28 May 2024 - Ordinary

Good evening everyone and welcome to Hawkesbury City Council's Ordinary Meeting for the 28th of May 2024. Hawkesbury City Council acknowledges the Darug and Darkingjung 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 are advised that in the event of an emergency, you will be asked to proceed in an orderly manner to the nearest exit following the guidance of our warden. I would also like to advise that in accordance with clause 5.33 of the Code of Meeting Practice, meetings of the Council are recorded. In the terms of the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act, this may involve the recording of personal information provided at the time of the meeting. The recordings are made to assist staff in compiling the minutes of the meeting and to enable the podcasting of Council meetings. The provision of any information that is recorded is voluntary.

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

Finally, it is also requested that persons participating in or attending the meeting this evening have their mobile phone, could they please either turn it off or turn it to silent. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you, General

Manager . Apologies and leave of absence or attendance by audio visual link by Councillors. I note that Councillor Dogramaci is absent. I'm not sure if we have an official apology. No, we do not. I will mark him, note his absence. And we do have a request to attend by audio visual link for the Council meeting on the 28th of May 2024. Our request is from Councillor Wheeler. The General Manager received from Councillor Wheeler a written request to attend tonight's Ordinary Meeting by audio visual link as she is unable to attend the meeting in person. Councillor Wheeler has been admitted to the meeting and is able to participate until Council decides by resolution whether to accept her request.

Does someone want to move that Councillor Wheeler be permitted to attend the ordinary meeting on 28 May 2024 by audiovisual link? Moved, Councillor Reardon, seconded, Councillor Conolly. All those in favour, please raise your hand.

I declare that unanimously. Thank you, councillors. Any declarations of interest?

Councillor Sheather.

Yes, Madam Mayor. It's, excuse me, item 11.1.3. It's the Local Traffic Committee. It's in relation to an item in that paper .

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. I have a less than significant non-pecuniary interest in item 10.5.2, and I'm currently receiving advice on the nature of my interest in, sorry , in item 10.3.1.

Thank you, Councillor. I'll note that just in case when we get to that item. And I will declare my interests in item 10.5.2 and 11.1.3. Councillors will note that 11.1.3 was to be on block, but since Councillor Sheather and I have an interest, that will no longer be on block.

Could I please have someone confirm the minutes of the last meeting? Councillor Reardon, seconded Councillor Veigel. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour are Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Councillors Zamprogno, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Wheeler. Absent from the room is Councillor Dogramaci. I declare the item carried.

The first items tonight are agenda items subject to public address. The first item in that case is item 10.2.1, the Parks Governance Review and Operating Model, and our registered speaker is Mr Charles Casuscelli, the president—sorry, the CEO. Is that correct? Don't take away your title, Deputy Mayor. The CEO of WesRock.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Mayor, and thank you, Councillors, for having me here this evening. It's truly a pleasure to visit the Hawkesbury, and I'm informed by reliable sources that Hawkesbury now has an Italian restaurant that will become the envy of eastern Sydney, where I live. I've yet to try it, but it'll happen on a weekend. This morning I was presented with the WesRock Strategic Review, which was a review conducted by Mr Alex Gooding, a former CEO of WesRock, and Professor Graham Sansom, who has an eminent career in local government advising state and federal governments. They were tasked by the Board of WesRock to conduct a review not ostensibly into WesRock's future as an organisation that represents Greater Western Sydney, but to review the changed circumstances and the changed arrangements that have actually occurred in Western Sydney, including the arrangements that govern local government.

So essentially they were tasked—I think the mission that was given to them, I remember Councillor Calvert saying to them— this is not a review about WesRock's future. This is a review of how an organisation, whether it be WesRock or someone else, can best address the needs and wants of local government, given the changed landscape that's been presented by a number of things that have happened at both the federal and state levels, and in fact aspirations of our communities that have changed since major announcements have been made concerning the aerotropolis, the airport, and a range of other things. I want to talk about some observations that were made in that report. And by the way, the report hasn't been, hasn't gone by the executive yet.

So I'm quoting from a position that was sort of endorsed at the last board meeting, but was essentially used to shape and influence the final report that will go to the executive in the coming days. These are the observations. If I offer an opinion, I'll actually say, in my opinion. If I don't offer an opinion, I'm stating what I believe to be objective facts that you can check. The City Deal has ended. For those of you that still believe that the City Deal is somehow out there, you're going to be very much disappointed. The City Deal ended some time ago. It has ostensibly ended with a change of federal and state governments. There has not been a single announcement of funding or policy around the City Deal since there's been a change in government.

The Parks Alliance, which is a grouping of councils associated with the City Deal framework, had their funding for membership, half the funding that contributed to that alliance coming together, withdrawn by government, and it's not forming part of any future agenda. The City Deal was at the time, still actually is, a half City Deal, because it only took into play half of Western Sydney, but it was called Western Sydney.

The Parks want, essentially at the moment, because the City Deal has sort of disappeared, the Parks Alliance is trying to reinvent itself. I think that's the best way of putting it. And in doing so, they're looking to successful models to emulate. And in this case, whether I should take it as a compliment, they've looked at WESROC and seen how WESROC is structured in terms of some of the work that it does, and they put in a bid to actually reorganise themselves as an incorporated association to make it easier for them to function outside of the City Deal framework.

The issue that we have identified as part of the report to the board is that having two voices reflect essentially speaking for Western Sydney diminishes the voice of both. So essentially what we're talking about is having a ROC-like organisation essentially being the collective voice of local government for the former alliance of the Parkland councils, and having WestROC remaining as essentially as the ROC that represented the other councils that are not part of the alliance, but make up Greater Western Sydney. Now it would be remiss of me not to state the bleeding obvious. And the obvious is

That Western Sydney, as we currently know it, is that telling me something? I've got one minute. Oh my goodness.

I've got one minute, so let me just try and frame this maximum effect. What the motion attempts to do is say that we can actually have a collective voice of local government for half of Western Sydney, and that would somehow be better than having a collective voice of the third largest regional economy in Australia. That's what we're essentially saying. So I'll leave you with this question for your consideration.

The strategy that we've put together essentially talks about that one of the pathways that we have to adopt is to establish a joint regional policy, planning and projects unit to support local government collaboration and advocacy, including a new strategy. And this is about representing all of Greater Western Sydney. So the question for all of you this evening is this: do you believe that having The Greater Western Sydney voice of local government split into two organisations that only reflect half of the third largest economic region in Australia is going to actually add to the advocacy or the program or project delivery for the region. Because I can say with certainty that 98% of the work that WesROC currently does, does on behalf of all Western Sydney councils, and about 90% of the work that the ROCS Alliance will be doing is covered by the same work that WesROC is doing.

So we're essentially going to have two organisations that are going to be duplicating each other's efforts, and this will come at a cost to all of the member councils across Greater Western Sydney.

Thank you very much. I'll just see if councillors have questions for you. Any questions, councillors? Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you, Mr Casacelli. You mentioned the City Deals program and the fact that it doesn't appear to exist anymore. What about the Three Cities program? Is that still happening, or what's your feeling on that?

There hasn't been a single government announcement referring to the three-city metropolis as a thing that they want to promote. Keeping in mind that it's understandable that the current government, both federal and state, they didn't invent the Western Sydney City Deal or the three-city metropolis. It was a function of the Greater Cities Commission, which now has been subsumed into the Department of Planning. So while there is still in planning instruments the three-city metropolis, there's been no announcements covering advocacy or program or project delivery that actually highlights the Western Parkland City outside of the metropolis and the airport and the rail links associated with that infrastructure. Another

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Council— oh, sorry, yes, sorry.

The reason why the Parks is looking to reinvent itself, you say or implied, was because there's no further funding coming to support it, and they need to look at a better advocacy model and project model. Is that what you're saying?

So when the City Deal was still happening, half of the funding for membership of that alliance and a couple of others, the Planning Partnership and also the Western Sydney Health Alliance, half of the funding for membership came from the government. The government has now withdrawn that funding. If you have a look at the delivery program associated with the City Deal, about two-thirds of the things that the City Deal is supposed to deliver is conditional on having federal and state government intimate support of that City Deal. Without those two levels of government being intimately involved in a City Deal, which is what we're experiencing at the moment, there is a question over the majority of the deliverables under the City Deal plan.

I'll go out on a limb and say they will simply not be delivered because you don't have the same level of support from the federal and state governments to making those things happen, and those same things are outside the influence of local government to affect.

And last one, if I might.

Westrock is already incorporated. Do you see any problem with incorporation being expanded to include what is now the Parkland City Councils and renaming the new entity?

Absolutely, there are no impediments to that happening. One of the suggestions that was discussed at board level was to actually merge a number of organisations together for the same reason that the Parks Alliance is now indicating that they would like to merge the Planning Partnership, the Parks Alliance, and the Western Sydney Health Alliance into one entity. And they talk about increased efficiencies, better advocacy, and all those things. You can take that and add another layer, even higher up and say, if you're able to merge all those entities into one voice for Western Sydney, we would have a political platform, and a platform that has got credibility in program and project delivery the likes of which all of Sydney hasn't.

Westrock has had 50 years of experience in advocacy and program and project delivery without a single failure in 50 years of its history. Its reputation and credibility is beyond reproach, and it is something that I think we should be cherishing and making use of into the future. A new organisation starts from ground zero. Let's be honest about this. A new organisation has to establish itself, has to build credibility and reputation, and in the meantime, you have in an adjoining subregion of Western Sydney someone who's been doing it and who carries large amounts of credibility and reputation with the other two levels of government.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Councillor Kotlash. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you for your address. It was very interesting that you started your address with talking about the report that WestRoc had received. Are you able to tell us what the take-home message from that report was, seeing the scope of it was broader than WestRoc?

Sorry, keeps doing that. Maybe just wants me to shut up. So, I think the main messages are this. There have been attacks on Greater Western Sydney as a region for quite some time. There have been forces saying, look, Western Sydney no longer exists as a region anymore. We don't now have a collective of common community interests that sit across the 13 LGAs that make up Greater Western Sydney. And yet the New South Wales Public Service continually makes reference to Western Sydney, the 13 LGAs. Western Sydney University has defined Western Sydney, 13 LGAs. There has been an advocacy for Greater Western Sydney spanning 40, 50 years that have remained unchanged. The New South Wales Parliament recognises Western Sydney as a regional economy worthy of its own advocacy and has merit in advocacy in terms of investment in infrastructure and the like.

So the take-home message is this. Western Sydney exists. It is real and has a common communities of interest, and they are reflected across the 13 LGAs. There is a real reason why, when we advocate to the state and federal governments, they don't want to talk about — WesROC member councils, they want to talk about the councils of Greater Western Sydney. We had a meeting with several ministers and the Premier over this particular issue, and I can quote Minister Husic. He said, It doesn't make sense for us to engage with Western Sydney, which is the third largest regional economy in Australia, and having to speak to multiple players when the issue benefits all or challenges all. And can I quote Marcus Aurelius?

I'll only do this once. What's good for the beehive is good for the bees. And I keep saying that time and time again when individual councils challenge the benefit of being involved in a collective.

Thank you. Any further questions? Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you for that, Charles. I was just wondering, are all the people on WesROC, are they all the mayors of the member councils?

No, they're not. It's a mix. Some are mayors and some are not. But one of the recommendations from the report is that we need at least one of the reps from each council to be the mayor.

I recall that when I was originally on it, that was what they were hoping for it to be. On that respect, though, have you spoken to all the member—have all the member councils supporting this sort of a motion, are they? No. So it's been to all their councils.

So at the moment, the board has endorsed the review. The review speaks to the things I've spoken about right now. The other things that we're doing, which is parallel to the review, which goes to your point about mayoral representation, is we believe that having a mayor on the board, at least a mayor—I know that mayors can't get to every one of the board meetings and having an alternate— but there will be times when the mayors must come together, and we've identified some of those times. For example, the experience from opening the second runway at Brisbane International Airport has been totally anything unlike predicted in the EIS. So much so that there's been a Senate inquiry by the federal government to address why there was such a wide disparity between what the EIS said and what the communities of Brisbane are actually experiencing right now.

Now, the same people that did that EIS at Brisbane did it for Western Sydney International Airport, and our own report on the airport EIS says we're in for some strife. So one of the recommendations is that we form a mayoral aviation council that will become the main consultative engagement mechanism with the federal authorities and the regulators to make sure that we have a channel of address should the EIS predictions not manifest themselves and we have communities that are affected by aircraft noise. Far more than was predicted. So in that case, you know, we want mayors, and I think there's two other issues where mayoral representation is going to be key. So we need to get the mayors involved, 100%.

Yeah, no, that's great. But my question was because— The mayors have clearly, the mayors of the eight councils have clearly endorsed what's before us tonight for the Parks Alliance. I'm asking, have those same eight, or the five mayors who would also be members of Westrock, have they endorsed this merger proposition, is what I'm asking.

No, they haven't specifically endorsed this merger proposition.

Okay, so I'm just trying to clarify whether we'd be just voting on something that's an idea of one sort of area, and we'd be just having a Hawkesbury opinion. There's nothing coming from Westrock that's officially asking for this.

Correct. There is a— sorry, I'll leave it at that.

Any further councillors and proponent?

Thank you. Hello, Charles. It's lovely to see you. Councillor. I spent five years as one of this council's delegates to Westrock, along with our Deputy Mayor, and it opened my eyes as a new councillor to see the advantages of councils enjoying economies of scale. But Charles, I've got to ask you, I mean, and it comes off the back of Councillor Lyons-Buckett's question, five of the councils in the Parks program are not in Westrock, and two of them specifically voted to leave Westrock at some point in the past, for whatever reason. So how do you propose to manage the overlap between current Westrock members and people who at some point had said no thanks to Westrock?

So those that have said no thanks, some have actually come back in the meantime when we put a broader proposition. What the strategy that has been tabled this morning proposes to do has come out of the interviews of the same mayors and GMs and CEOs of those councils, but not a specific recommendation. So essentially what they're saying is we all agree that there hasn't, I don't think there's a single mayor or GM that says that we don't agree that not sharing a secretariat across four different organisations doesn't make sense. For example, Westrac has a secretariat, the Parks has a secretariat, the Western Sydney Health Alliance has a secretariat, and a planning partnership has a secretariat.

Everyone agrees that those things could be combined so that there's one common secretariat to serve all those interests. So that's a no-brainer. So everyone agrees with that. I think the issue that comes up is this. There's been some emerging sub-regional identities forming. So, for example, the Great Southwest. So the previous Macarthur councils and Liverpool Council, they seem to think that their interests may be better served by comprising a smaller group of councils that are more aligned to the Great Southwest interests. So that's been told to me on a number of occasions, and I get it. But the question that I ask in return is,

Can you serve those interests in the Parks Alliance where you've got Hawkesbury in the Blue Mountains and Penrith? I mean, I'm not sure what those councils have in common with the Great Southwest councils. They have a slightly different set of challenges, and there may be nuances in how you approach advocacy. But in terms of the broad base of having one organisation as a collective voice everyone agrees on, the nuance is how do we arrange ourselves that gives sufficient latitude for sub-regional interests to be promoted, especially in advocacy? And that's what we're talking about. It's simply advocacy. The example that I give when I'm challenged that way is a very simple one. During the Western Sydney City Deal, the Liveability Program delivered $170 million to local government for the eight parks councils.

$170 million. I think Hawkesbury got 15 to 20 million. I'm not sure exactly the figures out of that. And that was, remember, the sweetener to actually encourage the eight councils to come together. It was offered as, here's a payment for half a dozen of your social infrastructure projects. So that was delivered as part of the Liveability Program. At the same time that that was being delivered through the City Deal, WesROC since 2017 had been advocating to ministers and premiers that it was unconscionable for the state to take the proceeds of the WestConnex potential sale or lease in the future and not reinvest that money into Western Sydney, where that motorway is essentially being paid for.

It's the motorists of Western Sydney that pay for most of that WestConnex that's been built in the east. So we advocated for that since 2017, at the same time that the City Deal was doing its thing. In 2022, as a result of our advocacy, and if I remember correctly, we actually said to a number of ministers that there was $2 billion worth of social infrastructure deficiency across Greater Western Sydney, without looking at the growth areas. So we weren't advocating—

I'm going to have to get you to wrap up

Sorry. Okay, yeah, I'll finish it up. If you're online. Okay. So when the Greater Liveability Fund was delivering $170 million, WesROC was delivering $2 billion through the West Invest Fund. That was advocacy that WesROC put forward. We prosecuted, and there wasn't a single other entity that was actually on the same bandwagon. It was our thingo, and it was announced in 2022. I understand Hawkesbury benefited to the tune of about $130 million.

