25 January 2021 - Ordinary

Welcome everybody. I'd like to begin the meeting by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land and pay respect to all Elders past, present and emerging, and hand over to the General Manager to go through the procedural matters.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Members attending the meeting are advised that in the event of an emergency, you'll be asked to proceed in an orderly manner to the nearest exit following the guidance of our warden. I'd also like to advise that in accordance with clause 5.18 of the Code of Meeting Practice, meetings of the Council are recorded. In the terms of the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act, this may involve the recording of personal information provided at the time of the meeting. The recordings are made to assist staff in compiling the minutes of the meeting and to enable the podcasting of Council meetings. The revision of any information that is recorded is voluntary. If any person does not wish to be recorded, they should not address or request to address the meeting.

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Thank you. Are there any apologies? I think everybody is here. Yes. All councillors are in attendance. Any declarations of interest?

No declarations of interest. Okay, does somebody want to move the minutes from the last meeting? Moved, Councillor Zamprogno.

Seconded, Councillor Kotlash. All those in favour? Declare it carried. So our first — there are no matters with public speakers. So the first item of business is Item 1

Sorry, first . Okay .

So we should — sorry, first to move the items en bloc. Anyone wish to move those items? Moved, Councillor Richards. Seconded, Councillor Zamprogno. All those in favour? Declare it carried. So there are items 6, 7, 8, 11 and 12 and 14, sorry,

So they've been adopted en bloc.

So the first item for discussion is…

Item one. Anybody wish to move anything?

Item one, which is the draft voluntary planning agreement. Anybody wish? Yep, moved recommendation, Councillor Richards. Is

There a seconder? Councillor Zamprogno. Any discussion? Seeing

No discussion, we'll put the matter. All those in favour of the motion, please raise your hand. In favour, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Richards, Councillor Tree, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Ross. Against? Against Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Did I call out every name? Yep, declare the motion carried.

The next item for discussion is item 2, proposed natural disaster clause. Councillor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'd like to move a motion that's not the recommendation in the business paper, so I'll offer that and seek a seconder. I move that this matter be deferred to a briefing and then subsequently returned to the Chamber.

Okay, is there a seconder for that? Seconded, Councillor Reynolds. Further discussion?

Yes. Look, and my reasoning is thus. In the aftermath of the bushfires, anecdotal cases have come most councillors' ways about the difficulties of reconstruction. For example, many property owners find themselves underinsured and facing a situation where they can't build a dwelling of the same scale or type that they had because the new FZ fire standards require them to build to a higher standard or possibly on a different location and pose all kinds of difficulties. I would have hoped that this particular initiative on the part of the state government would address that, but what we have here is slightly confusing, and it's not as though I'm opposed to this in principle, far from it, but there's enough confusion in my mind as that I'd prefer to see this come to a briefing and have staff walk us through this, and I'll give you some small examples.

The recommendation is for us not to opt into this clause because it is claimed that there are few impediments in our existing planning instruments that would prevent a person from Rebuilding a disaster-damaged property, and I'm thinking forward not merely to fire but potentially to flood as well. And yet, it then goes on to say that if we were to opt into this, then we would be unable to impose a whole heap of other criteria that could be seen as an impediment or roadblocks to a redevelopment of a site. And then to muddy it still further, it goes on to say that despite that, there would be a merit-based assessment of each DA. And I'm thinking, well, if there are criteria that may or may not apply depending on whether we opt into this, where does that leave us in terms of the merit-based assessment?

So for those reasons, I'm seeking concurrence from my worthy colleagues to just defer this so that we can have it explained to us a little better. Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody else wish to speak?

Councillor Reynolds, indicating you wanted to speak. Yes

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Sorry, I forgot the hand thing. That's okay. Must have been for this meeting. I just want to speak in support

Sorry, Councillor Reynolds, we're actually having some audio issues again. Do you mind just speaking up while we try and fix them?

Yep, sure. You can hear me now?

Yeah, that'd be better.

Better, okay. I just want to speak in support of Councillors Zamprogno's amended motion in that the deadline to notify the government of our decision isn't for some time. We do have a bit of time. There's enough time for a briefing. There is some contradictions in the report, in my mind. As Councillor Zamprogno said, it says, you know, there's very little to stop someone rebuild— At the moment. But if that's the case, why, if we opt in, if we opt in, why would we be unable to impose criteria when that criteria, according to the first statement, doesn't really exist? So it doesn't make a lot of sense in my mind, and it's probably just clarification that's required. And I think, given the seriousness of this and the likelihood that we are going to have to make such decisions in the future, I think we need to get this right.

And I think a briefing where we make a decision with all the information would be the thing to do. So I support it. Thank you. Thanks

Councillor Reynolds. Councillors, the audio is not great. That wasn't great for us in the chamber. Councillor Rasmussen, would you mind just talking so we can tell if it's Councillor Reynolds or if it's just everybody on Zoom and it's our issue? Can you hear me now? Yeah, that's actually much better. So it must have been an issue just specific to Councillor Reynolds, hopefully.

No, it's just my voice, mate. Comes through loud and clear.

It's probably not through the speaker, yeah. No worries. Are there any further speakers?

In that case, we'll put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour of the motion are Councillor Conolly, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Richards, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Tree. Against? Councillor Ross, Councillor Rasmussen. I didn't read out your name, Councillor Wheeler. Four. Councillors, four. Declare it carried.

Next item is item 3, National General Assembly of Local Government.

Moved recommendation, Councillor Richards, seconded Councillor Zamprogno. Any discussion?

All right, put the— Oh,

Just one thing, Mr Mayor.

Yes.

If we could just perhaps have a reminder, the people who may nominate to go about the date for the questions going in. Sometimes we have something written here and we might forget. So if staff could just send something on, like the 3rd of February, saying you've got one more day if you want to put a question in.

Sure.

No further speakers. Put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour of the motion are Councillor Conolly, Councillor Lanesbury, Councillor Richards, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Rice, Councillor Cottleash, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Tree. Declare it carried.

Anyone interested in attending? Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Calvert. Did I miss anyone?

No. So, somebody want to move that those be our attendees? Who was it? Sorry.

I'll move that. Moved, Councillor Garrow, that Councillors Zamprogno, Councillor Lyons-Buckett and Councillor Calvert attend. Seconded, Councillor Richards. All those in favour, please raise your hand. Favour, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Richards, Councillor Calvert,

Councillor Zamprogno, I'm assuming. Yes. Councillor Ross, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Tree. Against? Councillor Wheeler, sorry, I think I missed you. Four. Councillor Wheeler was four. Declare that carried.

Next item is item four, planning for non-planners course. Move the recommendation, Councillor Richards. Seconded, Councillor Kotlash. Any discussion?

Just a question, if I may, Mr Mayor.

Yes.

Look, could I have some comment from staff? I mean, these kinds of courses come up frequently, offered by third parties to try and provide some professional development to councillors, and that's generally a good thing. I came into this job keenly aware of my own limitations. Is this just one of those things, or does this come with some particular imprimatur as a very good thing? I'm finding it difficult to evaluate whether this is something that we should be interested in. Thanks, Councillor Zamprogno. I'll refer that to the general manager.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Some councils had expressed interest in attending this particular course, and looking at the criteria, then it was something there that we felt that was worth coming to council to see whether the councils did want to attend.

Thank you. Councillor Kotlash.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Could I ask a question about why this particular course has attached to it a requirement for councillors to report back to the general manager? It was my understanding that that requirement really is when you go to a conference and you're sort of bombarded by new things that you really need to share. But with a course, I would have thought your learnings from a course could be, well, quite personal and quite variable . So could I just get some clarification on Why in the second point in the recommendation requires a written report?

Yeah, I refer that to the general manager.

Thanks, Mr. Mayor. In retrospect, I think that point two probably doesn't need to be there. That relates really mainly to conferences, as you said, and as far as courses go, there's probably no need for a report to come back. So that point two probably is not necessary in this particular case. Okay,

Thank you. So could I just ask maybe the movers if they would remove it, or I'll move an amendment to remove it?

Yeah, Councillor Richard Chappie to move so that the motion will be just point one. Yeah. Seconder happy with that? Who was the seconder? Councillor Zamprogno, I think. Oh, Kotlash. So it was you. I mean, Councillor Kotlash. So I imagine you're happy with that.

Thanks

I

Am happy with that.

Sorry, I'm just—the order of the screen changed, but I think Councillor Garrow was next.

Yeah, I just have a quick question, Mr. Mayor. In the costs allocated to this course, it states that there'll be additional travel expenses per delegate. However, it's an audio-visual conference, so I'm just questioning why will we be paying travel expenses when it's audio-visual, and if we can have that line removed from the cost, please.

Yeah, I believe that that plus travel expenses is a standard line, but I'll refer that to the general manager.

Thanks, Mr. Mayor. That is the case. There would be no travel expenses associated with this particular conference because it's by audio-visual.

Thank you. Is there any further discussion, Councillor Garrow?

That's all, thank you. Thanks.

Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I support professional development. I think we should do courses, etc. But I'm a bit concerned about why this particular one was chosen when it's by the Property Council of Australia, when Local Government New South Wales has one on the following month, which is much cheaper and which is specifically tailored to New South Wales councils. So it has one on the 21st of April, which is $440, and it is specific to New South Wales, where I looked at the other one and it was a national one, which I think is much more relevant to get the most out of it, to do one that's tailored for New South Wales councils. But I guess that can either be seen as an option. I would think the cheaper option would be better to take as we're members of Local Government New South Wales.

I think the content of the courses was very similar. I had a look at what they were, and I would hope that, despite what people choose to do about this existing one, I would rather attend the cheaper one and the one for New South Wales councils, and would ask that that come forward either in this motion or that it would come as a separate report back to Council, because it's on in April, so I imagine registrations would have to go in in March. Thank you.

I think that's quite valid. Can I make a suggestion for your consideration that perhaps you could either move an amendment or the mover could agree that rather than just vote this down and go away, that we instead move something to say we look into that course and have it reported back to Council.

Yeah, I'd

Be

Happy with that.

As the mover, I'm very happy if there's a cheaper option for the same content. Absolutely. Similar content. It's

A Wednesday, not a Thursday, that's all.

It's the content I think that's important.

Councillor Kotlash, are you satisfied with that? So the motion is now that the course being offered by the, the planning for non-planners or similar course being offered by the Local Government of New South Wales be reported to Council for consideration,

Along with this matter.

Councillor Rasmussen, did you still want to speak? Yeah,

Thank you, Mr Mayor. A couple of points. Firstly, to pick up the point that Councillor Kotlash was drawing out, and that relates to the reports going to the General Manager. My point is a broader one. I don't recall exactly if we moved or what we moved, but is it true that we are reporting, councillors are reporting to the General Manager, or should that be the Mayor?

Okay, I refer that to the General Manager.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I think the intent is around the conferences is that the attendees that attend the conference would provide a written report back to the General Manager detailing the findings and so on of the particular conference that they attended. So that's been a standard clause in conference reports that have come up to Council and Council's adopted over probably for the last three or four years.

Thank you. Councillor Rasmussen. Thank you, Mr Mayor. My question really relates to whether that's the right reporting chain, but if that's what we've done, I guess that's what we've done. My preference would be for councillors to report those sorts of reports to the Mayor. My other point relates to the planning conference, planning and law conference. Some of you will be aware, and I've been going to them ever since I got on council, and that's the Masters Law and Planning, or Planning Law and so on, conference that is held in July every year. It's actually an all-day, mostly all-day, finishes at about three o'clock. It's free. It's free coffee, and a large number of councillors and planning staff go to these, and it's really, really highly, I think it's valuable, highly recommended.

I've learned a lot over the years. But my point is it's done by our lawyers. They've been doing it for many years, and they're very good at it, and it's free. So my recommendation is that we adopt that rather than anything else. Thank you.

Thanks, Councillor Rasmussen. Anybody else wish to speak?

If not, we'll put the motion. So all those in favour of the motion, please raise your hand. Favour are Councillor Conolly, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Richards, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Ross, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Tree, Councillor Reynolds. Missing anyone? Against?

I don't feel like I've read out 12 names then.

Councillor Calvert was for. Zamprogno was for. Yep. Okay

Declare it carried. Next item.

Item E is item five, submission to the options paper, the agricultural land use strategy.

Deputy Mayor.

Yes, Mr. Mayor.

Oh, sorry, you've got your hand up.

Oh, sorry. I'm just getting used to this new system here, I'm sorry. I forgot I have to take it down. I apologise.

Councillor Rasmussen.

Yeah, I'll move that, Mr. Mayor.

Move the recommendation. Seconder?

Seconded, Councillor Ross. Any discussion? Councillor Ross? Yeah,

Just, well, briefly is probably not the correct term, but I will be brief, and that is that I want to commend the staff who've wrote this report. Not only wrote the business paper report, but also the draft submission, and have gone through the options paper. Those submissions, or draft submission, and the report, I think are excellent. Gives an excellent coverage of the history and what we are as an agricultural district and how we outperform and outplace in the whole agricultural mix and so on. And I think if we gain nothing else, hopefully we will gain a significant standing in terms of agricultural land and what is absolutely pristine agricultural land in Hawkesbury, and that will be recognised as significant lands as well as strategic lands.

And my point has been ever since this has come up, and it's come up several times now for this particular report. The item is that we should be thinking in terms of strategic agricultural lands. We certainly have quite a significant proportion of them, in my view. We have the water to go with it, and so on. So I really do want to commend staff for putting this together. There's clearly a big body of work there, a lot of study, a lot of work, and a lot of good writing. So that's just my summary of it, and I commend the recommendation for the motion to Council.

Councillor Rasmussen, anyone else wish to speak?

Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I agree with Councillor Rasmussen. There's a lot of excellent detail in this report, and I think it's certainly something that's worth Council having its say on. Agriculture is a big part of the Hawkesbury. It's part of our economy, but it's also part of our identity, and an identity that we increasingly seek to market, I think, to Greater Sydney. So it's imperative that we retain the agricultural land here, and that is under increasing pressure. I think if there's a genuine commitment to the retention of agricultural land, then there has to be an acknowledgement that the best land on the eastern seaboard is actually on the Sydney side of the Great Dividing Range, and that this land has to be protected.

And I'm quite cynical about the government's attempts to do this, because what we've seen from this government is that it's presided over a really devastating loss of agricultural land, particularly around the Western Sydney Airport and under housing development, including in our own LGA at Redbank. Further, any reasonable proposal has to put an end to the practice of land banking of current agricultural land for housing development, and we're also seeing that in the Hawkesbury. If we're serious about maintaining agricultural capacity, then we have to start limiting urban sprawl and destructive land clearing, which increases erosion and causes desertification and salinity. Monitoring, as raised here, is only useful if there's a commitment to prevention.

There has to be consequences. It's not enough for us to say to people involved in this space, You can't do this, when there is absolutely no follow-up. There's a series of options listed in this paper, and I wanted to comment specifically on option six, where there is a choice between option A and option B. I much prefer option 6B to 6A. Councils, as the level of government most accountable to the people, need to be very wary of trading planning powers to unelected state panels, which is what 6A calls for. I also want to comment on the right to farm. I think that's fine when the farmer is doing the right thing, but we have to acknowledge that they don't always, and we know that very well here.

