27 July 2021 - Ordinary

Welcome everybody to tonight's ordinary meeting. I'd like to start by acknowledging the Darug and Darkinjung people as the traditional custodians of the land of the Hawkesbury, and pay respect to all Elders past, present and emerging. I'll just hand over to the General Manager.

I would 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 provision of any information that is recorded is voluntary. If any person does not wish to be recorded, they should not address or request to address the meeting. The recordings may be made available to other persons where such access is in accordance with the relevant regulations.

The recordings are stored in Council's record management system. For the benefit of any persons who will be addressing the Council tonight, it is expected that you will refrain from making any insult, allegation or personal reflection against any person, present or not, at this meeting. This request relates to both your address to Council and any answers given in response to questions from Councillors. Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Thank you. Are there any apologies?

Is everybody present?

Councillor Ross present?

I was just going to say I can't see Councillor Ross.

Yeah, I think he's just joining now. Okay. Any declarations of interest?

Yes, please, Mr Mayor.

Which item, Councillor

Item 149. 149.

Any other declarations?

No. Okay. Somebody wish to move the minutes from the previous meeting? Moved, Councillor Zamprogno. Seconded, Councillor Rasmussen. All those in favour? Declared carried. There's no items subject to public speakers.

Councillor Gary.

I'll move the recommendation in the business paper, please. I've sent some wording through to Charles on—

So different to the business paper?

Yes, different to the business paper. We'll

Just wait till it comes up and then see if there's a seconder. Record

That, Mr Mayor.

Councillor Rasmussen. Discussion, Councillor Gary? Yes,

Thank you. First of all, I'd just like to congratulate this on coming to Council. I think it was a resolution of yours, Mr Mayor, back in 2016, and it's great to finally see it come to Council. I just see this as another layer of bureaucracy that we just do not need. WesROC was created back in 1973 with the objective to be a voice for the growing area of Western Sydney. This has clearly changed significantly since then. Even our two bigger cities, Penrith and Parramatta, have since pulled from WesROC and decided that it was of no value to themselves, and I don't believe that it's of value to the Hawkesbury either. It's an irresponsible use of Council's funds when today's operations we now have expanded resources for collaboration and funding.

WesROC has been successful in the past, yes, but it's past its time. Western Sydney has moved on, and I think it's time that Hawkesbury Council moves on too. Thank you.

Thank you. Further discussion?

No further discussion, councillors? Sorry, I can't see. Councillor

Zamprogno.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'll be voting against the proposition that's now on the floor. I believe that we should retain our membership of WESROC, and I find Councillor Garrow's motion very curious for a number of reasons. Firstly, Councillor Garrow has never attended a meeting of WESROC. Councillor Garrow has never approached me as one of our council's two delegates to WESROC to ask me whether I felt that the value proposition was no longer there. Councillor Garrow did not approach me to take up any point that was in the report that is attached to this in the business paper to ask if any of the premises or conclusions were incorrect. The business paper lays out a reasonably clear case that although WESROC's role has evolved over the years, is that there is no particularly compelling reason for us to leave it.

It is one of those organisations that we have sole discretion about whether we leave it or continue it. It does cost us a sum per annum. The conclusion that I have drawn is that it does confer value to us. There are a variety of initiatives, particularly in the procurement space, where it has saved us money, and it is also good for councils in Western Sydney to be able to stand And speak with a common voice in ways that other umbrella organisations do not permit us to do. For example, when people have said that WesROC struggles for relevance in an era where we are party to the Greater Sydney Commission or the Western Sydney City Deal, what's the point of WesROC? But the thing is, those other two organisations are effectively organs of government and have constraints in terms of the way that the individual member councils can speak out on particular issues.

It is true that WesROC has struggled to find a new niche for itself, but I can report, and Councillor Garrow was never inquired to determine, that it has been acutely aware of that and has found a number of new niches to not only save its member councils money , but to speak on issues where those other umbrella bodies could not. So my question for Councillor Garrow would be to change our membership of a significant umbrella organisation that we have benefited from for so many decades on a whim without laying out an adequate case, without addressing any of the points that are made in the business report, would be reckless and unwise. It's not as though—

I'll leave it at that, but I'll reserve my right. Thank you.

Councillor Calvert.

Thanks, Mr. Mayor. Yes, I concur with Councillor … I'm quite disappointed that Councillor Garrow should move a motion like this. A letter was sent to all the councillors, and I was just looking it up. It's on June 28th. A letter was sent to all the councillors from the General Manager, or the CEO, sorry, of WesROC, signed by me, which outlined the advantages that we gain from being a member of WesROC. And those advantages are quite significant, and they've been significant over a long period of time. To say that we're wasting our money by continuing our membership, I think just ignores the facts. The facts are quite obvious that we stand to gain a lot by continuing our membership. Now, we're not a very big council.

We're quite a small council. And Penrith and Parramatta are very large councils with very different agendas to ours. And maybe they can afford to go out on their own, but small councils like Hawkesbury, we need to be part of a larger group. We need to gain those benefits of working with neighbouring councils. And WesROC enables us to do that. So of all the councillors that are currently members of WesROC, I think Hawkesbury has the most to gain by staying in WesROC and the most to lose by leaving WesROC. Now, as Councillor Zamprogno was saying, WesROC is different to city deals and the other bodies because WesROC is a member organisation which represents councils and councilors. So we are supposed to be telling WesROC what we would like to do, what advocacy that we want them to undertake on our behalf, what projects we would like to be involved in, and then WesROC runs with that because we direct what WesROC does.

Other bodies around like city deals work from the top down. They don't ask us what we want to do. They impose upon us their will and what they want to do in a much larger state structure. So I think Councillor Garrow misunderstands the role of WesROC, especially as far as Hawkesbury is concerned. And all she's given us is basically an opinion, like, I think we should leave WesROC because it's out of date. I don't know whether she's managed to see all those facts and figures, and I can get a whole lot more which show that we've gained a lot, especially through street lighting, through electricity deals, through a whole range of procurement over the years. There's a whole list of things that we've gained by being a member.

And I would have thought that if she was going to say that our membership should cease, that she would actually give us some good reasons for it. And I didn't hear any good reasons. And I urge councillors to vote against this motion. Thank you.

Councillor Ross.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Through you, with your indulgence, could I ask either or both of our two WesROC representatives, what is the position regarding

Dry waste disposal, red bin disposal, in the coming period, and is there any actual activity occurring within WesROC to , shall I say, put a... Case forward on behalf of Western Sydney Councils to do something as an amalgam, or some other arrangement, please. Sure

I'll allow Councillor Calvert or Zamprogno to speak to that if they wish to.

Thank you.

I'll have a go at that. Now, waste is something that WesROC has been working on for the last couple of years, and the State Government has just brought out a waste strategy in the last couple of months. And a lot of what was in there came from WesROC and a few other bodies around the state. And what WesROC has been trying to do is to get some innovative ideas on how to deal with landfill in particular, which I think is what you're asking about. And there are a few research projects going on at WesROC looking to find the answers. It's not an easy answer, but the bottom line is, Councillor Ross, that if there is an answer, it needs to be found on a regional basis through an organisation like WesROC.

It can't be found on a local council basis through just Hawkesbury City Council. We can't afford that kind of technology, but we can afford to be part of a larger group, which brings in that technology. And at the moment, as I said, research is going on, but there's no answer just yet. There are a couple of trials, and I can keep you posted on how those investigations are going.

Is there anything further, Councillor Ross?

No, thank you, Mayor. That provided clarification for me, and I do appreciate the speaker. Thank you. I

Might just ask one more question for you, and the Deputy Mayor's got a hand up as well. But another question to Councillor Calvert, if that's okay, or Councillor Zamprogno, is how is WesROC's membership fee determined? Is that determined—does the board have a budget each year and the board determines the membership fee? Because I would be interested to know whether we can— Whether we're sure that this current level of contribution is the best level of contribution, whether it could be lower and achieve better outcomes. Just wondering where that comes from, that $91,800.

What I can say is that the fee is not plucked out of the air. It's an increase from one year to the next based on increases in costs. And most of the WesROC staff are now working part-time because there isn't enough funds to keep them going full-time. So it's a real juggling act with the funds they've got now. And research, like what I was just talking to Councillor Ross about, that costs money. But some of the money is used to gain grants from state and federal government. So a lot of the money is used to get more money. And if they don't have the money to apply for the grants, then the whole thing collapses. Now, as I said, the fee is not plucked out of the air. It is a small increase every year.

And if you look at the books, they're all made available to councillors, and if you have a look at them, you find there's absolutely no wastage going on. And I don't think they could manage to do what they do on anything less than what we're paying now.

Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I just had a question first. There was something on page 22 I just wanted to clarify. I can't find it on my iPad, but it was regarding the cost for the city deals. It looked to me, I read that as if that was coming from what would be saved from WesROC. Is that correct, or have I misread that? I just wanted some clarification around that first. It says. .. It’s, yeah, it basically was making out that for 21-22, City Deals would be $25,000, leaving $71,000 available for the remaining of the year. Did that mean that we hadn’t budgeted for Western City Deals, or I just wasn’t sure if someone could clarify that, please.

I’ll refer that to the Chief Financial Officer.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. No, we actually budgeted both for the City Deals and the WestROC membership. So that figure quoted there in terms of the remaining budget is only referring to the budgeted amount for the City Deals.

Thank you

So there’s $71,000 of City Deals that won’t have to be paid. Okay. Okay, right. So we only have to put $25,000 in for that.

Or that’s because I can’t see how we can have paid for 21-22 already

I think the Chief Financial Officer might be frozen.

All right, okay. Or General Manager, somebody else able to answer that?

Yeah, okay. I think I’ve got it now. I think there was ninety-something thousand allowed and we’ve paid out already for, obviously at the start of the financial year, it must be something like that. That’s correct, Mr Mayor. Okay, thank you. The second question was, have the fees for WestROC been adjusted since Parramatta left? Because I know they only just left, and I know that when Penrith left they had to be adjusted and the amounts went up because of one less council.

I’ll refer that to anyone who knows it. Anyone on staff know the answer to that? Not

We might have to take it on notice, General Manager.

Yes, I’d like to take that on notice if the Chief Financial Officer is not here.

She’s in and out.

It’s freezing there. Thank you. That would be good to know because I think that could impact on it. And I think that, I do think it’s unfortunate we probably haven’t looked at this previously as you brought forward in the last term. I remember discussions around it, that we need to, as we’re looking at a number of things to see if we’re getting value for money, and we’ll look at another one later with the River County Council, that we really have to be careful where we’re putting ratepayer funds. And the thing about WestROC that I think, whereas I think it has some really successful programs that it puts out, but I think many of those we could participate in whether we were members or not. Because I recall when Mr Cosgacelli came out and delivered at the start of the council term a lot of tables around the benefits.

The benefits to the Hills Council, who aren’t a member, were actually more than what the benefits to us were at the time. And they had bought into the street lighting program and they were getting the same benefits. And what concerns me is that we’re paying an administrative fee for things that we may well be able to access anyway, because the report states that anything that’s grant funded is that we don’t have to pay to belong to, so we can be a part of that. And many of the other programs are delivered either out of other bodies that we could access directly. I just fear it is an additional bureaucratic level that we’re putting ratepayer money into. And I’ve read the reports and I really, in all honesty, I don’t see where we’re getting the distinct benefit as much that we couldn’t still benefit by just participating when a particular program suits what we need and what we can involve in.

And at the same time, we could be putting some funds Towards programs that other ROCs might be running , for example, the Coastal Councils ROC, which has a lot of programs that we could participate in around our estuary and so on, and we're not investigating those other options. Because now I don't see WestROC as being the pinnacle of Western Sydney voice because of its scattered demographic and its scattered, you know, we're not a geographical grouping as such because there's gaps in it without Penrith or Parramatta, and it includes Lithgow, which is quite significantly different, I would think, in what it needs. And they may like to be part of Western Sydney, but I would still think that many people living there would hope they were regional in terms of that.

I think that it's—there's a number of, when I looked through all the programs that are delivered, and I do think they're valid. I don't for a minute think they're not valid, but for example, the Urban Heat Project is run very well out of City of Sydney runs a really good Urban Heat Project through Resilient Cities and so on like that. And I think there's other things we can access. And looking at the various alliances and collaborative work that have come through the City Deals, I see them more as things that we can't possibly do ourselves, like the Health Alliance and the Agribusiness and the Digital Action Plan. They are all things we can't do ourselves that are based on a specific regional— and all the councils in the ARC on the fringe of the city that have the same needs and are working towards the same goals.

I think that that is what we need at this point of time as we have a growing city coming out towards us. The benefits from having the planning group that works within that, that also includes— Blacktown Council is what I think is quite beneficial, and I do understand that WESROC is an advocacy-based organisation, but I think that that could still occur simply by dialogue. And it's not as if we ever have any issues come to Council and consider, are we going to support the Powerhouse Museum being moved, for example. But then we see a statement go out from WESROC saying Western Sydney councils want this, but we've had no part in that decision or whatever. And then I think it hinges on the political to and fro around that sort of thing.

So I do think it is an organisation or a model that was good for its time when it was needed, when Sydney was growing and it needed that voice. But I think that now there's more effective ways, and that's almost $100,000 of ratepayer money that, as we hear over and over again in this chamber, we are the custodians of that money and we have to be sure we're getting a benefit for it. And whereas I think in the past we've had some value for it, I don't think it's something that we are really reaping enormous benefits for. We had the Regional Strategic Alliance at one point that was getting some good procurement results, but we no longer have that. I still think that there's promise in working with our actual neighbouring councils to do something like that in the future.

And I just think that we need to be looking, and we probably should review all of our involvement in putting our ratepayer money to these organisations much more regularly than we do to keep updated and to make sure that we are being very prudent in how we are actually distributing ratepayer money. Thank you.

Councillors and program, did you want to comment on something or?

Yes, Mr Mayor, I was just going to take up the earlier invitation that was offered as

Sorry, you're muted again, Councillor Zamprogno.

Sorry, my apologies. I was just going to take up the invitation that was extended earlier, as one of our delegates to WesROC, to try and answer Councillor Ross's question.

As relates to waste, I've seen WesROC is extremely active in this space. The hosting of WesROC meetings rotates among the member councils. When it actually fell to Hawkesbury, we had Craig Rewcastle from the ABC's show War on Waste come out and give an excellent presentation. I hadn't seen that kind of content anywhere else, and to bring those stakeholders together into a room and to talk about issues relating to waste was enlightening for me, as was indeed to hear about what WesROC is doing to advocate for the safety of Western Sydney residents as relates to the proposed high temperature incinerator, as indeed it was to see WesROC monitoring very careful what's happening down in the Shoalhaven, and there was a project to take a new and innovative approach relating to waste.

To say nothing of all of the other initiatives that are happening in relation to energy efficiency and urban heat, and all of the issues which I would have thought were of concern to Councillor Garrow, which is why I labelled this proposed motion as reckless. And if this motion were to fail, I'd like to foreshadow my own. Thank you . Thank you. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I'm speaking in support of the motion. I think it's unreasonable to accuse Councillor Garrow and, by association, those of us who support this motion, of being reckless or of not understanding what WesROC does or of not asking for further information about WesROC. One of the things that I will cheerfully give WesROC credit for is that unlike some of our other agreements , WesROC does provide information to councillors, and therefore councillors are able to determine the value that we get from the money that we hand to WesROC. And they manage to provide us with slick publications like the Urban Heat Planning Toolkit, which I think is a great document and really useful. But I notice that it's not just the organisations who belong to WesROC that are in receipt of this document.

It's all of those who have chosen to participate in this program, and there's the rub. Council can participate in all of the programs that WesROC has on offer, whether we are a member of WesROC or not. We can also participate in SSROC programs, and councils like Parramatta, who have looked at what they get out of WesROC and where they stand to benefit, and Campbelltown is a similar council, have done exactly that. So Parramatta has withdrawn from WesROC, has participated in some of WesROC's programs, as I understand, but it's also chosen to participate in SSROC's. Renewable energy program, which has worked well for them because they're no longer tied to WESROC.

I can't fathom really how WESROC can provide a united voice for Western Sydney, because whether it no longer includes all of the councils of Western Sydney. None of this is a debate about the previous usefulness of WESROC. It's about whether this continues to serve our purposes as a council that pays into the organisation. I think it's reckless, frankly, to hope that an organisation that includes only five councils—in fact, four councils from Western Sydney plus Lithgow, which isn't considered necessarily, it's a regional council, not necessarily a Western Sydney council—it lies to the west of Sydney, but that doesn't make Lithgow Western Sydney. And I think people who live in Lithgow would be quite shocked to be told that they're lumped in with Blacktown and Mount Druitt.

I don't see how an organisation that only includes four Western Sydney councils plus Lithgow can now convey the diverse and disparate needs of all of the Western Sydney councils. If all councils can join in for free to get grant-funded projects, then it's actually councils—the five councils who remain in WESROC—who are paying for the staff to apply for these grants. We are effectively subsidising these other councils under the current model. WestROC either needs to re-evaluate its model so that if it wants to remain as an organisation and remain with those staff employed, so that, for example, if you join a grant-funded project, you then pay, for example, 10% fee that covers the cost of obtaining those grants.

And that's a very normal position that councils use, that organisations use when they set up a grant for other people to come into. But it's not reasonable to expect the small councils who remain in WestROC to subsidise the larger councils who use, like Blacktown and Parramatta, who—Blacktown in particular, incredibly well-off council to be, and Blacktown remains in WestROC, but Parramatta, again, extraordinarily well-off council, Campbelltown, coming into these programs, using the work of WestROC that has been subsidised in the background by smaller councils like us. It's lovely to hear that those of you who have gone off to WestROC have had nice meetings with Kate, Craig, Rooty Castle and the like, but that has not translated to a change in our own council function, nor has that information come back to us, apart from you telling us that you went to a lovely dinner and heard from Mr Rooty Castle.

