26 October 2021 - Ordinary

Welcome everybody to tonight's Ordinary Meeting of Council. 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 our elders past, present and emerging, and acknowledge all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the first people of the country. And I'll just refer to the General Manager.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'd also like to advise, 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 those persons who will be addressing the Council this evening, 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 to given in response to questions from Councillors. Thank you.

Thank you. I don't think there's any apologies or leave applications or anything. Are there any declarations of interest? Councillor Garrow.

Mayor, in minute number two, I have a less than significant non-pecuniary interest. Okay.

Any other declarations? No. Confirmation of the—

Minutes from the previous meeting. Somebody wish to move that way, moved Councillor Rasmussen, seconded Councillor Zamprogno. All those in favour? Carried.

So we've got a few items subject to public address. Before that, I'd just like to say, Councillors, it was brought to my attention after the last meeting that during consideration of the Rural Boundary Clearing Code, I interrupted Councillor Wheeler during her time speaking to clarify a point in the debate. The debate on the matter had become quite heated and there were a number of interruptions from councillors. Clearly, I should have done a better job to keep the meeting in order, and I should have waited until after Councillor Wheeler had finished speaking to clarify any point in the discussion. So I just want to apologise to Councillor Wheeler for interrupting her.

Subject to public address is Mayoral Minute number two.

And we have one speaker, which is Jocelyn Howden. Oh , sorry, Councillor Gary, about to declare your interest.

I am declaring a less than significant non-pecuniary interest, as my father is an executive on the Hawkesbury Nepean Flood Mitigation Action Committee, and I'm choosing to remove myself from the Zoom for this item.

Okay. Councillor Garrow to leave.

Someone's removing Councillor Garrow.

So we have one speaker, Jocelyn Howden. Jocelyn with us? Yep. When you're ready. Yes. You're muted at the moment, sorry.

Okay.

Yep, we can hear.

Okay . I haven't heard any introduction. I've only just come in.

So you've got the floor, so you've got— Okay

Okay. So, Mr Mayor and councillors, I live in the Hawkesbury region and believe that raising the Warragamba Dam wall will be detrimental to the people and environment of this area and to the World Heritage-listed Blue Mountains, where some of my family also live. Additionally, during high rainfall and if the dam wall is raised, I understand that World Heritage and Aboriginal cultural sites will be flooded, something to be avoided. I also represent members of the Hawkesbury Environment Network, where I am the vice chair. Hawkesbury Environment Network is opposed to further development of the Hawkesbury-Nepean floodplain because of its environmental values of threatened Western Sydney woodland and Cumberland Plain grassland, both of which contain many species of flora and fauna which would be lost to land clearing and development if the dam wall is raised, which I understand would clear the way for this development to occur.

So according to the state government's own data, only 8 percent of the original area of the Cumberland Plain remains. The New South Wales Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995 lists some of the threatened species that occur in this remaining 8 percent. They include trees such as ironbark, stringy bark, box, blue gum, mahogany, swamp oak and paperbark. And these trees, of course, provide habitat for many birds, small mammals and other species that live in forests, such as insects that are ground-dwelling and tree trunks that have hollows, and all sorts of valuable habitat . I'm sure that, given Council's potential support for raising the dam wall, I sincerely hope that Councillors here want to protect this 8 percent as much as the rest of us do

And that that can

Somehow be achieved.

So during heavy rain, much of the floodwater in the basin is derived from areas outside the upstream Warragamba Dam catchment, leading inevitably to flooding in the Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley downstream from

Rivers such as the Colo and the Grose,

South Creek, Cattai Creek and numerous other small creeks that feed into the Hawkesbury below the dam wall. So raising the dam wall will actually not prevent this flooding. I mean, I witnessed those floods in March, as we all did. I live on a hill between Cadai Creek and Little Cadai Creek, and the amount of floodwater was just amazing, and everyone knows that. And it cut people off, it flooded people's homes and properties and farms. And as I understand it, most of this occurred with or without the dam wall. I don't think there was a great deal of water released from the dam when this flooding occurred.

So the Hawkesbury Environment Network is calling for the New South Wales Government to provide greater transparency about this whole process of raising the dam wall as it prepares its environmental impact statement for the project. Hence, the Hawkesbury Environment Network also calls for more consultation with the Gundungurra people, the traditional owners of the land to be affected above the dam wall, and more consultation with the World Heritage Committee should also occur. Consultation about flood evacuation routes should also be conducted with local councils in the area before a final decision is made about raising the dam wall. So to conclude, I urge councillors here to support their local community and their local environment and oppose the raising of the dam wall.

Thank you. Any questions from councillors, if there's any?

Councillor Zamprogno, you had a question. Thank you, Jocelyn. Thank you for your presentation. Like you, I followed this very closely, and every— Every public statement that's been made by ministers or officials addressing the inquiry said that there would be no change to flood height controls and no extra development on the floodplain. So I'm concerned to know from where you drew your concern that it would inevitably lead to development on the floodplain. It's been explicitly denied. Well

I saw on TV, I saw Stuart Ayres speaking about increased development around Penrith Lakes, which I would consider to be the floodplain of the Hawkesbury-Nepean River. He was very excited about spruiking a lot of development on that floodplain around Penrith Lakes, and that program has been in the pipeline for a long time because HEN, the Hawkesbury Environment Network, actually made a submission to the Department of Sport and Recreation some years ago about that development around Penrith Lakes, and it does include a very large number of homes, which are not there at the moment. So that's where I got my information, from the New South Wales State Government several years ago and from Stuart Ayres on television very recently. Okay,

Thank you.

Any further questions? No, thank you for that, Ms. Adam.

So move on to— that was our— we only had one speaker, councillors. I don't want to spend time telling councillors what you already know. We've all been councillors in the Hawkesbury City Council, and I don't want to repeat named facts, but I think to set the scene here a bit, Hawkesbury Local Government Area is living with the biggest unmitigated flood risk of any place in Australia.

The projections show that in a one in 100 level flood, we would lose lives, there would be billions of dollars in damages, there would be huge social impact, huge economic impact, and it would be a catastrophic event. It does show that the EIS does show the impact of raising the dam wall. Is it going to stop all flooding? No, of course it's not going to stop all flooding, as rightly pointed out. Some water comes in below the dam. However, it will stop the worst of the flooding. It will turn a current one in 100 year flood level to a one in 500 year flood level. or make those huge catastrophic events far less probable. This process that we're in right now is almost a decade old. The state government in 2012 began this process of identifying this key risk that had been ignored by previous governments, largely.

They started a process of looking at what were the options. They came up with nine options, or eight options, sorry, analysed those eight options, which included raising the dam wall by various heights, included looking at permanently lowering the level, as well as looked at the Sackville, at the gorge, and all those things have been flagged before. And this option was selected as the option that provided the best cost-benefit analysis, giving consideration to all factors.

In March, we had a flood. Sorry, sorry . This is the option that was chosen. It then got taken forward to the EIS stage, and we now have a very comprehensive review of all the impacts on the environment and the impacts on our community. It's estimated to save billions of dollars in damages. It's estimated to give us several more, I think something like nine more hours in terms of warning time for major events, which leads to massive saving of life, potentially. To give it in some context locally, the modelling from Infrastructure New South Wales shows that if we'd had this dam wall raised in March 2021, the flood would have been 3.5 metres lower at Windsor. So that's a tangible impact on a whole lot of people in Windsor, even in a small event like we had this year, let alone in the large catastrophic events we could have.

So I think we need to send a message to the state government here that they need to take us seriously, that this is a major issue in our community. We are the ones at risk, and they need to look at not just listen to people from outside the area who aren't on the floodplain, but actually listen to us who live here and live with this danger constantly. And anyone who didn't want to go ahead with this, I think we need a strong message of, if not this, then what? You know, the government has now documented the flood risk. We can talk about evacuation, but that does nothing to save property and does nothing for the social impact of massive floods or the economic impact of massive floods. All it does is get people out at the time.

We can talk about stopping development, which we've largely already done. Our flood policy is extremely effective and does prohibit, you know, almost any development on the floodplain at all, but certainly below the one-in-100-year flood level, and that's been the case for a long time, although getting stricter. Again, that doesn't even, even if we solve that completely, it doesn't solve the current problem we have, which is 140,000 people living on an unmitigated floodplain. So if not this, then what? Which of the other options out of those eight options is the government going to go ahead with? What are we going to support? Surely we can't sit here and say that the government, being aware of the risk, it's now gone into great lengths to document, does nothing.

I think that's totally untenable. I think this is the best option. I think it's, well, I know it's taken a decade to get here almost. I don't want to wait another decade for them to go down with another option. I think we need to push ahead with this, and I think we need to show them that they have our strong support to do so. Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I've just got a series of questions because I may wish to move an amendment. Did you write the Mayoral minute?

I wrote a draft of the Mayoral minute, and then I did have it edited by Mr Kearns.

Okay, well I'll direct my questions at you then. It's just regarding what, I was quite confused by it in terms of what it was suggesting was included in the submission. So if I could clarify that, then I may have some suggestions around that. The first one, and there's eight dot points, so I'll just refer to them as one to eight. So in point one, I'm wondering, that's the one about all the different flood levels and so on. What data or modelling would be relied on to arrive at the estimates that are in that?

It would be the government's modelling. We're not doing separate modelling. Yeah, we're just reiterating.

Okay, so it's the modelling from the Insurance Council from 2014 or 15, whatever it was, that the EIS has relied on. Yes. Okay. Point two, that's the next one. What data is, and I think it's interesting that you would say we should maybe suggest one of the alternatives because we've been asking for the data around those alternatives and it's still not available. But what data is being relied on to ascertain the limitations and disadvantages of the alternative options for flood mitigation? Is this merely just the reported information in the EIS, or is this actually data? Yes

The information from the Resilient Valleys, Resilient Communities report, and then again in more detail in the EIS.

Okay, the Resilient Valleys report, just footnoted it. It didn't give any information. In point five, I'm not sure what that means. Warragamba Dam is a water storage dam. So are you talking about just what do you mean, what legislative changes would be needed to have the dam operate as a dual purpose dam? So like the Wivenhoe Dam in Queensland, for example, to operate as a water storage and a flood mitigation dam at the same time?

No, so perhaps that could be worded better. I can see from your question where you're going with that. The intention here is to point out to people in the community concerned that the dam would just be filled up to its total capacity and permanently inundate the Blue Mountains World Heritage area, but that would require legislative change to allow that. It's only allowed for temporary inundation at the moment.

Okay, so it's not around. It's not thinking that the dam isn't a water storage dam as it is. Okay. Point six is: would you be basing this on the information from the Insurance Council of Australia with regard to any likely changes for insurance if the dam wall raising proceeded?

Well, my expectation is this would be based on primarily on the anecdotal evidence that Council has from many, many residents that can't get flooding.

Exactly. But I mean, would we be clarifying with the Insurance Council of Australia, who have withdrawn support for this project, that they anticipated insurance premiums would be lowered if the dam wall was raised? And in comparison to that, if in fact any other of the alternative options could enable a reduction in insurance premiums?

So that's not part of the motion before us to go and do that work with the Insurance Council. I think the other part of that, what's problematic there is that might be an insurer-to-insurer question rather than the Insurance Council of Australia to answer. No, the motion before us here, if adopted, my interpretation of that is that we would just include what we already have, which is the information that's not currently feasible for many of our residents to access flood insurance.

Okay. In point seven, I'm just wondering, I'm only a third of the way through the EIS, so I haven't read it all, and so some of the—I'm not sure how many people have read it. I'm wondering if anyone has. Have you read the parliamentary upper house inquiry

Interim report,

Mr Mayor?

You have. Okay. Yep. I'm just wondering if you'd read that and the EIS. The other thing is, when is the submission likely to be back before Council? I'll

Refer that one to the General Manager. Through

You, Mr Mayor, it's our intention to present to Council the draft submission at that second meeting in November

I think it's the 26th. Hopefully I'll have finished reading it by then. Okay. All right. Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Thank you. That's—sorry, it's a very good point, Deputy Mayor, that I should have mentioned. The idea of this is simply because there's probably a diversity of views on Council, we really need to give staff some direction to draft this submission in order for it to come back. This is not intended to be the submission; it's just intended to provide directions to how it should be drafted. Sorry

Mr Mayor, just one more thing. So are you just saying this isn't a submission that's in support or not in support of the dam wall? This is a direction to staff about what things we want addressed in it.

Well, no, I still think that point one, that Council is to highlight the importance to the project of Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley. So to me, that is in support. I didn't use the words in support of the project, but that's my intention is that we could then have a position that we would be advocating for the dam wall to be raised.

Thank you.

Any further discussion ? No.

Councillor Richards.

Thank you, Mr Mayor, and I thank you for bringing this motion, Mayoral Minute, to the Council. It's extremely timely that you did so, given the deadline to get submissions in for the EIS. And as you rightly stated, it was a very long time coming for this EIS. I think that we have debated in this chamber over the last five years, when the EIS comes, when the EIS is ready. So it's here, and we would be foolish as a council, who sits in the majority of the danger zone of that floodplain, not to be putting in a submission. So I think it's right that we get it done and we address the issues. Now, I think that, you know, we had a briefing the other night and it was extremely informative, and they are very, very smart and knowledgeable people who've worked on this project for such a long time, and they are smarter than all of us on this subject matter, no matter how much any of us in this room pretend to be an expert and how much they may have read.

The people from Infrastructure New South Wales and Water New South Wales, they are the experts, and they told us the numbers. Let me just get them up here. A one in 100 chance flood would see 55,000 people needing to evacuate on the current status, reduced to 14,000 people. That is massive. 7,600 homes impacted, reduced to 2,500. Three billion dollars in damages reduced to 0.4 billion dollars in damages. Now that reduction financially, which all, you know, comes from taxpayers like you and I who pay our taxes to the government, that reduction in cost in homes impacted and in people who would need to be evacuated is monumental. And I really do, I almost challenge anyone out there to say to people in the Hawkesbury, people who live on the floodplain and people who are affected by floods, that they don't support those statistics, that they don't support endangering less lives and less property.