And council then has to come along and try and prevent further damage, or make peace between neighbours, or act so that the bad player stops doing whatever it is that they're doing that is usually damaging to the environment or makes their neighbour's life difficult. So right to farm isn't a right to pollute. It isn't a right to reduce your neighbour's quality of life, and it's not a right to destroy the environment.

Support of agriculture is lovely, but one of the things that we see, particularly in the Hawkesbury, is that market prices make farming unviable. Council needs to be advocating further for our growers to be paid proper prices for their goods. This has the advantage of maintaining council's much-loved rural amenity while increasing the value placed on the Hawkesbury brand. Expansion of exempt and complying development is problematic in an area with natural disaster and heritage constraints, and I think we see this frequently in the Hawkesbury, where our protections either aren't strong enough or aren't enacted quickly enough. And I'll make specific reference to a couple of heritage barns on both Wilberforce Road and Freeman's Reach Road that have met with a not-so-subtle end by initially demolition by neglect and then an accident in the wee small hours with a bulldozer, clearly done to either free up land for agriculture or to free up space for other destructive industries compatible with an agricultural land zoning.

It's not good enough. We have to acknowledge that not everything that's done on these properties, not every piece of farming land clearing, is necessarily compatible with the rest of the aims that we have for this space. To see the heritage barn chipped, a highly significant 200-year-old barn chipped on Wilberforce Road, you can see it, there's bunting with a couple of local business names on the bunting and there's nothing left. This plagues the Hawkesbury. We will struggle to maintain tourism if we can't maintain our heritage and our agriculture at the same time. So I think we definitely need to be making submissions. We need to be firmer. We need to be firmer with our own compliance action as well.

Thank you. Anyone else wish to speak?

No, we put the motion. All those in favour of the motion, please raise your hand. Favour are Councillor Conolly, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Richards, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Ross, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Tree. Nobody against. Carried.

Next item for discussion is nine, submission towards a fair rating system consultation.

Councillor Zamprogno. Move the recommendation to me.

Moved the recommendation.

Seconder?

Councillor Ross. Any discussion? Yes,

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Well, I'm prepared to move the recommendation. I just want to point out some shortcomings and have a bit of a grizzle about it. So you'll note from the briefing notes that have been supplied that the whole sorry saga of the process of revamping our rates structure. The relevant state minister was handed a report in August 2016 and then proceeded to sit on it for three years. In fact, it was handed to the minister before we were seated in this chamber as the new council. It's been that long. And then, having belatedly been persuaded to release it and to come up with some suggestions for their implementation, it's taken us to three days before Christmas, and we've been invited to make detailed feedback towards the next step.

And it was issued three days before Christmas, and we were obliged to conclude our feedback in the first week of February. To my mind, that is not good enough. And furthermore, what is being left on the table after the IPART report disappoints . I mean, I was hoping that we would receive a bigger toolkit that we may or may not choose to pick and choose the elements thereof to make our rating system fairer. And one of the sharpest conflicts that we've had in this chamber over this term is on the question of how we can make our rating system fairer. I would have loved to have seen the IPART report recommend that councils, at their own discretion, have the ability to put the base rate up above 50%.

That wasn't on the table. I'd have liked to have seen some modelling so that councils who are contemplating the potential impacts of a capital improved value model as a rating system would know what the effects in their LGA were. And we know that that kind of modelling was readily available because that modelling was driven through to an advanced and sophisticated state by the state government's proposal to implement an emergency services levy that was on a capital improved value basis. None of that is there. But what we're left with, I suppose we've still got to wade through, because I am looking forward, probably in the new term of council, to have other options at our disposal to make our rating structure fairer.

And with your indulgence, Mr Mayor, I've got a question for staff. One of the dot points here is that we support a proposal that would limit the highest rate structure to 1.5 times the average rate structure. I just want to ask staff if I'm reading or passing that correctly. Does that mean that there would be a general prohibition on any one person's rates being any more than 50 per cent higher than the mean rate , or am I reading it incorrectly?

Refer that to the Acting Director of Support Services.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. What it actually means is that you could not have, well our understanding is that the average rate in any subcategory wouldn't be any more than 1.5 times. So it's not on an individual property basis, but rather on a subcategory. Thank you, Mr. Mayor

You may have to just unpack that a little further for me. I only did two units of maths. So this would not be a move that would suppress the excessive rates that cause some people's rates to be two and three and four times higher than other people's rates. It's not aimed at that. This is something else.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and I don't believe so.

All right then. So, I mean, it leaves me with the belief that we're still seeking a more equitable solution, but this is better than nothing, which is why I'm prepared to endorse the recommendation. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr. Mayor. I think there's a typo in recommendation two. The first bullet point where it says Council does wish to comment, I think that should read Council does not wish to comment on the harmonisation of rates. Certainly that's consistent with the table. We don't wish to comment. I just wanted to run through a few of the IPART recommendations and comments on those. Overall, I think this is a reasonable submission , given the time frame. I think it's an excellent submission, and I agree with Councillor Zamprogno. The fact that the state government has sat on this for such an inordinately long time, and frankly, we're embarrassed into handing this over, and then gave Council so little time to respond over Christmas, I think is really disgraceful.

Fortunately, we're not beset by two natural disasters at once this Christmas and have got time to answer there or provide submissions for them. I was going to ask about that one and a half times the average rate, but Mrs Galea has clarified that. And I think if it was to do what Councillor Zamprogno would like it to do, that would be manifestly unfair. In fact, you would see, unless it was a per square kilometre or hectare calculation, you would see people on very small blocks subsidising people on very, very large blocks. And we know what that looks like. We've done that here before. IPART recommendation 31, which refers to vacant land, I think this is a bit of a wasted opportunity here. I think we should be able to, I think councils should be able to increase rates not on vacant land, though, but on vacant houses and shops as a disincentive to those who buy them up for tax incentives and later profit and deprive people of homes and damaged town centres.

I'd love for council to have the capacity to have a vacant shop or vacant home rates capacity that worked in that way. I think it would also be great if we could increase rates on land banked agricultural land, which often is , for us certainly, our farm land is our lowest rated land, and that's been a deliberate act by this council. I think it's a shame if people are buying that land up for later land development, taking advantage of our rating structure and leaving that land to go to weeds or bare earth or frequently invasive weeds . Recommendation 18, which refers to conservation agreements, I would like us to be stronger in that recommendation and petition for them. For conservation agreement rate reductions to be maintained, this is really highly valuable land, and it's part of our tourism and liveability focus.

It's a key part of our community strategic plan, in fact, that this land is protected and retained. And reducing rates is one way we can incentivise that. Recommendation 34 regarding mining land. If possible, Mr Mayor, could I get an answer on what the mining land in our LGA is classified as now? I think most of that would be land for sand mining.

Through that, Acting General Manager.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. We do not have any properties in our LGA classified as mining, so

I think they're probably agricultural land or rural residential, also rural lands.

If we were to classify, I would like to see mining land charged at a much higher rate. It's highly destructive. It's a for-profit business venture, which is able to tax deduct rates. It has a major impact on our roads because it's usually heavy industry and runs heavy vehicles, and it shouldn't be subsidised by ratepayers. I'd like to see us be more firm on this point. And recommendation 25, where it talks about publishing the amount of exempt land in the LGA, I really applaud the response to this. It's excellent. I think our ratepayers would be really shocked if they knew how much of this LGA is rate exempt and how much, therefore , they have to pay, because we've got schools, TAFE, the RAAF base, the university, churches, etc., all rate exempt in this LGA. It's a huge sector of our LGA. Thanks.

Okay, Councillor Reynolds. Yeah

Thanks, Mr Mayor. It's just a question relating to something Councillor Wheeler said, a question to staff. Councillor Wheeler mentioned mining land and sand mining.

Isn't sand extraction regarded as an agricultural process, or rather as a primary industry and not mining? Is that right? So, for example,

Someone has farmed, have agricultural land, they can apply to extract sand. They don't require a mining licence as such because it's not mining. Mining is stuff under the ground.

Just so I know who to refer that to, Councillor Reynolds, are you talking about from a planning perspective or rates?

Both, actually, because it relates to Councillor Wheeler's question about increasing rates on places that are going to carry out sand extraction, and Councillor Wheeler referred to it as mining, and I don't think it is mining. It's actually agriculture.

Yeah,

Or primary—not agriculture, sorry, but primary industry, from memory anyway. Yes

The Acting Director of Support Services said we don't have any mining land, so I might refer it to the Director of City Planning to comment on that.

Thank you. Through you, Mr Mayor. Yes, it's not the sand and gravel mining, even though it's called mining, isn't really deemed mining. It is seen as a primary extractive industry.

So it falls under the same heading as agriculture. Is that right?

Yeah Yeah.

Okay, so if— There was some method of increasing rates for properties that were going to extract sand, it would affect all agricultural land too.

I am not sure how the rating system would occur, so I won't be able to comment on that.

Refer that to Acting Director of Support Services.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Yes, I believe so. If you look at farmland as a whole and it's something with the rate in the dollar for that, it would affect all properties that fall within that category. You wouldn't be able to distinguish the ones that relate to sand extraction. Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. That was great. Thank you. Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I largely echo the sentiments that have already been raised about this issue, and lament the missed opportunity for our term of Council to have dealt with the report, which was, of course, ready in 2016, and here we are 2021 and only just seeing it at this stage. I also think it's a shame that there were certain things omitted from the report when it was done, such as dealing with the rebates, the various pensioner rebates and so on. That really, really is a shame because I also expect it will be quite some time before another review of the rating system is carried out. But just to clarify, I also agree very much with Councillor Wheeler that the extent of land within our local government area which is non-rateable is very enormous, and I think that people would have no idea about that.

Just a question, and I know it's something I've asked before, but it is probably a good time to clarify it now around the farmland rating. And I know I've asked Mrs Galea this in the past. At what point—I think that people have to show that a farm is operational to get farmland rating. So with land that's in the transition of going from farmland to another use, whether that be residential development or other activities, at what stage does the category move into the new rating category, which may be residential if it was farmland before? I think perhaps an explanation of that, while we're on this subject, would be really welcomed. Thank you.

Mrs Galea.

Thank

You, Mr Mayor. So if I can refer to page 115 of the business paper, we actually made a comment in regard to farmland in that— There's often a subjective element in determining whether a parcel of land can be categorised as farmland, because there's no clear guidelines as to how much livestock do you have to have, for example, the intensity. So we often would go and do physical inspections of the land parcel, but there is some, you know, subjective thing. So in terms of answering your question in regard to when it moves, because there isn't those clear guidelines of where it stops or begins as stops being farmland, again, it's a subjective assessment that if the majority of the land we are satisfied that it meets the criteria of farmland, then that land stays rated as farmland.

If, as it gradually changes to residential, if that portion of the land gradually decreases, then that's where then the question becomes, is it still farmland? So there's no clear sort of timeline . It's more we generally monitor, if we've got a property like that, we monitor over time as to whether the intensity and the nature of what they're doing has changed, and then if we're satisfied that it's no longer meets the criteria, then that's when it would change to residential. Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Thank you. Any further speakers? Councillor Reynolds, you've still got your hand up. Is that just from before? Yep. Okay. Put the motion. All those in favour of the motion, please raise your hand. Favourable: Councillor Conolly, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Richards, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Ross, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Tree. If I not said . Councillor Kotlash. And against? Councillor Rasmussen. Declare it carried.

Next item is item 10, review of council committees.

Councillor Kotlash.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'd like to move the recommendation in the business paper with an amendment, with a couple of amendments if I could.

Okay.

I sent them off, I sent them to staff this afternoon, so would you like me to talk to them while they...

Yes, I think that would work. Yep.

Okay. There's , in the business paper, there's six points to the recommendation for our committees.

Sorry, Councillor Kotlash, I might actually just give everyone a quick chance to read that and see if you've got a seconder.

Yes, okay

Then we can move on to debate if there is a seconder. No

Certainly.

So did you want to just tell us which points are different, though? Give us a shortcut there.

Points 1 and point 6 would be changed. With point 1, there, I think there just are some omissions. There's one mistake, I think, and it needs one more dot point. And point 6 is changed, and I'm calling on a further report.

That's in a nutshell.

Seconded, Councillor Calvert. All right, go ahead.

Thank you. When I was reading the Constitution, I'll deal with these as they appear in the recommendations. So point 1 is about the Constitution. And when I was going through this, I was expecting it to be audio-visual link or in the council chambers to hold our meetings. I don't think we need to specifically say in our Constitution to... To restrict these committee meetings to audiovisual, I think that possibly a mistake, or just an omission rather.

The second point which I would like to include and get you all to consider is that I was wanting for these new committees to be able to receive written submissions from people. This is because I think that not everybody wants to address council, not everybody is able to get to council to address an item in person. But with this new structure, people will be able to write a submission, put it into council three hours prior to the commencement of the meeting, as they do with a submission to speak and address the meeting. And I also thought that the length of their written submissions should be limited to five minutes if it's read out. So that brings it into line with the opportunity that somebody might have when they address a meeting in person.

These written submissions will be read out and form part of the minutes of the meeting. So that's the first point that I'd like to have included. The rest are fine. The sixth point, I commend the staff for the report that they have given us in attachment two, but I think there needs to be an extra report . And I think that, as I've said, I think we need a succinct list of the outstanding actions in the forms of questions that can be reassigned to the relevant new committees. At the moment, we've got a list of points that aren't really actions, and sometimes they're not really resolutions. Sometimes they're just things that say received and noted, and they're not really something that a new committee could immediately action.

I guess there's a couple of examples. If I just use the first example in the attachment two,

It says that it refers to the old Environmental Sustainability Committee, and it talks about — lost my notes, anyway—it talks about electric vehicle charging stations. But the recommendation is just that somebody in the committee mentioned that, I think it was Wollara and Randwick Councils had made provision in their development controls for compulsory charging stations to be included in any new development.

The question that might be asked from that particular item might be what are the things that council needs to do in order for electric vehicle charging stations to be able to be incorporated into the things, into our planning and our infrastructure. So, and it's on all land tenures as well. How do we deal with those charging stations on private land, on commercial land, on council land, et cetera? So it's just, that would be what I would present to a new committee. And it might not actually be the Environment Committee. It might be the Innovations and And partnerships committee, because that might be, we might need to figure out how this new technology is going to work. So the other thing that, the second point in point six, is a list of the current working groups.

It's my understanding that we have some current working groups that are working on projects now that we don't really want to have stop. So I'd like a list of those working groups, the status of those projects, and an indication of what new committees they will belong to. So, yeah , I would really like to see these changes, and I think that would strengthen our new committee system. Thank you.

Thanks, Councillor Kotlash. Any further speakers?

No. Councillor Reynolds.

Sorry , you're on mute, Councillor Reynolds.

Yeah

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I just have some questions relating to the original item , not Councillor Kotlash's amended motion. So should I wait until this is done, or should I ask the questions now?

Yeah, well, we should be restricting discussion and debate to the motion before us. So if they're not relevant, we'll wait and see. I will wait then. Thank you. Thanks. Councillor Richards.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Just a very quick statement. I completely endorse the... Amendment that Councillor Kotlash has put up, but I just wanted to say that this attachment to your document is actually quite spectacular, and I thank the staff for putting it together because what it does actually do is reaffirm why the old committee structure needed to be reformed. And we've done that now, and what it shows is all these former committees, while there was clearly vigorous debate and an exchange of ideas in those committees, there wasn't anything happening with those ideas. And, I mean, I'm not saying anything, but there is so much content in here that so many good ideas raised, and clearly the former structure wasn't working because it just sat there.

