Council Meeting - 13 February 2024

Good evening, everybody. Welcome to Hawkesbury City Council's meeting for the 13th of February 2024. 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 now hand over to the General Manager.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Members of the public attending the meeting this evening are advised that in the event of an emergency, you'll be asked to proceed in an orderly manner to the nearest exit following the guidance of our warden. I would also like to advise that in accordance with clause 5.33 of the Code of Meeting Practice, meetings of the Council are recorded. In the terms of the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act, this may involve the recording of personal information provided at the time of the meeting. The recordings are made to assist staff in compiling the minutes of the meeting and to enable the podcasting of Council meetings. The provision of any information that is recorded is voluntary.

If any person does not wish to be recorded, they should not address or request to address the meeting. The recordings may be made available to other persons where such access is in accordance with the relevant regulations, 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 their mobile phone on them, can they please turn it off or turn it to silent? Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Thank you, General Manager. Are there any apologies this evening? I will note that obviously there is one councillor missing. That's Councillor Conolly. He was here previously and has had to leave due to an impending matter, so Councillor Conolly is an apology. Any declarations of interest, please, councillors?

Councillor Wheeler. Thanks, Madam Mayor. I have a non-significant non-pecuniary interest in item 4.4.1 and a less significant non-pecuniary interest in item 4.5.2.

And 4.5.2.

Any other interest, councillors? I'll just note my own. That is items 4.5.2 and 4.5.3. Sorry, councillors, I will need a motion to accept the apologies, if I can have someone move that way. Councillor Sheather, seconded Councillor Reardon. All those in favour, please raise your hand. That's unanimous. Thank you, councillors.

Confirmation of minutes, please. Thank you, Councillor Redden. Seconded, Councillor Veigel. All in favour, please raise your hand. Thank you, unanimously all councillors. Thank you very much.

To public address, the first item with a registered public speaker is item 4.2.1, 2024 National Assembly of Local Government conference motions, and our speaker is Michael Wont. Having read the Mayoral Minute and viewed the cost shifting report, I would urge councillors, or Council,

To consider lodging a notice of motion to the Australian Local Government Association along the lines, and I quote, that the ALGA conference calls on the federal government to direct the Productivity Commission to examine the social and financial gains, if any, by eliminating one level of government or something similar. That's the end of that proposal. I understand we have about 23 separate government territories, councils for our nearly 27 million inhabitants. I note the Australian Capital Territory has two levels of government for about 550,000 people. Tasmania has three levels for 650,000. Roughly, the feds collect about 80% of the taxes, state 16 and local government 4%. I do not know the intricacies of taxes collected by all governments from taxpayers.

I do know we have lots of duplications. We're taxed by all levels of three government, which is determined by politicians within those three levels of government. As you know, the local government has rate pegging, but local government can apply for extra taxes if they want more income, but must justify the need. The Commonwealth, states and both have responsibility, for example, health, housing, roads, transport and education, and more. A bit trickles down to local government. The taxes collected by the Commonwealth in particular provide services like health, transport, education, roads and other services. And, as I understand, some is then allocated to the states, along with the GST, territories and local government in the form of tied grants.

The state, and to a greater extent local government, rely on grants to provide extra services or infrastructure. Grants should not replace solid funding for infrastructure. The proposed notice of motion would at least show that Hawkesbury City Council are willing to participate in a debate with facts, figures and commentary from the Productivity Commission on the need or otherwise of three levels of government. I'm a strong believer in local government. That's if politicians engage with the community or their representatives. It is essential as local government is closest to the people. The cost shifting report commissioned by the Local Government Association indicates the report covers the time the Conservatives were in power federally and New South Wales.

I'll just repeat what the proposed motion is again

That the Australian Local Government Association conference calls on the federal government to direct the Productivity Commission to examine the social and financial gains, if any, by eliminating one level of government. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Want. Are there any questions, councillors? No, thank you, Mr. Want.

Thank you.

Could I have someone willing to move something, please? Councillor Lyons-Buckett. I'll move the motion in the business paper. Thank you. Someone second that

Thank you, Councillor Kotlash. Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Thank you, Madam Mayor, and thank you, Mr. Want, for coming forward with a suggestion for a motion. Currently, the recommendation in the business paper is for us to submit any potential notices of motion to the general manager by Friday the 23rd of February, and that may well be one, and then council will, of course, consider which ones are submitted to the conference. I just had a question: is it still the 23rd of February the deadline? Because I did today, as everyone probably did, receive an email from Local Government New South Wales saying they had extended the deadline to the 30th of April to go into them, but do we still have to have it in by the 23rd of February?

Oh, sorry, I might be wrong. Oh no, alga, it was alga. Yeah,

Yeah. Just seeking clarification, General Manager.

Through you, Madam Mayor, I haven't received that advice, Councillors. Okay, all right. So at this point in time, it would be the 23rd of February. Okay

All right. Thank you. I think this is, well, at this stage, we'll just wait, I guess, and see which motions people put in. But it is great to hear something from a member of the community with a suggestion of a motion. And I do have a couple of motions I'll be submitting as well. It's a very important conference, and I hope we'll have a few motions. In the past, generally all our motions have generally passed, so it's a good conference to attend.

Thank you, Councillor Sheather.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. If I could ask Councillor Mary-Lynne Buckett, that that be one and two, the Council prepare a motion in relation to the cost shifting

Thank you, Councillor. I think they'll just need to be submitted as per their recommendation. Thank you. Any other Councillors wishing to speak? No. Right of reply? Councillor Lines Buckett, not necessary. Thank you, Councillors. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour, Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Kotlash , Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramachi, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lines Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillors Ambrogno and Councillor McMahon. Absent from the room is Councillor Conolly. I declare the motion carried.

Public address is item 4.3.2, Bligh Park Community Services request for exclusive use of land, and the registered public speaker is Catherine Murphy. Thank you.

Hello, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak.

I want to address the

Mis- sorry, I want to address the misconceptions or the things that seem to be taken out of context in the report that you have, and I'd like to start on page 18. Page 18, paragraph 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. It says that Bligh Park Community Services have indicated that providing a fence around the basketball half court would address the safety concerns that the organisation has in relation to members of the public being able to access that space. We did not do that. A fence around the basketball court would not be fit to keep our children and young people safe. Turning on to the next page, page 19, the second paragraph from the bottom. On the 12th of June 2019, we wrote to Council advising that the prospective sale of Tiningi had impacted the service's ability to attract long-term haulers.

We had two haulers in, hiring five days a week in between them both, and we had a good social enterprise running, giving programs back to the community using that funding. What happened was that Council refused to give us an end date as to when the lease would be terminated for these two haulers. We repeatedly requested an end date and none was given, so we lost our haulers.

It then goes on, the final paragraph, that we wrote to the council suggesting that we would continue to manage the hall if council would pay all expenses associated with Taningi, other than administrative. The letters were not conducted in that way, and I have the letters with me.

If you go on to page 20, I was very surprised to read in paragraph 2, at the time of this report, Bligh Park Community Services has an outstanding balance of $26,684. This came as a surprise to both me and to my finance manager. In September of last year, we received from the accounts department of Hawkesbury City Council a bill for some twenty-five thousand and something dollars. My finance manager queried this bill and was advised that that was incorrect and the amount owed was six thousand and something dollars. That was paid in November of last year. Until I read this in a public document, it's the first I had any indication that council expected us to pay that money. I have to add that I think it is quite unfair to publicly malign an organisation saying they have a deficit of over $25,000 in an environment that's open to the public without giving that organisation the right of response or the right to query it.

Continuing down that page. I'm up to, so we're on page 21, 2, 3, 4, paragraph 5. It says the manager of Bligh Park, myself, wrote to Council advising that we would be suspending all activities from the 21st of October due to our request for exclusive use not being facilitated. That wasn't the reason. It was because we believed we could not keep our children and young people safe. Sorry, is that my time? Right, okay. Yes, we could not. Our children are as young as 12, and to have strangers trying to interact with them when they're outside breaches our duty of care, and it isn't safe to have that happen. I'll go on to the third paragraph from the bottom, where it says that during a meeting with the General Manager of Hawkesbury City Council, I advised that police were not phoned on any of the occasions that we had incidents.

That's untrue, and I believe that there was recorded minutes of that, even though I wasn't given the courtesy of receiving any minutes. The police have been informed. There are incident reports and there's a record. The final paragraph on that page states that at the meeting it was confirmed that an update to us on the progression of the work would be provided. The General Manager of Hawkesbury City Council gave me a verbal guarantee that we would be advised by the 31st of December 2023, as we had waited since August for a response to this question. That agreement was not honoured. Thank you. That's all I have to say at the moment.

Thank you very much. I'll just see if there's any questions. Councillor Lancaster. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you, Ms Murphy. Are you saying—we did get a revised, a supplementary business paper that had another debt figure there. Are you saying there is nothing owed by the centre to the Council?

I'm not aware that you were given a revised... Oh, sorry

Oh

I'm sorry, I did speak to a councillor today. I was invited by a councillor, not by Hawkesbury City Council staff, who I asked to advise me if there was. But no, I'm not aware that we are. Okay, so as far

As you know, there's no money owed at all? No. I'm just wondering, do you—when you say there's incidents there, and some have been police matters, have they been incidences of violence or what sort of— Yes

Violence and vandalism. Violence

And vandalism. Do your staff feel safe in that location?

Not without—prior to me asking for a letter so that I could engage in some meaningful dialogue with the police, some of the people who are committing the violence, the vandalism, are underage. So there's different legal ramifications for people under 18 if they're trespassing to what the police will do, which is why I needed the letter in the first place, to say that we were there. In the past, we have—I thought we had exclusive access, and I asked my staff to order people away. And people quite willingly went away, saying, You have a, you know, a program running. We'll go away. We'll come back later. So it's not a problem except with the kids under 18 who are there just to cause trouble. So they're not there trying to use the facilities? No, not at all.

Sorry, just one more thing. What outcome do you want to see from this discussion?

What I first wanted to see was some sort of letter from Council that we had exclusive access to some of the outside area, that we had the right to say, You can't be here right now. You can be here tomorrow. You can be here in two hours, but you can't be here now because we have children and young people present. That was what I was looking for. Apparently that's too hard. Thank you. Thank you.

Councillor Wheeler. Thank you. So, Ms. Murphy, can I just clarify, do you want a fence around the basketball court?

No, because a fence around the basketball court, the fence around the basketball court is freestanding. That means that the children and young people would have to leave the youth centre, walk out, be locked in to a half basketball court, and then call for a youth worker when they want to leave that half basketball court to get back inside the youth centre. When I suggested a fence

I said up against the wall of the youth centre, so similar to, with the community centre that has a little playground fence outside and a soft fall area, something of that nature was what I was seeking. So you're actually seeking not seeking something that will effectively fence the area off so that people can't physically get in. You're seeking something that's a demarcation line that will allow you or the police to have some sort of move-on powers. Is that correct? Yes. Thank you. That's very helpful.

Thank you. Oh, sorry, my microphone wasn't on. No, you're all good. Sorry, yes, I just realised my microphone wasn't on. Councillor Sheather.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Mayor. I gave the staff earlier— Apart from in relation to a recommendation that I'm proposing.

Okay, thanks. We'll wait for that to come up on the screen. Did you want to let us know what that was?

Yeah, it reads, the council further discuss with Bypark Community Services and the police, if necessary, to formulate exclusive use of the premises, that is the area that's used during the times of their tenancy.

Thank you. Do I have a seconder for that? Thank you, Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. I've had discussions with our staff, and it's not a simple exercise at all. But we've got thousands of halls in this state, and thousands of young kids, and I expect there's some frustration in a lot of places. Surely we can come up with something, and that's why I suggested in Part 4 that we discuss with the police. There's some issues that we discussed in a briefing and the like. Some of those I had some frustration with, and I approached the management in relation to those comments. I've got eight times that the police were called. I've got numbers that the police gave them, and indeed the police officers who served those numbers. There's clearly an issue with some young people who just want to be a nuisance.

And what I'm suggesting with this is that during the time that there is activity by this organisation, that they have some jurisdiction over the very land that they're in. We've got children with disabilities and the like who are— Somewhat discouraged to go there or be involved when these other people interfere with the activities of an organisation that's simply trying to give young people a pathway. And they probably know the law, being of that age, dealing with the police on a regular basis, more about it than you and I do. So what I'm suggesting is that the staff look at what opportunities there may be in relation to exclusive use areas. I believe that it can be designated simply by a map and the like that can be posted and given to the organisation, that during the hours when they are operating, that if it's necessary for them to exclude someone from the area because it interferes with the activity of that time, that if they can't do it, then they need to be able to call on someone with authority to do so.

And the police will not act unless you've got a letter of exclusive use. And I know because I've been in the situation myself. So, Madam Mayor, I don't know. You might

Just your microphone, please.

I didn't take the fence bit out. It doesn't say it has to go there, it just means if they want to put it there, it can do. So I'm not going to argue about that. I don't think the fence is appropriate, but I think there's opportunities with the staff. And if this sort of thing fails, we've got a building in a prime place to look after young people that'll be— Not utilised, or we're going to have to provide staff or other people to service it. So I think there's an opportunity for a good outcome if the staff can work with the appropriate people to come up with some solution that doesn't allow them to have to herd the young people into a building that's closed, and some of them agitated because of their disabilities.

So, Madam Mayor, I don't know where this will go, but I'd ask the council to support it, and I'm sure the staff will come back to us with information that it's either favourable or not.

Thank you, councillor. I just want to clarify. Yes, I knew exactly where you were going to say

I withdraw my second because what flashed up was only point four. I

Exactly knew that was going to be what you wanted to discuss. So you want all four points, Councillor Sheather, even though we've had some confusion around point two and three? Just so I can find a seconder for what you want, because councillor Lines' bucket has withdrawn. She just thought you were moving point four as a standalone. I would support one

And four.

I'm happy with one and four. The other information is all there. The reason I didn't take it out is there was not much point to it, but if the seconder is happy with one and four. Well

I just need to make sure what motion we're both happy on. Okay, one and four. One and four, and you're happy to still second that then, councillor Lines' bucket? Yes, Madam Mayor. Okay, thank you. If we can have that amended, please. Thank you. Excellent. Okay. Anyone else wishing to speak on the matter, please? Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. I'm glad that—I'm really grateful that Bligh Park Community Services have come along and addressed us about this, because if they hadn't, we would have dealt with the information in the report and we may have come to a different outcome. So thank you for coming in and giving up your evening to talk to us, and thank you for the work that you do in the community as well. It's really important. I think we're increasingly seeing on social media, and I don't know if it's necessarily an increase in activity, but it's certainly an increase in people reporting anti-social activity around the LGA. And unfortunately, some of it does seem to be coming from young people. We had a really unfortunate incident in North Richmond the other night with a group of kids trying to kill a water dragon after harassing a family with a young child in a cast.

We had a group of young idiots running around Wilberforce setting off firecrackers in the middle of the road the week before last. This is a compounding problem, I think, for the LGA. It's one of those things where the problem begets the problem, I think, where someone sees somebody doing it, getting some accolades, and then other people jump on the bandwagon. One of the reasons that the previous council refused to sell to Ningi was because it provided a really important hub for community activity at that end of Bligh Park, where we know we have a lot of young families who rely on community services to keep their kids occupied, but also to keep their kids safe, and to fill the gaps that parents who often have mortgages, jobs and long travel times find just in their day-to-day function.

And I think if you've ever spent any time at that end of Blyth Park, and I've spent quite a bit of time at that end of Blyth Park, you will see how heavily used that basketball court is as well. So my concern when this report came to us was that we would be fencing off what is a public asset from the community, and I'm really heartened to hear Blyth Park Community Services say that that isn't what they want. You know, I think that I've written here, you know, is there a middle ground? What sort of way forward can we find? And I think we already have it, and so I'm really grateful for that. I hope that further discussion will end up with an outcome that works for both Blyth Park Community Services, allows you to keep those kids safe, and I know that many of those kids have significant challenges and that can be really hard work, but also allows the public to use a public community asset as well.

So thank you.

Councillor Lines-Buckley. Thank you, Madam Mayor, and thank you for clarifying that issue before. I'm happy to support that we note the matters so that we can have the further discussions. I just seek some clarity around who would be having the discussions. I'm assuming it would be council staff, but I'm hoping that councillors would be briefed before it came back to council as well, which I gather we can just assume would be part of a process when it's sent off from a council meeting like this. Is that correct?

Thank you. I'll just refer to Director of City Planning.

Thank you, through you, Madam Mayor, yeah, absolutely. Staff can bring this back to a council briefing before a meeting.

Thank you. That would be really good. I'm particularly concerned that there's a discrepancy around a figure that has been publicly put there. When we have the centre manager saying they don't believe they owe money, and when we have publicly said that, I would like that to be established and for there not to be a discrepancy around that, and to understand more of what that figure is about. So that, I gather, would form part of that so that we can clarify that situation. I do just echo what Councillor Wheeler just said because I had also been contacted by people who did not like the idea of fencing the basketball court. We do like to encourage our young people to be out and about and doing as much exercise as possible.

So if their real intent is playing basketball, it would be a terrible shame if they weren't able to go and do that. So I look forward to it being clarified, and again thank the centre for bringing forward their perspective on this to clarify some things, to point out some things regarding the report, and hopefully there'll be some fruitful discussions around it and a solution reached shortly.

Thank you, Councillor. Did you want any clarification from the Chief Financial Officer on that amount now, or are you happy to wait for the briefing?

I think wait for the briefing because we'll be going over, I gather we'll go over the whole thing from

Scratch. Thanks, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak? No. Right of reply, Councillor Sheather, not needed? Excellent. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour: Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Durick, Councillor Linesbucket, Councillor Wheeler, Councillors Impragno, Councillor McMahon. Absent from the room is Councillor Conolly. I declare the item carried.

The next item subject to public address is item 4.5.2, proposed site for the Hawkesbury Fire Control Centre. Councillor Wheeler, can you please read your declaration?

Thanks, Madam Mayor. I have a less than significant non-pecuniary interest in item 4.5.2. My son and I are both members of the Rural Fire Service. I'm a member of the Communications Brigade. The reason for no further action is that it is a less than significant interest under the threshold. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. I also have the same less-than-significant non-pecuniary interest. I am a volunteer member of the Hawkesbury Communications Rural Fire Brigade, and no further action as there is nothing pecuniary in that matter. I will now call on our first registered speaker, Mr. Kevin Jones.

Thank you. I'm just here to represent the SES. I'm the local commander of the Hawkesbury SES, and we happen to be the neighbours of the proposed site for the emergency service precinct. It's not the first time this has been an idea that's come up in a proposal, so it's not new or a surprise to us. And from my point of view, as the local commander of the SES, I think that it would be nothing but a good thing to have emergency services all close together. It's not about me either, by the way. We really do need a fire control centre, so. If this can get it across the line and make it happen, then that's a really good thing. The benefits that I see from it is we have quite a large building there already.

The reason that it's at Wivelis Force on the western side of the river, on the good side of the river, is that it's flood free. And one of the things that the emergency service precinct may enable is to have somewhere for people like New South Wales Police and Ambulance to go during floods, because I know that is a bit of an issue for them sometimes during floods. And if an EOC or something like that is established there, then it will give them a base to work from, which is something that they can rely on all the time. From my point of view as well, just sharing some of the facilities like car parks and driveways and access, we need to fix some of the things in our SES headquarters, and this will help to enable that and guide us in what we need to do.

It's always, we always work closely with all the other emergency services on a day-to-day basis through our role as the General Land Rescue Unit for the Hawkesbury area. We always work very closely with New South Wales Ambulance, Fire and Rescue New South Wales, the Police and the RFS on many occasions as we go through the thing. And in the bigger events like the large campaign fires, like the Gospers Mountain fire, we spent a lot of time supporting the RFS at the fire control centre, the current fire control centre, in portable temporary buildings in facilities that are far from ideal. But the job got done, and we worked very closely and supported the RFS, and take my hat off to the work they do. And so I would Absolutely support anything that we can do to make the fire control centre happen.

Thank you. Thank you very much. I'll just see if there's any questions. Councillor Linespocket. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thanks, Kevin. I'm just wondering, there sounds like there's some good mutual benefits there and so on with that location. Is there anything, though, that you think could be a concern, or is there anything about that particular site that we should be mindful of that could be addressed as this process unfolds?

From my point of view, just in our current building, the access onto Kermond Road is a concern, and we're actually talking with the council and council officers about what we can do. SES, not here to talk about us, but we have about to get access to a grant to do some minor things to the building, like change the access to the site there. It will make it a lot safer for our members, and we don't really have a very good car park area that's properly lit and all those sorts of things like that. So we're just going to try and fix a few things like that. But as far as concerns having the fire control centre there and anything to do with the site, there's nothing that I can see that would be an issue from my point of view.