Thank you. Was that all, Councillor Wheeler?

Thanks, Madam Mayor. Just quickly,

I'm not quite sure I understand why we would have more capacity to advocate for what we consider to be Western Sydney using a single organisation rather than having two voices, I suppose, through WESROC, which, as you've stated, is very well regarded and has lots of runs on the board already, in addition to this Parks governance program. And I guess I've got additional questions about really how we handle this billing of what we consider to be Western Sydney versus what the government often creates of Western Sydney. I think WESROC has been effective at holding that vision of Western Sydney for those of us who have been lifelong Western Sydney residents that includes Parramatta, Blacktown, and those areas that the previous state government sort of cleaved off into the Central River City versus the Western Parkland City.

And I know the councils have been very careful not to make that into a competition, but it certainly makes it—it's made it difficult, and I think WESROC has, to a degree, formed the glue in that space. So I guess my question is, how do we

Know that this governance model, if WESROC is subsumed into it to a degree, won't leave us with less of a voice and less of a true Western Sydney voice?

WESROC's been most successful not on the basis that we represent just our members. WESROC's been successful because WESROC is associated with Greater Western Sydney. So when the public sector, when the New South Wales Public Service engages with us, they're essentially engaging with Greater Western Sydney, not only our members but across Greater Western Sydney. When we advocate for WestInvest, for example, we were speaking on behalf of Greater Western Sydney councils. I'd just make this comment, which is pertinent to our discussions tonight. Of course, there's going to be competition for investment for infrastructure from the federal and state governments. There is no doubt about that. But the issue is this: the state government, this was highlighted in the report, the state government has essentially run out of money for huge capital-funded projects.

Their kitty is bare. And if there's going to be any funding for Western Sydney, it's going to come from the Feds, and it's going to come from more targeted funding from the state government, albeit limited. But do you know where our competition for Western Sydney is? It's not between the Parkland Councils and the rest of the councils of Western Sydney. It's from southeast Queensland, the next emerging great regional economic power, where up there they have 11 mayors in what they call the Southeast Queensland Council of Mayors, and they went down to Canberra and they drove their own city deal from local government. It wasn't imposed on them. In Melbourne, in Western Melbourne, that's our competition for federal funding.

We have Southeast Queensland, we've got Western Melbourne. We need an advocacy voice that's on a equivalent scale to what they've got. So the answer to your question is, the more powerful and collective the voice, the more LGAs it represents, the higher the representation on the board from mayors as opposed to just councillors. I'm not just saying just councillors in a bad way. The more effect our advocacy will have.

Is that all, Councillor?

And an additional question: what happens with projects like Turn Down the Heat? You know, those incredibly successful WESROC projects that councils like ours have incorporated into our DCP, for example. Is there room in this proposed model for work like that?

A hundred percent. I need to say this. So we have programs and projects that are funded by the federal and state governments. As a CEO, one of the things that makes my job a whole lot easier is that when I go to the federal or state governments and put forward a grant submission, nine out of ten times it’s granted based solely on our performance to date. Just this morning, I was negotiating for a compliance unit to be formed within WESROC as a service delivery partner for the Department of Planning, associated with the Cumberland Plain Conservation Plan, and we’re also going to be administering the Caring for Country grants program as part of Department of Planning and Infrastructure. And that came off the back of the fact that we have a history of program and project delivery across the region, not within councils or across LGAs, but across the region.

Of course, things like Turn Down the Heat, the Western Sydney Energy Program, and a number of others that Hawkesbury Council contributes and participates in would remain. As indeed, if we merge, the planning partnership brings some wonderful planning skills into the WESROC environment as well. And we’re not precious about what our name is going to be. We’re not precious about—all we’re saying is to serve the interests of Greater Western Sydney, a merging of a number of organisations makes far better sense than setting up yet another voice, smaller and more articulating a sub-region as opposed to the Greater

Western Sydney. Thank you very much. That’s all. No further questions. Thank you, Mr Casicelli. I appreciate your time. Thank you. Do I have a councillor wishing to move a certain way, please? Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I’d like to move a motion on this matter. I think the staff already have a copy of it.

I’ll second that, Madam Mayor.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

This topic is something that I feel rather passionate about, but I'm delivering it tonight as a Hawkesbury City Councillor. I'm not delivering it with my other hat on as President of WESROC or even a member of WESROC. That's not what I'm here for. This is not coming from WESROC. This is coming from me at Hawkesbury, suggesting that we now contact or reply to the Parks organisation to say this is how we would like things to proceed.

I'm just suggesting that the Parks consider a merger with WESROC rather than reinventing the wheel and incorporating on their own. And I'm not suggesting that we leave the Parks group. I'm suggesting that a new group be formed, which is the Parks and WESROC together, and this would be a bigger group and a more powerful group. And I would expect that it wouldn't be called WESROC or the Parks. It would be called something new. I did come up with a running title, which was GROSE, which stands for Grose Regions of Western Sydney. But of course, Western Sydney doesn't include the southwest, and we're very keen to get the southwest involved, so people might come up with a better name than that. But I'm just saying that I see this as being a brand new body that isn't WESROC and isn't the Parks group.

It's a brand new one that takes on all of the functions that those two groups currently undertake . So the idea is that we would lose nothing.

WESROC, as you heard from the CEO, has put in many successful programs over the years, and we would hate to lose those. And also, the Parks have brought in many successful programs as well, and we'd hate to lose those, especially the planning partnership. That is something that is working really well. So this is not about getting rid of those two bodies. It's about creating a new body which takes on all the functions of the previous two. And it's not about a takeover. It's not about one of these groups taking over the other one. It's about a real merger. It just so happens that WesROC is already incorporated, so the Parks Group would not have to go out and incorporate. They could piggyback on the incorporation that already exists, saving time and money, and that incorporation could have a name change to, as I suggested, to a new body.

The Parkland City, I mean, I used to go to meetings of the mayors and I grew impatient originally because not much was happening. But I believe things have been happening over the last year or two. And it always seemed strange to me that we were a member of the Parkland City because of our connection to the airport, whereas I don't see that we have much of a connection to the airport at all. In fact, Blacktown Council is closer to the airport than we are.

So then when I said that sort of thing, I got told, Well, no, it's not about the airport. It's about parks . And I always said, What parks? I don't see any parks. Where are these parks that connect us? And then I got told, No, it's about the river. You're all along the river. Well, no, Liverpool's not on the same river as the rest of us. So no, I can't. It seemed to me that the group was sort of thought up when the three towns policy was brought in. They had a good reason for the first two cities, but for the third city, they were just, to me, they were just the leftovers. We threw them all together and called it Parkland City. And really we don't have a lot in common. The group, as I said, has been working well lately, and I'm not trying to - Denigrated at all.

What I'm saying is let's take on what it's got, let's work with Wesrock with what it's got, and let's form a brand new body that works together on not only supporting councils through the programs such as Turn Down the Heat, but also advocating for the larger Western Sydney group. At the moment all we're doing is competing, and if Parks organisation is to become incorporated, it says in the business paper here that it's doing that so that it can take on a wider range of functions, and the functions that I read it taking on are very similar to the ones Wesrock is already doing. So therefore you'd be increasing the competition between the two bodies, and I'm just trying to make sure we don't trip over each other and compete to the extent where we bring each other down, because as Charles said, our big competition is not with each other.

Our big competition is with southeast Queensland and western Melbourne, and they're the groups we need to compete against, and by joining together, that's how we could do it. Lastly but not leastly, I believe in our attachment here, attachment number two, it shows the options that were provided to the members of the Parks group in order to attain incorporation, but it appears that merging with another entity was not included in that, and I think it should have been. So hopefully that can go back to the Parklands City with this message. The message is

Not that we— Your time has expired, Deputy.

Well, one more sentence. The message is not that we want to pull out of Parklands. The message is we want Parklands to continue and to merge with Wesrock and be a bigger and better body.

Thank you very much. Anyone else wishing to speak on the item?

Question, Madam Mayor.

Councillor Sheather.

How involved have we been in this process for how long?

Do you want me to answer? General Manager.

Through you, thank you, Councillor, for the question. My best estimate would be that this has been a work in progress for probably around 12 months now. Could be nine, nine to 12 months would be my best estimate.

Thank you. Madam Mayor, when I read through this, the first thing that come to my mind was WSROC. And I know this Council's had different views from time to time about WSROC, very poor ones, I think, at some time. It was made for a purpose, and it's the sort of purpose that's been distributed within the documents here, that we're trying to get the best for our local government area. And when I read it, and I spoke to the General Manager about it before I went away the other day, and it was about the part of the Constitution, and it says the following identities only are eligible for membership.

And I asked why that was there, because if you're setting up something to benefit communities, if you put barriers in the way right from the outset, then you're really restricting to your ball game.

No more members. Well, you can have members, but you've got to change the constitution. That's not an easy thing to do, nor should it be. And as I read through the document further, it's indicated, and I don't know, it mightn't mean anything to you people, it means something to me, that the president doesn't have a casting vote. It means it goes back to the next meeting, or if it's a statement to the next meeting, what happens after that? And I don't know of too many constitutions—I don't know of any actually— that has it written in that the chairman or president of a group doesn't have a casting vote. Those two things concern me. Further reading the document, that in relation to what it's likely to cost Council, and I'd like the staff, if I'm in error here, to enlighten me that there's $42,500 that we pay to be part of it.

And in the proposal that's been put forward, there's another $ 34, 000, is it?

I can't see it. I think it's another $32,000. Here it is on top. $32,000 per annum. So that takes up to around a bit over 70, which is not reflected well in the report. It's in the attachments. And so my first thoughts when I read the document, that why wouldn't it be incorporated with... Or associated with West Rock. And I read it and I thought, well, you know, it's been involving yourself and the staff, and that if an option was viable. And so I didn't dwell on it much at all, apart from looking at what was supplied to us until I got the proposal from the Deputy Mayor. And I think that it makes sense. I would sure like to know

From the staff or yourself, Madam Mayor, that how far down the track is this with other councils, or has other councils got an opinion on how this might go?

I'm happy to answer that, in my opinion, if you like, Councillor. I'm not sure where the other seven councils are in terms of a resolution from their councils, but I know from participating in the meetings, this is what the other seven councils want. And to be quite blunt, if we voted against this tonight, the train's already left the station. Hawkesbury won't get a seat on the train. It's going to happen. The Parks is going to happen. Those other seven councils have indicated in the meetings that it's going that they're in support of that. And if we vote tonight not to support that, it's going ahead no matter what, and we will be left out of the decision making. So we're basically voting to not give Hawkesbury a say. That's my opinion. And I'll be expanding more on that when I speak. I'll let the general manager say a few comments.

Thank you, through you, Madam Mayor. So yes, as of right now, Wollondilly and Campbelltown councils have resolved to proceed, and the remaining councils are coming up over the next couple of weeks. To the couple of points that you've raised in respect of the Constitution, Councillor, so clause 7 of the Constitution is really intended to set the foundational membership of the group, and it's clearly got the flexibility in that process in other clauses of the Constitution for councils to withdraw out of the process, but also to take on members. But it is critical that we at least have a foundational core group of councils in which to commence the entity. In respect of the lack of a casting vote in that respect, that's actually a really important principle that the mayors discussed at the last meeting, was that every council has the same say, effectively.

So there's not one vote prevails, and it was a clear wish of all of the eight councils that that be the case. In respect of the $32,000 mentioned, that is certainly not an additional fee per council. That's the administration fees of the organisation itself. So council, as mentioned in the report, currently the Parks entity, our fee there is that $42,000 plus some additional charges for the Western Sydney Planning Partnership and the Health Alliance, which, to be clear, are entities of the Parks itself. Okay, so they are already... Bodies born under that regional alliance.

Just a further question, Madam Mayor. In relation to how involvement association with WesROC,

Do you see any impediments that if the Parks was to move forward, as what you suggested will happen , do you see impediments for our council in that regard? I'm not suggesting we leave, but WesROC for a second. So in that regard, do you see impediments that would conflict for our city?

I'm happy to answer that, Councillor. And I thank you for saying that we don't intend to, at this point, leave WesROC. I'm of that same opinion of you as well. And I thank the Deputy Mayor and Mr Cassicelli for the work that they do at WesROC. No intention on my behalf for Hawkesbury to leave. However, this is a different vehicle. This was made up, yes, under what was the City Deal and what was under the previous government part of the Greater Sydney when Sydney was split into three. Those councils have aligned that way and have been meeting since that time, regardless of the political change in the mayor and who the representative is from those particular councils. From my time since becoming mayor, I found it to be a very successful advocacy piece, and I always sort of wave the flag of Hawkesbury and Wollondilly as the two wings, I call them, the two bookends.

We sort of sit out on the end. We don't have the airport based in the middle, but let's not forget that we were founded—this group was founded because an airport was put in our backyard, and the eight Western Sydney councils wanted to benefit from that airport. The main benefits we wanted were infrastructure delivery, so that's road and rail connection. I constantly remind the other councils when I'm at that meeting as the voice of the Hawkesbury at that table, the whole point of this is to connect us to the airport, and we still don't have a direct connection until Tallawong is connected to Schofields. Further to that, I would love a rail connection coming through Penrith from the Hawkesbury.

So I continue to advocate for that because, to me, the position of the other councils is it's happening anyway. I would be very concerned if Hawkesbury wasn't able to participate in those future discussions because it's happening. That's just my personal opinion. That's no reflection on ResRock, and that's not saying that we should leave WesRock. WesRock absolutely has a voice for Western Sydney, and I say this with the utmost respect, though, it's only got five member councils. This has eight, but it's for a different purpose. There was an airport put in our backyard. We're advocating for connectivity to the airport. That's the way I see it, and that's the voice I've been using in the Hawkesbury not to forget us as one of the bookends.

Just one further question. In relation to the feasibility of amalgamations between two groups, as indicated by Charles when he spoke with their review, would you see that there's some possibility down the track that such an organisation or organisations could or would come together, or you're saying that the advocacy and what they're on about is slightly different to WesRock? I

Can't speak for the other councils, Councillor, so that would be decisions for the other seven councils, and we haven't had a conversation in that regard at all, so I don't know. General Manager.

If I may, Councillors, I think to your earlier question that you posed to the Mayor about our ongoing membership with WesROC, WesROC is doing fantastic work in a lot of really important spaces, and that's why both Blue Mountains and Hawkesbury continue to be members of both organisations, because we believe in the work that they're doing. That said, at the heart of any member-based organisation is a willingness to participate, and as best as I can see, there is a real risk that while there are similar communities of interest, the reality, I think, is highly unlikely that the former MACROC, the Macarthur councils, would be willing or interested at this point, given that we've resolved to proceed in a merged entity at this point.

And what would concern me is that this may actually then lead to an inevitable splinter group again, where we've still got a number of groups in existence and still potentially competing. So we will have opted ourselves out of the opportunities that the Parklands arrangements gives us, and for no benefit. I think that's the concern.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. I did raise in the briefing last week how the Parks model would sit with WesROC, and unfortunately— We didn't have this discussion then, and I think that that's a bit of a shame because I feel like I'm being asked to endorse and vote on something that I feel like I'm being asked to have an opinion on something that I simply don't have enough information to adequately form an opinion on. There's

I think there's a number of differences between the two organisations, and I would want to be assured that they would work in harmony rather than, as the general manager says, be working not necessarily at cross purposes, but not altogether. And I think, you know, that the inclusion of Blacktown and Parramatta in these models remains a sticking point for me. I know they're

Very different councils and very different areas to us now, but I find it difficult for us to talk about the representation of Western Sydney when we are talking about organisations that don't necessarily include those major players

That have always been part of and associated with Western Sydney. And I think perhaps we set ourselves up for a fall if we haven't fleshed that out entirely. I think there's other differences as well. Membership of WestROC has always been a choice. You know, it's always been up to councils who view that as a value add whether they are in or they're out, and we've chosen to stay in. Membership of Parks, of the Western Parkland City, was forced on us by the previous Liberal government. You know, that carve-up of Sydney was a government move, not an association of like-minded councils. I agree with the general manager about the casting vote. A casting vote is essentially undemocratic. It's a real winner-takes-all move.