So to actually have this documented and tabled and now actually being put into these new committee structures that we've done is fantastic. Or those actions that don't have to go into a committee, they're actually going to be, as it says in here, incorporated into operational work plans. Now that's great. That's actually taking responsibility for basically why we wanted to change the committee structure in the first place, that something wasn't working. So I'm hoping that by identifying that under the new structure we can actually get that work completed. Thank you.

Thank you. Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I just had a question first. It's been raised the last times we've had a couple of this debate, and you might ask probably either Councillor Kotlash or Councillor Calvert, which other councils actually use this system?

Which system exactly?

Of having these sort of council committees.

I'm not sure. Councillor Calvert or Councillor Kotlash, did you want to answer that?

No.

It's just it was used as a reason of why we would move to this committee, and I've not been able to find any councils that do this, that exclude the public as such in the way that this proposes. I just think also this is becoming another one of the reasons given was to reduce work for staff, whereas I think this is becoming huge work for staff. Now this calls for another report to be done and a lot more of going through all these things and coming up with questions and what needs to be looked at, whereas a committee actually could have done that. And I agree that we did need to change aspects of the committees, but I really disagree that this is the way to do it. So because I always go over five minutes, I've typed this out so I can read it, and then I'll get it done and won't miss half of it.

Despite the major changes proposed, the committee restructure has not been the subject of any community consultation, nor does it reflect the consultation which was carried out within the committees. I'm battling to see why there would even be separate committees of five councillors, rather than just putting all 12 on all of them, like we are for a couple, and make the whole thing part of an extended council meeting. If we can do it for two, why can't we do it for all of them? It just seems to be adding extra steps to a process, which could all be done in less steps given the ultimate outcome would likely be the same. In the absence of any community or agency members, it seems that if council is setting the agenda by a council resolution, then receiving back the minutes of the meeting, then why is it necessary to have another separate meeting in between when the results won't differ, and when that will add on considerable amount of time for any work actually being accomplished.

I have major issues with the constitution, and I just, I can't even go there. Actually, I have issues with the whole process. But as we know, and as the community will recognise, this is another way to sideline community input, to divide this council and display the might of the major parties and what they see as their level of entitlement to control things in council. It doesn't reflect what a majority of our residents and ratepayers voted for in 2016, and it looks like we will head again into an election operating from a council exercising dictatorial practices rather than a unified, inclusive, functioning democracy. I have no doubt that the community will be awake to the agenda that's at play here.

Despite at the previous meeting the statements being put forward about how meetings would go until everyone's last question was answered, but now we see there's a time constraint and a time allocation being one which is very difficult for those with employment and childcare duties. Four to six on a Tuesday is a really inappropriate time. It might suit councillors who want to keep their allocated hours to council duties down to a bare minimum, but it is not conducive to community engagement or families at all. Additionally, and I know not everyone here does read the entire business paper, but on meeting days some of us need to spend that time preparing for meetings prior to when the meeting's on, especially if the business paper is not ready on time, which often it isn't, and some people don't have the weekend to be able to read it.

Of all the proposals in the report, I agree that the Waste and Sustainability Committee should be merged. However, knowing how valuable the input from community members has been on these committees, I'm fearful that much expertise will be lost. For example, we have progressed very well with the VOGO working group, and now it's been significantly delayed, and I hope it will be able to be revived and move forward despite the wasted time due to the restructure. I don't have any issues with who votes on the committees or anything like that. It's about the level of participation from our community and the continuity that goes with having them involved. My major concern with this process is with regard to the proposed Disaster and Emergency Management Committee and the loss of the Floodplain Committee.

I believe there's a real issue with this Council in terms of understanding emergency management and the demarcation between operational and non-operational functions and obligations. I believe we are abrogating our responsibility to the floodplain requirements set out in the New South Wales Government Floodplain Development Manual, which specifies we must have a committee and who must make up that committee. Naming this committee is confusing because we already have a Local Emergency Management Committee, which is a statutory committee. My preference would have been to see the Floodplain Committee remain and to see the introduction of a Resilience Committee, which I believe should be a standalone committee as it encompasses all the areas of Council operations.

I think a wonderful model for this is the Penrith Resilience Advisory Committee, who are doing a fabulous job advising their council about ways to translate broader resilience issues into a local context and dealing with risk. Management. This is the way we should be heading for the future with the challenges that we're going to face. That's the direction we should be going in. Just look at the number of actions being referred from the Flood Committee alone. These are not small items, but they require us and the Chair to liaise with the various levels of government, the emergency services and the state agencies. The members of the Floodplain Committee were very disappointed about this finishing.

I'll address that in the floodplain minutes. But I think that given that we've got several flood studies outstanding that are being completed, and we had 18 outstanding items referred to the new committee and 28 that have been incorporated into operational work plans, no matter what anyone says, that's a lot more work for staff, and it's things that we could have done working with Infrastructure New South Wales and working the way that we were working in the Floodplain Committee. I think that, I believe if we had looked properly at what we needed going into the future with committees, we could have come up with something much more effective in getting the advice that Council needs to assist decision making.

Instead, we have a half-baked developed on the run proposal which has not been presented to the community. I think that won't be lost on the community, however, as this is something being introduced in the final stages of a Council which is operating merely in a bonus year due to COVID and in which one, if not two, elections will be held. Thank you.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Councillor

Calvert.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I want to thank the staff for putting together these documents. They've spent a lot of time and— effort in doing it. And yes, there wasn't a lot of staff time, but it's a one-off staff time because we're transitioning to a new system. I also want to thank Councillor Kotlash for her motion that she put up. I think she's captured a few problems that needed to be addressed, and I thank her for doing that. We discussed in December whether this proposal should be supported or not, and Council decided that this was what we're going to support. This is going to be our new model for the committees. That was a decision of Council, and therefore councillors are now duty-bound to support that.

I would expect all 12 councillors to get on board with this new system, this new process, and make it work, because the main aim of this new committee process is to have more public consultation, more public input. That was the main aim of this change, to enable the community to have a much bigger say in what we do. Other aims of this change were to make sure that the committees were able to discuss meaningful issues and give advice to Council, because they are advisory committees. And at the moment, I don't think the previous structure provided a lot of advice to Council. And as you can see from some of the things in attachment two, much of the discussion in the committees was about receiving and noting reports rather than actually providing advice.

So hopefully this new structure will allow the committees to provide advice. To the council, and I invite all 12 councillors to get on board with that and make it work. It's very easy to sit around and criticise some of the things that people might be upset with because they've had a process which has been in place for many years. It's very difficult, on the other hand, to stand up and say, okay, there's a change. I'm going to work with that change. I'm going to make it happen, and I'm going to make our community and our council better off. And I invite all 12 councillors to take part in that. I wanted to point out, however, one typo in the constitution, or perhaps poorly worded point, and that is in the section on structure, membership and election, in the attachment page 3, Community Services, Environment, Innovation and Partnerships Committee.

This is about sixth line down, which says, Each member of the committee is entitled to vote, shall only have one vote except that of the casting vote of the chairperson in the case of a quality votes. Now , I know what that's supposed to be saying. I think it's supposed to be saying each committee member is entitled to one vote, with the chairperson also entitled to a casting vote if necessary. And I was wondering whether the mover of the motion would entertain changing that point to read as I just said.

The mover of the motion is Councillor Kotlash

Yep. Yeah

That's fine. I understand that, yes.

Thank you.

Okay, Councillor Reynolds.

Yes, thanks, Mr Mayor. Do we have a seconder for this motion?

Yeah, seconder was Councillor Calvert.

Okay, okay. Thanks, Mr Mayor. In light of the comments that have been made, I will ask my questions now because I suppose it relates to the committee system, whether it's the amended motion or whether it's the previous motion. Now,

We do have questions, or I personally have questions about this process, how the committee system works, because we were denied a briefing to have it properly explained to us. So if you or Councillor Calvert or someone else could clarify this, I'd really appreciate it. So

Without wanting to go on too long, councillors decide the issues they wish to speak on in committees by a majority vote in council, and then those issues are brought to a subset of councillors, or the committee, who make another decision by a majority vote, and then it returns to council for acceptance by a majority vote. And at each of these three stages, the public are able to address councillors. Is that correct?

So it's somewhat correct. In a council meeting we're limited to three public speakers with a time limit. The committee will be open to as many public speakers as there are, and as well as to written submissions. It'll also be up to the chair to waive the time limit if it's appropriate for the meeting. So there'll be much more public engagement at that committee meeting level.

Okay. So there will still be, so when it comes to the first instance where we can have three speakers of the public and, you know, they can speak for five minutes each, where councillors vote on the agenda that's going to go to the committee meeting, are councillors given some kind of briefing or recommendation as to the merit of each item?

So it would be like any other resolution of Council. The Council could decide to refer something either on the recommendation of staff or off its own bat.

So in the business paper where the agenda is decided, there will be a list of each agenda item and why it should go through to the committee, is that right? According to staff's recommendation, otherwise they wouldn't have brought it to us. So the staff recommendation, it goes through and then we look at it and we look at their recommendation and we listen to the three speakers and then it goes through. Is that right?

Not sure I follow your question. If the question is, will things first be reported to Council and then Council could resolve to forward that to a committee after listening to public speakers, I think the answer is yes.

Okay. Okay. And of course at any stage, councillors can choose to accept or ignore the advice of staff or the community members, is that right?

Yes, it'd be like any other recommendation in the business paper. You could either choose to accept the recommendation or to resolve something else.

Okay. So following on from that,

We have ample examples of councillors ignoring expert advice presented in the Chamber. So I'm wondering what safeguards will be in place to ensure critical advice is not disregarded.

You're talking about when the advice

Comes back from the committee? No, no, before we go to the committee. Because obviously when you go, for example, I know with the Floodplain Committee, and especially with the Heritage Committee, quite often the business paper is massive and multiple volumes. And so how can councilors decide what goes on the agenda without proper consideration of all the information?

They should never do that. No, councillors should always properly consider the information before deciding whether to accept staff's recommendation.

So then basically, when we decide, or councillors decide what goes on the agenda, they will be getting the full committee business paper with attachments for every proposed item on the agenda

Sorry, I think I'm with you now. You're misunderstanding. So no, councillors won't decide what's on the agenda of every meeting. Councillors will decide whether to put something on the agenda of a committee and would give that committee the time to consider it. It doesn't mean the committee doesn't have the right to then continue to consider that matter until it's ready to report back to council.

I'm sorry then, Mr Mayor, did you just say that councillors, in the first instance, can add items to the agenda, but they can't remove items from the agenda?

Well, the intention is that anything referred to a committee would be in the form of a question, and until such time as that question comes back with an answer, and ideally with a timeframe that we would like this question considered by the committee, we'd like the committee to look at this question in detail and come back to us within this timeframe. To make the whole thing a bit more professional and have some process and procedure around it.

You've gone through to the committee itself. I'm still back at the first instance. Yeah. You agree that the councillors who decide the agenda

Will be given all the information that will go through to the committee, because otherwise how can they make a decision as to what should be on the agenda unless they have all the information? So that was my first question. Then you said that councillors won't be able to remove items from the proposed agenda, but they'll be able to add to it. Is that correct?

Well, council always has the power to add or remove or do whatever it wants with its committees. But the process would be that a report would come to council, as is the current process, and as we currently can, one of the options we have on any report is to refer it to a committee or to make some other resolution. If council was of the mind that it should be referred to a committee, council would resolve, We ask this committee to look at this question and come back to us in this amount of time.

So you agree that councillors can remove items from the proposed agenda that will then go to the committee without hearing all the public speak on the matter. Is that right? Only three people can speak. When

You say when you refer to the proposed agenda, what are you referring to? I think that's maybe where the miscommunication is.

As I understand it, and again, despite what Councillor Calvert said, we didn't really discuss, we were basically railroaded. Otherwise we wouldn't have these questions, or I wouldn't have these questions, and I did listen.

The staff recommend items to be discussed by a committee. We have a list of items to be discussed by a committee, their proposed agenda for the committee. It then comes to Council, and Council decides which items go through for discussion by the committee. And councillors can remove or add items as they see fit.

So I might refer this to the Acting General Manager. I'll give you my understanding, and I'll just check if it's correct or if I'm missing something. But my understanding from having read the business paper and the constitutions is that in this first instance, while we're transitioning, Council will receive a report and determine from that report what the committee should carry on with. Going forward, there won't be a report of these are all the things this committee should be looking at. It would simply be a matter of council staff would put reports to Council, and one of the options available to Council would be to refer it to a committee. If council staff were of the view that a committee should consider something, then they would put a report up saying that Council recommending that Council refer that item to a committee.

It wouldn't be a report saying, Here's 50 items we think this committee should look at, but I'll refer that to the Acting General Manager , Acting Director of Support Services.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. So yeah, that's correct. As the Mayor explained, the intent is not to have a draft agenda being put to Council, but rather agenda items will form the agenda as Council resolves to refer individual items to a committee. Thank you, Mr Mayor. So

As I understand what you've just said, the items will come to a Council meeting, and Council can decide whether to resolve the items there and then as Council or refer them to a committee. Is that right?

Yes.

Okay.

Right. Okay.

Now, so that part of the process has not changed currently? Yeah. There's no change to that at the moment. We can do that now.

Sorry, you spoke a bit quickly then. What did you say, sorry?

Sorry ?

You spoke a bit fast.

Oh, sorry. So that part of the process is not different to the current situation, that Council could on any item resolve to refer it to a committee, or it could not. That's our current process for the whole time of this Council term.

So, so rather than staff drawing up an agenda and it going to the committee, it's going to come to the Council first, and then Council can go through it and nitpick it, resolve items there and then, without having all the public who wish to speak on it be able to speak

And then refer what's left through to the committee. Is that right? No.

No. There'll be no draft agenda reported to the council. The council will be resolving items it would like the committee to look at. When there's a committee meeting, the staff would go through and compile those resolutions of council to form the agenda for that committee. So

How is this different to what was happening previously, where items would come to council, we would resolve them, and then items would go through to a committee? How is this different?

Well, in the past, Councillor Reynolds, for example, we formed committees at council without ever setting a terms of reference, and the committees themselves would then set their own terms of reference rather than reporting back on anything that council specifically wanted advice on, and then generated their own business to talk about. So the key difference— Sorry,

I'm not talking about terms of reference. No

No, I was answering your question. So the key difference is that the committees won't be setting— generating their own business to discuss and report back to council with advice on. Council will be saying, we're the council, we're expending council resources on having committees looking at these items, so we should be determining which items committees are looking at. So the key difference is that these committees will not be able to come up— what's happening now, if you come up with their own idea in general business and then discuss that forever. They'll only be able to discuss things that have been referred to them by council.

Mr Mayor, if I could assist.

In my experience, Mr Mayor, that

Isn't exactly what happens, is that— Well, sorry, Councillor Reynolds, I might just interrupt it because I'm just conscious I don't want to enter into debate with you one-on-one. I was just trying to answer the question. No, no , I

Want answers to these questions. Yeah.

So whether or not it's happening is not relevant. The question was what's the difference? That is the difference, is that the committees won't be able to generate

Their own business.

The premise on which you base your answer is wrong, in that the committees do not form their own agenda. There may be a general business component, but it comes from staff. The committees do not tell staff what they want on the agenda.