The only issues that have been proposed in the past by others, not necessarily here, is to combine operation centres, and I think that's a bad model. I wouldn't do that. I think the two organisations need to have a separate place to do their stuff, and I don't believe that that's something that we're talking about. It's just finding a place to put the fire control centre and have it as a separate place. But no concerns that I'm aware of.

Thanks Thank you. Any further questions? Thank you, Mr. Jones, appreciate that. The next registered public speaker for this item is Mr. Joshua Torrens.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, Councillors, staff, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for having me here this evening. As the Director of Logistics and Equipment at New South Wales Rural Fire Service, I have responsibility for delivering construction of the fire control centres across the state. I'm here in that capacity today to vocalise my support of 4.5.2 and the proposed selection and acquisition of the site at McKinnon's Road for the construction of the Hawkesbury Fire Control Centre. I'd like to provide some support that basically outlines the reason for that, and I'd like to start with highlighting the recommendation 61 of the 2019-2020 bushfire inquiry, that in order to improve cross-agency communication and coordination during bushfires, the New South Wales Rural Fire Service review fire control centres in areas that have heavily affected by fire.

The results should be combined with the emergency operations centre facilities review to identify areas that would benefit from a purpose-built fire control centre enabling co-location with the emergency operations centre

The outcome of the recommendation nominated 13 sites that required immediate attention to ensure suitability and application of the totality of that recommendation. The Hawkesbury area is one of the fire control centres identified as a top priority for a purpose-built facility with a co-located emergency operations centre. I think we are all in agreement with the recommendation that the current Hawkesbury Fire Control Centre is not fit for purpose and does not allow the capacity to future-proof the changing needs and support provided to Hawkesbury by the emergency services. Between Council, RFS and other government bodies, we have collectively reviewed five other properties within the Hawkesbury area that have all been identified as not viable due to significant biodiversity impacts, contamination, size, etc.

The land at McKinnons Road is the last site on that list. The land at McKinnons is sufficient size and location that it will facilitate the future-proofing of the growing, emerging or changing needs of the people of Hawkesbury in relation to emergency support.

The SES, as previously stated, already established at that site, and co-location in emergency precincts is preferred wherever possible to streamline support during significant or campaign events. This is already occurring across the state, where there is an expectation from councils and taxpayers that co-location occurs and consolidation of land parcels is maximised. The Hawkesbury area is a region that is unique in its placement, and along with that comes unique risks and threats, of which fire and flood are both prevalent. So from that perspective, to me it just makes sense. The New South Wales RFS is already collaborating at sites with the SES and have a great working and support relationship across the state, as was previously noted.

Finally, I currently have $8 million in approved funding specifically allocated to the Hawkesbury Fire Control Centre construction. I am concerned that should not be committed or utilised shortly to actually construct a fire control centre, that the funds may be withdrawn or potentially reallocated to one of the other 12 identified sites in need of the state-of-the-art building. I'm sure we can all agree this would be a poor outcome for not only the New South Wales Rural Fire Service, but the Hawkesbury area as a whole. For those reasons, the New South Wales Rural Fire Service and myself are in support of the proposal. Thank you for the opportunity, Madam.

Thank you very much. I'll just check if there's any questions, councillors. No,

Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

I do just want to remind councillors before we enter into debate that there is a confidential attachment to this item. So if you are discussing anything of that nature, please ensure that we will have to go into confidential. Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'd like to move the recommendation in the business paper, please.

Seconder, please. Councillor Linesbucket. Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Look, this is a wonderful outcome for the people of Hawkesbury. It's something I've been working on for many years. I was just reflecting on the fact that I ran for State Parliament back in 2015, I think it was, and it was part of my platform back in those days. And I think I might have even had it before that. So this is not something that's just shown up recently. This idea of a combined emergency centre west of the river has been around for quite some time, and I've been one of the people that's really been pushing for it to happen. During the 2019 bushfires, I was mayor at the time, and the fire control centre at Wilberforce was shown to be extremely inadequate for purpose.

It just, the people working there were doing a great job, but under difficult circumstances. And when we had the press come out for press releases and I think some of those press were actually international press, not just local. We had to stand out in the yard and have our conversations out there because there just wasn't anywhere for them to set up, because that building was never meant to do that. It was never meant to play that role. I think it's an ex-council building from Colo Council, I believe. And the building itself looks to me like it's close to falling down anyway. So we really need to do something about that. And the other thing I noticed when we were out there for the big fires was there wasn't enough room.

The RFS had to get portable buildings in and put them in the car park or playground of the primary school next door so they could manage. It was really an embarrassment when we had to talk to the RFS who worked there and sort of apologise to them all the time. Look, I know things are difficult and this place is just not meeting your needs, but we're going to do something about it. And I think it's now good that we're doing that. The other thing that happened during those fires is that the emergency operations centre was located in the Windsor Police Station because there wasn't any room for it out at the RFS. And I spent a lot of time at the emergency operations centre during that time. And there was a lot of toing and froing and communication that had to go backwards and forwards between Windsor and Wilberforce, which slowed things down.

Decisions couldn't be made as quickly as they should have been. So this fixes that problem as well because at the moment on the other side of the river, there's nowhere really for the police to locate themselves. If there's some kind of emergency, there's nowhere for them to go. This emergency centre, as far as I can see, the design includes space for police and also for the ambulance. It doesn't mean there's going to be a permanent police station there. It just means that that area will be available to them during emergency. We've also noticed that during the fires, there was nowhere for the ambulances to go, and one of my neighbours was an ambulance driver, and he used to drive the ambulance home and park it in his front driveway so that he could look after people on the other side of the river.

That's really not— that's an antiquated way of things happening, and we had to fix that as well. So this combined operations centre meets all those needs, and I really look forward to having this completed at last. And I thank Council, and I thank the RFS for helping me push this through, and I think it's going to be a great advantage for the people of the Hawkesbury.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor

Councillor Wheeler. Thanks, Madam Mayor. I'll just flag that I have called this up for discussion in confidential session, but I don't think any of the recommendations that are before us will be delayed by that discussion. So I'm happy to support the motion as it stands. As someone who works in that building, I have to say it's not just those of us who work there on weekends or in an emergency. People work there all the time, and that building just isn't fit for purpose. It was never purpose-built to start with. It leaks. It smells because it leaks. It has the most fantastic collection of mould growing on it, including on the female toilets. It would benefit greatly from a damn good clean as a special job that Council probably...

Could get onto. It doesn't facilitate modern technology in the ops room. It's next door to a school. There's no parking. I mean, the list goes on and on. It doesn't have adequate backup if the power goes down. The staff do an extraordinary job, and can I say this as an RFS member, but as right down the bottom of the pile. You know, I am there as a radio operator because the Army taught me how to do it, not because I've never been on a fire truck. I'm probably never going to be on a fire truck. That is the limit of my skill set. It's a really difficult place to do a really good job, and the people who work in there day after day do a really good job. The thing that I think the public also need to be conscious of is that apart from North Richmond, property protection on west of the river in the Hawkesbury is all done by volunteers, by the Rural Fire Service, and that's coordinated out of that building and out of State Ops.

This matter has become increasingly urgent, I think, and it behoves us to get a really good building out of this site as quickly as we can. We've delayed, we've been delayed because of a quirk in the legislation that states that every other emergency service in the state can override biodiversity legislation. Now, I'm the Greens councillor. I'm not a fan of overriding biodiversity legislation, but— The RFS is the only emergency service that can't bypass that legislation, and that's why we find ourselves in this position. What I think we can do, though, is make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. We can get a really good facility that's better for the SES and better for the RFS, and hope we can do it quickly because we really need to.

We thought we were going to have a really bad summer. We've been really lucky. Instead of having a hot, dry, fire-prone summer, we've had a hot, sweaty summer instead, and I'm the first to whinge about the humidity, but it's better than being on a fire truck. My son is one of those people who's on a fire truck. He loves it. I wish he'd stay home occasionally and do some work at our place, but he goes out, and these are enormous risks. We saw a man die this year in the Hawkesbury doing property protection. We need to do this as quickly as possible. I think this is a viable way forward, but I do want to flag that I want to discuss some of the mechanics in confidential. Thanks.

Councillor Zamprogno.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I haven't been active in the RFS for many years, but I also cut my teeth out at the location at Wilberforce in the comms team. The better part of 30 years ago, and I remember that when I was there as a much younger man, Karen was there even then. Karen's just been around forever. I'm sure there's a portrait in your attic. There's a portrait in your attic that's ageing for you. I'm offering it as a compliment.

Point of order, Madam Mayor.

And I think the frustration that we've seen from the local grassroots RFS community is entirely justified. I mean, it's difficult to get captains to agree on anything, and to have so many of them as a signatory to express their frustration at us. Should make us sit up and pay attention. I'm looking at something that I wrote back in 2019 when, as the Deputy Mayor was recollecting, he moved a mayoral minute to seize on the high profile of bushfires and to, you know, make a pitch for us to build a new fire control centre. And we're now in the fifth year since that mayoral minute, and we still haven't gotten on with the job. So I think this is a very welcome development. I'm wondering whether there's any appetite in the room to add a point five, because one of the other things that I want to get out of this process is some kind of learning that will prevent others from going through the pain that we've been through.

If you read the background notes in this business paper, it says that we were hopeful that we could seek that we could gain approval for the construction of this under Part 5 of the EP&A Act for those who are okay with that. That basically gives you the expedited approval pathway, the one without all of the red tape. And then when we found out that RFS infrastructure was not eligible for Part 5 consideration and that we had to go through the Part 4 route that included huge additional layers of red tape and bio-offsets and reports of one form or another, I thought that was very frustrating. And I really think that, in addition to the four points that are in the recommendation, point five should be that we write to the minister and ask that they reform their legislation so that RFS emergency infrastructure is as eligible as any other emergency infrastructure for Part 4 assessment.

In other words, when a community has a need. To plan and build these kinds of facilities is that they're not caught up eternally in red tape. I know that we've had conversations with state colleagues about this, but I think we need to be demonstrating through our resolution tonight that we want to see this reformed at a state level so that we or others don't go through this pain again.

Thank you, Councillor. I'll ask the mover and seconder if they would be happy for a point five in that regard.

Yes, I'd be happy with that.

Thank you. Councillor [unclear]. Yep. Yes. Thank you. All right, we'll add that as a point five. I'll just make sure the staff were comfortable with the wording. So

The suggested wording is that we write again to the state government, pointing out the roadblocks to approval that we faced that delayed this project and caused so much community ire, and that we ask them to reform the legislation so that RFS infrastructure are as eligible as any other emergency infrastructure, if that provides some guidance.

Thank you. We'll wait till that comes up on the board, but we'll continue debate. Councillor Sheather. Yeah

Thanks, Madam Mayor. Madam Mayor, I concur with all the comments, and those of us who do live on the other side of the river are pretty aware of the work that the fireys do. A couple of things, though. As a councillor, and we want to move forward on this, letters that we got from the brigades, the discussion we've had amongst ourselves and the like, it needs to happen. In saying that, with the property at number six, as it indicates here in part three, were they notified that this was coming to the meeting tonight?

Thank you, Councillor. I would have referred to the general manager. I can see she's just trying to get the words right, but I think that would have to be discussed in confidential. Yeah, we can't discuss that in open session. I'll just confirm. Do you want to just say your question again for the general manager?

In dot three, it says commence the acquisition in whole or part for number six McKinnon's Road. Was that property notified about the meeting tonight?

They were advised of the meeting when we met with them a couple of weeks ago

Okay, good. I just don't want to go through a red bank thing again, that's all. And in relation to the 8 million that was mentioned, that's in relation to building the building. Any acquiring of land and works is going to have to be founded by the council. Are we going to get regular briefings on the feasibility of how we might fund that, or have the opportunity to speak in that regard?

Director of Infrastructure, please.

Thank you through you, Madam Mayor. Yes, of course, that will be regular, along with the progress of the fire control centre I'd suggest.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Mayor. I say that because we've got another couple of things to discuss tonight that relate to financial structures of the council. And it seems that we sometimes jump in boots and all with good projects and good intent, but they're all going to be paid for. And two things that don't sit comfortably with me is rate increases or borrow money. And so when we look at these things and how we're going to progress them and the like, we need to look at the implications and just how we're going to deal with it. And I'm glad that we've got confirmation that we're going to have an opportunity for input and the like on how we might look at achieving those. And I say achieving because the outcome is that we're going to do it.

So, Madam Mayor, I'm glad that we've finally put a nail in something that doesn't seem to have the consequences, I guess, that other sites have had. And I'm guessing from the letter we got back in November or something, there'll be a lot of people out there. They don't come from the captains. They represent a whole heap of people that sit around a truck. So I would suggest that the decision that we make tonight to move forward on it will be greatly appreciated.

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

Thanks, Madam Mayor. To me, this is a no-brainer, this item. As sure as hell as the sun's going to come up in the east and set in the west, we need this facility big time. As with bushfires, we know it's going to come around again. It might be 10 years to 20 years' time. Could we imagine ourselves going through another fire period with catastrophic result within this LGA without a new command centre? Not me. So I thank for the contribution my fellow councillors have made. The only thing I'd like to add, Madam Mayor, I'm the only one that may be on the eastern side of the river, so a sort of minority, so having a look around this room. So thanks, and I too agree post haste we need to get on with it and build it. Thanks.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak before I just say a few last words? Thanks. I'll just add my two cents to this, and just to say it's obviously been a very difficult last few months trying to sort this out. I do want to acknowledge in the room we do have our wonderful Superintendent Hodges in the room from our local RFS, and of course one of our group captains. And I thank everyone in the local RFS for their volunteer service. I know this has been, as I said, tremendously emotional, and I understand why, because our volunteers in the RFS who put their lives on the line every time they put their uniforms on deserve a quality emergency operations centre. I am glad that through some pressure and some consistent debate, we've got to a solution that seems to have unanimous support tonight.

And I think that, given where we were a few months ago, the fact that we've got here tonight is something special, and we can just get on with the job of delivering that. I look forward to that $8 million staying locked in, and we will do our very best, I can tell you here at Council, to get on with that. As someone else who also works every now and then in the comms room, we certainly need an upgrade. And when you see the facilities we've got, considering the bushfire danger that is in our LGA, it is just not adequate. So I want to thank everybody for their contributions, including our group captains, our volunteers, our staff at Hawkesbury RFS, for what they have done to get us to this point.

I know there have been hurdles. I know there's been disappointments, but the other councillors who touched on those issues we have with the RFS being caught up in a whole bunch of red tape that the other emergency services don't have is accurate. And I do thank Councillors and Progno for adding that point five, because it is part of our job to advocate as well to the other levels of government about things that need to change. So thank you, everyone, for your contribution to the debate tonight. I look forward to getting on with building this centre, getting the design sorted, getting it built. I thank Kevin from the SES for your contribution tonight as well, and what you do for our community.

And I thank everyone for being in support, as it seems so far. Till we put our hands up. But thank you so much. Without any other councillors wishing to speak, right of reply, Deputy Mayor.

I've noticed that point five seems to have a few words missing. It says, are as eligible as other community infrastructure. For what?

For expedited approval pumpways. Should it go to

The Emergency Services Minister as well?

Happy with that, Deputy Mayor.

Just wondering whether it should also go to the Emergency Services Minister.

If you and the proposer and the seconder are happy. I'm

Happy with

That. Councillor Lyons-Buckett, yes Nothing like adding a bit at the last minute.

I'll

Let you finish your right of reply.

That's the end of my... I just want to say thank you to everyone. Thank you to the RFS for the work they do, and hopefully they'll have a better situation to work under in the future. So thank you.

Thank you very much. All those in favour of the recommendation as per the screen, please raise your hand. In favour: Councillor Reardon, Councillor Vaigal, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Colash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Durick, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zemprogno, Councillor McMahon. Absent from the room is Councillor Conolly. I declare the item carried.

Madam Mayor, can I move a procedural

Motion, please? Yes, Councillor. Can I move that in item 4.5.3, the 2023-24 Capital Projects Report, that we separate that into two parts: to hear the section and debate the section on Packer Road separate from the remainder of the report, please.

Thank you, Councillor. Those in favour of the procedural motion, please raise your hand. In favour, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Dureck, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Improgno, Councillor Sheather. Those against, please raise your hand. Councillor Reardon, Councillor Vigil, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor McMahon. I declare the procedural motion carried. That brings us to item 4.5.3, Quarter 2 2023-2024 Capital Projects Report. We have four registered speakers. I’ll call on the first speaker, Mr Barry Kennedy.

Thank you for hearing what I have to say. I’m here because a number of residents out my way have asked me to present their views on the Packer Road resealing, okay. I live out at Lower Portland. We live on a property that has been used for a number of purposes over the years. Over recent times, it’s been used for breeding trotters and also for growing architectural trees. We have a number of vehicles that come out to service our property, as do lots of other properties out our way. And they refuse to use West Portland Road because it's such a disgrace, actually. Some of those trailers, some of those trucks won't come around the bend, which is just north of Roberts Creek, so they have to come across Packer Road.

Packer Road, well , it's dangerous, you know. I was talking to one of the residents in the area the other day, and they were present when young Ellie got killed on that bad corner in Packer Road.

And yeah, when the police come out to talk to the mother, they were sitting in a cafe. Terrible.

Anyway, there's a number of reasons for Packer Road to be sealed. That's not the only one. It's during the last flood, the June flood last year, Roberts Creek flooded, so all the people on the north side of Roberts Creek had no other access out other than Packer Road.

That included—sometimes Roberts Creek doesn't flood as often as the next hollow over the other side of the Sackville Village. And when it floods, you've got all of Sackville Village, you've got Laws Farm Road, Cumberland Reach, you've got Ponderosa Road, Parts of Kylo Road, and right down West Portland Road, right down to the bridge, if not a little bit further,

Summer Wheelbarrow Ridge Road, etc.

That have to get out. They have to get out for food. They have to get out for fuel. They have to get for medical supplies, whatever. Okay . Also the... Emergency services have to get in to help with the flooding and extracting of people and whatever else has got to be done, okay. There's also a cost benefit. I don't know, is there any charge, any cost quote been done on the sealing of Packer Road? I heard that it was originally three and now it's down to 2.2 mil. Is that correct? Anyone know? That

Is an item as part of our confidential session. We can't discuss that. Okay, sorry, okay, thank you.

Okay.

And, well, the point with it is that three mil, 2.2 mil, whatever the price is, you have to repair Packer Road three or four times a year, okay , and that cost must be, you know, three, four hundred thousand a year. So in like eight , ten years, you recoup your cost, you know. So it's got benefits. Not only that, but all the traffic that comes out through Packer Road—hang on a moment—the main routes for people to leave our area is either through West Portland Road, Bulridge Road, then onto Kings Road or whatever it's called, and/or Packer Road. Really, West Portland Road is an absolute disgrace, the repair that's been done there. Even recently, there's been a—come winding down the hill onto the sharp bend—there's been some repair done there, and the work's been really good right down to the joint.

And where the joint of that road meets the old join— There's a hole right in the middle of the sharp bend.

And, I mean,

When you're driving a vehicle, the first thing you do is dodge the holes . Well, this hole is right in the middle, and so, you know, there's bound to be an accident happen. So the major reasons for sealing Packer Road are safety , cost. You know, the cost can be recouped in eight, ten years, I reckon. And if you divert the traffic through Packer Road, you're going onto Putty Road. Putty Road is a state government managed road, is that correct? Okay. And so all the traffic that goes down West Portland Road and the other roads,

They go out through Packer Road.

It takes all the load off those roads, reduces the repair, reduces the cost, and goes out to Putty Road. Okay, now I can't—the benefits are all good for everybody. You know, so look, thank you for hearing me anyway, and I hope you vote in the positive.

Just a moment, Mr. Kenny. I just want to confirm something. You did ask about cost, which the cost and the contractors are in our confidential, but it does say on page 92, just to clarify the point you made, the budget for this financial year was 2.3 to 3.8 million, but it has now increased to 4.8.

Is it now? Okay. Yes, so that

Is that extra million dollars. Okay. Expensive. I'll just see if there's any questions from other councillors for you. No, thank you very much. Appreciate that. Councillors, I did need to read out as well my declaration, sorry, before when we started this item, which is that the non-Packer Road portion, the other part, mentions West Invest items, which is Turnbull Oval, and that upgrade is discussed, and as I've said many times in this chamber, my son plays for the Hawkesbury Hawks at that venue, but it is not a pecuniary interest. I will now call on our next registered public speaker, Mr. David Ingram.

Madam Mayor, ladies and gentlemen, I own water trucks. I work out of Launceston. My biggest issue is I've spent $50,000 on suspension in the last six months because of our roads. Not just Packer Road, but other ones involved around the area. One of my mechanics, the people that I deal with are out at Penrith, and they're a very big truck and trailer repair company. I actually buy more shock absorbers than any other company that they deal with, and they've got other companies that have 100 trucks, and I've got two.

