19 July 2022 - Ordinary

Welcome everybody. I'd like to start by acknowledging the Darug and Darkinjung people as the traditional custodians of the land of the Hawkesbury and paying respect to Elders past, present and emerging. And I'll just hand over to the General Manager for the procedural matters.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Members of the public attending the meeting this evening are advised that in the event of an emergency, you'll be asked to proceed in an orderly manner to the nearest exit following the guidance of our warden. I would also like to advise that in accordance with clause 5.33 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 on Council's record management system. For the benefit of those persons who will be addressing the Council tonight, it is expected that you will refrain from making any insult, allegation or personal reflection against any person, present or not, at this meeting. This request relates to both your address to Council and in any answers given in response to questions from councillors. Finally, it is also requested that if any person participating in the meeting or attending the meeting this evening has a mobile phone, either you turn it off or switch it to silent.

Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Thank you. All councillors are present, so no apologies. Are there any declarations of interest? Councillor McMahon.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Item 122, significant non-pecuniary

Councillor Wheeler.

Same, item 122, non-significant non-pecuniary. Okay,

Thank you. Someone to move the minutes from the previous meeting . Moved Councillor Veigel, seconded Councillor Reardon. All in favour? Declare that carried.

Councillors, our first item tonight is a condolence motion for former Councillor Paul Rasmussen. We have a couple of public speakers here tonight who will speak shortly. I just wanted to say, like all of us, very sad to hear of Paul's passing. Paul was a long-term Councillor here at Hawkesbury City Council for 22 years. Very passionate advocate for the community, for the river, for farmers, a big part of Hawkesbury Radio for a very long time. Somebody who contributed a lot to the community and will be missed. And we do also have in attendance tonight, I understand, Jeanie Rasmussen as well. Our first public speaker is Christine Payne.

Thank you

For allowing me to speak this evening, Councillors, and I'd like to acknowledge Jeanie Rasmussen here tonight. Jeanie, it's lovely to see you, not under these circumstances, but certainly lovely to see you. I'm a bit incapacitated and have taken some drugs to get here tonight, so I hope I do Paul justice. Paul was born— well, Paul was a really good bloke. We all know that. Paul was a top bloke. He was born in Capeenhagen, and he moved to Australia at the ripe old age of 12 with absolutely no English. He carried a dictionary around for 12 months in his first year at school here, and by the end of that year, he was ducks of the school. And for those of us who know Paul, that doesn't surprise us at all.

He was a very driven man. He met Jeanie in their fifth year at high school, and again he met her at their first year at uni towards the end of the year. She said he was a very shy man, and this is in Adelaide because the Rasmussens had moved to South Australia. They were married 12 months later, so they didn't waste time, and they didn't waste time having children. At the ripe old age of 21, Paul moved to join the RAAF as an officer. They moved with two young children and Jeanie in tow.

He loved the Air Force and spent a long time in that. In 1990, he moved from Melbourne to Richmond. He moved here with a title of group captain. He was the youngest ever group captain in the Air Force, and his job here was the base commander. And I believe that's the first time a non-flying officer was base commander of RAAF Richmond.

Those of you who knew Paul well, like I did, would know that Paul would make a change wherever he was, and he certainly made changes in the RAAF. He was the guy in the RAAF, and in those days, in those early 1990s, smoking was very big and you were allowed to smoke everywhere. Paul stopped it in the RAAF. He kind of even stopped it with the pilots in the plane. It was pretty much unheard of.

I first met Paul during that time. I met him in 1992. My sister was working for a minister in the federal government, and she phoned and said, Could I go out to the RAAF base and pick this fellow up? He had a two-and-a-half-hour wait, and would I go and get him and look after him for the two-and-a-half hours while he was in Richmond? And I was to call this fellow Rasmussen because he was head of base command, and he would show me how to get to the particular spot. And that was Paul. That was my first meeting. The minister turned around when he got off the plane, had a long chat to Paul and got in my car and said, What a nice bloke. And that's what people thought after meeting Paul Rasmussen.

What a good bloke. He quickly became involved in the community, and particularly in those days with the tourism industry. He joined the very active tourism group that did so much to advance tourism in the Hawkesbury. And he got out of the RAF base in '95. ' 99, he stood as an independent for the Hawkesbury City Council and enthusiastically went to work to try and make Hawkesbury a better place. He stood as a true independent in the Hawkesbury.

He became the champion for the farmers and saw the need for agriculture here. He was instrumental in getting the water licence for the farmers, and of course we know today water licences are very valuable. That was Paul Rasmussen's work. And really, I was on the council at the time, that was Paul. He was the only one who was pushing that. He loved the arts and he knew how important the arts were for a strong community and how it could make a healthier, better community. He was chair of the Friends of the Hawkesbury Art Society for many, many years, and it's this group that I believe is responsible for the Hawkesbury having a regional gallery. Our much-loved community radio that's situated in Fitzgerald Street needed help.

So they went to Paul Rasmussen, and he quickly stepped in and guided them through some very difficult years. That's what Paul Rasmussen did. He was very active in the Sports Council and also had a big hand to play in the Kurrajong Forum. Paul will be remembered for many things that he's achieved. He was a quiet achiever, and lots of times you didn't know what Paul was up to or what he had done. During my many years on Council with Paul, we did not always see eye to eye on issues and quite often found ourselves on different sides of the fence. But we did respect each other. And during those difficult times that I was having in Council during the late 1990s, Paul Rasmussen, I could always guarantee he had my back, and for that I'm forever grateful.

Mr Mayor, the Hawkesbury has lost a good man, a man who gave much to this community, a community he loved. Rest in peace, Paul Rasmussen.

Thank you. We have another speaker, Colleen Turnbull.

Councillors, fellow citizens, I'm here tonight on behalf of the NRDCAA. For those of you who don't know what that is, that's the North Richmond and Districts Community Action Association, the committee and the members, to express our condolences on the death of Councillor Paul Rasmussen. Paul fulfilled every aspect required by Local Government Act, clause 232, which states that a councillor will be an active and contributing member of the governing body. He will consider and make well-informed decisions as a member of the governing body, to participate in the development of the integrated planning and reporting framework, to represent the collective interests of residents, ratepayers and local community, to facilitate communication between the local community and the governing body, to uphold and represent accurately the policies and decisions of the governing body, to make all reasonable efforts to acquire and maintain the skills necessary to perform the role of councillor, and the councillor is accountable to the local community for the performance of the council.

Councillor Rasmussen attended many community group meetings, including the NRDCAA, Courageong Forum and Corp. He was also president of the local farmers group. He attended and supported the community at the Rates Disgrace meeting in North Richmond. Councillor Rasmussen also supported community groups opposed to the Redbank housing estate until his last meeting in 2021. He supported the community's call for a flood-resistant bypass and opposed the destruction of the heritage-listed Windsor Bridge. He supported residents' involvement in their local community. We've been told that Paul became involved in local government because Australia had given him training and the opportunity in the RAAF, and he felt that he owed a debt to the community and so he decided to run for council and become involved.

Councillor Rasmussen rose through the ranks to become base commander at RAAF Richmond during an earlier bushfire emergency. His orders at that time were to bring the fires under control and eliminate them. A sign of the importance of the mission was that they were normally reported to the Commander RAAF Glenbrook, but on this occasion he reported directly to the Chief of Air Force at Defence HQ Canberra and had a direct line to the Defence Minister and Chief of Defence Force because of the magnitude of the task and the massive defence resources committed to the operation. He set up RAF Richmond as a forward control base for the fires. That meant that all resources on the base were devoted to the massive fire operations.

Army, Navy and RAAF support were under Paul's command. All of the firefighting appliances from interstate to New South Wales were directed to Richmond for deployment to numerous fire fronts. Some 180 appliances and over 600 firefighters were housed, fed and controlled from Richmond. After the fires, he was promoted and posted to take command of RAAF Academy at Point Cook, Victoria. To our benefit, he did not take up the promotion, but chose to stay in his community. In the opinion of the NRDC AA, Paul was a community champion. He attended our monthly meetings, represented the community without fear or favour. Paul was unrelenting in his representation of the community in the many areas of its concern.

He will be sorely missed in this chamber and remembered for his integrity, honesty and decency. The NRDC AA thinks that Council should consider naming a building, a site or something similar in honour of Councillor Rasmussen's dedicated service to the Hawkesbury local government area and its people.

Just as my husband would say, stand easy, Paul. Thank you.

Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Thank you. We've already heard from some speakers about some of the characteristics and contributions Paul made to our area and, in fact, to our country. Mr Mayor, do I have to formally move the condolence motion?

No, I think I've done that. Okay

Paul Rasmussen was a true gentleman, a fountain of wisdom and reasonableness. He valued his family, his country and our community. His decades of service within the RAF and then as a councillor equipped him with a deep knowledge and insight into issues faced by people across geographical, socioeconomic and cultural boundaries. He was the epitome of independent representation and never, ever wavered from that position. He was a strong advocate for our community, but in particular our farmers, tourism and our artistic community. He didn't just support these sectors; he invested in agriculture, tourism and art to show his support and his confidence in our local Hawkesbury area. He was a regular attendee at any community meetings wherever he could have a chance to listen to the people, and he was a great friend to our gallery, our primary producers and to my village of Kurrajong.

Paul urged us to form Economic Development and Infrastructure Committees to enable us to engage in forward planning. He recognised the importance of this and was a constant advocate, particularly around improvements in these areas. He was widely loved throughout the Hawkesbury and beyond. It was my privilege to have known Paul for a long time, back before I was even on council. When I became a councillor, he was very generous, a guiding mentor, along with Christine Payne and Lee Williams. They were welcoming and helpful. In 2012, the first council meeting for me as a councillor was quite a distressing time, when we were all totally excluded from any participation in the committee system. Paul was supportive and encouraging, and inspired the tenacity and fortitude needed to navigate through those challenging times.

Paul enjoyed great respect, in large because he was an intelligent, loyal, respectful, courteous person always. He was proud to venture into other areas as a representative and promote all that we love about the Hawkesbury region. We certainly did not agree, as Christine said, on every issue. We could have a robust disagreement on topics and respect each other's point of view. Despite facing illness over the last couple of years before retiring from council at the end of the last term, Paul continued to be involved and make valuable contributions to council and committee meetings. His wisdom and grasp on how local government worked was on another level to others. He really understood the workings of budgets, plans, audits, and interactions with business, other levels of government and the community.

He was continually pushing for increased transparency and openness. Paul was always at the forefront of technological advancements. He was an early adopter of iPads in council and was always pushing for us to utilise technology more effectively. Despite his use of technology, he's the only person I have ever, ever seen with a notebook quite like his, with the biggest ring binder ever, a notebook filled with ideas and commentary, and which captured the concerns, achievements and emotions of our Hawkesbury people. Paul loved to talk. He could talk and talk. His contributions were not always received as graciously as they could have been. However, what he had to say was interesting and informative, and debate in this chamber was so much richer for his contributions.

Our post-meeting chats were filled with exchanges of wisdom and frivolity, bad jokes, memories spanning generations and experience. Whether Paul was dishing out valuable advice or explaining how or why something was what it was, roaring with laughter or shaking his head in disbelief. I will forever treasure those special times. I will never forget Paul, as so many things will remind me of him. I hope at some stage as a council, we will find a suitable way to make a permanent symbol to his contributions to the Hawkesbury. He was a generous, kind, supportive colleague and a very precious friend. We convey to his family our sincerest condolences and our deepest gratitude for their support and the time away from them which he dedicated to serving the Hawkesbury community.

And, Mr Mayor, I have something that was sent by Hawkesbury Radio, who were unable to be here this evening, which I'll just read out. Paul Rasmussen was chairman of Hawkesbury Radio's parent organisation for more than 20 years. After a period of 35 years in public service with the military, he retired from the Air Force and rather than rest on his laurels, he launched himself into more public service with many organisations in the Hawkesbury area. One of the organisations he took interest in was Hawkesbury Radio. Paul was constantly looking for ways to provide service to the people of the Hawkesbury. With Paul's leadership, we developed our ethic of service to our district and made it a cornerstone of our thinking in everything we do.

Paul's long experience in public service helped us in our own dealings with government organisations at all levels. His military background helped us channel our enthusiasm for making radio programs in directions where our efforts would be most likely to make the most difference. Under Paul's leadership, our range of programming skills developed to improve our music, sports and talk shows and the technical quality of our sound. His hands-off style of leadership allowed many people at many levels in our station to grow their skills and strengthen our station as a whole. When the history of Hawkesbury Radio is written, the name Paul Rassmussen will be writ large as a man whose tireless efforts and leadership went a long way towards making Hawkesbury Radio the voice of the Hawkesbury.

Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Thank you. Anyone else wish to speak? Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor.

Paul gave an extraordinary contribution to his adopted community. Like me, Paul was a blow-in. He was born in Denmark and came to Australia as a child. He grew up in South Australia and remained a devoted connoisseur of their red wines. In fact, he and I compared notes on the marvels of having a space in your teeth for aerating and therefore further appreciating the tastes of those red wines. His first contribution to the Hawkesbury was as the Richmond RAAF Base Commander. He and I often discussed how very lucky we were to have served in the Defence Forces during such a long period of peace. Paul never took this luck for granted. His RAAF service gave him a deep understanding of real leadership and the importance of morale in an organisation.

And this understanding added to his sense of fairness and a loathing of bullying. He was also pivotal in keeping Hawkesbury Radio on air, and recent natural disasters have highlighted just how important these local stations are. Paul was a strong advocate for the retention of farming and proper land use planning to maintain food security for Sydney. He hated seeing development swallow up farmland and had a strong voting record against such developments. He was a great supporter of the arts and tourism. He was a wonderful mentor to me and other new councillors when we were elected in 2016. He reinforced the importance of turning up, even when the audience was hostile. He was always happy to explain a technicality, give you the history of an item, or talk through a difference of opinion.

He kept his fights to the chamber. He loathed disrespect and political chicanery. I remember his fury when one councillor belittled a new councillor early in our term and stole her notice of motion. He was truly progressive, championing marriage equality, women's rights and the environment. He had a sharp, independent mind. He was unpredictable in the chamber because he always considered matters from all sides before he made up his mind. We used to laugh at his frequent reminders of how long he'd been here, but actually I think it's worth noting that he maintained an extraordinarily long term on an often very toxic council with no major party support. He was elected repeatedly on the strength of his own work and commitment to the Hawkesbury.

He never shied away from difficult decisions and he always made up his mind based on evidence and the needs of his community. He remained gracious, courageous and honourable until the very last on this council, despite his ill health. He was a gentleman. It will be a long time before we see a councillor of his calibre again. I'm honoured to have called Paul a friend, and I'll miss him greatly. To Paul's family, especially his wife Jeannie, who's here tonight, I want to say thank you. Council takes a heavy toll on our families. Thank you for supporting Paul and sharing him with us. It was time well spent and it's much appreciated. Thank you.

Thank you. No further contributions, councillors? I'll take that as all in favour. Carried, and we'll have a moment's silence.

Thank you, everybody.

Councillors, we have a couple of other items subject to public address. The first item is the Mayoral Minute 1 regarding flood mitigation. We've got five speakers. Our first speaker is Daniel Delea.

Thank you. It's not one of my strong points, so please bear with me, everybody. Hi, my name's Daniel Delea. I live at 251 Pitt Town Bottoms Road, Pitt Town Bottoms. God Country, now eyes. I speak on behalf of my family, my friends, and a whole bunch of concerned residents in the Hawkesbury District. I'm not here to debate at this time for or against the raising of the dam wall. Right now, I'm here, in the immediate future, with the weather already being forecast in the coming months, I'm here 100% for mitigation of the level of the water held in the Warragamba Dam.

It's without a doubt that if the dam was not mismanaged, we could see much less damage to homes and properties and businesses if there was airspace in the dam's capacity. This theory of airspace will work to lessen the amount of water that spills when we have a massive rain event.

The role of airspace... Is the capture and hold back floodwaters coming into the catchment area from further upstream.

It is observed that we have the dam spill after one of these weather events, with no regard to loss of properties and homes.

I'm a firm believer that all residents in the Hawkesbury accept that yes, we live on a floodplain, and floods will always be a risk to our lives. What we can't accept is that the government, the bureau and alike have warned the public time and time again over the many months that these weather events during the La Niña event, and yet have done nothing to mitigate the fallout of such horror floods.

Lowering the water level will take the edge and

Force the water running downstream, perhaps some things a little less damaged. It'll buy us time and give us time for the water.

In the damage floods have

On our communities as a whole and individual families and business is beyond measure,

And the real threat that this could happen again in a few months is terrifying to say the least. The tolls on our families and friends, mental health and the constant living of fear. Of another flood coming is driving anxiety levels through the roof. The financial burden is beyond thought to hundreds of families. Many will not recover, will take years to get back to where they were is devastating.

With the increase in development applications in the urban sprawl, the flood plains in Riverstone and Marsden Park outwards towards us, community pushing waters to our direction. We are copping it from all angles. The floods over the past three years are proof of that. The

Notion that the dam cannot be mitigated due to being the water storage was once valid. But given $2.3 billion was spent on a desal plant makes this argument null and void.

As a community, I believe we need mitigation to the dam level is step one. Then deal with the dam wall, raising the dam wall is step two.

The mental health and what it's done to our community is beyond measure.

We need to mitigate the dam level. We need a buffer. We need some time when we have another rain event. We can't keep living in fear of what's coming.

Thank you. Thank you. Happy to take any questions from Councillors. Any questions? No, thank you for that. Thanks. Thank you. Next speaker is Sophie Devine.

Hello. Mayor and fellow councillors, thank you for allowing me to address the meeting tonight. I'll firstly speak on Recommendation 1. It's a good start. However, it doesn't come close to what we are actually asking for, which is 12 metres of airspace in the dam immediately. This exact request should be made public and in writing, and we should be encouraging the New South Wales Government to start drafting legislation amendments now for tabling as soon as Parliament returns in August. It's estimated to take two weeks to let the water out in a controlled way, and with La Niña projected to return in September, we haven't a moment to lose. Those who flooded are now working through the rebuilding process and moving their families back into homes.

I'd like to ask: do we waste our time, resources and money now again? Do we put our lives on hold until October, or do we expect that our governing bodies will support and protect us by this very logical and expert-advised solution of having 12 metres of airspace in Warragamba Dam? As for Recommendation 2, tonight is not the night to be discussing raising of the dam wall. Our message to the New South Wales Government should be clear: 12 metres of airspace now. Thank you.

Thank you. Happy to take questions. Sure.

One question I have, just what you said there at the end, that 12 metres has been the expert advice. Which advice are you referring to?

Dr Sean Carnahan.

What advice was that?

He's been on all the media in the last two weeks. 12 metres is 800 gigalitres of water. It's the equivalent to one desalination plant. If we had stage two desalination plant online now, which was touted to be fast-tracked three years ago, it would not be an issue. The dam is not water security. We are at 30 percent three years ago. To say it is, it's ridiculous. We have putting many, many more people on a floodplain here in northwestern Sydney. There are other options, and we should be looking at all of them. Now, that's a big discussion. Not going to have it here, but we should be demanding it. It should be in writing, it should be public, it needs to be done now.

Thank you. I was just wondering if there's any official advice around that, because I've never seen any official advice from the government suggesting 12 metres is the ideal level.

Well, there is spill before, there's 5 metres, there's 12 metres. It's on all the documentation. It's in the Resilient Valleys, Resilient Peoples documentation. I won't debate with you. It's in the EIS.

In those documents, none of those have actually recommended that. That's why I asked the question. They've looked at it as an option and not recommended it. But thank you. Okay. Any other questions for Mr Vine? No. Thank you. Next speaker is Morrie Smith.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr Mayor and councillors. Like the previous two speakers, I speak for the Indigenous on the first part of the motion, and just to bear with me, I have trouble reading in poor light. There's not quite enough light for me, but I'll try my best. Members, Maurice Smith. I live in George Street in Windsor, and I'd like to speak on behalf of the mayoral minute.

The proposal to contact the New South Wales Government to have the Warragamba Dam used as both flood mitigation and flood storage is a good idea, a first step in the right direction. It is a known fact that the Warragamba Dam, when the water comes over the spillway, adds to 40 to 70 per cent plus to the floodwaters that travel down through Windsor. Once they hit there, the Warragamba Dam sits at the end of the Warragamba River, and therefore when the upstream floods go past and Warragamba Dam adds to it, it increases in volume and velocity down here. As we've seen in the last flood, where we had up to 62 per cent of the floodwater that passed through Riverstone, sorry, through Windsor, came from the Warragamba Dam.

That was out from Warragamba Dam. We know we've had a spill there. I think as Sophie has said, it's been spilling at—we were losing one volume of the Sydney Harbour per day during the last flood. So it is a step in the right direction to approach the current government to use, to change the process so that Warragamba Dam can be used for both mitigation and water storage. It's been an ongoing debate for many years as to how we replace the water for the Greater Sydney, and with the desalination plant's been mentioned many times. Also the fact that it could even be carbon neutral at this point in time. So I do applaud the mayor for bringing that up, and I think we should go forward in addressing that.

On the second part of the mayoral... The memorial minute,

In regards to raising the Warragamba Dam wall, this is an ongoing discussion. It's contained, the EIS has been out, and that process should go forward. Whether to combine the two together does create a little bit of an issue, inasmuch as it's very important that the community in see at the moment that we need immediate action to mitigate the floodwaters for the Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley.

The raising of the dam wall is a long-distance project. It's been going on now for decades in discussion, toing and froing. All the documents contained can be found on the government sites in regards to the construction, the methodology and the outcomes. This has been referred to by Sophie. Also, I support the first speaker's comments on the stress on families within the Hawkesbury. It is very great and very real. And also I'd like to bring up the point that we're starting to lose some of our heritage. Heritage buildings are being inundated time again and time again. We have got threatened grave sites on the banks of the river that have never been threatened before. We see damage which we haven't seen in our lifetimes.

Maybe previously, but not in our lifetimes. The floodwaters that come up down through Windsor, when they leave the riverbank at my place and start heading up South Creek, going southeast, heading towards Riverstone, are actually leaving in rapid form. They are going that quickly, and it's rising that rapidly, forcing the water back up into Riverstone, Marsden Park, and those areas up in there in the back of Windsor Downs. That it is quite audible. It's not the water coming out of those areas; it's the water going in. The new fences that have been constructed down in McQuade Park, they already face outwards, where the water's pushed them over, going out towards South Creek, not coming into the river.

