22 July 2025 - Ordinary

From Temple City and Kayatamba, and they will all come forward. So I'll just call out those names. Our first one is Aaron Wong,

Olivia Castro,

Elmilio Madrigal,

Ko Itanai,

Leilani Garcia,

Phoenix Grasic,

Shan Shan Li,

Soski Ogawa

I would like to now invite four of the students who are going to speak tonight to come forward. I'm Shelby

Stanya, and I'm a student at Windsor High School. I am here today as a representative for the Hawkesbury Sister City Association, and I will have the pleasure of going to Temple City in the United States of America this September. I'd like to recognise and thank the Hawkesbury Sister City Association and the Hawkesbury City Council for their long-standing relationship with both the Temple City and Kyotoamba City Councils, which allows this amazing cultural exchange program to run. On behalf of the students, we would like to thank the Hawkesbury City Council, our Mayor Les Sheather, and Councillors for the continued support and running of the exchange program and the $500 contribution given per student, which supports this amazing opportunity for making lasting connections across our cities, communities, families, and students. Thank you. All

Right. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Emilio Madrigal, and I proudly represent the Temple City Sister City Exchange Association. Since arriving to the Hawkesbury on Thursday 7th, it's been an amazing experience, and I cannot wait to see where this exchange takes us. Thank you to the Sister City, the Hawkesbury Sister City Association, and the Hawkesbury City Council for encouraging and supporting this exchange. Without you guys, none of this would be able to happen, and these cultures would not be able to be shared and experienced throughout these different countries. So thank you for supporting Temple City and Kyotoamba. And again, thank you all. Cannot wait to see how many memories we make and how many experiences we have.

Good evening, everyone. My name is Angelina Sidu. I am a student in Year 10 at Richmond Agricultural College. I am also one of the very lucky students that have been selected to represent the Hawkesbury Council as part of the Hawkesbury Sister City Cultural Exchange Program. We will soon be travelling to Kyoto, Japan, representing our council and immersing ourselves within their culture and making lifelong memories and friends. On behalf of myself and the rest of my peers, I would like to sincerely thank the Hawkesbury Council for all the contributions towards the HSEA. To the Mayor, Councillors and our HSEA Council delegates, we all want to thank you for supporting this once-in-a-lifetime, only made possible because of your support. Thank you.

Hello everyone, my name is Goitani. I am very happy to be here now participating in this exchange program. During our stay here, we Kyoto Ambassadors will strive to deepen mutual understanding between Australian and American exchange students. I am looking forward to interacting with a variety of people in Australia, meeting koalas, kangaroos, and other wildlife. I am also looking forward to spending present day together with Australian students in Kyoto town in September. Thank you very much for accepting us into this program. Thank you very much for your kind attention. Thank you.

The student exchange program is probably the longest program the council's ever had going, and it's one of the best, I think. Thank you for the young speakers, our students that represent us and the ones who represent their countries. I'd just like to make comment in relation to the association and the work they do. Excuse me. It's a year-round program. All the students that go overseas and the ones that visit our shores, excuse me, the families they stay with, there's an assessment process that's in place now. You've heard the issues within our country that younger people are having with the wrong people that are dealing with our children, I guess. And the process that goes through is pretty demanding.

The sister city does that stand on the head and does a good job of it. In all the years, we've never had controversy from any one of the three countries, you know. So I just wish to thank those people on the committee for the work they do and hope that the students with their stay and the ones that visit other shores, that enjoy themselves and take full advantage of the opportunities that you have. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Is there any declarations of interest on matters before us tonight?

Councillor McMahon.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Declaration of non-pecuniary interest in item 10.5.1. 10.5

1. Thank you.

Anybody else?

Confirmation of the minutes.

Can I move

Those? There's two lots of minutes. There's one of the 10th of June and one of the 19th of June. Would someone like to move those, please? Councillor Reardon.

Councillor McMahon was.

Those in favour? Against? Carried. Agenda item subject to public address.

We've got three items, three items here tonight. Hawkesbury Woodcraft, 10.4.3. Notice of motion 1, 12.1.1, and Notice of Motion 3, 12.1.3. The first speaker is in relation to Hawkesbury Woodcraft Cooperative. Is Mr. John.

Those in favour? Against? Carried. Agenda items subject to public address.

We've got three items, three items here tonight. Hawkesbury Woodcraft, 10.4.3. Notice of Motion 1, 12.1.1, and Notice of Motion 3, 12.1.3. The first speaker is in relation to Hawkesbury Woodcraft Cooperative, is Mr John Morrissey.

Thank you. Good evening, Mayor Sheather, Councillors. Thank you for this opportunity to speak for the motion on behalf of Hawkesbury Woodcraft. Thank you also to each of you for the time and energy that you give so generously to our local community. It's been over four months since we last addressed Council, so I'd like to give a quick reminder of who we are and what we do.

Hawkesbury Woodcraft is a not-for-profit cooperative and the sole woodworking organisation in the region. We've been running for many years, and we remain financially viable. We are inclusive. We have several members with disabilities, some with vision, hearing loss, others with mobility issues. We cover ages from 16 to 93. We're genuinely intergenerational, with older experienced members helping younger beginners, including some junior members who are homeschooled and rely on us for their industrial arts experience.

One third of our members are women, and we provide a much-needed outlet for retired people who form the bulk of our membership.

We are an important contributor to the craft scene in the Hawkesbury area. We ran a woodwork and craft show at the showground two years ago, which provided opportunities for about 40 craftspeople and suppliers and attracted over 2,000 visitors. We hope to repeat that later this year. We're a leading group for state and national woodworking networks, but we also contribute to the local community in a whole host of ways. We run low-cost or free workshops. We're constantly being asked to fix household items or restore family heirlooms. We demonstrate each week at the Australiana Pioneer Village, and we run workshops in the use of hand tools for ladies at the Remakery, and so on.

Unfortunately, all of this is in danger of folding for lack of a workshop.

So now I'd like to review the situation since we last addressed Council on March the 11th. We are still hoping to secure the land at Woodlands Road, and we are still trying to find funding to construct a new workshop. Unfortunately, as you know, most grants require us to be shovel ready. So we desperately need land and development approval before we can even get to first base and apply for a grant.

The major change since we last spoke to you is that Scouts have now sold our current shed. Contracts have been signed and completion is due in the next couple of weeks. The clock is now ticking. We must find a home, and we must do this quickly.

We have spoken to the new owner, who hopes to make some improvements to the current site, and he is happy for us to remain there until he receives approval to make these alterations. So, in other words, he and we are on the starting blocks together. And unfortunately, though, the race is not even, because we need to secure the land, gain the DA, find funding, build the new shed, and be ready to move all our equipment and machinery before he gets the DA. Time is running out. It is absolutely critical. We need a block of land. We need building approval, and we need the funds to build a new workshop. But we cannot access those funds until those first two items have been achieved.

We ask for your assistance and hope that you will approve the motion to allow us to lease the land and build the shed to ensure that our great club can continue to be a beacon of light for our members and for the local and wider community for many years into the future. Thank you.

Thank you, John. Anybody have any questions? You happy to answer questions? Certainly. Any questions, councillors? Councillor Ogromaci. Yes,

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Thank you, Mr Mort. I remember from last time.

I remember from last time that you had similar problems. You are waiting for the new owner. Whether you have sat down with him and discussed it face to face, of what could that, you know, what could you achieve?

We've had no formal meeting with the new owner. We've simply—he called in as a sort of a courtesy, and as far as I know, the whole sale has not been completed yet. But according to scouts, the land has been sold, or our shed has been sold, and they expect to complete in mid-August.

Or early August

Okay,

Thank you. Since then, have you made any application to the council for … Available land and for funds before you are waiting for this DA matter.

Well, yes, this is the— we applied and we discussed on March the 11th the whole issue of this block of land. Well, hopefully by the end of tonight it will be to our satisfaction, yes.

Okay. And the other party is Mr. Craig Shepard, I guess. Right. We— well, I didn't have much to talk, but is it possible that you sit down? You initiate some kind of a meeting and sort this thing amicably before it goes further, clashing interests?

Well, we have spoken with Craig, again informally, and it was very early on in the piece. And now tonight, my understanding is that he will present his opinions as well. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

Councillor Ryan. Look, you seem to be in a situation where you will have to move rather smartly with this as the time closes. Do you have a contingency plan? What will you do with your equipment? Have you got a storage plan? Because this is going to be a slow-moving process if it gets through. What are your plans? Do you have them?

Well,

Basically this is our last shot. We have tried several different options, from the Secret Garden... We've tried at the TAFE land, and no, we really don't have an option at the moment. If we have to move before the shed is built, we would have to move all our gear into storage. But I worry greatly that once that happens, that the club may have to fold. It's very difficult to stay as a viable club indefinitely without a new home.

So, in relation to storage, do you have anything organised? Because it sounds like it's going to be rather a slow process to get approvals. I know DA is constant questions about the amount of time we spend getting a DA, and I fear that you people will go have to put your stuff into container storage. Do you have a location for these containers, or where do we go from here?

No, we don't have an available space yet. We do have containers that we would move to some location. I suppose our hope is that we have some breathing space with the new owner, that the new owner is happy for us to stay there. As that comes towards to a close, then we will obviously have to find a spot where we can store our goods, if necessary. But we're hoping that we will be able to get approval. Look

Thank you very much for your presentation and your time. Thank you. Appreciate that.

Thank you,

John. Thank you. Our next speaker is Mr. William Clark.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. My name is Bill Clark, or William Clark. I'm also at Hawkesbury Woodcraft. What John has said is true, but I suppose the crux of the situation is we've looked at all the other possibilities of land around the place for building a shed, and we've advertised widely on social media and all sorts of places, and nothing has come up. This is the only available piece of ground we've been able to look at. Thankfully, it's not too far from where we currently are. But it comes down to if we don't get approval for this land, we may as well shut the door now and turn the lights out because we're finished, and that is the end of it. So that's all I can say. It's just, that's it.

Thank you, Mr. Clark. Any questions, Mr. Clark? Thank you,

Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Clark. What have been the impediments with the other places you've looked at, like the Secret Garden and the TAFE

The Secret Garden just changed their mind as to the usage. We did have a lease with them, but they had a change of management, and they just said, Oh no, we don't think you fit in with what we want to do, so see you later. We looked at the TAFE. We operate on the weekends. They couldn't accommodate the weekends. Councillor Kotlash looked into that for us, and it was just a case that it just wouldn't work. We also looked at the Schofield Skyrival situation. We thought that might have been okay, but they just said, Look, what you do isn't going to marry with what we do, so that was just a loss too, and we just got nowhere else to do. Go now. We do have a little bit of time, not much. We've got a six-month lease with the Scouts, which will continue on until it runs out in six months' time.

So the new owner, we don't know what his situation is going to be, whether he wants us out of there or what, so that's it, you know. But if we've got something positive coming up, at least our membership can feel a lot better. There's a lot of stress in the place at the moment. No one knows what's going on. We've got no idea what's going on, and every week, you know, they say, Oh, how are we going? We go, We don't know, because we've had no answers to anything. And it's just , you know, we're all old enough now that this sort of stress isn't much fun.

Thank you for that. I'm just sort of trying to understand about what might make it not suitable, because we know some people have concerns with this proposal. Is it the noise or is it the dust, like, or is it the number of people? I'm just trying to understand what the issues are around.

The issues, noise, given that it's located on Sackville Road, the trucks going past there. make more noise than any of our machinery. We did a quick thing with a sound level meter on a phone, and at a distance of about 30 or 40 metres, you can't even record any of the sound that comes up out of the shed. So our equipment's not that bad. The dust stays within the shed, doesn't come out of the shed, and we keep the area really, really clean. It's just we have a working bee every month, and all the members get involved in that. We look after the lawns, we clean the shed out totally. So sound, it's not that big an issue, and the scouts have always been happy with the way we've looked after the place. So, yeah.

Thank you.

I've got a question, Mr. Clark. I've seen some recent pictures in relation to some equipment that was on the ground. The containers aren't yours, we're aware of that, but there's pallets and other stuff there. Is any of that owned by the scouts, or is it—

No, the pallets are ours. We just put our timber, our wood on some of the wood on that while we, before we process it, we cut it up into smaller pieces and put it in our containers ourselves. We own two of the containers that are there. The scouts have the rest of them. And the two big containers at the front are owned by the sports council, I believe. So what the new owner wants with them, I don't know.

With your storage that you store outside now, is that proposed on the new site, or are you proposing to operate within the confines of the shed that you build? We

Would be looking at having at least having a couple of the containers there, just because they've got specialised equipment in them. That is not suitable to use within the confines of the building.

Yep. Would you build the containers or extension of the building for such a thing?

Be containers, because it's already set up for it, one of them. So I believe we'd need to put a container or two somewhere.

Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, thank.

The next speaker is Mr. Craig Shepherd

Craig.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor and fellow councillors. My name is Craig Shepherd. I'm 53 years of age, and I reside at 253 Sackville Road, Wilberforce.

Our lot and section plan number is 4-419532. I'm here tonight to reiterate my formal objection to the proposed lease for the Hawkesbury Woodcraft Co-op at Woodlands Park at 245 Sackville Road, lot 26-26-0028. My wife and I purchased our property in October 2000 from my grandmother, Elma Mitchell, wife of the late Russ Mitchell. This property has been in the Mitchell-Shepherd families for the past 65 years

And is where I spent a lot of my childhood growing up. In recent times, we've started our own family. This tranquil community of five houses has been an exceptional location for raising our kids. In particular, introducing them to sport at an early age, and for the obvious reason of having sporting ovals at our literally back door. I would like to start by acknowledging Council's initiatives with such organisations, being the Woodworking Co-op, and I fully support mental health. However, this proposal, in my opinion, is not fit for purpose for the location proposed. I would like to highlight the objection submission in its entirety, and to clarify on the following, and Council's responses to my email dated the 25th of May as follows.

Privacy and visual economic impact. Currently, we enjoy bushy, semi-rural outlook with clear viewing of the old netball court area and the tree lines beyond from our kitchen, laundry, bathroom and bedroom windows. Over the years, we have been able to hear and identify any untoward behaviour. With the enormity of this shed design and a six metre high roof apex, this would all but eclipse our views and , frankly, devalue our family home substantially . As far as privacy is concerned, the proposed layout projects towards our southwestern and northwestern wall elevations, looking straight into the kitchen, laundry, bathroom and bedroom windows. Given that there's quite a considerable height difference between my RLs and the proposed site, this obviously enhances that .

Parking and vehicular movement. I would like to make reference to the lack of parking and traffic congestion on a Saturday morning from around 9:30 a.m. To 10 o'clock. Primarily during the soccer season, it is incomprehensible that Hawkesbury Sports Council have not considered nor consulted with the relevant ground users, being Wilberforce Soccer Club and Wilberforce Cricket Club, in addition, additional impact this would have. As a resident, I have witnessed this congestion whereby the excess vehicular movement have to park on the proposed site. This doesn't happen all the time, but has had 20 cars parked within that area, generally speaking, it's around six to eight cars that have to use that area due to the influx of traffic and parents, you know, parents and grandparents watching their kids play soccer.