I don't want to drive through West Portland Road. I scare the hell out of people every time I go around Ponytail. If Packer Road was tarred, that takes me down Putty Road, gets me away from the village, gets me away from everybody else. Everything's safer, everything's easier. So the bottom line is, for the people that live in the area, it gets my trucks away from their cars. Like, it doesn't bother me, but there's a lot of people that I scare every day, and I go up that hill four or five times a day. If it was tarred, I could use Packer Road. I can't drive my trucks

Down Packer Road.

And as a resident, the only way out is Packer Road when it floods. But I also deliver to the people that have been flooded, so I need to get out to get them water because they've got contaminated water. So it would be very beneficial for me, but it'd also be a lot safer to get me off domestic roads and put me on the main road, which is where I want to be. I don't like scaring people.

Thank you. Thank you very much. I'll just see if there's any questions. Councillor Wheeler. Thanks

Madam Mayor. Mr. Ingram, could you explain to those people who aren't aware what the pony tail is?

When you come off, once upon a time we used to have a little Bailey Bridge, and it was twelve and a half ton. We couldn't drive over it. My smallest truck is twenty ton, my biggest one's twenty-eight ton. I couldn't go over a twelve-ton bridge, so I had to go Packer Road. So I was forced to go down a dirt road that needs repairing probably six or seven times a year, depending on the weather. Now, you come off that bridge, and as you wind up the hill, there's a very tight bend, which we call ponytail because it flows up and around like a ponytail. But every corner is a rock shelf, so you can't see past it. So I can be coming down and I'm hitting my mirrors on the trees on the side of the road to keep over as far as I can, and the same with going up the hill.

I've got cliffs that I'm hitting mirrors on, which I replace quite often. They cost me $350 for a passenger side mirror to get over, to get past cars, let alone getting past trucks. So, yeah, it's a very, very tight part of the road. I've had different conversations with residents saying , Why don't you use Packer Road? Well, I can't. I financially can't. And it's the same going down Packer Road when it's corrugated, and you're in a loaded truck and you're coming around Ellie's Corner. There's not enough room for a car to get past me, let alone a truck. Now, it's better now that we don't have the sewerage trucks dumping sewerage in Packer Road, but we've still got— These tight bends and its corrugate,

And trucks aren't designed to be rally cars.

Thank you very much. Any further questions? Thank you very much. Appreciate that. Thank you. The next registered public speaker is Ruth Atkinson.

Madam Mayor and Councillors, my name is Ruth Atkinson and I live on Lower Colo Road at Lower Portland with my husband Frank Cook, and we have raised a family of five there since 1994. But this debate on the sealing of Paco Road should not be just about money. Those significant spent funds will be totally wasted if you shelve this project. Money, ratepayers' money, has already been spent on traffic studies, liaisons with land council, extensive surveying, road design, tendering and publicity. And don't forget the costs of grading Paco Road will remain if it's left unsealed, and this will, of course, be an ongoing expense. This debate, though, is not and should not be just about money. It is about safety, about a devastating fatality nine years ago and the traumatic loss of the beautiful young teenager Ellie, whom many of us knew and loved.

Her mother Kayleen is here tonight, even though this is a difficult place to be, reliving that horrific accident and the trauma of losing her 18-year-old daughter. At the time, the police sat at their kitchen table with a pile of documents and said they knew Ellie's accident was not due to speed. was not due to mobile phone usage, was not even due to the weather. It was a clear sunny day. Her death on that notorious narrow, tight corner on Packer Road, the same corner of other serious accidents and continual near misses, was due to the dangerously designed and unsealed nature of the road. That day, the police said they would do everything they could to make council fix the road. Nearly nine years on, and the road's exactly the same.

Unsealed, dangerous, just waiting for the next fatality. Except for the last two years, we in the community have been really encouraged by the actual surveying of the road, by the publicised budgeting of the works, by the promises from councillors that this was finally happening. Soon it would be sealed. Soon the dangerous blind corners would be gone. Soon us and our children wouldn't have to drive the gauntlet every day to school and work. Then suddenly, on Friday, this all changed with one single sentence in your business papers recommending council not enter into the contract for the delivery of the Packer Road sealing. This advice is based on confidential tender documents that aren't even available to the public.

We know the cost must have risen due to delays, to COVID, to floods, to bushfires. We know our rates will rise even though this funding for Packer Road was actually promised through the development of that special rate variation several years ago. But again, this isn't about money. It's about promises. Promises to put the safety and protection of your residents on our local roads first, and to prevent further devastating deaths and injury. I'm not keen to relive the experience of another accident in April 2021, when I had to stop and ring Triple O and keep Josh, a local 19-year-old, talking and awake after he crashed his ute on the same corner where Ellie died. When the RFS, emergency services, helicopters, police and paramedics descended, he had to be cut out of his car, but at least he survived.

Several years ago, one of our older daughters wrote her car off on Packer. She was also 18. And another good friend of ours rolled her four-wheel drive. The list of accidents goes on, and that's just my personal experience. We still have a learner driver at home, and we worry for him as well. So all I can say to finish is please vote to support us. Please note the bravery of my neighbour Kayleen to even turn up here tonight. And please keep your promises to your community. Continue the commitment to seal this dangerous road before we lose someone else.

Thank you very much. You don't have to take questions. That's fine. Thank you very much for your contribution. The next registered public speaker is Caroline Hocking. Touch this, or is it already on? It's already on? Okay.

Thank you everyone for listening to me. I respect the darug country we meet on and pay respect to Elders past, present and emerging. All of us who, sorry , all of us here who live in or travel through and drive, as we all need to, have travelled via some state government funded and local council government roads of our magnificent Hawkesbury to get here as safely as possible this evening. We residents all at this meeting, both physically present, virtually, and as residents at home this evening, represent a very large LGA with incumbent fiscal challenges. I will admit to having some PTSD from some occasions I have personally experienced trauma while driving on our roads. Aside from the obvious financial appropriation of funds from Peter to Paul, there are other ratepayer rights and community safety issues to be addressed.

Council does not provide routine maintenance to Packer Road, nor respond in a timely manner to extraneous road degradation due to local commercial activities or extra traffic due to natural disasters as they occur. We've been offered lots of different community hubs and wellbeing services since the fires and floods, but the one thing that continues to be a stress trigger on a daily basis is our traversing of the local government roads, and in particular, a major flood-free link road such as Packer Road. I emphasise that Packer Road is a major flood-free link road. When the sewage ponds are in use, and I noticed that they were mentioned, but they still get used, they don't... They still get used when they're needed.

When the sewage ponds are in use, the heavy-duty traffic degrades the road in a short amount of time. In particular, the road between Putty Road and the ponds becomes treacherously corrugated, and Ellie's Corner becomes precarious with extreme potholing and gravel piling up on the outsides. At times when the road is serviced, the finish of the road is left slick with excess gravel. These points demonstrate that Packer Road is not safe or convenient to traverse at least 70% of the time. This means that West Portland Road is taking much more traffic than it should, and residents are unnecessarily experiencing long travel times and unnecessarily congesting other routes. I remind the council that there is a memorial to Ellie, a young driver that so unnecessarily lost her life there.

And please note, there have been many other near-fatal accidents on that corner. In May '22, on that corner, a truck and dog completely took out the trees on the corner. It was just good luck that someone else wasn't coming the other way at the time. I, as a driver with 40 years of extensive dirt and tarmac driving experience, am particularly concerned for the safety of our young drivers, of which we are all well aware are many coming of age. Every trip that is made from Lower Portland to Wilberforce or across to Kurrajong requires a decision whether or not to take Packer Road. How bad is it going to be? At times I have started that way and turned around due to virtual impassable surface, and anticipating the stress of knowing my car is going to be getting damaged.

There is also the likelihood of a huge truck taking up the road at any minute. Which is a continual reminder that Tripp is always going to have an element of stress due to pending dangers. When Packer Road is sealed, it will enable traffic to go across to Putty Road and reduce wear and tear on our council-maintained roads and therefore save maintenance costs. For example, West Portland Road is best kept for local traffic.

From Laws Farm Road, in view of activities or extra traffic— sorry, I've gone to the wrong page here.

West Portland is best kept for local traffic in view of expediency and safety. Because the school buses and large trucks require more than half of the road, as our friend mentioned about his water trucks, when travelling through the tight bends which ponytail, reducing traffic will reduce the opportunity for accidents and road closures. We need to regard the frequency of road closures due to fire and flood and factor that into the equation of emergency services and residents' ability to make a safe exit or return. When Packer Road is sealed, we will see a positive and safe marked difference in the way people transit around this part of the Hawkesbury. Thank you very much.

Thank you so much. Any questions, councillors?

No questions. Thank you so much. Appreciate that.

Now, as you would have seen, the procedural motion was successful, and based on some previous advice from staff today, if you look at the recommendations, item recommendations one, two and four do not relate to Packer Road, only recommendation point three related to Packer Road. So we'll start discussion just on point— Madam Mayor, I have a

Form of words that I'd like to move.

Oh, okay. Thank you. Sorry, I hadn't finished speaking.

So we will just be discussing at this point, so that the residents who are here tonight understand, it's only one item that we can vote on, but we're pulling it apart. So there's a discussion on Packer Road. There'll be another discussion after that on the other points in the recommendation. But we can do the Packer Road vote beforehand, as if we were voting in seriatim, and then it becomes one big part. Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Madam Mayor, there's three of the four recommendations relate to Packer Road.

Oh, sorry. Oh, there goes

Two, three and four. Sorry, you are correct . Sorry, yes, two, three— only, yes

Sorry, it's three and one, not one and three.

What I had proposed to do was to move a motion specifically to Packer Road regarding Packer Road, if I

May. So not worry about two, three, four, just have one. Yes,

Just have one, yeah, which I would like to move, and that is that Council proceed with the sealing of Packer Road by choosing the appropriate tender from those submitted in the confidential section of this business paper.

Thank you, Councillor. I'll get those words up on the screen. You'd like to second that, Councillor Dan Progno? Thank you. Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just had a couple of questions first. If we could just have answers to what the cumulative amount spent so far on this project has been.

Thank you, just a moment.

Director of Infrastructure.

Sorry through you, Madam Mayor. Sorry, Councillor, could I hear that question again?

It was, what is the cumulative amount spent so far on this project? With the design and the

Investigations, I'd have to take that on notice, Councillor.

Okay. Would it be fair to say it's a figure of around half a million dollars or so?

I wouldn't expect it to be that high, no.

Okay. I only raise that because that was once said before. Okay, thank you. I'll speak to the motion then. This is an item that has been promised to this community for years and years. What we've heard tonight is we get the knowledge from our community coming in here and telling us their experiences of just how dangerous they find this road, but not just how dangerous they find it, but how they have been feeling when they have believed, after all they've been through—and let's not forget that this is the same community that suffered for years with the Greens Road debacle, where they had to—and now with no ferry. I mean, this is a community with cumulative impacts foisted upon them. And I think we hear from them, and we know that not only is it a dangerous road, but also West Portland is also a dangerous road.

And they have been given hope by seeing activity happen and by having these promises made to them for years, back from the special rate variation, where we deliberately made a comprehensive project list of works so that people had some certainty around it. I have heard Packer Road debated since I have been in this council since 2012, and it's always been pushed down the track, time and time again. I actually have to be honest and say I found the information in this report about Packer Road to be insulting. I was insulted on behalf of that community, who had put their faith in us to deliver a promised piece of infrastructure, that such things would be written about it. I'm just going to read a quote from it, and this was why I felt really insulted, because I think it implied that the broader community don't care about something such as sealing a road.

And it said in there, the majority of our projects by number remain relatively small, lack the complexity and impact of those larger projects funded by WestInvest grants and similar projects, and accordingly are of relatively low interest to the broader community. Well, I think the content of this report is manifestly out of touch with our community. Our people want their promises kept, their roads maintained and upgraded, and they want elected representatives to listen to them and to do their job. I don't hear people talking about WestInvest unless they're whinging about something they don't want at Tamplin Field or something like that. However , most councillors in here, and this didn't include me because I didn't support it, were willing to allocate four million dollars of ratepayers' money to a WestInvest project, and part of that money was $500,000 from the Packer Road resealing because of a timing issue.

That appeared in the March 2023 quarterly budget review statement, along with another change in the funding where it said that $1.5 million, which had been included in that budget for that year, went— Because of timing issues again, and because of Packer Road being put off again, was used for other road upgrades. So the money's been allocated year after year and waiting, waiting for it to progress. And now we know construction costs have increased. But construction costs have increased for everything. All of the projects have increased costs. That is the nature of today. So why is this project being singled out to be sacrificed? I don't know, and I don't like it. And the other thing I see in the way this is presented is that it's pitting one section of our community against another section by saying, we'll take the money from here and we'll put it over there so you people can have it, and they want it too because, let's face it, everybody wants their roads upgraded.

So we haven't been given detail of what alternative road safety treatments would be, but we've heard the locals say that the corrugations and things in Packer Road require a lot of repairs and upgrades. I think we heard just how important Packer Road is and, of course, the issue around cost and the savings. If we can get the heavy vehicles straight up to Putty Road and onto a state-funded road, we'd be saving a lot of the repairs and maintenance of roads like West Portland Road. So when you live out somewhere like Packer Road, you can't go out the front and get a train or a bus to go to work. You've got to drive. And so these are ratepayers in our area who've been given promises. I fully support sealing this road because it won't just benefit that community; it'll benefit all of us to have a safer and a better access to that part where we've heard that in floods, sometimes it's the only access for the water tanker driver who has such difficulties around West Portland Road, which is a dangerous road.

These are such dangerous roads. And we'll still have our budget challenged as we go forward. We've already got other issues tonight around ongoing financial sustainability. We move money around all the time. We just can do better than that. I think that I was very upset to see that this was proposed because I do guess that I take some responsibility for having been a part of the SRV where we went to the people, we drew up a list based on what everyone in our community had voted on and agreed upon, and here we are saying that we're not going to honour that promise. But hopefully enough councillors will vote to honour the promise, and you'll get the sealing of that road, which I know is well overdue.

Thank you, Councillor.

Thank you. Just before we proceed, do you mind changing on the second line, it starts with the word the. Do you mind changing that to an? It's just, yeah, it's a small minor thing. It is, yes. But it's important for the tender process. Thank you very much. Councillor St. Progno.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'd like to start by asking the mover if they would be prepared to include a second point, and that is that any adjustment to Council's Capital Works Program necessitated by the Packer Road sealing program be referred to a briefing.

That's okay. Yeah. Okay, thank you. We'll add

That as a second. And I'm the seconder, so I consent. So I'll speak very strongly in favour of the motion that's before us. In a council area without wards, we 12 councillors represent the whole Hawkesbury. But I've said over many years how the residents of that part of the world, from Colo and from St Albans and from Lower Portland and Sackville and Cumberland Reach, must feel very poorly represented. I mean, they've had no local in this chamber since the retirement of Lee Williams, and that was over eight years ago now. And they must feel very poorly served by this chamber if Council reneges on a promise. I didn't support the rate rise that was offered along with the sweetener of a raft of Capital Works programs.

But when the rate rise went through, I have always been a person who feels that Council, as an organisation, has a strong ethical and moral obligation to keep its pledges, and we promised to do this. And I appreciate that costs have gone up. But when you look at the unique geographical— asset that is Packer Road, this east-west link that links the Putty Road, which is relatively well maintained, and all of those river communities from Lower Portland to Cumberland Reach and Sackville, and the crucial role that it has. No wonder when there was the prospect of this not proceeding is that we were all deluged over the last week by all of the locals. And I want to acknowledge Catherine Wesley Smith and Gay Parmeter and the indomitable Rochelle Miller and the Atkinsons and the Cooks, and particularly the Waddops.

And I acknowledge Kaylene's presence in the gallery this evening, and I can only say that this must reawaken so much hurt and I hope that we can fix that or provide some kind of solace.

The traffic that sealing Packer Road would take off other roads like West Portland Road and Wilberforce Ridge Trail, I think would lower our maintenance costs of that. So there is an economic argument to this. And, you know, to the argument that, you know, what we do here, we then take off the plate somewhere else, rather than, as Councillor Lyons-Buckett said, pit one part of the community against the other, I would like the Chamber to be able to be briefed and to have a roundtable discussion about what we do with our capital works budget when we make adjustments of this type. I'm particularly uncomfortable that we are simply told which projects won't proceed at all or will be inevitably delayed, because there's a scientific formulaic aspect to prioritising our capital works program, and then there's the role that we are entitled to have on behalf of our community to express the views of the community and the relative importance that perhaps those formulas don't encompass, which is why I've asked for Part 2 to be incorporated into the motion.

I hope that. Everybody in the chamber sees things the same way. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Sheather. Councillor Sheather.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Mayor. I'm in a similar situation to Councillor Stambrogno. I guess when we spoke about this a couple of years ago, I expressed concerns about tonight, I guess. In saying that, Council's resolved repeatedly, including a special rate, and resolved to Dupacka Road. I'd look for other options. And this week I've spent time with our staff looking for opportunities along the lines that what Councillor Stambrogno indicated with part two of the motion. I couldn't find any. The staff couldn't find any. And in saying that, my intent was that we need to find a million bucks somewhere, and I couldn't achieve that. In saying that, Council should not be in the position of making promises

That they shouldn't uphold. And we've done that repeatedly. When we've gone down to Lower Portland on many occasions, with the slips and the likes, every opportunity in any release we've done through Council, we've promoted that Packer Road's going to be done. To go back on that would be really bad. And when I say really bad, I'm talking about— The stance that Council has in the community. You can't make decisions and then back out of it. There's consequences, and I would hope the consequences would be guilt.

So, Madam Mayor, the discussions that I've had with Council in the past didn't come to fruition. Council resolved a particular direction, and I am not one that chooses to, irrespective of my personal views, to go against the resolution of the Council. I would hope the discussion we have in relation to how funds may be better achieved , with 12 people talking about it and the professionalism of the staff, there may be opportunities there that other sections of our community don't suffer the same thing as over the last week the people of Lower Portland has. And I, too, would like to firstly thank you, Madam Mayor, for the response that you've sent to the individuals, and many of them who have approached us over the last week.

I hadn't done that. There's so many, and I just don't want to say thanks for your correspondence, and that's it. My conversation usually with people that contact me is much greater than that. If they've got concern, I'd like to know about it. There's that many that that wasn't practical. So I thank you for your response, and I thank them for their time that they've taken to express their concerns with the Council.

Councillor Kotlash. Thank you, Madam Mayor. When I first read this, I'm, by the way, supporting the motion on the board, but I've just got to say, when I read this report, I had kind of a different take on it than a lot of my fellow councillors have . And that take was that

I didn't see it as pitting off one community and/or another. The job of council is about trade-offs. We do this all the time. We have limited resources, and we have a huge amount of work to get done. So when we spend money in certain parts, somebody else doesn't get something done. Now, the notion that the staff is pitting, you know, is— I'm not going to accept that our staff have made a conscious decision that anybody, any of our communities, are any more worthy or less worthy than any other. I have never witnessed that from our staff. What I think has happened here is that we've had a ridiculously high cost blowout, and I think it was, I think it was probably —

I think the staff actually had to give us this option of not doing this work and giving us those other options. That's their job. Our job is to assess our promises and what we thought we could do, and I think that that's—

Sorry, Councillor Collash. I'll just ask members of the gallery to please be respectful to the councillor who's speaking and stop speaking amongst yourselves. Thank you.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. I just want to get off this thing that somehow we've saved the day by changing this. I think— Any staff member who had to make that call about what to spend, you know, that we had to spend almost, I think it was even more than double, really did need to bring us into the decision-making. That doesn't mean that, you know, that they think Packer Road residents and the community that live down there are any less worthy. And I just want people to know that. I think it's important to know that we have to make these trade-offs. It's never easy. I too have read all of the correspondence, and I too haven't had time to get back to everybody. But please rest assured that we listen to you, and that's our job to make those hard decisions.

So I'm quite happy for us to give staff the go-ahead and spend that extra money because I think in this case, you know, it has been a long time coming. When I first joined Council in 2016, we were talking about this, and it seems we can finally get going. That's all I'll say. I don't want to get into any of the complexities more than that. I just want everybody to know that our Council staff don't pit one community against another. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Jurek.

I'm speaking in support of the motion. It's been a little while since I've received so much correspondence on a single item, with community members around Packer Road all sharing similar concerns and dissatisfaction at the Council recommendation to not deliver on Packer Road. Amongst the emails, I heard from a family who lost a family member on Packer Road. If sealing Packer Road can minimise something like this from happening again, it's certainly hard to argue against committing to the works. And along with community sentiment, I think it's simply overdue. Thanks.

Thank you, Councillor

Councillor Wheeler. Thanks, Madam Mayor. I think the Lower Portland community needs to be congratulated on their excellent advocacy. Ideally, Council should be one of those places where we just get on with what we need to do, and people can trust us to do that well. Sometimes it works like that, and they're quite quick meetings. Sometimes it doesn't. What is really helpful, I think, for us, because we can't be everywhere at once, and we don't have councillors in every part of the LGA, is when a community finds something that it finds unacceptable and contacts us not just to complain, but preempts a decision and tells us why we should decide something different. And that's what we've seen from Lower Portland.

