12 December 2023 - Ordinary

If Councillors would wish to indulge me on a procedural motion to move a condolence, could I please have someone move that way? Councillor Veigel, seconded Councillor Lyons-Buckett. All in favour, please raise your hand. Thank you very much, Councillors. I'll therefore move with a motion of condolence. Today, our Hawkesbury community received the devastating news that a member of New South Wales Fire and Rescue lost their life whilst attending a blaze at Grose Vale in the Hawkesbury City Council LGA. On behalf of Hawkesbury City Council, we wish to extend our deepest condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of this individual, and pay our respects for their service to our community.

We know that this will be a very difficult and challenging time and truly convey our sorrow for this loss. Our thoughts also extend to all working and volunteering in our emergency services as we learn of this tragedy. I would now like to pause for a moment in honour of their memory. Thank you

Everybody. Were there any other Councillors wishing to make a small remark? Councillors, then Zamprogno.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I appreciate that the condolence motion was written earlier in the day when details weren't known. But if we're going to remark on this gentleman's passing, he has a name. His name was Michael Kidd. He was a member of the Richmond Fire and Rescue Brigade and also a member of the Londonderry RFS. So I think it's appropriate not only to extend our support and best wishes to the Richmond Fire and Rescue, to Londonderry RFS, and also to the family of another volunteer whom I believe was injured in the same incident but who has not been named. It's a very great loss and simply brings into a very sharp focus the sacrifice of people that put themselves in harm's way to keep us safe. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak? No, thank you very much.

Item subject to public address. We have one item with registered speakers, that is item 6.1.3, enhancing the arts in the Hawkesbury working group. You'll note we have one registered speaker there, but we did have another registered speaker who I will be allowing to speak just based on some technical difficulties of getting that registration through. I'll therefore call on the first registered speaker, Philip Routley.

Good evening, Madam Mayor and Councillors. Firstly, thank you, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, for bringing this motion to Council. I completely support the reinstatement of enhancing the arts in the Hawkesbury working group. I believe it to be a vital link between community performing arts groups and the Council. My name is Philip Routley. I'm a violinist, a vocalist, and currently the president of Macquarie Towns Symphony Orchestra. Two weeks ago, we had our last concert of the year , and maybe you have heard of us or maybe you haven't, but we have grown to be now a 40-piece orchestra with full string sections, woodwind, and brass. In this particular concert, we had two local choirs and two soloists, and it was a great success.

We also had in attendance Robyn Preston, the state member for this area, and she was totally blown away by what we had achieved and what we could do, and basically spoke to me in the interval and sort of said, Well, you know, you could have filled this hall three or four times over, no problems, and that we would need to try and find or do something about a better venue in this area. But I had a moment in that, in the concert where I could stand and listen, and at the entrance, because there was no seats to sit, and look and listen. And I did find myself brimming with pride for what this area has achieved with this orchestra. There's been a huge amount of commitment by the players and by committee members, and yeah, it was just really, really remarkable what we have here.

It's a very special orchestra, and often we have guest players. They say to us that we're the friendliest orchestra in Sydney because we accept everyone to come and play and enjoy them. But we're bursting at the seams. We have no more space. So 40 musicians, plus in this case two choirs, plus our audience, which is regularly well over 100, for the performance venue that we have, we are basically, we just can't. We're bursting at the seams. We can't do anything else. So my understanding with this, sorry, the working group, we would like to work with Council, with members of the community who are representative of these groups, to work towards a long-term plan of having a facility in the Hawkesbury, which we currently don't have for the performing arts, similar to what Penrith Council has in the Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre.

This sort of facility would not only give opportunity or improve our ability to be able to perform and give opportunities for the community, but it will also give Teaching spaces for a fantastic lot of music teachers that we have in this area as well. Just let me have a quick look at my book here, down here. I realise that's a long-term goal and probably one that will require not only support from the Council, but from higher levels of government. But once again, the group that we would like to reinstate will, you know, allow that sort of communication and dialogue, hopefully at least start that dialogue. I've just got on the bottom of, before I finish, I've got a sort of a food for thought that I've often been puzzled with, and I'll just read off what it is.

It's long been known that playing sports and exercise has a very positive effect on personal well-being, including mental health, and it's easy to understand and quantify why governments on all levels are happy to fund and maintain playing fields, green spaces for the benefit of community groups, which is fabulous and wonderful. The performing arts are really no different. We provide equally important role in the community. Regular rehearsals, working towards common goals with other like-minded people gives a sense of purpose and well-being. I just want to think about that because we do, we have a different lens when looking at sporting than what we do for the performing arts. We do the same thing.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. I'll just see if there's any questions from councillors. No, thank you, Mr Routley, appreciate that. I'll now call on the second registered speaker, Miss Mira Webster.

Thank you, Madam Mayor and esteemed councillors, and thank you so much. I am absolutely thrilled to have a brief opportunity to address this matter, and I won't touch on anything else that Phil has said. I'm president of the Hawkesbury Entertainers and Artists Regional Theatre Society. There is one reason why we formed this society. That was out of sheer desperation for the number of artists in the Hawkesbury who are scrambling for places to play, scrambling to find opportunities for the students that they teach, scrambling to ensure that another generation of students don't go without adequate music instruction or pathways to become artists when they clearly are artists and are simply not getting there because they don't have the resources to support them.

And also because we're very tired of having to trek out to the city for $50 gigs and pay the tolls at $40 when we don't have venues and opportunities to play in our own backyard. So, notwithstanding the amount of money that it's going to take to put a performing arts centre on the books, HEARTS decided to put itself together as a resource junction box to bring artists to venues to create events and performing opportunities for the artists and to make sure that the artists and venues had a business benefit to this, but also so the community would have that ongoing benefit and we wouldn't be losing artists to other areas, other orchestras and other bands outside of this region. This region is growing incredibly quickly.

It is really filling up very, very fast. We all know that it's overdue that we have a performing arts centre, but there are other layers to this that we should consider, and I would like to address the plight of music teachers in the area, amateur dramatics and bands and choirs in the area, the lack of venues for them to be able to rehearse. And to hold concerts that are actually their financial lifeblood. It's the only way that they get any funding for most of them. The sheer amount of free work that is given away by artists is truly shocking. So HEARTS is seeking to make sure that there is financial gain for everybody involved in an arts venture, and we think that that's commensurate, and it's time that that happened, that artists were rewarded for the amount of rehearsal and training that they do, and adequately.

This also has a flow-on effect to small business. I don't think people perhaps necessarily make that connection so readily, but there are many, many, many small businesses that will benefit from people who come to a venue to hear a band, to watch a symphony orchestra play, and who may stay on in the area. And for that reason, HEARTS would love the opportunity to talk about the sorts of events that can cover an entire weekend. We're talking about jazz festivals, we're talking about folk festivals, we're talking about the ability for small operators in the Hawkesbury to host people from out of this area to come here, to spend their money here, to be entertained here, and then to go back with really warm, fond memories of events that take place and the kind of events that can put Hawkesbury on the arts map.

That's how far we can see into the future. It's not just a question of providing mentorship and opportunities for children who are longing to be singers or actors or dancers or orchestra players or even big band players, but it's also for small businesses who've got an opportunity to showcase the best that the Hawkesbury has to offer and partner up with an event that involves live musicians and keeps music live. And that's all I have to say. I'm happy to take any questions.

Thank you very much. Any questions, councillors? Councillor Zamprogno.

Thank you. Thank you very much for that impassioned pitch. I'm very warmly disposed to it. Since this is the first time that you've addressed us as a representative of your august body, is it the view of the members of your association that what the Hawkesbury lacks is a proper tiered seating theatrical and live music performance venue? Because I've had a bee in my bonnet for many years about the lack of a proper performance venue. Is that the view of your members? Yes

Yes , it certainly is. And it's not just a question of a proper tiered venue. It's a question of a multifunctional venue. Philip talked about this too, and I'm so glad that he did because in the right kind of venue, you can have multiple disciplinary setups. You can have cabaret setup. You can have theatre setup. You can have stadium setup. You can have all kinds of setup if you have the right sort of space. But you can also cater for small chamber orchestras. You can also cater for jazz ensembles. And most importantly, you can cater for the performing arts. You can cater for dance studios. We have so many dance studios in the Hawkesbury, it's ridiculous, you know , and they are all doing reasonably well, which is phenomenal.

But those dancers have nowhere to dance unless they get a cruise ship contract. Where are they going to dance in the Hawkesbury? My Belcanto Productions is the only— Event organisation in this region that provides opportunities for dancers to dance on stage in locally written shows. I mean, we would love to have a rival cabaret company. That would be fantastic. We've sold out every time we've put a cabaret on, but we can no longer do that. We don't have adequate venues. But the other side of it is also teaching space. You know, so many small sole trader music studios are forced out by high rents in the area. They can't afford to have a studio that is central in Richmond, for example, or in Windsor.

They have to be teaching out of their garages. You know, with a proper performing arts centre, we should be able to provide teaching spaces as well. And there are plenty of beautiful music teachers around here. We've got some of the most amazing jazz musicians. That's my particular passion. But we have some of the most amazing jazz musicians right here, and they're playing for nothing.

Any further questions? No. Thank you very much for your contribution.

Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'll move my motion as in the business paper. Seconded by Councillor Wheeler. Please proceed. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Is this my one? Thank you for that. And thank you to Phil and Mira for speaking to us tonight about what I consider to be a very important role that we can play in getting us back on track into the dialogue that we should be having around the provision of this aspect of our cultural, our obligations to provide cultural facilities. I'm quite mindful that, of course, we don't have the capacity to simply just deliver a performance space like that. That's not possible for us to do. But we can certainly play a role in working towards that long term alongside other levels of government.

It's really fundamental that we support our wonderful performing artists here. They played a crucial role during the lockdown. They are crucial to the wellbeing. Our speakers have spoken about how much they provide in terms of education for young people, for older people. It ties in with things like tourism and contributing to the local economy. It is a whole economy of its own, performing arts. The other thing is we have such a wonderful, we have the gallery and the museum and the library. We have a wonderful cultural precinct, but it is lacking a performance space. So often the funding is tied into all those things together, and we are perhaps missing opportunities there. And it would be very good to be able to see us work towards embracing those sort of opportunities into the future.

I did attend the concert that Phil was speaking about. It was, as Councillor Reardon did as well, and It was absolutely amazing. I think that seeing how far the orchestra had come and how entertaining it was, was really a wonderful thing to experience. And yet people were standing in the foyer. It was overcrowded, and when I was speaking to people about it, the issue with hiring an alternative venue for a community-based group, it's very cost prohibitive. It's very expensive for them to go and hire the University Hall, for example. But I think that we can probably, and I have spoken to Rob and Preston about it, we can probably speak to the member for Macquarie, Susan Templeman, who is also the Special Arts Envoy, to see if we can at least get some things in place to be able to help get some funding so that at least where these groups can have an annual concert, that maybe they can get some funding to assist them to hold.

Council has a somewhat limited role in this, but I think it's really important that we facilitate these discussions and fulfil our role to our community that we work towards delivering, as Phil made the comparison to how much we do for sporting activities, we need to be doing that for our cultural activities. So the idea of putting this forward was not to have it exactly as it was before. It's to have a working group with a specific objective, and I did include some sample terms of reference, which were basically around what it would basically entail would be a group of councillors with an interest to start the engagement and working on, first of all, I guess, just defining council's role and then engaging with these various groups through a process of doing that.

It wouldn't be to have regular meetings as such as we have before, as I know that isn't supported. in here, but I think that going down, I mean, this is something that any of us as individuals could have gone ahead and done. But I think it's important that it has council backing, and I think that if we did it as individuals, we'd be criticised for going out and organising things without putting it through council. So I think it's better to have the support of the council to work forward in this way and to go ahead and to start this process again. It will be slow, but hopefully by this time next year we could have found some funding that could perhaps enable these groups to have their final year concert held in a venue where they can really have enough people in there to really enjoy it and in the meantime be, you know, moving the cogs of the wheel along towards any opportunities to getting a permanent performance space within the Hawkesbury.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Councillor Conolly.

Thank you. I support the notice of motion. I was going to ask for one change, which was in regards to, in the terms of reference, and I know it's an example terms of reference, but I took it that we're adopting that terms of reference if we adopt the motion. Just in the structure and membership, I think we should take council staff off the committee and know that they're available. Should the committee ask for advice and Sorry, should the working group ask for the advice of— should the working group provide advice to council that requires staff involvement, I think council could then direct staff to do something. But I think it'd be more appropriate that staff not be on the working group in the first instance.

They're not. Point 2 says, if requested by the working group for a specific project.

But it says they'll have voting rights and be appointments. That's why I just wanted to clarify that.

Okay.

Yeah. I think this is a— I think it certainly seems like there's community support to do this, and I think it's worth looking at. I think it's important, though, that the working group doesn't just focus on finding a new building or finding money for someone to go and do something. And it is— we do have to be conscious that we're working both in this space with community groups and businesses, and council should approach each differently. You know, to use the sport analogy, we would support community groups in sport. We wouldn't necessarily financially support professional sports people that are making money out of it or, you know, we wouldn't support, you know, a coaching service, although we might provide some community infrastructure.

So I think it's important to make that delineation and be careful around that. But yeah, if we can have that clarification, I'd be happy to support the motion to get this going.

Thank you, Councillor. I'll just have some advice from the General Manager, if you want to explain that regarding the terms of reference.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Through you, Councillors, it was the intention of staff that should the motion be adopted tonight, that we were going to bring back a new set of terms of reference, having regard to the previous resolutions of Council in regards to working groups. So my comment to the Mayor just then was if you're fundamentally okay with these, then adopt them, otherwise we will bring a report back.

Councillor? Can I have a seconded little by that? My little opinion there would be I think we should adopt them and minimise the bureaucracy as much as possible, rather than have this— I mean, the reason that some of us have not been fans of working groups and committees is because of all the constant paperwork that our staff have to do to get them to happen, given that these seem perfectly reasonable, I'd be in favour of adopting it tonight with that one change.

Thank you, Councillor. I'll ask the mover if there was an appetite for that.

I'm happy to make changes. It really was, I think the terms of reference are quite broad, but I understand what Councillor Conolly is saying. Really, it's something that really would evolve once the working group is there to see what will actually.

Right, you're happy to make that change, and the seconder is happy with that?

Can I suggest that instead of scrapping 0.5A2 completely, that council staff members appointed by the General Manager, if requested, remain in there and take out by the working group for a specific project, just in case the General Manager decides that she wishes to have a staff member have some involvement or oversight.

Well, this isn't normal practice. I'm happy to try and get a consensus, Councillor Conolly

So delete—so finish that if requested, change the meaning of the sentence to if requested by the General Manager instead of if requested by the working group. Yep. Okay, that's okay.