And it bodes well, I think, for the parks that they are coming from that majority view, leaning towards consensus position as we all move forward, because we do have very different needs. We are not in the growth region of Western Sydney. We have a splinter of growth that is impacting on our LGA, but we are an LGA on a floodplain. We are not a growth region, and nor should we be. We are impacted by growth regions, and that's a different matter entirely. I am concerned that, with the information that we've been given about other councils moving on, and I can't support the motion in its current form. I think I could, based on what we've heard, particularly from the general manager, I think I could support the recommendation in the business paper with an additional point to perhaps that we contact the Western Sydney Parkland Councils to explore the merger of the parks with WESROC and other strategic bodies.

And I may put that forward as an amendment if this fails, but I can't support it in its current form. Thanks.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Zamprogno.

Thank you. WESROC was founded in the year that I was born, which makes it easy for me to remember. 1973. It's been doing good work for 50 years. And as I said earlier, My ability to be one of this council's delegates to WESROC really taught me, and also going to conventions like ALGA and Local Government New South Wales, that we do better when we stand together. And I'd encourage colleagues to just consider this through the lens of a very simple principle.

This Parks governance model and what WESROC is already doing, just on its face, strikes me as an unnecessary duplication . It's good for councils in an area like Western Sydney to stand together and to work together for common ends and to secure funding or to have a seat at the table or to get access to a minister. And WESROC has been doing that and has a very knowledgeable secretariat and staff that have been proven to be incredibly effective. One of the reasons that I've always supported our council's membership of WESROC is because we get our money back several times over. It's worth what we put in, even if you just cite a single program like the lighting efficiency program that we participated in and many others.

So, you know, when Councillor Calvert suggested this model, I thought, well, I'm seeing this through the lens of reducing the duplication when there's already such a good body. We have to look at the elephant in the room. It's also true that this is an existential question for WESROC. The reason that WESROC has shrunk from over 10 members when I came onto Council eight years ago and now has only five members is because its demographic has been eaten whole by these other bodies that have sought to supplant or replace what they were doing. And I always had a concern about that. Therefore, I'm supportive of the Deputy Mayor's motion. But I also hear and acknowledge the concerns in the room that this motion doesn't have any action item.

This motion is phrased as though we are the determining authority about whether a merged authority can take place. And clearly, the consent of the other councils is necessary. And this makes no particular suggestion. The Deputy Mayor can rebut me if he wishes. This has no particular mechanism for us to go back to those other councillors and to say, yes, we want in, but we feel that this is a better way. We don't want to miss out on signing up to this governance structure if it is indeed a fait accompli. But forgive me, I'm instinctively sceptical when we are told that we have to sign up to something because it's a fait accompli, and if we don't, we'll miss out. I think there are opportunities for us to approach the other councils and to say, you know, I think a merged entity with WesROC would make a lot of sense, and then see whether we could renegotiate this.

I would prefer this motion to have that kind of action item in it, and I'd also prefer that it has an escape clause so that if we were in genuine risk of missing out altogether, we can say, and subject to those negotiations failing, we will sign up to what's been proposed. Thank you.

Councillor Conolly.

Thank you. I wanted to propose an amendment that went halfway to what Councillor Zamprogno was just saying, which is that we would, instead of point two, have proposes to the other Parkland councils that there is merit in exploring a merge with WesROC rather than duplicating its purpose and functions, and then deleting point four. The purpose to, rather than us suggesting that we have the solution and we are going to enforce a solution that we have no ability to enforce, give it that action that, you know, we're not saying no, we're just saying, hey, can we stop and think about whether this is the best outcome and makes sense? I wouldn't put in there an escape clause, as was described, simply because you're sort of ruining your negotiation.

If you've already resolved that you'll do it if they say no, it kind of makes your position pretty clear and weakens your hand a lot. I , I'm not, I mean, we have to do what's the best interest of Hawkesbury. I don't know it's in the best interests of Hawkesbury to be in an organisation that doesn't care if we're in it or not. If what's being said is that these other seven councils couldn't care less whether we agree, and they're going ahead regardless, well, what do we want to be in that for, would be my take on that. If they don't care about us, if we're not a valued partner, if they're not interested in our perspective, are we really going to have a say in that organisation? And is that, and I don't say that disrespectfully to those councils, I think it speaks to the fact that we have little in common with that group.

It's a group that has not a lot in common. We've got no more in common with that group than we do with the neighbours on our other side, Hills and Blacktown. We have just as much in common with them. There's a lot of joint advocacy we could do with both. I've been on council since 2012. In 2012, WesROC, I can't remember how many members it had, but it was the biggest thing going. Everyone knew about WesROC. It was, you know, hotly contested as to who was going to be on WesROC. It was quite a big deal. Then WesROC started to wane, and we were told we had to be in a regional strategic alliance. That was the only way we were going to survive, was to be in a regional strategic alliance. And we spent a whole lot of money setting up an RSA with two other councils.

And I resisted that at the time because I thought this is insane bureaucracy. It's adding more and more bureaucracy, only for the staff then to recommend to us three or four years later that we pull out of that because it's not working. And then we got put into this, as Councillor Wheeler said, we were sort of announced that we were part of this city deal that existed at the time. As the mayor, I went to those meetings for a couple of years. And again , I want to be really careful and respectful. I often felt it was searching for a purpose. Things were announced with a name before they knew what they were. And to me, the blueprint—I recall this blueprint coming up, and nobody could tell you exactly what the blueprint was or exactly where it sat in the planning instruments, but we're going to have a blueprint.

And then we established what the blueprint was after we'd announced that we're having a blueprint. So a number of these things struck me as overly bureaucratic. I was incredibly disappointed to read in the report that a consultant was engaged to look at the options of how we could structure this. We've got eight councils full of thousands of local government experts, and not one of them knew how to look up the Act and was qualified to decide which part of the Act we should use for our organisation, and we had to go and pay somebody in private practice. I think that's terrible. And to me, it just goes to show that it is just bureaucracy breeding more and more bureaucracy. I'm not at all comfortable with signing up to being a permanent member of another body.

I don't think—this is an unpopular opinion in the room, clearly—but I don't actually think we need to have this fourth level of government in between local and state. I don't think we need to have a permanent body to negotiate between the two. I think we can, when we have something in common with our neighbours, we can advocate with them whenever we want for free. And You know, but I understand that's not a popular opinion. But I certainly don't think we should be in two. I certainly don't think we should have WesROC going over here and this one going over there. There's been a lot of talk about why they're different. I've just looked at their objectives; they're almost identical. There's different words in terms of which geographic area they're looking at, but other than that, they follow the same pattern.

They're almost identical objectives. For us to suggest it's good value for our ratepayers to be in two organisations and pay out that much money, I think is wrong. I think the reason I wanted to move that slight change, I don't think it's worth just saying we think this would be better. We have to acknowledge we're a small fish in a big pond. But I think we should say, hey, if we're a valued partner, hey, can we just stop for a second and talk about whether this makes more sense? It's not excluding anybody; it's just saying, hey, can we include a few more councils? Can we take advantage of what's already there rather than duplicating? And as was mentioned by somebody else, end up in a situation where you have splintered groups doing the same things for different areas, spending taxpayers' money twice to achieve the same outcome for different people.

I think it's well worth stopping and looking at whether it makes more sense to do this as one merged body.

Councillor, can you read those words out again, please?

Yes, and if I could ask if perhaps, I'm not sure what Councillor Calvert's, the Deputy Mayor's, position is, but it's not that too dissimilar. Point two would become, proposes to the other Parkland councils that there is merit in exploring a merger with WesROC

Rather than duplicating its purpose and functions, and then deleting point four.

Sorry, I'll just wait till it's on the board to see if we have a seconder.

Madam Mayor, I'd be— Okay with changing my motion to read that way.

Are you still wanting to put an amendment on, or you're happy to have that change, Councillor Kotlash? I agree. Thank you. I will just wait for it to go on the board so that I can absorb that change and other councillors can do so.

I would just take this moment while that's happening, probably just to clarify one thing. You said, Councillor Conolly, you said that you don't care less about what the other councillors think if Hawkesbury's not part of the group. That's something that's not quite true because we haven't had the conversation with them that we may not be part of it, so I wouldn't know what their opinion is to go ahead without Hawkesbury anyway. It's not been raised.

Good, sorry, I thought you said earlier that they're going ahead regardless. That's what I was referring to.

But they didn't know that Hawkesbury wouldn't be part of that. That conversation hasn't taken place.

Question, Madam Mayor.

Oh, sorry. Oh, twice. Councillor Sheather.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Mayor. With your discussions and the staff, what's the likelihood of the other councils wanting to further discuss this regard in relation to the meetings you've already had?

Through you, Madam Mayor, look, I can't speak for the other councils, but certainly in conversations with the other general managers about a number of matters, my view is that it's highly unlikely that they will want to participate in a merged entity. The Western Parklands Council's group was, as has been talked about, was born out of the City Deal. It was born out of the eight councils of the Parklands City wanting to work together to optimise outcomes arising from the new Western Sydney International Airport for residents, ratepayers, businesses of all of our respective councils. And the entity was simply the coordination point. Okay. So since that time , the partnership's evolved, and now we're using other channels created by the tripartisan agreements to engage effectively with both the Commonwealth and New South Wales governments.

So what's been consistent throughout all that time, though, is an unwillingness from all councils in the eight to take on additional members. That's been really clear and consistent decision-making out of the Mayoral Forum over and over again. And the focus has been on making sure that the existing councils are well serviced and our efforts aren't being diluted by trying to spread ourselves too thin and across too many geographic areas and across too many issues. So for that reason alone, it would lend me to believe that they believe their councils are best served by an entity of no more than the existing eight members.

Any other councillors wishing to speak? Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just had a question. Is there a specific timeline on this? I think you've sort of, the General Manager sort of answered it, but would this be the only meeting it could be considered at?

Through you, Madam Mayor. Not the use of me. So in page 22 of your business papers is the establishment timeline proposed. So what had been agreed was a timeline where councils would propose this to each of the respective eight councils over May and June, and then proceeding through June, July to proceed formally with the New South Wales Government, the Office of Local Government. on establishing the entity, with ultimately, hopefully approval by the end of this year, commencing the new body with a recruitment of an executive director position come early 2025. So we're sort of straddling here the local government elections, obviously in September. So the intention was to have the new body established and that when councils convene and post-election, that the new Mayoral Forum or the board would be established on that basis.

Thank you. Yeah, I did see that timeline. I was just wondering our decision clearly has to be made tonight, and I agree with the mayor. I think we should simply proceed with how it is set up, and I'm not averse to in the future looking at a potential merger with West Rock, but I just think we cannot make a decision, even just as Councillor Conolly amended it to be, without any information from the other councils, because I do think that we're going to run into the issue that they're not going to want it, and we're back to square one, and we may have missed what would have been an opportunity to stay in a group. It's not like we're going into a new group. We're in a group that we're already in, and I'd also, like Councillor Conolly, though I'd be more than happy to not be in any of them and just organically advocate with neighbouring councils, because the Hills isn't in either of them , Blacktown's in one, not the other, etc.

So we've got a lot of things going on. I think the issues that the CEO raised when he spoke to us were good to hear about, but I don't think they're relevant to this. I think that— These are two separate things. I don't see that WestRock and the parks either duplicate each other because they simply don't do the same things. I haven't seen WestRock do a digital action plan or strategic planning around things. I have seen them do great works with streetlights and urban heat, and yet we've got multiple layers of particularly staff operating to generate collaborative things across areas like engineering and planning that I don't think WestRock go into at all. They could certainly complement each other, but I don't see it as a duplication at all because the parks is not a rock.

I think that some of the things that were said about how the city deal was set up are not necessarily accurate. I was the mayor for this council that signed the city deal, and I was involved with the meetings for quite a while, as well as attending as deputy mayor when the other mayors couldn't go. So a lot of those mayoral forums are as good as the efforts that the people in them want to put in, and that varies with the different compositions. But the good thing about it was it was never a political battlefield. I always saw everybody working for the best of the councils that were involved and for the area overall, and I think that's what we all want to see, regardless of which organisation we're speaking about.

I find it difficult. We've got a decision like this, and we don't know what Blacktown Council thinks, for example, a large council that's in WestRock, but do they want this or not? Like, I just, for someone who sits here and often brings notices of motions that are heavily criticised for lack of information, I find this quite a startling... thing to have before us when there is absolutely no information about what anyone else thinks. The information around that's actually within here, I think, is good work, and I think it's quite well done to set that up.

And I just, I can't support something that says that we think that merging with WestRock is the best governance model, because I think it's— I don't even know what the WestRock governance model is. It wasn't provided to us. The mayor has given her perspective, and she has been attending these meetings and obviously knows what the direction of this current change is, and of course it's something that's always evolving, as we know. It's an area that evolves and shifts and changes, and we've got a seat at the table. And what we've got to remember is for so long we didn't have a voice. As a small council, we're often sidelined, we're often left out of things. Nobody comes to us and asks us really what we think, so we rely on avenues like having a mayor at the table with other people to assist us to either be involved or to get some sort of benefits.

And I just think that I would rather see this go ahead and not lose that opportunity, and then continue with WestRock and to see if down the track it could be merged. I can't imagine that there will be any—I don't know that there would be any real issues with doing that. One of the big benefits of being involved with the eight other councils is being able to access expertise that we don't have ourselves, and we've seen that over and over again when we've seen guidelines formulated and, you know, even the various strategies we've had around homelessness and things like that that are done. It just gives us opportunities in sectors that we don't have access to, and I just, I'm just really, I think having to deal with decisions like this that come up and they're just without really any, I don't see a basis to it because it's not something that Werrisrock has all voted on.

They've got all their member councils on board. It hasn't come to us as a proposal that is saying, this is what Werrisrock wants to do. Can you please contact the other eight councils, the other seven councils, and see if they're up for it. If it came in that format, then I would support asking for that sort of thing. But it hasn't. We do have to make a decision. I don't like rushed decisions, but we do have to make a decision, and I won't be supporting the motion in this form.

Thank you, Councillor. I can see your hand up, Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. I've sent an amendment through to the staff.

We'll just wait till that's on the board.

Councillor Wheeler, it's up on the board. It looks similar to the business paper, but I can see a point five. Do you want to just talk through the changes as per your changes compared to the business paper?

Yes. So it is effectively the motion in the business paper with an addition of point five that asks that we contact the Western Sydney Parkland Councils to explore merging the parks with Werrisrock and other strategic bodies. And I'm happy to— I'd

Be happy

To second that

Councillor Lyons-Buckett can second it.

Thank you. So I'm happy to explore what those other strategic bodies may be. I know there's a couple mentioned in the Deputy Mayor's motion.

I'm hoping that this gets around the need for us to retain our seat at the table with the Parks Councils and, or the Western Sydney Parkland Councils as we currently are, but leave the door open perhaps to an exploration. I just feel that merger talks would be rushed at this stage and perhaps not timely. It's worth noting that in the business paper, the timeline to get to where we are now is described, and these discussions began late last year. This came to us as a discussion point in the briefing last week. I asked specifically about WesROC and was told that it would not be in competition with that organisation and that we were best suited if both organisations continued to exist side by side.

I think to ask us to come to a position on a merger when we've not received any further information from other councils, we've not discussed this, where our delegate, the Mayor, our delegate to the Western Parklands City hasn't been able to bring that to those discussions, I think is premature. I think we are better off keeping our seat effectively at both tables. I think so far that has served us well. I hear that Wesrock is perhaps, you know, has an eye on evolving into this new space, and I think that's quite reasonable. But I don't think it's something that we can decide in a council meeting in this manner without sufficient information. And that's, you know, so this amendment is an attempt to probably to keep a foot in both camps. Thanks.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Conolly.

Thanks. I'll speak against the amendment just briefly. Just to point out, I don't disagree with a lot of what Councillor Wheeler and Councillor Lyons-Buckett have said. The motion that we were discussing did not in any way lead to a decision on taking a position. And I think that's worth pointing out , because I agree we don't have the information. I agree there needs to be a lot more discussion, which is why I suggested that change to Councillor Calvert, which was rather than take a position, we say, hey, if we're a respected and valued member of this group, rather than being pushed into making a decision right now about whether we make this permanent, go ahead and incorporate an association that we are part of and make it all official and permanent, can we not first have a conversation about whether there's any merit in a merged entity first?