Okay, so I might just stop at that point, and my understanding is currently that committees are able to form their own agenda items, and many agenda items do come through discussion from the committees, and that's one of the key differences, but I'll refer that to the Acting Director Support Services for clarity.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. So, probably be fair to say that probably there's a combination at the moment of agenda items that get put forward to a committee from staff, but also agenda item that staff are requested to put to the committee. So at the moment it's a mix. This new process suggests that agenda items only become agenda items by way of a council resolution. Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Thank you. Okay . So getting back to public address and public involvement, which is the big sales point of this new system,

There's multiple speakers allowed at a committee meeting, but as you said yourself, Mr Mayor, there's only three allowed when the items come to council in the first instance. So I don't see how that is, when you're limiting public speakers to three people in the first instance, and then council can decide whether to accept them or throw it out there and then, I don't see how that is involving the community in the proper consideration of the item. And for example— Sorry,

Councillor Reynolds, you've concluded questions. Now you're just entering debate.

No, no, no. Well , can you

Just maybe make it a question then?

Yeah, sure. Will someone, for example, with the qualifications of, say, Dr Stephen Yeo, for example, be given—will he be given equal consideration as Bob from the pub down the road if they both address public— Who,

Right, who are you directing that question to? You, Mr Mayor. Would I give it equal consideration, or would which committee member give it equal consideration? Because the committee members are councillors, Councillor Reynolds. So I can't, obviously I can't answer that question. What matter of consideration would even new councillors give to those people?

You're a councillor, I'm a councillor. We're both community members. We know that situation. What I'm saying is I'm talking about the weighting, the weighting of presentations or addresses to the council in the first instance, and indeed in the second instance or the third instance when the whole thing comes back again to council for the third time. Will Dr Steven, for example, someone— So this

Question, Councillor Reynolds, is not in order. It's debate, not a question that can be asked. You're not asking about anything factual. So I'm going to rule that question out of order, and if you'd like to ask another one you can, or you can enter debate. Okay.

Okay. So if, for example, it's all about community involvement, and obviously on committees in the past we have had, you know, people who are knowledgeable experts in their field, you know, in some cases, you know, the best in the country. Now , if their expertise is given the same weight as the opinion of Bob from the pub, and everybody's entitled to their opinion, I'm just asking how the system will work, because at the moment the committees are made up of people with expertise in their field. We've gone through them and we appointed those people to committees based on their— So Councillor

Reynolds, I'll just direct—you're entitled to ask a question about the process before you. So you're asking a question not about—I don't believe it's about the process. If you've got a question about the process, can you please articulate what that question is? Because it seems you're debating the merits of the proposal. Which you're entitled to do, but I think we should just move it to debate rather than you taking up all the time when other councillors are entitled to speak. Yes

We are presented with this proposal, and I think we're entitled as councillors to ask questions again, remembering that we were denied a briefing where we could ask these questions. If you want to run and hide and say that that's out of order, well then that's your right as Mayor to say that. But what we have basically is, Mr Mayor, as Deputy Mayor, Madam Deputy Mayor said, we have items coming to Council in the first instance, public can address. We have then, it appears to us, or to me, that then items then go to a committee where public can address, and then the items come back a third time. So we in effect have three business papers or three agendas. We have councillors considering the item three times.

Why not just do it in the first instance? Why not just do it? It comes up before Council, decide it there and then. As Councillor Lyons-Buckett said, just decide it there and then. You don't need to send it to a committee. This is just, this is like something out of Monty Python. This is just like, you know, the Committee of Funny Steps. It's, you know, it's like Jan does and Jan doesn't. It doesn't really follow logic. And I'll speak now, I won't ask questions, I'll speak now, seeing my hand was up. I'm not duty bound to support this , Councillor Calvert claims I am. You know, I'm not going to support anything that—

Is undemocratic, and sees this Council go back into the closed-shop political lockdown that we had at the previous Council. So, no, I'm not supporting this in any shape or form. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Reynolds. Deputy Mayor, you've got your hand up again.

Mr Mayor, I was just going to try and assist in the previous question asking by stating that perhaps it's an issue with the wording of the Constitution, which specifically says that agenda items are to be set by Council resolution. Therefore, one would read that and think that that meant the setting of the agenda were to be an item on Council's business

Paper

In isolation, because that is how it reads. Okay.

Thank you. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. A couple of questions to begin with, if I may. All relate to the Constitution. On page 2, Roles and Authorities, 3B1, where Council appears from this Constitution to be delegating authority to each committee, 3B1 refers to the committee's ability to recommend to Council policies drawn up by Council staff.

Is the intention here that the committee directs staff to, well, in fact, to professional staff, I don't know if they're our staff or if they're consulting staff. I don't know what professional staff actually means. Are there cost implications of this, and is the committee able to vote for Council to spend money having staff draw up reports? Or policies, sorry .

I refer that to the Acting Director of Support Services.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. So the intent of that clause is that the committee could have input into policies that are drawn up by council staff.

Then I think that point needs to be clarified, because that's not what it currently says by my reading of it. Councillor Calvert has raised the issue around 5B at the second point under 5B, around the wording of that clause. I'm concerned about the point that says, ‘ the good and orderly conduct of the committee, the chairperson may do all things necessary to fulfil this responsibility.’ What exactly does that mean? What are all things necessary, and where is the line there ?

I refer that to the Acting Director of Support Services.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. The intent of that clause is that if there's any disorder, similar to what would occur in a council meeting, that if someone causes disorder, that the chair has got the discretion to ask that person to leave.

I believe that's very similar wording to our code of meeting practice.

Sorry, I really think that needs to be fleshed out further. We have seen some appalling behaviour from people chairing council meetings in previous terms of council. I'd hate to think that someone could use this constitution of a committee to justify behaviour such as we saw in years past.

For each of the committees, there's a clause that states that members of the committee shall cease to hold office, and it's the third bullet point of that clause, if the council by resolution determines that the member has breached Hawkesbury City Council's Code of Conduct. Since when did Council determine whether someone had breached the Code of Conduct? I thought an independent conduct reviewer determined codes of conduct, not us.

Mr Mayor

Thanks, Mr Mayor. If a Code of Conduct complaint comes in against a councillor, then yes, it can be referred to a conduct reviewer to do an assessment of that complaint. It's possible that if that Code of Conduct reviewer has a finding where it believes the councillor has breached the Code of Conduct, then that report would come to Council to make a resolution about what determination they would take against that councillor.

Sorry, that's a determination about what conduct — Council in that case isn't determining that that person has breached the Code of Conduct. Council would be determining that part of the effect of breaching the Code of Conduct would be to be removed from the committee. So I think that clause needs to be reworded as well,

Because otherwise it's giving unilateral power to Council to determine Codes of Conduct outcomes , and I don't think that's the intent of the Constitution. Under the Heritage Committee, where it says a quorum of the committee shall be constituted by six committee members being present, it was my understanding that in the case of all Council's committees, a quorum is considered to be 50% plus one, and this calls for 11 community members and three councillors, which is 14. 50% of that is seven plus one is eight. So I'm wondering why we're going with a reduced quorum for the Heritage Committee in this instance.

Refer that to the Acting Director, Support Services.

I have to take that one on notice. Okay. I suspect it's a carryover because we did increase the number of people on the Heritage Committee in years past, and I suspect that's a leftover from its previous constitution. But it should reflect council's standard practice.

Councillor, if I can just clarify, are you seeking to move an amendment with these changes in it?

I'd like to move a series of amendments. This motion is unworkable, but the constitution that we put before us has more holes in it than can be reasonably supported. And I'm going through currently and highlighting them, and we'll see where we go from there.

There's a, under point six, procedures and general on page six, under meetings, the fourth bullet point down needs some , there's a shall and a maybe in the same sentence with a clause in between that needs tidying up.

I did have questions about bullet point five, but I think Councillor Reynolds— I or may not have answered those through that protracted process. So I'll move on now to speaking against the motion, Mr Mayor. So aside from those concerns with the constitution, I think there is— Councillor Reynolds has highlighted a serious problem, I think, in the confusion as to how things come before committees and how the agenda for each committee is developed. And I think point five, sorry, the fifth bullet point under meetings highlights that, where it says any recommendations of the committee shall, as far as adopted by the Council, be resolutions of the Council. That appears to me to preclude general business.

And point six then, agenda items are to be set by Council resolution. Agenda items are to be based on a request for advice. Agenda items for the Emergency and Disaster Committee may also be based on a request for information. Now that sounds like agenda items for the other committees may not be based on a request for information. I don't know if the intent is to specifically exclude those by the wording of the sixth bullet point. But what concerns me most here is the level of arrogance that comes across in this entire proposal before Council and in this entire process, where it assumes that the councillors know what we need advice on and that they are the only things that need to be brought to us.

One of the beauties of the advisory committees that we have had to date has been the capacity of those expert members to bring to us matters that they feel are of concern that we would not be aware of as a council, simply because they are not in our patch, they are not within our scope of understanding or experience, or we just haven't stumbled across them yet. We can't be everywhere at once. We know that, and we actually use that as a reason for people when we can't keep up with all of their needs.

The advisory committees and their ability to bring their, the members to bring their own items to the agenda allowed that to happen. Now, unless you are going to institute an open forum in each of these meetings, you're going to miss that. You're going to miss the person who comes to you and says, What about this environmental concern down the road from me? What about this heritage property that I feel is vulnerable? Where is that in your business paper, and how can I address you on it? I hate to be the one quoting George W. Bush, but we are ignoring the unknown unknowns in setting this up, and that, I think, is a recipe for disaster. It was Rumsfeld, was it? My apologies. I think that makes it worse.

I'm concerned also about a point under the minutes on page seven, and the first bullet point where it says at the end, The chair will have the authority to finalise the minutes. So the draft minutes are distributed to the committee to review within a specified time, and the chair has the authority to finalise them. Well, what happens if there's a dispute and the chair's decided that he likes them, he or she likes them? What happens to the councillor who does not agree with what's in the minutes? What happens if the— this isn't just us that we're setting this up for. We are setting this up for a council that will replace us in September. Now, we may all pretend that we trust each other and are happy to hold hands and sing Kumbaya, but we are leaving holes for subsequent councils that will come back to bite our community.

I find the idea that the committee will self-evaluate against its performance linked to the CSP farcical, frankly, and I'm gobsmacked by the final bullet point under minutes. That's the chair's discretion to call for a committee meeting to discuss a report before a submission to council. We were sold this on the basis that it would function like the New South Wales Parliament. Where is the deliberative session for the members of the committee to deliberate to finalise the report that comes back to council? Doesn't exist, does it? Where is the capacity for a member of the committee who doesn't agree with the dominant paradigm to add a dissenting report? It's not there, is it? What we've got is a constitution that's full of holes.

We've got allegations that advisory committees didn't do enough work last time. It's not advisory committees' jobs to do work. It's our job to take their advice, prioritise it, and allocate resources so that that work is done. We've got committee meetings set up for 4 to 6 p.m. on Tuesday. What happens if you've got a job? What happens if a community member has a job? These aren't consultative. They're not open. In fact, Councillor Cotlass has changed it to make it harder for the public to participate. Advice, investigation and genuine discussion happens best when participants can speak freely without strict time constraints. These discussions were the true power of the successful committees like Floodplain and Heritage, and we are not duty-bound, Councillor Calvert, to support something that reduces our capacity by devaluing expertise, stifling discussions, and isn't consistent with our CSP.

I cannot support this change. It is a disgrace.

Thanks, Councillor Wheeler. Councillor Garry.

So yes, just firstly through you, Mr Mayor, I'm assuming this will be through the Acting General Manager, but just in reference to item 2 with the outstanding items, can I just ask, these outstanding items, regardless of the committee structure, this what it was previously and what the desired new structure is, these items would still have been going to the operational plan, or would they have just sat there in limbo previously? I

Refer that to the Acting General Manager , Acting Director of Corporate Services.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. So just to check I correctly understood your question, so you're asking whether they would go to the operational plan. Yes.

So, a comment was made previously that now that this report has come forward and all of these outstanding items are listed in here, and they are all now, how fantastic it was that they are now all going to the operational plan. Would they not have gone to the operational plan prior?

Okay. So, those items that we are recommending that they're essentially absorbed in normal operations. So there are actions that, under the old structure, they were being carried out through the committee. So there could have been an element of operational activity, but they were still going through the committee. So what we're suggesting is that those items are not part of what the committee looks at, but they just purely get absorbed in operational work activities of staff.

And through the business plan. So my assumption is that these items, regardless of whether they're in the business or operation plans, and correct me if I'm wrong, there's really no urgency in these getting completed either, because with an under-resourced and underfunded council, then no amount of items we can continually add to a business and operation plan are going to get done in any great haste, are they

Is that a question for staff?

Yes, that's a question for staff.

Okay.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So the intent is not to put those actions aside and not action them. The intent is that staff would continue to action those items, but rather than going through the committee, they would just action them as part of their normal duties. So by no means the intent there is not to give those actions priority. That's not the intent. Thank you.

Councillor Garrow.

Okay , so how will councillors be updated then if the operational plans, or if we do not report on all of the operational items? How will councillors know about this?

I think that question is quite broad. It depends which item you're talking about, but is that enough information to answer the question, Acting Director Corporate Services? I

Would try. So, same as many things that staff do, there isn't necessarily a reporting mechanism on every action item that's being done. So if Council were to want information on particular actions, we can certainly produce that. But just as a general routine, there's a number of activities that staff do that are not specific projects that don't necessarily come back to Council.

Thank you. Councillor Garrow.

Okay, so the changing structure makes no difference to these items going to the operational business plans then, so that was— okay, thank you.

Thank you. Councillor Rasmussen.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Mr Mayor, I just want to make a few broad and general comments about this whole structure . I, for one, and I don't know councillors in the past, and present, some present councillors, have worked really, really hard to encourage community participation and involvement in the affairs and running of this Council. Now I've been doing it for many years, and I've been encouraged by the slow uptake. of interested community members, and more and more of them becoming part of whatever structure suits them to get involved with. Some of it is committees, a lot of it is committees, and the good input that we get from that structure is invaluable, has been invaluable over many years.

What I see here is that this puts the whole community involvement into a ginormous bureaucratic straitjacket. It slams the whole process of community engagement in the governance of their city in absolute reverse. It slams it in reverse. It is the biggest, broadest attack on community involvement that I've seen in this council for ever. There have been some bad councils in the past, but this has got to top the lot. This is the pinnacle of bad community involvement and getting community involved. There is simply no way that this is going to enhance any community involvement. The very structure of it prevents it from so doing. And if you had any involvement at all, deep involvement with council committees over the years, you would know this.

You would know, and you would never set up this sort of, that would be nice debacle of a structure. You just wouldn't do it. Not if you're community minded, not if you wanted your community on side, not if you wanted to take your community along with you. You just wouldn't do it. It's the worst example I've seen ever, I think. Anyway, Mr Mayor, I'm obviously going to vote against it, and it's really sad. Luckily, there's only a few months to go, and hopefully it will be tossed out the window with a new council. Thank you. Thanks

Councillor Ross. Councillor

Ross. Thank you, Mr Mayor. I speak reluctantly upon this item.

I will not be able to vote in its favour. The previous speakers have voiced their opinions. I am broadly in support of.