Okay. Everyone's happy? Okay, we'll leave it at that. Anyone else wishing to speak? Councillor Wheeler, also.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. Look, I think this is a really good way forward. It fits well with our community strategic plan about being a more diverse council, and also with accepting community input on issues where the community has a much greater knowledge in a field than we necessarily do. You know, what we've heard from our two speakers are stories of real success and the limitations that allow that success to build past where it is now. You know, what we've heard really is a tale of possibilities, needs and benefits for the LGA. I love the idea of a multifunctional venue. About a decade ago, I travelled to Germany for, of all things, a medical conference, so I'm not an arts geek, and— In a fantastic multifunctional facility where the building could be adapted, and we stood around and watched.

It was one of those lovely feats of German engineering, where it could be a concert hall, or it could be a stage. It had multiple rehearsal spaces. It functioned as a convention centre. It really, it did all the things in a really remarkable piece of architecture. And I think we sell ourselves short when we look at these things in the Hawkesbury and say, Look, we're not big enough to have that. You know, and it was what we're really saying to our community is, Look, we don't think that you can have that. And I think we need to take those limits off. And I think we also, what we know from our experience with disaster funding and with WestInvest is that when we have projects ready for funding, we're far more likely to get that funding.

We won't know what's needed by performing arts, by the performing arts community in the Hawkesbury, unless we ask them what they need and what they could use. And that, I think, is the purpose of this. I hear Councillor Condoly's concerns around allowing people to operate businesses in these spaces, but people operate businesses in our sporting spaces now for a fee anyway. There's nothing that precludes Council from doing that in a performing arts space either. I was one of those parents who had a child who reached his ceiling in the Hawkesbury and had to drive him to the Joan at Penrith to further his participation in drama. And it was a pain in the bum every Saturday morning to get this kid into the car and schlep over to Penrith and wait for four hours while he did his drama stuff and then come all the way back home again.

I could have used that Saturday morning to do something else if I could have dropped him off 15 minutes from home. My only concern with the terms of reference, and I hope that something does come back to us in the new year, is the need for a reporting mechanism from these working groups. And we've talked about this in relation to the Hawkesbury River County Council, the Sports Council, and other working groups that exist. The working groups that hang off the Heritage Committee, which I'm familiar with, report back to the Heritage Committee, and that then comes back to Council via those minutes. And so there is a reporting line back to Council. Without a reporting line, how this information comes back to Council and how Council addresses it is murky, and I think that's not optimal either for Council or for the people who give freely of their time and expertise.

So that would be the one change I would like to see from these terms of reference. Thanks.

Thank you, Councillor. I'll just ask the General Manager to read something onto the record regarding something that will be included in our West Invest projects.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Yes, Councillors, just a reminder, and it's probably a good segue into perhaps a task for the working group, was that the North Richmond Community Centre precinct, as part of that multi-functional centre proposed there, does have a performing arts and rehearsal space with a mobile stage for musical theatre productions as part of an extension to the existing youth centre as part of that facility. So it may well be that there may be something quite tangible for the working group to actually work on.

Thank you, General Manager. Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'm also happy to support this notice of motion. I have always been in favour of enhancing the arts in this area. For example, when the cities deal money came about, I was trying to see if we could organise to use that money to build the kind of centre that people are talking about now, or to put in an outdoor space at the back of the Riverview shopping centre that could be used on weekends on fine weather. But unfortunately, I didn't get much support for those. But I think that, to me, would have been a good way to use the city deals money in particular. I've also always tried to get us to have sculptures in the towns. I know you go to many country towns, you'll find sculptures representing the kind of life they have there, the animals , the mining, whatever it is, and there's sculptures to celebrate that.

And I think it would be good if we had some of those as well. And they're interactive in as much as they build them very strongly and the visiting kids can come and climb all over them, and it's a great thing to watch. Now, I've always said that we should be enhancing the arts, and the previous working group, I think, started to do a few things in that direction. But my recollection is that the working group was never dissolved. I don't think any working groups were ever dissolved. It just seemed to stop, and I don't know why it stopped. And I'm just saying to the General Manager that, in theory, that other working group still exists somewhere, and we might have to now fix that. Perhaps go back and say the previous working group no longer exists or is dissolved officially, and bring this one in.

I'm very happy with the terms of reference. I'm happy to support the motion and the terms of reference. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, and thank you to the speakers from Amira. That was very passionate, and it was great, and thank you for speaking. Yeah, I'll be supporting the motion. I thank Councillor Lyons-Buckett for raising it. As some of you know, that I'm married to a visual arts teacher. My daughters are visual arts teacher, and they both sit into the visual and performing arts faculties in their prospective schools. I was also a supporter of the amphitheatre, and I think with a couple of other councils when it came on, when we did the post-it thing some couple of years ago, I thought that was worthy. But I think a facility like that is an example of a maturing community, and I think the state, Wellington, needs to be put on the ground, and we work towards that.

Now, I don't know how many years that may take, but obviously if we've got the support of the state member and the federal member, and in time I'm sure we can get the funding to make a centre of excellence there for this area. So yeah, I'll be supporting it with the amendment, and I again thank you for putting the motion.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Yes, I will be supporting this as well, although I have to caution that we're going, it seems that we're going down the road of this being not very specific, and... One of the things that we were doing when we were revising our old committee structure was to try and get away with, you know, going over and over things and not actually having specific questions to be addressed. Now, I know it says in point three of the motion, for the initial project, the initial project will be a view of identifying potential performance space opportunities and council's role within the process. I would have thought that we had a fairly good handle on the fact that we don't have very many performance spaces because we've been scrounging for these sorts of facilities for as long as I've been on council.

So I'd like to not keep going back to that particular issue. I'd like to us to set actual targets , like we, you know, instead of, well, just answering a specific question would be good. And I think that the reason I'm a bit wobbly about the structure of this working group is it just sounds like a committee, and we're going to have community appointments. And whilst that's fabulous, I think it would be a huge working group if we actually get people who are interested in singing, music, sound, dance, visual arts, public art, craft, design, architecture, literature, photography, film, and digital creations. Where this is a big space and there's a lot of things happening. And I'd like us to be a bit more focused in what, as council, we can actually do, because I wouldn't want the community to think that council has the ability to actually, well, we don't have any money to build a performance space.

But I'd like to narrow it down a bit. Now, I can't answer that, and when I read this, I thought I couldn't kind of come up with anything either. But are we going to have community appointments for particular projects? Because it says in point three, for the initial project. So will we be feeding this working group with projects that come from Council?

I'll refer to the General Manager, who may need refer to the mover of the motion.

I can just perhaps add another level of complexity to the discussion, councillors. On our to-do list, and it has already started in earnest for 2024, is the organisation's cultural plan, which will cover all of those disciplines that you are talking about, Councillor, and will cover a wide range of things. But that is something that will be developed by the staff. What I would be not concerned about, but I think what we would have to come to grips with if we were trying to develop a working group with such a diverse range of skill sets, that that may become rather unwieldy if we're trying to focus and focus a question at them to answer, as you'd suggested.

So in actual fact, the platform that I was talking about, or the specifics, may very well be to get people involved in the development of our cultural plan. Okay, you have put a spanner in the works. Thank you. Now I do. Councillor,

The clock's not running anymore. Oh, I'm so sorry. Time has expired. Yeah, okay. Thank you. Right. Okay, thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak? Yes. Councillor Reardon.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Attending the recent concert representing you was a wonderful experience, and I really support this. I think it'd be very positive, and I think a good start would be the North Richmond Community Centre with our WestInvest money. That would be a good target.

Thank you, Councillor. If no one else is

Wishing to speak, right of reply, Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Thank you, Madam Mayor, and thanks for all the input of councillors. I think the aim of this was to make it really easy, to minimise any burden on staff, and to take it away from what Councillor Kotlash was saying, which was what we had before and which was so heavily criticised. It specifically says in the terms of reference when additional members can be co-opted at discretion , and they would only serve for the period of time required around that specific purpose, which would mean then that you could have different people coming. That's in point 5e. You could have different people coming for specific things. So, for example, if we wanted to then look at sculptures or something, there would be a setup working group to be able to address these various different specific things.

And I think that even though it looks quite broad, the aim with point 3 is to really, to mainly around the short-term goals, is to have this dialogue with the people who can actually probably access money for us to be able to find, see which potential performance spaces in the short term we would be able to get these concerts going so that more people can attend and it would be a benefit all round, while at the same time working along with a long-term goal. I think that, I think it could be a really positive way to approach it, to start with this. We can always grow, but it's essentially really just having some councillors looking into it and then seeing what that's going to bring, and then seeing if there's a necessary next step.

And I agree with Councillor Wheeler that we don't have a really good reporting back system, but I would imagine that anyone who would be on such a working group would advise either publicly via the council meeting or at least via email to the Mayor of anything that was developing, so that it could then be taken further. I am very mindful that we don't want to burden staff with something that essentially is a role of elected people to liaise with the community and with the other levels of government to just see what opportunities are out there, and of course to hear their contributions to feed back into, for example, when we have a cultural plan and when we would be doing other various projects.

And I think it is very exciting that the North Richmond development may have space for performing arts, and I look forward to when we get more information about that. So thank you for the support for this. I'm sure our speakers who are so passionate about enhancing their specific art, their artistic practice in this area would appreciate the support that's being given. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor.

Sorry, just a point of order.

Yes?

I'm just a bit confused, sorry, about exactly what we're about to vote on. Are we adopting the terms of reference and appointing three councillors, or are we agreeing in principle and waiting for a report?

I'll just check with the General Manager about the terms of reference. I think when we were adopting what's in there with the change made to point 5A2, then we will pass the recommendation. Once that's passed, we'll appoint the three councillors to the working group. Okay, you got it? Okay, thank you. All those in favour of the recommendation, please raise your hand. In favour, 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. I declare the item carried.

Could I have three nominations for councillors interested, please. I've got four. It does say, or a number considered suitable. Oh, now I've got five. That's almost half the council. Not if it's not necessary. Yeah, please raise your hand if you are keen. Let's have a look. Councillor Conolly, Calvert, Lyons-Buckett, Wheeler and Zamprogno. The resolution did say a number suitable, so if five are happy, then we will pass those five councillors as part of the working group. Thank you

Just to confirm, Madam Mayor, the intention was that it would be reasonably informal, like it's not going to require a staff member to set up a thing. It would just be done amongst the group. Lovely.

Thank you, councillors, very much.

The next agenda item is items on block. They are items 4.4.2 and 5.1.1. Can I have someone move that way? Councillor Veigel, seconded Councillor Conolly. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour, 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. I declare the items on block carried.

The next item on the agenda is 4.1.1, planning proposal 745 Old Pitt Town Road, Oakville. This planning proposal has now been withdrawn by the applicant, and I'll need someone to pass the following: that as planning proposal LEP 001/21, 745 Old Pitt Town Road, Oakville has been withdrawn, Council not consider this matter. Can I have someone in favour? Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Wheeler seconded. All in favour? Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno, yep, and Councillor McMahon. I declare the item carried.

The motion carried, let me say. Get that correct. The next item is 4.1.2, planning proposal LEP05/23, Redbank North Richmond. Do I have someone to move that way? Councillor Reardon, seconded? Councillor Conolly. Councillor Reardon, do you wish to make any remarks? That would be a good idea to bring all those areas together. Thank you very much. Anyone else wishing to speak on the matter? No more councillors? No? Oh, Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. I'll speak against the motion. I disagree that the medium density zoning adjacent to the RSL Life Care facility is consistent with the district plans. It's certainly not consistent with service provision west of the river, or with state government stated objectives to reduce urban sprawl. None of this addresses the need for affordable housing. All of the houses in this precinct are in excess of a million dollars, nor does it do anything to address the need for mixed housing close to public transport or major transport routes.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I had some questions around it. Once again, well, this isn't really a question, I suppose it's a comment, but I'm just wondering if the maps, some of the maps in the business paper were really hard to read. I couldn't see the legend on them again. It makes it really difficult to have to go and try and source the original LEP maps to go and find that. You just couldn't read it, but that's probably a comment. I'm just wondering why we didn't have a briefing on this like we normally do on planning proposals.

Thank you, Councillor. Director of City Planning.

Thank you through you, Madam Mayor. It was considered that the planning proposal by and large was to resolve anomalies that have occurred throughout the development as a result of the subdivision and subsequent development processes, and that there were no substantial changes.

Okay, so in that regard, why are there no references to the lot yields within that changed zonings? Director of City Planning. Are they completely unchanged, are they? General Manager.

Yeah, through you, Madam Mayor, that's correct. So what we're dealing with here is effectively retrospectively lining up the zonings to match the existing built form, largely. Okay, thank you.

I'm also just wondering what the status of Chapter 8 in the DCP, how will that operate going forward with our new DCP?

General

Manager.

It doesn't affect the alteration of any existing development control plans.

Okay, thank you. And is it Council's intention to request to be the plan making authority?

General Manager. I think that would be our usual practice, yes, Councillor.

Oh, so the usual practice. Okay, thank you. Sorry, I'll just speak on it. I just had a number of concerns over how this item has been presented to us from the Council. The planning proposal itself says that it was identified in the Residential Land Strategy as being a high priority future investigation area, and I would very much like someone to show me where it says that, because I've never seen that. North Richmond was one of five areas that was targeted for potential or possible future investigation, but it's not really right to have that presented publicly when that isn't actually what was ever said. As we know, this has been a controversial development from the start, with its approval was overshadowed by the findings in an ICAC inquiry.

But at the time when it was approved, there were really firm statements given to people who objected to this that there would be no further zoning changes, that everything would go ahead. And even though it's being sort of presented as being anomalies that have arisen, I actually object to the narrative that is contained within this report. It's stating that the development arose in response to the land strategy, and I don't consider that's correct. I think it would be rather the other way round, that the land strategy was done to accommodate this specific , this and some other parcels of land for further development. I mean, that's okay, I've got no objection with that happening, but I think the true history of events should be presented and not glossed over when we're looking at these matters, because there was a land release application in 2009 to have that land parcel listed on the Metropolitan Development Plan so that existing infrastructure issues could be addressed prior to the land being considered for rezoning.

And we've subsequently seen subsequent alterations, and now we have to rezone around things because there's been changes made. And the thing that bothers me about that is not so much the individual changes as such, but the guarantees that were made to people around this development that there would be no changes in where that R3 zoning was, and the various other things that it leaves us open to when people come in here and they say, you know, you're going to do this, and people say, staff, or not specific staff, but just generally the answer is, well, no, this is it now, this is what it's going to be. And then down the track, we have people come back and say, you know, this is changing a bit.