That's very nice, but that's not what is required here. What's required is better functioning for this council and better use of ratepayers' funding. And I'm not sure that we continue to get the same value for money that we could not otherwise get by opting into the WestROC programs that suit us. And that's what this motion, I think, seeks to do. And it contains a specific clause that says that we may choose to participate in projects with WestROC for an additional fee. And I think that's the thing that's important. We can make our money go further by picking the programs provided by WestROC or the other SSROC or the other ROCs that suit us, not the ones that suit everybody.

Thanks, Councillor Wheeler. I might just speak briefly to the motion. I came at this a little bit on the fence. Back in 2016, I moved this motion because we were going full on into this regional strategic alliance and spending a lot of money setting up an RSA between ourselves, Penrith and Blue Mountains. And I saw that those functions were largely being duplicated and that the RSA was meant to be looking for regional savings, savings from working regionally, as well as being an advocacy group. It was our immediate neighbours. So I did feel that this was potentially, at that point in time, a duplication. That RSA obviously fell over and we didn't find any value from all that investment. So we're now at a point where , not comparing, we're dropped to another regional strategic alliance.

My experience with the City Deal is it's a group that has regional councils in it, but it's entirely irrelevant to the consideration of this matter, I would have thought. I attend the mayoral forums for the City Deal, which are very interesting, but they're really just about the airport and what the airport means, as well as a few other infrastructure projects that have been thrown in there. It's certainly not a vehicle for advocacy. It's definitely not a vehicle where we can go and explore other things that aren't already on the agenda. So I, and I'm swayed by the argument at first that, you know, we could just participate as Councillor Wheeler and the Deputy Mayor said in the programs and not pay the admin costs.

But as has been pointed out, we're down to the last five councils in WESROC. It's, you know, if everybody took, and our role is to look after Hawkesbury, but if every council took the view that somebody else could pay for the admin, none of this would happen. None of these programs, the Urban Heat, everything else that they've done, none of that would have happened if the councils didn't invest in it. And every council could turn around and say, no, well let somebody else pay for it, and the result would just be that none of it happens. So I'm finding this decision quite difficult. But I think we do have to bear in mind that it's probably not a case of just participating in the programs. Probably if we pull out, it might fall over.

That's not necessarily the responsibility of Hawkesbury ratepayers, but that might be part of the value proposition we're trying to weigh up. Councillor Reynolds.

Thank you. Like yourself, I find this a bit of a difficult one. I tend to, I speak in support of the motion. And the

Fact that WESROC was developed or came into being in 1973 when, you know, much of the Hawkesbury on the eastern side of the river was bush. You know, it was bush between South Windsor and Blacktown. Blacktown was predominantly farms at that time. Everything has changed. The world has changed, and I think we need to sit back and have a good look at where we position ourselves. In , in the layout of Western Sydney councils and which other councils are in a similar position to us, I can't see us being similar to Lithgow. I can't see us being similar to Blacktown. I can see us being similar to other councils along the river, for example, Camden, Wollondilly, Blue Mountains.

There, I think we need to adjust to a new paradigm where instead of thinking east-west, we need to think north-south. It's the councils that ring Sydney that we need to talk to and we need to align ourselves with. They're the councils that, like us, you know, are trying to protect their agricultural lands, their food-producing lands . They're trying to protect the environment and the river. They're trying to deal with weeds . They're trying to stop rampant overdevelopment. They're trying to promote themselves as the greener part of Sydney. And

So being a part of Wesroc and paying nearly $100,000 of taxpayers' money when we can take part in the programs anyway doesn't stack up for me. I take Councillor Connolly's point that somebody needs to pay money to keep the thing going. I don't see why it should fall on Hawkesbury when we're the smallest. And probably the poorest of the lot of them. And if Hawkesbury was the straw that broke the camel, the straw that broke the back of WesROC, then I don't think WesROC was in a very good position to start with. The fact that , you know, the city deals and the Western Parklands councils are set up by the government is a point, is a point, but it's not just about the airport. It's, you know, there's the livability program, which we're seeing now, you know, we're seeing $18 million coming in here to revitalise our towns.

There's the jobs initiative, health alliance, digital action plan, the standardisation of engineering across councils.

I can see WesROC, it's almost becoming irrelevant unless we think of ourselves as part of the Western Sydney Growth Area. And if we consider ourselves as part of the Western Sydney Growth Area, which I don't, apart from perhaps Vineyard, and I know that people who are speaking against this motion don't like what's happening down around that area, I don't see there's any point in being part of an organisation which advocates on behalf of those councils. I would like to see, as I said, more

Alliance or more communication and advocacy between the councils that are in our position and deal with the issues that we face and deal with the issues that our community wants us to deal with, which is to protect the Hawkesbury. see it grow steadily and sustainably , and not become a part of the horrible black roof sprawl that is rapidly approaching us. So, yeah, thanks, Pat. Yeah, Councillor Richards.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Like the couple of speakers before me, I'm also very torn on this one, and I can't , you know, really decide which camp I'm in right now because I can see the merits of both, and I know that I do need to make a decision. And there's such a part of me that's an economic conservative and, you know, spending ratepayers' money in ways where we may or may not be seeing a benefit is something that I struggle with. But I'm also very open to say that I've never been to a WesROC meeting, so I don't— I mean, I know the newsletters we get and the information that we get and the great things that's done in the past, but is just cutting our ties in such a severe way without maybe a little bit more of an input the right way to go?

I don't know. Should we be going back to WesROC? And I don't know whether Councillor Calvert as the president could give me some insight or the staff could give insight. Does our place at the table there at WesROC enable us to say maybe WesROC needs to look at the model that they've got, and if they maybe change the way they advocate or what they do, you may get other Western Sydney councils wanting to have a seat back at that table and wanting to participate? Because looking at the five councils that are a member there now, I can't see the connectivity really in many different ways, whether it's where growth will go, whether it's geography, what it might be. So I just wanted to know maybe if I could get an answer to whether there's a possibility.

of going back to WesROC rather than cutting things just immediately right now, can we go back and ask them to have a look at what they do, to have a look at whether they may need to change and adapt, and have a look at trying to woo some of those councils back into their fold?

Yeah, I mean, I think it would be open to council tonight, if it wanted to, to

Move to continue our membership for now, but to write to WesROC and inform them that we're considering leaving on the basis that we're not sure of the value of the membership. I

Think that's, yeah, Mr Mayor, it's kind of where my head's at. I don't want to just cut everything right now. I'd rather go back to them and say, look, yeah, ask them those questions. If we leave right now, do you fall over? I think that's a really important part because that then leaves them only with, I think, four member councils from that point. Why are we paying so much money to be a member of the council? Has that significantly gone up with other councils dropping off? Is there a way you can try and get other Western Sydney councils back on board with your concept and your ideas? So possibly writing to them and putting those questions would be my way forward because I think we need to give them that opportunity.

But at the same time, I'm very, very conscious of every cent of our ratepayers' money actually attracting value. So I wouldn't be supporting the motion in front of me now — well, sorry, yeah, what's on the board. I would certainly be looking at writing to WesROC and kind of saying, guys, you need to shake things up a little bit or yes, we probably at that point will be out, but just not right now. Thanks, Mr Mayor.

I probably can't be an amendment if we've got one before us saying to discontinue, probably. Oh no,

I know that. I was just voicing my opinion . Yeah, probably. Whatever happens with this, I think there's also something already foreshadowed, so.

That's right. If this motion fails, we can look at that. Councillor Reynolds, have you been up again or still?

Any further speakers?

If not, we'll go right of reply, Councillor Garrow.

Sorry, I'm going to attempt to put my video on, but my internet keeps dropping in and out nonstop, like Mrs. Galea's previously, so bear with me. I apologise. I'll keep this reply really brief, as I think several councillors before me, Deputy Mayor, Councillor Wheeler, and Councillor Reynolds have really succinctly addressed my response. But as Councillor Richards said, we cannot see the connectivity as it stands right now, and it is not the responsibility of our council to hold up another organisation. So I cannot see how we can follow through with that belief that if we pull out, then they will fall over. That's not our responsibility.

We need better functioning for this council and better value for money, and I cannot see why we would choose to keep paying a membership when we can still participate in the programs that both WSRock and other organisations have to offer that better suit our council and our needs. It's our job to be responsible for this council's money, not our job to hold up another organisation. There's really not much more that I can say that hasn't already been covered, but I do believe that we can be doing this better. I'm not discrediting WSRock and the amazing work that they do. I'm not being reckless because I do strongly support a lot of the programs that they do run, but we can access these programs through other resources and through our own extremely capable council staff as well.

So I just think that it's money that we could be spending better, and I'll leave it up to the vote to make the decision. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. We'll put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour of the motion are Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Rasmussen and Councillor Garrow. Against ? Councillor Conolly, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Ross, Councillor Tree, Councillor Richards, Councillor Zamprogno. Declare that lost. Councillor Zamprogno, you'd foreshadowed a motion.

I did, Mr Mayor. My motion is to effectively the recommendation in the business paper to receive and note the report, and then to add point 2 to ask Council to write to WesROC and inform them that we have contemplated leaving, and that we would require some kind of briefing or case or summary of the value that WesROC represents to our Council, seeing as that some of my colleagues are in a state of doubt on that question. Sorry for being vague. I'm relying on Mr Magillroy to craft that on the fly.

I did just draft something that I was going to suggest, if you're happy with me to read, I'll just read it out to

You. I'm open to the suggestion, Mr Mayor.

So, Council write to WesROC to advise we are considering withdrawing our membership on the basis that we are not convinced of the value and the significant contribution required, to give WesROC a chance to respond and look at its financial model and viability.

I think that neatly encapsulates my intent. I'd be happy to accept that as the wording.

I'll just email this to somebody. Is there a seconder? Councillor Calvert. Any further discussion? Councillor Ross?

No , I'll speak to the motion and reiterate my claim that— What disturbs me very much about this is that we would come so close to dispensing with membership of an organisation that we have had for decades and decades, based on what Councillor Calvert neatly describes as somebody's opinion. I was really disturbed that there wasn't a sentence in any of the submissions that we've heard addressed to any of the issues that were in the report in the business paper. And that report, in my opinion, lays out a very clear case of the benefit that Westrock has conferred to us, doesn't contain even the hint of a recommendation that that value proposition is flagged or failed us in any way. And to have people come within a breath of us abandoning that alliance on a whim this close to an election strikes me as bitterly disappointing.

When, as I pointed out, Westrock is engaged in a series of initiatives that I would have thought were near and dear to the heart of those who just voted for the proposition previously, relating to urban heat, good planning, waste, environmental protection, tree cover, and all of the other things these people have, frankly, with respect, no idea what Westrock does and the value that Westrock confers to us as a small council in Western Sydney. Yes, it has become a patchwork quilt, but it has the ability to advocate on behalf of its member councils very effectively, and I've been pleased to have learnt so much as a member or as our council's delegate to Westrock, along with Councillor Calvert.

So I certainly commend the present motion to my colleagues. Councillor Ross

Thank you, Mr Mayor. In reference to your amendment, shall I say, could the word opportunity replace the word chance, please?

That's on the board now. Just come up. Have a look at that.

Oh yeah, sorry, saying, yeah. Are you happy with that change, Councillor Zamprogno?

Councillor Zamprogno? Sorry, Mr Mayor, that's fine. Councillor Calvert, are you happy with that change? Yep, okay. Change chance to opportunity.

Mr Mayor, in supporting this, as I intend to do, but I just wish to make the point that from my perspective, although I'm very conscious about public money, I'm also very conscious that this council does need to be involved in

Advocacy on behalf of its particular needs and requirements. And we all know that, if not in the next term, but the one thereafter, we're going to face the crunch in terms of landfill,

And there needs to be a combined response to that. Now, if it costs us money in the interim to be part of the activities that involve research or exploration of ideas which are then going to attract grant money by Westrock, I think that is not a waste of ratepayer money, but a reasoned, calculated investment. And I would be very loath to see this council left out on its own. And spending its own money to go and look for other opportunities in other paddocks. There always seems to be something greener on the other side of the fence. The problem is when you get there, it's often a mirage. So I'm happy to support this amendment. So thank you.

Thank you. Councillor Calvert.

Thanks, Mr Mayor, and thank you, Councillor Zamprogno, for putting up this motion. I think I'm going to take on board what was said by many speakers in the previous motion, that maybe Wesrock itself has not kept all the member councillors as informed as it could, and I will make sure we get back and work on that. For example, the CEO of WSROC is currently having discussions with some of the councils in what is now being called, I think, Central City, which is around Parramatta, who form a different relationship with them. And those councils so far have liked the idea of they would be like a subset of Wesrock, but based in Central City, and we would work together as one large rock, but have two components.

Now that is being discussed, but the problem that we struck was as soon as we wanted to discuss this, COVID came along and the meetings we scheduled all disappeared, and the CEO has been conducting the meetings on Zoom and on the telephone, but— Hasn't been able to hold significant meetings with a whole council, only with a couple of councillors at a time. So yeah, we are doing that. And I think the council has just spoke on the previous motion all recognise that WSROC has changed and WSROC has recognised that itself. And two meetings ago, that topic was discussed at WESROC. How should WESROC change to meet the new situation that it's in, that Western Sydney has changed a lot in 50 years? Is WSROC still relevant?

And WSROC itself is now addressing that issue. And some of the councillors who— councils, sorry— who left before have joined us in discussions about rejoining, maybe in a different format, but rejoining anyway. And some of the councils from South West who at the moment don't have a ROC because the Macarthur ROC dissolved ,

Some of them are talking to us as well about joining WSROC through an association-style membership. And so WSROC , if COVID wasn't here, WSROC would already be redesigned. But because of COVID, the redesigning, I think, will take place next year, early next year, and there will be a great change in how WSROC functions and is designed, which I think is what councillors in the previous motion were asking for. So it's already taking place. And councils such as Blacktown have been leading the way with a lot of work on planning, especially about urban heat and about black roofs, etc. They've been the one leading the way and— One of the councillors said that we don't want to end up with all those black roofs like we have down Blacktown.

But Blacktown itself isn't responsible for what's happened there. That's been imposed upon them by the state government. And they are hoping that WestROC, together, we can fight that so that it doesn't keep happening, and especially doesn't happen in places like Hawkesbury and Blue Mountains. And so that is an ongoing fight. And I don't think we should write off Blacktown and those areas with the large housing estates as not being the same as us, because they are the same as us. They just had things inflicted upon them which they would like to fight against, and they would like to join with us in that fight. And I think if we left now from WSROC, it could be a fatal blow to WSROC, because WSROC is right on the cusp of redesigning itself and coming back bigger and stronger.

And all those projects that people were talking about, they only run because people pay membership fees. And we've recognised that the membership fees have dropped, and so now we're looking for the associative members and getting fees that way based on projects. And it could be next year that Hawkesbury decides to actually be one of those associative members. But at the moment that's not available. But if we can hang in for another 12 months or so, I can guarantee you that WSROC is going to be redesigned much more relevant, and it'll be worth waiting for. So I thank Councillor Zamprogno for putting this up. And when you write that letter, I think you'll get a response which I think will explain everything I just said, but in greater detail.

So thank you very much for that.

Thank you, Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Some of this discussion on I'm finding a little bit concerning, particularly the idea that a review of how Council spends its money is just somebody's opinion.

We have made an oath under the Local Government Act that we will carry out a fiduciary responsibility to the ratepayers of the Hawkesbury. That means that we have to, by law, form educated opinions on how that money is spent. And that's what this report urges us to do, to write our, the conclusions that we come to as off as just an opinion, is the arrogance of that is staggering, frankly. We have voiced a legitimate concern that we are subsidising an organisation that hands information to much larger organisations that do not pay for it. To say that we have no idea is the hubris and arrogance of that statement is extraordinary. You have no idea of the understanding that we have of these issues.

And it's extraordinary that you purport that you do and are able to write our opinions off in such a cavalier fashion. I'm not satisfied that this motion goes far enough. It doesn't directly ask WesROC to show that our payment into its current business model represents the best use of this Council's limited funds. It needs a clause which specifically asks WesROC to justify the subsidising of WesROC by the remaining councils for the benefit of larger non-member councils. And it fails to do that. It just says, look at its financial model and viability. Well, I would imagine that they look at their financial model and viability, at least on an annual basis, as part of their organisational function.

Otherwise, we're chucking 90 grand a year at an organisation that's failing to keep its fiduciary responsibilities going. This council doesn't have to be left out on its own with regard to any of the programs that WSROC offers. That's the whole point of this discussion, is that we can still get benefit from WSROC by buying into the programs that suit us, rather than subsidising everything whole of City.

Clearly one of the other problems going on here is that we have no mechanism for any of these third party arrangements to report back to council, and we need to undo the siloing of this information. As I said previously, it's lovely that Councillor Calvert and Councillor Zamprogno go off to these lovely dinners, and I have been to a WSROC meeting and experienced the extraordinarily plush dinner that was put on for the councillors who attended. But that information, apart from WSROC's own communication with us, is not coming back to us in a way that allows us to have a discussion of this, nor are we sending our delegates to WSROC with any parameters around those discussions. And that's a failing of this council, and it's something that really needs to be undone going forward.

What you're asking us to do is chuck another $90,000 at WSROC while it sorts its business model out. I don't think that that's what the ratepayers of Hawkesbury expect us to be doing with our money.

Thanks, Councillor Wheeler. I'm certainly happy for that to be included in the letter, that our particular concern is that we could be subsidising larger councils, the programs they're accessing, without paying towards them. I'm certainly happy to include that in the letter. I think that's a valid point.