We've not seen whinging. We've not seen unreasonable demands. We've seen a community come to us and say, We need you to do this because of safety, because it costs us too much money, because we're stressed by driving on these roads. This has been an excellent piece of advocacy for the community, and it appears that they just may get what they need. There's some really important things that have come out of this discussion. The importance of Packer Road as an emergency access road in times of flood. That's probably Packer Road's key, that idea of Packer, or that understanding of Packer Road as a major flood-free link road. And then there are all its other everyday functions that it can't currently fulfil.

And we heard, you know, an estimate of that 70% of the time it's not up to standard, and people make the decision to use West Portland Road. Now, as someone who lives, you know, Les and I are probably the councillors who live closest to that area, I hate West Portland Road. And I, look, I've got more than 30 years driving experience. I drive a four-wheel drive. You know, I've driven in some pretty precarious places. I just really dislike West Portland Road. And I avoid Packer Road in its current form like the plague. So to expect the community to do this is, you know, it clearly is problematic. What we've heard are really clear safety concerns. The topography of Packer Road means that grading doesn't last.

And it is costly to keep that up, certainly not as costly as sealing it, but it is an ongoing cost. We've just heard a really awful list of ongoing fatal and near-fatal accidents. And it's not just adults who have to drive this road, it's young drivers. The anguish is palpable, I think, when you listen to people talk about this place. And to have sections of this road and the alternative route, West Portland Road, named for tragedy, Ellie's Corner, or named for the difficulty of negotiating that space, the pony tail, which is why I asked Mr Ingram to explain why it's called that. Speaks to how difficult it is to just get in and out of these places. On a daily basis. This isn't just nice to have.

This is a genuine need. And that's what we're really being asked to balance, I think, the nice-to-haves against the need. We are in a tightening fiscal environment. I think it's going to get worse. We are going to have to make decisions where we balance need against want, where we balance safety against comfort and aesthetics and people's ability to drive at 60 kilometres or over. The people from West Portland are asking us for a road that is drivable, not drivable at the speed limit. We need to listen to that. I agree, it does have the potential to get heavy vehicles off West Portland and Sackville Roads, both of which we have to maintain.

Putty Road is state funded. It's funded through the revenue from those heavy vehicles. Those heavy vehicles should be on Putty Road. The faster we can get them onto Putty Road, the less time they'll spend on our own roads. We've got a Mayoral Minute about cost shifting. Let's do some cost shifting of our own. Let's put those vehicles back onto Putty Road where they belong. Let's get people proper access to water cartage, particularly in times of flood. Let's get people out to the shops when West Portland Road is flooded in. And let's give people a safe, reasonable way to get home every day so that they can feel confident, and more so that they can feel confident that their children will get home every day as well.

We went out to this community. I went to Colo Heights. We promised that we would do this. They backed the SRV in good faith. If we go out for another SRV with unkept promises. We can't expect anybody to back us in. We can't expect the community to trust us. They've put our faith in us. We now need to act in a way deserving of that faith. Thanks.

Thank you, Councillor.

Anyone else wishing to speak? Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I also support this motion, and Council had already decided to seal Packer Road. It's a decision that's been on the books for some time. And as far as I know, I haven't come across any councillors who were against that idea, councillors who wanted to change that. So when this came up from the staff, I just assumed that councillors would just go ahead and say , yes, we still want to seal Packer Road. And I think staff put it up just as Councillor Kotlas said, as something for us to consider. But I never considered that we shouldn't do it, and most councillors, I think all councillors, also never considered that we shouldn't do it. So because of that, I mean, I don't think there's any need for me to make a long-winded speech.

There's no need for me to say how necessary this is. We all know that. And let's honour the promise that we made before, and let's go ahead and seal Packer Road.

Councillor Dogramaci.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. As always, I'm direct to the point, and I look at the practical side of it. Being new in this council, it's always the same thing comes into my mind. Not to you, directly or indirectly. But sometimes I'm asking myself a question: why this council, you know, hates certain parts of the community?

I'd call you to order on that comment. That is absolutely a subjective point

Of view and it is just not true.

All right. Well, that's the way I think. I mean, don't know ones, you know, live around that area, Lower Portland Road or around that area. These people, they do. We don't know, you know, what they are suffering day after day. Do we have to wait for other accident? Do we have to wait for somebody else to get killed? I mean, what is it? When I raise this kind of question, it's always the money. I mean, we are very, very well known for wasting money. Couldn't we, you know, just borrow some extra money and pour it into these people? Do we have to wait for these people to suffer more and more? Just get it going, you know. And next we'll have to appoint some consultants, go there and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars, put, you know, traffic controlling people and dig it and put, you know, substandard sealing or whatever it is, and no time go back and do it again. Councillor, I'm going to

Call you to order again. Well

You always, you know, keep doing the same thing. Under section 15. When I start talking, you always cut me off.

No, Councillor, because you are breaking the code of meeting practice, okay? And I'm not going to have that in a chamber, okay? We are going to follow procedure. You are bringing the council into disrepute with your incorrect comments.

What about disreputing these people?

That's got—what you're saying has nothing to do with the motion on the board, okay? So please keep to the agenda.

Well, let's start, you know, this thing going, you know, without wasting a week or month. Let's start tomorrow, okay? Thank you.

Anyone else wishing to speak? Councillor Levi.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

I will call— excuse me, gentlemen , you have been asked once to stop speaking over the councillors. Please refrain from doing so again.

Thanks. For those who spoke tonight with passion and compassion, thank you. It normally takes one speaker to represent a multiple of maybe 40 to 50 of the LGA in favour of this. This is a no-brainer. I'll be supporting this motion, and I thank for the debate within the chamber. It is a pity that it has been delayed. If it's come to the chamber of previous councils, it has been, what, 10 years, I think it might have been. Well , I don't think we can look to the past; we can look to the present. So hopefully within a few minutes the motion will be voted on and will be in the positive. So again, for those who are in the audience supporting the sealing of Packer Road, I thank you, respect, and dare I say, with love for those who you've lost because of that road. Okay

Thank you. Councillor Readen.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'm very supportive that we go ahead and seal Packer Road, and I'd like to move the motion be put.

Thank you, Councillor Readen. I think you are the last councillor to speak, other than myself, so I'm just going to add some last remarks if you don't mind. And I just want to put it very clearly on the record that I absolutely 100% am committed to the sealing of Packer Road. And I think that everyone here tonight who's contributed by speaking or by being present from your community have heard now from every single councillor that you have a unanimous commitment to the sealing of Packer Road. Councillor Kotlash is correct, and it wasn't the staff trying to cause issues in the community or be antagonistic to the community. We do have to make tough decisions about reallocating funds in a very limited pool of money that we have.

That's why you elect us, to make these decisions. The 12 of us all live in the Hawkesbury. We all live here. We raise our kids here. We're just normal people who put up our hand to represent the community, and part of that is listening to what you have to say and trying our very best to spend the limited pool of funds that we have in the very best way. I want to thank you all for your emails over the last few days, expressing your concerns about it and making yourselves very clear about the desire to do so. The reason we have to make this decision tonight is because we do have to reallocate those funds. That is our due diligence, and that is a part of good governance, and that is what we have to do as a council.

And I actually want to thank the staff for bringing that forward because we have to make those tough decisions. Given that the business paper shows there was an escalation in costs of a million dollars, we have to pull that from somewhere else. That's the reality of running a local council. And if you read by mayoral minute in the business paper, which will be discussed later on, probably by the time you've all lovingly gone home to your homes and not worrying about the rest of the business we've got to do, it's about cost shifting, and that's both the current and the previous state government who have put a lot of extra costs onto local councils, the 128 councils across New South Wales, who can only collect a small amount of rates and rely on grants to get the job done, and we can't always get the job done without having discussions like this.

The reason I'm committed to sealing Packer Road is a few, having dragged my Lewis boat along West Portland Road many times to put it in at Skeleton Rocks. Because you can't take Packer Road, I completely understand that it needs to be that link road. Whoever spoke on that earlier tonight, it is that link road to the Putty Road, a road that it will be, even though it's funded by the state government, not council. It's still you as a taxpayer or a ratepayer, but they do have a much bigger pool of funds to do that work with.

I also did want to say that one of the first things that I did as mayor, if anyone can recall, and you may not know that in this community—sorry, in this room tonight or watching at home— was ask my fellow elected representatives to come on a journey with me for an entire day, and we went out to St Albans, we went out to Lower Portland, and we went to Colo Heights. And the reason, when I became mayor in August 2022, that I decided that was the first stop I wanted the elected body to go to was because of the trauma that you have all suffered through the fires and the floods and being cut off. And I know that you choose to live out there because it's lovely and peaceful and it's a bit more remote, but that doesn't mean that you don't have to have quality roads.

So when I drove out there, even though we encountered the most violent thunderstorm on Wilberforce Ridge Trail, which I think we needed to encounter to realise what you were all enduring at the time, I must have screamed quite a few times, and going over Greens Road when it was far from finished, which also encountered a few screams—Councillor Sheather knows that, I was driving. I think it's important that, you know, no matter where we live in our LGA, we know what you're experiencing, and I think that is very, very important. And the other thing, the other reason I would make this decision tonight is that quite a few of you, I'm not sure in the room, have emailed me over Packer Road, not just recently but in the past, and I've literally copied and pasted out of our current operational plan in my responses to you about the sealing of Packer Road in this financial year.

I have that in writing and I'm not going to deter from that. So you have my absolute commitment to seal Packer Road, and it looks like you have the support of the entire council chamber. So thank you, everybody.

I've just received some advice just a moment ago about the fact that we can vote on what's on the board without completing the item. We will come back to address the rest of the item later, so that the registered public speakers on the next item can still speak without having to listen to the rest of that debate. I'm just checking that that is correct. I'm doing the right thing here. I don't want to do the wrong thing. So if councillors listening, if you understand, we'll come back to the other portion of this item as per the running order of the agenda. So therefore, we'll be voting on the motion as per the board right now. If councillors in favour can please raise their hand. Oh, sorry, Councillor Lyons-Fucket, of course, right of reply

Thank you, and thank you for people supporting those who supported having it done separately. I think it was really important that we listened to this community. It's clearly resonated with people, and that's been a wonderful thing. I just wanted to clarify, I wasn't accusing the staff of pitting one part of the community against the other. I was saying when a report is put out where it says we're taking money from this project and putting it to these other projects, that is the perception that the community gets. And we need to be careful around that because we don't want that to happen. So it wasn't a criticism of staff. It was how it reads, and I had some concerns with how it read. I won't take any much time except to say thank you to the councillors.

I do recall when we've had briefings on this, it wasn't always unanimous to proceed with sealing it. There has been quite a bit of— there has been some councillors who've raised not wanting to do that, and I imagine that's why that has come forward, as it has. Fortunately, there's been opinions changed, so that's a good thing, and we can really look forward to this community. I imagine they won't feel it's a certainty until they actually see the road being there right in front of them, but let's hope. I hope that that's before too long. And thank you for all coming in tonight. Travel home safely.

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

Okay, the next item subject to public address is item 6.1.2, Notice of Motion 2, Companion Animals, and the registered public speaker is Mr Michael Wont.

Madam Mayor. Yes, Councillor. While Mr Wont settles himself, I've made an incorrect declaration. I'm sorry. I declared item 4.4.1, and I should have declared item 4.5.3.

Hold on a second. 4.4.1, cross that out. I must admit, I thought, that's interesting, what's she declaring on that one? And it was which one? 4.

5.3. Okay, yeah. So not the bit that we've just discussed, though. No worries. I'll get you to read it out later. Thank you.

Mr Wont. Thank you, Mayor and councillors. Mary and I, my wife, used to have fairy wrens, fairy wrens, blue and red in our garden on a very regular basis up until about seven years ago, and we don't see any more small birds or creatures. I've not seen one fairy wren for ages, and very few other small birds. There's lots of habitat around our home and beyond to attract small birds and other creatures. Councillor Reardon lives nearby on a stud farm, so Councillor Reardon's in the same situation as us with habitat to cater for all sorts of birds. She indicated they did have all sorts of birds at their home. I know there are other predators as well as wild cats. Cats' gestation period is about nine weeks.

They can have five litters per annum. I was gobsmacked at the debate, in inverted commas, by the rejection of the notice of motion moved by Councillor Wheeler at Council's last meeting. Not to allocate $5,000 to subsidise desexing program in the Hawksbury for cats. Councillor Dogmatti just said a while ago, council is well known for wasting money. Dogmatic, sorry, Councillor. So $5,000 is nothing, from what I heard last year about it. If council supports this notice of motion, there must be some cost benefits, with less cats to catch, care for, feed, house, and less cats to euthanise over time. Not to mention the fauna, particularly small birds and other creatures, they may populate again in our backyard.

Surely it's a win, win, councillors. Tonight I would like to know, before the vote, if any community member have contacted councillors opposing council's notice of motion. If no one answers in the debate, I will take it no community member has contacted any councillor opposing. Councillors, in closing, I urge you to represent the collective interest of residents and ratepayers and the local community. That's what it says in the Local Government Act, section 232. And just to close on,

As I said in my last contribution, councillors, I'm a strong believer in local government if politicians engage with the community or their representatives, we have better outcomes. Thank you.

Any questions, councillors? No. Thank you, Mr. Watt. Councillor... Thanks, Madam Mayor. I'll move the

Motion in the business paper. I second that, Madam Mayor.

Thanks. Thanks, Mr. Watt, for coming in and addressing us . The issue of wildlife is particularly concerning, and...

And it's a really hard ask, I think. It's part of what this notice of motion attempts to address. But I'll speak to the points in order. Last month we bogged down, I think, on the how, and I think to a degree we neglected the why. And I'm hoping that this provides a short, sharp way forward, that Council adds to Animal Welfare League's existing program to increase its capacity in the LGA and provides an immediate benefit while we determine the best way forward for Council's actions, be that an external program or a program that's Council's own. The Animal Welfare League program is established, it's trusted and it's effective. The costs, as Mr. Wont said, could be partially offset, and I don't pretend by any means that they will be completely offset by reduced dumping and surrendered animals, but they certainly will be matched by improvements in animal welfare.

I don't know if other councillors have been keeping tabs on social media, but the barrage of dumped kittens and animals that people can no longer care for is just heartbreaking. The day after the Council meeting, Arndell School advertised that, or put on their social media, that they had a box of kittens left at Arndell, and could someone please adopt them and look after them. Animal Welfare League is full. They have an 18-month waiting list for surrendered dogs. This is an area of clear need.

Council can readily enter into a memorandum of understanding. It can be time limited, it can be LGA specific, and it can include thresholds like the need for a healthcare card or a pensioner card, so that we make sure that that money is going to the people who need it. What we see now is people who are just simply put off the cost of desexing. It's quite expensive. We had a cat desexed the day after the council meeting. We went through a protracted process. It was three days to get our stray cat into a suitable, and I must say, much beefed up container after a couple of near misses, and we finally got her off to the vet. Five hundred and sixty bucks later, we had a desexed and microchipped cat.

Now that's out of reach for lots of people. Even people who are quite well-meaning, that's still out of reach. To take five little kittens to be desexed and microchipped was another six hundred bucks. They're too young—sorry, to be microchipped and registered was another six hundred bucks. They're too young to be desexed at this point, so we're still looking at another fifteen hundred bucks. At least these ones we can get in a box. Point two relates to procedures at the shelter. The shelter is costly but necessary. The staff do really difficult work, and we owe it to them and the animals they care for to be well appraised of the policies, procedures and needs of the shelter, especially as we move into budget discussions.

And that's all point two is designed to do: have a discussion with councillors and the animal shelter staff so that we make sure that the policies that we give them are stringent enough and the procedures that they are able to have in place and the resources are provided so that they can make sure that animals go to good homes. Point three is probably the most, I think, contentious part of this motion. It calls for Council to receive a briefing on the Community Cat Program trial that was mentioned. This is the Jackie Rand trial that was mentioned by Animal Welfare League in January. I'm not convinced that trap-neuter-return is best in an Australian context, but we do have a well-regarded university trial that's looking at whether it works and whether it should be rolled out in Australia.

The alternative is that we just keep on with this ad hoc treatment. We have a problem with colony or community cats in the Hawkesbury, and we need to discuss ways forward. I think that's best done first in the chamber, where we can discuss what we think the community will tolerate, whether that's TNR or whether it's another program. But I would like us to have that discussion. Thanks.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else? Councillor Sheather.

Yeah, question, Madam Mayor. We had a comment from the staff in relation to a briefing that was coming up to discuss this. Is there any update on that or information? Yes,

Thank you, Councillor. Acting Manager of Regulatory Services.

Madam Mayor

Councillors. Yes,

No, I'm fine. Thank you. Yeah, we do have the briefing coming up in March and be happy to go through all of the upcoming changes through that time. No problem at all.

Is it going to cover some of the areas that are talked about here, or is there any that's in this motion that isn't going to be addressed, or wasn't going to be addressed?

Thank you. Through you, Madam Mayor, with regards to this motion, it will certainly address... An aspect of point one. So the resolution from the last meeting actually called for information to come back with the comparison of the Animal Welfare League, Prospectively, or another alternate animal welfare organisation compared with Council running its own desexing program. It had asked for upgrades to the shelter in terms of improvements at the shelter and information with regards to prospective budget implications going forward, or that information is intended to be provided at the briefing in March. So it doesn't necessarily give the information in here in terms of the additional program at this point in time isn't covered, nor would entering into an MOU specifically be addressed in the briefing as yet.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak? Deputy Mayor.

Just a question for staff, if I might. I read in here that we're currently going through a cat crisis. I'm just wondering if the staff can tell me some more about this cat crisis. What exactly is it, and if it exists, why are numbers suddenly increasing?

Yeah, I'll refer to the Acting Manager Regulatory Services.

Thank you for your question. At the moment it is kitten season. So, as I think was touched on earlier, cats, their gestation period is very short and they all seem to line up at the same time. They have kittens at the same time. It just means that at certain times of the year, it generally happens twice during the year, they have kittens after kittens after kittens, and it just explodes out of control twice a year. And that's why you find that not just our shelter but all shelters around New South Wales are all full at this time. Someone mentioned tonight Animal Welfare League are full, but also all of the other council-run pounds are all at capacity for dogs and cats specifically as well. So the answer to the question is because they all have kittens at the same time.

Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Kotlash. Could I ask a follow-up question? When the kitten season is twice a year,

Are we at the end of the kitten season for this first round?

Thank you. Yeah, we are starting to flatten out. So as you saw over that Christmas period is where the big peak is. Coming off now as we come just out of summer is when it starts to flatten off. So the curve, we're definitely on the down curve at the moment, which is good. You know, definitely not as many coming through the door, which is good. Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you.

Anyone else wishing to— Councillor Sheather?

Yes, thanks, Madam Mayor. In relation to feral cats, people would take domestic cats and one would expect that if they're going to be left there, there's a fair chance that they could be homed in other places. What about wild domestic cats? And we've got some around the place, only got to go up in the main street to see them . What do we do about them? They roam the streets. I don't know that we catch them. If we do, do we try and home them or are they dealt with? Because they seem to be a real problem within our streets, probably more so than the ones that can be domestically dealt with, I suppose. How do we deal with those?

Thank you. Acting Manager of Regulatory Services. Yeah,

Thank you for the question. Currently under the Act, there's no distinction between feral domestic cats, which makes it very difficult for rangers and for councils to take enforcement action. Under the Act, we can only secure cats generally under two provisions: one, when they're in a wildlife preservation area or a food preparation area. They are legally allowed to roam, so they're allowed to roam through public and private property, which makes it very difficult for us to even enforce. Again, coming back to the fact that there's no distinction between those feral and domestic ones. So when we do get a cat in that is displaying, you know, feral behaviours, that's when we do obviously get a vet to confirm that.

But yet to answer the question, it's very difficult when the legislation doesn't actually define it. We are hoping that through that pound inquiry that those—I'm not sure if you're aware, there's been a New South Wales government pound inquiry—and that this was one of the big hot topic issues, and they were really hoping that there'll be a distinction coming when those findings get released. Yeah.

Any other councillors? Councillor Kotlash.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. I'll start with another question. I was, at the last meeting, I was hoping that we could

Fast-track council's, you know, subsidised desexing program, and I was just wondering if we have— Do we have the funds to be able to fast track that program that we spoke about at the last meeting? And if we do, would that, well, I guess it wouldn't be an immediate start, but is that something that could start soon? Director of City Planning.