It has been advised that Hawkesbury Woodturning Co-op have approximately 30 members, so this would mean another 20 or 30 cars scrambling for the car spaces. The economic cost to plan and develop the site, as a ratepayer, I question the cost of such a proposal. There have been no formal scope of works, budgets, nor estimates for this proposal. I sincerely question the 3,000K grant that these monies will be allocated to with such a shortfall.

One minute.

As far as stormwater retention, power, waste management and pollution, there is no doubt that a lot of pre-planning and infrastructure works are to be identified and carried out for such a proposal. In my opinion, these costs will be huge and, from my personal estimate, will exceed their budgets. In summary, as a concerned ratepayer, grounds users and more importantly local resident, I cannot understand how a light industrial 650 metre square shed , six metres high, with no infrastructure, no parking or stormwater or retention, can be economically cost effective to our community.

Thanks, Mr. Any questions?

Councillor Ryan. Craig, when did you become aware of this? So

There were, in your windows floating around, like around sort of February, January, February. Unfortunately, there've been several meetings that I haven't been able to attend because I wasn't aware of them, being in March and April. So this is my first time to sort of voice my opinion, based on my submission that I presented to the council.

So did you get any notification from council that they were proposing this? No

I was told that council were going to formally advise all the residents, like initially, but the only time was when I got emailed the notice to submit the submission. That's for tonight's meeting.

Okay. You're, I believe, pretty active with the sports council. Yeah,

Unfortunately I didn't get to

That. I ran out of time, but yeah. Yeah, I'd be interested to know what sort of sports you are involved in over there, because it's a thing that I—

So over the years, being local as I am, I'm a life member with Wilberforce Street Club. I've been involved in coaching. I'm on the committee. I'm still a current player as well. So I've been playing with the club since 1978. Played in the Wilberforce Soccer Club as well back when I was a younger fella. And obviously have a close relationship with the executives at the Sports Council, with curating the cricket wicket, the turf cricket wicket. So I'm in constant contact with Anne, Anne Neill and all her administrators .

Thanks for that. Just one other thing. I did a quick walk around there the other day, and I noticed there's an area, I believe, is nearly straight behind your house that's sunken in, and to me it looks like an old tennis court. What's that area used for?

So that's correct. Back in the seventies , early seventies, sixties, seventies, that was the go-to tennis court. My grandmother, grandfather, my mum, all the locals used to meet, congregate there and play social tennis and have cups of tea and scones and all that sort of stuff. So

Just to, that's vacant land considered to be the same as what the woodworking group are looking at now. This is another vacant, small vacant

Area. That's correct. It's like, it's the tennis court got pulled down maybe ten or fifteen years ago. It was all dilapidated, all the wire had sort of , you know, corroded and deteriorated quite badly, so. Yeah. It's unfortunate, but yeah.

Look , thank you for coming in tonight. Thank you for what you've said. I very much appreciate it. Thank you. Councillor March.

Thank you.

You gave us the lot number and the other details. In total, how big is your area?

How many acres? My block? Yes

All of

It. So my house block's about 1,240 square metres.

Oh, so it's not the one , two, three , five acres or — Oh, no

No, no. It's a house block. Like it's the old quarter-acre block.

Okay. The reason I ask that, you know, if you had an acreage and I was going to ask you to be a good sport to extend the courtesy of letting them, you know, to move to somewhere else. Yeah

Look, I want to see these guys continue, and I believe there is a portion of land within the bottom oval where they could fit in and build something, sort of near where the old dog pound used to be. I've actually got an old drawing, an old council drawing over there that sort of shows, highlights that as well.

And as far as you know, are they also aware of that area that, you know, you just described might be suitable?

I'm not sure whether the guys are aware of it, but I'm more than happy to

Discuss that. Please, could you do that, be a good sport and discuss that? And we'll try to do our best in here.

Could we? Yeah. Thank you.

Thanks. Thanks very much. Craig, just to clarify— Do you remember the conversation that I come down and spoke to you when this was first happening?

I remember being at Woodlands Park. It was a rainy day. I was there actually meeting up with somebody else, and you were, I think you might have been there looking at some infrastructure or some lighting or something.

That's, like, I remember that, but that's basically, yeah. I wasn't there to see anyone else. I was there actually because our phone system shut down at Kings Hardware at the time, and I was up there trying to get service on my phone, and I actually had to meet someone else there. But yeah.

Thank you, Craig. Okay. The next and final speaker is Mark Cavilden.

Good evening, Mr Mayor, fellow councillors. Thank you very much for your time. My name is Mark Siverton. I represent Werribee Soccer as their president. I'd like to bring to the table the facility that's coming to Woodlands, or potentially coming to Woodlands, and how it's going to potentially affect us. I'd also like to bring to everyone's attention that, as far as we're aware, no one communicated with Soccer or ourselves from Sports Council or any other organisation. So we were completely blindsided by this. Now, we fully support the Woodcraft. We definitely do not want to see the end of organisations like this, not-for-profit supporting mental health. We do like

To, we would like to bring forward exactly what Steve said. On the weekend there, seven o'clock onwards, I'm down there setting the fields up, parking starting to fill up very, very quickly. We are trying to expand our club. We're getting more and more juniors every year, so it's more and more cars. On a Saturday morning, up until about 12, 1 o'clock, depending on the games, we have overflow parking out in the streets. We are pushing people further and down the streets. Not just Hawkesbury, it's people out of the Hawkesbury coming to our club to play. We have a lot of young families, multiple children. We don't want kids out in those streets walking around the fields. We want them in car parks.

So we'd like consideration with the potential structure being constructed, with how it's going to affect us, as well as our future growth. We have plans that we are putting forward to grow both cricket and soccer. So potentially, as a silver lining, if something is going to be coming in here, if infrastructure is going to be installed, could it potentially accommodate future growth for all of us? No one wants to see things dug up twice. No one wants to see structures in the way of potential infrastructure , sewer, stormwater, power that needs to come in to assist us.

The original toilet block, as well as our lighting towers, were removed due to infrastructure that was not there, would not support what we wanted. So again, if a facility is going to come in there, it's going to have more power, pool, stormwater, sewer. How is this going to go there if we are not simply allowed to have kept the toilet block that we had there? Again, with the lighting, the lighting was there, it needed to be upgraded. It was pulled down due to the infrastructure not supporting that. So again, how is another facility that's going to have more draw going to accommodate all of this?

Thank you very much. Happy to answer questions. Any questions, councillors? Councillor Ryan. Yeah, Mr Siverton, how long have you

Been president of the soccer club at Wilberforce? Almost 12 months. Been on the committee for two years, thrown into it this year

So, would you say that the soccer fields are used every weekend, or is it just on one weekend and off the next? Every weekend, the fields are definitely used. They're used throughout the week for training, obviously .

So again, if the facility is to go ahead, if it can accommodate future potential lighting for the top fields, so we don't have to have all of the juniors down on the bottom fields away from the car park and their parents,

Please consideration. And does your field have a warm-up area or anything like that? I just noticed in the one at Pitt Town, the Fernadell Park , in its modernness, we'll say, is having a warm-up area for soccer and those other sports. Does that have a facility like that at Wilberforce

Nothing dedicated. We advise the coaches to find a field that is not being used the morning of, or it's always the 10, 15 minutes before play. When the game is finished, quickly take the field, warm your team up, and move along, please .

Thank you very much. I appreciate you. Thank you

Yeah , Mark, how many cars are you talking about? Considering we've got Sackville Road as well as the car park and the area that you're talking of, how many do you reckon, roughly?

I'd be completely guessing at the moment. So we could—the car park would accommodate at least 100. There'd be potentially another, yes, 50 cars. That's already there? Yes.

Yeah. I ask that because there's an argument in another area that, in relation to amount of car parks we have. The area behind the industrial area— Yes. I'd spoken to the Sports Council about the feasibility of— Utilising that for car park, would that be practical for the purpose you're talking about?

I would need to inspect it myself. But if it's safe enough for people to be parking and ferrying children across, excellent, please. Yeah,

I'm talking about behind the canteen, right behind the canteen. Yes. Yeah.

Okay.

Any questions? Further questions, councillors?

Thank you, Mark. Thank you very much.

Councillors, the matter is open for debate.

Yep. Do we have a mover? Yep. Councillor Creed. I'll reserve the right. Second? Councillor Veigel. Councillor

Creed. I reserve my right. Okay. Discussion.

Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Thank you to the speakers for coming in tonight. I speak in opposition to the motion before us tonight. In no way do I not think the Woodcrafters are a great organisation, and I'm very grateful for the efforts that they make with their organisation, and I feel for their predicament. However, I didn't support this originally when the mayoral minute came, and I don't support entering into such an agreement when it has been done in the absence of public consultation. Many of the concerns I raised back then have now materialised, as we see that neighbours were unaware of it, that sporting clubs were unaware of it, and tonight we've heard a couple of suggestions of other areas that may be suitable, and this is the sort of thing we should look at in the beginning, at the start of this process.

What we really need is that we really need a list of what properties we have, which ones are surplus and which ones are available to enter into negotiations with various community groups. And having been on council for a long time, I've been approached by many, many community groups, charities, cultural people, and many of them also are looking for a home that's affordable where they can have their activities carried out. And I just think we need to exhibit fairness. It's not a derogatory comment to the woodcrafters, but we are asked by so many people, can council supply land? Can council supply a building? And we have to have a system where we do this with transparency, with fairness, and with proper consultation, where we go in at the start and we work out how this can work.

And hopefully we will find them a home, and hopefully something will come of that. But now we know there's a dog pound area or a tennis court area, they could be suitable. We hear from a sporting group that they were not consulted, and yet we're told the Sports Council have made some decision about this being surplus land. The Sports Council don't decide what land gets given away. We decide that in here. That's our job. It's our strategic direction that carries the decisions in here. So we can't be told that the Sports Council decided something and then hear from people who are members of the Sports Council that they haven't even been spoken to. I find that quite ludicrous. I'm concerned about this manner of making decisions, and I just think we have to be very, very careful when we do this.

We see that people believe they will be impacted by such what is an incredibly large structure, may I say. It's very, very big. And, you know, this Mr Shepherd stood here and said he has never been notified officially by council, and yet here we would be giving land to somebody to build something without a neighbour or the neighbours in that area even being advised. You know, it may turn out to be a good location, it may turn out to work, but we have to follow processes. We can't have one rule sometimes and another rule other times. And, you know, we've got— there's uncertainty. There's much uncertainty around it. The funding doesn't exist for it yet, and I get the predicament that you need to be able to say you've got a location to be able to apply for funding.

But I just think we need to exercise more care when we're doing things such as this. It's a shame that they are going to be perhaps without a home, hopefully only for a short time. We know people like the Upper Powerboat Club are paying for storage while we wait to see when the Upper Powerboat Club will be rebuilt. These things are unfortunate that they occur, but— We just cannot bend for a single group when we know there are multiple other community groups and not-for-profits who are trying to also find a home. We've got the Fairy Artist down at Wiseman's Ferry no longer have a location. They're looking for help with finding a location. So I would like us to—I would like to see us complete our property studies to really have a list of what sort of land we think is available for this sort of thing, to have a list of all the community groups who are looking for a place or whom we can help, and then we start from there.

That way I think it would be fair, it would be transparent, and we can ensure that the public and anybody who stands to be impacted, either positively or negatively, has their opportunity to say how this type of proposal will impact them. Thank you.

Thanks, Councillor. Councillor Cree.

Through you, Mr Mayor, I just want to raise a question through you to the staff. Councillor Lyons-Buckett raised a point there about the list of properties available for possible use for different community groups. I thought we'd discussed this previously. I thought we were supposed to be getting something like that. Can I just get a clarification from staff? I thought that was in the works. Is that not correct?

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Council staff are currently working on Council's property portfolio, working through parcels of land that may be considered as remnant land. We're expecting that we will come back to Council through a Councillor workshop in probably in the next month.

Okay

Thank you very much, Mr Mayor. Look, I'd like to commend all the people who spoke today. They were all very straightforward and very respectful of each other. I do have some issues with this. I did vote for it to go ahead at the last time it came before Council, but since then I have— I learned a lot more. I think that was my second council meeting, and I've looked into this properly. And council should have a due and proper process. I'm a bit miffed that the transparency of this didn't seem to come even to, you know, I was surprised I found out about it from the mayoral minute. Perhaps we should have had a workshop on it so these things could have been discussed in private and good decisions made.

And my main concern, I'm along the lines with Mary, but we will seek to set a precedence here. And precedents are very difficult things to deal with once we have one in place, especially if it goes to a higher authority and they will look at our precedents very closely. I know we are looking at going to market value with some things, and I just can't understand that the value of this might be $50 a week or $600 a year. The value really that we're going to ask other groups to move forward with their payments, but we're saying here, here's a lighter rental for these people. Now, I'm quite concerned that we haven't done this properly, that we'll set a precedence that'll come back and bite this chamber, and we will not be able to deal with other factors that other people that come along and say, I want the old tennis court at Wilberforce.

You gave the land to the woodworking group, and on these terms, why can't you give us that on these terms too? So I think we're opening a Pandora's box. I'd love to see the woodworking group. I have a passion for woodworking. I know quite a number of the people in the woodworking group. But I have to say, I want to see it done properly. I want to see proper procedures ticked and copied and done well before we go down this track, because if we set a precedence, we will have a lot of other groups on our backs, and we will not be able to deal with it. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor.

Councillor Dogramaci. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. We heard both sides, and they are a dilemma in this matter. And nobody in this room, you know, could argue against what Councillor Buckett told us. And in fact, I repeatedly, I mentioned this many, many times. When I very first time met her, she told me about the democracy, how things are working. And to add that, I don't know whether, well, our town planner is not here. Only last year, for a similar matter, I asked her some kind of a list of available lands, plots, and I don't know whether that gentleman, she said that somebody by the name of Phil was going to supply me all those details so I could discuss with different groups to see that what is available, how we could assist them to move, relocate their businesses, including woodcraft people.

And I'm still waiting. That's over a year and a half, and I'm still waiting. So I don't know what is stopping us to assist these people. You don't want your building block, you know, looking directly to this shed and the other way around. Nobody would want to be moved out forcibly, but, you know, they have to. I really don't know what to do. What we have, why does it take so long to sit down and bring both parties, you know, around the table and sit down and talk something and tell them what council has got, what kind of financial assistance we could offer them. Instead of, you know, bringing these people at this time of the night, and in March, I think it was, and this is going to carry on and on in three, four, five, six months' time, and nothing will happen, and these people will have no sheds, and I don't know what's going to...

Is there a way that we could sit down and bring these people to a table and— Appoint, may I someone, you know, to mediate between these people so, you know, they don't have to waste their time and sort this, you know, to everybody's satisfaction. Thank you.

Yeah, thanks, Councillor. There is someone. There's 12 of us sitting around the table here tonight that can make that happen or not happen. Councillors, just before. Councillors, the area that Mr Shepherd spoke about, and I've known Craig nearly before he was Craig, a long time, and he's concerned about where he lives, and rightly so. But the land that we look after out there is community land and for a community purpose. And I take on board the comments of Councillor Bucket in relation to lots of people want lots of things, and from time to time they come to us. And for four years we had different groups in the men's shed from both Richmond and Windsor was the other one, I think, was after a men's shed.

