31 January 2023 - Ordinary

Thank you everybody.

Good evening, I'm Sarah McMahon, the Mayor of Hawkesbury, and I welcome you to our meeting for the 31st of January 2023. My apologies for starting a little later than 6.30. We were just partaking in a wonderful Welcome to Country and smoking ceremony to start the new year. Hawkesbury City Council acknowledges the Darug and Darkinjung people as the traditional custodians of the land of the Hawkesbury. We pay respect to all Elders, past, present and emerging, and acknowledge all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First People of the country. I'll now hand over to the General Manager.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Members of the public attending the meeting are advised that in the event of an emergency, you will 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 such 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 if any person participating in or attending the meeting has a mobile phone, that they either turn it off or switch it to silent, please. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you

General Manager. I can see we have no apologies tonight, so thank you Councillors for your attendance , although I will note that the Director of Infrastructure is absent this evening. Are there any declarations of interest? Councillor Kotlash.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Yes, I will be declaring an interest in item 3, 003, the Mayoral Minute, and item 012.

Thank you, Councillor. I'll also be declaring a less than significant non-pecuniary interest in item 3 also. Now we have two sets of minutes in the business paper tonight, so I'll ask for a mover and a seconder for the first set of minutes for the meeting on the 13th of December. Councillor Conolly, Councillor Reardon, all in favour? Carried. For the second set of minutes, which were our extraordinary meeting on the 17th of January, Deputy Mayor, Councillor Lyons-Bucket, all in favour? Thank you, carried.

So to start the meeting, we will begin with the item subject to public address. The first item tonight with registered speakers is item number four, Redbank Voluntary Planning Agreement Proposed Grose River Bridge Crossing, and I call on our first speaker, Stephanie Culleborns.

That should be fine. No , no, it won't come off your time. The next registered speaker is Matthew Parks. Matthew present? Would you be ready to go? Yeah. Thank you, Matthew. I'll let you start. Thanks.

Thank you, Mayor, Councillors, for allowing me the opportunity to address tonight's Council meeting in regards to the determination of the preferred alignment of the Grose River Bridge crossing and the approach. My position is that in against the determination of this item and that the construction of the Grose River Bridge should not proceed. My name is Matthew Parks and I am one of the many residents affected by the outcome of the many decisions that is happening in the areas in regards to travel routes. My understanding is that the Voluntary Planning Agreement was executed in 2014 and has had various revisions primarily around the timelines, with one of the main requirements of the VPA being the delivery of the Grose River Bridge and approaches that connects Grose Vale Road to Springwood Road.

The aims of this new route was to divert traffic from Redbank Estate, existing Grose Vale and Bowen Mountain traffic from the Richmond Bridge that would need to connect—sorry— from the Richmond Bridge

Traffic that would need to connect to the Castle Ray Road. Since 2014, Transport for New South Wales has received funding from the state and federal governments to the value of $500 million for the new Richmond Bridge and traffic improvement project which is underway. With the proposed VPA bridge location and its objective of getting the traffic to Castle Ray Road, there is a major concern that during a one-in-flood event, this route will be cut. Whilst the proposed Grose Vale Bridge is designed for a one-in-100 chance flood event, to get to Castle Ray Road, the traffic will need to travel onto the Springwood Road Bridge, which crosses the Nepean River and the Yarramundi Bridge that crosses the Yarramundi Lagoon.

The Yarramundi Bridge is a one-in-five, 20% chance per year flood event. It is my recommendation that this project should be stopped and the funding be allocated from the developer to Transport for New South Wales to construct a route that will have a large flood resilience and still achieve the objective of diverting the existing traffic from the existing bridge. Funding can be moved from various project to project, in particular if the developer is funding. It is on this note that I recommend that the council does not determine in the affirmative for this determination.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr Parks. Are you open to questions from councillors? Sure. Any questions, councillors? Councillor Zamprogno.

Thank you. Thank you, sir. And I'm— Aware of your concerns, do you have any special information that's not been disclosed to us? Our understanding was that if council didn't resolve to build this bridge and a PIA was made to Transport for New South Wales, that they would not build the bridge at all. You're suggesting that the money go to them and that they will build a bridge, but that's not our understanding. Can

I get

Thank you. I don't have any further information in regards to those arrangements, but from talking to other associations , such as the North Richmond District Community Action Association, they believe the funding can be moved from the developer and it can go into another project. Not saying that a bridge doesn't need to be built, just not that bridge in that area. It could go to the Richmond Bridge project, and the bridge potentially could go down and be built in the Purple Root location.

Any further questions? Thank you, Mr Parks.

Thank you.

Oh, sorry, my apologies, Councillor Sheather.

Do you live on the route that's proposed?

I'm not on that route. I'm actually in the—and I'll be speaking later on in regards to the Richmond Bridge project , and it is, it can be connected.

Yep . The old bridge at Richmond and the proposed new one is likely to go out before the bridge that you're speaking of, in relation to heights and flooding.

The new bridge, the one in 20?

Yeah,

But the one in 5-year-a-mundy Bridge will still go under first.

Springwood Road?

Yeah. Oh, I'm not sure about Springwood Road, but I know about Yarramundi Bridge will go

Under before the new

There's two places on Springwood Road, but they can be raised as well. Your concern mainly is that for flood evacuation that is limited. Considering we haven't had a flood in 30 years until the last five, we wouldn't have had that concern. So why is it that you're so concerned that the bridge would give normal access is denied for a few days, perhaps a year?

That's true. It is only a small, you know, 20%, but it's only 20% chance of it happening. But then why do you build a bridge one in a hundred? You may as well build a bridge in one in 20. All bridges and save the money. So it is more about, you know, looking at that complete congestion as a whole around that whole precinct, around North Richmond, Grose Vale, Bowen Mountain, and how do we get the best solution for the Hawkesbury?

Sounds good. Thank you very much, Mr. Parks . Stephanie Calaborns, would you be ready now? Lovely. Thank you. Please proceed

Firstly, I want to apologise to everybody for not being organised. I really apologise. I wasn't sure I was going to be first up, but I am organised now, so thank you . Firstly, with regard to this item, I'd like to give a bit of background, and it says to place the amendment for the VPA on public exhibition for 28 days. So I'm asking, how come the staff of Hawkesbury Council decided, in regard to submissions, to redact a lot of information, if not all of the information that directly related to the VPA? Everything to do with ICAC, everything to do with Operation Spicer was taken off. Also, how come, how come information was redacted with regard to minutes This is directly relate— please don't.

It directly relates to what's going on. It directly relates to what's being asked tonight. So I'm going on, and I'm also going to say the one in a hundred flood immunity with regard to the Yaramundi Bridge, as in the minutes between Andrew Flarty and Transport for New South Wales in 2012 found that there was a one in five flood immunity at Yaramundi Bridge. I'd like to remind people here tonight that the one in a hundred and one in five is not once every five years or once every hundred years. It is the chance that it will reoccur at that level again in that five years or a hundred years. And I'm saying, given our current flood events, this development is far from risk free. And we've all seen with other supposed flood-free bridges built by this government that flood-free does not mean flood-free.

Furthermore, the known flood occurrence at Yaramundi Bridge from the development of the Grose River Bridge is further impacted due to high traffic density, and I believe this increased traffic flow would place a greater risk burden to Yaramundi Bridge, causing a traffic jam on both bridges and, as we've seen in the past, people getting washed off bridges in flood when floods occur. Community engagement: discussions with affected property owners and Redbank communities. Here tonight, we actually have somebody who is to be affected in the community of Grose Wold with this bridge and has never been consulted by this council. I note that on numerous times, Hawkesbury Council has deliberately included Mark Regent and Andrew Flarty into discussions with the Wilcox family, and this is not in line with transparency, specifically when Mark Regent has been named as a lobbyist at ICAC and found to have sent funds to the electoral campaign of Bart Bassett—

Excuse me

As the chair— No, excuse me. As the chair, you will cease

Speaking As the chair, I conduct this meeting. You know you will cease speaking, and under part 4.14 of the Code of Meeting Practice, you will keep relevant to the item. I am. It

Is— the VPA has everything to do with this.

As the chair— And it's known—

Please stop. And it's known that you work for Bart Bassett.

Excuse me, Madam Mayor, you

Worked for Bart Bassett. As the Chair, you do not

Speak over me. No, excuse me, I'm going—you're going to stop there, Mr Calvert. Your behaviour is exceptionally rude. The fact that Hawkesbury Council decided to deliver the supplies

In relation to the VPA to—

Thank you, everybody. We will now resume the Hawkesbury City Council meeting at 6.56 p.m. and I call on our next speaker, Marion Wilcox.

Okay, thanks. Firstly, I would like to thank you for agreeing to revisit the proposed route, as this has made a huge difference to our family. I also wish to state that we support Option 1 and that we have sent emails expressing our concerns with Option 2, to which we are strongly opposed. We are not opposed to the bridge being built and the route detailed in Option 1, which will run through vacant horse paddocks. This option will only affect two property owners and be located 13 metres away from our house. Option 2, we believe, will affect four property owners. The star property is approximately 75 acres of land on two titles, with their home and stables located 300 metres away from our boundary.

Our property consists of 15 acres on one title, and our family home is 12 metres from the boundary. We oppose Option 2 because it will locate a main road only 5.2 metres from our family home. This will mean the probable disturbance of our home's foundations, greatly infringe on the amenities of our property and require the destruction of our current driveway and infrastructure, including our stables and round yard. We will also have limited, if any, access to our sheds, as their entrance is at the east, and we will need to build a new driveway on the western side of our property, including two culverts over a flowing creek. Option 2 is not equitable at all, and the Council report, which appears to be biased towards favourable vote for Option 2, is not acceptable to us.

The statement on page 25, quote, The proposed road in the Monsell 1986 design is relatively closely aligned with Option 2, unquote, is incorrect. Option 2 actually uses both properties, which was not the case with the Monsell design, which was restricted to the star property.

Therefore, option one is the one that aligns with the Monsell design and not option two. We have never stated that we do not support any options, as stated on page 26 of the report. What we said was that we would consider only one option, and that the other two options running through our property were not acceptable to us. Stating that option two most equitably shares the burden is untrue. How is it more equitable to move the road only 5.2 metres from our house when option one is 13 metres from our house and only affects a vacant horse paddock? This also contravenes Council's planning regulations, which require a setback of 10 metres from main roads. In our view, the statement the Star uses this land to move horses in times of flooding is untrue, as we have lived there over 21 years and have never witnessed this happening, and he would have to go through a flooded creek to get to that land.

At the rear of our property, there is an Aboriginal birthing tree, which is over 200 years old and which has been documented by the CSIRO. This tree appears to fall in the path of option two. There is no reasonable argument why option one should not be the favoured option, as it is hard to believe that the welfare of horses is being put forward as more important than the permanent impact and welfare of a Hawkesbury family, which you have been elected to represent. We strongly believe that option one is the most equitable route, considering all the above facts, and would be the option chosen by a person making a fair and conscientious decision between these two options. Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs Wilcox. Is there any questions? No.

Thank you very much. That concludes our public speakers. Do I have someone to move something, please? Councillors and progno.

Yes, I've sent a form of words to staff, and I'd like to seek a seconder.

We'll wait till those words are on the board, please.

Sorry, erratum. Point 2 should refer to option 1.

If councillors have read that, can I have a seconder, please?

Councillor Wheeler. Councillors and progno.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

It has taken us a very, very long time to get there here, and I could dilate at length about why we couldn't arrive at this point two or three or more years ago, but that's a well-worn story. So I'll just focus on what's before us this evening. We asked at our November meeting the various parties to go away and draft new routes that would avoid demolishing the Wilcox home. There were those at the time who told me that that was not possible from an engineering or financial or other perspective. Lo and behold, we've been presented routes that are AusRoads compliant, that confer the appropriate degree of flood immunity, that impact on a similar or possibly even a lesser number of properties than any of the previous unsatisfactory options did.

And I think option 1 clearly lays the fairest burden on everybody, saves a farmhouse—not that we're favouring any particular land or property owner; properties will have to be acquired, people will have to live with this development on or adjacent to their property. There is a proper process to plan and compensate those people. But I'd like to think that tonight the evidence before us clearly shows that option 1 is the fairest. So I'd like to seek the endorsement of my colleagues.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Connelly.

Thank you. I won't be supporting that motion. I intended to support option two. I think I find the position we're in incredibly difficult in that we've been given a report from staff with no recommendation. It essentially says that, and I agree with

The comments of the Speaker, that the report almost appears to recommend option two, but doesn't actually say that, in that it says that it's more equitable and points out some of the issues with option one. Is there an issue with the audience? Silence

From the gallery, please. Councillor Connelly, please speak a bit louder if you can, but that will be all from the gallery. Thank you.

If we go back to the start of this process, there was quite a lot of commentary around the fact that documents from 2017 appeared to show an instruction given to avoid a particular property, which, you know, is still something that this council should get to the bottom of because it doesn't seem right. But what's being suggested tonight is that we do that ourselves deliberately. We pick a particular property to avoid and take somebody else's land instead just because one particular property owner wants that. I don't feel comfortable with that. I don't feel that I'm doing my job if I do that just because it might be the easiest thing to do right now. There's an option before us that goes between the two properties that meets all the guidelines set by Council's resolution.

There's a property owner here tonight that's very upset about their property being acquired , but from what we've been reported to us, there's another property owner who also doesn't want their property acquired. There's a solution that—

Gallery, please stop. Our councillors are under the code of meeting practice entitled to be heard in silence, so please respect it or you will be removed from the chamber.

I don't feel comfortable being put in the position of just picking a particular property owner and avoiding their property. As based on the Council report, I agree it is the most equitable solution just to go down the boundary and take some of both properties go along the common boundary rather than impacting one property more than the other. So if this fails, I'll be supporting that we move forward with option two.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak? Councillor Sheather.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. My comments would have echoed Councillor Conolly's.

You should know better, please, from the gallery on my left, please be silent.

Thank you, Councillor. Thank you, Councillor. The behaviour is intolerable and as I said, that individual should know better. Thank you, Councillor Sheather.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Mayor. It certainly doesn't sit comfortable with me, as I'm sure Councillor Conolly indicated as well. We had a lot of information that was given to us about favouritism, perhaps away from a particular property. I had a cup of coffee with the Wilcox on their request to discuss exactly what we're talking about tonight, and what was asked, option two would comply with. There's other options and they want to take advantage of that, and I can see that. But in taking advantage of that, it's disadvantaging someone else. We've got a responsibility to

Multiple times, I have said to remain silent in the gallery. That is the rules of this chamber. If you do not respect the rules of this chamber, you are not welcome in it, regardless of your involvement in the item we are discussing. That is final, or I'll be adjourning this meeting and we will be removing people from the chamber.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. As I said, it doesn't sit comfortably, but the council needs to make a decision. The community expects that road and bridge to be built. And if we keep messing with it, and the information has not only been given to us by property owners, either side of the proposal, but from staff and many briefings about it, that's given us the opportunity to discuss all these things. And it's up to us now to make a decision on it. The community does expect that, and I understand the frustration of the property owners. I really do. And I certainly wouldn't want to pass my place.

But if it was someone else would be making the decisions, because I would have to step aside. But Madam Mayor, as I said, I support the issue that Councillor Conolly said. I do believe that the motion would resolve the issue. I just don't think that it's fair.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak?

Councillor Vigel.

Thank you. We've all got difference of opinions. We are elected to make a decision. When I viewed the proposals of option one, two and three, well, it was a no-brainer from reading number three. It wasn't the option, so we were left with one and two. So when I read it, I said, well, what's the fair game? Is it horses over people's homes? And to get some alignment. For me, I know the history of it, and it's been going on for, what, 12 years. I don't want to go back in the history and why the decisions were made. I could say it's been a debacle for the last 12 years, but we won't go past in past. We've got to move forward. I will be supporting the option because I think the alignment should be as far away as a person's home and practical, and the infrastructure should be supported.

Option one, I think is fair and reasonable. I think I've just got to put people before equine, as much as I love horses as well. But I think, thank you for the Wilcoxes. They're pro the bridge, and I think we've just got to get it going and get the VPA. So I'll be supporting option one. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak? Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. Look, this is an extraordinarily difficult decision, and it comes on the back of a document, the voluntary planning agreement for a development that has always been vexed. And I think we've heard again mention of Operation Spicer tonight, and I think it behoves us as a council to remember that that was the birth of this development. That's why it remains a constant problem for this council, and it will remain a problem for this— Councillor Wheeler,

Please stay relevant to the recommendation.

I am, Madam Mayor. We are discussing the voluntary planning agreement for Redbank. It couldn't be more relevant. This development will continue to be a problem for this LGA for decades. As a result of that voluntary planning agreement, and if you'd like to know how that voluntary planning agreement came about, you need only read the documents that have been referred to previously. What we have here is, now, are two options. One that has minimal encroachment on a family home, and one that is five metres from a family home. I am flabbergasted that the council report states that option two, simply because the centre line of the road is on the property boundary, is the most equitable. Equitable and equal are not the same thing, as we have discussed in this chamber multiple times previously.

We are being asked to decide, we are being asked, as Councillor Veigel quite correctly states, to choose between a horse paddock — it might be a very nice horse paddock, they're very nice horses, I'm sure — and someone's family home, the livability of someone's primary asset.

I don't find this a particularly difficult decision. If I take this out and shake this out against the principles that guide me as an elected Green — social justice

And grassroots democracy in particular — I find this quite a simple decision to make. It is far more socially just to spare this family's home and allow them to continue to live in it with some sort of quality of life than it is to spare the edge of a horse paddock.

I don't— it's not our job to just make easy decisions. It's not the staff's job to make hard decisions. It's ours. If you're uncomfortable with that, you might be in the wrong gig. We're not messing with this. We're making a decision so that this can proceed. It's our job now to choose the most equitable, the fairest, and the best decision for the LGA going forward. I agree with Mr. Parks that it would be lovely if we could push this money into the money that's been given for the Richmond Bridge duplication, but we can't. What we have to focus on as a council is getting the money from the developer to deliver the infrastructure that was promised in that VPA, flawed though it is. So we can't let the perfect get in the way of the good in this instance.

We have to take what we've got. In that instance, option one is the best option. I don't want to support this road through the guts of Grose Vale. I don't want to support a road that sits this close to someone's family home or runs through somebody else's property. But I have to make a decision in the best interests of the LGA, and that's what this decision represents. Thanks.

Thank you, Councillor.

Any other councillors wishing to speak on this item?

Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I think Councillor Wheeler has captured quite a bit of that. This is a decision we all knew would inevitably come when we knew years ago that a development had been approved under dubious circumstances, and with a VPA that was incredibly inadequate for its purpose. So it has been pushed down the track, and that has been— Sometimes from council, sometimes from the developer. And we must remember, when we look at this, that it was originally passed on the condition that it would come as no cost to the state government. That was how it was framed, and so it was to be paid for by the developer.

There were issues when they put in an application. There's a whole history around that. And as Councillor Conolly—I'll just correct something he said—the documents, the briefing documents, are from 2019, not 2017. And I think that in 2017, we agreed to look at other options, and this is where we've arrived at. Earlier, when the speaker spoke, Councillor Sheather said about Springwood Road that we can just raise those. Those bits can be raised. Underlying that comment is the real issue I have with this project, and which I have had from day one. When are we ever going to discuss the impost on our local road network that comes from this bridge? How are we going to afford—who's going to lift the road?

The state government? No. We haven't got the funds. Who's going to build the roads up in Grose Vale for all that traffic? This has never been addressed, and we kept being told we'd look at it later down the track, later down the track. It's never been looked at. So nowhere in this, regardless of what route may have been taken—it could be going anywhere—there's never been any consideration of what cost we're pushing down the track onto our ratepayers, and that bothers me hugely about this project. I'm happy to support option one, to have the VPA go out to the public for their comment. I've still got a lot of issues around this, and in particular, we've had this parallel with the second Hawkesbury crossing at North Richmond and this issue always one or the other.

So now we've got another situation where we're looking at this, and then next week we're looking at the Richmond Bridge duplication. So what I want to understand is they've come up with that bridge design for one lane each way, which isn't huge. How is that? How is our overall traffic thing all fitting together now? It concerns me that there’s still, despite the last council calling for traffic studies and overall traffic position for this area, that that has never eventuated. That we never have this picture of what’s really happening. Where’s all this traffic going? It’s coming from this side to that side. What do we need? What is our future? The State Government does not release future strategic planning around what development may in the future be allowable within this area, because they do not release the regional land use study.

And so how are we supposed to sit here and make these decisions, feeling that we’ve got all the information that we need, which I don’t feel that we have. But I will support this tonight to go out to the public for comment. But I still maintain that I have enormous issues, as I have had from the very minute this was approved, around how this development came about and how this VPA has been implemented.

Thank you, Councillor. Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Yes, I was never happy with the way Redbank was imposed upon us, and I spent a lot of time fighting against it in the early days. But it is there now, and it has a lot of people, a lot of people who are now residents of the Hawkesbury, and we need to look after these people as best we can. And this bridge, therefore, is necessary to help with traffic. Exactly how that’s going to help, well, that’s yet to be worked out. But I can see that it will help reduce the congestion down at North Richmond. It must do that, so it must help the traffic. I haven’t been very happy with the way the— Community discussions have been taking place in the last couple of months. I've been openly accused of not liking certain residents, that I like some but I don't like the others.

And I take great offence at that because what I've been trying to do through this whole process is remain objective and remain distant from the residents. I've hardly spoken to them at all. I've fielded a few phone calls, and I did that on purpose because the idea was to stay objective and not talk about who's got the biggest farm, who's got the smallest farm. It was all about what would be the best route for this bridge. And I have remained objective as best I could, but I have actually been openly criticised on Facebook and other places for doing so, and I find that quite unusual and quite disturbing. I don't agree with Councillor Conolly because what he's talking about and Councillor Sheather is talking about is what they're calling equal, equality or fairness.

And equality and fairness and equity are not the same thing. In fact, putting a bridge or a road down the middle of the two properties

May be equal in terms of how much land is taken, but it's not equal in any other way. And a lot of people in this country, I think, are hooked on the idea of equality. I mean, if you give two people a tax reduction , if you give a single mother with a family a ten dollar tax reduction, do you have to then turn around and give a multimillionaire Mining magnate also $10 tax deduction because that would be equal. And equality, I think, is something that a lot of people hang their hat on when actually we should be talking about equity . What is good for everybody concerned? What is best for the people there? And I'm convinced that the best option for us here is to go with option one, as Councillor Sam Brodno has put forward.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Any further comments from councillors? Know that I'll say my remarks on the matter. Tonight I'll be supporting the option on the board in front of us, option one, and I have a long list of reasons why I will, and I want to also make some remarks about public behaviour in the process. It has been a very uncomfortable position for us as councillors to have to make these decisions. But Councillor Wheeler is correct. We aren't elected here to play easy, you know, play easy here in this chamber. We are here to make hard decisions. Those decisions come at a cost to us. They are. We are deliberating on those decisions quite heavily, and we know that they have lasting impacts, not just on the people here today, but on the generations that will come in the future.

