour are Councillor Conolly, Councillor Carver, Councillor Richards, Councillor Van Proogh, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Tree. Against? Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Ross, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Garrow, declare it carried on the casting vote of the Mayor.

John, how many?

Yeah, sure. I think we've got a fair bit left to go, so I think that's fair enough. So we'll adjourn the meeting for 10 minutes and resume at 5 to 10.

Anybody wish to move anything there?

Councillor Kotlash, move the recommendation.

Yeah, I will, thank you.

I

Don't want to speak to it. I think it's straightforward.

Is there a seconder for that? Councillor Zamprogno. Okay any discussion? Being

No discussion—oh, Councillor Ross.

I have a question in this regard. I noticed in the business paper that it was indicated that the subdivision was approved under delegation. I just wish to inquire of, through you, Mr Mayor, as to how this particular process operates. I don't think I've understood or seen this previously.

Which process exactly? The fact that it was the subdivision, not— Correct Okay. Director City Planning, how is a subdivision approved?

So, when my understanding, essentially, that when approvals were taken away from the council chamber—I'm not sure at what point exactly in the history—so this was done under delegation through the internal team, but I might refer that to the Manager Development Services who was here at the time.

To you, Mr Mayor, this application was done under delegation because there were no submissions to it. At the time, and therefore it was approved under council officer's delegation instead of going to council. There were all the conditions were raised at the time, and these building envelopes were formed as part of that condition . ABA instrument was created , and therefore this condition was raised that these building envelopes had to be conformed to. And this proposal just proposes to do an extension outside of that building envelope, which is 50 square metres

Thank you for that. Councillor Ross, any further questions or discussion?

I'd just like to inquire, is that a normal process in the manner of doing a subdivision, please?

Refer that to the Manager of Development Services.

Through you, Mr Mayor, yes. Normally we do put a restriction on development to be able to identify building envelopes so that all the development occurs within that building envelope. However, it does sometimes get varied depending on the situation. In this case, they do still conform with the APZ zones. The effluent disposal system was considered, and it was decided or determined that the effluent disposal system will still work despite the 50 square metre increase in the building envelope, and therefore, you know, there was no issues with extending that building envelope.

So, yeah.

Thank you for that,

Councillor Ross. That, I'm afraid, was an answer to a different question, which I don't believe I'd asked. I was asking, is this subdivision a normal process that can be conducted by delegation , and is that still the case today?

So, yeah, I mean, I think that's correct, but I'll refer that to the Director, City Planning.

Yes, it is. Subdivisions are approved under delegation, and it was a practice undertaken today.

Thank you. Any further discussion? Councillor Ross? No . Okay. No further discussion. Right of reply, Councillor Kotlash.

Not necessary. Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Okay. Put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour are Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Richards, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Tree. Did I recall everyone's name? Yes. Declare it carried. Next item.

You could take my vote as being against that, thank you, sir.

Okay, Councillor Ross against. Sorry. Thank you.

2.43. I'll move the

Recommendation, Mr Mayor.

Moved. Recommendation, Councillor Zamprogno, seconded by Councillor Kotlash. Any discussion?

No discussion. I put the motion. All those in favour? Please raise your hands. In favour are Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Richards, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Gary, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Tree. Against?

Didn't call out Councillor Lines Buckett or Councillor Ross. Councillor Ross is against. Councillor Lines Buckett, you against? Against.

No, I had my hand up for.

Okay, sorry, I didn't call your name out, so record Councillor Ross against, Councillor Lines Buckett as for. Declare it carried. Anybody interested in attending? Do we need to have a motion there, or? Yep. So, anyone interested in attending that conference? No. Move on.

Four. Recommendation moved by Councillor Kotlash, seconded Councillor Richards. Any discussion?

No, we'll put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. Favour, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Richards, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Tree, and Councillor Ross. Declared carried. Anyone interested in attending?

Deputy Mayor, Councillor Kotlash.

But only for the online part, not to go to the thing. Yep, okay,

I think that's, yeah, I would. So, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Wheeler. So does somebody want to move that Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Kotlash and Councillor Wheeler are our nominees to attend? Moved Councillor Zamprogno, seconded Councillor Calvert. Councillor Ross, did you want to discuss?

You're on mute, sorry, Councillor Ross.

Thank you. Apart from the Zoom segment, where is the rest of it being held?

Yep, it's a reasonable question. Do we know?

Are you aware, Deputy Mayor? I know you'd forwarded it through.

I think it may be in Melbourne, but I don't know if the specific tours were there.

We're just checking the board information we've got here, Councillor Ross. Won't be a moment

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Just going looking at the information put out about the conference or the forum, it looks like it will be hosted live virtually on Zoom. So it doesn't make any other reference to it being held in any other way.

I've got a couple of options in the business paper for, I think the two is versus just attending online. But I think it's Council's intention that it is just online, but we should get an answer to that question if we can.

Yeah, that's it there, isn't it? Sorry.

Mr Mayor, could I suggest that if there were tours in a particular place, we might be able to bring it to the January Council meeting for— Yeah, it's actually

I mean, it would appear like it's in Melbourne, but it doesn't actually say that. It's not really that clear. Mr Mayor,

I've just found it online. It's in Sydney. Sydney

There you go. That's incredibly unclear then. Thanks, Councillor Wheeler. So there's the answer that we'll go with. So we've got a motion from Councillor Zamprogno that— Yeah, that Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Lyons-Buckett and Councillor Kotlash attend the online portion. That's been seconded. Any further discussion?