So I did question about the lot yield because I think that it repeatedly says in this report approximately 1,400 dwellings. Well, it was approved for 1,399, so I don't know why that figure is not used. So you're raising some sort of question around there's zoning changes, then there's approximately this. I just don't think that's a good way to present on a development that has been highly controversial. It had a lot of opposition. It has had a lot of impact on people. I think that we would have been better to present it in a really purely factual and correct way. Section 7.2 in the Hawkesbury Residential Land Strategy states the requirement to have detailed structure planning to determine land capacity and ability to meet dwelling targets required to be undertaken in future investigations, which this is saying it's relying on the one hand that it's because of the Residential Land Strategy, but it's not having that supported by ever having structure planning done .

And of course, we know the one-time structure planning was done here; it wasn't adopted. So I would have expected to see a clearer picture around the impacts of these zonings. There's a lot of information in there, but there's hard-to-read maps. There's nothing that says the totals of each zoning, what it will deliver in terms of numbers of dwellings or actual floor space of commercial area, nor any information on the potential impacts of adjoining properties around that. So I don't think it's too much to seek transparency on an issue like this. And I just would ask that in future that we have a really clear picture given around these various things, and preferably a briefing beforehand, so that these things could be raised in a briefing and not here tonight.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak? No. Right of reply, Councillor Reardon. Not necessary, Madam Mayor. Oh, sorry, sorry, Councillor.

Thanks, Madam Mayor.

Sorry, Councillor Sheather. Sorry, I'll need you to try and raise your little yellow hand if you can. Thank you That's what I'm looking for.

Thanks. Could I have the staff clarify some of the comments that were made by two councillors who spoke with some reservations to how it was presented. I don't disagree in relation to some of the diagrams that don't indicate a north, south, east or west on them, and not even in some cases the roads within them. The information we're going to be given, it needs to be given so we can properly assess it. But, excuse me, but in 2011 the land strategy did include Redbank surrounding areas, and there was works done after it, and as Councillor Lyons-Buckett indicated, probably not to her satisfaction that it probably... dealt with some of the issues she spoke of. But Councillor Wheeler spoke about some areas, along with Councillor Lyons-Buckett, and I'd like the staff to give the opportunity to support what they've written and the recommendation in the business paper.

Do you have a specific question, or it's just that broad, Councillor?

Well, I'm sure that there was comments that were made that they would like to address in that regard, because there was a few of them, and some that's relevant. Through the many pages here, it clarifies, and some of it I do believe could have been perhaps written a bit better than what it is. But the reasoning behind what the recommendation, the background is, and does the staff see issues in relation to what the two councillors, the comments they made in relation to their perhaps not supporting this, to clarify those issues. Thanks

Councillor. I'll see if there are any remarks that wish to be made by staff. Director City Planning.

Thank you. Through you, Madam Mayor. Look, I'll just reiterate that the purpose of this planning proposal is to resolve the zoning anomalies that have arisen. It certainly doesn't necessarily give consent to future development in these sites. Any proposed development within the zones will still be subject to a development application process and subsequent assessment and referral to necessary agencies in any of the zones. So concerns around, I guess, housing yields, there's no intention to change those provisions. They are in line with the original planning proposal for the entire site, and any future development would be subject to a further assessment, which would be a merit-based assessment determined by the application and its appropriateness for the zone.

Thank you, Councillor Sheather.

Thanks, Madam Mayor.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak? No. Right of reply, Councillor Reardon? No, not necessary. Thank you. All those in favour of the recommendation, please raise your hand. Those in favour are Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, and Councillor Zamprogno, and Councillor McMahon. Those against? Councillor Lyons-Buckett and Councillor Wheeler. I declare the item carried.

The next item is 4.2.1, media policy. Do I have anyone wishing to move that way? Councillor Conolly, seconded Councillor Reardon. Councillor Conolly.

I don't have much to say. I was quite happy with the policy as it was presented. I know that some councillors have indicated that they want to discuss it, so I'll be open to hearing what the issues are. I thought it was a good policy.

Thanks, Councillor. Councillor Zamprogno.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I did forward to staff earlier a couple of amendments. I'd like to get them up on the screen and seek a seconder.

While that's coming up onto the screen, for the benefit of context, I'm seeking to adopt the policy, but to make two small changes. One adds a definition, and the other inserts a clause.

Councillor, did you want to talk about what those two

Parts are? I can speak to it. So basically— Well, leave a

Seconder first, but just identify which part of the policy.

All right then. So the first change that I'm seeking adds an additional definition. So there's a definition of what a media organisation is, section 15. A media organisation is a person or entity which works in an organised fashion, blah, blah, blah. It suggests that one of the markers of an authentic media organisation is membership of the Australian Press Council. I'm informed by several of our local media organisations that only very large organisations join the APC these days, and that another organisation that is a marker of a legitimate and authentic journalistic organisation is membership of LINA, the Local and Independent News Association. So I'm just seeking to add that to the definitions that assist us in identifying what a legitimate journalistic organisation looks like.

The second change that I'm proposing is the insertion of a brand new clause that seeks to provide some guidance about the way that Council spends money when we are in a position to either advertise or when we have a statutory obligation to place a public notice in the local media. And I'm seeking to ensure that where there are multiple media organisations within the same segment, that we spend that money ecumenically and we don't favour or disfavour one media organisation over another, but that we do have regard to the rates for advertising, the print circulation, the relevant deadlines if the information is time sensitive, and so forth. And there it is up on the board. So I'm seeking a seconder for that.

Sorry, that's seeking what you just described as a new clause 7.13.

Yes, so an addition to the definitions and the insertion of a new clause providing guidance about how Council spends money on advertising, and I'd be seeking that as an amendment.

Do I have a seconder for that, please? Councillor Djuric. Councillor Zamprogno.

Thank you. The media policy is an important document, and I know that there are other changes that have been made that some councillors might be uncomfortable with, and I encourage them to speak up. But for my money, I think the policy is okay. No policy is perfect, but these small amendments or improvements are not so significant that it would require the policy to be re-exhibited. And when it comes to council spending money with local media organisations, we have to recognise, I mean, our biggest print publication, the Gazette and the Courier, died. And, you know, council provides a degree of, I wouldn't call it patronage, but, I mean, its custom can spell the difference between viability and non-viability for a print publication.

And if we have a number of remaining print publications in the area, and we know their names, so long as they meet equivalent standards in terms of their reach, their circulation, their relevance to the Hawkesbury community, the rates that they charge for advertising, the frequency of publication, because sometimes when we do a public notice it's time sensitive, so long as, you know, we're comparing apples with apples, we shouldn't favour or disfavour one organisation over another. I suggest this is an inserted clause as good policy. Thank you.

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

Thank you. I'll speak against the amendment. I don't have a problem with changing the definition of a media organisation, so I suggest we vote on the amendment in seriatim. But — In terms of inserting a clause, which I think kind of that second clause of 7.13, to my reading, contradicts itself anyway, because the first it says it's going to spend it equally, and then we're going to say we're going to have regard to the value proposition offered by each publication. And I think those two things are incompatible, because the first one is compelling staff to spend the money equally, and the second one says, but also have regard for how expensive they are and what their reach is and so on. And it almost would require some sort of complicated formula to determine how much spend.

But putting that practical issue to the side, the broader issue is, I think, a problem with an elected body directing staff as to where they should spend their money on advertising. I think it needs to be a decision being made by staff who are in a position to understand, like with any other procurement decision, what makes sense for the organisation. I also would point out that if, as it reads at the moment, it suggests that if somebody wants to start a print media organisation tomorrow, they're entitled to a share of the spend of Hawkesbury City Council, and I think that's quite problematic, that someone can bank as part of their business plan that as long as I can meet the definition in that clause of section 15 of what a media organisation is, Hawkesbury City Council has an obligation to spend their money with me.

I think that's quite problematic, and I don't think we should be putting ourselves in that position at all. I don't think that makes sense.

Thank you, Councillor. If everyone's happy, we'll vote on the—

Madam Mayor, I can provide some clarification for the Councillor if you'll indulge me.

I'll just note that we'll be voting in seriatim on those two points as the amendment. Happy for you to add a very brief remark.

Thank you. That amendment does neither of the things that Councillor Conolly suggests that it does. Far from it. It suggests that if there are two publications that have the same reach, the same circulation, the same frequency of publication, as that Council should not find itself in a position where it only ever places its spend with one of those organisations and not the other. It doesn't mean that if somebody invents a new print publication, that there's an obligation on Council. I'm saying that it is a factor, and just because some councillors don't like some of our print publications doesn't mean that they should shun it, yet that the Council as an organisation..

Councillor, you're stepping into conjecture there, so I'll stop you from speaking. We will just need a procedural motion to vote on seriatim. Can I have someone move that way, Councillor Veigel, seconded. Councillor Reardon. All those in favour to vote in seriatim, please raise your hand. In favour, Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly . Yeah. Councillor Calvert, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor McMahon against. Councillors Zamprogno declared we'll be voting in seriatim. Is there any other councillor wishing to speak on the amendment? A question, Councillor Conolly

Just a question to staff, is there any comment? I actually know nothing about the local and independent news association or its reputability or anything. I just wondered if any staff have any knowledge of that, anything we should be aware of given we haven't given them notice of this.

Yep. Thank you very much. Manager of Communications and Events, sorry, had a mind blank. Thank you.

Through you, Madam Mayor. We,

I have done some looking around, and we had a submission by Lena as well. They were established in 2021 by a community broadcasting association. They are an advisory group to local publishers.

Thank you very much, Councillor Wheeler. Thanks , Madam Mayor. I'm speaking against the amendment, to a high degree of difficulty whilst speaking and pouring water. In large part because I can't support the media policy in its current form. I don't have a particular objection to either of the changes suggested. I have an objection to the policy, and I'll foreshadow that if this isn't successful, that I will move an amendment to defer the media policy. And I did send that round to councillors earlier today. My issues arise with the deviations with our media policy from the model policy, and I want to lead by saying that I think that there is much that's good in this policy, and I think there are some excellent inclusions in here, but I think there are some contradictory statements, and there are some problem sections where the policy tries to be all things to all people and gets itself a little bit tied in knots.

One of my concerns is on page eight, where the term council officials is used as an all-encompassing term and appears to apply. Now, there's a definition of council officials, and councillors appear to fall into that definition by my reading. And yet when we come to page eight, where it talks about the roles and responsibilities of council officials, it talks about the constraints that are placed on those officials, that should they apply to elected representatives would effectively constitute a gag order, and I can't support that. And that directly contradicts another part of the policy where it states that councillors are free to discuss, to state why they didn't vote, for example, on something, didn't vote on a particular council resolution.

So I find that particularly problematic. My concerns really start with clause 7.3, which is where we deviate from the model code. There is, in 7.4 under process, where it talks about media inquiries being directed to corporate communications, that's not applicable to councillors. I will not, as an elected representative, I don't— surely I am not expected to contact the manager of communications before I make any comment to any media outlet. That is a ludicrous proposition, and effectively constitutes a gag order. I may ask a senior staff member for some advice to make sure that I'm not saying something that's incorrect, but I don't think that I need to ask permission before I am able to speak.

There's stuff in here about induction and training, and I think that's probably a really useful idea, because I think that that training probably needs to be updated to councillors. By 7.12, though, we are— 7.12, we are really starting to get into the realms of censorship. The responses in the community interest when responding to a media inquiry, that is a very subjective measure. Council officers will consider the adherence to the following points by media organisations. 7.12 is about council officers making a value judgement about whether the media organisation that is approaching council for information meets accuracy and clarity, fairness and balance, privacy and avoidance of harm, and integrity and transparency.

Now, where they may on the face of it look quite easy to determine, they are not. Following seven years on this council, I have been verballed by nearly every media outlet going, including the much vaunted Hawkesbury Gazette, who I had a standoff argument with over misrepresenting me regarding a domestic violence facility that led to me getting threats of violence. That is now, and we paid money to that publication every week to put council notices up. Clearly no one cared about the accuracy of it then, so why all of a sudden are we making value judgments about accuracy now? I can't support this in its current form. I would like us to have a workshop, and I will move that way. I don't have— There is also a clause here, 8.2.0, written permission from a minor's parent or legal guardian before uploading content in which a minor can be identified.

Can I ask councillors to really look hard at that clause and think about what you're posting on your social media, particularly during the school holiday presentation season, because I strongly suspect that many of you do not have written permission from children's parents before posting their pictures. Having worked in child protection, I would implore you to think harder about what you post on your social media. There's a clause in 8.2.7(f) that social media platform is not to be used for making complaints about council or council officials. I don't know how you're going to police that, quite frankly, and I think people will use social media to vent when they don't think council has done the right thing.

I think this policy starts really well and then starts to spread into overreach, and I can't support it in its current form.

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

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'll not support the amendment for quite similar reasons, because I would support a foreshadowed the motion that Councillor Wheeler has foreshadowed. I also had quite a few problems with various, particularly around some wording within here, and some— I'll just give an example there of 7.12(c ) where it says— Around , I think Councillor Wheeler referred to it, but to ensure all factual material is presented with fairness and balance and does not omit key facts. I'm fine about that bit. Expressions of opinion must follow the same standards. I just found that sentence quite bizarre because opinion, by definition, is a view or a judgment formed about something not necessarily based on fact or knowledge.

So I'm not quite sure how you would expect somebody to be giving an opinion and to say it doesn't omit key facts. We all know, because we're all the subjects of them, that key facts are often, when it's an opinion, they are often left out of the picture. I think it's got a few—it does have some good points, and I think we're working towards it. What I would really rather see, rather than Councillor Zamprogno's amendments, which I'm fine with, but I would rather see us do a really good piece of work. We've got a new council coming in. We've got an ever-evolving sort of interaction with the media and with different forms of media as it evolves technologically. I would rather us really get this right so that we are passing on, although of course a new council could easily review it, but that we would be passing on something that was really worthy.

I did have a question, though, and I'm just wondering, how do bigger organisations such as 2GB and places like that get incorporated into this policy? How would they ever sort of be considered as being, you know, knowing what this is all about? Do we advise all media outlets, or do we only take action when there's an issue with something?

Manager Communication Events.

Do you mean, do we send them—sorry, through you, Madam Mayor—do we send them a media... Release? Is that—is that?

No, would they—how do people know we've got this? So how do they know , you know, so they—people, I'm just using them as an example, it applies to everyone. Someone sends us something and you use this policy in your response, but how do they know what— do people ever know? Do media outlets ever know what our policy is? Would you tell them when you sent that in accordance with this policy or something?

We would use clauses out of this policy if we were required to do so to advise in a response to another media organisation, if need be. That's really the—I'm just trying to think of an example, a good example of where we would use that. But yeah, if we needed to, we would share that we have a media policy and why we may or may not be able to respond to an inquiry based on our media policy.