The damage on the river is large. The banks are subsiding. We've had a terrible wet season, and we need action on this immediately. And I would like to, couldn't speak strongly enough for the council to support approaching the government on this process, and I support the minutes. Thank you. Thank you.

Any questions for Mr Smith? Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Thank you, Maurie. I was just wondering, could you just repeat what you just said about what was causing the water going towards South Creek and up towards Riverston? Sorry, I just missed what

Yep, certainly. It was the water that was flowing in the river, in the main river. As the water was going past, I live on the river, at the, just at the start of the park, the water was going past our property in—we've only seen three floods since we've lived there, three major floods—and it was going a lot quicker than any other floods. They all do the similar thing, but this particular flood was leaving the river in a wave form, going up South Creek, not coming out of South Creek, going up South Creek towards the toll house under the bridge and across the floodplain. So the inundation up into Marsden Park and that area continued till the river got to around 12 metres, and then it eased and the stick started to stop flowing uphill.

So it was the water that came out of the Hawkesbury-Nepean River. Was a very, very large amount. I don't know, but I'm contributing to the fact that we had major rainfalls up in the Upper Nepean, where Camden and that area flooded, which put a lot of flood water in the river. And then we added to that. The equivalent of Sydney Harbour every day out of Warragamba, which topped up the river, which got us up to the 13 metres or thereabouts, and increased the speed of the river astronomically. I lost four large she-oaks, three of which I'd planted 15 years ago, and we've got banks subsidence, which is quite severe.

So you've not seen the river at that velocity at

Your place? No, that's correct. That's correct. And likewise, down from all the people I speak to downstream, they are similar, especially around the Sackville area and either side of the narrows at Sackville. Also Wiseman's Ferry. Del Rio was inundated, the highest flood at Del Rio that the owner, who's 92, has seen in his life. The people of the McDonald River got absolutely bashed. Now, they had a bit of rain up the top too, but when that exasperates, of course, as we know, no two floods are the same. But what we do know is the Hawkesbury, the Warragamba Dam spill adds about the same quantity and the same velocity on top of what's already there.

Thanks for that, Morrie.

That's all right. Thanks for the question.

Thank you Councillor Wheeler

Thanks, thanks, Morrie. Have you documented this information about the behaviour of the river this time, apart from you telling us now? Well

I haven't written it in documentation, but I've been to several workshops since this flood previously with Resilience and with the SES and with consultants, and we have discussed it at length. And one of the consultants said, Why don't we get the public... Reaction to floods as we do in bushfires. So, well, as I see it, we have a bushfire, there's sparks, there's flames, there's trucks, there's sirens, there's things are going on everywhere, cameras are all over the place. It's really good news, and everyone sees it, and everyone's—people are rushing into the fire. We get a flood. We get a flood here, it doesn't even rain. It wasn't raining when our flood occurred here in July. We had some rain, but it wasn't flood rain.

So we got flooded when there was. So it's just a dull grey, dingy day, and we all get flooded. So it's not a spectacle, it's not exciting, but it's certainly demoralising , damage, and terrible for the people of the Hawkesbury, especially those that are living in and occupying some of the most oldest properties we have. And yes, what do we do? Do we relocate them? Do we pull them down and move them? It's all a problem. But to do something about it right now, as some of our previous speakers have said, we should lower the dam wall. Now, in saying that, the wall can only be lowered to 72% because that's as far down as the gates go. You can't take them down anymore unless you let the water out through the environmental flow outlets.

So to lower the dam now down to 72%, that could be done through the drum gates, and that would probably take about a week to get rid of with some very minor flooding downstream.

But I'm not an authority on it at all. I can't tell you exactly how it would happen, the same as I can't tell you how much big the desalination plant's got to be. That's a time and place for other people. But what we do need is action. We've talked about this, and I might say I'd also like to give my condolences to Paul Rassmus that I served on the Floodplain Committee with him, and he was a great bloke. Thanks, Paul. So, not saying that, I think, if there's any other questions, I'm only too happy to answer them.

Thanks, Laurie, that's helpful. Any further questions? Thank you for that. Yeah,

Thank you. Our

Next speaker is Linda Fenech.

Thank you ,

Mayor and councillors, for the opportunity to address you all this evening. My name is Linda Fenech, and I am one of the presenters for Community Radio at Pulse FM, and I am born and bred resident of the Hawkesbury. I live on Tarzana Road, Ebenezer. I would like to go on the record and share my thoughts, opinions, from not just myself, actually, but from members of the community, that over the last two weeks through my radio program, Line of Work, and general community interaction, all have universally said they want the water levels in the dam reduced, and the motion of raising the dam wall and lowering the dam water levels put forward in two different applications. The most pressing and major reason for this is due to the fact that Parliament meets in August.

And if we are going to change the legislation of water levels to take into account flood mitigation, we need it expedited and presented. Then how, if we join it with raising the dam wall, will this be something that is going to take much more time, and we do not have this, especially if predictions of more rain and an upcoming flood event is predicted for September are correct. Not only because of the devastating damage, but also because of the mental health of the community. I am not naive. I understand that we live in the Hawkesbury, in an area that is subject to extreme variable conditions. My mother was pregnant in 1978 with me in Londonderry during the floods. Some of the biggest that we've seen.

I understand that the Hawkesbury floods. However, it is about preserving as much infrastructure as possible and reducing the impact to livelihoods and homes where we can.

While I'm happy for engineers and people far more educated than me to consider options such as raising the dam wall, piping water elsewhere or building an additional dam, we need something done immediately. As previously stated, the forecast for September is more torrential rain and a return to the La Niña event, which we thought we had finally escaped. Legislation needs to be amended now and allow Sydney Water to reduce the dam levels to mitigate this ongoing damage, which will take two weeks to perform. The February 2020 flood event, which has all but been forgotten, was a mere 9.28 metres and closed Windsor Bridge as well as North Richmond Bridge. March 2021 reached 12.93, and the two floods for 2022 have exceeded both.

If we release Warragamba Dam capacity by a level of 12 metres airspace, this will allow recovery to happen more swiftly and damage greatly reduced. I implore each of you to raise this issue as soon as possible to save our Hawkesbury landscape, our homes, our businesses and our sanity. Thank you.

Any questions for Linda? Thank you for that. Thanks. And our final speaker is Sam Magnuson, who is speaking by audiovisual.

You're muted at the moment, Sam.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Great.

Right, I'm here to talk tonight about flood mitigation, and I'm against the motion as it currently stands. As I speak tonight, the Hawkesbury Valley is facing an emergency. It is a crisis of which many councillors here tonight, along with our state representative, Robyn Preston, have either willfully or ignorantly failed to understand it act upon year after year after year. Tonight's motion, joining two distinctly different issues, raising the Warragamba Dam wall alongside using the current dams as flood mitigation dam, again highlights the gross politicisation of the crisis facing this community. To suggest that to support one, you must support both, is deliberately misleading. Tonight's motion should only be focused on what we can do right now to help the community before the next flood event.

That is the mitigation of the current dam and the emergency works that need to be done to protect land, businesses, residents and lives. I'm not going to speak about raising the dam wall. It's not a discussion we should be having now. It is a project which will take five to 10 years, and it will do nothing to save farmers and businesses who may no longer have land worth saving. Today we need immediate action. That's not in a few weeks or a few months or a few years. It's today. You have let this community down, and we can't afford to suffer the consequences of this neglect any longer. The consequences of your inaction can be described as nothing short of catastrophic. Still to this day, no one has accepted responsibility for the colossal damage at Cornwallis.

No one has apologised to the farmers and the landholders there who have seen their livelihoods wiped out. No one has apologised to the remaining landholders who are wondering how long it'll be before their land, now so compromised, suffers the same fate. No one has demanded, on the community's behalf, that emergency works were needed 18 months ago are now undertaken. We sit here none the wiser as to what you and the state government are doing today to protect us and what is left of farmland in the lowlands and all the way along the river. As I said at the Cornwallis community meeting in May, just weeks before the recent flood event and at two government flood inquiries, we have run out of time.

Without battlefield engineering works and an army of workers to help businesses and residents repair their land along the river in the coming days and weeks, have no doubt about it, there will be no land left for many to repair. The last flood was the most ferocious I have ever seen. The water was like a white rapid. It was terrifying. Even more so because Water NSW failed to notify residents that the dam had spilled at 2 a.m. on the 3rd of July until six hours later at the beginning of the working day at Water NSW's headquarters in Parramatta. For us in the riverbank, that advice was too late. We were just lucky that there weren't lives lost. Next time, more houses will be swallowed by the river.

Cabins will collapse. More cabins will collapse. Businesses will fold and the river scars will be felt for generations to come. The direct and indirect cost to the local economy alone will be hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars. At a minimum, the law must be changed immediately to use the current dam as a mitigation dam. It must be lowered to allow 12 metres of free airspace, not five as some are proposing. We have been calling for this for years and you have done nothing. We just can't wait any longer and it needs to happen now. There are experts in the field who have been advocating for 12 metres, and if you aren't aware of those, I am more than happy to send you the draft, the Greater Sydney Water Strategy and also expert reports.

We don't want more meetings. We don't want another inquiry. We're not asking you to write letters to your state counterparts. Pick up the phone to your Liberal colleagues at state parliament and get the law changed. We want the exacerbating factor of overdevelopment on the floodplain also taken seriously. The water in the dam can be lowered by 800 gigalitres, or 12 metres, in two weeks. You have time now to act before the next flood. Two metres may not sound like much to those who have not lost their farms, houses or businesses, but to those who have, and to those who are facing ruin after the next major flood event, it could very well mean the difference between life and death.

Thank you. Thank you. Are there any questions for Samantha?

Councillor Veigel?

Yeah, thanks, Mr. Mayor. Thanks, Sam, for your contribution. But just, are you the administrator for Hawkesbury Matters? Oh, yes, I am. Thanks very much. It's always nice to put a face to a name, so thank you.

Thank you. Further questions? Councillor McMahon.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you for your contribution there, Sam, and for, I guess, confirming via the previous question you are the administrator of Hawkesbury Matters. My concern—

Sorry, if we just quieten the gallery, especially for people who have just had everyone listen to them quietly, that's quite—

Oh, it's totally expected, Mr. Mayor. We are in a really severe flood situation where, as you can see from other speakers, it's causing quite a lot of distress in our community. I guess where you have allowed community voice on this specific issue, I guess I'm just wondering whether you believe it's important that all the information that everyone, including yourself, puts out there is true and accurate and not false and inflammatory.

Thank you for your question, Sarah. I think it's important, if you would like me to answer any questions, to be quite specific about them. As you would know, people are here tonight to talk about flood mitigation and the emergency that is facing the Hawkesbury at the moment. And they really are sick of the politicisation of this issue, which, you know

Okay, so we might stop that there. If we're not going to have real questions and real answers, we might just end that and move on. Are there any further questions?

Well, I think the question wasn't related to the matter really, and neither was the answer related to the question, so we're getting into some weird territory if we keep going there.

Thank you. So that was our final speaker on the matter.

Mr Mayor, I had a question not for the speaker, a question for you, a question around— Sort of. Were there many people who registered to speak who were unable to speak, who were here tonight? I just wondered. I did ring and I left a message and I didn't get an answer. I was just wondering, I would have moved a procedural motion if people had missed out on speaking, if they had travelled here from— I

Think we did have more than the maximum against, yes.

Okay.

Yeah. But we indicated to those people that they should talk to each other and decide who was speaking.

And was that done? Or was

That— No, so that might be not correct, sorry. I might be confused with another matter.

I was just going to say if there was one or two people, I was going to move a procedural motion that we hear them.

No, so there are no further speakers registered. Thank you

Councillors, the reason I put this mayoral minute forward, and I'll move the mayoral minute, is because we're at a point in time where we have the attention of the New South Wales Government, we have the attention of the metropolitan media, and we have a community that's demanding that something's done. We've had a community that's demanding something done for a long time. However, we haven't had the attention of decision makers that we currently have, and I think it's important that we capitalise on this point in time to make sure we understand what's facing the community going forward. As many speakers have indicated, whilst we can't predict a flood in September, as many people are saying, the conditions exist right now for another major flood.

It looks like those conditions will continue to persist into the future, and we have to be ready for another major flood if that's what occurs. It's been suggested tonight that we should only look at the short term. To me, that's not what we're here to do as leaders in the community. We're here to look at both the short term and the long term, because that's what leadership is about, and that's what this mayoral minute is about.

Sorry, one moment, please

That's what this mayoral minute is about, is about looking both at what we can do right now to make a difference, and also making sure that the New South Wales Government is aware of our existing position of being in favour of and calling on them to hurry up with the raising of Warragamba Dam wall.

I think it's important, and I'll just address this first before going on, because it does seem to be the crux of the issue here tonight with some of the speakers, that this motion contains both a motion calling on them to act right now in the short term, and also a motion calling on them to continue to act in our long term interests. The reason that that's in the motion is because that is Hawkesbury City Council's existing position. Hawkesbury City Council is in favour of the raising of Warragamba Dam wall. That's our official position. And I wanted to make it clear in this motion that we're calling on them for short-term solutions, but we are not changing our existing position. We still are calling on the New South Wales Government to take action in our interest in the long term.

As you can see in the notes to the mayoral minute, I've tried to summarise one of the most recent reports produced by Infrastructure New South Wales, which was the Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley March 2021 flood review report, which looked at what impact all these different options would have had on the March 2021 flood. They looked at all the options that were in the Resilient Valley, Resilient Communities report and what impact that would have had. They looked at, and I've included specifically, things that they could do right now, which include reducing the water level by five metres, and that would reduce the flood peak at Windsor in a March 2021 level flood by 60 centimetres. They could pre-release water

They could pre-release water, what they called in their report an unrealistic pre-release, which is when they had a 25% certainty of the rain event, and that would have reduced it by about 30 centimetres. They could pre-release water when there was a 50% certainty of significant rainfall, and that would have reduced the peak by about 20 centimetres. If the Warragamba Dam wall had been raised, it would have reduced the flood peak by 3.4 metres, and that is why

Excuse me, you're completely out of order. We all did listen to you quietly, and the problem with— if I could just take the liberty to take that interjection. The problem with this discussion in this community is that there's people that will not approach it with an open mind and listen to everybody. We need to listen to everyone in the community. I listened very quietly to all the speakers, even though I might not have agreed with everything they said. I didn't yell over the top of anybody and tell them they were wrong, because it's important we have a mature conversation about this so that even if we don't agree, everybody's had a chance to have a say. Those are the numbers directly from the Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley March 2021 flood review report completed by Infrastructure New South Wales.

Those are the numbers they've come out with. That's what the modelling says. If that was pre-releasing water before an event or reducing it by, permanently reducing the level by five metres. Some people have suggested tonight that we should look at the other option in that report, which is permanently reducing the level by 12 metres. When I've been asked in the media, would we support that, I've said, look, yeah, I'm the Mayor of Hawkesbury. If you can solve Sydney's drinking water, great. Reduce it by 12 metres, that'd be great for us. That's my response publicly, and that's what I believe. However, we have to be realistic about what they are going to do. All of the options that we put forward here are things they could do tomorrow.

They don't require any capital investment from the New South Wales Government, unlike reducing the level by 12 metres, which requires desalination and a plan for Sydney's water. Whether we believe it does or not, that is the official advice, is that it would require further water security measures. And the New South Wales Government has told us repeatedly they will not do that without capital investment in some other water solution. These three options could all be done without any capital investment by the New South Wales Government. They just require a change of legislation and a change of policy by the government. And then, as speakers have said, it could happen very quickly. So that's why here tonight, I'm asking for council support that we go to the New South Wales Government and we say to them, we need you to do this.

We've had these conversations with them before and never really gotten anywhere. But we've always had this level of risk, but we've never had this acknowledged level of risk before. And I think we have to take this opportunity to have that conversation and tell them that they need to do this. And as I said, I'm a firm believer, and I understand that there's mixed reaction in the community to the proposal to raise Warragamba Dam wall. But I think it needs to remain our position, and that's why it's still in the motion tonight. So I'll open that up for discussion.

Councillor Sheather. Yeah, thanks, Mr Mayor. It's —fighting's been around the Hawkesbury for a long while. I've got—I'm going to make some comments out of the Warragamba Dam Raising Executive Summary from the Environmental Impact Study. And it's something that I've been involved with for 30-odd years, along with Morrie and a few others in the community. So what we're talking about is nothing new to us two. And it's been the direction of that organisation to raise Warragamba Dam. And originally it was going to be by 26 metres. Got knocked on the head. That was the first EIS in the '90s. '97, we had another EIS, Bob Carr. We got the Jim Anderson Bridge and a couple of pipes under the roads. And more recently, with the state government, we're back on the agenda with a third EIS that covers all the issues that have been discussed tonight, and many, many more.

There isn't an idea that hasn't been put forward about piping water straight to the river, dredging, buying property. All those things, in some cases, have been done, and some haven't been.

But just some statistics. In a 16 metre flood, we've got 71% of the water that comes past Windsor comes over Warragamba Dam. In a 16 metre flood. 14% is the Hawkesbury-Nepean. The Grose is nine,

South Creek's five, and others are five. So we've got a massive amount of water that comes over Warragamba Dam. In relation to the comment the lady made about dropping the dam down,

By dropping the dam five metres, there's 360 megalitres. That's not Sydney Harbour. By taking it down to 12, it's 750, I think it is, and you have to take it down 25 metres to have the same effect as raising the dam by 14 metres. And this is in our face, and it's really bad. And the things I say, I take nothing away from the heartache people are feeling in our city. A lot of my friends are on the river or on the floodplain, and I know a lot of them.

But from 1794, for six years, there was only six years, there's 26 floods. In the next 35 years, there was none. In the next 42 years, there was 39. In the next 47, there was 13. In the next 40, there was 38. In the next 30, there was three. That's one we can remember. And more recently, in the last two years, we've had five. We've had 156 floods. I've seen a third of them.

And it's in our face, and it's really demoralising, and there's nothing good you can say about it. Your motion about reducing the dam wall, the committee and stuff that I'd been involved prior to council was to raise the dam wall. We argued that through 30 years of drought, and it was like bashing your head on the wall. Different state governments, different politics and the likes, bashing your head on the wall. The reason we didn't go with the argument to lower the dam is because of the comments that you made about Sydney relies on the water. But when we started, the Weather Bureau wasn't as smart as they are today. I think they are smarter, and they can do it. But you're limited to how far you can reduce the water because of the gates.

Now, that doesn't mean to say you can't keep them. There's a couple of small pipes down the bottom where the generators used to be, the environmental flows, you can use those.

But we can't lose sight of raising the dam. It's a long-term salvation in the sense of catastrophic events. I've seen catastrophic spoken of with this last event. It was 13.8 metres. We can go to 26. What are we going to call that? You know, like , so this council has got a responsibility to look after our community. And if it means going down and bashing—not that we haven't, again—and with the support of the community, for the government to do what they should do. You know, we don't want to be another Lismore here, but it's on the darn cards. Those of us that speak about it, when we speak about floods, we're not the predictors. We're just reading information that's supposed to come from professional people that know a lot more than you and I put together.

And what action's taken on it? None. None. The word mitigation, you might recall a couple of months ago I asked for a copy of the State Floodplain Manual. It was done in 2005. That's how long ago. And the word mitigation is not in the State Floodplain Manual. That's how effective their attitude is in relation to minimise flooding. It's pathetic. And Mr Mayor, I support your motion in both areas. One for more immediate action, and the lower they can lower it, the better. And the second in the long term is to build the wall. And they're only going 14 and a half metres, and that's only going to take into effect a one in a 500-year event. So if we have a bigger flood than the 1867, which was the one in a 500-year event, we're in trouble big time again.

So Mr Mayor, I do commend. And for the people who are suffering in the meantime, I can only say there's sympathy from the community. Thank you.

Further speakers? Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Just a question first. Was there anything you were intending to include around riverbank stabilisation at this point?

Not in this mayoral minute, no. Council has recently written to the Department of Planning with a proposal around riverbank restoration from the Western Sydney Planning Partnership. So that's well and truly underway. But this is more around flood mitigation.

Okay, so there hasn't been a response or anything

To that? General Manager.

Through you, Mr Mayor. Council forwarded a proposal for alterations to state planning law to the Department of Planning last Monday, with substantial changes that we felt were needed to enable immediate restoration of damaged riverbanks. That is currently sitting with the Department of Planning and, as I understand it, they are active discussions at quite high levels of government across multiple agencies at the moment, pulling a group together to work on that. But I don't have much more information than that at this point. Hopefully next week.

Thank you. So that technically, just to explain to the people that are here, the result of that would be that there could be some immediate interim works that could be done in some very vulnerable areas to stabilise the bank before further inundation. Thank you. The second question that I had was, Mr Mayor, do you require me to move a procedural motion, or could we be voting on the mayoral minute in seriatim?

No, look, I'm happy to have it voted on in seriatim, and I just would state again, I didn't intend for this to be a debate about Warragamba Dam wall. I just wanted to be clear we weren't changing our position. So on that basis, happy to let councillors support one and not the other, if that's—

Thank you, Mr Mayor, because yes, obviously, as you said, it was passed, you know, half the council supports it and half doesn't. So, Mr Mayor, I'll speak to the motion, and I would be supporting part of the motion, subject to perhaps any amendments that may come forward subsequently. But I think it's very evident here tonight that the community want us to take these action on any measures that will offer protection or even partial solutions before another imminent extreme weather event. In all the contacts and discussions I've had with people, there's the question about what we are actually doing. There's the enormous amount of angst and feelings of hopelessness, along with perceptions of being ignored by those who have the power to advocate for and implement solutions.

Putting, yeah, we're putting the dam wall aside. I'm not going to mention that. If the government are listening to us, then they've already been told what the position is here. What we need to do is really get some actions in place quickly before the next event. These interim solutions have been raised in this chamber previously, may I say, and ignored outright. Such missed opportunities we've had in this chamber around flood and flood discussions. It's a shame because they could have been pushed forward to the government previously and might have already been in place had there been the will to push aside politics and work collectively for our community, rather than appeasing the state government and their backers.