If not, we'll put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour of the motion, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Ross, Councillor Richards, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Garrow , Councillor Tree. Councillor Reynolds, are you still in the meeting?

Declare Councillor Reynolds absent for the vote. Declare it carried.

Next item is item 248, the draft Rural Lands Strategy.

Anybody wish to move anything there?

So the recommendation is that we receive and note and endorse it, and then put on exhibition. Anybody comfortable with that? Moved, Councillor Ross. Seconded, Councillor Kotlash. Any discussion?

Being no discussion, I'll put the motion. All those in favour of the motion, please raise your hand. In favour, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Ross, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Richards, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Tree, Councillor Garrow. Did I call everybody's name? Yeah. Declared carried.

Shop fronts and facades. Councillor Richards.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'd like to move a different recommendation, please.

Yeah.

I'd like to keep point 1 and 2 as per the business paper, and I'd like to change point 3 to read as follows. Council notes that there is significant improvements that could be made to the shop fronts and facades in South Windsor, and calls for a report to outline the options available for Council to work with the property owners to improve the facades and shop fronts .

Thank you. Is there a seconder for that? Councillor Kotlash. Do you want to discuss, Councillor Richards?

I'll wait till right a reply. Thank you. Sure.

Yeah, look, I'm happy to support. I'll speak first. I'm happy to support that motion, and I think that's essentially we did ask staff to go away and do that. And the report here is that we did a bit of a survey and got 12 responses, and those 12 people didn't see it as a big issue, so we weren't going to do anything more. And I understand there's big demands on our time, and we're trying to get a big project underway. However, I do think there is opportunity to do better down there. The facades are all, you know, as we all know, they're different levels, different colours, different types. It looks messy. Not sure that we can fix it, but I'm sure we can do better. We can at least have a look at what our options are to try and fix it.

It's not up to Council to do the work. It's not our properties. It's not up to us to fund that. But whether we can, you know, whether there are any incentives, any ways we can cajole people into working with us to do that, see it's in their interest. So I would like to have another proper look at that, despite the fact that those 12 respondents didn't see it as a big issue. I think it potentially could make a huge impact on South Windsor.

Is there any further speakers? Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. There is some expertise, or there was some expertise within the Town Centres Working Group on shopfront improvements. We did a similar program in Windsor, and I think the staff should be aware of the findings of that report. There has been some staff changeover, but I think there's enough people left still around with an understanding of what happened there. But probably the best person to chat to will be Joe Wilbo from Black Pebble, who handled quite a lot of the Windsor project. It came from an idea, Councillor Garrow and I picked up from a conference, which we initially had hoped to run in South Windsor. We felt it was the ideal location for such a project, but the money we had specified Windsor, and so to Windsor we went.

South Windsor has some natural advantages in that it's such a confined, a small confined space that functions well but doesn't look great, and that's where these projects that don't necessarily have to cost a lot of money, what they need is consistency across the design, I think. It's interesting to look at the findings of the information that's in the report where, and I think that's going to be the problem that we have, is the interface between the shopkeeper, or the person who runs the shop, and the person who owns the building. And that's where we had difficulty in Windsor. I anticipate we'll have the same problem in South Windsor, where one feels it's the responsibility of the other, and it's very difficult to bridge that gap.

We managed to bridge it in Windsor because we had some money to throw at it, which provided an incentive for both owners and shopkeepers. I don't know that we can do that with this project. We'll have to suck it and see. Can I ask a question about the parklet that was put on site? Is that still there, and when's it due to go? We're starting to get complaints about the state of it now .

Yeah, refer that to Director City Planning.

I'll ask the Manager City Design and Economic Development to respond to that question. Thank you.

Thank you through you, Mr Mayor. The parklet actually was removed on Friday afternoon, so it's no longer in location.

Thank you.

Thanks. And what we see from the survey, I think, and what we've seen from some of the responses to the work that's been done in South Windsor is that community opinion is often divided. I think, and I think we're going to find that all the way through the town centres project, and we get some people on Facebook who love it and some people who hate it without even knowing what's going to happen yet. And, you know, I think this is going to be a difficult process to manage, and I think we're lucky that we have some staff with the skills to do that. But this isn't going to be necessarily an easy way forward, even though we're trying really hard to do a good thing and improve this space. I think there's a lot of PR that's going to be involved in this.

Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Ross.

You're on mute, Councillor Ross.

Sorry, you're still on mute, Councillor Ross.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. The parklet left on Friday, that's for sure, and a lot of people were very glad to see it go because they considered it to have been an impediment and a reduction in the car parking space and just an eyesore, totally. So I don't think that was a great success. I could make a few suggestions. One would be that that main shopping block between Argyle and whatever might have white lines to indicate the provision of parking spots, because there is a great variability in the way people seem to manoeuvre their vehicles through that area, and I think we could get probably a five or seven percent improvement in the parking capacity by trying to guide people into appropriate areas for parking and not have anything up to two or three metres between vehicles, which then, of course, blocks other people from accessing the area, and that seems to happen on a regular basis.

The other thing I notice is that I don't believe that the paving of the shop front area is particularly attractive or suitable. I think that that could certainly do with a huge spruce-up. Also, the refuse bins—we only have refuse bins that are refuse bins. I don't understand why we do not differentiate between what is to be, if you like, a red bin and a yellow bin equivalent in that area. And I would suggest that they should, if at all possible, be placed against the front walls, blank, of course, of shops or in between shops, in an endeavour to keep the footway clear. And further than that, just on the other side of Argyle Street, heading towards the— Barrow and Park is a council, is a bus stop.