The decisions we make in this chamber, again, are not just about today, but about the legacy of the Hawkesbury. I have always been a supporter of this piece of infrastructure. I was not a councillor on the council at the time that this was approved, although given the infrastructure that was given to us at the time, I understand why it was. There was not a $500 million bridge on the table at that time. We were a community who had not flooded in a long time, but we were a community who knew that we would flood again, and this bridge was going to give. The residents who live west of the river, an option for some level of flood immunity, some level of flood evacuation in a crisis. And what we've seen unfold in the last few years, we know that we need this bridge.

I've always been a supporter of it, and I always will. What I do not like is the position we have been put in as councillors. And part of my role as an elected person is that I am able to say exactly what we think within the meeting practice, of code of meeting practice, of course, and that goes for the gallery as well. However, being in the position we were in at the end of last year to make a decision, with pointing no fingers of blame, where we were told it was either this option or you don't get a bridge, was an unfortunate position for us to be in. Based on a council resolution at the time, we have now been presented in this business paper today with three other options. I feel very angry that I was told, you are in a position last year where you must support this or you don't get a bridge, and we get told now there are other options available.

So for anyone thinking that this job is easy, that we have to make these decisions is easy, it is not. It is a burden, and all we can do is rely on the information before us at the time that we make the decision. There's something I'm going to be doing moving forward in my vote for option one, and that is I will be writing to the Office of the Local Government and asking the Office of Local Government what mechanisms are available to me as the mayor to find out who made that instruction to avoid the Star property. Because despite the accusations and the inaccuracies that have been out in the community, it was not me. And I can tell you now, I want more than any of you to get to the bottom of who delivered that instruction.

So I will be writing for that advice as mayor to find out what mechanisms are available to us to compel the people who were present in that meeting to tell us where that instruction came from. The other thing I want to say is, with this item and with the delivery of this bridge, there has been appalling behaviour by the community, and I'm going to call it out. I said when I was elected as mayor, I was going to call this kind of behaviour out. Bullying is something that I've become accustomed to in this role, which is interesting because some councillors never encounter it, and other councillors encounter it every single day, and I'm sick and tired of it. And I'm sick and tired of people who are sitting here in this gallery right now, smugly smiling, who have engaged in the most disgraceful elements of photoshopping, putting pictures on Facebook with the most disgusting inaccurate comments about me and about my family.

Shame on all of you. If you think that kind of behaviour is how you get outcomes that you want, then you don't belong here in a community where we thrive on common sense and on decency. I really hope that tonight you go home and you have a look at your behaviour and what you're engaging in, because I could point out multiple people in here tonight, I'm sure those watching, who do this on repeat, and it's not okay. Gallery, please be quiet. The chair has the call. I will therefore be voting for option one tonight. I want this bridge to proceed. I want to know, knowing down the track, that my kids and my grandkids and their kids, they don't care about the 12 names sitting here tonight making this decision.

They just want to know when there's a flood 40, 50, 60 years later that they can get out. And that's the most important thing, and that's why we are elected to make these decisions. I think I've made myself very clear about the process we've had to go through. It was not a process I ever wish to put on anybody again or go through again. But I do hope out of this we get our bridge and our community and our Hawkesbury gets the bridge and the infrastructure that we deserve. Thank you.

Are there any further speakers?

Right of reply, Councillor Zamprogno.

Thank you. In order, firstly to just to correct something factual that I heard that didn't ring true, Councillor Conolly suggested that, you know, to choose option one was to specifically favour a particular property owner. Page 26 of our own business paper says that option one would require the partial acquisition of three properties. Option two would require the partial acquisition of three properties. So there's not very much in it, is there? I'll also correct something that I said that was incorrect. I said, oh look, we, you know, we decided to go back to this in November. It wasn't November, it was September. So between September and today, 139 days have elapsed. And if in the coming weeks a new VPA with this feature is placed on exhibition, that means that there will have been a total delay on the order of 167 or thereabouts days.

It isn't an onerous delay to get to the right solution. However, in November, we were induced on the back of our indecision to give the developers another pass at extending the deadlines for the final completion of the bridge from 1,100 lots to 1,214 lots. I suspect the amount of time that will elapse to construct an additional 114 houses will be considerably greater than the delay that we have imposed on this process, simply by acting in the best traditions of this chamber to be critical, sceptical. About the advice that we receive, about our gut feeling about whether something rings true or not, perhaps to think more independently than some people in this chamber might otherwise ordinarily do, to break ranks, and to vote independently.

I think this is a good outcome under the circumstances, and does reflect the best traditions of this chamber. If only we had been here years ago, I think there's something for us to learn.

I agree with the Mayor that it was unconscionable that we were kind of given this scare campaign that Transport for NSW would walk away from the whole process because we couldn't get our act together and wouldn't engage in their role as the property acquisition authority and that we would end up with no bridge. Clearly, that is not true. I suspect that it was never true, and if it wasn't true then, it certainly isn't true seven weeks away from a state election. So by holding our ground, I think we've achieved a good result, and I hope that the parties can live with it. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. I'll now put the option on the board to the vote. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour are Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno, and Councillor McMahon. Those against? Councillor Sheather and Councillor Conolly. I declare the motion carried.

Madam Mayor.

Yes, Councillor.

In relation to the comments you just made, can we have in place for our next meeting that anyone within the gallery is excluded if there's any misconduct whatsoever? Yeah,

Thank you, Councillor. I intend to conduct 2023 with a very firm policy. Speakers are given the rules when they are signing up to be a speaker. They know the rules that they need to abide by. Common decency, respect, I think those are standard, and the Chair has the call no matter what, whether it's this chamber or elsewhere. Thank you, Councillor. We intend to enforce those rules this year.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. I would love nothing more than to have this chamber full of our residents, but to come here to listen to the comments and act appropriately.

Thanks, Councillor. I now move on to our second item that is subject to public address, and that is item number 10, and I call on Bill Sneddon.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak. This notice of motion refers to a meeting some six years ago that I attended. The lead-up to the vote that was involved in this notice of motion that we're mentioning tonight was a progressive reduction in clergy attending council meetings for prayer delivery. Those clergy also reduced to a scant handful and then ceased coming from about three months up to the start of discussing the prayer agenda. At the vote regarding this item, staff identified the councillor's problems in getting clergy of any type, and I do mean any type, denomination and religion, not just Christian, to come, and they explained that the latter months, as no shows entirely, that they just simply couldn't get people to come along to deliver some sort of a theological discussion, prayer concept, whatever you like.

Councillors had a problem identified by staff, and eventually, after what I remember to be an unemotional debate, councillors then voted. My memory is an unanimative vote, virtually a procedural matter, in fact dealing with the facts presented by staff. In other words, the clergy weren't showing up. They couldn't get them. To describe the vote process in this notice of motion as unfairly abolished is not the meeting that I remember attending, politely. There just wasn't emotion as unfairly abolished, to my mind, ascribes. Now, I'm not averse to a prayer being reintroduced at the start of meetings. It may provide comfort to some and perhaps remind the meeting of the moral balance needed in public life, if not also reinforcing the overriding legal obligations that have been mentioned here several times tonight already.

I'd also suggest to you that you also went to a theological type— Gathering outside before this meeting even started from First Nations people, and they have many hundreds of religions, and perhaps we should be inviting them if we're going to go ahead and do this. So I'll come on to that. Now, if we're moving this way towards going back to having a prayer, I'd remind councillors that Australians are becoming increasingly secular, that is non-religious. We also function on a basis of separation of church and state, not quite to the extent of the United States, but certainly that's the way Australians largely think about how our government works. Recent census data, in fact, indicates citizens identifying a religious status has now dropped below 50%.

In fact, I have a figure of about 40% in my head from one of the ABC religious programs that one hears every now and again. Many Australians now also identify on a hatched, matched and dispatched basis, as journalists say. In other words, births, deaths and marriages, or christenings. So they seldom refer to religion unless there's a crisis of some sort in their life or the need for what they feel to be a guiding hand. A bit like a child holding that, mummy or daddy's hand, and helping them make decisions in life.

So they will return to some sort of a religious entity in times of stress, crisis, etc. So many citizens, in fact, are unable to describe religion on forms correctly. They will list denomination when they're asked about religion. I'm talking about Christian here, of course. We could also refer to Muslim and variously others, because they have also denominations of their religion. Religion and denomination are not the same thing. A denomination is a description of a flavour of a particular religion. Now, our multicultural society has increasingly large populations with non-Christian identification. So, in your deliberation regarding this matter, please consider our changing population in your deliberations.

You should be willing to accept a prayer or similar from all religions in the Hawkesbury if they would attend by accepting an invitation to speak at meetings if you restore the prayer to the start of the meeting. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Stanton. Are there any questions? No? Thank you very much. Councillor Dogramaci, this is your— oh, sorry

Sorry, just put your mic on, Councillor Sheather

I'd like to move a procedural motion. Peter, Pastor Dan Canone, as he thought he'd registered to speak and is here, but it's— Sorry, what was his name

Councillor?

Pastor Dan Canone.

Pastor Dan, last name?

Canone.

Canone. Is he present in the room?

Yes.

Yes. You'd like to move that motion, he be heard to speak? Yes. Do I have a seconder for that ? Yep. All those in favour? Lovely, thank you. Carried. Pastor Canone, if you are here, please, your turn to speak. Thank you.

Well, thanks for giving me the time, guys. I do appreciate it. I did all the online paperwork, but it didn't come through. I'm not too sure what I did wrong. But, Struth, if there was a meeting that someone needed to attend to, to confirm the idea that prayer was needed here, I think I've turned up to it. But as someone who's been in a leadership role for 18 years and a senior leadership role for five years, I sympathise with your job, and I know that it's tough. I've just experienced right now how tough it was, and I don't think there's enough appreciation, and I do not think there is enough thanks for what you do. So before I get started on reading a letter from the Hawkesbury Ministers Association, let me give you personally my thanks for doing what you do.

It's not an easy job. There are hard decisions to make, but you put your hand up to do it. You openly put your hand up for criticism, scrutiny. In service to the community. So I thank you. I really do. It's a tough gig. But anyway, I come here with the full backing of the Hawkesbury Ministers Association, not knowing part of the history that our gentleman here brought up. Quite easily alleviated, the Hawkesbury Ministers Association has—there's been a transition of ministers around the area, and every single one of them that I've spoken to has been willing to put their hand up to attend. And I personally would be here to open up in prayer should the need arise at every single meeting. That wouldn't bother me in the slightest.

I think it's quite an honour. I'm going to read a letter that's penned by our president, the Hawkesbury Ministers Association, Pastor Jonathan, and then I'll add something at the end. I write on behalf of my colleagues at the Hawkesbury Ministers Association requesting that you adopt the former practice of allowing prayer before opening council meetings. Together we hold in common a high regard for representative authority. As an elected body, we recognise your civic obligation to govern our locality under the authority entrusted to you by the citizens of our region. We gladly and graciously submit to this authority, knowing that while no human governance is perfect, your commitment to the wellbeing of our collective society is as firm as your responsibility is great.

It's out of respect for the significance of this responsibility that we ask you to reconsider the recently altered position of removing prayer from the opening of your council meetings. We recognise that a given prayer may not comport with the personal beliefs of some members of council or of certain segments of our society. I know there's people here that may not believe in God. I'd say it's a pretty safe guess that those who do not believe in God would also not believe in the rainbow serpent. However, it's not about what we believe. I believe this is a heritage issue. This is a tradition issue, for me, of course, a spiritual issue. But there is far more to look at than what individuals believe concerning spiritual matters.

I'll keep reading.

Nevertheless, according to the most recent census data, the majority of Australians consider themselves to be, yes, less Christian, but far more spiritual. Allowing for prayer in its various forms is an opportunity for Council to recognise the fabric of our community is not simply physical or material, but includes the spiritual. Moreover, prayer has formed a significant part of our heritage. The story of the Hawkesbury cannot be told without reference to the scores of praying men and women in and out of government. Many great improvements to societal wellbeing have begun through initiatives bathed in prayer. To ignore the spiritual practice of prayer would be to excise the heart from some of our most influential benevolence initiatives active in our community today.

Finally, for those concerned about the potential fusion of religion and politics, it's important to remember that prayer is not policy making. Prayer offered by a non-elected community leader prior to Council opening its meetings would not compromise the business conducted in those meetings because offering prayers does not hinder, curtail, obstruct or absolve any elected official from fulfilling their civic responsibility, and it should not be feared. For those without a spiritual belief, prayer offers time for reflection and hearing the considered desires of the community. For those with a spiritual belief, prayer offers space to invite divine favour, blessing and guidance upon the proceedings.

Prayer would only help. And prayer would certainly do no harm. So we ask you to consider this, and we thank you for the opportunity. I would also like to add,

I don't believe it could be put in any better words to encapsulate the heritage of our nation than by quoting the words of Uncle Wes when he said, I've been doing smoking ceremonies since Moses marched around Jerusalem. I thought that's a classic right there. But it brings together the fact that we have an Aboriginal heritage, which we have honoured, but we do have a Christian heritage, which I think is important that we continue to honour. There are many religions that do flock to Australia because it's a great place to live, and we can't ignore the fact that it's a great place to live because of the people who built it, who were vastly , dominantly, a Christian people. And I think that it's important that we hold to that.

Secondly, and I will finish with this, I know personally in my life dozens of people who make it their point to pray for each and every single one of you individually, and to pray for matters over council, that there would be blessing, that there would be wisdom. They do this, dare I say it, religiously. I think it's a shame that they do it without your knowledge. And I think that by opening the meeting in prayer, I hope that it would remind you, number one, you are remembered; number two, you are appreciated; and number three, you are supported, you are prayed for. And that's what I hope an opening with prayer would bring to you. Thanks for your time.

Thank you very much. If you just want to hang around for one second. Sure. I'll just ask the councillors if they have any questions. Yes, Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you, Pastor, for that, and thank all those people praying for us. I'm not sure how well it's working, but thank you. Could you just tell us which denominations are covered by the Hawkesbury Ministers Association and whether locally there's an interfaith association? There

Isn't an interfaith association that I'm aware of. I did attend an interfaith association in Blacktown, but I don't think the Hawkesbury has one. Yet , every denomination that wants to be involved in the Hawkesbury Ministers Association is welcome. We don't exclude any. Those that are included, off the top of my head, would be almost every Protestant denomination, Catholic denominations, the Seventh-day Adventist denomination. Have I missed any? I think that about covers it. But pretty much we're universally in agreement that prayer over our council meetings would be a helpful thing.

Sorry , do you think we should

Carry on all the traditions of the past from when colonial settlement started? No

I don't. I actually think our history is there to teach us. Let's let go of the things that were harmful. But let's hold the things that were helpful. I believe prayer has been incredibly helpful. Okay

Thank you. Thank you very much. No further questions? Thank you very much, Pastor. Thank you. There being no further speakers on this item, I'll hand over to Councillor Dogramaci. First of all, we need a seconder for your— thank you, Councillor Sheather. Please proceed, Councillor Dogramaci.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Well, this idea came to me when I was trying to find out the— Percentage of Muslims, Anglicans or Christians or different religions, and

87% of the country predominantly a Christian society. We spend time for different reasons , and the days have come now. We all witness that what's happening around the world. Most people blame religion. Most people blame politics. I thought that something had to be done in this very room. Three weeks ago, or four weeks ago, I was in Perth, and I believe, I can say this, I believe in three major religions. I know more about Quran than many of you, and I know more about Torah and Bible. I can comfortably say that, and I will challenge every single one of you because I spent time, and I believe Jesus Christ more than most Christians. At the end, we all believe in the same God. I'm talking on myself.

When I was in Perth, I couldn't find a mosque to pray, so I went to a synagogue. On my way back in Adelaide, I went to a church, immediately across the road from Flinders Street train station. I prayed there. And in the last three weeks, I have encountered, well, I have attended three

Unfortunate events when we lost our dear friend Mario. And the very first time in my life, I witnessed something that, you know, they moved me. When I was praying for him, people on my right, on my left, and the priest said that, you know, look on your right and left, which, you know, the tradition, shake hands and comfort each other, which it was the main reason that, you know, I decided to move this motion. While we have celebration for, beginning of any celebrations, we pray to God. We say a few words about the founders of the countries, the First Nation people in here. We have the smoking ceremony. So I thought that maybe bring these priests, pastors or whoever, any kind of denominations from Christian society.

There is no mosque in here, so we won't have any imams coming in here. So I thought that maybe, and without going into details, these people, a priest or a rabbi or imam, they are not going to come in here and recite the whole Quran or Torah or Bible.

We have to, we have to, I feel that, you know, when they come in here and say a few words to comfort us, like the gentleman, the pastor, you know, told us, that would be enough.

Like I said, the world is not going to the way that we all have, you know, hoped for. Killings, murders, drugs, all sorts of things. I don't know what's happening to the society in my age and some of the seniors. We are lucky we won't be here. Five , 10, 15, 20 years, God help the young people, don't know what's happening with the world. I thought maybe, you know, this kind of, if we pass this motion, I'm sure that, you know, many people will be happy. In my case, it doesn't matter really. At least I will say that I tried. So the rest is up to you people. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Councillor. Councillor Sheather.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. Can I ask Councillor to—did my amendment, part two of his motion, and it simply says that Council requests from the Minister's Association representatives for that purpose.

Yes ,

I am happy. I'm happy with that. You approve that? Okay, thank you. We might need to get that amendment up on the board.

Thank you.

Is that adequate to deal with it?

Sorry? Yeah, do you want to just say again what your amendment was, just until we get that on the board?

The Council requests from the Minister's Association representatives for the purpose of one.

Thank you. Okay, please proceed.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Mayor. I don't know why, when I was here in the past, we always had ministers that come. Only spoke for a few seconds and spoke similar to the past that just spoke to us. I'm not going to go over the things that have been spoken already, and it's not that they're not important; they've been said. But there's some things that—well , there's lots of things that we do as a council, and we request of the community and support them. It could be homeless, it could be assault. A ray of things, and the churches do all that, along with a lot of other groups, and we support all of them as often as we can, some very personally. And again, the churches do all that. And in supporting those other community groups, I'm glad that this motion was put up, and I'd spoken to you and previous mayor about it before, that I, well, I think all of us can be blessed sometimes.

I know Michelle says I need it. But there's other things. We can set examples through the community, and by simply having a prayer said prior to the council meeting is supporting just another organisation that is similar to what we have in our community that we support without question.

So, on the religious side, I think the comments that have been made about whether you're a believer or not is a personal choice. Many things that we do are very personal. But as a council, as a wider community, I think we've got an obligation to set good examples, and I think not having that sort of representation of the meeting prior to our meetings isn't a good one. So, I commend the councillor for the motion and would hope the council support it.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Zamprogno.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Firstly, I'd like to shout out to Pastor Dan Cannone over there. Dan, I love you like a brother. I grew up with Dan. We grew up at the same church in Windsor. In fact, I can say that I'm the only councillor around this table who has been on the staff of one of our churches in the Hawkesbury. I was on the part-time staff of the Hawkesbury Church between 1996 and 2000, and I attended that church for 19 years, starting in 1988 . In fact, I was on the staff, the junior staff, the part-time staff of that church when the pedophile pastor Frank Houston was parked with us in retirement in 2000, and when the leadership of that church failed to disclose that to me or the congregation.

Councillor, I do warn you under the Code of Meeting Practice, we do have to refrain from defamation...

That's okay. My knowledge of defamation law informs me that it's impossible to defame the dead. But 23 years later, I'm still giving media comment on that particular issue. I'm the only councillor here who worked for 20 years in Christian private education at three different Christian private schools in the Blue Mountains and at Penrith. I was somebody who was prepared to send my own son to a local Anglican school, even when the leadership of that school signed a statement declaring that they opposed same-sex marriage, and more recently that they wished to continue to reserve the right to discriminate against gay students and staff, a position that I regarded as reprehensible, along with the 63.9% of people who voted yes at the 2017 plebiscite in the seat of Macquarie.

And I'm certainly the only councillor present here, or in the previous term, who took up the invitation by the Hawkesbury Ministers Fraternal, the organisation that used to come here and give the prayer at council meetings, to attend a dinner that they held in July 2019. Let me tell you the story. They had invited all of our federal and state members of parliament, the mayor, and all of the councillors. They got enough RSVPs back to prepare a lavish spread up at Kurrajong, and I was the only person that turned up, the only elected representative that turned up. I felt an enormous vicarious embarrassment for the Hawkesbury Ministers Fraternal, and when I broke bread with them and commiserated with them about that embarrassment, we reflected about what that said about the impact or the relevance of religion to the people of the Hawkesbury.

So I like to think that I've got some understanding and indeed respect for the Hawkesbury faith community. Nevertheless, I was one of those people who voted to remove the opening of council meetings with prayer in 2016. Shortly after the election in 2016, around the table, there was a prevailing and clearly majority view amongst my colleagues. Like Pierre-Simon Laplace famously said that we had no need of that hypothesis. And in my six years on council, not a single soul has ever remonstrated with me or expressed umbrage about that, nor have they petitioned me for its reversal. And before my colleagues weigh in, those of you who were around that table with me in 2016 and who possess some kind of religious sensibility, none of you have done anything over the last six years to— Fix that either.

The Hawkesbury Social Atlas tells me that a significantly higher percentage of Hawkesburyans profess no religious affiliation even than those in Greater Sydney. In 2021, 34% of Hawkesbury City's population compared to only 30.5% in Greater Sydney, and the number of our own residents with no religious belief grew from 7,416 in 2001 to 22,857 in 2021. And when I was talking to Dan earlier, he was prepared to admit that the minister's fraternal may exist on paper, but it doesn't meet. And you might recall going back to 2016 is that we had difficulty getting anybody to come up and offer a homily or a prayer at our council meeting. I am not prepared to devote the resources of council staff to this issue when clearly we have heard from our community that we have far higher and more pressing priorities.

I will quote to you from the business paper, the process described above, to bring this back, would require a dedicated staff time across various areas of council, including governance, corporate communications and administrative support, and this will delay various tasks presently underway. I am not prepared to do that when we have heard clearly from our community that there are other and more higher priorities, and in fact, I'm prepared to call this out as a stunt by an impending state government candidate.

Thank you,

Councillor.

Yes, Councillor Sheather.

The comments that Councillor Zamprogno was talking about, that's why I moved the part two. There shouldn't be any—

This has to be a question though, Councillor.

Is there any money associated with part two to council?

I will just confer with the general manager. General manager.

Through you, Madam Mayor, the staff resources that have been outlined in the report are principally around amending the code of meeting practice, and there is an extensive amount of work that would need to go into preparation of that, and also the public exhibition and then bringing the further report back to Council for potential adoption.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Kotlash. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'm speaking against this notice of motion, and I'd just like to, for the record, confirm that back in 2016, I was the one that moved the motion for us to not have a prayer. And the reason I did this is because the first council meeting I attended, the person that we have that gave the prayer, and I'm not going to—I'll have to paraphrase because I can't remember exactly what they said, but they spoke in terms of the decisions that we made in this chamber would be guided by God.