Okay,

Thank you .

The other thing was just, it mentions in there a document called Social Media Operational Standards for Council Officers. Is that a public document or is that just an internal document?

Through you, Madam Mayor, yes, it's an internal document. Thank you.

Anyone else wishing to speak on the amendment? No, I'll put the amendment then in seriatim as we have voted on. All those in favour of part one of the amendment, please raise your hand. Those in favour: Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Dogramaci and Councillor Zamprogno. One, two, one— yeah, raise your hand high. One—Councillor Sheather, you had your hand raised, didn't you? One, two, three, four, five. Councillor Dogramaci, you had your hand raised? Yeah, six, seven. Yep, those against part one, please raise your hand. Those against are Councillor Kotlash , Councillor Calvert, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett and Councillor Wheeler.

I declare Part 1 carried. Those in favour of Part 2, please raise your hand. Those in favour are Councillor Zamprogno. Those against, please raise your hand. Against are Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel , Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler and Councillor McMahon. I declare Part 2 lost. Therefore, the item has passed with point— the media policy is adopted with the change as per point 1. Oh, sorry, sorry, that's the amendment now becomes the motion. Sorry, councillors. So the motion is that Council adopt the media policy with the change in section 15 as per point 1 in the amendment.

Councillor Conolly.

I want to move an amendment. Well, I want to move an amendment that we add a point 2 to what is now the motion, that the adopted media policy be referred to the next working group, Councillor Working Group, for discussion and review. I'm the mover of the motion, so I don't know if I can move an amendment or not, but—

I'm just questioning why you're moving an adopted policy to a discussion.

Well, there seemed to be some suggestion that this should be adopted and that this would be better than the policy we have. However, I do think there's some valid points that have been made. I don't see them as so problematic we couldn't adopt the policy, but I think there's some things that need to be clarified.

Thank you. Anyone wishing to second that, Councillor Wheeler?

And I had a question as well, Madam Mayor, if I can.

Yes.

I think that a lot of the issues just identified by Councillor Wheeler could be made better, at least, by removing councillors from the definition of council officials. And I wondered what staff view on that would be. Everything in there, I think, is sensible for council staff. A lot of it just cannot apply to councillors, though.

Thank you, General Manager.

Through you, in short, I would advise against that. The definition of council officials is one that comes directly from legislation and the Code of Conduct. To Councillor Wheeler's points, for example, around 7.4, all of the clauses that directly reference council officials say council officials within it. Clause 7.4, I'm scanning, does not. Ergo, it's not the intent of the policy, obviously, to require that councillors refer media inquiries through the communications branch.

Thank you. I'll just get the staff to make sure we have the motion on the board.

So in that case, could we remove the words council officers from clause 7.12? And just remove the word officers.

I'll refer to the General Manager.

That would be an acceptable amendment? So I guess I would like to probably get clarity on the intent of

The— The intention being that I think it's reasonable, given the circumstances, for council as an organisation to be allowed to have some regard for the media organisations it's dealing with. I don't think that we want to place an obligation on councillors to have considered that and then have somebody else make a complaint they haven't followed the media policy. Clause 7.12, as I understand it, places an obligation on council officers at the moment to consider the adherence to the following points by the media organisation, which I don't think should apply to councillors.

There's a very slight nuance there. That says council officers, not council officials. Right. Okay. Yep.

So leave that. You're happy. Okay. So just clarifying so that everyone knows what we're discussing, the motion is to adopt the media policy with the change as per point one of the previous amendment and point two now, that it be the adopted media policy be deferred to a councillor workshop. Referred. Deferred. Referred .

To a councillor workshop by the end of February.

By the end of February. Were you happy with the addition, by the end of February, Councillor Wheeler? Yes. Thank you very much. Councillor Kotlash, should I see your light on? Yes.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I was unhappy with a couple of the points, and Councillor Lyons-Buckett has already said in section 7. 12( c), I think if we just take out expressions of opinion must follow the same standards, if we just cross that out, then that point becomes valid. So I can't understand why we can't just do that now and then bring the review of this policy, bring that forward. So we let this policy go for a while and see how it works. Also in section 8.24, council officials who are responsible for the moderation of council social media platforms. At the end of that sentence, it just says such actions must be undertaken in accordance with this part. So that's actually, that doesn't make any sense.

And it's, I think it's that point's purpose is to talk about blocking and banning people. But further on down into the policy, we have a whole section on blocking and banning. So maybe just, I imagine it could be just removed and 8 .25 becomes 8.24. I went through it. I didn't have really any other problems with it other than that. So if we could just get those points cleared up, and then maybe the policy comes back to the new council. Anyway, I won't, I'll go along with this, but I think it's quite strange that we review a policy that's only going to be at least, at most two months old. But I suppose over Christmas we might be busy doing media. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak on the motion? Yes. Oh, Councillor Sheather, thank you.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Mayor. Just the last comments of the previous speaker. I said a bit strange that we adopt the policy, then going to review it in February. Councillor Wheeler indicated she had a foreshadowed amendment. I expect it was just what Councillor Conolly's proposing there, that we do refer it to a workshop at the end of February. And I'd ask him to forgo his motion and just go for number two. And that the policy be referred to a council workshop at the end of February, and to give councillors time to address the matters of concern , instead of doing it on the run like we're doing at the moment. Would Councillor Conolly be prepared to do that, just leave the adopted media, the adopted part out, media policy be referred to council workshop by the end of February?

Councillor Conolly?

To be honest, I'd be interested in the view of the mayor and/or General Manager as to that.

I'm happy to provide my view. My view currently is that we need to adopt this policy. We need to be working within a policy framework, and I think it's vital that we do. I personally didn't have any issues with it. I'm happy for the change as per the amendment that we've been made. I'm concerned about taking an adopted media policy to a workshop, but if it's for a simple discussion, that's fine. But I would be more than happy to adopt the policy so that our staff have something to work with.

If I could just provide clarification, perhaps councillors, on one point that's been raised in section 7. 12(c), we're entirely in your hands as to whether you're uncomfortable with that sentence, expressions of opinion must follow the same standards. I will note, however, that that section has been entirely borrowed from the Press Council's statement of general principles, so they're not something that our staff or myself have created.

Does the Press Council one include opinion, though? I read it and I didn't see it included opinion.

I'm just going to double-check.

Thank you. Okay, Councillor Sheather, were you still continuing?

Yeah, Madam Mayor, I'm not prepared to support this simply on the basis that we're going to adopt a policy and then look into it again. In two months' time. I think that's why we, as you make comment, we need a policy. I think that it just needs to be dealt with properly. We've dealt without one for a long while. Our responsibility to staff are aware they've got internal policies as it is to deal with media policies. We're just trying to clarify, I guess, a better way into the future and how it would be done both appropriately and legally. And the discussion we've had tonight, where we're chasing answers that I don't think is a good way to do things. If we're going to discuss them in February at all, I think it should be on the basis that out of that workshop should be a policy that council, both staff and councillors, can support and be dealt with then.

The discussions that we've had in relation to where we're at with the proposal tonight, I think most of the councillors are comfortable with, but there's things that need to be addressed and I think they need to be addressed properly. And I don't see the point in adopting something tonight we're going to work in the future to change, or possibly change.

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

Thanks, Madam Mayor. I'll move an amendment that Council adopt the Office of Local Government Model Media Policy and the— Draft Hawkesbury Council Media Policy be referred to a council workshop by the end of February 2024. Second that, Madam Mayor.

Thank you. I'll just wait till that appears on the board. Are you happy with that,

Councillor Wheeler? Yes, thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Wheeler.

Thank you. Look, what the OLG model media policy basically makes up the first six points. It makes up to the section where I started to find our media policy problematic. So effectively, up to just prior to 7.12—sorry, I've got notes everywhere. Okay, so it runs to 7.2 on our policy. My intention in moving that we adopt the model media policy, and we would be looking at—my understanding is that we would be looking at option 2, which is the media coordinator-led model. And it appears that the bulk of our policy is taken from the beginning of this document until we get to 7.2. It gives us a policy that's in place between now and the end of February before we can consider a revised policy, but removes those sections of our policy that several of us have found problematic.

My concern with us adopting a policy where some of us have raised concerns and attempting to fix those on the fly as we are is that— We will then have in front of us a policy that many of us don't agree with whilst we wait for a review, and the mechanism for putting that review in place doesn't exist yet. So we may have a workshop in February and not progress from there, or it may take several months to get back to us. And in the meantime, we have these clauses in that policy that I find really problematic. And I go back to 7. 12. It's not just the issue of opinion that I have concerns with. It's when we start talking about areas like this calling on council officers will consider the adherence to the following points by media organisations and whether the response is in the community interest when responding to a media inquiry.

We are leaving council officers in a position where they get to determine whether they respond to a media organisation. Now, I'm not sure that the press council statement, and it's not the same as these points here. That's a document directed at journalists, at the press and at publishers. It's not directed at council providing transparent, open and accurate information to the community that it serves. And I think that we are opening a potential can of worms by adopting this before we have sorted that issue out. If we come back to the chamber and we vote that that's where it ends up, then okay. But I think it behoves us. With the principles of good governance and transparency, to look at this policy harder and make sure that it serves not only us as elected representatives, but our community before we adopt everything that's in it.

Thanks.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak on the current amendment as per the board? No. I'll put the amendment. Those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour are Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillors Zamprogno. Those against, please raise your hand. Those against are Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, and Councillor McMahon. I declare the amendment lost. The motion that was previously on the board becomes the motion. If the staff can raise that for us, please. Does anyone else wish to speak on the motion? No, that's not it. That's it. Thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak on the motion? No. Right of reply, Councillor Conolly. Yep.

Just to very briefly just point out that there's been some discussion from a number of councillors about this being changed on the fly. I think it is worth pointing out that this has been sent out, considered to be put on exhibition. On exhibition, come back for adoption, and a number of these concerns from councillors have only been raised tonight, which is why I think it's fair and reasonable to adopt the policy, but still then have a hearing for those concerns to make sure we've got the policy right. And I think the mechanism to change anything would have to be notice of motion after that meeting.

Thank you, Councillor. Those in favour of the motion, please raise your hand. In favour are Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci and Councillor McMahon. Those against, please raise your hand. Against are Councillor Sheather, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler and Councillor Zamprogno. I declare the motion carried. The next item.

Is item 4.2.2, Ordinary Council Meetings. Do I have someone wishing to move that way? Councillor Kotlash. Moved the recommendation, seconded Councillor Conolly. Councillor Kotlash.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I think this is a good— sorry, I'm scrambling for the page. I think this is a very good compromise, I guess, from the position that we were— from the issues that we were talking about at the last Council meeting. Unfortunately, I wasn't at that briefing. I couldn't make that briefing when we discussed the meeting structure. But it seems to me that this is a very good compromise where we have— I still haven't found the page, so I'll just talk off the top of my head. Thank you. So what we have now is a way forward. So we can still have the monthly meetings, but when required, and it's been determined by staff that we actually do need extra meetings in July and in November.

So I think this is a really good compromise, and, you know, so we won't get to that stage where we have to adjourn meetings and follow through to the next week. So I'll leave it at that. I think it was a good compromise and, yeah, I hope everybody

Supports it. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak on the matter?

Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'm not sure whether Councillor Sheather, who had sent us all around something, wanted to— he's got his hand up. He did. I mean, I'm not a huge fan of daytime meetings, maybe mainly on the basis that it would exclude the community even more than they sort of already are. But I think in terms of—not that they're excluded now—but I think it would make it harder for them to attend if we were meeting in the day, although I'm not openly adverse to it myself. I am happy to support this because I think we did have a good discussion when we workshopped around this, and we were able to put forward our concerns. Definitely getting the business paper earlier, even though that means putting in our notices of motion a day earlier, I think is a beneficial thing.

I would still prefer two meetings a month, but I understand that this is somewhat of a compromise. The main thing that I'd like to see, that I would like to see around this, is certainty, so that we can definitely plan around the dates that we're given rather than having a lot of changes. Although I do believe that on occasions we may still need to call a special— an extraordinary meeting if necessary, or a second meeting for the month when there's a lot of business. And I hope that that isn't publicly criticised by people, and that the councillors who make all that are undermined by saying it's not necessary, because we are committed to having additional meetings when required, and it's also part of the Local Government Act that we can call an extraordinary meeting whenever it's felt necessary.

I think that we do do a lot of working around the school holidays, which is fine. I've got no problem with that. But if there are going to be further changes made on that basis, can we be alerted as soon as it's decided that someone wants to change a date? And I had something. Yeah, I still would like at some point for us to look again around public engagement, whether we move eventually to a public forum style. I gather in a new term of council, we're quite likely to get another code of meeting practice come out, and then we'll have to look at that again anyway. So for now, I think for next year, the 13th of August may be a large meeting because that would be the last meeting to transact any business for the end of the year.

But I guess if that happens, we have got one, a second meeting in July that might fill that gap. Thanks.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Sheather

Yeah, thanks, Madam Mayor. Yeah, the information I sent around this afternoon was just for comment. I think it's been discussed by the councillors. I don't have any issue with what's been recommended, other than by moving it a day forward means that with the business papers, with most of the stuff we have to read, if there's any information we require from the staff,

Monday's

A bad day for the — well, I've found that on occasion, more often than not, the staff's a bit hard to get hold of on the Monday prior to a council meeting, excuse me, and I can understand why. But with clarification of some of the things that we might need. Could I have a comment from the GM, just in relation to the availability of staff on the Monday. If there's issues that come up that require their attention to satisfy some of our inquiries

Thank you, General Manager. Thank you

Through you, Madam Mayor. Look, certainly there's no doubt that the two days, both the Tuesday and the Monday prior to any Council meeting, is a fairly busy time for both myself and the executive team. That said, all questions, queries, comments from councillors made in relation to anything to do with the business paper on those days are absolutely prioritised.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Mayor, and appreciate the comments. And I would expect that the GMs take into account that when she looked at the recommendations. I don't have an issue. I agree with the comments that Councillor Lyons-Buckett just made, the Mayoral Lines Bucket just made, that I guess if things aren't working out leading up to the elections in September, that it would give us an opportunity to perhaps offer some direction for a new Council at that stage. But I think one of the main things we need is both for Council, the staff and the community, is having in place an agenda that we can stick to. So I don't have an issue with the recommendation, Madam Mayor.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak on the item? No. Right of reply, Councillor Kotlash?

Not necessary , thank you, Madam Mayor.

Thank you. Those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour are Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillors Zamprogno and Councillor McMahon. I declare the item carried.

This fine moment, Councillors.