Now the pavement there is broken. There's a crape myrtle tree stuck in the middle of the area. There's no seating. Just disgraceful. Something can be done there that would make the area more amenable and probably more pleasant and more commercially available. In addition to that,

There was one other point that seemed to come forth, but I think with a little bit of imagination and some further attention, I think we may be able to get quite a bit done, and that may invite some of the property owners to consider their facades and possibly doing some revamping. But of course, that's going to cost quite a bit of money, and whether it's appropriate for us to be promoting that in some form or another, or being able to offer some incentive, I'm unaware. Thank you.

Thanks, Councillor Ross. Any further discussion? If not, would I have a right of reply, Councillor Richards?

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I just wanted to reinforce how great of a little shopping precinct that South Windsor is, and from spending a little bit of time there lately talking to some shop owners, the community really engages with those shops and they provide mutual benefits to each other. And I think that as part of the livability program, the fact that this resolution was put through to look at the facades is vitally important. Unfortunately , the recommendation, the business paper didn't go far enough as to the intent of what councillors wanted to do. So I think that we need to continue with the facades, not just have an open dialogue with shop owners. Now, that's quite obvious from the survey results.

We're out of the 12, 10 were businesses and only two were owners. I think as a council, we need to try and engage more with those shop owners. They're the ones making decisions on the building, but it shows it's the tenants in the shops that actually have the greater need to actually have the precinct looking better. Now, the facades, whether it could be some sort of uniformity or conformity with colour or whether it's height or something to make it a little more pleasing to the eye, to make people stop more and therefore support those small businesses is something we need to encourage. So I hope that the amendment I put up tonight to form the recommendation actually makes our council still act and do something rather than put this on the never never, because I think it's so important that South Windsor gets that facelift.

Thank you.

Councillor Richards, put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour of the motion are Councillor Conolly, Councillor Ross, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Richards, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Tree and Councillor Garrow . Declared carried. Our next item is...

Way there . Could I move the recommendation in the business paper with an additional point, please? Yep. So, an additional point three — I'm sorry, I haven't typed this up — that the full list of all pesticides used by Hawkesbury City Council and its agencies, including the Hawkesbury River County Council and the Hawkesbury Sports Council, quantities used and costs for the period 2019-2020 be provided to Council. Second.

Do you want me to do that again slowly? Yeah.

So, three: a full list of all pesticides used by Hawkesbury City Council and its agencies

Including Hawkesbury River County Council and Hawkesbury Sports Council, quantities used and the costs for the period 2019-2020 be provided to Council.

Okay. Do you want to speak to — so, seconded by Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Did you want to speak to that, Councillor Wheeler?

Sure, just briefly. I think we need to commit to reducing pesticides, so I'd like to ask through you, Mr Mayor, what we are doing to reduce pesticide use and if we're exploring any alternative strategies to pesticide use as a council.

Okay, I'll refer that to the Acting General Manager,

Mr Organ. So, taken a number of strategies already. So, we did commence a trial last growing season that was somewhat hampered by the very dry conditions and the lack of growth. We have used the non-... Slasher Stop product, or equivalent. However, that is very expensive and the trials weren't particularly — well, the time wasn't conducive to the trials. The other thing that we are doing is that in terms of trying to reduce pesticide use, is that we actually have the way that the parks crews are now set up. They're doing far more whipper snippering rather than using pesticides, particularly in the urban areas. I do say that we would probably still need to continue using pesticides in the urban area, rural areas where we've got broad use to deal with that. But there are a number of measures we've done. Happy to try and get the list as indicated in your amended motion.

Thanks. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks. That's really helpful. I did hear from, I think it was just people, it was feedback from someone in the community who had spoken, I think, to one of our grounds staff who'd asked them what pesticide we were using because they were concerned, and they'd mentioned Slasher. So it's interesting to hear that we have tried. I am aware of the product and I know it's expensive, and I think, you know, that's a timely reminder as well that these products work best when plants are in active growth. And if you've got a drought, then there's not a lot of active growth and not a lot of capacity then to suck the herbicide into the plant and kill it off. So I'm pleased to see that we are trialling different methods.

I have seen a bit more use of whipper snipping, so that's good to know, and I think that's good for the community to hear. I would like to have some baseline information, hence the point three, so that we can make some comparisons long term so that we know everything that's being used not just by council but by the people who we pay to do work on council's behalf. Not because I think that there's anything untoward going on, but because I think that having this information, we've seen a barrage of publicity around glyphosate or Roundup. And a number of councils have dumped it as a product. If we have serious constraints around pesticide use in the LGA, in part because of our environmental constraints, but also because we are such a large LGA with such a small rate base, that for us to say, look, we'll just whip a snake or we'll steam weed, they're not necessarily options open to us.

So I think we have to instead be very upfront about what we're using, how we're using it, and how much we're using. And that's what point three aims to do. Thanks.

Thank you. Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Oh, did I have my hand up? I wasn't going to speak except to say that we do have to be looking at long-term sustainable strategies for pesticide use and so on. So I'll also be interested to hear of the public feedback on this issue as well. So thank you

Thank you. Councillor Kotlash. Thank you, Mr Mayor.