And I just thought, well, no, that doesn't apply to me. And I just thought, well, really, to be really inclusive in this chamber, we really have to have a place for your faith if you have a faith. We have a place for that, but it isn't in this chamber. We have all been elected, no matter where we come from and what we believe, we've been elected to be here, and I don't really think it's a good idea to have one person's faith. You know, being, having to be at the beginning of every, every time we meet, I found that really disturbing, and it's just not inclusive. Australia is growing in our, in our recognition that as decision makers for all of our population. We have to be inclusive. And once we make a decision to accept the thoughts or the prayers or the blessings of somebody's particular faith, then we're putting an emphasis that is, you know, is reflective of most of the population.

And we've clearly seen that it's not. Councillor Zamprogno said that it was 34%. I thought it was 38% of people in the Hawkesbury don't have any religion. So we have to be kind of, we have to, you know, we have to come to some decision about how we're going to deal with this. The argument that because churches do good work in the community, they somehow have an overarching responsibility for every decision we make, I find really a bit bizarre because the police force have, you know, do great work in the community, and we're not going to get a police officer in here to give us a bit of a rundown on how we might be able, how we might think about certain aspects of things. I mean, we have to make our own decisions based on our own beliefs, our own, you know, faith, our own, you know, just where we've come to from here.

I find it a very personal thing, and it just shouldn't be, it shouldn't be in this chamber. I wouldn't mind if you had a prayer group out the front on the lawn like we had the smoking ceremony. To me, that's appropriate. That's fine if you need to do that, but it's not appropriate to have it in this chamber. I'm going on. I'll leave it there. I don't think this is a good idea. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Conolly.

Thank you. I think that this is very well intended, and I appreciate the attendance by the ministers tonight. I think we've just got to look at this. If this was any other workplace, Councillor Dogramaci would be in the HR office at the moment being explained to them why it's not appropriate. So I think we've just got to keep in mind that people come here to work. At work, I don't talk about religion, politics or money. Here I have to kind of talk about politics, but other than that, I think that's an appropriate way to move forward.

Thank you, Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Thank you, Madam Mayor. An accountant that doesn't talk about money. I'm quite shocked. Only accountants.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'll be opposing this as well, and I mean I agree with Councillor Conolly. I'm sure it's well intended. I do strongly object, however, to how it's worded in the notice of motion. To have a motion put before us where there's an inference that something has been done improperly or unfairly is simply not correct. It was a democratic decision. It was perfectly fair. It was a majority, a clear majority, that moved to change the code of meeting practice at the time. I also was somewhat perplexed by which denominations are non-believers, because I thought to be a religion you had to have a belief in something. So I thought they're all believers. But anyway, I'd like to thank Mr Snedden for speaking.

He did raise some of the points that I would have raised. Having said that, I've got the utmost respect for people's beliefs. I have no issue with anything people believe in, and I admire people who have strong faith, and I admire work done by churches, by individuals. I don't have an issue around that. But I haven't liked the steady increase into the political sphere of people attaching themselves to their faith as a tool for how they act as a politician. I think that that has led to conflict. It's not an appealing thing to the community. I think some politicians think it is, but it's not, and it brings with it conflict and misunderstanding, and often generates issues that wouldn't have had to be there.

So we operate, as any level of government, on the strong principle of separation of church and state, and I think that that is how we should continue. And we know, we hear in here all the time, we have core roles. Our roles are to deal with issues about public expenditure, roads, rates, rubbish, etcetera. Occasionally we touch on some social issues, and I would really welcome people from the Ministers Association coming and addressing us on those times about their feelings on those particular issues. I think that, you know, I don't think we can compare it to the smoking ceremony outside. I mean, the smoking ceremony we have is an acknowledgement of dispossession and of forcibly taken land and suffering for our First Nations people.

So I don't think it's a fair comparison. It's not a religion. It is a population that was dispossessed. So I think that we acknowledge and have that ceremony for that reason. Like Councillor Zamprogno, nobody has ever mentioned it in any shape or form to me in the 12 years or whatever it is I've been on council, 10 years. Nobody's ever mentioned it either in a positive, negative, request way, nothing at all. I don't know that people notice. However , the other thing is, of course, we're in here to make decisions on the facts before us. We, you know, we can be informed by personal beliefs and so on, but we really have quite a strong regimental set of codes that tell us that we make decisions based on the information that we have.

So I'm not averse to perhaps quiet reflection time at the start of a meeting, if that helps anyone who wishes to personally pray or whatever, but I just don't think it's going to add any value, and that's not to detract from the commitment of the ministers' association. I just think we are an increasingly secular population, and I think that we need to abide by that. I would really welcome, however, the point of view of these people who belong to those groups, and of course anybody, as always, to come in here and speak to us so that we can hear what they think on various issues. The other thing is that people holding themselves out publicly to be a particular religion and so on doesn't sit easily with me because I'm well aware of the hypocrisy of some people who say they're a religious person and yet they don't abide by the various beliefs and codes.

I tend to view people through their actions and how they treat other people and how they behave, and a good counsellor to me has absolutely nothing to do with one's faith, apart from the faith in being confident that you will make the decisions how we're meant to and in collaboration with your peers. That's how I see it. So tonight I won't be supporting the Notice of Motion.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak? Councillor Veigel.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Mayor. I'm a little bit torn by this motion, but I thank you, Councillor, for bringing it forward. Interesting debate, interesting point of view, and I respect it all. I do pray for you because I do believe in a loving God and I do believe in Christ. So I do ask for some wisdom. I do take the notion of being a senior manager of 160 people on acutely aware of the occupational health grounds, that it's very difficult to bring in prayer on certain religions onto the floor when there's an occupational health and safety issue, and you've got to make a safe space for everybody, and you've got KPIs and everything else to be made. I take my faith personally, and every day I would thank Him that I've found my wife, Sue, and I've been blessed with two healthy children.

No doubt all of you probably thank somewhere or some being or whatever for your husbands and the love of them and your children as well. Having said that,

I'm always somewhat amused that if anything happens, you always get a comment by somebody, Oh, look at her, she just hurt herself. Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. Or there's a catastrophic disaster saying, Oh my God, I've just hurt myself, or look at that, or God. So everybody comes back to the basics. So although I do thank you on

Your motion, I think it would be more appropriate to keep it at a personal point. And I do accept if somebody wants to go and do a prayer group maybe outside and pray for council and some wisdom, then I'll grant you so. My standing is I don't think I support the motion as it stands. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak?

Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. I'm speaking against the motion. I grew up in the Catholic Church. I spent 13 years in the Catholic education system. I have spent a lot of time studying the Bible. I spent a goodly slab of Year 11 paraphrasing huge sections of it because apparently that passed for religious studies.

Unsurprisingly, I was an atheist long before then, and I'm not sure that my repeated blaspheming necessarily equates to a God belief. I think it's probably a very bad habit.

I think I have no problem with—my mother is deeply religious—I have no problem with people praying in their own time and their own space, but it doesn't belong in a political chamber, in a public building that makes determinations for

This LGA.

By all means, pray in your own time. When this council chose to abolish the prayer, it was an entirely fair and democratic decision, and it followed due process. So the background to this motion is incorrect. It imputes improper motives to the councillors involved and frankly is out of order.

Council is not a church. I don't wish to participate in your religious practices. It would be coercive to expect me or any other councillor or members of the public or the staff to participate. Those people should not have to wait outside while you do your God business. This is a public chamber and our place of work. I simply don't believe that God, any God, rules over this or any other institution, nor do I believe that we should need to invoke God to help us do the right thing. The Local Government Act gives us a long list of guiding principles, including providing strong and effective representation, leadership, planning and decision-making. It states that we should act fairly and without bias, that we should recognise diverse needs and interests and consider social justice principles.

But nowhere in the three-page list can I find a mention of religion or a need for your God to be appealed to. And these appeals to tradition and heritage are deeply selective. They ignore that the church, or that Christian churches in this country, have committed heinous crimes against women, children, First Nations people, the LGBTIQ community and people of other faiths. We can't be selective in our history any longer. I'm going to finish by quoting the Bible, which I believe is an excellent piece of history. It states in Matthew 6, 'Be careful not to parade your uprightness in public.' It goes on to say, ' When you pray, go to your private room, shut yourself in and so pray to your Father who is in that secret place.

Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.' I infer from that that you do not need to include that practice in this chamber. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak? I might add my two cents' worth then and start by saying that I'm in a very, very torn position here. I haven't looked up the vote back in 2016, but I'm pretty sure I voted against removing the prayer. I'm trying to recall.

Was it unanimous? Well, that's what I'm saying. My memory is hazy now that I've hit the big floor, so I am glad that you reminded me of that, and now I'm thinking, why did I do that? So, look, obviously, everyone is a human being and no one's perfect. But there are people in this chamber around this room here who have faith, who haven't always lived that faith perfectly, who don't go to church every Sunday. Sorry, Dad, if you're listening. But try our best, you know, we try our best. And I have had discussions with Councillor Dogramaci since he raised this, and it has been, and other councillors would know, it was something that I was toying with about bringing back. Because obviously, as someone who has practised faith, I don't have a problem with it.

But hearing the other points of view in the room tonight, other people do, and this is our workplace. And I'm very, very torn. I almost feel like I am betraying my faith if I don't support this. But at the same time, it's are we being inclusive, I think is the broader question. And I like what Councillor Kotlash suggested in your speech about perhaps having it as an informal practice, perhaps not at the start of every meeting, but perhaps at the start of every year, like we do with a smoking ceremony outside. And we can invite a minister or someone of faith to come and say a prayer with the councillors who wish to participate. And what I'm saying, Councillor Dogramaci, if you might be willing to amend your motion, it would be something I would support if you wanted to change it to say at the beginning of each council year to be held out on the lawn or something like that.

I think we do have to take into account our other councillors in the room who are not religious, and if they wanted to bring in a practice that I wholeheartedly did not want to participate in, I'd be quite vocal too if I didn't want to do their practices. So I don't know if that's something you'd be open to looking at, amending it that way and having an informal prayer at the start of each year. It doesn't have to be on the lawn. It can be in another room, the committee room or something like that, for those councillors who wish to participate. Because we do need to remember. I think state parliament and federal parliament still start with a church service and a prayer, and all the politicians proudly stand at the church door and get their photos taken, and it's a big deal for them.

I think that it's separation of church and state, the other topic brought up tonight, I think is important as well. But I don't think that you can say that if someone's been brought up on a certain set of faith principles or values, that that doesn't affect their judgment as a leader of our community, because it certainly does in the way that you decide on what you want to do. So if you were open to amending that, Councillor, I could possibly support that tonight. If you wanted to have an annual prayer at the start of each year held elsewhere in the building, but not during the official conducting of business, because as the general manager has just pointed out to the question, sorry, by Councillor Sheather, that would take up considerable staff time and resources to amend the code of meeting practice, and doing it in this other way, we actually don't have to amend the code of meeting practice.

Thank you, just checking, because it's not done within the confines of the council meeting starting. So I'd like to put that out there as something as maybe a way forward in getting some sort of agreement for those who did wish to participate. Do you have any thoughts on that, Councillor?

Can I say only a few words?

Sorry, wrong one. I ask for your opinion, so yes, if you would be open to

Amending that. Yes, simple. I never thought it would be like, you know, what we've been going— I'm sorry that, you know, I have taken your time. Honestly , yeah. But one thing, please don't be offended. I'd love to see those people who have no religion. I'd love to see them. Please, please God, forgive me, that when you fall ill or when you have an accident in hospital— Councillor, I think you're diverging

From the recommendation

Or the motion that we are.

But one thing that I would like to add, Madam Mayor, does that mean that, you know, we have to remove— which will be removed— the portrait behind you, our late Queen, who was the head of Anglican Church, and... King Charles, we know, is going to replace, whether he'll take the title or not. So, I don't know what we're talking about. Thank you, Councillor.

I think that that's a matter of protocol in the chamber rather than a matter of religion. So that would be the difference there. But to go back to my question, would you be open to amending your

Would you be kind enough to give me the words

Yep. If the staff listening and paying attention to this amendment, that was not an insult. I was just saying I'm ready to go. Reintroduce a prayer blessing at the beginning of each council year to be held outside the chambers, because then we can determine wherever we want to hold it. So just say outside the chambers. Point two would be okay and point three would therefore be unnecessary. Are you happy with that, Councillor?

Madam Mayor, I've just got a question. Yes, Councillor. I'm just a little bit lost. I'm just trying to work out what exactly the purpose of this is. Like, was the purpose of having it in the code of meeting practice for the community, or is it for the actual councillors?

I have to pass over to the mover

Of the motion. Can I ask through

You to Councillor Dogramaci, was the intention of it to be for the benefit of the councillors, or is it a community thing? I'm just not understanding that.

Of course it's community. We have a diverse community in here from different religions, from— and basically, like I said, I mean, you all express, you know, their thoughts and your views, you know, whether you attended to this church or whatever it is. It was a simple thought. I thought maybe, you know, we would have, you know, that kind of feelings if you were all brought up in churches like altar boys or whatever. If you don't agree, that's okay. That's fine by me. I'll pray at home. That's okay.

Thank you, Councillor. It was just that then the motion didn't reflect whether or not it had public involvement, which is why I was asking that question. I

Think it'll be advertised to the public. I think the lawn is the better place for that. And it would be if you want to turn up and open the year with a prayer, you can. If you don't want to, you don't have to. As simple as that. And I think that's honouring—the theme tonight throughout many other speeches has been history and heritage, and we can't deny the fact that that has been a part of our practice in the past, I think since our existence. And those who may want to continue to do so surely can do. But I think this is a way to make sure that it's not forcing those who don't want to to participate. You might need to add to point one as well, inviting community members, advertising to invite community members.

This is what you call policy on the run. Councillor Sheather?

I'm not prepared to second. You won't second

The amendment. Well, it's up to Councillor Dogramaci if he wants to change it or not. My point is, I won't be supporting it in its current form. I would support a change, but Councillor Sheather won't second that change. So that's up to you, Councillor Dogramaci, as the mover of the motion.

Well, okay, we'll remove it then.

No, you don't need to remove it. No, what do you want to do? How do you want to leave it?

I've just given you

My idea, but it's your motion.

Well, if we could do it at the beginning of, well , once a year.

I think Councillor Sheather wants to withdraw that seconding.

Can I ask a question, Madam Mayor? Does

Councillor

Sheather first had his hand on? Mayor, my intent wasn't for the councillors to have a position as a prayer. It was a community, as we represent, and that was the purpose of it. Councillors, I'm sure, who prayed don't need a room before a meeting before they come to a meeting

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Kotlash. Sorry, I was just going to — I was just a bit confused about where that was going. If that's not being seconded, does the motion now lapse?

I'm just

Is that the motion you wish to retain, though, my suggestion, or would you like to go back to your original motion? It's still your motion, Councillor Dogramaci

That's okay.

That's what you now— Well, with those changes, you've lost a seconder, correct? Is there anyone else who's wishing to second that?

Councillor Conolly.

Point of order. I think we've got a motion and it's been seconded, and if someone wants to move this, it's got to be an amendment. Yeah

Okay . Well, I was open to Councillor Dogramaci amending his motion to retain ownership, so I would be happy to move that as an amendment, but I can tell there's not an appetite for a seconder on the floor. So, Councillor Dogramaci, your motion remains as was, with Councillor Sheather as your seconder, and unfortunately I won't be able to support that tonight. Thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak, or we go to right of reply, Councillor Dogramaci?

I'm okay.

Okay, then we'll put the motion, which was the original motion. As per the business paper, which you all should have in front of you, hopefully the staff can get that back up. But I think we've all got it in front of us. Those in favour, please raise your hand. Those in favour are Councillor Reardon, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Dogramaci and Councillor Djuric. Those against? Councillor Veigel, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Cotlach, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillors Improgno and Councillor McMahon. I declare the motion lost. Okay, we move on to—

The next item, subject to public address, which is item 12, our first registered speaker has lost her right to speak tonight under 4.4 of the Code of Meeting Practice. If a speaker fails to observe a direction from the chairperson, the speaker will not be further heard. I therefore call on the second registered speaker, Matthew Parks.

Could I just read out my declaration? Oh, sorry, Councillor,

Absolutely. Sorry, were you leaving the room? Yes, sorry Please read your declaration of interest. Thanks.

I'm a candidate for the next state election, and am I reading the right one? Sorry, what are we up to? Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. Yes, I am, and I will be involved in this issue as a candidate, so I think it is appropriate for me to recuse myself, so I will leave the room.

Thank

You very much,

Councillor. Was there any other declarations of interest in this one? No. Thank you. I call on Matthew Parks.

Once again, thank you, Mayor, Councillors, for allowing me the opportunity to address tonight's Council meeting in regards to this motion, which I do not support being endorsed in its current state by the Council tonight. We really appreciate Councillor Lyons-Buckett and Councillor Wheeler for submitting this motion tonight, following their attendance at our community meeting at Southy Road, Hobartville, on Saturday the 21st of January. That was also attended by Councillor Coltash, State Member Robyn Preston, Federal Member for Macquarie Susan Templeman. I just also want to apologise to the Mayor. For any bad press that she suffered as a result of people not seeing her at the meeting.

Thank you, Mr. Parks. I will say my notably absent comment online was that I didn't get an invite. Correct Thank you.

So you didn't get a direct invite. There was a flyer dropped into your letterbox, but you may not have got that in time for the meeting, so just accept our apologies for that. So I'm a resident on Southey Road, Hobartville, with my family, and I'm here on behalf of a significant amount of residents that will be directly affected and are extremely anxious by the Transport for New South Wales preferred route option that they are now commencing the concept and environmental assessment phase, as they published in their December report.

What I'd like to do before I address the council further, I'd like to ask the mayor and the councillors, just on notice, the same question I asked the 80 residents from a 200-letterbox flyer drop that I dropped off, which is 35% attendance, which is quite good considering the other attendances happened at meetings on Southey Road. I guess my question is: who has received, from the mayor and the councillors, who has received the New South Wales revised preferred option report and the five-page summary?

I think we'll take that as a rhetorical question.

Yeah, it's a rhetorical question. That's all right. Secondly, who has read these published documents? And thirdly, who understands what Transport for New South Wales are proposing?

From the meeting that we held on Southey Road, less than 50% had read or seen the reports. Only one person believed that they understood what was being proposed. So the purpose of that meeting was for me to educate, having gone into the report in considerable detail. And do it. This is very alarming, considering there is a significant amount of residents that will be directly affected by this preferred route selection. We're not talking about heritage. We're not talking about— this is real effect on the community as far as noise, vibration and emissions from the levels that we experienced

Today. So let me just quickly explain what's being proposed. So we're just going to talk about the part from Currajong Road to Londonderry Road, okay? So it doesn't only affect the residents in Ingles Lane and Southleigh Road, it's all the surrounding streets, such as the Drift Road, Valder Avenue, Potts Street and many more. As an example, there's no noise mitigation plans on Ingles Lane.

So, from— let me explain some other key facts. There will be 20,000 vehicle movements per day in 2026 when the route is opened on Ingles Lane. That's a lot compared to the 1,500 to 2,000 that's experienced that we estimate today. And today we don't experience semi-trailers or B-doubles. The road parallel to Southleigh Road will have approximately 13,000 vehicle movements per day in 2026. Again, we don't experience any B-doubles or semi-trailers, from about 1,000 car movements per day.

And this project, and it was good of the mayor that said, not on this project but in general, we're going to leave— this project is a major project, and it's going to leave a legacy for years and years to come, for future generations. Okay. So the noise and vibration emissions doesn't affect just Ingles Lane and Southleigh Road; it affects surrounding streets. In the New South Wales Department of Environment.. . Climate and water . New South Wales Road Noise Policy. It identifies that a study area for the noise assessment is 600 metres from the centre line of the outermost lane. To show the extent of this noise study, if we look at the parallel road on Southy Road, that will all go all the way to Hobartville Public School.

It'll go to Tamplin Field Childcare Facilities. Then if you look at Ingleside, it'll go to the aged care facilities, and also the university will be affected in that study. And also under this study, the — sorry, under the policy, Transport for New South Wales will tell the residents what the noise level is as accepted by their determination, which is somewhere between 42 and 50 decibels over an average of a period. There's a formula , all logarithmics and all those things, but it's not going to be the levels of today, what we're all used to and living there, and we also don't get any benefit out of the road either. So , Transport for New South Wales believe that they have conducted a due diligent consultation process that has allowed them to select the preferred route option and move to concept design and environmental assessment stage.

We strongly disagree as a community. In August 2021, Transport for New South Wales targeted an individual online residents information session for the Southy Road, the Drifway, Ingleside. In total, there were 22 houses attended. That's not many out of that area. And in February '22, there was only 25 houses as well. So a slight increase, but not significant.

So, and also where this route is going, there was no one on the Transport for New South Wales working group from this area. Majority of the stakeholders were on the other side of the bridge, on the North Richmond side. So there's been no say.

So. Sorry, Mr Parks, I'm just letting you know the time is up. I'm sorry, we've all missed it, so maybe if you just want to wrap—

I'll start wrapping it up. Okay, no problem. So it is our opinion that Transport for New South Wales continue to adopt a divide and conquer approach, and this must stop. The residents in the area do not have the connections and influence that the Polo Association has had and seen the route changed in their area , in Norfolk Place. But we have 2,000-plus voices that we will make some noise because this is unacceptable. I guess what I'm asking for is that when Transport New South Wales, the proposal is for a meeting by Transport for New South Wales to the council, we want to be there, or it comes in a public forum, because we're the ones that know what the route information is and what they're proposing in detail, because it affects us. Transport for New South Wales will only tell you what they want to tell in accordance with your questions.

So this is going to be a disaster. So in wrapping it up, yes, we need—this is a major project for the Hawkesbury. It has to happen. We have no problem. There are other options there that we believe, outside of the purple route, and that has a less impact, direct impact on the community. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Are there any questions? Question

Yes, thank you, Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you, Mr Parks, for that address. Just bearing in mind what you've said, and of course just reiterating that, of course, we're not the decision maker, and the intent of this notice of motion was in part to try and request a meeting for your residents with Transport for New South Wales around the issues you've raised. The point two of the proposed meeting is for us as a group of councillors to be briefed on specific aspects around the project that will impact on our local facilities and various things that we have to be, of course, guardian of for the whole LGA. So that was what that was gearing to. But with regard to point three, is there anything you wanted to add to that?

Do you want that to be for councillors to attend that as well, or something like that? I'm just trying to get from what you've said what exactly you would see that would strengthen this notice of motion to facilitate what the community is seeking.