Let's not forget,

Let's not forget that when this council adopted the 2012 flood study, they did so excluding the section on planning and development controls. Is it any wonder community members have suspicions around the intent behind the calls to raise the dam wall, and yet they still refuse to release the crucial studies, such as the regional land use study and the cumulative overland study. These are really crucial for us to understand flood behaviour and how we can best manage the floodplain. In 2018, we called for the data around all the alternative investigations that were carried out for the strategy. We've never received that data, and so when we're talking about, when you, Mr Mayor, referred to a speaker asking about the figures in that, we have got very little data that we've been told around the alternative investigation of alternative solutions.

Also, the times have changed. So the investigations, we don't know what year that modelling was done, some time ago now, because the strategy was released in 2017. So we're looking a long time back, and we know that we've had very significant changes. We've got to acknowledge the impacts of climate change, that they're contributing to these increases in the frequency of heavy rain inundations. We've known for some time that we would get a pattern where the intensification of the water cycle and the precipitation whiplash effect would deliver conditions such as we are seeing now, not just here with flood, but we're seeing the flip side overseas with the massive heat waves causing many deaths and wildfires in areas which generally never have fire.

Despite much pleading by myself and others, we have failed to act on those projections and investigate all potential options, which has resulted in the current reactive state where we have massive amounts of money being funneled into recovery funding and missed opportunities around preparation and betterment, resulting in increased resilience, rather than a proactive stance. I have more to say about those sort of things in my notice of motion later in the meeting, which is around the security of electricity supply, upgrades of evacuation routes, and investigating the feasibility of the McGraths Hill levee, which is something that I had added to my motion today. The point around that being that while we have all been consumed and absorbed by looking at the raising of the dam wall, we've missed the opportunities to look at localised solutions that could have been being implemented.

Now, the McGraths Hill levee was identified as a cost-effective solution that we could have. It wasn't included in the strategy because it's not of regional benefit. However, it is of benefit to our people, and we should be having these discussions, and we should be looking at whatever localised solutions we can come up with. And there must be many of them, innovative solutions. We can also do the work. The state government does its regional work, and we can also look in particular to how Queensland is managing their flooding. They have many, many policies and strategies in place that are really effective and are really making a difference, particularly leading to decreases in flood insurance and so on.

So we heard our speaker, Morris Smith, say before that he, and I know he is someone who knows an enormous amount about flooding, and he said he was seeing uncharacteristic, unprecedented flood behaviour. That is the key to what we're dealing with. We're dealing with things that we haven't seen before. So we can't sit back and just depend on various strategies that are around to be delivering us just exactly what was said, you know, years and years ago. We've got to be proactive in looking for the solutions that are going to keep our community safe. And if there's any solution, then we should be supporting that. And I do support agreeing with neighbouring catchment area councils. This should be an ongoing dialogue, not just about flooding, but about the provision of infrastructure.

Infrastructure and around the impacts on each other's local government areas from the actions and developments within our neighbouring local government areas. It should not have to be the subject of a Mayoral Minute. It should have been done at the first hint of an impending La Niña approaching. Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Thank you,

Councillor Dogramaci. Thank you, Mr Mayor. Sorry, Councillor Sheather. Just a clarification. The information that I was reading from the data that is the 10th of September 2021. Thank you, Councillor Dogramaci.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Those who know me confirms that I don't belong to Liberals or I don't belong to Labor Party. I am one of you people in here, and I'm one of the new ones. I'm not going to support you, and I'm going to support you. I'm not interested what's going to happen in two, three, or four, or five years' time. These people have been crying for the last, what, five, 10, 20 years under the successive Liberal governments, and they've done nothing. That's number one. I cannot see our local MP in here, nor can I see our Minister in charge of water, or our ever-so-greening Premier , who used to be our member in here. And unfortunately, unfortunately, I voted for him as well, hoping that he would do something.

It was a mistake that he came. And then he parachuted another outsider who has never lived in this area, never experienced the flood , which I also, I live in Pitt Town, so people know what I went through. I'm not interested in what's going to happen, how you're going to, or who is going to raise the... Number one, they don't have the money. We are in deep financial problems. State government is in deep trouble. Ten billion dollars. They don't have the money. It's not going to happen tomorrow or day after tomorrow. Raise the wall for 10, 15, 20 meters. What kind of Newton force is going to exert, you know, to the wall? What's going to happen? Do we have to wait and see someone drowning so they could take some kind of an action?

That's rubbish. I don't want to wait one, two, three or five years. I want action now. These people are suffering. What are we going to do tomorrow? What are we going to do now? I took a boat trip on last Saturday, almost halfway to Wisemans Ferry. What I saw was there, you go in, you will cry. It was like, you know, beyond imagination.

The other side of the river, we have hills. We have the same minister, we have the same dam, we have the same RMS. That council turns a blind eye to people to go and to reclaim part of their lands, to put some kind of barriers, to put some kind of retaining walls, and we are not. Why? Because some people, I don't know who, I'm new in this council, but we have people, we have officers using their positions, maybe harassing people, maybe trying to put stop work meetings. It has to stop. Let these people, you know, go and do whatever they can to protect their homes, to protect their families. I met some people. I met some people, and — Councillor Dogramaci, just to remind you, we're talking about

Flood mitigation and the level of water in the dam, so if you can make sure your comments are relevant to the matter.

Well, correct me, whatever it is, but I'm talking on behalf of all these people. I don't know how it works, but we have to let these people, you know, take some actions. At least let them, you know, collect their tanks, whatever they have lost. The trees that, you know, I saw, they are blocking. If it was up to me, I don't know, these people—I'm not an engineer. I'm not an engineer. I don't know how it works, but ask this state government to give us half a dozen D9s and blow that Sackville Gorge. It's just common sense. We have this much hole, and the water is coming from every direction, and these people are suffering, and will be suffering again. And here we are talking about raising the wall in two, three, four, or five years' time.

We want the action now, and, well, 20 years, and we don't have the money, of course. Desalination plant, let that water, that one metre, two metre, bring it down to 60. Bring it down—well, okay, we cannot go, but 70 percent. What is it? The reason is that our water minister is in a business of selling water. That's what they want. So we have to start tomorrow, not next week or next month. We are expecting a heavy rain again. Let this water run and let, you know, give some kind of relief to these people. Thank you. Thank you,

Councillor Kotlash.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'll start with a question. If the state government decides that it's a good idea to lower the full supply level of Warragamba Dam to 12 metres, if it keeps raining and that release needs to be sort of carried out on an ongoing basis, is that going to hamper our repairs of Cornwallis and associated

Problems with bank stabilisation? I know there's lots of people doing private, well, hoping to do private work. But are we going to be in a situation where we won't be able to do that sort of work?

Just so I know who to refer the question to. You're asking if, is it

Going to prolong

The flooding? Is that what we're saying?

Well, I don't know what that— I know people have said, and this is another thing that happens in the media, everybody's saying, ‘Oh, we can do this safely. We can do it in such a way.’ But we have problems. I mean, Cornwallis, you know, I went to the public meeting for Cornwallis. We have to do something, and those repairs aren't going to be able to be carried out if we're going to be releasing water constantly from Warragamba. Remember, just releasing the water from Warragamba will happen if no other water comes into that dam. But if we're in a heavy rainfall period, and that's what's been predicted, the amount of water that's going to come into Warragamba might mean that we are in a heightened state of high river flows. So that's why I was just wondering whether that is just going to hamper some of the work that we desperately need to do.

Refer that to— Sorry, that's a hard one. Mr Barton? No, sorry, no.

Through you, Mr Mayor, I think it would depend very much on the specific details of how they lowered it, or by which mechanisms they would release anything that came through above that 12 metre level, and the exact nature of what else is going on in the river valley. So very difficult to pre-empt what the outcome would be or the impact would be.

I suppose I'll just say, I mean, I'm sorry. I guess that was a question that I didn't really think we'd be able to answer now, and, you know, I'd be happy to have that taken on notice if that's appropriate. But one of the things that I'm a bit mindful of is the modelling that we're looking at in the latest report from the March flood this year has given us those levels of what, if we drop the full supply level in Warragamba from five or to 12 metres, that's based on that flood. And just from my reading and just from all of the talk that's around the town is that this flood was very different. We had water coming from every direction. So I just wonder, are we putting— I caution against putting too much stake in lowering the supply level.

We might give ourselves some benefit, but I think we have to caution that we may not be getting that level of benefit that we would have seen because the modelling was done on that last flood. I think if the government can do it and it's able to be done quickly, effectively, and even if we do get a slight benefit from that, we should be pushing for that. So I'm in favour of the first part of this mayoral minute. Look, let's get on with that. I'm sure that the state government will have to do the modelling and figure out whether that's going to be possible. I hope it is, and I hope it gives relief to the next flood. Thank you, that's all I'll say. Thank you.

Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I'd like to move an amendment. I've given it to the staff.

Just wait for the amendments to be brought up on the screen. I'll second

It, Mr Mayor.

The intention of the amendment is to uncouple the two issues, raising the dam wall and providing immediate mitigation and action. And I think all of our speakers, regardless of what side they've spoken on, have highlighted the need for a real immediate response so that we get some relief for people who are affected by flooding. And let's face it, all of us are affected by flooding, some of us more than others. Some of us are just cut off and we have an inconvenient week where we can't go to the shops. Other people have lost huge tracts of land and their capacity to carry out their business or live in their homes.

We've already got support for raising the dam wall for this council based on the mayor's casting vote. And it should be noted that that is not unanimous support from this council, that in fact six of us, fully half the chamber, voted against it.

Hence the need to, I think, to uncouple the two points of the original mayoral minute. What we need to do is provide people immediate help and call for immediate government action. It was mentioned that this level of risk isn't new. We have already had this level of risk. What we haven't had is this many people living on the floodplain, nor have we had this much runoff coming at us from developments in the South Creek catchment and the hills. And that, I think, has made a very large difference. There's numerous things that we need to be doing. We know that we live on the most dangerous floodplain on the continent. We've seen enormous destruction in Lismore. But what we are looking at here, if we get a large flood, is really, really serious consequences for life.

We should be demanding an El Niño and La Niña dam management procedure so that we're not hoarding water in wet years like we have been. We can ensure water supply in dry years using the dam and at the same time provide airspace in wet years. That's not my opinion; that's the opinion of experts like Stuart Khan. We need to stop development below the PMF for new sites and infill development, as well as any further development in adjacent areas, especially South Creek and Box Hill water sheds, which increase drainage to the Hawkesbury catchment. We need buybacks and relocation for those who require them to give people genuine options, especially for those with limited means. We need to help people build more flood-resilient dwellings out of more resilient materials.

At the moment these are far too expensive. We need to educate the community and ensure that they're prepared with food, alternate water, heating, sewage facilities and the like. We need to urgently prioritise evacuation routes and stop building along them outside the Hawkesbury. Those lovely new estates in Marsden Park and Box Hill are currently flooding us, and in a major flood the pressure on evacuation routes may well kill us. We need to demand a government-backed insurance scheme that pays for flood-resilient rebuilds, withdrawing and packing up and pack up and put back as currently practised by North Street Windsor residents. We need to stop turning a blind eye to riparian zone devegetation and put resources into effective compliance education and replanting so that all our waterways have effective vegetation buffers to slow floodwater, filter debris and hold banks so that they don't erode.

We need to ban upstream development that results in increased flow in creeks and streams and results in these waterways straightening and removing people's backyards. The mayoral minute calls for none of these things. This isn't the time to conflate two issues, and it's not the time to play politics while our community is devastated and scared.

We need dam management processes, development controls, including upstream development, evacuation routes, insurance and relocation, pack up and put back strategies, service improvements to allow safe shelter-in-place strategies, education and riparian zone protections. As the speakers have said, we need immediate action. So let's focus: urgent action to lower Warragamba Dam for mitigation, stabilisation of riverbanks, and improvements to evacuation routes so that people can get out to safety. I'll flag that I'll bring a further motion to the next meeting of Council for mid- and long-term actions. But tonight, we need to focus on what we can do now. We need to call on our surrounding councils for their support, and we need to contact every member of the New South Wales Parliament.

We need everybody on our side to make these changes because they need to be made quickly. We can't afford to have a political wrangle or any more politics played with the future of the Hawkesbury. Thanks.

Further discussion. Councillor Zamprogno.

Thank you, Mr Mayor.

I'm a school teacher by vocation, so I like to approach things in an evidence-based way. And the one thing that I've observed, and I'll direct these remarks through you, Mr Mayor, but to the gallery, I see that we're living through an anxious time, aren't we? You know, either your house or there's house of somebody you know. has been flooded for the first time in who knows how long, or you're a farmer down on the lowlands and you're seeing your life and your livelihood literally being washed away before your eyes. And I know that emotions are high, but this is how we get through this together.

And I know that there are some passionately held views on both sides. And I also know that there are some very sincerely misinformed people out there. Maybe it's because I focus on the debate that happens on social media, where opinion is cheap. But we've got to do better than the job that we've been doing. So, you know, I recognise and respect you, Mr Mayor, for bringing a motion that effectively reiterates a position that we're already holding, and then adds to that a short-term measure that I think will make some difference . But we have to be really, really realistic about how modest that difference is going to be. You know, if lowering the water level of Warragamba Dam by a reasonable amount, by an amount that the state government is possibly going to exceed to, is going to change the resultant height of a flood by between 20 centimetres and a metre, then, you know, we're comforting ourselves with something that isn't really getting the job done.

We have to confront the reality that only a larger capital program like raising the dam is going to reduce the height of a bad flood by enough to make a real difference. But I do agree, and I'm a convert to this, that, you know, we have a strong moral obligation to act. And when I saw the figures that you presented in your mayoral minute, that even a modest decrease... would save dozens of houses. I think back to that study that came out after the March 2021 flood, where we realised that had the dam been raised, 500 out of the 600 houses that were flooded would have been spared if we'd already gotten on with the job years ago like we should have. And I think to the people who passionately advocate for the sake of ecologies around Lake Burragorang or the Cowanmung Valley or sacred Aboriginal sites, I hear you, and Lord, you feel passion.

But the thing is, you've got to look into the eyes of those hundreds and hundreds of families whose houses and livelihoods could have been spared by bold action, and tell them that they don't deserve the degree of safety that engineering and combined cleverness can deliver them, and tell them that they don't deserve it. And I can't bring it in my heart to do that. I think this is the moral imperative that we have to act and to do whatever we can. The one thing that we know about the scientific reality of climate change is that it's going to deliver us greater variability of weather. That means times of even more rain and perhaps even times of more drought. And we know, for example, that the studies tell us that if we had dropped the permanent water storage level by five metres in February 2020, when we were coming to the end of a protracted drought and the dam was at about 48% full, if we had already had a policy in effect.

Of keeping the water storage down by only five metres, the dam instead would have been at 26%. That's catastrophic for Sydney. Sydney would have effectively run out of water, and the desalination plant wouldn't nearly have been able to keep up, not within a bull's roar. If we dropped the permanent water storage level by 12 metres, as some people advocated, then, you know, the dam would have been empty. Sydney would have had no water at all. That's just the blunt reality. And, you know, part of the misinformation that we have to counter is the difference between somebody reading something in a study and then suggesting that that was recommended. Something being contemplated and rejected forcefully is not the same as it being endorsed or recommended.

Just like there's a degree of misrepresentation about whether this is a stalking horse for development. I am not known in this chamber as being a friend to developers. I am against inappropriate development in all its forms. I support the raising of Warragamba Dam because we have a moral duty to keep our people safe in any way that we can. That's what this boils down to. There are other things that we can do about flood evacuation routes, public education, other forms of resilience. Councillor Lyons Buckett and I went to a national conference and we learnt that 97% of all disaster funding in Australia is the ambulance at the foot of the cliff after the disaster. Only 3% of the money we spent on disasters, 3% is spent before to stop the bloody disaster from happening in the first place.

And natural disasters currently cost us 38 billion dollars a year, and that cost is probably going to double within the next three or four decades. These are the blunt realities that we deal with. We live and trade on a floodplain, but by being wise, we can do something about it. Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Deputy Mayor. Thank you, Mr Mayor, and I thank you for bringing this forward. But I've noticed in both your motion and the amendment that it does not refer to the fact that the state government's current legislation doesn't allow it to use the dam for flood mitigation. And I would have thought that in both cases that should have been written in the first point , that what we're asking the government firstly to do is to change its legislation to allow for lowering of the dam for flood mitigation. So can I recommend that to both the mover of the motion and the amendment? Secondly, Mr Mayor, I would have been okay with your mayoral minute, except I think point two might have been unnecessary .

We have already got a policy or a stated position that we favour the raising of the dam wall, even though, as has been said, it wasn't totally unanimous, but it is our position. And perhaps your point two should, if you get the chance, be changed to something like council notes that Hawkesbury City Council has a stated position favouring the raising of the dam wall. And I would have been happy to support something like that, whereas what you're calling on there is for us who weren't committed to raising the dam wall to now commit to it, and I couldn't do that. With point two. Tonight we've heard a lot of descriptions about floods, and we've heard a lot of descriptions about possible things that we should be looking at.

And I've heard many—a number of councillors and even members of the public saying things like, We need to, we need to do this, we need to do that, or, If we had a policy in place, and it's once again, if we had a policy in place. The implication of all that is that council has somehow got the power to do all these things. Council does not have the power or the money to do many of the things that have been mentioned here. It is the state government that has that power and maybe the money. And I don't think that's been made clear enough in many of the comments that were given to us tonight. And I want to make it clear that council has very limited powers in this position. It's not something we have a lot of control over, and all that's being asked here is that we have an advocacy position.

We go to the state governments and ask them and tell them this is what we really want to be done. And it's important to make that distinction between what we can do and what we're asking other people to do. There's also been a whole lot of other items come up tonight. I mean, there was one item brought up, which was that we should go and blow up Sackville Gorge, and there's been other ones like that. But I recall in this latest flood that when it was flooding here in Windsor and Richmond, it wasn't really flooding in Sackville Gorge. It took a day or two for that water to get down there. And so if you blew up the gorge, it wouldn't stop the flooding in Windsor and Richmond. All it might do is mean the flooding doesn't hang around for so long.

It drains out more quickly. But people don't understand that a flood is not a hole. And they talk about the Hawkesbury Basin being like a bathtub with all the water being level across it. During a flood, the water is not level right across that bathtub. It's deeper in some places than it is in others. And that was shown that during this flood, it was deeper in Richmond and North Richmond first, and then it became deeper in Windsor and worked its way down. And so the idea of it being one big basin that just goes up and down like a bathtub is totally wrong. And a lot of modelling, a lot of discussion is based on that wrong assumption. That's not how it works at all. In fact, if you did a profile of the flood in the first day or two, the front of the flood would appear to be going up on a slope.

It'd be shallower at the front and deeper at the back because the flood moves through in a process. And so a lot of people are putting in suggestions based on the wrong concept of how these floods work. And I think we need to spend more time doing that because just saying raising the dam wall will have this effect is an oversimplification of how the floods work. And I'd like to see a lot more information on how our floods worked in this last flood, exactly where it came from. And as the gentleman said, the water was going up the creeks, not down the creeks. This has happened before, but it's becoming a much bigger thing with recent floods because of the development. And I must point out, we keep hearing people saying we shouldn't develop on the floodplain, and they point their fingers at this council as if we are allowing large scale development.

We are not. We have not. If there is any large scale development, it's happening further out in the catchment area, not here in the floodplain. And that's where we should be focusing our efforts in reducing the development further out there. So, Mr Mayor, I'd be happy to support the amendment as it is on the board, or your motion with the changes that I suggested. Thank you.

Thanks, Deputy Mayor. Look, I'm quite open to taking those changes if the amendment does fail. In regards to point 2, that's probably the way you said it is the way that I intended it, which was just to make it clear that we have a position and it wouldn't be changing as a result of this motion. Councillor Kotlash, you have a question?

Could I ask a question if I can? Could we, if somebody might know this, I don't know off the top of my head, but does the minister have emergency powers to lower the Warragamba Dam in these sorts of emergencies? Is it always a legislative change that has to have the whole of Parliament?

I'll just pass this to Mr Kearns. I'll just say to that point relates to something the Deputy Mayor raised, which is the reason I didn't put into the motion exactly what is required to happen was because that's not really our concern in that way. It's up to the New South Wales Government to get work themselves out, in my opinion. We just want the outcome, but I'll refer that to Mr Kearns.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. So the current situation is the Warragamba Dam, the legislation is for use of the dam for water storage only. So there is no ability to use for flood mitigation unless legislation is amended.

Thank you.

Any further discussion on the amendment? Councillor McMahon.

Thank you, Mr Mayor, and thank you to all of our speakers this evening. And I just want to touch on a couple of things that a couple of other councillors have said first. And the Deputy Mayor is 100% correct in making sure that people understand first and foremost what the role of this council is. And this council does not have the power, the ability, or the legal right to change the legislation surrounding the dam. What we do have the power to be, though, as elected representatives who live in this community, who raise our kids in this community, is to be a very loud and strong voice on these issues. Now . Just to touch on the Warragamba Dam wall for one second before going to the substance of why we're here tonight.

It's no secret that I'm a very unashamed supporter of the raising of the Warragamba Dam wall. I went to the council elections very clearly and transparently about that issue, and we were elected with a majority on our ticket for that. So having that voice on an issue is something that is extremely important to me and something that I will not shy away from, no matter how much the noisy minority want to try and say that it is the wrong move. We are all entitled to our opinion. What I do strongly suggest to people, though, is not being misinformed. And through speakers and through a lot of chitter-chatter on social media, which, quite frankly, I do not pay a lot of attention to, what people need to do is inform themselves of facts and inform themselves of evidence.

And if people haven't read the three key documents about flood mitigation, about minimising the risk in the Hawkesbury, then I implore you to do so. And if you want to contact me and have me provide you with those links to those three key documents, then I'm happy to do that as well. Now, that's the 2017 Resilient Valley, Resilient Communities investigation by the New South Wales Government, which suggested nine options to help mitigate flood risk in the Hawkesbury. The raising of the Warragamba Dam wall was option two. The other option that we're discussing tonight wasn't part of those options, but that doesn't mean that as a community we can't have a very strong voice to the New South Wales State Government to do something about it.

