30 January 2024 - Ordinary

Good evening, everybody. Welcome to Hawkesbury City Council's first meeting for 2024, today the 30th of January. Hawkesbury City Council acknowledges the Darug and Darkinjung people as the traditional custodians of the land of the Hawkesbury. We pay respect to all Elders past, present and emerging, and acknowledge all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of the country. I will just remark that we did have a lovely smoking ceremony out on the front lawn of Council this evening, performed by Uncle Wes and Erin Wilkins, and I thank them for their time. I'll now hand over to the General Manager.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Members of the public attending the meeting are advised that in the event of an emergency, you will be asked to proceed in an orderly manner to the nearest exit following the guidance of our warden. I'd like to advise that in accordance with clause 5.3.3 of the Code of Meeting Practice, meetings of the Council are recorded. In the terms of the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act, this may involve the recording of personal information provided at the time of the meeting. The recordings are made to assist staff in compiling the minutes of the meeting and to enable the podcasting of Council meetings. The provision of any information that is recorded is voluntary.

If any person does not wish to be recorded, they should not address or request to address the meeting. The recordings may be made available to other persons where such access is in accordance with the relevant regulations, and the recordings are stored on Council's record management system. Meetings of the Council may be separately recorded with the prior authority of the Council. For the benefit of those persons who will be addressing the Council tonight, it is expected that you will refrain from making any insult, allegation or personal reflection against any person present or not at this meeting. This request relates to both your address to Council and any answers given in response to questions from councillors.

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

I can see that we have no apologies tonight, but I do have one request to attend by audio-visual link for the Council meeting of the 30th of January 2024. This request is from Councillor Conolly. The General Manager received from Councillor Conolly a written request to attend tonight's ordinary meeting by audio-visual link, as he is unable to attend the meeting in person. Councillor Conolly has been admitted to the meeting and is able to participate until Council decides by resolution whether to accept his request. Does someone want to move that Councillor Conolly be permitted to attend the ordinary Council meeting on 30th of January 2024 by audio-visual link

Thank you, Councillor

Lyons-Buckett, seconded Councillor Reardon. All those in favour, please raise your hand. Councillor Kotlash? Thank you. Declare that unanimously. Thank you very much.

Are there any declarations of interest, councillors? I do have one, and that is item 4.4.4, a significant non-pecuniary interest. So I'll be leaving the room, and the Deputy Mayor will take carriage of that item.

Item. Can I get

Someone

To confirm the minutes, please? Yes. Councillor Reardon, seconded Councillor Veigel. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour, Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Conolly and Councillor McMahon. I declare that carried.

Madam Mayor, can I ask a procedural question? Sure It relates to items that are on block. The item that appears in the confidential paper relating to the proposed Grose River Bridge project report appears twice in the business paper, once not in confidential and one in confidential. It’s been listed as an on-block item for the not confidential session, but does that to say that it will receive some discussion in the confidential?

My belief is the item is not in confidential, but the report is, and had in the debate of that item any councillor referred to a part that was confidential, I’d have to put it into confidential.

Right, all right

Then. But it has not been brought up.

If that’s the case, will you indulge me, Madam Mayor, and allow me to pull that out of on-block and make it an item for discussion?

That’s fine, Councillor, thank you. Thank you

Sorry, Councillor, but I will say to all councillors, when we discuss that item, to please be cautious about the confidentiality of the contents of the report, and if there is something that does tread into that territory, I will put it into confidential after the other confidential item. Thank you.

I'd like to move a procedural motion, Councillors, if I can have someone move that way to offer a motion of condolence, please. Yes. Councillor Reardon, seconded Councillor Kotlash. All those in favour, please raise your hand. Declare that unanimous. Thank you, Councillors.

Motion of condolence. On behalf of Hawkesbury City Council, we pass our sincere condolences to the family and friends of local teenagers Addison Bhimjiani and Matthew Simpson, who tragically lost their precious lives recently in a fatal motor vehicle crash. I have spoken to members of both families, and I sincerely and wholeheartedly express my deepest sadness regarding their loss. Both boys were exceptionally loved by so many people and will forever be greatly missed. We also offer our thoughts to our first responders on the scene and thank them for their service and dedication to our community in such times of need. Our sympathies remain with everyone grieving in this tragedy, and as community representatives, we wish you comfort and courage as you face the difficult days, months and years ahead.

May the memory of your boys be forever in all of our hearts. If we can please take a moment to pause to reflect on this condolence motion. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillors, and thank you, everybody.

Tonight, are agenda items subject to public address. We have one registered speaker, and that is for item 6.1.1, Notice of Motion 1, Companion Animals. Our registered speaker is Anne Robbie. Anne, if you'd like to come up. Thank you very much.

There we are. I feel a bit like a frequent

Flyer.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, councillors and visitors. My name is Anne Robbie. I'm a long-time Hawkesbury resident, ratepayer and companion animal advocate. I founded Safe Rescue Hawkesbury in 2013, was a volunteer at Hawkesbury Companion Animal Shelter for many years, and was a member of the 2017-2019 Hawkesbury Shelter Working Group. I'm also Branch Secretary of Animal Welfare League Hawkesbury. It's in this capacity that I'm speaking for Councillor Wheeler's Notice of Motion tonight. Point 1, as stated by Councillor Wheeler, the $29 emergency rehoming fee was effective but came at significant cost to Council. There were also significant costs to other organisations that Council may not be aware of.

It brought adoptions of other rehoming organisations like AWL Hawkesbury to a halt, tying up all carers and making it impossible to take in more cats, even in emergency situations. These were then referred to the Hawkesbury Shelter, so it's a catch-22. It enabled people to adopt more animals than they could afford to feed and vet. AWL Welfare Hub in South Windsor is seeing a constant stream of these adopters requiring food, parasite treatment and vet treatment. It even produced a source of stock for some people to sell on Gumtree. A return to a more realistic general adoption fee is welcome by all. There should always be room for pets of the week too. Point two, hoarding and other animal mistreatment is abhorrent.

Any measures available to help minimise are fantastic: microchipping, registration, database flagging, things like that. Point three, resuming council-run microchipping and possible registration clinics would be a real bonus. The more community education around responsible pet ownership, the better.

At the moment, AWL Hawkesbury are the only group offering free microchipping to Hawkesbury residents. We offer a free microchip to anyone who takes advantage of our subsidised desexing offer. In October 2023, we held a free microchipping day and have plans to do two more in 2024. Point four, the subsidised desexing program. I'm here to tell you that we aren't going to adopt or kill our way out of the urban cat overpopulation problem. That's it in a nutshell. We have to do a lot more. Extensive Australian research into the importance of free or low-cost cat desexing has been conducted by Professor Jackie Rand. If the management team hasn't seen this, I would recommend they read as soon as possible.

And by the way, Hawkesbury would be an ideal trial location for the team. AWL Hawkesbury has been offering subsidised desexing for the last 15 years, but in the last two years have really streamlined the process and become focused on it as part of the solution to the cat problem. Since July 2023, we have issued almost 1,000 cat and dog vouchers, which carry a financial cost to us of approximately $46,000 if all vouchers are redeemed. Currently, the take-up rate is around 60%, and we are looking at ways to increase this. Point five, community engagement is key. Council media staff do a great job getting the message out there. We welcome their help in spreading our message, particularly the subsidised desexing program.

So in conclusion, please I ask you consider Councillor Wheeler's notice of motion favourably. AWL Hawkesbury are very keen to work with Council and any other interested stakeholders. Please use the infrastructure, resources and experience that are on offer.