Councillors, I'm not feeling too good at the moment. It's been basically this whole meeting. I would like to ask the Deputy Mayor if he's able to chair the remainder of the meeting. Yeah , thank you very much, Deputy Mayor

Thank you, everyone. The next item for discussion is the 4.3.1 Koala Plan of Management mapping. Is anyone wishing to move that or something? Councillor Conolly, you're moving that. Do we have a seconder? Councillor Reardon. Councillor Conolly, you wish to speak to that? No. Are there any other speakers? Councillor Kotlash.

Thank you.

Deputy Mayor.

I want to call you Madam. Just don't call me Madam Mayor. Sorry. Look, I have a couple of questions that I need to know before I can support this recommendation. One of the things that puzzled me about us taking another tack on this and having a different sort of mapping for our koala populations, it wasn't very well documented what the difference, what the differences are in the types of mapping. What are we not getting if we don't do the fine-scale vegetation mapping?

I'll refer to the Acting Manager, Strategic Planning. Thanks .

Through you, Madam Mayor—sorry, Deputy Mayor—the end result in the mapping is effectively, quality-wise, the same. There's no loss. The benefit is that we get LGA-wide mapping. So it's just a different process. It's not technically the same, which is why we need to come back for your consideration .

Thanks. I suppose that intrigues me even more. So why would we have paid more for presumably better mapping, fine-scale vegetation mapping, when what we're proposing here is just the same and will serve the purpose of addressing our koala plan of management? I mean, that just worries me enormously because there doesn't seem to be a difference. So why didn't we— Why didn't we do this in the first place?

Deputy Mayor. So that was because the Department of Planning and Environment initially advised that our mapping was not up to a standard that they would approve a Koala Plan of Management, and they changed that advice in subsequent meetings. So they reviewed, I don't know if they had a new skill set in-house for themselves, but they reviewed our mapping and they deemed that there was a new avenue for us. And that was the advice that they gave to me in the last meeting.

Thank you. The second thing is , I'll go back to 2021 when I put to Council my Conservation and Restoration Strategy, and part of that, part of the thinking behind that was that we somehow divide up our LGA into sort of meaningful areas , and the closest I could come was sub-catchments at the time. And I wondered whether it is , can we negotiate with the Department of Environment and Planning for us to actually concentrate on areas that we suspect have actually more koalas present in them and do the fine-scale mapping as was determined? So we actually get to a place where we might be able to actually save some populations of koalas. And I mean, I'll just go to that point, if you can answer that, would that be of benefit if we didn't do it LGA-wide and we concentrated on other— Smaller areas.

Assistant Manager.

Through you, Deputy Mayor. So I believe that there's great benefit to having LGA-wide mapping because of the interrelation between the different areas. And in order to undertake the fine-scale vegetation mapping on specific areas, we would need to have additional work done to identify to us those specific areas. With the LGA-wide mapping, that actually removes that initial task of identifying which area to target. So that removes the cost, that removes a process. And the LGA-wide mapping is more beneficial to koalas in the long run because you're able to view, in the mapping layers, the entire LGA, the related areas, and what the end result is, is that you get a map that has suitable habitat for koalas, and then you do subsequent works in the future to get the core habitat for koalas based on koala observations.

And so even though we might target with the fine-scale vegetation mapping where koalas are now, we might miss out on that suitable habitat where they're not currently, and that would be worthwhile understanding as well. And I would also stress that the mapping, fine-scale vegetation mapping or the new proposed mapping, has other benefits that are not to do with koalas. They're to do with other threatened species and for other benefits of Council. And so having that LGA-wide mapping benefits that as well. Yeah.

One last question, if I can. I have read on multiple occasions that the koala populations in the Hawkesbury are genetically very unique and possibly, you know, possibly of benefit to koala conservation across Australia. I haven't actually been able to pin that down. Do we have evidence that that's the case? That we have genetically superior koalas? Sorry, super koalas, because, well, it's important because koalas have, you know, diseases and we need to keep their genetics. And if that's the case, I think that's a calling card for funding.

So, I don't know about hard evidence, but both the Department of Planning, Environment and Science, Wildlife, who are experts in the area, have advised me it's not that they have genetic superiority, it's that there is great genetic diversity. So that when you have a population with narrow genetic diversity, so they're very closely related, they're more susceptible to disease, they're more likely to be affected by climate change and by external factors. When they're genetically diverse, they're more resilient. So, but that's based on their findings and their observations. We need to know more about the koala population in this area to get hard facts.

Thank you. I have lots of questions, but I'll just comment on that. I think that that's, I mean, I'll support the recommendation. But I'd like us to... I would have thought that if the state government knew that the Hawkesbury had a genetically diverse koala population, that they would be funding our koala conservation instead of whatever they're doing now, which is, you know, looking at other places and other patches that they're putting their funding into, like the Great Koala National Park and the southwestern Sydney area. But I think we have to keep pushing the state government for, you know, for funding in this way. I'm a little bit disappointed that we're not having this, you know, the fine-scale mapping and we didn't get any funding.

I think that's really disappointing. But anyway, we'll keep advocating for more funding. And yeah , we'll wait and see if we can maybe down the track look at our flora and fauna from, as I said before, for some sort of region so we can start to bring the community into this, the relationship that flora and fauna has in where they live and how ecology and ecosystems work. And I think that's a really interesting tool, and I know there's lots of people in Hawkesbury that are interested in getting more involved with their natural areas. I did have a look at the maps from the Sydney Basin Koala Network , I think they're called, and it is actually interesting that koalas do follow drainage lines, so they do follow creeks and rivers.

So I might get my wish to divide the area up into sub-catchments and we can start to map everything we have. But anyway, thank you. Good work on this proposal. Thank you.

Further speakers? Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Deputy Mayor. I think, look, I think this is a good way forward. Some of the questions that I had have already been answered. My key question currently relates to the timeframe that we would now be looking at. Can I get some indication of how long this is likely to take, and then how long from that it would take us to have a koala plan of management?

Without giving a specific timeline, if it was to be adopted, then the process would be to formulate , develop an RFQ with the Department of Planning and Environment's advice, review those submitted quotes, and then move forward with the selected provider. So it shouldn't be delayed too much at all.

And how long would the mapping itself take?

I'll have to take that on notice. I'm not exactly sure.

Thanks, because my concern is that the longer we take to get this happening, and I think that's one of the advantages of this process, the longer we don't have a management system in place and the longer those threats against these populations continue. And one of my key considerations in that is our unfortunate opting in to the Rural Boundary Clearing Code, which presents currently a very direct threat to koala habitat. And it's one of the things that keeps me awake at night, frankly. I've found the paper. It was published in Nature in 2019, Keltson et al., Genomic comparisons reveal biogeographic and anthropogenic impacts in the koala, a dietary specialist species distributed across heterogeneous environments, should that float your boat.

As someone who majored in genetics at university, I think it's a jolly good read. The issue, one of the reasons that our koala population has fallen into this crack in government funding is because we haven't advocated as well for our koalas as the LGAs who are attracting this funding. So there's been a lot of community activity around Appin, where their koala habitat is threatened by a development, and where koalas are regularly killed in quite large numbers on the main road in and out of that development. And people have been so appalled by this destruction that they've really held the state government, both the previous and the current state governments, feet to the fire and have come up with some funding.

And similarly on the north coast, they're seeing their koala habitat cleared by native forest logging, and they rally nearly every week to get that koala national park in place and to get an end to native forest logging and the destruction of habitat. We haven't done any of those things. You know, we've just continued on our merry way and thought that this species would always be there. We have a population that's affected by chlamydia, by climate change, by fires, and by habitat destruction with encroaching development, and we as decision makers have allowed all of those things to continue. This is the very least that we can do in terms of putting those things in place. One of the things that I think we were hoping for from the potential to buy into some of the mapping and the opportunities were an increase in our compliance frameworks so that we could stop, or at least monitor, the destruction of habitat and, as a surrogate I suppose, let people know that we could watch them.

And I'm not sure that this does that, but I think that's something we need to address through another mechanism. I am pleased to see that this will provide an LGA-wide coverage because I think relying on that observation reporting is quite biased, in that it's most likely to occur where koalas are butting up against human activity because it relies on humans sighting them as they go about their business, or as frequently the case, the koalas go about theirs and people can hear them. But I think the other thing that I like about this process is that we're not just mapping koala habitat, we're mapping all habitat, and it has benefits for the other species that need our habitat to survive. Thanks.

Any further speakers? Councillor Zamprogno.

Thank you, Mr Deputy Mayor. I'll keep this brief. I've said in the past, I share these concerns that Councillor Wheeler expressed about the impact of the Rural Boundary Clearing Code, so I'm not going to move this as an amendment. I'm just going to express it as an aspiration. I hope that when we go out for a request for quotation and we're looking at different providers that might be able to provide this mapping information, I hope we get as much bang for our buck as we can. It would be wonderful if these mapping tools didn't merely provide a snapshot in time, but provided us with some ability to evaluate changes in tree cover over time, because clearly we are living in an era where our vegetation cover is subject to enormous stress and change over time.

And what keeps me up at night is our inability to measure those changes, changes caused by climate change, changes caused by natural disasters such as fire, changes caused by policies like the Rural Boundary Clearing Code. Thank you.

Thank you. Any further speakers? No. Councillor Conolly, would you like right of reply? Not necessary. I'll put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour are Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler , Councillor Zamprogno and Councillor Calvert. Absent is Councillor McMahon. The Mayor declare it carried.

Next item is item 4.3.2, which is the draft Disability Inclusion Action Plan. The recommendation is to put it out for public exhibition. Do we have someone to move that? Councillor Lyons-Buckett, seconded Councillor Conolly. Councillor Lyons-Buckett, would you like to speak on that?

Thank you, Mr Deputy Mayor. I'd just like to thank the staff for the work on this. I really welcome this action plan. I'm keen for it to go out to be placed on public exhibition. I think that will give a really good opportunity. I don't think much has been missed. I think a lot has been done. And I just think, you know, it's really good to see there's so much obviously changing and evolving all the time in this space. The other night someone sent me a video of an Auslan interpreter at the Foo Fighters. You know, so like all these things that we think, all these events and everything that we have and the day-to-day operation of council and our community having this plan is a really welcome thing, and I thank you for the work done on that.

Further speakers? Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Deputy Mayor. Look, I'm really pleased to see this plan come to us. A few points that I want to raise publicly. The word action is in the title, and I think we need to consider that this isn't about just putting a plan out to the community and then having it come back and filing it away. The Deputy Mayor talks about all the plans that he's seen filed in a drawer, and I think we need to be really careful that this isn't one of those plans. And we've got a classic example here with the livability project, where we intended to increase accessibility in Windsor Mall, and sadly, the retention of the pavers and the failure to decrease clutter in the mall won't achieve this. There's no point us having a plan if we don't stick to it.

There's some things that I really like about this plan . The captions on the pictures, I'd really like to see us build that into all of our publications from now on, that each picture has a short caption that can be readily used by someone who uses some sort of audio assist function to read a document. That should also exist on our social media platforms. We did resolve in May 2018 to include disability access on all council events, and I would very much like to see that happening. As a matter of course, on the front page where it's picked up by an audio assist, and people don't have to click through several pages to find it. People shouldn't have to ring a venue and ask if there's a hearing loop, if there's a lift, where the disabled parking is.

These things need to be really clear at the beginning, otherwise we just make people a step behind , often unthinkingly. The stats here are compelling, I think. One in two Australians over 65 live with a disability. That's a decade and a little bit away for me, but we're all hopefully living longer and better, and many people are working well past 65 as well. We have to build these things into— The way we function. The measures are very clear, I think, but they need to be. I would like to see them road-tested by people with disabilities, not by able-bodied people with a checklist. So rather than us thinking that we know what people with a disability need, we need people with a disability to tell us whether it's working for them or not.

We also need to ensure that the outcome measures are significant improvements in access. So they measure significant improvements in access, well-being and satisfaction, rather than single event-based measures. And to do this, we have to actively engage with disabled people, their carers and families. For example, we've got one of the things that we're counting is the number of sessions delivered on disability inclusion. That's on the table on page 24. What that really, what that needs to translate to is people with disabilities actually being employed, not the number of businesses who've listened but not acted. And the same applies to us. We should be an employer of choice for people with disabilities, and the carers of people with disabilities who also face increased discrimination and difficulty when they have to take additional time off or they need work-from-home measures or they need more flexible working arrangements to care for people.

Another example is that number of complaints open or closed. You can close a complaint without fixing it. It's not enough to tick it off and say, Yeah, look, we've done what we can. Whether we are able to fix that complaint reasonably with effort is a reasonable measure, not whether we closed it and gave the person a pat on the head and sent them on their way. So we need to make sure that this translates to change, not translates to another plan. And I'm hopeful that this will. Thanks.

Any further speakers? Can I say that I no longer have one draw for the plans, Councillor Wheeler. I've got two draws, and it's growing daily. But this plan here is not one of those ones that's going to end up in that draw . I'm very pleased with this plan that's here. I know that originally, going back when I was a young lad, anybody with a disability tended to be locked out of public sight. If you went out in the public and people would look at you and, you know, exclusion was the thing, not inclusion. We have come a long way since those days, and this plan is all about our intentions to include people as much as possible. But because we started from such a low base, there will always be work to be done.

It'll always be a work in progress. And I know we might sit around now and find, you know, this needs to be added and that needs to be subtracted or whatever. But the point is, this is a great action plan which we can build on over the years, and I'm really pleased that it's come forward. And when it goes out to the public, I hope the public embrace it as much as we have. Any further discussion? Councillor Lyons-Buckett, would you like right of reply?

Not necessary,

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

Next item is investment report, item 4 .4.1, is that right?

Councillor Conolly is moving that,

And Councillor Veigel seconding it. Councillor Conolly, you wish to speak? Is that a no? Anyone wish to speak? Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Deputy Mayor. A couple of points. I notice that two recommendations from Council's financial advisor suggest that we take up green notes from Ethical Investors, and I note that our ethical investment portfolio is currently quite low at 4%, and I think our policy states something like where the yield is as good as better, or better, we will opt for ethical investment. And we seem to not be—I don't know, we're actively not doing it. It's just that it's not happening. It's not really consistent with our climate emergency declaration or our net zero goals, and nor is it reasonable, given the impacts and costs of climate-induced natural disasters on the LGA. So I'd really like to see this percentage increase so that it at least begins to—it certainly should be better than 4%, which looks quite tokenistic currently.

I'd love to get us to the point where our ethical funds were greater than our non-ethical funds, and I don't think that's a particularly difficult ask, that we are ethical with our investment. You know, when you say it out loud, that seems like a no-brainer, and I don't know why we drag our heels so strenuously on this when it clearly states that these are better. These are better investment options. One of the things I wonder is, one of the things I'd like to see with these documents is table nine change to show the previous amounts, months amounts, for each of our reserves, just for ease of comparison. I am currently in the habit of pulling out the previous month's investment reserves and eyeballing them manually across the two papers, and that's tedious.