And yes, I agree with you also that I don't think it's quite right to say that different—I don't think we should be, anyone should be saying that different councillors don't have an idea of what they're talking about, and so on. We're not here to question each other's motivations and knowledge. We're just here to debate the issues, so we can all just— I did let Councillor Wheeler respond because I did let Councillor Zamprogno go there, so we

Can all just move on

From that and just discuss the issue at hand now. Councillor Kotlash.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I am a bit concerned that we don't have in this particular motion that we will pay the invoice for the $92,000 that we haven't yet paid. I think, and I agree with Councillor Calvert, that we have to at least stay in Westrock for another year to be able to iron out all these problems. My understanding of the benefits that we get from Westrock is that they have done some extraordinarily good things for us, and I don't think this— and I take on board the other things that were said, and I agree with some of them. So let's, in this coming year, pay this money and then have this really in-depth conversation with Westrock about what we expect. And I'm sure that Westrock understand that we're a very small council and we haven't got a lot of money, and we have to be very responsible with the way we spend it.

So I'd like to have a third point to this to allow that to happen, because

If we don't, then I don't know how long it's going to take Westrock to get back to us with that sort of information. And as Councillor Calvert said, that might be a long time in the process of them working out this remodelling. So— So

I'll just check with the general manager. My understanding is that we're not required to resolve in the affirmative if we do want to continue with Westrock. We would only be resolving if we wanted to withdraw. So my understanding is that's what we're saying here, is that we continue to allow the right for them to consider withdrawing. But I'll just clarify that.

Thank you. Through you, Mr Mayor, that's exactly correct.

Okay.

I'll support this motion. Thank you.

Councillor , Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I think that that's an unfortunate way to approach this. I think particularly I fear there's a fair bit of hypocrisy when there's so much criticism of people who suggest writing letters and who say that people try and delay decisions in this chamber. I think this is a perfect example of that, coming back to the very people who raised that against others. It's, as Councillor Wheeler said, it's essentially asking our ratepayers to pay almost $100,000 to prop up an organisation that's undergoing a restructure, which is what Councillor Calvert said that they were doing, that they were going to be redesigning and looking at how they could be better and talking to other councils from other areas.

And I really think we should not . be using our ratepayer money to enable that to happen. If that's what's going forward, then let the organisation go ahead to that. Let us take a decision to perhaps delay paying to belong to that organisation for this year while we consider what other options there are, and let them come back to us with a sustainable model for going forward into the future that is a true representative voice of Western Sydney. It was not that long ago, not that many years ago, that we belonged to the RID program, which was a program for dealing with dumped waste and so on. And people were quite happy to get out of that, and that's left us in quite a, you know, a precarious situation where we don't have access to that sort of a program.

And sometimes I think we have to really look at where our money could be better spent, where we could be actually doing things that help the people of this area, the ratepayers who have issues around various problems around waste and so on. And a lot of the work that WesROC does, albeit good, a lot of it is work that is simply, it's just translating somebody else's work, such as the urban heat strategy, which I know emerged from the Resilient Cities project in the town hall several years ago. I was at the meeting, and they designated various areas to look at various parts of resilience, and that was what the Western Sydney section of that report was given to the Western Area to do that. So a lot of it is work that we can still access from other areas.

And I think simply writing to WesROC to advise them we're considering to withdraw is simply putting off, for whatever reason, putting off a decision that we had a motion in 2016. We have the report in front of us. And as a number of us have raised, we don't see that benefit to our community. It may be of benefit. It's not that it's not of beneficial things. It's that it isn't necessarily of benefit to our ratepayers at a time when we are so stretched with funds that people are going without other things, and they're going to see us paying almost $100,000 towards keeping an organisation afloat because people say, and the president of that organisation says, that for us to withdraw from that might let that fall over.

I don't think that's acceptable. I don't think that that's a particularly good attitude of us to be taking, and I don't think that our community will accept that as a reason.

Thank you. I'll just remind councillors we've already had a motion to withdraw. So, you know, the other option we have, this one in front of us, we could just note the report. But unless there's something else, we don't want to rehash the same debate of whether we should withdraw or not. Councillor Reynolds.

Sorry, I couldn't find the little do-dad. I'm speaking

Against this because I think that we should actually be saying in this that council write to Westrock to advise we are not renewing our membership on the basis we are not convinced of the value of our significant contribution they want us to pay. But we welcome a chance— A chance to rejoin should they decide to restructure. I don't think we should pay $100,000 and then sit and wait to see if we agree we like their restructure. This

Is— sorry, point of order, Councillor Reynolds. I'll just sort of reiterate that we've already had a motion to withdraw, so we're not going to just repeat that

No, I'm talking about this one here. Sorry, it

Just sounded like you were saying that we should write to them and tell them we're withdrawing, which we've already done.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm just pointing out that speaking to the points that have been raised, first off, Councillors and Progno being, you know, horribly disturbed that some people on a whim might have an opinion. You know, that's pretty profound, and that we've just come up with that in the last five minutes when you yourself, Mr Mayor, put this to Council six years ago. You know, six years, a whim that six years long, you know, one hell of a whim. Part of the problem is that we don't physically see the benefits that Councillors and Progno, you know, waxed lyrically about, you know, the benefits to the environment and et cetera, and was horrified that we voted the way we did on the last motion.

Councillor Calvert said, you know, that I was the one who said we don't like the black urban sprawl, black rural sprawl coming towards us, and that those councils had them inflicted upon them by the New South Wales Government. And that's, you know, undoubtedly, you know, true to some extent, but, you know, that's occurred without wanting to be dramatic, that's occurred on Wesrock's watch. They've been there for 48 years, and that has occurred. So I think that's a bit of a problem. And I find, you know, putting the hundred, paying the $100,000 when we have, we have, you know, members, we have our community members without proper access, you know, to town. Their roads have been washed away. Their bridges have been washed away.

Still recovering from bushfires. You know, Council, we have to do so much repair work from the natural disasters we've suffered, and so many people that need help. And here we are going to spend $100,000 for another organisation to restructure and say, well, you know, come back to the party. So I think that I have to speak against this because I can't, in all honesty, support, you know, spending another $100,000 while we wait to see what happens. Thanks, mate.

Thank you. I'll just speak very briefly to clarify that I don't think anyone's suggesting that we're paying for the restructure. We're going to continue to be a member of an organisation that provides a whole lot of programs and research. And whilst we're aware that during this coming year we'll restructure and possibly provide more value in the future. So I just don't want ratepayers thinking we're paying for this WSROC restructure. I don't think anybody suggested that. There's no further speakers. We'll go right of reply, Councillor Zamprogno.

Thank you, Mr Mayor, and I will be brief. Firstly, I need to contextualise this by stating that our membership fee of WSROC is 0.1% of our annual budget or theirabouts.

Secondly, I understand the points that my colleagues are trying to make, and it wasn't my intention to be disrespectful. But the thing that made me cranky is that they were making assertions that were directly contradicted by the report that was included in the business paper. For example, if people are saying that there is no value proposition, how do they answer the statistic that's in this that says that there was an $87,000 benefit as part of our membership of the Western Sydney Energy Program? How do they answer the statistic that we've had cumulative savings of over $145,000 on getting new and more energy efficient street lighting, or that we were able to access $281,000 worth of funding for a credit scheme because of our participation in the Light Years

I'll just interrupt presentation, Mr Mayor.

What's the point of order,

Councillor Wheeler?

Councillor Zamprogno is inferring that we have said that we have obtained no value from WSROC. No one has said that. Our concern is that this doesn't represent value going forward, or specifically value that we couldn't obtain by simply buying into the programs that suit us. No one has said that we haven't obtained value under the programs detailed in the report.

Thank you. So, just for clarification for everybody, the code of meeting practice sets out a number of points. You can raise a point of order if you believe someone is being disorderly and not following the code of meeting practice. Saying point of order, misrepresentation, that's not a point of order. The code talks to misrepresentation, meaning that each councillor can speak once, and they can speak an additional time at the discretion of the chairperson if they claim to have been misrepresented. You cannot speak again after a right of reply, so that doesn't apply in this situation. Councillor Zamprogno

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I was just going to conclude by observing that as far as the statistics that are in the report state, our participation of a single scheme relating to energy efficiency more or less pays or confers value equal to our membership subscription. And there are many other programs that we are members of through WESROC that probably confer similar value. So for my colleagues to assert that, you know, that we are subsidising or that we're throwing good money away, you know, it simply doesn't hold water. And it made me cranky that people weren't prepared to address the figures that are in the report if only they'd read it. So I commend this motion to you. Thank you. Okay,

We'll put the motion. Just wait for it to be taken off the screen. Yeah. So I'll put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour of the motion are Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Ross, Councillor Tree, Councillor Richards, Councillor Zamprogno. Against? Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Sorry, I was present. Sorry, I was for that. I'm just having serious internet issues. That's let Gary in favour.

Anybody wish to move the recommendation? Councillor Zamprogno. Seconded, Councillor Kotlash. Any discussion? Councillor Zamprogno

Yeah, I just wanted to say how very pleased I was to see this completed plan of management and master plan presented. This consultation process has taken well over two years and was exceptionally well received at the time. I believe the number of survey responses that were received were uncommonly high, which only goes to demonstrate the interest and sense of ownership that people and user groups have of Colby Park. It's a very, very heavily used park and, in my opinion, has been a little neglected. I particularly want to thank people like Katharina Gosis, Jessica Rogers, John Good, who's the president of the Outriders Baseball Club, Trent Lupton, who's the president of the Hawkesbury Hornets BMX Club, Gareth Leachman from Arndell School, which sits adjacent and also representatives from Oakville United Soccer Club.

I've spoken to each and every one of those representatives and , you know, their opinion of the first round of community consultation was very, very mixed, and it's particularly pleasing to see many of that feedback incorporated into this new and revised master plan. It really does, I believe, address some of the shortcomings that the original plan had , particularly relating to lighting at the BMX track for storage for gear above flood levels, relating to vehicular access for emergency service vehicles to the BMX track. Lots of really common sense things. And when I knew this was coming to Council tonight, I got back in touch with many of those stakeholders and they expressed their satisfaction.

So that means that in this case, that the process has worked and that people feel engaged and well served by this master planning process. Of course, my lament when we, you know, were midway through this process a year ago, was that there was no funds even in prospect to execute the master plan, and it's been particularly pleasing to see an allocation of $573,000 in the 2021-22 budget to begin those works. It doesn't complete the process, but it certainly shows faith. to the community that we will contribute what we can, when we can, to begin to execute those design elements. So I commend the master plan and the recommendation before you.

Thank you, Councillor Reynolds.

Yes, thank you. Just a couple of questions, if I may.

With the master plan, I understand, for example, Sports Council has carried out work there, concreting and other sorts of things. So will this master plan impact on the Sports Council activities out there, or does it, what's the word, enhance things for the Sports Council?

Further to the General Manager.

I might pass that to the Director Infrastructure Services, Mr Mayor.

Through you, Mr Mayor. The Sports Council currently has and continues to be the manager facility there

The master plan is sort of agnostic towards who is there and who manages that.

Sorry, Mr Rogan, there's an issue with your audio.

I don't know if you want to try turning your video off and see if that... Okay, I'll just stop the video. Yep.

So basically, the plan of management, the master plan, are agnostic to whoever is managing the site whilst it's being managed by the Sports Council. This provides the guidance to whoever's there. It doesn't preclude Council from applying for grant funding or vice versa, the Sports Council providing grant funds through its own auspices, funds from clubs. What it does give you is the framework that any of those funds would be expended down there and in what order.

Thank you very much.

Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I also want to commend the responses that Council received, and it's really pleasing to see that they've had an impact on what's been included in this master plan. Particularly the submissions around providing gym equipment, an off-leash dog area, and an area for teens, which is often overlooked in public recreational spaces.

We've got quite good, I think, at installing play equipment for younger children, but to provide a safe area for teens to hang out in is something that's long overdue. I also note with interest the Football New South Wales submission, where they commend the use of gender-neutral change facilities, and I'll hark back to the ridiculous furore that occurred when Council began putting in gender-neutral toilets, a whole four of them, several years ago, and the carry-on that happened then. And I see now that they are just considered to be a perfectly reasonable expectation of... Organisations like Football New South Wales. We will need to stay on top of graffiti and vandalism in this park. Unfortunately, because of the fact that it sits behind the residential development in an area where people can easily drive in, this does become prey to some antisocial behaviour.

And we know that as soon as that starts, if Council doesn't jump on it really quickly, it gets out of hand. And that's something that any plan of management for this park is really going to have to be on top of. I would like us to be able to provide a better timeline to the public. We know that putting that information like this creates an expectation that Council will act. And at this point, we don't have the funding to see out all of the things that are included. We only have $500,000. Sounds like a big amount of money, but we know that it doesn't go very far. What we've got from this, though, is a long overdue commitment to improve public infrastructure in an area that's still providing affordable housing for young families.

And it's really important that these are the areas that we are pouring limited Council resources into, rather than something that looks attractive for tourists when they drive past. Our responsibility is to provide something that is usable, user-friendly, and really improves public amenity for the people who live in these spaces. I think it's also worth noting that it's unlikely that we would be going down this path and able to provide this level of improvement if we hadn't had an SRV that this Council approved early in our term. We are now coming to the fruition of a better financial management, but far better management of our infrastructure, and that's what this specific management plan for this space does.

Thank you. Councillor Rasmussen.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Mr Mayor, it's really good to see that our Council is investing in these sorts of parks, particularly Colby Park, given the importance it plays to an awful lot of youngsters and parents and so on. And it's great to see that we are pouring investment into that. And also I want to actually say thanks to the residents who paid their SRV so that this sort of investment can be made into these important areas for our LGA. It's really good to see, and that body of work that's gone on there is to be congratulated. But thanks to the residents who paid their SRV to make it happen so that it could be done

Thank you. Thanks, Councillor Rasmussen. Councillors, I know there's an election coming up, but we are talking about whether or not we should adopt the master plan tonight. That's the subject. Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor, and I do support the adoption of the master plan. I think that is a wonderful advancement for that area. We know that the people of McGraths Hill appreciate it, but it's also widely used by people from a number of surrounding areas. I did actually have a question around that, if you could just, if I am able to ask, just about the clean-up of Colby Park. Would that be pertinent to ask that now, given it was a COVID site? I was just wondering, I had asked about the deep cleaning of the park after there was a COVID incident there. I'd just like it on the public record that we have confirmation that that was done, because somebody has sent me photos of things that were there prior to the COVID incident, and they are still there. So I'm just wanting confirmation that the actual deep cleaning and anything around the COVID incident has been completed.

Back to Mr. Organ. So , Sports Council, as they— Mr. Organ, you're having that audio issue Sorry, Mr. Organ. He's pushing ahead. Sorry, the audio is not working again. Mr

Mayor, I'm happy for that to be taken on notice and sent to councillors to have confirmation of that, because there is some concern that deep cleaning would have meant that all rubbish would have been removed from the site, and rubbish that was there prior to that incident is still there. So if that could be looked into, that would be good.

I'll let Mr. Organ have a go at answering now; he's got the video off.

So, advised by the Sports Council that the BMX area, the hard surface area, that was the area that was subject to the deep clean, the contact areas. Council staff attended the site during that week, or the following week, and also did their normal litter collection. If there's anything that's remaining there elsewhere in the site, happy to go and look at that as well. I would confirm that none of the toilet facilities and so on were open during the contact hours that were advised when the COVID positive case was there, though. So those areas weren't cleaned, subject to that deep clean. It was the areas in the BMX starting area. Okay,

Thank you. Councillor Ross. Thank you

I'd just like to ask a couple of questions. In response to the immediately given answer, does that mean that this facility will at all times be open, should— People choose to frequent it?

Yep. I'm not sure what— you need to give some clarification. Open when.

Well, the incident about which you just referred, I understand occurred on a weekend. That means that the facility, I gather, is not fenced, or fenced off or closed off, so that it could be accessed 24 hours a day, if somebody chose to do so. Is that right?

Are we talking about the BMX facility?

The whole area.

So, through you, Mr Mayor, the whole area is not secured against people coming in and using it. There are a number of fences and gates and areas to restrict access for vehicles and /or entry onto fields. Basically, the area is open during the day, and at night-time those areas are lit in some areas. In the master plan there is future lighting to go in there, but that would be controlled. Similarly, the amenity blocks and so on at the moment are not open to the public during out of sport hours, I guess. That's something that we would look at in terms of usage down the track

Thank you. I'd like to ask a second question. The amount of funds that are allocated in the forthcoming financial year, do they refer to the eight items listed on the—or does it refer to the eight items listed on page 25 of the master plan? And is it envisaged that all of those eight items will be able to be... Funded with the allocation that has been indicated

Councillor Rossi, are you referring to page 25 of the report, or — Yes.

25? 25?

Of the council report.

Colbee Master Plan document.

Consultation , section 3, consultation

Page 25. The

Main priorities identified by the community?

So, I haven't got the master plan in front of me, I've got the report open. What the main works that would be undertaken, or priority works, are the drainage, car parking and earthworks, what I'd call the enabling works, is where the bulk of the $573,000 would go that's allocated initially.

That's the necessary works to enable a lot of the other activities to actually take place. So it's kind of a sequencing issue that we've got to get that right first.

Right. When will you be providing more detail for that so the public doesn't get these unwarranted or unnecessary expectations of manna from heaven?

Through you, Mr Mayor, we've been at pains in all the community consultation to indicate that this is, you know, it's the enabling document, it's the guidance document only, and we would need to look at funding down the track for implementation. It's very difficult to hose down expectations. What we would do as the next phase of this, once the master plan is adopted, is we'd now develop up that detailed program of works for the expenditure of the $573,000. But this was a necessary step to be able to start that.

Can I take it from that, sir, that you are indicating that there is nothing in the long-term financial plan for this particular site or projected funding for that?