Thank you. Thank you very much. I'll just see if there's any questions from councillors. Ms Roby? Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. And what sort of numbers of kittens are you looking at this year? What sort of numbers are you looking at for kittens so far this year?

It just all rolls into one. You know, you only have to walk out to the front doorstep, literally. You know, there was one on my doorstep yesterday, and we picked up another five at Yarramundi Bridge. In a box on the side of the road, it's just overwhelming, is all I can say. Hundreds and hundreds. We have been, you know, because of lack of space, we've been, you know, saying to people, okay, if you can foster the kittens, we'll desex mum for you. You keep mum, and then you're next on the list that we will take the kittens in once, you know, once we have a space.

And how long is that list? How long is that list?

Yeah, it's long.

Thank you very much. Appreciate your contribution. Oh, sorry, Councillor Sheather, sorry.

You said there was forty-odd thousand dollars spent. Where'd that come from? Well,

A lot of it is money that we fundraise. Thank goodness I'm pretty good at fundraising. Yep.

And, you know, we do get some money from AWL head office at Kemps Creek, but it is nowhere near that. You know, like I think the total allocation, you know, is somewhere around about twenty thousand dollars. The rest of it is money that we have, you know, done barbecues, done raffles, done online auctions, you know, solicited donations. That's, yep.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. I'll move the motion in the business paper.

I'll second it, Madam Mayor. Thank you. Councillor Lyons-Buckett, thank you.

Thank you. So, as you've— sorry, I've very cleverly left my written notes at home on my desk, and my son has just sent me a photo of them. So my writing is even worse than usual. As you can hear from Anne and the Animal Welfare League, this isn't primarily about the cost to council, although that is always a consideration. It's about prevention of cruelty. Kitten season this year has been really intense. We've got five kittens at our place just before Christmas. Mother cat turned up and hung around for a while, and I kept saying to my husband, You've got to catch that cat, because she's going to the vet to be desexed. And one morning he woke me up and said, We've got kittens. And I thought they would be little jelly beans with their eyes closed, and they weren't.

They were five little critters gambolling around the vegetable garden. And now they're— tomorrow, mum is off to the vet to be desexed, and two of the kittens are going to their new home. But we're in a position where we can reorganise our house so that we can keep these cats indoors and give them a better life than they've had. Not everybody is in that position. And so what happens is that they end up either at our animal shelter or with rescue organisations who, with the best will in the world, can't keep up with the volume of animals that we've got here. It'll cost us about $650 to desex mum. That's out of reach for a lot of families. Without desexing, pregnant cats can be pregnant before they've fully weaned the previous litter.

They can have their first litter before they're six months old. Kittens are dumped throughout the LGA, with some lucky enough to survive and the rest dying really horrible deaths and suffering greatly. Many of them joined colonies, and so the problem goes on and on. Abandoned and dumped cats kill around 2 billion reptiles, birds, frogs and mammals each year.

Colony cats and feral cats are directly responsible for the extinction of 20 different species of mammals and the threatened survival of at least 100 native species in Australia. There's around 50,000 cats euthanised every year by pounds across the country, and the best way to prevent this is by desexing. Sorry, I'm just finding my next page.

We need to increase the access to desexing through low-cost measures. We need to make them easily accessible. We need to make the animals traceable, and we need to use trusted sources. Both Council and the Animal Welfare League can provide those sources. The story isn't much better for dogs. And again, desexing is the answer, as well as easy access to lifetime registration and microchipping. We need to remove the two major barriers to make this achievable. It needs to be cheap, and it needs to be convenient. Hence the notice of motion asking for Council to run either in conjunction with Animal Welfare League or on our own, microchipping and registration days, best, I think, done in hotspot areas of the LGA, and it won't take us much to work out where those are.

Council staff and volunteer organisations work really well together. We've had, since the Animal Welfare Review that Council conducted — so the animal shelter review that Council conducted some years ago — we've had really good relationships between rescue organisations, volunteers and Council staff.

Volunteers do this because they care about animals and giving them a better life. So do our staff, and often that job is a really thankless task where they see some of the worst that humanity offers to other species, particularly those who are most loyal to us. Our job is to ensure that all of those groups have access to the funds and policies that they need to support their work. I'm really hoping you can support this notice of motion. It's not a lot of money, but it will make a lot of difference. I'm not thinking that we will get on top of the cat and dog problem overnight, but we can at least make these lives better for some of the animals that are involved, and hopefully some of the people who try to care for them as well.

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

Thanks, Madam Mayor. Just a question for Councillor Wheeler. The five and ten thousand dollars that you mentioned here, how did you come up with those figures?

Look, I'd cheerfully have us throw more money at it, but I'm mindful that our budget is really tight. Penrith Council allocates $5,000 a year to Animal Welfare League for their desexing program. I would like us to at least match that, given that we bear a good portion of the burden of the animals, of stray animals. We also have a vast LGA with a lot of bushland and native species to protect, so it behoves us to get some of these animals back into traceable circumstances. The intent— look, I'm happy for you to double it. I'm mindful, though, that we have a limited pot.

Yeah, Madam Mayor, in relation to the, well, not so much the amounts, but the work that Council does in relation to desexing and the like, could we have a comment from staff in relation to what expenditure we do in that regard now, and perhaps implications of funding like this what effect it would have, I mean.

Yes, I'll hand over to the Director of City Planning. Yeah,

Thank you. Through you, Madam Mayor, as included in the business papers and the note by management, there continues to be significant work underway in terms of reviewing the operations of the animal shelter and the agreements that we have with our partner council, other council agencies. We have recently gone through a procurement process with a number of local veterinarians where we have standardised the costs for particular treatment, including euthanising. So certainly desexing through a similar type arrangement could be something that would be explored. But at the moment, desexing isn't something that's offered at the shelter, but could certainly be investigated, including working with the Animal Welfare League more deeply to understand what , I guess, quantity that that value could contribute to and also what the reality of non-desexed animals, the amount of non-desexed animals coming into the shelter would be.

But there would need to be more work.

Thank you. So we don't do desexing at all at the moment?

No, that's correct. Right,

Thank you.

Councillor Kotlash. Thank you, Madam Mayor, and I would like to thank Councillor Wheeler for bringing this notice of motion . I know how deeply she cares about the shelter, and I acknowledge all the work that Councillor Wheeler did, particularly in the last term of Council . But I think that

I've just got a problem with the notice of motion as it's written because it seems to suggest that the things that Councillor Wheeler wants are actually already happening. And I think that, for the benefit of the public and the community, and especially all of those people that volunteer and work with animal welfare, I'd like to see this notice of motion rearranged a bit to actually get us to a point where we acknowledge the work that staff have done , and to also get some more information about the actual problem. And I do thank Ms Robbie for her words on the actual situation of what's happening out there, but I think we also need to find out

Who's doing what in this space, and that was an interesting question that Councillor Sheather asked about does desexing take place at the animal shelter. My reading was that we were well underway with that process from the notes that are in the note from management. So in that vein, I've sent an amendment that I'd like to put up , and I've sent staff some wording. It virtually wraps up what I think needs to happen, and it, in a way, it comes off what Councillor Sheather said about the funding. I would like to know a little bit more about the problem, characterise the problem a bit more, but have it in the early budgetary process so that we can actually start to figure out whether it is $ 5,000 or $10,000 or $20,000, and what sort of partnerships we can have with any organisation, the Animal Welfare League or any of the other, I think there's three that operate mainly in the Hawkesbury.