It doesn't take a position. It doesn't— we're not saying no in any sense in that motion that I can see. No, it doesn't say at all that we don't want to go ahead with this. It says before we go ahead and consider this, have we thought about this? And I take the points made regarding the fact that that hadn't been discussed. I would ask councillors, if we are not in this forum able to put these thoughts, when can we do so? Because only the eight mayors go to those meetings. These are political decisions, entirely political decisions, that should be made by elected representatives. That's about advocacy. It is a matter for elected representatives to make these decisions. When can we input, if it's inappropriate for us to come to a council meeting and say, I think this question should be asked before we rush into this decision, that we were not told about until last week, when can we do that?

When is appropriate?

Councillor Calvert.

Misrepresentation, Madam Mayor.

Thank you, Councillor. Would you like to say that now?

Look, just quickly, I think that's overegging the pudding. I didn't say that we couldn't be, that we can't put forward these thoughts. I said that we didn't have enough information to come to these, to form an opinion. That's a very different thing. I'm not saying that we can't have these discussions out loud in front of the public. That's a perfectly reasonable thing to do. I'm saying that it's very difficult to come to a decision without having sufficient information in front of us. I agree with Councillor Conolly that this only came to us last week, but we didn't discuss the merger with WesTrac last week either.

Thank you, Councillor. Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I understand what point five is saying, but I don't see it as being very different to what my original motion said or what the change motion through Councillor Conolly said. At no stage did I say that we should leave Parklands or leave WesTrac. All I was saying is that we should suggest to the Parklands, if they're going to be incorporated, that they consider doing that through WesROC. WesROC's already incorporated, so why don't we just use their incorporation and join the two bodies? And that was a suggestion to go to Parks. It was not that we have made that decision, and it was a suggestion that they should consider it. And I heard a lot of speakers here tonight saying we would lose our seat at the table.

I can't understand why we would lose any seat at any table. That's not what is going on here. What we're doing is expressing an opinion, an opinion that merging with WesROC might be a good idea, so why don't you look at it? That's all I was ever saying. But it's been expanded now to go into all kinds of conspiracy things about us being thrown out of or excluded from the Parklands Group, et cetera, et cetera. That should never be the case. As Councillor Conolly said, we're a fully paid-up member. Surely we can express an opinion , and that's all I'm asking councillors to do. You don't have to read 20 books on the way incorporation takes place to actually vote on the motion that we already have before us.

So I really don't see the need for the amendment. It doesn't, in my opinion, achieve anything. Councillor Conolly has already changed the motion so that it's clear, and that is my fault. I didn't make it clear in my motion that it's really just an expression of an opinion to Parklands that we would like to see you consider this. That's all it was ever meant to be.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. I just might say something now and point out what your motion and the amended motion that was on the floor previous didn't do was give us an action item to do in regards to the Parks, and that's what the amendment now tidies up. So what your motion and the amended motion said was fine, but it didn't give Hawkesbury an action to do for the fact that this entity, and again I'm speaking for the other seven councils in what I've only heard because we don't have them sitting in this room, they're all signing onto it. Your motion wasn't giving us Hawkesbury an action to do when these other seven councils were going to sign the document anyway, and we needed to know. What Hawkesbury's position was going to be when that document's being signed.

We didn't have an action. You weren't giving a direction. You were saying to explore merging. Absolutely, I agree with you, but you weren't giving Hawkesbury an action. And that's what this amendment here, which was in line with the business paper, gives Hawkesbury an action to do . Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'll speak in favour of the amendment, and I think that's a good way round because it doesn't eliminate perhaps merging further down, and also doing what the Deputy Mayor just said, which was suggesting to the Western Parkland Councils. When I said I didn't want us to lose our seat at the table, that was based on what the Mayor said before and just said again, which was that the other seven would go ahead and we wouldn't be in it, which would in essence lead to that. I still am quite perplexed that a suggestion like this would be made, and we do have the President and CEO of WesROC both in the room, and it's come to us with no information from the other member councils.

Now, if you were going to come to a council, regardless of whether you do it in your position from WesROC or otherwise, would you not have asked the other councils what they thought, the other five councils, and either come with a uniform position or you would have sought to ask the Mayor to ask the other Parkland councils? Because we were being asked to make a decision and It was to make a decision because it said that we would endorse the merger. That was the first motion that came up. And I think doing that without having the information from the other councils, we don't know how long that would, you know, if we went down that path and they say no, then what do we do? Is it if one doesn't want it, it still goes ahead?

Is it unanimous? We were not given any information about the actual governance of WESROC that would determine when they would be prepared to enter into a merger. And a merger isn't a small thing. It's doing something that is quite significant. So that would mean that each council in that membership would have to go back to their council meeting and have any such plan endorsed. There is no details around a potential merger, so none of that came forward, and that would also have to be formulated before those councils would be able to make a decision of whether they supported it. So there's a lengthy delay in just that process on its own, and that's not to say it shouldn't be done. It may well be done to work out how they may merge.

But at this point, when we're being asked about an updated governance model for a group we're already part of, then I can't see why we would have to be just waiting for, you know, for anything else at this point when we've got a motion before us that says we can do that down the track.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Kotlash.

Thank you, Madam Mayor . I'm speaking against the amendment. I think that as an elected body, if we get the opportunity to look at what might save... Our ratepayers' money and what might be more efficient. I think we have to take it. I think it's as simple as that. I don't think we're in a position to know what a merged entity might look like or, you know, that's way down the track. We're essentially asking for there to be a discussion, I guess, or for this to be put on the table. I think that's absolutely our role. And I agree with the Deputy Mayor. I don't think we need any more information than that at this stage of the game. I'm not prepared to sign off on the Parklands thing at this stage when we have a very reasonable proposal being put to us.

I think this is a no-brainer as far as I'm concerned. We are responsible for the efficient and optimum use of our ratepayers' money, and I think that we need to look at this proposal from the Deputy Mayor. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Conolly

Just a question. Can we just confirm, I thought earlier we'd heard that only two councils had resolved this way, but then I thought you just said seven had resolved to go ahead? No

Just two

Just two.

Seven have— sorry, my indication was that the other councils from our previous meetings are all in support, but they all had to, over this month, course of this month, come to their own councils for resolutions. Just

Point out, it is possible that the councils and those councils might have a similar conversation we're having now.

Any other—Councillor Wheeler, did you have a question?

I do, Madam Mayor. The motion in the business paper states that, and which has become part of the amendment, states that there's no additional financial costs on members. Is that correct? Because we're hearing a bit about this being a costly exercise if we don't pursue the merger with WesTrac instead.

General Manager.

Through you, Madam Mayor, yes, it's a fundamental principle that there is no additional cost, and that's been articulated in the report itself. What has been spoken about tonight is, I guess, around potential savings from merging the entities. I will say that the majority of the Parks budget is simply on the labour of the two officers employed by the entity, and given the motion sought to retain existing staff positions, I thought that those costs would still remain. So certainly no additional costs.

Any other councillors wishing to speak, or we'll put the amendment? Oh sorry, Councillor Zamprogno.

Just to speak briefly against the amendment. I thought that Councillor Calvert's motion, as collaborated with Councillor Conolly, got us further. This amendment seems to be the fallback position of, we've got to sign up to something. And I'd have preferred to have seen Councillor Calvert's motion succeed or fail, and then to foreshadow the recommendation in the business paper after that. So that's why I'm going to be voting against the amendment.

Thank you, Councillor. If no one else is wishing to speak on the amendment, we'll put the amendment. All those in favour of the amendment, please raise your hand. In favour are Councillor McMahon, Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor McMahon and Councillor Wheeler. All those against? Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, and Councillor Zamprogno. I declare the amendment carried. The amendment becomes the motion. Any other councillors wishing to speak?

No

Right of reply. So if we pass this motion now as it stands with that point five, will you, as the Mayor, go back and advocate for that to be seriously considered?

If that's the resolution of Council, sure. Yeah, absolutely. And General Manager can correct me where I'm wrong on this, but the member councils of the Parks would be the eight councils, but that doesn't limit additional councils being added to the group.

Correct, Madam Mayor

Anyone else wishing to speak on what is now the amendment, which is now the motion, or will go right of reply, Deputy Mayor?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. On that last point, I'm sure it says in the business paper it's only going to be the existing eight members, but

I'll have to have another look at that. But anyway, look, I have had a few talks with other councils around the place, and I know there are at least two others considering this possibility. I wanted to bring to you tonight something for Hawkesbury to put up as their opinion. I didn't want to put up something from WesTrac or from some other group. I wanted to come back to our level and say, look, this Council wants you to consider this merger because I believe that these bodies should be working from the councils up. But it appears that what we're being told is that no, that this— Group is telling us from above that you can't do that. And that's what I always thought was wrong with the Parklands City Group anyway.

It doesn't come from below, it comes from above, and this is a classic example of it. And people have asked, the councillors have asked, that I should have brought along all the details of how a merger works and whether all the other councils were in favour of it or not in favour of it. Well, that missed the point. The point was, it is our opinion. I'm trying to get our council to put our opinion forward, that we should speak up and say, yeah, yeah, let's have a look at the merger. We're not saying we will jump out of Parklands if you don't do it. There's no threat. We're saying, have you considered the merger? Will you please have a look at it? That's all I was ever trying to say. I was told, I went in with Charles to visit the Minister for Local Government about two or three weeks ago, and his assistant told me that what Parklands was doing was putting in a submission to become a ROC.

That's what the incorporation is all about. It's to become a ROC, according to him, and I have no doubt that he's correct. That'll put the two bodies in great competition with each other, and I'm trying to avoid that competition. That's just a waste of everybody's money and resources. We really need to work together, and a merger would make that happen. Otherwise, it's going to be ugly and there's going to be blood on the carpet at some point . I don't want that to happen. I want us all to work together for the benefit of Western Sydney. And we don't really need to know what everyone else thinks. So what if three other councils from WestROC think they want a merger and three don't? Well, that doesn't matter.

What was here tonight was I wanted to put Hawkesbury's viewpoint forward, that we would like to have Parklands consider a merger and use the incorporation model that's already there in WestROC to save time, to save money, and most importantly to create a new body, a body that is not WestROC and not Parklands, but performs all those functions on a bigger, larger scale, but in a much more efficient and cheaper manner. That's what this was all about, and I'm really sad that it's been derailed to talk about all other kinds of things which just weren't relevant to what I was trying to put forward. So, look . I support point five of the amendment that is now the motion. So consequently, I suppose I'm forced to support the motion as well.

Thank you. All those in favour of the motion, please raise your hand. In favour are Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor McMahon. Those against , please raise your hand. Councillor Conolly and Councillor Cotter. I declare the motion carried. The next item subject to public address is 10.

5.1, Food Organics, Garden Organics FOGO Transition Plan. We have one registered speaker, Bill Sneddon.

Thank you, Mayor and Councillors. I speak in favour of the FOGO plan proposals to be rolled out as presented tonight. This proposal will divert significant masses of organic waste from our landfill site. Benefits are multiple. First of all, help meet reduced CO2 targets set by Council to meet our targets required nationally also. It will reduce methane generation from food waste in the anaerobic conditions in the tip landfill as currently exists. It will extend the life of the landfill by diverting food and organic waste from the landfill. The tip capacity is limited and may well cease use if permission is not gained to construct new cells at the existing site. Indeed, without that, we have a very uncertain future regarding our garbage and waste operations ahead.

Further point, allow better collaboration of the tip operation. As recently reported to Council, we suggested new business models with other nearby councils. It will also allow composted materials to be usefully recycled in a circular economy model that was being pushed many times when I was on the Waste and Sustainability Committee. It will also meet the New South Wales Government mandate to have FOGO service operating by 2030. It will also reduce costs for us by not going to an outside commercial operator. If we don't do it ourselves, we would be paying somebody a profit to do the work that we do well. And we also do a whole lot of other good things. Sustainable energy panels on the roof, et cetera.

We also run a sewage works, and in fact those, the tip and the sewage, as unusual in that most councils have somebody else doing it substantially for them. FOGO services are well reported to yourselves in the other councils surrounding us. Penrith Council has been the standout example in my experience of local councils doing FOGO. I'm aware many Hawkesbury citizens want a FOGO service, or have been routinely asked. ask many times why have we been so slow in coming on, and why they can't now put all of their kitchen waste, etcetera, in with the existing green waste bins. I was also a community member of the now ceased Waste Management Advisory Committee for several council terms, and during that I saw more economical waste cell covering come in to extend the life of the individual cells that form the whole site.

Recycling Centre was planned and is now well accepted by the community, and that was done in part on opposition by some then councillors. Our FOGO operation will be required, as per the notes that you've been given, for a successful service. Penrith Council had significant teething problems, so we should also heed lessons learned from the other FOGO operators and educate ratepayers as to what the service is and what their responsibilities to the new bins are to be correctly used. Ratepayers, I have been for most of my life involved with recycling or things, growing up in Newcastle, industries fed off each other's by-products. I've also had that in the food area. I'd also remind councillors we have a lot of recycling in agricultural and other areas.

For example, we have three major composting operations in this area. One of them at Mulgrave actually feeds their composted material into the mushroom growing operation that they're vertically integrated with. So we already have a lot of expertise. Your council staff have been doing really good things with renewables, etcetera. We don't say enough about it. As to the signing up of our 10-year energy policy program for electricity, that was a masterstroke that just hasn't been cited strongly enough. Councillors, the ratepayers need you to get on with FOGO introduction. Introduction. The sooner we do it, selfishly, the longer we'll have for our tip to work if we can't get more landfill area. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Snedden. Is there any questions, councillors? No. Thank you for your contribution. Councillor Kotlash.

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

Do I have a seconder? Thank you, Councillor Reardon. Councillor Kotlash.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

I'd like to start by saying that this is one of the best pieces of work I've seen by staff in a long time. It is a challenging area, and the expertise, the innovation, and the thoughtfulness that has been put forward in this plan is commendable. We all know that we have to reduce our carbon emissions and make sure we return nutrients to our soils. FOGO is one way of doing this, but unfortunately the cost is very high. And because the Hawkesbury has vast rural and urban areas, the transition for both council and the community will be complex. I am delighted to see that we have left ourselves time to test the use of the black soldier flies, or as I like to say, maggot technology, as a possible alternative to FOGO. If this technology proves to be a feasible alternative to FOGO, it will be a game changer, and it will save our ratepayers millions of dollars.

On that note, I have my fingers crossed, and again, I thank the staff for delivering such a good way forward. You are to be commended. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Veigel.

Yeah, thanks. Probably more questions than— I support the motion for 27. I'm inclined to say I would probably accept another year pushback because it's going to take a bit of effort. But looking at the in perpetuity, there's a $5 million cost to the council, or the LGA. I would take that as a yes going moving forward each year onwards and probably increasing with CPI increases. Would that be fair? So what would that represent in taxpayers, about $70 extra a year on ratepayers' bills? Can that be answered or not? Yes,

Thank you. I was just getting the correct title. Manager of Resource Recovery.

Thank you, Manager of Resource

Recovery. Through you, Madam Mayor, yes, that's correct. So all of our contracts that we're in essentially have the CPI, the price increase and falls. So that would be the same for all of our contracts, including the FOGO when it's introduced.

But as a ratepayers' point of view, we think it's about $70 for each ratepayer. What I've taken is about 72,000 people in the LGA, but half of those might be ratepayers based on this cost.

Look, approximately that probably depends on the rate of the use of the system. So if people use the FOGO system more, then essentially there's a higher tonnage rate,

But then there's a reduction from that. So, okay, is council providing the bin liners, the starch biodegradable stuff as well? Is that all part, because it's going to be pre- to the ratepayers as well?

So part of the plan is for us to provide the compostable bag liners. So similar programs for Penrith, Blacktown's proposing the same, and I believe the Hills is providing the same as well.

Well, I can't really go against this because I'll have to support it anyway, because it's been mandated by the state that we've got to all comply by, what, 2030 on this, do we not?

Yes, that's correct. At this stage, the mandates in the strategy document, we're still yet to see any legislative requirements from that, but the progress is still to 2030.

So I guess my point, Madam Mayor, whoever's here in the next council needs to go on a communication binge and let everybody ratepayer know there's going to be ongoing costs moving forward on this, and they accept for the reasons why we are doing it. And hopefully you might be able to sell the compost and you mitigate any ongoing costs coming back. Okay, that's all I'll say on that one. Thanks, but I'll be supporting the motion.

Thanks, Councillor. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. A question first. Is there any way we can leave the door open to starting this, to potentially starting this faster?

Manager of Resource Recovery.