Thank you. Through you, Madam Mayor, look, staff have been investigating commencement of our own desexing program. We do have existing arrangements with local veterinary clinics, so that's eight in local area as well as one just outside of the local area in Box Hill. We've actually spoken to four of those eight now and have an early indication of absolute willingness to participate in that program. We have funding available this year to proceed. It would possibly need a small amount of money on a non-going basis, but the intention is to finalise discussions with the remaining veterinary clinics. And as I said, because we have existing arrangements for other services provided by those veterinary clinics, we could have a desexing program up and running as soon as March.

Thank you for that. That does, that changes things a bit. I think the best way forward for this issue, and I've got to say from the start that I don't think doing this policy development on the hop, the way we've done this, is adequate. It's very frustrating. I think it's very confusing to the community, and it's just poor governance. And I don't want us to ever sort of go through this again. It's just, yeah, it's just. Poor policy development. What I think I would like to see is we have a resolution that we had from the last meeting to have a briefing about this. I would like to stick to that. I would like, I'd like Council to fast-track our desexing program. Now, one of the reasons why I'm not of a mind to support , at this stage, at this stage, please note, supporting the Animal Welfare League with the $5,000 interim funding is that it just seems to me that we might be able to get, if we fund our own program, we might be able to get to a position where we actually might be able to assess whether it's effective and feasible for us to actually give support to an outside agency, or we do it ourselves, or we support both avenues.

This is maybe how it will have to work. We both, you know, outside agencies and Council work together in partnership. I have to note that at the last meeting, the representative from the Animal Welfare League stated that they had given out 1,000 desexing vouchers since July 2023 at a cost of $46,000. That's if they were all redeemed. So I'd like to see Council— And the take-up rate apparently was 60%. So I thought to myself, well,

That take-up rate isn't very good, but could council actually get involved? And I don't know what this involvement would be, in giving support to the Animal Welfare League to try and get that take-up to increase? Because presumably, somebody who has a pet that's not desexed has a voucher just waiting to happen. Now, that to me is an ideal opportunity for us to really claw back some of the, you know, of the kitten crisis, let's say. I know it's also for puppies as well. So I think this is a real opportunity that we should go for. So I'm not going to support this notice of motion. I'm going to stick to having our briefing in March. It sounds to me like the companion animal shelter subsidising project is well underway, and I think that's good.

We've also heard that the kitten season is in the lag stage, so that's one we can take a breath, I think. I think we can make much better decisions if we just stick to the resolution of the last meeting. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak?

Councillor Lyons-Bucko. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I think that I'll support the motion. I think that there's some things additional from the one last week, particularly about the briefing on the community cat program. As Councillor Schaefer just was speaking about the feral cats, of course, they're part of what Councillor Wheeler's motion refers to as the colony cats. I think that also, I think that's quite important. And I would have thought that now would have been, when the crisis is diminishing somewhat, now would have been the exact time to take action right now to implement the desexing program, because we know that there's going to be another crisis looming just shortly down the track.

So desexing now, when it's possible, would surely be the ultimate in trying to control, which obviously has become a statewide issue from what's been said. And, I mean, I'm happy if council can fast-track a program, but we don't have any information on that. And so this is what we've got now, and I don't even really know what that means, if that's, you know, for everybody or if there's restrictions around that. Until we hear about that, which won't be until March, it would have been good to be able to get something immediately going to assist with getting this program underway. And then, of course, as had been previously stated, although I don't know if it's in here whether we would be looking at it, obviously once we have the briefing and for the next financial year.

So I'm happy to support this as it is now. I think that, yep, the solutions to get on with it immediately before the next crisis turns up, because this is clearly something which is really problematic. Thank

You, Councillor.

Yes, can I ask a question? Absolutely. Yeah, just a quick question. The notice of motion says by March 2024, so that's when we're going to have our briefing, so there's no— Time advantage, presumably. I mean, with the— Did you want to answer to that

Yeah

The memorandum of understanding, I expect, will have to be, I don't know, the timing around that would be pretty good. Thanks. So what's— can I just get your question clarified? We're talking about the immediacy of starting desexing projects, programs.

Council has, is in the final stages of our own desexing program, which presumably, because the Director of Planning has just told us that would be in March. So that's getting on with it. Is that— so why, and the first point of the notice of motion is that by March we enter into a memorandum of understanding. Is it going to take us till March to do that?

Thank you, Councillor. Who would like to answer that?

I'm happy to take that through you, Madam Mayor. I think effectively what you're saying is correct. What we're saying is that in March we will both brief councillors and then proceed into a commencement of a program, pending a satisfactory briefing of Council. What the Animal Welfare League, they've obviously got an existing program. My understanding of the motion is that we would be contributing financially to, with a series of probably grant-type acquittal processes built into a memorandum of understanding. So I think from a timing point of view, it's effectively identical, other than that the Animal Welfare League's program is already up and running, and we would just be simply making a financial contribution towards that.

Thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak? Right of reply, Councillor With.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. I'll address a couple of the points that have been raised. So I'll deal with Councillor Kotlash's point around timing to start with, because that's where we are now. The idea of this isn't that we give money to Animal Welfare League in perpetuity. It's that we act quickly while we get our own program up and going. Animal Welfare has an existing program. It is capable of expanding rapidly. It's also capable of scaling back if it's not needed. But it relies on an understanding of capacity in order to run. So for council, this is only February. If council indicates in February that we are willing to give them $5,000 — it's not a very big amount of money, but it is a match of what Penrith Council gives them to desex cats in their own area, in their own LGA — then they can give out more vouchers.

They can take on more people. Their intention was to give out a thousand vouchers. They had the capacity for a thousand vouchers for this financial year. When I spoke to them in January, they had given out in the order of 800 of those thousand vouchers. There is still enormous need. Those kittens that were at Animal Welfare on Facebook in our shelter in December, January and February are nearly four months old, some of them. They are able to get pregnant from the moment they come on heat at four months old. That's five more cats. And then in another four months, five more cats. If there's three females in that litter, then that's— you do the sums. This is simple combination and permutation mathematics that people learnt at high school.

Cats have the capacity to breed in an exponential fashion, and they're out and about doing it as we speak.

Mr Watt is correct in that once they start that process, they are extraordinary predators and have a big impact as well.

But what we're trying to do is pre-empt the next curve. We might be on the downward curve now, but we're going to hit the upturn again, and we will be wearing that at the shelter, and our welfare league will wear it, the RSPCA will wear it, and good-hearted people who take in cats in cardboard boxes will, and raise them and try to find homes for them, will do it as well. That's why we need to move quickly. I reject the idea, or the accusation, frankly, that this is poor governance and bad policy development. Each stage has asked for a briefing where we can determine what the staff at the animal shelter need in terms of policy for us to support them. No one's making any policy. The rest of the discussion is a budget pitch before we go into budget discussions.

We haven't made —at no stage have I put policy forward for councillors to determine. And so I really reject the idea that this is lazy. The last motion, frankly, was met with all sorts of criticism: poor governance, lazy, grandstanding.

Thank you, Councillor Kotlash. How have you been misrepresented?

That goes at the end of the motion, Madam Mayor. Yeah

Thank you. Oh, we'll just wait till that's finished speaking. Yeah, just hold your misrepresentation. Thank you.

This is designed to react to a crisis.

I don't know how we can determine whether our own program or contributing to animal welfare will be best if we refuse to ever contribute to the Animal Welfare League. And I just want to address the idea that we can get moving. This is about upping the capacity of Animal Welfare while we start our program. They have a trusted, effective program that already exists. They can give out vouchers tomorrow if they know they've got another $5,000 coming in.

The feral cat issue is really complex. What Councillor Sheather is referring to are colony cats. There is—what we need is some cat containment legislation that allows us to act on those cats that are roaming, in the same way we would act on dogs that are roaming. The community cat program aims to address that problem of colony cats. So they're brought in, they're examined to see whether they're healthy or not, they're desexed, they're marked, and under a trap, neuter, return system, they're released back onto the site. The idea is that they— if you take all the cats away and euthanise them, which is the alternative, you leave a void and other cats move in. The food source still is still there, and so they continue to breed, to breed up, and you don't reduce the numbers.

I'm not convinced that trap, neuter, return or this community cat program is necessarily the best way forward, but I want us to discuss it, and I think the best place to do that is in a briefing rather than slugging it out in the chamber, because these are quite emotive topics that, where the community does rightly have real concerns about animal welfare. I think we, and I would like us to discuss our tolerance for a program like this, but we can't keep ignoring the problem either. That's the current alternative on the table.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Kotlash, if you could address your misrepresentation.

I didn't say that the process that we were going through was lazy. I said that, I didn't mention the word lazy at all. I said that it was inappropriate, wasn't data-based. I didn't say it was lazy.

Thank you. Thank you, Councillor. All those in favour of the motion, please raise your hand. In favour are Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler and Councillors Improgno. Those against, please raise your hand. A Councillor Reardon, Councillor Vaig, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert and Councillor McMahon. Absent from the room is Councillor Conolly. I declare the motion lost. Councillors, would anyone be interested in a five-minute break? Can I have someone please move that way? Councillor Kotlash, seconded Councillor Dogramaci. All in favour, please raise your hand. Declare that carried. Thank you, Councillors. We'll return at—we'll make it ten past nine. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillors. If you could please resume your seats.

I hope that was a good little break for you all, but we will resume our meeting for this evening. The next item on the agenda is the Mayoral Minute cost shifting onto local government. Now, obviously, this is something that I'm putting forward deliberately as a Mayoral Minute because it is a campaign by Local Government New South Wales for all the councils in New South Wales to make this argument. And I don't believe this argument should be political because, as I've said previously tonight, I touched on in another item, it's just as much the current, if not the past government, state government as well, and federal government, let's be frank, that have cost shifted onto local councils, regardless of the political party.

They are both responsible for doing so. And I know that some people in the community wonder what cost shifting is, so if you didn't mind, I just wanted to read out the definition, which is on page three of Attachment 1 to the Mayoral Minute, and I think this clearly shows what we're dealing with tonight. Cost shifting describes a situation where the responsibility for, or merely the costs of, providing a certain service, concession, asset or regulatory function is imposed onto local government from a higher level of government, Commonwealth or state government, without the provision of corresponding funding or the conferral of corresponding and adequate revenue-raising capacity other than out of general rates.

It's a bit of a mouthful there, but I think it was important to get that on the public record because what it's saying is other levels of government can make decisions that we are bound by as a local government to either enforce or to do, but they're not giving us the funding to allocate that. So we have to find that in our very limited pool of rates. So an example that I think is their number one example. In showing that is, of course, the emergency services contributions. Now, we've had a discussion about this before, where there is also some joint advocacy from councils across the state on the emergency service levy, where councils currently are required to fund 11.7% of the cost of Fire and Rescue New South Wales, the RFS and the New South Wales SES through that emergency services levy.

Now, that's a big hit for our ratepayers to have to do that. Then, of course, there's the waste levy, the forced rates exemptions, the imposing additional regulatory functions onto councils, cutting or failing to adequately continue to fund programs for services that need to continue, pensioner rebates, and councils absorbing the cost of service and market gaps that should have been provided by state or federal governments. And when you think about the things that councils should uniquely be responsible for, and of course the biggest thing we talk about is roads, and they've got the rates and the rubbish, but roads, and the debate we had tonight just on Packer Road, where we are struggling to find the cost to fill those escalating needs from the contractors and what it costs to provide those services because costs are going up, and of course we're not getting the funding from those other levels of governments to compensate for that.

Hence the Meral Minute I'm putting forward, as I said, which is part of a lot of other councils joining together to, of course, face the biggest challenge that we have as a local government sector, which is maintaining our financial sustainability. So I put the Meral Minute forward. I don't think I need to say much more. I think it says it all in there, of course, with a recommendation to write to the current government to seek to address how we make sure these costs don't continue to come onto local government. There has to be change. I think the only way to do that is with joint and forced advocacy. Thank you, councillors. Anyone else wishing to speak? Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I will support this Meral Minute, of course, and— I'm also concerned about, and it's mentioned in the attachment, the waste levy that the state government has imposed upon councils for so many years. And according to this attachment, it's $288 million. And I was looking at another document recently where it was actually greater than that. So it's a lot of money that we have to pay to the state government to put our own rubbish in our own tip. And that money was originally designed to come back to us in terms of finding new ways of handling waste or better ways of handling waste. Only about 2% of it comes back to us in that form. The rest is put into state revenue and builds other things.

And I don't begrudge them building roads or whatever, but that money is just a straight tax on the councils, especially councils like us that have the waste disposal areas. And for many years now, we've been banging on their door asking them to do something about this, and all the government people that I've spoken to over the last 10 years or so all nod their head and say, Oh yeah, that's terrible. We'll do something. It's still not being done. So I think that's something that, in particular, we should be pushing. The other thing that we're not mentioning here is the hidden costs of housing development. State government is saying, you know, you need to develop along your railway lines and you need to put in eight-story buildings along each station, etc.

But if you do that, then there's a lot of extra costs for the council. If you put in a housing estate, you've got all the associated costs in the long run with waste and with streetlights and — And building and maintaining the roads. I mean, the developer will build the roads, but then when the roads start to fall apart, it's us that has to then maintain them. So all that housing doesn't come free for us. It is more cost, and of course it's our job to pay for it. But it appears to me that we're not actually in a position of being included in the discussion in terms of where the money is going to come from. It's just that, oh, councils will look after that. So cost shifting is something in my mind that is not actually going away; it is getting worse and it's accelerating.

And I really appreciate this mayoral minute. Hopefully the state government in this case will listen to it.

Thank you, Deputy

Mayor. Councillor. Thank you, Madam Mayor, and I support the mayoral minute. It's sort of a little bit like an echo of seeing it because I remember in 2015-16 a similar cost shifting report came out, and it was the forerunner, of course, to the Fit for the Future project, and then the very—well , people have different opinions—but the forced amalgamations that then followed suit. I think that I was a bit concerned to see that the current local government minister, Ron Hoenig, said in November 2023 that claims of cost shifting were nothing new and the debate will never be settled. I do think that it takes, as the Deputy Mayor has just said, that it needs more. It needs to go deeper than simply just all agreeing that cost shifting is a bad thing.

We know that it is, and I agree entirely around the waste levy. It is a ludicrous situation that we pay so much per tonne to put our own waste in our own tip, and of, I think a couple of years ago, I think we gave them something like 1.3 million and we got $100,000 back, which was for waste education projects. The governments, all governments, they throw grant money at us all the time, often connected to political announcements and putting forward various projects. But they're not necessarily always what we might believe that our community needs, and they're often rushed and ineffective, and at the same time can consume either staff resources or require us to put more money in, and they're an additional form of cost shifting while we are still going on with our day-to-day obligations.

So I am pleased that the current government is seeking feedback on the terms of reference. For the investigation into financial sustainability, and I did ask the general manager, who confirms we will have a briefing on that so councillors can have some input. I believe all councillors have been individually contacted as well to give their feedback into that process, and I think it's a really important one. I've long campaigned on reforming local government in terms of how it's operated, because clearly there's a lot of issues. In a previous council term, in the last one I think it was, former Councillor Reynolds moved a motion to include a statement about cost shifting on the rates notices so that the public could understand just how much we had been affected by cost shifting.

We ended up, I think that didn't go ahead or was withdrawn. But at the time it was explaining around the contributions to emergency services, pension rebate, public library operations, the shortfall in cost recovery for regulatory services under various Acts of Parliament, control of noxious weeds, administration of food safety, flood mitigation and road safety, etcetera, etcetera, the list goes on. And there was a very comprehensive document around financial sustainability at the time where it was ascertained that the cost shifting at the time was seven million dollars, which was a lot of money at that time to be putting on a council through various additional inspections and things that we had to put in.

Also of interest probably in relation to that is in 2015, which is now a few councils ago, and I think probably only Councillor Calvert and I and Councillor Conolly were the only three councillors who were on that council who are still here. Council submitted its fit for the future proposal, Mr Mifsud will remember, around council improvement, and it referenced cost shifting and the inability to renew and maintain assets at a financially sustainable level, which specifically due in part to our geography and demography and, you know, our same thing we always say, small rate base, big area, etcetera. And that led to us putting forward 20 strategies, of which an SRV was one. That was in 2015 under a previous council, and then that took a few years to come to fruition.

But when I see these things around cost shifting, we know what the inevitable expectation is probably going to be by other levels of government, and that is that we have to impose more increases on our people because there is a massive funding shortfall. So I look forward to seeing how the investigation into financial sustainability goes. I hope it's a productive process with the state government that we get to have input into, because there's certainly, and I think this is across the entire country, there needs to be some sort of reform around that so that we're not continuously having this debate, which goes round and round in cycles.

Thank you, Councillor Sanprogna.

Thank you. Of course, what we're really interested in is what the cost shifting is for our council. The local government New South Wales report, or the ALGA report, whoever it comes from, is fine as a kind of a bird's eye view of this, and they've done these kinds of exercises before. Back in 2016, we quantified the amount of cost shifting to this council and came up with a figure of $6.9 million. And the motion that Councillor Reynolds brought up in the previous term sought to work out whether that number for the 2016-17 financial year was still valid. And we paid a consultant to kind of review and update those numbers, or at least to see whether that number was still accurate. What concerned me is that I'd seen a line item in our list of consultancy expenditures

That we spent $10,000 on a report, and then I asked council staff for a copy of that report, and it came back and it was two pages long. I still can't quite tell whether that was a one-to-one correlation, whether that line item for $10,000 for a cost shifting report was the two-page document. But if it was, we didn't get our money's worth, because what the report said — and I'm looking at it right here — says that the $6.9 million figure is no longer reliable because the local government New South Wales template itself is based on assumptions that haven't been updated since 2003. So I hope that this report is not only more current, but that perhaps it provides us with a template to work out what the impact is to our own ratepayers.

So I suppose my question for staff is, is there any way of extrapolating from this new data, from this new report, something that helps us work out what the level of cost shift is for our council?

Chief Financial Officer.

Through you, Madam Mayor. The last time we undertook a similar template was under the 21-22 year and 22-23, so we can certainly provide those figures for you. So I've got the survey results here, but the total's not quite there, so yeah, I could follow through with that. So certainly we could provide it on that basis. But again, it's still based on the template that was provided by LG New South Wales. Exactly

And that report that we commissioned back in 2018, you know, drew attention to kind of shortcomings and enumerated those shortcomings, and I won't go into them.

However, I appreciate the mayoral minute is an effort to get on board with a broader campaign. This comes up annually at Local Government New South Wales. It comes up annually at ALGA down in Canberra. We throw our lot in and nothing happens. Mind you, what we're also reminded of at these conferences is that our help from federal assistance grants has gone from fully 1% of GDP. Back in the early 1990s, and is now less than one half of one percent of GDP. In other words, federal assistance has actually fallen by half over the last 30 years. And, of course, local government has no constitutional recognition, where everybody's whipping boy, and we're a cow or a pig that can just get taken to market every single time and bent over and, you know, these costs are just put onto us until we break.

So I'm as sick of this as the rest of you are. But I think that if we can quantify an updated and an accurate figure for cost shifting to us, I think Councillor Reynolds' idea was a very good idea then and is now, and we should put that number on our rates notices, and we should tell our ratepayers precisely how much other tiers of government are gouging out of us. No wonder we can't fix the potholes. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor, and I think I want to pass on my thanks to Local Government New South Wales for preparing the report and the template mayoral minute. I note that the report relates to a period when the LNP coalition was in government in New South Wales, and this problem was highlighted by the previous council with varying support in the chamber. I'm pleased to hear Councillor Zamproni now supports it because he didn't at the time. I note that Labor made some big promises to local government when they came into the election, and only for us to have the local government minister use his opening speech to condemn both our motivation in running for office and our capacity to carry out our roles, which surely was.

He even had members of his own party who were either existing councillors or had previously been councillors heckling him while he was speaking. Quite a kick in the guts, I have to say, for local government. I also note that in budget estimates, the last session of budget estimates, which happened just before the Local Government New South Wales conference, he was singing one song on the Friday about councils and our inability to balance our books, and a completely different song when he was actually fronting us at the Local Government New South Wales conference. So I think, you know, if we're expecting the local government minister to save our hides, we probably need to look elsewhere. The Local Government New South Wales conference did have a session on, I think it was called Set Up to Fail, I think was the title of the—not particularly inspiring, but something we already knew.

And there was one of the speakers stated that councils aren't receiving enough income that they need to deliver services and infrastructure, and ratepayers say they pay too much and get too little. So we're stuck in this position in the middle where it never—you know, it's a matter of swings and roundabouts, I think, for us, and we lose on both. You know, we hear that the FAG, the percentage of the federal assistance grants have dropped. Our needs—sorry, the needs of the community, particularly in growth areas, are increasing all the time, particularly as a result of natural disasters, and with the continuing impacts of climate change, I think we're going to see more and more cost increases as we manage more and more with, unfortunately, less and less.