Council, I'll just get a seconder for that. Oh,

Sorry,

That's right. Yes. Thank you, Deputy Mayor

Thank you. So basically, I've just said that we continue to receive the new information and updates on the improvements taking place at the shelter, and I've touched on the date that Councillor Wheeler has in her point three. By March, we find out what is planned for the free microchipping and registration days, which are underway. The second point is probably the most important, that we receive a briefing and we get some idea of what funding is required for a fair and an effective subsidised desexing program. This is getting to that point where

There'll be trade-offs. Is the crux of this to educate? Is it to desexing? Is it to more, you know, more public education, more free days of registration? This is a very complex situation, it seems to me. And I'd like to have more of that information before I make any decisions about a figure, a budgetary figure. So I think that's jumping the gun a little. I'm absolutely committed. Everybody who knows me knows I am a cat tragic. I am absolutely, and a dog tragic as well, although I don't have a dog at the moment . But I want to see this area of council's responsibility dealt with in a little bit more of a way that uses some specific data to get where we need to go. And I think that's what I'm asking for.

I think we have to acknowledge the tremendous work of all of the animal welfare organisations. And we actually all realise the hours of work and, you know, the volunteering that goes on here, and it's so, so, so much appreciated. So I think that's how I'd like this to run. I'd like to get a bit more information , and let's staff carry on with the work that they're doing. So I want people, I want the community to be assured that we are actually doing this, and we've been doing some innovative work for quite a while now. I've been on council two terms now, and we started this really when Councillor Wheeler first started working on the shelter in 2017, I think it was. So I— Yeah, so over to you.

Happy to add things to my amendment. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor. Councillors and staff.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I want to thank Councillor Wheeler for her work over many years with the shelter and for bringing this notice of motion. I'm inclined to support the notice of motion, but not the amendment, largely for the reason that it would appear that the amendment guts the ability for action to occur starting now via a budget variation. And I think there's a case that action should start now and become ongoing through the next budgetary cycle. My questions for staff start with there's discussion in both the notice of motion and in the response from staff about the ability to flexibly change pricing when the shelter is at capacity. I presume there's nothing in this notice of motion that negates the shelter's ability to remain flexible and to lower prices to start to get animals out the door when it's at capacity. Is that the case?

Director of City Planning? Yeah

Thank you, through you, Madam Mayor, that would be my understanding in terms of the notice of motion, that wouldn't negate the ability to change prices

All right then. Well, I'm glad that that's still the case. My next question relates to the clause in the notice of motion that seeks to place some control on well-meaning people to take on perhaps more animals than they're able to. And I proceed from the premise that we owe the very strongest moral and ethical obligation towards animals, and particularly companion animals, to reduce suffering. I am also a cat tragic, and I think we owe them that moral duty. When we were discussing this somewhere between five and seven years ago, I remember a distressing story where other individuals or entities had the ability to take animals off the hands of the shelter, perhaps when the shelter was very full or run off their feet.

At rates other than the rate that, you know, a person walking an off the street was able to do so. And that resulted not only potentially in hoarding, but it also resulted in somebody coming in and saying, ‘How much is that doggy in the window?’ And then one of the well-meaning volunteers saying, ‘ Well, Council will sell it to you for $200, but if you meet me in the car park afterwards, we can take it off their hands and I’ll give you a different rate. ’ Can I just confirm that that practice has ceased and that there is no ability for an individual or another de facto shelter to take animals off the hands of our shelter?

Thank you. Director of City Planning. Yeah

No, thank you through you, Madam Mayor. No, the advertised charges are ostensibly a fee in charge. Staff don’t have the discretion to alter the charge that an animal is advertised.

All right then, well, I’m glad to hear that, but I do note that the amendment also does not include any clause to assess whether this problem of hoarding can be addressed. The original notice of motion does, and therefore I’ll be supporting the original notice of motion. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I seem like I need to hike over to my microphone. I’ll speak against the amendment. I think that it broadens it significantly, and it takes away, as Councillor Zamprogno just alluded to, it takes away doing anything immediately. And I think that from what Ms Robbie said when she spoke, that clearly she was explaining a crisis that exists now and something that warrants some urgent attention. And to put some money towards that now, we can adjust that later, of course, which was suggested in the original motion. And I think that we should be getting on with it. If the amendment fails, I would probably ask Councillor Wheeler maybe to make some minor amendments just about how to get some of her requested information back into the chamber.

But I don’t think that this is a very generalised amendment and it’s sort of pushing it down the track. We have policies in place in the shelter. We have, we know the costings. We just need to encapsulate that into a format where we can look at it quickly and get on with some action around it . I do want to thank Miss Robbie and the Animal Welfare League for the amazing job that they do and that incredible record of fundraising. Of course they have their shop, their wonderful shop down there, and I'm sure that brings in some money . But they do do a fabulous job and I think that we should be supporting all the rescue organisations and all the people who are combining to deal with what clearly seems to be some sort of a cat overload crisis, for which of course desexing is the best controlling mechanism.

So I won't be supporting the amendment, but should it fail, I will speak to the motion and request some changes.

Thank you, Councillor.

Further question, Madam Mayor. In relation to the funding, would that frustrate the staff in relation to what they can do within the structure of the shelter? And secondly— I

Might just get that one. We'll do that one. Yeah , answer that question first. Yeah,

Thank you. Through you, Madam Mayor. Look, certainly the budget, I guess, is set for this operational year. So if there were money to be allocated, it would either need to be redirected or additional money allocated through a quarterly review process, if that answers your question

We were briefed here a couple of months ago on progress and things that's in train for changes with the shelter that— This notice of motion frustrate any of that? And further, if there was additional funds required or lesser amounts, would that be part of that process that would either support or shadow this motion

General Manager. Thank you. Through you, Madam Mayor. What I would say, Councillor, is that at this point in time, so over probably 12 months or more , Council has done a significant amount of work having a look at the holistic operations of the animal shelter. It currently operates at a deficit. We are running that service at a cost . So we do need to allocate money in at the quarterly budget review. What I will say, and we are intending to brief Councillors soon, is around the entire funding model for the animal shelter and those agreements with our partner councils and how that operating loss effectively for the animal shelter can be equitably distributed amongst other councils, and that any costs associated with, for example, additional desexing programs or microchipping programs could be readily looked at as part of that broader review so that Council isn't necessarily entirely shouldering that burden.

And when would that report be coming to us

We'll be expecting to brief you coming weeks, could even be next week, Councillor.

Is that all, Councillor? Thank you. Councillors, you can ask a question, yes

Please, Madam Mayor . If

I get the notion that— We want some action quickly, but how do we go about allocating funds in a quarterly review and essentially handing it over to another organisation ? I'm not terribly sure that, I don't know, we've never done that. Is that a charity? Is that a sort of a donation to the cause? General Manager.

Through you, Madam Mayor, you have to be very careful around the governance on this, Councillor. You're correct. What it would need to be transacted as is effectively a fee for service rather than a donation or grant. So, and that fee for service would need to be acquitted in some manner. So it's not simply a case that at the quarterly budget review Council would allocate, for example, in the motion, $5,000 and then that goes over to the Animal Welfare League the next day. We actually need to tidy up an agreement first in order to square off some of the governance issues around this. Yep.

Can I just ask another follow-up question ? In the spirit of, okay, we're in a crisis if we are in a crisis, which I imagine we are, how speedy can that be? I mean, is that, I just thought we were going through a budgetary process for beginning in. .. Which will begin in June, is , are the governance arrangements that we need to do going to be quicker than waiting for the ordinary budgetary process, is my question?

General Manager.

In all likelihood, I would think so. I would think that the staff would be able to work with the Animal Welfare League to come up with an arrangement there. As I said, we just need to be careful that it's not necessarily a grant or a donation, but rather an acquittal required there through some sort of a fee-for-service arrangement that we're a party to. So we need to just wrap our heads around that, but I expect that's not going to take six months sort of thing, so.