I support Councillor Wheeler's amendment, but I'd like to just point out that the Hawkesbury River County Council has their own pesticide notification plan. So I don't think it's possibly a good idea for us to include what they already include in their own. So maybe that might need to be changed a bit so that we don't have to include what they've included in their other plan. If you see what I mean, their plan, I guess, is a standalone plan that they need for their regulatory compliance . So maybe we could put— Change that a bit to refer to their plan, their pesticide notification plan.

My understanding, Councillor Kotlash, of the motions before us is that this is point three is asking for a separate report on the pesticides being used in our area, rather than changing the plan. So I don't know that that's a concern that the different plan. Is that your intention, Councillor Wheeler?

Yep. Sorry , I misunderstood that.

That's okay. Is point three not something that is within the plan? Why do we have the plan if that information is not there? Okay.

That's Mr. Organ.

The plan basically is how we notify the community when we're actually using pesticides. So it involves signage and, yeah, all the information that's to be contained on that and the areas where we would locate that signage, particularly, yeah, in terms of where you're spraying, if it's in Broad Acre, all of those details. In relation to the Hawkesbury River County Council, all we can do is probably ask them for their list of chemicals that they use and, yeah, we'll report that back depending on their response. So we'll try and include that if we can get that information, and certainly provide the other information requested, because that's in our control.

Thank you. Councillor Zamprogno .

No, it was merely to remark. I was just trying to assist you there. And Councillor Kotlash, it is true that HRCC maintains its own list of pesticides, and if it isn't already reported in our annual report, that information would be very readily at hand. So I have no objection to the inclusion of Councillor Wheeler's point three, in the sense that I suspect that it will be very easy for HRCC to supply that information.

Thank you.

Being no further discussion, go right of reply, Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Look, I'll just take this opportunity to have a little rant about bindis and three-corner jacks, which are something that the, or I think someone, sorry, my father comes from South Australia where they're called three-corner jacks and I don't know cat's eyes, I think is the New South Wales name.

Just make sure that, sorry, Councillor Wheeler, anything that's in right of reply is in response to something that's been raised in debate, yes?

Yes, fair enough. So can I then say that while we're reducing use and looking at alternate strategies, we need an alternate strategy for both bindis and cat's eyes because what we're doing isn't working and the community are not best pleased. It's getting in, it's in dogs' feet and in bicycle tyres. So whatever we're trialling in the spaces that are infested with these weeds isn't working and that needs to be something that we sort out because I suspect what we're going to get as feedback to this plan is, why aren't you doing X here rather than, you know, I'm really pleased that you're going to put up a yellow sign. So I think we need, we probably need to expand our strategy a little bit.

Thank you. All right, we'll put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour of the motion are Councillor Conolly, Councillor Ross, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Richards, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Tree. Declare it carried.

Declare it carried. Item is 251, management of Council parks and reserves on weekends.

Move the recommendation, Councillor Wheeler.

I could move, yeah. The recommendation is not very specific, though. I think we need to pick an option. Yeah

I think the recommendation is, yeah, I see what you're saying. Yeah. So what's your option?

My option is an amalgamation of the existing options, which are written on a piece of paper that I currently can't find. And when I find the motion, I will just...

Quite critical, yeah. ..

Add lib. Sorry, I've cleared the desk and now, here we go. Stop looking, I found it. So I'd like to move option three as a trial period. So I think the current option three in the business paper is for, is option three costed across a 12-month period . One of the options in here is to just do this over a boxing, the Christmas , New Year and Boxing Day—sorry, Australia Day—weekend. I'd like to expand that trial, so option three, which is a combination of options one and two, which is costed at 129,000 per year, I'd like to us to trial that option for six weeks over the school holidays, because I think our, based on the usage that we've got at the moment, I think, I don't think that we're just going to have those hot spots in those three periods of public holidays.

I suspect that we're going to have a healthy lot of visitors for the entire six weeks of the school holidays. Unfortunately, I don't have costings for that, though. And does that— can

I just ask a question? Sorry, is there a seconder for that

Yes , seconder . Okay

I might just— does option, Mr Organ, does option— does option three include St Albans and Bilpin? No. No?

Okay.

So it's worth noting that option three does not include St Albans or Bilpin.

So could we expand option three to include St Albans and Bilpin then? But we're going to have to— we're not going to have a costing for this, which I think is probably a bit problematic. Fair

Mr Organ

I would anticipate the cost would probably be in the order of around fifteen to sixteen thousand dollars for that period to do them each weekend. I'm assuming that's the request, as well as the public holidays. St Albans, we're exploring some options separately from that. To send a crew there, we'd basically tie up the crew for the day if we were to do that. So we're looking at some local options for that, as well as at Bilpin to see whether we can actually get a separate cleaner there. It might be local or through contract. So we don't have any costings on that at this stage. The only issue I might see over that period, because it's fairly short notice, would be the availability of us to get staff to work all those days over the Christmas period.

So I think I'd need some flexibility in terms of, yeah, we may be able to do higher standards on those, and we can come back with a— develop up a program that might see — Option three over that period, just depending on staff availability. It's one thing to get our parks crews, who already work overtime, to work further overtime on those long weekends,

As well as the availability of other staff within our outdoor crews to fill in the gaps as well.

So we might need some flexibility there, and we can develop a

Program around that if that's Council's

Wish. In that case, if I can suggest that the amended recommendation would be to trial a combination of Option 3 for both parking and parks cleaning, subject to availability of staff

Over the December-January period.

