9 August 2022 - Ordinary

Welcome everybody to tonight's meeting. I'd like to start by acknowledging the Dharug and Darkinjung people as the traditional custodians of the land, and pay respects to Elders past, present and emerging. I hand over to the General Manager.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Members of the public attending the meeting are advised that in the event of an emergency, you'll be asked to proceed in an orderly manner to the nearest exit following the guidance of our warden. I 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 such persons where that access is in accordance with the relevant regulations. The recordings are stored on Council's record management system. Meetings of the Council may be separately recorded with the prior authority of the Council. 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 any answers given in response to questions from councillors.

Finally, it is also requested that any person participating in or attending the meeting this evening has a mobile phone, that they either switch it off or turn it to silent. Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Thank you. I don't think there's any apologies. Everybody's here. Are there any declarations of interest?

No declarations of interest. Somebody wish to move the minutes from the previous meeting? Moved Councillor Reardon, seconded Councillor Zamprogno. All in favour? Declare that carried.

Councillors, we have only one item subject to public address this evening, which is the Mayoral Minute. Our first speaker is Chris Bell.

This is my first time here, so excuse me if I'm a little nervous. I'm speaking in favour of the Mayoral Minute, and I'd just like to read a written statement on behalf of the Pitt Town Progress Association, which is reflective of the community's views at present with regard to the upgrade and maintenance of our flood evacuation route. The recent flood events in February 2020, March 2021, March 2022, and recently July 2022 have highlighted the need for the Pitt Town flood evacuation route to be upgraded and maintained at a much higher standard than at present. After 28 years without a flood, many in the community had never experienced one. I'm one of those people. Almost all the developments in Pitt Town took place during that prolonged dry period, and state government planners failed to upgrade local infrastructure to meet the demands of the increased population.

All local access roads in and out of Pitt Town, other than our flood evacuation road, are cut by either local runoff or rising floodwater, or a combination of the both, leaving the flood evacuation route as the only access in and out of town while the town remains functional. In these circumstances, the volume of traffic along that route increases severalfold, including large vehicles for services such as food and fuel delivery, wastewater removal, garbage and other services, and, more importantly, emergency service vehicles. The current evacuation road system is grossly inadequate and rapidly deteriorates, with potholes and damage from a combination of the increased vehicle traffic, large vehicles and rainwater, as it is too narrow and poorly maintained.

The Pitt Town residential development was undertaken as a Part 3A state government approval by the then Minister Frank Sartor. As such, the state government has both a duty of care and a moral obligation to provide the community with a safe and functional road access during flooding events. The flood evacuation route from Bathurst Street via Boodles Lane, Redfern Place, Mitchell Road, Pitt Town Dural Road, Airstrip Road, or the gated section through the national park, and onto Old Pitt Town Road through to Nelson Road and onto Windsor Road, a distance of approximately 15 kilometres, must be upgraded to a minimum width of eight metres, which allows two by three metre traffic lanes plus two by one metre shoulders on either side , plus centre line marking and shoulder lines.

All intersections along the route need to be modified or upgraded so that the large vehicles travelling in opposite directions can safely be accommodated along that route. We have submitted this information and recommendations to several members of State Government, including Dominic Perrottet, Robyn Preston and Natalie Ward. Thus far, we have received nothing but a polite response acknowledging receipt of the communication. To date, no upgrades have been commenced, and we have received no assurance that anything will be done to upgrade the flood evacuation route. With the long-range forecasters now forecasting further flood events in September and October, it's very much front of mind and very critical to the people of Pitt Town.

You people were probably quite busy this afternoon and may not have had a chance to see the release of the response to major funding across New South Wales by the Legislative Council. It was actually released today at about two o'clock this afternoon, and recommendation number 12, that the New South Wales Government allocate funding to the improvement of the Pitt Town evacuation route and other key possible evacuation routes in Sydney's northwest. So we're front of mind of the State Government now because we're now recommendation number 12 in this response to major flooding. So it's hoped that your mayoral minute gets approved and supported by the Council and gets the right response from our State Government.

Thank you. Thank you.

Happy to take questions if there's any. Sure. Any questions, councillors?

Council Wheeler.

Thanks. The traffic that you refer to on the evacuation route now, I think we have this idea that evacuation routes will be used once as people come out, and then not used until the event is over. Is that what's happening on this route currently

No. See, that's our problem, is all the roads in and out of Pitt Town get cut during minor flooding. So at around 10 metres water level, Pitt Town Road, Cattai Road, and Pitt Town Dural Road at Long Neck Lagoon all get cut by either local rain flooding or rising river water. So what we call the evacuation route is the sole access route to Pitt Town for trade, for emergency services, for fuel, for people to come and go for work. And that is the case for over a week. Nearly every flood event that I've been there through, I've been through these four. I was a lucky boy. I moved in just before the first one. Didn't want to miss any of them. So, yeah, it is the only sole access route. Everybody still has to go to work, right?

So they're coming in and out to and from work every day. All the food deliveries that come—people try not to travel, but they're still bringing—IGA, the butcher, the fruit and veggie shop, they all have to bring in produce so that at least we can shop locally as best we can and minimise the traffic on that route. It's only—much of that road is less than six metres. Old Pitt Town Road is six metres. Two cars going in each direction, they must collapse the side of the road. There's no other option. They're collapsing the side of the road, and as the side of the road collapses in, they all drive towards the middle of the road, and then you get to this in-pass where you get trucks taking right of way because of their size, forcing cars into significant potholes, and then you end up with broken down vehicles on the side of the road, which just exacerbates the situation.

We have got a broken down vehicle. Restricting the flow of traffic past a point.

Thank you, because that I think is exactly what we know is now happening with that roadway. But I don't know that the state government knows

Yeah, I think that is the issue. The other issue is that even during minor local flooding, Airstrip Road, which forms one of the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle of the evacuation route, can be affected by local flooding. It was in the March flood, which made, or required, the emergency evacuation route to be opened through the corner of the national park. Now that became a major nightmare for two reasons. Number one, no one knew where the key was. There was no official way of applying for the key. There was no easy access to the key, only through local knowledge of our former president of the Pitt Town Progress Association, Peter Ryan, who was able to call the local RFS and get a key. We were able to get that road opened, but it is a genuine evacuation route.

It is only one lane wide. It is meant for a one-way trip out of town. But it became, because of Airstrip Road flooding , a bi-directional access road. So we had people bringing horse floats and boats into town to high ground, trying to get their horses off the floodplain along a one-lane road with two directions and a dogleg in the middle of it, a Z dogleg in the middle. It's just an accident waiting to happen. Had a tree come down, and that is through a national park, it's bordered by trees along the whole side, we would have had a catastrophic event.

Thank you. That's really helpful. Thank you. Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Thank you, Mr Bell, and congratulations of your new role with the Progress Association. Yeah, great timing, huh? I just had a question out of interest's sake, as a reasonably new resident in town. I was just wondering whether you were made aware of the potential impacts of flooding before you moved to that area

Yeah, we were made aware prior to our move. We were given all the documents about one in 500-year floods, and we're safe. Where our home is, we're safe. We're at 24 metres above sea level. I have no belief that we'll ever be personally flooded, but we are impacted by the flood event that surrounds us. We're impacted by the heartbreak of having to help 38 friends and neighbours evacuate their homes in the lower part of Pitt Town itself, and we were impacted by three days of power lost, no community. You start to feel very vulnerable when you can't pick up the phone and call for help. And we had three days where the cell towers were all down, the power went down, so then we lost the NBN six , 12 hours later, so you couldn't even make a landline call.

So short of two-way radios, there was no way to communicate outside the town And we were just lucky that the RFS had put a few patrol vehicles in town as a stopgap measure, that there were people on the ground to actually rescue people out of their homes.

Thank you for those points.

Thank you. Councillor Dogramaci. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr Bell. Well, you know where I live. Yes. And my question is very direct. In a short time that you are the President, naturally you have gone through so many paperworks and received so many details from the previous President. My question is very, very direct. Are you really hoping that something is going to happen?

I am a hopeful person.

Good luck to you.

I'm a positive thinking person. I'm hopeful on several counts. I think we just need to keep the momentum going. I think with the Lismore flood and the local damage done around the Hawkesbury region, that these flood events are now front of mind with some of our state government members. And I'm hoping that the pressure from the press, from the community, from reports like the one that just came out today, along with the voice of our community, and this council is enough to push it over the line and maybe get something done.

Good luck to

You. You've

Been pushing for

The bypass for the last 25 years .

Yeah . Yeah, we'll keep pushing for that too. Thank you. Thank you for that. Okay, thank you.

Our next speaker is Peter Ryan.

Thank you for affording me the opportunity to speak, and look, thank you very much for bringing this mayoral minute up. It's something that the community of Pitt Town really need to keep you people in touch, and you are in touch by bringing this minute forward. The community of Pitt Town needs a well-maintained, well-designed flood evacuation access route. Chris has explained it quite well, and the people—I'm speaking more about what the people feel. They don't have any confidence in this. They're shattered. They go out and they'll break a wheel. They take the kids to school, they have a flat tyre. People don't — Need to be put under this stress. And it's really a human right that we are able, and we must be able to save ourselves.

And we don't need to go on this ad hoc back roads that will be possibly closed by a tree by an accident. That really, really puts the people under pressure, and they are really had enough. And the government, it can't do a 3A development without providing these access routes, without giving us the right to be able to at least get out of our flood island. And as Chris explained, we lose power, we lose everything, we lose communication. People get really worried, and they're family people. They've got children. They've got businesses. They've got a life to run. And look, Dominic Perrottet said yesterday that over the last 11 years, New South Wales has got better. Well, Pitt Town actually has got worse.

We've got 3,000 people in the town. We've got 1,000 trucks and 10,000 other vehicles pounding through our town. No, Pitt Town hasn't got better. And

Our community shouldn't be put under this pressure by the government. It's unconscionable, and they're standing by. They're just watching it. They're not putting in infrastructure. They're not giving us a step forward. And I've been told straight, Why don't you just give up? You're not getting it. Well, no, I'm not going to give up. We are not going to give up. It was agreed to deliver all this infrastructure, and my God, we're not that naive after we read this report to see what 90-plus percent of it ends up in Penrith. You know, I could say some more things along that line. So we need to get this infrastructure up and working. We need to send a message to this government that Stop failing us.

We've had enough. And I read that report that Chris did, and like item number 13 said that the New South Wales Government should work with local government to identify alternative routes and vulnerable roads, and that the New South Wales and Australian Government fund the construction of these important routes to improve evacuation and access options in the time of disaster. They've identified that this is a problem, that councils can't do it themselves. They can't do it. And so we don't need to hear any more of this, why you can't do it. We want to hear when you will do it. That's it. Tell us when. We don't want to hear why. And I'll put forward a recommendation that you get the Minister out for roads and disaster here to council and explain why this has happened, why over 90 percent of this has gone to the Penrith, and get the author or the people who made this recommendation out to explain why.