And we were told the other night very, very, very firmly, and I say firmly really strongly, that this dam wall is not to support extra development. So anyone seriously trying to run that line for a political hit and think that it has any credibility, we were told by the experts, it is not for that reason. What it is to do, though, is to correct the decisions that were made in the past, decisions that were not made by us, but decisions that were made to build homes in the floodplain before our time. It is about protecting the existing people and the existing property in that floodplain. Now, not only have we been waiting for this EIS to come out, but we have seen the years of study that the New South Wales state government have put into educating all of us, including the public, into how dangerous this floodplain is, including the document about the resilient valleys document , which went through in such detail about this whole thing and why the dam wall raising is vitally important to that.

Now, I would encourage anyone, if they've got a spare 10 minutes, to go onto the Water New South Wales website and have a look at the videos that they've put up. If you don't have time to go and read every word of the EIS, at least have a look at their series of videos that explain to you not only the effect of this, the bathtub effect within the Hawkesbury floodplain, but it explains to you the engineering, you know, in simple terms, it explains to you the engineering of the dam wall, how it will be built, how it will mitigate those flood impacts down here in the Hawkesbury, and how any inundation is not—it's not to be on a permanent basis. It talks about that World Heritage value and what the state government will be doing to ensure that that is protected and offset.

It goes through all of that in detail. So you can't say you were never informed about this project, even just by simply looking at those videos. So thank you, Mr. Mayor, for bringing this Mayoral Minute to the Chamber. It is vitally important that Hawkesbury City Council makes a submission and that we show our community that we have their best interests at heart. Thanks.

Thank you. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr. Mayor. I'm concerned that the Mayoral Minute we have before us with the suggestions for the submission isn't Hawkesbury-specific enough , and in fact is probably not presenting the information that necessarily needs to go through to the state government. I agree that we need to make a submission, but it needs to be a submission that highlights the concerns that we have as an LGA, not a submission that is politically motivated . This, this suggestion of these eight points here is missing some of the, some of our key concerns . I think if we're going to put in a submission, it would be quite reasonable for us to include our losses from 2020 and 2021. That isn't listed here . One of the key things that's missing is the concerns that were frequently raised.

In fact, every meeting of the Floodplain Risk Management Committee, we repeatedly discussed, with Infrastructure New South Wales, our concerns about poor infrastructure provision in times of flooding. This, this dam wall isn't going to be fixed, isn't going to be raised tomorrow if that decision is made. And frankly, we are not the decision makers here. We are here to advocate on behalf of our community. My concern with this project, apart from environmental concerns, is that we are putting, or the state government is proposing to put all our eggs in one basket, and that is bad news for the Hawkesbury. Firstly, because it's going to take a bloody long time to build that basket if they decide to go ahead.

The cost of the basket is increasing each year, and meanwhile, we still have this incredibly vulnerable population that is not getting the basic infrastructure provisions that we have repeatedly asked for. And we've seen that again with the Richmond Bridge project, where we have half a billion dollars on the table and a bridge with a one in five flood immunity. Why aren't we mentioning the lack of power and emergency services west of the river in times of flooding? Raising the dam wall won't fix that. Why aren't we raising concerns about increased development? Why are—and look, you can, you can... Promise that that node further development will go ahead under this proposal, but we have endless proposals for infill development.

Our own planning documents call for infill development, and all of those people who will come in in that infill development may be above the one in 100, but they are all affected when the road is cut off. And so we're still pouring people into this floodplain. It doesn't matter how many times Infrastructure New South Wales or various members of the state government or members of this council say that isn't happening. It is absolutely happening, and we watch it happening all the time. We've got a planning proposal here for nine more buildings, nine more residents to go in. We will probably pass that tonight as a council, all of those people affected by the floodplain. So it's a moot point, and Stuart Ayres has publicly said that we will be doubling the population in the area.

So, and they are not all going to be unaffected by this. We need to raise concerns about the use of the dam for water storage, and I see that there's an attempt here to do that, but we need to make it really clear that all evidence is that a dam that is used for both flood mitigation and water storage is a recipe for disaster. That's not my opinion. That is expert opinion. It's not something I've read. It's something that experts have repeatedly told both the Upper House Inquiry and the state government and the floodplain risk management association at the four conferences that I have attended. We also need to raise concerns about development along evacuation routes, because it doesn't matter how high you raise that dam, when we get to the point where the dam cannot hold back the water, we are going to have to leave.

And if the more houses that are packed into the floodplain, sorry, the evacuation routes along Windsor and Richmond Road, the more precarious the existence of our residents are. We need to raise concerns about downstream impacts. These are not negligible. Serious bank erosion, impacts on wetlands, high impacts, high—not something, you know, not something you can just blink and pretend doesn't exist—on three critically endangered ecological communities, two threatened species— sorry, three threatened species—impacts on national parks, including Skyville and Kattai, low-level flooding due to discharge. There will be further impacts on the McDonald Valley, and that's before we even go into the fact that this wall is not going to cover all of the tributaries of the Hawkesbury-Nepean.

I have scribbled all over the findings of the Upper House inquiry, and I haven't got time to go into them, but there is really damning evidence here that people have been improperly consulted, and that particularly the consultation with the Gundungurra people of the Burragorang Valley has been really poor. And I'll finish with Grace Haskins' quote, because I know I'm out of time, Mr Mayor. The lack of proper scientific survey of cultural understandings of Aboriginal landscapes in this report is both laughable and outrageous.

And I won't go into the Trumpism was the quote from the speaker at the Upper House inquiry about accusing people of wanting to drown residents and environmental terrorism before anybody goes down that path.

Thank you, Councillor Wheeler. Councillor Reynolds, please don't talk about environmental terrorism.

I was going to lead with that. Anything else ? This is an incredibly profound discussion we're having here, and I think this discussion is something that will be listened to again and again in the future. I'm speaking as someone, I can remember every flood since 1964. I lost a good friend in the 1978 flood. I lost another good friend in the 1986 flood, both drowned, and I've helped evacuate people since the floods of the 1970s . There's a number of issues

There is the support for this project continues to fall away, Mr Mayor . The Upper House inquiry, there were three members of the government on that. There was two Liberal MLCs, Shane Mallard and Taylor Martin, and a Nationals member, Wes Fang. And I know Wes is pretty staunch, and all three agreed with the recommendations of the Upper House inquiry that the dam wall not go up. The Insurance Council was initially in favour and has now pulled support, and that means that every insurance company in Australia is against the dam wall going up. Now we've heard about how much it will cost if a big flood comes, how many hundreds of millions or even billions, perhaps, a big flood would cost. Now the brunt of that is going to be borne by the insurance companies. Now if the insurance companies Don't want the project. Then we have to ask, what's wrong with it?

The cost-benefit analysis is flawed. I think it was the Deputy Premier or former Deputy Premier said, I've got it written here, I think there are options. You have to look at alternatives. And the other alternative would be to leave water levels at a lower level and consider desalination mark two. This is one solution. Now, in the resilient valleys resilient communities report , they looked at desalination and crossed it off.

But they didn't take into account the

Benefit to the state, especially in the people of the Greater Sydney, of having a drought-free water supply.

It was only not that many years ago the dam was that low. We were on water restrictions. If the desalination plant was increased in output, we could potentially have a drought-free water supply, and the dam could be modified to allow flood mitigation. So if that 1.6 billion or whatever it's going to be went into desal, now that is something that was not considered. The benefits of a drought-free water supply was not considered in the cost-benefit analysis. The same as evacuation routes. Evacuation routes were again crossed off in the resilient valleys resilient communities because the 24-hour-a-day , 365-day-a-year increased benefits to the road network was not taken into account. They only looked at the benefits of evacuation routes in the four or five days of a flood.

Now, that's not an accurate comparison.

As for, yeah , if not, then what? Obviously, the big one, or the main one, is as the former Deputy Premier said, desalination plants and drop the levels of the existing dam. That's the obvious one. It's a win-win situation. But the dropping of support by the Insurance Council of Australia raises massive questions. They are the ones who will financially benefit from this dam wall if it does what the government claims it will do. It will save them hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars, and their shareholders hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars, but they don't want it.

And you have to ask why. Now, as for development, there's actually a little gem hidden in the EIS. All the little gems are always hidden in the appendices, not in the main document.

It says, in part, whether the project would promote additional population growth in flood vulnerable areas is not able to be predicted with any confidence.

It is clear that development on the floodplain has progressed at a rapid rate regardless of the risk of flooding. Between 2006 and 2016, there has been substantial population growth on the floodplain. Furthermore, large-scale residential and commercial development have already been planned for and approved on the floodplain.

Just time has expired. Yes

Sure. And while technically above the one in 100 chance in a year, major developments which are in areas susceptible to flooding, such as Marsden Park and Vineyard North, are either approved or going in the approval process, and these— Developments are advancing whether the project occurs or not. If it is such a problem, and it is a problem, we would stop these developments. You would stop them and go, no. But we're not saying that. They're going ahead regardless of whether the project occurs or not. And again, that is quite telling. And apart from that, Stuart Ayres said years ago, as far as the eye can see, that's all urban development. And the scale of this is just so large, we can explore here all different kinds of housing. And he was talking about the floodplain at Penrith. So development obviously is behind this. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Rasmussen.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor, I just want to highlight a couple of little facets of the desalination option. Clearly it's a much cheaper option. Currently the desal plant—no , not currently, because it's on maintenance—but it has been running in dry conditions at 18%. It can go to 28%. Now, to run with that would give almost 30% of Sydney's demand, water supply demand. Now, as Councillor Reynolds said, you know, what price a drought-free Sydney, right? A water shortage that wouldn't occur. What price would that be? Anyway, my point there is that it's also something that can be done fairly rapidly, taking up Council's viewpoint. You know, this dam isn't going to be built tomorrow, or in the next 10 weeks, or the next 2, 3 years.

We know that. It's going to cost at least, at least 750, 780 million dollars, maybe more by the time they finish. We haven't got the full costings yet. So the best way to do it really with renewable energy is to run the dam down to a point where the desal plant will pick up the slack and then run the desal plant up to 28 percent , and if need be, build another one. 250 million bucks will buy you another desal plant, another 30 percent. That's 60 percent of it built if we do it. So I think that's the better option, Mr Mayor, and it can be brought in fairly quickly, much shorter than the dam wall raising.

Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Rasmussen. Any further speakers? Councillor Zanprogno. Sorry , Councillor Rasmussen-Reils, do you mind just lowering your hands so I can see?

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Look, I think the only appropriate way to frame this debate is to acknowledge that it used to be an article of faith that successive chambers and successive mayors took it as an article of faith, took it as the most obvious thing in the world, that of course we, as a council representing the most flood-prone area in Australia, would support flood mitigation to safeguard the life and property of people in our area. It is only since the election of this council in 2016. That that situation has changed. In 1996, Rex Stubbs brought a motion and passed it to encourage the council to support the raising of the dam by 23 metres. And when I brought my notice of motion in 2018 to reaffirm support for this project, the chamber didn't see fit to support it.

But what we should be discussing now, of course, is the new data that the EIS gives us to inform our discussion. So , for example, it was new data to recognise that there were 600 houses that were inundated in the flood in March, and that wasn't a particularly big flood, and that had the mitigation works been in place years ago, that this flood would have only inundated 100 houses. So there are 500 houses, 500 families, who would have been spared. And I think of Lisa and Ben, who live in North Street in Windsor, whose house was flooded to the second storey, and whose house would have been saved if these works had been there, because the flood would have been three and a half metres lower. I think of the people in Buckingham Street, in Eldon Street, in Pitt Town, in Commercial Road in Vineyard, and in all of the other places where their houses were flooded, where they could have been saved if only this had gone through in the 1990s, which was the last time that it was properly on the agenda, and when there was also a full EIS that took years to compile.

And it looks like it's taken us 30 years to arrive at precisely the same point that we were in the 1990s. It's also useful to recognise that the EIS recognises, and some time to examine, the ecology downstream from the dam. This is often portrayed as a false equivalent, you know, a false dichotomy between the ecology upstream and the built environment and the human cost downstream. But there is an ecology downstream from the dam that would be damaged, and where there are species that are less flood resilient. Then what the EIS does declare, and that is that they've looked at the flood resilience of the species fringing Lake Burragorang and have concluded that those species will endure an inundation, a temporary inundation, of the scale that would occur if the dam were to be raised on those very rare occasions .

And, you know, in bringing this to a head, I note that many of my colleagues who have spent the last five years trenchantly opposing this, but not really wanting to say that they oppose raising Warragamba Dam, instead have hidden behind, well, we've got to wait for the EIS. Now the EIS is here. I'd

Like

To suggest

That these people no longer have any excuse, and with an election looming, they have an obligation to declare clearly their position, plainly for or against raising Warragamba Dam. I've listened carefully to all of the other speakers, and I note that several of them have refused to declare that position. But I've also got to say that is not what this motion seeks to do. The Mayor has brought a mayoral minute saying, look, there's a public submission process. Obviously this council should put together a submission. Here are the things that we should be mindful of. I only wish that this mayoral minute was a clear declaration from this council to reaffirm its support for flood mitigation. But it isn't that, and I would encourage my colleagues, even if you're wavering on the question of raising Warragamba Dam, to instead support this mayoral minute because all it seeks to do is have us make a submission that's relevant to the concerns of people in this area.

And as far as their own support for this project is concerned, we'll leave that for the campaign trail. And I can only say that I will be making a significant issue of those candidates and councillors that have refused to declare their support for this vital project that will save lives. Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Thank you. Deputy Mayor.

Sorry, you're muted, Deputy Mayor. Sorry.

Thank you. Thank you. I think most people will be probably campaigning on local issues that the Hawkesbury councillors make decision about, not state issues. But anyway—

Are you speaking again, Deputy Mayor?

Well, I ask questions before. I haven't spoken yet. I had another question as well before I go, and that was to say, are you considering— are we sort of taking on board for the submission some of the things Councillor Wheeler raised, or shall I be putting an amendment in? Yeah

I was going to come to that. Yeah, I'd be quite happy to add to the list our concerns about the lack of power and emergency services west of the river, our concerns around development along evacuation routes, including in local government areas that are next to us— what am I trying to say?— neighbouring local government areas, and..

The other one was, and the concerns were frequently raised about poor infrastructure provision during flood times. I don't think this is an either/or, so I'm certainly happy to include those points. Okay .