It would be really nice to have those side by side. I think it would be a reasonably simple cut and paste for each month, and I hope that we can do that. I won't die in a ditch over it, but it would make that comparison easier, and then it would give us an opportunity to pick up any big swings in those spaces before we go to vote on them. Thanks.

Councillor Wheeler, were you seeking a response on any of those matters?

A response would

Be great. Thank you. General.

Through you, Mr Deputy Mayor, certainly we can quite simply add that column into table nine. Really, that's not the point of table nine, though. Table nine is really just about the, I guess, the apportionment. The quarterly budget review is the one that you should be looking to to see where there's been major transactions in those restricted funds.

Can I just respond? Certainly, I agree, and I do in the quarterly review, but this provides, I guess, a three-monthly—the quarterly review happens every three months. I'm holding that, trying to hold that in my head. It would be really nice if it sat there. This came about through a motion of mine in the previous term of Council that table, which clearly stipulated what each reserve was for. Prior to that, we just had this lump sum reserve, which was quite difficult to explain to people and meant that people thought that Council had more money in its kitty than we actually do. So when people would say, You've got $100,000, we'll actually, no, we've got $2.50. Sorry. So this table has been useful in refuting that, but just being able to monitor the swings on a monthly basis would be really helpful if it's not too much effort.

Further speakers? Councillor Conolly, you wished to have right of reply?

Only very briefly to add to that, that I think it's probably no good just saying we need to have more ethical investments. If we want to change the policy, we probably need to change the policy. I'm sure the staff are following the policy unless we think they're not. I'm also personally always a bit suspicious of, you know, you go to one of the biggest companies in the country, the biggest bank, and they call it the Green Fund, and that means it's worthy of our investment. I don't know that that's actually that meritorious anyway. That's all.

If I may through you, Mr Deputy Mayor. Look, we'd be happy to provide councillors with some modelling on this. The reason why I'm advised that those ESG investments are stable , if not declining, are because they aren't offering competitive interest rates at the moment. So really this is a matter for the council as to what your tolerance and what your threshold is there around that gap. The current policy says the same or better. If you've got an appetite for something different, we'd be happy to bring you a briefing around what that could potentially look like.

We've had right of reply, so I'll put the motion. All those in favour please raise your hand. In favour, Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno and Councillor Calvert. Absent is the Mayor, Councillor McMahon. Declare it carried.

Next item is notice of motion one, Council input on Planning Panel matters. Councillor Zamprogno.

I'll second that, Mr Deputy Mayor.

Seconded by Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Mr Deputy Mayor, and thank you, Councillor, for seconding. Back in 2017, several people around this table were rather new to Council, and it was a rather rude shock to see that what many had regarded for generations as the bread and butter business of councils, which was to assess and approve DAs, was taken out of our hands by the then state government, who instituted planning panels. I was rereading the Hansard debate at that time, and what struck me was the level of opposition from the Labor Party, who hated the idea, and who said that they would repeal it, and who said that they would improve the relevant legislation by banning both developers and real estate agents from ever having anything to do with local government, and held that view up until precisely the moment that they were elected to government earlier this year.

I also noted that there were a number of councils around the Sydney metropolitan area, and extending down to Wollongong, including a lot of Liberal-dominated councils, who also hated the idea and who called it overreach from their state colleagues, rightly so. Why were both Liberal and Labor people prepared to speak against this? Because of a really important principle in government called subsidiarity. Subsidiarity is the principle that decisions are best made closest to the people who are affected by those decisions. And we in local government have always been at the coalface. And we know that this is the case because since those planning powers were taken away from us, constituents, voters, ratepayers still come to us on a regular basis expecting us to represent their concerns.

And then we have to tell them that those decisions are not taken by the chamber anymore. They're given over to these bodies that may have well-meaning people who have subject matter expertise, but they are bureaucrats. There is no obligation for them to live in the area. There is no obligation for them to have any skin in the game. If they make a decision that's not popular, there is no accountability at the ballot box, the same accountability that we have as a matter of course. And it was always left deliberately vague about what input an elected chamber could have, if any, into something that was going to be coming before a planning panel. And we've been talking about this ever since 2017.

What crystallised the matter for me was going to the local government conference recently at Rose Hill and speaking to my local government colleagues around the state and, you know, feeling palpably this sense of a disempowerment has occurred. And various people were making suggestions, and this is the form that I've brought it to you here tonight. It's fairly simple. Where there's a planning panel meeting that's coming up for which our council staff are preparing documentation, that it just comes through the chamber first. We don't always want to weigh in, but it gives us the ability to weigh in if it's a contentious matter, if it's something that our constituents have expected us to represent their concerns on.

And when I asked staff for advice about phrasing this. A distinction was drawn between matters that come between local planning panels and those that come to regional planning panels. Now, it's more likely that something coming to a regional planning panel is a big-ticket issue where our input might be more welcome, and apparently that's okay. So that's the form that's before you tonight. Council staff say that it's kosher for us to ask for some kind of notice and the ability to deliberate and to provide some guidance in a non-binding fashion to a regional planning panel. They don't have to listen to us, but at least we're formalising a mechanism for us to put our two cents worth in. I really wish that we could do the same thing about local planning panels, but I've been informed that that would be a breach of the rules.

I find that a little ironic that we, as an elected chamber, can't provide input to a local planning panel on a matter, but we as citizens could go to the planning panel and offer our two cents worth, again in a non-binding fashion, without any problem at all. So, you know, if the motion before you looks deficient in that regard, it's because I've been advised that it would actually be a breach for us to seek that kind of input as a chamber before local planning panels, but it's okay for us to do it before regional planning panels. I think it's a good idea. Thank you.

Further speakers? Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Deputy Mayor. A couple of questions first, if I may. On point 3, where it states that any such submission shall be prepared by the elected council or a council officer, my question relates to the council officer. Is that likely to be seen to compromise the use of a council officer being seen to compromise council? Going forward in any further matters that may arise from the planning panel.

Through you, Mr Deputy Mayor, no, we were comfortable with this because the distinction that we're providing there is that the important piece is that it's a council officer not involved in the assessment of the application. So what this effectively is doing is creating a series of internal artificial walls where one council officer or one arm of the council is effectively crafting a submission on behalf of the elected council to submit to the other part of the council. It's not something , frankly, I would like to do regularly because of the resourcing and things that would probably fall, frankly, to our strategic planning team, who've got, as we all know, a multitude of other things to deal with.

But that's the point, is that we need that distinction between that and the development assessment team. And is that practical on the ground, to maintain that separation? Yes. Yeah, it can be. Ultimately, there's a point at which the worlds meet, and usually with the director of city planning or myself, where we're inherently conflicted. But we are able to, certainly at those lower levels, provide that separation. Or as the motion suggests, the council can simply create that submission themselves as well.

So it would be possible, for example, where all the staff had been involved in the provision of a submission. I'm thinking about, for example, the recent regional planning panel regarding Alambi, where it seems that many of the staff were involved in that submission, that you could throw it back to us and say, look, no, sorry, you'll have to do it yourselves. And I guess that mechanism exists in there.

What we would be saying there is all of those officers that had input into the development assessment process, so that would include the technical experts like heritage people, they would be purposefully excluded from acting, from providing a submission drafted by councillors.

Thank you. And having done this twice without the benefit of any framework, I have been really careful both times to make sure that I had no consultation with the staff prior to that being public, to the point where I had to say to staff, Don't speak to me. I don't want you to speak to me about this because I'm going to do this. Don't talk to me. So, and they understood that very quickly. I think this is a useful way forward. I resent that we have to do this. It's one of those things that I— It's one of those things that has been a great disappointment to me, I think, as an elected representative. I remember in my early days after being elected, sitting in this chamber and having a big dose of imposter syndrome and thinking, who am I to be making determinations of other people's lives, and feeling that enormous weight of responsibility, particularly when you had the applicant standing in front of you.

But at the end of the day, who we are is the people that our community elected to make those decisions on their behalf through an open and transparent means. And that , I think, is the underlying issue with these planning panels, regardless of the level that they operate at, in that they're not transparent, they're not accountable, and they're not something that the community even understands, let alone is able to necessarily follow and maintain any sort of transparent accountability process over. And that surely is something that is an affront to democracy. When we've asked successive local government ministers about why we can't have our planning powers back, we've been told all sorts of nonsense arguments like councils aren't up to assessing these, which just showed how ignorant that individual was, given that it's our own staff who are making the assessments to start with.

Council is too corrupt, which was a fine comment coming from various state governments, that you're not up to it. I mean, again, looking at the caliber of some of the people who sit in state parliament, pretty rich. So, I think any means that we have of pushing back against this is helpful. Planning panels really run contrary to community expectations. They're quite expensive, they're unaccountable, they're untransparent, and the local planning panels have the additional slap in the face in that when the applicant Doesn't like the finding of the Planning Panel and it takes that finding to the Land and Environment Court, we pay. So we didn't make the decision, and then we've got to pay to defend the decision.

I mean, surely a more ludicrous setup has not been invented. My experience with the Sydney West Planning Panel has been that they've readily accepted councillors' right to address its members on at least two occasions, and that our opinion as an elected body has held weight with the decision-making. And I think that is a useful start. To have a mechanism in place, I think, is helpful. I'm not sure that we need point two. You know, I think we may call up, we can call up, and we will call up to an ordinary meeting of Council a regionally significant development application, because that's our right. If we want to put it in writing, then I won't object to it, but I don't know that it's entirely necessary.

But I think this is a useful way forward of at least getting it in. Both times that I've submitted these applications to address Planning Panels, the first time the previous General Manager went into an apoplexy, and I spent several days convincing him that it was actually lawful, and he gave in. And I then fired the next notice of motion off at our current General Manager and waited for the phone call, which fortunately I didn't get. And I felt like I had a precedent in that case, so I was a little bit more confident. But still, this at least gives us a documented way forward, and hopefully the next Council can benefit from that while it waits for these ridiculous Planning Panels to be abolished.

Thank you, Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Mr Deputy Mayor. I'm happy to have seconded this and happy to go forward with it. As Councillor Wheeler's just outlined, it's a quite flawed sort of situation that we find ourselves in around planning powers, having gone from having the capacity to determine DAs to, you know, having to find ways to simply just go and address something and put our position across. When I was the mayor, I was actually on the Joint Regional Planning Panel, which was a thing I found preposterous and ridiculous, that a mayor could sit on there and yet a council couldn't really do anything around it. So I brought a mayoral minute to remove myself and to not have a mayor on that planning panel. I think it gives us an opportunity, however, to raise really specific local issues.

So at sometimes we may want to actually just ensure that the panel has got this actual local specific idea of what they're dealing with. We don't necessarily even have to be delivering really specific planning grounds or anything. We just want them to understand an impact or how something like that could, you know, really impact on our community and what might be part of what they may have missed because they're not local, or we have a local , they could be local, I don't know who's on the current one. But anyway, we're promoting community concerns and we're perhaps being in a position to be able to do that when members of the community don't have the confidence or the capacity to go and do that themselves.

The only thing I think is an omission, which perhaps we may need to clarify or which we could perhaps just clarify on an individual basis, is how is the resolution within here translated to the panel. So on the other previous times, I think we've been unanimous, but if it were a 6-all with a casting vote, would we portray that and would we have an opportunity for a dissenting opinion to go forward? This is the issue I would have around that. If an issue came up that we were very divided on and that was going to the panel. I think it is important that it is stated that it could be a divided opinion. That would be my only concern with us having this go forward. But I would think that perhaps if that were happening on a particular item, and let's— Remember, we don't have that many issues go to the joint regional planning panel.

It's very few, and generally they're quite, well, they've got to be significant, but, you know, generally we may not even have a specific position on it. But I think that would be something to bear in mind if we're deciding on going ahead with this, which I'm happy to support.

Councillor Kotlash.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I just wanted to clarify in point three, if we resolved unanimously or even on the casting vote of the mayor for some position that we would take to such a panel, who would present that? Would it be the mayor ? Would it be the mayor that presents that to the panel?

General Manager.

Through you, Mr Deputy Mayor, the intent of the, effectively what's been outlined here is a process. The intent here is to capture it early rather than late in the process, so that it gives sufficient time for a written submission to be put forward. To be honest, we haven't fully resolved whether if verbal representations were to be made, who would make those. I wouldn't foresee it would be a council officer in those circumstances, and again, that's something that we can look at moving forward. But the intent is it's a written submission.

So we already have the right to put written submissions in individually. So would that, if we had a council position, would that mean that we wouldn't be able to put.. . A submission individually? Well, no, I don't think that's that clear.

General Manager.

Sorry

Thank you. I don't think anything can prevail over that right, Councillor, at the end of the day. I think you've still got that ability if you wish to . We're going to probably kick around a thousand different variables here, Councillors, that I don't fully have the answers to. But maybe it's one of these ones where we deal with case-by-case basis, or, you know, we let you know that we've got a matter, a notice of motion is brought up seeking to have the submission, we then talk it through what that would look like at the time, perhaps.

Thank you. I mean, that's fine. I'm happy for it to go through, but I just, I wondered about the process. Thank you.

Councillor Conolly. Thank you. Just a question first. If this was adopted as our process and somebody moved an notice of motion that Council should make a submission on a particular matter, would staff provide us with advice to be able to make that, take a position, or would it just be a broader, more opinion-based position of, without any reference to the planning matter?

General Manager.

We would likely provide you at the time of the notice of motion the substance of what the application is about. It may well be that Council has, at that point in time, nowhere near advanced its final assessment of it. So what you would be providing, I presume, is a potential reiteration of concerns raised to Councillors from members of the community, for example , rather than a professional opinion, because that professional opinion is going to be coming from my development assessment team, not whichever other team within Council is assisting the Council laws to formulate that submission. So it would be largely reflective of views and opinions of Council rather than necessarily professional-based opinion.

Thank you, and I think that's— For me, the inherent conflict in this is that the only submission we could make would be one without the benefit of any expertise that anyone else in the community has, and I'm unlikely to ever find that a responsible course of action. However, the notice of motion before us is that nobody could stop anyone from moving a notice of motion, so that point is redundant. So the only point in here really is that we should circulate the DAs that are going to the Regional Planning Panel, and I've obviously got no problem with them being circulated. Essentially, that is all this notice of motion will achieve. On that basis, I'm happy to support it, given that you could have moved a notice of motion any time anyway.

Further speakers? No. Councillor Zamprogno, would you like to exercise your right of reply?