And let's get it done. Do we need to get the media involved? Because we've been shortchanged. And perhaps that will happen. So look, thank you. I'm happy to take questions.

Thanks, Peter. Councillor Djuric. Thank you, Mr. Ryan. I would like to ask that when the airstrip road goes under, that the northernmost part of the Stock Route Road is what has to be used. That's correct, isn't it? The gated part. Yes, that's correct. Is the community expecting that those gates should be removed so they can just use that road when necessary?

Look, there's two thoughts to that. That terrible dogleg, and I'll give you a history on how that came about. That was old Stock Route Road went through there. It was actually sold by council. And when we had to put the evacuation route, they had to purchase land back off a national park so that the dogleg, the road could go through there. That was a poor decision. We don't need to have that road opened all the time, but we need to have everything upgraded. That's including Airstrip Road, the whole thing, and that evacuation route. Because as we saw, and I've got photos, historical photos of Airstrip going underwater, with an army truck going through it. That was the only way we could get in and out. Thank you very much.

Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Ryan. I'm just wondering, has your organisation in the past had any contact from or any engagement with the Hawkesbury-Nepean Flood Taskforce or with Infrastructure New South Wales regarding the evacuation routes or generally around flooding in Pitt Town?

No, we have not. To my knowledge.

Suzanne. Excuse me. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Any further questions? No. Thank you.

Thank you very much

Councillors, that was our final speaker on the Mayoral Minute. I'll put forward the Mayoral Minute to you. I think that that's been well explained now by those two speakers. I think it's quite relevant to note the report that came out today that made a recommendation that the government urgently look at Pitt Town evacuation route. There were, I think, close to 30 recommendations. This is the only recommendation across the entire state that referenced a specific route, and that's giving it the priority that it deserves. And that's the purpose of this Mayoral Minute as well, is to recognise that, yes, the government is looking at evacuation routes. Yes, they're doing a whole program which includes identification, design and construction over a number of years.

However, this one is too urgent to wait for that process. We need the New South Wales government to pull it out of that process and just do it now. The committee's recommendation today is the same, so we appreciate that, and I hope that adds a bit more weight than a Mayoral Minute from Hawkesbury City Council might. But I still think we need to put this in and make sure we're speaking for our community and the government is on notice that this is what we need. So I'll commend the minute to you. Any speakers against, first of all?

Nobody against? Anyone want to agree? Councillor Sheather. Yeah.

Thanks, Mr. Mayor. I commend your minute, Mr. Mayor. The frustration that the Pitt Town residents are having, they're not the only ones in our city in a similar situation. Most of the roads along the river are similar. But this report that came out, the Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley Flood Evacuation Road Resilience Program, I sat on the State Committee in '97. These roads were recommended to do then. So I can see why they've chucked hope out the door. Mr Mayor, have you thought about having a delegation go and see the ministers, the Premier, about this?

We do have, well, I had a call from the Premier's office earlier this week indicating that in response to some formal correspondence we sent them that they were going to set up a meeting with the Minister for Emergency Services. So that is underway, and this is certainly be the time we'd be trying to raise this. Yep

Yeah. Well, I think it's important for you and perhaps other councillors to go and beat the drums. This is overdue by decades, not days or weeks, decades. And when I got the report that was sent to us last week, I responded that it's a joke. Anyone that looks at the drawing, there's four roads lead right up to our boundary from Penrith. And most of these roads are main roads, adequate roads to service an evacuation route now. And I know this work needs to be done on them, but the roads that service these roads in our city, most of them are nearly undrivable. I went on the Driftway the other day.

The Driftway is a pretty good name for it. When you look at our other roads around the place that need to service these evacuation routes, even when you get across the Jim Anderson Bridge to get out the other side, there's work needs doing over there on an evacuation route. Now, and as I said, in '97, when we looked at, and like I said, I sat on that committee, and this is the proposals they come up with. This was the salvation of the Hawkesbury. We're going to evacuate people. Well, it's pretty hard to evacuate off a floodplain in the first place. But in saying that, if you're going to do the roads up, we've got the Jim Anderson Bridge, fine. But what else have we got? You know, a small portion of our city will be able to use that as an evacuation route in a major flood.

But we've got other parts of our city. The evacuation route we're looking up towards your place in Bligh Park, South Windsor. We're going on to Northern Road and the like. Local flooding blocks Northern Road. Nothing's been done about that. There's nearly a kilometre of it that's blocked. When you get out on Londonderry Road, it's as flat as a tack. There's sections of that road that have been built up, but even since that was built up, it's been blocked on many occasions from local flooding. Part of it because the reason that we've talked about here about the drains and the creeks aren't clean, the water can't get away. And that's fine if the rain's only there for a couple of hours, but if it's there for days, which causes bad floods, then the water's going to be over the road for days.

So, Mr. Mayor, I was really taken back with this information that was sent that come to our boundaries, and with very, very little of the $33 million that was going to be spent on Hawkesbury roads. And that's why I think that you should go and speak to the minister. They need to know that we're not going to put up with this garbage, and that's exactly what it is. These roads in the Penrith area will take decades to be finished. Well, we haven't got decades. We've got weeks. And not because there's likely rain coming. It's because the darn roads we've got now, you can't drive on them. And some of the roads aren't our responsibility. So, Mr Mayor, I commend your mayoral minute, and I hope you progress it further

Thanks. Any further discussion? Anyone against? Anyone further in favour? Councillor Kotlash.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. And look, thank you for bringing this mayoral minute. It's really, it's obviously timely. And like Councillor Chither, when I read this report from the Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley Flood Evacuation Road Resilience Program, I was shocked because for years, ever since I've started council, we have been talking about back in the early days when the resilient valley and resilient communities work was being done, we were promised 40 roads. 40 roads were going to be included in this upgrade. And this is what we got. I was just stunned . So, look, anything that we can do to speed up this process, I don't think construction delivery by 2026 is acceptable for those roads that Councillor Sheather has talked about, which are on our outskirts and not actually in our area.

You know , anything we can do to expedite that as well. But for our communities, it seems strange that so much work is being planned to be done on major ridge or at least regional roads, without any thought about how the people that are actually living closer to the floods are going to get to those areas. It's just, it seems to be just a big problem in the planning of these road networks. So absolutely support this. This, Mayoral Minute would absolutely go, be on a delegation if we must, into town to talk about this. But maybe what we should do is invite the Premier and invite the Minister for Roads out here and just have a really frank discussion with them about this, because this really does have to be fixed soon.

And, yeah , well, we, and I just also want to say thanks to the community in the Pitt Town community, because I think that they shouldn't lose hope. I think that they have to keep going with this. They have to keep up the momentum, and I think we will all help in keeping up the momentum. We have to do this. It's not that hard. Let's just get it done. Thanks.

Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'd just like to, first of all, somebody had just sent me a message saying that there's a white Toyota van outside that's left its lights on, in case that's anybody in here parked across the road. Your battery might be flat by the time the meeting's finished.

Is that in favour or against?

I'm in favour of the lights being switched off. Thank you, Mr Mayor, and thank you. I'm happy to support this notice of motion. I'm glad to see it come. As you would all know, I've been very outspoken about evacuation routes for many years in here now. I do, however, I think I would like to move an amendment, which I'll speak first to the motion and then see if anyone else wants to come up with an amendment. But I think definitely strengthening the amendment would be good, because I think really writing to the member and the ministers is not going to get us much further than the various other resolutions we've had in place. I think it would be good if the ministers came out here. I think we need very strong leadership around this, and I think we need to be banging on doors to get noticed.

That's what the mayors from up north have been doing. They've been coming down and they've been seeing everyone they can. And it's also what the Pitt Town community have been doing , strong advocacy and relentless repetition of their needs and pointing out the broken promises and failures to deliver infrastructure in their area. So I've got three points around this issue. They're things that I think are regretful, but I just want to sort of say them, and then I hope that we can really move forward now in looking at this in a positive way and getting some action. As Councillor Sheather said, we've known about this for a long time. So prior to the various reviews and studies, which became the present strategy for the Hawkesbury Nepean floodplain.

We knew that we needed to be able to get people out. In a briefing in 2014, we were told in here that evacuation is the only mitigation measure that can guarantee to reduce risk to life. So my first regret is that the government has known this for so long and repeatedly published it in reports around the importance of the issue, and yet not actually done anything about it. In fact, they upgraded Richmond Road. They approved tens of thousands of housing lots, and they didn't ensure proper evacuation routes were in place. And that's hugely problematic for all of us. The addition of that larger population, of course, increases the number of people on the roads, meaning that congestion becomes a dangerous issue, and our residents are evacuating and feed into the same roads that all those people are also being directed to head across.

The second point I regret is the missed opportunity to have this issue front and centre when the media took an interest in us and covered the floods. Instead, we've only had an emphasis around the dam wall raising, and there's been little attention given to any immediate solutions that we could have put in place, especially around evacuation routes. It was actually disappointing to hear you, Mr Mayor, play down the importance of evacuation routes as a vital safety measure on 2GB on the 12th of July, and yet this would have been a perfect opportunity to have said that while the government oscillates on its decision-making around long-term flood mitigation, and while we have already wasted years in knowing that we have to have these evacuation routes, and while they've continued to approve development in the floodplain, then we could have called for a prioritisation to have people safely able to exit the area.

It's an immediate matter of urgency. The third regret, and this will come as no surprise to anyone, is the lack of engagement on flood issues due to the absence of a floodplain management advisory committee. The disbanding of this has deprived us of opportunities to engage firsthand with the people who we could have been pushing to progress our case around the evacuation routes, as the other councils who've got a lot more money than we have have been doing. We were meeting every two months with the various agencies from Infrastructure New South Wales, from the people who were making these decisions, right when we most need this sort of interaction and opportunity, not just for us to advocate, but for those within our community with knowledge, such as, well, we heard last time from Morrie Smith, so the Group H was representing, other individuals with enormous amount of local flood Our knowledge to sit in a room with the agencies making the decisions.

Agencies which in the past have taken our feedback forward and used it in their planning when they've been making decisions. In this new council, we've only had two meetings of the disaster and emergency management meeting, one because Councillor Wheeler and I moved a motion to have it, and in those two meetings there has been information received and noted, agreement to look at other things such as the Pitt Town evacuation route back in March, and that we establish a working group to look at flood studies and investigate having a designation.

Councillor Buckley, your time has expired. Further speakers? Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Just a question on the recommendation, if I could first. Where it says seeking funding for the immediate safety upgrades of the Pitt Town evacuation route, does that mean that you're seeking funding for us to do those upgrades or for the state government to do those upgrades?

I think we're seeking funding for the state government to do those upgrades.