Council, really happy to move that. Councillor Rasmussen, happy with those words? Yes. Could I just ask a question while we're asking questions? How are we going to assess the effectiveness of the trial? What data are we collecting, and what's the outcome of the trial?

One, we'd get some feedback, I guess, from the community, but the second part of it would be for our staff to report on our cleanliness when they turn up to the start of the shift each day. So we can keep some stats on that, dare I say take some photographs, have some understanding. But we'd also need to understand how much the park is being used. So again, some observations from the staff when they're attending those sites, what the condition is, how many people have been there. So we can measure against usage.

Thanks. Sorry, Councillor Wheeler.

No

That's fine, Mr Mayor. I think that's been helpful. So I'd like to thank Mr Organ for that as a way forward. I think the use of local crews for both Bilpin and St Albans, I think, would be really helpful. But I also appreciate that this is a time of year that people want to spend with their families as well, and we have to be reasonable about the staffing impacts of that. I think it's quite insightful to have a look at the cleaning schedules. I think some of these places we probably just aren't cleaning enough, and hopefully that we will have some data from this trial. The fact that we only clean Yarramundi Reserve on a Saturday on a long weekend, and then we clean The Vue on a Sunday on a long weekend explains many of the emails of complaint that we receive from the community.

And while that rubbish sits in those reserves, it's very easy for it to end up in the river, and that makes us a problem down the track. And I think this is one of those instances where the money that we spend up front probably saves us costs in the long term. And I think we are just going to, given that we now have this tourist boom here that we're very appreciative of, I think we're just going to have to suck it up and accept that it's going to cost us a little bit more to provide people with a reasonable level of amenity and cleanliness, and that will stand us in good stead because people will come back. If they come and they think place is filthy, they won't. So I think this is a good way forward.

It then allows us to evaluate how successful it's been and whether we want to continue this or not, or whether we make this a special thing for particularly busy weekends. Whether, I think we're going to have to re-evaluate come February whether things die down now that the other states have opened up, now that people are able to travel further. I think people's travel patterns will probably change, and we will start to go back to more of the old normal and less of the so-called new normal. But maybe we won't. Maybe now people have discovered places like Bilpin, they'll keep coming. I really hope they do, but that means an additional responsibility for us. So this is a good way to try this out.

Thank you. Councillor— sorry, Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Yes, I fully support that trial to occur. I think this was a motion that I brought forward after an influx of emails after the long weekend . But I think there's a lot of issues also surrounding this that we can possibly work on with whichever initiatives we can manage to bring forward. I know there are issues with utilising volunteer workforces in this area, but I do think that I would be interested in knowing to what extent we can actually use some volunteers in some areas to perhaps have some insurance cover or whatever the hurdles are, so that, for example, in a place like Bilpin, if three people would go and remove the bins and do something with them on a particular day or something, that saves us a big cost.

But there seems to be some impediments with people doing that at the moment. I agree with Councillor Wheeler that the visitation patterns may well change. I think there's a few changes since Queensland opened with the number of people travelling interstate and so on. But also, I think including the flexible crew, I think that's a great idea, because what we could do is we should be able to know ahead when there's a particular event, and particularly in the areas like people that go down to Sackville area picking fruit or up to Bilpin picking fruit. We know when those times are, so we know when we're going to have big influxes of people into certain areas. So if we have a flexible crew, they can at least not be tied to one specific location.

And the other thing I was thinking, like I do really think that we— At some point, we need to do some sort of a campaign of reinvigorating some pride in our surroundings, where we educate people and encourage people to keep their own areas clean. We have individuals that work throughout the area that go and clean up. For example, the fellow who does the crossing duty at Kermond, he cleans an enormous length of both sides of the road, of Bells Line of Road, for litter and so on. So there's many initiatives like that, and I think we should encourage and thank people for doing that, because I think people are happy to do it, but some people are held back from doing it because they perceive that there are various impediments to them being involved in that way.

But I'm pleased to see a trial occurring. We really want to present our city. We want people to be proud of our city, and we certainly want people to return once they've been here. And the cleaner places are, the less likely people are going to be to just fill rubbish out the window of the car or drag a mattress up there to join the rubbish that's already there. And we know that dumping in our more isolated areas is quite a problem as well. So I look forward to seeing what results the trial will bring forward. Evaluating it will be interesting to see what comes up with that. And, yeah , I think it's money well spent to present our city as best we can. Thanks.

Thank you, Councillor Ross. Oh, sorry, Councillor Wheeler, did you want to?

Sorry, I just have a question that I didn't ask earlier, and I wouldn't dare again raise a new point in right of reply, so I thought I'd best bust in here. I just want to make sure that we can actually, because I think some of this, I focused very much on cleaning, but some of this is around traffic and parking, and I think I've been a bit remiss. Do, are we capable—sorry, are we able to patrol parking in all of these places? Are they adequately signposted? And do we have adequate staff who we can send to more far-flung places? And I'm thinking about St Albans in particular, where we haven't had complaints, the same level of complaints we've had about Bilpin, with cars causing traffic chaos and dangerous traffic conditions. Do we need to do that in St Albans like we intend, like we've put here in Bilpin? Because I'm not sure we can or need to.

Okay, so firstly, I might just, before we move on, I might just read out the exact words we've got here to make sure that we're getting what we're trying to achieve. One, a trial including evaluation of enhanced cleaning and parking patrol be undertaken over the December-January period, including weekends and public holidays, based on additional hours and a roving crew. Two, funding to be incorporated in the December quarterly review. And three, options for St Albans and Bilpin also be investigated and incorporated if possible. So is that, before we move on, are you happy with that?