We tried everywhere to get it, couldn't get it. And the information that Councillor Dogramaci was asking about, it'll be coming to Council, I believe, in August with that information. And it has been a long time coming, but it is coming. The opportunity to use this piece of land was something that when I discussed it, and I wanted to put the new fire station there. It's close to services. It's close to where they land the helicopters and the likes. Anyway, that didn't come about, and we've got a site, and it's a good site. But that piece of land can be used for something, and I take on board the comments by the soccer in relation to the soccer would be the only ones that use it for car park, and it's only on overflow car park.

I drive past every day. I see how often the cars are there. I've been involved with the sports council for 40 years. I know the discussions that go on there. The matters did get discussed with the sports council because I brought them up two months prior to going to a meeting there, so people had time to discuss it. And there are soccer representatives on the board there. They did not take it to the club, and I apologise for that, and I've brought it up in that regard. That's what they're there for. But that piece of land has been vacant all that time. The tennis court that was played on, I remember when I was a kid using that particular court with a family. But that bit of land has been used for 30 or 40 years, apart from the occasional parking with soccer.

And there are opportunities to provide other grounds there. And the reason I ask how many car parks are, there's probably over 200. We're doing North Richmond, there's 57. So you think Wilberforce has got a problem. And we can procrastinate. We can go back to people and say, who else wants it? And what are we going to build there? A childcare centre with a room on the back of it for the Woodcraft people? That doesn't make sense. It's horses for courses, and facilities such as that. And I take on board Craig's comments about the proximity of his house. But that land's there for a purpose. It's community use. When I put the mural mound up, I felt that that use was worthy of that site, and I still do.

In relation to other users that, other community members who want grounds or facilities that we can provide, that's up to all of us sitting around the table. And I suggest now that we're working a bit better together that may happen. Because not so long ago, if one person agreed with it, there was 11 others that wasn't going to. That's not fair on the community. And as Councillor Dogramaci said, we can procrastinate here forever, or you can make a decision. And whichever way you decide to vote, it may not be popular with some, but you need to stand up.

Councillor Broc.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I agree. These poor people, they've been knocked about for so long, they've been subjected to so much disappointment because of government inaction. They've come cap in hand to try and finally find a home, and it must be so disheartening to hear that , you know, we're prepared to delay , defer, or disappoint them yet again.

I'm not convinced that this was the ideal site, but if it's a site that they want, and it is on community land, I'm prepared to go along with it. Personally, I would have preferred, I would have loved to have seen it in my patch out at Oakville, at Skyville. I meant to ask Mr Morrissey whether it was Taskforce Veteran that he spoke with, or whether it was National Parks, and perhaps he could just take that discussion with me offline later. I've noticed Taskforce Veteran, who do wonderful work out at Skyville, displaying a somewhat proprietorial attitude towards the buildings out there. And I really think that the only people that would have been in a position to say no thanks would have been National Parks, who are in charge of and are stewards of that entire site.

Notwithstanding the wonderful work that Taskforce Veteran are doing with the Nissan huts, there are many other buildings, and it's a site where I think there's a compatibility of use with the objectives that Taskforce Veteran are trying to do. And if that wasn't to be, that's a great disappointment. Nevertheless, we're left with this, and I'm not prepared to disappoint this group yet again because of some failure of council process. I take the view that, on balance, and despite the comments that I've taken on board from nearby residents and users, is that these are issues that can be adequately managed. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor McMahon.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. This is a very delicate situation, and I know that when we have to make a decision about one side of the community who wants something and another side who wants an opposite outcome, it is a very challenging situation for us to be in. And I do thank the speakers tonight who presented arguments for both sides and take on board everything that was said. Councillor Lyons-Buckett does make valid points as well about process, and I think we've debated that previously about this item in the chamber. I also take on board Councillor Ryan's comments about setting a precedent, and I've spoken plenty of times in this chamber about the danger of setting precedents when we make decisions.

And as a lawyer, I understand certainly that when you do something for one person or one group, then someone else will want the same thing and use that decision as a basis for their desire. However, there's also a balance to be made here where you have to take a circumstance on its individual merits, and I think that's very important in this circumstance. And when I was the mayor, I obviously had this group contact me for the same reasons, trying to find a home. And as the mayor touched on, the men's shed as well. And we have these organisations and groups in the Hawkesbury with volunteers who do amazing things for our community, and not just outcomes that benefit the community, but outcomes that benefit each other as members of the group in terms of providing friendship, support and positive mental health outcomes.

So I think here the situation is less than ideal, but nonetheless, we have to make a decision. I would like to tell Mr Sheppard and Mr Siverton from Wilberforce Soccer that even if there's a vote here tonight to go ahead with this proposal, there's a long way to go yet. You won't be seeing construction for some time, and the whole reason that you won't is twofold. That is a DA process that there will be an ability for you to have a say in when it comes to the location of the shed, the layout and the design. But most importantly, the one thing on the table that this needs to go forward is money, and there's none of it. So there's going to be a fair bit of advocacy needed to other levels of government for this group to be able to obtain the funding to go ahead with building the project.

So there's a long period of time ahead where nothing is going to happen. I'm hoping in that. time there is an ability to have a discussion between the opposing parties and come to some kind of conclusion where everybody is happy. And I know that change is sometimes a difficult thing when you've got a certain outlook or things like that. But we as a council also have an obligation to use our land in the best way possible. And the two classifications that we have for our land are community or operational. And as has been touched on already, this is community land, so we need to do something on this land that provides a community benefit. And when we have a very limited land portfolio available to us, and I'm sure the whole community is aware of those situations where, especially the fire control centre, where funding was announced, but we had the burden of finding the land without an adequate piece of land in our portfolio, hence why we had to spend millions of dollars obtaining the land at the north of Wilberforce near the SES.

But these are the very real problems that we are faced with as a council, and we have to vote one way or the other. I will be supporting the recommendation in the business paper tonight. I know the wonderful work that the Woodcraft Group do do, and as I said, given that there's a long time frame between DA approval and construction, because there needs to be strong advocacy for funding, then I believe that there's an opportunity for the parties to work together for an outcome that suits everybody. Thanks, Mr Mayor.

Thank you. Councillor Kotlash, my apologies. She's been waving her hand there for some minute, some time. Councillor Kotlash.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. That's okay. I know it's difficult to see me when you're actually below me in the chamber. Look... I, I didn't support this when it first came to council, and many of the reasons have already been put forward by Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

We have a responsibility to be fair to our whole community, and the process that set this going back in March, I think it was,

I didn't agree with. I thought it was flawed. Now, I want to say that I'm not going to support this, but I do support the work that the Woodworking Co-op does, and I've done a lot of homework trying to find them another location.

And I've done that because I realise that what they provide to the community is just fabulous, and I think that we have to acknowledge the place that they occupy in the community, and that they really do need a home. It's just that this isn't the way to do it. I feel council also needs to have a little bit more responsibility in sending community groups down a pathway that , to me, and from my experience on being on council since 2016, just seems Like, the possibility of this actually panning out and becoming a reality, to my estimation, and I admit I could be wrong here, I think it's quite low that this will actually come to fruition. And I'm just not prepared to back this, even though I desperately want the woodworking co-op to have a home

But that's not the point. And when Councillor Dogramaci said, you know, the parties should get together and nut it out, that isn't what we're doing here. That's not what we need. We need—it's not about two parties being in conflict. It's about us having a process that we can equitably deliver community land and have it offered to everybody that might want to use that land. So I was against the whole, this whole notion in the first place. So unfortunately, I cannot support it tonight . But that doesn't mean that I won't stop working to try and find a more suitable place for the co-op. And, you know, anyway, I think everybody is trying to do that . Look, I'll leave it at that, but I do want to underline the fact that

Such an effort that the woodworking co-op has to go to to get these new digs. It is just enormous, and I'm just not sure that it's a reasonable thing to think that this could come off . Look, I'll leave it at that. Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Thanks, Councillor Scott-Lash.

Councillor.

Thank

You. I feel like I should cross my legs and say om or something to that noise.

Look, I'm really conflicted on this. I think there are some harsh lessons here for Council . We have— We have left our property portfolio in limbo for at least the last two terms of Council. We have, those of us elected in 2016 have been calling for Council's property portfolio to come to us in some form. And quite frankly now, I wouldn't care if it was written on the back of a piece of greaseproof paper in red crayon. It would be an improvement on where we currently are. It's impossible as a decision maker to make adequate decisions without a big picture. And frankly, I'm embarrassed that I have been elected to this Council for eight years and I'm still not in receipt of adequate information to do that job.

Council is the owner of this land. Consultation is Council's job. It is lazy in the extreme of us to think that the Sports Council would have sorted this out for us. That's not good enough. And it's certainly not good enough for the residents of this area of Wilberforce . Yes, it's noisy living on Sackville Road. I live on it too. It is a noisy road. And you come to really treasure those moments when the traffic isn't hammering up and down past your house. If you live with a sports oval behind you, you probably come to really treasure the times when you don't have kids. You know, listening to kids having fun is great, but I tell you what, when it starts up at six o'clock in the morning and it goes until eight o'clock at night and it goes every afternoon as well, and then after eight o'clock at night, the young folk doing burnouts to the point where recently a car caught fire, it becomes a bit wearing.

So I really feel for the residents of these properties. And I think they have really valid concerns about whether there's going to be further impacts on both the quality of life and the amenity and value of their property.

We should have contacted these owners directly and discussed this matter with them. The other issue that I see with this proposal is the proposed scale. The Woodcraft Cooperative is currently at a facility that's 216 square metres, and yet they're proposing a 650 square metre shed. Now, we're looking at allocating more than a quarter acre, more than a third of an acre, to this venture. So it's a substantial parcel of land, but it's a very, very large building, and I'm really concerned about the impact of that scale on the surrounding area. There's mention of environmental concerns, and yet I can see no detail about what they actually are. Do we have anyone who can comment on what those environmental impacts are?

Councillor, just to make the comment, the area that's been allocated in the plan, and the staff may have more to add, it's just grass. If it goes outside that area, it's fairly heavy wooded to the southwest and to the west. To the east, where the old toilet block was talking about that Mark brought up, with soccer, that's cleared, and that leads over to the area where the old tennis court was. Well, you'd just ask.

I'm not asking about what—I'm asking about the environmental …

I'm not aware of any outside the square… General Manager, do you like to comment

Thank you. Look, at this stage, it's impossible for Council to undertake an assessment of a hypothetical building on a site of which we haven't yet fully identified the parameters of, Councillor, other than to say that had there have been any immediate significant flags of concern, that they would have been brought out through this process.

You're light, Councillor.

Sorry. Therein lies the problem, I think, because what we're doing is saying to the Woodcraft Cooperative, you can have this land to build this really big shed, but we'll deal with all the issues when we get to the DA stage. And we do this all the time. We go, yeah, you can have it, or yes, the planning proposal's fine, or yes, this is all great, and we'll deal with it at the DA stage. For these people, if we lead them down the path, we've already led them down a path of telling them they can have this land and it will come back for a formal lease agreement. And we've heard from them that they are down to the wire here. They get this land or they lose their opportunity to apply for a DA and funding again, and then they fear that their organisation will fold.

So what happens when they put in a DA that's too big or that has these impacts? And we've not set any limitations on this, and that really concerns me. Again, we are setting problematic precedents. This is community land. It's for public use and recreation. A part of it will be tied up. It will be used by a public group, but not necessarily used for everybody. It does fit with the physical, cultural, social and intellectual welfare requirements of community land. My real difficulty with this, and look, frankly, I still don't know which way I'm going to jump here, we've led the Woodcraft Cooperative down this path, and we are now responsible in part for doing so. But we have also failed, I think, to consult adequately with the people surrounding this parcel of community land.

We don't have a plan of management in place, and we haven't made plans for this. Can I also get some feedback on the fact that we had to remove facilities from Woodlands Park because we didn't have sufficient electricity and sewer, and how that fits into these plans, or is that something that we're going to worry about at a DA stage as well?

I can tell you about the lights, about the toilet facilities. The staff might be able to do with that. The light poles were condemned. It wasn't the power, it was the light poles, and it's in a program to be replaced. All of us would have preferred that to happen before the lights come down, but they were condemned and Council took the poles down, and it's in Council's control at the moment and in a program with that control to have those replaced. In relation to the toilet block, that was a drainage system, and I think some of the photographs that people have seen lately during the wet weather, it was being exposed to weather alongside of Mr Shepherd's house, and it was demolished. General Manager, are you aware of—

So there is the capacity for further service provision on that site.

Sorry, for further—

For further service provision, water and sewer. Water

Power and sewer. Water, power and sewer goes along the road, and some of it along the main road, some of it along the Fox Avenue, I think it is at the back. It's in close proximity to where the building is proposed. In relation to toilet blocks there, that would be a matter before, that would need to come to Council at a later date. There's no facilities in — well, when I say no facilities, the water's there. Powell was there too, actually. I do believe it's three-phase. I've been told by the woodcraft people there's three-phase there. So there's an opportunity for a toilet block there. I know that the sports clubs would dearly love one. Again, it comes back to a matter of money, that that hasn't been replaced.

It was a building that was built back in the '60s and probably inappropriate for the place. But again, the consultation didn't happen between a lot of people in relation to that being demolished, and there's disappointment there.

Any

Further debate? Councillor.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I'm going to support the matter. I mean, a lot of men turn to woodcraft to help with their mental health, and I think it's a very good thing. Items that afflict men these days at times tend to be a secondary consideration. I mean, you've only got to look at the tents on South Creek if you want to see what a men's domestic violence shelter looks like. So we have nearly 5,000 men a year commit suicide. I think anything that helps people with mental health issues is a good thing. I also, I do realise that woodwork's not just a men's thing. I've got a daughter that's a carpenter. So, you know, anyone can turn to woodwork, but I think it's a great thing, and I'm going to support it. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. I wouldn't go too much on the psychic stuff. There's a couple of people sitting right behind you. Any further debate, Councillors?

Councillor Creed, right of reply. Thanks, Mr Mayor. I think I just want to thank the speakers for coming in and addressing Council. I want to acknowledge all the councillors' viewpoints that have spoken tonight, and I do understand the concerns that have been raised. And I actually just want to bring up something that Councillor Wheeler said about the property management. Back when I was on Council, we had a pretty extensive list, and since coming back on Council, I haven't actually really seen it, so I don't really know what property we do have as a Council anymore. I want to acknowledge the fact that we do have—this is, again, Councillor Wheeler raised this with the DA issues. A lot of this stuff will come up in a DA, and I understand that, you know, we'd like to sort of have it now, but it's almost, as what the General Manager said, it's a hypothetical situation until we can sort of actually, if we approve it, then they can actually go and look at these things.

If we don't approve it, then they don't have those avenues to go down, and they essentially have tried to go for every other piece of land that they could potentially look at. I remember they contacted me, and I spoke to you about it, and they had tried to go to the secret garden. They tried to go to TAFE. They tried different places, and they got the runaround, or they sort of got told yes, no, and they've come to Council as a very last resort. This is what we're here to do. We're not always going to make decisions that's going to make everybody 100% happy. In a perfect world, yep, that would be the case. But I think— Sometimes we have to try and look at each case and go, okay, what can we do here?