Perhaps we could be more specific there, because I think for them to— we already know that we're struggling to get on top of our own roads and that things are really heavily constrained currently. I don't think we want another problem to be put back in our basket that could stay in theirs when they're far better resourced. Regarding points two and three, following on from Councillor Sheather and Councillor Cotlach, I note that I've pulled out parts of the Hawkesbury Nepean Flood Risk Management Strategy today, the Resilient Valleys—resilient whatever it is— document from 2017 that was published, and it states in there really clearly on page 22, currently there is not enough road capacity to safely evacuate the whole population on time, with multiple communities relying on common constrained, congested road links as their means of evacuation.

It further goes on to say many of the significant urban centres such as McGraths Hill, Windsor, Richmond and Bligh Park are located on flood islands which can become fully submerged in large flood events. Doesn't mention Pitt Town as a flood island there.

Currently, the Bureau of Meteorology has advised that it can provide up to 15 hours flood level predictions for large flood events. However, the New South Wales SES requires more than 15 hours to evacuate some flood islands in the valley during large flood events. Now, this was in 2017. It's now much, much worse. This identifies Richmond and Windsor roads as choke points. We've got development all along both of those roads. We've got continued development in Pitt Town and now into Vineyard, Box Hill, Alara, Clydesdale. They are state government approved developments.

The state government is willfully ignoring the findings of their own study. 2017, we were told in the document, there's a lovely diagram of what would be happening. We're now in the 2022 onwards phase, and a whole lot of things were going to happen in that bit. In 2019, 2020, they were going to develop a land use planning framework that gave effect to policies like the Regional Evacuation Road Master Plan that would identify a coherent evacuation road network for the valley and suitable flood design standards, and this was to be done by Roads and Maritime Services, who have now been renamed. That was five years ago. And yet we're back into the concept design phase of yet another government announcement. So apparently something's going to happen in 2026, which is almost 10 years after the Resilient Valleys document told us that everything would be sorted out by around 2020 and onwards.

It states in this document, floods in the Hawkesbury-Nepean can have a significant impact on people's lives. Yeah, really. I'd hate to see what we'd actually be doing if someone had identified a sense of urgency around this issue, because clearly we're doing nothing at the moment. The same document says evacuating people away from flood-affected areas is the primary method of reducing the risk to life during a flood. In the valley, the New South Wales SES identifies mass self-evacuation by private motor vehicle as the primary method for evacuation, and as other transport options are highly vulnerable or have limited capacity. It shows all our evacuation routes, and yet we've got to do yet another study to get on top of that and to identify those.

Land use and road planning will need to account for the cumulative impact of growth on road evacuation capacity. So when exactly is the major body responsible for both roads and development going to coordinate those two things to stop putting this community at risk? We are currently a sacrifice zone for the further development of the northwest growth sector. It's disgraceful. We need to stand up to the state government. So does the rest of the community. Let's not just get the state government out here. Let's get the opposition. Let's get the Shooters and the Greens and anybody else who wants to come out and look at the mess that this state government has delivered to our community. We're moving into an election year.

This isn't good enough. Are we going to wait till we have a Lismore? Are we going to wait till we have a one in 200 or a one in 500 flood? Are we waiting for people to die? Because this simply is not good enough. It's our job to stand up to the state government, and it's the state government's job to deliver or put a ban on any further development in this valley until that's done.

Thank you. Any further discussion, councillors? Councillor Zamprogno.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. And of course, I support the mayoral minute, and thank you for bringing it. The observations that I'd make is that, you know, this road resilience program document that disappointingly confirms that most of the money that they're pledging to spend will be spent in the Penrith LGA. It's worth observing that that $33 million pledge is not in the budget. The only reference to flood evacuation routes in the budget is a sum of only $5 million. And I don't know whether staff can help provide some clarity here. Is there a nexus between that pledge of $5 million for planning for flood evacuation routes, the planning work that's going to go towards this road resilience program, or do we not know that there's that nexus

Through you, Mr Mayor, I'm unaware of the link between the two, and I can't recall whether there was any federal government funding as part of that $33 either. Well,

Okay then. So that rather confirms my point. There's a pledge of only $5 million in the state budget. There's no assurance to us, which is a council that has a significant stake in the matter, whether that money is going towards this planning work or whether it's something else. The state opposition came out and pledged a sum. Maybe our Labor colleagues can confirm whether there is a particular nexus between that sum of money and the kind of flood evacuation routes that we're talking about here. I'm disappointed at the state government's response. In the same way that we have all been collectively disappointed at the state government's lack of a suitable response to provide an expedited process to allow riverfront owners to do emergency remedial works to their property.

And when we were well attended meeting at Laa Portland within only the last week, that point was driven home again forcefully. Many people are still waiting for the requisite permission to do works, and the kind of reports that we are statutorily required to ask these landowners for often costs more than the value of the works that they wanted to do in the first place. So we have been poorly served by this. I would be cynical if I suggested that the lion's share of this flood evacuation route money is occurring because Penrith is a marginal seat and that the Hawkesbury is not a marginal seat. But I think this money needs to go. Certainly this report that came out today amply justifies the need, and this is fundamentally a political question.

I agree with Councillor Wheeler. Political pressure needs to be brought to bear because, you know, the engineering and other forms of justification, we've done that. But if we can't make the state government see the light, we should make them feel the heat. Thank you. Thank you.

Councillor Buckett.

I was going to move an amendment.

An amendment, yep.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. First of all, I had a question. In the last council meeting, we resolved to request the state government give us an update. I had a notice of motion, and it had included requesting for an update on the time frame. Had the correspondence for that been sent?

Through the General Manager.

I'd

Have to take that one on notice

Okay, thank you. I was just, I was wondering what we'd already set that was all, because I was wondering, it doesn't have to be an amendment. You may wish to add some wording, although I suppose it will be an amendment, because I think we would like to invite out representatives from the state government

To come out. I mean, we can still write to them, but I think we should be inviting them, as the community have requested and Councillor Wheeler just mentioned as well, not just from one party, but from the opposition parties as well, to either have a meeting or to visit or to have a tour, like they did have on the Upper House inquiry.

So an invitation for people to come out here, but also if, in your point one, to emphasise seeking funding for the immediate safety upgrades of the Pitt Town evacuation route, as recommended in the Upper House inquiry.

So I'd actually, after Councillor Wheeler's address, I've made some notes here for point one, which was change that to call for the, delete seek funding and change that to call for the urgently needed immediate safety upgrades of the Pitt Town evacuation route, happy to add as recommended by the committee.

Okay.

In terms of inviting reps to visit, I've got no issue with that. I just need some words from you. For councillors' information, the Minister for Roads has come and done a tour with council staff of the Pitt Town evacuation route. We have had multiple other ministers, both federal and state, out as well. So happy to do more, but I think we need to really drive home what we need.

I think could we perhaps have it, and this was something we were doing in the floodplain committee, could we perhaps have them come and actually do a tour of the evacuation routes, not just the Pitt Town evacuation route, but so that we know how people are to get out of this area. It's not as easy as you would think. It needs to be done. We were going to have a simulation around it to look at where the flaws were, and that never happened. But when I was on the dam inquiry tour bus, they actually did it, and they went on a bus around, and I think it's a really good exercise, and I think it would be a really good exercise for politicians from various representative parties to come and do that.

Yeah, we can only invite, of course. Well, we can invite them, yes, and

We can encourage.

Invite and

Encourage.

I just need you to put some words together for your amendment.

Okay.

You're happy with what I suggested for point one?

Yes.

Yep. I don't know if anyone got that.

Yes. Are you taking it as an amendment, or are you adding it

As a point? I'll just change it as an additional point to the motion.

Okay, so just adding an additional point, which would mean that it would be separate to the first, the introductory bit, which is to write to those various people. So point four would be— Councillor Wheelers is just going to help me.

Requests that, I guess those people that you've got in the additional thing along opposition,

Is it

I don't know whether they call it spokesperson. Could we, to simplify, could we say opposition and minor party spokesperson? Yep . Spokespeople for

Roads and disaster and emergency response. They all have different titles depending on how they divvy it up.

Yep.

Yes, and come out for it of the evacuation network.

In a cheap sedan.

We won't tell them that.

Or an electric bus.

Okay, just, I'll just do right of reply while that's being brought up on the screen. But I think everyone's across what's been moved. Thank you, councillors, for your contributions. I think we're broadly all on the same page here, which is that we need the state government to take some action in regards to the evacuation routes, but in particular noting that the Upper Hawkesbury Inquiry, and locally we have identified that the Pitt Town evacuation route is an immediate problem that needs an immediate solution. We don't want to wait for another process for that one; we just need them to do it, and that's the purpose of this. But if we can also, as a result of this, get together, get a tour together that takes some influential people along those evacuation routes, I can't see anything negative coming out of that. So I welcome the contribution. Just,

That's— this needs to add minor party.

Yep , we're getting close.

So we just need to

Flip around opposition. It spokespeople and minor parties. It's not spokespeople for minor parties. Won't be long, everybody.

Yeah, I think that's probably what we're looking for.

Just need to add the word ‘for’ after spokespeople, and probably delete the comma, but it's either way.

Yep.

Okay.

There are some potential grammatical and presentation errors that will be fixed in the minutes, if you look past those.

Everyone okay with that? I'll put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour: Councillor Conolly, Councillor Reardon, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Vaelegel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Koirala, Councillor Carver, Councillor Drummond, Councillor Duric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Progrove. Declare that carried. Thank you.

Our next item is the items on block, I think.

There are three items on block, 140, 141 and 144. Move that, Mr Mead. Moved, Councillor. Seconded, Councillor Wheeler. All those in favour? Declare that carried.

Next item then is item 138. Councillor Wheeler. I'd

Like to move to defer this to a briefing.

Seconder? Seconded, Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Broad agreement, but—

Thanks. I'll just very briefly. I don't think we've had a chance to discuss this. I don't think, particularly for the new councillors, that that's good enough. I think they probably need to discuss, that some of these delegations are quite hefty. But I'm particularly concerned about the delegation to the community around the community buildings. We've got a review that's supposed to come back to us. It would be good if we could look at that before we do the full delegation list. We've got till December before this has to be completed, so I think we can afford to kick it around at a briefing a bit first. Thanks.

Thank you.

Councillor Sheather. Yeah, question, Mr Mayor. With this information that I rang to ask you about it, what changes are proposed and what are as they are? And why wasn't that information provided? To the general manager.

Mr McElroy.

Mr

Mayor, the delegations proposed in the report are the same as what was proposed at the previous council meeting back in July 2017, with a couple of changes. The removal of the old committees and the insertion of the four new committees. Around the changes to the committee structure were changed there around council committees. There was a removal of a couple of the community neighbourhood centres and halls, namely Blackson Ridge Community Centre and Horry Eli Hall, Colo Heights, and they were because of the incorporated associations managing those things have been wound up. And also the removal of the Morayya Hall Management Committee because it doesn't have a registered association at the moment.