I thought that was good. That's what I was going to raise, and I actually had another couple of points as well, if you could consider those. Otherwise, I will do an amendment. And that was specifically to note that the regional land use study has not been yet completed. In the sequence of events leading into this, it was always to precede the EIS. And when we speak about development in the floodplain and what Minister Ayres has said, and we have not been told by experts that there won't be development, because the experts that gave us the briefing were the experts in the flood project, not in the planning department. And I think it's very important, given that I've heard various things said by members of the planning department at conferences, it's very important that we see that land use study.

We know there's more development going in. That's already been said, the development of North Marsden Park. And so I would like it noted that that study is not yet available, and also that the cumulative overland flood study is not available, because that has such an impact on the South Creek catchment. And we really must have that information to be able to be making any proper decisions around this. Well, we're not making the decision, of course; we're just making a submission. And I'm more than happy to put in a submission, as long as it contains the outstanding information that we don't have, because I don't believe that we're doing our job properly if we don't have all the information. And sitting in this chamber, we've had a lot said about transparency and accountability, and we have requested certain information that hasn't been received.

The other major issue, Mr Mayor, that I'd like to raise is around the post-flood release water. Now, it was said the other night in the briefing that that's in the EIS. I don't believe that it is all in the EIS, and I'll be following up. Maria Booth's offer to follow up with that, but I haven't had time to do that since Thursday. But given that we are the custodians of community assets in this area, we must be mindful of what those impacts will be. So it's being ignored that when that dam is holding back a lot more water at some point, unless that water is a dual-use dam for water storage and flood mitigation, that water has to come out because the inundation can only be temporary, so the water has to be released.

Now, the leaked report said that that will have a potential impact on community infrastructure assets around our sewer treatment plant at McGrath's Hill and around the agricultural cropping along the river. So I don't know why anybody would not think that it's pertinent for us to have that information. I think we would be negligent in our job if we simply accept that someone says there's no impact there because we know that there's reports that say that there is. And I would like that either noted or investigated or something around that, because until I see both that regional land use study and get confirmation of the proposed zonings in this area, and until I see the cumulative overland flood study and also the post-flood release information about the potential impacts after a flood, which is never discussed, I will not be happy to be supporting a project where there's big gaps in information.

And I won't even go into the cost around it, but the costings are from so long ago, and I guess that's going to be another whole round of information. I think that in terms of putting in a submission, of course we must, and I'm a very strong advocate of doing whatever we can to protect our people. And in fact, in the 10 years wasted while this has been going on, I think I get really sad about the opportunities that have been missed where we could have made it much safer for our people. We could have educated our people much more around flood preparation and planning. We could have definitely had better evacuation routes. We could have also had a stop on development in the floodplain if it was such a big risk.

And we know that a lot of that development is now, in fact, a contributing factor to the flooding being worse. So if you're happy to include those, or if those can be taken on board, I won't move them separately as an amendment. I'll support your mayoral minute to have the submission done, but I certainly think that they're worth noting because we have both a responsibility to protect our people, but we also have a responsibility to be making our decisions based on having all the available information, and we currently don't have that. Thank you.

Just, I have no issue with that. So the things I've written down are that Council would want to see the regional land use study, which is not yet being completed and that should have come first, similarly with the cumulative overland flood study not being available, and we want to see the full details, the information regarding the full impact of the post-flood release of water. I'd be happy to include all those things, as well as Councillor Wheeler, those points I've raised, read out before. My question would be, people happy if we, rather than try and make the staff write that all down, given that we're not actually voting on the submission, if we just take that as noted to come back and be included in the submission that we vote on, or did you want me to get the drafted up into the motion?

I'm happy for this to be taken. I mean, there's a recording of it, obviously. If we agree, if you're agreeing, it would be something that is taken seriously to be considered. It's fine by me.

Councillor Carbett.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. When I first saw that you had this Mayoral Minute in the business paper, I assumed that what we'd be looking for is a balanced report. But upon reading it, it's not actually what you're calling for. You're taking a position with your Mayoral Minute. You're taking a definite position in favour of raising the dam wall. If you had called for a balanced report, I might have thought about supporting it. But in its present form, I will be having difficulty to support it. Now , also, I think we might be big-noting ourselves, thinking that what we're going to say is going to have much of a difference anyway. And if Council was to support raising the dam wall, then the government would be out there saying, Look, Hawkesbury Council supports this.

If we don't support it, then they're just going to ignore us and carry on anyway. So I've been saying for a long time that we do need a balanced way of looking at this. And I did speak at the Upper House inquiry a year or two ago about this very point, that raising the dam wall, to many people, is what you would call a quick fix. People think, Oh, we'll do that and all our problems will be solved. There'll be no more flooding. We can go about our business and just forget that it ever happened. And that is a very dangerous position because, as has been pointed out in many places, flooding in Hawkesbury doesn't just come from over the dam wall. And in fact, the amount of flooding coming into Hawkesbury from other sources, such as South Creek, is actually increasing, and raising the dam wall does not address all those issues.

So, Mr Mayor, I'm not happy to support something that gives people a false sense of security. And that's, to me, exactly what this would do. It would mean that people would walk around thinking, I don't have to prepare for floods. We don't need any higher evacuation routes. We don't need any levees in certain places. We don't need any of that because we have a higher dam wall. In fact, we do need all those things. What I've always suggested is that we have a combination of approaches to flooding, that we look at all the manners of flood mitigation. I know Councillor Zamprogno talks about mitigation, but he was only talking about the dam wall as mitigation. There's a whole range of other activities which should be included.

And your Mayoral Minute doesn't do that because it specifically points out in point two that there are significant limitations to all the other ways of doing this. And it's coming from a point of dismissing all those things, whereas I think we should be including all those things as an overall solution to flooding in the Hawkesbury. And that would also include some of the other options such as buying back certain properties, looking at how many areas can be developed in the future. All that needs to be put into the mix, not just this quick fix solution of raise the dam wall and we're all happy.

So what you're putting forward here is something that is also based on some assumptions that you're saying that they won't allow the extra airspace to be used for water storage because it requires a lot of legislation. Since when does legislation stop the government from doing anything? That's exactly what they're there for, for legislation. And they would just—they would very easily raise the dam wall and fill it with water because there's going to be a shortage of water across Western Sydney, a big shortage. And the desalination plants need to be looked at in the mixture as well. So we need all those things put together. Otherwise, what we're doing here is putting up an all-or-nothing position, and I'm not really prepared to do that.

I'd be happy to support the submission if it was balanced and if you can find a way of making it balanced that takes into account all the possible methods and all of them working together. So I'll leave that in your lap, Mr Mayor, and if you can't find a way of changing it, then I won't be supporting your mayoral minute.

Thank you. Councillor Carver, any further speakers? I don't go to right of reply. I want to speak for too long. I think most of what needs to be said has been said. I will respond briefly to the Councillor Calvert and the issues just raised there. I don't see that there's any of the things you mentioned are flood mitigation. Evacuation route don't mitigate against the impact of floods. New development controls for new properties don't mitigate against the impact of floods. The options that I'm referring to that have significant limitations and disadvantages are the alternative options that we've already been looked at by Infrastructure New South Wales, many of which, most of which actually, are mutually exclusive.

You can't raise the dam wall both by 14 and 22 metres. You could raise the dam wall and lower the water storage level, but I don't know why you would. So I don't think it's a case of including all of them and supporting more of them. I don't think that makes much sense at all. And I'm certainly in favour of, like I said, I'm certainly happy to point out our concerns around infrastructure and evacuation routes. However, noting that this is a process which is an environmental impact assessment of raising the dam wall, so whether or not we are happy with our infrastructure is probably not relevant to the environmental impact of that project. But I understand there's the right people are looking at it, and we should take the opportunity to point out our concerns.

I think that's valid, if not directly relevant. So I'm happy that we've had a broad discussion about it. Like I said, we've taken note of those extra points that should be included in the submission. I hope people can support the Mayoral Minute, which just gives our staff direction to write a submission that we're going to have to write anyway. And hopefully that means when it comes back, we can be looking at something we broadly agree with, and we can certainly further refine our decision making at that time. So I'll put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. Favour, Councillor Conolly, Councillors Zamprogno, Councillor Richards, Councillor Tree. Against? Councillor Calvert, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Ross.

Did I call everyone's name out?

Councillor Garrow is not present.

Councillor Garrow not present for the vote.

Declare it lost. Okay.

Okay, item 203, we have two public speakers, Janice Hopkins and Michael Want. Our first speaker is Janice Hopkins.

Ms Hopkins with us? Ah , yes. Okay, yeah, you're on mute, but we're ready for you when you're ready.

Hello, can you hear me now? Yes. Okay, hello. Mr Mayor and Councillors, good evening. I'm Janice Hopkins of 79 Bells Lane, and I'm speaking on behalf of my husband and our neighbours in relation— Sorry? Yes. Yes. Oh, yeah , I can turn that off. Sorry. I'm speaking with our neighbours in relation to this development that—we have lived at 79 Bells Lane for the last 30 years and the last up to 40 years. This planning development was first brought to our attention back in May 2013 when we were approached by Council that it would be possible for our land to have subdivision potential due to the residential land strategy of the Hawkesbury City Council. We were told that certain lands around the periphery of the village of Kurmond were able to be investigated for possible subdivision for large lot dwellings.

As we already have neighbours living on Wake and next door, another neighbour living on two and a half acres across the road from us, and Kurmond residential village that we look over to, we thought we'd proceed with the planning. We have a large family, all married and a total of ten grandchildren. Currently there are 11 members of our family living on this property. Our neighbour also has a large family with four adult children, with partners and seven grandchildren.

Their development of 475 Bells Line of Road will have four blocks, and they are hoping this will go towards helping them to getting their own homes. Combined, our families have been schooled locally, and now the grandchildren are all attending the same schools. The families have invested into local businesses. They work, they teach, and they contribute greatly to the Hawkesbury community, and none of them have any desire to leave the Hawkesbury. Combined, our property, our property on 79 Bells Lane hopefully will have three blocks over 9,100 metres square. The footprint will hardly change. It will allow for two houses to be built for the family, and no vegetation will be touched. The traffic on Bells Lane will be the same for 79 as they live on the property already.

We have complied with every decision and environmental report requested from Council and New South Wales State infrastructure. We're not big developers wishing to make a quick buck. All we want now is to be able to make our family have homes of their own and hope this is not too much to us.

Thank you . Thanks. Happy to take questions if Councillors have any questions.

Are there any questions

Councillors? Councillor Zamprogno. Thank you, Mr Mayor, and thank you, Mrs Hopkins, for your presentation. Could you tell me how much in total you've spent to bring your application to this point, and indeed whether it has cost more because of what we might call shifting goalposts and delays?

Yes. When we went into this development with our neighbours, we decided that we would have to try and do it by sharing cost because we both had big families and a lot of expenses. But because we've constantly gone back and forth, we've been to Gateway several times, and then things get changed with legislation and studies. We've been to the Department of Planning and Infrastructure and Environment. We've been to the Independent Commissioner, and now the Independent Commissioner, once we have come back with all these studies that we've had to do through the Envirotech. We've had fire studies, we've had environmental flora and fauna studies, and it's roughly come to about $140,000.

Money might I wish that we could have spent wisely elsewhere, but we thought this was one way of getting our children a start in life by being able to have homes on our large lots.

Thank you, Mrs Hopkins. Any further questions? Thank you for that. Our next speaker is Mr Michael Watt.

Thanks, councillors. Councillors, I refer to page 43 of the business paper, and in particular the third paragraph under access and transport, and I quote. In previous reports to Council dealing with other planning proposals within the vicinity of Kermond and Kurrajong, it has been noted that Council has received petitions from residents west of the Hawkesbury River concerned about rezoning of land for residential purposes in the absence of required infrastructure upgrades. It is considered that it is a fundamental matter to be dealt with by Council prior to the finalisation of any planning proposals in the locality, as the cumulative impact of these types of developments could be unacceptable if no traffic improvements are made.

In response to this issue , the applicant advises that landowners have agreed to enter into a voluntary planning agreement with Council for the provisions and improvements of relevant public infrastructure. Now, Councillors, the officer's recommendation is not an acceptable response, considering the officer's report says in the same paragraph at the fourth line, I quote, It is considered that it is a fundamental matter to be dealt with by Council prior to the finalisation of any planning proposals in the locality, as the cumulative impacts of these types of development could be unacceptable if no traffic improvements are made. Councillors, this item should be deferred until the fundamental matters in the report is addressed.

The report says, and I quote again, The cumulative impacts of these types of development could be unacceptable if no traffic improvements are made. End of quote. The applicant's response is a cut and paste from previous planning proposed applications. The response is not acceptable. Address the problem, councillors. Do not accept promises to address the problem. Councillors, don't make the same mistake you made when your Liberal councillors majority approved the Redbank development with the bridge to be built at the 600 block mark or something similar. The bridge is still not built, and councillors moved the goalposts for the developer on three occasions. And councillors, what about the 4,400 community members who signed the NRDC WA petition that you, as individual councillors, are supposed to represent?

Councillors, don't fall for the three-card trick again and again. There's an election in December, and we may need more progressive council to improve and protect our rural landscapes. Councillors, the decision you take tonight may decide your fate if you stand again in December, if it pleases.

Thanks, Mr. Want. Any questions, Mr. Want? Yeah, okay, got questions .

Any questions? No questions. Thanks, Mr. Want. Okay, thank you. Nobody wish to move something? Move the recommendation, Councillor Zamprogno. Yes. Is there a seconder for that?

Is there a seconder? Seconder, Councillor Richards. Okay. Any discussion, Councillor Zamprogno? Yes,

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Over this term of council, I've expressed my displeasure about, you know, matters in Kurrajong - Kurmond, and it's always been the same point, and that is that these people were induced. As Mrs Hopkins says, by Council all the way back in 2013 to contemplate the subdivision of their land as being perfectly consonant with the planning laws and direction of the land strategy that we had at the time. And if they've now spent upwards of $140,000 to get their application to this point, I mean, I'm really strongly motivated that they are given the courtesy of due process, the right to due process. And I've said a lot about development and overdevelopment in the area. I'm on the record consistently, I hope, as being against overdevelopment.