I draw your attention to the fact that it appears as if

The proponents of these changes have set out without having a destination fully in mind or fully planned. And for that, you have the response of my fellow councillors tonight.

It is also clear that the so-called constitution is inappropriate.

I believe the whole thing should go back to a briefing session. I'll give you some good reasons for that now. Section 377 of the Local Government Act allows the council to form committees. That is true. However, they are advisory committees. They've got no status other than being advisory. It is fatuous to state that a resolution of a committee is a resolution of Council. That is just totally erroneous, wrong, and is an absolute failure to recognise the responsibilities that we all 12 of us have. How could such a statement be made? I'm disgraced by that. Furthermore, I would take you to point 6. Mr Mayor and Mr former Mayor, how do you support the statement or the assertion that the agenda items for committees will be decided by Council?

Go to the first element of point 6. Meetings of the committee shall be held when agenda items have been set by Council or as determined by the Chairperson of the committee.

I put it to you that that is totally in

Contravention of what you have stated here tonight to my fellow councillors. In other words, we don't know where we're going and why we're going there. And I have a grave suspicion that we're alienating the people who have supported the committees voluntarily and who have come forth with many good ideas. And this is just— I'm not going to cut the mustard for anybody. I think we would suggest that the proponents should go away and think really hard about all of the matters that have been drawn to attention and try and come up with a workable solution and then put it to a briefing session of fellow councillors. I don't believe that my fellow councillors are opposed to change. That's fine, but we have to change with reason, and we also have to change knowing the end point to which we are ascribing ourselves to want to take these matters.

And at the moment, it is just totally unclear and totally unsupportable, I'm sorry. Thank you.

Thanks, Councillor. I might just briefly address a couple of things there because I think there might be some inaccuracies in those comments. This constitution does not say that resolutions of the committees are resolutions of Council. It says any recommendations of the committee shall, as far as adopted by the Council, be resolutions of the Council. Obviously, when adopted, they will be resolutions of the Council. It's not suggesting anything else. It says meetings of the committee shall be held when the agenda items have been set by Council or as determined by the chairperson of the committee. It's not suggesting the chairperson of the committee would be setting agenda items. It says the chairperson of the committee could call a meeting even if Council hasn't called one.

So I think those things need to be clarified because I think what you're reading is not what it says. Although I acknowledge that point one perhaps could be worded more clearly, and that's a point to take away from this, because that could be confusing to somebody reading it. I just wanted to point those two things out before we went any further with that understanding. Deputy Mayor, you've got your hand up again.

Mr Mayor, I was actually going to move an amendment that we do take this back to a briefing session. It probably won't be supported, but I think that you can see tonight this constitution is not adequate. It's so confusing. You can see the level of confusion. I think that, you know, you just said the chairperson can call a meeting, but then we're saying the meeting must be agenda items from the council. How does that all work? There is no clarity in it whatsoever. It's contradictory. And I think that when this was originally brought up, I know it was the former Mayor's intention that we work together to get something that is workable. And I believe what's workable is some sort of combination of new methods with some of the old things still retained.

And I don't think this captures that aside from the heritage committee remaining. And I think that if we could have another go at it, but that then leaves us a void because we've already dissolved the committees. And of course, that would be problematic in itself because we're already losing—

Just assume there's a seconder. Councillor Wheeler, sorry, go.

We're already losing valuable time when there's many things that should be being addressed that were already in action in the committees that some of us were working on. So we've already lost a couple of months on some things, and so I would be hesitant to delay it. However, I don't see that this current structure is going to propel those things forward any better or any faster. I do think there's an intent there to work for change. I don't think people are anti-change. I'd be very happy to see some changes, but the changes that we raised have not been encompassed and haven't even been considered, I would say, by the look of this, that we have a combination of some changes that can be introduced without totally eliminating the value of the people and the work that had been done before.

I think it's really important that we don't just overturn it. This has a duplication of systems, as Councillor Reynolds was alluding to, and I just think that you cannot put a constitution like this out to the public as if this is what we're following. It is simply not up to scratch. It's not telling people what really is the situation. It's inadequate. That is what it is. It does not show what our committee system would be, and I would also be interested to know how many other council committee systems people have looked at, because there's some really, really good ones that I think we could have drawn from. And I raised a few of them in the last debate, and I think that I was speaking to the Mayor of Penrith on Friday, and some of the things that they are doing in their committee systems there are really, really viable, valuable work.

And I think we need to learn from others. We're not a highly resourced council like a place like Penrith, but we can learn from some of the work that they do and how they're doing it. And I think we would be much better off. As Councillor Wheelers said, we're setting this up to leave it in place for an incoming council. What we don't want is for them to have to go back to scratch and start a process all over again, because this one is steeped in lack of clarity and confusion. So I just would wish, and I'm not doing this to totally eradicate the changes proposed. I do want to see changes. I know there are things that can be done better and we can be more effective, most definitely. But I think that this is too exclusive to the community.

There's too much duplication, and we need to be presenting to the public a constitution that is coherent and really sets out what the meaning of this council committee system is. Okay

Councillor Kotlash

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'm speaking against the amendment for a couple of reasons. I think we've had a lot of discussion here tonight. Bear

With me, Mr Mayor. There's no seconder for the amendment, is there

Yeah, Councillor Wheeler seconded the amendment.

Thank you.

Sorry.

That's okay. We've had lots of opportunities to get this right. There have been a number of suggestions about how we could change the constitution, and I, for one, put my suggestions of how I wanted the constitution changed in an amendment. We could have done that, but what I'm hearing is just a lot of, This is no good. This is not going to work. I think that This constitution might not be perfect and might not be the best constitution I've ever read, but the confusion is coming from, I think, a lack of genuine commitment to getting our committee processes going. We can , we could have all of those amendments tabled for the constitution and we could pass it. Referring this to a briefing and prolonging this discussion I don't think is going to get us anywhere.

I think we have to start, we have, we have got this far. Now let's just get it over the line. Get things happening. I agree with the Deputy Mayor, we don't need to delay. We have lots of work to do. Let's get, let's fix this constitution now. We've already mentioned the perceived problems that there are with it. I think we have to be genuine about this. I'm happy to include all of the suggestions for amendments to make the constitution clearer. I just don't think that delaying this is an option. I think that that doesn't send a good message to the community about how we are able to work together to resolve something. This is, we're at this stage now. Let's get on with this. I'm sorry, I can't support the amendment to defer.

Thank you.

Thanks, Councillor I'll also speak against the amendment to defer this yet again. I think the community do expect better from us than that. We did, you know, mark that we were going to look at our committee structure some years ago. We went through a long process. We had councillor briefings. This came to two meetings last year and now a third meeting this year to clarify it. So I don't think there's any merit to the argument this has somehow been undemocratic. And I understand there'll be fear of change and that people— Sorry, Deputy Mayor, was that a point of order?

No, it wasn't a point of order. I said it was not fear of change.

So it's just out of order. Yeah.

No, I didn't say it to the meeting. I just said it to myself.

Which is out of order. Thank you, Councillor. And I think that goes to potentially the comments earlier about having a genuine desire to make this work. I was going to echo the sentiments of Councillor Calvert. No, I think it may have perhaps misunderstood. You don't have a duty to support, and no councillor has a duty to support this as an idea and think it's a good idea. But given that council has resolved that this is the way we want to move forward, and council set a direction for staff to come back to us with this as the way forward, councillors do all have a duty now to work together to make sure that what comes out of this resolution is the best it can possibly be. And once we have a new committee structure, to make sure those committees are operating as best they can possibly be.

Saying that we're not going to support this because we don't like the idea, I think is counterproductive, and it is somewhat avoiding a real duty to do the right thing by the community, and I think that's perhaps what was being said. You know, it's all good and well. I think Councillor Ross said earlier that the proponents should come back to council with something else. That's not how council works. We're a group of 12 councillors, and you've got every right to put up something else, as do other councillors. If you could have put something else up to this meeting and seen if the council was in favour. But this is democracy. It's a democratic outcome. It's not dictatorial for a majority of council to make a decision to move in a particular way.

That's just how Council works. It's not been secretive or avoiding the community. It's been on the business paper three times now.

And the reality of the situation is that this is going to be a much more public meeting than ever before. You know, it won't be just a handful of hand-picked members of the community on each committee anymore. It'll be open to everybody. But we've been through that argument. We already decided as a Council this is the way we want to go forward. So what we're doing here tonight is determining the finer details of the constitution and setting up the actual structure, given that we've already decided this is the way we want to go. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I'm speaking for the amendment. I'll remind you that we asked for a briefing last year, and this Council voted for a briefing, and you turned down that request using a rescission motion and the mayoral casting vote. Now that's apparently how we do democratic discussion around issues in the Council now. And if you don't support that way forward, you've got a lack of genuine commitment. That's terrific, isn't it? That just fills me with joy, and I'm sure it makes the community feel really good as well. The community expect us to vote for workable resolutions and workable constitutions that don't set later councils up for failure. This constitution has more holes in it than a kitchen colander.

You are minimising the genuine concerns of democratically elected councillors and then calling us out on our lack of commitment to democracy. You want us to—you reckon that we should be working towards the best process it can possibly be. Well, this isn't the best process it can possibly be. The reason that we asked for a deferral before for a briefing was so that we could work towards that process. We understand that it's inevitable that the committee structure changes. We were willing to work with you in a briefing. Six of you denied us that, and you wonder why we're not jumping for joy when a constitution that is unworkable comes before us. We gave you a commitment to advance this process, and you slapped us down.

You've reaped what you've sown.

If this is the best that we can possibly be, heaven help us, because this is rubbish.

Councillor, can I just ask you a question? Do we not have a briefing on this sometime last year, and you actually stormed out in the middle after screaming at a number of people?

I did not scream at a number of people, and I left the meeting. I was extremely ill. I shouldn't have come, and I left the meeting with another councillor screaming at me to the point where she was still yelling at me when I exited the door.

It's not quite my recollection, Councillor. Definitely not. It might be the case— In my

Recollection, if we're all butting in. Well

Thank you, Councillor Garrow and Councillor Richards. I think before we all sit here and say that you've got a real genuine desire to work together and have a briefing, we've got to be real about that, is more my point.

That was 18 months ago. We had a resolution. We had a resolution last year, in November last year, that you overturned with a rescission motion using a casting vote. If you want to work with us, work with us. Don't pull up this petty nonsense from 18 months ago. Good grief.

Are there any further speakers? Councillor Ross.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'd like to speak in favour of the amendment.

The proponents of these changes have not put in the time, effort and work to

Establish what is trying to be achieved and a sensible path through to that endpoint. It is quite clear from the discussions tonight that

The way in which this constitution has been formulated or founded hasn't involved the proponents to any degree, has just come through as if it's another matter of just business. But it's far from that.

And I really feel that the call for a total revision of the constitution is required. It's been demonstrated to have the qualities of a colander. Indeed, I totally concur with that. Thank you.

Councillor Calvert.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Yes, we did discuss last year whether to have a briefing session on this, and it was a council decision that we don't, because we'd had briefing sessions before on this matter. Now, bringing it up again ignores our previous council position on this matter. I think it's very important that we get this process going rather than stalling it any longer. And most of the issues that I heard here tonight from other councillors, I would regard as minor issues, not major issues. And indeed, I would regard that most of them could have been fixed here tonight by the councillors putting forward a solution to Councillor Kotlash on how these things could be fixed. But I didn't hear any solutions.

All I heard was criticism. Which was disappointingly negative, I thought. Now, the new system that we're talking about putting in place, I've heard a couple of speakers say that we're taking the people out of the process, but actually it's exactly the opposite. We're inviting all members of public to speak and participate in the matters that come before committees. What could be more open and democratic and transparent than that? Yet I keep hearing other councillors say we're taking it away from the public. To me, that is just councillors trying to confuse things, or they just don't understand the process and what's being put forward. Now, what some councillors could do, if they wanted to be positive, is allow this to go through and let us implement it, and then perhaps at a later date call for a review.

Even tonight, they might put forward a suggestion of what the review might look like and when it might take place. And then at the review, we'd have time to look at it again and improve. But to sit on it now and say, no, we're not going forward, that just stalls things, takes away the opportunity for the public to be involved at an early stage. So I'm urging all councillors once again to be positive. This is a positive change. Please get on board with it. It's very easy to protest and criticise, but let's go past that. Let's make this work. Thank you.

Okay, Councillor Reynolds.

Yes, thanks, Mr Mayor. I think the issue comes back to the fact that we did have briefings and perhaps a workshop, from memory, to discuss changes to committees.

And we were, we thought we were on a good path to getting something done. And the staff did a lot of work, and they put together a number of recommendations, which then we came to a meeting were thrown out, and your new system was implemented, which then, of course, we objected to because it was not what we led to believe that Council was working for. And then, as Councillor Wheeler said, we asked for a briefing, which you rescinded, and we're here at the moment. Now, for example, just as an example,

All the committee members, all the members of all the committees were surveyed, and their recommendations were that there be no changes to the meeting times of the committees. The staff recommendation was that there be no changes to the meeting times of the committees. These are people who were going to just sit out until, you know, do the meetings until September. That was thrown out, and you guys came up with that all meetings would be held between 4 and 6 p.m. And just as a question, what additional information did you base this decision on? Because it didn't come from staff. Didn't come from us. So somehow or other, you pulled this out, and to wonder why we're asking questions when this is just basically a metaphor for the whole mess .

It's such a shame. You were onto a good thing. You were onto a good thing, and it's now become a dog's breakfast. And you can, you know, you can throw glitter on a thing, but it's still a thing. And so making amendments and whatever to this thing is not going to fix it. It needs to go back to a briefing. Look at the points. Go back and, you know, it won't take a great deal of time. But trying to amend what we have isn't the way to do it. And that's why I'm going to support the amendment. Thank you, sir.

Councillor Reynolds. Councillor Richards.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm speaking against the amendment that's currently on the floor. I do think that some councillors certainly have selective memory when it comes to recalling events. I certainly think some councillors have an interesting way to define democracy, such as when democracy when you get your way, but it's anti-democratic when you don't get your way. Some of the circumstances where you point out that the mayor uses a casting vote, and that's basically your assumption that it's undemocratic, that's how it works in this chamber, and that's how it worked during the first two years of this council when somebody else sat in that chair. And you also want to talk about what this isn't what the community voted for, and you talk about these awful, evil, major party representatives.

You know, evil party representatives that have lived in this area and contribute to this community probably more than many other people do, who raise kids and have them go to school here and shop here and advocate for community groups in this area. These evil, bad, major party representatives. I mean, guess what

Sorry, Mr. Mayor, as Councillor Richards in the same meeting as the rest of us.

Yeah, just ignore it. I was talking, so continuing on, this narrative of these bad major party people. Well, guess what? Because what people know when they put a vote to the major parties is they know what they're getting, instead of this flip-flopping sort of thing that people have seen over the last four and a half years of... Point of order, Mr Mayor. A

Point of order, yes?

Yes, I think that that's uncalled for.

It's not a point of order. Yeah,

Thank you. The Deputy Mayor's speech had a lot of uncalled-for points in it, which I'll get to in a minute. Or let's get to it now. This level of entitlement that is being directed at the current, I guess, the mayor and those who supported the mayor, it's not a level of entitlement. A certain leader was chosen when this council was first elected in 2018 with the support of eight councillors in this chamber. Due to circumstances, or decision-making, or performance, that dropped to six. After another year, that dropped to five. That's called democracy. Sorry, Councillor Richards has got a point of order from Councillor Reynolds. Yeah, relevance. Mayoral votes have nothing to do with the restructuring of the committee system.