There was also a change to the cemeteries around the removal of the Pitt Town Cemetery Committee because it ceased functioning in 2017. And there were some also other changes around the removal of the Forgotten Valley Mobile Preschool, which is a previous council resolution to stop that service, and also the removal of the Hawkesbury City Sister City Association following the no budget allocation in this current budget. So they're the changes to the previous delegations.

Thank you. Yeah, thanks, Mr. Mayor. I would like to have read all that. It might have saved a phone call to you. I did notice Sister City had been removed. I wasn't aware that we actually physically disowned Sister City. I know that we deferred the budget, but if it happened in the briefing, we can certainly discuss that later. But if we're getting information that especially that relates to changes, whether they're regulatory changes or not, to community committees around our city that play major parts for this council, I don't know what they think or whether they asked or whether they've been asked or whether we need to do it or not. And I was disappointed when I read this because when you look at this, we're looking at hundreds, probably thousands of people in our community that give great support.

And I read this and I thought, what am I doing? And that's why the phone call went to you, Mr Mayor. And I support the motion that's been put forward. But, yeah, when it comes to the sort of activities within a community, I think we need to be very mindful that people do give us great support in the projects and how we run particular parts of our

City with their support. Thank you. Unless there's anyone that urgently thinks this needs to be dealt with tonight, I'd encourage no further debate on whether we have a briefing or not. But is there any further discussion? Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. It's not so much debate around it. It was just a couple of things that perhaps then when the staff are preparing the briefing, they were questions that came to mind, which is why I'm happy to support a briefing. It was just around whether we should also include the delegations to the mayor, because I know that as we've had unprecedented times, there could perhaps be an emergency to have, you know, emergency delegations and so on. And there is a section in the Act which gives the right for the mayor to act, to make certain policy-making functions in certain circumstances. The other thing was around how do we present this to, on the public register? So I've seen many examples of how people do it, and I'd be interested if we have a briefing , could we be told what our public register is going to show?

Because some places show a very comprehensive list with which parts of which acts have somebody responsible. Others have just quite limited information. So I don't know if there's a directive from the government or the Office of Local Government about what's required. But I was also going to raise the point that Councillor Wheeler raised about the operation of the Section 355 committees that are community managed, and that we should have the review of that, particularly to know whether their governance and whether they're all aligned with our delivery plan, etc., like that. So I'll be happy to have it at a briefing. Thank you.

Great. Is there a right of reply? Put the motion. All those in favour? Councillor Conolly, Councillor Reardon, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Durick, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno. Declare it carried.

Item 139. Mr Mayor. Yes. I'd like to move that, please.

Moved, Deputy Mayor.

Second of that. I'd also like to add something, if I could, and that is that a copy of this decision be sent to WSROC as well, if I might.

Seconder for that. Seconded, Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Discussion, Deputy Mayor.

Mr Mayor, I just want to point out that this is a topic that's been growing strongly over the last 30, 40 years, and WSROC has been out on the forefront doing the research and coming up with some of the solutions and producing documents to help with those. And recently we had a guest speaker at our committee from WSROC to go through and talk about heat strategies and what's been done. So by sending it to WSROC, we can hopefully get other councils, especially in Western Sydney, to support this when it goes to the local—well, if we pass this—support this if it goes to the local government conference, because I think there are many councils, not just in Western Sydney but in other parts of New South Wales, that see this as a growing problem that needs to be addressed as quickly as possible.

Thank you. Further discussion? Anyone against?

Councillor Sheather . Yeah, Mr Mayor, I sat in on the briefing and listened to what was said. I have some issues with it. The fact that we're asking for the National Building Code and BASIX to be changed concerns me. Because that'll go across all development . With the issue that, and I've heard the discussion from the councillors about heat and the effect that it has on portions of our community, well, large portions of our community, and that's a concern. When it goes into the basics, it's everybody's concern. If we're looking at, and I might be jumping the gun a bit here, but indicating that there's particular housing that requires that, where they can't afford cooling and that sort of stuff, compared to the average home, I guess, where people can afford to build a house and put air conditioning and build the house in with design and the like to accommodate hot and cold.

But before I got elected to council, and since I've been on council, the average double that puts in to build a house, the cost can vary from $10,000 to $50,000. Before you get approval, you've got to check there's no koalas in the trees around, you've got to check watercourse, you've got to check vegetation. There is a massive amount of things that's required now because of motions like this and been put in place, and with all good intent, I might add. But the problem is, we talk about affordable housing and how we can put the two words in the one sentence has got me beat. Used to be able to build a house for $50,000. Now you're looking, before you even get approval, it's costing you that much.

And we say affordable housing. It's a joke. Sir, Mr Mayor, if the government was to look at particular housing to support the comments that have been said by some of our colleagues here, that's something I would support. To put that burden on every house that's going to be built in the future, and there will be — I'm in the building game, I know what it's like — that I think it's excessive, and it just adds to the frustration and expense. Most people are building a house, they sit back, they know what colour carpet they're putting in, they know where the air conditioner's going, they know where the windows are going, what sort of blinds they're going to put in there. They don't need us to tell them.

On the other hand, we get government

Housing that's built for people to live in. They're built cheap, and there probably is a good cause to look at how they're designed to look after the people that can't afford air conditioning or the likes. So, Mr Mayor, and as the Deputy Mayor indicated, the presentation that was done that covered the reasoning behind this, I sat through it and I listened to it, but it's been a concern of mine since then because of those reasons. So it's not that I don't support affordable housing, or people that can't afford, to do that, that be looked at, but to put a burden on every one that builds another burden. Then I think it's unfair, so I don't support it going to the Local Government Conference. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I've sent forward, I sent round this afternoon, four additional motions that were related to flood and disaster recovery, thinking that we had to have motions in by the end of August. But now I've actually read both the report and the submissions guideline, I see that we have till the 25th of September. So if it's possible, I'm happy to work on those additional four recommendations over the next month so that they can be strengthened or altered in some way. But they largely relate to increased flood resilience and also getting LG New South Wales to support flood-affected councils in calling for increased funding around evacuation building resilience and particularly insurance, which is another of the findings, and part of the submission, one of the submissions that came to the Upper House Select Committee for flood-affected areas.

So I'll just park that and ask that you all have a look at those. I emailed them out this afternoon.

With respect to the motion around heat, I think, and the problems that Councillor Sheather raised, you either pay for heat mitigation up front when you buy the house, or you pay for heat mitigation for the rest of the building's life. And that is actually a really expensive way to do it. It also has knock-on impacts to the surrounding heat for your neighbours. You know, if you have one neighbour who's got the air conditioner cranking 24/7, that makes your backyard hotter. It makes your building hotter because that heat infiltrates your building, particularly when you're in areas without large spaces between. And in fact, our revised DCP includes optional, sorry, requirements around that sort of thing so that you can mitigate heat to a degree.

It also means that the people who buy or lease, and particularly when you're looking at low socioeconomic status developments or people who can't afford to purchase and rent, they wear the costs of that choice not to put in heat mitigation at the outset, and that's unreasonable, I think. It also doesn't allow for increasing heat with climate change and the urban heat island effect, which we know is happening to us already. I don't know how many frosts—you know, we used to regularly experience frosts when I moved here 22 years ago. I think I've had one this year. You know, things are changing, and we need to really get our heads around that and start, as the decision-makers, start planning around it.

When you make heat mitigation a choice, you make it a luxury add-on. That's costly, but it also means that people who can't afford it don't get it, and they wear that cost later. And that puts an additional strain on the electricity grid as well, because then you've got to cool—if you don't cool passively, you've got to cool actively. Active cooling is expensive. Some of these things cost nothing . Choosing a lighter coloured roof, mandating lighter coloured roofs costs no more than allowing people to choose fashionable dark roofs. We can— That's what some of this heat mitigation stuff is. Allowing people to have a tree, or asking for buildings to be designed so that there's enough room for trees in backyards, really doesn't cost very much.

It costs a rejig of the design. It doesn't really increase the building costs. So I think the idea, and once you put it in as a mandated upfront cost, the market absorbs that cost. People aren't automatically more cashed up in terms of buying a property or getting a bigger mortgage because you've made their house cooler to live in. The market will only absorb a certain amount of cost. That's what mandating does. It puts the onus back on the market, back on the development, and allows then people to live in more comfortable houses. And I am really struck by that finding from the WSROC heat study where it says that houses that we are saying are liveable are only liveable because they are actively cooled.

That's really frightening. If we have a major heat event and the grid goes down, and we know that that's exactly what happens because we don't have enough power in the system, then we're telling people that we are happy with their— if we don't approve, if we don't push for this, we're telling people that we are happy for them to swelter in the houses that we're signing off on. I'm not happy with that. So I'm really pleased that we're standing up for this. As one of the councils most affected by increasing urban heat, we should be making this noise to LGNSW and subsequently to the state government. So I'm really pleased to see this here.

Councillor Kotlash. Thank you, Mr Mayor, and I must say I agree with everything that Councillor Wheeler just said. I think we have to look at this, the adaptation of putting some sort of mandatory measures into the BASIX system. I think we have to kind of look at it like we might look at cyclone-proofing a house. I mean, that's sort of a very kind of dramatic way of looking at it, but you wouldn't say, Oh no, you know, we have a row of houses in a cyclone area. Nobody much would say, Okay, well, let's not worry about cyclone proofing them. But with urban heat, it's a sort of a silent killer, and it has that impact. Whereas I think we really should design our houses to be kind of heat resilient , because it's the same as the cyclone proofing.

It's the amount of problems that people have because of heat is extraordinary. And like Councillor, I was just amazed when I was reading about all of the repercussions of heat stress, of the exacerbation of other medical issues. It just goes on and on, and it's like the cyclone, but it's silent and it's got tentacles everywhere. So I really think we have to look at it from that perspective. And I agree it will be an extra cost, but I also agree that there's lots of things that we can mandate that are cheap. So I'm sort of all for having a look at this and sort of taking it seriously and leading and saying that, you know, to mandate these things is actually a very good way of looking at this sort of societal problem.

So I'm speaking for this recommendation. Thanks.

Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'll also support the organisation,

The— Motion , thank you. I'm a bit tired today. The motion, and perhaps when our motion is circulated and in the business paper, that the Deputy Mayor might have WSROC circulate the presentation to the delegates because it was a really good presentation. And of course, we've seen that heat kills. We've seen it. It's happening in the UK, it's happening in Europe at the moment, and it happens here. And I think that, I think the government has the responsibility to review the BASIX, of course, but then the industry does as well. And I think that the industry will, of course, move towards it because it's not going to be good cost-effectiveness to ignore it once people really come to see the issues around that.

And as we know, BASIX is a point system where you can do various things to meet those requirements. And I think dealing with heat in this excessive heat area that we've got is really important. I'm just wondering, given that, maybe, I don't know if all the councillors saw the presentation. I just note the Councillor Dogramaci is a delegate to the conference. He may want to see it so that he knows if he has to speak. Sorry. Oh, it's in here. Okay. I haven't got it. Okay. Thank you. Councillor

Veigel. Yeah, through you, Mr Mayor, thank you. Bit of a preamble. I did build a solar passive house in '96, aligned directly with north-south, thermal mass, on a thermal mass floor, concrete of course. The thing I didn't do was to put double glazing in, which is a big issue.