Councillor Wheeler. Thanks, Madam Mayor. I'm speaking against the amendment. Councillor Zampronio is correct. The amendment, while I think well-intentioned, doesn't deal with the two immediate problems that have been identified by the Animal Welfare League, and we should bear in mind that it's the Animal Welfare League, who are the people on the ground, all volunteers, dealing with this crisis. We can't wait until we get another bite at the budget and that money dribbles out come July. We need to act now, hence the two payments. Five thousand dollars isn't a lot, but in the hands of someone like the Animal Welfare League or Council with a bulk agreement with a number of vets, we can get a much cheaper and far more effective, we can get far better cost bang for our buck, really, out of that money than we would if that five thousand dollars was distributed across, you know, five thousand dollars on the quote that I've got to desex...

Our new cat, shall we call her, would do eight cats. That's not a lot. So, but in the hands of someone like Animal Welfare League, it could do a lot of cats. And I should note that this isn't free desexing. Animal Welfare League require a $90 co-contribution from people, and they have to be a healthcare card holder, or they have to be able to show that they can't afford to go through the normal means through a vet. So this isn't just a free-for-all for anybody who doesn't want to stump up to have their cat desexed. It's also not the same program that Council runs desexing the animals that come to the shelter. So when the animals leave the shelter, they are either collected from the vet where the animal has been desexed, or if they're too young for that, they travel with a voucher, and the owner is to take them to the vet to have them desexed.

It's power of Council's commitment to responsible pet ownership so that people, when they buy, and the animals from our shelter are an absolute bargain even if you pay full price for them. Anybody who's ever bought a dog or a cat and then had to pay for desexing, microchipping, worming, vaccination, it's hundreds of dollars more than the four hundred-odd dollars that you'll pay for an animal when our prices are that high, which they haven't been for ages because we've had so many of them. So this is designed to get those animals that belong to people who can't afford to desex their animals, who wouldn't normally desex their animals because of the prohibitive cost, and who add to the burden of unwanted animals.

If you want to hear what this crisis looks like, that box of kittens that Miss Robbie referred to was found at Yarramundi in a cardboard box smothered by a doona. On a stinking hot day, by accident, because someone pulled over to take a phone call. That's what this crisis looks like. I've got two other friends who've had cats dumped at their place in the last six months, who've raised and rehomed them and paid the full costs themselves. In one instance, not necessarily, you know, with free access to the budget to do that. This is a real issue, and we can't put it off until the next budgetary program.

Penrith Council already has a similar agreement with their council. Council doesn't have to reinvent the wheel here. This is something that we can easily do and subsidise a program that's already existing, or we can roll it out to ourselves with the connections that we already have. But this needs to be done now. It can't wait. We also need to make sure that the policies are in place to ensure that people can't just come and continually take reduced-fee cats and dogs. The problem of on-selling in the car park was certainly, we think, largely fixed by some of the provisions from the Animal Shelter Review, but we haven't got mechanisms to stop—well, we didn't have mechanisms until very recently when we digitalised all our records—to stop people repeatedly coming.

It was very difficult to track whether people were coming more than once to the shelter and getting more and more animals at that $29 fee. So we had people who were able to come back, people who had animals taken off them because they'd been convicted of animal cruelty previously, people with hoarding disorder, and people who were on-selling, particularly some of the more boutique and pedigree breed dogs. Which, when we're in a crisis mode, we sell for 29 bucks just like everything else. So, you know, we've sold dogs worth three to $5,000 for— 500 bucks, because they're the policies at our shelter. So we have to have some policies in place that mean that our staff can refuse people access to dogs and cats when they don't think that they're going to good homes, that we take on that responsibility of being the bad guy in that instance, and they just say, I'm sorry, that's a policy, we can't do it, and that's the end of the discussion.

That's what that clause for. The amendment doesn't have that clause.

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

No, I'll put the amendment. Those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour are Councillor Reardon , Councillor Veigel, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Conolly, and Councillor McMahon . Those against, please raise your hand. Councillor Sheather, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, and Councillor Zamprogno. I declare the amendment carried on the casting vote of the Mayor. The amendment becomes the motion. Anyone else wishing to speak on the motion?

Councillor Kotlash.

Can

I ask a question?

Yes .

I take Councillor Wheeler's point about the policy work that needs to be done, but can I just clarify, it says in the business paper that we've got— I'll put my glasses on so I've got no idea what I'm talking about— Council has begun the implementation of the software for the management of the hoarding and the over-subscribing to, over-adopting rather.

Is this, is why are we talking about this? Is this running now, and is that going to solve the problem? The reason I didn't put it in the amendment, it seemed to me that we were already doing it, so there wasn't anything to actually see here. Is that— well, that's what I, that's why I'm asking the question, because if we're not doing it, then I'll add a point to the amendment , the motion, rather, to add it. But it seems— I don't want to read out the point in the business paper. Can we have some clarification? Director of City Planning.

Thank you. Through you, Madam Mayor, this is with regards to the tracking of residents to stop over-adoption. Yes, as in the note by management and also noted by Councillor Wheeler, it is a very recent implementation within the shelter, so it has literally only been up and running, you know, since very late 2023. But it's only a recent innovation at the shelter, but we do have the capacity to track animal adoptions now to prevent over-adoption.

Thank you. Can I ask just one more question? If people are over-adopting and then on-selling at a higher price, no doubt, because it's— I mean, I don't know anything about this. Is there some data on that that we can get to actually wekensell, I don't know, these special animals at a higher price? Like, it seems to me that that's a good thing, not a bad thing, if people are making a cottage industry about rehoming. General Manager.

Through you, Madam Mayor, the answer of have we got the data arising out of the animal shelter? No, no. With only the recent implementation of the shelter management software, we literally don't have those records. In terms of flexible and variable pricing, for example, based on breed type, if that's the suggestion, we don't do that or have the capacity for that at this point. That's not to say that that's not a future initiative that we couldn't look at.

Anyone else wishing to speak on the motion? Councillor, Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I want to thank both Councillor Kotlash and Councillor Wheeler for bringing this matter forward. It is certainly a tragedy what's happening to our domestic animals, and I know that Councillor Kotlash's aim in moving the amendment was basically to help the situation and make things work even better. And I think it's a shame that it ended up in this chamber becoming more of a conflict between the motion and the amendment, when actually I saw it as an opportunity for the two things to be welded together because I think we're all moving, or trying to move, in the same direction. I'm just wondering now about the point four in the original notice of motion about allocating $5,000, etc.

Does the new motion necessarily preclude that, or if we want to do that, do we need to specifically add it?

General Manager.

Through you, Madam Mayor, I think they're probably at conflict, Deputy Mayor, particularly in relation to the second part of point two.

Deputy Mayor, was that all? Thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak on the motion? Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. As I said when this came as an amendment, this simply doesn't go far enough. I can't believe that for the first council meeting, after all the discussion that we had last year, we've had a perfectly reasonable motion that allocates the princely sum of five grand, an amount that no doubt we blew up in smoke a hundred times over last week, and we can't allocate that to make some animals' lives better because we had to have a contest in the chamber with winners and losers. It's really bloody disappointing. I agree that is

Unacceptable, Councillor Wheeler. That is not— I withdraw. Yeah, thank you for withdrawing it, because this is a democracy and people can vote how they wish.

Yeah, they can, and people can say what they wish as well, frankly, when they're disgusted by the behaviour of their colleagues.

There are serious problems with cats and dogs in the Hawkesbury. This asks for $5,000 as a stopgap measure for the next five months,

And we can't do that. That's too hard.