Through Mr. Mayor, at this stage we haven't included any, or there isn't any available funding for that. What we've indicated in the report itself is that we do need to start to build into the long-term plan, not just for this site, but for any of the sites where we have master plans, a funding mechanism to be able to deliver those over the longer term. So at this stage we haven't allocated that, but the intent would be to go back and look at our financial capacity to be able to deliver these things down the track.

Councillor Calvert. Yeah

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just wanted to point out that so far no one has spoken against this motion, this recommendation, and in my opinion, therefore it should have gone through on block. Discussions and questions are things that I believe should take place elsewhere, such as in briefing sessions . What should happen in these council meetings, in my opinion, is we have a debate and we make decisions. So I'm getting rather tired of listening to people, six or seven people agreeing with a recommendation, which if they agreed with it, in my opinion, they should have just let it go through on block. Thank you.

Thanks, Councillor Calvert. Any further speakers? Favour or against? Not being any, we have a right of reply, which I think was Councillor Zemprogno. That's correct, but no need, Mr Mayor. Thank you. Okay , we'll put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. Favour, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Ross, Councillor Tree, Councillor Richards, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Zemprogno, Councillor Rasmussen. Against? Nobody. Councillor Garrow absent for the vote. Declared carried.

Next item. So we've got someone move the items on block, which is 1.4.1 and 1.4.5 . Moved Councillor Richards, seconded Councillor Kotlash. All those in favour? Against? Declare carried.

Receive anything here?

No.

I'll move the recommendation.

Moved, Councillor Wheeler. Seconded, Deputy Mayor. Yes. Any discussion? Deputy Mayor, or no, you're just moving it? Did you want to speak? Sorry, Deputy Mayor.

Councillor

Wheeler moved it. Okay.

Councillor Ross.

I'm going to draw the eye of Councillor Calvert. I have a question. I'm wondering who is going to pay for the survey work that's been done? Is it the beneficiary of the land swap, or is it Council, please?

For that to Mr . Mifsud.

Thanks, Mr. Mayor. The applicant in this case, which is a company called Stick Holdings, will pay for all those costs, including the survey costs.

Thank you. Thank you. The second question I have is, I note that the survey work is outsourced. Why is that the case if there is already a survey team employed by this Council, please? For that

Mr. Mifsud

Thanks, Mr. Mayor. Our survey cost, as far as these go, are usually outsourced to a private organisation. Maybe Mr. Organ can answer the question around the other survey work that the other Council staff do.

Yes, Organ . Certainly, the Council does employ a registered survey, which is a necessary requirement for doing these types of works. A scab engineering surveyors who are adequate for our engineering works, but then they are not registered surveyors for the purposes of property boundary pegging

Thank you. Any further discussion?

Item for reply, Councillor Wheeler

Thanks, Mr Mayor. The only thing that I find a bit strange about this matter, really, is the objections from regarding the access to the Crown waterway and what must surely be little more than a goat track that goes down to the river. That seems to be the reason for this building of a whole new road through, according to what, if the legend on the map is consistent, is through existing vegetation. The whole thing just seems to be a bit of a fuss over not very much at all to access a road that is probably very rarely used. I think we just need it to go away, really. Clearly, the person on the property has put their shed too close to the existing road and now has to go through this expense of putting in another piece of road. Seems like an enormous kerfuffle for no gain on either part

Yes, I agree. Put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. Mayor, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Ross, Councillor Tree, Councillor Richards, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Garrow. Declared carried.

Next item is 143

Deputy Mayor. Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'd like to move a motion that I've sent through to the minute secretary and Mr McElroy.

We'll just wait till it comes up.

Is there a seconder? Seconded, Councillor Wheeler.

Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. It's essentially what the policy is that's in Attachment 1 here, including the changes around facilities and so on that were raised by Councillor Zamprogno. It has an alteration to Section 11, which I think brings it in line with our current council policies around emissions reduction and so on, in suggesting, in fact requiring, that the provision of a mayoral vehicle will be a maintained electric or hybrid vehicle. And then, additionally, I think that as this is a ratepayer-funded vehicle, rather than, you know, for example, council vehicles that are part of a salary package or something, it's provided by the ratepayers, I think that also the other slight changes, most of that section is the same.

It's just regarding—and I had wanted to bring this forward in 2000 and I think it was 19 or 20, and unfortunately it went through on block, and so we didn't have a chance to speak despite requesting to—about keeping a logbook. I think that the mayoral vehicle, and I believed this, in fact, when I was the mayor and I kept a log of my private travel and I paid for petrol for my own travel, that I think that that's an accountability mechanism that is in the model, or I assume it's in the model. It was in the mistaken policy that came forward the other week, and then it was amended back to this one that was changed around 2008 or something like that, I think. I'm pleased to see that it's dropped off, that there should be a new mayoral vehicle every year that was introduced by a former council, and that's totally unnecessary.

thing to have. So these are just a couple of amendments that keep it more in line with Council policy, that the Mayor would be driving a lower emissions vehicle or a no emissions vehicle, and that that would obviously require a charging point and keeping a track of private expenditure associated with that vehicle. Thank you. And no issue with the other changes in the policy.

Any further speakers?

Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. If I could ask the Deputy Mayor if she would be willing to just a very, very minor point, but 10.1, the first bullet point refers to under the facilities provided to councillors, refers to a councillor office. I think it would be prudent to include the word shared in that sentence. The councillor office, as we are all well aware, is something around the size of the average broom cupboard that contains a desk and a very small table and a couple of chairs. It's hardly an office that multiple councillors could work in together. It's certainly not an office that's provided to each councillor. And I think if we're going to allow incoming councillors to thoroughly appraise themselves of what they might be offered in this position, then we need to be clear that That an office that you could come to regularly to meet with constituents, or to have a reasonable expectation of using, say, a day a week to prepare the business paper, would probably not, certainly wouldn't work if more than one councillor took it up at a time.

This isn't the sort of facilities that's provided to some other councils where each mayor is given a separate office that they can adapt to their own use. So if the deputy mayor would consider the inclusion of that point, I'd be grateful. I think we have to be very careful about how we talk about this document. I see that this has been misrepresented already on a Facebook post about a rationalisation of councillors' perks. There aren't any perks in this policy, and the personal use of the mayor's vehicle is frankly the only perk that was on offer prior to this policy. Everything else is a reasonable attempt to provide us with facilities to do our job. There's been, I think, a good attempt in here to rationalise the amount of stuff that we're given, some of which, you know, modems , for example, and some standalone IT equipment that some councillors don't wish to use.

I think the rationalisation of that has been really useful. I think, though, that it's going to have to come with a caution to new councillors that should you use your own phone, for example, and claim back the costs of council calls, or your own IT equipment, you are leaving yourself open to— it will make it much more difficult should you be in receipt of a GIPA application, for example, or some other means of justifying your use of resources to have chosen to— To not use a specific Council device for specific Council work. I applaud the idea of moving away from personal use of the Mayor's vehicle. Ratepayers shouldn't be funding the use of that vehicle for personal use. It's not a salary package, as the Deputy Mayor said, and we've seen this abused before.

We've seen a former Mayor charged with DUI in the mayoral vehicle, driving himself to his job in New South Wales Parliament. We've seen a former Mayor charged for doing more than twice the speed limit in the mayoral vehicle and then voting to keep that vehicle for his family's private use for the six months in which he lost his licence. That is not a reasonable use of a ratepayer-funded vehicle. This amendment puts paid to that and means that the vehicle can be used for the Mayor conducting Council business, and that is a right and proper use of a ratepayer-funded facility. Thanks. Thank

You, Councillor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. As the mover and sponsor of this initiative, I mean, it's pleasing to see it come back to the chamber. I expressed some displeasure that we deferred it, but that was merely because it robbed us of the opportunity to get it exhibited and then enacted in time for the election. Fate has decreed , because of the delay of the local government election, that that is no longer a problem. And we now have ample time to see this exhibited and come back and then enacted in time for the election, which is very pleasing. As far as the particular further amendments that are being proposed by the Deputy Mayor, amendments relating to the use of the mayoral car, I feel a little blindsided and I also feel for you, Mr Mayor, in the sense that— In your defence, I think you would find it difficult to pass my comment on this question yourself , so I'll rise to your defence if I can.

I have never, as a person who's quite keen for frugality within the council, to make sure that those resources that we are given are employed prudently , I never particularly had a problem with the fact that the mayor had a car and that it encompassed both official and private use. I think the additional private use that's incurred in the use of the mayoral car is usually incidental. I don't know that mayors were abusing the provision of a car to go on driving holidays around Australia. I think generally the use tended to be local, and I think that there is generally an understanding that the privilege of having that resource is used prudently. The administrative burden or overhead of having to maintain a log, I think, could be seen as vaguely insulting to a mayor who's been not only elected by the community but by their peers to that office.

So, you know, I do feel torn about that. I would have preferred to have seen just the recommendation that was in the business paper and the provision of resources policy as it stood to be provided . I'll reserve my vote for or against based on further commentary. Thank you.

Thank you.

Councillor

Calvert.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. To clarify, what constitutes official business? If, for example, you were coming into council to do work in your office, that's official business, which means the car would have to already be at your place to be able to use it. So you would have had to take it home the night before, even though going home is not official business. This whole thing about only using it for official business is very messy. I don't see how it can be enforced or policed, and a logbook certainly won't do it. I'm thinking that this is a bit over bureaucratic. And as Councillor Sam Progonos said, I don't believe that recent mayors have overused this chance to use the car in any way. I think I was always careful about how I used it, and I'm sure you are as well.

And perhaps rather than going through this logbook fiasco, maybe it just should be recommended to the mayor that it only be used on official business, but allow them the scope to decide what that is. Because as I said, otherwise you're going to have to end up driving your car into the office to pick up the other car to then go back to a meeting at Bligh Park, which to me sounds quite ridiculous. So I just have a few reservations about what's in that amendment.

Thank you, Councillor Reynolds. Just ask everyone just to remember to put their hands down when they've spoken, just to make it a bit easier.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. It's obviously obvious that some people haven't.. . I've only worked in the public system, rather. I mean, every business that has a business vehicle has to keep a logbook, and it's not that onerous. Believe it or not,

Driving to work, when you leave home to drive to work, you are actually working, and when you leave work to drive home, you're actually working. I'm not sure, but you used to be covered by workers' comp to and from work. So the idea that you have to change vehicles to do this, that and the other is just, like, ridiculous. Keeping a logbook is pretty straightforward. There's no big deal to it. You know, you go to council, you go to council. You don't go to council, you go to see Aunty Beryl, then you're going to see Aunty Beryl. It's private. It's just a simple notation in a book you keep in the glove box. I think it's common sense. It's transparent, what the public want. I congratulate the Deputy Mayor for specifying an electric or hybrid vehicle.

I think that's the way we're going to go in the future, and I think, you know, I think in probably two terms' time , there wouldn't be an alternative to an electric or hybrid vehicle. I hope there wouldn't be an alternative anyway. So, yeah, I support this. Thank you, sir.

Councillor Kotlash.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I don't agree with these amendments. I think that it's very presumptuous of us to say that this is what the public expect. I think we should put this policy out on public exhibition and we'll find out what they expect, or, you know, we'll get some feedback. I think that the position of Mayor is a very busy one, and I would have thought that ..

There wouldn't be that much of an expectation in the community that the mayor had to be so, you know, to keep a logbook and be so pedantic about their activities. I mean, it seems to me that the mayor can go from so many meetings in one day that it's, you know, I think this is a bit onerous. I think we should just leave it as the recommendation in the business paper and we'll see what comments we get from the community, and then when this comes back to us, then we can make that decision. And if, you know, if it turns out that everybody expects the mayor to be so precise and to this level of detail, well, so be it. Thank you.

Councillor Lyons-Buckett, do you want to speak again?

I'm not sure if it's up to right of reply. The other hands that are up have already spoken. So

Is this your right of reply, or— No

It's not. It was actually my response to Councillor Wheeler that yes, that's fine, because she did ask for something else to be included. So I was just answering that, which was around the councillor room.

Shared councillor office, yes.

To say yes, that's fine. I was just trying to get that in there. Thank you.

Councillor Richards. Yeah,

Thank you. Just briefly, can I please ask the staff if they have any idea of the cost of installing a charging station at the council premises, please? Yeah

Refer that to General Manager.

Through you, Mr Mayor, I'd have to take that one on notice unless the Director City Planning, as part of our work on electric charging, has an idea on that front.

No. Sorry . The Deputy Mayor?

There's one downstairs. Councillor Ford had a hybrid, and there's a plug-in point down in the underneath car park. Thank you.

Thank you. I think so far, in listening to the debate, and I've been very happy to sit here with open mind and see what is put across. I think the person who's made most sense so far on this one is Councillor Kotlash, and I'd be very happy to put the policy forward as it is and see what feedback comes from the public in that regard. I'm also a little concerned. I think we could safely say that the mayor, as voted by the other people in the chamber, would, in most circumstances, be doing the right thing by community and ratepayers. And I think we've got to then ask, if the mayor leaves home—you know, this is real life circumstances—the mayor leaves home, he goes to the office, or he or she goes to the office.

They've got a call from preschool. One of the children is sick. They've got to leave the office. It's a private matter. Go pick up the child. On the way back, they've realised there's a post at the post office for them to pick up. They've got to go pick that up. Realised they left their laptop at the council chamber. Go back to the council chamber, get that. These are real-life experiences where they're going, this logbook creation thing could just be a nightmare of overburden of— You know, adding extra to what's a busy role. So I actually agree with Councillor Kotlash's perspective on this. Let's put this to the public and see what they come up with. Thank you.

Point of order, Mr Mayor. Yes. Sorry, would it be more appropriate to move—well, if my desire was to move an amendment, and the amendment was the recommendation in the business paper, would that be an appropriate mechanism, or would you prefer to see this fail and for me to foreshadow that as a second motion? Yes , you should be. I think that can be moved as an amendment. So in that case, it should be. If that's the case, then I'll move an amendment, and the amendment is simply the recommendation in the business paper.

Is there a seconder for that? Seconder, Councillor Kotlash. Okay. Councillor Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'll speak against the amendment, in that I'm very, very disappointed. First of all, that councillors clearly haven't read the policy or what's before them, because it doesn't ever say you would have to drive another vehicle to the mayoral office. That's just absurd. It says that the vehicle will be supplied for use on business, professional development and attendance at the mayor's office. And anybody would know that in any workplace where you have a logbook and you have to record things, it's not every single little journey. The— It would be just general use. In other words, if you're going to drive to Brisbane, then you would record that you are taking the mayoral car to Brisbane or to Kiama or to anywhere, to Melbourne, wherever you might be going, you would be recording that that's what you were doing.

I think that to ignore putting out to the community that we should be encouraging the mayor, the civic leader of our community, to drive an emissions-free or low-emission vehicle is really disappointing, especially from councillors who purport to support emissions reduction and then to not support this. Without the amendment takes away the opportunity to tell our community that we have policies in this area and that's where we're heading and that's where we'd like to go. With the previous motion, the inclusion of the logbook and so on was not even my intent. It was simply what was there in the previous business paper, which was incorrectly put forward, and I just chose to leave it there. So really, I would have preferred to vote the other one in seriata than have an amendment which eradicated that.

But so be it if you want to send that message to the public.

Councillor Reynolds, sorry, Councillor Garrow,

Sorry, Councillor Garrow. I'm just going to leave my video off, sorry, because it just keeps cutting out. I'm just baffled by this whole pushback on the logbook, the mention of the logbook and the so-called onerous work that it would involve. I mean, in my years of employment, I've had to fill out a logbook for a work car on many an occasion. And Mr Mayor, you could probably vouch for this yourself as an accountant, the necessity on holding a logbook for work vehicles. I just, I don't see why there's so much pushback on a vehicle logbook. It baffles me.

Thank you. Look , I'll speak just briefly just to that point, because ultimately I'm currently in the position of mayor. By the time this comes back and is adopted, it'll be the next mayoral term, you would think. So it may or may not apply to me, depending on whether or not I was successful again in having the trust of my colleagues. But just to correct a couple of—first of all, if that's what the community wants, then I think that's what the community wants, and that's what we should do. So I'm happy, noting that we've put this policy in exhibition many times before and never had that feedback. That that was a point I don't recall ever seeing it in a single submission any of the times this policy's been on exhibition.

But if it's changed, if community expectations have changed, then we should respond to that if that's what the submissions are that we get. Just to clarify a couple of things, though, as an accountant, I'll speak for a moment. There's no—when you're keeping a—the way that read, keeping a logbook does suggest you need to keep a logbook of every trip. It doesn't just say—didn't say if you're going to state or out of your area, you keep a logbook. I think that would actually be far more reasonable than day to day. And for Councillor Reynolds' information, driving to home and driving from home is not official business. It's not for business purposes from a tax point of view or any employment point of view, driving to and from work.

You are covered for workers' comp in some industries, but certainly not deductible travel or business travel under any consideration. And to Councillor Garrow's point, yes, that's correct. Many people do keep logbooks, but they keep them for 12-week periods that then last for five years. They don't keep a logbook of every single trip they do for the full year. That's incredibly uncommon. So, look, and the final point I'll make is that the way this has been currently written and the way it's applied to Councillor Lyons-Buckett and to Councillor Calvert and to Councillor Ford and Bassett and so forth is that it's been part of the package for the mayor. And if Council wants to reduce the package for the mayor, that's fine.

That's up to Council and the community. But I think we should acknowledge that that's what it is. It's not just an administrative change. It's the fact that in the past, private travel was covered for the mayor in the vehicle and in the future it wouldn't be. That's obviously up to Council and up to the community. But let's not pretend that we're just making an administrative change that was not made when the deputy mayor was the mayor, despite holding the position for two years. This change was not in force or ever made. It just needs to be made now. Maybe that is because of change in community expectations, and that's why I'm happy to go with the amendment. And if it comes back , then this is really a huge concern, we can look at it again when it comes back.

Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I'm speaking against the amendment. I think it's a perfectly reasonable expectation that the mayor keeps a justification of the use of a ratepayer-funded vehicle. We do that with our phones now, for example. We are required each month to submit documentation that states that the use of our council phone and the expenses incurred relate to council business, and we are required to pay the $85 or whatever it is that's incurred for a private phone call. This is a point that was added by the staff, not by the Deputy Mayor, and I think that that therefore properly reflects the expectations of the organisation rather than simply a political manoeuvre by councillors. Vehicles are provided for business purposes with caveats on them.

My mother spent many years as a palliative care nurse in the community. She was given a vehicle to use. The conditions of that use were that she could drive it to or from home, so to her office, and then out to patients and clients' homes, back into the office and back home again. After about eight years, they changed the rules and she was allowed to stop at a shop on the way home. It was very exciting. But that was a publicly funded vehicle. These are perfectly reasonable expectations. It's reasonable, in fact, that if the mayor is using the vehicle for private purposes, that— They pay for it. That doesn't mean that you necessarily have to have an extra vehicle, but in the same way that councillors are recompensed for driving to a site visit or a community meeting or similar, then it is reasonable for the mayor to pay for the expenses that would be incurred by driving that vehicle for private purposes.

I think that's a perfectly reasonable expectation of someone in a civic office, in a vehicle that's funded by ratepayers. The mayor is paid around $80,000 a year. It's not an insignificant amount of money. The provision of a vehicle that has unlimited private use, as it currently does, represents a significant bonus for whoever is elected into that position. And I think we need to acknowledge that. And I think the people who are supporting this amendment need to acknowledge that they are asking for the public, the ratepayers of the Hawkesbury, to continue to pay for that additional money that is provided to the mayor to use that vehicle for their own purposes.

Thank you. Councillor Calvert.

Thanks, Mr. Mayor. Back in the days when I was permanently employed, I used logbooks all the time. I'm very familiar with them and I know how they work. And they sometimes have to be very intricate, showing every trip and the time that you spent there, etc. And all they do is they're not productive. In the end, you're relying on that person to tell you where they've been when maybe they weren't there at all. A logbook doesn't solve that problem, if you know what I mean. It's really just— Bureaucracy, it's another layer. It makes the mayor's job even more difficult than it should be. And when we ask the mayor to fill in a logbook, what we are in fact saying to the mayor is, we don't trust you.

We want to see where you've been. We want to see how many kilometres you did. And for me, that's a real insult to the mayor. The mayor is someone who is there in a very trusted position. We've elected them to be in that spot, and we should trust them. And I trust the mayor. I've always trusted mayors to do the right thing, and I trust our current mayor as well. As far as the vehicle goes, I don't think whether it's an electric or a hybrid vehicle is actually part of the mayor's provision of facilities. I think what is provided to the mayor is a car or a vehicle. Whether it is hybrid or electrical, I think is something a decision council can make separate from that. All that is provided to the mayor is a car, and to put that it must be electric or hybrid in this document, I think is the wrong place for it.

We can move another motion later, and I'm personally in favour of having a hybrid or electric vehicle for the mayor. I think it's a great idea, but I don't think it belongs in this motion or this amendment. So I'm happy to support the amendment as it is, and I hope we can discuss electric vehicles at another date. Thank you.

Any further discussion? If not, we'll put the amendment. Just wait for that to come down on the screen.

Put the amendment. All those in favour of the amendment. Councillor Conolly, Councillor Ross, Councillor Tree. About right of reply. We're putting the amendment, Councillor Lyons-Buckett. So in favour are Councillor Conolly, Councillor Ross, Councillor Tree, Councillor Richards, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Kotlash. Against? Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Garrow. So the amendment is carried. Any further discussion on the motion now that the amendment has become the motion? Don't we go right of reply, Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Well, that's very disappointing because I think that, first of all, everyone misunderstood the logbook provision. Someone could have moved to just remove that, but retain the fact that we do show our community that our civic leadership is prepared to show. I

Just want to say, just a point of order there, Deputy Mayor. It's very disrespectful for you to come on the record and say everybody misunderstood because people didn't agree with you. Well, no, many

People misunderstood, and they've put the whole emphasis on the logbook. If people didn't like the logbook, someone could have moved to remove that and still retain the push to show our community that we lead by example by having an emissions, a low emissions vehicle, which I think that we're committed to, and we've said here before that we're the big supporters of reducing the emissions and getting it down. And formally, the policy said that it would be of a fair lane or that requirement. It has always specified things. It used to specify one car per year, and all of this is a good move forward. There was never any suggestion that any mayor was doing anything wrong with it. That wasn't my suggestion whatsoever, and I've never said that.

And it was more about accountability, which we hear in here over and over: transparency and accountability. But it appears to be highly selective, and that's very unfortunate for our community because you can't have it one day and in one item and then not have it in the next. So we've just had our first item. We've had a bit of a reverse thinking in the second item, and I'm sure it'll flip again in a later one. So in some councils they just have a vehicle for the use of councils and the mayor. Some mayors have very fancy vehicles. It's all different, and this is our policy, and this was an opportunity for us to show true leadership because we, like it or not, and no matter what any of you— If you think about climate change, and I'm going to say it again, it is time for us to take action.

And we just blew a chance of saying to our community that we're prepared to put something in writing that means that we go forward with that. So what a disappointment to those councillors who pretend to support emissions reduction. They don't support it. That was our chance. It won't come back to the community until the policy comes up again. And I just think that's really highly disappointing. It's obviously people working more on a personality basis here than on what's really good for our community. And I think that I would have been happy to remove the logbook and keep the other bit. The logbook wasn't the focus. The focus was emissions reduction, leadership, true leadership in our community.

For people, if we want people to follow us and go down the path of sustainability and emissions reduction, that's exactly what we should have done. But sadly, we have not. Thank you

Thank you, Debbie. There's a few allegations in there about people working on a personality basis instead of what's best for the community. Would you, could you either tell us who you're talking about or withdraw the comment

Mr Mayor, I don't think that's a fair thing to make. We've had Councillor Zambrano earlier on say that. Councillor Calvert said to Councillor Garrow was just raising an opinion. You can't just— what I'm saying is that I think some of these motions get voted on personality, and that's my opinion. I'm putting it out there.

That's your opinion, but you're questioning— It's not an allegation . You're questioning— Excuse me, I've got the floor at the moment. Now I'll come to you in a moment, Councillor Reynolds, with the point of order . So the code of meeting practice is quite clear that you're not to make statements regarding the motivations of other councillors, which you have done. So I'm asking if you'd like to withdraw that statement about the motivations of other councillors, or at least— I withdraw it,

Mr Mayor, if you exhibit some consistency with it, and if you apply it to all councillors equally. Thank you.

Thanks. We'll consider it withdrawn then. Point of order, Councillor Reynolds? I'll forget it, mate. Okay, no point of order. We'll put the motion, all those in favour of the motion. Councillor Conolly, Councillor Ross, Councillor Tree, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Richards, Councillor Kotlash . Against? Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Garrow. Declare it carried.

Next item is.

1.44, the Environment Committee minutes.

Moved, Councillor Richards. Seconded, Councillor Kotlash Any discussion?

Deputy Mayor.

You're muted, Deputy Mayor.

Sorry, I'm sure you all love that. I just wanted to raise an issue about the second item in the Environment Committee. I'm just wondering if the councillors on the committee actually do any research about what's going on, because this was a resolution from November 2020, which was a direction to set some targets about the zero litter to ocean, which is a policy. It is a policy that has many actions of what to do and how communities can do it. That is what zero litter to ocean is. So now we've got this go around back and forward. Again, it's coming back about something. To me, it is just farcical. It's embarrassing that our community sees us having this back and forward of something that is clearly not articulated properly within the community.

It's something that we should be looking at, and what we really should be looking at is the targets that we're setting for that. When we resolve to put our in-principle support behind this policy that exists, it was to lobby the state and federal governments to

Provide— Sorry, Deputy Mayor, just before you go on, if you hadn't seen the business paper, and it's maybe not that well named, the item, but it's not about the zero litter to ocean policy. It's about Council had asked the committee to look into a zero litter to river policy.

Oh, a two river, yeah, river, zero river. It's the same thing. It's a river. If you're on a river, it's the ocean if you're on the ocean. It was brought up in the same resolution, which was referred to the Waste Committee and the Sustainability Committee to set some targets around that and to look at ways that we could be involved. It was mainly an advocacy role, and it was to put the in-principle support to try and get the 5.7 billion dollar funding over 10 years to be able to implement some of these strategies. So somehow that's got lost in translation, and it's come back again, and now we're going to go and ask the community what to do about a policy that already exists, that was brought to Council and approved in principle.

So I'm quite concerned that I'm not quite sure. I thought that the idea of having councillors on the committee was that they would work and understand around these things and to do more work to do with them. But this has just come back with what can only be said to be a blatant misunderstanding of what the original resolution that sent it to the committees was.

Yeah, I have to agree with that. I might actually ask the staff to comment. My understanding is that Council resolved to adopt the zero litter to ocean policy and referred to the committee whether it was possible to have the zero litter to river policy, and we had a report back to the committee saying, Look, there's a lot of problems with why we shouldn't have a zero litter to river policy. It's a very big deal. And the committee said, All right, well, we don't want to report back to Council that we just can't have one, so why don't we come up with a list of things Council could do in the area of zero litter to river, not zero litter to ocean. But if you're suggesting, Deputy Mayor, we've already got a policy on zero litter to river? No

I didn't say that. I said what we adopted was in principle support for the zero litter to ocean, which we adapted to be zero litter to river. Rivers run into the ocean, you may know, and that means that that would mean it's the same policy, isn't it?

Well, it's not the same policy at all, and I'm not sure why it would have been referred to the Sustainability Committee if you'd already adopted the policy

No, we adopted in principle support for a policy that exists. So I'm saying the actions to achieve these sorts of targets exist in a document that already exists. So I'm not quite sure why we're reinventing it when there's an existing document, that's all.

I might refer that to the Director City Planning for comment, and perhaps it might be an idea to publish the business papers with the minutes, the business papers of the committees, or at least add a link to them or something so the councillors can read before they get here. Because certainly the report to the Environment Committee from staff was that there is no zero litter policy and that it would be too difficult to have one, but I'll just let the Director City Planning comment.

Thank you through you, Mr Mayor. Yes, so it might be a matter where we might need to come back to Council to clarify the position. So there was a resolution to look at the zero to litter policy that was being promoted by the state government, and at that point this might have been caught up in one of those items as we were taking items from existing committees to the new committee structure, waters the direction of Council, and that's why it's come back to this new committee to gain some guidance on that action. But I think at this point in time. From Council staff point of view, we're trying to work out what are the specific actions Council will consider or could consider in terms of reducing litter to rivers and/or to oceans.

Thank you. Thank you. I will just clarify that on page 63, it's called Zero Litter to Ocean Policy, and that's what was being spoken about, or that's what we, as you would say, that is what we would believe was being spoken about, because that's what the original motion was actually about. So apologies if I had that wrong and it's actually changed due to something else going on at some point.

Thank you. Councillor Wheeler. Oh , sorry, Councillor Richards—no, sorry. Yeah,

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I had some really positive remarks to say, but after being completely insulted by Councillor Lyons-Bucket that we don't read things, to then find out that she hasn't read this one is just—I mean, we've— I have read it.

Thank you, Councillor Richards

I have. Yeah, thank you, Councillor Lyons-Bucket. I guess also if you're so passionate, the words you used were so embarrassing or so concerned about the issues in this, you could have put your hand up and actually been a member of the committee instead of protesting about it. And you could have also actually joined in the meeting that we had a couple of weeks ago and shared your concerns and— Point of order. Point of order.

Yes, yes, Deputy Mayor.

Councillor Conolly, would you like to actually exercise your—what you just said to me about people making accusations against other people and— So

What's the point of order? What's the point of order, Deputy Mayor?

The point of order is that Councillor Richards is conducting an assassination of me based on saying things that are entirely untrue. I have read every word in this report that was given here, thank you very much, and you're allowing her to make out—and I can see the people grinning about that. It's hilarious, I know. But

I'll take your point, Councillor Lyons-Bucket. Councillor Richards, we'll just stick to the topic at hand. I think it was a bit hard to do that, Deputy Mayor, because you were so sure of yourself and it turned out you were wrong. It was a bit hard not to comment, but Councillor Richards—

No, I was not so sure of myself. Thank you , Councillor Conolly. Point of order.

What's your point of order now, Deputy Mayor?

My point of order is that you should withdraw that comment because that is

Just erroneous— There's no point of order. Councillor Richards has the floor. Yeah,

Thank you. I find it quite hypocritical that we can be insulted, but when in raising a matter of fact to clarify that insult, we're continuously pulled down on a point of order. I find that quite alarming, actually. But the intent of my initial speech was to actually say that I thoroughly enjoyed participating in the environment committee meeting the other day, and in a very bipartisan way, I want to thank Councillor Kotlash, and she's a very humble councillor, and she seriously doesn't profess her knowledge in this sort of area as much as she should. She's very much about keeping it quiet, but I was utterly impressed with her knowledge, her in-depth research she did leading up to this meeting, the way she conducted herself.

I was impressed that we had quite a number of speakers come in on the subject matter who were very knowledgeable and actually contributed greatly to the topic and the debate. And I just want to say it was actually a really fascinating meeting to be a part of. I'm happy with the direction it's taking, and I want to thank Councillor Kotlash for really allowing us to have an insight into the knowledge and skill she has. And I know that that's taken a lifetime of learning and training and working to acquire those skills. And I think it's important because there seems to be narrative out there in the community of this us versus them mentality. But I'm sorry, here you are having a Lib saying to a Labor person that you have done a really good job.

And Councillor Kotlash, you have. You've done a great job on that committee. I think the process is working well. The way we've included anybody to come and speak rather than just the selective committee members under the prior process is fantastic. I know that they got a lot of joy out of participating, and I think it was a wonderful experience. So thank you, everybody. I think this committee process moving forward is wonderful, and again reiterate that if any councillors want to be so passionate here in it, why don't they just join in the committee themselves? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Councillor,

I'll just clarify for the record that I just found the resolution on the 10th of November 2020. Council resolved to provide in principle support to the Zero Litter to Ocean policy, but then requested the Environmental Sustainability Advisory... Advisory Committee and later the new Environment Committee to investigate the introduction of a zero litter to river target by 2030. The committee considered that whether or not we should introduce a zero litter to river policy, and the report came up from the staff saying that without significant new Commonwealth and State Government funding, it wouldn't be possible, and that we should just invite Council of that. The committee decided we didn't want to just go back to Council and say, no, don't introduce one.

We'd rather come up with some reasonable actions we could take now, even if not a full zero litter to river policy. So that's how we've gotten to here. Certainly not a case of just investigating solutions or targets to a policy that already exists. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. A couple of questions, if I could please. I'm wondering when the report on the natural environment is likely to come to Council.

So we'll come to the committee first, Director City Planning.

Thank you through you, Mr Mayor. At this point in time, I don't have a timeframe for that.

And have we allocated

Additional staff resources to provide that, or will those resources come at the expense of some other project that will have to be deprioritised?

So we had a conversation at the last committee around the projects that are currently on the list to be done by the staff, but the intent was looking at the work that we're already doing so that we're minimising the impact on, you know, work already going on. So essentially there is an ability to do this work without having a major impact on those projects underlying.

But we don't have, we don't have a firm resourcing commitment or a timeline

To

Do either of those things .

And

Therein lies the problem, in that this committee, there's a lot of back and forth in this new committee process that is —

Where it works well, will allow Council to draw on expertise within the community, and where it doesn't, will provide a continual churn that may simply delay things that could have come to Council as part of a notice of motion, for example. And I'm concerned that the additional staff time that's taken up with the discussion of these things in a committee structure to then come back to Council for a further discussion and then to go back for the staff to write a report that then goes to the committee that then comes back to Council simply adds another layer of complexity. And what we're already seeing with the Heritage Advisory Committee is an additional time and staffing implication that is slowing things down.

Sorry, just point of order there, Councillor Wheeler. We are talking about whether or not to adopt the minutes and the two recommendations in them, so the discussion of the structure is not relevant to either of those two matters, one and two before us.

Well, that's convenient, isn't it, Mr Mayor?

Well, I'm sorry, we're not—I'm just not going to, as I said, we're not going to rehash the committee structure. I know you didn't like the committee structure. We're not going to rehash it every time we have minutes come up to Council.

Good. So we'll just continue with a process that isn't actually giving us anything, that we don't have the staff resources for to actually provide. Surely raising that is a legitimate concern, but that's all right, you just pretend that it's not a problem. No worries. The other thing that I'm concerned about, though, and I attended this meeting, and the minutes do note that I addressed the committee. There is a loss of information between what happens in the committee meeting and what comes back to the council. So there were significant contributions from community members into this committee, and some of those were valuable. And I don't think the community members do that just because they enjoy it.

I think they do it because they want that information recorded and passed on to council so that it can be used in the future. And unfortunately, that isn't recorded here in the minutes. And that information, if people are simply going back to the minutes rather than wading back through the podcast of that meeting, that information is being lost, and that's a real shame because people's time is limited. It may not have been desperately relevant to, or what you exactly wanted to hear about these things, but it's useful information that comes from the community, and it should be recorded and it should be passed on to council in a format that can be searchable later on for council to use in its processes going forward.

So we heard really useful information from Jared Faint about the Dinner by the River and the commitment to that being zero waste, and we heard about stopping waste at the... At the

Front end, so that if you don't put out—if you put out material that can be composted, for example, rather than plastic that has to be collected and recycled, it's far easier to run a zero waste event. Now, that's not reflected anywhere in these minutes. He may not have talked directly about zero litter to the river when he was talking, but the information was relevant to keeping litter out of the river, because if we don't create the litter to start with, it doesn't get into the relevant waterway. So what we've done in this process is lost that contribution from that member of the public that took time away from his business to come and speak to us, and that needs to be rectified.