So I'd have to say that, looking at the cost of a house back in those days, I said, well, looks like I've done my money there. I didn't think I'd ever get my money back. But having said that, with building... process in Sydney it has appreciated. So there is a cost involved in it if you're going to build a solar functioning house. Dare I say, we do have ducted air conditioning too, because being out here you probably do need that. And yes, we do have solar panels on the roof as well, or better battery. I get the notion that it's expensive, and it would be expensive to do it. But I'd like to ask the question: has anybody got a roughest gut idea about how much it would be, in the costing of a normal dwelling, to make it, you know, thermal, thermal, say , thermal neutral , polar, resilient, yeah?

Because the other thing you need to bear in mind, it's not just heat resilience, it's also hyperthermia as well that kills people. So that needs to be looked at as well, I thought. Anyway, you can take my question on notice if you've got any idea, and if you haven't got any idea, that's fine too. So I won't hold you to it.

Take it on notice, but maybe not get a great answer on notice either. Maybe not.

Through you, Mr Mayor. I guess, as Councillor Wheeler pointed out, there are some measures which don't cost anything, and then there are other measures that can be quite expensive. So I'm not sure that there's necessarily a broad figure on it, but I suspect through the evolution of, for example, BASIX over the last 15 years, that there's likely to be some data around about the average cost on the average family home, so we could probably dig that up.

Yeah, okay. But I've got to put whatever leave in to the motion, so I'll be just supporting the motion. So thank you.

Councillor Dogramaci. Thank you. Please, once again accept my ignorance in this kind of matters. I don't know what are we discussing in here. First of all, to Councillor Buckett , I resigned from that position. I went there once. Again, all talk. There are some of them are going there, you know, just to have lunch. So that's gone.

I think we're talking about two different things, mate. I think Councillor Lyons-Buckett was talking about you're a delegate for Council to the conference.

Yeah, well, that one as well. As you remember, I said that, you know, I would go under one condition, that if I pay my own cost for travelling. But I received some kind of an email saying that I have to pay X amount of money, which I referred to the management. Why do I have to pay extra money to attend to that meeting? That I couldn't understand. I'm more than happy to pay my trip for my lodgement, but why do I have to pay extra money to attend to it, unless, you know, they made a mistake. That we'll discuss later. But about this heating thing, I mean, is that what kind of power do we have in here to implement what they are telling us? And next, all these people, all these farmers, you know, they are bleeding.

So are they going to be putting solar panels on their roofs as well, while they are just fighting, you know, to survive? Are they going to put solar panels on their sheds, on their stormwater tanks? I don't understand. You know, people coming in here, some councillors, you know, just, I don't know whether it's personal gain or, you know, just trying to make themselves, you know, feel comfortable or important or something like that. We have more important things in here, you know, to discuss. Here we are talking about, you know, some heat wave is coming or whatever. So God help us. I don't know. I think, you know, personally. I don't even want to discuss about the heat wave or whatever happened in UK or in different parts of the world.

So, I don't know. These are my points. I think, you know, we should pay more attention to that part of the areas rather than, you know, about the heat wave.

Okay. Can I ask, is it still your intention to attend the conference?

Are you still planning on going to the conference?

Well, I will go as long as, you know, they don't charge me extra for my privilege.

Right. I'm just concerned that if you're not going, this might be Council's only opportunity to select another delegate before the conference. So... Well

I'll go. I'll pay my own fare. I'll pay for my hotel, so, you know, Council doesn't have to pay. But why do I have to pay extra money for what? Okay. Thank you.

Question ,

Mr Mayor. Yes, Councillor. Just while you're on the subject, if the Councillor is going to attend, if he intends to speak at the meeting, he needs to speak on Council's resolution and not an opinion.

That's a question? It is to you. That would be my expectation. I'm not sure if that's a legal requirement, but I'll refer that to the General Manager.

There's no, actually, I don't know that there's necessarily a requirement for anybody in particular to address the motion, but it would certainly be an expectation, I would have thought, of this Chamber that if there was a Councillor that was attending the meeting, they were speaking on behalf of the motion.

Thank you.

Anything further? Councillors.

If not, we'll go right of reply, Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Thank you for all the comments. I wasn't expecting much resistance, but there was more than I expected. Look, more people die from the effects of heat than any other natural disaster in Australia. More people die from heat than die from cyclones or fires or floods. What we're asking for here is that heat actually be considered a natural disaster, just as all those other things are. That's the first thing we're asking for, and I don't think that's unreasonable, considering the number of people who actually die from it. And as Councillor Kotlash said, it's more of a silent killer. You don't see it all happening at once, but people go off to hospital and they just don't come back again.

People who are vulnerable in some way. And that happens during heat waves. And the heat waves we've been getting out here in the last few years, I know they go up and down, but two years ago in Agnes Banks, we recorded a temperature of over 50 degrees, and Penrith recorded a similar temperature on that same day. And people who are in a vulnerable position or have houses that aren't built to cope with that situation run a risk of being severely impacted. It might even cause death. So I see this as a very important thing that we should be addressing. And I know Council doesn't have the power to change all this, but that's what we're saying here. We want the State Government to look at the National Building Code and BASIX.

We want the government, State and Federal, to look at that and change it so that it addresses the fact that heat waves, or heat, is a natural disaster. If we continue with what's happening now, and I went to a conference that WSROC hosted in Blacktown a few years ago, and we had a tour of some of the new housing out through Marsden Park. And Blacktown Council had conducted a survey of the people who moved in there, and basically most of the people who moved in considered that that was going to be their temporary house. And they considered it as a throwaway housing. They were going to go there for maybe five years, and then they were going to move to their real house. So they didn't want any money spent on anything untoward .

All they wanted was four walls and an air conditioner, and that's what they got. But down the track, those houses are going to be passed on to people who are maybe less fortunate, older people in particular looking for housing. They'll end up there, and those houses just aren't designed to help the vulnerable people. You go down there, I mean, I was talking to a fellow who one of his jobs is to clean up after the building process . He said he was cleaning up the roofs of the houses. What he did, he jumped from one roof to the next as he did it, because the houses are that close together. And that is ridiculous. There's no space. And in some of those houses down there, you stick an air conditioner down the side of the house.

You can't then get your garbage bins through to go to the back. Garbage bins are stuck out the front. It's very poor design, and it just becomes an oven. And while we were there, we measured temperatures in certain places, and we measured temperatures in the playground or the little park, which is done with artificial grass. And the temperature there was 10 degrees hotter than the concrete. So there's a lot of things that have gone in there that are supposed to solve the problem, but they actually make it worse. These are all the things that we need to address, and councils don't have the— Power the money to do it. Only through the state and federal government can we do this. And the Blacktown Council really put up a big stink about Marsden Park and the design.

They wanted to make the houses further apart. They wanted to put a tree in every backyard, but they were totally overruled, not just by the state government, but the people who moved in there themselves, who saw it as a temporary house. This council spent thousands of dollars planting trees along the footpath, but because the roads are so narrow, there's nowhere to park, the owners of the houses went along and pulled all the trees out so they could park on the footpath. And so because they didn't care, because they're only going to stay there for a couple of years. So we're encouraging that kind of behaviour by building these little boxes in the first place. This is what this is all about. This is what this is addressing.

It's addressing providing new minimum standards for housing. And it's not, as Councillor Dogramaci might have indicated, it's not asking people who already live in a house to go back and retrofit everything. It's mostly about new housing and building the new housing to better standards, and not treating it like a caravan park where you come into this little box for a couple of years and you move out. That's what this is all about, and it's about saving people's lives by providing them with support. And it goes further than just the housing. There's a whole lot of infrastructure that needs to go with this, infrastructure about the provision of wet areas and green areas and canopy trees in the streets, provision of areas where people can go and take refuge during heat.

Time

Expired a little while ago.

Okay, so I urge everyone to support this and send it to the local government conference. Thank you. Councillor Dogramaci,

Did you have

Just a quick addition to the council—

Sorry, we've had right of reply, so that's the end of the debate. If there was some procedural matter, we could hear it, but otherwise we'll have to leave it there.

So I cannot say a couple of words? No. Just a little bit of correction.

A correction if you—

Well, when I say correction, that I agree that we don't have the money, and for those people who do not

Councillor Wheeler. That's the only correction available now, is misrepresentation. This is not misrepresentation

I think Councillor Wheeler is correct, unfortunately, so we'll have to stop there. We'll put the motion. All those in favour of the motion please raise your hand. Councillor Conolly, Councillor Reardon, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillors Improgno. Against? Councillor Djuric, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Sheather. Declared carried.

Next item is 142. Councillor Lyons-Buckett or Councillor Wheeler.

Anybody else wish to move anything there? Move recommendation, Councillor Kotlash. A seconder for that? Seconded, Councillor McMahon. Discussion, Councillor Kotlash.

I thought this was pretty straightforward.

Just bear with me.

Is there a section in this, in the recommendation, that would allow us to have our expenses, our IT and information expenses collated for the annual report?

Refer that to the Director, Support Services.

Not a report for any campaigning purposes, but a report that comes as a matter of process, nothing special.

Through you, Mr Mayor, and I may not have understood the question correctly, so correct me if I'm on the wrong track, but there are provisions within the policy in relation to reporting, and those are really just mirroring the mandatory reporting provisions from the Act as far as the reporting of councillor expenses are concerned. So that's not dealt with specifically in the recommendation, but the policy itself really goes no further than having to report the expenses of councillors in accordance with other provisions in the Act and regulations. Could

You just clarify for us in what circumstances they're reported? For those of us not familiar with the Act and regulations.

They are through you, Mr Mayor. There is categories of councillor expenses that are required to be reported in the annual report, and they are things like councillor conference expenses, councillor expenses on professional development, expenses in relation to telephone and also information technology expenses as well. They’re not

Required to be; they’re required to be put into those categories in the annual report, yes.

Okay

Any further discussion? Councillor Kotlash, did you have further discussion?

You were turning it off, but it wasn’t on. Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Just regarding clause 11.1 around the mayoral vehicle and the way it’s worded, I just want confirmation: does that mean, is the current internal policy a hybrid vehicle or an electric vehicle?

I believe it’s hybrid is what our fleet is right now, yes.

Okay, so is the mayoral vehicle a hybrid?

The mayoral vehicle hasn’t been replaced in a very long time. Oh,

Okay, it hasn’t been replaced. So, okay. All right. So the next one would be at least a hybrid, potentially an electric vehicle.

Yep. Okay.

Thank you.

Councillor Wheeler.

Calm yourself. Thanks, Mr Mayor. Can I ask, is there a trigger for the replacement of the mayoral vehicle? What’s the, apart from it disappearing?