I think so, and that's probably sufficiently woolly to get us around the bits that we can't patrol parking. Okay

So I'll refer the rest of the question to Mr.

Orbin. So in terms of our ability, so two parts to the enforcement of parking, several parts, and Director City Planning can probably answer a little bit more there. So in the report we indicated that there was the potential for patrol of some of the high-use sites and providing some patrols on long weekends, and the cost was identified in that. One of the difficulties we would have, though, again, at this point in the year is trying to get regulatory signage approved and installed if there was additional signage required. In terms of sending staff to St Albans, I guess that's a matter of, again, trying to find staff who will work those long weekends for limiteds, for a long trip and potentially not much work up there.

The other thing I think that we did discuss when preparing this report was the fact that if we're trying to encourage tourism and people having a good time, the last thing we probably want to do is book people and leave a bad taste in their mouth

Unless

There is a serious traffic safety issue occurring. So, again, having signage up would help with that. It's a really good defence rather than simply saying, you know, you're parking closer than three metres to a double barrier line and expecting people to know the road rules and getting accused of that. So I don't think we'd be giving people a really good feeling after a long weekend. Again, if we can monitor those areas and just see what the issue is, we're aware of some parking and driver behaviour issues probably in St Albans. I'm not sure what the extent of that is. So again, that could be something to be investigated further.

Thank you. Councillor Ross.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I generally support the activities and discussion so far. I'd just like to further support the Director's indication that possibly local folk at both St Albans and Bilpin may be involved in those activities, and that could also be a benefit to those communities in terms of putting a little bit more money into those communities

With those extra requirements . Now, the other point to which I'd like to address, and I realise it can't be done immediately, but I think we have to flag this in a longer term, is the matter of these, if you like, refuse collections. I believe we are going to have to start

Educating the community at least between what is equivalent red bin and what is equivalent yellow bin, and I can well visualise that what is going to happen over this period with these collections is everything is going to be equivalent of red bin regardless of its actual status.

But I believe that we're going to have to look at this situation as part of the overall waste strategy and trying to avoid getting material into our landfill. If it can be possibly avoided, and I'd just like to point that out for the future thoughts and information of the director, and equipment that Council uses and equipment that Council puts on the ground for the use of the public as well.

I think this waste area is going to be one of significant concern and expense , unfortunately, to Council, but we must also do a heck of a lot of education to try and get the segregation of waste into their respective elements,

And it's going to be an ongoing

Concern .

Thank

You. Thanks, Councillor Ross. Councillor Rasmussen.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr Mayor. Mr Mayor, I just want to highlight again, yet again, the plight of Yarramundi Reserve, both sides of Springwood Road, the south part and the north part, for a number of reasons. Firstly, as Councillor Wheeler's pointed out, it's only serviced once a week, I think it is.

But clearly, in the last five , six weeks, at least whilst we are enjoying the 45 or 40 or 39 degree centigrade temperatures, Yarramundi Reserve, both sides, are heavily used, heavily used, even more so than in the past. And what I need to draw attention to is the fact that the... Driveway into the northern reserve has significant potholes, and I'm just wondering whether we're going to address that issue, firstly. And secondly, the area for park, and people park up and down that driveway and in and around the bottom of the Yarramundi northern part of the Yarramundi Reserve. Then they spill out onto the very large area joining Springwood Road, and that is a gravel road or gravel pit full of potholes and God knows what, and we get all manner of cars and horse floats and trucks and whatever, which is fine .

I don't have a problem with the use of it, but we do get eagley-diggly parking up there. I don't know what we can do about it, or whether we can get the RMS to help us perhaps seal that very large expanse of gravel pit out just between Springwood Road and the actual entrance to the northern part of the Yarramundi Reserve. Furthermore, so I'd like to flag that, and I don't know whether Mr. Morgan could take that up, or we can somehow or another talk to the RMS about doing something along those lines. The other thing that I'd like to point out is the safety angle down there. Recently, over the last five weeks or so, the dam has been spilling because of the large amount of water that's coming into the catchment.

And so the Yarramundi... Falls , as we call it, under the bridge. Anyway, the river flow there is significant. Now it looks deeper than it is, and lots of youngsters, young people, whatever, are using the bridge as a bit of a goodness knows what. And three weeks ago there was about , I counted seven. There might have been a couple of ambulances as well, but there were SES, rescue, police, ambulances all gathered around the parking area at Yarramundi Reserve looking for, obviously, somebody or something in the river. Now we've got a lot of youngsters obviously cooling off, and I'm just wondering whether we could try and make, at least put up some signage saying, you know, dangerous, you know, beware, river flows, rocky, shallow, whatever it is.

In other words, try and highlight the fact that this area is safe, but if you do stupid things like jumping off the bridge or whatever you do, then you'll be in trouble. So the safety and the additional cleaning of the area with the bins and so on, and the potholes and the general state of the drive, the entrance into the northern part of the Yarramundi Reserve needs a bit of attention in terms of filling in the potholes or grading or whatever we do down there. So if we just take that on board, that'd be great. Thank you.

Thanks, Councillor Rasmussen. Any further discussion? Would I reply necessary? Councillor Wheeler?