I guess for me on point three, I guess the concern is we've had Transport for New South Wales has had other meetings with the council back in, I believe it was around September. There was a paper that was put forward in 2021, and just understanding what comes back and what those discussion points are. Because, as I said, we're the ones that are going to be affected by this, and this is going to be a long-lasting effect. We're seeing real estate sold in our street. You know, 25% in Southeroad have been sold. And people, just from our little meeting we had the other day, you know, I am going to do it. We are going to do a full drop to get all the people to understand what this issue is, because we don't want them to actually experience the issue. We want to avoid the issue.

Thank you, Mr Parks. I may, in fact, increase something to see if we can perhaps have a representative of yours at the community workshop meeting next week.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Veigel.

Yeah, thanks, Mr Parks. I took a couple of calls, I don't know, a couple of weeks ago on the South Yarra route. My, too, wasn't aware of the meeting, but I'm aware it happened. But one of the callers said to me, he's in South, and he couldn't get a right turn into Castle Ray on the proposed route. I tried to look that up, but I just couldn't expand the proposed staff intersections. Is that a fair comment?

Yeah. So they're

Closing the access off to Castle Ray?

Yeah. So there's many issues outside of this noise. Sorry, just a minute. Sorry. There's many issues. This is the one that we're— this is the major issue with the project. But South Yarra is going to be blocked off on both ends. That is not mentioned in the report. Okay I found that— we knew that from last time, and I contacted Transport for New South Wales to reconfirm that, and they have confirmed it. All right. But there is many safety issues with the turning lanes and different things. The other— there is, again, we have our preference for another route that is actually the same time. It is longer, but the same time, because you travel a longer distance at that 80 k's instead of stopping, and you take out one intersection. We know intersections cause accidents.

So, can I just follow that up? I don't want to presume anything, but I guess that's more aligned with the driftway, so there's no more kerbs or doglegs in the road if...

Yeah, it's running the— yeah, it's running the road along the yellow, we'll call it the yellow road because everyone knows by colour. It's running along Yarramundi Lane, basically, and then turning it back up to Crowley Lane and go through the driftway.

Okay, good man. Thank you. Thanks.

It is longer. It's 1.3 kilometres longer, I've measured it. And, yeah, but in time it's quicker. Okay, thank, thank, thank you.

Thank you. Any further questions? Councillor Dogramaci.

Yes, sir. Thank you. You may know that, you know, I was in that area last week. I'm sure that you are aware of it. Previously I've never been around that area, but I received some calls and some people said, you know, come and have a look, see if we could support. I went to Anderson Road. I met a couple of people. I went to Conrad Road. I went to Potts Road, I think. I also went to Makin, or Mission, some kind of a cul-de-sac , and the Southy Road. I went there and across the road as well, and I met quite a few people. I listened. You are 100% correct. I don't know what this Transport New South Wales, how they consulted, how they carried the consultation—

Councillor, I just remind you, you need to ask a question.

Sorry. All right, I'll just make it very quick. If there is anything that I could do to support you, I'm here 100%.

Thank you. That's for your statement, not a question.

Sorry

No, thank you, Mr.— Can I

Just add one more, sorry, if it's okay?

Very quickly.

Just very quickly. So I'm taking our state member out tomorrow. To drive around the route and drive around the streets so that she can understand more the impact. So, you know, we are taking this very seriously and engaging in other bodies as well to assist us in getting this right.

Thank you very much. Appreciate that. Councillor

We've got a joint one here. So who's Councillor Lyons-Buckett?

Thank you. Seconded,

Councillor Wheeler. Over to you, Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Councillor Wheeler and I put forward this notice of motion after attending the meeting that Mr Parks spoke of. It was a very interesting meeting, very well attended, and of course it became very apparent to us very early on that as councillors we had not received any of this information around what exactly these proposed changes were and that we had not, in fact, had a briefing. We listened very intently to what the community were raising and of course they have many issues, as you would expect for someone who is, you know, in that position that they're in. So bearing in mind that we are not the decision makers, I think it's very pertinent that we get the information to us as a group of councillors in the briefing.

Oh, I'm sorry, Madam Mayor. I did send through, but it's not really amending the context. It's just clarifying what the staff have said, which is that we are having a briefing. So at that briefing, it would be good to get the listed items which will outline the impact on the various aspects that we are responsible for in our role. There was particular concern raised about the lack of information around the commercial and residential sector impacts from that project. When the local member was speaking, she, of course, had much more knowledge about this issue and was referring to things that we weren't understanding of what the impact would be. Hence the proposal to have the briefing, which we're now having, but it would be very good if we could send a list so that rather than us asking questions on the night to Transport, that they have some forewarning that that's the information that we're wanting to receive so that we better understand.

With point three, and you've heard Mr Parks, there is a disappointment, I guess, with the— With the consultation process. So they're disappointed that they haven't had the level of consultation that they believe people in their position should have had. So, with regard to that, I think that if we can, in some way, facilitate or request, of course, that Transport for New South Wales hold either a public meeting there, or alternatively allow a representative or two representatives from that community to be present at the— there's a community working reference group on the 9th of February. If we could request that two people from that community attend that to be part of the discussions there, and perhaps raise those questions that Mr Parks was raising.

I was very conscious at the meeting that we all understand the various levels of government and how they're inputting either in funding or design or what's happening around that. But of course, we have to listen to our people and ensure that they're getting the information around a project that stands to impact them quite significantly. I don't think that now is the time to go over what exactly is happening and so on, apart from the fact to say that there are various issues, a large built-up barrier, which is a noise barrier, but of course it's sitting in the middle of a floodplain. What is the impact of that? Where's that water going to go that builds up behind that large structure? The impacts on the heritage in the vicinity, all of these sorts of things.

We need them clearly articulated so that we understand exactly what these impacts from a big project is. And as Mr Parks said, the people there aren't—they understand we have infrastructure upgrades. They understand things have to change. But we need to ensure that these decisions aren't being made without those people being properly informed and having an opportunity to really outline— Just exactly how that is going to impact them and just exactly what parts of their amenity that they stand to lose. It's a beautiful spot, of course, as we know, and we need to make sure that we minimise the loss of the views and vistas that they get up towards the mountains. I mean, obviously, trying to build up a bridge in that area is going to be an impediment in that, but when it comes to design elements, they need to be listened to about what, you know, what sort of things can actually go in there that's compatible with all the various sorts of heritage, whether that's our First Nations heritage, whether that's our colonial heritage.

There's some beautiful old farm areas there that have very historic views and vistas that should be being protected. So I hope that we can work on this and that we get some of these answers from Transport for New South Wales, which, of course, we can then impart to the community if they question us, which was another reason why I felt we needed the briefing, because we are, as Councillor Veigel said, we're getting phone calls from people and we haven't been briefed on this, so we're unable to say anything about it. So yes, I hope that we could perhaps request—I think I would add that wording in. Councillor Wheeler might like to do a bit of wordsmithing on it because she's looking like she wants to—and that would be to request at least two representatives from the Hobartville community attend the community workshop.

Thank you.

Reference group. Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Conolly.

Thank you. I'd like to move an amendment, which is those first three points with a point four. Which I've just sent through. The council informed Transport for New South Wales that our representatives on the community reference group for any further meetings will be the mayor and the deputy mayor.

I agree with everything that Councillor Lyons-Buckett just said. This is a major, major project. It's the biggest infrastructure investment we've ever had in the Hawkesbury. It deserves proper consideration. People need to be heard and make sure that the impacts are fully understood. I might just add to that. I'm not sure if that change by Councillor Lyons-Buckett was picked up. I'm happy for that change to be in this amendment too, that we also request Transport for New South Wales include two representatives from the Hawkesbury community in the community reference group. I'll just

Get a seconder for your amendment . Sorry. Thank you, Councillor.

Yeah. I think this is just a small change to the motion. Essentially, council never got a chance to choose our representatives when this group was first formed. The general manager just sent a couple of people with no consultation with the mayor at the time or with the council. I think it's more appropriate that the mayor, being our elected spokesperson, should be the person there that's there speaking for council, and that if we've got two representatives, the deputy mayor should accompany. That's why I think now we've got a chance to consider it, that would be my recommendation.

I'm happy to accept that as the motion,

Madam Mayor. Would you still want to move an amendment then? You're happy to make that the motion? If you're happy to accept that? Seconder still happy? Yep. Okay. Thank you very much. Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Of course I'll vote for this because we do need a briefing session, but I believe we were going to have one anyway. I can't believe that the state government is serious about putting this option forward. This option they're putting up. This preferred route does not solve the traffic problems. In fact, it tends to make them worse. It creates a whole new intersection just east of the existing bridge and the new bridge, an intersection where traffic has to go across traffic going the other way. So anybody wanting to come across from Richmond has to now manage that intersection, which isn't there at the moment. So it doesn't solve the traffic problems, and it certainly doesn't solve the flood problems either.

You might have a high-level bridge, but what happens when you get to the other side of the bridge and you drop down into flood level on the other side? What's the point of a bridge that is another bridge to nowhere? We can all sit on the end of the bridge and watch the water go past, but we can't drive across the flats unless the road is raised significantly. And going down through the back of Hobartville and Southey Road, I don't think that's an effective bypass either. And especially it'll be less effective once the Gross River bridge is completed. So it'll have very little effect on taking traffic away from Richmond. Over the last number of years, the intersection at Bosworth Street has been widened to four lanes, and the intersection in front of the shopping centre at North Richmond is now four lanes.

That was always, in my opinion, meant to be so that a bridge could go straight across from there, straight across to Richmond, a bridge and a high-level road such as that in Windsor , the Jim Anderson overpass. That's what we need, something that goes straight across, no mucking around. It won't, the traffic won't be any worse than it is now. The traffic will be better than it is now because you've got four lanes going the whole distance rather than narrowing down to two lanes and opening up again. So yeah, I can't believe that the government, the state government, is serious about this. I mean. It doesn't solve any problems, makes things worse. So what's the point? And yes, I'd love to ask those questions at the briefing session.

Thank you.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Any further? Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. It became very clear very quickly last Saturday that the residents of Southy Road really needed access to more information so that they could plan and deal with what was coming at them, given that they haven't had a seat at the table. Mr Parks is right in that they are taking all the burden of this project with no benefit at all. There will be no benefit for the residents of Southy Road or in Alls Lane from this project. In fact, they will go from being people who didn't buy a house on a main road. I've bought a house on a busy road. I bought it because it was a really special heritage property, and I put up with heavy vehicle traffic so that I can live in that house. That's the trade-off for me.

None of these people made that choice. They've had this handed to them with no say in the matter, nor have they had any reasonable consultation. Now, COVID's been a good excuse for not engaging properly with people, but that excuse has gone. If you can go to a party, if you can go to the footy, if you can go to a nightclub, you can get out and consult with the people who are paying your wages. This is public money and a piece of public infrastructure. I'm frankly appalled that they haven't been adequately consulted. What's missing in a whole lot of this picture is local knowledge and understanding of what happens. In these areas. And that, I think, is where Transport for New South Wales needs to be consulting better with Council.

We need to understand what will be left to manage, particularly the impact on our local road network and our local infrastructure. And towns like the two main towns that are affected, Richmond and North Richmond, as well as Hobartville, there are significant impacts on heritage, particularly on Durham Bows in Oslan, which currently, under the current plan, has no noise abatement at all planned. There's a significant loss of the views and vistas to Durham Bows. Those vistas are incredibly significant. They are part of the heritage listing that belongs to that. They are the context of that property and part of the Macquarie-era planning for the town of Richmond. There's very few left. They are extremely important to the heritage of the Hawkesbury.

There's significant impacts on traffic, not just on that road, but on a lot of our local roads. There's significant impact on the environment. There are two wetlands at either end of Southy Road. There's been no consideration of those. I don't think they even appear in the pictures. They're just treated, like everything else along that strip, it's just treated as a big bit of nothing that can be filled in. The Deputy Mayor is right, and I've said this previously. This road, when we met with the committee, with Transport for New South Wales several years ago, we were very frank when we pointed out that this road needed to fix two things: traffic and flooding. It fixes neither.

It's a two-lane road. We're getting an extra lane each way. Half a billion dollars for an extra lane each way. And let's not get too excited about the generosity of the state government. They have freely admitted that they would have had to do the work on the driftway because it's a high accident zone. One in 20 flood mitigation. The new plan along the side of Southy Road, as Councillor Lyons-Buckett raised, has a dirty great levee as part of its noise abatement, with potential for a piece of Perspex shoved on the top. Now, last time I played in the bath, when you put a lot of water up against a straight wall, the water stays there. We've got a big enough problem with the bathtub that's in the Hawkesbury already.

We don't need a smaller one popped into Hobartville, with the residents all talk about the water gathering and running back into the houses. They're just making it worse. This isn't a bypass. This is a diversion. It doesn't remove the traffic. It just moves the burden to the people who didn't purchase the houses on a busy road to start with. So we urgently need to push the state government to advocate for our community, to engage with the people who are affected by this. That's us as councillors having to manage the mess that's going to be left from this and the people who have to live with this when it eventuates. Thanks.

Thank you, Councillor Zamprogno.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I share the concerns, and I endorse the notice of motion. Councillor Conolly is right. This is a very significant investment, and I feel like there's some sleight of hand. That's going on here, and I think Council's proper to state its concerns on behalf of the community that we represent. The community update brochure that was produced by either Transport for New South Wales or Infrastructure, or whatever the agency was, said that as the result of additional investigations—well, sorry—that additional investigations were completed to address community and stakeholder concerns, including a North Richmond town centre business and economic impact analysis. We haven't seen that document.

All we have seen in the press release that came out on December 15th was that the option was recommended as it reduces property acquisition, noise and visual impacts while supporting businesses in the North Richmond town centre. And I'm thinking, no, no, no, hang on. I remember a very splashy announcement, some of us were there, about $500 million that would produce a bridge and a bypass of North Richmond, and it would loop out behind Hanna Park and come up somewhere near Crooked Lane. And I thought, well, that sounds like a reasonable solution. Now we've been told that it will just dump that traffic back in the main street of North Richmond, and I'm not convinced at all that business owners in North Richmond are agitating for more traffic and congestion in the main street.

So if there is this so-called economic report, I think we should ask to see the numbers and ask to see the correct summation of the consultation that was done with business owners in North Richmond, because it doesn't ring true to me. I'm also innately suspicious of infrastructure projects that come with a curiously round number: $500 million for a bridge. Clearly, what we are now being presented with is a significant downgrade. We are not going to get a $500 million spend in North Richmond, just like we are not going to get a $100 million spend to repair Bells Line of Road or a $100 million spend to implement the Pitt Town bypass. It will probably cost a lot less than that, but the State Government throws out a large number that's palatable to people

With an election coming. But if we said, all right then, Pitt Town bypass will cost $35 million, we'll find other things to spend the other $65 million on. I mean, you did promise in front of the media that you were going to give this community $100 million. I suspect we're never going to see that money. And in the same way, I'm innately suspicious of this. We've been sold a pup, and I think Council's quite right to be asking some questions.

Thank you very much, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak?

I'll make a brief.

Councillor Veigel.

Madam Mayor, thank you. I don't think all is lost. Remember a number of years ago they put a line on the map and it was dividing a number of communities with the M9, with some thought bubble coming out of State Government, so we'll just go and divide it, that's where we're going to put that infrastructure. There was a lot of lobbying to say, well, get lost, it needs to go through the floodplain. I'm specifically talking around Windsor Downs and further up into the community. I think at the time, Councillor [unclear name], you could gave me a call about what we did to go and try and lobby that with a local member at the time, and that was the Premier. They rightfully moved it, but it took a lot, lot of months.

I'm talking it was community effort, but 24. Yeah, the bureaucrats are sitting in an office somewhere in Macquarie Street just marking it out. I'm in support of this as well. It can be changed. It should be changed. My guess it will be changed. The spend's got to be fit for purpose. You won't get an argument from me. You don't need another bridge crossing because it absolutely needs it, but it needs to be a route that is the best, best, best way forward, as been outlined tonight by— Mr Parks and in the debate, so that's where I am with it. So I'll be supporting the motion. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Okay, my turn. It's very refreshing to be able to be in this debate in this chamber tonight after having to excuse myself for the last couple of years due to obviously the previous federal candidacy. So it's very nice now to be sitting here as the mayor, being able to talk about a project that I had a significant hand in ensuring that money through that candidacy was available. Mr Parks, now that I know that you know where I live, I'll have to make sure my lawn is mowed and not. You're dropping letters in my letterbox . While I'm there, but please, my point in that is ensure that you do invite me. I understand the hesitancy previously, and I guess after everything I've been through and being the mayor now, I don't sugarcoat things. So if there's hesitancy prior, that ship has sailed. Let's get everybody in the same room to talk about this. Now,

Through that federal candidacy, I know that we all know that in many projects, or most projects actually, the federal government will provide a significant amount of funds, but the state government will design that project and will construct that project. And I guess that's where, no matter what level of government you're sitting on, if you're not state government, you hold a very strong sense of frustration because that whole process gets taken out of your hands. I think if you look back on some of the things that I've said about the bridge project in the past, promoting the merits of the chosen route and why that route was chosen may not have— Specifically said that if you go back and look at the initial promise of $250 million, that was in line with the 2012 Transport for New South Wales design of the bridge, which was a straight up and down bridge from North Richmond to Richmond.

And if you look at the investment the state government had put in that so far, that was investment in the intersection at North Richmond, a huge investment in the intersection at KFC at Richmond, and the bridge was to be the third part of that puzzle. It then got taken out of certain hands, to say, and into the state government's hands, where the state government, in their wisdom, always know better, and they put options out to the community. Now, I think the other thing to be very aware of is as projects evolve, views can change. And back to that point about a legacy on the previous bridge, this one is also a legacy, and we're not talking just about a few million dollars here; we're talking about half a billion dollars.

And that's not the government's money; that's mine and your money when we're paying our taxes. So that's our money, half a billion dollars of our money towards a bridge. And I guess, as mayor, I look very forward to being a part of the voice of making sure that we do get the right route. I can hand on heart say that some of the changes do not appease me , but I can also say to the community that, and forgive me for being indulgent, an 18-month campaign against me and members of my family to try and get a different political outcome is not going to help your cause. Have you ever heard the saying, You attract more flies with honey than vinegar? So perhaps instead of putting out lies and misconceptions about people dressing me up in Chinese dresses, standing out front of my partner's building taking photos as we leave, you might want to actually consult with your elected representatives rather than engage in a campaign of bullying.

I do look, and look at the people laughing. That's the time. I know all your faces, I know your names, and I will just say, what you do online leaves a permanent digital footprint. And that permanent digital footprint is forever a reflection of your reputation and the behaviour that you decide to engage in. So moving forward, I do hope that we can get this right. I look forward to being part of the reference group moving forward. I will just put on record before I end that I did call Transport for New South Wales today and asked questions around the composition of the previous community group . There were not answers forthcoming in that. Sorry to put you on the spot, Deputy Mayor, but you were the mayor at the time, and I'm happy if you want to tell me to be quiet or if you're happy to not in agreement that as the mayor of this council, you had no idea this community group was being formed.

You had no idea that there were people from our community being put onto a community group. So I'm going to be a little busy bee in the next couple of days because I'm writing a second letter. But that letter, not just the one to the OLG, but a letter to Transport for New South Wales asking for feedback on how that process commenced and how those community representatives were chosen. There was not a transparent expressions of interest put out to our community. There was a behind closed doors process where certain people were chosen to be on a group, and there was not the opportunity for everyone else in the community to participate. And if you want transparency in your council and in your local government, then you will stand beside me as I write that letter to Transport for New South Wales and ask about how that process was undertaken.

I thank Councillor Conolly for your point here about putting the mayor and the deputy mayor as representatives on that. Given we are two very different political parties, I think that provides a balanced perspective on that group. So I thank you for listening to my comments about that, and I'll be supporting the motion tonight. Are there any further speakers?

Right of reply, Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, and thank you everyone for that input. I did just want to refer specifically to the relationship to the state government strategic plans. I think it's really important that, in light of the previous item we had also, that we do get answers around, you know, the actual plans for the future of this area before they're spending such of our taxpayer money on these projects. It would be really good to know . I welcome that you and the Deputy Mayor want to go to the reference group. It's not making decisions. There were no decisions made, although there was a decision made here for representatives from the floodplain committee and— Heritage and I think from the farmers , the farmers committee and various other committees.

That was, I remember at a briefing we discussed that with a map where we were looking at the map, and it was decided that Council would be represented by those two committees. I think that some of what you've said and has inferred that in some way Councillor Wheeler and I somehow thought we should specifically be on that committee. We did it. Deputy Mayor

I've made no inferences. I'm just asking questions

I'm not the

Deputy Mayor anymore. Oh, sorry, Councillor . Anyway

Well, the thing is that we did not specifically request, we went because there was a request for people to have input on flooding. At the time I was the Chair of the Flood Plain Committee and Councillor Wheeler was the Chair of the Heritage Committee. That's why we were there. There was nothing underhanded about it, and the confidentiality around all of it was from Transport for New South Wales. On a number of occasions we asked specifically that the information from those various meetings, which really were just updates from Transport for New South Wales, there was very little that the people in the room actually did, but they expressly said that all of that was to remain confidential. So I hope that your letter to them brings the answers that you're looking for .

I think that there's a lot of questions to be answered. Hopefully if we send this forward to them as soon as possible after this meeting, it will give them the time to come up with some of, to find the answers to some of this. I don't know that they would have all of this available, but as Councillor Zamprogno said, they had promised various studies around some of these things. So hopefully they can bring those to the briefing and fill us in so that we can actually be more aware of what this project's about and particularly how. As I stated in the previous item as well about a bridge, how this impacts our local road network, the roads that feed into these bridges, we are the ones that bear the cost.

And we all know that we've got issues already around our road maintenance and our capacity to maintain our roads. So any further impost on our ratepayers from these projects, we really have to have a good understanding and hopefully, I would think, some form of commitment from the state government to contribute to the upkeep of any impacts arising from that. So hopefully this will pass and that we'll have quite a few questions answered at the briefing and that the Hobartville residents can also be involved both in the reference group , which is a community reference group, so really it really should have had all the communities that stood to be impacted, and also the public meeting for them.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. All those in favour of the motion, please raise your hand. Those in favour are Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno and Councillor McMahon. Absent is Councillor Kotlash. Could someone please go and ask—

Ms. Kotlash, thank you to

Return. That is— Madam Mayor, that's the end of the public speaking. Could I move for a 10-minute recess?

I'm happy to second that. Everyone in favour? Yep, 10-minute recess.

Thank you, Councillors. We are now live streaming again. If you'd like to take your seats.

Thank you, everybody. The next part on the agenda tonight is condolences, of which we do not have any. And then we're up to the Mayoral Minutes. So— oh, sorry. My agenda. The Mayoral Minutes are before items on block, but I am very happy to do them in a different order. So let's do items on block. Items on block are item 5, item 7, and item 9. Do I have a mover for those items, please? Councillor Reardon and a seconder, Councillor Kotlash. All those in favour of items on block, please raise your hand. Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno, and Councillor McMahon. Thank you very much.