Yeah. So when it gets stolen? Yeah. Also, I believe when a new mayor is elected, it's a conversation. Given that the previous mayoral term was only one year, I didn't think it was appropriate. And at the moment, there's very long wait times on new vehicles, so we've selected a hybrid vehicle, and we'll wait for it to arrive at some point in the future.

Yeah, okay, thanks. Could I just ask that we go back to the system of providing councillors with their monthly IT and travel form?

And I don't care—well, paper, look, paper would be lovely, frankly, in this instance, but at least an electronic, send it out to us, we'll fill it in and give it back form, because I suspect that some councillors aren't aware that they can claim these expenses.

Previously

Resolved . And we have resolved that we receive electronic forms at least, but at the moment, unless you go hunting for them, they're not there. So it was fine during COVID where we just stayed home, but I think we now need to get back to the system of providing people with expense forms.

Okay. Further discussion? If not, no right of reply. Sorry, Councillor Zamprogno.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I was just seeking to compare the policy that we adopted in October of last year and this policy, which we need to review as part of our new term obligations. And in relation to the provision of ICT resources, I've identified the small changes that staff have made, and I'd like to suggest some small amendments. If we're simply placing this on exhibition, I think this is the appropriate time to do that. What's been omitted in this revised policy is where it refers to— being reimbursed for

Various costs. Could you give everyone the clause number that you're looking

At? 7.25. Yep. So in clause 7.25, the phrase and reasonable ancillary accessories directly related to the devices and services. So what I'd like to suggest is effectively a no disadvantage test. One of the things that were welcome that we adopted in October is that at the beginning of the council term, councillors could go out and secure devices that would make them more productive. So, case in point, I'm a Mac person. Council weren't in a position to provide a council device. I secured a Mac laptop and was reimbursed up to and only the same dollar value that it would have cost council to provide a laptop. So there was no extra expense for council. But if I had been provided with a council device and the charger broke, or the external mouse broke, or I needed a new cable of some description, as a council device, that would have been replaced by council at its own expense.

The removal of this sentence and reasonable ancillary accessories directly related to the devices and services certainly implies a nexus to a legitimate council-related purpose. But I'd like to see that sentence or that phrase restored . It was in the version that we adopted back in October, and I wouldn't want to see it removed. Furthermore, in clause 7.29

Sorry, just before we move on from that one, 7.25, as it appears on page 6 of the attachment, is the clause being proposed.

All right then, so maybe I've got it the wrong way around. Yes. Maybe it's been added. It has been added. It's been added. So I guess said all of that for no good reason. Broadly

Correct, yes.

All right then. 7.29, however, ignore what I just said and my apologies. 7.29 says that councillors will be responsible for the cost of associated consumables such as printer cartridges. I , six years ago, acquired a Council printer, and then at the turn of the Council term, in order to save Council some money, I said, This printer is still perfectly okay. I'll keep it. To which Council's response was, Well, we'll bill you for it so that you can own it privately, and you're going to pay for the toner cartridges from now on. And this is the one time that I'm going to say, that sounds like nickel and diming us. I'd like councillors to be provided with printer cartridges . If we're provided, again, no disadvantage test.

If we're provided with a Council device, we're given toner cartridges. If we continue to use a device that's long in the tooth but still perfectly functional, Council should still be able to provide toner cartridges. Can we remove the words associated consumables such as printer cartridges, still perfectly happy to be responsible for technical support and repairs. So all I'm proposing to amend N 7.29 is associated consumables such as printer cartridges, so that they become a claimable expense.

I think it's up to obviously the mover or if you want to move an amendment. My only two cents would be that a small change like that could be made when this comes back from exhibition and would give councillors more time to consider their position than if we had to decide right now what we think about that.

My rebuttal, Mr Mayor, would be to say that if we're placing a document on exhibition, if we can present the public with the most final version that we're likely to agree to, then that provides the clearest and most transparent position to the public. I agree.

I won't get into a debate with you. My point is more there's quite a lot of detail here. We're talking about changing very small ones on the fly with no notice of that being proposed

Well, I proceeded from the position that when we place a document on exhibition, this is the time and place to make precisely those amendments.

Okay. Did the mover of the motion want to include that? No. Is there an amendment being moved then?

So you haven't got your light on, someone. Sorry

Thank you. Sorry, Mr Mayor. Look, I understand Councillor Zamprogno's problem with that. It seems that it is unfair that you buy your equipment and then you have to fork out for the consumables. But isn't that the same thing for technical support and repairs? I mean, that's what we agreed to when we

Revised. So I'll say no. Okay, you'll say no. We'll stop there for now then. Sorry, I'll say no because

That was the agreement that we had debated. I don't think it's necessarily that fair.

Thank you. Is there an amendment?

Look, if councillors want to take 28 days to consider their position, I'm happy to move this as an amendment. What I've said is on the public record, and we'll see what comes back from exhibition.

I can't quite figure it out.

Okay.

Any further discussion? Right of reply? Not

Necessarily.

I'll put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. Councillor Conolly, Councillor Reardon, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno. Against? Councillor Dogramaci. Declare it carried.

Next item is,

What was mixed up, 143.

Move

The recommendation. Deputy Mayor, seconded Councillor Kotlash. Deputy Mayor?

Look, I'll reserve any comments for right of reply. Yeah,

I think we've broadly dealt with this in the previous item, but did anybody want to talk further? Councillor Wheeler. Thanks

Mr Mayor. I'm just a bit concerned with the recommendation seems quite

Final around the heat coordinator, and I think there's a difference between acknowledging that we don't currently have resources for a heatSMART coordinator and deciding to just park it there and not find those resources. And I think as a council, we get to have a proper discussion about the need and the usefulness of such a person and such a position, and then a subsequent discussion about resourcing. So if we could perhaps, I'm sorry, I'm just battling with my iPad to try and find the actual recommendation, because I'd just like to wind it back, if I could, with a bit of a change in wording. So regarding point 4, where it says that

We continue on the basis of officers across the organisation, say that we currently continue on the basis of officers from across the organisation functioning, performing that role, and further discuss the need and resourcing of a heatSMART coordinator. For the , in determining subsequent budgets, so that way we park it to a discussion perhaps later in the year

For next year's budget. If we were going to go ahead that way, I would suggest we don't use the word discuss in a resolution because Council can't do that, but we could consider. Consider

Yeah

By all means

Consider.

It gives us an action item. Deputy Mayor. Happy to make that change. Seconder was happy with that. Yep. Any further discussion? Councillor Lyons-Buckett. I

Had a similar question around that position, rather just that I was just interested in across the organisation, what sort of an officer, if we have a resilience officer, do we have other officers who are specifically working in these areas? The reason being that in a previous resolution, we were going to consider a flood officer as well. So there's these areas of specific work that needs to be done. Can we just have an explanation as do we have somebody who encompasses those sort of roles already, or would it be going on top of somebody who's, for example, got some completely different role? I'm just wondering in our resourcing how many targeted areas we cover.

Further to the General Manager.

Through you, Mr Mayor. So generally speaking, those functions that would be performed by a heat smart coordinator are currently shared across our environment team, who obviously deal with a multitude of different roles in their day-to-day responsibilities. What we do have in addition is a temporary grant funded role who was designed to deliver the resilience strategy, so, and that work is approaching its finality, but that would be a separate piece of work to this. Thank you.

Okay, no further discussion. Right of reply, Councillor Calvert. Oh, sorry, Councillor Wheeler. Just a question, Mr Mayor.

It might be well directed to the Deputy Mayor. In relation to the other councils that's involved with WSROC, is there any other councils that's got HeatSmart coordinators? And if there is, is there an opportunity to work together with those organisations rather than have one here, or— You want to direct that question to the Deputy Mayor?

Yep.

I might have to take that on notice, but as far as I know, the other councils have a dedicated person, but that person is part of a team. So that person has other roles. They're not full-time HeatSmart coordinator, and that would be the model I thought we would be looking at, and I'd be happy to go to those other councils and see if we can work together on it.

Yep. Thank you. Right of reply, Deputy Mayor.

Not necessary, Mr Mayor.

Put the motion as it's on the board there. All those in favour, please raise your hand. Favour: Councillor Conolly, Councillor Reardon, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Vigar, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lane-Bucket, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno. Against: Councillor Dokramaci. Declare it carried.

Next item is 1.4, the Audit, Risk and Improvement Committee.

Move that, Mr Mayor.

Recommendation moved by Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Is there a seconder for that? Seconded, Councillor Wheeler. Discussion?

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I just thought I'd take a quick opportunity to just say a word about this. It was the first meeting of the new committee. All the members on there are new. And firstly, thank the staff for the presentations that they gave, which were on various issues, and they were very interesting and informative. It was my first audit committee meeting, and in the past I think perhaps some of us got the impression in here that it was a fairly adversarial type committee , but that wasn't how I found it at all. And I believe it offers a very good opportunity for Council to review its performance across all facets of the operations. I'm just going to explain the councillor role, because this was explained obviously to me in the documentation, and I think it's really important.

So the councillor on the committee is a non-voting member. The other members are very experienced people in that field, and so the role that the councillor plays is to relay to the committee any concerns that the governing body may have regarding Council and issues being considered by the committee, also to provide insights into local issues and the strategic priorities of Council that would add value to the committee's consideration of the agenda items, and to advise back to you as necessary what the work of the committee is and any issues arising from it. So the councillor member can raise any issues as long as they relate to the matters listed in the schedule, which are around internal and external audits, risk management, internal controls, compliance, fraud and corruption, financial management, governance, strategic management, service reviews and performance data and measurement.

So the meeting dates are within the minutes. So if you want me to raise anything at the meetings, just contact me before that. And it was very evident from the first meeting that our Council has some really good systems in place. And it was good to hear how the processes around the program of the audits would be working. The committee, I think, is one which all councillors should keep up with, as its purpose is to assist us and the council to operate as effectively as possible. So it was an eye-opener to me to see the depth that we review our processes, and I think that there's been some really good work done in here over the past few years around how we've looked at that and the various reviews of our systems.

And I think, I don't know, maybe in the past some of us thought audit was mainly related to financial only, but it's about so much more than that. So, yeah, that's just an update. I don't think there was anything overly specific. The first meeting basically outlined a works program and talked about the audits, the program for which internal audits would be done.

Thank you. Anyone speak against? No. Further discussion? Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks , Mr Mayor. Just a couple of issues that came up from reading the minutes of the audit committee . I note that the third party review of the Sports Council is only now at the scoping stage. We asked for this some years ago, so I'm wondering why it's only at this point now and when it will come back to us. Refer

That to Mr Macquarie.