Just quickly, I think point 4 is supposed to say local options for Bilpin and St Albans. At the moment, it looks like Bilpin and St Albans are not subject to the rest of the trial, whereas I think the discussion for Bilpin and St Albans was around whether we could use local crews to do the work. Just two points. I want to make it really clear that my preference here in moving this motion is for traffic directing, not fining. So unless the behaviour of the traffic is dangerous and really needs to be, and we need to clamp down on that in some sort of punitive fashion, I think I agree with Mr Organ that if we were to go in and fine people simply for not obeying the, for

Transgressions that don't necessarily result in anything dangerous or are just as a result of parking not being clearly marked and people not really understanding how to behave in those circumstances, I think we would leave them with a really bad taste after visiting us. So I think fining should be kept to an absolute minimum and really only used as an absolute last resort. In response to Councillor Rasmussen's concerns about Yarramundi and people swimming in Yarramundi, this Council passed an urgent motion that I put up, I think in early 2019 about signposting at our most popular swimming locations, and I'm wondering if that's ever been enacted. If we could get some information back to Council about what has been done in relation to that urgent motion very early in the new year, I would appreciate it because I think that's another part of managing these spaces is making sure people are well informed about the dangers that they face in natural swimming holes that do not behave like a beach, that certainly don't behave like a backyard pool and don't have any lifeguards or any additional support on them.

So I think that's something that needs to come back to Council.

Okay, put the motion. I'll just wait for that to come off the screen. Put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour of the motion are Councillor Conolly, Councillor Ross, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Rasmusson, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Richards, Councillor Gary, Councillor Tree. Against? No one. Declared carried. Next item is 252.

Item is 252, road naming proposal.

People still got their hands up. Await for the current item.

Councillor Ross? Anyone wish to move that recommendation is to go with it. Councillor Richards, seconded Councillor Zamprogno. Any discussion? No?

Councillor Ross.

I'm just wondering why the description of East Richmond wouldn't apply to that area. I'm just rather surprised that it's relatively close to Jersey Street and so on, which is described as East Richmond. I'm just wondering why people would want to do anything other than call it that.

So I think all we're doing — I'll just double-check this with the director — but I think all we're doing is deciding on the name of the street. So I don't think it matters what suburb we've got in the report. I don't think that's relevant to this discussion, but I'll refer that to Mr . Orman.

That's correct. We'll double-check. It's only the named hillside court that's being named. Double-check that it is Richmond or East Richmond, just for clarity, but that's the road address that's been given for this.

Thank you.

We'll correct it if it's needed.

Any further discussion?

Being none, we'll put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour of the motion are Councillor Conolly, Councillor Ross, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Coltlish, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Richards, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Garioch, Councillor Tree. Declared carried.

Item 253, the North Richmond Community Precinct. Moved, Deputy Mayor, seconded Councillor Wheeler. Discussion, Deputy Mayor?

Just briefly, I think this is a good result. I think we have to get on with the redevelopment at the existing site. It's really crucial for the operations of the community centre that they have the upgrades that have been promised and that have been contributed to through the VPA. So I think that that will, you know, I think it's good to be moving forward on this.

Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks. Yeah, reiterate what the Deputy Mayor has said. I think this is a good decision. I think what we've seen this year through COVID is the real power of open space, where those areas that have outside spaces and large outside spaces have certainly been ahead of the game in terms of capacity and in allowing people to still use those spaces within the restrictions of the pandemic. Hopefully we won't have to go back to that way of functioning. But what we've seen clearly here from the North Richmond Community Centre is that having some space around and having space for kids to run around outside is increasingly valuable and something that we in this LGA probably take for granted, but we should maintain wherever we can.

Thank you. Councillor Calvert.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Look, I just wanted to add too that the North Richmond Community Centre is a wonderful asset to the North Richmond community, and it's great that we can do this. The area has become a bit of a hub for young people and other members of the community, and this will make it even more so . Some of the buildings attached there do need a bit of TLC, and this is great. And also that we have an expansion, and I know we did look at an innovative solution a couple of years ago, and unfortunately that couldn't come to fruition. But I do really support the fact that we tried to have an innovative solution, and hopefully we can look at those sort of solutions in the future as well. But this is a great outcome, and I really

Support it.

Thank you. Right of reply, Deputy Mayor?

Not necessary, thank you. Okay

Put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour of the motion are Councillor Conolly, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Ross, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Richards, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Tree. Declare it carried. Before we go on to our next item, do we want to go past 11 p.m.?

Councillor Wheeler, you want to move that we do? Yes. Seconded, Councillor Calvert. All those in favour? Aye. Declare it carried. All right, our next item is...

Is item 254, returns of interest. Moved, Councillor Calvert, seconded, Councillor Wheeler. Councillor Calvert.

If you're discussing, you're on mute. Yep

No, Mr. Mayor, I'll wait to see if there's a righter reply necessary.

Okay. Councillor Wheeler.

Nothing more than to say that I think this is overdue. I think it's a clear expectation of the community that we're transparent about these things. I'm pleased to see that there's a provision for councillors to request that specific details be redacted, and I think that that's fair and reasonable. For example, I have a rental property; it's not in this LGA. Having been the subject of significant harassment and visits to my own house, I would hate for my tenants to be subject to the same thing, and I think it would be reasonable to exclude at least the street number of a tenant and investment property, for example. It's that fine line that we walk between disclosure and other people having to bear the brunt of us sticking our heads above the parapet. So I think this is a really workable way forward.

Any further discussion? I also agree. I think this is an expectation now that this would be available online. And, yeah, if there's any particular exceptions, there's a method for that. So I think this is good to go with that. Did you want right of reply, Councillor Calvert?