Okay, over to Mayoral minutes. Obviously both of these next two items are mine. I am going to take the Mayoral minute as read by the councillors and not have to go through it all again. There's an extensive background there based on McQuade. Now, the reason this is forthcoming now, there's a couple of reasons for that. I'd like to thank Councillor Djuric and Councillor Sheather for their engagement with our local community, with people who are heavily invested in securing the history and the heritage of Windsor, understanding that that takes two forms. That is both Indigenous and colonial. And I know that Councillor Djuric and Councillor Sheather have met with members of our community significantly on these issues.

And when I became mayor and I asked every councillor to present to me their key items, these were their key items, and my task is to make sure that we're getting things done that people want to do and that they were elected to do. So you would recall that we had the plan of management of McQuade Park go through this chamber recently with support. The next stage in that process is to, of course, get the minister to sign off on that, and that is, there's a question mark over that time frame. We just won't know. And of course going into caretaker and an election. There could very well be a new minister, so we do just have to wait for that to happen. However, that does not mean that we don't get on with things in anticipation of that.

So if you look at the items here listed , basically it's just calling for a report from staff, and I have engaged with the general manager. Given a three-month timeframe seems to be a fair amount of time to be able to do this. All of the things I'm led to believe that I'm asking for are permissible under the intended plan of management, so it's not going to be breaking anything under that document. They are all the things that people have come into this chamber before addressing and requesting for McQuade Park to be. Supporting this Mayoral Minute tonight does not mean that these things will happen tomorrow. It is asking for a report to come back outlining permissibility, outlining cost, and as we are all experts now in wanting to go for grants after everything that's been available, having this report to us with a cost of what these items will basically cost means that we can then, when a grant becomes available, basically just hand it in as a blueprint and say, here we are, we're ready to go.

We deserve this grant funding. So that's all this is doing. I'm happy to have any other discussion by Councillors on this matter. Thank you. Councillor—oh, hold on. Yes, thank you, Councillor Sheather

Madam Mayor, excuse me. One of the things that we did discuss, and we had a speaker here one night from the Ministry, actually, that spoke about the issues he had within the church grounds of not having a toilet in that vicinity. Could you add to your list the feasibility of a toilet somewhere in the proximity of, don't worry Oval. That might resolve that issue.

Absolutely, Councillor. I will make that a point Q. We're getting right down there on the alphabet. The feasibility of public amenities around the Don't Worry Oval vicinity. Yeah

Just briefly to offer support and thanks for the work and effort that went into this. And when you mentioned grant, I shudder. I heard the yes on the end of it, which was really good. The word grant — I've never come across a more passionate person in my life.

And he'll be leaving us soon, but he'll certainly leave a legacy within this town, I can tell you that. He's one of the people in the community. There's others who have a fond vision, I guess, of McQuade Park and its surroundings. And while we did a plan of management, we would have consultants and people in that that would not have perhaps the long-term vision of some of our residents and understanding. And this motion of yours, I hope, helps guide that to the sort of things that people expect, because these people, when they spoke to us and have spoke to other people, the comments are complimentary. I haven't heard any that's not. And they understand it's going to take time and money. It's not going to happen overnight. They understand all that, but they would just like to, I guess, look to the future that when things start to happen, it happens with a process that suits the park.

Thank you, Councillor

Councillor Reardon. Yes, Madam Mayor, I was just wondering if the restored Krupp gun could be returned to the park.

Thank you, Councillor. You had written that to me in writing. Yes. Again, we might use the word the feasibility to start off that point of the Krupp gun to be returned to the park. Can you just remind me where it currently is?

Apparently it's at our depot at Wilberforce. It's been restored. At one stage it was at the Regional Gallery, and it was interpreted downstairs and brought a lot of interest. But apparently it's gone back to Wilberforce for safekeeping at the moment. There's a possibility that David Ingram tells me maybe it could be at the new Veterans RSL Centre at South Windsor when that's built. There would be a place there for it, he said. Okay

Well, I'm happy to add your point with the word feasibility at the start, just to see whether it's possible or not. So thank you, Councillor. We'll get that added as well. Anyone else wishing to speak?

Councillor Djuric.

Yeah, I'd like to thank Madam Mayor for putting this forward, and it has been the passion of quite a few members of the community in Windsor. And McQuade Park is the gateway to our city, and it should be something special. I don't have a lot to say on the matter. I think it covers a lot, and it covers everything that's been the passion of the community. And I just want to thank you for putting that forward.

Thank you, Councillor. And you are correct to thank those members of the community. And Councillor Sheather is correct. Grant has put a lot of time and effort in, and I'm happy to put on the record I come into work daily with a new letter from Grant on my desk, and his lovely passionate ideas. So, you know, we have to thank people like that for caring. I think is the bottom line. Councillor Wheeler. Thanks , Madam Mayor.

Can I ask a couple of questions first? Where did this list come from?

It came from the collaboration of community members with Councillor Sheather and Councillor Djuric. It's a wish list. It's not exhaustive and it's not conclusive.

And was there any consultation with heritage experts to reach this list?

No, there wasn't.

And can I ask through you what the normal process is following the adoption of a plan of management?

Well, if you have concerns with heritage here, Councillor, I'd be very happy to put a point on that once we get the report back with the cost, that it goes to the Heritage Committee. Very happy to do that.

I would suggest that it goes to the Heritage Committee first. I think it would be wasting staff time to chase some of these things, which are unlikely to meet heritage constraints and are certainly not consistent with the conservation management plan that has been prepared and endorsed for McQuade Park. So I think you would be better to send this to the Heritage Committee

Very happy for their assessment. There's not to be anger or animosity in this notice of motion. It's to enhance a public park. So there's not to be offence gained or caused from this at all. It is just community representatives' ideas, and I'm very happy to have been their vehicle and their voice to put that forward. So if you would like it to be sent to the Heritage Committee for feedback, more than happy to, Councillor Wheeler.

Thank you. Can I go back to my previous question, which is what is the normal process following the adoption of a plan of management? Because currently the plan of management— I

Refer

To the general manager

It's waiting endorsement. Through you, Madam Mayor, so the typical process there is that once a detailed plan of management is typically accompanied by a master plan, becomes adopted, it's then, I guess, funnelled through into Council's annual budget process, an operational plan, where we will then typically stage—often those master plans have stages set out within them—and that we would work through, pending on funding and some of the pragmatics of implementing the plan of management, would then be put through that budget process along with all of Council's other projects every year. So

And when is that? Under the— Under the normal system, when would that plan of, when would we be looking at conducting that process for McQuade Park?

I couldn't stipulate that. I think that it would certainly, Council having adopted the plan of management, it is something that would be considered for the next financial year, whether we would have funds available for the next financial year, I couldn't answer at this time.

And so how then does that sit with this Mayoral Minute, where staff would be undertaking this report whilst still having to carry out that other

Process? I think that we would be simply reporting back on each one of these items, identifying whether it is or it isn't consistent with the endorsed plan of management initially, whether there were any concerns with any other strategic pieces of work, particularly around our signage and wayfinding project as well, and then around those costs in particular, and if the broader Council is of a mind to want to support these particular things, then that's something that we would then feed through into the budget process. Thank you.

That's helpful because it gives me some context around where what's going on here.

Apart from this going to the Heritage Advisory Committee, which I think is probably a really good idea, I can't support the majority of this Mayoral Minute for a number of reasons. I think this isn't good decision making. This has come about through consultation with a small segment of the community, certainly very passionate, certainly very keen to see what they believe to be good outcomes for McQuade Park, but not consistent. With accepted heritage management processes, not consistent with the existing conservation management plan and outside council's normal processes, it is effectively a case of special pleading. There are really clear processes outlined for state heritage listed assets, of which this is one, and we are the managers of that asset.

ICAMOS has put out an extensive document about how to apply the Burra Charter process to cultural landscapes, and this is not consistent with that process. The Department of Environment and Heritage guidelines for park management call for genuine discussions about the history, the social attachment, the historical connection, and the impacts of management actions on places and their cultural values. And I don't think that at this point, with these things, with these ideas, we can answer the question, the key question of what impacts will my management action have on the place and its cultural values . Some of these are lovely ideas, you know, lights on the pond. And yet when you look at the conservation management plan, it talks about the landmark qualities of that pond.

At no stage does it mention it should have coloured lights and a railing.

You're inventing history that isn't consistent with the place. There are processes so that we can get these things right. This is a highly significant state listed heritage asset that we are left to manage into the future, and it needs to be done in a considered and informed way. And I'm not sure that that's the point that That we're up to. By all means, have a motion that interested parties address the Heritage Committee about what could happen at McQuade Park and the potential for some of these things. But to fix them in stone like this through a resolution of council, I think is really poor policy. We've got here that, you know, point 2, council investigate the possibility of gateway signage.

We have a signage process. That signage and fencing at the Catholic Burial Ground opposite the chamber, that sentence doesn't have a verb. I don't know what we're actually resolving to do there. And I've got real concerns about our really stretched staff who are currently galloping to catch up with the state government's, with all the other state government's money that they're chucking at us, getting this back to us within three months. I think

This is well-intentioned but misplaced, and I can't support it.

Thank you for your comments, Councillor. Were there any other comments tonight

Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I think overall we all want to see McQuade Park, which is central to our, you know, sort of one of our major townships, we want to see it enhanced. I've got no objection to getting a report, but I share Councillor Wheeler's concerns. And I do draw attention to something which has been raised when I've spoken a number of times, which is when I've said, you know, the community has inputted into something, it's been drawn to my attention. That may only be a small section of the community. So there's been no consultation with wider community. There's been no consultation with surrounding residents. I don't know if Reverend Chris Jones was part of the consultation project or not.

But of course that is a whole historic precinct. It is a heritage precinct, the entire area. And anything that's done needs to be mindful of complying with the conservation management plan, with the plan of management. I'm also quite... I really, I'm mindful not to see an increased burden on staff when we've seen quite overwhelmed with other projects. And in saying that, I do think it's a shame it wasn't ready for West Invest, because it would be a worthy project to have something going on there when there's money available. But I think that specifying what to be done, and I know you said it's not a limited list of things, so perhaps before it goes, then there should be more consultation. But I would think the initial stage would be to put it before the Heritage Committee and get the advice of what is permissible in the first instance, and also perhaps some more suggestions.

I think that that would be more suitable for things that are proposed for a State list of park, because it's so important that with State listing we abide by what the conditions are. The Director of Infrastructure isn't here, but I did have two points that were included in there. The first one was about the fountain pump, which I'm sure I asked about that when the pond was drained and there was work being done for the pond, and was told that the pump was to be covered. Now, I don't know what happened to that, and maybe that can be taken on notice. I think at the time Mr Organ responded that that was part of the works to be done. The other thing was that, and this is what sort of concerns me with putting this through as something costed and so on, I really think four large signs on each corner of the park is not necessarily something that's conducive to a heritage area.

I don't think it's necessary. I was in Chippendale on the weekend and they have a beautiful mosaic in the footpath where it's circular, it's beautifully coloured, and it's got a diagram of the streets in that precinct and where the landmarks are marked on there. Now, I think... We need to look at other things about what we might do. Of course you'd have one sign because we've got a signpost the park. Then why wouldn't we maybe consider having something different that's less intrusive in another area? So these are just ideas that are there. And I think if we go ahead and cost something without consulting anybody else, we're going to have people come in and say, like is happening, like with Windsor Mall now and everything like that.

If it's not all done up front, people are going to come back and then we will have wasted resources having this done. But I'm not objecting to doing a process like this. I just think that before we proceed with a concrete resolution, we bring it back a bit and we increase the consultation and we get some more input, particularly via the Heritage Committee to hear and to eliminate anything that's not permissible at the word go, so that we haven't gone down a path of preparing something which then has to be redone because that would be doubling up.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Conolly.

Thank you. Just a question. I understood most of this, almost all these actions have actually come from the plan of management. Is that the case, or are we adding things in here that aren't in there or that are contradictory to what the plan we've just looked at? I should refer to the

I must admit, Councillors, I haven't done a comprehensive assessment against the plan of management. Certainly, in respect of signage, there are some discrepancies there between our intended path forward on the signage and wayfinding strategy, but it was certainly our intent to just draw this out through the report back to Council.

Thank

You, Councillor.

Councillor Wheeler, a question? No, an amendment. I've said some words to the staff, but it's very simple. It's just that Council refer the matter of potential projects in McQuade Park to the Heritage Advisory Committee. That gets around the need for the staff to prepare a report. The content of the Mayoral Minute can go to the Heritage Advisory Committee for discussion. There may be some other ideas that come up, but it's a cheap, effective and timely way of consulting with heritage experts that give their time freely to get an idea of what's permissible and what isn't. The people who are really passionate about this, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Djuric, Mr Garrish, can address the Heritage Advisory Committee so that they can get their ideas forward, and then we can move it on from there. So rather than

It proceeding and taking up staff time when we then get heritage advice that it can't work, or it fading, it's dealt with, it comes back to Council in the minutes of the Heritage Advisory Committee, and then Council can choose to send it out for further public consultation if we so do. I'll second it.

You'll second that.

Do you want to? I'm very happy for it. I already agreed that I was very happy for it to go to the Heritage Committee, but do you want to flesh it out a bit more? Because what's a potential project? You need to have a reference to something. To the Mayoral Minute then, yep.

Then you've got a reference. That's fine. Councillor Conolly?

Just a question, Madam Mayor. If we went with that amendment— Would it be possible for, I mean, I guess I'm just trying to think of a way to get both outcomes without spending a whole lot of time and money. What if we referred it to the Heritage Committee and then staff were able to include notes from management with the advice back from the Heritage Committee so that we could kind of get a bit of an idea of any potential problems without getting a full report into the costings of all this stuff? Just wonder if that would work.

I'll just refer to the general manager if that's possible.

There's probably no reason why not at this point, Councillors. I'd had spoken to the mayor prior when she drafted the motion and expressed that we could produce something within three months if we keep adding complexity into this around Heritage Committee referrals and those sorts of things. I'm going to be pushed to meet that deadline, that's all. So I'd be happy for any sort of interim, I guess interim advice back on feedback from Heritage Committee if that suits the council.

Thank you. Councillor Zamprogno?

No, I was effectively going to make the same suggestion that Councillor Conolly did. I mean, I like the ideas that have come up in your mayoral minute, but I also acknowledge the concerns that Councillor Wheeler had, and I just thought that maybe referring this to the Heritage Committee could just have been added as a dot point. Yeah,

Thank you, Councillor. I'd already agreed to that upon initial suggestion, that I was very happy for that to become a point one, to refer it to the—I already agreed. So I think the amendment tonight was something I'd already agreed to. Is there any—but either way, I don't mind. It's just about getting it done, because we're a can-do council, not a complain council. So, Councillor Sheather, do you have a question? I think you've spoken.

Have we got the amendment?

That is the amendment. It just needs to be—it needs an added part to it in reference to item W, the mayoral minute. Once that's, yeah, now that's fine, and then that can be the attachment. But I'm absolutely fine with that. It's fine by me. I've got some comments to make, but does anyone else wish to speak, or you've got another question?

So have we got an amendment, or have you accepted that as an amendment? I'm

Happy for that to be an amendment. I don't care who owns it or whose name is on it. I just want to get it done.

Well, I'll speak to the amendment. Oh, you can

Do that, Councillor.

Thank you. Councillors, the comments that have been made about to do it properly, these people are passionate about doing it properly.

To drive us mad is inappropriate, but they're certainly passionate, all of them. If there was suggestion that the Heritage Committee had, they would take that on board wholeheartedly. And it's not about cutting corners. It's about ideas that if we're heading down a particular direction, can we look at this? As the Mayor said, it's not about something in stone , and I would hope that the staff wouldn't look at it in that degree. This is something that certain aspects of the management plan need to be addressed, and this is how they would like to see it addressed. We talk about consultation. These people would love to speak to the people who are going to be involved to do particular aspects when money is available to do these projects, and things like the fountain and stuff like that, with the lighting, the main memorials in Sydney.

are lit with different colours. We have light displays all through Sydney that half New South Wales goes to. But they're not suggesting that these are extravagant or the like. They were talking about something that enhances a place. And if it needs to be, you know, come out of a dragan, a heritage dragan, for instance, I don't know. That'll come from somewhere else. But it's an idea that they spoke of that , and when I say spoke of, they've talked about this for a long time. It's not just something they woke up about one morning and thought this would be a good idea. They're more passionate about this than I think any of us sitting around this table. And so if there's a particular aspect or theme, our community want to be involved with it.

And it's certainly not about cutting corners. It's certainly not about dictating to council what they demand. This was about working with council to achieve a good outcome for a park that deserves it. So if councillors feel frustrated, certainly don't. And if there's any information or discussion, any of them would be happy to speak to anybody. And certainly the two of us would make ourselves available for any issues. But it's not meant to be an issue, let me tell you. It is meant to enhance the park.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'll speak in favour of the amendment. I think we don't know who these people are. I'm sorry, but we're basing something on a minute where everyone keeps saying these people, these people. We don't know who they are. They've been referred to as the community. We know that that's not how we should refer to things, just saying the community. And we're now basing a motion on people's passion. So passionate people come in here all the time. They come in here and they speak to us about something they don't want. They speak to us about something they do want. And we cannot sit here and say because they're passionate, that makes it something that we've all got to bend to.

Now, I don't doubt they're passionate, and I suspect I know who you're speaking about, although they seem to be the unnamed. But I think that being passionate is wonderful. We're all passionate. Many of us are passionate about multiple things. But that's not a measure of how we make decisions. I'm just concerned that if we were to raise this about another project, if one of us put up a motion and said we want to do these works in this place, it would be reasonable to suggest other councillors would say, well, what about the input of all the stakeholders? What about the other people that might have an idea? That's the way consultation goes. I'm not averse to some of these things. I'm certainly not averse to having that park improved.

I think that will be wonderful, and it's long, long overdue. It's in such a central location, but I think going down this path. The other thing is the plan of management is not back, and we know, because I was at a meeting about, as Jill and Acting Director of Planning were at a meeting last night, we know the delays in getting a plan of management back. So there's no real urgency on time for this because you cannot do anything until you've got the plan of management adopted. So unless somebody knows that the plan of management is coming soon, I would just maybe take a step back and work through it by having it looked at. First of all, this is including the list that the mayor has put forward, and any additions that I would imagine could be fed into that process by anyone who addressed the Heritage Committee, that they could raise any other ideas that also were part of making it a better place.

And that could come from some of the people who have other interests in it, not just people who are passionate and wanting their particular thing. So I think it's about balancing opinion and getting all the input, and I think it's a really good thing to come up. It's certainly a valid project to pursue without doubt. But I just think I'm very concerned. We used to have a mayor in here who used to like to say, policy on the run, and this is what this is sounding like. Sorry, that was cool. Knock yourself out. Yes, so that is how I think we should go down it. I don't want to see us lose the value of what this is proposing, but I want to see it done properly because we know what can happen if we don't follow process.

Thanks.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak?

No, I'll just take my right of reply to make some comments. Thank you everyone for your valuable contributions. I think what's important here is that this has been significant work of Councillor Djuric and Councillor Sheather, and it's something that they have both wanted to put forward. And as I said, very happy to be their voice. I think this Mayoral Minute is anything but policy on the run. If you look at the very first words of this recommendation, it was asking for a report on permissibility. Put the cost issue aside. The first part was permissibility. Are these things possible? Yes or no. So there's no policy when you're asking a question. This is asking a question. Talking about consultation, I'm pretty sure in my six, five and a half, six and a half, whatever it is years here in this chamber, there's been dozens of notice of motions put on these business papers without consultation to everybody else.

That's what your right is as a councillor elected to this community, to push a notice of motion up or a Mayoral Minute if you are the mayor, based on whatever in the world you want to put up. And that's your right. And not everyone has to like it, but that's what's called putting this on the business paper for the public to register, speak if they have an interest, is consultation. Getting the report back on permissibility and cost of these items is consultation, because each step of the way, people of the public can register to come and speak and tell us their thoughts. Very happy for it to go to the heritage committee. There was to be no bars in this moving forward. This Mayoral Minute is community ideas.

I don't think we can say we can't use the words the community. I think I've actually made speeches in this chamber about the overuse of the term, in inverted commas, the community. The community can be anyone you want it to be because they all live in this community. And I don't want anyone listening to this debate tonight who's contributed to this Mayoral Minute think that their ideas are worthless, because their ideas are not worthless. This was not a policy. This was an idea. And I thank them for putting these ideas forward. And I'm very always happy to be their champion in having those issues heard. So still very happy to support the amendment because the amendment still encompasses what the Mayoral Minute is asking for, and I'll now put it to the vote.

Those in favour of the amendment, please raise your hand. Those in favour, Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Counc— sorry, this is the amendment, which will then become the motion. Yep. Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett

Councillor Wheeler, Councillors Improgne, Councillor McMahon. The amendment now becomes the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. Those in favour, Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillors Improgne, Councillor McMahon. I deem that one carried.

Okay, thank you, Councillors. The next item is item number three, another Mayoral Minute, project funding, New South Wales Government's WestInvest program. I do have a declaration of interest to read out before I begin that. That interest is a less than significant non-pecuniary interest. The reason is my son, 11-year-old son, does play currently for one of the clubs associated with Turnbull Oval, which was a suggestion I had put forward in the recommendation. But I wanted to make it very clear, like any other child, next week he might want to play tennis. Next year he might want to take up heavy metal music and play the drums. So there is no pecuniary interest whatsoever, and I don't think a child's decision to play something now should mean that thousands of people in the community miss out on upgrades that they potentially need.

Now, before I begin, Councillors would be aware that there was some advice received from the New South Wales— oh, sorry, Councillor Kotlash, before I begin.

Thank you.

Please read out

Your interest.

Thank you. It's a significant non-pecuniary interest. I'm a candidate for the next state election, and I feel that the content of this Mayoral Minute is predominantly political and therefore I will be, and could highly likely be, the subject of my campaigning. So I will leave the room. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Councillor. I'll just wait till you are out of the room.

Could someone just turn off Councillor Kotlash's microphone, please?

Thank you very much. The point of this Mayoral Minute was twofold. It is to put officially on Council's records the Amount of money that we received as a council through the WestInvest program and, of course, have on the record the facilities that were going to be upgraded for council. And we all know that we have never seen this kind of money before. Call it political, call it what you want. We're going to be able to upgrade our facilities, and our residents will be happy. Before I say anything else, though, the councillors would be aware that today, in moving forward with how we determine the proportion of funds we had left out of WestInvest, advice was sought from the WestInvest staff and the New South Wales Government, from the general manager and the director of infrastructure.

Now, that advice means that we do have to change the recommendation, and that has been put to councillors in a briefing this afternoon. And if that wording is available, please.

That will change point four of the recommendation.