Through you, Mr Mayor. It did come back to Council. The matter came back to Council at the end of last, towards the end of last year to resolve the type of review that was being conducted. And then that was settled. There's a number of administrative arrangements that are required to be made in relation to the review, including funding. That's been secured. There is funding available through Civic Risk. There are some things to be done there, but that funding is secured, and that should fund the entirety of the review. That's recently been confirmed. And there's been a process of engaging with the consultant and getting information together. It's, I think fair to say, a more expensive review than the others that have been done.

And as for the time that it's taken, it's just something that's been going on with a lot of other work. So there's certainly a concerted effort underway at the moment to progress that review.

Thanks, that's helpful. What Councillor Lyons-Buckett has outlined, I think, with this committee is a clear requirement for both input and reporting back to Council. And I think we need to be aware of the fact that this is an audit and risk management committee, and we under the Act are liable for that risk. And I think in order to carry out that function well, we probably need to be appraised of what's happening through more than perhaps just the minutes after the fact. So, and I think we've got a couple of other committees where we send delegates in where we do have a risk, and we all we expend Council funds . And for example, the Hawkesbury River County Council meeting that Councillor Kotlash and I are off to on Thursday, you know, the Sports Council, Peppercorn, so some of those under delegation.

I think we need to build in some sort of mechanism into our monthly arrangements where we have some sort of reporting and input capacity, where we say, look, this is the stuff that's in front of us for the HRCC, for example. Where would you like us to be headed on this? What do you see as issues? The same with the, you know, what's the Audit and Risk Management Committee discussing at the moment? Where are we at risk? What are we supposed to be doing around this stuff? Because I think at the moment we're sending our delegates in blind, and I don't think that's fair. Councillor Kotlash and I have an additional layer because we belong to a body that's constituted by the Local Government Act, and so we have an additional requirement to that organisation.

But where we send delegates in on behalf of Council, WesROC's another one, where they make political statements on behalf of their member councils, I think we as the Council that sends those delegates in have a responsibility to both guide the delegates and also to hear their feedback. And I don't know that we do that particularly well. You know, we have committee meetings where anybody now can come and speak in them, but then we have this other group of committees and structures where that isn't as easily accessible. And so I'd like us to build that into maybe our monthly briefing cycle. Some months we might have absolutely nothing to say, but we will at least have a trigger where something can happen.

Is that possible?

Look, it's certainly possible. Might need a decision of Council to get to the right point of what we're looking for there. But yeah.

Any further discussion on the minutes of the Audit and Risk Committee? No? If not— oh, sorry, Councillor Dogramaci.

Yes, once again, except my ignorance on these committees and all these things, I don't know what are we doing, just going around and around, you know, committee to this one and take notes and that sort of things. I'm just asking a question: do we have some kind of a special committees, you know, to go and to listen those people, those farmers, you know, what they are suffering, what's happening, and what kind of hardship, you know, they are enduring? Do we have some kind of committees that, you know, we could form to ease their pains? And now here we are talking about the heat committee or, you know, someone from outside or within the council going and seeing that, you know, how this heat is going to affect people. I don't— and where the money is coming from, you know, for these extra work, for extra expenditures.

Sorry, Councillor Dogramaci, we are discussing whether or not we should accept the minutes of the Audit, Risk and Improvement Committee for the meeting held on the 15th of July. So we've got to sort of tie it back to that somehow. Happy to provide some flexibility there, but it's got to be at least a little bit related.

Thank you. Right of reply, Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Not really necessary, except I know at one point I did move a motion around recording back in that way, but I think it may have been lost, but it would be on the record what we had moved to do.

Thank you, that's all.

Thanks. Put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. For the motion are Councillor Conolly, Councillor Reardon, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno. Against? Councillor Dogramaci. Declare it carried.

And then

Notice of motion, Councillor

Zamprogno.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. There's been a change to the form of words which I circulated to colleagues earlier , and I'll just seek a seconder, even if it's for the purpose of debate.

Do we have those changes up? Yep. Just get those on the screen. Anyone who's seen them wants to second it? Seconded, Councillor Sheather.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Since coming onto Council, my desire has been for the Hawkesbury to be known as an innovative city, and as a city willing to adopt initiatives that are at the vanguard of what technology and best practice offer us. Many of you may be unfamiliar with what an e-scooter is, and when I raised this proposed notice of motion on social media, that was demonstrated to me as I saw strong support from some people who have, like me, seen them in operation in other cities around Australia, and misunderstanding from some others about exactly what they are and how they work. E-scooters are an increasingly mature mode of transport. Regardless of anybody's individual preference for them, I'd like to suggest that they're here to stay, and this Council needs to plan for their increasing adoption.

Just like the advent of the horseless carriage transformed the fabric of our road network, technologies like this will require us to adapt our planning for footpaths, bike lanes and town centres. E-scooters are in many respects just like the bicycles, skateboards, rollerblades and mobility scooters that we are already used to. They each have a role to play in transport and recreation. Like the others, it's true that for each, they're not for everyone. And that for each to work well in shared environments, proper regulation and planning is needed before they land on us in quantity. Both private and rental e-scooters are now legal in Queensland, Victoria and the ACT. Trials have been underway in Tasmania, South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory for several years.

Queensland took a very liberal approach and legalised all e-scooters for use on footpaths and roads in 2018, private and rental, and their experience has been fine. It stands in contrast to New South Wales, who are the state who have dragged the chain badly. The trial program that they announced in April is easily the most cautious and limited approach to e-scooters in the nation. It was supposed to run in just a few selected councils, but the response was so positive and overwhelming that it was expanded to any council that wanted to take interest, and I'm proposing that Hawkesbury does just that. When I visited Canberra, Launceston and Hobart recently, I was impressed at how the technology has matured and how scooters fill a gap in those cities' transport webs.

They facilitate those trips that sit between walkable and driveable destinations. I witnessed their potential to stimulate the local economy, be a source of fun, recreational activity and even promote tourism. The experience elsewhere over the last four years proves that the reasonable questions that some of you may have all have answers. E-scooters can be GPS tracked, and issues of abandonment and theft are minimal. They can be geofenced so that they can only be operated within certain precincts. That also allows them to be speed limited. I took one through the pedestrian mall in Civic in Canberra, and it told me that I was in a shared pedestrian zone and slowed me down to slightly more than walking pace.

It told me that certain end of journey zones were preferred and gave me a discount if I left the scooter in a designated parking area or at a rack. The commercial providers were responsible nightly for tidying them up and making sure that their batteries were charged. The proposed trial precludes operation on any roads with speed limits above 50 kilometres per hour, as indeed it excludes private e-scooter use, and I think that that's a shame, as I've received comment from many people who think that the government's overly cautious approach is nanny statism, and I'm inclined to agree. If you're allowed to ride a bicycle, you should be allowed to ride an e-scooter. If you're going to oppose this notice of motion on the basis of perceptions that they're a menace, understand that studies have shown that they aren't.

There is a period of acclimatisation, and then they're no more hazardous than sharing public spaces with bicycles. If you're going to oppose it based on earlier experiences with e-bikes in other cities, whether it's clutter or abandonment, the technology has matured and this is now far less of an issue. It is not prerequisite that we conclude a view about whether rental e-scooters are a commercial proposition. That's a matter for those providers. Council's role, as it is with many things, is to provide a conducive regulatory environment and let disruptive technologies find their place in accord with community demand. I'd like to suggest that's a thoroughly liberal principle. What I'm seeking to do with this revised form of wording I've developed with staff is to invite Council to endorse the potential of e-scooters and to send a signal, subject to working through the issues identified, that we are open to their adoption in our city.

This initiative dovetails well with Council's aspirations to develop an active transport strategy, and we've already been given $70,000 by the State Government to develop that strategy in this financial year. We've also adopted a net zero emissions strategy, which explicitly already pledges to collaborate with Transport for New South Wales and electric bike providers to pilot electric bike infrastructure in the Hawkesbury centres. The kind of audit required for entry to the New South Wales Government trial is something that we can incorporate. Councillor Zamprogno,

Time has expired.

On indulgence, 30 seconds?

I think I've actually already given you that by accident, yeah. So it's expired. All right

Then, well I'll keep that for right of reply. Thank you. Okay

I'm going to speak briefly to the notice of motion and indicate that whilst I would be happy to support point two of the motion, I wouldn't be supporting point one and point three. I disagree. With the principle you outlined at the end there, that it's not up to us to worry about whether or not these are commercially feasible. I would agree with that in principle. However, what we're suggesting is that Council should go and spend ratepayers' money to make this technology possible, and I think it's incumbent on us to make sure we're not going to spend ratepayers' money on something that is not commercial, that is clearly, in my opinion, quite obviously not commercially feasible in the Hawkesbury.

We don't have the density of population. We don't have the obvious centres. We don't have roads that aren't—you know, if you look at the requirements of roads, you know, all our roads, most of our roads are steep, have multiple hills. We don't have adequate footpaths in most areas. It's clear to see that, you know, whilst this might happen one day, there are so many more obvious places for commercial providers to target before they get out to the Hawkesbury that this clearly is not going to be a commercial reality anytime soon. To channel a bit of Councillor Dogramaci, we've got people hurting in this community that really need our help, that need our resources. For us to go and dedicate resources of any significant nature to chase after whether or not we can have e-scooters in a place like the Hawkesbury I think is just wrong, and we can't be doing that.

I don't think it shows good faith to the community in understanding and being in touch with what they're going through. If we were to come out now and say our priority from this meeting tonight is we're going to go away and spend money on e-scooters and making sure that e-scooters can prosper here. So on those basis, whilst I have no problem with the principle of e-scooters, I think, and I tend to agree with your comments around nanny statism. I don't see why the New South Wales Government is stopping anyone from just doing it if they want to. My principal issue here is that I don't think this is a priority for Council for us to be using ratepayers' funds to advance this when there's so many other more deserving uses for those funds at the moment.

Councillor Kotlash. Yeah,

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Yeah, I agree with you on that. I don't think this is a priority for Council at this time. Although I've got to say that it does bring out my inner child, and I really do want to get an e-scooter because I could just see myself zooming around the neighbourhood. Although I do live on a slope like that, so you could probably see me zooming down it more than zooming up it. You know, look, I don't want to be too negative about it because I think it will happen. I just don't think it's, I don't think this is the time to do this at the moment. What we could do is we could task the Innovations and Partnerships Committee to assess the outcomes of the trial in some other council areas, and then in that way we can gain all of the benefit from those trials without actually having to spend any of our money.

And I think I would rather see that. But, you know, I agree that this would be terrific. I can't really see that it would be very widespread, and as it said in the business paper that Ham Common, I think, was one of the only places that was recognised as being able to kind of, to be appropriate for this sort of trial. So let's not go down the trial route. Let's wait and see what happens, and then we can learn all those lessons. So I'll foreshadow that we task the Innovations and Partnerships Committee to get that if this motion fails. Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Councillor Dogramaci.