When the New South Wales State Government gets it wrong, then we need to tell them they've got it wrong. And I don't care what party is in power in the State Government; they are the ones right now with the power to make a change. But what is also vitally important in this, and is something that other speakers touched on tonight, is managing community expectations. Changing the legislation for the— The Warragamba Dam not just to be water supply, but to also be flood mitigation is not the silver bullet you all think it will be. And that information is contained in those documents that I have already referred to. So while I'm very happy to support this, I have no hesitation to support this. We have to do it for our community.

I live here. I work here. I, as I said, raised my kids here. I've been out in every single flood meeting with farmers, turf farmers, veggie farmers, covered in mud, hearing their stories, listening to their concerns. And it's really disappointing that members of the audience think that that's funny because that's people's lives and livelihoods there. Meeting with them, hearing their stories about their concerns. And what we have to do when we come into this chamber and have our meetings is make sure that those concerns are represented. Now, a lot of those people aren't here tonight because they are in distress or because they have their businesses to attend to. And we need to make sure that when I'm stopped in Coles or stopped out on the street, as many of us are in this council as elected representatives, that we're also conveying their messages as well.

Now, there's one person in this room who I would never, ever argue when it comes to the facts on flood mitigation in the Hawkesbury, and that's Councillor Les Sheather. After his 30 years of commitment to this issue, there is nobody who knows more than he. He will sit you down and talk your leg off for hours with facts and figures on this, and I applaud you, Les, and your other committee members that you have and the work you have done in advancing these measures for our community. So I think we need to be strong. We need to be loud. We need to tell the New South Wales State Government, who has these powers, that this is what we expect as members of the Hawkesbury, that we want these changes to take place.

But please be rest assured that we need to also manage community expectations about what this will do. The most important thing, I think, and we must remember this, is we all live here. And the number one thing that we must protect when we are talking about this issue is lives and livelihoods in the Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley floodplain. It is protecting people and their properties, properties that have been long here before even any of us in this room may have been born. And another speaker touched on that tonight, that we have so many historic properties because it is well known that we are the third settlement of the colony, and we have buildings and history dating back to that era. Now— Oh,

Sorry

I didn't even hear a beep. I could have kept talking. All right, thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just want to make a very strong case, definitely in support of being as loud as we can to the state government to make this change. Thank you.

Councillor Dogramaci on the amendment.

Sorry, very briefly. Natalie, you know more than I do. Who do we have in state government that could allow that water level to be dropped, whether 10 centimetres or 10 metres?

And instead of just approaching them red tape and that kind of garbage—excuse me my English—but that kind of thing, which I have no time for, that sort of things. We are not going to sit down and write letters and invite these people. Those people are our servants. How about we convene some kind of extraordinary meeting in here— not tomorrow, maybe day after tomorrow, maybe next week— and invite our member, water minister, if necessary, even so, Mr. Perrottet, to come in here, and with all these people coming in here and give us, you know, their word that they are going to lower the Warragamba Dam meter two or whatever it is. Who is it? What do we have to do without going to red tape? Can we not have some kind of common sense so these people don't have to wait years or whatever and they could, you know, start attending their businesses. Yes

I think what we've heard from the answer from Mr. Kearns is that nobody, no individual in the New South Wales government has that power. It's a legislative change that's required. So it needs Parliament to sit and change legislation on the recommendation, most likely, of the government.

So they have to just suffer again.

We're going to go as hard as we can on it, but we don't have the power in here to change the legislation.

Thank you. Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. It is frustrating, Councillor Dogramaci, I know, but that's the way it is. I'm also interested in how four out of 12 constitutes a majority, but anyway, I'll ponder on that.

Yeah, four out of 12. I think this is a good amendment, and I think this moves us forward considerably compared to the motion , although it encapsulates still the similar sentiment. I don't think that we, as the Mayor said, we would not be telling the Parliament how to do this, but the amendment is calling to facilitate. However, we do know that the various powers within the Parliament can have legislation drafted and passed very quickly. We saw, in fact, how quickly they managed to change the National Parks Act when they wished to have that changed within a month so that, you know, that could allow for temporary inundation upstream. So legislation can be changed quickly when there's a will.

So I think this is a good way to move forward, and of course it can also have a high degree of flexibility around catering for the various weather patterns such as La Niña and El Niño, and so that the operation of a dam could be subject to scientific or expert opinion around when there should be these various methods being put in place. It doesn't have to be a permanent sort of operation. It can just be when the exact conditions are suitable to allow that to happen. Otherwise, as I think Councillor Kotlash raised, there can be some issues around releasing it when we have already saturated soils. And of course, the last thing we want is any more water going into those various areas and causing more rotational slips when they're going into those areas already saturated.

But when we rely on people that really know about the engineering behind it and so on, I think that would be a really good way to proceed. And having this sort of cuts out a middleman in this particular one by going directly to contacting all members of the New South Wales Parliament, which gives us a bit more impetus to get to it quicker than if we were to hold any other meetings. We can't rely on the dam for our water supply. We know from the Greater Sydney Water Strategy that they've already said that we have to have non-rainfall water supply into the future. So regardless of whatever happens around the dam, if they're going to keep putting more people in Sydney, they're going to have to find more water.

In terms of the resilient strategy, which did include around the dam wall raising, of course, it's really unfortunate, I think, that they didn't keep it as an ongoing, an ongoing system where they could monitor when we've had these various changes occur. That they should keep monitoring, they should keep modelling. Once we have a stagnant set of modelling figures, we're looking at things way back before we've had these very unusual events occurring now, and so it's not really reliable to just simply be basing everything on what one set of figures has given us. And then, of course, we see the very interesting manipulation and selectivity around the use of statistics that we see connected with issues such as this.

I hope this is supported, this amendment, because I think it's a good amendment. There's so much we can say about flooding and what we must discuss about flooding, but I think the overwhelming sentiment here tonight is for us to push forward with what we can do as immediately as possible, and that's what we're going to try to do. In the long term, I think recently at this talk I mentioned before, which was from the insurer IAG, I think it is, yeah, IAG, they actually said that we believe land use planning, development controls and building standards are the most effective tools society has to reduce the impact of flooding and other natural disasters on the community. So we are going to have to move further down the track and be looking around as we've established not necessarily development here, but the impact from development in the catchment area.

So I thank Councillor Wheeler for bringing this notice of motion. I hope that our mayor will be engaging with the mayors from our neighbouring councils. Of course there will be differing opinions on some things, but I think it's really important that we are working together across the whole catchment. We can no longer divide along a boundary that is meaningless in terms of where the water goes and where the impact goes. We have to work on it together on the whole catchment from where the waters come from until they get out into the ocean, you know, taking many of the Hawkesbury's water tanks and boats and caravans with them. But I thank you, Councillor Wheeler, and I hope that the amendment is supported.

Thank you.

Okay Councillor Sheather. Yeah, speaking against the amendment, Mr Mayor. Mr Mayor, we

Don't have school kids that write these reports and the like. The Weather Bureau, the SES, they've got the statistics of all the floods and modelled them. There's a model down at Manly that they use regularly to monitor the Hawkesbury and what happens with the rainfalls. And for sure every flood's different, and they model those. And as Morrie Smith said, the water has run up South Creek because the rain didn't fall in South Creek. That's why it run up there. It fell at Camden, 300 millimetres. And so the floods we've had in the past, in the main, we get flood right across the catchment and it's pretty even. So our swamps and that are full and the river comes down. But we had nearly 30 years of drought.

The ground was dry. And then we've had two or three floods, a slumping I've never seen it like before, and I've seen a lot of them. But as Councillor Wheeler spoke about some of the things we should be looking at, to think they're not looked at.

The vegetation along our riverbank never saved at this time. There was acres and acres, sometimes with half a dozen trees and more went in. Our creeks that are flooding our swamps today haven't been cleaned out in 30 years. We've got the lowlands, we've got Cornwallis. The Pitt Town, Burradooing. Try and walk down that, and out at Wilberforce, at the creek there, and at Sackville, it's the same. The swamps and creeks there aren't much lower than when the floodwaters left the riverbank, because the water can't get out. So if we get a couple of mil of rain now, we've already got the dams and swamps full. So there's things that can be done, but they shouldn't hold up the things that can make a difference.

And your motion can make a difference. And the discussion that I hear around, like, been around for the time I have, sitting through three EISs, and I'm not the only one that can talk about it. Morrie does pretty good too. But the things that you sit here and hear discussed by people, and it drives you mad, assuming that they're not looked at, because we're not the only ones on this planet, and we're not the only ones with these problems. It's all over the world. And what , Liz Moore, no one took any notice of what happened up there at Maitland? Of course they've got the information there. And because we haven't read it, or some of us haven't read it, that we don't know about it, we want to know about it.

Well, let me tell you, the information's available. And if you want to take the time to inquire about it, you can get the information from professional people . Now, if you decide not to reason with that, fair enough, because I remember a professor about five years ago said Warragamba was never going to be full, it was never going to rain again.

Yeah, I don't know where he is now, but he's not here in this room,

I can tell you.

So, but when you get organisations like the Weather Bureau and the SES and the controlling mob down at Manly with their modelling and stuff, and Sydney Water, they're pretty smart people. They've been around for a while. It's their job. Do you think they want to hold back the water or a gambit or anything if they can minimise flooding? Legislation does that, and the government can change it. They haven't done, and they should. But to think that no one knows about it, there's a will that's got to be done, and it's like what I spoke about the swamps and, like even the discussion about building on the floodplain. The floodplain's below PMF. People have got entitlement to build on the land over one in a hundred.

So, and if we're talking about governments buying land, we're talking about from Goulburn to Spencer and from Liverpool to North Richmond. I mean, we're looking at somewhere the size of Canberra. And who the hell wants to move out of the Hawkesbury in the first place? You know, it's a beautiful place to live. At the moment we're having problems that we don't want, you know, we don't want here. But to think that no one's not doing anything about it is not correct. And if people want the information, like I said, it's available. Just look for it. And, Mr Mayor, so we can mess around and go to West Rock, who doesn't support raising of the dam, to go to the ministers and the likes, fine. If you want to go down there, I'm sure half the people in this room will go with you, and it's probably appropriate.

Thank you. Thank you.

There are no further speakers on the amendment. We'll put the amendment. All those in favour of the amendment, please raise your hand. In favour are Councillors Wheeler, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Kotlash. Against? Councillor Conolly, Councillor Reardon, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Vargol, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Zamprogno. Councillor Dobromirci was absent for the vote, declared the amendment lost. Anyone who hasn't spoken on the motion that wanted to speak on the motion? Just

For clarity, are you planning to change that second point?

Yeah, I haven't got a very small change that I've sent through to the staff just to make that a bit easier for people and clarify my intention.

I'll just read it out while you're waiting. I've sent it in the chat both to Charles and to the minute secretary. Changing point 2.2, read : notes that our position of calling for the New South Wales Government to proceed with the Warragamba Dam Raising Project remains unchanged.

No further speakers. I'll go to right of reply.

First of all, I just wanted to touch on a couple of things that were said during that debate. I think the first observation is that we generally were broadly all agreeing with each other and arguing about the very slight difference in the way we might approach this issue. And I think it's pleasing to see that there does seem to be support around the room for this measure. We have all heard the community loud and clear that just regardless of whatever other options there might be, whatever else we might be doing in the longer term, that this needs to happen right now. I think everybody's on the same page about that, and I just observe that despite the fact this is quite a heated debate, I think that broadly we're working together on that one.

I do want to point out, though, that for anyone here who's genuinely undecided about this issue, and I don't know that there's too many of us, that I think it's quite irrational to say that raising the dam wall is political, lowering the amount of water in the dam is not political. That's a statement we've had here tonight, that one of those actions is political and the other one isn't, and I can't see any rationality or logic in that whatsoever. And I just would like people to reflect on that, because that's something that's been put out there, and it just doesn't stack up to any intelligent analysis, in my opinion. In regards to the riverbanks, fully agree with what Councillor Wheeler was putting forward.

I think this needs—this, what we're doing tonight, needs to be quite targeted, which is why I didn't support the amendment. It needs to be quite targeted in regards to lowering the water level in the dam or looking at pre-releases. I did ask for Council's information, did ask staff earlier this week for some advice back on what we could be doing in terms of our role in education and/or incentivising in some way private landholders to be revegetating their riverbanks with the correct vegetation to minimise loss, and also looking at what we're doing in our own riverbanks and making sure that we're leading by example in that sense. Even though it might be nice for us in many places to have rolling turf to the river, it's clearly not worked.

So we need to go back and make sure we're doing the right thing, leading by example, and then also making it easy for the community to do so as well. So I've asked for that advice, and that will come back to us. We need to make evidence-based decisions. As I agreed fully with Councillors and prognosticator remarks, we need evidence-based decisions. We can't say a document from 2017 is too old and now it's irrelevant, a document from 2021 that backed it up is too old and it's irrelevant, or we'll never make any decisions. If documents relating to flooding or any other large-scale infrastructure projects, mitigation projects, become irrelevant a year after they're published, we're not ever going to get anywhere.

We have to look at— The documents that are produced by the experts, we have to look at their findings objectively, and we have to listen to the experts in these matters. We can't just ignore them or say that they're too old because we disagree with their findings. So I have changed the motion, however, having said all of that, because I really did want tonight to be about demanding immediate action, as we said. I wanted to make it clear our position is unchanged, and I hope that that makes it clear for everybody what the intention of that was, and that people aren't feeling like they're voting for something they disagree with, but just noting the position is remaining unchanged. So thank you everybody for your contribution.

I think that was a good debate, and I'll put the motion—

Mr Mayor, can I move

A procedural motion for

The motion

To be taken in seriatim?

I did say that, sorry, yes, yep. So move point one of the motion. All those in favour? Favour:

Councillor Conolly, Councillor Reardon, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zemprogno. Councillor Dogramaci was absent for the vote. Declare it carried. Point two of the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. Favour: Councillor Conolly, Councillor Reardon, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillors Zemprogno. Against? Against: Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Lines Buckett, Councillor Djuric. Councillor Dogramaci was absent for the vote. Declare it carried. Thank you.

Councillors, our next item subject to public address is item 123, the Redbank Voluntary Planning Agreement. We have four public speakers, and we might just wait one moment. Oh

Yes , we've

Also got, Councillors, we've got two declarations of interest before we go to public speakers. Councillor Richards.

Oh, no, no, sorry, this is 123. Sorry, I've been thrown off. My lorry. Yeah, Mr Mifsud has made an error. First speaker is Jeannie Rasmussen.

Councillors, for allowing me to speak tonight, first of all I would like to thank everyone

Who

Gave … to my late husband. It was very, very good of you and lovely to hear that everyone felt that he had done as much as he really did. Of course, being close to Door, I obviously knew how hard it was sometimes on the other side, because yes, he did dedicate his life to the community after he left the Air Force. And that was, in fact, before he left the Air Force, he began work with the community on a local airport that was put forward at some stage, but that didn't eventuate. But anyway, thank you, everyone. It was very good of you and most satisfying. And then I would like to say that he also supported, not just supported, but fought for this change in legislation that you've all been talking about in this last item with the mayoral minute.

And he tried for years to do it from all sides, partly from the political side and partly from the Water NSW people themselves. And they were always frustrated by the fact that they were not allowed to let the water out down below a certain level. So I know that's not what I'm here to talk about tonight, so I'll finish.

The item 123, I support it as it stands because it is not about approving the new route or any of those things that people get emotional about. It is simply about supporting the fact that that's been already approved and talking about little amendments that need to be made to the document as it stands to support that so that extra little things like acquisition of land and so forth will be in there and mentioned. And then the main point of it, as I understand it, correct me if I'm wrong, please, Mr Mayor, but I understand that the main point of it is to change the timeframes and the trigger points of the whole thing to make them more in line with what is achievable as they stand at the moment. It certainly wouldn't be with the new plan and the new route.

And I do think it was very sensible to move it so that it was on higher ground, because what is the point of building a new bridge that's still going to flood as fast as the Yarramundi one does, which the idea before this one definitely would have happened. Unfortunately, there is one statement in there that I do disagree with, because it says that it's going to help relieve the traffic congestion as it stands today. And unless the plan for the junction between this new road and Springwood Road is completely changed, then it will do nothing to help it, because that junction is just going to be jammed in no time flat, because it's been based upon figures and data that's been collected in 2013, and

The report on which this design has been based is woefully inadequate. It needs to be revisited, and some proper measurements need to be taken so that we actually know about the traffic on the road, because it's ludicrous to assume that in 2031 that the traffic will be no different to what it was in 2013, especially since it mentions the traffic across the river. And as I said in my submission to the DA, that they must have come by canoe because there wasn't any other way to cross it, so I don't know how they measured it. And if you actually read the report, there are flaws in it that are just unbelievable. I've got videos of trees racing down the Grose River, and they say that it always empties slowly because the floodwaters from the Nepean pass the junction before the floodwaters from the Grose get there, and that's rubbish.

So, you know, I just think as long as the plan is revisited, and I believe that this happens in another amendment that's going to happen, excuse me, after we've all had our submissions considered, and it's not really anything to do with what we're talking about tonight. So I think tonight's amendment is purely and simply about timeframes and other little fiddly things. So I see no reason to not support it. So thank you for your time. And again, thank you so much for all the kind words about Paul.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Jeanette Hathaway.

Good evening, Mr Mayor and councillors. Thank you for allowing me to address the council this evening. My name is Janet Hathaway, and my family and I are long-term residents of Grose Vale Road. I'm here tonight to express my family and my concerns arising from the construction of the proposed Grose River Bridge and the expected increase and unsafe traffic flow expected along both Grose River and Grose Vale Roads. The visual impact figure 14 shows the immediate area of construction and does not include surrounding roads which will be heavily impacted with increased traffic should this bridge go ahead. The modelled intersection performance report with proposal, the table 6.3, does not take into account the traffic impact at the intersections of Grose Vale, Grose Vale Roads, Grose Vale and Grose River Roads.

Has there or will there be a traffic impact assessment performed on these intersections? And when was the last time a traffic impact study was completed in the area?

People from Bowen Mountain, Kurrajong and beyond will not travel down Grose Vale to Grose River Road to access the bridge, as Grose Vale Road will be the most direct access route to and from the bridge for them. The reverse route will be used by people travelling from Penrith and beyond that are heading to destinations from Bowen Mountain and beyond. The roads around the Grose Vale area are unsuitable for heavy traffic flows due to their poor condition, unsafe edges, narrow lanes, which are unable to accommodate two larger vehicles or a small car and a large vehicle passing in different directions, and the highly dangerous bend adjacent to the Grose Vale Rural Fire Station, where there has previously been a fatality.

The expected increase in traffic is a great safety concern for parents and students at Grose View Public School, especially at peak morning, afternoon and function times. After speaking to many parents, they raised concerns regarding the lack of safe parking, adequate and safe footpaths. Parents and students have to manoeuvre between parked cars, having to step on the already busy road to access their own vehicles. There are continual dangerous parking practices around the school zone, as the road is not wide enough to accommodate parking requirements with current school time traffic flows.

Cars having to pull over on the soft edges of the road, which have been damaged due to heavy vehicles and not repaired, so that larger vehicles such as buses and trucks can move past. This happens all along Grose Vale Road at any time of the day. Will the ratepayers be responsible for the cost of repairs to the excess damage to the immediate and feeder roads around the bridge construction? Who will be held responsible should a fatality occur due to the excess damage caused by the feeder roads and the bridge and traffic congestion around the school zone? Both Grose River and Grose Vale Roads are local rural roads, totally unsafe for the vastly increased non-local traffic flows. These roads will be the shortcut for non-local people travelling through the area to other destinations in the Bells Line of Road region.

What are the council prepared to do to make Grose Vale Road safe should the bridge go ahead? Is there actually a need for another bridge over the Grose River when there has been another bridge announced at North Richmond in the near future?

Thank you Thanks. Are you happy to take questions from councillors? Sorry Are you happy to take any questions that councillors have? Oh, certainly, yeah. I just have

To speak a little louder. Sorry, I can't hear you.

Are there any questions? No. Thank you for that. Thank you. Thanks. Our next speaker is Marion Wilcox.

Hello everyone, thank you for allowing me to speak. Myself and my husband own 1 Ashton's Road at Grose Wold, which is our family home of 22 years and a working agricultural farm, being farmed by my son Adam, who owns his livelihood from this farm. Now , in relation to 123 .C, I disagree that it is necessary to compulsorily acquire our family home and our 15 acres of flood-free agricultural farmland, which has been our family home and business for 22 years, and which supplies fresh produce to vegetable shops around Sydney, when there is approximately 75 acres of vacant land adjoining our property that this road can be directed to run through.

In support of this, through freedom of information application which we made, we have obtained a certified map drawn by John Curtis Surveyor in 1986, designing the road to run through the neighbouring vacant land, which adjoins our boundary, and the design did not interfere with our property at all. This route will have minimal impact on the star property, as it is vacant land. And the house is located a long distance away from the proposed route. Why has this location not been considered, and why has the road designers been instructed to not consider designing the road to go through that vacant land, and been told to give the stud farm owner preferential treatment and to design the road to have minimal impact on that stud farm? I have documents that state this. Why are we being discriminated against in this process

On purpose? Our family home and source of income are being selected over vacant land, which would serve the same purpose. I ask the council confirm to me who chose this location, as all I'm getting is buck passing when asking this question, and all parties of the VPA are blaming each other for selecting this location. There is already a Part 5 DA with a planning panel which has had more than 75% of submissions object to this route. So what is your reasoning in changing the planning agreement, which will cause further distress to my family and our farm business, which supports two families? If the VPA needed to be amended, this should have been done prior to the Part 5 DA application being submitted.

Now , regarding point G, changes to schedule. We have already had three years of extreme stress, and by altering this VPA, this will give you further opportunity to traumatise our family and impact our financial and emotional wellbeing for a further two years. Also, we were told initially that it would be a partial acquisition and the road would run alongside our house, and now we find out that our entire 15 acres has been compulsorily acquired and the road has been directed to go through our family home and through our farm sheds. The initial route we were advised of was designed to go alongside our property, not through our family home, and it has now been changed in a way that it takes our entire property.