So you'll notice on—so basically, for those listening who probably don't understand what happened, there was a process. There was part one and part two of WestInvest funding. Throughout that process, we had been told we had an extra allocation of funds. Council nominated a project, which was Tamplin Field, which ended up being allocated under round two. Therefore, we were communicated with as a council and said, You still have this funding. You need to nominate a project. Hence why this Mayoral Minute is here to say we actually have to make a decision. We've been told today we have to make that decision because the cutoff is Friday. So, as a council, we need to debate that. Now, councillors would be aware that there were four projects that did not make it to successful Western Invest funding, being Turnbull Oval, Colby Park, a road project on Macquarie Street, and some upgrades to the grandstand and playground at McQuade.

Now, they all came with different values. I expressed, as the mayor, as I can do, an opinion that Turnbull Oval certainly needed a doing up because, as I've said to many people, I don't even want to go to the bathroom there because it certainly needs an upgrade. Now, what this 0.4 means, if I can just explain it to councillors who did not make the briefing this afternoon, we have to nominate a project, and I'm very happy to open that debate to the floor to whatever councils will may be. However, and the general manager has absolutely every right to cut me off if I'm getting the explanation of what transpired this afternoon wrong. The remaining allocation of funding is $4.78 million. Okay, so please remember, everybody, this is all very fresh information.

I'm trying my best to get it through. $4.78 million. Three of the projects out of the four that we did not get, which are already in the state government's hands, which are the projects we could now potentially have for our community, three of those projects are over $4.78 million. Okay, the only project under that is the road safety project at Macquarie Street, which was around $800-and-something thousand dollars, which means if we go for that project, we forfeit almost $4 million. Okay, so we lose $4 million. However, the catch by the state government today was that with the other three projects, now I think that Turnbull was approximately 8.5, Colby 14.6, which is why in my deliberations it was very unachievable, but also the fact that we were spending other money through other grants and through the budget process on Colby, and McQuade, I thought, well, we were having another discussion on McQuade.

We have basically what the state government has said is because of the cost you've already submitted on those projects, you have to pay the gap. Now that means here, as decision makers of the Hawkesbury, as keepers of ratepayers' funds, we have to decide whether we have the capacity to fill that gap, or we forfeit the money.

As the General Manager discussed with Councillors this afternoon, there are ways that we can bring the cost of those projects down when we debate which project we want to add into insert project. There are ways we can trim some of those projects. By and large, we have to deliver what we said to the state government we would deliver, but we can trim around the edges. So, for example, we were told on the Turnbull project where there was a significant amount of money spent on paving, we can cut that back. So there are all these ways that staff have spent a very busy afternoon, probably yourself, working around ways where that gap, that is our ratepayers' funds, can be as small as possible. I'm very happy right now for Councillors who weren't at that briefing this afternoon just to potentially ask any questions you might want to ask before we begin a bit of a debate and before we decide whether we will essentially forfeit the money or if we can come up with the gap ourselves .

It's an awful position for us to be in, but it's the position that we're in and as leaders we have to work our way through it. Councillor Zamprogno.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. So I do have a couple of questions, and I apologise that I wasn't able to attend that briefing given the short notice. It's true to say that we have a well-developed and adopted plan of management for Colby Park because we adopted it in July 2021. Do we have a plan of management for Turnbull Oval? General Manager

My understanding is that that would form part of the generic plans of management, so I understand, so there's not a specific one

All right then. Next question. Did we work up to some level of detail a plan for the improvement of Turnbull Oval, which was unsuccessful and therefore could become part of the—

In other words, we had a bid.

That's correct. Okay

Then, but that bid is not nearly of the same level of detail as our adopted plan of management for, say, for example, Colby Park, correct?

No, I wouldn't necessarily agree with that. You're sort of trying to compare apples and oranges. Obviously Colby Park is a far more extensive piece of recreational open space with a number of different competing land uses down there, whereas I guess I would be suggesting that Turnbull, frankly, isn't that complicated in terms of the land use

Planning. Right, okay. So what I'd like to suggest as a guiding principle is that when we have this kind of windfall, which is a very substantial sum of money, we should be mindful of extant plans of management where we have costed and developed and modularised improvements to a key community facility, and the purpose of me laying this out is to put a good word in for Colby Park. We did cost Colby Park, but then, because we were looking at other sources of funding, we broke that down and we said, look, we can make good use of almost any sum of money by getting that up to a point. So it's not as though we go to the state government and say, here's a $12 million upgrade, and we'll take your four point whatever, and we have to meet the remainder.

I mean, we can make good use and then build on that in the future as other sources of money become available. I suppose what I'm uncomfortable with is Picking Turnbull Oval, which is also worthy, but where we don't have a plan of management and we haven't developed to the same degree of detail what we want to do with that space, whereas the plan of management for Colby Park has been developed at very great length and is in a key growth area of our LGA. And as wonderful as all of these other grants are, what I'd like to point out is that there is very little, if anything, at the far southeastern end of the LGA, which is the area adjacent to the growth precinct, which is a very highly used park for a number of sports and a number of sporting organisations as diverse as baseball, BMX and soccer, and where we could use that money to kind of kickstart that broader process.

So I would like my colleagues to consider allocating this money to Colby Park. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Councillor. I might just ask you— Sorry, yes?

Colby Park's been indicated by a speaker. I need to declare less than pecuniary interest.

Oh, okay. Yep, please declare your interest.

I'm a patron and have been for many years for baseball, the Raiders Baseball at Colby Park. I do propose to speak on the issue. The plan of management does nothing specifically for baseball. Did

You want to save that for your speech rather than your declaration, or is this your speech? Would you like to speak now? Well,

We're going to speak on it now, yeah.

Yep. No, just double checking you weren't saving that for later.

No.

Yep, so

You've

Got your declaration made. Thank you.

The plan of management, the closest it comes to baseball is the park, the car park, which is going to be used by the whole of the park, and I'm not involved in the activities other than patron of that club, so. I do propose to speak on it.

Thank you, Councillor. Okay, you'll speak later, though. Yeah, you'll listen to the debate. Thank you. Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Oh, sorry,

I wanted to— I just, sorry. Sorry, what was your question? Are we still on questions?

Yeah, no, we definitely have. I just wanted to go back— sorry, before that occurred, and you were right to declare your interest, Councillor, to Councillors and Progno. Whatever the council wants in terms of picking a park, but you need to address the broader issue of closing the gap. So Colby costs $14.6 million. So this is the issue that we've been dumped with this afternoon. We've only got 4.78 on the table from the state government. We have to fill the gap, and it has to be ratepayers' money to fill the gap, or we can't have the project.

My suggestion, Madam Mayor, if you'll accept the crosstalk, is that that's a faulty way of considering this dilemma. To say that the entirety of Colby Park would cost 12 million ignores the fact that we have modularised the kinds of projects that we'd like to do within that space and can make use of smaller sums of money in a gainful way. I

Might just ask the general manager, if you don't mind, to elaborate on the terms of the deed and the way we get the funding under WestInvest, which is why this is a consideration. And I agree with you, if we could pick and choose, oh, well, that bid only costs 4.78, let's do that bid, that'd be great. But that's not what we've been told this afternoon we're allowed to do. I'll refer to the general manager.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. So, to clarify, councillors, the Director of Infrastructure Services and myself met with staff from Premier and Cabinet earlier this afternoon. The substantive point is that Council cannot amend the scope of the projects or nominate new projects at this particular point in time. So we're effectively bound by the four remaining projects that have not had successful funding. So what would be, if Council was to nominate Colby Park as its preferred option, there in that grant application, there was a whole suite of commitments that we said that we would deliver for that $14 million. The substance of it is, having been through the robust business cases and the like, that the New South Wales Government is saying they're not at liberty now for us to take out one component of that and for them to re-evaluate the business case.

Ergo, if we were to enter in to choose Colby Park, we must then deliver everything that we said we were going to deliver within that scope. Where there may be some flexibility, as the Mayor spoke about on Turnbull, is around the specification of those particular projects. And there may be some bandwidth in some of that, but that's the bit of work that we feel like we should do once we have seen the funding agreements, which we have not yet seen for this grant program.

Thank you very much, General Manager. Councillor Wheeler. Thanks

Madam Mayor. I'll move a procedural motion that we move into Committee of the Whole so that we can do this back and forth thing without offending the code of meeting practice.

I'm happy to second that so we can get an outcome because we're dealing with a lot of money. All those in favour of Committee of the Whole, declare that carried. Thank you.

I guess I've got a few questions, and the general manager has just answered a couple of them, that we can't now propose anything new. So, from what I understand of what the general manager has just said, if we were to proceed with Colby Park, we would have a gap not of three and a bit million, like we will with Turnbull Oval, but a gap of closer to 14 million . Is that— 10 , I'm sorry, bad maths. Too late for maths So, which is why Turnbull Oval starts to look better . I mean, I've got concerns about Turnbull Oval in that it's yet another project at North Richmond. There's nothing happening in the vicinity of Wilberforce, for example, and that's what irks me about this whole thing.

My other question really is why are we taking this lying down? This is public money. Why are we just going to the Department of Premier and Cabinet, 'Yeah, we'll write your election pitch for you. Slap us about the head and we'll give you what you want by Friday.' Where is our gumption in this discussion? Why aren't we saying to them, and our local member, and the media, 'I'm sorry, but we won't be held over a barrel like this for our local people.' Why are we just rolling over and playing dead? By all means have a contingency, but can we not fight to start with? And this is not consistent with the principles of sound financial management under the Act. Why

Where are we? My real question here is, where are we finding this three million plus gap? What are we stealing this from? What are we not giving that we've already promised in our operational plan? And how the bloody hell are we going to pay for the ongoing maintenance of all this other stuff without another SRV?

Oh yeah, thank you very much, General Manager. Just wanted to confer, and thank you for your points, Councillor Wheeler. Because you weren't in that briefing today, Councillor Conolly actually raised a couple of those similar concerns, and that actually touches on point 4B of the new amendment there. So it's not just nominating insert project for the remaining funds; it's to receive a further report upon receipt and prior to the execution of the funding agreement. So essentially it buys us a little bit of time. General Manager had better words than I did. Did you want to explain the point 4B?

Through you, Madam Mayor. So what I guess we're suggesting is that if you want to proceed, you need to nominate a project this evening that you want to put forward. What would then happen is that the New South Wales Government would write back and would typically say, Congratulations, Hawkesbury Council, here is $4.78 million for this particular project. One of the conditions of that approval is that Hawkesbury City Council supplements the full cost of the remaining cost of the project, okay? So what I would be suggesting here is that we nominate the project, so that buys us your preferred project, that buys us the time, and then— Prior to us actually signing ourselves off, that we come back and we have this discussion around costs, and in particular, as I've added there, around opportunities for value management of the overall cost of that particular project.

So can we deliver the same scope, but with reduced specification? And we'll have a look at that in more detail when we bring that back. And yes, and then potentially it's, okay, well, what year, what financial year do we need that funding in? And does that money exist? That's the conversation we have then. Yes, Councillor.

So I'm finding it difficult to get my head around the distinction between not reducing the scope of a project like Colby, and I'll yield on that, and what clearly looks like reducing the scope of Turnbull Oval. When we talk about, you know, reduced specification, that is, by any English vernacular description, reducing the scope. So I think that we're engaging in wordplay, and if it gets us where we need to, I'm not expressing an objection, I'm just saying it sounds odd to me. And I think for us to make this kind of decision about whether we, you know, forego potential funding when it comes at the cost of the benefit that it could give us, but we haven't been told whether the millions of dollars will be taken out of an existing program, and I don't know that I can make an effective decision unless I've got some indication of what program we will cancel or delay or scale down elsewhere in our budget or over what time horizon.

You're 100% correct, Councillor, and this information is only hours old, hours old. And when I put the Mayoral Minute together, knowing that we had to pick one of the four remaining projects to put our money to, I guess my deliberations in declaring my interest as well was that it was sort of closest in value, meaning we could hopefully cover the rest. The road safety project, as I've been told from Macquarie Street, has the potential to be funded under other road grants that we've got funding for. So I'm very happy to cast that aside if other councillors are as well. We have the advice that should be funded elsewhere. So I have a decision between McQuaid, Turnbull and Colby. don't have a particular preference, and I hate that we're being told that we have to choose.

I guess mine come down to cost in saying that that was a figure closer to the allocated amount left rather than an unrealistic extra $10 million. And now then, when we were told this afternoon, when we've had it clarified, you do have to cover the gap. It's now changed our entire debate. So, and we don't have—there's no answer from the staff as to where that money is coming from, because we don't know. We got told a couple of hours ago. So I think the point 4B is to buy us that time, to get a report back to buy us that time until we can see the terms of the deed from the New South Wales Government. Councillor Conolly.

Thanks. I was just going to say, I agree with most of what's been said, and I also would not be — I guess I'd be quite open to turning down this money on the basis we've gotten heaps of money already, and it seems unlikely we're going to be able to sustain this increased level of amenity into the future. But I think the decision point tonight is: do we want to turn down the money tonight, or do we want to buy ourselves a couple of weeks to think about it and get the paperwork in order and understand what we're talking about? From that point of view, we're talking about $5 million the community could have, and our decision is whether we want to go away and start working towards it, knowing we can still pull out, or just pull out immediately. I think it's a fairly easy and straightforward decision, I would have thought.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Lyons-Buckett—oh, sorry, I'll come to you next, Councillor. Thank you,

Madam Mayor. I'm not prepared to committing to any... To any council funds going towards it at all. Not that I've got anything against Turnbull Oval, but I agree with what Councillor Conolly just said. And we've already got all this money that's come to us. I don't even know how we've got the capacity to do any of it. I would prefer to at least get the road safety thing done. And I would lobby very, very strongly for that additional four million dollars to be given to us to put in a fund to invest to pay for ongoing costs associated with these projects. I mean, we are just, we are exercising an intergenerational injustice on our future generations by accepting this money and building all these facilities, only to have to staff them and operate them, maintain them, with no further money coming.

The only other way we get money into the future is from our ratepayers. Now this is imposing a really heavy burden on future ratepayers of this area. And I think that the government is playing games with us. If they were genuine, they would listen to something like a proposal to have a fund to have some money for ongoing operational costs. They would understand a small council does not have the capacity to have an extra pool or to have an extra facility. These aren't income-generating facilities. They're not bringing us a profit. They're things that cost money for us to run. So we have to run them, and we've got no capacity to pay for those unless we have some other assured, you know, some sort of funding source that is going to do that.

Like, it's all wonderful. I may as well now I've started, I'll just speak on it. And, well, I guess we've got to clarify point four and go out of Committee of the Whole. So my proposal would be if, and I don't know how you're doing this because the thing is set up, I would have to move an amendment, and that would be an amendment to do the road safety project and to ask the government for the balance into a fund within the council.

Thank you, Councillor . Councillor Reardon, I did say I'd come to you next

Yes, thank you, Madam Mayor. I'm wondering if Turnbull Oval would work well for us. It does have a generic plan, and it is an area which has high usage. We have an increasing majority of people at Redbank now. So I think it's an area which has quite a lot of history and could certainly do with an upgrade, and the toilets need to be upgraded there as well. Thank you very much, Councillor. Councillor Sheather. Yeah,

Thanks, Madam Mayor. I find it quite frustrating to make decisions like this.

With the two areas we're talking about, North Richmond and Colby Park, we sit around the table talking about—we don't know much of the background. And I've been involved with it a fair bit, and I'm not up to speed because the staff's been dealing with what's before us, and the briefing this afternoon probably only frustrated us more . The North Richmond facility, when I boarded up 12 months ago, was something that was put in a plan that we're looking at $7 to $8 million to do it . It needed within that plan that was put up by the users to completely demolish what was existing and build a new facility with a grandstand. When the submission was put in, the staff seen fit to look at other things that were needed in the park, and that was part of the program, and play equipment and other things around there, which come up to, I think that was nearly nine million from memory.

Anyway, so with Colby Park, and that's a building and structure, the maintenance on that ongoing would be quite a bit. That project, the money's not there for that. With Colby Park, the plan of management with the CEA is predominantly groundworks. It's car park, filling in a pipe system that could be funded otherwise, I might add, and is. There's a small extension to a soccer field to make two full-size soccer fields . At the moment, whether that happens or not, it's not going to matter to the sports played there. There's adequate ground and they're coping. The problem with Colby Park , it goes down under every time it rains, and that's frustrating. The money that's been spent there is not going to change that, and the community that use it know it.

With North Richmond, there's a lot of work that's going to be done in Peel Park in the not too distant future with the plan of management that's been done there. So North Richmond at this stage is not in a situation of dire strait, apart from the toilet facility that the mayor mentioned earlier that's been failing for some years. But like everything else, our community deals with that. So, from where I sit, I would leave it to the general manager, knowing

All that I've talked about this afternoon, that she is aware of it and she's got staff around her that can certainly inform her more so than what I've done. And not only that, she knows what's behind what's in that board there. And I think it'd be frustrating for us to try and choose particular projects. We don't want to lose the money, and the discussion this afternoon with the general manager clearly indicated that we don't want to lose the money. But in the same time, as Councillor Conolly indicated, we don't want to be stuck with a bill , as Councillor Marylyn Buckett's indicated, that's going to be a situation down the track that's going to cost not only us but future councils a lot of money.

So my view would be to, as much as she might not like it, give the general manager another job, and that's to choose what's in the best interests of our community that would suffice what's before us.

Thank you, Councillor. It's definitely an idea worth considering. I'd like to hear some other councillors' thoughts on that. Given the fact that this has only been a few hours old, perhaps the staff can crunch some numbers better on all four projects and see what that gap's going to be. At the end of the day... I think we have to come to the realisation as councillors that there's going to be a gap, and where are we getting it from? This is the problem. Sorry? No, we don't know where it's coming from. Our budget's as tight as it is right now. I think that's the question here right now, is regardless of what project we choose, regardless of what the gap is, we're still going to have to fund a gap, and we just don't have the money. Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. The general manager has told us that Turnbull Oval, it's possible to reconfigure what's in our submission and possibly reduce the gap to something quite manageable over the time period we're talking about, which is from now till about 2026. And I would say that residents would be quite disappointed if we didn't try and grab this money now and do something with Turnbull. I'd be very embarrassed to go out and say we decided not to take the money. Let's take it and see how we go, and let's do it on Turnbull Oval, because I think we can manage it over that time period. And Turnbull Oval does need a lot of work, and here's our chance to do it. We may not get this chance again for 10 years or so, so let's try and grab the money now.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. And Councillor Conolly.

Thanks. I actually like Councillor Sheather's idea of delegating this decision, just because I think we've got to give some direction here. But at the same time, we don't have enough information. It's easy to say, look, we'll just find a million dollars by 2026, but— We don't really know what the implication of that is. We don't really know if it's, and that might be a best case scenario rather than a worst case, being a million dollars. So I think maybe it does make sense to spend some more time on this and to make a decision that, yeah, is manageable and in the best interests of the council. I agree that people might not like it if we went out and said we'd turn the money down, but at the same time, we're elected here to do a job, and that is to manage the council as well as represent the community, and we've got to do the right thing by that.

And I'm also concerned at the level of capital investment we've received, all of a sudden, that we're already, we're going to have issues, guaranteed, but the more pressure we put on them, the worse those issues could be. I think we've done extremely well out of WestInvest, and if this had been the final result, I don't think anyone would have been disappointed by that. It's just that because we know there might be a little bit of money left on the table, we're feeling that we should try and get it, but that's not necessarily in the best interests of the council. Yeah,

Thank you very much, Councillor Conolly .

Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'd just be interested in the opinion of the General Manager on having that delegation placed upon her. I do find it a little problematic that people are saying that the General Manager should decide what's best for the community. This isn't— but I don't think— it's not that I wouldn't think she's capable of doing that, but it is actually our job to make that decision. And so I think that I would welcome her opinion on what she would think of that and how our delegations around that work.

Thank you, Councillor. I'm happy to hand to the General Manager.

Thank you, Councillors. So remembering, if you delegate this to me, I have to make this decision before Friday, okay? So I can't do comprehensive analysis on depreciation, maintenance costs, all of those sorts of things before Friday. What I can do, however, is do a slightly more detailed cut down of both projects, of both Colby and Turnbull. If the reality is that— At Turnbull, we think that gap might look more like a million, but that at Colby the gap might look more like seven million. I'm going to go with Turnbull. That's—I'm just explaining to you what my thought process would be on that. If you in this chamber can't necessarily agree there's one path forward, I'll probably take the financial route forward on that one, noting that.

And so, look, I would certainly encourage you to nominate a preference on that, but by the same token, I'm happy to take that delegation. But that's how my thought process would work.

Councillor Wheeler. Thanks. I still—I've got a final question, and then I'll move us back into— out of committee of the whole, I think, or attempt to. I think,

Where is this additional money going to come from, and what level of detail will we have by the magic report in 4B?

General Manager. Good question. I think at that particular point in time, I'd like to be able to at least have nailed down the financial year in which the sum, what we best estimate the gap to be, what financial year, and also, speaking to my CFO counterpart here, what projects we had allocated for that particular year that may need to then be slid out in order to accommodate the additional funding. If I might just take the floor on the funding on Colby, however, what has sort of been missed in this conversation is that there has been Already some funding down at Colby. So there was some successful grants within the last 12 months for $156,000 for the remediation of all the playing fields, coring, all the grass work.

We've applied for a grant through the Places to Play program for half a million dollars to develop the pump track component of it. And we also have funding in the current financial year's budget . We're obviously waylaid on, of $645,000 to spend at Colby to enable the closing of an open drain down the centre of Colby Park that would then facilitate later works. So there is some money being spent down there. The other opportunity, potentially, and I caveat that, is that over the last week or two, we received another grant opportunity known as what we call the CLERP for community assets for flood-affected assets. So the, I don't want to call it the benefit, but of Colby Park is that because it has been inundated on so many occasions, it opens itself up to those buckets of money for the restoration and betterment.

There's betterment money in there for those park assets. So that's something that should also be considered. So there may be things like the amenities blocks and those sorts of things that could be improved potentially through that CLERP program. Sorry to take that.

Sorry, Madam Mayor, can I— I've just got a couple of questions. Yes

Thank you

If we've got a timeline out to 26 based on 30, right, and we've got to close the gap, we've got to find the money, where are we at with, A, the costs — The downing into the tunnel, a la, like the TIP closure or the pending development there. The other one was, well, that was number one. I mean, FOGO costs are pending perhaps as well, and also our loan provisions to service that. Now,

Is that going to impact our ability to... I haven't got the question on it, and I know you have to financially plan that, but I do get nervous because I don't know what's coming down at 26 and beyond, and where the money's coming from too, dare I say.

And I guess that's the purpose, councillors, of our long-term financial plan, and we don't add anything. Nothing gets added in without sliding something out so that we've got that. I would just add, don't be too concerned about things like FOGO and the waste management facility there. They're all funded from within a discrete bucket of funding, so they're not coming from necessarily purely rates revenue. But it's a genuine thing that we are going to have to look at around the maintenance, the operations and the depreciation of this suite of assets. And as the CFO has just pointed out to me though, that probably the benefit of Turnbull is that there is next to no OPEX in terms of ongoing operational costs down there. Once the build, it's simply around building maintenance and depreciation.