Council providers of last resort in a whole lot of spaces, and we see that here: domestic violence, mental health, community centers . Things that should be set up by state and federal governments, and infrastructure that should be provided by developers is left to local councils to provide. And we are left working out how we balance the books across the LGA. We've just seen tonight where we've had to almost double the price of a project from its inception and work out what do we cut in order to do that. And these are decisions that we keep having to make. The question, I guess, that we ask ourselves is, when we have these gaps, is if we don't fill them, who will? And we continue to do that, and we do that with the best of intentions.

There are real direct cost shifting as well. Things like the waste levy, which is a travesty of the highest order. The emergency services levy, which represents, for communities like ours, really well beyond a double dip. It's a quadruple dip when we provide the service, we fund the service. Our rates fund the emergency services levy. It goes on and on . What we have to remember at the end of all of this is that cost shifting affects— we talk about cost shifting affecting council, but really cost shifting affects our ratepayers. It's a double whammy. It costs them more and it reduces their services. And that, I think, is the point that the state and federal governments really need to get. These are the people that they are supposed to be looking after with their capacity to tax, which we simply don't have.

We don't receive the roads revenue, and yet we maintain a huge roads network. We don't receive income tax like the federal government does, and yet we provide these services that actually, under the Australian Constitution, are federal government responsibilities. I note the IPART draft terms of reference are out. They've asked us to respond individually, as I presume we'll respond as a council as well. They purport to be investigating the financial sustainability of councils. They do say that they're going to look at whether the integrating planning and reporting system works. I think we all know that it doesn't, particularly if you have repeated natural disasters. But it does seem very much to be biased towards whether councils and councils can meet our responsibilities.

And there's not a lot of talk in the draft terms of reference from my quick scan of state and federal governments meeting theirs, and that's the pushback I think we need. Thank you.

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

Question, Madam Mayor.

The comments that have been made are pretty valid, and I was wondering whether you consider appoint 4. I'll just read it, that a delegation from the Mayor, Deputy Mayor and the GM meet with the Premier and Minister for Local Government to promote the concerns of the Hawkesbury City Council on the implication of cost shifting.

I'm very happy to add that, or in the letter we can, that we're writing in point 3, we can request the meeting, because we've written to the Premier so many times and he's refusing to meet with us in the Hawkesbury. So I'm happy to put that in the letter, or if a point 4 to write requesting a meeting, happy to do that. Yeah, because we can't really have a delegation if he's refusing to meet with us. So how would you like to say that?

I'm not sure how to word it. I'm just suggesting. Face to face is everything. And so what I'm proposing is you and the Deputy Mayor and the GM go down there, and eyeball him, both of them.

Well, can I make the point, too, to say that first of all, we need to request a meeting. We have to ask to put it in his diary with the Premier of New South Wales. Actually, it needs to be all three, really — the Treasurer and the Local Government Minister. So I'm happy to make that a point four, requesting a meeting and then see where we go

From there. Yeah, but don't ask too many for too much, because you'll get nothing. I know. Well, I'm

Happy to make that a point four, absolutely, as long as other councillors who've spoken are happy with that. Thank you. Were you anything else?

Just face-to-face meetings is extremely important. And while there's lots of concerns, this has big impacts. A couple of years ago, we spoke about the red fleet and the implications for that. It goes on and on. And in some cases, it's big money we're talking about. And if you live in Parramatta, perhaps even Penrith or Blacktown, your rate base gives you some opportunity to balance the books a bit, I guess. They haven't got the kilometres of roads that we've got, the massive area between any sort of infrastructure to service our community. Our halls are timber sheds,

You know, an hour and a half away from one another in some cases. We don't have the same luxury as some of the other councils, and I'm not complaining about them, and I don't hear other people complain about it either. But if we're going to have Cost shifting of this magnitude across all councils. There's got to be some balance where some councils can, to a degree, absorb, and they must be able to, otherwise the government's not going to make decisions that are going to, you know, break all councils. But there's got to be exceptions where there's high and low risks in relation to the decisions they make. And I'd suggest that we're at the lower end of that, and that needs to be made clear, that when they make these decisions, there's councils similar to ours with the area that we need to cover, with the population rate we've got, and the opportunity for any sort of funding is extremely limited, and again depends on them to , in the main, fund it.

So when they're putting the cost back onto us, that's really limited. You know, I think a face-to-face is warranted, and one of the times I think is just this.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Dogramaci. Thank you, Madam Mayor. When the Premier refused to talk or, you know, come into discussion, have you tried the Deputy Premier ? No, he has sent out the relevant ministers on the topics that I've written to him about. So we have met with the Planning and the Environment—sorry, and the Emergency Services Minister. And as I wrote to you earlier this week, we have the recon authority coming out on Thursday, which was, again, the ministers not wanting to come out but sending out the people from the department. I'm aware of that. Would you kindly try to approach Prue Carr? Please. I'm happy to approach Pru Carr, Councillor, yeah. And if you wish— well, she's just next door, isn't she? Well, if you wish, I'll be more than happy to hand deliver to her. Thank you, Councillor. Thank you. Please consider it.

Thank you. Councillor Wheeler. Thanks, Madam Mayor. A question: would it be helpful if I forwarded to you the Chief Financial Officer's estimations of the impact of unratable land in the LGA? I note that's a component of the report. It totals around $4.2 million annually. Yes

Absolutely. Thank you. Include that as an attachment. Thank you. Okay. If no one else is wishing to speak, I'll put the mayoral minute. Those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour are Councillor Reardon, Councillor Vargo, Councillor Sheehy, Councillor Hotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dodgramachi, Councillor Duret, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillors Impragno, Councillor McMahon. Absent from the room is Councillor Conolly. I declare the mayoral minute carried.

We'll go just to items on block, which is only one item, which is 4.4.2. Can I have someone move that way? Councillor Lyons-Buckett, seconded Councillor Zamprogno. All in favour, please raise your hand. Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Durick, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor McMahon. Absent from the room is Councillor Conolly. I declare that item carried.

There it is. The next item on the agenda is item 4.3.1, Windsor Liveability Project update. Do I have anyone wishing to move anything? Councillor

Wheeler. Madam, could I read Mr. Eds?

Oh, sorry, yes, I did say that you could. Yes, please go ahead. Sorry

If you'll just bear with me while I find it. Okay. Sorry, and the second page as well. Mayor, Councillors, General Manager, staff and the community, as a long-term member of the Heritage Committee, I wish to speak against, but also for, the recommendation in the business paper. The Liveability Project seems straightforward, but the devil is in the detail, and it is this detail that Council's Heritage Committee has sought to recommend and provide advice to Council and the project team regarding the various stages of the Windsor Liveability Project. The committee understands that stage one of the project has been put to tender with the sub-base to pedestrian pathways to be constructed with a concrete sub-base.

Tenders have been received by Council and are undergoing an assessment phase. It's the learned opinion of the committee that within an early 19th-century townscape such as Windsor, the use of concrete abutting building fabric will cause deterioration, where a damp protective course, I think that says, is not present, or alternatively increase the deterioration to building walls that have a failing damp protective course, resulting in rising damp and salt attack. This is well known in heritage circles and is highlighted in a fact sheet publication prepared by Council's heritage advisor, Otto Sahami, to be a reference document on Council's website. Councillors may wish to familiarise themselves with this document.

This potential fabric deterioration to privately owned heritage buildings is of grave concern, and one that Council should be very concerned with. Also of concern should the project paving be laid over a concrete slab, any repair of stormwater drainage or any other service that passes beneath the paving will impact on the ease of that repair and certainly make it more costly and a more arduous task. Hawkesbury City Council and you as Hawkesbury's community representatives are the custodians to former quarry towns, where the incorrect use of concrete as a paving substrate is most likely to cause undetected deterioration for some years, some instantly, as has occurred in Richmond. Council staff and the Heritage Committee held a teleconference on the 19th of December 2023, where concerns of the committee were discussed with council staff and members of the livability project team.

The project team and Council's project manager asked what alternatives to concrete would the committee consider, with a granular sub-base in lieu of concrete was recommended. The meeting concluded with the understanding that the consultants, Pace Group, could work up an alternative detail for the Heritage Committee to ratify in early February. To my knowledge, this did not occur. Unbeknown to the Heritage Committee, a rough sketch was provided by a member of the Heritage Committee that has not been sanctioned by resolution of the committee, as has been reported in the business paper. This is an unfortunate occurrence, as almost all of the committee was unaware that this had occurred. At the February 1st meeting, Council staff provided cross-sections through possible paving substrate options, and these referred to engineering details for sub-base that were not available.

The Heritage Committee also identified a number of recommendations, seven in total, that were voted on and are now in draft form. I ask that these be circulated for reference. Councillors, you would glean from the seven resolutions that the committee has viewed the project and realised the complexities in differing stages of the livability project. It appears that Council's project team is seeking assistance from the committee for something that they should have the knowledge and be capable of advising Council on. So where to from here? The committee is being told that existing tenderers will be asked to provide alternate tenders based on the alternative sketches, but without engineering details, for the percolating sub-base recommended by the committee and the task for those assessing the tenders.

It would have to be asked, how can the options be compared financially, along with other product longevity considerations? Councillors, there is a great deal to consider with this project, and truly the devil is in the detail. Perhaps there should be a greater dialogue to sort the project out. Thank you for your time. Graham Edds.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wish, anyone wishing to move something, please? Councillor Sheather.

Question, Madam Mayor. Yes In relation to the detail that was just spoke of, with the attendances they are, are those options being looked at within it, or are they proposed down the track? Where are we up to, or are they disregarded? Where are we up to?

Director of City Planning. I'll

Refer to the Manager Economic Development.

Through you, Madam Mayor, the actual substrate alternatives have been considered as part of the tender process, and we have actually had the consultants actually provide further detailed design on substrate options, which has gone out to shortlisted tenderers, but that's as much detail as I can give about the tender.

Do I have someone wishing to move something, please? Councillor Wheeler. I'll

Move the recommendation of the business paper, Madam Mayor,

So that we

Can at least discuss it.

Someone to second that? Councillor Sheather, thank you. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. I think I haven't spoken directly to Mr. Eds. I've received his email, so I'm not sure if someone else can shed some more light on the matter. But my understanding is during the meeting in December , one of the members of the committee basically drew a rough sketch and forwarded it to the staff, and that seems to have formed the basis for concept designs that were shown to the committee. The committee's advice is that a concrete substrate is problematic for a number of reasons. There's the rising damp aspect of the concrete substrate close to the buildings. There's also issues with the concrete substrate . There's the issue that Mr. Eds mentions as well around fixing and accessing of services, and I think that's a valid point.

There's also the issue of impacts on Indigenous heritage from concrete and excavation, and so both of those are problematic for the Dharug representatives on the committee, particularly if we have to dig further down than the disturbed level that already exists in places. So you can see in recommendation three that further consultation with the Dharug community is warranted.

Sorry, I haven't got the— thank you. Sorry, that's recommendation four. Recommendation three,

Where it says inclusive of all viable substrate options, I would contend that the Heritage Committee doesn't believe that the use of a concrete substrate is a viable option. So I'm not sure where to go with that.

The committee's strong recommendation is that concrete is not used. Now, there's some issues around pavement stability in the mall, because that's the bit we're digging up. You know, we're not digging up the rest of George Street. This becomes part of the stage two works, and that's the seven recommendations that Mr. Eds refers to. Several of those are for later stages in the project. The committee is trying to preempt problems down the track, in effect, rather than getting us into the position that we already are. I think it's— To Mr. Ed's point about the concept drawing, I think it was more of a graphic representation of the discourse of the meeting. His concern seems to be that the committee is being asked to pass judgment on something where they don't have the full information.

I don't think that their recommendations would change based on firming up of that drawing or that drawing being executed by someone else. Their recommendation is to avoid a concrete substrate. There are additional concerns about the pavers immediately abutting the buildings themselves, but a permeable substrate where moisture can percolate both up and down is the requirement of the committee. From a heritage perspective, the recommendations are around minimal disturbance, no disturbance below the existing disturbed layer, and for a Dureg representative to be on site for evacuation. That's a local Dureg representative, not just an indigenous representative. We had some really good conversations, I think, with the committee and managed to nut out a number of things that I hope are helpful to the staff.

What I'm hoping is that we can avoid problems down the track, problems that we saw with the signage project last week when they were unveiled and people said, We've got all that information wrong. Use the heritage committee. As it can be used, then we can avoid those things and the costs of fixing them up. There's also been a number of photos uncovered by the local studies librarian of the original mall going in, which are really interesting. They also speak to what sort of excavation has been done there and how we might move forward in that space. But they also represent a really good opportunity for us to use them for media as we roll out this project as well. So it would be really useful to get in touch with the local studies librarian, Michelle Nichols, and look into that. A couple of issues that I can see. Sending you know your

Time up is, Councillor. Time is up, Councillor, sorry. Do you want to make a final point?

Yeah. Could I just ask, there's a mention on page 17 of the Department of Planning stating that we are under additional scrutiny. Could we get some further information on that point, please?

Would you like that now or take that on notice?

Now would be great, but if I can't get it now, I'll take it on notice.

Thanks. Director City Planning and Manager of Economic Development.

Through you, Madam Mayor. Yes, we had a meeting with the representatives from the State Government, and the advice was that with the funding pool that remained, a large majority of that was issued to Hawkesbury, and because of that we're under a level of scrutiny. The words that were in the report basically were echoed in that vein.

Just because we're the last ones left and there's more of them to look at us, or?

Mainly because of the majority of funding left is for us, was the explanation we received.

I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing. Thank you. Councillor Lyons. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Can I ask a further question in regard to that? So was that with regard to the time frame of delivering this project and the unspent funding?

The conversation was mainly around just the total amount of funding, and we were asked for timeframes with regard to the next stages to provide that as well.

And was that accepted, or is that something we're waiting on?

It was just, for the councillors' information, it was just to provide information back through the state government to the funding body with regard to their budgeting process, consistent with ours.

Thank you. I'll speak in support of the motion, and I thank Councillor Wheeler for articulating all of that around the sequence of what happened. I have to admit that during the process around the substrate issue, I absolutely understand the conclusion to have the porous substrate used because of the impact around that. But I did find the process by which it came to the Heritage Committee, and the lack of some sort of detail, a little concerning. But I think that's been covered, and as Councillor Wheeler said, it probably wouldn't have changed the advice coming from the Heritage Committee, which was specifically giving advice around the heritage buildings. I'm just wondering what other groups are being consulted around this project regularly? Are there other groups being consulted regularly around this project?

Director of City Planning

Yeah, thank you. Through you, Madam Mayor, there is ongoing engagement. We have actually a dedicated engagement officer who is maintaining up-to-date information on the Your Hawkesbury, Your Say page with regards to progress, and also engaging with the businesses, particularly in terms of the pavement testing that's happened in Windsor Mall. So I guess that's more of a one-on-one engagement specific to the particular timing of the project. Now, we do actually have other members of the community who have reached out and requested updates, but in terms of council— Proactively providing information specific to the particular staging of the project. It happened in accordance with the resolution, but there certainly has been discussion post advice being provided to the Heritage Committee with other interested groups in the Hawkesbury.

Okay. Are there any minutes or recommendations or any feedback on those various meetings?

Yes, certainly. Through you, Madam Mayor, no, because they're not meetings that are actually council committees. They don't go through a formal minutes process.

Okay, I was just asking because I was just wondering if other recommendations are being made by people that aren't formalised, as opposed to the Heritage Committee, which was specifically requested to give some advice. I'm just wondering how that was playing out. I only ask because a couple of people have told me there have been different meetings from time to time, and I was just wondering what the objectives of those sort of meetings are.

I'm happy to provide an answer to that. Councillor Sheather had asked for some heads of local groups in Windsor to be informed of what was going on. We've met a couple of times with those groups, with the leaders of those groups, and it's just an informal chat about where things are up to so that they can go back to their meetings and communicate that to their members.

Sorry, and just some further detail, I apologise. Staff did actually attend the Windsor Experience Action Group last year to talk directly about the livability project as well. Okay,

Thank you.

I think that was all. I've lost my train of thought now on here, but no, I think that that is, hopefully when the tender process comes back, the use of that substrate will be adopted and the concrete won't be used. But as Councillor Wheeler said, there could be a different issue around where there once was a road through the mall, then there was the mall, and it was really fascinating seeing the photos the other day of how that was dug up and there was part road, part whatever . There was quite a lot of digging, so the issues around archaeology are something that really need to be diligently adhered to.

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

Just a question or two, if I could, please, through you, Madam Mayor. Also in regards to the element of scrutiny regarding outstanding works and unspent funds, given that Council has received specialist input on the lamps in the mall and given a previous resolution that the lamps remain in situ, is there an ability to push the restoration of the lamps forward, get them done and submit that part to the funding body and complete stage two, being the mall separately , whenever that design tender process is completed?

Director of City Planning.

Thank you. Through you, Madam Mayor,

That would be challenging. It's certainly something that we could investigate and take on notice, just because of the complexities of where we're at in terms of the previous testing that was done on the gas lamps, whether they continue to be operational. The reality is that the passage of time that's passed would require retesting at a minimum. But the advice that we received with regards to the initial testing was that it was literally that they prospectively could be used, but the further investigation was still required to be undertaken. So we just unfortunately don't have the level of information to know what restoration of the lamps would look like at this stage, but it's certainly something that we could investigate further.

Secondly, through you, Madam Mayor, if I could, there's a fairly large community group doing some good work in the Hawkesbury at the moment. Last week, they met with the Mayor and the General Manager in the hopes of having a section of the gas lamps lit for an upcoming festival. Can I ask where that matter is at the moment, please?

Sure. Director of City Planning. I'll refer to the Manager, Economic Development.

Through you,

Madam Mayor, we've just actually received a quote today to actually have those gas lamps retested again. My understanding prior to my time at Council is that it's been approximately 12 months. So we're aiming to do the testing and test the lines and also the lamps to see how functioning they are. And I don't have a time frame for when that's done, but we have, I suppose, a quote with regard to doing those works.

Thank you. I'll just briefly speak on the matter at hand, and I just wanted to thank the members of the Heritage Committee for their persistence in putting forward their concerns, particularly Mr. Eds highlighting at least some 14 attempts to raise some serious concerns regarding the considerations for our historic buildings within the deliverability project. I do believe that as it stands now, we were potentially going to cause some serious damage to the historic buildings due to a lack of understanding or consideration of rising damp, the wicking effect, or the need for moisture to be able to percolate. So I'm pleased to see this information coming to the chamber and seeking an appropriate way forward. Thanks.

Thank you, Councillor Sheather.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Mayor. Thanks for the commentary about the lights. That's much appreciated. There's a couple of things. If I could clarify the question asked by Councillor Mary Lyons-Buckett, there's five community groups up town. That's the Heritage Committee, represented the Heritage Council. There's the Defenders of Thompson Square, Windsor Experience Group, and the Windsor Business Groups. And the reason we got them together was that they're chairpersons of organisations. They have discussions with the mayor and the general manager, and so if there's any questions, and there are quite a few sometimes, the answers heard by all of the chairpersons of those organisations, which has buffered down some of the concerns in the community that there was— I don't know whether there's favouritism or different things were said to different people.

These people are hearing one voice, one answer, and I'd suggest that the community is grateful for that. And I thank the staff for their contribution for that. A couple of questions in relation to the substrate.

Could we find out whether places like Penrith that's got quite a bit of paving, or Liverpool, seems to be quite a bit of stuff coming out of Liverpool, that if they've put concrete under their paving in their streets, or with the business that I've had most of my life, the only place that we've ever put concrete under pavers, if the concrete itself hasn't been made to look like pavers, is on streets or driveways, never under pathways. So if we could find out whether that's been done, and I don't want to spend big money; if we can't do it with a phone call, I'm not worried about it. With the drawings we've got, not any of these ones with others, it shows no conduits under the new proposed works.

There was some discussion some time ago if we're doing substantial parts of our footpath , to look at conduits. Not necessarily within the agreement, but for a later use, so that we don't have to rip it up, because there was talk that we're looking at putting additional streetlights in and the like. And so, has there been any discussion with the contractors? Do we know about the conduit, or at this stage, no?

Through you, Madam Mayor, I'm not, obviously, as most of the councillors are aware, I'm quite new to council, so I'm not aware of those conversations, but I'm happy to take that back to the project team and confirm if that's been occurring.

Yeah, thanks for that. Yeah, it was a concern by the community that if there's not been an opportunity to put them in, just a simple conduit, they don't have to go much deeper and the like, that it might save us some money down the track if that sort of thing was there. On page 16, we talk about concrete substrate for centre trafficable areas, and we're talking about the mall area here. The word centre trafficable, I'm guessing that we're talking about the area that's likely to be used for traffic. The word centre begs the question, considering we've got a meandering mall, that the centre relates to where the vehicles are likely to go and not necessarily down the centre of the road.

Is that the intent of what it is, that we're talking about the centre of the trafficable area if there is to be concrete placed under it at all?