Where can we try and help them out as best we can? And I think this is something that Council can do. It's community land. It hasn't been used for a long time. I will acknowledge the fact that there hasn't been any communication with the landowners, which I'm a bit surprised at, and I apologise. But I think we have to actually look at—

Councillor, just in relation to the notification, we'll clarify that with staff. Okay, thank you

Yeah, that's fine.

Thank you.

But I think we need to, you know, I mean, there's places— there's someone here tonight who runs a charity organisation that I'd love for us to be able to really sort of get behind with finances and all that sort of stuff, but unfortunately we don't have it, and this is a small way that we can help a community group. Mental health is a very big thing for me. I've dealt with it in my life and was diagnosed with PTSD, and I do a walk it off every Wednesday night. The men do it on the Wednesday, the ladies do it on the Thursday. So anything that does help with mental health, I'm a big supporter of. I think the other thing I just want to bring up that was brought up by the president of the soccer club, that they have plans to expand and grow.

And again, this is community land. What happens when they want to expand and grow? Do we then turn around and say, no, we can't do it for you because we weren't going to do it for this group? If they came up and asked for extra land or they wanted to do something on the land, we listen to them, we hear them out, we try and come up with a reasonable way of doing things for them. This is why I put my hand up to run for council, is to try and help community groups, regardless if it's woodworking, soccer clubs, people helping the homeless. Like, that's why I'm here. And I'm not always going to make everybody happy, but I'm going to try and do what I think is right, and I think that's all residents can expect of the 12 of us here.

We're not always going to agree on things, but we can try and do the right thing that we see at the time with the information in front of us. So I'll be supporting this. Thank you, Councillor.

The motion's on page 43. Those in favour?

Councillor Brogno, Councillor ... Councillor McMahon, Councillor Cree, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Reid, Councillor ... Councillor Sheehan. So you've got your arm up, but

Yeah. Sorry.

Those against? Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Lines-Buckett and Councillor Ryan, and Councillor Kotlash, and Councillor Dogramaci have abstained. Yeah, the motion is carried, councillors. Councillor Dogramaci , just to

Clarify, when you're sitting in your chair, when

You don't vote, it's a negative. It's in the negative.

That's good. I still wanted them, you know, to sit down and to discuss it. I don't know.

Yeah, we can't discuss it. I just want to make it clear that you not voting is a no vote. That's all I'm saying.

Councillors, the next item we've got before us is a... 12.1.1, and it's a notice of motion.

The vote. That's all I'm saying.

Councillors, the next item we've got before us is a 12.1.1, and it's a notice of motion, Welcome to Country. There's three speakers, and Erin Wilkins, the first one. Thank you.

I was remiss of me to say the speakers have got five minutes, and we'll ask the last questions from that. Thank you.

Thank you, Erin. Thank you.

When I first heard of this motion, I was in shock and disbelief, frustration, disappointment, but some could say anger. I have worked with Council for many years to grow the understanding, awareness and relationship between our Aboriginal community and that of the staff and councillors here. I, as many, have a culture that is so prominent, so rich and so important to not only Aboriginal people and community, but for all people. Before me there have been many elders, community and cultural leaders that have worked tirelessly over many years building bridges, sharing knowledge of place and history, gaining respect, and walking alongside this Council through reconciliation and understanding.

All of this hard work has taken a long time. It is not something that has happened overnight. Now this is threatened and becoming lip service. In the face of reconciliation at a time when the New South Wales Government is heading into consultation for treaty, and as we come off the back of NAIDOC Week, and we are two weeks out from the presentation tabling of Council's Reconciliation Action Plan, is this really a suitable plan moving forward? What does it say about the core values of this local government area? That you are financially driven? You are discriminatory. Conducting and partaking in a Welcome to Country is not just a monetary and profiting activity for Aboriginal people. It is a way that we are able to continue our customs and traditions, and most importantly, our ceremonies.

It is the protocol that when you are walking to somebody else's country, you must be welcomed. You must abide by their laws, and the respect of love is mutual. The continuation of such a simple yet vital element of culture is this mutual respect that we so often talk about under the guise of reconciliation. The wealth of the Hawkesbury is built on the demise of my people. We were a rich people. We still are a rich people. Not monetarily, but a rich people in culture, stories, language, beliefs, community, but most importantly of values and respect, responsibility and reciprocity, our core law. Let's just take a minute to delve into the Community Strategic Plan of 2025 to 2045. Aboriginal heritage sites remain fundamental to the cultural identity of the Hawkesbury, but yet you wish to eradicate a fundamental cultural protocol, growing understanding and relationships with our Aboriginal community.

Really? Because this motion seems to be doing the exact opposite. Under the guiding principles of this strategy, our rich history, the places, traditions and cultural practices are respected and enhanced. Identity and deep connection to our culture and our community helps us to learn and build on our knowledge.

Stronger together communities, partners, neighbours and knowledge holders will work together. And under our delivery partners, Aboriginal organisation and traditional owners. Are these just ticking a box? Is it tokenistic behaviour at its finest? I would like to question the estimated cost of $28,000 that equates to 70 of more Welcome to Countries a year. That is more than one a week. I think it is an important reflection of Hawkesbury City Council's core values and display of guiding principles listed above.

Nevertheless, I would also like to bring to the attention specifically for the people in the gallery that the 2025-2026 budget has an allocation of $43.3 million for community and culture. Additionally, a $36 million for upgrade to public spaces, parks and recreation facilities, which includes supporting cultural events. I can't see anything even visibly close that reflects this budget allocation expenditure in reflection of projects relating to Aboriginal community, culture and country.

The Australian values of a fair go policy is one of compassion, tolerance, mutual respect and equality. With one quick sweep of a motion, Hawkesbury City Council, if it goes ahead with this motion, is setting precedents, a precedence of inequality, disrespect, disregard and judgment. Hawkesbury City Council may be taking away the one thing that is held together, the strength and diversity of its residents, from all people from all places. Our people have guided and walked with the Council, but this is like a slap in the face. And all our hard work can still be taken away in an instant. Tonight will be one true display of whether Hawkesbury City Council does walk their talk. It will be a deciding factor whether the core values and respect will actually be earned, and the relationship can either move forward or be thrown away.

Trust, respect and equality and equity are not just words. They need to be practised every day, to be embedded in principle and value. But what I see tonight with this motion being put forward is blatant disrespect, disregard and a power play in shadows.

Thanks, Erin.

Any further discussions will require consultation in a public,

Not private forum. Thanks, Erin.

The next speaker we have is Melissa Stubbings.

Thanks, Melissa. Wominjek

Nyaagiya

Melissa Stubbings, Burubirongal, Maly, Darug Nura, Budjina Duny, Darug Nura. I am Melissa Stubbings, and I welcome you all here tonight onto Darug land. And it's really good to see you all here on Darug land. And I'm really glad that you get to enjoy my land and you get to be a part of our culture. In writing this this afternoon, because I worked all day, has probably been one of the hardest pieces of information that I've had to try and write down, and then to talk about it. This motion calls right to my heart and calls it my culture and says that it doesn't have any value in the community that I was raised in, I raised my children in, and that I believe in. On Saturday night, we held a Hawkesbury family ball for our young ones and a youth party in the Hawkesbury. 175 tickets sold out. That is how much our community values what we do here and what we offer them.

But I feel like tonight, this motion brings into question the right that I have to actually be present on my own land, to deliver my cultural values to my family, to my community, and to all who make their home on Darug lands.

My culture is much more to me than just a right. It is the right of me to defend my ancestors, who have had their voices stripped from them, their power to speak Darug Dalang forcibly removed from them through violence or incarceration, and for my community to take up this space now to try and make sense of this motion. So I'm here to help and try and balance for your deliberations.

I'm trying not to think of the words that might come to mind about what this motion means. For someone or some people who might put it together. Is there a fear behind it? Are they fearful of my culture? Are they fearful of what it means for me to share my 65,000-year history, or to share the values that we have for that 65,000-year history? Why is that? What is that fear? Why does my very existence, my culture, my cultural practices cause so much fear? We have seen it since the referendum. We have heard the racism. We have lived with it. I have had to block so many people on the page that I manage for Murrawa that I cannot tell you the things that people have felt they are entitled to say on that page to my community.

This is what we live with every day, and tonight I have to stand here again defending the right for me to say, I welcome you.

One of the reasons I think is because I've been saying in my welcomes most recently is because a lot of people don't understand what that actually means. The words are wrong. It's not really a welcome. It's that I see you. I see you on my land. I connect to you, and I offer you the protection of my ancestors. And if you don't understand that, I really wish you would sit with me and we could talk some more. But please don't bring motions like this that undermine, as Erin just said, all the work that we've been doing for many, many years that our elders have done for you, for this community, for this council. Our elders. People that I would give more, more of who I am than to anybody else.

Hawkesbury City Council two years ago contracted Morana to do cultural awareness training. We had to do five sessions for staff and councillors. We've held four for staff. We have yet to be able to make a date to hold that training for the councillors. And I feel like this very motion speaks to the reason that maybe we can't hold that. I want to hold that training for you. I want to help you understand so that motions like this don't exist, so that we do work together, not just for my community, for our community, because we are part of your community. And I don't know when that stopped being, but it feels tonight like I'm not a part of the Hawkesbury community that I love. And if you know me, I'm very proud of that. I've built an organisation, and I tell everybody it's not leaving the Hawkesbury because it is Hawkesbury that it is built and it's Hawkesbury that it belongs.

Thanks, Melissa. Thanks , Les.

The last speaker we have is Marjorie June Bower. Thank

You

Good

Evening, everyone.

I think I need to point out how I hope everyone in this room feels, as I do, and how deeply affected I am by the two previous speakers, and how deeply we felt their hurt and their disappointment. In deference to that, I'll keep this short, but certainly not sweet. Hawkesbury City Council has long touted, as part of its tourism campaigns, the Hawkesbury's deep connections to the Darug people, history and cultural traditions. Earlier this evening, we heard from some very lovely, eloquent students involved in Sister City cultural exchange programs and how important that cultural exchange was to them. And yet here we are, in the same room as those who would endorse this appalling, entitled and disgraceful attempt to insult and dismiss our Aboriginal people and residents.

How dare anyone put a monetary value on an ancient tradition belonging to the oldest living civilisation? It is more than astonishing, even in this chamber of horrors, and I say that tongue in cheek. And how on earth would spending money on a Christmas tree, of all things, be an acceptable alternative? Now I, like some others in this room, I'm an immigrant to this country. I grew up in the world's most racist country, where apartheid was ingrained in law, and I can recognise the tiniest whiff of racism in its many forms from many miles away. And this disgusting motion is a perfect example of the arrogance, ignorance and entitled racism. I urge all councillors, do not be associated with this.

Show that you are better than this destructive motion.

Thank you

The motion was put by Councillor Dogramaci. Do I have a seconder? Do I have a seconder?

The motion lapses for the want of a seconder

The next item we have is 12.1.3. It's kangaroo collision prevention. We've got two speakers. We had three; one's withdrawn. Sandra Connor is the first speaker.

The next item we have is 12.1.3. It's kangaroo collision prevention. We've got two speakers; we had three, one's withdrawn. Sandra Connor is the first speaker.

Sandra, just leave it a minute to...

When you're ready, Sandra. Thank you.

Good evening, everybody. Thank you for allowing me to speak here tonight. I'm a WIRES carer of 11 years' experience, specialising in macropod and—well, macropods, sorry—kangaroos and wallabies. I know it's been spoken in these chambers before about the impact that the collisions with kangaroos are having on the drivers of the motor vehicles, the passengers in motor vehicles, the members of the public, the police that may have to attend the scene and euthanise the kangaroos, also to vets and to the WIRES personnel that have to attend the scenes and also put the kangaroos down, to the carers such as myself that have to care for— The orphan joeys. So that, as I say, has been spoken about here before, but tonight I want to speak about a different perspective.

That is one from my background of being a New South Wales police officer of 23 years' experience, part of that being in crash investigation, where that unit, that specialist unit, investigates just serious injury accidents and fatalities. So therefore I'm very passionate about road trauma and trying to do whatever is possible to reduce the risks of collisions. We know that there is a high collision rate on the roadways of Londonderry Road, Castlereagh Road, and the Driftway. We know it's happening. We know that there were about 100 kangaroos killed just in Richmond last year. But what I want to highlight is that there is a real risk of a very serious injury accident or a fatality. Imagine the driver that swerves to avoid a kangaroo or hits a kangaroo, runs off the roadway and crashes into a tree.

Think of the driver that swerves to avoid colliding with a kangaroo and swerves into the oncoming traffic. The speed limits in these sections of roadways are 80 k's. Imagine the combined impact of 160 k's. It's horrific to think of those consequences.

There's also the scenario, and it actually has occurred recently, where on two occasions, where adult kangaroos have landed on the bonnet of motor vehicles. So imagine that kangaroo coming through the windscreen and being in the vehicle with you. It's horrific to think of those consequences. So I'm saying now that is a community safety issue. It's not just about kangaroos being hit and damage to vehicles. It's a community safety issue. There is a real threat of people dying from these collisions or swerving to avoid collisions with kangaroos. I know that a member of WIRES has been advocating the council and Transport for New South Wales for a number of years now to try and get some measures in place to reduce the risk of collisions.

She's advocated to lower the speed limit, to have painted warning signs on the roadways, to have high fencing in the high-risk areas to prevent kangaroos from jumping onto the road in those areas. And the latest technology, virtual fencing, has been proven to be very successful in other parts of the country. Unfortunately, we've not had any support with that, and it's been up to the Hawkesbury Environment Network to fundraise to be able to get a small section of fencing to protect those high-risk areas. Unfortunately, nothing's been supported to date. What concerns me most is we know where the high-risk areas are. We know that these collisions are happening on virtually a daily basis. We know that there is a real threat to people dying as a result of these collisions.

So, as much as I love my kangaroos, and I love raising the joeys, a fatality is a lot more far-reaching than a dead kangaroo and damage to vehicles.

Thank you, Sandra. Thank you.

Sandra, one of the things—we discussed this some time ago on a few occasions—to try and look at something, and I certainly support the principle that we're going here. But one of the things we don't look at is the multitude of kangaroos and allow them to come into areas where we have high-traffic areas. I mean, it's bad enough out west, but when you get places like the Driftway, and that's predominantly the area we're talking about, or out at Maraylya, we've got deers out there on Putty Road and the like, so it's not just kangaroos, we've got a problem. But one of the things we don't look at is how we minimise that . Have you been involved, or with any discussions with the groups or organisations you had, to minimise the amount—culling, for the want of a word—in relation to, because kangaroos are one of the most prolific , you know, they have joeys one after the other, similar to rabbits.

But— If we allow them to come down into areas like this, and have you had discussions in relation to opportunities in that area? And I don't know what the answer is, and I'm not talking about shooting them. I'm talking about the reduce of areas where you've got vehicles and impacts like we talked

About.

I think the fact that there's so much development throughout the Hawkesbury, the kangaroos and, you know, other native wildlife have virtually been corralled into much smaller areas. And of course that's creating, you know, concentration of these animals, and they do cross in certain areas. It's called a wildlife corridor. And that's—we know, we haven't had a discussion about reducing the animals, so I think the cars are doing a good job on that. But being able to identify where they're crossing and having these measures to reduce the risks, not just to them, but, you know, more so to human life now is what we're talking about. It's that frequent.