We have been told by the organisation that is covering our inability to bridge this problem, to fix this problem, that they are beyond capacity, well beyond capacity.

Point of order, Madam Mayor. What was your point of order? I think Councillor Wheeler's tone and her angry response at me is—

No, I really

Look,

I agree with

You, Councillor Kotlash. Point of order. Somebody's tone— that is not a point of order. No, I agree not specifically with the tone, but perhaps with the accusatory comments that are coming out of Councillor Wheeler's mouth. I understand that there's passion in this debate, but you cannot throw accusations like that at other councillors.

I didn't throw any accusations, and I urge Councillor Kotlash to find the point in the code of meeting practice that forbids me from being angry about an injustice like this that affects the welfare of animals in our LGA.

Well, to be

Honest, Councillor, while she does that, I will just

Let you know under the code of meeting practice, you cannot impute improper motives, and you have done that. That's my belief. You have done that within the content that you have discussed. I'll let you proceed.

Thank you.

We still don't have in place, and this motion gets us nowhere closer to having strong policies to prevent animal hoarding, cruelty and on-selling. The fact that we undercut the market, the suggestion that we undercut the market by selling ourselves is not going to solve this problem. The point of the animal shelter is to provide a service and to improve the living conditions and the welfare of animals in the LGA. It's not to turn a profit. It's one of those services that we are just going to have to keep throwing money at, because that's what we do. That's our commitment to animal welfare. But instead, we let— this is flaccid . It doesn't get us. It gets us to a discussion that we were going to have anyway.

The original motion was a budget pitch, both for 2024 and for the next five months. It was for some strong policies that our staff can rely on. It was to make note that our programs have knock-on effects to other organisations, and it was a commitment to work with those organisations to make things better on the ground, both for the animals and for the volunteers who work so hard. What we've got here instead is a chat and maybe some money in 2024-25. It doesn't get us anywhere near where we're supposed to be. I'm really disappointed that half the chamber have supported this, that half the chamber thought this was enough.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I speak against the motion. I think the most disappointing thing about this is the missed opportunity, not just the missed opportunity to put some money towards an immediate action, and as Councillor Wheeler just pointed out, you know, it will be a good six months or more before we can allocate any money to that. But it was a missed opportunity to follow up on what Miss Robbie had mentioned about a potential participation in a trial, which we could have been a part of. She said the Hawkesbury was ideal for that, and had I had an opportunity to do an amendment, I would have asked for an amendment around that on Councillor Wheeler's original motion.

Well, because this amendment was different , Councillor Kotlash. I do agree with Councillor Wheeler that we did do an exercise where we all agreed collectively not to do this sort of thing in the chamber of just altering motions on the spotlight that. And we were criticised, in fact, for having done that. And here we are on the first meeting, and that's exactly what's happened.

The opportunities that we miss when we don't support people who are putting their time and effort into trying to assist the council to manage something which is clearly a problem is really, really disappointing. I think that we have to acknowledge that we can't do all these services on our own. We rely on the volunteers who do all of this, and we have simply now got a motion that again, as so often, delays, delays, delays because we're not going to take any immediate action. We're going to leave it for later. So I apologise to Ms. Robbie and the people out there who are working so hard, and to the people at the shelter, that we could not find it within a majority of people to put $5,000 of, in our current budget, towards looking to either participating in a trial or to going towards some sort of subsidised program that could assist with the current cat overload. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Conolly.

Thank you. Obviously there's a lot of passion in the debate. I just want to point out that the amendment doesn't say we're not going to do it. I think the problem here is that there's some councillors in the room that know a lot more about this than some of the rest of us. So for someone who wasn't necessarily across this detail to the degree that Councillor Wheeler was, I looked at the motion and it said going on the basis of one page of information and one quite credible but one speaker, and the amendment that said we probably should be doing something about this, let's go and get all the information and make a decision. I think that's all that happened. I don't think it needs to be so. I don't understand why it's descended into this sort of argument back and forth.

I think everyone's pushing in the same direction. It's just that some people are ready to go and other people require more information to make an informed decision. So that's the reason I support the amendment.

Councillor Collins, you have a question? Yes, I have. I'm really sorry, but I don't have any information on any trial that we have not been— Councillor— I thought, Madam Mayor,

That isn't a question. Pardon?

Is that a question? That's a statement. I'm getting there.

Can I finish? Please proceed, Councillor.

Get on with it. Councillor Lyons-Buckett, honestly, you've been rude multiple times already. You're talking about a fresh start to the new year. I'd ask you to have some manners.

I have not been rude. That was a rude comment to me.

Please don't speak over the chair. Telling her to get on with it as you sit back in your chair is rude. So don't point the finger at people when you engage in much worse behaviour. Please continue, Councillor Kotlash. Sorry, yeah, okay.

My question was, Councillor Lyons-Buckett mentioned something about doing a trial with the Animal Welfare League. I don't know anything about that. I would be very, very happy to say, let's spend $5,000 on engaging in a trial, because that would be something that, you know, is a good thing. Now, my question is, where is that information? I don't have that in front of me. I can't find it in the business paper. Is there a trial going on? I'm sorry, I've missed it. That's my frustration. I'm being accused of not caring or something, and I would love the opportunity to join a trial. Can I have some clarification on that, please? Thank you, Councillor.

Madam Mayor, could I assist? I'll go to the Director of City Planning. Yeah,

Thank you, through you, Madam Mayor. As I understand, it was something that was referred to in general terms by the speaker and then also mentioned by Councillor Wheeler that it was something that the Animal Welfare League had underway. Thank you.

Sorry. Yep. Am I able to add a point four to the motion? I am seconded. And I would be happy to have the help of councillors that know more about this than I do to help formulate the wording of this point. Point four could say that we look at a budgetary variation in the next quarter that gives $5,000 towards a, and I'm sorry, I don't still know what the trial would be, a trial with the Animal Welfare League, if that leads us to having more data and more knowledge about what we are actually tackling.

Would you be happy with that, Councillor Calvert, Deputy Mayor? Thank you.

Oh, sorry, it's become the motion. Councillor, I'm just getting some clarification. That's fine. Thank you.

Councillor Wheeler has moved the motion and seconded by Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you. Would you, Councillor Wheeler, be happy to add that as a point four?

No, I'll bring it to the next council meeting so that we can have a better discussion and a better understanding. It's not the same as a subsidised desexing program. It's a trial designed, my understanding of it, and my understanding is limited, which is why I'm not willing to include it at this point. It's a trial that looks at, in particular, community cats and stopping the flow of cats from—

Not responsibly owned, let's call them, cats to community cats, to becoming community cats or colony cats, stray cats. So it's a little bit more complex, and I think we need to have a proper discussion before we allocate—given that we can't allocate money to a program that's already working, it seems a bit of a stretch to allocate money at the drop of a hat to something that we actually don't know very much about at this point.

I'm just going to make a comment here, and my comment is that it's disappointing that the debate entered this sort of situation. I do think we all have the best interests at heart when it does come to looking after animals.

Without being disrespectful, though, I have to agree with Councillor Kotlash and Councillor Connolly's remarks that the notice of motion had no background information to it. It relied on some notes by management, but we are not all experts in that field, and we have had multiple debates in this chamber about throwing money at things when other councillors don't understand what it's for or why we're doing it. So unfortunately , the motion has come to this chamber without any supporting data or any supporting information for people who are not passionate or understanding or experts in this field. So I think it would be, you know, it's very critical to discuss the wasting of funds in other ways, but expect councillors who are not up to date on this subject matter to put money towards something that we have not been supplied with any background information or any data.