Through you, Madam Mayor. With regard to that, it's just with regard to conversations, with regard to the fact that there'd be a trafficable area. So, centre, I apologise if that's misleading, but with Stage 2 there would be a requirement that we'd, and an expectation, I believe, that we'd come back to Council with an overall sort of view of what that will look like. So there's been no determination of where that trafficable area will be, and that's just one of the many things we have to sort out in Stage 2 and bring back.

Thanks, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak? Councillor Veigel.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. When do you think we'll get this started, Stage 2? Will it be before the end of this term? Because I've been sitting here since day one and we're still talking about it. I know there's been a lot of questions coming around the project, great questions, and we're resolving them, but we're still talking about it. I'm still going to vote for this in the positive, anyway. But has anybody got an answer when you think we'll get shovel ready and we can get on with this? Stage 1 and Stage 2. Stage 1. Well, both, but Stage 1 and 2, if you could answer that. So

Stage 1, we're actually, we're expecting hopefully to have tenders actually finalised by mid-March, so we would hope that it'd be a four- to six-week mobility period for constructions to start on Stage 1, being mid to end of April. With regard to Stage 2, we expect the tender to be out advertised hopefully in May, but by June, and we're to be confirmed, hoping that we can get an August start date with regard to that, but that will require some consultation with the business groups up in that area. Stage 2, the mall is a little bit more complicated with regard to all of the different facets, so that's under design review at the moment. The intention would be that we'd be aiming to try and come back, I think I'd expressed to the Director, aiming for hopefully April to come back and speak to the councillors with regard to, I suppose, an overarching design view that we can get confirmation on and move forward and then go into detailed design.

But I wouldn't expect the construction would start with regard to Stage 2 until after the new year period, but I couldn't give you an anticipated date on that one at the moment.

Thanks, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak? Right of reply, Councillor— oh, Councillor Dogramaci. It's

Just a short comment. I couldn't get the name of the gentleman that recently joined the Council.

Our staff member?

Yes.

Yeah, if you'd like to state your—

It's Phil Moore. Phil Phil Moore. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Phil. Very, very glad that in a short time that you joined us, my experience in this business, I can tell just like that you are the person. Welcome. Thank you very much.

Thank you. No one else wishing to speak. Right of reply, Councillor.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. Just a few quick things. I think it's really helpful to have those dates. I think we probably should be putting those out publicly so that people understand how this is rolling out. To Councillor Sheather's points around the five community groups, I think it needs to be noted that the Heritage Committee has not delegated a representative to meet with the Mayor and General Manager as part of a community group. Members of the Heritage Committee are bound by a code of conduct. We meet in open meetings. They are recorded, minuted, reported back to Council, and those meetings are out in the public domain for people to watch and critique, should they wish. This other— Loose collection of community groups isn't bound by any of those things.

The Heritage Committee does not have a direct line to the General Manager and the Mayor either. They have to sit through a business paper and ask their questions in an open chamber. I think we have to be really mindful that we are treating everybody fairly in this process. The Heritage Committee was quite heartened to be given the say that they were, and to be able to put recommendations forward for the entire project. I think it's really important that when people give their experience and opinion freely, we honour that by taking their recommendations on board, and that appears to have happened in this instance, and I think that's really useful. It's worth noting that we have laid this concrete substrate right through the project area of Richmond.

This isn't a maybe, we've done this already. This is attempting to make sure we don't do the same thing in Windsor. I will say, and the Heritage Committee minutes I think will come to the next council meeting, we have really turned a corner around discussions in respecting Dharug heritage. There's also been a really interesting discussion that will come out in the stage two works, I think, but is relevant to the stage one and 1A works around the pre-Macquarie settlement, which we now refer to as Green Hills, and the possibilities of sign markings to note that in fact there was a European settlement here at least five years before Macquarie started marking it off, and in fact Macquarie seems to have jumped on the bandwagon and Rickerby sold off a number of lots.

Jan Barclay-Jackson's PhD thesis, and it's information we didn't have when this project started because she hadn't finished the research and she hadn't written the thesis. So this is still a really dynamic space, I think that's incredibly difficult. I think what it does speak to is the passion that everyone has for Windsor and the balancing act of trying to get this right. And that's hard. I think the staff are to be commended for trying to carry out that juggling act. It's not easy, and also fronting the funding body to tell them about how much time that juggling act is taking. I'm sure they're not well pleased when we get there. Thanks.

Thank you, Councillor. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour, Councillor Reardon, Councillor Vigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dr Martry, Councillor Durick, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillors Amprogno, Councillor McMahon. Absent from the room is Councillor Conolly. I declare the item carried.

Madam Mayor, could I just clarify something? In relation to the representatives of those five groups, I asked the chairperson of each of those groups to attend. I didn't ask for a selection from a committee, and how they choose to listen or not listen to that person is their choice. I just wanted to make sure the people that were sitting in the seats had all the same information, and they've obliged in that regard. Thank you, Councillor.

Is item 4.3.3, New South Wales Government's proposed changes to create low and mid-rising housing. Do I have anyone wishing to move that way?

Councillor Calvert, seconded Councillor Sheather? Yep. Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, and thank the staff for the report. When I first saw this proposal from the State Government, I thought about famous words of John McEnroe: You can't be serious. Because this really is not something that can be

Implanted on the Hawkesbury area. It doesn't work. And the report is quite brief, but I think it makes the point quite clearly that we have special issues here. We have floods, we have fires, we have lack of services across the river. How would you expect us to be building eight-storey buildings? It's just not possible, and not to mention the RAAF as well. So the report, I believe, addresses, mentions all those and asks the Government to think about this again and give us an extended time. But in my opinion, it wouldn't matter if they gave us two years, the result would still be the same. It just doesn't, can't be implanted on the Hawkesbury.

Thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak?

Councillor Lyne. Thank you, Madam Mayor, and I appreciate that I support the motion and that the submission has been written and reflects some of the issues that we raised in the briefing the other night, which just are the issues. But I do actually think, I actually think it could have been a little bit stronger in terms of addressing the specific constraints that we have, which are actually peculiar to our area. There aren't many other places in the six cities. area that, you know, are still relying on trucked-in water and trucked-out effluent. But I think that it is important that we express that we'll work with the government. We just need to be engaged in an alternative discussion to find some tangible solutions, specifically for our place.

There are a couple of things in the material that accompanies this that was something else that concerned me that I hadn't raised in the briefing, but it was around the definition used in that, for example, around dual occupancies, which I think is quite significantly different to what we think of dual occupancy here. So where they have defined dual occupancy, they're actually referring to it specifically as duplexes or semi-detached housing, whereas I think when we're talking about dual occupancy here, particularly in our rural areas, people are talking about putting another whole house separately, as we can already have attached dual occupancy, but people want detached dual occupancy, and that could be another five-bedroom house down the back of someone's property.

So I just wondered, you know, when the government is using these definitions, how that translates into an area like ours even, and I don't think that's covered. So I think there's a deficiency in information that's been given within that. The other thing is that I am quite horrified that this government clearly thinks that 450 square metres is far too big a block of land. I think that's probably, you know, destroying the great Australian dream for many people, but it's— It's just not suitable in areas with no services to have really small blocks of land. I mean, it's really quite preposterous that we are included at all in this. I don't think any of it will help in our area. And there's been quite a few articles about how other councils have pushed back.

And I think one of them, I think it was Canterbury-Bankstown, were even considering actually lodging some sort of legal action against the government on this regard. The Mayor of Fairfield, our friend Frank Carbone, actually declared that the proposals would be the end of the backyard. And so I think that whereas we accept that there has to be the mix of housing and that in some areas you can have 21-metre-high, you know, apartment blocks, that just isn't really what is suitable in the Hawkesbury, and the one-size-fits-all is not going to suit us at all. It will impact on the livability and the reduction of living standards in certain areas. And it reminds me quite a bit of the debacle around council amalgamations because there's this big pushback from councils, and I think that's a real problem.

We can see brewing when you've got everybody pushing back on a proposal that a state government is trying to implement. And I think the thing is that the criticism of it is not just coming from councils; it's coming from all quarters. Like even Harry Triguboff was out speaking against it the other day. Who would have thought? But he actually thinks that the real issue is that these apartments and things aren't being built, that people can't get the money to build them, that the profit margin isn't big enough to be building them. So you can have all these figures saying there'll be this many houses, but unless there's a capacity and a want to actually build them, he says all the developers are going broke and he's moving to Brisbane.

But we can... Consider this if, you know, in certain areas, I guess we can do part of this. But the other thing is the government's not telling us when we're going to get any infrastructure anywhere. You know, how can they be even suggesting this in areas where we have such an infrastructure deficit? So I think that the submission is fine. I think it could be maybe a little bit harsher, but I think it's fine to go in. And hopefully the next step will be the government realising that they can't simply implement a proposal like that across all areas and that there needs to be specific localised solutions in place.

Thank you, Councillor.

Thanks, Madam Mayor, and I think the staff for the preparation of the report. I too would like us to push back in stronger terms, both because of Councillor Calvert's points about how inappropriate the development proposed is for the floodplain, but also because this proposal doesn't fix the problem that it purports to address. This is a really lazy piece of policy that attempts to shift the blame onto local councils when the fault lies with state and federal governments who failed to rein in tax breaks for property investors, pushed up property prices with grant schemes, failed to hold developers accountable for infrastructure delivery, and failed to invest in social housing. The policy relies almost entirely on a flawed narrative that housing is expensive due to supply failure and that supply failure is due to local councils not releasing land.

Basically, it says housing is expensive because NIMBYs. Housing is expensive because it's been commodified. We've got a mayoral minute about cost shifting. This is blame shifting. The state government already has the power to force development and upzonings. The evidence is clear to anybody who drives up Windsor and Richmond Road. It's clear in our own required expenditure for Box Hill. And what's also clear is that accelerated urban sprawl doesn't fix affordability. You might be able to afford the mortgage, but you won't be able to afford the rest of the costs to live in the house: childcare, an extra couple of hours of childcare in many instances if you work outside the LGA, a second car because there's no public transport, the takeaway and the shortcuts that you take because you're away for 10 to 12 hours every day.

These are the tolls, the public transport costs, the petrol. These are the costs of urban sprawl. This policy bakes in urban sprawl. In fact, it's urban sprawl on steroids. The discussion in the business paper refers to the fact that council can't really provide the department with a comprehensive response to the explanation of intended effects because they haven't given us any detail.

Basically, they're asking us to do their homework for them. The Department of Planning has failed to provide information for staff or councillors to respond. This is full of assumptions. Transport— it references housing around transport hubs. I mean, you'd be forgiven for wondering what a transport hub is out here. There's one heavy rail line with a train running every half an hour in peak time, whether you need it or not. A light rail that isn't connected to the heavy rail, so you've got to drive to Tallawong. You can't get from the heavy rail at Schofields to the light rail. What transport hubs? There's no sewer. There's insufficient water. There's insufficient power. You can't evacuate in times of floods.

Our roads are already clogged. And we're going to put, what, six storey buildings in Windsor? This is madness. It also violates the objects of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act, objects that state things like promote social and economic welfare of the community and a better environment by proper management, development and conservation of the state's natural and other resources. Six storeys on a floodplain is looking like it ticks that box really well. Facilitate ecologically sustainable development by integrating economic, environmental and social considerations in decision making. You can't make decisions if you're not given access to the decision-making process, and it's just rammed down your throat by the state government.

Orderly and economic use of land and development, delivery and maintenance of affordable housing, protect the environment, promote sustainable management of built and cultural heritage, promote good design and amenity of the built environment. Where would we be doing that exactly? This is a staggeringly flawed policy document. The state government should be embarrassed by it, not asking councils to get them out of the hole that they've dug.

Thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak? Right of reply, Councillor Calvert.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Look, I agree with most of what Councillor Wheeler was just saying, that this policy has not been thought through, and I mentioned a few times in the past that I have a draw with all these policies in them, and I think this one's going to go in that draw as well.

The real problem, of course, as Councillor Wheeler was pointing out, is if there is a supply problem, and I suppose there is, it's because there's been no- Increase in public and social housing, there's been a decrease in that, and I went through this at the last meeting, which is another issue. And public and social housing, of course, is a state responsibility. It's not a council responsibility. So this is shifting again from state to council . The other thing is that

Wesroc conducted a survey of many people in the Blacktown area and areas between there and Penrith, asking them about why they moved there, and the overwhelming number of people who answered said, I'm only moving here for a short time. This is my first house. I'm going to move on. But I can remember a survey that this council did, and I'm going back 20 years now, about people in Hawkesbury, and the answer was the exact opposite. People said, We moved here because we've got a family and this is a great place to bring up a family. So Hawkesbury is a very different place to our neighbours, and the people who live here live here for different reasons, and to think that this would work here I think is just ridiculous.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour are Councillor Reardon, Councillor Vargo, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Kolash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Duric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillors Improgno, Councillor McMahon. Absent from the room is Councillor Conolly. I declare the motion carried.

The next—

Next item is 4.4.1, December 2023 quarterly budget review statement. Councillor Lyons-Buckett. I'll move that, Madam Mayor. Thank you. Seconded, Councillor Zemprogno. Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

I just had a couple of questions, and I did send through a question and asked Chief Financial Officer something. I just had a question, and I didn't have time to send this one regarding the decreased income from the development engineering inspection, and why grant funding would be used to increase the service level of that.

Chief Financial Officer—oh, sorry. Thank you.

So there's a resourcing in terms of the level of workload, and we had the opportunity to use the grant fund to be able to maintain both the sort of two main functions that development engineers focus on: our own works, as well as development application that are received. So that enables us to be able to cross over both.

Okay. What's that grant funding for?

That was the Office of Local Government Recovery Grant Program.

But

That was a flood grant.

Oh, flood. Okay. And were we short staffed or something, or why?

We have a current vacancy that's being recruited for now. It's workload related rather than a vacancy that's recent.

Okay. It just seemed a big drop, that's all. I just was asking that. The other point was, like , I can understand it when I read it, aside from if I have to ask you a question. I was just looking at it, though, in terms of if a member of the public were to be reading it, and I'm just wondering if at some point we can make the distinction between what sort of functions are actually grant funding, and I know it does refer to it within here being grants, but then it all seems to get tied up within the reserves and movement around that. At some point, and not necessarily for the quarterly budget review, but at some point, can we actually just prepare a thing that says this is grant funded and this is own source funded, just so we know.

The reason I'm saying that is just so that we know how much we are— because grants are so fluctuating—what sort of things are dependent on grants and what sort of things we are going to be able to just fund out of what we've got.

Through you, Madam Mayor. Certainly, the complexity is around where, and that's why it sort of crosses over, is that we have multiple funding sources for some, for a range of projects. So that's where the complexity is. So some of them have four different funding sources, so that's where it gets a bit complex

Yeah, I get that. I understand. I don't want to generate more work. I was just thinking, and I guess maybe it'll all settle down when a lot of these things are done, but it's just like there's sort of things going in and decreasing and increasing reserves, and then some things are funded, and then parts of the funding goes here. And in terms of looking at it as a ratepayer, I would just look and think, what on earth are you doing? Even though I actually think it is really quite comprehensive because we are told and we have the opportunity to ask about it. So just a plain English version at some time would be really good. Thanks.

Thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak?

A couple of questions, Madam Mayor.

Yes, Councillor Sheehan.

On page 63, it's to do with the grant funding works and programs, Tamplin Field in particular. Second last line in relation to Tamplin Field, as Premier Soccer League, are we still proposing to put a synthetic wicket field in the middle of that ground?

Through you, Madam Mayor. No, the intention is to achieve the outcome through using a natural turf rather than a synthetic turf.

I just wondered who's going to use it of a Sunday. I'll take it up later. I can't see a tartan track and sprigs working, that's all, at all. On page 64, there's the Drummond Street South Windsor 350 case. Funding will be utilised to make safe improvements around about at the junction of Drummond and Milham Street. That was only done five years ago. What's the problem with it today?

Through you, Madam Mayor, I'd have to take that on notice in terms of the specific details of the project for that black spot program.

Yeah, if you can, if there's a problem with it, I'd like to know about it, but it's one of our new roundabouts.

On page 65, multi-year reserve, decreased reserve it is, install electric vehicle chargers at the administration building, 30k.

How many it's got chargers? How many is proposed, and where are they located, and who can use them?

Through you, Madam Mayor, so that is for three chargers plus the upgrades to the distribution board to allow for expansion of that in the future. There are two chargers located in the staff car park under the awning at the back, depending on how you look at the building, and one in the underground basement in preparation for the transition of the council fleet to EVs.

There won't be any opportunity for anybody outside the restricted parking area, I suppose?

Yeah, that's correct. Through you, Madam Mayor, this is really to support council's transition to an EV fleet. Yep ,

That's okay. I don't have a problem with it. I just wanted to know.

Thanks, Councillor. Obviously, Councillors, I just need to make a late declaration in this item. Obviously, with the discussion of Turnbull, same lessened significant non-pecuniary interest, just because my son plays for the Hawks, and I'll make that official. Anyone else wishing to speak on the item? No. Right of reply, Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Thanks. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour, Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigl, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Jirik, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Wickman. Absent is Councillor Conolly. I declare that item carried.

The next item is item 4 .5.1, restoration of Thomas James Bridge, Settlers Road, Wisemans Ferry. Reminding councillors that there is a confidential attachment to this item. Do I have anyone wishing to move that way, please? Councillor Sheather. Thank you. Seconder? Councillor Reardon, thank you. Councillor Sheather.

Other than to say the comments I've had from down there, from the community, both the staff and the detainees, is second to none, and it's much appreciated. I can't say the same about the ferry, especially on Monday.

Well, lucky that's not the item on the agenda at the moment.

Councillor Lyons-Buckett. I had some questions and I can't find my page, but I think I just wanted to know, in the excavation there, have they found anything of significance?

Through you, Madam Mayor, there hasn't been anything of significance that's been raised to my attention other than a previously unknown sandstone culvert which had been constructed, and then some more modern artifacts, probably from the mid-20th century, some old bridge bolts and so forth. But that's all I know at the moment.

Okay, and just my other question was, because it is quite a big amount of money, it's a big job obviously, will the colluvial slope works, are they designed to make it more resilient then? Is this a betterment project or is this simply replacing what was there?

It's a little bit difficult to answer that question because that used to not be there, the landslide, and it is now there. It seeks to bring the slope down to within a tolerance of safety under saturated conditions, so that if we were to get a repeat of the July, March or July flood events, or rainfall events in this case, that the slope would remain stable and essentially wouldn't collapse under its own weight. So it's technically not, I wouldn't necessarily classify it as betterment. I'd classify it as modern engineering standards.

Okay, well that's good to know because we really wouldn't want a repeat of it. Thank you.

Anyone else wishing to speak? Right of reply, Councillor Sheather? No, not necessary. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour: Councillor Reardon, Councillor Bygott, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Cotter, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Drogemuller, Councillor Jurik, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor St. Progneau, Councillor McMahon. Absent is Councillor Conolly. I declare the item carried.

The next item is item 4.5.3, Quarter 2 2023-2024 Capital Projects Report. As councillors will be aware, we have discussed the Packer Road element of this item and not the remaining elements. There is a confidential report attached to this item, and Councillor Wheeler, please read out your declaration. Thanks

Madam Mayor. I have a less than significant non-pecuniary interest in item 4.5.3. My son is a member of Wilberforce Brigade, and I'm a member of Hawkesbury Communications Brigade in the Rural Fire Service. The interest does not meet the threshold for significance under section 5.9 of the code.

Thank you, Councillor. And based on that, I, yes, because it does mention the Hawkesbury Fire Control Centre, this is what happens when you try and declare all your interests and you miss some when you are filling out your forms, I will declare same less than significant non-pecuniary interest as a member of the comms brigade. Is there someone wishing to move a certain way, please? Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'll just move what was point one in wherever the report has gone, which I think was to note and receive

Receive and note, yes. Thank you

Thank you.

A seconder, please? Councillor Kotlash. Thank you, Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Madam

Mayor. I did just have some questions around the Westinvest. If I could just actually ask those, because there was information in here I've not seen before. How much, have we got an idea, just in general terms, how much is the project team for Westinvest costing to run a project team on that? Director of Infrastructure.

I'd have to take that on notice in terms of the detail, but it's in the order over the full period of the program, which is kind of the next three and a half to four years, of about two and a half million.

Yep. Okay, thank you. So is that all covered by the West Invest funding? Are we allowed to take that out of the West Invest funding?

Yes, that's correct.

Okay, so it's all built into it. Do any non-project staff members work on the projects? Like, are generally people working on those as well?

Yes, through you, Madam Mayor, there's a number of staff involved in the overall program through financial reporting, so through the Chief Financial Officer's team and media and communications team, plus senior leadership teams and executive leadership teams. We have various governance meetings to retain the oversight over the program.

So would it be fair to say that there's quite a lot of council resources going towards this ? I know you can't quantify that probably, but I mean, I'm just trying to work out how, even though the government has been so wonderfully generous giving us all this money, how much of our resourcing is actually going towards it?