Councillor Wheeler. I'll move a procedural motion to move back into...

Yeah, second. Out of committee of the whole. Councillor Lyons-Buckett. All those in favour? Thank you. Back into... We have now moved out of committee of the whole and We now need to formulate our motion, Councillors. So, you know, there was debate about certain projects, and again, I had asked those questions about what money was being spent where. I do thank the general manager for confirming that in my lapse of memory there. There's significant money to be being spent, and potentially to be spent at Colby, and I think that needs to be factored in our minds as well. It's not missing out. So I'm happy if a councillor wants to nominate. I'm happy with that if you wanted to, Councillor Sheather, nominate that the general manager is given delegation powers to decide.

Again, remembering, Councillors, that that 4B gives us the buffer of time. We can still withdraw . So I'm going to give that to you, Councillor Sheather.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Yeah, the wording I'm not sure of, but the intent is to give delegation to the general manager to process the available funds to adequately serve the projects that have been advanced.

Thank you, Councillor. Do I have a seconder for that? Councillor Reardon, thank you very much.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. Just from the comments that the general manager spoke to us about a while ago, and I spoke to you about last week and the like, with the comments that I've made about Colby Park, and I know there's other funds available, and I'm not pushing Colby at all. The,

When I spoke about North Richmond 12 months ago and was passionate about, and I still am, the concern that I've got, the grandstand and the building under it, well, the building under it's had it. We're making do, or Sport is, and the idea was to build a grandstand of facilities like they do these days. The concern that I've got, that the estimate was around the seven, eight million, and down at South Windsor Leagues, that cost four and a half million about 10 years ago.

So I'm guessing the price has nearly doubled, so the seven, eight million is what it is. And the concern that I've got, if we haven't got the project and the money to cover it, as Councillor Conolly said, we don't do it. We've borrowed money and stuff that already put councils in the future with issues that we need to deal with. To do it further, it's only maintenance. To cut corners or to take money from another project is unfair. Opportunities, and when you were representative of the Sports Council, you would have heard me many times, to have plans in place, opportunities will arise. And this, Linda, yours is a good example with the projects here. We would never have been able to afford these, never.

But, and we really haven't had things in place to say that this is exactly it. We've got things on paper, and now we've got to go and massage those into something that works. That was certainly never the intent of North Richmond. The Sports Council has a plan that was put by the users and the likes, and they knew it wouldn't happen overnight. So there's been things done to massage that so they can still get on with what they need to do and enjoy North Richmond Park. But to not have the funds available, and that's why I wanted to give it back to the general manager. If she comes back and says the road programs or something else, and we don't want to take the other four million dollars, I'm comfortable with that, because the quickest way to get into trouble is to overspend.

And because not only overspend, then you've

Got more maintenance and costs and stuff on top of that. And with the money that's been offered to council over the next few years, it's going to be extremely hard to manage . And when I say extremely hard, I mean there's going to be a cost to council.

We're looking at buildings and people and the like. The last thing we need is a situation that we've created that we want to be, I say greedy, but that's not what I mean, but to go too far. So that's why I suggest that the general manager look at it. She's heard all our comments. She's well aware. She's got staff that have been working on these projects and that work with the sports council. They know what's about and what's expected, and... So she will make an informed decision. We're going to sit around here tonight, maybe, and discuss things from a personal point of view or the like, ill-informed. So, with respect, I would ask the councillors to support it. The general manager, we haven't hung her out of a tree yet. I don't expect this is going to be the start of it. Thank you. No,

Thank you, Councillor, and I'm happy to support that way forward. I think it does take a bit of the bite out of it. I think what we need to remember at the end of the day is we've all engaged in a process already where we all said these projects were worthy. So I think this gives us the benefit of a proper , a cost-benefit analysis, a value-based analysis, rather than anything else, and I think that we can come to that conclusion. The report buys us time, which I'm happy on. It gives us still an option out if we believe that whatever gap the general manager comes up with is something that our council and our organisation cannot sustain. Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'll speak against the motion and possibly move an amendment. I just think this is rather an abrogation of our responsibility, to be honest. We are the ones in the political domain. This is a political decision. It's been driven by political announcement. It's very true to sit here and say we would never have seen this sort of money in the Hawkesbury, but it's also true to say we've never seen a state government sell off public assets at the rate that they have. And this is taxpayer money. It's not a windfall from the Liberal Party. It's not a windfall from anyone personally. It is taxpayer money, and we have to be responsible with it. And yet we're being forced under pressure to make decisions about things that we're meant to be feeding to our community so that, Councillor Calvert's not embarrassed if Turnbull Oval isn't done or, you know, everyone's vying for it.

It's wonderful to have opportunities, but we really have to look at how this is being done. And I think that simply just getting, putting this burden on the general manager to make this sort of a determination is quite problematic. I just think that we just really, there's so many concerns around how we administer this money. It's all glorious to say we've got all this money, and yet people are actually considering doing a project with a balance to go out to our community that's already hurting so much. We've got a massive bill around the sewer that we're paying. Then we're going to go out and say, well, we've got another gap here so you can have nice playing fields because the government gave us some, but not enough.

I think that— Sorry?

Well, whatever it is, like everything in general. I mean, there's a lot of work to be done. I've got a number of concerns around the entire process. I think it's unfair how it's been rolled out. We've seen the public's response, their concerns, their cynicism, and I think it's all valid. I mean, there's a timeframe of December 2026. How are we going to do that? Look at Tamplin Field. Already we've had the email. So many issues they've raised about the project, valid issues, issues from the people who will be the users, competing interests on that project. So all of that has to be solved. Then the design has to be done. Then somehow we have to secure contractors for all of this. Like this is, I don't know if there's flexibility with the government about extensions, but I suspect not.

And so we're sort of dangling this false hope at our community that by 2026, which let's face it, isn't far away, they're going to have all these upgrades and that, you know, that— The government's done us a huge favour, whereas really the upgrades and expansions equal, you know, just ongoing costs, increased staff to run it, increased maintenance. It's magnificent for the users, but it's just going to give us some grief unless we've got something else that we can dip into to deal with it. There hasn't been any analysis around the economic benefits of each project. There's certainly social and wellbeing, there's health aspects to it. It is fantastic. I'll say on the surface it's fantastic, but who is paying for the future costs?

I just think it's morally irresponsible to make decisions which impose additional cost on ratepayers into the future. As Councillor Wheeler said before, it's inconsistent with the principles of financial management under the Local Government Act, and it's very irresponsible of the state government to be imposing it on us. Do they not realise they are giving huge amounts of money to small councils that also are grappling with upgrading their roads and repairs from flooding? We are going to have ongoing issues. Look at this frequency of intense rainfall we're experiencing. We'll be back to having to do more and more potholes. It's the whole thing needs to be looked at carefully, and yet to fit a political schedule because there's an election, we have to make these sorts of decisions.

It's very disappointing. And I think that, as I said the other night in the briefing, and I have done this now, contacted Local Government New South Wales and the Australian Local Government Association, as well as some individuals for some guidance around any existing mechanisms for councils being able to dedicate some funds to ensure there's future funding to operate and maintain. I can't see why all the money has to be allocated to construction when it's delivering something that's going to cost us money into the future. There should be an allocation within that, or there should be a capacity within this funding for us to be able to invest some money so that we've got some funding to maintain and to upgrade it into the future.

So I don't know what the conditions, I haven't seen the conditions about grant funding, but what I would like to do, Madam Mayor, is to move an amendment, and that would be with point four being to proceed or to nominate the road safety project. Which I think was 890,000 or something like that, to nominate that as a project and to request the Department of Premier and Cabinet that the balance of the four million dollars be provided to us to establish a fund for ongoing maintenance. Now that may be just something that's totally unachievable, but if we don't ask, we don't know, and I can't see why that would not be a valid request to make.

Thank you, Councillor. Is there a seconder for that? Thank you, Councillor Wheel.

Is any other councillor wishing to speak on the amendment now before us? Councillor Dogramaci.

Well, it's not a—thank you, Madam Mayor—it's not an amendment as a matter of fact. I pressed the button, but you didn't see it previously.

You can speak against the amendment then and say

What you wanted

To say.

Yes, yes. Well, I'll make it very, very brief. To me, to me, we all know that it's some kind of a ploy. Well, it is a ploy, of course, just before the election, and I agree 100 percent with Councillor Bucket, 100 percent. To me, it's like the Liberal government is giving us a Ferrari and saying, There you go, and the maintenance is coming out of your pocket. We couldn't afford to give $80 to Pitt Town Progress Association about the matter of mowing the lawn. We couldn't do it. How are we going to look after all these projects? So,

Have we not burnt our fingers with the silver matter? Did we not learn a lesson? It's not our business. We just cannot handle it. I don't know what the management is going to do, but

I'm

Not comfortable.

Thank you. Thank you, Councillor. Deputy Mayor, was your light on before? Yes, it was. Thank you.

Yeah, my light was on several times, Madam Mayor, but I was looking to move an amendment, which was to say turnbull oval rather than the amendment that's up there now. But I just wanted to say that listening to Councillor Sheeda, he was talking about handing this decision over to the general manager, yet in his speech he was talking about not spending the money at all. So his speech didn't match what his motion put forward. If he hands it to the general manager, the general manager has already indicated that there's a probability that she will be pushing for the turnbull oval because it has the least gap So I'm therefore forced to support Councillor Sheeda's motion because I think I would agree with that outcome if the general manager actually decides that way.

Like several other councillors here, I'm not happy with the way this money has arrived. WesROC has been pushing for many years for the tollways money to be returned to the west. And as WesROC President, I attended many delegations to state ministers and even some Commonwealth ministers about getting that money back to the people in Western Sydney. Just the other week, I put out a press release as President of WesROC that we should be capping the tolls for people in Western Sydney because it's discriminating against us and For people in Western Sydney who tend to have the lowest incomes, they are paying the highest tolls. And there've been a few—I put a media release out about it, and it was taken on by the media quite strongly.

I even actually appeared on television about a week ago talking about it. So people want the toll money to come back to Western Sydney, but they don't want it to come back in this great big manna from heaven situation that we've had this last couple of weeks. That's not what we want. Yes, we want the money, but we don't want it dumped on us with all the problems that it's going to give us in terms of supporting all the infrastructure and the assets. What we've been pushing for through WesROC is that the money that comes back should be given to Western Sydney councils on an ongoing grant basis, so that every year some of that Western Sydney toll money comes back to us, which then would help us manage these resources, manage the depreciation, etc.

And I'm still going to be pushing for that through WesROC, and I hope this council will support that because that's the only way that these things can happen, is if, as some councillors have said, if we get funding to support the ongoing maintenance and operation of these assets, to just dump them on us now—and it's obviously a last-minute election thing. I don't know how obvious you can get, but this is pretty obvious. To dump it on us now without the support, everyone here is saying, Well, we're going to have this problem down the track. Well, yes, we are, because this state government has not thought this through. They're giving out lollies at the last minute, not worrying about what's going to, you know, how we're all going to end up with a dentist because of all the sugar they're giving us.

This whole thing needs to be rethought, and I would suggest that we should lobby WesROC to lobby the state government to keep getting the toll money sent back to Western Sydney, because the tollways haven't closed. The tollways are going to keep going, and in fact the state government announced that tollways will probably increase their tolls by somewhere between four and five percent a year over the next few years. So the government's going to keep raking in that money, but it should come back to us not as a last-minute drop, but as an ongoing funding process which allows us to support all these assets. So by default I'm going to support Councillor Sheather's motion, but it's not the ideal motion that I would have liked to put up.

Thank you. Thank you, Deputy Mayor, and I must admit I am completely at fault here. Procedure under the code of meeting practices is that the general manager has to read a statement once we become out of the committee of the whole. Is that ready to go? I'll pass over to the general manager.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. A procedural motion was moved by Councillor Wheeler, seconded by the Mayor, Councillor McMahon, that Council move into committee of the whole to consider this matter. The procedural motion was carried. The procedural motion was , the general manager reported to the Council that whilst in committee of the whole, the committee discussed a number of matters in relation to the local government allocation of the WestInvest program and options for the use of Council's remaining funding allocation. These options included the redevelopment of Turnbull Oval, redevelopment of Colbee Park and road safety projects. The committee also discussed the process for making a decision concerning Council's remaining funding allocation, and there were no recommendations made by the committee of the whole. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Thank you, General Manager. If everybody's had their say, you're speaking on the amendment, Councillor Wheeler?

Yes, I am. Look, I can't support.

I could support the amendment if we had a standalone clause for 4B, that I can support, but I can't support the rest of this motion. This is, as the Deputy Mayor states, blatantly political. It's, as Councillor Kotlash said, the same as she left the room. This is pork barrelling. The really tragic thing here is that we're being pork-barrelled with bacon that we're going to pay for through tolls and ongoing maintenance of these assets for decades. The money can't come back to councils from the toll roads because they've been privatised. That's where this money came from. The deal with that privatisation was that the toll road operator pockets that money. That's why they paid billions for this public asset.

This isn't public. This isn't a gift. This is something that the public already paid for once and will continue to pay for for decades. This is the most cynical, most appalling move from the Liberal government that I think we've seen in its term. It's blatant, a lecture, it's vote buying with public money. The timing, the only thing more spectacular than the cynicism of this is the timing. Who knew that it would come out just before the state election? Gosh. So what we've got now is this fast rollout of infrastructure projects, putting all the responsibility of design and delivery onto already stretched councils in Western Sydney to deliver the state government's election promises. And the fact that this is coming to us as a mayoral minute, not as a report from the general manager about the impacts of this cost on our operation and delivery plan, shows how politically driven this is.

How are we going to deliver these projects? Almost $100 million worth of works in less than three years, whilst we try and recover from three years of natural disasters. What will be the impact on our current works program? We don't know. What will be the impact of these projects on council's operating budget in 10 years' time? We don't know. Have we got any funding for maintenance and increased staff? No. Will we sacrifice one library for a new one? Probably. But we don't know. There's a huge issue of intergenerational equity here. The Deputy Mayor has called this a sugar hit. We were warned at the Local Government Conference by a leading economist of the impact of this government's sugar hits on the viability of the local government sector going forward, and here we have it.

So the next generation is paying. This is not consistent with the principles of the Local Government Act. In fact, it directly violates the principles of sound financial management outlined in that Act. Under 8B(d)(2), it calls on us to consider the current generation funding the cost of its services and that we should have regard to intergenerational equity.

The Act also demands that our decision making is informed, and this isn't. We are really under the pump, and the staff are clearly under the pump getting this together as well. And we can see from the email from Hawkesbury Little Athletics and the questions and the concerns that they've raised about Tamplin Field that there was far more consultation needed with end users before we put this project forward in its current form. We've got this pending debacle with synthetic turf that we're frantically trying to defend on Facebook, with a leading expert from the University of Western Sydney has spoken at. And this is a man who measured temperatures of 85 degrees Celsius at Bayside. It's another 10 degrees hotter here.

Are we expecting kids to play on that? Do we have any wriggle room here? Can we amend these projects, or are we stuck with what we've got now? It appears that we have no wriggle room because now we've got this artificial cut-off on Friday by the Department of Premier and Cabinet. You'd be forgiven for thinking that the government's going to spontaneously combust at the end of this week and be incapable of making any further decisions. This is ludicrous. This is the most appalling governance, terrible decision making, and frankly, it's really poor form of us to suggest that a council employee would be left to make a decision about how our assets are built, maintained, and funded into the future.

Can I remind you of how this council treated the previous general manager and the nonsense that has been spun in this chamber about him?

Let's

Not do that to another employee. Good

Grief. What's your point of order?

I assume we're done, actually. Yeah,

Thank you. I'm happy to conclude that statement, perhaps with my own statement of blatantly political notice of motion that come from every Greens councillor across the country from the direction of their party, which we've had many of over this term of council.

Point of relevance, Madam Mayor.

I'm

The chair. I'm allowed to make comments.

I think that's how it works. We have an 11 p.m. deadline coming up. I'd like someone to move a resolution whether we extend time.

I'd like to move that we come back next week after the conclusion of this item. We've got a number of items left. We're not going to be out of here at any reasonable time. It's not reasonable for the community to keep watching till 1 a.m. I think we should conclude this item and come back next week.

Do I have a seconder for that?

Actually

Yes. You've got to work tomorrow. People have to work tomorrow. Thank you, Councillor Zamprogno. I'll put that procedural motion that we end at the conclusion of this item. Can I

Move an amendment to a procedural motion?

Let me double check

I don't think you can.

And we should check with the general manager that there isn't something so urgent that it can't wait. There

Is the briefing .

And also, Madam Mayor, surely Councillor Kotlash should be included in this decision.

Oh, that's very good. Her vote is valid for that motion, absolutely, but we haven't concluded the item, and she can't be in the item.

I know, I just was getting close. It has to

Be sorted by 11. Should we move to an extension till 11:30 and then deal with a deferment after that?

Or 11:15. I think we'll be done by 11:15. Are you happy to move an extension to 11:15 and then we will vote on a deferment?

Move an extension to the end of this item.

Can I have a seconder for that? Thank you, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, all in favour? Thank you. We'll proceed with a resolution on this item. If everybody has spoken

Councillor Lyons-Buckett. I haven't spoken on the amendment. I put the amendment. I spoke on the motion, and I'll only do it briefly, but just to address Councillor Wheeler, I think I would be prepared to remove points two and three. I mean, I see point one, two and three. Point one is quite superfluous, but if you want a public record of it, that's okay. I know the staff have done a wonderful job, and I'm always happy to thank them, but I don't really think that we need to write to them letters of appreciation. I think we can just pass on our thanks in person as we go along, and I also think that it's the local members' job to have done that. If we were going to write to her, I'd be asking her about setting up a fund for something else, but I think if— I'm happy to remove points two and three if that gives any more support.

Maybe it loses support. Maybe there is no support. I don't know.

Let's test that support then. So, is that the conclusion of those comments? Thank you very much. So, if no one else is wishing to speak on the amendment, which we will just get adjusted on the board, which is the elimination of points two and three.

Everybody spoken? Yes, I'll put the amendment. Those in favour of the amendment, please raise your hand. In favour of the amendment are Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, and Councillor Wheeler. The amendment has failed. The previous motion is now the motion. Sorry, staff, if you can just... Fix that on the board, please.

Yes, that is correct. Is anyone else wishing to add anything else, or we've all said our piece? Councillor Conolly?

Can I ask a really quick question? The point 4 from the amendment that just failed, the 4B, which was that we asked the government to put that money in a fund. I don't think that that's going to happen, but I still think we should try. So whilst I don't think it should be part of the motion, I think it would be good if yourself and the general manager could, before a decision is made on Friday, push really, really hard on that and just see what kind of response we get before Friday. It doesn't need to be in the motion, but I just—

I think it might need to be, because otherwise we have

To— Well, we're delegating authority to the general manager, so if the general manager gets a positive result to that and decides not to go ahead with that, that's okay. Well, you'd have

To amend it. I would say to delegate to the general manager to ask that question, communicate the answer to councillors, and

Then— No, no, sorry, I don't mean communicate back to councillors. I just mean, I think it would be worth pushing back and seeing what kind of response we get. If we happen to get a surprise and got anything at all like a positive response, the general manager could use the delegation we've given her not to go ahead and select any of those proposals and to do something different. I don't foresee that happening, but I think it's definitely worth our investing our time in trying. Are

You happy that that's not in the motion, but to do it? Do

You want me to repeat? It is as

It is . It is as it is, but in the meantime you also seek the possibility, ask the question of whether the funding—

I said you and the general manager.

Sorry, myself and you, apparently. Whether we can contact the state government and ask them whether the remaining funds could actually be kept in a separate fund for the ongoing maintenance

Of the assets. I think just communicate the general outrage of the council at being put in that position, and there was a huge amount of pushback that we still want those funds because they belong to our ratepayers and we want to use it to maintain the assets, and we expect they'll likely say no, but it's worth a go.

So it's not part of the motion, but it's an additional

Well, it's just a suggestion from… It's a suggestion.

Can I just check, what I would be concerned about there, councillors, is that I'm not going to get an answer. But by Friday it'll get caught up in a whole lot of other troubles, I suspect, if I do that.

I think we can put the question in an email tomorrow. If we don't get an answer, then we don't get an answer, but we've put the question. Yeah, we can send that through. I'll note

That down on my third letter to send.

Okay. Maintenance, okay. All right, therefore, councillors, the motion is as it stands on the board. All those in favour of— Oh, sorry, right of reply. It's late. Councillor Sheather.

Yeah. Just a couple of things. Where we write to the staff, there's some staff in the sports council as worked really hard with council staff as well. And I know because she's on holidays and she's ringing me all the time working on those projects. We don't actually accept any of these. We have. And it's our responsibility to deal with them. And I'm sure with the information that's been provided and the like, the staff's well aware of ongoing maintenance and the like. Things like our new swimming pool, we were so over the moon about it and the like. It's going to cost us a fortune. And the community is going to love it. So, you know, like, we can look at this as a glass half full or glass half empty. Mine's half full.

How we manage the future, again, is up to us. And we always get money around election time. And we're not the only local council in New South Wales. I doubt there's too many of them screaming about what they're getting. It's about us managing. And that's why my suggestion was the general manager. There's no better person in this room with an understanding of where this is going to go to. And I can tell because of hair change colour. And we've got to work through this. The projects and the money and the likes, it's up to us to ask questions and offer directions and the likes. So, Madam Mayor, that's why I suggested that. I'm certainly not trying to delegate my responsibility by asking this to happen.

It is our responsibility to make decisions. But we are talking about big money and the like, and we aren't informed enough for that. And at least the general manager's got a little bit of time to fill the gaps, I guess, that hopefully will satisfy us at the end of the day.

Thank you, Councillor. I'll put the motion as it appears on the board. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour are Councillor Reardon, Councillor Vigar, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Jurek, Councillors Impragno, Councillor McMahon. Those against? Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Lyons-Buckett and Councillor Wheeler, absent from the room is Councillor Kotlash. I'll just call Councillor—

Kotlash back in, and we will put our procedural motion.

There's nothing else

In the business paper that needs to be dealt with tonight, is there? I think they were trying to tell us.

No, I'm just checking about timing of a potential other meeting.

You can still move your motion, I suppose, Councillor Conolly.

I'll move that we adjourn the meeting and come back to deal with any remaining business next week.

Can I have a seconder for that, please? Thank you, Councillor Zamprogno.

Just a question, Madam Mayor.

Yes, Councillor Sheather.

Is there anything in our business paper, because we have got reports to committees with the Traffic Committee and the like, that requires attention tonight?

I'll just confer with the general manager. It went through on block. Oh, it did. It's dealt with Councillor Sheather, that's correct. It's the motions for the conference, review of committees, pathway, Councillor questions, and then we go into confidential.