There is the potential. I think in our plan we proposed in 2027, that allows us time to explore the options around the BSF, the black soldier flies, but then also considering that the staffing requirements and the education component, as discussed, is quite extensive. The recommendation is at least 12 months' worth of engagement to our community to advise them that this is what's happening, you know, and building up that transition time. It's really a key critical element, and as expressed, this is probably the largest change that most of our community will see across our community. Same with the introduction of recycling. It's every household that will be affected, so there'll be a lot of engagement required.

Thanks. My only concern with this is that it's really slow. We're up to 2024 . This is three years away, and Mr Stedden is correct. In that time, we are adding to our tip. We are adding to the loss of nutrient. We're adding to the disposal of perfectly recyclable methane-producing waste. And I really have problems with this, with us dragging it out to that extent.

I want to support this because I want us to move forward, but I'm not comfortable with the timeline. This is an excellent report. There's really clear info. It makes clear the need and the benefits of it, both to the environment and to the landfill site, which is filling up. There's clear cost benefits, particularly given the EPA's fee for anything that goes over our weighbridge. It's also a core council function and an area where we can have really big wins. But it is really slow, and I would like to see us build in a mechanism where we can keep the door open to bring it forward by a year to six months. We already know what works. We've seen from other councils that the option of keeping a weekly red bin collection, particularly in areas like ours where it's very hot, and particularly for families with young children in nappies, for example, the need for a weekly bin collection I think is important.

We need to keep pushing composting because ultimately, unless the soldier fly larvae system works, we're looking at exporting the nutrient from the LGA, and I think that's That's not a great outcome, particularly in an area that relies on fertiliser coming in for agriculture. We have seen Penrith Council lead, and I'm a little bit disappointed, I suppose, that it's taken us so long to get on this bandwagon.

The report refers to central bin collections, and I think we need to acknowledge that some of those really don't work well, for example at Lower Portland, and I think we really need to address those. So I'd like to flag that they need to be looked at further. One of them in particular is very close to a wetland, and the rubbish largely ends up in the wetland. Council has been aware of this for some time. It really, really needs to be addressed. And I'll finish with a question: Is Council still subsidising worm farms and compost bins for residents?

Manager Resource Recovery.

Through you, Madam Mayor, we have moved away from the composting and subsidising. What we've found is over the last 12 months, or previous 12 months, the uptake from that is low, and what we've actually progressed to is more engagement directly with our community around events, and we do have a few other education things proposed for in the new financial year.

That's all, Councillor?

Yeah. Can I voice my disappointment in that as well? I think people who've moved here, there's no point engaging and telling people to compost if they can't afford a compost bin.

Thank you. Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Just a question first, if I can, on page 47 in the section Timing, where it's referencing the trial for the black soldier flies. It says, If this is successful, this may reduce the need for FOGO. Can you please explain that sentence?

Manager, Resource Recovery.

Through you, Madam Mayor, the idea behind the ARC ENTO is it presents an opportunity for us to process our red bin waste. If that's successful and meets regulatory hurdles, which are challenging, it may mean we can then address the EPA and actually say we've got a different way of doing it, and this is the way we would like to do it. I would stress that the regulatory hurdles are extensive, and that's why we're progressing down this trial pathway and bringing on board the EPA as part of that trial process around where all the nutrients are going, what's happening with the black soldier flies, to ensure that

And if I can add to that, Councillors, if indeed the ARC ENTO trial is successful, it would still present, and probably the most efficient way of diverting almost 100% of organic material from our red waste bin, without the need for a third bin and without the need for another collection vehicle to traverse the roads and streets of our shire, or our city rather, to undertake that collection. So it really represents an opportunity for a centralised processing option, which still achieves resource recovery, the diversion rates from landfill, while separating out the organics, creating a product and an end market for those, and then sorting out residual waste, which can either find potentially some other markets, or if there are none, then they end up in the landfill. Okay,

Thank you for that. So it's different from, for example, the councils that currently have a FOGO collection and use black soldier fly for the processing part of it. It would be eliminating the cost. Elimination is in the picking up of it. So we'd have everyone putting everything back in their red bin. Okay. I'll just speak to that. Like Councillor Wheeler, I would like to see it introduced as early as possible, but I do support the work that's been done on it, and I think that it's been a long time coming. I think we've been talking about FOGO in this council as long as I've been here, and I really look forward to the day when we actually start doing it. There's no costs included around what that processing would look like. I don't know when would we be getting an idea of the costs of any infrastructure required for that, or the costs to be having that waste processed?

Through you, Madam Mayor, this is for the BSF, the black soldier fly.

Regardless. Yes

Look, we'd have to wait until after this trial to really understand what the costs are in terms of the sizing that's required and any potential other associated costs. The trial is looking at potentially up to 20 percent of our red bin waste, so about 6,000 tonnes. But after that, we'd have to work out what the costs are ongoing for that. Okay,

Thank you. So we'll be getting that later. Okay, that's great. Thanks.

Any other councillors wishing to speak? No right of reply, Councillor Kotlash? Not necessary, thank you, Madam Q. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour are Councillor Reardon, Councillor Vigal, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Ainsbucket, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor McMahon. Those against? Councillor Conolly. Absent from the room is Councillor Dogramaci. I declare the item carried.

Councillors, we might do the items on block and then if you're happy to have a five to ten minute break, seeing as it's almost nine—what is it? 8.30. 8.30. I thought it was 9.30 as well. No, we might just push on and maybe think about something around nine o'clock. Or are you happy for a break? Yeah , I've already said it. Do not take it back. Okay, we'll do the items on block. That's items 10.4.1 and 11.1.2, noting 11.1.3 has now been pulled out of block. Can I have someone move that way? Councillor Conolly, seconded by Councillor Kotlash. All those in favour, raise your hand. In favour, Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor McMahon.

Absent from the room is Councillor Dogramaci. I declare the items on block carried.

Thank you, councillors. Thank you for that. I hope you're all refreshed, and we will begin again. The next item is 10.3.1, draft Hawkesbury Social Infrastructure Assessment and Strategy. Now, Councillor Wheeler, there she is, had indicated there may be a declaration or there may not. Councillor

Thanks, Madam Mayor. I've taken some advice and I think I have a less than significant non-pecuniary interest.

Would you like to read that interest out?

Yes, please. So I have a less than significant non-pecuniary interest in item 10.3.1. The nature of the interest is that my husband is employed by Hawkesbury City Council at one of the facilities discussed, Hawkesbury Library Service. The reason for no further action is that it doesn't meet the threshold for significance because it doesn't call for any decision relating to staffing levels.

Thank you, Councillor. Do I have anyone wishing to move the recommendation? Councillor Reardon, seconded. Councillor Veigel. Thank you. Councillor Reardon, would you like to make a comment?

Thank you. Any other councillors wishing to speak? Councillor Sheather.

Yeah, Madam Mayor.

I can probably support the document going on exhibition, but I've got a lot of issues with it. I spoke to the staff after our informal discussion,

And there's probably not a lot of people in the community read it, but if people are interested and going to take a particular notice on whatever, we should be producing documents that is... is what it says it is. And I'll go through some of them, and I'm quite prepared to sit down with the staff and go through some of the other issues too. But the Hawkesbury LGA is expansive and spans over 2,800 square kilometres. Now, unless we've done a reassessment, it's not that much. It's under it. And we quite often put in—I know in the infrastructure programs we've discussed it in relation to areas and stuff—it's not the right distance. There's a couple of other concerns I had, and I'm not going to go into all of them, but we've got— there's quite a lot of area through the document that relates to cultural change, I suppose, and the likes, Aboriginal culture and the like.

And I don't want to debate it, but I want —and as I said before, if we're going to put stuff in documents, as a council we need to resolve an outcome and the likes. I know there's documents coming up that we're not going to do that, but this is going out to exhibition now. And it's things like centred around the Dharugan, in brackets, Hawkesbury River. Well, it's the Hawkesbury River, and in the past, and we haven't said any different, it was Dharugan in brackets, and I haven't got an issue with that at all. But if we're going to rearrange the names of things, there's a whole process to go through. And we haven't done it. There's

As you are aware, there's some of the sporting stuff that I'm probably up to speed with a little bit. AusPlay. It's got participation rates in Hawkesbury City Council LGA, and it's got AusPlay data shows that 86.9%.

When I seen it, I thought there was, I had an issue with it, so I tried to look it up on AusPlay, and then I had other people try to look it up on AusPlay. There was no Hawkesbury City Council LGA in AusPlay, but there's a reference to it. And again, I'm talking about factual stuff. We've got basketball at 3.5. Does anybody in this room know where there's a basketball court in our city?

Yeah.

Indoor one. Yeah, well, it's a small one, 3.5%. Netball's not mentioned in that graph, and I suggest that netball's way higher than a three-court, that's one court used predominantly for basketball. And it goes on with some other stuff there. I won't go on with that page. Plan new facilities. We've got Tamplin Field, Woodbury, Richmond Pool, Aquatic Centre, Fernadell, no North Richmond.

And we've still got the football field in the middle of Templin Field. We go over a bit further in relation to public schools and other public facilities. Central McDonald's not marked in there. Wiseman's Ferry is not in our city,

And Norahsackville.

We go over a bit further and we talk about equestrian. Some of us spoke about some of that tonight. 28 equestrian facilities in riding schools in our LGA, while all are privately owned. Well, three of them aren't privately owned. Three of them are our city. There's one at Vines , there's one at Woodlands, and there's one at Bounty Road. We get over to activities. There's quite a few things amongst this, and it varies between private and public facilities right through the document. But again, we get to activities and it's got a whole heap of stuff there. It doesn't have go-karts, it doesn't have Sydney Off Road Racing, and this is just the car fraternity I'm talking about, or it doesn't have the Morris Car Club that's 200 metres down the road.

We get over a bit further and we've got playing fields. The benchmark suggests that the surplus of up to 16 fields in 2041, with some additional fields flagged,

A surplus of up to 16 fields in 2041. And then it goes on to say these will be delivered by Fernadell. Peel Park and Jacaranda. Well , Jacaranda, we're getting nothing in relation to playing fields. That's going to Woodbury, and we've already got the plan and most of it's done and it's fabulous, but it's no extra playing fields. Peel Park, the same deal. There's no additional play fields there. We've got additional facilities around the perimeter. So we're, on my count, we're getting two from Fernadell. So how that comes up with 16 fields in another few years has got me beat, because I've asked for additional grounds and there's been no indication from anybody in any direction that we're even looking at additional fields.

I know that with Vineyard Park, there's someone on there. We have not spoke about Vineyard Park or the playing fields out there, so I don't know what's happening. Councillor,

I've just noticed your time has expired, or I don't know if it was turned on. It was, sorry, thank you. Yeah, sorry, Councillor your time has expired.

I'm quite happy to go through the document with the staff, Madam Mayor. Yeah,

Thank you. You have raised some points there, Councillor, that are quite fair, so thank you. Councillor Conolly.

Thank you. I'm not sure exactly what we're going to do now. My initial thought was that I found some of the things in this document difficult to marry up with my own experience and anecdotal evidence we received, but my thought was we'll put on exhibition and see what people say. But if there's factual inaccuracies, they probably need to be fixed first. In particular, netball courts are both well provided for, and tennis courts—I don't know much about tennis courts—but netball courts, I know from my own experience with kids' sport, each club is down to one or two courts for training in a particular two-hour slot on one night a week. Like, it is not well provided for. I can't see how we've got a surplus, and we'll still have a surplus that far into the future.

And it's a good point—I hadn't noticed, to be honest—but Councillor Sheather just pointed out that netball would have to be our number one, or if not maybe number two, most played sport in the district and doesn't make the list. Those two facts together suggest that maybe something obvious has been missed, and we need to go and check that, I think. Similarly, I know rugby league and other sport that I'm involved in cannot get training fields in the Hawkesbury anywhere. The main club wins and has its own fields, which is helpful, but they've expanded every year for the last few years. There's over 9,000 juniors in the Penrith district. I don't know how many of them are in Hawkesbury, but it would have to be a significant number.

It doesn't get a mention, and it's suggested that there's already a surplus of fields. That could be the case, however. It might be an issue of allocation. I don't know. Councillor Sheather thinks it's not, and I respect that opinion, but potentially it could be. But I think that's—and that's why I sort of was inclined to put this on exhibition—but if there's factual issues, I don't know if that's—I'm just not sure what we should do there, whether we hold this off for the next meeting to have a chance to look at those. Open to your suggestion, Madam Mayor.

Thank you, Councillor. I might just seek some advice, if you don't mind, General Manager.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I guess, Councillors, this is the point of us briefing you on these sorts of things and providing you with the documents in advance of the meetings, so that we can try to iron these things out before they come to Council. With that said, what I'd be recommending is that we perhaps introduce a part step in this, that councillors provide feedback, we'll call it that, councillors provide feedback on the draft strategy within two weeks of the date of the meeting, and then we proceed out to exhibition following that feedback. Does that sound like a reasonable step?

Yes, Councillor Reardon, would you be happy to incorporate that, Councillor Bygall? Yes. So can we have that amended motion on the board, please? Thank you.

Anyone else wishing to speak? Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, and I will support that inclusion in the motion because we have had opportunity to comment on this before, and I do realise there's some anomalies. I did see a couple of things in there myself, but some of them are factual and some of them are opinion. So I guess it's important that anything that, you know, we're changing has a basis to it. I think this is a really interesting document. I think there's been a lot of comprehensive work done around it, and it identifies some really important areas that we need to focus on and prioritise. And I am interested in getting it out to the community because really it's all about community spaces and what our community use. So I'm really keen to have it go on public exhibition and to see if any additional or contrary feedback is provided.

There's some interesting feedback in there from the community who are clearly involved in the focus groups, but, you know, whether that extends right across the community is yet to be seen. So I'm looking forward to hearing that. It's interesting that Councillor Sheather seems to have alternative opinions around whether we're meeting or exceeding averages in the facilities we have. So I'll be interested in hearing the clarity around that. One of the important points I think that it raises that concerns me is about equitable access to facilities within this area, and hopefully that can be enhanced by better connectivity around shared pathways and pedestrian access and so on, which would have the added benefit of reducing our car dependency, which is so high in this area, and also will allow participation from people who don't drive or who don't have a car.

So I think improvements around understanding where we can better physically connect people is really good. And of course, a document like this becomes a vital tool in our planning for the future in our strategic planning. I was really concerned to see included in the assessment that Hawkesbury has above average long-term health conditions and higher rates of illness. I don't know if we're ever going to hear what that's all about, or whether that's something peculiar to this area for some reason, air quality or something like that. But obviously assisting our community to have access to the most options to engage in healthier lifestyles and activities is really paramount. So it's good to be doing this sort of work.

A few issues raised in there around affordability of spaces for hire. We've also heard those raised in other forums from people, and it would be good to get the governance models around the management of community facilities to maximise the usage of all of those. I don't think it addresses still how we're going to address the terms of burden of upkeep into the future of all of this social infrastructure with the amount of out-of-area people who use it. So I guess that's a further conversation to be had. Another important issue is around, of course, it commends our high rate of volunteers, but identifies the ages of the volunteers. And so we really need to ensure the intergenerational transition to maintain the high levels that go with that volunteering, so that we can keep our activities and facilities going.

I'm assuming West Invest was not included because a number of things that are mentioned in there are part of West Invest projects, so that also would have to be modified at some point. When we know that physical connection increases participation, that's a really good thing, and I hope that's a real focus that we can take some actions from this plan onwards. What else was there? Yes, I had noted down here that there are a few little things to amend. I had a question, and it was that is someone following up on any items within feedback around community facilities, such as a difficulty with booking a centre or something like that? Has anyone extracted that out and dealt with that as an issue as the focus groups have gone onward?

General manager.

Through you, Madam Mayor, I couldn't answer that question with 100% certainty, and I know the Director City Planning, this has been something that she has certainly had her eye on and has casted over. What is certainly a recommendation coming out of the priority focus areas is a lot of work on governance and booking systems for the community halls, certainly.

That would be good. I think the other thing is around the resilience, where we get the true resilience coming from the framework being strong enough to continue over time, so continuity. We say our communities are so resilient, but they need ongoing support to make sure that the following generations continue that resilience, and that we allow communities to drive their localised initiatives that are decisions that they make tailored especially for their community. So I think that it's a good start, and looking forward to the amendments that may be made, and also to the community feedback.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. Sorry, I'm struggling a bit with my internet connection, hence the turning my camera on and off. I think that this is a really, really interesting report that has loads of information in it, and I think the devil, I think, is in the detail, really. There's lots of information about the future for our community, I suppose, if we stop and extract it. The visibility of First Nations culture and stories, etc., people feel that there isn't enough. The uneven distribution of existing social infrastructure and open space, and I think that's something that's really difficult for us to meet as such a vast LGA with a population centre geographically located in the bottom segment of it.