Good luck with that. Thank you. Any other councillors? Councillor Grimaci.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Madam. Since you are involved with this matter for a long time, I guess, do you have any kind of any figure in your mind, or have you consulted, you know, some builders or fence builders? How much would that cost from the areas that, you know, you are talking, from one end to the other?

Oh, well. I don't know if that would be viable. We have spoken about the known sections having high fencing to prevent the animals crossing there, but the latest technology being the virtual fencing is something that scares the kangaroos away from the roadway

So

That at this point seems to be probably the most economical.

Do you know how much would they cost?

It costs, well, HEN has managed to raise $6,000 for a 500 metre section of fencing to go along the high-risk area.

So how many high-risk areas do you have that could have those units at $6,000, you said? How many do you think that we'd need?

Well , wish list would be lovely because throughout the Hawkesbury, it's not just here, as Mayor Sheather said, it's Moralia, Putty Road, it's all over the place, so if we could

Have— Yeah, but the one that you mentioned, those three areas, Castlereagh Road, Londonderry Road, and Driftway.

Probably— oh, I'm sorry.

Four. Four kilometres. Four kilometres. So for four kilometres, we'd be needing how many units?

Well, they can make it however long you want it to be. So $6,000 for 500 metres

Three of them? Four

Of them? Well, that would be $24,000. Eight, yeah.

I think we might

Be getting to the weeds,

Mr Mayor. I think Councillor Wheeler's probably got— What's that? I think Councillor Wheeler might be able to answer your questions afterwards.

Any further questions? Thanks very much. Thank you. The second speaker we have is Nick Sawkoff. Good on you.

How to pronounce the surname?

Hi everyone, I'm Nick Sudakoff, and Mr Mayor and Councillors, thank you for the opportunity to address you tonight in support of the motion on behalf of the Hawkesbury Environment Network. There's a real sense of urgency in the community at the moment to implement measures to prevent kangaroo collisions. The bulk of kangaroo collisions happen during winter, when shorter days means that the peak time for kangaroo movements to and from feeding grounds coincides with the peak time for residents travelling to and from work. Currently local wildlife rescuers are attending up to 10 to 12 kangaroo collisions per day, particularly around Richmond. And as Sandra really eloquently sort of put, you know, this is not just a wildlife issue, it's a driver and community safety issue.

So there's two main ways to reduce wildlife collisions: changing wildlife behaviour and changing driver behaviour. So to trial a technology that can alert kangaroos to approaching vehicles, Hawkesbury Environment Network launched a crowdfunding campaign on the 12th of July to raise money to install virtual fencing on the driftway, and it's been a great success. So we've raised over $6,300 so far, most of it in the first four days of the appeal, and comments from the community show widespread support for doing whatever we can to reduce collisions. I just want to take a moment to make a quick comment on the management report on this motion. It states that a three-year trial on the Mornington Peninsula concluded that virtual fencing showed no significant impact on roadkill rates for wallabies and possums.

Now, I'm not challenging the conclusions of that particular trial. My comment is that this technology has been installed at around 50 sites around Australia. What has excited the wildlife rescue community are the big and sometimes massive reductions in wildlife collisions recorded at many of these trial sites. As a new technology, lots more data needs to be collated and analysed so we can fully understand where applications work and don't work and why. Installing the virtual fencing on the Driftway will give us an opportunity to trial this technology specifically in our region and specifically with eastern grey kangaroos. It's the first trial of this technology in a peri-urban area, and everyone who has donated so far should be really proud to help make this happen.

In the motion before you now, the first three measures tackle the crucial task of changing driver behaviour. Lack of awareness of where collision hotspots are and speed often make it harder to react to wildlife in time.

The first step in preventing kangaroo collisions is helping drivers identify the risks. Installing painted road warning signs were identified in the October 2023 report to this council as low cost and would reinforce warnings for drivers of the risk of kangaroo collisions. The fixed warning signs that were installed a year ago on Londonderry and Castlereagh roads were not done in consultation nor with involvement of local WISE members, so unfortunately were positioned in ineffective areas, often after the collision hotspots rather than before. Relocating those fixed warning signs on those roads before the hotspots and reinforcing the warning signs on the driftway with painted road signs would increase the effectiveness of those measures, as would installing our electronic warning signs.

That measure was identified in the October 2023 report as the most cost-efficient and effective measure available to alert drivers of the risks ahead. Council use of its social media and publications to educate the community about preventing wildlife collisions and further what to do if they hit an animal is crucial educational work and one that needs to be ongoing in the long term.

HEN has found a real hunger in the community for information on this issue. Finally, I would strongly urge you to support the establishment of a working group as proposed in the motion. Many hotspots are on the boundaries of our neighbouring councils. Having a working group will be crucial to coordinate between local councils and Transport New South Wales, especially where implementing measures require joint action. There are also many different measures that could be the best solution for particular hotspots, measures such as signage, vegetation management, lighting, speed limit changes, and more virtual fencing. The working group will facilitate those conversations about how to make the next steps work.

And of course, the involvement of local WISE members and the community will amplify the effectiveness of any measures implemented. So with the time I have left, I want to— oh, I've only got any time left. So anyway, thanks for being allowed to speak to the motion tonight.

Thank you.

Any questions, councillors?

Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Nick. Is your fundraising campaign still open? Can people still make donations?

Absolutely. We're running the fundraiser until this Saturday. So, yeah, check out the Sort of Hen website. We've also got a big fundraising sort of dinner and trivia night. So, basically, like, we're still raising a lot more money. We'd love to get to a full kilometre, or $12,000, but I think we're sort of on track to maybe get around about 750 metres, around $9,000. But, you know, all donations are greatly appreciated

For people who don't know how virtual fencing works, because I know there's other types of virtual fencing used by farmers, for example, that involve like a collar on an animal, for example. This isn't like that, is it? Can you tell us how the virtual fencing actually works? Yeah

So the fence itself just looks—it's like a paling that's attached to a sort of metal stake that's sort of driven into the ground, so it actually can be moved. On that sort of paling is a device that both emits sound and light, and it's activated by oncoming sort of traffic headlights. So the good thing about it is that it doesn't impede with the natural movement of kangaroos to and from feeding grounds, but it does sort of alert wildlife to approaching vehicles, which often sort of scares them back off the road, hence avoiding the collision. So it's actually sort of—yeah, and it is actually an emerging technology. So it is actually being pioneered around the country at the moment, and data is being collected, and, yeah, actually it's quite exciting that Hawkesbury can be part of that trial, so—and part of that effort. Councillor Marchi.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you for, Natasha. Sandra, you know what you're talking about. One of the questions that, you know, I have: have you spoken with any farmers around that area, the areas that we are talking about?

No, actually, a lot of the sort of eastern grey kangaroos that are getting hit on places like Castle Ray Road and the driftway and so on are actually sort of coming off the university property. So it's actually sort of university land that's probably the main home for that sort of mob of eastern

Greys. Okay. Sandra's mentioned about $6,000 per unit. From your estimation, maybe you know just a little bit more than Madam , what would be the total cost that, you know, you are expecting this council to contribute?

Well, the reason why we're fundraising is that council sort of supported in the October sort of report, supported the implementation of a virtual fencing trial so long as that it didn't fund it or maintain it. We didn't give any money. No, and that's why we're raising money. That's why Hawkesbury Environment Network is raising money. We've helped, so Ann Marks, who has been one of the leading sort of WIRES kangaroo rescuers, has applied for a number of grants, and we've helped with the auspicing of some of those grants. Those grants haven't been successful. But basically, like, when we've done our sort of consultation with the community, like everyone wanted a result, and we thought, well, let's just raise the money ourselves, and the response has been overwhelming.

So, look, we think that, like, you know, obviously as a technology, that's having sort of, you know, it's in its early stages, and so data is being collected. If this trial is as successful as we hope it is, we would love council to get behind it and fund the sort of rollout of virtual fencing on other hotspot areas around Hawkesbury. Possibly, maybe. Yep, but let's, you know

How about you don't leave it to the last minute and make the application right now

For money ?

Well, I'm speaking to the motion that's being put to Council today, tonight, so, but yeah, I, yeah.

Sorry, I've just got one, Mr Mayor. Councillor Creed. Thank you for coming, as usual. You're always a very good speaker, and I love listening to your views. Can you just, with the university land, have the university actually offered to do any sort of funding, or— I think I know the answer. I just want to find out, have they offered to try and get involved, or— Sorry? No ? Okay. That's right. Councillor Wheeler answered it. It's all good. Thanks.

Okay

Yeah, is there a question there?

There's no funding or sort of involvement at the moment, but we're working on it. Cool

Thank you. Thanks. That's the last of the speakers. Councillor Wheeler, your motion. I'll move that motion in the business paper, Mr Mayor. Councillor Lyons-Buckett, you're seconding it. Thank you.

Thanks, Mr Mayor, and thank you to the speakers. We had an additional speaker who was one of the residents along the driftway who was going to talk about the impact of the residents of the repeated kangaroo deaths on the people who live there, and unfortunately he couldn't make it. This is an issue that is impacting on a lot of people. I drive through that area every week. There are always multiple kangaroos dead on the side of the road. We discussed this in 2023 twice, where we had a motion come to Council from the then Mayor, Councillor McMahon, and Council— Council determined that we needed to act. Unfortunately, we've asked Transport for New South Wales; they've put up a couple of signs.

I have to say I've never seen one of those signs. They've apparently been there for a while. I drive past them every week, and they are so poorly located that it's impossible to spot them. I even know where they are, and I can't see them. So clearly they're not having any impact on driver behaviour. I have to say I'm really disappointed with the management note that's attached to this notice of motion.

It's clear that advocacy isn't enough, because we've tried that . We've tried that for more than 18 months. We've heard from the speakers that this is a well-known hotspot and that the impacts of collisions are devastating. We've now heard very clearly that this site is—we are at real risk of a driver fatality at this site. We've got this note here that tells us that we haven't got any money for anything, and yet we've got a whole lot of things that we've got money for. We've got, later in the business paper, we've got $4 million for Turnbull Oval. We've got money for fireworks. We've got money to expand the RAAF air show. We've got money for gas lamps. But we don't have money to warn people that they might be about to hit a really large animal.

And we don't have any money to change driver behaviour at that spot. We'll never have enough money. We as a council need to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. We need to be able to get our budget to do the things that we want to do, as well as the things that we need to do when the community comes to us and tells us that this is a matter of urgency, that this should be one of our priorities.

We've, we've at the moment we've got this problem that's borne by drivers, passengers, insurance companies, but most of all by volunteer wildlife carers, and they are absolutely at breaking point. Some of these carers have 20 joeys in their care. This is a full-time job, and yet these people already have full-time jobs. They're volunteers, so I'm not quite sure when they sleep , clearly in very broken shifts, because feeding, you know, I fed one baby and that nearly broke me. I don't know that I'd want to feed 20.

We are, we are part of the cause of this problem. As we continue to clear land for development, we push more and more kangaroos into limited pieces of vegetation, and as that vegetation changes and alters, those animals have nowhere to go, and they're , they're coming out onto the roads. I listened to, because unfortunately it was on our briefing night, the really interesting workshop that HEN put on during the week, and if you haven't listened to the YouTube clip of that, I urge you to do so. It was really interesting talking about the impacts of virtual fencing in other LGAs, in particularly the Shoalhaven and another site down in Victoria, where they are showing clear benefits of virtual fencing on large macropods, so kangaroos and wallabies particularly.

Apparently wombats are quite stubborn, so frankly I would contend our drivers, and so also is Transport for New South Wales, which is why I've put this notice of motion together as it is. It builds on the work that Councillor McMahon did previously, and I thank her for her input to this. It asks that we review the use of painted road warning signs, that we recommit to funding electronic signage, that we use our various social media and other outlets to alert driver behaviour, and also to establish a working group. This is a problem that affects multiple areas across our LGA, and as Mr Sudokoff said, in adjacent areas to the LGA, we can't fix this by ourselves. We need to work with Blacktown, Penrith and Hills Councils if we are to put sufficient pressure on Transport for New South Wales to enact their responsibilities as well, and we need to bring them to the table.

We also, I think, need to bring the university to the table. This won't be easy, but I think we need to move forward on this.

Thanks, Councillor. Councillor, I've got a question in relation to your motion. It's part four, establish a working group. Are you proposing that Council does that, or are you talking about a community organisation that Council supports?

Look, I think either would work. We had that experience with the Wetlands Working Group where Council held the initial meetings, and the community group in that instance formed and took that forward, and I think either are possible. But I think it needs the initial buy-in from Council to get other organisations, like the other three LGAs, for example, and also Transport for New South Wales. I think if a community group rings up Transport for New South Wales and says, come to a meeting, they're probably not going to get a long way, so it needs the backing of Council at the very least. Yeah,

Thank you, Councillor. I'll just make a comment.

My view has always been that if the community's not pushing it, why are we? And it seems that there's a lot of support in the community for this. We just might need to fill the gaps a little bit. The other thing, and take on board Councillor Wills' comments on how generous we are with some of our funding, and that bothers me a little bit. But it's not that I don't support it, but it's the process a little bit, I guess. The items that Councillor Wills spoke of went through briefing sessions and come to us on many occasions, and we debated some of those at length about how we spend money. This is a notice of motion, and it's indicating that it comes up in the quarterly report. So we're messing with finance in the future of the council's resolution.

And why sometimes that might be necessary. I think it's extremely prudent, when we're spending council funds, that we discuss it amongst ourselves because there are priorities amongst the things we discuss. And I'm not suggesting this is not one of them. The process that we're going through here tonight, I would rather send in a briefing, and I do believe that it would have been supported in any form. But, and with this motion tonight, it will come back to us before the quarterly report. There's things in here that the staff need to address and probably need clarification on how we're going to do it. So I just ask the council to be mindful that the quarterly report's there for a purpose. It's not for us to encroach on that and the like.

The staff's got a job to do to balance those reports. But in saying that, part four, with the community to be established and that, absolute support, and the other issues there. With a congregation of kangaroos, a mob, as it's called, where the ADI site is at going into Penrith, those that have been around a bit remember the kangaroos that used to be in there, to the stage that they were inbreeding to the stage they had deformed kangaroos. So there's things that we do to protect our community and our wildlife that we really need to be mindful, at the end of the day, exactly what we're trying to achieve. And the devastation, as the lady spoke about a car accident with a kangaroo, or any car accident for that matter, but putting the signs that up aren't going to solve the problem.

Put the fence up won't solve the problem because they'll go around the darn thing. I go out Westleigh, I know how kangaroos operate, and farmers don't know how to operate them. So we're not going to do it down here, let me tell you. But there's things we can do to minimise it, and what's being proposed here tonight goes a long way that way. But we need to be looking at, at the end of the day, what we're trying to achieve here. And one is to minimise the death of animals, and the other one is to minimise the impact on community. So, you know, we're not going to do one thing that fixes all. There's a variety of things. Where you've got a community as interested as what they are in this, I suspect that they'd come up with some ideas if they're given the opportunity.