I mean, point one, for example, in the notice of motion. Notes that the $29 adoption programs have been very effective, but how is that backed up? That's a subjective sentence that's not backed up with facts. So the notice of motion was making grand statements like that that weren't backed up. So I don't... I understand why this amendment has come up, because some councillors just don't have the information available to put $5,000 towards that. And it says here in the original notice of motion in point four to be funded by a quarterly review variation. Well, what if the quarterly review variations, the next couple coming up, are all negative? There won't be $5,000. So there's a lot of assumptions and a lack of data in this notice of motion, and I think that's why the amendment was moved, so that councillors can be informed before they allocate ratepayers' money to a third party organisation.

Now, if that was the case, people could bring notices of motion all the time for their favourite third party organisations and say, Let's put ratepayers' money to this. And as the general manager just explained, that needs to have legal terms around it and agreements and signed governance contracts and things like that. And so it can't just be done willy-nilly. So I'm unfortunately saying the notice of motion lacks data, it lacks supporting evidence, and I think that that's why the amendment gives councillors that chance to be briefed and get the information they need. I would have liked maybe point two where it says, Early in the budgetary process for 24-25, to have said, Once we receive the briefing and if there is a positive budget variation, then we could allocate funding.

I think that was maybe what point two could have said. I'd have to get the agreement of Councillor Wheeler and Lyons-Buckett to make that change to point two, if they were willing to make that change to point two. Would there be a willingness? No? Okay, thank you. Well, hopefully a lesson can be learned there about putting a notice of motion that give more information to councillors who are making financial decisions, rather than expecting them to know the content of subject matters they may not be experts

On. Point of order, Madam Mayor

I've already made that point. I'm just rehashing something I've already said, Councillor Wheeler. I'd made that point at the start of my comments. The notice of motion doesn't have supporting evidence.

I'm not arguing that it does. You've heard plenty of supporting evidence, though, from the representative of the Animal Welfare League, or are we to infer that she doesn't know what she's talking about?

There was no inference there at all, and I think this is getting out of hand, and I think that most rational people can see that there is an intent on this chamber to do something about that. Point of order

Madam Mayor. Point of order. What

Is your point of order?

You have just made reference to rational people. I'll withdraw my comments. Thank you. Thank you very much. You are treading as fine a line as you accused me

Councillor Wheeler, you'd be right on for a code of conduct, so you need to be careful about the line you're treading as well. Okay, I will therefore, if there's no other comments, I'll put the right of— go to the— oh sorry, Councillor Dogramaci.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Everyone who has been in Turkey, Turkey and now knows that, you know, our love and passion for animals, especially for cats. And from day one, you know me. I say sometimes, you know, without thinking and straightforward. I don't know why do we have to discuss this matter. I mean, do we not trust, you know, to this lady? We have to go spend, you know, hours, you know, sometimes and in coming months with our budget review or whatever. Don't we trust this lady? Instead of just going around and around, how much does she need? She can open a bank account and give her ten, fifteen, twenty thousand dollars. I mean, what's $20,000 in a while? We are wasting, you know, so much money. That's personal, of course, especially that $40 million that, you know, I'm boiling every day.

So what's $20,000? Just get her in a [unclear] account. We trust her, and then we don't have to come in here and make, you know, something out of, just for the sake of, you know, saying something, you know, to look like an important person or whatever it is, just to make a comment. Just get on with it.

Please don't impute those improper motives, and no, we can't just give people $20,000 at a whim. That's not how a proper organisation such as a council works.

Well, we are paying, we are giving, you know, so much money to organisations and associations and this and that. Councilor, you have

The right during the budgetary process coming up to put things in the budget that you want, and you have a chance to vote on that when we vote on the next budget.

But does it always have to be in like, you know, red tape and that sort of thing?

Welcome to local government, where we're governed by state government who tells us what we can

And can't. You told me, so many councillors have told me that too as well

Thank you. Is there any other remarks? No, thank you. Right of reply, Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. Look, I'm really sorry, and I'm particularly sorry to the Animal Welfare League that this has descended into the farce that it is. We needed to do this quickly. I'm sorry that I didn't write a lengthy background. I would have thought that this would be fairly obvious. We've been running a $29 adoption program for a couple of months now. Obviously, when everybody here signed off on the operational plan and the delivery plan, I would imagine that you read that, and you know that we charge in excess of $350 for an animal normally purchased from the shelter. So it would be fairly obvious that if you flog them off for 29 bucks, you're running at a loss. I don't think point one is difficult to understand, and I don't know that I needed to put a great Excel spreadsheet explaining all the data for point one to hold.

I'm asking for a review of the policies at the shelter, and I have explained why. That's not information that I wanted to put in graphic detail in the public domain in a notice of motion because it's problematic, and that's why there isn't a lengthy background about that as well.

I've asked for a briefing. That's easy. We're still going to get a briefing, but nothing will happen between now and the briefing.

We needed action on the ground. This motion doesn't deliver that. It just delivers another chat and a pat on the back for an organisation that we're not willing to support, but whose free labour we are willing to use. And that's not good enough. At the end of the day, the animals are the losers out of this motion, and I can't support it. I will endeavour to bring another motion to Council next month, so we've lost another couple of weeks, looking at the Jackie Rand trial. It's called Getting Them Home, Keeping Them Home. It focuses on rehoming and spaying, and hopefully we can buy into that. It's run by a university professor. I'm sure there's buckets of data that will keep everybody happy. Thanks.

Thank you, Councillor. All those in favour of the motion, please raise your hand. In favour are Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Calvert, Councillor McMahon, and Councillor Conolly. Those against, please raise your hand. Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, and Councillor Zamprogno. Absent from the room is Councillor Kotlash. I declare the motion carried.

The next item is item— oh, sorry, we'll go to the items on block. The items on block are items 4.4.2, 4.4.3, 4.4.5, 4.4.6, 5.1.1 and 5.1.2. Can I have someone move that way? Councillor Veigel, seconded Councillor Reardon. All in favour, please raise your hand. In favour, Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Semprogno, Councillor McMahon and Councillor Conolly. I declare the items on block carried. The next item—

Item is item 4.3.1, Draft Western Sydney Regional Affordable Housing Contribution Scheme. Do I have anyone wishing to move anything, please?

I'm going to move it.

Thank you, Councillor Conolly, seconded Councillor Kotlash. Councillor Conolly.

I'm happy to move this to put it on exhibition. It's a step in the right direction. I'm interested to see what feedback we get. I think that it's almost a little bit disappointing that we sort of put the best and brightest minds together we came up with, we'll just levy new developments, we'll just charge a levy and use that money to provide really a drop in the ocean when it comes to what we need for affordable housing. I still think, given we've done all that work, we should put it on exhibition. But I just wanted to signal that I kind of hope that we get some better ideas out of this and that maybe we're in a position to provide some meaningful feedback once we've completed our consultation.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Wheeler. Thanks, Madam Mayor. I agree with Councillor Conolly. It's a start, I think. It's got some really good objectives. It recognises that pooled resources will work better across the region because they'll allow for more money to be collected. They'll be able to put housing closer to transport hubs. They'll probably allow for greater diversity of built form, and it will deal with problem areas like our own with a large floodplain. I again agree with Councillor Conolly: it doesn't go far enough. The principles are sound. They include the need for affordable housing to be held in perpetuity, and I think that is really, really important. But there are currently 100,000 people in New South Wales sitting on the public housing waiting list.