Also, I believe that the councillors were not informed of this change in the route when placing their votes, and this change was not advised to us or the community, and there has been no community consultation in regard to the change in the route. Despite the Director of City Planning coming out on the 16th of December 2021 and calling it human error for failure to consult. Why then, between 16 December and 19 July 2022, has there been zero active consultation in this process in accordance with the Hawkesbury City Council Participation Plan and legislative requirements that Hawkesbury City Council must follow in the planning processes? Also, why were we only told about this meeting on Friday and

Not given enough time for us to ask for a notice of motion or to seek legal advice to prepare for this? I also note that the project director of Redbank referred us to the SMEC reports, and in the SMEC reports they state that their SIDRA modelling tool is not sufficient to measure downward trend traffic, that the control group used for this traffic study was from 2011, and in 2019 SMEC stated that their modelling tool was not sufficient to justify a bridge in the vicinity of Neville Reserve. I feel the increased traffic is due to the VPA between Redbank and Hawkesbury Council, which allows increased development causing increased traffic, and therefore a bridge should be built to deal with this located in the vicinity of that development.

I would like to know what investigations were carried out on the adjoining vacant land, and when were they carried out, and why is this vacant land not being considered for the construction of the roads? Also, in light of all the numerous recent flooding, why is Council not pushing for an overpass at North Richmond to be built, which is a much better solution, and we request that this project should be deferred until the decision on the location of that third crossing is made. I request that this is deferred until all councillors have had a site inspection before they vote, as I believe only a couple have been out to come out and have a look, so they can make an informed decision. And I also request that a change of the route be considered so we can continue to live and farm this property, which is valuable, flood-free agricultural land.

Also, we were only told about this on Friday, and we have not had enough time to get legal advice and get our family and supporting people involved. This item 123 should not proceed until all our questions have been addressed in a meeting with the General Manager and the appropriate council officers. So we also request a deferral on this basis. Also, I want it to be deferred so that our legal representative can meet with Council Transport and ourselves, as we have had no formal meetings with Transport. Okay

Thank you. Thank you. Any questions, councillors?

Councillor Sheather. Yes, Mr. Mayor. Mrs. Wilcock, you made a statement there that you had letters, documentation—

I had minutes of meetings... ... which were attended by Council, Redbank, the RMS and the designers, stating that they were instructed to design the route not to go through the stud farm. They are to avoid the stud farm, and it's to be designed in a way to have minimal impact on the stud farm. And that's why I believe it's been designed in a boomerang shape to take all of our property, rather than go diagonally— I mean, to go along the boundary like it was originally supposed to, because it's been designed to be as far away from the stud farm as possible.

Thank you. There's a question to the planner, Mr. ... Sure

Yeah, one of the finishers, speakers. Councillor Dogramaci.

Thank you very much. Good evening. Thank you for coming. The documents that you said that you have obtained, I guess through GIPA you have obtained, have you submitted those documents to the Council? Yes

Council, the RMS and Redbank are all aware of those documents. We had a meeting, I think it was the 24th of May, where they were shown those documents. And I have in, and my solicitors requested information as to who instructed the road to be designed not to go through that stud farm. Council are saying they don't have that information. The developer is not responding, and the RMS are not responding. I cannot believe that out of the eight or ten people that attended that meeting, nobody knows where those instructions came from. So this is a cover-up.

Well, I don't know the cover-up or whatever, but is it possible in that case, in all honesty, to give you the benefit of the doubt that we could, every single one of us, and the Council should have copies of those documents.

You can get those from the General Manager. So

Mr . Mayor, I guess it will have to be the case that we should have, you know, those documents. And as Mrs. Wilcox suggested, maybe we should organise some kind of a short trip. I personally went there on two or three occasions, I cannot remember, and we should go and we should discuss it. So we should maybe explore more about the ... Suggestions

Or what

You said about the secret

Document. Sorry, we're not into debate yet. We're not into— sorry, excuse me. Sorry, one moment please. So we're not currently in the debate of the matter. We're currently asking questions, and then we've got another speaker after Ms Wilcox, and then we can debate. Thanks. Any further questions? Councillor Stroknach. Yes,

Thank you, Mr Mayor, and thank you, Mrs Wilcox, for telling your story. I want to hone in on something that's quite specific because it'll form the part of some questions I may put to staff afterwards. So you had the face-to-face meeting in December, and you were given an undertaking that a changed alignment that might spare your house could be examined.

I've been pushing and pushing for someone to talk to me, and I've been getting ignored. I finally got a meeting. Linda Perrin agreed to a meeting, and I requested it to be with the RMS and Council. Linda Perrin brought the developer along, and RMS did not

Attend . I understand that, but to continue, you were informed that that potential alternative alignment was not possible in May. So from December to May, you held some hope that an alternative— They said they were going to relook at it. — would spare your home. My question is this: is it your understanding that you were informed that this alternative alignment was impossible because the people who did the analysis were constrained, they were forbidden to consider a changed envelope of property acquisition? I believe so. They

Were not given the option of going on the adjoining vacant land. Okay,

Thank you. They were only

Given our 15 acres to design a road through.

We may pursue that later, but thank you.

Thank you. Any further questions? Thank you. Our final speaker is Stephanie Calaborn.

Thank you for allowing me to speak. Firstly, I'd like to pay my respect to the traditional owners, the Dharug and Darkinjung nations, the traditional owners of the land in which we stand. Firstly, I'd like to table some documents from Michael Want and Anne Donny. So where do I table these two documents? These are submissions

Thank you. I can take those. We can't really table the documents.

Oh, okay. Well, yeah, I'm used to it. Anyway, I've tabled them another. So anyway, I'd like to talk to Part 5 and the change in the Voluntary Planning Agreement between Council and Redbank. Firstly, I'd like to state that in relation to the Part 5 that was put up for submission, a lot of people were against the current route or the plan that was in play at the time. So with regard to that, firstly, I'd like to say that I believe, given that, that Hawkesbury City Council fails to hear the community. And there's evidence of that tonight by limiting the number of people that can speak, for example, by the fact that overwhelmingly people were against that route for various reasons, including largely safety issues.

The manager of communication, who I spoke to, her comment was that active consultation is putting up a Part 5 and DAs on websites and newspapers. That is not following the law. That is not following active consultation. Is that how Hawkesbury City Council actively consults in regard to DAs and Part 5s? How many years has this been going on? And how many times has Hawkesbury City Council failed their legislative responsibility to uphold Part 5 and DAs with regard to following their Community Participation Plan? How has the planning director, how has the mayor, how have councillors and the general managers allowed this to occur? And who is preventing the law from being followed? Which people here are deliberately not following their legislative responsibilities?

The Wilcoxes and myself, we went out, we actively engaged, and we found overwhelmingly by talking to people and doing letterbox drops that Hawkesbury City Council has failed to follow their Community Participation Plan. We made calls and we spoke to people, and Hawkesbury City Council didn't do this. In fact, I was advised by the town planner that Hawkesbury City Council is a large area, and that's the reason why consultation doesn't occur the way that it should. Despite calling it human error, for a further six months, even more to this day, they failed to do this. You failed to follow your legislative responsibilities. You want to passively engage. You want to go and you want to put another VPA for people to decide whether they want to go ahead with it or not.

You want to put it on your website. That's not the law. The law is to actively consult. Hawkesbury City Council, you don't want to engage the community, because if you engage the community, you'll find out what Marion Wilcox and myself found out: that people don't want what you want.

Hawkesbury City Council and the Local Government Act. Councils should act fairly, ethically, and without bias in the interests of the local community. Councils should carry out functions in a way that provides the best possible value for residents and ratepayers. Councils should be responsible employers and provide a consultative and supportive work environment for staff. Don't bully your councillors. Don't bully your staff. Don't threaten them. Respect them. Council decision making should be transparent, and decision makers are to be accountable. The role of councillors, which the mayor and deputy mayor and councillors are, you have to ensure adequate opportunities and mechanisms for engagement.

You have to respect the collective interests of the residents. And a councillor is accountable to the local community for the performance of the council. I've read the SMEC reports. The SMEC reports, they state that the modelling tool that was used was not up to standard, couldn't measure the traffic flow properly. You used as a control group data from 2011. The 2019 and 2018 reports said that the tools that they used wasn't sufficient to warrant the bridge at North Reserve. I question every councillor here and the mayor and the general manager who overwhelmingly are to uphold the legislative responsibilities of council. Who are you kidding? You cannot continue this way. Questions have been put up on notice, on handsets, because of the way that you are conducting your

Role . Time has expired, so I'll get you to finish on that sentence, if that's okay.

Just respect the people.

Thank you.

Are there any questions?

Councillor?

Councillor Dogramachi. Good evening, Madam. You made a comment saying that, you know, you have spoken with Linda Perrine, who told you that in that sort of circumstance that consultations or, you know, some kind of get-together to discuss that sort of thing, it was not possible because of the size of the areas. Is that correct?

I think the— if I can, I think the question is, what was the context of the remark where you've quoted someone as saying the area was too large?

Well, that was with regard to the town planner.

Yes.

That was in regard to trying to follow up where the stages were at with regard to the Part Five, because the submission period had ended and a number of weeks had gone by, and I was trying to find out what stage the process was at, because I was trying to follow up because I've got to be honest with you, the Wilcoxes have been suffering badly, and I just, I wanted to find out so that I could let them know. And in talking with this specific person, it was stated that the area is too large for consultation to occur, to the stage that it's supposed to, because I spoke to this particular person about the fact that active consultation is supposed to occur, and I was pretty upset. And I was also upset because I firmly believe in consulting, because that's how you get to know people and get to talk to people and find out where they're at.

And amazing things can happen with active consultation, and I was very upset to hear that from a town planner.

I understand that this is not a court, that we are not questioning. Well, I'm not questioning anything, but whatever, you know, you just said that with that person, you said with the town planner is a hearsay. This is what I know. Did you get anything in writing to substantiate that, you know, when she said that the area was too large? And then if I may ask the mayor, is it

Okay, so I might just stop that line of questioning because I don't think it's relevant to the

Matter we consider.

I think it was a comment around a consultation that, as you said, isn't substantiated at this point, and we'll take that on board and move on with that point, I think. Is there any further questions? Thank you for that. Thank you. Okay, councillors, that was our final speaker, so we wish to move something.

Councillor Sheather? I've got a question first, Mr. Mayor. Yep. It's in relation to the comment that I asked and Councillor Zambrogno asked.

The information that something had been directed in a particular direction that prohibited further direction. What's the question? Have we seen that document? Was that the case

I've seen a document which is minutes of a meeting from 2016 or '17 that had a file note that said, Avoid impacting the star property, or something to that effect. That's correct. The challenge we have as Council is that the general manager is not here anymore. It was a different mayor. It was different planning staff. That's the entirety of what's in the minute, and I understand that's frustrating, and it's not a good answer to say we don't know where that came from, but that is the reality of the people that we have here now.

Sorry, is it likely that any further direction or discussion might have been directed from those minutes, do you believe, or would planning act in the way that you would expect it to go? You're

Asking me my opinion, or do you want me to refer that to

The general manager?

Through you, Mr Mayor, so as the Mayor's indicated, what we have certainly got records of are minutes of meetings that formed part of a design brief discussion, like a rolling log of amendments, where there was an annotation that said something in the order of, plans to be amended to avoid the star property, or something of that like. Certainly over recent months, we've tried to dig through to identify whether there have been any other pieces of documentation that would indicate what that was about, and that has been unsuccessful. What I can only hypothesise, and it is a hypothesis on my behalf, is that there was perhaps an attempt at that particular point in time to minimise the number of properties needed to be acquired. That's simply my hypothesis around that, Councillor.

Sorry , Councillor Sheather, move the recommendation, Mr Mayor. Move the recommendation. Is there a seconder for the recommendation? No seconder.

I'll second it for the purpose of debate. Okay, thank you

Discussion, Councillor Sheather. Yeah, Mr Mayor, we've had briefings in relation to this and... And during those discussions, just in context to the Wilcox, the concern that Council has had, because we're all aware of the frustration of the family. The concern that I've got is that things like that weren't brought to our attention. But in saying that, with the firmness , for the want of a word, of the General Manager and how she deals with other things, I don't doubt that there's an over-concern there that we should be concerned about. But we should have been informed about it. So, Mr Mayor, if there's any area that we need to assess, and there's some comments made by the speakers today, and I'm sure there's been discussion between the planners, the General Manager, and perhaps yourself even, that needs some further investigation that we need to be made aware of, I would like that to happen as soon as possible.

In saying that, while the speakers tonight have been predominantly in opposition to the bridge, it's something that has been dragged out for a long time and it should never have been. The other proposals that were looked at, and the information that was given to us in relation to their

Non-acceptable. The— yeah, well, I guess the only concern that I've got, and I take on board the comments made by the speakers, and I know sometimes

A little pinprick hurts a lot . And I would hope that's the case, because if it's any bigger than that, it's not good. So, Mr Mayor, if there is anything that we should be discussing, we need to know about it. I don't know how the other councillors feel, but I know how I feel, and there'll be a matter that we're going to discuss a little bit later that I feel the same way about, that if there's issues there, whatever good may come out of it, if there's something bad in it, it's like a rotten apple. The whole lot cops it. So, in saying that, Mr Mayor, I do support the recommendation, and certainly sympathetic to the heartache that it's causing. Thank you Further

Speakers? Councillor Zamprogno.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Let me pick my way carefully through this, if I can.

My position has been from the beginning that the Grose River Bridge has been delayed and delayed and delayed, that the VPA inked by an earlier Chamber and by one of your predecessors, Mr Mayor, was weak. It left us in a very poor negotiating position. We were effectively over a barrel. All the developer ever needed to do was to say, ‘Well, we want another delay,’ or ‘We want this amendment,’ or that. And all we could do is

Agree to that, because what was the alternative? The alternative is that they stump up an amount of cash that's far less than the cost of construction, with no commitment from the state government that they'd ever come to the party, and they'd walk away. Not good for the community. And it was a poor agreement, a very poor agreement. Nevertheless, now that Redbank is a reality, we have a real obligation to get the best outcome for the community that we can. So every time the developer comes to us and says the market's sluggish, or we couldn't get our approvals from Sydney Water, or whatever the excuse was, legitimate or otherwise, all we could do is agree to the further delay and further delay and further delay.

Here's the reminder that I often offer at this juncture. Under the terms of the original VPA, the sweetener that was offered to the community to tolerate the Redbank development, in terms of the number of lots sold, the bridge should have been open by now. There should be traffic on it today. And here we are in the year 2022, still speculating about when it might occur off into the future. It makes us look really bad. And now, to compound that, we have the situation where a family with a legitimate grievance says, I don't think this is terribly fair. It's running through our house. And at the risk of evoking a pop cultural metaphor, that's a really bad vibe, isn't it? Often you have to acquire private properties to get critical infrastructure through, and moral leadership in that sense involves making very difficult choices and compensating people fairly for the acquisition of their property because there's a greater good to be serviced.

And yet, the Wilcoxes have come to us and said, we don't know why it couldn't have gone around our property. There's plenty of vacant land on either side. It's not as though we are tightly constrained by the unavailability of land or the topography. And now we see evidence that certain landowners were given grace or favour, or effectively quarantined from their land being acquired to get the best outcome and to have the smallest impact unfairly on individual farms or homes or families. I mean, it's better for it to go through vacant land than it is for it to go through somebody's home, especially if it's your home. And I want to see what we can do to help that family. If it turns out that the general manager is correct in her speculation that at some point there was a desire to minimise the number of properties acquired, that's understandable.

And I don't blame the developer for not wanting to build a bridge that was more expensive than it needed to be. But our responsibility here is to the broader community, and it's worth remembering that the developer is on the hook for the cost of the bridge and the approach roads, regardless of what the cost is. So if it costs a little bit more to engage in some additional partial property acquisition, not whole properties, but just the edges of certain properties so that the camber of that road can be brought around their house, then I think that that needs to be revisited. The question is this: whether any amendment to the recommendation that's before us this evening is the appropriate mechanism to pursue that end.

There's a lot of other stuff that's not locked in stone, and I rather think that on behalf of our community, we should push back a little because we've been absolutely supine to date, and it doesn't reflect well on us. But I'd like some guidance from staff about whether any amendment that asks the developers to, or asks the various parties to this, to readdress this question about whether a compliant road that has the right curves and cambers and all the rest of it could be constructed if the envelope of property acquisition were changed. And if the answer to that question is yes, in the technical sense, then I'd probably endorse that as an amendment to this motion.

Thank you. Just pass that to the general manager. Just add another question for context, because I think something might have been lost in the translation there. That options report that's been looked at recently, I don't believe, and I'll ask you to confirm that there was any instruction given to avoid any particular properties in that options analysis.

Sorry. I'll repeat that in case that wasn't on the tape either.

I've just said that I would refer that question to the general manager. I'd also ask an additional question that might be necessary for context, which is that the options report that was completed, the options analysis, sorry, that was completed earlier this year, was that were the instructions for that report to avoid any particular properties?

Three

Mr. Mayor. Sorry, and I might just double-check with Mr. Kearns, but certainly it was my understanding that there was no particular instruction given on that. If I can address Councillor Zamprano's questions perhaps by articulating how the design and the route alignment came to be, perhaps, and— As I understand it, we've got a critical fixed point at the intersection with Springwood Road, as the point at which the intersection with Springwood Road provides the highest level of flood immunity. So then , working back off that, what I call a fixed point that we're working back off, we then, using appropriate road designs and Australian standards, have to provide a bridge and approach that provides minimal curvature on that.

What that effectively means is any design of a bridge and approach roads that avoids the entirety of the Wilcox property needs to both reduce flood immunity to the bridge and also is likely to require the realignment of the approach road on Grose River Road a fairly substantial way to the north on Grose River Road, potentially resulting in acquisitions of multiple partial acquisitions of Grose River Road further up, potentially five, six or so properties up there. That's one potential option that would see the Wilcox family property left as it is. Earlier this year,

An options analysis was prepared by Redbank Communities in order to ascertain whether it was possible to retain the Wilcox family home. There was not an option tabled in that analysis that kept the entirety of the property. That analysis was undertaken. We had that looked at. Transport for New South Wales had a look at those three particular options and, in accordance with the recommendations of that report, Transport for New South Wales advised that those three particular options introduced more complex road geometry, created unnecessary complexity into the design that could compromise safety, and that the current design was more appropriate. So, can a bridge be designed that avoids the Wilcox family property?

Absolutely. But there are compromises that would need to be made there, both in terms of flood immunity and the substantially more number of properties that would need to be subject to partial acquisition in order to make that road work.

Thank you. Further discussion, Councillor?

Thank you for the comprehensive explanation. I'm going to take that as a no as the answer to my substantive question. You know, could any amendment practically

Force that question to be revisited?

I mean, if the process of exhibition removes the possibility of any such change, then why are we bothering to go through the exhibition process? I would hope that nothing is so locked in as that a process of exhibition and a compelling submission that says, look, it's possible for you to do this, and it's incumbent on the developer to deliver on— What the parties agree to, even if it costs a little more, I don't mind that outcome, but I'm still listening to it.

It is also worth noting that those costs would not be borne by Redbank; they'd be borne by Transport, because Transport have agreed to do the property acquisition. So it's certainly not a cost thing from— Sorry, I'll lean forward and try and speak up. I'm just saying that it's worth noting that those costs of acquisitions would not be borne by Redbank anyway, because the costs of acquisition are being borne by Transport for New South Wales. So it's not a cost consideration from that point of view. Councillor Dogramaci.

Thank you, Mr Mayor.

The way that I look at it, it may be different than most of the councillors. I use logic and I use business acumen, maybe this much I have. Would it be possible to offer a substantial amount of money to Wilcox families, at least to have, you know, some part of them? Because with the money that Redbank is wasting and the time and the costs are always going up, I have spoken with Marion Wilcox on two occasions, I think, and I don't know. Of course, when you have, you know, something dear to you, you don't want to let it go at any expense, but money always talks. This is the way that I believe. Would that be the reason?

Sorry, so Councillor Dogramaci we'll stop that there. I mean— Okay. That was my question. It's fairly harsh criticisms of governments paying more than market value for asset acquisition. I don't know, but I had to ask. It'd be subject to the— Fair compensation regulations

Councillor Veigel. Yeah, thanks, Mr Mayor, and through you. Can we just go back to what was raised about public consultation? My understanding in the brief is that there was public consultation on the 14th —sorry, 2014, 18, and probably 19. Can we have the council officers just confirm

Yep. Who would you like that referred to? If possible, please. Thanks. Mr Kearns

Sorry, excuse me, this is not in order. You need to take a seat and let other people speak. Thank you. Thank you.

All right, so there's a number of matters here. So the VPA, which is the matter of tonight's report that council's considering, obviously when that was first proposed as part of the planning proposal for the rezoning of the Redbank development, that was exhibited at that stage. The Part 5, that is Part 5 application for the bridge, which has been talked about tonight as well, that was exhibited earlier this year, so between May and mid-June. So submissions have been received, and we're considering those submissions. The proposal here is to exhibit, subject to council's consideration, is to further exhibit these proposed amendments to the VPA and to provide comments in terms of those amendments. There'll be a subsequent report back to council in terms of those submissions. Then council would consider all of those submissions that were made.

Thank you. Any further discussion? Sorry, the question, Councillor? Question

Yeah. Mr Mayor, with the requirements, the lady that spoke said that we didn't consult wide enough, or— Do we go further than what is legislated in relation to advertising, or do we go the limit, or have we got a policy on just how we do it? I

Guess it would be helpful for the question to know which part of the process you're referring to, because in this process there's been community meetings that have been held around the project in general and where this direction of this community is going, but then there's also the specific statutory points of consultation around each application. The answers might be different.

Sorry, Councillor Sheather, was there an additional question, or is that— Sorry, I understand that, I do understand why you want to have your say, but councillors do need to be able to ask questions and get answers from staff so we can make a decision on this matter. We can't hear because we can't hear over the top of you shouting out.

Mr Mayor, well I suppose in each one of those where we have to involve the public in whatever format, do we only do what we've got to do? That's what I'm getting at. Or how do we approach that? Because there's different ways that we do different things, fine, but the lady that spoke said she'd doorknock neighbours and that, that knew nothing about it. Should they have known about it?

Okay, I'll refer that to somebody to give a comment on that.

I might perhaps. Perhaps take that, Mr Mayor. I'm not—I'm unclear from the speaker's presentation about if there was, at one particular point in this fairly protracted process, where there may have been some sort of a procedural failing, I guess. All I can talk through is how we would manage our notification processes with what's known as the Part 5 application that's currently under assessment by an independent planning consultant at the moment. And absolutely, our planning instruments and the community participation plan all allow council staff to make judgment calls above and beyond where we feel like that is necessary. What I don't have on hand at the moment is a particular notification map of that particular process.