Thanks, Councillor Wheeler. I'll just talk to two points there before I let Councillor Kotlash speak to the matter. The first one being your point you've raised about whether or not we should expend the resources to have this report. That is exactly one of the key reasons we changed the committee structure, that Council has an opportunity to make that decision. In the past, committees were calling for reports, staff were writing reports for committees without Council ever having asked staff to do that or endorsing that expenditure of resources. What we're doing here is giving Council the chance to say, before Council staff go away and deprioritise something else or go away and do this work, does Council want to endorse that recommendation from the committee that it should happen?

So that gives Council an opportunity tonight to decide whether or not it does have priority, rather than just delegating that responsibility to some committee members, some of whom were just completely unelected members of the public to make that decision. That

Isn't true, Mr Mayor. Committees did not have the capacity to direct the staff to carry out work. That is untrue. You're

Out of order, and it is not untrue. There was many, many times when I looked over committee—when I looked over business papers, and there would be reports from staff that would go on, sometimes for years, on a matter that Council had never asked the community to even look at, that they would generate their own discussion, and there would be business papers that staff had written with reports that staff had written every single meeting for that business paper, and Council laws, as Council as a body, had never endorsed that body of work or suggested that it was a priority, and yet Council staff were being required to write reports for those committees and generate business papers every time they met.

The staff wrote those reports for the input of the committee, not at the direction of the members of the committee. That isn't how those committees

Worked. No, Councillor Wheeler, that's not correct. Those matters were generated by the committee. They were not. There were many times we would, and I remember you, you getting very upset that the council at some point, a former council, decided not to take any more advice from the Heritage Advisory Committee, for example, about Windsor Bridge. That was because the Heritage Advisory Committee was asking council staff to write business papers, to compile minutes about its advice about Windsor Bridge, when council had never asked it to do that. That's just one example of a committee that was generating its own business without a council direction, and that did take staff time, maybe not as much staff time as this, but this one's coming up to a recommendation to the elected body.

Then

Perhaps the Liberal councillor who

Was on that committee could have directed the committee in 2010, I might add, not to do that. The Heritage Advisory Committee has never directed council to write a report in the time that I have chaired it, so your statement is factually incorrect.

Well, I don't believe so. I've seen many business papers that have items where the committee themselves have generated items for discussion, and that's been then reported on meeting after meeting. Mr Mayor, is this a private debate ? No, I've just given— Yes, I've just given Councillor Waller a lot of extra time there, I'm sorry. Well

I don't think you are, but—

So you're now out of order, Councillor Rasmussen. You don't want that, so you can please be quiet. So that was point one I was making of those two points. One was that this is giving council an opportunity to decide whether it wants staff to go away and do this work. That's one of the advantages of the structure. And I've actually forgotten what the second point I was going to make was now, so that's okay. We'll move on. Thank goodness for that. You're out of order, Councillor Rasmussen. Just being quite rude. Councillor Kotlash. Can I ask a question? No, Councillor Kotlash. Thank you. Just got to put your hand up, sorry, Councillor Reynolds, and wait to be able to call.

Okay. Right. You won't be surprised that I've forgotten half of the things that I was going to say too. Look, the first thing, though, I do remember is that with the zero to litter to oceans or rivers or whatever waterways, let's call it, just to keep everybody happy, we were quite

Disappointed

That the staff had recommended that we don't, that we didn't have, without any significant grant funding, we really wouldn't be able to do this work. And I think because of the deliberations that we had in the Environment Committee, we were able to actually keep at least this issue alive, if not that whole policy and that whole direction that was put to Council in the broader zero to litter oceans policy. So I think that that was a good outcome from the Environment Committee. So what we've asked is that Council, you know, be provided with what capacity we do have to keep this issue alive. It's a big issue and lots and lots of people worldwide now know that, you know, the amount of plastic in oceans is just unacceptable .

So it's, you know, it's upon us to keep this issue going. And I think we've requested that also we review future opportunities for Council to partner with other people. And like Councillor Willer said, we had some really excellent contributions from people in the community, and that has worked. So I don't know why everybody's getting terribly upset about that, but never mind, we'll move on. So I think , I think the Director of City Planning made it clear that the other part of the recommendation about the

Component of the conservation and restoration of our natural area strategy was going to be fitted into staff time. And we had that debate in that committee as well, how we could actually bring together a lot of things that were already at our disposal. We called it a desktop study. So what we tried to do in the committee was to pave a way forward that wasn't onerous on the staff, and I think that's a really, really positive thing. I think it's a real step forward. So I don't think we're going around in circles. I think we're actually moving forward, and I'm quite happy about that. It mightn't be very fast-paced, but we're in a better position now in terms of describing our natural environment than we were before, and that's a tick. It's, you know, as I said, it's not miraculous, but I think it's an excellent step forward. Thank you.

The second point I was going to make before was just around your comments around the submissions from individuals being lost. I think we should probably investigate that. I think we only want potentially what we could have is the minutes of the committee coming back, but with submissions attached, transcribed and attached. That might be quite valuable. So take that on board and see if we can make that happen. Councillor Calvert?

Actually, that's exactly what I was just going to say, that submissions from the public... were always meant to be recorded and included. So I think we need to polish up on the minutes, the way they've come back so far, because we want to encourage the community to have an input into the decision making. So I would ask the staff to have a look at that so we can repair that problem. And we can do that without, you know, shouting and getting hysterical and saying the whole committee system is a failure just because of that one issue. What we need to do is address that issue and see if we can solve it. I'm sure we can. The other issue is that if you're a guest in these committee meetings on Zoom, you don't really get a way of participating unless you've said you want to make a submission.

And the idea of the committee structure was that all people who were present would be able to join in to some extent. And I think Zoom is hindering that process. If we're all in one room and a member of the public could put their hand up and say, I want to say this or that, and at the moment that's not working too well with Zoom. So I think we need to look at that as well, because it may be that Zoom is going to be around for some time. So, yeah, there are some bits of tidying up to do with minutes, but just because there's some small issues to tidy up doesn't mean we throw the baby out with the bathwater. I think, as Councillor Kotlash has said, and as the Mayor has said, this system is starting to work well, and I think it will serve us very well into the future.

Thanks, Councillor. We did actually, at the last Environment Committee, we did have a couple of speakers off the floor that hadn't registered, so that still did work on Zoom, but I do take your point. It may be a bit clunky. Deputy Manager, have a question.

Mr. Mayor, I just wanted to raise something, just if I could, with regard to the minutes and the presentation of the minutes , that I reinforce what Councillor Calvert said, because I don't — from what councillors who were in that meeting are saying, it's not what's written in the minutes. It's a totally different thing. I'm reading the minutes that say zero litter to ocean, and it's about consulting the community about what council might have the capacity to do. So that isn't what councillors who were in the meeting have said was on in the meeting, and so therefore I would hope that we could have an actual translation, like you've just said, particularly of community input if people do written submissions as well.

But I see a major disconnect when I read this, and I did read all of it, that isn't what came across what being councillors have said. So there's something wrong with what's happening in the committee and how that's transferred into this, because that isn't how I read it at all. I read it that in a particularly — I won't go over it again — but just to reinforce that, that if there's some move to have a different system of this coming back, particularly to make sure the correct wording is used of what's been discussed, that would be really good.

Sure, we can look at that. At the moment, it's set up the same as the council minutes, so you do need to have the business paper with you to read the minutes, the same as you do for a council meeting. But we can look at making that easier to read, or including the business paper in the minutes might do the trick. Or the

Business paper, yeah.

Yeah. Being no further discussion, I don't know who moved this item now. I think it was Councillor Richards. Right of reply, Councillor Richards? No? All right, we'll put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. Councillor Conolly, Councillor Lunsbucket, Councillor Ross, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Richards, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Samprogno, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Tree, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Garrow, declare it carried.

Next item is notice of motion one. Moved

Somebody. Councillor Lyons-Buckett, seconded Councillor Wheeler.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I think that this is very timely, actually, because I believe the government has made an announcement either late this afternoon or sometime, I just saw something flash on news on my screen, that they are going to move to finally putting out some mass vaccination clinics. So we had brought this forward in the hope that we could help facilitate the vaccine rollout to enable some sort of council facilities to be offered as suitable venues to be used for that. When I was a young person, of course, they were rolling out the Saban vaccine, and I remember that it was always the civic facilities where you went to have the vaccinations, in big numbers of people going and having that.

I think that we could be contacting, I assume it's either New South Wales Health or some part of the government, to offer the use of a council facility for a vaccination centre or perhaps even investigating whether the showground would be feasible. I don't know about that. The second and third parts are around ensuring our staff have access, or trying to get our staff to have access to vaccines as they get offered the flu vax option. It would be good if the same thing went around the vaccines, and to ensure that they are entitled to special leave to go and attend a vaccine appointment. I think that we would all be on board with doing as much as we can to promote as many people being vaccinated as possible.

And if we can do anything to assist to facilitate that, I think that we should be putting up our hand and saying that we can do that to assist our community and particularly to assist our staff.

Thanks. Any further discussion? Councillor Kotlash

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Yes, I totally support this notice of motion. I'd just say, though, that when I read it, I just thought this was a given. I would have thought that all of our facilities would have been, you know, it's like when we have a disaster. You know, if the state government said, you know, have you got a facility, we jump and say, yep. But anyway, I fully support this, and let us hope that this COVID situation starts to ease, and let's hope lots of our staff get vaccinated and are safe. Thank you.

Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, yeah, look, this notice of motion is basically exactly what it says on the tin. It's an attempt by Council to make our facilities available. So that a mass vaccination centre can be rolled out in the area. What we know when people travel to places is that even with the very best of intentions, they stop. So they don't go straight to the vaccination centre necessarily; they might buy petrol on the way home, they might buy an ice block or a gummy bear or a drink. And every time they do, it's an exposure outside the LGA, and that's what we really need to minimise. We also need to make it easy for people to get vaccinations that are close to their school, their place of work, their kids' school, where they've got to get their kids from, their home, just so that this becomes a really, really easy thing to do.

There's been enough nonsense about vaccinations out in the public realm. Let's not make it harder for people to get vaccinated than they would: I'm booked in for a vaccine. I've got to go to Nepean for it. That's fine. It's 40 minutes, I suppose, and I won't stop along the way. But I've got the capacity to do that, and that isn't the same for everybody. The points about getting our staff vaccinated means they can do it with a minimum of disruption both to their work lives and to council services. But it's also a signal by us as an organisation that we are taking this issue seriously and that we want our employees to be vaccinated on council's time because we take it that seriously. So it's a signal to both our staff, but also to members of the public, that council is behind this vaccination program as a means of us getting on with life with COVID and doing that as safely and as simply as possible.

And if hopefully other organisations can then take that on board as well and follow our lead, then that would be terrific. And if we are providing Some sort of facility that people can use more easily so that other businesses can avail themselves of the service, then I think that would be a really good thing too. This is about us being both a responsible employer, but also a responsible community leader.

Councillor

Calvert.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'm in favour of this motion as well. I was just wondering, though, with Item 1, which is about a physical resource , one of the problems that we seem to be having in our community at the moment is that a number of people are reluctant to get vaccinated. And maybe rather than just a physical resource, maybe we can offer or use our media presence, our social media presence, to encourage people to be vaccinated. I was wondering whether the mover and the seconder would consider adding that to point 1.

Yes, I'm happy to have that.

What exactly would we be moving? Oh,

That Council uses its online presence to encourage people in our LGA to become vaccinated as soon as possible.

Words to that effect.

Okay.

Is that okay?

Okay with Deputy Mayor and Councillor Wheeler.

I'm comfortable with it as long as that's all we say. I don't want Council to be in a position of editorialising information about vaccination. We're not in a position to do that at all. We don't have the qualifications or the understanding to do that. That's not our role. So as long as all it says is that Council encourages people to get vaccinated, I'm comfortable with it. But if we start picking one vaccine or telling people to go and get AstraZeneca because that's what the government has said, no.

Yeah, I'm similarly concerned that we don't have access to any of that information that the state government has access to, and it's really straying outside our role. Not even, you know, at times the federal government, state government, not saying the exact same thing on vaccinations at the same time. I would be far more comfortable if we didn't go there. We could certainly, I think if Council was of a mind without having anything to put in the motion, we could, you know, indicate that we'd be happy for Council to start sharing some of the health advice on Facebook, literally sharing posts from someone else. Sorry, Deputy Mayor.

Mr Mayor, sorry, I was just going to suggest that perhaps we would tie that in if our council facilities were to be used, that then we could make an actual, if we were to be using council facilities, then we could have an accompanying thing, because then it would be in our jurisdiction to be holding vaccination clinics. Whereas now at the moment, it is in the hands of pharmacies and big hubs where they're doing a doctor's whatever. So I think I'd be happy to have a social media campaign around it if we are actually having it delivered in our facilities.

And can I just ask a question then to staff on that point? Is that required to be in the resolution, or in the case that we did use our facilities, could we then go and share the fact that we're using our facilities without a specific council resolution tonight that might be confusing?

Through you, Mr Mayor, we certainly wouldn't need a specific resolution to that effect. That would be an absolute given at our end

So that's trying to steer the conversation too much, Deputy Mayor. Are we just leaving the motion as it was in that case? Yep. Okay. Sorry, were you finished speaking, Councillor Calvert, or you have another question, or—

I just wanted to follow up that it seems like some councillors are turning this into ‘been her’. It was a very simple request that we put out a statement on our Facebook page and web page that council encourages local people to get vaccinated. Full stop. No health details, no one vaccine is better than the other or anything like that. Just go and get vaccinated. Three words. That’s really all I’m asking for.

Councillor Richards.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I’ll be very short and brief because it’s a very difficult topic. You know, looking around the Zoom screen here, none of us are qualified doctors or medical professionals, but what we must do is use our elected voices to encourage people to get vaccinated. So I’ll be supporting this notice of motion tonight, and if anyone’s listening to any of us in any capacity, please go and get vaccinated. As the health people say, and also elected representatives higher than us, it looks like it’s going to be the main way that we can get back to some sort of a normal life. And I’ll put my hand up and say my kids need to go back to school. This homeschooling is very difficult for a lot of people.

Please go and get vaccinated. I’ve had my AstraZeneca first shot, waiting for my second shot. I actually rang my GP yesterday with the new health advice that you can get it sooner. I’ve done that. I’ll be getting that very soon. Please, everybody, go and get vaccinated. It is as simple as that. Thank you.

Okay. Any further discussion? Right of reply, Deputy Mayor.

Just briefly, thank you, Mr Mayor. I expected everyone would be on board to do this. It's really just around awareness, and as councillors have said, we do encourage everyone to go out and get vaccinated, and we all have to work together to do everything that we can. So we have facilities; if they can be used, then we should be making , not waiting for the state government to ask us whether we should use them, but actually offering them to say. I do just draw to the attention that there are some people who are really keen to be able to access local vaccination. Not everywhere is doing it. Not all doctors can do it, and not all pharmacies will do it either. So I think having a central location would be really good in the coming months if they want to roll it out in a big way. Thank you.

Thanks. Put the motion. All those in favour of the motion, please raise your hand. In favour, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Ross, Councillor Carver, Councillor Richards, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Tree, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Garrow. Declare it carried. Might just propose we have an adjournment for five minutes, given we've been going for a few...

So we'll move on to item 147. Councillor Kotlash there.

I might be slightly early, am I? So 9.25.

Councillor Kotlash, you ready for item 147?

Move that way. Is there a seconder? Thank you.

Seconder for item 147.

Seconded, Councillor Reynolds. Discussion, Councillor Kotlash.

Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Change is never easy, especially for an institution that has been around since 1948, as has the Hawkesbury River County Council. But I really think that it's time we had a good look at the structure of HRCC to see if we can get a better, more efficient and cost-effective way of managing weeds. Let me say up front that there is nothing wrong with the county council model per se. It's just that I don't think that it suits our weed management aspirations any longer. I'd just like to make three main points. The first point is that HRCC is top-heavy, it's overly scrutinised, and it duplicates administration. As you can see from the information that I've supplied, HRCC is quite a small organisation, with only 12 or so employees, two of which are purely administrative.

It is governed by eight councillors. If you wanted to look at this from the perspective of the number of councillors per employee, to get the same proportion of governance as HRCC, this council would need 187 councillors to oversee our 280 or so employees. That's what I call top heavy. I can't think of another small, albeit important function of council that is given such scrutiny as weed management. The county council model requires its councillors to meet every two months and to scrutinise operational activities that they would otherwise not do in such detail in a multi-purpose council. Also, the level of compliance auditing has been described as unnecessary. The county council model also necessitates the management and regular review of mandatory corporate policies.

I think I counted about 13 in all. Each of the constituent councils also have these policies, these same policies, and are required to maintain and review them regularly. I think that this is unnecessary duplication, and it is an issue for HRCC as it takes valuable time away from strategic weed management planning. Moreover, some of these policies really do need particular levels of expertise. For instance, IT, cyber security, anti-bullying, investment policies. These are all areas of constant change. The second point I'd like to make is that the fees paid to HRCC councillors are also disproportionate to the size of the organisation. HRCC councillor fees are 4% of its total income. This is 15 times more than is paid to Hawkesbury councillors.

Hawkesbury fees are about 0.26% of its total income. Counciler fees for Rouse County Council up north are also 0.3% . It could be argued that a bigger proportion of the money that we pay HRCC should go to weed management and not additional governance costs. Point three, and this is possibly the most important point, is that the legislation allows delegation of weed responsibilities to other parties. The Biosecurity Act allows local control authorities to delegate their weed management responsibilities to another party. In our case, we delegate to the HRCC, but we could do this by setting up a formal agreement with the three other constituent councils. The reason I put up the proposed new model in my notice of motion was to get everyone thinking about the possibilities.