So, Councillor Wheeler, while I support your motion, I would have preferred you to have done it a little bit differently. Thank you.

Councillor Veigel.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Thank you, Councillor Wheeler, for putting the motion and the prior work that's gone into it, I guess in present sittings of this chamber anyway. No brainer to me, I'll be supporting it. But very clearly to me, to wherever I go in the Hawkesbury, there's kangaroo carcasses on the side of the road , whether it be on the M4, whether it be going up towards Aralara, whether it be in Windsor Downs, whether it be down on the driftway. It's just far too dangerous now, not only for the roos, but also, as what's been mentioned here, traffic accidents or potential death, dare I say. That's the last thing you want to get there. I think, Mr Mayor, you've had experience and I've seen experience where we've had motor vehicle accidents have gone into kangaroos and it's quite devastating.

Cars written off, people injured. It's not on. When it comes to funding, I think if we budget this correctly and we milestone it, there's anything we can do in this council. So I think we just need to get on with it and put a plan in, and hopefully Transport New South Wales will come on board. One can only hope, and just assist in that funding anyway. I am particularly careful around the Hawkesbury these days. I'd down it right down to 40 kilometres. In fact, I put driving lights on because I can splay it out, and I can see any kangaroos when it's at dusk or at night time. That alone might scare them out anyway. So, yeah . So again, thank you. I'm not going to say any more than that, but I'll be voting for it.

Thanks. Thank you, Councillor. Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor, and I want to thank Councillor Wheeler for bringing this motion, and we have had a brief discussion prior, and I thank her for touching on the fact that this has been going on since around 2023 in front of this chamber. And I think that the start of that advocacy and the cause of that advocacy, the thanks needs to be given to Ann Marks. And I didn't realise Ann was in the room until she spoke up a moment ago. I'm surprised she didn't register to speak, Ann, but this is , of course everyone in the room who is speaking, and part of WISE and part of HEN has a part to play in this. But I think that credit needs to be given to Ann, who, when I was the mayor, pretty much sent an email, was it maybe every day?

No, I'm exaggerating, Ann, but quite a lot. And Will Barton, I think—is he still on Zoom? No, he's gone. Will Barton, our director of infrastructure , who then received Ann's emails from me, so he obviously is aware of the frequency. But I think sometimes the frequency of that communication is important because It does get some results done, and Ms. Wilbarton did obviously, when we had that motion come up to Council, I might have it in the wrong order, it's two years ago, but did put some digital signage on those roads, and I do recall seeing them. It is right to identify that every time you drive down those roads, there are dead kangaroos on the side of the road, and they are big kangaroos.

And you can only imagine the impact that must have on the vehicle. And to be honest, I am legitimately surprised that there are not more deaths due to the number of car accidents that involve kangaroos on those roads. It is a very serious problem, and one day very soon, there might just be that. And I think here, as a council, we have an opportunity to do what we can to address that. In saying so, I think it's really important to note that it is not our core responsibility in terms of us as the sole bearer of that responsibility. And those parties who I mentioned in point four of the notice of motion all need to accept responsibility for the part that they play in trying to minimise this problem.

And particularly , I don't want to pick on the university, but a lot of the land does belong to the university. The roads belong to Transport for New South Wales, and it does place a burden on us as a council who is running a very tight ship when it comes to our budget, to be expected to find the funds that just don't exist to be able to do these things. So I want to put pressure on those other organisations. And thinking about where the three main roads are that we're talking about, there's probably a lot of different land owners along those different parts of the road, so they all need to have a seat at the table if we're talking about implementing that virtual fencing.

I did want to say that while this has been in front of our chamber for a couple of years, it's a very sad case of how change is slow, how government is slow, how everything costs money, and we have to rob Peter to pay Paul, essentially, to be able to find money to do the things that we would love to do. But I do want to touch on the fact again that I said this is not just council's problem, and those other parties need to come up with some sort of funding arrangement as well. I do want to thank Hen for their advocacy in putting up their fundraising. I think that's a very keen effort to have received $6,000 in such a short amount of time. I will be obviously supporting this notice of motion.

I think that it makes sense. I had informed Councillor Wheeler that I would be doing so prior to this, and I want to thank her again for continuing with the advocacy of this subject. And again, thank those in the room who volunteer to look after the injured kangaroos. I honestly can't imagine the workload involved. So, and from speaking to Anne in the past, I do want to highlight, if you can actually imagine, just imagine for a second that you're a WIRES volunteer and you get called out at 1 a.m., 2 a.m., 4 a.m., whenever it might be, in your own time, and you're dealing with the mess and the trauma of what it must look like to see those hit kangaroos, and of course the trauma of the people who were involved in the car accidents as well.

So I think extending our thanks for what you do, for any volunteer in the Hawkesbury, is fundamentally important. I'll be supporting the motion. Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Councillor Lance Buchanan.

Thank you. I speak in favour of the motion and thank the speakers, particularly, well, both of their perspectives. It's always good to get some different perspectives. And Sandra, you know, gave us an inside perspective from that of a police officer, and Nick, of course, updating us on what Hen have done in this area. I think that we all realise what a dangerous stretch of road that Castle Ray Road in particular is, particularly at dusk. The other thing I have noticed, and I don't know if it's just the time of year people are born or whatever, but every year around this time there's a lot of kids on L plates and little P plates, red P plates, and a lot of them, of course, are probably senior students driving off to school, often on that road.

It's the road to Penrith and the Blue Mountains, so it's a very well utilised road. I really think the university does need to take some responsibility. I think they have all that land there. A huge amount of Castle Ray Road is university land bordering it, and they do need to be mindful, not that having kangaroos there is all their fault, because every time there's an approval to clear land, we know that wildlife loses its habitat, and that's why there's so many kangaroos and wildlife in this area, as they're pushed out with all the development on our doorstep in the neighbouring LGAs. I think in terms of funding, being on this council and allocating funds isn't always about shiny, new, big, exciting things.

Often we have to take a stand and think safety as a priority is something that we must allocate some funding to. It's really, really important that we do that and that we're not just consumed by having things that are all new. And I just feel that we probably, you know, could be putting some funding towards this. I do thank HEN for having the commitment, not just their sharing of knowledge around these subjects, but actually, you know, putting their money or other people's money where their mouth is by having a fundraiser, and I believe they've got more coming up. And really dedicating that to trying to get a solution to this particular problem. We'll be forever playing catch up on it because as we see the things around us changing, we'll also see wildlife moving into new areas.

As we know, any of those of us who drive the Bells Line of Road, you will have the deer running out and various other little creatures coming out across the road. There are some really good examples up on the north coast around the koala alert. Particularly the painted road signs are very, very effective. So obviously , and they've been evaluated. Obviously there are many things, and being part of a trial for virtual fencing I think would be really good to be a part of gathering the data for that. So thank you, Councillor Wheeler, for your motion. I support it wholeheartedly.

Thank you, Councillor.

Any further debate? Councillor Creed. Thanks, Ms. Mayor. I've just got a question regards to the note by management. Given the fact that myself and Councillor Ryan weren't on council in October 23, it says investigated the potential for pavement markings, which did not receive support from Transport for New South Wales and accordingly weren't pursued further. Did that come back to the councillors? And what was the— they just said no and we just said okay? Do we actually have any answer to that? The other thing is liaised with Transport for New South Wales and Western Sydney University on the placement of fixed warning signage on Londonderry Road and Castle Road.

It just says liaised. Was there any actual outcome to that? Did they actually do— Sorry, I don't mean to put you on the spot, but I'm just trying to—

Thank you. Unfortunately, the director of infrastructure has taken ill this evening, Councillor. I can't speak to the specifics of those two bullet points. Can I just take those two on notice? Yeah, we'll certainly take them on notice. Okay,

Thank you. Okay, that's put me off. I was hoping to answer that, but that's okay. I'm happy to support this, I think. I mean, where I live up on—I mean, it's no secret I live up on Slopes Road, and we have a little Facebook group for the street, and at the moment, especially in probably the last two months, we've got this massive buck of a kangaroo and, you know, probably his missus and a couple of kids that keep popping out at about 9:30 every night as you come right up around the corner along the fences. So no matter where you go in the Hawkesbury, you're going to find fences. I wouldn't mind seeing if this goes ahead, and the work that, you know, if we can sort of use it as a trial basis when it comes to fencing and all that sort of stuff, that we actually expand it sort of LGA-wide and involve Blue Mountains Council because we've got a lot of areas up towards the Blue Mountains in Bilpin and Mount Lagoon and all that sort of stuff where it is just extremely dangerous for drivers, especially during those foggy conditions of a night time.

But I think the University of Western Sydney—or sorry, Western Sydney University—really needs to sort of play its part in this. I hate saying this, but I feel like sometimes getting money out of the university is almost like getting blood from stone. You know, we've been trying to liaise with them from— that's just how I feel, you know. But I think, I just think they need to be almost forced into sort of coming on board. And, you know, we've tried the nice, nice approach. Same with Transport for New South Wales. We've seen what they're doing with the current route for the Third River Crossing. You know, that we keep getting promised all different things, and every time we get a new thing, it changes, and it just—we just get told, Oh no, that's what you get given by Transport for New South Wales.

And I understand this is their road, but I think we just, we need to be better at sort of pushing back against these guys sometimes, because I just feel like we as a council get walked all over, and that's not the staff's fault. I think that's just—they think we're almost like a backwards sort of, you know, hillbilly country out here, and, you know, they don't have to listen to any of the locals or any of the staff or anything like that, and it just frustrates me no end. So I'm happy to support it, but I actually really want us to sort of start pushing back on these guys. That's what we're here for, so with, of course, the help of staff. Councillor

Martini

Thank you. Some of the questions that I have have already been partly answered, and can management take on notice and let us know if they could scrape a little bit to contribute to these people? It doesn't matter how little, and it doesn't have to be months or years. I

Understand, Councillor

The motion before you, Councillors, seeks for funding to be considered at a quarterly budget review. So that would be the appropriate time for this.

Do we know the figure?

No. No, it's not stipulated in the motion, Council, so it's hard to say. Okay,

Thank you.

Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor, and thank you, everyone, for your support so far. Just a few responses to some of the things that have been raised. I appreciate the Mayor's comments that he would like this to have come to a briefing. This has already come to Council. We discussed this two years ago. We recommended a suite of actions then. Most of this motion is seeking to revisit that previous resolution. We can make decisions in this Council without going to a briefing, and in fact, the Local Government Act tells us that we must make our decisions in Council meetings, not in briefings, and that's all we're doing here. You raised the idea of inbreeding, Mr Mayor, and I just want to make one of the things really clear about the virtual fencing technology, in that it doesn't corral animals into an area.

Unlike actual fencing, it allows the animals to continue to move freely. What it does is modify their movements at certain times of day when they are most at risk, or when there's vehicle movement. There's some good, so far anecdotal evidence coming out of the trials in a couple of places, Yarrabadalla, and particularly in Victoria, where this has been in place for three years now. And it looks like from the Victorian trial that animals learn when not to be on the road, that they in fact are modifying their movements. So instead of that, in fact , the question, I guess the question that came up in the seminar that I watched was, are you habituating driver behaviour? And in fact, what you are doing is habituating the animal's behaviour, and so you're slowly modifying them.

So instead of jumping out, jumping forward into the path of the vehicles that come back because they're put off by the light and the sound. And so they seem to learn that a vehicle's lights mean that they will get this noise and sound that they don't like, and they pull back. And there does seem to be some really good emerging evidence that that is particularly effective with kangaroos and wallabies. So they went in Victoria, they went from 200 to 250 wallabies hit each year in four years before this was installed.

The council down there installed 12.8 kilometres of virtual fencing. They've done a three-year trial, and the conclusion of that trial, they were down to 28 roos in the second year from 250, and 40 in the next year. And they think that that rise, in fact, is due to drought conditions that they're now experiencing, and the roos are having to go—they're getting more desperate, and so they're starting to push their luck. Eurobodalla is similar. The first trial, they've done three trials down there, so they're continuing to expand their network of virtual fencing. They saw a 90% reduction over the first 24 months. And then a similar reduction with a second trial at Mogo, and they've now put a third trial in place.

And they took to Local Government NSW a motion, which was fully supported on the floor of the conference, for federal funding for virtual fencing across Australia, something that we all should keep in mind and keep reminding both our state and federal members about. Look, I agree with Councillor McMahon, we are not the sole bearer of responsibility here. What I'm hoping by point four and the rest of the motion is that we lead by example and bring the other parties to the table and say to them, We're doing our bit. The community is doing their bit. Now it's time for you to do your bit. And so hopefully that's the space that we will end up in. The costings that we had for the electronic signage was $5,000 plus ongoing costs per sign.

And perhaps it may be that we don't have to deploy them all year, that we use them in, and that they are maybe even more effective if they're not in the same spot for 12 months, that they're used in hot spots in high-risk times of year. Someone signalled to me from the audience, one of the real risks on this stretch is for motorcyclists. If they hit a kangaroo, they're dead. You know, they are particularly vulnerable, particularly one of those really big bucks. And then finally, I just want to say that this isn't a panacea. This is a suite of actions, virtual fencing, council's actions, but particularly getting Transport for NSW and Blacktown and Penrith Council if we're going to fix that problem around Londonderry.

And then there are other problems in the Hills and Blue Mountains as well. If we can start the lead on this, I think we can make a difference. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor.

The motion as is on page 11, 7.1. Sorry, the motion is page 109, kangaroo collision prevention. Those in favour?

That's unanimous.

Councillor Dogramachi, Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Cree, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Mann, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Ryan, Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Brogden, Councillor Sheather.

Thank you, Councillors.

Councillors , we've got two condolences in our documents. One's Charles Casuscelli.

It seems so inappropriate that someone puts such an effort into life and it's squeezed out in seconds. And Charles, I never had a lot to do with him. I met him in Parliament House some years ago, in passing in the hallway. But there's a little bit of documentation here. I'm going to read out. I think it's the least that we could do for someone who contributed to communities as he did. He was the Chief Executive Officer of the Western Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils, and I'm not sure whether it says sit down here later how many years. Quite a few, anyway. Charles had been the Chief Executive Officer of WestROC, in which Council is a member, since 2015, and was a tireless advocate for the greater Western Sydney region.

That's an understatement. Born in Rome, Italy, he was immensely proud of his Italian heritage and his deep connections to Western Sydney, always working to make it the better place for his community. He was a State Parliamentarian representing Strathfield in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly from March 2011 to March 2015, where he served on the Committee of Law and Safety and chaired the Committee of Transport and Infrastructure. A former Army officer from 1987 to 1991, Charles remained an active member of the Australian Army Reserve and was represented in the Reserve Force Cadre in 1993. His defence force liaison officer, Army 2004, provided advice to New South Wales Government through emergency services on defence capabilities and the policies that affected emergency management in New South Wales.

Between 2001 and 2003, he was the general manager of field operations, New South Wales and Canberra, with NRMA Motoring Services. He was also general manager of Transport Management Centre and project director of Transport Centre Management Project, New South Wales Roads and Traffic Authority from 1997 to 2001. Council extends our condolences to the family and friends and all the colleagues of Wesbrook.

Was any other councillors wish to make a comment?

Councillor Zamprogno.