What I will say is that I certainly would take that back to our planning consultants to double and triple check that that's been done. But given the process that was undertaken earlier this year did involve fairly extensive letters, notification signs, pushing a lot out through our social media pages, really trying to increase the awareness of it. And given the number of submissions that we got, it's probably fair to say a lot of people probably knew about it.

Thank you. Can we take on notice the specific consultation around this matter? Thank you. Councillor Wheeler.

A question, Mr Mayor. I've just seen, I've been sent the documents this evening that are referred to about avoiding the property next door, and they appear to be prepared by WT Partnerships. Do we know who they worked for? Are they our consultant?

I refer that to the general manager.

Yeah, I believe they were the consultants acting on behalf of Redbank Community. Do we know the date

Of this document? Is this the recent options report that you're referring to, or is this another? No that's some years old.

I believe, I don't have it in front of me, I believe late 2017. We can take that on notice.

I saw that claim on current affairs and I looked it up myself. There's no sort of secrecy here.

Right. So I'm finding this quite troubling because it does form a pattern of behaviour, I think , where we are given, we are either not given information, we are given information late, or information is circulated that may have a bias. And I refer, and look, to be frank, we received this week an email from Redbank detailing their take on the timeline involved in this property, and it missed some notable things. It missed Operation Spicer, for example, that you would think would be a notable part of, a notable thing in the history of this development. And some of it was certainly a fairly subjective take on what had happened with this development. This development has been vexed from the beginning.

Nevoa was never a sweetener for the community. The community was never keen on this development when it was proposed. It was passed on the casting vote of the mayor, and the next time it was considered was in ICAC.

The fact that we are now being asked to decide on something where there are clear concerns about what the most affected party has been told,

The fact

That the route was substantially changed from what the community was told at the last active consultation session, which was back when Councillor Calvert was mayor,

I find really concerning. We went to the community and said, We're going to change the route of this because we think it will give a better outcome. And then there was that awful moment when Mrs Wilcox realised that this was going through her property. And now we've gone from just going up the side of her property to going right through the Wilcox's family home. And no money, I don't think, if you love the property that you live on, if you've spent time and effort getting the land so that it's productive, if you've raised your family in that house, there is no amount of money that is sufficient to shift you. The fact that there is a vacant piece of land next door without a home on it , and that the issue is that it's easier and potentially cheaper to move the road onto the Wilcox's property, I think is doubly galling, and that doesn't sit well with me as a decision maker.

I would like us to defer this to next month where we can go away and have a really frank discussion about how we have come to this point and see what can be done so that we get a better outcome here. I'm talking about a delay of a month, if that's possible. Because I don't think this is an outcome that we can be proud of for our community, and I can't support it. So I'll move an amendment that we defer for a month to consider, for further information. I would like all of us to be given the document in question so that we can discuss what's happened here. I would like further income— further income— further— it's been a very long day— further information about the route, the change of route so that it goes through the Wilcox property and alternatives.

Is there

A seconder?

I'll second

It, Mr Mayor. Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Councillor Kotlash.

Can I just ask, thank you, Mr Mayor. Are we able to place this on public exhibition? I'm just thinking— I'm just thinking about moving it forward. Are we able to

Put this on public exhibition and get answers that Councillor Wheeler and Councillor Zamprogno have outlined? I know that's

A little unusual, but if there is something very ordinary going on here, then we will change— if that comes out, then we will act accordingly. If it doesn't, we haven't lost a month.

So what you're suggesting is that we — Instead of the amendment that the — We're foreshadowing another amendment potentially, that in the recommendation, with an additional point that a briefing session be held before, to get this information being asked for before the VPA comes back to be adopted.

Yes

I think that's perfectly possible. Yep.

If I could assist, Mr. Mayor. It would seem to me that the preferableity of Councillor Kotlash's amendment would be whether anything that we find or subsequently decide would force a VPA put on exhibition in its present form to then be re-exhibited. So could we get some guidance from staff about, you know, if we decided after we had our briefing that there's stank and we demanded that certain things be revisited, would that invalidate the exhibition of the current VPA? It would,

Yes. But if you didn't find that, you haven't wasted a month waiting to find that out, is the difference. Yeah.

Deputy Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just a question about the location of the route. It's my understanding that that route was determined by Transport for New South Wales. I don't believe it was determined by Council. Yet here we are talking about the route should be changed. The question is exactly what is the legal position? Is it Transport for New South Wales who are going to decide that route? What input do we have into it?

I refer that to Mr. Kearns.

So I guess, yeah, there's two parts. So there's the VPA matter that we're considering tonight, and whether Council resolves to place that on exhibition, and then that will obviously come back to Council for consideration of submissions and comments as part of that. But then in terms of the actual route itself, the Part 5 application is what we'll ultimately consider that route, and that's the actual approval process for that particular route. Yeah , through that Part 5 application, that's determined, yeah.

Does that answer the question, Councillor Covert? Deputy Mayor?

No, I don't think it does, Mr Mayor. The Part 5 application has a route in it. Who puts the route there? Is that us being transported ?

Mr Cairns.

So that's been prepared by the applicant, so, Rabbank has proposed that, and obviously Council's involved in that. So that's why we've engaged an independent assessor to consider that Part 5 application.

So, can I have a go at paraphrasing and get you to confirm if there's still any confusion? I think, am I correct in understanding the answer to that question was the route has been determined by Redbank in consultation with Hawkesbury City Council and Transport for New South Wales, and will now be assessed by an independent assessor? Correct, yep. Thank you.

And can I ask another question? Just sorry about that. So the Part 5 assessment is separate to the VPA, or the VPA— so could we amend the recommendation to put this on public exhibition with the proviso that the independent assessment comes back and we're satisfied with those things that we've been talking about that we're all uncomfortable about?

So that's a— so that's a— the Part 5 assessment is a planning matter, which has got nothing to do with us. The VPA sets out that we agree that the developer has to provide a bridge along this route, and they have to get planning permission to do so. I think your earlier suggestion would work if this amendment does fail or is changed, that we could put this on exhibition. In the meantime, have this briefing. If as a result of that briefing we're happy with the route and we want to change it, we don't have to adopt the VPA that's been exhibited.

Yep. Okay. Well I'll flag that.

Councillor Sheather? Yeah, Mr Mayor, I'd be happy to put that as part through as the motion.

We've got an amendment at the moment, so if that amendment fails, we'll come back to that.

Yeah.

Councillor Dogramaci?

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Beside, you know, all these discussions, what I am very much interested and disturbed about that comment made that the road design should avoid star property. What I would like to know is that who put that comment? Is it the truth? And why do we have to wait, as Councillor Wheeler suggested, next month's meeting? Do we have the power to convene an extraordinary meeting and get this thing, you know, out of the way? So every day is costing everybody money and our time. And how could we investigate that, you know, who put that thing in writing? Well, I

Think the general manager's answered that we don't have that information. The people that were in the meeting, Peter Conroy and other senior planners, are no longer with us. We have looked into that and we cannot determine that. Some notable information has just been passed to me. The Part 5 application can't be determined until the VPA has been amended. So that's something to keep in mind, that that will hold up planning permission. But to answer your question, I think, Councillor Dogramaci, the way that's been suggested we move forward by Councillor Kotlash and Councillor Sheather is that we don't wait. We move ahead, put this on exhibition. In the meantime, we get fully briefed. The councillors that need more information get the information they're asking for before making a final decision when this comes back from exhibition.

Sorry, does that mean that we cannot summon Peter Conroy? You could try. So he can get away.

Point of order, Mr Mayor.

The former general manager is no longer with us, and nobody in that meeting is with us, and there's no records of who gave that instruction

Mr Mayor, that does not address the point of order.

Point of order, Councillor Wheeler.

Point of order is that Councillor Dogramaci has basically alleged some wrongdoing on the part of the former general manager, and that needs to be addressed.

Yep. So I feel like I've addressed that. That's not what I was alleging, and I'm not sure what you want me to do exactly. Stop talking.

No, I'd like you to do your job as the chair of the meeting and point out to Councillor Dogramaci that slandering someone who is not here is not reasonable behaviour under the code of meeting practice.

Thank you.

No, I don't think there's anything— That's why I didn't go there. I don't think there's anything good is going to come from that discussion. I've made it clear that that's not at all what I was suggesting, and that I don't think anyone actually said that, although I understand why you've raised it, but I don't think going further into that is going to be beneficial for anyone. Is there any further discussion on the amendment, Councillor Wheeler?

I'm not satisfied with that, Mr Mayor.

Okay, I understand you. The phrase

He gets away with it.

Would you like to withdraw that statement, Councillor Dogramaci? No, I'm not. Yeah, well, that's why I didn't go there. So thank you. We'll declare the point of order has been ruled on, and we'll move on.

Any further discussion on the amendment? If not, we'll put the amendment. All those in favour of the amendment, please raise your hand. In favour of the amendment are Councillors Zamprogno, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Djuric. Against the amendment, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Reardon, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Vargoul, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci. Declare it lost. Councillor Sheather, did you want to add that point to your motion?

Yes, Mr Mayor.

And that point was that rating and briefing to get the information, further information on the change of route and alternatives that have been considered. Any further discussion on the motion? Councillor McMahon.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I think that this is a sensible way forward, and I think that I thank Councillor Kotlash for putting that on the floor. I think it is the way that we need to do this, and I think that some of the debate that we've heard tonight is about there have been claims of lack of consultation, and I think putting this to public consultation, on public exhibition, gives us that opportunity to get the feedback from the public before we make an official decision on what to do. So I think that that's fundamentally important. So I'm happy to proceed with that. I do also believe we need this briefing because what I have found throughout this bridge matter throughout the last few years is that there are questions that need to be raised and I mean, the one thing we have to acknowledge is that there has been significant delay.

And from talking to councillors in the previous term, the previous previous term, I should say, who supported the Redbank development on the proviso that this bridge was delivered to the community, that the community received an additional piece of infrastructure that was at the expense of the developer and not at the expense of the ratepayer or the taxpayer, depending on what level of government, is something that's really important because just looking at it from a council perspective, we certainly don't have the money to be paying for this kind of infrastructure. So I understand why the decision was made in the past. There's no doubt with what we've been through with the floods over the last couple of years that we need as many bridges as we can get in this community, and I think that having this bridge is important.

That doesn't mean that there aren't questions about the, and I see it in inverted commas in this item , is the alternate route. And I do have significant questions about how that came about and the surrounding delay that was caused in delivering that. If anyone knows the history of this item, is that the original bridge was supposed to go through Navua Reserve. Now, my understanding is what that would have needed was a change of use for that reserve from community to operational. Had there been an agreement with the council at that time that the bridge would go through that original block of land, which was Navua, then a decision could have been made early on in the last council term to simply change Navua from community to operational, and the bridge could have gone through its original destination.

However , something happened when the 2016 elections took place and there was a new mayor and there were new opinions on the council as to that. Now, I have significant questions about the delay that surrounded that. I'd like to ask the general manager. And not all of us have been privy to this document that everyone's referring to with this footnote. I haven't seen it, and I don't think it's fair that some have and some haven't seen it. What I— well, this is a planning matter, so I don't want to be involved in that. I think getting documents during planning matters discussion isn't the way things should be done and then refer to it when other councillors haven't been privy to that information.

But I do want to ask the general manager in that document that you've seen, does it list the attendees to that specific meeting?

That's the general manager.

Yes, it does. Is that something we can be informed of now?

I don't have the full suite of those documents, but it's something I could certainly provide at a briefing session.

Thank you. Do you know, just one last question on that, were the participants of that meeting purely staff or were there elected representatives as well?

To the best of my knowledge, they were staff only. Okay.

Thank you. Have— I guess we can discuss this in the briefing as well, but I mean, I wouldn't be — I wouldn't mind if we could at least, I mean, just because the former general manager doesn't work with us anymore, we can ask, you know, him in a letter what took place during that meeting and seek a response in writing. I'd be very open to that as well. Look, I, yeah, I'm happy with the way forward in terms of what's on the board. I think that that's sensible . I understand the Wilcox family and your distress, and being here tonight and having to publicly display that, I understand is excessively uncomfortable, and I'm sorry about that. But I have more questions surrounding the delay of this during the last term of council and the previous— Staff and leadership, and I think that that does need to be explored in a briefing, and I'm looking forward to doing that. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillors. Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Mr Mayor, and like Councillor McMahon, I'll be very pleased to have that briefing. I was hoping someone from Redbank would be here tonight because I had a number of questions around the timeline that was sent and some specific omissions, in particular around the delays that occurred, and I have a lot of information on that. What I would like to say, because I think that you do have to take some responsibility yourself, Mr Mayor, for Councillor Dogramaci making an accusation or an innuendo against Mr Conroy , because you keep saying, mentioning Mr Conroy as being the person in these meetings. Now, I can say here I know who was in that meeting because I did receive that information from somebody here tonight, just very recently, and there were quite a few people in that meeting.

There was no elected representatives. There was not me. As is well recorded, Redbank do not engage with me, even though when I was the mayor, I did not meet with Redbank. I did not ever issue any instructions about Redbank. In fact, you yourself and Councillor Calvert know that when there were discussions around alternative routes, I met with you and we discussed the importance of that bridge going ahead, and due to the delays, which were from the council before that, we would be proposing to shift the trigger points so that another route could be looked at. There was no discussion in my term as mayor of the route. There was no discussion about where it would or wouldn't go. That didn't come out till 2019.

So I just want to put that on the record because I've seen some public commentary which is very disturbing, and I'm tired of the defamatory comments made about me in the social media, not just with this but with previous issues, and I'm getting very tired of it. I'm putting that on the record. record because the innuendo that comes from a Liberal Party constructed story has got to stop.

I think you're maybe getting a little bit—

Well, I'm pretty tired of it, Mr Mayor, because you perpetuate it by blaming the former general manager, saying

There was another mayor then there was— That's out of order. I did not say that the general manager was responsible for it, and I made that quite clear when Councillor Wheeler brought the point up.

No, prior to that you had said—

I said that the general manager at the time was Peter Conroy, which is correct.

No, before that, previously you had said, No, we don't know anything about that. There was another general manager. There was another mayor. In other words— Yes, that's correct. Yes, but you were making an innuendo in the way you said it. There was a lot of people at that meeting, including Mr Organ, and including people from Redbank, from Transport for New South Wales, and from other places. So just to make that clear, elected represent-

Sorry, Councillor Buckett, Councillor Sheather.

Point of order. A meeting is not a debate between two councillors, with all respect, and this is going nowhere. And it's a public meeting with names being bandied around that should

Not be. Exactly, that should not be. And that's

Why I'm not going to sit here and have accusations directed towards the Chair, and I will stop and pull that up if we're not going to discuss the matter that's in front of us.

All right. Well, I just wanted to say publicly I'm tired of the accusations against me, which are untrue. So that's said publicly now, and we all know what threshold that gives. Mr Mayor, in terms of dealing with this, I think that it's really important that if and when this goes out on public exhibition, it's made very clear of the reasoning why that route has changed the shape that it was from the original one, which was a straight line down a road. And I think that public feedback, public consultation, I'm wondering if, given the amount of time, the sort of the chaos our community's in, whether we should not have an extended exhibition time. We know—I don't know if we could extend it a bit. I think it's a little bit too short. When people are dealing with other issues. I mean, it really is important to get this feedback if that's what we're genuinely claiming to be doing.

Thank you. Any further discussion on the motion?

Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Just want to address a few of the points made. I'm speaking against the motion. I am happy to support point three, but not points one and two. I don't think that there's any point in putting this out on public consultation if we aren't— if we're going to change it afterwards. We've talked about a delay of potentially a month. If we put it out on public exhibition and we go to a briefing and then we change it, and then it goes back on public exhibition, then we're just delaying it further. There's also no point putting this out to public consultation when we've already heard from the public that they're not satisfied with our means of consultation. If all we're going to do is post it on our Facebook page, which not everybody reads because not everybody's on social media, particularly when they're recovering from a natural disaster and they don't read the paper, then what's the point?

That is not active consultation anymore. It might have served some years back, but it doesn't work now. This is a major change and a major piece of infrastructure, and frankly a major ongoing cost to Council. The fact that the developer is on the hook for building the bridge, if they build it, doesn't mean that they're covering the entire expense of this. There will be extraordinary expense to ratepayers for improvement to and maintenance of feeder roads, and that is something that the community needs to be appraised of because it's their dosh, not ours. It also needs to be noted that Redbank requested many of the delays, and they got more lots released as a result whenever that came back to Council.

Significant changes to the lot numbers, in fact several hundred, if you look at the report in the business paper. And just finally, community reclassifying community land to operational land is not a quick change. The last time Council tried to change a well-loved piece of community land from community to operational land so they could sell it was the Australiana Pioneer Village. It took almost a decade, and it ultimately failed. Changing Nevua to operational land was never, ever going to be a quick decision fixed by having the usual makeup of Council. It did not happen because all of a sudden, democracy elected a progressive chamber. Worth keeping in mind.

Thank you. I'll just speak very briefly before we go to right of reply. I share the concerns that this has been going on since 2013 or '14. Like Councillor McMahon said, I was one of those councillors who did support the Redbank development back in that first term I was on Council, a very long time ago now, and would never have supported it without this infrastructure. I think it's a great development. It's an amazing place to live for a lot of families in the Hawkesbury. It's a really good example of what a Greenfield development can be in Sydney, and we should be proud of it, but I still maintain I never would have supported that without the associated infrastructure. And this bridge has been delayed many, many times, many changes to the route.

There was a development application lodged for the bridge to go through Nevua Reserve, I believe. I'm not going to get the year wrong. I thought 2015, maybe. November 2015. November 2015, that's right. We could be, you know, if the route had not been changed by that democratically elected, but a new council who changed the route, if that had not happened, we'd be driving on it now, if it had gone through the road reserve. Now, I respect that there was a strong feeling in the community— Point of order

Mr Mayor. You're saying things that aren't true.

That's not a point of order. If you disagree with me, that's not a point of order. But you're saying something that's inaccurate That's not a point of order to disagree with me. If we all interrupted everybody every time we disagreed with them, we wouldn't get very far in this meeting. Everyone's listened to you, and now I'm having my say as well. That's not a point of order because you disagree. That council was elected democratically. I acknowledge democratically elected, but it doesn't change anything. And they changed the route, and that was the next delay. And there's been delay after delay since then. We're now in 2022. We've got a chance to keep this moving and progress it. It's very important to our community.

We should do consultation, but I don't think we need to do extensive consultation to know that people who live on the western side of the river are sick and tired of the terrible traffic situation and would very much welcome any improvement via way of a new bridge. I acknowledge that this route is going to require the acquisition of a home. That is a reality. That is the reality of this. I acknowledge that's happening. I acknowledge that's a very difficult decision to make. But as one of the speakers pointed out, we are elected to act in the collective interests of our collective ratepayers and residents. And that means looking at the bigger picture and making a decision about what is critical infrastructure and placing that interest as— that is paying— Sorry, you're out of order.

I've gathered that, but I'm going to need you to stop speaking, please, because you're out of order.

Thank

You. So , I've lost my train of thought now, of course.

Thank you. Thank you. I've spoken to you at length on the phone and had every chance to talk to you, and right now I'm speaking in a public meeting. Now I'm not going to continue to engage in this conversation. You need to stop speaking. You're out of order. Look, I'll leave it there. The point being that this is critical infrastructure. I don't want to see it delayed any further. The motion before us allows people to get more information if they feel they don't have enough before making a final decision, but keeps the ball rolling. If we decide not to make any changes, we've saved the time. If we decide that we need to make changes, we haven't lost any time because it will be on exhibition while we're looking at that decision, and we would have to put it on exhibition again anyway if we're going to make changes after we defer it for a month, as was the suggested alternative.

So I don't feel like we've lost anything. We've potentially put ourselves in a better position, and those councillors that feel they need further information have a chance to get it. So I commend the motion. Right of reply, Councillor Sheather?

Yeah, thanks, Mr Mayor. Just carrying on from the comments that you just made, there's, I guess there's four. You've got Redbank Council, the traffic and the residents, all frustrated, and that's going to come about when stuff like this happens. I've got some correspondence from the Wilcox. I've certainly had discussions with a lot of fellow councillors about issues that they've brought to my attention, and I've also had a lot of correspondence from Redbank. And we've had the briefings from the staff. It concerns me some of the things that has come to light, I guess, for the want of a word. I get gut feelings, and when I get them I don't like them. So the issues that we'll discuss is important.

And there's some issues that Councillor Buckett brought up, Lyons-Buckett brought up in relation to Redbank. I would hope in the briefing that any issues that councillors should be aware of, irrespective whether they come from the Wilcox or Redbank or the consultants or the like, that we get made aware of it. Because when you pick and choose paragraphs, information, you can make an argument out of anything. So it's really important. We've got a decision to make. And as I said, the staff with that information, by supporting this, we get on with it. At the end of the day, if a report comes back that we're not happy with, then it gets canned. It's pretty simple. We've been told by the general manager that if this process doesn't keep going, even if there's issues we need to address and look at, and we do, that's pretty obvious.

But there's another side to this. Redbank can say, I've had enough, and we get nothing. The community gets nothing. So all this debate and heartache that's been going on. The community get nothing out of it. That's unfair, it's unjust, and it was always a good community proposal for this thing to happen. It's just a shame that we've got to a situation where there's frustration on every side.

And one of the things that gets us out of that, I think, is a lot more community consultation, as I've expressed my view to you about that. Friends don't fight. They talk. So, Mr Mayor,

I'd

Ask the councillors to support this on the basis that it gives us an opportunity to review the matters that have been discussed tonight, and that that'll happen, and at the end of the day, when the 28 days are up and it comes back to us, there's an opportunity for those who don't support it to say no. If we mess around with it, there's a great loss to the community, I think. If at the end of the day we decide to support it all the way through.

Thank you. We'll put the motion. All those in favour of the motion, please raise your hand. In favour of the motion are Councillors Conolly, Zamprogno, Reardon, McMahon, Vargel, Sheather, Kotlash, Calvert, Dogramaci. Against, Councillors Wheeler, Lindsbuckett and Djuric. Declare it carried.