The small sum of $15,000 from each of the constituent councils would allow us to engage an independent consultant to document the options that are available to us and give some advice on the best way forward, and also give advice on what changes, if any, would result in us having a better, more efficient and cost-effective weed management model. Our ratepayers' money is always scarce, and I think it is imperative that we make sure that we are getting the very best value for this money. There's a lot more I could say, but I'll leave it at that, and I look forward to hearing everyone's thoughts on this issue. Thank you. Thanks

Amanda. Anybody else wish to speak?

If not, we'll put the motion. Councillor Ross.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

I fully oppose this notice of motion implacably.

It is the wrong forum for this to be discussed, and I would suggest that

Legislation that enables the operation of HRCC carries

With it a different mandate from the government to that provided to Hawkesbury City Council or any of the other three constituent councils.

HRCC has a remit of controlling weeds on Crown land, not controlled by any other regulatory body, whether it be National Parks, RMS or Council.

HRCC also has the prerogative to enter private property under appropriate circumstances and undertake control works to remove weeds. None of the constituent councils has that prerogative or ability to do so. Constituent councils are required to manage weeds within their own jurisdiction or Crown lands under... Council management.

The situation, therefore, is that this is being discussed in the wrong forum.

As the mover of this notice of motion indicated, the model

Of HRCC is fine. What appears that we have known about for some 12 months, or possibly longer, is that there are some deficiencies with HRCC. They were further exemplified in March of this year, as my fellow councillors would be aware, in

A briefing session conducted at which the Department of Primary Industry were participants , unbeknownst to us before the briefing session.

The suggestion that writing to the Minister for Agriculture is , I think,

An unrealistic expectation to suggest

That any further action would occur other than having it responded to in very much a negative sense by somebody appointed to handle correspondence.

What appears to be needed is that the eight councils who are on the board of that organisation undertake their own internal review to facilitate a better outcome for the constituent councils. That is not the province of this council. It's the province of those eight elected people, all with their responsibilities, similar to each of us 12 persons here.

The statement regarding overheads and the structure of the organisation , as I see it, is that it is probably operating at a level of about eight persons in a head count. There appears to have been, judging by the most recent minutes that I have seen, an indication that there has been some movement towards rationalisation of the way the workforce is used. And I would suggest that this is not the place now to be debating such things, nor is it our province, and that the eight

Councillors forming the board of that council are

There to do a job. As are we in this council, we may make observations that we're not happy with the service delivery, with which I concur. But we're not there to do anything about a reorganisation. And I believe it is not possible for this council to supplant

If you like, HRCC and its roles and authorities.

I believe that this

Should not be accepted as a valid submission . Thank you. Thank you,

Deputy Mayor.

Thank you,

Mr Mayor. I actually agree with what Councillor Ross was just bringing forward, and I don't disagree with the content within the motion either. I just have the issue that the motion—first of all, I had a question, which was: have the other councils been approached about whether they would be prepared to put funding in to do this sort of review? That's my first question

To Councillor Kotlash or the General Manager or— Order of the Chairman.

Councillor Kotlash, have you approached anybody?

No, that's the gist of the first line of the recommendation, is that we write to the other three councils and put it to them that they might like to contribute to this. I

See, yes. I just wondered if there was—I mean, if there was a mood for change, I think that would be more meaningful for us to be taking an approach to contribute to it. The other thing is writing to the Minister for Agriculture. I'm a little concerned that if there's no response, then it's dead in the water. I would, however, like to see it progress as a discussion, but I'm just not sure. This motion is going to get it because I can see impediments. If the other councils say no and the Minister for Agriculture doesn't answer or something, then it's gone. That's the, that would be the end of it, and we wouldn't have the report and we wouldn't have it progress at all. I am keen that it progress, but I'm worried there's nothing in there that would make, I guess if it doesn't go anywhere, it comes back and we say it didn't go anywhere.

But I'm just wondering if there's a more something else to give it a more stringent—not stringent—a more likelihood of the conversation taking place. Is that more likely? I'm not privy to what goes on in the interactions between the various council members of it, and so I can't say that. But can anybody who's there give us an indication of the likelihood of the other councils being supportive to look at this? Because I take on board what Councillor Ross said, which is that it is within the domain of the eight members on that board to be looking at it primarily rather than us dictating it. So what I guess what I'm trying to look for is either a response about the likelihood of the other councils having sharing similar concerns and something stronger that would keep the dialogue going if it were to fall down simply because they didn't respond to our letter or something like that.

I'm sorry that's a little vague, but I'm supportive of the notion, but not necessarily the motion in that wording because I can see it could come— To an abrupt end.

Mr Mayor , what if we followed up the letters with a meeting of the mayors and general managers of each of those councils to bring it to a head one way or the other and then report it back to Council?

Mr Mayor, if you'll permit an interjection

One moment, Councillor Zamprogno, one moment. Coming to you. Sorry, Deputy Mayor.

Mr Mayor, that would be another way forward. Something just a little firmer, I think, because just sending a letter, if Blacktown says no, don't want to do it, someone else says no, then I think we've lost the opportunity. I think it's an important opportunity to take. I just think that that is a good idea, perhaps to add that, to have it at that level of engagement. Okay

I'll let Councillor Zamprogno speak next.

No, no, no. I know that Councillor Wheeler had her hand up, so I'll defer to her, and then I was just going to foreshadow that I do have answers to some of these questions and I'll— Okay

Well, when you're ready to

Share

Them, they'll come to you then. Councillor Wheeler

Mr Mayor, I think it would be better if Councillor Zamprogno responded now because it might save some of the issues that I've got. Okay

Councillor Zamprogno, you've got the floor. All right then. Okay then, I'll address my remarks now. Look, I fear that the premise of Councillor Cotlash's proposal is that there is something fundamentally broken or inefficient in our participation of this special purpose council . Just to contextualise this, there are 14 county councils in New South Wales and eight are dedicated to weed control, and this is one of those. And as Councillor Kotlash pointed out, we have been a founding member of this particular joint organisation since 1948. That's 73 years. Now, to address Councillor Cotlash's proposition that there is something fundamentally inefficient or broken — It's worth pointing out that there have been multiple reviews that have looked at this.

There was the New South Wales Independent Local Government Review that was concluded in 2013, which recommended the retention of Hawkesbury River County Council for retention without any adjustment. The Natural Resource Commission had a report in 2014 called the New South Wales Weeds Review. It made the following remarks about local institutional arrangements. It says there are economies of scale that arise from the formal groupings of local control authorities through shared service delivery arrangements . For example, the pooling of resources to facilitate the adoption of technologies such as remote sensing and GIS systems that are currently too costly for individual LCAs. That same report said in relation to aquatic weeds, which is one of the remits that we have , that the Hawkesbury River County Council has an extensive program for the management of aquatic weeds, and it's recommended that they continue in their current role .

The Fit for the Future process in 2016 and 2017 went through our special purpose council, just like it went through general purpose councils, like a dose of salts. It looked at operating ratios, overheads, the diversity of income, the governance, compliance, transparency arrangements, our integrated planning and reporting frameworks. It gave Hawkesbury River County Council a clean bill of health . There have been several reports commissioned by this council, which to me make it clear that we could not do by ourselves what HRCC do for us, and it represents outstanding value. That report that we received only a few months ago suggested that for us to do What HRCC do for us, and we pay between $190,000 to $200,000 for our joint membership, is that it would cost us $610,000 and four additional full-time staff to do the same thing, and that that would only be partially offset by grants that we would be able to secure by becoming our own local control authority.

So the summary of this part basically means that county councils do leverage enormous efficiencies. Shared service models , clear winning formula, they're tried and they're true. That's proven by academic studies. It's been proven through overseas examples and the reviews that I've just cited quote that as well. An additional point of context that I think that's worth making is that the four councils that make up Hawkesbury River County Council represent 828,000 citizens. In terms of the area, we have 73% of the area, and yet we only contribute the equal quarter of the membership contributions that the four membership councils do. Blacktown pays fully a quarter and has 6% of the area of the county council.

Penrith contributes a full quarter but only has 11% of the area. Hills contribute a full quarter and only have 10% of the area. This organisation is headquartered in our LGA. It is very manifest that we get the lion's share of benefit out of this quadripartite agreement. I'm also fearful that Councillor Kotlash's motion paints an incomplete picture of the situation . My understanding is that Hawkesbury River County Council's administrative overhead is on the order of about 15%. I believe that that's competitive with other general purpose councils, despite our size. I can say that no additional staff have been employed to meet the demands of increased compliance and regulatory activities, despite my own belief that For the sake of the well-being of our staff, maybe we ought to.

I think that HRCC's admin staff are extraordinarily frugal and that they're temperamentally deeply inclined to deliver value that reduce overheads and red tape. That's my view as the chairman , and I believe that what we do in increased regulatory and compliance activity, as was pointed out by the recent report that we commissioned, is appropriate for our transparency and accountability, and it has the strong support of the board. I think Councillor Kotlash's assessment in the notice of motion is unfair. For example, it lumps in insurance costs into this so-called unnecessary admin overhead. Councillor Kotlash talks about the frequency of our meeting and the level of detail of reporting of that operational oversight as burdensome.

But Councillor Kotlash's own demands on HRCC staff for reporting in exhaustive detail have gone well beyond ordinary bounds, in my opinion and the opinion of some of the other board members. The proposed model that Councillor Kotlash is proposing is effectively illegal in the sense that if HRCC's regulatory activities was confined and became under the oversight of one of the member councils, section 370 of the Bisecurity Act doesn't permit that. You can only be a local control authority for your own LGA. You could not create a local control authority that ventured beyond your own boundaries and into the boundaries of other LGAs . It would disproportionately favour one council, whichever one became the host.

It would remove the democratic decision-making input of the other three councils. Contrary to what Councillor Kotlash has said, I am aware that she has hawked this idea to the board members from other councils. She's had firm turn-downs from two, one Labor and one Liberal, and no response from the other two. I would respectfully suggest that there is no buy-in from the other member councils at all. I don't believe that the alleged unlocking of administrative funds that are wasted would miraculously materialise elsewhere. I think HRCC has a very ecumenical board. We rotate the chairship among the four members. It's regarded as an equal partnership, despite the fact that we get the lion's share of the benefit from that.

It's an uncommon arrangement. It's not like our earlier debate on WesROC , where we maintained sole discretion about whether we leave on a whim . We're bound into this with legislation, and it would require either special legislation or ministerial intervention to undo it. I don't think the other councils take that view at all. I'm not suggesting that we should never look at the question of value , even if it's an arrangement that stood for 73 years. But I believe that on this question, we have settled this matter on multiple occasions. There are things that we can look at. We could look at a service level arrangement, despite the fact that no other member council wants a service level agreement with HRCC, but we could look at that if people in this chamber had...

There doesn't seem to be a clock running

Yes, that's a good point. There was a clock running, so your time's expired. All right then. Well, that concludes my remarks. Thank you. Thank you . Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor . I don't love this motion, but it's what we have on the table, and I think with the addition of the comments from the Deputy Mayor... It does provide us with at least some way forward, because we have been at a stalemate on this issue for some time now. My concerns with HRCC are predominantly that, under the current model, in part because of the legislation under which it works , it doesn't meet the community expectations for weed management for the Hawkesbury LGA. Because of the focus on priority weeds under the legislation and the constraints that that provides for the HRCC, we now have a situation where this organisation that we pay into, that we rely on for weed management, is spending quite a lot of its time engaged in what sounds like

Measurable items that don't necessarily translate to outcomes on the ground that the community expects in terms of weed management. Hence, we get comments from people that the entrance to our LGA is full of weeds, that no one is attending to the weeds along the riverbank, because the organisation is constrained by the hunt for priority weeds. Because we pass our weed management across to that organisation, then we then pass on that responsibility and don't do any additional work ourselves because we've handed over the money and we've handed over the responsibility. It's our job to ensure that ratepayers' funds are being properly spent. If it's not our role to call out risk or a lack of value, then I don't know what our role is.

I've also got concerns that under the model that we have, we've got siloing of both expertise and capacity that isn't good for our organisation and it isn't necessarily good for the HRCC either. Again, like WestRock, we've got no formal mechanism for information to come back to us, and yet we are expected to pay into this organisation and divest part of our responsibility, a large part of the responsibility for weed management in the LGA. The rest of it is some bush care and some spraying of parks, aside from what the sports council does in another divested arrangement. We've flagged to the HRCC that we weren't happy with their risk management model, and that hasn't changed . There's been talk that there are eight members of the board that should be responsible for sorting this out, but I'm not convinced that all eight members of the board have sufficient expertise to advance the issue, and that surely needs to be flagged as well, because otherwise some of this stuff would have been fixed, or we wouldn't have an organisation that had a significant risk profile that this council identified.

This isn't questioning the staff involved. No one is questioning the staff of HRCC's commitment to doing their jobs or to delivering value for money under the model that they've got. What this does is say that this model isn't working for us as an end user of the HRCC

Changes to this, for this to work effectively, will require changes to legislation. The fit and proper place to do that is to appeal to the relevant minister, who can then bring that legislation to the New South Wales Parliament. That's how legislation works. Otherwise, what are we going to do? We're just going to withdraw and go, This doesn't work for us. We're going to pull out. That's not a responsible mechanism either. So , as a local council , one of our potential ways forward is to speak to the minister and have him get some legislation drafted. We don't have the capacity to call for legislation to be drafted, nor do we have the capacity to have that legislation presented in New South Wales Parliament.

So we have to appeal to somebody to do that . We can't just keep kicking this around and pretending that it's okay. It's not okay. We've identified that this doesn't meet our expectations as a council. We've identified that it doesn't meet the community expectations. We need to find a way forward. This may not be the best way forward, but there is a clause to advance us past that point. If the minister doesn't go for this, if the other bodies involved in this don't go for this, we have to move on.

Just to clarify, there was an indication that we might change the motion to include that meeting . Is that something you wanted to include, Councillor Gotlash? Yes.

Yeah, I think that's a very good idea, and I can see that that is actually a hole in that. So I do thank the Deputy Mayor for suggesting that . I think it's really important that this is a collaborative discussion. You know, this is something that we need to— well, it might not end up like that, but that's where I want to begin

It. Could we put at the start of point A , request a meeting to start a cooperative dialogue?

Yes. Yes, most definitely

Yes. Did you need me to say any—oh, we're waiting for— No, no, we're just waiting for it .

Well, I can talk if you like. And who seconded—Councillor Reynolds, were you happy with that change as a seconder?

Yes. Okay . You can speak if you need to. Well, probably not actually, because you've spoken .

Councillor Calvert, if you wanted to speak, and I'll come back once this is typed up.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I just wanted to support this notice of motion. From what I've heard from some of the other speakers, they seem to be under the impression that what Councillor Kotlash is asking us to do is to withdraw from Hawkesbury River County Council, when indeed she's not asking that at all. She's asking for us to examine the structure of Hawkesbury River County Council to make it more efficient, and I don't see any problem with that, and I don't see why other councils would balk at doing that as well. I mean, isn't that part of our responsibility as a council to make sure our funds are spent efficiently and wisely? And I don't think it's meant to be a criticism of anybody or any particular person .

It's really just, isn't it time we had a look at the structure and see if we can improve it? Now, I know there was a short study done by our council a year or two ago, because I was in the mayor's job at the time, but Councillor Zamprogno regarded that report as being supportive of Hawkesbury River County Council, whereas my recollection is that it was neither supportive or critical. It was just a report which didn't seem to take any particular side. And I was quite disappointed with it because it didn't even give us any suggestions on how to proceed. I was very disappointed with the report, and I'm interested that Councillor Zamprogno sees it as a statement of support for Hawkesbury River County Council, because I didn't see it that way.

Now, all we're doing here through this motion is expressing an opinion. Councillor Kotlash is asking us to express an opinion and start a process for review, and I see nothing wrong with that. If the other councils all say, no, we don't want to do it, then so be it. That's why I think that meeting is a great idea. We can sit around, or the mayors can sit around and work on that. And if they all say, no, we want to keep it as it is, then so be it. But I think we as a council have a responsibility to ratepayers to make sure our money is being spent efficiently, and that's all that's happening here. And hopefully the other councils will come on board when this process starts.

Thank you. Councillor Reynolds.

Thank you. I'd just like to point out that it is, I don't see that there's any— there is no issue with the fact that this is governed by New South Wales legislation . It's our job under our CSP to advocate to other levels of government, and that's what this notice of motion, as I read it, is doing. It's admittedly, it's, you know,

Meeting with and discussing the issues with other member councils, but then presenting a case to, hopefully, to the minister to get the legislation changed to allow us to have a better model that will better meet community expectations. So it's our job to do this. If we think there's an issue and the community thinks there is an issue, this is our gig. This is what we have to do. So that's why I seconded it. Thanks.

Councillors and Progen , do you have a question? It was just a desire to correct a factual point . We could probably give you 20 seconds, Councillors and Progen. I can do it in half that. Councillor Calvert suggests this is a very mild proposition that does not involve us withdrawing or dissolving HRCC, and yet Councillor Kotlash's own background information says it is proposed that we ask the minister to dissolve HRCC and annex it under one of the constituent councils. Done .

Thank you. Right of reply, Councillor Kotlash.