Is there any of those—what about the confidential stuff? Is that required tonight?

No.

They are on block.

Would you be happy to break into confidential to deal with it on block? Well

I mean, my motion is my motion.

Yeah, your motion still stands.

Sorry, Councillor Conolly.

Can you do it in seven minutes?

Yeah, well, okay, yeah, it's probably—well, I'll change the motion to we deal with items 15 and 16 and then adjourn the meeting.

A seconder for that? Thank you. All those in favour?

Carried. I'm just looking around the room. To deal with items 15 and 16, we will need to break into confidential. Oh, sorry, sorry.

Okay, so that's fine. So the nominated date for the next meeting will be Tuesday the 7th of February at 6.30 p.m. I'll now ask someone to move into confidential. Councillor Reardon, Councillor Conolly seconded that. All those in favour? Thank you. We'll now move into confidential.

Welcome back everybody from confidential session. I'll hand over to the General Manager to read the outcome of the items. Thank you, Madam Mayor. In respect of item 015, lease to Amy Mary Platt, shop 3, McGraths Hill Shopping Centre, 1 Phillip Place, McGraths Hill, whilst in closed session the Council resolved on the motion of Councillor Conolly, seconded by Councillor Kotlash, that: 1. Council agree to enter into a new lease with Amy Mary Platt in regard to shop 3, McGraths Hill Shopping Centre, 1 Phillip Place, McGraths Hill, in accordance with the proposal outlined in the report. 2. Authority be given for the lease and any other necessary documentation in association with this matter to be executed under the seal of Council.

3. Details of Council's resolution will be conveyed to the lessee, together with the advice that Council is not and will not be bound by the terms of its resolution until such time as the appropriate legal documentation to put such resolution into effect has been granted to be agreed and executed by all parties. For the motion were Councillors McMahon, Reardon, Veigel, Sheather, Conolly, Kotlash, Dogramaci, Djuric, Lyons-Buckett, Wheeler, Zamprogno. Councillor Calvert was absent for the vote . In respect of item 016, property matter, lease to Stephen Hile, 139 March Street, Richmond, whilst in closed session Council resolved on the motion of Conolly, seconded by Councillor Kotlash, that: Council agree to enter into a new lease with Stephen Hile in regards to 139 March Street, Richmond, as outlined in the report.

Authority be given for any documentation in association with this matter to be executed under the seal of Council. 3. Details of Council's resolution be conveyed to the lessee together with the advice that Council is not and will not be bound by the terms of its resolution until such time as the appropriate legal documentation to put the resolution into effect has been agreed to and executed by all parties. For the motion were Councillors McMahon, Reardon, Veigel, Sheather, Conolly, Kotlash, Dogramaci, Djuric, Lyons-Buckett, Wheeler, Zamprogno. Councillor Calvert was absent for the vote. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you, General Manager. I now declare the meeting closed at 11.16 pm. Thank you everybody.

Good evening everyone. I'm Sarah McMahon, Mayor of Hawkesbury, and welcome to tonight's Council meeting. On Tuesday the 31st of January 2023, Council resolved to adjourn its meeting at 11.16pm to reconvene on Tuesday the 7th of February 2023 at 6.30pm. This is why we are meeting tonight. First of all, Hawkesbury City Council acknowledges the Darug and Darkinjung people as the traditional custodians of the land of the Hawkesbury. We pay respects to all Elders past, present and emerging, and acknowledge all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of this country. I'll now hand over to the General Manager.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Members of the public attending the meeting are advised that in the event of an emergency, you will 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 5.3.3 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 such 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. It's also requested if any person participating in or attending the meeting has a mobile phone that they are to turn it off or switch it to silent. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Thank you, General Manager. I can see from the full chamber we have tonight there are no apologies, but I'd like to ask Councillors if there are any declarations of interest they would like to declare on the remaining items. No, thank you very much. So we have five items to discuss this evening, being items 6, 8, 11, 13 and 14 from the Council meeting on the 31st of January 2023. We will commence with item 6, the 2023 National Assembly of Local Government Conference motions. Would anyone like to move anything? Councillor Lyons-Buckett. I'll move that, Madam Mayor. Thank you. Do I have a seconder? Thank you, Councillor Veigel.

Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I will be submitting a motion for the conference, but I see it's by the 23rd of February, and I was waiting on some advice from the Australian Local Government Association before I did it. So I don't have it here tonight, but I am assuming that we will circulate those. So I'm happy to move the motion as is. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak? Councillor Sheather.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Mayor. Madam Mayor, we very seldom get the opportunity to do on a federal scale, and I was wondering if it was appropriate to put a motion forward in relation to Council's support in relation to Warragamba Dam.

Thank you, Councillor. I'm just looking at the recommendation here. That would have to be provided to the General Manager, unless you wanted to make an amendment to include that tonight. But there is a procedure here to send that to the General Manager by the 20th of February. Oh, hold on. It'll come back here then to debate on the 14th of March.

What I was proposing was that Council put forward the position of Council. You

Still have to send that in writing to the General Manager, and then that will come in a report on the 14th of March, and then as a Council we will vote on that, all of the proposed motions. On that date, with all of the motions on the table. So there's still a bit of a process to go. So if you send that through to the general manager saying that you want to include that motion, that'll all be tabled on the 14th of March. Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else? Councillor Zamprogno.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. The difficulty with the motion before us is that it's a nothing motion. I mean, it is barely even a note, receive a note. Councillor Sheather is correct. If there were any motions for which we would require the assistance of staff in forming some words to come back to the chamber, it's one thing to invite us to send those suggestions to the general manager, but I think it would be appropriate at this juncture to include in this motion some foreshadowing that we'll be requiring the assistance of staff to work on those motions. And considering the forum, and I've been to this conference for many years, is to give it a regional focus. It's not really a venue for any one council to gripe about something that's only specific to them, but it is appropriate to raise issues that impinge on a region.

So not only could we move tonight to entreat staff to begin work on some wording for a motion relating to raising the dam, but we could also use this occasion tonight to reach out to adjacent councils of like mind to ask them to come on board so that it becomes a joint motion between more than one council, and that will get a better audience. And the third reason that I think that's a good idea is that our ability to prosecute this argument at the national conference will depend very much on the delegates we send to that conference having their heart and soul in that.

So,

I was just going to say, did you want to make an amendment or did you want to see if we could add to that with the current mover? Well

My proposal would be, since the recommendation is basically to just receive and note, that Council resolves to formulate a motion expressing the need to raise Warragamba Dam and to reach out to adjacent councils in the Hawkesbury-Nepean floodplain to entreat them to come on board with that motion and make it a joint motion. Is that enough to work with, Madam Mayor? Yes,

Thank you, Councillor. If you are actually proposing a formal amendment, that's fine. You'll need a seconder.

Yes, Councillor Sheather.

Thank you. So the amendment is on the floor. Was anyone else wishing to speak to the amendment? Councillor Wheeler. Thanks

Madam Mayor. I'll speak against the amendment. In particular, I don't think it's consistent with the criteria set out, and these are laid out in the business paper. Particularly, points two of the criteria not to be focused on a specific jurisdiction, location or region unless the project or issue has national implications, and nine, not seek to advance an outcome that would result in the benefit to one group of councils to the detriment of another. Clearly, support for raising the Warragamba Dam wall fits into both of those. It is regionally specific and then pits the Hawkesbury-Nepean, for those who think that this will be a flood fix, against neighbouring councils, in particular Wollondilly, who are opposed because of the detrimental impacts on their local government area. So I don't think it meets the criteria.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I agree. That was the point I was going to raise and why I wouldn't include it in the original motion. It is a council position, so I don't oppose a motion being put. But I agree with Councillor Wheeler. If anything, it would be more relevant in the Local Government New South Wales conference, not the national conference. The national conference is very specific that it is to be by those guidelines, and we don't, you know, they're more broad-based issues. We don't hear things that are individual projects being put forward as such. I think that it would not fit the guidelines and thus would probably be rejected anyway.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak on the amendment?

No, I will—

Sorry

Councillor Sheather.

Question, Madam Mayor. In seconding the amendment, I wasn't trying to shut out Councillor Lyons-Buckett with what she was proposing. Could the amendment also carry the intention of Councillor Mary Lyons-Buckett?

Thanks, Councillor. You'd have to just check with the mover of the amendment. Well ,

Madam Mayor, Councillor Lyons-Buckett moved the recommendation, which carries no action item at all, merely to receive and note the fact that we have this deadline with which we have to send stuff back to the General Manager. Sorry

Councillor, I thought your amendment was making that a part one and the intended motion a part two.

Well,

Because we still need to invite councillors to put forward

Oh no, absolutely, yes. No, no, it's the recommendation and this extra action item of asking staff to begin work on a form of words and to reach out to adjacent councils in the region, which I believe is a legitimate— Forum for something of such enormous significance to the economy of Western Sydney.

Thank you. So it is a point one and a point two. Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak on the amendment? No, I'll put the amendment then. All those in favour, please raise your hand. Those in favour: Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Zamprogno and Councillor McMahon. Those against, please raise your hand: Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lines-Buckett, sorry, and Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Dogramaci. Abstaining?

Just one moment, please

Thank you. Therefore, the amendment is carried on the casting vote of the Mayor. The amendment now becomes the motion. Anyone else wishing to speak?

No. Right of reply, Councillor Lines-Buckett.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Well, I assume it will pass on the casting vote again. I'm just a little disappointed that we didn't follow process and submit them first to see if they're appropriate as the process goes, because the criteria are quite strict. But anyway, that's the way it is.

Thanks. Thank you very much. The motion is the part one as per the business paper and the part two nominated by Councillor Nathan Zamprogno. All those in favour, please raise your hand. Those in favour are Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Zamprogno and Councillor McMahon. Those against: Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Djuric , Councillor Lines-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler. You're abstaining, Councillor Dogramaci. That is carried on the casting vote of the Mayor.

The next item for debate is item 008, review of council committees. Councillor Conolly.

Thank you. I move the recommendation in the business paper with an additional point 7 that I sent in to staff and sent around to all councillors this afternoon.

Thank you, Councillor. Wait till that— maybe just start speaking so it can come up on the board, seeing as all councillors have been—

Did I get a seconder? Oh,

There we go. Hold on a second. Yes, do I have a seconder? Councillor Veigel, thank you.

Thank you. I think this is fairly straightforward. This is something that's been— we've gone around and around in circles on this and struggled to get agreement. We had a good briefing session with all 12 councillors where we hashed out the differences, and I think we've now got a system being recommended to us that will work. The only small change to what's in the report is that I think we need to be a little bit more specific about what we want this flowplay management working group to do so that it can be successful in its role. So still suggesting we do everything that staff have recommended we do. We just do call for an additional report to find out exactly what's going to be involved in that working group so we can be confident we get the right outcome.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak?

Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I was considering whether we could add another point. I only just thought of this now, but to this process, I was just wondering if, because I did think that actually our workshop that we had was very productive in terms of working through it, I was just wondering if we could perhaps have a follow-up one at some point, because to actually identify what working groups and various things we might need, instead of going back into this trickle sort of effect of things coming up here and there. It wouldn't require the staff really doing anything around it. It'll just be a councillor workshop to discuss those things. And I raise that particularly in the absence of ever doing a CSP working together planning thing and having each of the 12 councillors have an opportunity to express, you know, various things like that.

So I was just wondering if Councillor Conolly would consider a point 8, which would be not immediately, but a workshop, a further workshop to identify areas we wish to pursue further research and information for by reviewing the community strategic plan and our existing policies to see what emerges from that.

So we just say point 8, that a councillor workshop be held to review the working groups and the progress they've made towards their objectives or something like that. Yep.

Just general, but that was the intent.

And is the seconder happy with that, Councillor Veigel?

Yes, Madam Mayor, I'm happy with that, thank you. Lovely,

Thank you.

Councillor Kotlash. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'll just ask a question to kick off. In point 4, it says to endorse the preparation of the following council committee constitutions. Excuse me, and I was wondering whether, and that's for the Heritage Committee Constitution and the Disaster and Emergency Committee Constitution, where are the guidelines for

What the process is for establishing a working group? It seems to me that we need a separate— have we got a separate protocol that says what a working group is, the

Makeup of a working group, beginning and end, when it will meet, and things like that? Because I think that's sort of missing. Will that be in that constitution of those two committees ?

Thank you, Councillor. I'll refer to the General Manager.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. In point 5 of the proposed recommendations, the latter half of that recommendation talks about the preparation of a template to be used for the establishment of working groups. So those matters that you've raised there, Councillor, would be addressed in that document. And

That stands outside of the constitutions for both those committees? Yes, that's correct. Okay. Right. My understanding of the outcomes of our briefing, which I also agree was really productive, was that instead of having subcommittees and different things, we would just have working groups. So

Is that the formation of working groups can come from various sources. It can come from Council, it can come from within those committees, and we can decide at the time. I'm just a bit confused with this process. It's not—I'm not seeing a really clear way forward.

Okay, I'll turn it around and ask a different question. With the resolution that was carried in September last year, it was to establish a dedicated flood management committee or subcommittee, and it would have people joining that committee from expressions of interest.

To be inclusive of everybody in the community, is there a limit on how many people can be involved in that subcommittee, which my understanding was would be a working group? Can I just get clarification on that?

Thank you, Councillor. I'll refer that. We're just clarifying that; it won't be a moment . Oh, okay. Thank you. Yeah,

Thank you. Through you, Madam Mayor, the draft terms of reference for that subcommittee will be reported back to Council in March. So the expression of interest that actually went out also included a draft terms of reference with a notation that it would be subject to adoption by Council resolution. The draft terms of reference makes provision for up to seven members from community representatives, four emergency response agencies, and five councillors, but noting that the draft terms of reference is yet to be adopted by Council, so there will still be an opportunity to change those membership numbers when it's reported to Council in March.

So now, as well as a template for the working groups, we've got terms of reference. So we've got a few processes, and that possibly is why I'm confused. It seems to me that we have a — well, I thought that the answer the general manager just gave us was there will be a template for working groups. So this is not, strictly speaking, a working group. So I have got that wrong.

Is

That correct ?

I'll just refer that, Councillor, to the Acting Director of City Planning. Yep

Through you, Madam Mayor. Thank you. It will actually be a subcommittee of the Disaster and Emergency Management Committee, and as that committee will remain in effect, it's deemed to be a subcommittee of that committee, and the terms of reference for that subcommittee reflects that.

Thank you.

I'll just contemplate that for a moment. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak? Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. Look, this really has been a study in going around in circles, I think, and it's unsurprising that Councillor Kotlash is confused.

While I think this is the best way forward from the mess that we have left of our committee structure, I still have serious concerns about the loss of the role of the Access and Inclusion Committee, and I hope that that can be addressed very early in the piece. I find it really troubling that we, as a council, have no mechanism, no formal mechanism, to take— Things that we deem useful for people with disabilities or people with dementia or similar groups, without having an advisory committee in place to do that simply and easily. And I think with, I don't know if other people have been contacted, but I've certainly been contacted by members of that community who are really concerned that they no longer have a formalised voice to Council.

Many of them have good processes with the staff, but they don't have formal processes to speak with the elected body. And I think, yeah, as a Council, that should concern us. I think seven is possibly a bit redundant. I think most of it is probably covered by item five, but I'm not going to die in a ditch over it. I think a workshop to see what we've got, what we've missed, is probably helpful, because I think we have missed stuff. But I think this is probably better than what we've had for the last 18 months or so. So it's a way forward at least.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak?

Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Thank you, Madam Mayor, and I thank Councillor Conolly for including that. I think that's actually a really good way forward because, as Councillor Wheeler just said, we've lost a lot of time, and we never have really captured what the changing committee system was aiming to do. And the original motion for that, saying that we need to mimic federal and state parliaments, was quite absurd because we're not a parliament. We don't—we will never operate like a parliament. We don't make legislation, so we don't have to have the checks and balances around that, which is what a lot of the parliamentary committees do. But I hope that by having a workshop, we can identify some areas perhaps of research that we want to understand more around.

We've got outstanding things. Not all the working groups will be established by notices of motion and not only by specific advice requested, but we need to identify gaps within our community where we may have to be looking at something, as we did the action plans for dementia and for homelessness and things like that. We need a mechanism where we can move that forward, and we need input from our community on these various issues to help us understand where those gaps are. And we need to do this better. We have not been doing it well for a few years, and I also have had people from that sector saying to me, How do they do certain things? And they can directly contact the council, but they believe that as representatives, we should be advocating for improvements to make better our facilities and our roads and various other things.

So I don't get the paranoia about the floodplain committee. I find the hysteria around it to be quite peculiar, but it's unbelievable that we, as a floodplain, don't have a dedicated floodplain committee. Today I was looking at Penrith's... Floodplain Committee and their overall plan for what they're doing through their committee. Is there something funny about that, Councillor Conolly and Councillor Kotlash? Is it funny

Madam Mayor? Through you, Chair. Funny? I didn't find any of that funny, no.

Oh, okay. Thank you. It's just you're all having a little giggle. I think that looking at the Penrith flood study, we can see that ... They have committed to doing studies of their entire catchment. So they've got 40 studies to do. They've done about 13, and they're moving through them. And they've last year committed to doing a number of flood studies that include on our border. So they're doing the Rickaby's Creek study, which they're doing, which includes the areas of Llandilo, of Castle Ray, Cranebrook, all of those areas. Plus they've done the South Creek one. Now we need to be tapping into that information because that's information that impacts our residents and our people. And we're not doing any of this, and it's just, it's negligent to our people when we've seen what happens.

And that is what a floodplain committee does. It works on these studies. It sources the funds from the state government to get the money to do these various studies. There's no overland study being provided by the state government, so we have no regional cumulative overland study, which is a really important body of work. It's, we need to keep pushing, and we have not been pushing, and we need a mechanism where we can have input from the community and from the various state agencies where this is done effectively. So I'm looking forward to the subcommittee being up and running, and for us to start trying to source another important function of that committee is to source funding, to apply to see what grants are available, and to apply for those to assist us in doing that.

Some very good terms of reference are in Camden Council's Floodplain Risk Management Committee. You will notice almost all other councils have one, and many of them have really good setups of how they identify what their actual role is and what they are particularly looking at. We have not done the McDonald Valley flood study, which was promised in 2018, and the people down there want us to have a committee that fulfils the role of the floodplain development manual. To have that particular study completed, it's very important. We're responsible for floodplain management, so we have to get on with it, and we have to get these various studies and these flood-related issues looked at. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Kotlash.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'll just start with a question, if I can. In Councillor Lyons-Buckett's address, she mentioned the fact that we needed these particular studies across the board at different catchments. Is it true to suggest that those studies aren't being done because we haven't had community members on a floodplain management group? Because that seems to be what's being implied here, and I find that a bit, that doesn't seem like it is the fact of the matter.

Can I have clarification, please? I refer your question to the General Manager.

Through you, Madam Mayor, I think with respect to the McDonald Valley work, that has been delayed at our end, ostensibly around resourcing commitments and our ability to secure the necessary consultants required to do that next tranche of work. So that's what I would be saying was the necessary delay on that particular project.

Thank you. Having got that information, it seems to me that there's been a lot of reference to the floodplain management manual that was written in 2005. It actually— Pardon? Yeah, it's been reviewed. There's certain sections of it that have been reviewed. Thank you, Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Our responsibilities are to get as much, in my— it's my belief that we need to get as much community information as we can. It seems to me that we should be pursuing the floodplain, all of the technical stuff with the floodplain stuff, and we decide then how we get the best sort of community consultation. I disagree that a subcommittee with certain selected people from the area, I just don't think that that's the best use of, the best way to get as much information, and that's okay. That was a council resolution, and I accept that and I'll move on. But I don't think that the community should be thinking that because we don't have particular representatives on a committee is the reason why we don't have those things. So I think we have to get that straight. It's disingenuous to say that we haven't got those things because we don't want the community's input.

Comparing ourselves to other councils is also a bit tricky, I think, because Penrith Council has a lot more resources than we have, and I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't do all of the things that was mentioned by Councillor Lyons-Buckett. We should be doing those things, but , you know, we shouldn't be squabbling about who goes on a committee. We should just be doing these things.

Could I just speak without your commentary, please? Yes, you have the right to be heard in silence. Thank you, Councillor. Sorry, I've lost my train of thought.

I think that what we need to do for this whole committee review is to — Have specific issues and areas, and we go out and ask people that live in those areas. What we've done now is we've regressed. We've gone, okay, we have to have, I think the— let me just check. We've now asked for people to help implement the floodplain risk management studies and floodplain risk management plans for the Hawkesbury.

Madam Mayor, I think we're drifting off the topic here.

Thank you, Councillor Wheeler. Councillor Kotlash, I'll let you continue. Thank you.

So the task of this subcommittee, and I'm sorry if I get hysterical—I think, was it hysterical?

The reason that I think that we should be able to do those studies and then go out to the community in each of those areas is that who's going to choose the seven people that are going to be on the committee to do those?

Point of order, Madam Mayor

Relevance. We're debating a resolution that Council passed last year. This is not part of the current motion on the table.

Thank you, Councillor Wheeler. I do believe it is relevant. It's going to the core of who and what and how many are on a working group. Thank you. Continue, Councillor.

But Madam Mayor, that's not a working group. That's a committee. That's a subcommittee, as the Director of Planning has already explained to us. So it's not relevant to the motion on the table.

The motion on the table is calling it a working group, floodplain management working group, not a subcommittee.

Thank you,

Councillor.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. If there's confusion, I'm happy to— To do a point nine, to say that for the sake of simplicity, we have the same sorts of processes so that the community, you know, have an understanding of what they're able to be involved in, if that would help.

Is that something you want to propose to the mover? No Thank you. If

It

Gets more

Confusing, I will. Thank you. So, sorry, I've lost my train of thought again. Yes, the people that we're going to have on the subcommittee, who are going to be from all of these areas that was in the original motion, which was invite expressions of interest for representatives to participate in flood impacted areas including McDonald Valley, St Albans, Upper Colo, Windsor, Pitt Town South, Windsor, McGraths Hill, Richmond Lowlands, North Richmond, Lower Portland, Cumberland Reach and other areas suffering the impact of floods. I would like to see, you know, when those floodplain studies come out, the relevant bits, we just do some sincere community consultation with the people in those areas and not go back to this notion that a committee are going to be able to have that sort of representation.

The floodplain manual says that we can decide how our community is consulted. That's what that says. It doesn't say that you have to have a subcommittee. It says that you have to consult the community in the way you think is the best way. So

I think we have to come to grips with the terms of reference for subcommittees, the templates that we have for working groups. And their committee constitutions. I think that's just too confusing and really not the way forward.

Thank you.

Madam Mayor

Could I just clarify something? Yes. First of all, part of that was inaccurate, but I won't go there. I just wanted to say that when there are individual studies done for specific areas, there's a whole protocol about how consultation about those studies is carried out, as set out in the manual.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak?

No, I'd rather reply, Councillor Conolly.

No, I think we've all furiously agreed.