We might just break there for a short adjournment before moving on to further business. So we'll come back at ten past ten. Thanks.

Okay, thank you everybody. We're live streaming again. Next we'll go to the items on block. If somebody wants to move those. Moved. Councillor Kotlash, seconded Councillor Reardon. All those in favour? Declare that carried.

Okay, thank you everybody. We're live streaming again. Next we'll go to the items on block. Somebody wants to move those? Moved. Councillor Kotlash, seconded Councillor Reardon. All those in favour? Declare that carried. Next item is item Mayoral Minute 2 . We've got two declarations of interest on this item. Councillor Richards.

Thank you. I'm going to leave the room on this one and declare a significant non-pecuniary as I am a member of the RFS. Thank you.

Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I'll declare a lessened significant non-pecuniary interest. I'm a member of the New South Wales RFS, as is my son. The reason for no further action is that I'm not involved in the management or administration of the RFS, and the interests of Council and the RFS are not in conflict.

Thank you. Councillors, I feel like this is a fairly simple matter, but an important matter that I've brought forward tonight. The New South Wales Government has been for some time attempting to tell councils that we own and control RFS assets. It is clear to anybody, I think, looking at this objectively, that we do not control or own any RFS assets, and if we tried to start directing them tomorrow morning, I don't think we would be successful. So this seems like a fairly blatant move just to shift some expense from one profit and loss to another, and I think we should be pushing back on that and saying no. I've taken this recommendation from LGNSW, who have put together some standard wording so that all councils, or many councils, are doing the same thing, and hopefully the government's getting a consistent message from quite a few councils.

So even though we have in the past— Accounted for these under immense pressure from audit. I don't think we should anymore. I think we should make a stance that we're not going to do that and tell the government that this doesn't make sense. Hopefully that's fairly straightforward. Is there any discussion? Councillor

Wheeler. Just quickly, Mr Mayor, I completely support the notice of motion. It is an example of more cost shifting, frankly. But I also think it's actually quite a high risk for us to be signing off on something that we have absolutely no control over. What this does highlight, and I hope that more councils do support this resolution, is the strength of collective action. And I hope that's what we get in this instance. Thanks.

Thank you. Councillor Veigel. Yeah, I'll keep it brief too. I support the motion as well. It's just purely to my ... by certain, no. It's a lay down as air. So unequivocally, I'll support this one as well. Thank you.

Thanks.

So we'll put

The ... Councillor Sheather? Repercussions. In terms of? What might they be?

Look, yet to be seen. There's no repercussions from passing this resolution. I imagine that if the government does not accept our position and we go to prepare the next set of financial statements, that the auditor will again bring down some pressure on us to include the RFS assets, and that would be a decision for council at that time as to what we do. Is that correct, CFO?

Through you, Mr Mayor. At the moment we do account for them. So if we were to stop accounting for them, then potentially we would risk a qualified audit.

How many councils are in that position? I did read it. There's 50 or something, was there, out of 120? How many are currently accounting for it? Yeah . I think it was 50, wasn't it? Or 57 or something. Anyway, it doesn't

Really matter. It's obviously of much more significance to peri-urban and rural councils than it is to most Sydney councils. So there might not be a very objective way to look at it, it's just looking at the number.

We've been informed of any information that might come back about this straight away? Yes

No rate of reply required. I'll put the motion. All those in favour? Councillor Conolly, Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor McMahon was absent for the vote. Declare it carried. Someone wants to get—

Next item is 124.

Somebody wish to move something here? Moved, Councillor Sheather, the recommendation. A seconder for that? Seconder for the recommendation. Seconded

Councillor Djuric. I just wanted to say, if that's okay, Councillor, just briefly on this one, that we are talking about very, very small change here, and hopefully we don't need to have another debate about whether this was the correct way to set the rates, because I know there's divided views on that, but that has been settled. This matter before us tonight is just about whether we're moving the rate and the dollar in the residential category, for example, from 0.159 to 0.155 to make this work correctly. That's all we're doing

Seconded, Mr Mayor.

It's been seconded, but thank you. Any further discussion? Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I was just wondering if the rates issues or the rates notices have already been issued

Through you, Mr Mayor, not at this stage. We're waiting for this adjustment to go through before we can issue the rates notices.

Okay, so will they include an explanation around any of this, or what sort of an explanation? I do read my rates notice, but I can't recall.

So there's a rate in the dollar amount included on the rates notice

So just the figure. There's nothing about the fact that there's been the increase or anything? There

Is a percentage quoted in terms of what's a base amount levied. So the base amount will state that there's a base amount in there, and then obviously the referral to the operational plan shows you that it's the 50%. Okay . Thank you.

Thank you. No further discussion. We'll put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. We have Councillor Conolly, Councillor Reardon, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Zamprogno. Against? Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Declare it carried.

Item 125.

Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

I'll move that, Mr Mayor.

Move the recommendation. Seconder for that? Seconded, Councillor Sheather.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'd like to thank the staff for preparing the information so fast. That's a really fast turnaround on a report. I think it's really beneficial that we have this information out on the public record so that we can have some discussions around it before actually having to make a decision. And I think it's good for the public to understand the processes and what the potential implications of the changes would be should we go ahead and make any changes. Should we want to make the changes to apply to the next council term, we would need to make a decision over the coming months about that. And I understand that referendums are expensive, even when they're held in conjunction with council elections.

But I think that it's good that we understand what the consequences of any possible changes are, and in the past we haven't had that. And I'm pleased to have got it out there because I think these are the sort of things we should have information around. We've got the timelines and the information, but I don't think that there's any real need to discuss it necessarily today unless anyone specifically does. I'd like to see first if there's any push from the community around anyone wanting changes. And as well, there are the other potential changes that we're supposed to decide on, and I guess they haven't been specific, but then one of them is wards, and we know that we recently, or the term before, we had a referendum around that, and the answer was no.

And also around having a popularly elected mayor. So they're the decisions. I think there could be something else. If there was an appetite for more than one of these being changed, then perhaps it would be pertinent to hold a referendum of them and address them all at once, whenever that would be. So from my point of view, and from asking, putting forward that notice of motion where I didn't have any specific... You know, end result that I wanted. I really wanted us to have this information though, so that we can get the feelings of the community and see if we move towards any changes or not. Thank you

I did wonder whether it might be worth, I'm happy with the recommendation that the report be received and noted, but whether we also put a point two on there that this matter be further discussed at a councillor briefing session.

Happy to do that . Just to

Not to have to be reported back if nobody wants it to be, but just to have a talk. Councillor

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Yeah, thanks. Yeah, thanks to the staff too. It was pretty quick, so well done for that. You took the words right out of my mouth how we're going to deal with this, and it goes to a briefing session. But I have also noted from the last session that we need an odd number, I think, if I've got that right, as well, whatever that resolution comes to. The only thing I would say, if we make a decision on this, I don't want any more cost impost against the community. It's got to be kind of revenue neutral or some saving in there. So the debate is whatever we do with the number, so be it. That can be discussed around the table respectfully. Also, the elected mayor, that can be spoken about so much about the wards.

I think that was just a missed management thing, maybe the last time it was raised, but nobody went out and sold on anyway. So I'll leave it with you. Thanks. Thank you. Any further discussion? Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor, and thanks for the additional point. I think that's useful. I think it is something that we do need to discuss. It's clear from the report that it's very expensive to do a separate referendum, and I don't think any of us would be keen on going down that path. But certainly I think we could change to an odd number of councillors at the council election. We could decide that at the council election in 2024 for 2028. I think the cost would be about two years council allowance if you got rid of one of us, you know, in the next term of council. So in terms of cost savings, you'd break even after two years and then hopefully save a bit of money. I'll flag that I think that the change to 11 would be the most reasonable.

It gets around the problem of the casting vote while still allowing us adequate geographical coverage, because I think that's the difference between Hawkesbury Council and the councils that we've seen the figures on in the report. We do have a higher number of councillors relative to ratepayers, but we also have this extraordinarily large area that we have to span as well, and quite diverse, both an urbanised and a rural population. And I think having additional councillors does serve us well in terms of getting someone out to areas like Upper Colo or out to St Albans where we're wanting to cover all our bases. So I don't know that dropping down to those much lower ratios is necessarily a good idea for Hawkesbury.

Thanks.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'm just trying to understand some of these figures on page 33, not in the tables but in the text below that. Third paragraph under that heading: As the referendum was held on the same day as the ordinary election, the cost of the referendum was absorbed into the cost of the election, with a total cost of $347,000. The total cost to Council of the 2022 ordinary election was — 437,000. I don't think we had a 2022 election. And down on the bottom line it says, based on the most recent election, this is talking about a separate day for the referendum. That would put the cost at approximately 350,000. So what I'm reading is that having it on the same day as the election cost 347, but having it on a separate day costs 350. I must be reading it wrongly. Can you please tell me how? I think

The answer there is that that was the total cost of the election and the referendum was the 347, and it's estimated if we did the referendum on its own, it would cost 350, and we'd still have to pay for the election as well later.

Yeah, but the next line in the middle says the total cost for the ordinary election was 437. I think

That's the 2021 election, whereas that referendum was in 2016.

Yep. It's just the

Dates are wrong.

It could be a bit clearer, please.

Yeah. Okay, so hopefully, do we need right of reply? No. Put the motion then. All those in favour? Councillor Conolly, Councillor Reardon, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Carver, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler. Against? Councillors Zamprogno, are you voting?

Yes.

In favour with Councillor Zamprogno, declare it carried.

Next item then is item 126.

Move that, Mr Mayor.

Moved the recommendation. Councillor Lyons-Buckett, seconded by Councillor Wheeler.

Discussion? Councillor McMahon. Yeah,

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Just a quick question. It says that we are entitled to five voting delegates at this conference. Now, if we decide to nominate five voting delegates at what appears to be a cost, if you add travel of around $3,000 per person, but our total budget for the year is only $20,000. That's almost eating everything up in one conference. So I'm really concerned about the cost of this conference and the fact that it would basically destroy our budget for conferences. So I just wanted to put that on the table if people hadn't seen that or been aware of that. I think that that's a really extensive cost.

So the recommendation before us is that we send five councillors. The two, I mean, there's other options there. You could send one councillor, or you could vote against the recommend- you could vote against the motion if you didn't want to send any councillors. I guess it comes down to whether or not we see value in sending people to this conference. I certainly personally don't see value in sending five delegates to this conference and using 75% of our budget for training and travel for the year on one conference. I don't think we get, as a council, any additional benefit out of five people attending that we wouldn't get from one person attending. It's at a time when the community is hurting and is looking to us to help them.

I don't think it's a good look for us to go and spend 15 grand sending five people on a conference in the Hunter Valley when there's no work there that couldn't be done without the travel. So I don't think it's, my personal view is I don't think we should be doing that. Councillor Kotlash.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Just a question. It says in the first paragraph that an appropriate staff member can be sent. Does the cost of sending an appropriate staff member come out of our $20,000? So we could have one councillor and a senior staff member or an appropriate staff member, and that might be the best outcome in terms of balancing that budget . Thanks

Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Mr Mayor, just a question or a clarification around that. I think where it says, I didn't draw attention to the five councillors, I think the reason it includes five councillors is that each council is allocated a number of voting delegates. I wasn't assuming that five people would actually want to go.

Yeah. So we could change that if that's not what we wanted, and we could put a different number where it says five, but that's what the recommendation at the moment is. Councillor Sheather. Yeah

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Yeah, my view is a little bit different. In the few months that I've been here, I've heard Councillor Buckett and Councillor Sambrogno speak of conferences they went on, and one of them was a floodplain conference. Previously, when I was on council, I used to attend quite a few conferences. They weren't quite as dear as this, but we've just had floods through most of the eastern state, and I guess that's going to be on the agenda pretty big. And, you know, a minute ago we talk about reducing councillors.

To have knowledge and understanding of what's happening in this place, and I say local government, if you don't mix with other organisations and people, then to reduce the numbers, I'd go along with. At the moment I don't, by the way.

But we're in a little part of the world, and it's a big place. And while we think we've got issues and things, other people have got solutions. And whether you get something out of the conference or whether it's sitting around having a meal at a table, which I never used to sit with my fellow councillors, I sat at a table at one or the other councils, usually with someone that you'd spoke to during the day that might offer some advice or direction on an issue you had. So my view is a bit different. I think that it's imperative that councillors go and seek the opportunities, not go and have a swim in a swim pool somewhere or do the things that you see in the newspaper sometimes, but to actually go and spend time at a conference like we're supposed to do.

And I think council benefits from that, certainly the councillors do. It's pretty hard sometimes to pass on the information and that experience, but I can tell you from past experience that it's worth every minute.

Thank you. Councillor

Wheeler. Councillors in ... Councillor. Oh

Thank you. Now, I support that we send delegates. In the previous term, and even currently, I mean the people that have tended to put their hand up, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler and myself. I just want to observe that the value of sending one or more councillors really only comes into its own when that councillor works hard to gather that information and bring it back to their peers. And of course, some of you voted against a resolution that would have codified the obligation for councillors going to conferences to come back and disseminate that information. You didn't think that that was necessary. Still going to make the effort to do so, just observing that along the way. At any conference where our council has a motion to present to the floor, or wishes to associate itself with another council's motion that's particularly germane to us, you're never going to get more than one representative from each council to speak to that.

But so long as additional delegates are doing the hard yards in networking, learning, and then seeking ways in which they can bring that information back to their peers and to their community, then I'm all for it.

Councillor

Wheeler. Thanks. I agree with Councillor Sheather. This is actually a really valuable conference for a number of reasons. It's the key lobbying conference for local government across New South Wales. It's the one point, actually, where councillors from across New South Wales—and it used to be divided into the shires and the city councils, which gave this sort of city-rural divide. Now everybody's in the same room and debating what we want the agenda to be that's taken to state and federal governments. It's a conference that's taken very seriously by state and federal governments, the state government in particular. The Minister for Local Government usually attends. They speak. They are open to questions.

The opposition and the crossbench also send representatives, and they hear directly from councillors about the issues that are pertinent to us. Now, in the last couple of conferences, they have been around the loss of our planning powers and that continued loss and the impact that that has had on our communities, cost shifting, and also most recently on disaster preparedness. And that became very evident as a number of delegates, Councillor Lyons-Buckett and myself, flew out of the room during a discussion about the impacts of climate change because we feared not being able to get home across a flooded river, and Lismore couldn't attend because they couldn't even get to the conference. This is a really valuable opportunity.

It's also a conference where there is a lot of debate on the floor, and much of that debate is really useful. And sometimes, as councillors, we need to speak to our council's perspective on that debate. For example, there was one motion that came up where one of the rural councils still in drought. was calling for the airspace of every dam across New South Wales to be filled with water. Now, you can imagine how thrilled we were because the river was rising at the same, and so was the level of the dam at the same time. It's not enough for us to just say, She'll be right, we'll buy out of the conference. This is also part of councilors' professional development, and for those new councillors who haven't been along to something like this, I'd really urge you to try and find the time.

And it is hard because it's a weekday conference, to get along and do it, because it is a good way of seeing how different councils approach different things. We halved our conference budget in a previous budget, I think in the last year or two, as a cost-saving measure, and that's one of the reasons why this is tight. It's possible that we can make some savings. We're not given our expenses up front. I don't think many of us actually spend all of our expenses. Some of us don't even claim them. I haven't claimed the last two conferences I went on, largely through disorganisation, not through any grand altruism. But we do stay in quite swanky hotels. Maybe we downgrade a little bit. I'm not proposing that you sleep in a tent in someone's backyard in Cessnock, but I don't think that we need to stay at the top hotel that's available at every conference.

But this isn't the conference to decide is a waste of time because it's not. This is part of our political responsibility as local representatives that we go and have our say at this body. Now, last time they did take proxies. I don't know if that's going to be on offer. They took proxies because of COVID last time. Given that COVID seems to be on the rampage again, maybe we'll get that chance. And if we are able to send two or three delegates, we can get proxies for the other votes. But those votes are important and we should use them.

Councillor Kotlash.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I just want to say, by saying that reducing the numbers of delegates that go, I didn't mean to imply that I thought this conference was useless. It's really, really good. I went to the one before the last one , and it was terrific. So that's actually not why I was saying about the numbers. I think five's probably too many. You know, whoever wants to go, I think it is a good opportunity. And I also would like to put on the record that the reason I didn't want the reports from councillor attendance at conference to be put on the public record is that I think it's really important that when we go to these conferences and we report to it, and the reports are for, you know, reporting back to council, is that you are able to put in those reports anything that you would like to tell your fellow councillors.

They're not public documents, and that was the point of not putting them on, being available to the public. Those reports that you give should never be public. They should be a report that, you know , advises the rest of us, gives us, you know, a different insight. I agree with everything you've said, but I think we could curtail the five, that's all. So I just wanted to make sure that everybody understood that the value of a conference is really up there, and I agree with everything that's been said. Just wanted to clear that up. Thank you.

Thanks, Councillor Veigel. Through you, Mr Mayor, would anybody like to make a suggestion on a number, please? Three. Two.

Keep

5 items happy just for the debate, right? You know, is there a number? Obviously not five. Is there a number between one and two? Can I put that in front of the front of the... Councillor Dogramaci, did you want to discuss?

Yes. Yeah.

Me being different , I would object anyone going there. If we are really trying to bring something, it will be only fly maybe business class and stay at nice hotels, nice motels, and mingle with the other councillors and talk, have nice meals, and then feel happy. Nothing is going to change. And I'm saying that the last two, to me, of course, what a waste of time when we heard that gentleman, young gentleman, coming and taking my one hour. What an insult it was. Okay, it was part of some kind of training or whatever. Next, they will come to teach us, you know, how to shake hands and then how to sit down. What a waste of time. $2,650 for what? If any one of the councillors are so keen to serve this council, to the people, to the community, let them pay, you know, out of their own pockets.

And to save the council, how about I go there and I'll pay all my expenses? What a rubbish. And then, you know, that ex-mayor from Lismore coming and telling us how we should be, you know, doing this and teamwork and that kind of garbage or whatever. And how much did that cost us? Ten, twenty, thirty thousand dollars, and still, and people are bleeding in here. I'm not coming here to have dinner before the meetings because I feel that, you know, I shouldn't be doing that. We should all be, you know, having our meals at home before coming in here, except the staff, of course. They've been here because, you know, working all day. So to me, it's a waste of time. What are we going to learn? They are going to come in here and say that, what?

And this is not the first time. I'm sure that, you know, it was done before previously. What did we learn? Nothing. To me, anyway, I'm different. So if some people were too keen and they were really feeling from heart, let them pay out of their own pockets. So we'll save the council $2,650 plus, or... Multiplier by two or three or whatever. Thank you. Thank you. So

We've got a motion before us, which is that we send five delegates. We haven't got any amendments or any changes that I'm aware of. Does anybody wish to move anything different, or are we proceeding on that basis? Councillor McMahon. Yeah,

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'm happy to move an amendment that we keep all of the wording as per the item, except change the number of five to two. Seconded.

Seconded Councillor Veigel. Do we need discussion on the amendment, or can we put — Is

There

Who was interested in going? Yeah,

It might be a faster— Yeah.

Yeah, generally we would vote whether we're going and then decide who's going. That's our normal practice. So we'll put the amendment and then— If you

Could just allow me one question. Yes. Does a staff member go as well? Not part of our resolution, but

They can go. Well, I thought I'd just ask. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. Okay. So we'll put the amendment. All those in favour of the amendment, please raise your hand. In favour, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Reardon, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Zamprogno. Against, Councillors Wheeler, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Djuric— Dramaci, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Kotlash. Declare the amendment carried. That becomes the motion. We could insert the names in now if we wanted to, if there's two people interested. Who wants to go?

Councillor Wheeler wants to go. Councillor Dogramaci, you want to go?

I want to go with the condition that I'll pay my own expenses and donate the money back to a charity or to the council. Anyone else

Wants to go?

So we've got Councillor Wheeler and Councillor Dogramaci, and no one else. You can do what you want with your expenses. Anybody else? No? That's easy then. So the motion is that we're sending Councillor Dogramaci and Councillor Wheeler. Put the motion. All those in favour? Favourite Councillor Conolly, Councillor Reardon, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Fygel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Garbutt, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Durie, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno. Declare it carried.

Next item is item 127, Rising Main C. So, anybody wish to move the recommendation or anything else?

Deputy Mayor move the recommendation. Seconded Councillor Kotlash. 127, yep.

Any discussion?

Just where we're up to with it right now. Is there any update on this report? Is that the question, Councillor Mr Barton

Through you, Mr Mayor, the contractors have been able to attend site and make an initial assessment of the damage arising from the flood. We were able to, or they were able to pull the new pipe through the underbore on the Friday before the flood, thankfully. And from what I understand, I think I'm correct, the pipe was secured and there was only, I think, damage to their approach roads across the floodplain, some silt and stuff that's been deposited in the drill holes. I think that's about all.

Yes, that's correct.

Thank

You. And have we found out exactly what caused the problem, the break in the first place? Was it a fracture of the pipe or joint?

Through you, Mr Mayor, no, it hasn't been possible to clear the old line of the liquid and sludge that would have remained in there once we isolated the sewer main until that time, which won't occur until after we've made the cut-ins and the new pipe's been commissioned and we've been able to drain the old pipe, if that's possible, that we'll be able to do any sort of internal inspection. And furthermore, we'll need conditions to dry out significantly before we can excavate to undertake an external inspection

Three Rivers to there. I'm assuming that the join in the new pipes past where the break was. Definitely through that, Mr. Barton.

Through you, Mr. Mayor, the new connections are further away from the banks of South Creek to provide that additional resilience. Thanks

Councillor Wheeler

Thanks, Mr. Mayor. I'm wondering if the mover of the motion will accept a second point, which is that Council contacts Sydney Water, the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment , and the relevant ministers, as well as the member for Hawkesbury, to inform them of Council's increasing financial outlays to maintain what is normally a State Government responsibility, and also inform them of Council's service review.

I'd

Be happy to

Include that,

Mr. Mayor. Yeah. Just some relevant information I learned today as well. I might just get the General Manager. Can you speak up, sorry? Sorry. I thought just before we go further on that point, there might be some relevant information I learned today that it was advised today that we've got a strategic review being undertaken by a consultant into that, and the findings at some point, so that might be relevant to share.