As Councillor Lyons-Buckett mentioned, this reliance on volunteers, and I think what we're seeing in some of these metrics, the reliance on volunteers, the ageing population, ill health, access questions are real, often I think, questions of economics, and relate to that other statistic that 48% of the LGA leaves the LGA for work, and those commute times are significant here, and something that I think we need to explore further as we dip in and out of various pieces of advocacy. The reliance on volunteers and the difficulty for organisations... Like the RFS, for example, to attract younger volunteers is clearly an economic issue in many instances. If you've got young kids and a fat mortgage and you're travelling for, you know, three hours a day, it's very hard to find additional time to attend meetings or training or, you know, or call-outs or whatever it is that your voluntary organisation requires of you.

And it's the same with some of those health metrics. You know, we now have a real absence of bulk-billing GPs that we as an LGA should be advocating, that we as a council should be advocating to other levels of government to increase. You know, the time for recreation and the access to health and education and recreation is severely impacted by both economic circumstances and by those lengthy commutes. What we also see here is a lack of spaces for young people outside school and sport, and some of these themes are those repeated in the work of the Enhancing the Arts working group, where we've heard that there is a lack of spaces for young people who want to engage in drama and music, for example, particularly performance spaces.

And that again is reflected in this report where there's talk of some of the increasing costs for hiring community facilities and the lack of affordable spaces. We heard that last week in the Enhancing the Arts Committee. There's some contradictions in this document. You know, on one side of the page we've got talk of well-placed community spaces, and on exactly the same page we've got a lack of spaces. I think this identifies that we need to deal with a changing community, and we are seeing that, particularly as development spreads down Windsor Road, we will have an increase in cultural diversity in the LGA. We are predominantly Anglo LGA at this stage, and that isn't going to stay like that forever.

And we as a council have to work out how we adapt to that. The community has to work out how it adapts to that as well. One of the things I'm particularly pleased with in this document is an examination of who is not using spaces around that idea of who isn't here. You know, we have this increasing need for public spaces or third spaces, and those spaces need to be non-transactional. Places like libraries, galleries, sporting facilities that people can access for free are really important, and they're particularly important for people's mental and physical health. It's really important that people read and engage with this document, I think. You know, the rubber really starts to hit the road if you're short on time, by about page 84, 85.

I'm not sure that the benchmarks are the best way for a large peri-urban council to measure the resourcing that we're providing, and I would hate to see us wind back our resource provision simply because we've got more parks or sporting facilities than a council where they can use neighbouring LGA's facilities or where the population distribution is different to ours. We have a young and an old population. You know, we have lots of people at those different ends, and we need to make sure that they're adequately provided for.

Councillor, your time

Has expired. Thanks. I am pleased to see that we'll get two weeks for feedback because there's a lot in here.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak? Right of reply, Councillor—oh, sorry, Councillor Sheather.

Yeah, question, Madam Mayor. When's the two weeks proposed?

As in point two, it's from today.

From today?

A fortnight from today. You've got two weeks.

Yeah, have a long weekend.

Perfect.

What else would you want to do?

Thank you. No one else wishing to speak, right of reply, Councillor Reardon? Not necessary. All those in favour of the motion on the board, please raise your hand in favour. Councillor Reardon, Councillor Vigo, Councillor Ashida, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillors Improgno. Councillor Wheeler's gone off the board. Councillor McMahon. I'll just say that to put my hand down.

I'll have to... Oh, here she is. Hand up, Councillor Wheeler. Is that? Yep. Okay, Councillor Wheeler. Absent from the room is Councillor Dogramaci. I declare the item carried.

The next item is 10.3.2, Hawkesbury Floodplain Drainage Review. Do I have anyone else wishing, anyone wishing to move that way? Councillor Sheather, seconded Councillor Reardon. Councillor Sheather.

Yes, thanks, Madam Mayor.

The document is quite large. The, I guess, you know, it's something that I've wanted for quite a while. The concern that I've got is there's recommendations in it, and I

Guess I don't want dust, I don't want to gather dust on the shelf. It's really important. Most of the floods we have are minor, similar to the last one, say, which in the main, if the drainage systems are working, they're manageable. And I know there's a lot to do and a lot of it. Our staff that used to manage those facilities aren't here anymore. That knowledge is gone. There's new technology in relation to how the floodgates might operate, for instance. We've got legislation in relation to how we go about doing the projects, and property owners that need to be dealt with as well. In saying that, the property owners that I've spoke to, or spoke to me, might be a better way of putting it, that they're pretty keen to move on it.

The other issue we've got is the thing called money, or lack of it. There's only $83,000 in our budget for that. Could I have an indication of how we might proceed with this, the information that we've got, down the track? We're coming up to council elections, and this information's been before us and the one before this, and I'd just like to see what sort of legacy we might be leaving on, or imposing, whatever the case may be, on a future council.

Thank you, General Manager.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Really good question, Councillor, and that's the part two of the recommendation is noting that we'll be providing you that report back. I spoke to the Director City Planning this afternoon, and we'd expect that we'd be able to bring something back to council, certainly this calendar year. I'm not sure that it'll be before the end of the council term. What I will say is that we do have some things in motion at the moment. We have a draft deed currently being finalised between council and the Turf Growers Association to enable them to act on council's behalf, working with the landowners down there to enable the clearing out and the maintenance of the natural drainage channels.

That is unquestionably the most complex , I guess, part of moving forward, rather than the hard floodgates and drainage infrastructure that we can quite comfortably put through an asset management lens and make sure it's looked after. So what we've been sort of just working through, like I said, we've got an arrangement with Turf New South Wales that we would like to endure. We're exploring options about the appropriateness of the inclusion of the drainage review and the maintenance of the channels as part of Council's disaster adaptation plan that's been worked on with the reconstruction authority, so that it's got some teeth and it's embedded in a government document that then will allow us to hopefully apply for enduring funding, recognising the importance that the drainage channels have there.

And then building a system within Council about what does the enduring program look like, working with our regulator hat on probably, but also working in partnership. We'd much rather do it in partnership with the landowners so that, you know, once a year, once every two years, whatever that program looks like, that that can endure and be put in place. But yes, these things cost money and they cost resources.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Mayor. The author of this document, I spent a few days in Queensland at the floodplain conference and he's come back with COVID, so I was talking to him from a distance, by the way. No, he's pretty crook today. The report's pretty thorough, and it's really important to probably the three areas within the report: the lowlands of Richmond and Pitt Town and Wilberforce. Just a couple of things. With the floodgates, they're all flap gates. They work with pressure either against them or behind them. With the new technology, there's some of the councils up the coast are using slide gates and the like. There's issues with those. You've got to have power to them and the likes, but they can be operated from an office.

And because the issue we've got, if all of it's fixed up and we haven't got a program, I'm not saying we can't get one. I'm just indicating that there might be other options to look at, that if we have a flood a little bit smaller than what we had, the gates need to stay closed. If it gets to the stage where the floodwaters break the banks and it goes across our roads or across property, as the mayor's well aware, and there were some photographs after the last flood what happened, the gates at Wilberforce were closed and it traversed people's property and crops and damaged them, where if the gates had been opened, then the water behind the gates would have been the same level and you won't get that velocity.

So, and there's always the chance that the weather bureau can be out. If they forecast we're going to have an eight metre flood and we keep the gates closed and then all of a sudden they say, oh, there's another weather pattern coming in, we're going to have 12 metres or something, we've got a problem. So if there's water against the gates, not only you can't get to them, you can't open them; they're too heavy. Where with slide gates, that's practical, but again, you get back to areas where most of the gates haven't got power. So, and if you're looking at solar panels and that, then you're looking at vandalism and a whole heap of other things, plus damage if the floodwater goes over them. So there's nothing easy about it.

But the system works. It had worked in the past, and I suspect we're coming back into a wet period where we're likely to get the sort of flooding that we had more recently, more often. The weather pattern indicates that over decades . So, but Madam Mayor, just in relation to the document, I commend our staff and the author of the document. It's comprehensive. There's recommendations in it in the back. But if there's an opportunity to look at a pilot program that, I guess for the word easy to achieve, it's something that I'd like to see happen, big or small, for any property owners or authorities that need to investigate the opportunities that a job can be done, to set an example on a project that's achievable as the first one, irrespective what problems we might have with some of the others.

So, Madam Mayor, I'm happy to support the recommendation and again thank the author and the staff for the work that's done.

Thanks, Councillor. Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I had a number of questions, and the General Manager has essentially just answered one of them, which was about what agreements exist around the dual responsibility to maintain. Well, that's really encouraging, the draft deed with the Turf Growers Association. But will that be spread to other owners? Will you attempt to do that with individual property owners or with collectives of property owners in a region or similar?

Through you, Madam Mayor. Effectively, Turf New South Wales are acting, are going to be acting as the go-between, the conduit, and acting on behalf of Council because they are best placed to work with the landowners. So that's sort of the role they're going to be doing, and it's not with only one property; it's certainly with a range.

But only turf properties.

Yes, I believe so.

I'm assuming there are other properties that have this drainage. Obviously, there are along that stretch in the study. Okay, thanks for that. The other, the next question is: how do we monitor the changes to topography that have clearly occurred from agricultural activities if there's no requirement for us to ever know this? Like if there's no approval or anything required, how do we monitor that? Is that by, like, someone checking or—

General Manager.

Well, there's technology for everything these days, Council. I'm sure you could throw a LIDAR on it and probably find out in about five minutes. But I think the more substantive piece is Council establishing a program whereby we have got a regular maintenance and review program in place, effectively like a proactive audit kind of program set up on it. I would think that's the key point, I think. Okay,

Thank you. And the third question was: it was 70 kilometres of drainage channels were looked at on foot, but do we know the total of drainage channels? How many— what sort of kilometreage of drainage channels is there down there?

Director of Infrastructure.

I don't know the answer to that, but the data that formed the basis of the channels and the creeks and drains that the consultant was to look at was based on LiDAR data and a data set, I believe, from Spatial New South Wales, which maps a lot of, if not all of, the channels down there and the drainage courses down there. And from my knowledge of the study, it went down to some pretty subtle — Drainage channels right through to the more substantial creeks such as Coolie Creek and the like.

Great, thanks. I think I'll speak in favour of the motion. I think this is great work, and I'm really pleased to see the report. I did have a good look at it, but I certainly didn't read all of it. I had a good look at the photos, though, and I think they're very telling in showing the challenges that we face. It's very evident what type of issues there are. But it's also a really wonderfully comprehensive report in outlining the various environmental constraints and issues around biodiversity and threatened species in each of those areas along the floodplain, which is just, even without looking at the drainage, that in itself presents a really, really interesting document. Hopefully the solutions, and I think the general manager has just outlined a really good way forward in looking at that, because the costing report will be interesting, but I would imagine it will be really The magnitude of this seems to be quite enormous and obviously , as it states in the report, the absence of flooding for so long has meant that the maintenance may not have been kept up by landowners or Council to the extent that was required to ensure that the drainage was operating as successfully as it could.

So I think that where Molino Stewart identified that the hydraulics of the drainage networks aren't well understood, I think that's an understatement. I think the general public probably don't understand that, and we do hear a lot around it. And having rectified and put in a document that is really comprehensive like this is a great tool for us to have, should anyone want to discuss the intricacies of drainage with us, which some people actually do. So I think it's great. I just think looking forward to getting the next stage of it and hearing more about the program going forward so that we can actually address those issues. One other thing I would like to raise is that this does only deal with, like, the network on the floodplain.

We also have the issue around the maintenance of creeks and other tributaries that suffer blockages in their drainage systems, like near roads and things. I'm just wondering what we're doing about that into the future. I know that's a hard thing to keep on top of as well, but I think sometimes we do see, especially around places like McKenzie's Creek and things, where there's any blockages, that that can contribute to localised flooding and issues such as that. So this is great work, and I'm pleased to see it. Looking forward to the next bit.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. I too think this is a really interesting report. What I, and there are, I think there are some key messages in this, and I'm looking at the executive summary at the moment, where it talks about the condition of the drainage channels having deteriorated over time and puts that down to a failure by both landowners and Council to maintain flood mitigation and drainage infrastructure. And I think, yeah, I think Council need—

I think it's a good thing that Council is admitting that we need to do more in this space. Repeated natural disasters recently have sharpened the mind, and I think that's probably helpful. Certainly, burying our heads in the sand isn't going to get us to a better place here. I do have a concern around the environmental impacts of all of this, and one of the difficulties that I see here is this talk of Pitt Town Lagoon and Bushells Lagoon as part of this drainage network. And

I'd really like us to move to a place where we stop using or viewing wetlands as part of a drainage system. Has there been, in any of this process, or is there an intention to bring in wetland experts to talk about how this drainage work fits in with the health of the wetlands that are involved in this?

General Manager?

Through you, Madam Mayor, not to the best of my knowledge, Councillor.

Thanks So I'm going to attempt to add that to the motion now, that Council consult with wetlands experts regarding how this drainage work fits in with the health of the wetlands on the floodplain.

Would you like to see if the mover would add a point three?

Yes, please.

The mover is saying no, so you'll have to move an amendment, if that's

All right. Okay, then I'll move an amendment with points one and two and that additional point, please.

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

Sorry, I think I've lost the sound.

No, no, we can hear you. Oh, thanks. Sorry, I think my mind was ticking just because that's going to have a cost involved. That's okay.

It may not have a cost involved if we start with, for example, the University of Western Sydney and the Riverkeeper, who are already on the ground and happy to share that information.

Thank you, Councillor. If you'd like to continue speaking on your amendment. Sure.

So, look, I think this is one part of the jigsaw that makes up the floodplain, and I think we need to be aware that the use of this area for agriculture and turf growing and market gardeners, who are the other group involved, is one aspect. There is an environmental aspect that has a right to exist in this area that has been repeatedly damaged. We know that residents of the Hawkesbury and Greater Sydney value wetlands. We know that wetlands have a role in carbon sequestration, in cooling the atmosphere and particularly in biodiversity, and that there are some biodiversity legislation— excuse me—pieces of biodiversity legislation that protect wetlands. But we see, particularly with Bushland Lagoon, that they aren't as effective as they could be.

And Bushland Lagoon particularly has been so impacted by agriculture in the last 230-odd years that it's almost unrecognisable as the wetland and bird and fish habitat that it should be. And I think we need to be really careful that when we do drainage works that are beneficial for both flood mitigation and farming, that they are not detrimental, or that they don't continue to be detrimental, that the environment doesn't run not just a bad second, but it's not even a starter in some of these considerations. And I think we, as custodians of the space, we need to do better than that. So I hope that we can at least talk with the river keeper and the wetlands experts at the University of Western Sydney as to how we do this better, so that it continues to provide flood mitigation and works for farmers, but that it also works for wetlands as well.

Thank you, Councillor Conolly.

Thank you. I wondered if we could, in the amendment, just change point 3 to name those two organisations that Councillor Wheeler mentioned and change it to ‘Council approach these organisations for advice regarding’, so that there's an action we can easily do , get the advice, and then continue on rather than we start with some sort of process.

Councillor Wheeler, would you like— Thanks, Councillor. I'm happy with that. So who was at the University of Western Sydney and who was the other one?

The riverkeeper, which is a— so the University of Western Sydney would be fine, but the riverkeeper is an employee of the University of Western Sydney, as I understand it.

And Councillor Lyons-Buckett, you're happy with that? Yeah. Anyone else we should just speak on the amendment? Councillor Zamprogno. Yes,

Thank you. I wonder whether, because I'm looking at the report and notice that many of these obstructed channels are the result of the build-up of woody weeds, things like olive, castor oil plant, privet and so forth. And of course the agency to which we devolve that responsibility is the Hawkesbury River County Council. So I'm wondering whether the mover of the amendment or the motion would be happy to incorporate asking HRCC for advice as well as those other organisations.

Yes, happy to.

Thank you.

Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Is that all, Councillor? Councillor Kotlash .

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I agree that we need to consult experts in areas of wetland ecology, but I think we have to be a bit careful that not all wetlands are natural wetlands, and a lot of the wetlands that we have have changed so much from their natural state that we have to come to grips with what we're asking these people for . If we're asking them for an opinion on whether the drainage works that we propose are going to— degrade the wetland further, bring it back to what it might have been, or for what outcome, I don't know. So I'll just pop that in there as a comment. I think we have to be careful about what — I think we have to be careful about knowing what space we're operating in. And while some wetlands aren't as impacted as others, some you could work on them for 20 years and not ever get anything that's reasonably worth it, I guess.