But this is the subdivision of, in the average case, a six-acre parcel of land into three two-acre parcels of land that wouldn't result in any additional traffic. That's for a family, not a developer, for them to make provision for their children, some of whom have particular needs. This is precisely the kind of community building that we should be supporting. Of course, it's common sense, because it's decent and accords these property owners the right to do with their property what we told them that they could apply to do nearly a decade ago. So for that reason, I think it's time for us to not delay any further and for us to endorse the adoption of this planning proposal. Thank you.

Thank you.

No further speakers

Councillor Reynolds. Councillors, if you try and raise your hand and just let me know you're waiting to speak.

Sorry about that, I was looking. I'm going to support this one. I was one of the ones who voted to defer while we were waiting for reports to come in. But I'd just like to point out that what we have here before us is an example of the benefits of strategic place-based planning. This isn't planning and rezoning like the one-size-fits-all type rezoning used by hit-and-run developers. This has been looked at carefully. I'm proud to see that the department has looked at the Kurrajong and Kurmond Landscape Character Study, which we adopted in 2018,

And have applied the principles of that to this proposal, which has again seen it decrease from 24 lots down to 9 lots of varying sizes according to the requirements of our landscape character study. So I want to point out that we're not anti-development. We're not against development. We're against overdevelopment, and we're pro-strategic development, and that's what this is. This isn't going to be an eyesore to other residents in the area. The scenic views have been maintained.

It ticks all the boxes as far as views and vistas go. It takes into account ecology and diversity. It takes into account fire. It's not allowing small blocks. It's, I think it's a class bit of work, this one, compared to other things that we've seen such as Redbank. Now, I think it's, I think we should support this one. I know some of us won't on principle because we're still waiting reports, but I hear the proponent and how long it's taken. Admittedly, we weren't the ones that encouraged this sort of thing, but I can see, as far as I'm concerned, the boxes have been ticked here.

All the issues we raised against urban sprawl impacting on our rural areas have been

Taken into account, and I think that this is a good outcome.

Good outcome and shows that our planning department is pretty on the ball. Thank you.

Thank you. Councillor Wheeler. Thanks

Mr Mayor. Look, I have to admit that I'm really torn on this. It's a vast improvement on the initial proposal. It takes into account the constraints of the site. It's good place-based planning. It's what the Kurrajong-Kurmond structure plan set out to achieve. It protects the riparian zone. It takes into account slope, fire risk and the zone objectives. There's no vegetation removed. I think that's a huge win for both the properties involved, but also for the environment. The, the, the. It references the Kurrajong Kurmond landscape study, which defines the character of this area and raised the bar for acceptable development, and it meets that bar. And I think that is a real achievement and a really good way forward for development in this area.

And it remains my hope that we can implement that standard of place-based planning throughout the LGA. I note also the Gateway reference to the Metropolitan Rural Lands Objectives, and I would urge anyone who is now considering development in the Hawkesbury LGA, and particularly subdivision in the LGA, to look at those Metropolitan Rural Area Objectives because they have been game-changing for development here. It's not about this council demanding people spend loads of money, put in lots of reports, and meet standards , or that this council is anti-development. This is the state government determining the future of what Sydney looks like and attempting to curb the urban sprawl that has made traffic, urban heat, travel times, lack of transport options successively worse over the last 20 years in Sydney, and in a growing Sydney.

And we see that daily as do our residents who battle with all of those things. But I also hear Mr Watts' concerns and these are the concerns that have been reasonably raised with us repeated, and not just this council, but previous councils. Over the past decade of the cumulative impacts of development west of the river. Now, I hear the applicant and those people already living on that site, and in this instance, this represents actually a better outcome for Council than a detached dual occupancy would. This is well-planned development that lasts in perpetuity. You know, we have detached dual occupancy where they're both family members. That doesn't suit people moving forward. We have the State Government not allowing detached dual occupancy on any rural properties in the LGA, and we can't fix that as a council at this point because it's a State Government ruling.

But this puts two distinct dwellings in a subdivision. They're willing to enter into a voluntary planning agreement. They will pay rates on both of those properties, and both of those properties will be considered going forward for infrastructure provision. So it's far better than a detached dual occupancy. I'm hoping that there are a couple of councillors that are still to speak because I'm really struggling with what the rest of the LGA demands in terms of infrastructure provision and a curb on development and those cumulative impacts, and what I think is now a very good subdivision. And I feel for the applicants. They've done everything right. This is one of those difficult decisions where I think Council is placed in a vexed position because decisions were made previously that didn't have the good of the whole LGA at heart .

at their forefront, and now we have to navigate this passage.

Thank you. Councillor Richards. Yeah,

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'm sorry, I've lost all my words because I am just in shock with what I've just had to listen to, compared to what I've had to listen to in the last five years on this very issue. I mean, are we even speaking the same language? Have we not sat in the same chamber over the last five years and heard items such as this just completely talked about as how wrong they are for the Hawkesbury? Sorry, I'm just going to have to get my head around that for a little bit because that's absolutely gobsmacked me, what I just had to listen to then. It has been very clear, I think, over the last five years where I have stood on the carriage applications that come under this category. It has always been to process what's in move on from this.

It has not been a perfect idea from the very, very get-go, but we were left with a legacy that we needed to sort out. And when we hear some of the remarks we've just heard about the poor applicants, and you think, geez, you've got to be joking, with the delay that carried on about structure planning and reports about what a view is worth and all this garbage that we wasted ratepayers' money on to delay people's lives and getting on with their lives, I'm seriously gobsmacked. So I think I'll just put this very nicely and succinctly that I support this one tonight. I've supported the system as long as it has been done sensibly, and I look forward to the applicants getting on with their lives with this one and looking after their families and not having to worry about the delay any further.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you

Mr Mayor. I hope, I hope Councillor Richards can settle down a bit there and gather her thoughts and composure. Mr Mayor, I just wanted to correct a couple of things that she just said, and it was the very fact that we did have structure planning that came into place and that we had the landscape character study that did address the views and the avoidance of building on ridgelines and so on that has enabled a result to be reached that is agreeable. And the reduction in lot sizes, number of lots, because one property was deemed not to be suitable for subdivision and other properties were reduced in lot size to enable that retention of vegetation and so on. That's so important. And this is all that's ever been wanted around the planning of this particular area.

And it is unfortunate for the applicants that they were led to believe that there were planning laws, as Councillor Zambrano said. There were not planning laws. There was a strategy that had no studies around it and that had not been implemented as it was directed to do, and that left people floundering and it left applicants who were in unknown waters because they had been, in fact, encouraged, I would say under some sort of false pretense, to believe that if they applied that they could subdivide their land, rather than having it clearly said that it was a speculative process that may or may not pass. It's very different to a development application where there are assessment criteria. It was being done in a process where through the previous Council term and through this Council term, there was an evolution towards some sort of structure around that strategy, which in the beginning had none.

And we've seen the result of that, and we've seen what can happen when there are proper criteria to go by, when there are things to look at that consider cumulative impact, that consider all the various aspects that the Western District Plan has now said is the fundamental place-based planning that it wishes to implement around the metropolitan rural areas, so that we don't have unfettered development across the area that is unsustainable, and that it's done in a way that it can be fitting in with what's there. It can be done so that it is not impacting people. And that has taken a long time in this process, but it got off to a very bad start, and in the last council term nobody had a clue what was going on, what was happening.

It was a lot of things changing all the time, and then that carried over into this council term where we attempted to fix it. And even though the Kurrajong-Kurmond plan itself was not adopted, obviously the planning panels are utilising the characteristics and the principles that are within it, and they have taken great notice, particularly of the landscape character study. And as we know, the Greater Sydney Commission has directed that that is the future of how planning will be. So eventually, every area around here will have to have that structure-based planning done anyway. So I think that it's a good result in terms of being able to have the applicants work with the council to do that and to come out with a result that they appear to be happy with, I assume, or liveable with, and for us to know what the planning panel considers of our guiding principles and of our adopted strategic plans that we have already.

Thank you.

Thank you. Just before we go on, I just would remind Councillors speaking that we're supposed to be talking about this particular application, not our thoughts on the process over the last decade. The last couple of speakers both went there, so I didn't pull anybody up, but if we could just from now on focus on the matter before us. Councillor Tree.

Sorry to not be able to oblige you, Mr Mayor. I've got to say I'm with Councillor Richards on this. I'm in absolute shock. I do wonder whether friendships have been discovered. Just wondering.

It kind of really amazes me to think that over the last 13 years I've watched so many of these councillors be against these types of developments unless there has been friendships. Maybe not the one sitting in here, but maybe, I don't know, I can't recall exactly. But I just do think that it's interesting that one of the public speakers actually is living on subdivided land and was permitted to build a second dwelling on their property.

I've already called you to order, Deputy Mayor.

Oh no, sorry, I was delayed .

Sorry, Councillor Tree, we're not going to go there, okay? We're going to talk about this application before us. I

Am talking about this application because everybody who's had something to say about it has got to accept that they own what they say. And so I'd really love to see the logbooks of that tourism development that was supposedly there. The other thing is that I get really indignant when I hear about people talking about Redbank as being the devil and supposedly they're immune. Point of

Order, Mr Mayor.

Yes, hang on, Deputy Mayor.

Mr Mayor, I think Councillor Tree should withdraw that. She's just made an allegation against one of the public speakers in here, an unsubstantiated allegation.

No, I didn't. I said— No,

It wasn't an allegation. Sorry, Councillor Tree. I've got a rule on the point of order, and then you may respond. I didn't hear an allegation, but you can, Councillor Tree, you can consider whether there was an allegation that she wants to withdraw. No

There wasn't an allegation. There were a statement of facts. I seconded for dwelling, so I wasn't anti it because I didn't think highly of the person. So then we also had these comments about RedBank and about how they somehow don't comply with all of the requirements that every other development is required to comply with, which is nonsense. And if anyone cared to look at what they're doing there objectively, they would see that what they're doing is really great best practice and an outstanding development, and without a doubt the best greenfield development we've ever had in our area, and that's not even hard to do. Then we've had people here who have supported Jacaranda Ponds saying that what they're going to do is marvellous and outstanding, and yet I don't see how it's going to be anything

Sorry, Councillor Tree, I'm going to direct you there. Either wrap it up or talk about the development in front of us.

Sorry, I was having a little bit of fun, Mr Mayor. So, Mr Mayor, I'm supportive of this because it meets all of the requirements. I feel very sorry for all applicants who bring their applications to the chamber and have to comply with outrageous sometimes expectations, or if they meet the expectations or they meet the criteria, we ask for more and more. And I just think it's outrageous, the amount of money that these applicants have spent to try and achieve this outcome. Everyone should be ashamed of themselves who didn't support it in the first place. Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Any further discussion? If not, we'll go right of reply, Councillor Zamprogno.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. And ordinarily I wouldn't, but because I have not had the benefit of hearing from all councillors, and because at least one councillor said that they were on the fence about this, I'll make a further address. You say ordinarily you wouldn't, Councillor Zamprogno. Go ahead. So in this case, I just wanted to say to Councillor Wheeler , yes, I mean this is a vast improvement, and that the various ecological and biodiversity significances that have been established and mitigated in this application, I think tick the appropriate boxes, as indeed does the fact that the applicants are prepared to enter into a VPA that delivers $30,000 per block. So on that basis, I think we simply have to.

It ticks the appropriate boxes. There is the moral argument that we have done the wrong thing by many of these applicants in the Kurrajong and Kurmond area by faffing them about, by declaring in a mood that we are not going to apply the rules today because we wanted to wait on a traffic study or some other study or some other windmill that we would chase.

Point of order, Mr Mayor.

And that's not how we— Point of order, Councillor Wheeler, sorry.

Councillor Zampogno is attributing motives to other councillors that he is not able to actually give any evidence for. We didn't—I don't know that we necessarily move things in a mood. He's impugning our motives.

Thank you. Councillor Zamprogno. Thank you, Mr Mayor. I choose my words advisedly because I have heard certain councillors declare that they are against certain kinds of thing. Never ever, I think, was the words that I heard, and I thought that that was a betrayal of our requirement to apply rules to have evidence-based outcomes. So I'm simply hopeful that on this case, the right mood prevails and that we can get this through. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay, councillors, put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour are Councillor Tree, Councillor Conolly, Councillor [unclear] Buckett, Councillor Richards, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Carbett, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Kotlash. Against? Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Ross. Declare it carried.

So our next item , subject of other addresses, item 208, and that is motion one. And now we've got one speaker, Maria Lacerdo .

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Just wait for Maria to be added to the meeting. She's not ready.

Connecting now.

If you're there, Maria, we're ready for your address.

Hi, Maria, we're up to you now. Yep.

Okay. Thank you. My name is Maria Lacerdo from the Women's Cottage, speaking on behalf of the Women's Cottage tonight. As you know, the Women's Cottage has been offering support to vulnerable women and children in the Hawkesbury LGA for over 40 years. I'm speaking tonight to strongly support Council will's motion that Council support and, where possible, facilitate partnerships to secure increased funding for crisis accommodation for women and children escaping domestic violence. The particular funding that's being talked about is coming from the state government, and what I really want to highlight is partnerships are critical to this because the funding is for bricks and mortar only. So there's no funding for staffing or support or resources for the women who might— end up being housed, so it'll be up to existing services to offer that ongoing support.

In terms of need, I mean, a lot has been both researched and documented about how natural disasters increase domestic violence. For our area, we have, going back only four years, we've had

Families that have been impacted by ongoing drought, then the fires, and then the floods, and then COVID, and then the more devastating floods and more COVID. So we have a community that's been deeply affected, and for many families that means falling into family conflict and domestic violence and /or an increase of domestic violence issues that were already there.

In the year ending June this year, the Women's Cottage responded to over 4,000 requests for assistance. Of the 800 women who came for crisis support and the 900 children associated with them, over 40 percent were domestic violence related. Of the 500 new clients that we've had in the last year, 60 percent of those clients were impacted by domestic violence.

So you've also matching that with the decreasing capacity for housing. So we have an ongoing New South Wales-wide lack of social housing, and that we also have an extreme and worsening access to affordable local housing. And that's been made worse by the recent disasters of fires and floods, because many families have been displaced and have taken up the rental properties that are available.