Yeah, through you, Mr. Mayor. So we are now a few weeks into a service review of the sewer business. So that review being undertaken by KPMG examines all options from, I suppose, business as usual through to a full divestment. At some point in the coming week or two, we'll make an initial decision on which options to shortlist, with a final report anticipated in the next, I'd suggest, four to five weeks, maybe six weeks depending on other factors.

So my suggestion would be we might be better off waiting for that before we proceed with notifying anybody of anything

Could I speak to it anyway ? Thanks. I think there's potentially some advantages in having the treatment works. I think during the drought, we saw that having the capacity to use that additional recycled water was quite helpful for maintaining our parks. I think we've plotted and schemed, you know, when it wasn't raining all the time, about how we could use it, say, for the livability program to increase greenery and that sort of thing. But even if Sydney Water are running the facility, they'll still have excess water, and we can probably pilfer that regardless. I wouldn't like to pay for it, given that the residents have paid for it before it got to the recycled water stage. But I do think that this is yet another example of state government cost shifting, I think, where we've got these planning controls that allow development here, and then council is—because those developments have never been provided with a sewer connection, council is filling the void, which is what we always do.

And I think sometimes we just have to refuse to do it. We see that this is not a sustainable cost to a small council. As laudable as it is that we do this and we do it to the best of our ability, and sometimes we've been able to innovate as a result with the program that we did to give subsidised hay to drought-affected farmers or silage to drought-affected farmers, for example. But we can't keep maintaining this. It's simply too expensive, and that cost is always borne by the ratepayers. And of course, it's expensive at the point of delivery, but the cost is really staggering when something goes wrong. I mean, these are eye-watering figures for a poo truck, and then when it breaks, we get sewage spilling either into South Creek, and we're really worried about—then we get another fine from yet another state government agency, or we have a contamination issue somewhere else.

So I think we need to start flagging to the state government that we're not going to keep doing this. What I would like is some reassurance once we know why this is broken, if this is something that's likely to be a systemic issue through the system, and whether we're likely to see more of these, especially rising mains, and so we can cut that little problem off before it happens, because I don't think anybody wants to be running the poo truck like this again. Thanks. Thank you. Councillor Dogramaci.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I don't know whether I missed the opportunity or not. I need to ask a few questions to the management and to the then acting Chief Financial Officer. Maybe more than a month ago, I wanted to find out the exact figures, how much we paid for the cartage, and that inquiry was referred to infrastructure management, and since then I still have not received any kind of documentation. I don't know whether something is being covered up or not. My second question is that when we— Sorry

Could do questions one at a time or it gets quite confusing. Okay. All right. Those numbers you're asking for, are they different to the information provided on page 42? Well

I don't— that's why I said that whether I missed the opportunity or not.

We passed that one. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. My second question is that what was the reason of ignoring my suggestions at the beginning of this problem when I said, because I knew it, I come from industry, in maintenance industry. Just as I am very ignorant in this council matters, nobody in this room, you know, can teach me about maintenance and how those things, you know, can work. I have on more than one occasion suggested that we should buy two tankers. It wasn't late, at least, you know, going back, you know, three, four, five months ago. We could have bought two tankers at $200,000 each and do the cartage ourselves. And when we awarded the contract to TEC, which was at that time at $4 million, did it not mean that the job wasn't going to finish in a week or month or two or whatever it is?

Indeed, it took from, what, towards the end of January and is still going, maybe it's ending to finish. We could have saved this council at least two, two and a half million dollars if my suggestions, you know, were taken seriously. And then at the end of the contract, when the job was completed, we could have sold those two tankers at $150,000, losing maybe $100,000 in total. So I want to know why, why and who, and what kind of decisions were made not to follow that through, but insisting on hiring, you know, four, five, six tankers, which I followed them, you may know. I took several photos and I sent it to certain media people. I sent it at eight o'clock, nine o'clock, ten o'clock at night, sometimes one o'clock.

I followed them through. So if somebody would be kind enough to tell me why my suggestion was not taken seriously, that cost us at least two and a half million dollars. Thank you. I refer that to Mr. Barton as to why we didn't buy trucks

Through you, Mr Mayor, the decision to invest in the purchase of trucks, and I think the numbers are northwards of 200 when I last looked a few weeks ago, it was about 200,000 for a prime mover and 250,000 for a trailer, is not one that we could necessarily rush into. It's a capital investment that was unbudgeted for and unplanned for. Additionally, at approximately 40 truck movements a day, putting that burden on two trucks is simply unsustainable for a range of factors, but particularly under the chain of responsibility around fatigue management and so forth. At the time of the break, it wasn't known how long it would take. Unfortunately, things have been drawn out and exacerbated because of three floods that have occurred since.

And the focus was really on doing the, or having in place as quickly as possible, a final solution to resolve the issue with the main, rather than examining the most, or the analysis on purchasing and then selling tankers after what could have been a six-week fix, or as it's turned out to be, closer to a seven-month fix.

Thank you. I'm not accepting that explanation. The figures that have been quoted, 250,000 and 200,000, that's brand new. Paul Galliere could supply, and he could have sold two trucks at $175,000 with prime mover and with the tanker, $175,000. So that's, well, if you want, I could bring this council figures at $500,000 if you want to import from the United States . Fully done. But $175,000 each was the actual figure, so that $350,000, we could have bought three at $550,000, and we could have lost— Seldom, you know, were $100,000. We could still make, we could still save this council $2 million. But again, the old saying is, spending somebody else's money is one of the easiest things in the world. Thank you.

Any further discussion?

Councillor Veigel. Just a question, Mr Mayor. Does the old pipe need to be repatriated out once it's been decommissioned? Mr

Martin? Through you, Mr Mayor, no, we don't have to . Once we clear it and seal it, that will be it.

Is the old pipe cast iron, or is the pipe density polyethylene? HDPE, high density polyethylene Okay, thanks. Thank you.

No further discussion. We'll go right of reply. Deputy Mayor? Yep. Put the motion. All those in favour? Councillor Conolly, Councillor Reardon, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lanesbury, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno, Declared carried.

Road naming proposal, Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I'll move the recommendation in the business paper with a couple of additions. Firstly, that at point 3, that Council communicate to the proponent that the names Lantana , Creeper and

Lovegrass are not appropriate, as they are weed species that Council is working to eradicate from the LGA.

And at point 4, that Council begins preparation of a street naming policy, which is consistent with the Reconciliation Action Plan.

Do you have a seconder yet? Not yet. I'll second that

So just that point 4, just say that again for me.

That Council develop a local street naming policy, which is consistent with the Reconciliation Action Plan. Seconded, Councillor Kotlash. And I won't put a timeline on that because I don't want to make it impost on the staff. Yeah. Any

Discussion required? Anybody?

Just quickly, Lantana, really? And what could go wrong, I ask you, with Creeper Place? Truly.

I'm sure that that's a point of order, Councillor Sheather, but I'm going to leave it alone. What we, seriously though, we do need to do a better job with our street names and bring in the local Dharug population so that they are represented in our street names. It's not enough to have an architect who worked on a couple of churches here and then went on to work on St Andrew's Cathedral and not have a single reference to the local Indigenous population. That's simply not good enough for a new estate. And we need to try harder, and so do the people who are setting up estates here. But absolutely no weeds, really. And where possible, botanical names would be much better. Whiteroot, really, not overly descriptive. It's called pratia perpensis. Now, perpensis is a bit much to have to write on every letter that you send out, but pratia would be fine.

So developers are only—developers, whoever it is that comes up with street names, are only going to do what we demand of them, and we need to demand more, frankly.

Thank you. Deputy Mayor? Mr Mayor, I'm just wondering whether we could ask the staff to consider naming maybe one of these little parks or any other area there after Councillor Rasmussen. I

Think we do have a policy on that generally.

Can't hear you, sorry.

I think we generally have a policy on that and how soon we do that after somebody passes.

How soon do we? Yes. I thought the policy was if someone

Okay

Well, can I just make it so that we put it on the record that at some point in the future, we consider finding something, a park or a street that we could name after Councillor Rasmussen, and when the time is relevant.

Councillor Zamprogno. I was just going to echo Councillor Calvert's remarks. Such a policy serves us. We don't serve the policy. So if we want to suspend it, and we feel like we've got good reason to, and we've got the support of the community, why wouldn't we?

Okay.

So put the motion then

Can I just have a quick point of

Reply, Mr Mayor? Oh , sorry, Councillor McNally. Can I just confirm the three names we were changing in the motion, the street names

Creepar, Lantana, and White Grove. Sorry

Creepar, Lantana. Can we probably change White Root and Godwit? Because can I just say, if I was investing all my eggs into buying a new house and I was number two Godwit Place, I wouldn't like it. So if we can add Godwit and White Root, thank you. Okay. Thank you.

We would note that. I don't think there's any objection there. Right of reply. Yeah,

I don't want to be on the RFS radio sending people to number four White Root Place. Really? Just on the suggestion that we name somewhere in there after Councillor Rasmussen, and I think it's a lovely thought, but I think given Paul's voting record on new development, particularly development that's gone onto former farmland, I don't think he'd be impressed. So I think when we do name something for Paul, I think we should, probably needs to be something that he's fought for. Yeah. I know they don't. I know.

Thank you. Put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Reardon, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Doramaci, Councillor Durick, Councillor Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno. Are you in favour? Yes.

Yep.

Declared carried.

We do a... Yes. Yeah

Did you want to

Go past eleven? Should I move that

We keep going?

I can't tell you what to move. Well

You asked everybody to think about it. All right, we'll test

The support. I think

We can do it. I move that we continue.

Thank you. Seconded Councillor Reardon. Discussion? Put the motion. Declare it carried.

Notice of motion, electricity supply. Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

I'll move that, Mr Mayor.

Seconded for that? Seconded, Councillor Wheeler. Oh

Now, but when I'm moving, I'm sorry, Mr Mayor. Thank you for today sending through some suggested changes, which I'm happy to accept. And there is also an additional point five, which is coming up. The changes that the Mayor—did you send it to everyone? No , I just sent it to you and to Charles. Oh, you just sent it to me and Charles.

It was just really moving around how we did this so that we might work on some things and then advise the elected representatives after, I think was—

As the context is similar, I may start speaking to it. They're the changes.

Is there a seconder for that?

Yeah, it was Councillor Wheeler. Well

She hadn't seen it before that.

I told her about it.

It's really good. Did you want to second it? Seconded, Councillor Wheeler. Okay.

Well, points one and four are the same as that were in the paper, and two and three are changed around, and point five is an additional point that I had added to the original one. It's really a motion to put some things in the system that I think we've all probably become quite aware of during the flood period around electricity supply and the issues that are around it. So this is not a—the discussion is not a criticism at all of Endeavour Energy and the valuable work that they've done, because they have worked so hard restoring electricity as soon as possible in isolated areas. And of course, we know the reasons why they have to shut it down for safety, as well as having low-lying electricity infrastructure, which is really vulnerable to water inundation and storm activity.

But this is about looking forward, as we have to do. We have to start to progress forward to improving the security of access to electricity. And I think that by looking—I think it's time that we help everyone out. Everybody's so burdened. I know our staff are so burdened. So I think as councillors, we can probably work a little bit to come up with some things through just discussion and maybe putting, you know, four or five councillors on a working group to actually look through some of these things and then present to the committee. Otherwise, if we wait to go to a committee to decide to have a working group and then to come back to a council meeting, we have months go by in between, and I think this is more urgent than that.

The next point, and now I think that point two, I think that covers that, and then that we would provide that to the state and federal MPs because, of course, it is not something council can deliver, but we can certainly inform and There is so much out and about that deals with this sort of thing. And just going back to the conferences, I have submitted my reports to the general manager from both of the conferences I went to. But within that information was a really interesting thing from the Australian Local Government Conference. I attended the regional forum because I wanted to do that because I think we're so similar to regional councils in many ways, even though we're deemed a metropolitan council.

And one of the fellows speaking was the CEO of the North Hamptonshire in Queensland, where they lost all their power infrastructure through the cyclone. So when I spoke to him about what solutions they have, and then to other people about it, there's a lot of things happening in this area. So I think we just need to be up around that. Also, the mayors and representatives from very flood-affected areas were I go to these conferences, and they jump up and down when the ministers and people like that come. So we have to have information ready for when we're having these conversations. With regard to including the evacuation routes, I'm really, really am disappointed at the timeline proposed for the upgrade of the evacuation routes.

I think that to have two to three years still in planning and then subsequent to that to have to have the constructions, it's too slow. We have to do whatever we can. We need to, you know, we need to have these evacuation routes upgraded, and I know we've had some discussions about specific ones, but we really need to get on with it. The final point there is regarding, and it's around a proposal that exists, but I don't know if Council has the details. But I've only ever seen reference to it, and I haven't seen the actual costings or details, but it's regarding the McGraths Hill levee, which was said to be a cost-effective localised flood protection option when the Resilient Valley Strategy was done.

However, the reason it wasn't in there, it wasn't because it wasn't valuable or shouldn't be done. The reason, and anyone who's read the strategy would know this, that the reason it wasn't included was because it was a local solution, not a regional solution. So it still is considered a cost-effective thing , and I mean there may, I know that the Hawkesbury generally is not suited to levees, I understand that because of the topography and so on. But we know that this time round McGraths Hill was particularly inundated and suffered quite a bit. So I just thought we should request that information from Infrastructure New South Wales with a view to perhaps furthering anything that could be done in that regard if that's a feasible option.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

I'll note that point 5 in that notice of motion is not something any of us were given notice on. I've decided to allow it on the basis that it is just requesting information. I don't think we're really making a decision. Myself, I'm not fully across the detail of that proposal, and I'm sure there's a number of councillors might be in that position. But I would rule that in order on the basis that it is just asking for information, and there's nothing untoward about that, even though there's no notice provided. I think that this is something we should do. We obviously would understand that there's challenges with providing electricity supply across a floodplain during a flood. There's not going to be any easy answers, most likely, but we should do whatever we can to improve the experience of our residents during those periods, especially as we know we're entering a period where we're likely to experience floods more often.

Certainly, powering communication towers is something we should be able to do in 2022 during a flood, and that is something that I think we need to pay attention to. So I think this is a good way forward to have a working group to reasonably quickly try and get across what those solutions are, so that we can communicate that in a way that's easier for the New South Wales and Commonwealth governments potentially to action, rather than just bring them a problem, try and bring them the solutions as well, and then we can have those meetings to get it on the table for them. So I'm happy to support the motion. Councillor Kotlash.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Yes, I'm happy to support this as well. Although I've got to say that for years and years we've been talking about this problem. Well, the problem of electricity supply and, you know, the problems of the west of the river being cut in various flood situations. And I note that even— In the 7th of September, the Disaster and Emergency Committee meeting, we asked for that the Disaster and Emergency Committee identify matters for further action and resolution by Council, including receive an update on the advocacy seeking increased resilience to infrastructure, in particular electricity during extreme weather events. And then it goes on to talk about electricity supply and telecommunications towers.

And I just want to say that we have to, I think we have to be more specific about what we want, because we seem to be on this trajectory of talking about this problem, characterising the problem, and not just getting any action . You know, let's just try to pick off the low-hanging fruit and get some things done. And I think that it's a good idea that we have swapped that around so that we're not actually including the MPs in the characterisation and, you know, just figuring out what actually the problems are. But we get, and that's good that we've changed that around, so what we can do in the group is actually zero in on actual problems, where they are, what we think the extent of them are, and just stop characterising it.

Have those as things that we want to move forward on. And I know that I just, the frustration of hearing that over and over again and not being able to get any traction, because I don't, I don't think we have any update yet, have we, about this? And that was probably because everybody's been so busy

Fighting fires and dealing with floods and COVID. But anyway. So I guess that's my message. Really happy to support this, but let's just really... Stop talking about the problem and start trying to talk about the solutions and action some of those solutions. They might be getting grant funding, they might be advocating and pushing state government, maybe federal government for the telecommunications. But just, let's just get something done. Thanks.

Thank you. Further discussion? Right of reply.

Thank you, Mr Mayor, and thank you for that. That is the aim, Councillor Kotlash, to get something done, so I hope we do. If we have a working group where we can do the work and we're not putting a burden on staff to be preparing reports or anything around it, we can come up with what we can come up with and then present it back. So the only thing I would say, Mr Mayor, is if we pass this, could we form—get expressions of interest, I didn't put that in the motion—but could we get expressions of interest tonight on that, to form that?

Yeah. Or do that or just

Agree to do it after, or—

Yeah, or it sounds like if we're all in agreement, you could just stick your hands up now and put it in the motion would probably be the simplest.

All right. Well,

Can I ask a question, if I may, Mr Mayor?

Kind of. It's right of reply, probably not really.

Can everybody contribute if they have information? Why does it have to be a working group? Like if you know about something and somebody's reported

It to you— No

It's right of reply. We're not having that question. I think

Everyone should be able to contribute, of course, as with everything. But Mr Mayor, I think a working group is better that some people can actually sit down and go through it. So you want us to put our hand up?

Do you think?

Did you say that?

I did make that suggestion, but then I thought about it.

Okay, well, we'll do it

After then, can we? We could, yeah. The general manager can organise that in the coming days. Yep, that might be the easiest way. Thanks. Okay. Put the motion then. All those in favour? Councillor Conolly, Councillor Reardon, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Feigl, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno. Declared carried.

The next item is 133. Councillors, I believe this should be discussed in confidential, which is a rescission motion, because I believe there's commercial in confidence matters to discuss that are quite pertinent. So if someone wanted to move that way, I've got a motion. So I'll move that way, Mr Mayor. Moved Councillor Reardon, seconded Councillor McMahon. No discussion. We'll put that motion. All those in favour of going to confidential?

Unanimous. Carried. And we'll go into confidential session. Sorry, मिस्टर.

Thanks, Councillors. We've now returned to the live stream.

Just, if we could stop talking amongst ourselves, and I'll hand over to the General Manager to advise the resolutions of closed session.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. In respect of item 133, licence agreement for signage at Industry Road Reserve, Vineyard, whilst in closed session, the proposed rescission motion was lost. For the rescission motion were Councillors Zamprogno, Wheeler, Lyons-Buckett, Djuric, Dogramaci and Sheather. Against the rescission motion were Councillors Calvert, Kotlash, Vargel, McMahon, Reardon and Conolly, and the motion was lost on the casting vote of the Mayor.

In respect of item 134, regarding lease to Wesley Community Services Suite 2, Deerubbin Centre, level 1, 300 George Street, Windsor, whilst in closed session, Council resolved on the motion of Councillor Lyons-Buckett, seconded Councillor Kotlash: one, that Council agree to enter into a new lease with the Wesley Community Services Limited in regards to Suite 2, Deerubbin Centre, level 1, 300 George Street, Windsor, in accordance with the proposal outlined in the report. Two, authority be given for any necessary documentation in association with this matter to be executed under the seal of Council. Three, details of Council's resolution be conveyed to the proposed lessee, together with the advice that Council is not and will not be bound by the terms of its resolution until such time as legal appropriate legal documentation to put the resolution into effect has been agreed to and executed by all parties.

For the vote. For the vote was Councillor Conolly, Calvert, Djuric, Dogramaci, Kotlash, Lyons-Buckett, Veigel, Reardon, Sheather, Wheeler and Zamprogno, with Councillor McMahon absent for the vote. In respect of item 135, lease to the Minister administering the National Parks and Wildlife Service Act, Bowman Cottage, 368 Windsor Street, Richmond. Whilst in closed session, the Council resolved on the motion. Which one? The Bowman Cottage.

That was on the motion of Councillor Veigel.

Of Councillor Veigel, seconded Councillor Kotlash, that Council delegate authority to the General Manager to negotiate a lease with the Minister for administering the National Parks and Wildlife Service Act on behalf of the National Parks and Wildlife Service. Lastly, that was carried unanimously. Councillors in support were Councillors Conolly, Calvert, Djuric, Dogramaci, Kotlash, Lyons-Buckett, Veigel, Reardon, McMahon, Sheather, Wheeler and Zamprogno. And lastly, in respect of item 136, outstanding receivables bad debts write-off. Whilst in closed session, the Council resolved on the motion of Councillor Lyons-Buckett, seconded Councillor Kotlash, that

Council write off the bad debts as at 30 June 2022. The debt owed by debtor account 7300213 in respect of residential rent and legal fees totalling $7,827 be written off as a bad debt. B , the debt owed by debtor account 7309310 in respect of commercial rent and disbursements totalling $164,434 be written off as a bad debt. C. The debt owed by debtor account 7309963 in respect of commercial sullage and food inspection fees, totalling $30,753, be written off as a bad debt. D. The debt owed by debtor account 7309990 in respect of food inspection and legal fees, totalling $923, be written off as a bad debt. E. The debt owed by debtor account 7310220 in respect of food inspection and legal fees, totalling $1,316, be written off as a bad debt.

F . The debt owed by debtor account 7310257 in respect of food inspection fees, totalling $886, be written off as a bad debt. Point 2. Council increases the delegated authority of the General Manager, or responsible accounting officer, to write off bad debts to $5,000 and amend the Debt Recovery Pensioner Concession and Hardship Policy accordingly. 3. Council adopted the amended Debt Recovery Pensioner Concession and Hardship Policy attached as Attachment 1. Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Thank you. I’ll ask Councillor McMahon to read her interest onto the tape.

Mr Mayor, Councillor Dogramaci has an item of general business if you get a chance.

Okay, I’ll give him the call after discussion for Councillor McMahon, and then I’ll see what that—

Thank you, Mr Mayor. My declaration is in regards to item 136, significant non-pecuniary, and I left the room for the vote.

Why?

I knew one of the debtors. Sorry, thank you.

Thanks. Not really a general business, but what were we after, Councillor Dogramaci?

Yes ,

And at the beginning of this term, I was appointed as the— Committee member for reform of Western Sydney Airport. I went there. It was a waste of time. Again, my personal thoughts. Some 40 people, they were there just to have a good time, eat, drink, and tell everybody, you know, how important they were. And they were looking forward for the next one, talking about solar-powered airplanes or whatever it is. Sorry,

Councillor Marci. The only business we're allowed to discuss is anything we've given notice of or anything that's urgent business.

Well, I thought I'd mention to you, so if anybody wants to take over, I'm not interested anymore

Can you email that to the general manager so

We can— I will do that

All right . We'll declare the meeting closed at 11.59 p.m. Thank you.