That was very good timing because I want to address what Councillor Zamprogno has just said. I have said that I proposed that new model to start the conversation, to get everybody thinking about the possibilities that we have in this matter. Now, that's all I said. I don't care if that's not the model we take. I want the model that we come up with to be a better model, to be more efficient and more cost effective. I said that. I've written that, I hope, and I've said that a few times. So that isn't the position that I take. It's almost like a straw man that everybody had a bit of a go at. I'd also like to just

Make a couple of corrections as well. Councillor Zamprogno said that it was illegal for us to— To

Get to, to, to delegate our weed management responsibilities to another party, that's not my understanding. So that is a really interesting thing and underlines the fact that we definitely need to get an independent assessment of what are our options, because I have a sneaking suspicion that most of the HCC board also think that we have no other options. And that's a bit worrying because my understanding is that we have quite a few options. There's joint organisations, there's, we could make a weed authority, we could , in the proposal that I said, I have said that we have a joint agreement. That is, so there's three other options that we could have. Just to also , to correct something that Councillor Ross said , each council, if they don't delegate their weed management responsibility, is called a local control authority.

And a local control authority have authorised officers that have the rights to enter and have all of the rights under the Biosecurity Act to do what they need to do to address the Act. When you delegate that responsibility, that authorised officer responsibility goes to whoever you delegate it for. So that's not an issue. It doesn't matter who we delegate it to, as long as they are able to do that role. So this, all this confusion about what's possible is just exactly what needs to happen. So I'd like to, you know, and also one of the things that Councillor Zamprogno said about all of the things that were, all of the information that was out there saying how, what a wonderful model the council model was.

When he was talking about the Natural Resource Commission, the Natural Resource Commission was talking about , you know, joint ventures into weed management. It didn't say anything about council specifically, so that was a bit disingenuous, I think. Look, if HRCC just stays exactly the same with everybody doing what they do, some of them maybe with different roles, we could have a much better weed management situation without all the compliance, which, by the way, has been stated on the public record as being immoral and causing so much stress within HRCC. I mean, we've had a couple of years of hearing how absolutely stressed everybody is because there's so much of a compliance burden. And my take on this, as a responsible board member, is to say, so everybody, we need to do something about this.

Now, the reason I've brought it to our council and not to the board of HRCC is, one, HRCC has had a reduction in their funding. There are no more resources to do anything more. And as constituent councils, we can take a lead role in this. We have got the resources to throw in what I consider to be not very much money, and we can get some of these answers. Then we can have this discussion about how this might look. It might turn out that it stays the same. I can't see that happening because I think there is much, much more modern ways of doing things, and I think we have to be brave and be able to change things. Just because we've been doing something for a long period of time doesn't necessarily mean that it's good or even ideal.

And again, it's not about any— You know, one particular person, it's about allowing, you know, more weed management to occur.

I think that's about— oh, and also I hope my notice of motion is not dictatorial. I didn't want to dictate anything. I haven't— I didn't want that to be the case. I want this to be a collaborative step in the right direction. And, you know, I think, I hope, hopefully I'm offering a way forward in this. And I think asking the minister is actually very pertinent because the minister is the one that will have all the access to what's possible and what's not through his staff. So I might leave it at that. Thank you again for the input to this, and thank you for the extra points in the notice of motion. And I hope that we can, we can, you know, step in the right direction and get this happening. Thank you.

The motion. All those in favour of the motion, please raise your hand. In favour: Councillor Conolly, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Lindsbuckett, Councillor Richards, Councillor Tree, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Garrow. Against: Councillors Ross and Progno. Declare it carried.

Carried. Next item is 148. If there's any questions on the response to councillor questions on notice.

Councillor Reynolds.

Yes, thanks. I'm just trying to find it. It was in relation to question number two regarding retrospective DAs. It's not possible to separate them from other DAs in the new reporting system. I was just wondering, the question is if we can find out how old they are and if it's possible to receive a list. Just again, just a list just telling us how old those 23 retrospective DAs are. I don't think that should be too hard. Just 23.

Thank you. I think that is a question on notice, I think, General Manager.

Councillor Talbot.

Yeah, thanks, Mr Mayor. I'd just like to raise a question for next meeting, if I may.

No, unfortunately, no. You've got to put them in writing if you want them to appear in the business paper, or ask them about something in the business paper and I can get taken on notice, but that's the only two ways. Okay, thanks.

Anything further on the questions? If not, we are, the next items are in confidential, but I know...

Confidential, but I know Councillor Ross potentially wanted to discuss one of those before we... Councillor Ross.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'd like to move a procedural motion in regard to item number 151,

General Manager Performance Review Process. I would ask, with the indulgence of yourself and Council, that that be brought forward into the public domain rather than heard in confidential, please.

A seconder? Seconded, Deputy Mayor. I might just ask Mr McElroy to give us an explanation of just what parts of this couldn't be discussed in open session so Council can make a decision.

Through you, Mr Mayor. I'm having difficulty with my connection, so hopefully you can hear me even if I'm not appearing on the video. We can hear you. Thank you. So Council can close so much of a meeting as comprises a discussion of, for these purposes, relevantly, personnel matters concerning particular individuals other than councillors, and information that would, if it was disclosed, confer a commercial advantage on a person with whom Council is considering or proposes to conduct business. And that's said in respect of the proposal to look at engaging potentially suitable external facilitators in relation to the panel. So a personnel matter normally relates to some aspect of employment of an individual.

So in dealing with the item in the business paper in open session, it's recommended that Council avoid any discussion of personal or confidential matters relating to the general manager, as well as matters directly relating to the assessment of performance of the general manager. And in relation to the second matter, if it becomes relevant, it's recommended that Council avoid detailed discussion of suitable external facilitators to avoid any perception of the conferral of a commercial advantage on a particular facilitator that Council might engage with. But otherwise, on the face of the report in the business paper, it's appropriate for the matter to be dealt with in open session, subject to how the discussion goes.

Thank you, Mr Mayor.

So, procedural motions, there's no discussion, so with that explanation we'll put the motion. All those in favour of bringing item 151 to open session, please raise your hand. Favourable, Councillor Ross, Councillor Conolly , Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Richards, Councillor Tree, Councillor Garrow. Against? Councillor Calvert, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Kotlash. Declared carried. So we'll now go to item 151, the Mayoral

Minute. So I'll move the Mayoral Minute as it is in the business paper. This is to move forward and engage an external facilitator to assist with the process of the performance appraisal and the new performance plan for the new general manager. It's all fairly simple and set out all straight from the guidelines without change, so just submit it and hopefully it's fairly straightforward.

Discussion?

Any discussion?

Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Just two points. It may, if I presume that the report will, I don't know what happens with the report now that we've shifted this from confidential into open session, does the report move? Otherwise we're discussing something that the community probably hasn't seen much of, in which case the, I think the only mention of a dollar value is in the financial impact section, which might need to be redacted. Otherwise , there's nothing in the recommendation that refers to a financial amount. My only concern with this is that we have, in a council that is 50% female, we have a 100% male General Manager's review panel, and I don't think that that is a particularly progressive stance of this council.

Can I suggest that one of the male members of that committee, at least one of the male members of that committee, step aside and be replaced by the Deputy Mayor? My recollection of how we determined this committee back in the days where we were all pretending to be friends in 2016 was that the committee consisted of the Mayor and Deputy Mayor and Councillor Conolly as experienced members of council that spanned the political spectrum, and then the General Manager picked an additional representative. We didn't have this arrangement where three blokes got to sit on the panel. We also have our first female General Manager. It would be nice if the General Manager's review panel reflected the fact that we are one of very few councils in New South Wales that has equal representation of men and women.

Councillor Ross. Thank you

Mr Mayor. Could I seek your indulgence, please, in regard to the recommendation at point one. Towards the end of that recommendation, the word new is included in the phrase new performance plan. Could I request that the word new be omitted, because this is the initial performance plan in this circumstance, and I believe that the word new is, shall I say, redundant, sir. I leave it to your judgment.

Yeah, happy to delete new in point 1.

Is there any further discussion?

Councillor Richards.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Was that recommendation by Councillor Wheeler part of— was that an official thing or just a comment?

I'm not sure if that was. I didn't take it as a moving amendment. Councillor Wheeler, did you mean to move an amendment? Sorry.

Well, I thought it was fairly— the members of the panel are not laid out in the recommendation, but if you would like me to move an amendment that the panel consists of an equal representation of male and female councillors, or that includes the Deputy Mayor, I am happy to do that.

So you'd have to move an amendment that , with a point 4, that the panel membership be changed to, and list the councillors you want on it.

All right, so I'll move a point 4 that the panel members

Consist of

The Mayor, the Deputy Mayor.

I don't really have a preference for the third councillor. So, Councillor Rasmussen and a councillor nominated by the general manager.

Seconded for the amendment?

Seconded, Councillor Ross. If

I'd like to foreshadow.

Well, okay. Point of order. We'll go point of order first. Councillor Zamprogno.

My point of order was to request that if this point four is added, that we vote in seriatim.

Well, it's an amendment, so essentially the motion is points one to three, the amendment is points one to four. So if you don't want 1.4, you just don't vote for the amendment.

Councillor Richards.

I'd like to foreshadow if that fails that we as councillors discuss who that female member should be, if the council so wants a female member, because I do note that the deputy mayor currently has a standing vote of no confidence by this council, and I would not be comfortable putting a councillor with a vote of no confidence into a position so important to be on this committee or this role. I think that's vital. So if the appetite is there for a female, I don't think that someone that has a vote of no confidence by the current colleagues can hold that role, and I would like to foreshadow that if that motion—well, that point four, the current motion amendment, whatever it is—fails, I'd like to put up something different. Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Any further discussion on the amendment now?

No, we'll put the amendment then. All those in favour of the amendment, please raise your hand. In favour are Councillor Ross, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Garrow. Against ? Councillor Richards, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Tree, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Zamprogno. Declare that lost on the casting vote of the Mayor. Councillor Richards, you had a foreshadowed amendment. Yeah,

Thank you. We'd like to continue with the three points in the motion. If the — I'm trying to think how we go about this to make sure that we've got the correct representation on this panel. I think the Mayor, most importantly, no matter who that is and no matter what their gender is, it's the Mayor. I do believe— I don't know how you want to do this, Mr Mayor, in terms of—

No, no, look, if you wanted to move—you're moving an amendment, so you need to list out the people you would want on that panel. So at the moment it's the Mayor, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Rasmussen. So it could be— I'd be

Happy to nominate—I don't want the position. I'd be happy if we're going for a female, Councillor Kotlash.

This is an additional councillor ? So increasing the panel membership, or—

Sorry, read out that the panel

The current panel, the current panel, and just note, councillors, this was actually— this panel was elected. I don't think there's any contest of it, you know, in September. But Councillor Conolly, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Rasmussen. That's the current panel.

I mean, I'm happy with the panel. If we're looking at merit and ability to do the job, then that's fine by me. But if there's an appetite for a female, I would like to nominate an additional councillor, because I'm sure none of those three councillors want to step down from that role. I'd nominate an additional councillor being Councillor Kotlash.

So in which case we could just say Councillor Kotlash is added to the General Manager's Review Panel, if Councillor Kotlash was happy with that. And if there's a seconder—

I haven't asked her, so I'm hoping she is.

Yeah. Is there a seconder for that?

Thank you.

So I need a seconder for that amendment. Councillor Colash. Okay. Do you want to speak to this amendment, Deputy Mayor?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and thank you for that. I have no real desire to be on there, having seen how it's been carried out in the past. But what I would like to say is that the original setup of this committee was to span the political breadth, and I specifically ensured that there was a Labor councillor, a Liberal councillor, an independent representative, and I think that Councillor Wheeler would be a good representative to balance it rather than two Labor Party members on there, because it's about perceptions of the public. And you might not want me on there, and I don't mind that, but I think that it doesn't look right to just have the two Labor councillors on there. This is about all this talk about collaborative and working together.

This just smacks in the face of that. I think that it should be either someone like Councillor Garrow or Councillor Wheeler if it is a gender-based thing. Of course, the General Manager can choose another councillor herself as well, and she may well do that. But I think that it's about fairness, and it's about what our community expect us to do. And I would, I think that that, I will oppose that because I don't think that that's correct, particularly for our community to see an imbalance like that, and particularly in light of recent events over the last year.

Thank you. I'll just make a note there that I actually did bring this to the chamber with one Liberal, one Liberal, one independent, and there's been moves from the floor to change the composition from that one Labor, one Liberal, one independent that has been for the entire council term. I'm not, I don't have any objection to that. I think if we have too many people, it's going to be not very workable. But I think four is fine, and five if the GM nominates somebody else. But, you know, I didn't introduce an argument that people's gender was relevant to this particular role. I also was happy just to keep it the one Liberal, one Labor, one independent. But if people do want to change it, then obviously it's up to the councillors to who they appoint. So this is the amendment before us. Is there any further discussion of this amendment?

Sorry, I can't see the participants list

Councillor Wheeler. I think we're going backwards here. We've now got a committee that is biased towards the major parties. We've watched you collude. We watched you collude against the Deputy Mayor. We watched you colluding to collude in the same fashion again. I proposed the addition of a woman, and I propose that the Deputy Mayor, elected by six of her colleagues, and I will remind you that the no confidence motion got up because the Deputy Mayor correctly removed herself from the chamber on that occasion and wasn't able to vote. So she has lost no support from what she had previously. The no confidence motion was basically just an opportunity for you all to have a go. So she certainly hasn't lost the support of the community. This is just a political move dressed up now as gender equity, and that's really, really poor form.

Councillor Wheeler, nobody's dressing this up as gender equity. It was your suggestion to introduce a woman, and because we've selected a different woman to the one you nominated, it's now us pretending to be into gender equity. That's a ridiculous statement. Councillor Ross.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. The reason I'm raising my point here is that I'm concerned that the. .. The persons who are going to constitute the panel has been somehow or another muddled in with the overall recommendation. Would it not be possible to

Sort out the panel membership, if we have to do that, separate from the overall recommendation, and then, if it's of the council's mind that the panel be then constituted, that the recommendations as have been minorly amended could proceed without the whole thing going or not going and so on? I just feel it's not quite— Yeah

No, I tend to agree, Councillor. The time to determine the membership of the panel was at the election of the panel, when we selected the panel back in September. But there's now been a move to change it. I can't see a way to change it without a motion of council, and this is the matter it's before, so I don't know how we can resolve it any other way. But I tend to agree that the committee membership wasn't really up for discussion tonight. Council can change it any time it wants to, but that's why it's being thrown in here, is because this is the only matter it can be attached to.

Councillor Kotlash, everyone just take a hand stamp for me when you've finished speaking.

Yeah. Yeah, thank you, Mr Mayor. Look, I'm going to withdraw my nomination from this because I think this is—

I just can't be in this, all of this argy-bargy about colluding. This is just— I don't want this position. I'm sorry. It's just— I'm happy that there's three men on the panel. If the general manager wishes to have a woman on the panel, she can nominate somebody. I'm not going to be accused of colluding. This wasn't my intention, and I find it abhorrent. I'm sorry. Hi

Councillor. Councillor, thank you, Councillor Kotlash.

Councillor Wheeler, would you like to be on the panel?

No, Mr Mayor. I have stated repeatedly that I think the Deputy Mayor, because she is the Deputy Mayor, should be on the panel. That's how this panel was originally controlled.

Right, yeah. Just a question, that's already been put to Council and Council voted that down, so we can't put the same thing again. I was going to see if you wanted to be on the panel in that case, but Councillor Richards — well, your amendment's been moved now, so would you like to withdraw? I'm happy

To take Councillor Kotlash off. I'm not

Going to go

Against her wishes and force

Her to go to a

Vote.

So just withdrawing the amendment?

Yes, please, and what's on the business paper.

Go back to the original motion.

Correct, what's the original motion on the business paper, thank you.

Okay. Any further discussion on that motion?

No. All right, no right of reply required, so I'll put the motion, all those in favour, please raise your hand. Favour: Councillor Conolly, Councillor Ross, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Richards, Councillor Tree, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Zamprogno. Against : Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Garrow. Councillor Rasmussen, you voting for or against?

I voted for. Councillor Rasmussen was for, sorry. Declare it carried. So now we do need a motion to go into confidential. Moved Councillor Lyons-Buckett, seconded Councillor Richards. All those in favour? Declare it carried.

Right, just from the closed session, I was handing the General Manager to read the resolutions from the closed session.

With respect to that, Mr Mayor, perhaps Councillor Richards wishes to restate her declaration of interest on item 149. Yes,

Thank you, General Manager. My interest in 149 is less than significant, non-pecuniary. I have promoted the, I think it's applicant, I should say, on my group Shopsmall, but I do not know her as a personal friend and I have no interest in the business. Therefore, I stayed in the room for the vote. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr Mayor. In respect of 149 regarding lease to Josephine Saliba, 264 Hawkesbury Valley Way, Richmond, whilst in closed session, the Council resolved on the motion of Councillor Zamprogno, seconded by Councillor Kotlash, that Council agree to enter into a lease with Josephine Saliba for the property known as 264 Hawkesbury Valley Way, Richmond, as outlined in the report. Point two: in conjunction with part one above, Council agree to surrender the current lease with Anthony Riley for the property known as 264 Hawkesbury Valley Way, Richmond, as outlined in the report. Point three: authority be given for the surrender of lease and any other relevant documentation in association with this matter to be executed under the seal of Council.

Point four: details of Council's resolution to be conveyed to the current and proposed lessees, together with the advice that the Council is not and will not be bound by the terms of its resolution until such time as appropriate legal documentation has been put, such a resolution into effect has been executed and agreed by all parties. That motion was carried unanimously, with all Councillors in attendance. In respect of item 150 regarding the property matter investigation outcome, whilst in closed session, the Council resolved on the motion of Councillor Zamprogno, seconded by Councillor Rasmussen,

That point one: the investigation report regarding Kurrajong Memorial Park, prepared by Robert Ball, Blackadder Associates Pty Ltd, and as attached as attachment one to this report, be received and noted. Two: management responses to the recommendations and proposed actions detailed in the report as attached in attachment one to this report be received and noted. And point three: that the report be provided to the Audit Committee for its information. That motion was also carried unanimously, with all Councillors in attendance.

Thank you for that. There being no further business, we will declare the meeting closed at 11.58 p.m. Thanks, everybody.