That's a little bit difficult for me to quantify in terms of level of significance.

That's okay. I'll ask another question. When will the councillors and the community get to see the concept plans, and what degree of flexibility exists in those for changing any of those plans?

So some of the concept plans are already out. So with Fernadell, we've commenced consultation, or about to commence more detailed consultation on the final concept. The Woodbury are underway, so we're well beyond the level of concept. Other projects are months away from releasing a concept plan, and that just reflects the level of maturity of each of the projects at the time that the grant program came around. And sorry, I've forgotten the second part of the question.

The second part was, what degree of flexibility is there once there's community consultation and so on around changing any of those plans, given that the WestInvest funding guidelines were quite stringent?

Yeah, through you, Madam Mayor, we've posed that question to the, well, it's no longer WestInvest, the Western Sydney Infrastructure Grants Program office some time ago. Their focus is on the outcomes rather than the specific performance or the specific details of the design. And so I come back to the example of the athletic, sorry, the sports field, where their advice was we're not particularly troubled about what the surface is, so long as you can demonstrate the outcome of achieving the increase in participation that supported your business case. So that is reassuring because there will be value engineering decisions having to be made on some projects to manage the budget, given the 12-plus months delay we had with awaiting the funding deeds.

Thank you. That's very encouraging because I was very concerned from earlier information we'd received and also from speaking to people from other councils that there wasn't much flexibility. So that seems to have changed along with the name, which is probably a really good thing because I anticipate that there will be various changes required along the way. And my issue around this was that we did never, as councillors, and to make it clear to the public, the majority of councillors haven't had any input into this except for a Post-it note stick on a wall one time. And I was very concerned that we would be locked into something which was the original way and that we'd gone ahead in the execution of all the deeds without that being clarified.

But thank you for clarifying that. And I still maintain my concerns about the potential shortfalls in operational costs of running these projects, but I'm glad to see that they're proceeding and that there is that level of flexibility within them. So I do just wonder whether, when I read what the executive steering committee was originally set up to be, it was to be a formal feedback loop to councillors and community. I don't know that, aside from seeing the minutes in here, that we've sort of heard anything else much about that. And I was surprised to see that neither the mayor nor the deputy mayor were at the meeting, which means it was really a management meeting. So I'm just wondering at what point will the councillors have any more input into these projects before they get so far down the track that we can't scale anything back.

Through you, Madam Mayor. So for the majority of the projects were approaching consultation, and the deeds, while there's flexibility around how we achieve those outcomes, where there is inflexibility is in achieving those outcomes. So there may well be opportunity down the track as we start to flesh out these projects, particularly the larger ones, which are probably the least advanced in terms of their development as concepts, and that's the North Richmond Community Centre and the Richmond Pool.

I think it's fair to say that with the delay in the deeds and some other delays around clarifications coming from the Western Sydney Infrastructure Grants Program Office, that we haven't really had the chance until now to really kind of kick off with these in any full momentum. That's commencing, you know, we're recruiting our staff and getting underway with these projects. So I'd expect that over the coming months is when we're going to start to see some real progress in terms of reporting to the Executive Steering Committee and progress on the ground in terms of consultation, as well as the actual projects themselves. You know, Woodbury and Fernadell is probably the two leading projects in terms of progress.

Thank you so much for all that updated information. Just my last question would be : have they extended the timeframes of delivery for any of them, given the delays suffered to date?

Through you, Madam Mayor. The short answer is that there hasn't been any formal communication from the State Government around an extension to the December 2026 deadline. In conversation with the program office, there was certainly acknowledgement that, given the delays with getting the deeds out, that that was— Probably an unrealistic timeframe. And recently in our meetings with the program office, they've gone quiet on that December 2026 deadline. I think the realities have hit them. They just haven't come about to formally recognise that yet. Okay,

Thank you. Just one final thing. Well then, because we have all this going into budgets all the time, this was where I was trying to get before, do we sort of on the front foot enough to adjust for all of that as we're going through if the deadlines are to change?

Just in terms of staffing and all of that sort of stuff. So is there enough money in there, in other words, if it goes for longer for these people who are being employed to do all of this, is there going to be enough money? Because normally a project, you'd look at how long you needed someone for a specific time. If they're going to be extended, I'm just trying to make sure there's not an even bigger burden on the ratepayers than there probably is already going to be.

Yeah, through you, Madam Mayor, our resourcing has been on the basis of the length of time that we think the projects will take rather than the deadline. So whilst we've been mindful of that December 2026 deadline, we haven't allowed that to curtail our resourcing.

Thank you, Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. Just a few questions from items in the paper, in the business paper. There's mention of the St Albans Hall, which clearly wasn't, hasn't been finished as the community and the management committee anticipated. Do we have a likely finish date for that?

Through you, Madam Mayor, I understand practical completion was achieved earlier this month. The program had to be de-scoped because of some issues with— Obtaining a development consent. But that was all sorted through last year, and in fact my staff are heading out there tomorrow to do the final walkthrough with the contractor, as I understand it.

Thank you. The open space, we've got a list of projects there. After seven years on council, I'm still quite vague on what guides our selection of these projects. We don't have a parks plan, as I understand it, and to set our priorities, is that something that we should be looking at? And how do we pick those parks that we fix up?

Through you, Madam Mayor, we're primarily driven through condition. So when a park gets to the, or towards the end of its life, or a playground, that is the trigger for renewal or upgrade, as the case may be. The development of our open space asset management plan is a task that will be undertaken this calendar year, and that is fed, or informed rather, by a full condition assessment of our parks and playgrounds, which was completed late last calendar year, is my recollection. But no, primarily driven by condition rating.

And will that open space report allow us to finally look at the pocket parks, the issue of pocket parks as well, or is that an additional issue?

Through you, Madam Mayor, it's an additional issue handled by the land and property work.

The social infrastructure strategy work that we're expecting to present to council March. Briefing in April.

Thank you, because I think we've been waiting for that since about 2017, so that will be helpful. I want to echo Councillor Lyons' bucket concerns about the infrastructure grants, and I note that we have repackaged the box. Again,

I have real concerns that this is $113 million worth of funding, and we've got a two-page report. That's not sufficient information for us to carry out our governance responsibilities. You need to provide us with more information. We haven't seen the deeds. We haven't seen the designs. We haven't been party to any discussions since we played with Post-it notes some time back. This is a huge investment for Council. Sure, we're not stumping up the initial funds, but we will be stumping up the money for the next 20, 30, 40 years to keep the doors open on these facilities. I don't want to be handing a hospital pass, or a really significant SRV, to future generations to pay for these things. If we've learnt one thing out of the livability project, I hope it's that early consultation with both the staff and the stakeholders saves endless back and forth and delay and cost blowouts.

And that's, I guess, my next question, in part I suppose it's been answered, is what will we do about cost blowouts if we've got any contingency in this besides winding back, what we'll deliver within the outcome specified?

Through you, Madam Mayor, so the projects at the time of developing the business cases..

I think they all included both a contingency amount plus an escalation amount. So that is a contingency amount to deal with any unexpected issues that arise through the construction process, plus an escalation amount to accommodate the increases in supply chain, or the cost driven by supply chain disruption by COVID and that sort of thing. We also have a contingency reserve from

Memory. Sorry, I might defer to CFO on that one.

Yeah, so last quarter we established the land acquisition and capital works reserve, so for potential overruns in those projects, as well as land acquisition cost risks. So where's the funding coming from for that? That came from the surplus

Generated last quarterly review. Right . So we're setting up a contingency fund to basically bolster this big spend as a pre-election commitment from the state government. I would contend that that is a form of cost shifting, frankly. You know, this I find this deeply concerning, and I really want more information to come to us. I can't say that any more strenuously than I already have. I'm really worried that we are signing up to something that we can deliver, but not continue to fund and staff. And the only way I'm going to be convinced otherwise is if I get a bit more information. I'm not insinuating that there's anything nefarious going on, but these are the things that keep me awake at night. I probably need to get a better book.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak? Right of reply, Councillor Lyons-Buckett? Not necessary. Thank you. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour are Councillor Reardon, Councillor Vigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramachi, Councillor Durick, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Semprogno, Councillor McMahon. Absent is Councillor Conolly. I declare the item carried.

The next item is 6.1.1, notice of motion 1, Disaster and Emergency Management Committee. Councillor Lyons-Buckett. I'll move that, Madam Mayor.

Councillor Wheeler. Thank you, Madam Mayor. This is just a motion. It's very self-explanatory. It's just to have a meeting, calling for a meeting of the Disaster and Emergency Management Committee. We have not had one since September 2022, which, given that the constitution of that committee says we'll have a minimum of four meetings a year, is not really very good. We haven't had any, and as such, even though we get periodic updates on specific projects, we haven't really dealt with the various actions that were included in the September 2022 minutes . And so I think it would be timely to have updates on these various things that are listed. I note that since I put in the notice of motion that we've been notified that, or is it in the notice of management?

It's in the notice of management that the subcommittee will be having a meeting to discuss some of those things, and that the next Disaster and Emergency Management Committee will provide those updates, which is very good. I also note, Madam Mayor, that you have advised us of an upcoming meeting around flood mitigation, potential flood mitigation projects that the state government may be coming up with, which I think will be interesting and hopefully productive. So this is just straightforward. The terms of reference of the Disaster and Emergency Management Committee are quite ambiguous because they don't leave any scope for getting any Mechanism for automatic follow-up of whether any actions have taken place or anything.

I hope that in the future we can sort of get over this committee obstruction thing and deal with that to be able to have it functioning perhaps a little more to ensure that it meets and provides our community with the various updates. I do think that partly what brought this to mind was when we did have some grants that we didn't get, and we need to be looking to the future about how we're going to fund some of these things if we don't have any grant funding. And I think that it's just sitting here continuously saying how vulnerable we are, and yet I do really have to question whether we're doing everything we can to get out there and be saying, you know, we are vulnerable and this is what we want you to do.

We can't just wait for people to come to us. We have got to be on the front foot. And so that means turning up at places and always getting our point out, which we all try to do in our own way. So I look forward to, hopefully this will be supported, and I look forward to those updates coming forward. And that's it.

Thank you. Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'm just wondering whether Councillor Lyons-Buckett would consider changing her motion so that it becomes two stages. What we've asked for here is a lot of reports, and I would like us to perhaps receive all those reports as a council, and then once we've discussed them, then decide whether we need a meeting of the committee. Would you be considering doing that?

Well, my concern is that we have a committee that is meant to have meetings and it never does. So I'm thinking that as it had, from its last minutes, it had these various things that were meant to be being done, which we've never heard back about, I would rather have an actual committee meeting because that would be the follow-up. If we just—they're not really reports, they're just updates. Some of them would be quite easy to say because, you know, update on the Pitt Town evacuation route. We just want to know whether it's being built, when it's being built, what's happened to it. But we don't have this information. I think that given it's a committee just of us, I don't— these are from the committee.

These aren't things I've made up. These are things from the committee. So I would consider it a continuation to have it operate as a committee rather than have the reports all come to council, then decide whether we'll have a committee meeting. I think that's doubling up unnecessarily. We could just have a committee meeting and discuss them.

With your permission, Madam Mayor, if I could just add to that, surely the disaster emergency management committee includes representatives of the police and RFS and SES and all those kind of people. What I'm suggesting is that we discuss all this first and then if we decide that we need those people, then we hold the committee.

I was actually of the understanding that we had decided they'd only be—I think we went through all this before and it was decided we'd only invite them if we considered it was necessary to invite them. I thought that was established some time ago. I did have another question about whether the minutes of the local emergency management committee are publicly available.

Sorry, I'll just let Councillor Deputy Mayor finish his speech.

Well, can I get clarification as to who the members are of the Disaster and Emergency Management Committee?

We're just checking the terms of reference, Deputy Mayor.

Yep.

My recollection, we discussed it, but I don't think we made a decision. I could be wrong.

Through you, Madam Mayor. So, section 5.2 of the committee constitution says the membership and voting rights of the committee shall be as follows: 12 councillors of Hawkesbury City Council. Representatives from relevant agencies may be invited to attend meetings of the committee. Representatives of relevant agencies may be invited to attend pre-meeting briefing sessions in accordance with the Code of Meeting Practice.

Okay, well, I'll reserve what I said, and what I was getting at is we need them to say that we're not going to invite those people if this is the case. Can we include that, please?

Is that a question to the mover of the motion?

Would you be willing to do that, Councillor Lyons-Barrett? Well,

I think it is important to clarify that because there have been meetings in the past where we've had them all come in and they've lasted a few minutes. I think that's the point. I'm guessing that you're making, Deputy Mayor . Yes, thank you

Well, that could have been avoided by having a different sort of committee. But I would think that perhaps the SES would maybe want to attend something like that. I mean, some of the matters would touch on things they'd be interested in. I don't think it's necessarily to have fire and rescue, although at some point I'm wondering how we're getting any information from those other agencies that we may have to be aware of. That's why I asked whether the minutes of the Local Emergency Management Committee are available publicly, or are they given to Council to follow up? Because if I could just explain why I'm concerned around that— Just one moment, I just need to check the Deputy Mayor has

Finished

Sorry, Deputy Mayor. What I'm concerned about is if we get all those people in, we're not actually, according to this, asking them to make any decisions. We're just asking them to sit and listen to these. It does say report, point two, a report, the reports and the updates. I see that as unnecessary because they're very busy people, and to drag them in here to hear those reports I think would be possibly insulting to them. I would just like us to meet as 12 councillors. I'm not saying we don't meet. I'm not saying we don't discuss these things. I just think we should discuss amongst the 12 of us, and then if we think, oh, SES should need to be involved, then we have a full committee meeting with all those people and go through what it is they need to help make decisions about.

So I'm not really trying to overturn your motion . I'm just trying to see if we can do it as a council first, that's all.

Look, I'm more than happy to do that. I don't know if the SES is on the floodplain management subcommittee, but at various points, somehow we have to have that liaison . Has the deputy mayor finished?

It's one last thing. I mean, if we have floods and fires— We're on a timing subject. If we're in the middle of floods and fires and we need their help, we need the decisions, then fine. But this is just reports, and I just feel that— If you bring them in for this, then when you really need them, they won't come.

I've got no issue of whether, I don't particularly think they should come and listen to this. My other question, when I could get past the first sentence, but I'll ask now, is whether we get the minutes from the local emergency management committee, which is a different committee. This isn't our committee; it's a committee of the police and all the various agencies that meet. I'm just wondering, because what I have seen in other councils, so for example, there's a really good example of the Clarence Valley Council, where they actually publicly put out their local emergency management committee meetings, and it's got a running commentary of the things that they're looking at. It's a floodplain management committee as well in there with it, and it's really productive in monitoring what's happening.

We don't have any of that. We haven't got anything saying that in this area of the floodplain this is happening. We can't see that. The people can't see that. I'm trying to work towards that. That has always been my goal. But we don't hear whether there's something happening over there with the emergency services. But of course we want to support. I'm not saying this that we should be doing it, but we need to know about it because we all know when a crisis comes, we've got to all pull together. And so we need to know who's been working on what. We need to know where the flood studies are up to. The emergency services don't have to come to every meeting. When we had set agendas for things, they chose to come when they felt it was a necessary and relevant thing for them to come to.

I'm not trying to even be controversial about this. I want an update on it, and I want, if it's the 12 of us, we can discuss it and then maybe look for a way how we can get that other information and how we can perhaps move forward. We'll have— Councillor

Sorry, I'll just remind you you've spoken. You've just— You've just had an opportunity for a question.

Oh, did I speak? Yes.

Yes, you introduced the item. It's your motion. Oh, sorry.

Would you like, while I'm still talking, to say something else, would you like to move to extend the meeting beyond 11 o'clock?

Yes, please. Can I have someone move to extend the meeting? Councillor Dogramaci, seconded Councillor Kotlash, all those in favour? Carried unanimously, thank you. Did you want to answer to that question about the committee meeting minutes, though? That was your question. It

Was. Yes. I'd like an answer, but I'm happy to take the answer at this committee meeting, thank you. Thank you.

Councillor Wheeler. Thanks, Madam Mayor. Look, I think it's high time we had a meeting. My understanding was that there needed to be a trigger for these meetings, even though we're supposed to have a certain number of them a year. We didn't have any last year. This represents a trigger. I think the advantage of , or the way the meetings are set up is that they provide a public access to discussions of these documents, because we meet in the chamber. Those meetings are broadcast. The community can listen to discussions. They can address us around issues that are important to them, the town evacuation route, the report on the drainage scheme. I would imagine that the community wants access to this information, access to those reports, and the capacity to address council.

If we don't have a public meeting around these issues, as the disaster and emergency management committee, then we're not meeting all the reasons that we changed the committee structure, which was to have these public meetings where anybody could come and address us, that were open and that people could watch. So this is a trigger for such a meeting. We've already had one discussion around the Molino Stewart report. I don't know that we need to do this separately. I think it would be very easily fixed by providing an agenda to the other people who might want to attend the meeting from the various emergency services, for example. Show them what's on. This is what we're going to talk about. If you want to come.

Come. If you don't want to come, don't come. You know, I think that's probably the easiest way forward, rather than having a chat, coming back in, going out to the public. We're just doubling up, I think. If the idea of the Emergency Management Committee is to have a public-facing discussion about emergency management issues, then we should have that public-facing discussion and make this information available to people. If the emergency services want to join us, they are more than welcome. If their time is limited and they choose not to. Then they can do that too.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Dogramaci.

Thank you. Again, I'll be very quick. Could somebody tell us who is on that committee?

That would be all of us, as the 12 of us are on that committee, the 12 elected councillors plus representatives from the various emergency services are invited to attend.

So I wasn't that committee as well?

Yes, we all are. That's the terms of reference, that we are all on that committee.

Well, why wasn't I called in any one of those meetings?

We didn't meet last year, and since you were elected, I'm not sure.

There was a couple in 2022, I'm just being reminded. I don't know off the top of my head. So you would have been invited because you are a part of that committee, Councillor.

We can clarify the minutes for you if you like

No, that's okay. Just wondering. Okay

Thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak, Councillors?

Question.

Ah yes, Deputy Mayor

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Look,

I'd be happy to support the motion if we could do what Councillor Wheeler just said and make it clear to the emergency services that this is the agenda and we don't think there's going to be any major decisions being made, and your presence would be welcome, but we don't really expect you to. So if that is the understanding, then I would be happy to support the motion.

Thank you, Councillor Sheather.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Mayor. With the notes from the management, we've got a presentation to the Floodplain Committee from the WMA, the Water Management Authority. That's in relation to the flood risk management study plan that's being done. If we're going to have one management committee meeting, I think that there should be a presentation to full Council on that as well. I haven't heard—well, I haven't heard what they're going to say. I've got a bit of a gist of what it is with the floodplain committee. The other things that are on there have been addressed. They're in different stages of to what degree they are, but they're all moving. Pit down evacuation, I don't know what's happening there, and the riverbank stabilisation, I believe we're going to get an update on that anyway.

The Molino report, there's bits and pieces that have been discussed with that. But I just think that the WMA board, if there's a presentation which is going to be done to the floodplain committee next week, that that should come and be addressed to Council. And in relation to the SES, they are on the floodplain committee. The other authorities aren't. But if we are getting a presentation by the WMA, those authorities would probably like to hear what's coming from the horse's mouth, I guess, because I expect there's going to be some big changes in relation to the studies that's not going to go down well in the community.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak or write a reply, Councillor Linesbarker

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I think Councillor Sheather has just really pointed out what really our flaws in this is, that there is a presentation being done such as that, and that would only be a few people. We've had no minutes back from the subcommittee at all, or no information around it. So it's clear that some people have had some sort of updates, and that's never filtered back because we haven't had the committee meeting which created that subcommittee. So there's a blockage in the information getting back to the rest of the councillors, and certainly in getting back to the community. So hopefully we can sort that out. I think that any of those presentations around the flood studies, if they're being done by external people, should be open to all councillors at least to go and see, rather than doubling up and then having someone move to have everybody hear about it, which, you know, in the past I think we used to identify that and have everybody included in it.

But anyway, I look forward to the meeting, or a meeting of some form, in March.

Thank you. All those in favour of the motion, please raise your hand. In favour: Councillor Reardon, Councillor Vargo, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Coltlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramachi, Councillor Durick, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zemprogno, Councillor McMahon. Absent is Councillor Conolly. I declare the item carried. Now, councillors, we have an item—

Item called up in confidential. I remind you we are not making any decisions in confidential. The decisions have been made. This is just for discussion on item 4.5.2. If someone could move into confidential that way. Councillor Veigel, seconded Councillor Reardon, and all in favour? Yep, declare that unanimous. We'll move into confidential, please.

Thank you, Councillors. That's the end of our meeting for this evening. I declare the meeting closed at 11.22. Thank you for your participation. Good night.