It's between seven and 10 years long to get a house, and thousands more are in rental stress and require more affordable housing. It's my belief that this scheme should include non-residential development. After all, those developments require workers and customers, and they are best housed close to work and places of business. City of Sydney runs between 0.8 and 3% for residential development, and 1.1 to 3% for non-residential development. I think 3% is something that would actually make a difference. We need about 30% of new dwellings in Western Sydney to be affordable housing, and of those, 10% to be public and social housing. And these are figures that come out of organisations like ACOSS.

The policy should also apply to knockdown rebuilds and change of use if that use reduces the amount of affordable housing. And it should be noted that this policy clearly states that all new development in Western Sydney will reduce the availability of affordable housing. We know that here through bitter experience. Those who touted Redbank and Pitt Town as opportunities for affordable housing were clearly mistaken. That's clearly been borne out that neither of those developments have provided affordable housing, neither rental nor purchasable affordable housing.

It's apparently set at a really low rate so that it doesn't undermine the delivery of development. There's no chance of it undermining the delivery of development. Anyone who's driven up Windsor or Richmond Road can attest that development is running apace.

The great shame of this policy, this proposal, I think, is that it's come now and not 10 years ago. Before we covered the hills and Blacktown in residential development, we could really have made a difference if we'd extracted some money from those developments. We need between— this will deliver between 4,800 and 6,800 affordable rental dwellings over 10 years. That's not enough. What I'm hoping is that we get some submissions to this effect, but if not, I'll put on notice that I'd like Hawkesbury to test the water with our neighbouring councils to push the contribution level to between 2 and 3 per cent. The need, as stated, to be 82,700 households across Western Sydney in 2021. That's two years ago, and we know it's got worse since then.

Those numbers will rise to 129,000 in the next two decades. 6,800 houses is not going to plug that hole. Local government shouldn't have to do it all, but we should be able to do more than 5,000 over 10 years. So I'm happy to endorse this going on public exhibition, but I'm putting the chamber on notice that I'll be looking to increase that contribution, and the development team applies to when it comes back to us.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Zamprogno.

Thank you. I'd just like to echo Councillor Wheeler and Councillor Connolly's remarks. There is a very clear need for us to have an aspirational target for affordable housing, and my only caution in endorsing this is that good becomes the enemy of better, is that we adopt this and think that we've done what we need to do. I agree with Councillor Wheeler that if we place this on exhibition, if we adopt this, then that doesn't let the matter rest. We have to return to this, and I don't think that there's anything that should stop us from aspiring to a higher target, so long as we've modelled the economics of that and the unintended consequences of that. So I'll support this, but support the sentiments that have been expressed.

Thank you, Councillor Veigel. Yeah

Thanks, Madam Mayor. I too will support the document. I thank the Council for the comments, but I do have a question about the instrument when the money gets raised by Council about where that goes and who allocates it. If you could just, if I can throw that question through you, Madam Mayor, to the Director. Thank you. I'll refer that to

The—

But can I just add to, I suppose a document of this is probably better late than never, but will it go far enough to address the needs of affordable housing in New South Wales? Well, with all the issues with labour supply and skill, and also material supply, I wish them all the best, but I know we're in a crisis and it needs to be acted very, very promptly, dare I say.

Thank you. Manager Strategic Planning.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. So, in terms of the collection and distribution of contributions, so each Council is responsible for levying the contributions that apply to the plan. So each Council collects the money from developers as part of development applications. Then, in terms of when there's enough contributions collected, there's basically an agreement entered into with the Department of Community and Justice, who also have an agreement with community housing providers to basically nominate where the land is, what are the requirements of that particular affordable housing development, and also the requirements to have restrictions on title that it's in perpetuity. So it's basically, as I say, an agreement between Council and the State Government, who then enter into agreements with community housing providers.

Councillor Sheather.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Mayor. There's a lot of things on this planet that we get concerned about. We're here to serve the people in the Hawkesbury, and what we're talking about here is putting imposts on people in the Hawkesbury when they develop a property for housing, and they're going to pay the bill. The indifference between the housing crisis here in the Hawkesbury and across the country is not all our responsibility. Our responsibility starts and stops here. We can certainly have input into other programs, but we need to be mindful that the imposts that we will have on our residents is going to be within this document. In saying that, when we had the briefing the other week, I made some comments in support of it,

And one of the things I spoke of was not cutting off your nose to spite your face. That is that people who are building houses, you make it affordable, because if you make it unaffordable, then they go on the housing list, as already been indicated by Councillors, bad already. So a first home buyer or the like needs every chance they can get. We put imposts here all the time. We've got koala policies and flood policies and fire policies and all the rest of it. And if you ask consultants how much it costs. By the time you get to the end of it, you're looking at big money before you turn aside to build a house. This is another impost in that regard, because the people I'm talking about might be able to afford to build a house.

If we persist with this, then they're going to go on the waiting list. And I don't believe that we address those issues in lots of cases where we debate these things in council.

I was listening to the radio the other morning about development on the North Shore, and they were talking about fire brigade, police, ambulance, and the like, as we need affordable housing there for these people. Now, I suspect all of them are getting over $100,000,

And the criteria, I don't know whether it's being proposed to be changed by the state government or not. But I suggest there's a lot of people in our community that don't earn that money that would love their own house, don't want to rely on social welfare, including affordable housing, and things like this make it harder. So, Madam Mayor, I'm happy to have it go on exhibition. But I believe that in our case, we've got 1% growth. I don't know what Blacktown has got, and that's who we've been looked to partner with. But I suspect we haven't got a lot to offer Blacktown, and I suspect they're going to have their own problems. So to offer us support,

I'd like to think so, but I don't know if that's going to happen. We have the ability to have voluntary agreements with development. That doesn't impact on first home buyers, but certainly has a big impact on the opportunity where you've got developers who have the opportunity to incorporate costs like this within the development and know the costs of the projects before they even start. And I believe that's an option that we should be looking at very seriously. So, Madam Mayor, and those sort of options create an atmosphere, I guess, of opportunity and don't create that impost on an individual family who's just trying to build a house. So I have issues, and there's some other questions that I want to speak to the staff about in relation to individual costs on properties in different locations within our city.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I really appreciate the work that has been done on this because if it were not done in this manner with the joint, you know, initiative, it would be a very expensive and lengthy thing for us to be paying for ourselves. And given it's a state government directive, we have to do it. We have to come up with one of these contributions plans. So there's some positives in it, but as others have said, I also think it falls far too short. The positives in it are being pooled with Blacktown. The pairing of high growth areas with low growth areas is definitely something that gives a few more legs in terms of delivering. But when I was reading it, I actually saw the figures, and I thought it was 4,800 to 6,800 per year, and I thought, yeah, that's pretty good.

That's really going to make a difference. But then I saw that that was over 10 years and that it doesn't even start until 2027. So none of this is getting us really close to addressing the crisis in the interim. I think that the—I hear the concerns that Councillor Sheather has just raised, because I do know that there are many, many costs with building a house, of course. Personally, I would be, you know, I think most people are happy to contribute to making sure that affordable housing becomes a reality in this state. And I think that that's one of the areas of feedback from the public that we need to really understand. You know, people may be prepared to put in more. It's something that we really—we want our key workers to be able to afford housing, and just to point out that affordable housing is not the same as public housing or social housing, but we want people to be able to afford things, and we don't want them to be put off proceeding.

But it's really probably quite minimal compared to many of the other fees and charges that are imposed on people. I think that if there was a real issue around the contributions, that there must be some sort of tiered contribution where—I don't know how that would work—but I think if that's raised as an issue, that is probably something that really needs to be looked at. We've missed the boat, essentially, in this area because we've had what we would consider to have been our more major developments, and they have gone through without having this imposed on them.