So I think we'd have to temper that third point, and we have to know how we're operating in that space. But I'll leave it at that. I mean, I just, I think there's no harm in getting some advice on things, but I think that, yeah, I think we have to sort of know why we're and what we're heading for. What are the outcomes we want for those wetlands? Thanks.

Madam Mayor, could I just perhaps clarify point three, change the wording slightly to clarify? Sure. And I'm happy to take additional input from Councillor Kotlash if she wants to, but I think how these drainage works affect the health of

The wetlands,

Because the floodplain is a really big space.

Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Yes. Thank you. Any other councillors wishing to speak? Councillor Sheather.

Yeah, question first, Madam Mayor.

I'd ask the staff how many more people they need to ask in relation to question three. The works, you don't go in with the bulldozer and clean the darn thing out. There's a process to go through, and apart from the people suggested, I'd suggest there's practically every government organisation, as a matter of fact, they're listed in there: relevant legislation, biodiversity, conservation management plans, environmental, heritage, national park. It goes on and on.

Does Council need a resolution to, in the regard of point three, or is it mandatory that those works would undertake those investigations and appropriate consultation with the community generally, I suppose?

General Manager.

Thank you through you, Madam Mayor. It may be useful at this point if we're not clear on the timing of the approach. I think Council, and certainly Terpeny, New South Wales, and the landowners down in the lowlands are keen to crack on. So if there is a belief in the room tonight that you would all like us to pause on that in order to do the wetland health piece, then I would appreciate that being clarified, because otherwise it would be our intent to proceed with that whilst simultaneously, whilst we're building the long-term model, work on the wetland health component.

Yeah. Thanks, Madam Mayor. I speak against the amendment. Firstly, I don't know how much this would have cost Council to do. The information's valid, and as most of the speakers have spoke about, the document spoke very highly of it. And it talks about environmental affairs and all the rest of it, and there's statutory legislation, and some of it's been mentioned in briefings, and it's in this document, excuse me, and some in the paper that's presented to us tonight . I asked about this when I first got on Council two and a half years ago, and we've finally got it in front of us tonight, and we can go down the track of asking our community and the likes. The wetlands were there before the drainage was done, and I know because I was involved with them when it was one of my first jobs when I left school, working alongside the dragline in the lowlands of Richmond.

The wetlands were there then. They're slightly bigger now because of the lack of drainage, and one of the problems when the drains are blocked, we get what we call black water. It's vegetation that grows around the edge of the wetlands where the water recedes back to what it would normally be, and then we get rain and that water is held there because the drains won't work. And those of you that haven't smelt sewerage before. You can't tell the difference. It's putrid. Not only that, that you won't get animals on it. The water will go fluorescent blue, actually.

So, and not only that, the farmers have got stock there. There's some from irrigate from where they may have waterholes or that along the area. But in all areas, Bushalls, Bakers and Pitt Town, at the Burralong Creek , go and ask the golfers out there, the new golf course that's built. They only need a shower of rain and the golf course closed. And it's because of the drainage system. And I don't doubt for a minute that the staff, considering all the other documents we've got over the last couple of years about our obligations and what we have to do to do any work , that they would proceed in a manner that would be detrimental or put Council in some legal situation in the work they do. So, Councillors,

The community wants us to get on with this, and it's one of the very few things that we can do in relation to flood mitigation for our city. And it only affects the low-lying properties for sure, but it's an obligation I believe Council's got. We had it in the past. It stopped raining. We did nothing for 30 years. The vegetation grew and the likes, and now it's time to get our act together and get back to what is required when we've got a wet climate. And if we mess with this, we'll be back into a drought and we won't have to do it again. So, Madam Mayor, I understand the concerns of the people that are supporting point three, but I'd suggest that our staff are well equipped to deal with whatever is necessary to get the job done without

Interfering with the environment any more than what it's interfered with today. We don't want to go from one extreme to the other. We're trying to solve a problem, not create one. So, Madam Mayor, I'd ask councillors to support the motion on the basis we've got the information before us and we need to move on.

Thank you, Councillor Kotlash. Question.

This might have to be taken on notice, but does Council have information on what wetlands are natural and what were built, you know, for various reasons back in the old days like baking and mills and all sorts of things? So what wetlands are natural and what aren't, and also what wetlands naturally would have drained and dried out and the, do we know the nature of the hydraulics of our wetlands? Director of Infrastructure.

Through you, Madam Mayor, it would be one that we'd have to take on notice. I think the way that wetlands are generally catalogued is more on the function that they perform today or at the last date of survey rather than their origins. That's about the only advice I could provide on it.

The reason I ask is that most people think that it's bad to have a wetland drain and dry out, but in actual fact that's the function of a lot of wetlands and — That's my point about the, you know, figuring out where we're operating in this space. If we're going to do that work, it's a whole other piece of work that's more detailed than I think point three is letting us have. But anyway, just thought I'd get that information because I think we need to know it. Thank you.

Any other councillor? Do you have a question, Councillor Wheeler?

Yes, Madam Mayor. It's my understanding that we've got this review study and that we're waiting on a further report with costings and a process for undertaking maintenance, and that two and three could be concurrent activities. Am I incorrect? I'm not anticipating some grand piece of environmental consultation that takes three years. I'm putting forward a chat with the riverkeeper and the University of Western Sydney that happens concurrently with point two.

Am I wrong here?

I'm not sure if that's a question the staff can answer or it's the general manager

Thank you through you, Madam Mayor. Councillor, that was the question I sought to clarify when Councillor Sheather asked it, was would it benefit the staff to have that point clarified? The answer is yes, for abundant clarity.

Would it then help if I put concurrently at the beginning of point three?

You can if you like, if the seconder moves that way as well. I guess that clears things up.

Any other councillors wishing to speak? No. Okay, councillors, we will put the amendment on the board. Those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour, Councillor Reardon, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillors Improgno, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Wheeler. Those against? Councillor Veigel and Councillor Sheather. I declare the amendment carried. The amendment becomes the motion. Anyone else wishing to speak? No. Right of reply, Councillor Sheather . Not necessary. All those in favour of the motion, please raise your hand. In favour are Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillors Improgno, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Wheeler.

Absent from the room is Councillor Dogramaci, and I note that as well when we voted on the amendment. I declare the motion carried.

The next item is 10.5.2, quarter three 23/24 capital projects report. I'll just read out my declaration—oh, sorry, Councillor. Okay, I'll just read out my declaration. I'm declaring a less than significant non-pecuniary interest for three items mentioned in the report. The first is Turnbull Oval. As we know, I've said many times, my son plays for the Hawks. The Hawkesbury Fire Control Centre is discussed, and I'm a member of the local RFS Comms Brigade. And the Kirmonde Karooong Cycleway is discussed, which runs past land where a relative is involved in a project. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. I have a less than significant non-pecuniary interest. I'm a member of the Hawkesbury Communications Brigade, and my son is a member of Wilberforce Brigade of the Rural Fire Service. The reason for no further action is that it doesn't meet the threshold for significance under clause 5.9 of the code.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone? Councillor Conolly.

Move the recommendation.

Thank you, Councillor Veigel. Councillor Conolly.

No, I think, as it's in the report, so I don't have any questions.

Thank you , Councillor. Councillor Veigel.

I do , Madam Mayor, if I may. Look, the capex—let me just be a broken record; it's already on the record—but let me just repeat myself again. The capex funds that we're going to do with the improvements to the LGA has to be contained, and I realise there's a contingency with those improvements, but a contingency is there is just for something that comes out of left field. It's not there to be spent, right? There isn't one dollar more to do the improvement, and I'm just saying to you, if it gets too close and the contractors are saying we can't do it for the amount of money we tendered for. Tough luck, right? They do it for the money they're going to do it for, and no contingencies should be spent unless specifically it's really needed because it's got to be maintained.

There's concern around this chamber about not only the depreciation factor on it, but it's what we can afford, okay? There's a considerable amount of money going into those works. It has to be disciplined. That's all I'm going to say on it. I will vote in favour on it. What I'm just saying to you, right, it's going to take a whole lot, a lot, a lot of pain and work and effort and sweat to keep this to the monies that are available. Because to go cap in hand back to the government, good luck with that one, because they ain't got the money, and they're not getting out of the feds, and we're surely not going to cascade it down. We've already got opposition to what the Premiers want to do. Just have a look at all the flood mitigation we wish to do.

We can't get the Premier out here to even look at it or even talk to you, Madam Mayor. So I'll leave it at that, but if we can just make that point, I'm making that point.

You've made that strongly, Councillor. Yeah,

Thank you.

Thank you. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. Look, I agree with Councillor Veigel that, and as we well know, the longer these projects take, the more the costs blow out. I've had concerns since the beginning that some of these projects are going to be really quite difficult to deliver, particularly the Western Sydney Infrastructure Grants projects. A few questions, if I may. There isn't the timeline for how PARC isn't clear from the report. Could we—it's a matter of some public concern—can we have a timeline on that project, please?

Director of Infrastructure.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Through you, my understanding or my recollection is that the slips at Howe Park have had their designs completed, and the tender documentation is being prepared at the moment. In terms of when we expect that tender to go out to market, I'd have to take that on notice.

Thank you. Can I suggest that once we have some information on that, or even now when we've got the design complete, that we start putting this information out on social media, and perhaps that we erect some signs on site, because that's where people are standing and are concerned about whether Council is acting or not. I don't know how many people watch these meetings, and they certainly, if they do, then they hear that. But if not, they've got no idea, and then they go away on social media and make up stuff, or decide that it's never going to happen. So if we could put, particularly at high visibility sites like Howe Park, if we could put up signs saying this area was damaged in the whichever flood it was, because I've lost count, and Council is currently out to tender for replacement works.

A photo of what it might look like when it's all fixed would be lovely, but if not, at least a sign to say that we're on it.

The next question relates to Mitchell Drive and Ian Street, Glossodia. There's reports of drainage problems there. Can I get some feedback on whether we've inspected that and whether we're happy with the work that's been done there?

Director of Infrastructure.

Through you, Madam Mayor, we'll take that on notice. I'm not too sure whether we've done our final asset inspection and certification for that project or not.

Okay, thanks. And can I also get an indication of what feedback Council has had on that works from residents there? I know it's a long-awaited project. The next question relates to Kermond Road. Can I ask which section of Kermond Road is due for repair next?

I'd have to take that on notice. I don't have that information immediately at hand. Sure

And if it's not the bit that's on the Wilberforce Road, so the Putty Road end between Freeman's Reach Road and the re-laid area of Kermond Road, could I also get an indication of when that's on the list for repair? Because it's getting narrower and narrower and more and more dangerous. And I'm sick of rounding corners and finding a truck coming straight at me because they've decided that they'll drive up the midline.

Could we get, on the Western Sydney, next time this report comes to us, and I have to say this report is incredibly helpful, when we next get a report, particularly on the Western Sydney infrastructure grants, could we have a timeline added to the table that's included, please, just so that we have something to measure our

Progress against? And I think this might be particularly helpful for the new Council that takes over from us in September. I think it's likely that many of these projects will go over budget, and we probably need to schedule a discussion about how we handle that, whether that's with a top-up of funds that we may or may not have, or whether it's with a revised scope of works. I think the sooner we have that discussion, the less gnashing of teeth down the track. And my final comments relate to Woodbury Reserve. Two questions. What security arrangements do we have in place for that site? And secondly, what maintenance budget are we considering long term? One of my concerns with projects, and I've raised this in the past with the Director of Infrastructure, is that we get grants to build these things, and they look fantastic for a couple of years when they're done.

But we rarely have the budget to maintain them to that standard for a long period of time, and so they gradually deteriorate. And then we have this period where they look awful, and no one wants to use them or people complain about the state of them. And then we go into this process of trying to elicit funding from somewhere to redo the whole thing. And it has always seemed to me that it would be better if we just budgeted to keep them as close to the standard as possible, rather than having to go through this do-and-redo process.

Through you, Madam Mayor, the security, or the question in regards to the security arrangements, it would be something that I'd have to take on note. With respect to the maintenance and the operations of all of these facilities, the operations teams are part of the project control groups, and the working groups for that matter, which come together and have input into the designs. It is true that in some situations the maintenance has to come out of existing budgets, which means that there are either efficiencies found or recasting of priorities across a particular maintenance area. But in terms of looking to minimise or incorporate those maintenance tasks within existing budgets, the operations teams are part of the decision makers through those governance arrangements.

Thanks. I think you may need to have a harder discussion with councillors about how we maintain our wish lists going forward, because I'm not convinced that we do this well at this point. Thanks. Thanks, Councillor. Anyone

Else wishing to speak?

Councillor Lyons-Buckett

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I've got a couple of questions on the section of the report on the West Invest. The first one is around the community consultation. How much scope do we have to change projects if people identify

Excuse me — people identify flaws or better options? Director of Infrastructure.

Thank you. Through you, Madam Mayor, there is a process to modify scope through the grants program, particularly in respect of the materials or the shape or the function. Really what the Western Sydney Infrastructure Grants Program office is looking for is that we deliver on the outcomes. So whether that outcome is delivered, for example, via a synthetic track or a natural turf track is not really a concern for the Western Sydney Infrastructure Grants Program. What they're looking for is that we achieve the outcomes of increased participation, for example.

And where in the budget is the additional money going towards Turnbull Oval? Is that in a reserve or is it in the current budget, or—

We'd have to take that on notice, Councillor.

Oh, sorry. In the engagement plans. In the list of key stakeholders, I noticed that there's not things like Redbank or the federal government, etc. Whereas some of those projects, something like North Richmond, for example, it also has Redbank funding in it and federal money. Are they going to be part of the consultation for the design and so on, or?

Through you, Madam Mayor, we can certainly consider that. What I'd say, not so much for Redbank, but for the federal government, is that we're bound by—well, we will be, we haven't received it yet—a funding agreement or a funding deed, and that will outline what input, if any, that the federal government or their agency want to have through that process. Generally, in my experience, there's a formal process, as I alluded to before, to run through any scope variations or amendments. But again, they're generally looking for outcomes as opposed to less immaterial matters relating to projects. Okay.

Thank you. Councillor Sheather. Yeah

Thanks, Madam Mayor. Just to touch on some of the things that Councillor Veigel spoke of, with Turnbull Oval, when that money was about, we chucked about what we'd like to do. The main thing out there was a grandstand. Now, I haven't been involved in the discussions, but it seems the very thing that might have been the driver for that to happen out there may be reduced. I hope not. In relation to Tamplin Field, same deal. It was about athletics and a running track. And the very thing we're talking about, reducing in that area also, is a running track. Now, in that document that I had some issues with earlier, we've got photos in there, not of Turnbull. There's no photos in there of Turnbull, but of Tamplin with a beautiful track and all the facilities there.

That the opportunity to upgrade, I suppose, those playing fields was something that all of us around at the time said it was a great idea and the like. If we're putting in walk and tracks and kiddies' playground, not that I oppose them, but in leaving out the opportunity to upgrade sporting facilities,

I'll discuss that further later if that's the case.

I'll just make a comment there. I hear you and I completely agree. We had a steering committee meeting today, myself and the Deputy Mayor, as you know, were on that.

Yes.

And both those items were mentioned. However, I hadn't said anything yet because there was still consultation with the user groups to take place, and I wanted to hear what they said based on exactly those two things you said before I said anything different. But I agree with you.

It was something that we all agreed to. There was heaps of money there. We put out the photos. It's a bit like Packer Road. You know, we're going to do it, we're going to do it, going to do it. The recommendation from the staff at the end of the day was not to do it. Bad, bad stuff. With Tamplin Field and Turnbull, the same deal. We put up these beautiful photos, and we've done it with the rest of them, the North Richmond facility and good stuff, and there's no indication that that's not going to happen, and with a couple of the other projects. But those two seem as though they're issues, and I don't want them to be issues. Certainly not in relation to the upgrading of facilities that have been poor.

The other thing, with the Cornwallis restoration, can we get— I'd like to see, and I expect the other councillors do too, the diagram, the plans, the likely finished product, whatever's available, that we can see what's proposed.

Director of Infrastructure.

Through you, Madam Mayor, yes, we'll be able to, once they're finalised and in line with the probity rules and so forth that go on with the tender, we'll get something to you and distribute to all councillors.

How far away is that likely to be?