So if Council was to go down the road of supporting

To facilitate partnerships to bring these funds into the area, I would suggest there's a couple of opportunities of how to do that. One would be to work in partnership with the Women's Cottage and LinkWentworth, who are partway through a process of moving forward on a grant that came through from the federal government about a year ago to build four crisis accommodation units for women escaping domestic violence in Windsor. Now that property hasn't, the construction hasn't started, but it is being, the plans and the DA are being worked through at this point. But that has been designed to take a second storey. So there's a, I guess there's a real opportunity there to value add to what's already in the pipeline. And that project

Already has the support of local services, of council and police, and is already well underway of having the policies, procedures and service model already developed. So those things wouldn't have to happen twice . The other opportunity, which would be a much smaller one , would be that the women's cottage is also currently working with council around a women's cottage funded extension. Again, a second story on that would provide one unit or a shared accommodation setting that could house women escaping domestic violence. And I think in conjunction, there needs to be

An exploration of what the possibility is of purchasing existing housing across the area that could be used for not just crisis housing but medium-term housing. Because crisis housing is one thing, but that might go for three months, and then where do women go from there? There's several parts to this issue, and crisis accommodation only meets part of it.

That's all I wanted to say, but I'm very happy to answer questions or provide information if somebody— Would like that.

Thank you. Councillors, are there any questions? Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor, and thanks for coming and speaking to us, Maria. It's always really helpful. What's the normal path for someone, for a woman, say with a couple of small children, for example, who presents to the Women's Cottage fleeing domestic violence in the Hawkesbury? What happens to people who don't have somewhere else to go?

So her only option is to ring the New South Wales Government linked to Home Service, who will look for either accommodation at in refuges out of area, or may, if there isn't any available , then may put the family up in temporary accommodation. Now that might be for a few days or it might be for a few weeks. The stress of that , and particularly ending up perhaps in areas that are not safe or feel safe for a woman and her children, often mean that a woman returns to the home because it feels, it just feels too hard.

To her abuser, in fact.

She will go home to her abuser rather than be in insecure or unsuitable housing .

And this is the most dangerous point in an abusive relationship for women, this point of leaving.

The point of leaving is when it's most dangerous for her, but it's also when it's the hardest for her to, I guess, maintain her resolve because of the impacts of trauma. That first period of time is when the, I guess, the woman's most impacted by trauma and fear, and fear of the unknown, and kids are in most distress because they've left their home and school and often, you know, they miss their other parent even if he was being abusive.

Where do these women by and large end up? Where are they sheltered under the current model?

Under the current model, they could end up in a number of refuges across the Sydney Basin and/or even out to Bathurst. Some of the accommodation is not women only , so they could end up in a homelessness shelter where there is men or people with significant mental health issues, and that's when probably it starts to feel the , you know, the devil she knew is better than what's the unknown that's unfolding in front of her.

And what about women with school-age children? Is there any possibility that they, do they get priority for places close to schooling? What happens to those kids?

No, it's all out of area. So the kids, the mum and the kids will end up wherever. There is something available if there's something available, and that family will have to start again in that area, and quite possibly will have to move quite a few times before she ends up in a place where, you know, more sustained community reconnection can actually start happening. That's why having more options for crisis accommodation and medium-term accommodation in the Hawkesbury would be so valuable.

Thanks. Thank you. Any further questions? All right. Thank you for that. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr. Mayor. So I'll move the motion that's in the business paper. Seconded, Deputy Mayor.

And again, I want to thank Maria for coming and talking to us. The experience of the women's cottage is really invaluable.

This motion is basically a means of articulating Council's position around the funding, very welcome funding from the New South Wales State Government, to expand services. We know, and we've known since COVID first struck last year. In fact, we heard repeatedly from domestic violence services and also men's crisis lines as well that we had not just a COVID pandemic, but a domestic violence pandemic that was exacerbated by financial distress, by lockdown, and by just the uncertainty. So when families are in crisis , we all know that this was a major stressor, and it added to that and caused a great deal of additional stress for affected families. What we, our DV action plan that Council reviewed earlier this year calls for us to identify and advocate for funding and systems change to address gaps.

One of the things that I think is nice about this funding from the state government is that it is now starting to talk again about women-specific services, rather than the issue that you heard articulated of women fleeing in crisis, often with young children, into shelters that aren't women-only. It's terrifying for women to then, and particularly when often for women the catalyst for them to move is to protect their children. So to move into a refuge where they don't feel that their children are safe, because there's often people who are drug users, there's people who are drunk, there's people who have been living rough for a long period of time and who may be psychologically unstable. They're not places that women feel that their children are safe.

There's been a loss of DV places with the push to, and in fact we haven't even been able to keep track of how many DV housing or shelter places that there are because it's all been swallowed into this homelessness picture. And DV is not homelessness. Women who flee DV become homeless, but these women have a home. They can't live in it because the perpetrator is controlling that space. So I really welcome that we're talking about DV-specific areas, and this Council needs to get behind that. You've heard some options for partnerships with, I think we had, this Council spoke early in our term about— Freeing up some land for affordable housing through the use of pocket parks and things, that review I think is still ongoing.

I was hoping that it would come back to us. I think we've been— by too many disasters to process all the things that we wanted to over this extra long Council term. But it strikes me that they may be partnerships that we could enter into with both the Women's Cottage and LinkWentworth, where we free up some land in order for this bricks and mortar funding that we've heard about that can be close to services. I note that they are designed to be wraparound setups where there are services. We're not just plonking women in a spot where they can't get to services. But we have to be really clear, both to the state government via our local member , and also to the federal government if there is further funding available.

But we have to be really clear: women here are not getting the same deal as women in some other parts of Sydney. To tell a woman that she can't get her kids to school whilst fleeing her perpetrator, and school is often, for traumatised children who live with domestic violence, school is often the safe space and the security and the routine and rhythm that keeps these people going. So to be plucked out of that, school often is also the place where the woman goes for safety and support because she has to take her kids there every day. So to shunt people out of the LGA in their time of extreme crisis is not doing the right thing by these people. We have a DV action plan that calls for us to advocate and to identify funding and to establish partnerships.

And this notice of motion calls for us to continue to do that and to ramp it up and get access to this funding. I think we need to make ourselves a priority.

Councillor Reynolds.

Yes, thanks, Pat. I'm speaking in favour of the notice of motion. I'd just like to let councillors know of an incident that occurred

Close to us yesterday where there was an argument between a young man and woman who were staying in one of the crisis accommodation places near us, and it became quite heated. The verbal abuse

The young woman was subjected to was horrendous.

Then there were some loud noises, and we saw that the man had a hammer and was breaking things, and we became quite fearful for her safety. Eventually, she found a way downstairs with

Baggage, luggage. He continued to go on a rampage with his hammer, bashing things all around the place. Obviously, the police were called.

But it was the saddest thing. When the police came, they blipped their siren, and he and his hammer, he took off down Macquarie Street. But it was the saddest thing to see this young woman pushing a shopping trolley with her bags just down the street, and it was heartbreaking to think , where is she going to go? Who is she going to call? She was in tears. Fortunately, the police, a couple of police, went up to her

Male police officers and stopped her and spoke to her, and I'm hoping that she found

They found her a place to go.

This guy was

Obviously incredibly dangerous, and I, without knowing the background or anything like that, there's no excuse for , you know, let alone verbal assaults, but, you know, what was going on, you know, with a hammer. And it was quite stressing. My wife was,

You know, very, very upset, as were neighbours. And so seeing that, and then, you know, reading through Daniel's motion this afternoon , this stuff is just vital. It's just vital. These poor women, you know, and it's not, as Daniel said, it's not homelessness , it's not poverty, it's not the [unclear] as Perugao would call them. It's a tragedy. And I think you would just be soulless and heartless and cold not to support this. Thank you. Thank you Councillor Zamprogno

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I also support this. Any person who lifts a hand to their domestic partner, or any other person, I think is, well, I can't say in a public forum, but it is worth observing that the state government made a $484 million commitment to family and domestic violence initiatives only last week, and that they have stated the desire to spend over $5 million on support programs for children who are caught up in domestic violence. situations and that they would like to see an additional 75 refuges constructed. Now, Councillor Wheeler's motion is very worthy. The only action words in it are the words work with, that we note a number of things, but the only thing that we do is seek to work with the State Member.

And it would be lovely if that work with permitted some of that released funding to be spent in the Hawkesbury on these kinds of things. Staff now, of course, have to go away and action this. And I'm wondering whether we could be a bit more specific about what work with looks like, in the sense that

If we have an affordable housing policy, or if we have a more concrete plan to augment our women's support services, then we need to be able to be work hand in glove. I remember when I was leading the Macquarie Youth Leadership Forum, I led a delegation of young Year 11 students to the women's refuge in Richmond, and we did a backyard blitz on them, and we renovated their gardens and painted it from stem to stern and did what we could to kind of lend our support in that way. It's a wonderful organisation, and I think they run on a shoestring, and this is very timely. Thank you.

Councillor Richards.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'll keep my remarks on this one quite short, but I'm certainly supporting Councillor Wheeler's motion tonight, and I want to thank Maria for coming on tonight and telling the story. You know, stories about the things that you deal with every single day, Maria. And, you know, we've met and we've chatted before, and I want to thank you for being the voice of so many women who can't speak for themselves and who can't tell their story for a whole range of different reasons. And, you know, domestic violence does not discriminate, and it could be the person that you think is the most confident person in your community who has certainly been through the worst, but is in no way, shape or form ready to tell their story.

So I want to thank you very much for being there for so many women in the Hawkesbury, and that's— Coming from a very deep place, I thank you so much for what you do, and I will certainly be supporting this motion tonight because any , you know, the funding from the New South Wales State Government is a blessing, and if there's so much that we can do to, you know, not just women across the state, but help women in the Hawkesbury. And you've touched on things that are so true. You know, when a mum packs up a suitcase and leaves with the kids in a moment of, I've just had enough, you know, where do you go? What do you do? And there are so many people in the Hawkesbury who unfortunately don't have those family or friends supports to be able to rely on to get through what are some of the most harrowing times in their lives.

So thank you very much for that, and I hope there's a way that some of this millions of dollars worth of funding comes to the Hawkesbury and helps our residents here who need it. Thank you. Yes, we do too. Thank you.

Thank you. Any further speakers? I'll just say I think this is obviously a fairly easy one to decide on. What we're doing here is saying that there's state government money available for something we've been crying out for desperately, and we need to jump up and down to make ourselves a priority. So obviously I would support that.

No further speakers. We go right of reply, Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr. Mayor, and I want to thank the other speakers for their words supporting this motion. Councillor Reynolds is right. There is no excuse for this sort of behaviour, and the culture that exists that says that it's okay to treat another human being, particularly a human being that you purport to love. Yeah, that is, that that is in any way okay at any point in a relationship is utterly repugnant. And I think it's been one of the hallmarks as we come to the end of this council term, of this council, that we have tried hard to, we have a domestic violence action plan. We have reviewed that regularly. We have put up several actions to attempt to address, in some way, the epidemic of domestic violence that exists across New South Wales and Australia, and our part in that as a council.

And one of the very early decisions we made as a council, which I'm very proud of, was to provide the Women's Cottage with rent-free premises, which has enabled them to provide additional services to women. Because what we know is that there simply aren't enough services. I welcome the funding from the state government. Just to allay Councillor Zamprano's concerns, our domestic violence action plan articulates how we would action this, which is why I haven't spelled it out in great detail. We already have an existing document. I've run this past the staff. This is workable for them. I didn't want to be overly prescriptive because when I prepared this for submission last Tuesday, we hadn't received much information from the state government about how this works.

And fortunately, we've been able to flesh that out a little bit. But certainly our domestic violence action plan is consistent with the funding that's on offer, and we've had a couple of excellent suggestions as to how we could use that tonight. So I thank you for your support. I hope that this translates to real help on the ground. Living safely, being safe is a basic human right, and access to basic safe shelter is also a human right. Far too often emergency housing looks like a cheap hotel where women aren't safe and their children aren't safe, and they don't get to stay either. And it's not cheap. It's not a long-term solution. It's just kicking the can down the road. We can do better than this.

Thank you. Put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. Favour. Councillor Richards, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Zemprogno, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Treed, Councillor Carver, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Ross, Councillor Garry, Councillor Potlash. Declared carried.

Thank you. Next we have items on block. One item on block. Just remove that. Moved Deputy Mayor, seconded Councillor Zamprogno. All those in favour? Declare it carried.

To the mayoral minute one , 2022.

So, councillors, I brought forward this motion regarding facilities for Bligh Park. It's been an ongoing discussion with the Bligh Park community, and it really came to a head recently when National Parks and Wildlife quite correctly went into the Windsor Downs Nature Reserve and removed the bike jumps that the kids had built there. There's a number of informal community-built bike jumps all around Bligh Park in various places, and you can imagine the various authorities responsible for those different reserves do come in and remove those jumps regularly. And I think what it demonstrates, though, even though that's not the right place for it, is that there is a real demand for this kind of activity.

If you look at the councils around us, we've not provided the same level of facilities that other councils are able to. Obviously, we don't have the same density population, but this sport is growing. In terms of a BMX track or a skate park, I've put the options for both in here because both have different requirements, and we obviously need to look into what our locations can handle. But the idea here is that whilst this is not included in our current delivery program, I did speak to staff, and it was highlighted that this was on the horizon, that Bligh Park would be the next place that we'd be getting a skate park or bike track when we were able to fund that. And that in the past that one of the hurdles had been location, and that perhaps, you know, perhaps some recent works might have fixed that problem.

So what I'm asking here is not that we commit to anything. It's just that we acknowledge that that request is coming loud and clear from the Bligh Park community , and that we go away and get a report that just looks at the various sites. I've listed there Colonial Reserve. There's also the reserve down near the shops, and potentially there's Bounty Reserve as well, to look at what sites could handle what kind of facilities, what the cost ranges are for, you know, a really basic BMX track right up to a skate park, how we might be able to fund that, including if there's any current grants that it would be eligible for, or whether what it would look like to get that into a future delivery program.

Also, you know, what we could do to make this a shovel-ready project so that even if it's not eligible for any current grants and, sorry, grants, federal or state, that it could be eligible to be grant funded in the future. I think that this kind of facility is ticking most of the boxes that the grants that seem to be coming out are looking for. It is about community recreation, it's about being active, and it's a project that would provide very fast economic stimulus, and it doesn't have a very long lead time and generally would use local people to build. So I think that there's a good chance that a project like this would fit into a grant program that comes out. Also mindful we've got a federal election coming up and we're in a marginal seat, so we'd like to have things ready to ask for.