Thanks, Councillor Reynolds. I think Councillor Richards is answering a number of points that have been raised by other speakers. Thank you, Mr Mayor. You want to

Talk about a unified and inclusive functioning democracy

Well, the opportunity on

The floor before us is to work on a constitution to demonstrate to the community that we can actually work together to get a constructive and workable outcome. Instead, what the community—and I say that in inverted commas because some people on this floor refer to the community as if it is one whole inclusive group that supports their point of view—well, guess what? It's not. What we've seen is anger and hostilities and a defiance and inability to want to work together to provide an outcome and a way forward. Basically, it's like stamping your feet and saying, Well, I didn't bring up this motion. I didn't put forward... This change, I didn't put forward this reform. Therefore, I'm not going to participate.

And that's what the community is seeing every time these sorts of outbursts happen. I mean, they expect better than that. They expect better than petulance. And I think that what some councillors need to do is definitely go and look up that definition of democracy, because what's happening right now is democracy in action, whether you like it or not.

Thank you, Councillor Richards. Are there any further speakers on the amendment? I think you've spoken on the amendment, if you may. Question on the amendment?

I had a question to you, Mr Mayor, and it was about your words about the amendment. And I wondered if your words about this issue are the same words that you would have applied to you and your colleagues' way of approaching the SRV in terms of supporting the council resolution and acting for the best interests of the community for that to go forward. Do you think that is the case?

Absolutely, Deputy Mayor. I think I did not support the SRV, but since then I've voted for operational plans and I've participated in the discussions actively around the capital works and how that money should be spent, about different changes to the rates that were part of the Fit for the Future, because that's my role. Even though I didn't like the particular outcome on that matter, and I made a very loud and clear point about that in the community, it's still my role, as it is every councillor's role, to, once that decision is made, continue to work within that framework going forward. And that's the point I was making.

I was probably more referring to the various blogs and blogs and criticisms in that regard.

Look, certainly, maybe there's a bit of misunderstanding there. I'm not suggesting that you shouldn't criticise a decision you're not in favour of. The suggestion is that once the decision is made, you get on board and work with it, is the role of a councillor. We'll put the amendment. All those in favour of the amendment, please raise your hand. In favour of the amendment are Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Ross, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Garrow. Against, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Richards, Councillor Zemproni, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Tree. I declare it lost on the casting vote of the Mayor.

Is there any further discussion on the motion? Councillor Zemproni.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'm generally in support of this. Last year I referred to it as an experiment, and I still think that that's the case. That's not to say that it's a criticism. I think it's an opportunity for us to improve the way that we do our public consultation. I can put to rest a couple of specific claims that have been made in the course of this debate. The fact that the chair has the authority to finalise minutes, to my understanding, has been a standard operating procedure of every committee I've ever been a member of, in the sense that staff or the minute secretary often liaise with the chair of a committee to confirm that the final version of minutes are the ones that are appropriate for circulation.

I see nothing sinister in that. There is no conflict in my mind about the idea that the chairman retains the ability to convene a meeting, and if there is confusion about the question of whether committees can only act or convene meetings on the basis of a directive of the chamber, it could be that the chamber has charged a committee to look at something that's very complex. The investigation thereof will span over a number of months that will involve multiple meetings. Those meetings will be contingent on the ability of subject experts to come and address that committee when a particular expert becomes available, the chair becomes aware of that in consultation with staff, and they convene a meeting.

That's still pursuant to the charge that's been given to that committee by this Chamber to investigate a particular matter. So I don't see any particular problem with that. I don't see that there's any barrier to a member of the public or to one of the community attendees or members of a committee, in the case of the Heritage Committee, to raise an issue that will then subsequently become part of an invitation from this Chamber to be considered by that committee. The things that come to Council are often a mix of the things that are raised by staff, changes to legislation, matters that are in Council are informed of by other tiers of government, and they're brought to us, or if we're doing our job, we as 12 representatives of the community often bring stuff to staff or to this Chamber for consideration, and that will remain the case.

So if we hear about something that isn't presently on the agenda of a committee, and a member of the public or a subject expert says, Well, you really should be talking about this, then that's precisely our job, to bring it back to this Chamber and to say, I think we need to look at this. So there's a mechanism for that to happen. And as Councillor Calvert has stated repeatedly, it is generally more open, more democratic, more consultative. It opens up meetings that were previously opaque. Unheralded. unaddressed by broader members of the public, and I'm looking forward to seeing this work reasonably well. I do have one small quibble about the proposed constitution that's being raised here, and that is that it says that generally meetings will be held by audio-visual link.

I think the fact that we've been holding meetings by audio-visual link of necessity, I do not think of them as superior. I look forward to most meetings, including meetings of committees and briefings, reverting to in-person meetings at the earliest opportunity. I'm not going to die on the mountain of trying to change this wording now, but to point out is that as 2021 evolves, we may choose to come back and change this particular clause later when meeting in person becomes the norm again. May

I interrupt, if I may, Mr Mayor, and just advise Councillors and Progno that that's part of the amendment that I put up as point one. Yes,

Thank you. All right then, I'm sorry if I missed that. If that's the case, then I'm even happier. Thank you.

Okay, being no further speakers on the motion, Councillor Kotlash, right of reply.

Thank you. Well, I guess we covered a lot of ground, but I don't know whether it was very constructive ground, and I'm a bit disappointed that we weren't able to be more constructive. But nonetheless, I just wanted to address some things that were said. I just want to stay from the outset, this new system of committees. Will not exclude the public or the community or anybody. In fact, we have an opportunity with this new process to actually increase the involvement of anybody who wants to be involved, not only in person but in the written form. We are extending this opportunity for our community. When I hear councillors say that this is travesty and we're all going, you know, it's all terrible and the community are shut out, that is just not true.

Like, could we just stop saying this nonsense? It's not true. It's never been true. Like, that's it. We are not excluding the public. Now , the notion that this is dictatorial from the major parties, I think Councillor Richards has covered this. I think that is a ridiculous claim, and I'll just leave it at that. You know,

This was, you know, this was—we were trying to do some reforms here. It's got nothing to do with what particular party a councillor is in. This is about council. This is about our functioning and our responsibilities. To say that there was—I think to say that there was— that the Floodplain Advisory , Floodplain Management Advisory Committee process was working, I think is disingenuous. I think we have—we have

Point of order, Mr Mayor. Point of order? Point of clarification, rather, if I could, at the end of that. Thank you. You can now. Well, just to say that Councillor Kotlash attended less than half the meetings.

That's not a point of clarification. Well, she's

Saying it was disingenuous and it wasn't working, but she wasn't

There to say that. Just further debate. This is right of reply.

May I continue, Mr Mayor?

Yes, Councillor Gotliffe.

Thank you.

I don't think it's a matter of whether you were present at the meeting to be able to assess that certain committees weren't really working the way that, well, many councillors would have expected it to work .

I think that the outcomes of that whole process, and it's been documented in attachment two, has shown that if you still have outstanding actions from 2017 in a committee, those actions need to be reassigned to a new committee. That committee hasn't worked, and it might have worked for possibly the committee members, but it hasn't worked for council and how we rely on our committees for advice on how we move forward. If we have to wait for years and years to get resolutions to actions, then, look, I have to say that I don't think that that's a functioning committee. You can disagree with me if you like, but I think we need to give this new system a go. And I think there'll be nothing lost from the things that we've done in the Floodplain Management Advisory Committee.

There's everything to gain, and I think we just need to get on board with that. We're not excluding any experts, we're not excluding any agencies, we're not really excluding anybody, so there's really no other place than up. I'll quickly go on. I think it was Councillor Richards who said that he thought it was absurd that we say— not absurd. He thought it was not a good idea to say that we have these committee meetings between 4 and 6 p.m. on a Tuesday. In the constitution, it says meetings will generally be held on Tuesdays between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. unless otherwise agreed upon by the committee members. What have you got against that? We're saying, as a general rule, this would be good, but if it doesn't suit, change it.

Stop. Everybody has to stop being so divisive and throwing spanners in the work. We need to get on with this.

I have big underlined democratic process. I think we've been through this. This is the process. We're doing it.

I think that, look, I'll stop there because so many of the things that were mentioned really, I don't think need refuting because they're just not, they have no substance, and I don't think I'll waste my time further trying to clarify things that are clear and written down and being misinterpreted. My concluding remarks is let's get on with this. I'm sorry that there's been so much, so many obstacles thrown at this. It's disingenuous and it's really unfortunate, but I'm committed to this process, and we can have, as Councillor Calvert says, a review process. We've got nothing to lose. Let's just get on with it. Thank you.

Thank you. That's right, reply, so put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour of the motion are Councillor Conolly, Councillor Richards, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Tree. Against? Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Ross, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Reynolds. Declare it carried on the casting vote of the Mayor. So we now move. We just resolved.

To elect five members of each committee. So we'll now move on with that. So

Go with the Community Services Committee first. So I need a motion from someone as to who the five people should be, or happy to have discussion first about who's interested in being on that committee. If you'd maybe first want to take nominations of who would be interested in being on the Community Services Committee.

I'd be interested, Mr Mayor.

I'd also be interested. So would I, Mr Mayor.

Any other councillors interested in being on that committee?

Okay, so—

I'd like to move a motion then,

Mr Mayor

Are we able to still operate with three?

I'm actually not sure if we need, if it replies to fill all the spots on the committee or if it's up to five. If

There's no other expression of interest, surely that's a working number.

I'll refer that to the Acting General Manager.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Just let me check the constitution.

Mr Mayor, just a question. Yes. Sorry, isn't changing five committee members to three, isn't that against the constitution you just adopted?

So that was the previous question. We're just going to get an answer on Councillor Reynolds. Thank you.

So the constitution indicates that Council can appoint five councillors to each of the three committees. So it's up to Council then to decide which of those five councillors to go, and if there's only three nominations, then that's what Council would decide to do.

Mr Mayor, I'm astonished that there isn't other interest. I know that the committees that will be feeding into the Community Services Committee were things that were very dear to the heart of many other councillors. I was going to defer to them if they expressed an interest. If there is no other interest and you're short, I would be happy to put forward my own name,

But only if there is no other interest.

Okay. Well, it appears there's no other interest. So, somebody want to move a motion? We've got four people

I'll move that motion, Councillor Conolly, Zamprogno, Richards and Calvert, on the Community Committee.

Okay. Excuse me , Mr Mayor, won't you have

To move to change the

Constitution? No , so we're just going to fill four of the five spots and we can fill the other one later if we want to.

I'll second that, Mr Mayor.

Seconded, Councillor Kotlash.

Any further discussion?

There being no further discussion, we'll put that motion. So all those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour are Councillor Conolly, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Richards, Councillor Tree, Councillor Kotlash. Against? Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Ross, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Garrow. Declare it carried on the casting vote of the Mayor. We've now got to take nominations for anyone interested in being on the Environment Committee.

Anybody interested in being on the Environment Committee?

Councillor Kotlash.

Yes, Mr Mayor, I'd like to be nominated,

Please. Okay.

I'll nominate. Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Richards.

Mr Progno.

Again, happy, Mr Mayor, but I'm confused that other councillors who take these matters very much to heart have not any interest in being a member of this committee. I find that extraordinary.

Don't be confused. They scream about participation and don't participate.

Point of

Order. Point of order.

Yes, what is the point of order? It

Doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. She's finished.

Thank you. So we've got... No, I think, yeah. So we've got three nominations. If there are no further nominations, I'm happy to do more work and be on the Environment Committee as well. If other people aren't willing to put their hand up, so I'll nominate for that. So does somebody wish to move a motion?

I'll move that way, Mr Mayor.

So you're moving that the councillor appoints Councillor Kotlash, Richards, Zamprogno and Conolly to the Environment Committee? Yes, please. Okay. And finally, the Innovation and Partnerships Committee. Sorry , I didn't even put that, sorry. Who is the seconder for that motion? Seconded Councillor Calvert, and all those in favour of the motion, please raise your hand. Favour are Councillor Conolly, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Richards, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Tree. Against? Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Ross, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Garrow. Declare it carried on the casting vote of the Mayor. Now we move on to Innovation and Partnerships. I would be interested in being on that committee. Anybody else interested in being on that committee?

Councillor Kotlash?

Yes, please, Mr Mayor

I would be interested, Mr Mayor. Same for me.

And myself, Mr Mayor, please.

Okay, well if no one else is interested, somebody move a motion. So Councillor Calvert is moving that. The Councillor Point, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Richards. Seconder for that? Councillor Zamprogno. All those in favour of the motion, please raise your hand. Favour of the motion are Councillor Conolly, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Richards, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Tree. Against?

Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Ross, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Rasmusson, Councillor Garrow. It's declared carried on the casting vote of the Mayor.

Next item is item 15, that is a motion. Move,

Mr Mayor

Moved, Deputy Mayor. Seconded, I'm assuming Councillor Wheeler. Discussion?

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Unfortunately, a member of the Bilpin Region Advancement Group, known as BRAG, had registered on the website to speak tonight, and something went wrong with it, and they weren't—I don't know what went wrong with it—but they weren't registered properly and therefore were unable to speak when they had wanted to speak. So they've sent me what they were going to say, and I will begin by reading that. It's dated today's date . BRAG would like to speak in favour of the motion. BRAG is a group of residents with an interest in progressing the needs of the community in Bilpin and surrounding areas. BRAG acts as a central point of contact between residents, business owners, government and other organisations.

Of 300 residents in our community, BRAG represents over 100 residents. Members represent a broad section of the community, including parents with young children, business owners, long-term residents and tourist operators. The first undertaking of Bragg at inception was to conduct a community consultation to canvas priority issues and seek suggestions from Bilpin residents and business owners. Quantitative data was collected June and July 2020 with a postal survey delivered to residents and made available at the local post office. Of the 450 surveys distributed, 63 responses were received, a 14% response rate. Despite COVID conditions, this was a high response rate. The survey provided for both quantitative and qualitative responses.

And then there's a table which shows that telecommunications and power was rated as the number one issue needing to be addressed in the community. If for interest you want to know the others, the second was traffic management, third road conditions, fourth a cycle or walkway through Bilpin, fifth tourism facilities, and sixth beautification. Essential public safety and fire and disaster resilience needs. One, telecommunications and power. Public health and safety, fire and disaster resilience. Telco and power infrastructure needs are inadequate and fail to meet the basic needs of residents and businesses. This prevents adequate fire warning systems from being implemented and has the potential to put lives at risk.

The lack of vital communications during a power outage also restricts the local RFS to attend motor vehicle accidents and first responder callouts, as private mobiles are used to arrange a response. Bragg has conducted numerous meetings and sent correspondence on this letter, including to Minister Fletcher , Communications Minister, a letter. Michelle Rowland's Shadow Communications meeting. They've had a meeting with her on site with Penny McKinlay, Resilient Energy meetings and letters. Endeavour Energy, they had a meeting on the— On the 4th of December 2020, where they met with Jacqueline Crompton, SAPS team, a letter, Commissioner Fitzsimmons letter, no response, Robin Preston letter, no response, Andy Penn, CEO of Telstra.