I'd have to consult with Public Works, who are undertaking the procurement on that project.

Weeks, months, years?

I don't have an answer to the question certainly within days, and look to provide some sort of, even if it's a high-level concept, to preserve the integrity of the procurement process in the next week or two.

That's great news. Maybe it might be appropriate for five minutes at one of our next briefings or something just to whip over it, because— To look at a plan without being told what it is is probably not the best thing to do. So, thanks, Madam.

Thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak? Right of reply, Councillor Conolly. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour, Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor McMahon. Absent from the room is Councillor Dogramaci. I declare the item carried.

The next item is item 10.5.3, Lower Portland Ferry transfer to Transport for New South Wales. Again, thank you, Councillor Sheather, seconder, Councillor Kotlash. Reminding councillors there are portions of this item that are in the confidential section, so please be cautious. Thank you. Sheather.

All I can say is terrific.

Madam Mayor, I've been around a while, and from when I first got on council, the first time in '86, every four years it's been controversial. It's the only time that I've ever walked out of a council meeting, and the Mayor of the Hills didn't speak to me ever since. We'd promised some sort of consultation with the community of Lower Portland, and we're about to renege on that, and I wasn't going to have a bar of it, and I left. That leaving, though, did make a difference, and there was consultation. The money was found and the like, but that was the sort of effort. We looked over the years. We had a toll on it, two dollar toll, cost more to collect the money than what we made out of it. We looked at sponsorship that might be able to be provided on the ferry to support a financial structure.

We had a local down there who'd come to our aid quite a few years ago, which is still a great asset. He works within the ferry system now and is great value to our community. And that provided a buffer for quite some years, so. But it was always a heartache for the people in the Lower Portland area. While it's a mobile road, that's what it is. And we were obligated to make sure that was operational. And on the basis of cost and the like, the role that's been pursued most recently by you and the staff in relation to this outcome is commendable. If we can't provide a service to the community, it's our job to speak to the people who can. We're not expected to be able to do everything, but we're expected to be able to have contact within other governments and services to provide a service which is not our responsibility.

And when it got to the stage where that cost was a great burden, what's happened is simply outstanding. So I can tell you on behalf of the community of Lower Portland that they'd be quite happy with the outcome.

Thank you. Anyone speaking against the item?

No. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. Just a couple of questions. Is there likely to be a budgetary impact from the transfer? I know we're going to save money because we don't have to fix it or run it or maintain it or any of those things, but is the transfer of what is effectively a large asset going to— To look like a budget hole in the next 12 months.

General Manager.

Thank you. Through you, Madam Mayor. No, in short, Councillor, it'll simply come off in our financial statements. It'll simply come off as an asset in our end-of-year financial statements, I would think.

Okay, thanks. And have we had any discussions with the State Government around a service guarantee?

Director of Infrastructure

Through you, Madam Mayor, not explicitly. There's, I think, fair to say on both sides of the table, when this was being negotiated, there was acknowledgement on both sides that the service had to continue, and there certainly hasn't been anything to suggest otherwise. The options that Transport for New South Wales are looking at, well, I can't go into detail. Certainly support that they're in it for the long game, if I can put it that way.

Thanks, because that's my only real concern with this, is that we know that this is an expensive service to continue. We also know that from surveys that we've done in the past, that the bulk of the users of this come not from our LGA, but from Hills. And so it's always been hard to find the money for this, although I think Council has always been of the opinion that this is an essential service. It is effect a public road, and I think it's quite reasonable for Transport for New South Wales to take it over. My only concern with it is that they will come to the same conclusion that councils have in the past, in that this is expensive and actually financially not viable. And what I would really hate Council having transferred, not just the cost, but the responsibility for this service to the state government, that they make one of those arbitrary budgetary decisions and say this isn't viable, we're going to can it.

And that, because I think that would be a really bad thing for the community. And so I want to flag that that is a concern. As with all things when we hand control to a larger body, we do pass on the capacity to make sure that the service is maintained to the level that we as community representatives are happy with. Thanks.

Thank you, Councillor Kotlash.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'd just like to start by saying that this is a fabulous outcome from the new Labor government. Fabulous. One thing I would say that all governments of all stripes, I think, have to deal with the fact across, well, for the state government, across New South Wales, there'd be plenty of examples of infrastructure that is costly and not very well used, and that's, I think that's put into a mix in the state government of things that just have to be provided. And I can't see that Hawkesbury would be— You know, singled out as being any different from any other part of New South Wales that has that same characteristic. So I don't think that's a concern. I think that this is the way that this should be run. So it took us a while, and yeah, hear, hear. Thank you.

Anyone else wishing to speak? I might say something quickly. And yes, Councillor Kotlash, I'll agree with you. The Labor state government did do something good. So I know. Happy to criticise on flood mitigation, but happy to praise when necessary. And this was a very good decision, and so credit where it's due. Pat on the back where it's due. This was a wonderful outcome, and I know the Mayor of Hills and myself have worked hard on this. I know the state member has as well. But can we all just please acknowledge the day-to-day work was done by our staff on this. We might have put the political pressure on here and there with letters, phone calls or a media release, but it was the relationships that our staff have built with Transport for New South Wales representatives that by and large got this over the line.

So I think that's really important to acknowledge that of our senior staff. It was a good job by them for building those networks and getting this across the line. So thank you very much. And I'm very happy with this outcome. So anyone else wishing to speak or we'll go right of reply? Councillor Sheather, not necessary. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour of Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor McMahon Absent, Councillor Dogramaci. I declare the item carried.

The next item is item 11.1, Audit, Risk and Improvement Committee.

Move the recommendation.

Thank you, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Veigel.

Did you want to say anything, Councillor Conolly? No, Councillor Sheather.

Yeah, I've got a question through you, if I can, Madam Mayor, to Councilor Lyons-Buckett. She asked some questions in relation to 3.1.11, concerns that the Hawkesbury Sports Council review their finances themselves and don't have an audit function behind them.

Could I ask her to elaborate on that?

Yes, I'm happy to. Oh, sorry. Thank you, yes. Yes. As I said in the meeting, when we looked at that, it was the way it was worded in the actual review said that it read as if the Sports Council audits itself, and so I was asking a question. But what it really meant was that it appoints an auditor to audit it. That was why I had asked that. I did raise that before.

Yeah, yeah. Thanks for that clarification, because I was thinking something a bit different. I appreciate it. Yeah, because the, and I guess what I read here, and some of the concerns I have in relation to the audit is people that hasn't got the opportunity to ask questions and the like, who read it. And they do. They're volunteers that work really hard. And with things like the clarification that Councillor Mary Lyons-Buckett just spoke of, they're audited three times. They're audited, an audit that the council some five years ago put in place that they have to use. And then it comes to council to go through council's budget and audit process. And in 35 years, it hasn't been an issue. And there's other things too, and the explanations in relation to contributions.

And I'm glad that if they're being addressed well, because there hasn't been issues. And as I said, in relation to the two- and five-year plan, all that sort of stuff, and that's why I was talking at our last meeting about having a workshop so that those things can be worked through. If there's a better process, I'll be the first one to put my hand up, I can tell you. If we're changing it for change's sake, I won't be so quick to do that. And if there hasn't been a problem in 35 years and we're changing it, then I want good support to say that's a better process, which I would support if it's a better process. But I guess, you know, when we question ourselves or other people, we look at things a little bit probably in-house a bit, I guess, and jump to conclusions, which is really poor and bad.

But... Yes. So I just hope the process we're working through is effective and the like, and I know I've been assured by staff and councillors around the table, and, you know, we can only work with the process and hope the outcome's a good one.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else? Councillor Lines-Buckett?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. And yes, so that was a flaw in the actual report, how it was worded, and that's why I was questioning it in that arena, because of course it was sent to the audit committee by the councillors, and to come back to the meeting, which it did last week, that particular item. I was just going to say that the next meeting is June the 28th. If anyone had any issues that they wanted me to raise at that. I can't stress how important these things actually are for councillors. I think that some of the items out of the minutes here came separately to the last meeting, I think it was around risk management and so on. That was a really interesting piece of work. I was just going to briefly raise a couple of points that the committee had raised, and particularly the things they were very pleased with around what Council has done with the number of management actions taken around child protection compliance, fire safety, sewer and swimming pool inspections, and very favourable comments about the findings in the waste management facility compliance audit report, which was really good.

Our Chief Financial Officer is not here, but I was going to pass on the compliments that she had received about the professionalism for her and her staff, the professionalism of Council's financial staff engaging with the audit office during that process, with Council not receiving a management letter this past year, which means that there were no issues in the audit process, which was a really good job by staff. And the other area that was really tracking really well is around cyber security, and the report here outlines that Council wasn't impacted by any of the cyber attacks that did occur late last year, which obviously other— Businesses and organisations were, and that the council assist system, which is a separate system to the rest of the council things, will be getting the multi-factor authentication looked at further down the track with the Sydney Parkland Councils developing a framework for the eight councils around cybersecurity and multi-factor authentication, which is beneficial for us because it's funded by a Commonwealth initiative, and that will mean that we won't have to pay.

I guess we'll get that through that organisation. And that the chair raised that the ARIC, the committee, will review the current year's draft financial statements prior to the September 2024 election.

Thank you. Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak? Right of reply, Councillor Conolly, not needed. All those in favour please raise your hand in favour of Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Improgno, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor McMahon. Absentees, Councillor Dombromachi. I declare the item carried.

The next item is item 11.1.3. Councillor Sheather, do you want to read out your declaration?

Yeah, thanks, Madam Mayor. It's in relation to 11.1.3, Local Traffic Committee, and the issues, an application that was put in in relation to a sign doesn't meet the threshold of a significant interest, and I'm a director of the Windsor RSL.

Thank you, Councillor. My declaration is a pecuniary interest in regards to the same item in that matter, which is the item that discusses Windsor RSL, and I am a director of the club, so I'll be leaving the room. Deputy Mayor, could you please chair the item? Thank you. Councillor's

Item

11 .

1

3 , does anyone wish to move anything? Councillor Sheather. Deputy

Mayor

I've just been

Informed that it should be a pecuniary interest.

Should be what

A pecuniary interest. Pecuniary interest. And I will leave the room. As the director, there is a financial gain, so. Okay

I move the recommendation.

Just wait for Councillor Sheather to leave.

Councillor Conolly, you move the recommendation. Do you wish to speak to it?

Any speakers on the matter?

No speakers. Well, that's easy. You don't want right of reply, I assume. I think it was on block, so I'm not surprised. Yeah, it was on block before, but it's not anymore, yeah. Well, there's no speakers and no right of reply, I'll put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand in favour: Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Zamprogno, and Councillor Wheeler, and Councillor Calvert. Absent are Councillor Dogramaci , Councillor Sheather, and the Mayor, Councillor McMahon. I declare it carried. Thank you.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

The next item on the agenda is 11.1.4, enhancing the arts in the Hawkesbury working group. Councillor Conolly, seconded Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Councillor Conolly?

So, yeah, I'll move the minutes as they are. I attended. I did also want to give notice. I probably am going to have to drop off this working group. I'm just finding it too difficult to get to the meetings. I've missed the one after this one. But I did want to just say, just by way of a bit of an update, that it's actually, I think from my perspective, travelling along quite well. The group is a group of really pragmatic people that are looking at what is within the reach of Council rather than maybe where it started from of some new big facility. It's been a good forum for everyone to work well together to understand exactly what the needs are and how all the different groups could potentially be working together better, as well as what other venues might be coming online at some point. So I think it's working well, and I was happy with the recommendation.

Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, and thank you, Councillor Conolly, for that summary. Sorry to see you go. We did have another meeting the other day, and I think it really is valuable, the information that we're gathering, as well as facilitating connections between certain people. So it's progressing well, and we've done another cohort of people since what was in these minutes, which were the music people. We've done the drama. We did one the other day with drama people, and we've still got some more dance groups to do next time, as well as the cultural services staff are doing the research around the current venues and so on. So I did have some stuff written down, but I've lost that. But it's just going really well.

I just, I'm just sorry it's so close to the end of term because I don't know if we'll really get any real resolutions apart from the fact that we are really connecting people, and we certainly are working towards being able to facilitate and assist more performance happening live in this area, which is a really great thing to see.

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

Thanks, Madam Mayor. I agree with Councillor Conolly and Councillor Lyons-Buckett. What's emerging in this space is Council as a bit of a conduit rather than a provider, which I think is good from a couple of perspectives. Firstly, we don't have a lot of cash to throw at this. But secondly, I think we end up with probably a more resilient outcome, or a more robust outcome, in that the community and the organisations involved, businesses and community organisations, are already doing a whole lot of work in this space. What they need is some facility to mesh across their own areas, to share those resources, and that appears at the moment to be what the Enhancing the Arts Committee is able to do well.

It's also a good means of us working more with cultural services, which is an area of Council that tends to be siloed off a little bit. And so there's some really good discussions happening just across the room with, really, with Council looking on. And that, I think, is one of the best outcomes that can come from that, that will certainly outlive this term of Council. There's useful discussions that tap into some of the information that was raised in the social infrastructure study, those pieces around affordability and geographical access and the type of facilities. We had a really good discussion last week, for example, on the difference that different floors make across community centres for users like dancers, and they're pieces of information that we probably wouldn't normally consider when we're focused heavily on what's the cheapest or the easiest or the most robust to build.

We tend to not be aware of all of the possibilities of the end users, and that's where this working group, I think, is going to find its greatest strength. Thanks.

Thanks, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak or write a reply, Councillor Conolly? All those in favour of the motion, raise your hand. Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Djuric, sorry, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor McMahon absent. It's Councillor Dogramaci. I declare the item carried.

The next item is item 14.1.1, responses to councillor questions taken on notice at the council meeting 9th of April 2024. Any councillors needing to speak on that? No. Thank you, councillors.

The next one is 14.1.2, responses to councillor questions taken on notice at the council meeting 14th of May 2024. No, thank you, councillors.

We will now need to move into confidential. Thank you, Councillor Kotlash, seconded. Councillor Reardon, all those in favour? Thank you, Councillors, declare that carried.

Thank you everyone. We are now back in open session, and I will pass over to the General Manager to read the results of the confidential session.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. In regards to item 15.4.1, Lower Portland Ferry transfer to Transport for New South Wales, whilst in closed session, the Council resolved on the motion of Councillor Conolly, seconded by Councillor Kotlash, that Council enter into a contract with Transport for New South Wales for the transport, disposal of the Lower Portland Ferry and associated infrastructure, and two, the General Manager be granted delegated authority to execute any documentation associated with the transfer, disposal of the Lower Portland Ferry and associated infrastructure to Transport for New South Wales. For the motion were Councillors Conolly, Calvert, Djuric, Kotlash, Lyons-Buckett, Vargel, Reardon, McMahon, Sheather, Wheeler and Zamprogno. Absent for the vote was Councillor Dogramaci.

Thank you, General Manager. Madam

Mayor, can I just say that I wasn't given access to that part of the meeting?

Oh, you couldn't hear us?

I couldn't hear you. I wasn't in the session. I got the screen saying we were having a breather.

Oh, I could see you. Sorry.

No, I couldn't hear a thing, and I certainly didn't vote for or against it.

Okay, I'm sorry. Your hand was up, and I actually did say, I think I did say, is that your hand up? No

I must have been scratching my head.

Okay, let me just get some advice. It wasn't me. I don't

Know who it was that raised their hand, but it wasn't

Me But I could see you, so let

Me just get some advice. I don't know what happened, but I couldn't hear

You. Okay.

I don't have any objection. I was going to ask a couple of questions in confidential session. I can just ask those of the staff.

Councillor, you would be recorded absent if we stayed with the process, or we can go back into confidential and have your vote recorded

And recommend. Look, I was absent. I have no idea what you discussed. I was absent.

I'm happy to go back into confidential if you.

I don't know that I'll be able to hear you again. I mean, I couldn't hear you last time. I don't know.

Just one moment, Councillor. I'll just turn the microphone off.

Councillor Wheeler, just upon advice, a council decision has been made. We could see you, and I'm very sorry that we didn't get that indication you couldn't hear us, so I am terribly sorry. But a decision of Council has been made, and you'll be marked as absent. It

Looks like I'll be recorded on Hawkesbury Council watch as being absent whilst I was trying to be there.

You make a very fair point. Ah, well, there you go. You've been heard, Councillor Wheeler. How ironic. Okay, Councillors, thank you very much. The meeting has— I declare the meeting over at 10:25 p.m. Thank you for your attendance this evening. Good night.