And so all I'm asking is we add this onto our list in case we're lucky enough to have grant funding coming our way. Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and I've also had— Quite a few representations around this from the Bligh Park community, but also from other communities in the Hawkesbury. And I'm just wondering if you would consider, you did say that the staff said Bligh Park was next in line for something. I'm not sure what plan that would be based on, but what I would rather see than us always randomly doing just these localities here and there is that we had an actual plan around this particular sort of thing. And as you say, things ready for any grant applications that came up, in which case various projects of different sizes could be ready to be applied for depending on their location and their readiness. And I think, whereas I'm very happy for the people of Bligh Park to have it, there's also a number of other areas in the Hawkesbury that are crying out for this.

And I'm just wondering if we should really be moving towards. Perhaps having a specific plan for our whole area and in doing so, in consulting with our youth, because this comes up from time to time, and I recently had an online forum around youth, and there's this age bracket that really don't feel catered for, and they're largely in around, I think, about the 14 to 17 or 18, well, probably a bit younger, 14-year-olds in particular, where they might not want to do organised activities, but they love things like this. But in many instances, what they really love is being able to go and build those jumps themselves and to have the whole camaraderie around putting them all together. The council knocked down the ones in Kurrajong as well, which caused a lot of angst, and, you know, I think we should be looking at how we deal with this.

I'm happy to go with this as it is, but I'm hoping, and it's probably more for the next community strategic plan perhaps to include it, that we would definitely have an actual strategy to—I think it's separate from our existing strategies. I don't think it fits into the connectivity and I don't think it fits into other things, but it's definitely something where we really should do it, and I think we really should be consulting the youngsters about what they actually want. Some of the representations I've had have come from parents, not from the kids themselves. And then we need to be mindful around how popular things are when they have a lot of regulation around them and whether they're really going to draw the people in as much as spontaneous ones do, and, you know, how to allocate the resources and how to get around those issues and the locations and safety.

And there's a lot of things, I guess, around it, but sounds like there's a list of places that are in order for getting this, so I'm not sure where that falls in. But I would just like to either ask you to add a point three, or perhaps— no, that's all right. We'll leave it until, we can leave it until early, because it's unlikely anything can be done in this short space of time. So I would foreshadow that coming into the new council term, if I'm in it, there will, would be something to raise in the community strategic plan to have a proper strategy around all of this physical activity for our youth, and in fact enhance youth engagement, which I think we are actually failing on.

Thank you, and I just refer that to the Acting Director of Infrastructure Services, just for comment on the regional open space strategy and the park strategy, and where that's all up to. Yes,

Mayor. So currently we are working on the regional open space strategy. So that will include the identification of where the gaps are in terms of recreation and age groups, and we'll also look at the demographics now and expected. So that strategy would address the different types of recreation needs that we would do, including things like skate parks and the location, aligned with the demographics. Thanks

Mr Mayor. Councillor Richards.

Thank you, Mr Mayor, and I thank you for bringing this one forward. And while we all use social media to its advantages, and of course social media has its huge disadvantages, this was an issue that I saw went quite crazy on a few of the Bligh Park pages, and I'm glad that you jumped on board that one quite quickly. And it was great that, you know, I think you grew up in Bligh Park as well, and you live in there now, and I'm a Bligh Park girl through and through. And to see people, you know, know that you represent that, you know, you live there and they want to tag you and say, ‘Hey, listen to us. This is what's going on,’ and you've been proactive, and I think that's definitely the example of what a councillor should be doing, that you're very in touch— all of us, you know, try to be in touch with our community in that way and bringing forward motions like this to say, ‘Hey, we listen to you and we've identified that there's an issue there and we'll try and fix it.’

Now, we all know that there's probably no money in the bank for it, but to put forward this motion tonight to say that, you know, we hear you, we're listening. Bligh Park certainly could do with some things like that for the kids to do. And, you know, after the kids have been locked up for so long in a pandemic, we want to be encouraging them to get out again and hang with their friends in safe places and exercise and do physical activity and all those sorts of things. And while there are places and opportunities to consult, sometimes you can just consult, consult, consult too much. And sometimes when you can see that the community just wants something, sometimes you just got to go in there and build it and just do it.

And, you know, there's been so many times over this council term where, let's go get their opinions and let's all go do this and let's all hold hands and sing together and do something like that. But sometimes you just got to get in there and do it, and just get there and deliver it for the community and show that we're listening and that we're trying to deliver. And I think this sends a really good message to not just the people of Bligh Park, but to any other communities out there who think that they need certain things done, whether it's not just parks, whether it's their local road, whether it's a pothole in their street, whatever it might be, contact your councillors. That's what we're here for, and we'll try and do our very best to get those sort of items actioned.

So thank you for this one, and I hope that the kids in Bligh Park can see that we're trying. Thanks, Mr Mayor.

Councillor Reynolds. Yeah, thanks, Pat. I was never a Bligh Park boy, but I rode push bikes there before it was Bligh Park. I grew up in all that bush there at South Windsor, and people like my age will probably remember the dust bowl, which was a haunt for all of us on dragsters and what was to become BMX bikes. Obviously, I fully support this. I think that— oh, sorry, when we were at Bowell Mountain, the kids— Built a BMX track, and I don't know whether it was council or someone else or Park National Parks came along and bulldozed it, but council at the time, I think it was council, built a BMX track down the end of Lieutenant Bowen Drive. And it's a great—anything that gets kids out in the open air, away from these things, has got to be good.

I mean, it's a known fact that BMX racing , especially BMX riding and skateboarding, improves posture . It provides mental health benefits, reduces stress, improves sleep, boosts the immune system, especially with freestyle BMX, it's creative thinking. When my boys were involved in BMX racing, the oldest rider that was there, that was in racing at the time, was 45. So it's not a thing for necessarily young people. The oldest, I'm told, the oldest female racer in the United States is 72, still racing BMX bikes.

I think that as we're bound to have council property where this sort of, in various locations, where skate parks and BMX tracks can be earmarked. It is a specialised thing, building a track. Even though as kids it's great fun to do it yourself, but to do a track properly is a— it's not just anyone with a bobcat and a pile of dirt and 15 minutes. It's a bit more involved than that. So I look forward to getting a report back from council staff on this. And yeah , it's a good thing. It's a good thing. Thank you.

Thank you,

Councillor Wheeler. Thanks, Mr Mayor. Look, congratulations to Councillor Reynolds for managing to slip the word dragster into a council meeting after five years. That is a sterling effort, I must say. Having been a bit younger than Councillor Reynolds, I never rode a dragster, but I did grow up just up the road from the Blacktown BMX track, which Council built at great expense. That was Blacktown Council, and all of us spent our time, instead of using the constructed track, riding on various piles of dirt that the RMS had conveniently dumped up the road. And the advantage of those was that no one regulated what we were doing. I think one of the balances that I think we have to achieve, and it's a really difficult thing to do these days when we're so risk averse, is allowing kids to make some of their own spaces and to run a bit feral.

And that's one of the things that people love about being able to bring their kids up in the Hawkesbury, is that they've got space, and that open space for kids to have some of that fun. And I suspect that regardless of how much we pour into a state-of-the-art beautiful BMX track in Bligh Park, kids will still erect bike jumps in the National Park between Bligh Park and Windsor Downs, because that's what kids do. And that's okay. I drove past some very enterprising young men in the last couple of weeks of lockdown. There were about, probably about eight or nine, building themselves a set of bike jumps in what I think was an RMS nature strip, and good luck to them.

Not all of these things have to be big scale stuff as well. I think, you know, some of the often those smaller scale things, maybe it's a pump track that works better than a big BMX track as well, because the big BMX tracks are often taken over by competition, which means that kids don't get to have fun on a Saturday morning or, you know, Tuesday after school. And they're the balances that I'm hoping we can achieve as we look at some of this more planned activity. I agree with the Deputy Mayor that we need to start mapping this stuff out. I'm not sure that we do that well at this point or that we can't do it better. So I think we need to balance where the other facilities are. I'm reminded of that missing footpaths picture that the Director of Infrastructure showed us, and being able to see it from an LGA-wide perspective I found really useful.

I think we need to look at, when we plan these facilities, I think we need to look at the age base of the residents in that area. Bligh Park, for example, has a lot of young kids in young families. We need to look at access to public transport. Can those kids get to another like facility? What facilities are nearby? Because we've got this balancing act between east of the river and west of the river and parents that otherwise are stuck driving their kids from place to place, and that's something that we need to balance out as well. And we've had this discussion lots of times, but I think we need a list of shovel-ready projects. So I brought that up in a notice of motion following when the bushfire funding was announced.

I don't think we've seen that again. I don't know that there is a list even, and I think we need one. Not all of the things on the list will fit each project, and so we need to be more proactive around this stuff. I think this is—I'm more than happy to support this. But it needs to be part of a bigger picture as well. I noticed Willberforce not to be outdone, having heard that their shops are about to be done up today from a council post, would like a beer next track as well. And so there's a, you know, there's a rolling desire, I suppose, and we have to balance that desire with need and our capacity to fund. And that's where I think we need this needs to be part of a bigger program that hopefully the next council will take up and run with.

Thanks.

Thank you. Any further discussion? No. I'll just say very briefly in my reply, I think Councillor Wheeler made a really good point that I didn't touch on, and I completely agree around the scale of these things. It doesn't need to be, you know, something really grand. I had a COVID-safe sort of mini community meeting out at Bligh Park with some of the key people who contacted me, and one of the ideas thrown up was, can we just dedicate the land and they can sort it out? You know, they'll bring in the material, we can inspect it, whatever, and they can build it again every day. And I can foresee heaps of liability issues with that and lots of problems to work through. But that's certainly the feeling of the community is exactly what you mentioned.

It's not really necessarily about coming in and concreting something. It's just about having a space where it's allowed more than anything else. But I think that can all be fleshed out if this gets up. So I'll put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. Councillor Conolly, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Ross, Councillor Richards, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Tree, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Calvert, declare it carried.

Next item, therefore, be 205, the investment report. Do I wish to move something there? Moved recommendation. Councillor Zamprogno, seconded Councillor Rasmussen. Any discussion? None needed from me, Mr Mayor.

No discussion. Any investment report? Councillor Ross.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'd like to ask a couple of questions.

I'd just like to inquire in regard to the 16.5 million dollars that has been raised in the month of August,

Why this had not been previously flagged

For our attention. It just seems a rather extraordinary activity to have occurred without us knowing about it. Let's refer that to the acting CFO.

Through you, Mr Mayor. So the 16.5 million dollar loan is to do with the Vineyard Precinct Contribution Plan that was adopted by Council in February 2021 . And also the loan was approved by Council in June 2018. So it's taken some time to work through, obviously, getting that contribution plan finalised, and then the loan application process occurring.

Could you clarify that statement regarding 2018, please?

In June 2018, the loan borrowing was approved by Council.

In what form was that approval?

So that

Was to do with the low-cost

Loan initiative by the New South Wales Government. We applied for that, and as part of that was the agreement to undertake a loan funding for the Vineyard works. The loan is also outlined within the contributions plan.

Right. Was that ever brought to Council at that time?

Yes, so it was brought in June 2018. So Council adopted the loan to be drawn down in full at 16.5 million. And also in the contributions plan, there is a loan funding for both acquisition of land for drainage and also for the design of roads and construction of drainage.

Right. That particular low-cost loan initiative, that's a state government offering, is it? It is, yes. Right. Does that come from Treasury or TCorp or whom?

So the loans come from Commonwealth Bank, but the initiatives run from Planning. Right.

Thank you. Now, further on that, would it be correct to say that

TDs that are dated with maturity dates from 23, 2023 to 2026 are the preponderant composition of the borrowings that were taken?

Some of those would be. We've kept them a bit shorter term at this stage, but yes, there are some long-term. But basically cash flow considerations are undertaken any time that any holdings, any surplus funds are there, and obviously cash flow projections. So we've aligned those investments in line with what our cash requirements are. So they're not out to 2026 because the expenditure is expected within the next sort of— Two years tops

We do have TDs out to that area though. Yeah

We do to try and maximise the return on the portfolio. So obviously we're not expecting rates to improve dramatically soon, so any time we've got some longer term, it's also in line with advice from the investment advisor that we receive.

Thank you. Any questions, Councillor

Ross? Thank you. Okay. Any further discussion? I'll put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. Favour: Councillor Conolly, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Richards, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Tree, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Reynolds. Against? Councillor Ross. How are you voting, Deputy Mayor? I didn't call your name out. In favour. Councillor Lyons-Buckett in favour. Declare it carried.

Next item is 207, Local Traffic Committee.

Somebody wish to move something?

Mr Mayor, item 206. Oh

Sorry, did I skip one? Sorry. Payment of expenses and provision of facilities, Council's policy. Moved the recommendation, Councillors Zamprogno, seconded Councillor Wheeler. Discussion? Yes

Briefly, Mr Mayor. As the person who initiated this process, I'm really pleased at the outcome, and I'm also really pleased that the delayed elections allow this to come back to this chamber for ratification tonight. I think it strikes a very good balance and, again, merely state my desire that this provides a more flexible posture for the provision of resources that saves Council money. The envelope of spending, you know, for councillors' facilities is one thing, but, you know, the idea that all of this hardware was purchased and foisted upon people who, in many cases, and I've cited myself as an example, didn't need it and didn't want it, was perfectly happy to make do, you know, I thought was just something that was ripe for reform. So I do hope that everybody is equally pleased with this and can support it. Thank you.

Councillor

Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Just a couple of points. I think there's a couple of, they look like cut and paste errors in the policy itself. Section 11, 12 and 13 all have the same heading and reference the Mayor. I think Section 12 should be about the Deputy Mayor and Section 13 should be a reference to Councillors rather than to the Mayor. So if we could get that corrected before the document becomes the final version, I think that would be helpful. I've just got a couple of questions, if I may. If councillors choose to purchase their own equipment, as per item 7.29—sorry, as per point 7.29— does the equipment become the property of Council? To Mr—

Mr. I think, Mr. Mayor,

No, no it wouldn't.