It doesn't say if there was a response. I gather they've had a meeting with him. The latest information is that the telecommunications tower has 14 hours of backup battery power in case of the loss of power. Bragg contends this is not enough and that a better solution is required. A simple option is to put in a generator. It is inexpensive, approximately $10,000 and will save lives. Bragg would be happy to consult, meet with Telstra and any communications minister or decision maker who can help resolve this matter. Thanks, and regard. Graziella Obeid, Secretary, Bilpin Region Advancement Group. So I've read that for Graziella, and we have raised this notice of motion, Councillor Wheeler and I, when it became very apparent that there was a lot of angst in the Bilpin and surrounding communities.

It's not just this community. It's not only the Bilpin community, of course, that is having issues with telecommunications. We know there are a number of black spots in the area, but it's simply not good enough to leave that community so vulnerable and exposed. Bragg have been instrumental in calling for improvements, and we can help that by facilitating a community meeting to address the deficit in secure telecommunications . Council has identified these problems. Last year, we apparently commissioned a report, which is called the Mobile Black Spot Program Advisory Report, and I would like to add a point three to the motion, if Councillor Wheeler is in agreement, that councillors be provided with a copy of this report.

In that report, it of course goes through the issues with telecommunications in this area and shows that Council has identified this problem. In our submission to the Bushfire Royal Commission, the impacts of disasters could be minimised if we had guaranteed communications. That was the statement that went to the Royal Commission . It then went on to state that we also submitted to the New South Wales Bushfire Inquiry, and it notes that the communications are adequate in our urban areas, but not in our outlying rural areas. And of course, they are the same areas that are so exposed to the vulnerabilities of natural disaster. We know these issues in the McDonald Valley. We know these issues at Colo Heights, and we know that the Bilpin-Berambing area has lots of issues as well .

I'm not sure if Mr. Organ wanted to say any more about that particular report and whether there'd be any further briefings about that. But it would be good if we could receive a report so we all had it. And I think that holding a meeting, it's part of our CSP to facilitate this type of engagement. Our resilience building needs to be strong. We know the vulnerability of these communities. We know the fear that now exists when they know that they may be left isolated without communications. And we know that there are obligations on us to help them achieve some results in this area. So I think holding a public meeting, inviting Telstra to come, people from Telstra to come, and the member for Macquarie, Susan Templeman, given that this is a federal issue and that she has been advocating on their behalf, and so that the public can engage with Telstra in particular to ask them and the other telco providers, I would assume.

I'm not quite sure how that works up there, whether there's Vodafone and Optus or how that all works. But whoever is necessary to be able to ensure that they can get some certainty around what might be happening with telecommunications in their area. And then I would expect if we did it for one area, we could be approached to do it for another area. But I don't think that's such a big issue. I think it's a role we can play in bringing people together and that we can have these sorts of discussions and assist the community and support the community to find out from the big telco operators how they are going to fix the deficits that exist in their community in communications.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Councillor Kotlash.

Thank you, Mr Mayor .

I agree that this issue is one that really needs to be addressed. I'm not sure that what's being proposed in this notice of motion is necessarily the best way to address it. And I put, I've sent the staff an amendment that I thought might enhance this issue and might make this a bit more , I guess, solutions-oriented. I don't think that it's appropriate that Council actually sets up a separate public meeting for a small community in our whole LGA. I would rather see it expanded, and the Deputy Mayor has touched on that. So if I could get the staff to put my amendment up, if I could wait till that happens and then see if I've got a seconder, and then I'll explain why I think this might be a better way forward.

It did flash up and then it's gone. Just give us a moment

We had it for a second.

Well, I let people read it first, Mr Mayor.

Yep, until we get a seconder.

Seconded, Councillor Calvert. You can go ahead.

Thank you . I think the interesting points in this issue is that we know we have a problem with telecommunications, not only in the Bilpin area, but as we've said in lots of other areas. We rely on telecommunications for not only emergency situations, although I agree that that's probably the most important. We now rely on telecommunications for medical help. We rely on it for home schooling. We rely on it for businesses that operate out of home, working from home. So there's a whole range of reasons why our community deserves a good telecommunications system. And I know that

The member for Macquarie, Susan Templeman, has been working really hard to get these addressed . But I think this is just a perfect example of an issue that could go to one of our newly formed committees, because what it will do is that instead of us having to go to the expense of holding a public meeting to essentially characterise the problem that we're pretty well informed of, I'd say, we'll be able to put it to a committee where the committee can invite all of the people, all of the players. Telstra, Ms Templeman, any other government official that's got, that has a responsibility in this area, we can sit down and we can facilitate some solutions to this problem. It will be recorded. Everybody will be able to address this committee.

The public, it will be open to the public. We will be able to hear from the good people of St Albans who have problems, and Colo, as well as Bilpin, of course. So I think this is a really, really good example that we could take to our first meeting of the Innovations and Partnerships Committee. And I've suggested that it goes into this committee because we have to realise the council has very little to do with the upgrades of mobile towers. This sort of development is, well, it doesn't really, it doesn't sort of bypass its council. But it has, I think our role as councillors is to help facilitate this. And as the Deputy Mayor said , it's one of our responsibilities, and one of the things that we'd said under our community strategic plan is that we want our communities to be more resilient.

And this is one way that we can achieve that. It's unfortunate that it seems like some councillors have boycotted these committees because if they hadn't done that, they might have been able to witness how we would be able to do this and how effective it would be because it would be recorded and we might be able to get a way forward instead of just characterising the problem . I commend you to support it. I think this will be a really excellent kick-off to that most important committee. Thank you.

Thanks, Councillor Kotlash. Can I make a suggestion at this point, just that we potentially reword point one, because we do want to give the committee a specific question and time frame. So I've sort of come up with something just as you were talking. So we ask the committee to review the options available to Council to assist our residents that don't have access to adequate telecommunications. Request that they hold an initial meeting in the next month and report back to Council within three months. Would that— Yeah. No

That's terrific. I understand why you've said that, and I usually bang on about it myself, but that's great because it's a question and it's appropriate. Thank you for doing that.

Thanks . Councillor Calvert

I thought the Deputy Mayor

Had her hand up

Deputy Mayor, sorry.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Look, I'm not opposed to that happening as a movement forward. However, the issue for the people of Bilpin is about the listing on the priorities of Telstra, and it needs to be dealt with now. It's because they are vying for funding that is a current thing. I think— Furthering it down the track, I'd be happy for that process to occur generally for telecommunications, and that of course would embrace the other areas that have issues. But I thought everybody would have heard about what was going on up there at the moment. And the issue is that they have been going back and forth with the minister, and Bilpin was left off the list, and then it was put on the list. And so they are looking to be able to explain their situation of why they should receive the funding to upgrade their tower now.

I would be very loath to push them off three months down the track. However, I would be prepared to add a point to our resolution, our motion, that would refer the matter to that committee as such, as is in Councillor Cotlash's explanation, her motion. But I think that an explanation for why this was brought forward now was because of a sense of urgency related to what's happening in Bilpin at this very point of time. So it is an issue now. It's all to do with when. Now we've got to bear in mind that with the new committee system, they'll have to go through a process of setting objectives. The constitution has to be fixed. They have to organise it, do business papers, get it out to the public.

Will it be the first committee? We don't know. All of those things are unknown. So I would rather give a commitment to this particular community that is lobbying at this point of time specifically on an issue regarding their telecommunications. They'll have more issues regarding them because I don't think it's only about the upgrade of the tower. I think there's other— Things to do with, you know, the lines and how fast lines can get fixed and maintenance of communications lines and all that sort of stuff. But I think that I would not want to see it delayed to that extent at this point of time, although I do think that has merit in having it referred to be looked at generally for the whole area in time to come.

I would still like to see Council organise a public meeting for the specific issue of the failure of Telstra to want to upgrade their tower, and then to expand to encompass other areas of the local government area.

Thanks, Deputy Mayor. Just to clarify, because it's not on the screen yet, but the change that was just made would mean that we would be holding the public meeting within one month. And I do doubt that we'd get Telstra and the member and everyone else there sooner than a month anyway. So I'm not sure that—it's not suggested that we wait to have the meeting for three months. That would just be when the final report on the whole area would come back to Council. But the initial public meeting would still be held within one month. I don't like our chance of getting a meeting sooner than that anyway.

So if things are decided at the meeting, we don't have to wait for reports or things like that. So we could just do things anyway without it coming back to Council.

Well, I don't think it'll be a Council decision. I think it's going to be a Telstra decision and a federal government decision about Bilpin in that specific situation, so I don't think that—

But it's not really our decision,

That's the point. That's why

Public meeting was

Suggested. It will be a public meeting, and there'll be a report back to Council in three months. But the report back to Council is not going to solve this issue. It's going to be solved with Telstra and the federal government.

I just think the issue is if it's a public meeting, but it's not a public meeting between Telstra and the community. It will be a public meeting that the Council holds, and I think that's problematic in that there can't be the engagement that the community would want to have with the Telstra representatives, which is why us holding a public meeting at Bilpin or wherever in a venue for them to be able to question Telstra, we're facilitating that. That was the aim of it.

Just want to clarify what's in the motion now because it wasn't on the screen, but yep. Further debate, sorry. If I get it in the wrong order, it's because the windows keep jumping around. I think if I look down the participants list, Councillor Richards is next. Yeah,

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I may have this wrong and I'm reading a news source, but the Hawkesbury Post did push online on the date is the 8th of January, a story where they have communicated the outcome to Brag, and I think it's important if we're discussing this issue to get this on the record, that after their correspondence to the federal minister — the Deputy Prime Minister, and this is in the Hawkesbury Post, okay — the Deputy Prime Minister, who was acting for the Communications Minister, Paul Fletcher, who was on leave, told the Post that their letter from Brag about this issue had seen the Bilpin tower added yesterday to stage two of a list called the Mobile Network Hardening Program, which is $18 million of government money available to fund public carriers to enhance the resilience of their mobile networks in regional and remote Australia.

So Brag, through their correspondence to, well, the representative of the federal minister, has been told, Thank you, Brag, you have advocated for your community and we have listened to you immediately, almost immediately, and it was added to that stage two. I'm just having a scroll through here.

And there's a

Later post you'll see. Well, there may be, but I was having a look at that one there. So stage one apparently was only considered for government-funded towers and stage two is for private towers, and Bilpin are now on the list. Are you saying that's now changed?

It's that they're on a list. They want to be considered for the funding. That's why they want to be able to tell Telstra what they want.

Yeah, and I understand that. But they have been listened to is also very important to put on the public record, that they advocated to the federal government, and the federal government responded, and that's been reported in a local news source. So I think it's very important to get on the table that they're not being ignored, that they are being listened to almost immediately. I actually think that what Councillor Kotlash has proposed is the perfect way to best use this brand new committee structure that we have implemented into this council. It is a public meeting. A committee meeting is a public meeting, as we have so repeatedly put forward to this council, because more than ever it includes those members of the public.

What I wouldn't want to see is council and the ratepayers purse funding meetings for federal or state members for that example to be given a platform on an issue. I think that this committee process that we've done is perfect for that, for us going out there to the community and putting a bill to give platforms to state or federal members, and that way I'm not being inclusive or exclusive of any party is not what we're supposed to do. And if you start doing that now, where do you draw the line on what issues council can run public meetings for in the future? Now , as someone who has a clear and evidence-based track record of delivering for the Bilpin community, this issue is very timely for them, and I'm glad they have an advocacy group where members of their community also have got together and created an ability to represent these issues that are very, very important to them.

And I'm agreeing with the sentiment, so don't get me wrong, I am agreeing with the sentiment. But let's be very careful where we go with these types of notices of motion. I think advocating Council inviting those participants to a committee meeting to address them in something that we're already doing is brilliant. But had the, just say, for example, the Liberal State Member been running hot on an issue and two Liberal councillors brought this to the chamber to run a ratepayer-funded meeting for the State Member to address, I can almost hear the outrage in some other councillors' voices that we would consider doing that. That doesn't take it away from the issue. I've already said very publicly and clearly this is an important issue.

I'm talking about the process, and I think we need to absolutely differentiate between the process and the issue. I think that, I've said it again, it is a perfect way to utilise our committees. I look forward to putting, if this gets through on the amendment, I look forward to actually going through that process and showing that this can work, that this is something that can work for our community. And being open to the public, the member for Macquarie or the State Member for Hawkesbury are all welcome to address these committee meetings on any issues because they are inclusive of everybody. So I would definitely support the amendment up on the board. I think it's the better process to go through for this issue, and I look forward to that having support.

Thank you.

Councillor Calvert.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I support this amendment because, as you know, I've had long-running problems with communications at my place, and many's the time I've dropped out of Council meetings over the last year or so. So I've ended up coming here for most of the meetings because the— Communication up our way is just not good enough. And I really feel for the people of Bilpin who went through a hard time last year with the fires. And when I was out there talking to people, probably the number one issue that kept coming up was the lack of a good communication system and the problem with the towers and how the towers would go out of, stop working because the power was out and how there was no backup.

It's been a big problem. And I really appreciate that people, including the Deputy Mayor and Susan Templeman and now Councillor Kotlash, are trying to address this issue. But like Councillor Richards, I see this as a perfect segue into our new committee structure. This is what our committee structure can do. We can hold these meetings and they'll be public meetings, and we can get the experts to come along. We can invite Telstra. We can invite the local member. We can invite all kinds of people, and we can investigate this problem and be part of the solution. I know it's not our role to fix the communication system, but as community representatives, it is part of our role to facilitate a solution.

And I think this is what our committee could do. It is a serious problem and it needs to be addressed because of the community safety issues, not just in Bilpin. It came up at McDonald Valley and all the other outlying areas during the fires as well. So by putting it to the committee, it would give us a chance to have a longer-term study of this issue. As the Mayor said, I think we could get a— First meeting up fairly quickly. He's put a timeline of three months. Now, I think the committee under our constitution has the ability to ask Council to extend that if it can't be done in three months. So I don't think it needs to be rushed. But with the first committee meeting, there will be outcomes.

If we invite the Telstra people and all the other experts and the members of public who have a lot to say, then we can get outcomes on that first meeting because it's a public meeting. And those outcomes can go out into the community. We don't have to wait three months for it to come back to Council. So it's the best of both worlds. It's both a public meeting in the first meeting, and it's a longer-term solution which allows us to be part of to facilitate the solution. I would therefore ask, Councillor Kotlash, the last line of point two: invite Susan Templeman to address the meeting. This could run into several meetings, so perhaps that should say meeting or meetings, meeting or meetings.

Yes. Yes, I agree that we'll include that. That makes it a lot more flexible.

Okay.

Good point. Thank you. So

Therefore, I support the amendment. Thank you.

Councillor Calvert, can I just ask everyone who's spoken and not wanting to speak again to take your hand down so I can see who's actually outstanding?

Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I'm speaking against the amendment because I think we're, I think we're running... I think we're running two quite separate processes here. There's nothing wrong with the amendment. I don't object to the amendment. It just doesn't carry out the full intention of the notice of motion. I think the amendment has worth in that I think we do need to discuss telecommunications across the LGA. I think we do need to have that discussion with Telstra and with the federal member, because it's their job to provide telecommunications, both of them, along with a couple of other providers. But the intention of the notice of motion is to set up a process whereby the residents of Bilpin, and Bilpin alone, can have this discussion with Telstra, who is currently not willing or not keen to meet with them on their own turf, and the federal member responsible for pursuing this, the member for Macquarie, together in the same space to discuss this issue.