Thank you. I'm always direct. There's a saying in English language, pigs might fly. This is something exactly , you know, what it is. We don't even have a proper footpath, you know, to walk. So how are we going to do? For example, you know, I've got this e-scooter or whatever. How am I going to go and pick my apples in, for example, in Bilpin? Do I have to put a tow bar or something like that? And then school kids, you know, they'll jump on one of them. And how are they going to, you know, I mean, we see what's happening next, roller skaters. And then how about we start, you know, some kind of a committee? We form somewhere, and then, you know, investigate which roads are, you know, good or bad.

Canberra is different. They're used to it, you know, like bicycle lanes or whatever it is. It sounds okay. It's nice. That's okay. But I don't think that, you know, we are ready for it. I mean, and we don't need to be compared with Tasmania or any other places. That's okay. We see, like, one of my fights is the pathway that, you know, I've been trying to find out the details. And these kids, if they take the e-scooter from school, you know, how are they going to cross the roads? And then they'll start, you know, weaving, you know, between the moving vehicles, and then battery runs out. What are we going to do? Ring mummy and daddy and come and pick me up? And then they have to... So even if we have, you know, five dollars grant, five dollars, you know, should go to those people, you know, to assist them.

And what is the priority? That I don't understand.

So sounds nice, sounds nice, but I think to me it's like, you know, trying to nail water to a wall. So I don't think it's a good time. I don't think that we are ready. I don't think Hawkesbury is ready. And every single cent we receive from government, federal, state, or it doesn't matter whatever it is, we just don't have the money. Those people should be assisted first. Thank you. Thank you.

Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'd like to thank Councillor Zamprogno for bringing this up as an item of discussion, because I think we should always be looking at ways to assist us reach our net zero targets, and also to find ways of moving people around more easily and cater for our visiting population, particularly when our railway station is a distance from the town. However, I think Councillor Zamprogno gave a very compelling argument around the value of e-scooters. But I think also that you, Mr Mayor, in the priorities that we must be looking at now also raised really good points. So I think e-scooters have their place, but I'm just not sure that this LGA is set up for it yet. I think if we get our active transport plan first and then perhaps look at it as one of those things, I think it would only ever be suitable in some locations.

Obviously, it's not going to be suitable for Councillor Kotlash to go up and down Walks Hill Road, or for many of the more remote areas. We just simply couldn't have it. So really, townships or recreation areas, they are good. They're good to see. I saw them in Canberra and they're popular and effective for moving people around, particularly for tourists to go from spot to spot. Unfortunately, I didn't see the arrival of Councillor Zamprogno on one in the morning at the conference, which was much to my misfortune. And I think in big cities overseas, in Amsterdam and London and places like that, obviously they suit because there's shared pathways and dedicated cycleways. So the town centres might be able to do it.

I think that what Councillor Kotlash raised is perhaps if we could be looking at that while our active transport plan is being done, we could also, back in 2017, I mentioned a trial I'd seen up in Coffs Harbour, which on the boardwalk area, which was an electric driverless pod carrying about 12 people and taking people to and from the town centre to the beach and back again. It was bright, it was brightly coloured, it was safe, it was functional, and the city of Newcastle, and I think Sydney Olympic Park uses them as well. Armidale has been trialling these sort of pod vehicles. If you've got off a plane at Heathrow, you've probably gone in one from the airport down to the car park. And my preference would be go down.

And the path of looking at any of these new innovative ways that can move people about safely and also reduce emissions at the same time. So... If Councillor Zamprogno, I'm not sure. I mean, I sort of support it in principle, but I don't want to allocate the resources at this point. But I would like it looked at further down the track. I don't know if you want to reword around that, or if you perhaps combine what Councillor Kotlash said and broaden it to include any sorts of innovative mobility methods . We could be looking at that while our active transport plan is being done, and then we can revisit it at a later space as well. The other issue, I think, is, and one of the things that scared me in Canberra was that people go along really fast, and we have so many driveways with people coming out of shopping centres and things like that.

There is a danger around that if you don't have a dedicated cycleway.

Thank you, Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Look, I agree broadly with what's been said so far. I think I can support point one in that I think it's possible for us to support in principle the trial, but not participate in the trial. And point one isn't asking for us to participate. It's to say that we support it. And I think for all LGAs who are not in the trial itself, there's certainly really useful learnings that will come out of that trial that we can then implement in our active transport plan and into the livability—it's going to be too late for the livability project—that the works will have to be complete by the time the results of this trial are out. The concern that I had with the original motion, which has been alleviated by the changes in wording, I think, are that we, but still exist for the trial program as it stands, is that we don't have many spaces where we could currently trial this.

So I think even if we went to the provider and said, look, we're in, I think they're likely to say, that's lovely, but you're not having any. Because if you look at the parameters under the trial, you have to be able to facilitate a variety of trips. You have to easily integrate into existing riding infrastructure. Sadly, we don't have a lot of that. But trial participants can only, must be 16 years of age or over. So the thought that the school kids are going to be flying down our footpaths isn't going to happen. Or if they are, if it does, then that's an illegal activity. It also has really strict requirements on the roads that can be used under this trial, and I think these are all really good things.

You can only go up to 20 kilometres an hour on a designated bike path, or on a road where the speed limit is up to 50 kilometres an hour. So that's only at the roads within our town centres. You can't use this to go between our town centres unless you're on a bike path. So until we get those roads completed, like the Corradong-Kermond cycling route, and the route out from Windsor to Bligh Park, and better passageway between Windsor, from the top end of Windsor down to the station, and then out to South Windsor, we're not going to have places where this is a likely form of transport. You can only go 10 kilometres an hour on a shared pathway. So even in Ham Common, no one's going to be living it up on an e-scooter, you know.

So I think it's worth noting that they do increase accessibility for people who can stand but not walk for a long distance, and so in that way, they are helpful. They do provide transport alternative for people who don't own a vehicle and want to travel a little bit further and a little bit faster than they could normally walk. So I have friends who live in Brisbane and Adelaide who use these to get to work. They live in the city centre and they're only travelling a few kilometres, you know, three or four kilometres. We don't have those routes. What we do have is the potential for movement from, say, Windsor Station up to the top of Windsor, where these bikes can cope with the hill of that slope , thank you, but no more.

So not parts of Kurrajong Heights, for example. And then within towns like Wilberforce, you might get on the back streets, you might get to the shops and back home again. There is use for these, but I think for me, this is a not—it's not a no, but it's a not yet. The streets where a trial would be likely are actually the very places that we're digging up our footpaths and main roads for the livability project at the moment: Windsor, South Windsor, Richmond. The last thing we need is an added complication in those spaces. They're already going to be congested for the next 18 months while we do that work. So the trial isn't for us, I don't think, but I think the learnings from that trial might be useful.

I can't support point three because it's just too nebulous at the moment. I don't know what work we would be allocating, and I think we have to see the results of that trial. You've got to buy into the trial by the end of September, and it's for 12 months, so I assume within 12 months we'll be starting to see some of those results, particularly if there's a panic and it's aborted. I think the councils that are debating whether they buy into this or not are councils like City of Sydney and Inner West, who've both decided not to play because they're the desirable places to do this currently. I don't think we are, so I'm not sure that we're debating anything that we actually need to be overly worried about at this point.

But I think certainly we can look at the findings and we can incorporate them into the active transport plan as we go forward.

Thank you. I think that that's probably a good point, perhaps, that I'd missed, Councillor Wheeler, in regard to point one. It's probably nothing that stops us from expressing our support for a trial happening. And on that basis, if there's no objection, I'll put the motion in seriatim and I'll personally

Support. If I can assist, Mr Mayor, I've sent Mr McElroy a change of words that may be more amenable to a majority of councillors. I'm going to replace point three

With

The suggestions that

I've heard. As long as there's no objection from council, I don't want to set a precedent that we can move a motion, hear the whole debate, and then move something else at the end. So only if there's no objection. With

The consent of the seconder, but we often amend it in this way, Mr Mayor.

We do. It's not strictly per the code of meeting practice, but we do often say, Is the mover happy to take that change? I guess what I'm saying is, now everybody has spoken, we've gotten back to the mover and you've moved something different. I just want to make sure there's no objection to that from anybody. No. Looks good. We'll go ahead. So right of reply then.

Thank you, Mr Mayor, and I'll try and keep this brief. Look, my objective is I saw something, I was enthused about the possibilities, I wanted to bring it to the chamber for some honest debate. It could be shot down. It could be yes, but not now. I'm hearing that. My interest is to present something that's sufficiently palatable to all of you as that it will pass. This form here doesn't involve any expenditure at all, not even in a future operational plan. It's a good idea in theory. I think we have to be honest about the fact that these things are coming, and I'd like us to be mindful, as point three now says, is that if these things are coming and it changes the way that we plan for our bike paths and our footpaths and our shared pedestrian spaces, let's get ahead of that curve now, rather than wait until the trial is over, the state government realises that they've been warmly received, that they're legalised for both commercial and private use, and we've got them around our ears.

It would be lovely for us to have some kind of a lead time so that we're saying, Oh, all right then, this is a new modality of transport that people are going to adopt in number. Not necessarily all by young people. I was talking to one of the commercial providers. They said that their biggest demographic is 30 to 40 year olds. So it's not necessarily just for kids. There are LGAs that are of similar size to us that have commercially viable rental programs, such as Rockhampton or Launceston. But again, it's not up to us. It isn't a debate about whether we can have a commercially viable program. It's about providing a conducive environment and showing that we as a city are open to the idea of the adoption of a disruptive technology.

And it's also fun. I think it will take cars off the road. I think it will free up car parking spaces in our congested town centre car parks. And if the form of words which doesn't involve any expenditure can express our in-principle support, I hope that

Will pass the chamber. Thank you. Thank you. We'll put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. Favour: Councillor Conolly, Councillor Reardon, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno. Against: Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Sheather. Declare it carried. Just on that point, I'd just like to emphasise something in regards to that motion, that we're all careful in our communications from this point of what's actually happened here tonight. I think there's real reputational risk for Council if we go out there and say we're doing e-scooters at a time when our community is really quite distraught.

So I think we've got to be really careful to acknowledge that Council has said we're happy to push this forward into the future and acknowledge it's coming, but we're not doing anything right now.

Motion to go into confidential. Full confidential, yep. Councillor Reardon, seconded Councillor McMahon. All in favour, declare that carried.

We're back live streaming again, Councillors. I wish to advise that in closed session, Council resolved on the motion of Councillor McMahon, seconded by Councillor Reardon, that one, the report of the General Manager's Performance Review be received and noted; two, Council approve the recommendation of the General Manager's Review Panel that pursuant to clause 8.3 of the General Manager's Contract of Employment, the General Manager's total remuneration package be increased by 3% following the assessment of the General Manager's performance as being better than satisfactory standard; and three, the increase in the General Manager's total remuneration package be applied effective 1 June 2022.

For the motion were Councillors Conolly, Councillors Reardon, Councillors McMahon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillors Zamprogno. That's our final item of business, so I will declare the meeting closed at 9.35. Thanks.