Okay, so Council would reimburse the Councilor, but the item would remain the property of the Councilor. Is that correct?

That's correct.

Okay, and then if, for example, if I as the Councillor was to choose my own phone, for example, the idea then—and I would just use that perhaps for both personal and Council use— would I then send, for example, an itemised copy of the receipt for reimbursement? Is that what we foresee happening?

Thanks, Mr. Mayor. Just taking that on notice at the moment. Just give us a sec. Thanks.

Thanks. I'm just—I just want to make sure that we're clear about how this is going to work for councillors going forward. And it's probably the time when I would say that I can foresee—I mean, each councillor is free to do as they choose with their equipment. I just— I think when we bring in the next batch of councillors, and it may not be a we, when the next batch of councillors comes on board, I think they need to be told very clearly their requirements under the Act and what is likely to happen. You know, for example, if there's a GIPA or a code of conduct or something, there needs to be a distinction between the property of the councillor and the property of the Council, and we need to be very clear about how they're defined so that people don't get themselves into a pickle.

And then people who use their personal phone for other work, other employment purposes, given that most of us have a second job, are going to be balancing an additional issue. I think if we—I'm happy with this. With this policy. But I think in the induction process, we are going to have to be much clearer with the advice that we give to councillors about how to function under a policy like this. I have friends at other councils who work under such policies and are really happy and comfortable with them. I, for example, would still choose to lug two phones around because it allows me to keep this aspect of my life clearly separated. Councillors need to be informed before they make the decisions that this policy asks them to make, and that's, I think, that will be the role of the council staff as those councillors are inducted into the system, because that happens at the beginning of a term in a whirlwind of overwhelm and excitement and a really steep learning curve.

I'm disappointed that this policy doesn't have private use of the mayoral vehicle considered, nor a provision for electric vehicles. But if I get another crack at this, and this has got to be approved by the next round of councillors, then I will be looking to pursue both of those things in a new council. But for now, I think this is definitely an improvement, and hopefully we won't all be sent home with a large box of equipment that we don't use, don't open and return within six months like we did last time.

Deputy Mayor ? Mr Mayor, could I just answer the question? So we'd be expected that whatever phone a councillor had, they would reimburse council the cost of those personal calls.

Okay. Thank you. Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I had similar issues around the privacy issues around, you know , various things like that. But I did have a question. I may have missed this when we've discussed this before, but I see that there's now an inclusion for shared car parking spaces to be provided for councillors. Is this something—I thought we had decided previously not to have that, but I'm very pleased if we have. Can that just be confirmed that that's a thing now?

Mr McElroy?

He's on the meeting, otherwise Mr... Not that it matters. I just, I thought it was something we discussed and others had said that it wasn't important, and now it's back in there. Thank you, Mr Mayor. I might be able to deal with that. It's a reference to the availability of car parking generally, as opposed to a designated spot.

So

Obviously there's a designated position in relation to the mayoral vehicle. It's been picked up from an example that was provided in one of the other policies that we looked at , but it's not necessarily intended to be designated marked spots, if that helps.

Oh, okay. It's just generally that there's car park and we can park in it if we can find a park. Okay. Thank you. I was getting really hopeful then that those times of driving around the block were gone. Just another question as well, and this is a question about records of expenditure by councillors. I'm just wondering if it can be clarified, what in the annual report—I didn't have time to look this up— is there a record of all expenditure? How detailed is the record of expenditure? Can I just have an answer to that question?

By councillors, by councillors.

Mr McElroy

Through you, Mr Mayor, the reporting that's required in the annual report is based on what's required by clause 217 of the Local Government General Regulation, which requires all expenditure in relation to facilities and expenses on conferences and training for councillors to be disclosed, but only in respect of totals. So any expenditure on councillors as far as conferences are concerned, training, seminars, all of those things is required to be disclosed by way of a total.

So it's not individualised in any way?

No, it's not.

Okay, that's unfortunate because I would like, personally, I would like all my expenditure for the last nine years to be publicly available in light of various rumours that people, that I've heard people have made, for example, about me taking my family on holidays with council money and, if only council were that generous, and various other rumours. So I will publicly make my expenditure available myself to allay those rumours, and so the annual report will only have the totals. But on the note of conferences, I was under the understanding there was an outstanding resolution around documenting the expenditure of conferences from quite early on in the council term. Maybe that could be checked and looked at because I think that was either a notice of motion or a— and I think it may have been Councillor Tree that brought it, but I don't know that that was ever done, but it would probably be good to have that documented.

Thank you.

On notice, Mr. McRory.

Yes, I'll take that on notice. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Okay. Any further discussion? If not, right of reply, Councillor Zamprogno. Yes. No, I

Need to state that, and we're verging on an operational question here, but to address an earlier question about a device that's purchased by council and for which council is reimbursed, I would presume that there'd be the same assessment of the percentage of council-related use and private-related use that already occurs with our phone bills, and that we would err on the side of caution, and that we would be quite generous in asserting that, you know, 50% of the use is for private and perhaps only 50% of the use of an iPad or a phone or something like that is for council and so forth. So I'm quite confident that there are safeguards in the operational execution of this policy to ensure that only council-related expenses would be reimbursed. Thank you. I commend it to you.

Thank you. Put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour are Councillor Conolly, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Rice, Councillor Richards, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Tree, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Cowdrey, Councillor Garrow. Declare it carried.

Next item is now 207, Traffic Committee. Somebody wishes to move something. Recommendation moved, Councillor Wheeler, seconded Councillor Reynolds. Any discussion? Councillor Wheeler

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I'm just going to attempt to cheekily request that the Traffic Committee puts an additional item on their next agenda, if I could. I'm just finding it a little bit difficult to navigate the process, and so I'm hoping that I can add a discussion of potential speed limit change and signage on Sackville Road around Tract 828 and near an accident site earlier in the year. There's been repeated discussions from residents that that stretch of road has become incredibly dangerous. A lot of it's narrow. There are trees very close to the edge of the road, but there are also increasing numbers of tourists and residents going to Tract 828 because their food is excellent, and it's become a bit of a stopping point for cyclists as well.

The speed limit there is 80. People don't tend to stick to that, but because there's lots of people stopping, the road is windy and increasingly becoming narrow. There's been lots of calls from the community to look at lowering that speed limit, and I asked earlier in this term, and we didn't get a result. But now we've had a couple of accidents in that stretch of road between Wilberforce and Ebenezer, I'm hoping that we can reconsider, or that the RMS will reconsider. Sorry

Acting Director Infrastructure Services, so we take that as a question on notice as to whether that can be added. How do we deal with that? Yes, we can take it on notice. Okay . Councillor Reynolds?

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I can raise that as an item of general business at the traffic committee meeting in

Monday after next. So if Councillor Wheeler would like to send me an email, it would be ideal if there was like a map or a Google Earth shot with points marked . That has always been a bad stretch of road. Gail and I lived opposite Casa Del Arco , just this side of Tract 28 when we were 18 or 19, and there was a double fatality out the front of our place one early one morning . It is a notorious stretch of road . And, yeah, if you could send me that info, I'll take it up with Transport for New South Wales. Unfortunately, or fortunately, they are responsible for all speed on all our roads, even our little country roads, for example down on the lowlands, all comes under Transport for New South Wales . I'd also, I'd just like to point out to councillors

That Transport for New South Wales are going to be installing mobile speed camera warning signs various locations throughout the LGA. I think there's about 16 of them . It's got nothing to do with council, even though we'll probably get blamed for it. But, yeah, again, it's Transport for New South Wales. They sort of informed us just out of a courtesy to let us know . So if you hear anything or anybody says anything, it's the work of Transport for New South Wales

Yeah, thank you . Acting Director Infrastructure Services. Thanks

Mr Mayor. Through you, I have been advised that the issue of the speed limit on Second Ferry Road has been raised with Transport for New South Wales, and they've responded that there would be no change. If I can ask the Manager Design and Mapping, we can provide a bit more detail on that, if I may. Thank you.

Yes, thanks, Mr Mayor. Yes, we have raised this site previously over a number of years, and Transport for New South Wales have looked at accident history and numbers of vehicles through that area, and as correctly as has been indicated by Councillor Reynolds, Transport for New South Wales are responsible for all speed limits, whether it's council roads or Transport for New South Wales roads. But we can certainly raise the matter with them once again. Thank you. Thank you. Deputy Mayor.

Thank you,

Mr Mayor. I was just wondering, it's not directly related to the traffic committee at the moment, although I do have a question about that, but if we could possibly have an update of the meeting that was held between Council and Transport for New South Wales regarding the potential signage warning of wildlife on the road. That was going to go ahead, to have a meeting.

So who was in that meeting, Deputy

Mayor? I think the Acting Director of Infrastructure would have been in it. I don't know who else was in it

Can we take that as a question on notice maybe, Acting Director, or..

Through you, Mr Mayor, I may ask the manager, design and mapping, because he actually attended that meeting, so probably we can provide an update.

I might just answer that, if that gets provided, either as a response to a question on notice or by a memo, rather than every traffic question we ask now, if that's okay.

All right. I did actually have one about, similar to Councillor Wheeler, a request, and it may not be the correct way to take it, but it does seem now that it is the way that we get information put into the system through the traffic committee when it's about a state road in particular, and that is about the issues around the Bells Line of Road at Kurmond and the flower farm, which I have raised with Ms Perrin, and of course it's a situation where people want the flower farm to be in existence and it's a wonderful local business, but there are definitely some traffic issues going on there, and there are concerns that there could be an accident, and people think it's the council responsible and people are asking me what we're doing about it, and if it can just be flagged as an issue because it is an issue, and there's an additional issue of blocking the access of water tankers to be able to fill their tankers, so if that can go into the mix somehow, and I know that Ms Perrin's looking at other aspects around that

I know the staff are definitely looking at that issue . Any further speakers? No , we'll put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand . Favour, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Ross, Councillor Ridges, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Tree, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Carbone, Councillor Garrow. Declare it carried.

Next item is notice of motion two, March 21 flood. So, Councillor Ross used to move that. I do, Mr Mayor, thank you. Is there a seconder?

No seconder. So, oh, Councillor Reynolds.

Discussion, Councillor Ross?

Thank you,

Mr Mayor.

I'll firstly deal with the elements of my notice of motion.

I believe that the staff now accept the fact that there hasn't been a report to this Council of the full extent of the flood impacts that occurred in 2021, March.

The difficulty I have with the particular staff response dealing with the items in the notice of motion is that it

Is quite apparent from other information that the material that is requested has already been tabulated in one form or another by Council officers in pursuit of their normal activities.

That's that good.

I

Also

Believe

That the community deserves to be kept fully informed of the forecast and impact of this event. And I'm also critical that there has been speculation entered into by staff about possible financial amelioration, which I specifically excluded from the wording of my notice of motion.

It appears very much as if

Councillors and the community are being messaged in a sublime fashion to say, well, you can all remain rather uninformed or ignorant of the situation. We're the experts, and just leave it to us. Now , I put it to you that that's quite opposed to our talks about the way

Council has been conducted,

And causes me grave concern on behalf of the community that I represent and believe we all should be representing.

Then there was some debate in regard, stimulated by the staff, in regard to this word of impairment, which in ... If you like, local or everyday jargon means the cost of the damage.

We have the Council here proposing, in black and white, that there is a particular set of ways of measuring this cost between the 20th of March and the 30th of June, and then another set of ways of measuring the same type of costs from July the 1st onwards. And I, I'm sorry to say, this totally beggars belief and credulity. So that is rather, shall we say, a non sequitur.

Furthermore, there is

A situation where

The

Revaluation in this—

Sorry, not the revaluation, but the

Rational definition appropriated the costs. It is at

Some divergence to reality. I

Would characterise this by suggesting that, in a hypothetical situation, an event occurred which resulted in a particular building owned by a council collapsed in a catastrophic sense and was left only to be a useless pile of rubble

Time is expired, but I'll let you finish your example.

Thank you. My understanding of the cost difference from that of the council, the staff are saying, well , cost in that instance is the

Materiality of the former structure,

And we leave it at that. Now, I put it to everybody that that isn't the case, because a heap of rubble on the ground

Doesn't leave the site in a state that it was prior to the construction of the edifice that was there

Nor does it allow for the reconstruction of something equivalent or whatever might be required in its place.

Sorry

Councillor, better wrap it up. The

Definition of cost is equally deficient, and

Appropriately addressing the underlying issues here, I believe. Should have been afforded everybody in the chamber and the community, and hasn't. And it's a grave disappointment, so far as I'm concerned,

And when the occasion arises, as I'm sure it will, be subject to further interrogation by myself. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Ross. I'll just speak briefly on this matter. Looking through the motion, I don't think that anything in there that you're asking for is necessarily unreasonable. However, I can see why it would be, especially it would be very onerous for the staff who are trying to recover from the disaster to spend this amount of time reporting on the disaster, in addition to the reporting framework that already exists from a statutory point of view. And so if I was going to vote for it, I'd have to have some use for this information in mind. And looking at what we're asking for, I don't know what we're going to do with that information in this form that we couldn't do with the information as it comes in other forms through the financial statements.

So I wouldn't be inclined to ask staff to divert their efforts to go away and do this report. Just to pick up on your example, Councillor Ross, I actually disagree. Asset impairment is about the reduction in value of your assets. It's not about the cost of fixing it or the cost of doing any other works to that site. The journal entry is going to be crediting the asset and debiting the impairment . If your costs exceed your asset value, you can't be impairing it to below zero and has a negative value. There are still costs, and I think those costs are still being captured, but they're not captured through impairment because impairment is just measuring the impact on the asset. So, I don't. To me, that's perfectly normal accounting practice, and I can't see any issue with that.

That would give me cause for alarm. We had to go and get this report. Councillor Wheeler

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I'd like to propose that we take the motion in seriatim. I think item one is probably workable. We had a similar list, I think, for some of the impacts of the Gosper's Mountain fire, and that was useful. But I don't think that we necessarily need the level of detail that Councillor Ross has stipulated in the other points, and I agree that it is onerous for staff who need to be getting on with the doing, not the reporting. If Councillor Ross feels strongly about some of these matters, I think he probably needs to pick specific issues and ask them as questions on notice. For example, if he wants to know the cost of traffic control on Greens Road, which has been the matter of some public speculation, then that could go in as a specific question on notice.