Yeah, I really do think that this is perhaps another—it's sort of almost another example of cost shifting from the state government, because as we know. The state government has told us we have to do it, and yet the state government for decades has not provided adequate public housing, and there's a deficit in that, and that all contributes to the problem. So we do hope that something like this will work. I think that theoretically it works. Practically, maybe another matter for various reasons. One thing I do note, though, is that within the document, I found that the examples given around the contributions were not really good examples to have given. They don't really let you know what you're going to be up for.

They're sort of unusual . I'm just wondering if what sort of explanation would we be giving people to encourage them to give feedback, how they would understand what exactly this—quite by the time you do both of the documents, or however many documents we need, it may be quite confusing. Will we provide a summary that clearly articulates what exactly this is all about and what it would mean for someone building a house so that people can give us their honest feedback around how we proceed forward? Because the goal to provide more affordable housing, I think, is something that everybody supports. So I think it would be really good if people understood it and we hear what they think is either good about it or problematic about it.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. As you'd be aware, affordable housing is an issue that I've been a

Champion of for many years, and— I was

Very much instrumental in working on our own council's affordable housing policy back around about 2016 or 17. But I came to the realisation back then that councils can't really do a lot about affordable housing. To me , provision of housing is a state government responsibility. And this new plan here, which is part of, I think, the Western Sydney City Deal, which came in in 2018, to me, it really appears to be mostly tokenism. I mean, 4,000 to 6,000 houses across that area over 10 years, starting in 2027 , that's not going to do anything for the housing crisis that we've got in Western Sydney. It appears to me to be just something that that body, the City Deal body, can hold up and say that they're actually doing something when, in fact, they're not.

Back in the 1960s and 70s, we used to have what was called the New South Wales Housing Commission, and they built thousands of public houses every year. And what that did was it took the pressure off the housing market, so the prices of housing didn't rise as quickly, and people could afford housing. In the 60s and 70s, you only needed one person to be working, one breadwinner, and with that they could afford a house. Today, you need at least three jobs, three incomes coming in to afford a house. I saw on TV the other day that one family has had their mortgage increase by $1,800 a month in just the last year. Now, that's not their total mortgage. That's the increase in their mortgage.

And I firmly believe that is because of the pressure on the housing market, since housing has been left to the open market. It's been left to market forces to solve the problem. Market forces, in my opinion, will never solve the problem of providing housing for the general public. It'll provide housing for some people who can afford it, and good on those people. But for those people, and it's looking like people, as Councillor Sheather said, people on $100,000, which used to be a good income, those people can't. The market is not enabling those people to afford housing anymore. Prices are increasing and rents are increasing, and that's just due to supply and demand. And in my opinion, that whole process can be slowed down and turned around if the New South Wales government went back into public housing in a large way.

What's happening here is more or less shifting the problem to us and asking us to do something about it and telling us we have to do something about it. It's not our problem. It never was. And to put the pressure on us like this and say, You need to fix it, to me, I think that's totally unfair and unrealistic. A couple of years ago, the then Minister for Western Sydney, Stuart Ayres, came to a WestROC meeting and I asked him then about public housing and why his government was no longer involved in a big way in public housing, and he laughed. And I've never forgiven him for that. He actually laughed at me and said, Surely you don't expect the state government to get involved in public housing.

To which I replied, Yes, I do, and you should be involved in a big way. And since that time, I'm talking about five years ago, the price of housing has just skyrocketed and people can no longer afford it. So look, I do congratulate the people who put this together. I think it's well written and it may have some legs. But to me, it's not going to solve the housing problem. And we have no choice to support it because it will possibly provide housing for a few people, and that's good. But it's not going to solve the problem. And anyone who thinks it will is not being realistic.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak? Right of reply, Councillor Conolly? Not necessary. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour: Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor McMahon, and Councillor Conolly. I declare the item carried.

The next item is item 4.4.1, investigation to the proposed Grose River Bridge Project, Yarramundi.

I will—

Madam Mayor, as the person who sought your indulgence to pull it back from on block, the discussion that I'm intending to have is probably best held in confidential.

Okay, I will put this item then into the confidential session. Thank you. So that will go after item 8.1.1. We will have item 4.4.1. Thank you, Councillor.

The next item is 4...

4.4.4, transfer of road closure, Irrigator Drive, North Richmond. I will read out my interest, significant non-pecuniary. I have a non-pecuniary interest in a property in that vicinity, and I'll ask the Deputy Mayor to please chair this item.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councillors. Item 4.4.1 has come up because the Mayor has declared an interest, which means it moves itself out of being on block and is open for discussion. Would anyone like to move anything? Councillor Sheather.

Move the recommendation.

Move the recommendation. Do we have a seconder? Councillor Reardon, thank you. You wish to discuss any, talk to the motion? Any discussion on the motion?

No. Well, the recommendation has been moved and seconded, and there's no discussion, so I'll put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour, Councillor Reardon , Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Kotlash , Councillor Conolly, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno, and Councillor Calvert. Declare the matter passed . I'll ask for the Mayor to come back, please.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. The next item is 7.1.1, responses to councillor questions taken on notice at the Council meeting 12 December 2023. Any remarks? No.

Thank you. I'll just —

The next item is 7.1.2, questions with notice, 30th of January 2024. Any remarks, councillors? No, thank you very much.

The next two items on the agenda are confidential in nature. We will need to move into confidential. Move that way, Councillor Lash, seconded by Councillor Veigel. All those in favour, please raise your hand. Declare that unanimously. Thank you. We'll now go into confidential. Oh, hold on one moment, Councillors. Before we do, one item is for Councillors only. One item is for Councillors and staff.

I'll just seek some advice on the order we need to proceed given the technology. Won't be a moment.

We will proceed. The first item in confidential will be 4.4.1. Thank you.

Thank you everybody. Hawkesbury City Council meeting for the 30th of January 2024 is now back in session after some time in confidential. I'll now hand over to the General Manager.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. In regards to item 4.4.1 regarding the invest— we'll ask the Mayor to declare an interest before I read the minutes on that item.

Thank you, General Manager. I declare an interest in that item, a less than significant non-pecuniary interest due to a future matter that will be in that vicinity. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Yes, in regards to item 4.4.1, investigation into the Grose River Bridge project at Yarramundi. Whilst in closed session, the Council resolved on the motion of Councillor Zamprogno, seconded by Councillor Vaigel, that the investigation into the consideration of certain land associated with the proposed Grose River Bridge project be received and noted. For the motion were Councillors Conolly, Calvert, Djuric, Dogramaci, Kotlash, Lyons-Buckett, Vaigel, Reardon, McMahon, Sheather, Wheeler, Zamprogno, and Dogramaci.

Thank you, General Manager. I will now read out the resolution and outcome in regards to item 8.1.1, Mayoral Minute regarding the renewal of the General Manager contract. Whilst in closed session, the Council resolved on the motion of Councillor Mayor McMahon, as it was a Mayoral Minute, that in accordance with the provisions of clause 5.2 of the contract of employment of the General Manager, Elizabeth Richardson, Council offer Elizabeth Richardson a new contract of employment in the position of General Manager for a period of three years following the expiry of her current contract, namely commencing 31st of May 2024, on the basis of an annual total remuneration package of $387,500 at that time, and schedules A and B of the contract being in the same terms as contained in the current contract.

Point two, authority be given to the Mayor to execute the General Manager's contract of employment on behalf of Council in line with the above terms. For the motion were Councillors Reardon, Councillor Vaigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, and Councillor McMahon. Against the motion were Councillors Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno, and Councillor Dogramaci. That being the end of the business for this meeting, I thank Councillors for their participation, and I declare the meeting closed at 9.55 p.m. Thank you everybody.