Yes, but briefly. This notice of motion does both more and less than what certain councillors have expressed anxiety about. The point about clause number two is to provide a light touch. In other words, there is no obligation for every matter that would come up to a Regional Planning Panel meeting to have to be the subject of debate. The point of point two is to allow councillors to call it up if they feel that it's worthy of debate, and if there is likely to be any dissent between councillors, then it is a political decision. It is a question for that councillor as to whether they want to contemplate the optics of bringing something up for debate and then having a split vote or a minority of support, which effectively works counter to their own intent.

But that's a decision for them. It doesn't take away an individual's right or even an individual councillor's right to make their own submission. All I'm trying to do... is to provide a mechanism whereby on those issues where the community expect us to be representing their views, is that there's some way of being notified, some way of calling it up, and some way of providing a brief opinion. I'm not suggesting in this that we are going to ask council staff that weren't connected with this in the first place to write voluminous reports. I was thinking more in the terms of, you know what, regional planning panel, if it were up to us, we'd vote against this, and here's the proof. Or, you know, oh, by the way, we think this is rather a good idea, but have you considered such and such?

And keeping it short and sweet and punchy. Thank you.

Thank you. That was right of reply, so I'll put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour are Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno, and Councillor Calvert. Absent is the Mayor, Councillor McMahon. Declare it carried.

Next item is notice of motion two from Councillor Zamprogno. Do we have a seconder for that? Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Yes, thank you, Councillor Zamprogno.

Thank you, Mr Deputy Mayor. As a local school teacher, one of the greatest pleasures in combining a civic role and a teaching role is to engage young people. And this year I've had the ability to teach at a local high school here in the Hawkesbury, and it's just been an absolute joy. Young people are remarkably eager to convey their opinions about the state of the world in which they're growing up, and to charge the generations above them very sharply with responsibility for things that they don't like. And then I start to school them about the differences between the tiers of government and the services and the facilities that either council provides or that we can advocate for on their behalf.

And it suddenly struck me, when students are coming to me and asking, well, you know, how can we have a say? That we used to have a formal process. We used to hold a youth summit every two years, and I've cited in the background information connected with my notice of motion the proof of that. We gave an undertaking to do a proper youth summit every two years, and then COVID came along and we dropped the ball and we haven't picked it back up. Now, a youth summit achieves particular ends. It produces a written report. It consults more broadly than just the current senior or leadership student population that we might get here to a morning tea. I'm not disparaging the current student leadership program that we have.

It should continue and it has a role, but it really only targets a particular segment of our youth population. But when you look at the demographic, people aged 5 to 24, that encompasses people that left school early and are now in some kind of vocational, you know, program, or who have picked up a trade, or who are engaged in tertiary study. They're not captured by the process that we currently have underway. So I think it's a good idea to resurrect a youth summit. I don't believe that it would be very expensive. All I'm asking is that we resume what we did, as a matter, of course, and point to the value of a summit that produces a written report, because there are many examples that have come before this Chamber this year where we referenced the written output of that youth summit all the way back in 2017 to assess things like grants.

The criteria that we use includes the written output of that youth summit back in 2017. That was six years ago. So we can certainly do with a bit of an update. We can certainly commit to holding these every two years. And to the remark that was made that there is a variety of other activities that occur around Youth Week in April, I only suggested that we hold the youth summit in the second half of the year so that it could be captured by the budgetary process, so that I wasn't asking for something that wasn't funded in the budget that runs out halfway through next year. I would be delighted if the Chamber was prepared to back something that occurred in the first half of the year or occurred in conjunction with Youth Week.

It's just that that becomes an unfunded commitment, and we would be asking for Council to organise that and provide the financial consequences as part of a quarterly budget variation. That, to me, would be an even better solution. But as it stands, the notice of motion before you asks that we hold it in the second half of the year. Thank you.

Further speakers? Councillor Conolly.

Thank you, Your Honour. Through a slight change that I'd like to suggest to the mover, I sent it to all councillors and to the staff, it should be available. I don't know if I can talk to that or... but broadly, the suggestion is that I think this is a good idea with some merit, but obviously being put upon us for a decision without knowing the costs, without knowing exactly what else we're doing during Youth Week and the overall cost and benefits of all these programs. So the suggestion being that rather than just rush into it and make a commitment right now, that we receive a report in February after having had a discussion first to unpack what we've got planned and make a decision in February about what that looks like for the next couple of years.

Councillor Conolly,

Are you suggesting that as an amendment, or are you asking Councillor Zamprogno if he wishes to change his

Motion? No, and I'll be speaking against the amendment, but not yet. I'd like

To move that as an amendment then. So, I'd like to now move that as an amendment. You'd like to move that as an amendment. Do you have a seconder? Councillor Kotlash. We're now discussing the amendment. Would anyone like to speak on the amendment? Councillor Kotlash.

Thank you, Mr Deputy Mayor. When I read this, I thought, oh yes, this is a good idea, and then I read the note from management that sort of said that, you know, we're committed to engaging with youth, da da da da da, and it says, the last sentence says the outcomes of some community events with youth that are going to be run in April. will provide some information, and that was going to be provided to councillors at a briefing to inform the design of future youth initiatives, which may include a youth summit to be held in the second part of the year. Now that just made me think, is a youth summit the latest best practice or whatever we want to call it about engaging with youth? And that's what I'm not actually prepared to support at the moment.

But I definitely support the intention of, and the underlying, you know, theme of this motion . But that's why I will be supporting the amendment, because I think we really have to get the staff to give us some feedback about the changes that have occurred since COVID and, you know, the world's changed, and people may or may not believe that a youth summit as such is the best way of going about consulting with our youth. So I think that the amendment is definitely the best way forward. And again, I reiterate that we really do have to engage with our youth, but we have to do it in such a way that's based on experience and also the costs and benefits. So, yeah, I'll be supporting the amendment.

Thank you.

Thank you. Councillor Conolly, as the mover of the amendment, did I invite you to speak on the—

I

Feel like I have.

Yeah.

Okay. Councillor Zamprogno.

I'll speak against the amendment simply to make the point that if the premise of the original motion was accepted by the chamber, Then the potential cost of holding a youth summit is simply factored into next year's budget process, something that we are routinely consulted on and can assess the relative merits of the cost of a youth summit at that time as part of the budgetary process. The other point that I'd make is that a youth summit captures service providers, youth groups, church groups, social groups, health groups, and the activities that occur during Youth Week probably don't generate a written report that's clearly the kind of thing that's relied upon for a whole heap of other purposes, as have been evidenced in the references to the youth summit report in other things that we do, such as assessing grant reports.

Thank you. Question? Question, yes. Just to maybe get some clarity, because now I understood what Councillor Zamprogno just said. Just through you, Deputy Mayor, probably to the Manager of Communications and Events, if we were to make a decision in June to provide funding for an event in September or October, for example, is that going to work? I would have thought a decision in February would be much better than a decision in June if you're trying to organise a large event.

Manager? Through

You. That would probably provide us with enough time, but we don't always run the events for Youth Week through the events team, so that's often run through...

Mr Deputy Mayor, I'll speak against the amendment, largely because I'm happy to commit to having another youth summit now , and I think that's a really good thing to work towards. I don't think we need a workshop. I don't know. I mean, obviously any cost involved would have to be brought to Council anyway, and I think this is just prolonging it. There's specific advantages around having what a youth summit does, and the most fundamental one of all of those is that the youth summit is actually a series, or in the past the model that we have seen before that was engaged in, and they were held every two years from 2009, is that the youth summit is organised by youth. It's not organised by Council.

It's not organised by people who are just going out to events, and the events during Youth Week are good. But what happened was that a panel, people were invited to be part of it. I found the old flyer from 2017. And there were four meetings leading into that, which meant that a group of youth got together and they planned. And what that did was that really increased the participation level of who turned up and, I think, diversified who would turn up. When it comes to the events in Youth Week, they're great. I love them. I support them. I go to them as well. But you do not get the older people there. And this one had people from 12 to 25 years, and there were those, the youth who are in that transitional period of when they've finished school and they're moving into young adulthood and they sort of go out of a structured system when they're in school and things like that, sort of into a void.

Many of them don't know, and they don't know what's happening then. They don't feel they have a voice. They don't have a formal channel. And this Youth Summit model really enabled a capturing of those sort of voices that we don't necessarily get to hear. And I think that they are often the segment of the population that have the most needs. What they raise, of course, is so often things that we can't in ourselves do anything much about apart from advocate, because we know many of the things, the deficiencies they'll say will be things like public transport or mental health services or, you know, access to employment and various aspects like that. But of course, we can advocate for that and, of course, try and get any programs in place that can assist with improving those outcomes and, of course, lobby with other levels of government.

I think that that, I think having a Youth Summit is a really, really positive thing, and I don't think that that has changed over time because of the specific sort of model that we had, which I presume would be replicated. It's quite separate, I think, from what I've observed at Youth Week, which are also very valuable activities. But I did notice at the one last year that I went to, the children were much, much younger. There was no representation of people over about 14, and I think that we have to hear from those people. And the best way to get them to speak is to, you know, to put the call out for people to be involved. And the last time when we asked, it said, get ready to meet like-minded young people, receive excellent training, encourage change, have your ideas heard, and enjoy some free food.

And that would get a lot of them in. And that's how it was done. And I think we should commit to doing that again, even if it's modified somewhat with the advice of staff. There are other programs, of course, around as well, and we have the leadership program for primary school children, which is quite good. But there's also the Young Mayors Program, which in the future, hopefully one day we may work towards, although that is quite a big process. And Wollondong Council are the last council to have engaged in that and to have appointed a Young Mayors Program, where the young people have an actual election and they form a youth council. But I like to submit to this. I know the issue—oh, sorry, I'm speaking against the amendment.

I don't believe that we need another workshop around it. I'd like to see the commitment and see us move forward, perhaps to have put something in place. It may not be practical to hold it in the second half of 2024, but I assume that that date could be changed if there was an issue around that. But committing to it and working towards it sends a message out to our youth that we're here to listen, that we can give them a vehicle where they can actually have their voices heard, that is coming from them and not from us.

Further speakers on the amendment? Councillor Kotlash.

Just a question. If the youth summit in years past was delivered by the youth and not by Council, then why are we debating a resolution that says that we'll fund the holding of a summit? I'm not sure that I'm— is it Council's, does Council hold the summit and let the youth organise it? So we fund it.

General Manager .

Yep, certainly.

Through you, Mr Deputy Mayor. Yes, that's correct. And as Councillor Lyons-Buckett outlined, there was a group of young people who were commandeered, if you like, or, you know, invited to join to form a working group to plan the summit. But the event is actually hosted and funded by Hawkesbury City Council. The

Second question. Why haven't we had a summit since 2017? Director. Yeah,

Thank you. Through you, Mr Deputy Mayor. I believe that there has been a youth summit held since then, but I'll have to take that on notice in terms of that. COVID certainly hindered the operation of gatherings, but also the school leadership program subsequently, I guess, was held not so much in place, but was seen as a means to engage with the schools and through their leadership teams to actually have them come into Council in a similar fashion. There was also a movement to have a similar process for Youth Week events planned in the same manner that the Youth Summit was planned. So the working group, and we actually partnered with North Richmond Community Centre for that purpose, who facilitated a working group of young people who ostensibly, rather than plan a Youth Summit at Council, overtook the planning of Youth Week events, which actually run over 10 days during Youth Week.

So there wasn't a formal decision as such, but I guess an evolution of gatherings in the kind of splintered, if you like, into two different formats.

Okay. So just if I can just confirm this, in the note to management that you were going to bring something to a Council briefing, maybe not a workshop. So if Councillor Conolly would like to change the wording in number one to the next Council briefing, it seems to me that there was a range of things that the staff wanted to inform us about . Across the board, in all sorts of youth initiatives, I want that to still occur. So is that—is my understanding correct? You had planned to brief us on some things about youth initiatives,

Director ?

Okay. Yes

That's correct.

Thank you.

Any further speakers on the amendment? Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Question, Mr Deputy Mayor. Do we still have a dedicated youth participation officer? Yes

We do. It's actually—the position has been retitled, so they're now a Youth and Inclusion Officer.

Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Deputy Mayor. I'm speaking against the amendment because I just think it adds an additional layer that isn't necessary. The motion asks that we commit to a youth summit that allows us to get organised, and so that young people can get themselves organised in a way that they did in 2017. And really the key is that that organisation for them is a pivotal part of this exercise. This is a two-way street. It isn't us just gleaning from them what information that is useful to us. This provides young people with an opportunity, and many of the young people in our LGA don't have a lot of these opportunities to— Actively engage with a decision-making body at a level of government, to organise, to speak out, to have their voices heard, to be in a room.

You know, imagine as a gobby 13-year-old being in a room with people who are halfway through a university degree, for example, and talking about the common ground across the LGA. These are fantastic opportunities that Council can facilitate for young people, and I don't think we need to go away and have the costings presented to us. This simply asks for those costings to be included in the next budgetary process, in the same way that in the last Council meeting we asked for the Heritage Assistance Fund to be increased for the next budgetary process. We are just signalling to the staff that this is what we want done as elected representatives with the community's money, and giving the staff an early heads up to start that process rather than springing it on them, you know, in May or June when they think that they've managed to get as much blood out of the stone as is required .

I've attended the previous youth summit. I have attended Youth Week activities. My son has been involved in the organisation of Youth Week activities, and what happens is that the older participants in those activities become the organisers for kids, and so their capacity to talk about what they want is gone. It becomes about facilitating what young people want to stay in that space. And so the 19, 20, 21-year-olds don't get to talk about what really is important to them, and we don't get to hear it, which is the other crucial thing. You know, the Youth Week activities are by and large around inclusion and having fun and engagement, and they're not—that's not a point where I might sit down with a 14-year-old kid and say, So, what do you think about Council's approach to climate action, or koala mapping, or fixing the roads, or whatever?

Because they don't want to talk to me about that. They want to have a sausage and play in one of those big plastic balls that look suffocating and ghastly. You know, this is an add-on, not an instead of, and I think we should prioritise it as such.

Councillor Veigel.

Yeah, thanks, Mr Deputy Mayor. Questions, if I may. The last event was 2017. What was the participation rate, if you know, and what were the outcomes, and was anything implemented through Council from those outcomes? But that'll help me to decide whether I'll — Look, I've got sympathy for the notice of motion, but I just need some more information, and I may well support this after we come back from February 24. But is there any answers to those two questions, if I may, please?

Through you, Mr Deputy Mayor, I have to take the participation rate and specific outcomes on notice. I'm just having a quick look now. But as Councillor Zamprogno has previously referenced, the Youth Summit does generate a report and does make specific recommendations to Council, specifically around youth engagement and youth participation in Council activities, and that report does continue to be referenced in our Community Sponsorship Program, amongst other strategies, as a means of assessing whether a program that's being proposed in the community will meet an identified need.

Reference, but adopted as well?