I don't think that we need to have each of these things itemised, and I very much doubt, in fact, that that's how our accounting works, that we have itemised disposal costs for the filth that we extracted from the toilet block at McGraths Hill Skate Park, for example. Some of these things are not going to be possible to get out in this level of detail, and I don't think we need them. This feels a little bit like a fishing expedition in its scale to me, and I think it would be a better use of the staff time if Councillor Ross was much more specific in his questioning. So I would move that we take the motion in seriatim. Happy to do that. Any further discussion? If not, do we need right of reply, Councillor Ross?

Thank you, Mr Mayor, I do. I’d simply point out that points one and two, having in part already been provided — I say in part, already provided — on questioning as a result of the unaudited financial accounts being prepared. So that answers that point

And the rest of it has also — the rest of the request, not in any way onerous, despite what might be said here — they have had to have been assessed already. In fact,

This talk here in relation

To a consultant being involved . So everyone’s well on top of it. It’s just that there appears to be some reticence or reluctance to provide the community information, and I’m rather appalled. Thank you. Thank you. So we’ll put the motion. We’ll start with point one. Those in favour of point one, please raise your hand. Favour: Councillor Conolly, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Ross, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Garrow. Against: Councillor Richards, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Tree, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Rasmussen . Was that six-six? Mr Mayor, that is six votes to six votes. In which case, I might use my casting vote in the opposite way and declare that lost .

Given the balance of councillors that felt that way, and I was a bit unsure. Point those in favour of point 2, please raise your hand. In favour of point 2 are Councillor Ross. Against: Councillor Conolly, Councillor Wheeler , Councillor Richards, Councillor Tree, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Cowbert, Councillor Garrow. Declare it lost. Move point 3. All those in favour? Point 3, Councillor Ross. Against: Councillor Conolly, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Richards, Councillor Reynolds , Councillors Zamprogno, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Cowbert, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Tree.

Declare it lost. Point 4, all those in favour? In favour, Councillor Ross. Against: Councillor Conolly, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Richards, Councillor Tree, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillors Zamprogno, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Reynolds

Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Cowbert , Councillor Garrow, Councillor Wheeler. Declare it lost. Point 5, those in favour? Councillor Ross. Against: Councillor Conolly, Councillor Richards, Councillor Tree, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillors Zamprogno, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor

Reynolds, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Cowbert, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Wheeler. Declare it lost. The item is.

About road assets . Move, Councillor Ross. Thank you. A seconder for this one?

No seconder. Declare it failed.

2.11, revised operational plan. Move that, Councillor Ross.

Seconded, Councillor Reynolds. Discussion, Councillor Ross.

Thank

You very much.

Well, we're four months into this Council term,

And the expenditure that has been incurred in regard to the flooding recovery has

Not been covered by any form of appropriation by the Council.

What the impact of that is, is that in effect other programs that have been scheduled in the operational plan are not being conducted, and that expenditure is being diverted to flood recovery.

There's a problem in this regard in respect to Section 377 and local government regulations 201 to 203,

And I'm raising this because I believe that there is a failure of process going on that must be corrected both immediately and on an ongoing basis. Statements that might be made by management regarding the quarterly budget review statement are just that. The QBRS is a statement of a budgetary amendment . It is not an appropriation resolution . If you look at the regulations, the appropriation resolution resides with the council, being informed by the staff at the next meeting at which an appropriation adjustment is required. We've had many meetings, to my knowledge, since the commencement of July, and we've had no such response from the staff. And while we're talking about that, I'm overlooking the entire period between 31 March, or the 1st of April, and the 30th of June, which also similarly was impacted.

But I don't think that's satisfactory. I think there needs to be a whole new approach to the monitoring of council's finances and the reporting to this council of any variations being sought. And it's not appropriate for staff to start altering the operational plan to suit themselves without the council either being involved or, if there is need for an appropriation, the council actually voting and resolving to supply the funds to do the extra activities that are sought, even if it pertains to an emergency. And I'm just rather, again, disappointed that these sorts of things are not being progressed in a logical and managed

Fashion. And again , the community is not receiving the information that would be made available by making us aware, including councillors, at open public meetings where an appropriation would be granted. I just think this is very unsatisfactory. Thank you

Thanks, Councillor Ross. I might just ask a question. Look, a lot of what you just said there was new information not included in the background of your motion. And, obviously , potentially you're right, but it's been, you know, certainly I've been on council nine years and this is the way we've worked it and it's my understanding how it works. And I'm not inclined to go and change that because you told me that that's not right in this meeting and that we would need some more information than that. My question was to the, I guess, acting Chief Financial Officer or acting Director of Infrastructure Services, whoever wants it. I imagine we have a briefing coming up on the quarterly budget review. Could the process and the legislation around that process be included in the briefing for councillors to consider?

Yes, Mr Mayor, we can do that.

Thank you. On that basis, I'm not going to support this tonight, Councillor Ross, that we just change the way we do everything.

I would need the information first. Any further speakers?

No. Did you want right of reply, Councillor Ross?

I'm at least grateful , if you don't mind me saying, Mr Mayor, that the staff have conceded that they will supply some further information for the Council and the community to consider this.

And I'm sorry, the community will have to wait for another 30 days for this to happen, but for something to happen, at least is a forward movement. So I'm grateful for small mercies. Thank you.

Councillor Ross put the motion. All those in favour?

Councillor Ross, Councillor Reynolds.

Against? Councillor Conolly, Councillor Richards, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Napperogno, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Carver, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Tree. Declare it lost.

We now have questions taken on notice at the last three meetings. We'll do those one item if anyone's got any questions.

If not, Councillor Kolash.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I wasn't quick enough. I had in my question about the report that we are going to receive on the pump out on the domestic sewage issue. I note that the response is that we're going to receive a report in November, which is excellent. I was just, I just wanted to know the second part of my question hasn't been answered though, and that's that I've said that some in the media have mistakenly reported that Council doesn't want to hold a public meeting to hear directly from stakeholders about this. So I just wanted staff to give some indication of how soon after the receipt of that report could we hold a public meeting or an online forum so that we can start to get out the things that we've learnt in this process and start to get this issue hopefully progressed . Through

That to Acting Director Infrastructure Services. Thanks,

Mr Mayor. So in the report, we will answer the questions that you asked, including the question around the public consultation, because we just want to outline what we already did in terms of consultation. So we did undertake a survey, the outcome of which will be detailed in the report. So we want to outline what we've done, but also whether there is scope to do further community engagement based on the content of the report. So we will address all of that in the same report. Thanks, Mr. Mayor.

Okay, so we can decide on that after we get the report in early November. How many meetings do we have in November? Two, I think. Okay. Thank you. I look forward to it.

Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just around my question regarding the information on the Section 7.11 fund for Pitt Town, a request was put in in July by the Pitt Town Progress Association for this information, and maybe I didn't specify that as, you know, in such detail, that it was for the information as requested by the Pitt Town Association, which was in the format that they have been receiving it in the past. My question about the question is, is there a reason they are not receiving this information in accordance with the provisions of Section 7.11, which would dictate that there is an outlined list around community facilities, land acquisition, park improvements, and et cetera, and the various Pitt Town local road improvements and facilities.

The importance of this is that the residents who have paid this money, as it's been levied on the land that they've purchased, and many of them are still paying for it as part of their mortgages and so on, and they seek to know how the expenditure is going in a comparative sense. So when they get these documents, I think it's on a six-monthly basis, they want to be able to see how that is going in terms of expenditure and— They expect the transparency around this, which is how these sort of funds obviously operate. So I'm just wondering, I don't necessarily want it to be put publicly in a business paper in that format, but I'm just wondering if I could have confirmation that the Progress Association will be provided with it in the format that they requested, which is comparative to the information they've always been receiving in the past.

Or if they are not to receive it like that, what would be the reason for them not receiving it in that format?

Is that something that somebody wants to answer now, or?

Thanks, Mr Mayor. So just to clarify, so the Pitt Town Association, we're receiving six-monthly reports, I think detailing the amounts and those reserves, so that's correct, and that's been the practice. We introduced that practice a couple of years ago because there was— Some lack of clarity, I suppose, how the funds are collected, how they're restricted and how they're budgeted for. So we had multiple meetings with the association where we explained that. And I suppose to maintain that understanding, we've started producing those reports. We now feel that that process now is well understood by the Pitt Town Association, and we suggested they would be brought in line with other financial reporting that we do.

So in the quarterly budget review, we do report the reserves. We can add, we've suggested that we can add specific details on the Pitt Town reserves to enhance, sort of, it will be in addition to the minimum information. So we're quite happy to do that. And I suppose what we wanted to do is bring that provision of information in line with how we provide information to the rest of the community. So you can appreciate that if every community group or individual asks for the individual customised reporting, there would be lots of time spent by staff on that. So we feel it would be much more transparent and consistent that we do that type of reporting through existing legislative processes and the quarterly review, which is a recorder, so it would even be more frequent that they've been getting it.

And we're happy to add, as I said, a bit more detail than the minimum required. So they will get that information, and that's what they have been advised, that that's the intent going forward. Thanks, Ms.

Thank you. Yes, they were advised, but that's why they've followed up because they didn't find that an acceptable response. I understand your rationale, but I don't—how

Many Section 11 reserves do we have? We don't have that many, but I suppose it's more about the financial reporting that we don't generally. So the reporting we were doing for the Pitt Town Association was an exception rather than the rule , and all we're trying to do is bring them in line with other reporting that we do. So they will not get any less information. It would just come through. It would be publicly available. So rather than being sent via email just to the Pitt Town Association, it would come through the quarterly review, which is available to all the councillors and the community. So it's actually even more transparent. And should there be any question on what we report, we'll certainly be more happy to answer those either at the meeting or, you know, as a follow-up.

Would it be possible for them to be provided with the current one in the format they have been getting for this time while they see how the new formatting goes? Like, it doesn't look like a huge amount of figures there from what they've given me, the tables that were involved. If they could have the current updated one and then that explanation maybe reiterated that beyond that there would be, you know, the new system and they would see that in whatever the next quarter was, that would be really beneficial probably in them understanding because I think there's a lot of angst around, you know, works that go on in Pitt Town. We know that there's a lot of issues around those sort of things. So would that be a possible solution, that you could provide them with an update now in that term and then in that format, and then they then switch to the new format?

Sorry, Acting Director, I think the purpose of questions with notice is that we're able to ask any questions to clarify the answer you've been given. We probably don't want to be asking the staff specific questions about specific tasks and making them answer in a public forum. It's probably not the intention of the segment. So I probably think that's more appropriate as an email or as a question on notice for itself.

Was there any other questions on the questions in the business paper? No

I'll take that as a no.

Councillor Ross.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'd like to take up the matter of the Pitt Town Contributions Plans.

In the answer provided here on page 92, indicates that there's a, if you like, a $450,000 deficit in the Section 64 stormwater contribution plan.

I believe it was in May of this year, 25th of May, at the quarterly budget review statement there, there was an indication that $2.3 million of losses in Pitt Town contribution plans had been expunged by funding from council's reserves. I'd like to inquire as to why this

Balance of $450,000 deficit still remains in anything to do with Pitt Town, please.

Director Infrastructure Services.

Through you, Mr Mayor, can I ask the Acting Chief Financial Officer to provide detail?

Thanks, Mr Mayor.

Through you, Mr Mayor, the $2.3 million has been repaid on the Section 7.11 contribution plan for Pitt Town. The projected $450,000 — not projected — the actual deficit for the Section 64 plan is in relation to stormwater drainage. So there was construction undertaken that we anticipate that contribution will be received as further lots are released. Thank you.

Thank you. Well , in reference to that, and I've spoken, I believe, in regard the same matter earlier in this term of Council, there is a report that has been available for about a year and a half or something from the Auditor-General's office, backed by opinions from the Crown Solicitor.

And this also goes to some of the troubles that Central Coast got themselves into.

The statement by the Crown Solicitor, which has been supported by the Auditor-General, is that the term internal borrowing, or however you might like to describe it, in regard to any contributions plan, is an unacceptable means of, if you like, financing, and that any plan that had an unfavourable balance needed to be put into a state of neutrality by supplying funds from within Council's other operating resources. So I'd just like to draw that to your attention. That's point one. The further point to mention is that it seems from the commentary that's just gone on that these contribution plans are some sort of top secret. Document only available to particular specified parties. Now, the Auditor-General's report clearly stated, and it's there for you to read, that those contribution plans are individually public documents that should be able to be accessed by every and any member of the community who chooses to do so.

And as I understand it, it has been a matter of some difficulty for staff in combining these contribution plans over a time. And I do recollect the Strategic Planning Manager some months ago saying that there had been a reconciliation conducted

Of Pitt Town. I'm hoping that we might hear further from the Council staff about when these contribution plans will be open and available for sighting by any member of the community or councillors, please. Thank you.

Thank you. So I'll just allow that to be answered in a moment, but I'll just make the point that the problem with debating other matters on Questions with Notice is that it's a breach of the Act, the Model Code, which says that new questions need to be asked in writing. And it also, it's unfair to other councillors and members of the community who have not had notice that these items are being debated in this public forum. So that's why this is about accountability and transparency, that we don't come and introduce new business with no notice, or be seen to have individual councillors directing staff when Council can only act as a whole. So, I'll allow that question, but I remind Councillors that the purpose of questions we've noticed is that they're being reported, and you can ask a question to clarify the answer you've been given.

It's not to then continue on with that matter. Ms. Glear.

Thanks, Mr. Mayor. So I just want to clarify the information provided to the Pitt Town Association is in regard to money held in reserve in Council reserves. What Councillor Ross may be referring to that needs to be publicly available is a contributions register, which is a register detailing all the money received. So we have got those records, and currently the planning area is working on getting those records in a digital format, which will be compulsory in a few months. So I just want to distinguish between the two pieces of information; they are different. Thank you. And there was another question, or was that it?

That was the main point, but we should be probably available. Yep. Thanks, Mr. Mayor. Councillor Ross, did you have any further questions to clarify the answers in the business paper? No. Thank you.

If there's no further questions around questions, that's the final item. We'll declare the meeting closed at 9:45 p.m. Thanks, everyone.