Just briefly, Mr Mayor, you'll be pleased to know that I was able to take that form of wording about Charles's storied career to the LGNSW board and moved a condolence motion in much the same form, so I was grateful for that. I knew Charles for many years as a board member of Wesroc, and I was always impressed by his unflagging enthusiasm for Western Sydney, even through a time where Wesroc was still trying to kind of find its mojo, considering its remit was being encroached on by other instrumentalities. We used to joke a lot about our shared Italian heritage, and he knew all the same surnames that I grew up with, especially in the Weatherill, Bosley Park area of people surrounding the founding of the Marconi Club, for example, which my family had an association.

And to hear of his sudden passing was a great shock because his energy was just undeniable, and I'm very sad to hear of his passing.

Thank you, Nathan. Councillor Creed.

Thank you, Mr Mayor.

I've known, I knew Charles for probably at least close to between fifteen, twenty years now. First through the Liberal Party, and then when he was elected as a state parliamentarian representing Strathfield. And then when I was previously on council and served on Wesrock, he, with the former mayor, Kim Ford and the former Wesrock senior vice president, Councillor Tiffany Tree, and then I went on to serve as the junior vice president with Charles. He was someone that you could go up to him and you could talk to him about pretty much anything, even if it was to do with council or your own personal life, and just have a chat to him and he'd be open to listening and just very genuine. And I was actually sitting around a bonfire, like, you know, a bit of a burn-off at the neighbour's property when I actually saw the news on a Saturday night, and

It was—

When you lose someone that you weren't expecting to lose ,

It's not the best thing. And I feel for his wife and his family, but he was someone that came into West Rock, has served for 10 years until he passed away. He served with Liberal presidents, vice presidents, treasurers, Labor presidents, including former Mayor Councillor Barry Calvert. He could cross political lines. He could work with anyone for the betterment of Western Sydney.

It's just

Not something that I like doing, but I thank you for putting this up because I think we need to make sure that we recognise those that do put in the time away from family and friends to serve the community, and that was just him. So,

Yeah

I think I'll leave it there. Thanks. Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Kotlash and myself attended the funeral. It was quite a big funeral, one of the bigger ones I've been to. Yeah, and it was quite a long funeral, actually. And the words that you just spoke of about communication, it didn't matter whether you wore overalls or a tie, he fitted in. Thank you, Councillors.

It doesn't happen often, but it comes in pairs, I guess, and there's another condolence motion that we've got before us, and it's for former Councillor John Rice. I spoke to his family to see whether they supported something coming to Council. They were extremely grateful for it, and I'll just read the words that are here. I'd like to acknowledge John Rice, who passed away recently. John lived in Windsor and served as a Councillor for five years, being elected to Council in September in 2016 to 2021. During his time on Council, John was a delegate in several committees, including the Audit Committee, Hawkesbury Access and Inclusion Advisory Committee, Development Application Monitoring Advisory Committee, Economic Development Working Group, Human Services Advisory Group, Waste Management Advisory Committee, Hawkesbury Sustainability Advisory Committee, Infrastructure Committee, McMahon Park Committee, Hawkesbury Sister City Association, Western Sydney Academy of Sport, and Council's Budget Preparation Processes.

He liked fiddling with figures. John not only provided service to the community as a Councillor, he also had an interest in activism. He was a member of the Campaign of Action for Windsor Bridge Corp and the Defenders of Thompson Square. John's background was accounting, providing service for several local businesses. Whilst on Council, and also in retirement, John volunteered at several local schools as the lollipop guy. Assisting students on a daily basis. Council extends our condolences to John's family and friends and his colleagues that were on council. Is there any comment that anyone? Thank you, councillors.

The next one's a mayoral minute on a much brighter note.

The next one's a Mayoral Minute. On a much brighter note than the last couple, some while back, Councillor Zamprogno nominated for the board of Local Government, and Ann was somewhat disappointed.

And I guess it's because of elections and people come and go. But he got a letter that's sent out documents, and the recommendation I've got here, the council note the appointment of Councillor Zamprogno to the board of Local Government NSW. And just in a few words of that, I think the last person was John Horrocks. That would have been the early nineties, and he probably chaired — it was Local Government and Shires Association in those days. We, when I say we, Hawkesbury was pretty involved in setting up the local women in government, which is still going. There was two of our councillors that were involved in that being established and the like. And John was involved not only with the Local Government Shires, but the same sort of thing.

Since then, we haven't played a significant role, or privilege, to be in a position that Councillor Zamprogno is in today. And I congratulate him for his nomination and success in achieving a position on the board, and proud of it. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr Mayor, for that recognition. It is an unexpected pleasure. I stood, I failed. All of the parties were there with their very organised flyers and much more expensive signs and exchanged preferences and so forth, and I put the experience behind me very quickly, lost no sleep, until I got this call that said, ‘It’s been some attrition. Your number’s up, son.’ I thought that was lovely. It’s good to have, and I know this is a hateful word and I hate it every time I use it, it’s good to have a peri-urban voice on the Board of Local Government NSW. There aren’t many. I now sit with Julie Griffiths from Blacktown and Romola Hollywood from Blue Mountains, so it’s good to have some near neighbours, and we sing from the same song sheet.

And certainly the challenges that councils like us face are more acute than are faced in some other areas, particularly how funding from other tiers of government has fallen away so very sharply and how cost shifting becomes an ever more burdensome thing for us. And then when we ask for funding, it happens very grudgingly and very arbitrarily, without any security or constancy of its source. So I’m happy to bring that voice. The term doesn’t have very much longer to run, but it’s just nice to be there. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Anybody?

Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I want to acknowledge Councillor Zamprogno’s slip into the position with a couple of meetings to go, in true Stephen Bradbury style. And I just want to raise a matter that— That I think the Chamber needs to be aware of. One of the people who was part of this attrition on the Board of New South Wales was a good friend of mine, Philippa Veitch, the former mayor of Randwick City Council. She left the board of LG New South Wales. She resigned from the board in protest over LG New South Wales' lack of action following the Federal Court decision that found Active Super guilty of false or misleading statements in relation to investments in their so-called sustainable and ethical investment scheme.

They were found guilty of greenwashing in relation to investments in gambling, oil tar sands, coal mining and investments in Russia. In March 2025, the Federal Court imposed a $10.5 million penalty against Active Super for greenwashing, and it's still unclear as to who will be responsible for the payment of that fine. And what I would like Councillor Zamprogno to take up with the board is whether our staff, who have their superannuation invested in Active Super, which has now merged with another entity, will be responsible for paying that fine, because I find that manifestly unfair, given that the members of LG New South Wales who sit on that board are all paid six-figure sums to do that work and who should be far better across this information than to get themselves into a position where local Government New South Wales staff—sorry, local council staff, some of the most hardworking and lowest paid members, particularly those in female-dominated industries, including childcare.

And will end up having their retirement investments affected by the actions of the Active Super board. Thank you.

Thank you. On your indulgence, I can actually speak to that very briefly, and this is the advantage of being in the room where it happens.

Clearly, I was arriving just as this fallout was being dealt with, and without breaking the confidence of the board, what I can say is that we were given a briefing by the superannuation provider, who made their excuses about how certain people were no longer running portfolios and how they've taken the court's ruling on board and that they're being much more judicious about how they're stating what are called their ESL obligations. There we go, ESI. I'm still learning the acronyms as well. I was the one that made the observation that their approach isn't to divest from those industries, it's just that they don't claim that anymore. So I had a look at their declaration on their website, and I said, Well, what you're saying is all very well and good, but you've just watered down your statement so you're unlikely to trip up the regulator in the way that you did.

We would prefer a positive affirmation, is that you're not investing in Russian energy companies, or in military ordnance companies, or in coal, tar, you know, sands, or things of that nature, in the sense that if your investors expect that you will invest ethically, state that positively. That was taken on note.

Thank you, Councillor. Just take on board the comments that were made. We might look at if there's— Some mechanism that where you may report when required, but when you feel it's discussed with the general manager, that information.

Thank you. Any further discussion? I'll put the motion. Those in favour?

Against? Carried. It's unanimous. Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Creek, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Ryan, Councillor [unclear], Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Brogden, Councillor Sheather. Okay.

2.1, Representative Western Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils.

Move that way, Mr Mayor.

That was moved by— I'll second it.

Seconded.

Councillor Creed.

Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Not really necessary to speak, Mr Mayor, except to get a nominee, I would think.

A nominee

Councillor— Go for it.

Councillor Veigel.

We've got a recommendation here, the councillor point, a councillor, and we've got a nomination for— Councillor Veigel . Do you accept, Councillor Veigel?

I do. Yes, second.

Is there any other nominations

Yeah .

Okay. Is there any other nominations?

Councillor Veigel, with your name in the recommendation, would someone like to move that way? Yes , I will . Councillor Lyons-Buckett, so move the recommendation, with Council's supporting Councillor Veigel as the alternate delegate.

Okay, that's an amended original motion. Yep, and Councillor Creed, you're happy with that? Yep. Those in favour?

Against? Carried. Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Creed, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Ryan, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zembronov, and Councillor Sheather.

10.3.1.

I move the recommendation.

Sorry? No, that's block, Les. It's 10.4.2.

Sorry.

What's the

No, 10.4. 10.4.2, payment of expenses and provisions. Councillor Creed. Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'd like to move a recommendation which I've sent to the staff and—

10.4.2, payment of expenses and provisions for Councillor Creed. Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'd like to move a recommendation which I've sent to the staff and councillors , with some changes. I've spoken to, I've tried to speak to everybody and tried to come up with a suitable small changes to it. The recommendation that I'm moving is similar to what's in the business paper. Point 1, it just says draft payment of expenses and provisions of facilities to councillors policies, including in Attachment 2 to this report, with the following changes, be placed on public exhibition for a period of 28 days. Number 2 is the same, including 2A and 2B. And then I've added number 3, these changes that have been reviewed at the next quarterly budget review and brought to a councillor briefing session for review and change if required.

So the reason, after speaking with majority of the councillors, we've sort of come together and tried to put something together that brings us in line with other council areas. We've done the research using neighbouring councils, Hills, etc., and you'll be able to see what some of the changes are. There will be some slight financial changes, but this is why I've put in point 3 that it be reviewed at the next quarterly budget review and brought to a councillor briefing session. I just wanted to really sort of tighten up some of the words as well, including with the IT equipment, be explicit in what is there, as well as also making sure that everyone is aware that the IC equipment, whether Provided by Council, or sourced by the councillor and reimbursed by Council, or provided by Council.

Council is the owner of the ICT equipment, and it's to be returned at the end of the Council term, subject to any application to the General Manager to purchase the ICT equipment. There's the changes in there, but I've tried to speak to everybody that I possibly speak to and get a sort of conciliation and compromise on different things. So I hope it can be supported. Thanks.

Councillor Zamprogno.

Yeah, I endorse those changes. I agree that there were parts of wording that could have been sharper, including the contentious issue of the ownership of equipment where it was purchased by councillors who then sought a reimbursement. That is fully conceded and brings us into line with best practice. I think that what's being suggested here is fair and flexible. Moreover, I think it is appropriate for councillors to be able to select the equipment that they are going to be most productive with, on the proviso that this is of no additional cost impost to Council. So the wording that's in this tweaked version makes it quite explicit that whatever the IT gear that would have been provided by Council at Council's expense, that a councillor will only have the same quantum of funds to then go out and seek their own gear, be reimbursed, and that the ownership of that will vest to Council at the end of the term or at the cessation of their holding of that office.

So I think this is very thoughtful, and I want to thank Councillor Creed for canvassing so widely among his colleagues to make sure that this dotted all of the i's. Thank you.

Any further debate?

Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. And I did, Councillor Wheeler showed this to me earlier today, but I haven't got it in front of me. But if they could just, sorry, if it could just be scrolled down a little. Just the wording about changing the conference, the $25,000 where it says that.

Up or down? No, I think it was down. Yeah, yeah there. Change or add, I couldn't understand that, but $ 25,000 to be shared equally for all councillors. Well, that's $2,083 each. No

No, so can I just clarify that? According to the draft council policy that was given by staff, in table one, conferences and seminars and the maximum amount $21,000 to be shared equally for all councillors, and then frequency was per financial year indexed accordingly. Once I had looked at different council, what they've currently got, because some of them are still reviewing these, and Hills, for example, I think is going up in two weeks. This is increased it because everything is going up. I've asked to increase it from $21,000 to $25,000, and I think this is to do with the conference budget. That's from what I understood it to be. If not, I'm happy to be—

Yeah, sorry, I've sent the word document to staff as well as all councillors.

Your button, Councillor.

Sorry, not overly concerned with any of it. I do just have to say though, I'm not a huge fan of the council branded clothing.

I just think— I know. I

Think if we were getting a nice blazer, for

Example— I've added that in as well. There's a blazer there, so that if there's any sort of official function, like a funeral or something like that, majority of councils that I know, councillors are provided females— Provided with a female blazer, provided with a suit jacket that is a blazer . And you don't have to, you can say, no, I don't want it. The option is just to be there in case you need it. Sorry

Okay, all right. Well, I don't really see it as a priority, but, you know, if everyone's into it, I guess that's okay. You know, I would not be, you know, I would rather that wasn't a part of it unless it were just a blazer like other councils have. But aside from that, I haven't really had a lot of time to absorb all of it. But it's , yeah, nothing, it's going out on public exhibition anyway. So if there was anything else, I could raise that after. Thank you.

Thank you. Sorry, can I just point out, I'm happy to, you know, even when it comes back and if we need to make changes, we make changes. It's fine. I just was trying to get a conciliatory approach to this so that it's above board and we're

Doing everything we can to make sure we do it properly. I'm sure the staff might like to clarify some of the stuff that's in there too, Councillor. Any further debate? Councillor Wheeler.

Just a couple of points quickly. I think what we really need from a policy like this is for it to be transparent, fair, and to make the councillors productive. And I think that's the aim of the changes that Councillor Creed and Councillor Zamprogno have made to this.

By keeping option two in the game, it allows councillors to choose the equipment that works best. For them. For those of us who work across multiple platforms, it's probably easy enough to pick up whatever you're given and run with it. But you're not productive. You're not as productive as you would be if you were using the platform that you use almost instinctively after, you know, for some of us, we've used the same platform for decades, and you just cope with the updates . The other thing that I think is useful in here is the upfront payment, which allows councillors of limited means to , A, not be disadvantaged, and, B, not be in a position to have to go begging , because that's really uncomfortable.

When I was first elected to council in 2016, I'd been in insecure and casual employment for six years. I barely had enough clothes to wear, reasonable clothes to wear to a council meeting. I certainly didn't have the financial capacity to be paying for conference expenses upfront. A young person who is in, you know, if we're expecting this council to be a representative body of the community, then we need to make sure that people have access to the things that they need to do their job. If we're issued with a councilor blazer or shirt, I don't love them either. My councillor jacket is still in the bottom of my wardrobe with the tag attached. It'll probably stay there and I'll give it back in a few years' time.

But at least you could wear that to a council meeting and not worry that you didn't have enough clothing. The same as a conference. If you've got to go to a conference and then wait a couple of months to be reimbursed for those conference expenses, and you're taking food off your family's table, then that's not reasonable either. And it's the same with IT equipment. We need to have a system in place that supports everybody who might be elected to this council, or we're just going to keep getting middle-aged, middle-class, largely male people who can afford to be here, and that's not a representative democracy, and that's not, I think, what the LGA deserves. Back in 2016, we took what we were given.