For council to broker, or for council to facilitate and advocate for their community to advance this issue. I think that, I think if this is broadened to a whole of LGA discussion, which I'm not arguing isn't necessary, we're going to end up with a whole lot of discussions. We're going to end up talking about Colo and St Albans and bits of Sackville and Bilpin and Kurrajong Heights, as Councillor Calvert alluded to. We've got communications problems all across the LGA. The purpose of this notice of motion is to talk about one spot, to get it highlighted and to get priority funding for a round of funding that's eligible. Now, if we've got broader problems across the LGA with telecommunications, then certainly that committee needs to be dealing with them, and I've got no objection to that.

And perhaps the deputy mayor and I could add an additional point to the original motion that refers this issue to the Innovation and Partnerships Committee. But the purpose of this notice of motion is for this discussion to happen about Bilpin now, not bogged down in a larger process. And I acknowledge that this is done with the very best of intentions, but I would like council to look back to the original purpose of the notice of motion. We've heard from Brag that communications problems

Are really big issues for them, and after the last summer that we've had, we really need to be cognisant of this. Councillor Richards and I both are both members of RFS Comms. We've both seen how the RFS struggles to make contact with various members, with crews that are out on the ground. We lost that terrible day when Mount Tomah and Lithgow and Bilpin were hit by fires. We lost contact with crews, not for minutes, but for hours. We didn't know whether people were still alive following burnovers because we couldn't make contact with them.

These are very real issues that we need to discuss, and frankly, the members of the community standing on their own turf in front of the service providers are the very best people to make these representations and to tell their stories. There is enormous power in standing in the affected space with the people affected by the problem, telling their stories, and that's what this notice of motion seeks to facilitate. And I think, with the very best of intentions, this amendment loses some of that power. So I can't support it. I hope that we can go back to the original motion.

Thank you. Can I just speak briefly in favour of the amendment? I think that, you know, I think this is an important issue, and I've been following it as well. I think the Deputy Mayor's description of it is correct. We're up to at the moment, that they're on the list, but they haven't actually been funded. I think that Council's got a role through our strategic community strategic plan in looking at these sorts of issues for all of our residents. And what we've got here, I think, are two similar motions. One is that we hold a public meeting sometime soon, I would think, was the original intention. Invite Telstra and the member for Macquarie to discuss Bilpin. One is that we hold a public meeting very soon, invite the member for Macquarie and Telstra to discuss Bilpin, and also start the process of looking at all the other areas that have problems, and then come back to Council with some solutions that Council can implement or advocate from behalf of our residents.

This is not a Council issue. We've got a role as being the people closest to our community who know what's going on, but this is not a Council issue. If the people of Bilpin can't get a meeting with Telstra, I think they need to be out demanding that Susan Templeman get them a meeting with Telstra. That's her job. That's what she's there for. And if she can't, then she needs to get help to get that done. If she can't get them a meeting with Telstra, I don't know that we're going to be able to either.

Point of clarification.

Yes.

That's not, I didn't ever say that they couldn't get a meeting. It's to give Council support to hold and facilitate a meeting. To clarify that.

Yeah, yeah, but what I'm suggesting is if there's some issue with getting a meeting with Telstra, I assume that's why Council would get involved, because it's got nothing to do with us. It's a federal government matter. If Susan Templeman can't get them a meeting with Telstra on her own, she needs us to do it. I think there's an issue there. I don't have a problem with Council looking at, like I said, what we can do for our residents on a whole and what our role is in finding solutions for these problems that are ongoing and widespread. And I think that we should have a public meeting in the very short term to discuss this matter. If the residents of Bilpin need a private meeting with Telstra that doesn't have any other residents there, then I think Susan Templeman is the one who has to go and arrange that, because that's her job.

So I'll support the amendment. Any further speakers on the amendment?

Mr Mayor, could I just make something clear, that this notice of motion has nothing to do with Susan Templeman. She has not asked for it to be brought forward. She has not discussed it. This is a motion. Councillor Wheeler and I went to, earlier last year, rather, not earlier this year, last year, we spoke with the members of Bragg about their concerns within the community. And then we observed what was happening on social media and in the Hawkesbury Post things, and generally we had some contact from people about the issues with telecommunications. I don't know if they've asked Susan Templeman to get them a meeting. I don't know any of that.

Well, why would we move this motion if we don't know if they've had a meeting with Telstra?

No, I didn't. I said I don't know if they've asked Susan Templeman to get them a meeting.

Well, that's what— They have.

No

I mean, you're both kind of out of order, but I mean, I'm allowing Councillor Lyons-Buckett the Deputy Mayor to— The fact

Is we saw an area where Council could facilitate having a meeting because they want to put forward to Telstra their case for getting the funding.

Yeah, I think definitely in that case, if we don't even know if that meeting has already occurred or if Susan Templeman is already trying to get that meeting, I don't think it makes a lot of sense for us

To— Well, I don't think Bragg would have wanted to speak here tonight and ask for our assistance if that was the case.

Right, and that's my assumption too, which is where I started from. But then you came in to clarify that you don't know if that was the case or not. I assumed that no meeting had been able to be obtained, and I suggested that it was Susan Templeman's job to be able to get them that meeting. And I assumed that on the basis of what you just said, that they've written in asking for us to do it. But then you came and said you wanted to clarify that you didn't know if Susan's already tried

No, but you're putting words in my mouth. I did not say they had written to me to ask us to do it. I said Councillor Wheeler and I observed, and we thought it was an area. Given that the resilience of these people is our obligation, given that we don't have a proper framework for resilience in our council that could openly assist them and immediately assist them, given that we should be looking at everything we can do to help our residents to get this, we thought that by council, and in the past we have done this with other issues, and now it seems to be somehow developing some sort of political favour, it is not something asked for by Susan Templeman. It is something that the community want, and we could still check whatever she has done. I don't know, Councillor Richards has alluded to us doing it on her behalf, and that is inaccurate.

Okay. Yeah, thank you, Deputy Mayor. I think that was the point I was trying to make. I wasn't necessarily going where you think I was going, but that's my point exactly. If we don't know what Susan Templeman's done, I don't think it's perhaps the best relationship building to go and call a meeting on a federal issue and just invite her without even checking what she's done or if she's had a meeting yet. I don't think that's going to forge our great relationship with Susan Templeman. And my comment, which stands, was that if the people of Bilpin have not been able to get a meeting with Telstra, they should be demanding, and they want a private meeting with Telstra and them, they should be demanding that Susan Templeman organise that for them because that's her job.

And that's the comment I made. And I don't think that contradicted anything you just said. Is there any further speakers on the amendment? You want to speak again? I

Just wanted to ask a question, if I might. And the question is that would the Deputy Mayor entertain a possible solution whereby the amendment was changed so that the first point said that the first meeting was dedicated to the issue of Bilpin and Telstra, and then the other two points stay as they are?

Words to that effect.

And if so, would Councillor Kotlash be interested in making that change? Deputy Mayor?

It's Councillor Kotlash's motion. I don't know why I would have input into it.

Consensus building, Deputy Mayor. We're just asking if that would satisfy your concerns. Well

I didn't quite get it. I don't really understand what the first meeting would be.

So the idea of these committees is that they would hold a series of public hearings

No, well, the thing is that public hearings is an absurd thing to call it. The thing is, we want a meeting in Bilpin so that they can have Telstra go there, so they can see who the community are. They can speak to the community. I don't think it's going to work to just isolate their issue into a committee meeting, particularly when that's the first meeting of that committee, because we have no idea how any of this is going to work. So no, I would— Okay.

No further speakers on the amendment

Oi! Oi! Oi!

My hand?

Sorry. Sorry, I did call it a couple of times. Just if I don't see your hand, just yell out because the screens move up and down.

That's just why I yelled out. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

Just a couple of points.

You're right, Mr Mayor, when you said this isn't a council issue. You said this is not a council issue, so why would we send it to a council committee? That doesn't seem to make sense. I mean, we are obliged under our community strategic plan to advocate on behalf of the community. Now, that's one of our jobs. And so, to organise a public meeting on the turf at Bilpin, that's the critical thing. It has to be held at Bilpin. Even if, like, you know, the Cabal votes this down and sends it to the committee, it must be held at Bilpin so that the people from Telstra can see the terrain. They can see the remoteness of the place, and they can see the issues. To hold a meeting in the chambers or wherever it may be, and with Telstra there, won't work.

They need to be on the ground at Bilpin with the people of Bilpin. I think, you know, by sending it to a committee, the community supports this proposal to meet with Telstra on their turf. They're just asking us to contact Telstra, to contact Telstra and ask on their behalf. And I can't see anything wrong with that. Whether Susan Templeman's done it, I don't know. I can't see the point in making this political and whingeing about giving someone a platform. I mean, that's all crap. We need to throw that out. This is about communications in an emergency. This isn't about— elections and whatever's going to happen sometime down the track. So to send this to a committee, you're going against, once again, you're going against the wishes of the community.

So by all means send the big global, the global helicopter view of telecommunications in the Hawkesbury LGA to the new committee. That's fine. Yep, go ahead and do that. But this is different. This is a little, this is different, and it's happening now. By sticking it into the new bureaucratic machine so that it will spit out sometime three months down the track, that's not good enough. That's not what the people want. They want a meeting and they want it now. And it's our job to help them provide that. And if we're not doing that, then, you know, some of us don't deserve to be here. Thank you.

Thanks, Councillor Reynolds. Councillor Ross.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I concur with the thoughts of Councillor Reynolds, but I'd also like to point out that the bureaucratic committee to which you've referred would be better described as the Disaster and Emergency Committee rather than the Innovation Committee. I think if we're talking, as Mr

Calvert was speaking of earlier, it relates to resilience and disasters and emergency, not just this particular innovation. I can't see any innovation or partnership anyway, but disaster and emergency is certainly on the go.

Thanks, Councillor Ross. I think the idea of referring to that committee was because this is an issue that's not a council issue and would require some partnership to solve it because, broadly speaking, it's going to be outside

Our own control With due respect, sir, you could say the same about flooding, bushfires.

Councillor Rasmussen.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'll make this brief. And here we go again. Talk about democratic, democratic processes. This , what we are suggesting with the amendment is that the council, sorry, the community members come to council, or wherever this so-called meeting is to be held, where everybody assembles. What is wrong with going to our community? They need this. They've been through hell and back. They've survived it. They're resilient. What's wrong with us turning up and saying, Okay, here we are. Let's talk about this. That's democracy at the local level, not a bureaucratic bunfight that's going to take months to organise. I mean, there you go. That's a perfect example of what I was saying earlier. You talk about an undemocratic process. Well, there you have it in one. Thank you.

Thanks, Councillor Rasmussen. Are there any further speakers on the amendment?

I don't think there are.

No. All right, so I'll put the amendment. Councillor Wheeler.

Is the intention that the members of the community attend the committee meeting remotely or in person?

It's not stated in the motion, and we've given, in the constitution, we've given the committees the ability to have them either by audio-visual or in person.

So I guess that's to be determined. Council could either determine it now, or it could be determined by the chair.

Because it strikes me as being inordinately difficult for people who want to discuss poor telecommunications to attend a meeting remotely.

Yes.

Okay. Being no further speakers on the amendment, we'll put the amendment. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour of the amendment are Councillor Conolly, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Richards, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Tree. Against? Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Lanes-Bucket, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Ross, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Garrow. Declare it carried on the casting vote of the Mayor.

Now becomes the motion.

Right of reply, Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Well, I am disappointed, as you would expect, that the community will have to come down here when they're already facing so many challenges. As Councillor Wheeler just alluded to, they would have difficulty with remote telecommunications. So, in other words, now they will have to come here if they want to have their issue spoken about. I think that's very disappointing.

I do think that we should look at ways. I think now we need to get the committee structure so we can see how it's going to operate. I think, again, to propose doing this was another on-the-run decision, that that's how it would operate and that's what would be best for our community. I think that once the objectives are in place for the committee and the constitution fixed up, that's when the committee should be deciding what they'll be dealing with, what priorities. There was a report asked earlier to bring back the questions of outstanding things, and already they've been pushed back by things that have just come up in another motion. So that haphazard approach is not really the best thing for our community to be faced with.

As Councillor Rasmussen said, these people have been doing it tough. They're trying, they're trying to advocate. They want to have the certainty that they are not going to be left in a vulnerable position. And whereas I think that the committee eventually will start to look at things overall, I don't think this will be of any comfort to the people of Bilpin, who currently were looking for support to go to their community and to help them in what they see as a big deficit in their safety and security. Many of them are still, as you would know, very traumatised by what happened in the fires. And personally, I feel this has let them down somewhat. I'm quite sorry about it, but— We shall endeavour to try and support and assist them any way we can, anyway, I think on an individual basis.

So thank you.

Thank you. With the motion, all those in favour please raise your hand. In favour of the motion are Councillor Conolly, Councillor Zemprovn, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Richards, Councillor Tree, Councillor Kotlash. Against, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Ross, Councillor Brassmussen, Councillor Garrow, add in call your name, Councillor Reynolds.

Four

Against.

I'll call that against and declare it carried on the casting vote of the Mayor.

So I believe that's all the items in open session.

Somebody want to move that we go into confidential?

I'll so move, and also request a five-minute recess.

Okay, well that's a, yeah, so that's a bit difficult . Okay, yeah, let's move. Can we just move into confidential and then take the time that it takes to get into confidential to do what is required? Yep. Moved Councillor Zamprogno, going into confidential, seconded Councillor Richards. All those in favour? Declare it carried.

I now hand over to the Acting General Manager. Thanks, Mr Mayor. In regard to item 16, recruitment of the General Manager, whilst in closed session the Council resolved on the motion of Councillor Lyons-Buckett, seconded by Councillor Calvert, that: one

The quotations submitted by Brian Bell to join the selection panel for recruitment of the General Manager be accepted; two, Brian Bell be appointed as the totally independent person to join the selection panel for the recruitment of the General Manager to carry out functions including: A, assisting with shortlisting applicants for interview; B, attending all interviews with applicants; C, conducting referee checks for preferred applicants if requested by the selection panel. Voting in favour of the resolution were Councillors Ross, Garrow, Reynolds, Wheeler, Lyons-Buckett, Kotlash, Calvert, Zamprogno, Tree, Richards and Conolly. Councillor Rasmussen was absent from the vote. In regard to item 17, regarding the lease to OSR Group Proprietary Limited of the Windsor Function Centre, 7 Dight Street, Windsor, whilst in closed session Council resolved on the motion of Councillor Reynolds, seconded by Councillor Calvert, that: one, Council agree to exercise the five-year option available in the current lease with OSR Group Proprietary Limited for the property known as Windsor Function Centre, 7 Dight Street, Windsor, as outlined in the report;

two, authority be given for the lease and any other documentation in association with this matter to be executed under seal of Council; three, details of Council's resolution be conveyed to the proposer lessee together with the advice that Council is not and will not be bound by the terms of its resolution until such time as the 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 Ross, Rasmussen, Garrow, Reynolds, Wheeler, Lyons-Buckett, Kotlash, Calvert, Zamprogno, Tree, Richards and Conolly. Thanks, Mr Mayor. Thank you. There being no further business, I declare the meeting closed.