Not necessary, Mr. Mayor.

Put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour of the motion are Councillor Conolly, Councillor Ross, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Richards, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Gary, Councillor Tree. Carried.

Next item is 255 , the Infrastructure Committee.

Moved, Councillor Wheeler,

Seconded Councillor Rasmussen. Any discussion?

Councillor Wheeler, did you want to discuss?

Just a couple of questions, if I could, Mr Mayor. Firstly, if we could get a timeframe on when we would be able to get that address from the paramedics, and how that will now work with the— this is a committee that appears to have quite a lot of outstanding business, probably because a lot of the provision of infrastructure is not within Council's remit. But I think we need some timelines around when we get information back about the paramedic issue and the other issue around electricity resilience . That's also an issue that the floodplain committee have been seeking some feedback on for a while. So if I could just get responses to both of those, that would be helpful

Yeah, I think the resolution we just passed is that a report comes back to the first meeting of next year outlining everything that was currently outstanding and how to deal with it. So I think that will be dealt with at that point.

In which case, can I highlight that those two matters are of extreme urgency, and we can no longer— we can't leave these items to be caught up in a restructure. We need to know the answer now. Councillor

Rasmussen? Yeah,

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Mr Mayor, my attention is drawn to the comment in there that the previous general manager was going to talk to the new CEO of Endeavour Energy about a whole range of matters . For the LGA, that's of importance to us, including the issue of power to the western side of the river. And at that point in that committee, he offered to take up the point that there is a high tension power line running across my property from Springwood Road to across the Grose and across to North Richmond. And my point here is this: who is taking up the cudgel on advancing this critical issue that the previous general manager was going to talk to the CEO of Endeavour Energy, he said within a week and a half or two of the meeting and certainly before the Christmas break. So do we know who's picking up on that and making sure that doesn't drop between the cracks, Mr Mayor? I

Refer that to the acting general manager.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Mr Organ will follow that up with Endeavour Energy.

Thank you. With the CEO of Endeavour Energy, Mr Mayor?

Yeah, that would be the intention, given the minutes.

Yep. Okay. Okay, thank you.

Okay. Being no further discussion, I don't know. I think Councillor Wheeler moved that. Right of reply?

Not necessary. Thanks, Mr Mayor.

Thank you. We'll put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour are Councillor Conolly, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Carbone, Councillor Richards, Councillor Ross, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Gary, Councillor Treed. Declared carried.

Next item is in confidential. So I move that we go into confidential. Moved, Councillor Richards, seconded Councillor Kotlash.

In closed session on item 250, in relation to item 257, Council resolved on the Mayoral Minute that the Mayoral Minute regarding the General Manager's performance review for 2019-20 by the General Manager's Performance Review Panel be received and noted, voting for the resolution were Councillors Ross, Rasmussen, Garrow, Wheeler, Lyons-Buckett, Kotlash, Calvert, Zamprogno, Tree, Richardson, Conolly; against was Councillor Reynolds. No further remaining items for the Acting General Manager

In regard to item 258, whilst in closed session, Council resolved on the motion of Councillor Zamprogno, seconded by Councillor Calvert, that one, the quotations submitted by McArthur Management Services to assist the Mayor facilitate the full end-to-end recruitment process for the position of General Manager be accepted; two, Ms Susan Lyle from McArthur Management Services be appointed to assist the Mayor with the recruitment and appointment of General Manager; three, the position be advertised in accordance with section 348 of the Local Government Act 1993; four, the legal advice from Marsden's Law Group regarding the disclosure of termination payments in public reports be received and noted; five, Council seek a totally independent person to join the selection panel from recommendations from LGNSW and LGMA.

Voting in favour of the resolution were Councillors Ross , Rasmussen, Garrow, Reynolds, Wheeler, Lyons-Buckett, Calvert, Zamprogno, Tree, Richards and Conolly, voting against was Councillor Kotlash. In regard to item 259— Excuse

Me , Mr Mayor Yes. In the last item, I believe the words LGMA were used. I believe they were actually LGPA, please. Okay. Thank you.

Noted.

In regard to item 259, whilst in closed session, Council resolved on the motion of Councillor Richards, seconded by Councillor Zembrodno that, one, the report regarding the confidential property matter be received and noted. Two, Council arrange for an independent investigation into this matter, voting in favour of the resolution were Councillors Calvert, Conolly, Garrow, Kotlash, Lyons-Buckett, Rasmussen, Reynolds, Ross, Richards, Tree, Wheeler and Zembrodno. No one voted against the resolution. In regard to item 260 whilst in closed session, Council resolved on the motion of Councillor Zembrodno, seconded by Councillor Calvert, that, one, Council agree to enter into a new lease with Higgins and Co Property Specialists in regard to Shop 4 McGraths Hill Shopping Centre, as outlined in this report.

Two, authority be given for the lease and any documentation associated with this matter to be executed under the seal of Council. Three, details of Council's resolution be conveyed to the lessee together with the advice that Council is not and will not be bound by the terms of its resolution until such time as appropriate legal documentation to put such resolution into effect has been agreed to and executed by all parties, voting in favour of the resolution were Councillors Calvert, Conolly, Garrow, Kotlash, Lyons-Buckett, Rasmussen, Reynolds, Richards, Tree, Wheeler and Zembrodno. Voting against the resolution was Councillor Ross.

Thank you, Acting General Manager. Being no further business, I declare the meeting closed at 12.21. Thanks everyone.