Yep, that's correct.

Councillor Veigel, my recollection, the one I attended—actually I attended more than one—the one I can think about, there was probably seven tables with about ten young people on each table, and it was held during school time, so school sent representatives, but other people were there as well. So they weren't all just some school kids. It was a mixture of young people, and probably seventy or so in the room at that time. Okay. Any further discussion on the amendment? I'd like to say that I can understand where Councillor Conolly is coming from, but I can't support the amendment at this time. I think that the youth summit is a special thing that we had for many years. It fell off the table, and what Councillor Conolly's amendment tends to be doing, as far as I can see, is having budgetary considerations, looking at the costs.

I think we can do that, and we can do it later, but we don't need to do it now instead of saying that we want the youth summit to go ahead. So the two things are not necessarily mutually exclusive. If you can find a way around that, I'd be happy to vote for it, but I would not like to vote for the amendment in its current form. No further discussion on the amendment. I'll put the amendment. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, and that's all. Against, please raise your hand. Councillor Veigel, Councillor Reardon, Councillor Djuric , Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Calvert and Councillor Sheather.

Absent is the Mayor, Councillor McMahon. Declare the amendment lost. We go back to the— oh, sorry, Councillor Dogramaci abstained. Sorry, yes. We go back to the original motion that Councillor Zamprogno moved. Any discussion? Councillor Conolly.

Thank you. I just went back and looked at the— so I speak against the motion— looked at the minutes of the council meeting where this decision was made, and what I could find was that it was recommended that council, rather than fund a youth summit again, funded the development of a youth action plan and tried to be more strategic about the way we were interacting with our youth, which was the intent of the amendment, was not to say a youth summit is not the answer, but to be open that there might be many other answers as well and respectfully look around the room and decide if we're the right people who might know how to best engage with our youth. And my suggestion is maybe not. Maybe we don't have the best idea and we can't consider any others.

So for that reason, I'm not going to vote for this motion. It's not merely to think about the funding later. It says council will hold a youth summit, so I don't think we should be misleading anybody about that. This is a commitment to hold a youth summit, and it would be very difficult to later, at some point later, to pull out of it because it costs a little bit more than we thought. That's clearly not going to happen in reality. So we are making a decision now without the funding information, for all intents and purposes, and that's something I wouldn't ordinarily do. And like I said, I think it would pay to take our time a little bit and be a little bit more strategic about making sure that we've got the right strategy to engage with our youth, rather than just sticking to what we've done forever because we as old people think it's a good idea.

Further discussion on the motion. Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Mr Deputy Mayor. I'll support the motion. Through you, Mr Mayor, I hope Councillor Connolly's not feeling old. Well, the average age goes up when you add us all together. I think that Councillor Conolly has said, yes, we did decide at the time, but since then we've had COVID, and much of what, from what I hear from people that I engage with and work with in the resilience sector, is all about reconnecting and getting people back in this space of networking again and getting together. I think that in reality, we can commit to a summit, and it can evolve into what is the best method. But I think by saying summit, it is committing—it doesn't mean it has to be the same as before. It's just saying we work towards that.

We have a youth and inclusion officer who I assume would have an opinion on that. If they really came back and said that would be the worst thing in the world for our youth to hold a summit and hear what they've got to say, then that would be the way it was, and we could perhaps have a change. But I think that it's a good commitment to make, and I think it is a really good opportunity around decision-making for young people, responsibility, potentially some training if they do work in a space where they do some organisation , and comparative to the other Youth Week activities, which I think hold really high value. But I guess the difference is many of those are targeted to individuals and to individual solutions.

For example, there may be a family planning tent, which, you know, someone might go into with a parent, and they could have a discussion around that that they might not easily have in another sort of sphere of their lives. But it's not a collective gathering of the voices of youth, and I think that it's additional to other activities, and the value is as much to us to hear about it as it is to others. Just to update on the participation, I looked that up. It was 118 participants, which is a really— Really good number of people to be hearing from. I think that I really can't see that there's a problem with the cost. I don't think it would be really expensive, and if it was really cost prohibitive, there could quite potentially be some grant funding around it anyway.

I think we have to move forward. I felt this when we were talking about getting back into, getting back on track around speaking about our cultural pursuits as well, that our community want us to be doing things like this. We have an obligation to do it, and I think this is a really good approach to moving forward to hear from our youth and to hopefully be able to try and assist and support them as much as possible.

Councillor Sheather.

Thanks, Mr Deputy Mayor. Many moons ago, Council was looking at putting in the skate park in North Richmond, but—excuse me— and it was predominantly instigated by a small group of people . It started out very small with the community centre out there. That grew to be hundreds of kids, and I say kids, we're talking about from what, 10 to probably 20 years old, I guess, that felt they were left out of that area that we're talking about of support within a structure that they don't really fit into at that stage. No one wanted a skate park around that place. What come out of it was that— That group of people elected a committee. Through negotiations with the people involved at the time, set standards of what was expected of how they would use a park if it was built, what would be the ramifications if they didn't adhere to those rules , I guess, for the want of a word, on how they might conduct themselves in the park, and stuff like that.

It cut down crime in the area at that time because all those kids were involved very much so in the design, how they might go about it, the selection of areas , and the discussion with the community and their concerns that they addressed. And at the outcome at the end of the day when it was built, that council hasn't had any issues with that skate park in that location since it was built. And so, given the opportunity, I think that not only does it give council in many areas to offer opportunities to work with the youth, but the outcomes can be massive. And the other opportunities that we have, not just, you know, Youth Week, these sorts of things can come out of that. There's other things we've discussed tonight with music and the arts and stuff like that, sport, the whole lot can come out of youth summits.

And I think that there's a massive opportunity for us to take advantage of. And it needs to be instigated. We've let it go over the last two years. The staff said they've got a report coming up to us in February. Irrespective of this motion, I expect that report will come up and only be supportive of what might come out of a summit or what might go into it. So, Mr Deputy Mayor, I support the motion and would hope that councillors support it with the intent that I think that it was put up for.

Thank you, Councillor Sheather. Director, did you want to comment on any of that? Certainly.

Thank you through you, Mr Deputy Mayor. Only to clarify that the intention is to provide councillors with information following consultation to be undertaken in Youth Week, which is April 2024, following which a further report may be provided to Council for consideration, but it would not be until at least May next year.

Speakers on the motion. Councillor Kotlash.

A question. How far down the track are we with the development of the youth strategy?

Thank you, through you, Mr Deputy Mayor. It was identified in the 2020-2021, I think, operational plan that we'd develop a youth action plan. COVID significantly impacted consultation through the development of a number of community plans during that period of time, the youth action plan being one of those plans. Hence the consultation to kick off in earnest during Youth Week this year, following which the outcomes would be provided to Council by a briefing. So, in short, to respond to your question, very much at the infancy stage, but there's certainly plans to undertake quite extensive engagement in the first part of 2024, which will be reported to Council.

Further speakers? Councillor Veigel. Just a question again, if I may. Who facilitates?

Sorry, what

Was the question? If I can just—somebody can answer it. I'm just going back to the summit from the '17. Who facilitates? Who facilitates?

Can I assist, Mr Mayor? Councillor Veigel, the conference in 2017 was hosted at Richmond High School.

And who facilitated

And topics

Of discussion? No doubt that would have been Council staff. That's not the question for staff.

I'll ask the director if she would like to answer that.

Yeah, thank you. Through you, Mr Deputy Mayor, the event was facilitated by a number of Council staff. So there was an education component that actually occurred there in terms of staff from different business units coming along and presenting, I guess, you know, the day-to-day operations of Council. At the 2017 summit, I believe that there was actually a focus on sustainability and the environment as well, and we actually ran a bit of a creative arts segment in the afternoon. But fundamentally, the scope for the summit was designed by the core group of young people who were engaged as part of the planning process, and then it was Council staff, by and large, who facilitated the event.

Okay, thanks, Tara. Any further speakers on the motion? I would just like to add that since I started on Council, I've always been a champion of youth involvement. I, way back in the dark ages, we used to have primary school kids coming in here during our daytime meetings and addressing council and giving us suggestions on how we can improve things. Unfortunately, we didn't have any more daytime meetings, so we couldn't get that to continue. But while it was going, there was a great relationship between us and the local youth , especially local schools. The youth summit also made sure that that relationship kept going, and schools had a way of accessing council and young people had a way of accessing council, and it was demonstrated to them that it was not just lip service.

We didn't say, get together and think of something. It was actually, we really did listen to what they came up with, and where we could, we tried to implement the things that they suggested. I'm thinking of one which I may have confused with something else, but I think we had one where the youth summit asked for a safe homework spot so kids could go after school and have homework supervised by someone. That did eventuate. I don't know whether it eventuated directly from that youth summit, but it did eventuate in a few places. But that's the kind of thing that they would talk about, and I would like to see us go back to that. I was unaware that we'd voted not to go back to the summit, but apparently we did.

I didn't realise that. I just thought it fell off the table because of COVID and just never came back. But I'm really anxious, keen to get this summit back, and I thank Councillor Zamprogno for bringing it up. And yes, there may still be some things to iron out along the way. There may be some.. . Budget questions, but my memory of the one I went to at North Richmond Community Centre, all we paid for was the lunch for the kids, drinks and sausage sandwich kind of thing. There was no big expense, so I don't think it's a budgetary concern. But anyway, I finished my little speech. No further speakers. Councillor Zamprogno, you wished—oh, Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Sorry

Deputy Mayor, I just had an answer for Councillor Veigel about who facilitated it, which was Burn Bright and the Human Sound Project. And because it was held at Richmond High School, the catering was done presumably by Food Tech, yeah, and the technical as well was done. So with all the VET courses and all the various things, yeah,

They

Can do a lot of it for their experience, yeah

No further speakers. Councillor Zamprogno, right of reply.

Thank you, Mr Deputy Mayor. Councillor Lyons-Buckett keeps on stealing my thunder. Yes, Burn Bright, their website advertises them as student leadership specialists that have done programs in over 350 schools, leading provider of experiential programs proven to increase student wellbeing and leadership. And the Human Sound Project, their website advertises themselves as running programs in schools on six continents around the world, empowering them to come together and collaboratively create music that explores their themes, issues and stories. That's indicative of the kind of people that we had facilitating last time. We don't have to have them back, but it's certainly indicative of the scale and professionalism with which it was run. I think we've got this, and I'm grateful for the support, and I'll leave it at that. Thank you.

Thank you. That was right of reply. Put it to a vote now. All those in favour, please raise your hand. Favour: Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Sheather. Those against: Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash. Abstaining: Councillor Dogramaci. Absent is the Mayor, Councillor McMahon. I declare the motion carried.

Next item is the questions 7.1.1.

Mr Mayor, procedural question. Have

We done items on block? Yes, we did.

Oh, okay.

The Mayor did that when she was here. 7.1.1, any discussion? Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Deputy Mayor. Just a couple of points. There's a typo in my question. Yeah, that's the wrong two. One O will do in that instance. So I guess the short answer from this is that we don't have any funding for the Bligh Park cycleway, which is unfortunate , I think, because it's an area of the Hawkesbury that would greatly benefit from more active transport links. And I'll flag that I will be bringing something to Council next year about cycleways. And just a comment on Councillor Sheather's question. I thought that that pertained to dereliction of heritage items. And so I'll just ask, have we ever moved to any sort of, to take any action against an owner who has left, who has failed to maintain a heritage-listed property consistent with the Act? Director? Oh, yeah, I'd need to take that on notice.

I think, Councillors, the answer you have in the business paper is the answer we have, is that it's not necessarily an offence and that— And that we've only got clean-up powers.

And that answer relates to heritage listed properties as well, that we don't have any capacity to get people to meet their requirements. Thanks.

Any further discussion on this item? Councillor Zamprogno.

Yes, thank you. In relation to the question that I asked about a grant that we lost for some road repair works on Old Stock Route Road between Scheyville Road and Saunders Road, could I get a number? I mean, how much was the money that we lost for that grant? And I presume, reading between the lines, that that meant that we completed the works, but we paid for it ourselves. I just want to put a number to that.

Through you, Mr Deputy Mayor, no, it was a matter of timing. So, because the works had to proceed after 30 June, at that time we didn't have an extension of the grant secured. We effectively had to, in the interim, stump up the cash. Council officers have since secured the grant, or sorry, the extension of the grant to allow us to complete the works in this financial year. All

Right then. So what's the quantum of the grant?

I'm

Glad that we secured it. I just want to know how much was at stake.

My memory from the quarterly budget review was approximately $150,000, but I have to take the actual quantum on notice

I'm satisfied

With that. Thank you.

Any further discussion? This item doesn't require any vote. It's just discussion.

That ends the items that are not in confidential. The confidential item, even though it's been moved on block, we still have to go into confidential and move it on block. Moved by Councillor Kotlash, seconded by Councillor Conolly that we move into confidential. All those in favour, raise your hand. In favour, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Reardon , Councillor Conolly , Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Calvert, and Councillor Sheather. Absent is the Mayor. Declare it carried. We move into confidential, please.

In regards to item 8.4.1 regarding the General Waste Processing Proposal, waste management facility, whilst in closed session, Council resolved on the motion of Councillor Zamprogno, seconded Councillor Kotlash, that: one, the report regarding the General Waste Processing Proposal be received and noted. Two, pursuant to the provisions of Section 55(3)(i) of the Local Government Act 1993, Council does not call tenders for the provision of municipal solid waste processing on the basis of extenuating circumstances given the following reasons: A, a lack of other equivalent municipal solid waste processing solutions resulting in resource recovery; B, it is a trial project for 12 months with an optional extension for six months; C, unavailability of equivalent viable and competitive tenderers to provide solid waste processing solutions in New South Wales.

Three , Council: A, proceeds with the development of a memorandum of understanding with ARC Ento Tech Limited for the purpose of trialling alternative municipal solid waste processing; and B, delegates authority to the General Manager to negotiate and agree upon terms, and upon such agreement occurring, enter into a 12-month contract with a six-month option to ARC Ento Tech Pty Limited for the provision of municipal solid waste processing. Four, a report be provided to Council on the outcome of the MOU, contract negotiations and any subsequent project details. Four, the motions were Councillor Conolly, Calvert, Djuric, Dogramaci, Kotlash, Lyons-Buckett, Veigel, Reardon, Sheather, Wheeler, Zamprogno.

Absent for the vote was Councillor McMahon. Thank you, Mr Deputy Mayor

I'll do a better version. Okay. Before we close the meeting, I would like to wish everyone here a Merry Christmas, and I would like to wish all those people listening or watching us a Merry Christmas as well. Hopefully you'll have a healthy, happy holiday, and I'll see you all next year. And there's no further business, so I will close the meeting at 9.54. Thank you.