I gave the laptop back within three months. I turned it on twice, and I used the iPad for the duration because there was no other option. I couldn't do it now because my eyesight has deteriorated just because I'm 55. I couldn't look at an iPad for the hours that I need to in a council meeting. It wouldn't be big enough. I can use it in a briefing, but not in a meeting, and I can't get the detail on maps that I need.

The next time around, I kept the old iPad. I got this MacBook, and this time I've swapped it again. I've kept the MacBook and I've got an iPad. I use both, and I use my personal desktop, and that stops me getting the crippling neck and back pain that I got when I used the iPad for five years, particularly through COVID. We have to make sure that the facilities that we provide councillors allow them to work effectively, comfortably, safely, but also in a way that allows all of us to do our jobs without having to go cap in hand and say, Look, could I please have an advance on my allowance, or could I have, you know, something so that I can just do my work? That's not—no one here is getting rich off coming to council.

Our allowance is a fraction of—it's largely, it's just above a Centrelink payment in many instances. And that's, yeah, and we've had to battle to get even that. And each year we, if we vote to give ourselves a pay rise or we vote to give ourselves equipment, we all face the wrath of the electorate who say that we've got our snouts in the trough, or that we're all taking bribes, or that we're all bent. I tell you, if I was taking bribes, I'd drive a better car. So I think this is a workable way forward. Yep.

Thank you, Councillor. Any further debate? Sorry

Yeah .

Yeah, that's right.

Any further debate? Councillor Crude. Right of reply.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Just in one of the changes with the conferences, that's, I think that's the only one we suggested that is an advance payment, so we don't disadvantage anybody before they go to a conference. This is something that I've done a bit of research on to other councils do this, including the Hills. It's based on the mid-rate allowance rounded with the ATO, rounded to the nearest ten dollars, that the ATO considers reasonable allowance for meals and incidentals. From what I've been able to get from the ATO, that it accepts as being, that does not need receipts to claim as a daily allowance. This is why I've put in there as well that if dinner is provided with a conference registration, that allowance is reduced by $75, and if breakfast is included, a further $30 is deducted. So that leaves you with roughly about $70 in case you need to get taxis and all that sort of stuff.

Lots of other councils do this, and this is why I've also put a note in that councils are to rely on their own inquiries in relation to the tax implications when utilising these travel allowances, and that's the frequencies per conference and seminar. I just wanted to bring that up, but I have checked with the ATO and it is a correct way of doing it. Other councils do it, and this is about just bringing us in line and making sure that councillors are provided the correct material, everything is owned by council, and the ratepayers. So thank you very much.

Thank you, Councillor. Those in favour of the motion?

Those against? It's unanimously carried. It's Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Creed, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Ryan, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Ambrogno, Councillor Sheather.

The next item is Western Sydney Grants Infrastructure Program, Turnbull Oval. Do I have a mover?

Councillor McMahon. Thank

You, Mr Mayor. Oh no, no, sorry, I wasn't moving it. I was reading my interest. That's why I did this. Oh

Sorry.

Is that okay? Yep.

It is okay. I still need a mover. Do we have someone to move it? Councillor

Creed.

Councillor Veigel.

Yep.

Councillor McMahon.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'm declaring a less than significant non-pecuniary interest in this item. Turnbull Oval is where the Hawkesbury Hawks have their home ground, and my son currently plays football for the Hawkesbury Hawks, but there is no pecuniary interest in the matter. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Creed

Okay.

Any councillors?

Councillors, the only concern that I've got, I guess, and it's going out on public exhibition, there's a couple of things that I think need addressing before it comes back to us. One is the time frame. There's nearly a two-year program for the works to be done, not only on that ground but a couple of the others that we need addressing, I think, a bit better. We can't afford to close grounds down for two years.

So we need to look how we're going to deal with that. Because contracts are contracts and the like, so we need to get things in place prior to that closing the grounds off. And even though work's not been done on the grounds, where there's work's been done on utilities, the change rooms and toilets and that, if they're not operational, that can't happen. Car parks, and we've got problems at Colby with the work we're doing there. While the work's great, we've got three and four hundred cars parked along Old Hawkesbury Road, and I don't know if anybody else has got it, but those people there, and they've spoke about it to me. So the staging of projects of this particular one is something. The other one that I spoke—there's three things I spoke of that isn't clear either in this document or the information we provided.

One is parallel parking, although the numbers have been increased for parking from 38 to 56, so I'd suggest that the parking as you enter off the terrace is righting or parking now on one side. That's the only place that can happen there. The other was the relocation from the practice wickets where it is over to near the club is not the best position when there's other area available in close proximity to where it is now, for two reasons. The close proximity is in walking distance from the car park and the toilet facilities and that sort of stuff where it's always been. If we put it out the other side, two things. One is that it's on the furthest section of ground away from the Mendee's building and car park that you can get, but it's right alongside the car park of the Panthers Club.

And I don't think that we should be encouraging an activity that we're promoting to be parking on someone else's land when there's functions and things that go on there, they need all the car park available. And the last thing was, and it's way down the list. It's not in our documents, but it's on the executive list I seen, that the fence around the playing field at the moment, it's a pipe fence, and that's all it is, pipe in the ground, pipe around the top, like a railing fence.

Football and some soccer teams, age groups, if they haven't got a fence, they can't play. It is that simple. We're talking about competition sport in North Richmond, and they require certain processes to go through to play their sport and the like. One of them, there has to be a fence between the games and the spectators. There has been incidents out there in the past, and that's why the fence there at the moment, and now it's policy of them, and it could be a, well, I think it is a state policy. So, and if there's an implication in the finances, and because we're $468 short in the budget at the moment with what's in our business paper, I'd be suggesting that the footpath be removed from the northern side of the ground, which is around the back along the factories, if the fence hasn't been allocated funding.

So those prices would reasonably balance out, and it would accommodate the sport, which may not happen otherwise. So it's on public exhibition and our director's not here tonight, so he probably couldn't clarify what, but I will clarify it before it comes back to council. Councillor Veigel

Sorry, can you clarify what you just said, the 468,000? Sorry, because you just said 468, and is it 468

000? The budget to complete the job is $9 million, yeah, and the funds we've got that's allocated at the moment is eight and a half million.

Yeah, okay. It's in the document. Yeah, so yeah, nearly 500,000 out

Okay.

Councillor Veigel. Yeah, thanks, Mr Mayor. Are you saying that the pathway isn't warranted? Did I read you rightly then?

With all our management plans, we've been putting pathways around the perimeter of all the designs we've done.

Yeah.

And this pathway doesn't lead anywhere. I mean, if you want to walk around a pathway, fine. So you're suggesting

A superfluous and you can take that out?

Well, if we're short of funds, and we are, and the fence isn't included within those funds, what I'm suggesting, that if we're on a budgetary basis, it doesn't make that. We've still got a pathway. We're proposing a pathway along Beaumont Street, which goes from, like, to the club and backs and forwards to the sporting area and other facilities, the tennis courts and the like. That's appropriate. But the other side goes along the back of industrial factories and along a dirt road along the eastern boundary and goes into a bog hole before it goes into the club car park. Sorry.

You can

Take

This on notice.

I know there's a contingency in the 9 million, okay? And I know based on that 9 million, the 854, there's still a 500 to 400,000.

Have we got confidence with inflation and other costs going, we can contain that?

Or keep the budget without spending any funds more so than the grants?

Thank you, through you, Mr Mayor. What the staff have been on

Very significant pieces of work on each of these projects to modify the scope of these proposals to back within the funding envelope. And that is a key driver on all of these projects, including Turnbull Oval. So where the staff are saying we're at a round figure of about that 9 million dollars, that we would think that that is deliverable through other further value management exercises. But that always comes with the ultimate caveat that until such time as we've completed our detailed design, and we've been out to tender, and then we have a price for that, and then we have ultimately completed that project, we are never in a position to guarantee that each and every project will be delivered on or under budget.

And just one more, if I may, sorry to labour on it. When we scut—it's okay to take it out and get the feedback, I don't have a problem with that. But when we plan it, there's a possibility to have something a part of that project we can tip out in case we get—you know what, obviously there's a priority: one, two, three, four. There might be something that's not necessarily—like Les has raised the footpaths—but there may be something we can tip out because I guarantee that something's going to happen, it always seems to.

Absolutely. As we have done, particularly at Fernadell, our procurement methodology will include what we will know as separable portions, so that they will be prioritised and that as funding permits, those separable portions will be added back into scope as the funding permits.

Councillor Creed. Sorry, just another question, and I'm happy for the GM to take this on notice because the director's not here. Because I wasn't on council when all this came up and all that sort of stuff, can you just, if we go through what you just said with the scoping proposal guide tender and it turns out that this is not going to be the nine, it's going to be, say, 25, obviously we won't have that money. What happens if we have to pull this , we have to go, well, we can't do it, we don't have the money for it. What happens with the grant allocation? Does that mean that we, because we've already put some of the work into it, are we able to use that grant allocation and then hand the rest back? Or I'm just trying to understand contingency Plan B, if that's all. Sorry, thank you.

Thank you through you, Mr Mayor. To the best of my recollection, the WSIG funding office have provided an assurance of sorts to councils, I believe, that where we have expended funds in the development of these schemes, those funds are not required to be returned back to the funding office. So in a worst case scenario where council does not wish to proceed, at a minimum you have a fully worked up set of drawings that are shovel ready and ready to go pending funding.

Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I speak against this, as I have never supported this project at all. Given the $4 million of ratepayer funding that is required to go into it, I think we sit here and we scrape and argue about a few thousand dollars for things, and yet $4 million of ratepayer money is a lot of money when we don't have that money. And when people in our community are calling out for things to be fixed or things to be delivered, often small achievable things, and we're missing out on those because we don't have funds. So I don't support this. I do understand the process and what goes through, but I never supported putting up-front ratepayer money into any of these projects because it's fairly evident that any of them are built are going to require ratepayer funding afterwards.

And I think that, you know, people got their rates this week. We're already hearing the complaints about the, you know, people's rates having gone up. The land valuations have put another set of people who've had increased rates. So we all know how that plays out when people start, you know, noticing and seeing how that impacts them, and that is why I don't support this. I will say, however, I'm assuming it'll pass and go out to public exhibition. I spent the morning at Riverside Gardens in North Richmond in Beaumont Street this morning, and they had raised with me quite a few issues around the parking at Turnbull Oval already in its current form , and also pointed out a number of dangers in the street for them.

So it's very hard for people to access. You know, the footpaths are deteriorating, they're overgrown. There's a lot of hazards for essentially an older population in that area. So there are 80 residents there, and then across the road in Norfolk Place, I think it is. There's other older people, and there's issues with people getting around. So they're very concerned about what this may mean for them in the absence of adequate crossings and adequate footpaths for them to be accessing things. The trouble when the activities are on at the park is cars parked all over the place. They've got to go out on the road to walk around. And also, of course, there's a lot of large trucks with the hardware there.

And now, apparently, whoever the new owner is of the what was once Hanna Pack, or even Hanna Match a long time ago, they are loading at the back dock now instead of the front. So there's a lot of issues in Beaumont Street, and I think that if, when this goes to public exhibition, it really needs somebody to make sure that the residents are aware of what these changes may mean to them. I've told them it'll probably go on exhibition, and they should make a submission around these problems that they see. That's not, of course, directly about, you know, what's proposed here, but the impacts of increasing the number of people in that way and not having the parking offsite, they're quite significant impacts on people who live there.

So I would Like, you know, obviously I'm not supportive of it. I do think it's an extremely bizarre system that has been imposed upon us. I don't blame our staff for it. I know it's the protocol that has to be followed, but I don't support the use of $4 million of ratepayer funds. Councillor Djuric

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I also want to raise concerns about the project and such a large amount of ratepayers' contribution to the project. We had the strategic weekend and we spoke about a potential large, potential large deficit in coming years. And I walked away—well, the greater council sentiment was to maybe shelve this project and save the ratepayers' funds. I walked away from that weekend thinking that we were going to take a larger razor to some of these projects and try and save some funds. But all we really seem to have done is wind down notices of motions. We seem to be penny pinching whilst being pound poor at the same time. But I'm leaning against supporting this, but I'll wait and see what further debate is. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor.

I just get the staff to clarify. On page 58, there was some of the comments that Councillor Lyons-Buckett spoke of about 50% increase in competitive teams, a 50% increase in female population in 12 months, a 50% increase in the grandstand patronage in 12 months. A lot of those things, that was our submission initially, and a lot of those things— well, not a lot of those—those things I just mentioned, none of them are happening. The changes that have been made in relation to the plan

Certainly revitalise the place, but it doesn't increase, other than children's play area, any activity on the ground at all. Would you like to— is there any difference? There's not.

Thank you through you, Mr Mayor. That table is the outcomes logic map that was provided with the initial grant application and really is a point that is considered by the funding body as part of their benefit cost analysis in providing and making a decision as to whether to provide grant funding or otherwise. As we've said in the report, as we go through any sort of variations process to these particular projects, the funding body will continue to consider and assess the deliverables against that outcome funding logic.

Councillor ...

Item. Thank you.

Look, I won't be supporting this motion either. I've had serious concerns about all of these projects. This one for me is not supportable because of the high cost to ratepayers. You would be forgiven for thinking in this council that we only have money for sport. We can't.

I'd just like to clarify something there, Councillor.

Mr Mayor, I've got the floor.

You might have the floor. I'm just clarifying that— If you're going to mention that this money's been spent on sport, I'd like you to clarify exactly what you're talking— what you're speaking of.

I'm talking about the 3.76 million dollars of ratepayer money that we allocated to this project to get it over the line with the state government in order to secure 4 million dollars from them.

We can't plant trees, apart from the livability project. We can't build footpaths; we've been told that we can't seal any more roads. But we've got almost 4 million dollars for a sporting facility

If this revitalises the site but doesn't increase any activity, why are we allocating this much money towards it? If we were getting some fantastic additional gain for the community, then maybe we could justify it if we had a spare 3.76 million kicking around. But we clearly don't. So

I simply can't support it. I have two questions, though. What consultation will we do? I understand that this is about to go on your Hawkesbury Horsey. Will we be directly contacting neighbouring residents to tell them about the plans and variations to the site? And do we have any plans to fix Beaumont Avenue? That top end of Beaumont Avenue is in really poor—really poor. The road on the top end of Beaumont Avenue is in really poor condition, particularly on the opposite side of the road. There's no curb and guttering. Access to the footpath is limited. It's often got gravel over it because there's no curb and guttering on Beaumont Avenue. There's some almighty potholes in that stretch, and every time it rains they get bigger, and it gets loads of impacts from all the heavy vehicle traffic that Council Alliance Buckets spoke about.

What are our plans to correct that? Because we're going to have to do it before we move more traffic up and down that road.

Thanks, Councillor. The plan we've got excludes the work that was done, was proposed on Beaumont Street .

It's written in the business paper and in the drawings you've got . There was originally going to be angle parking and works done along Beaumont Street, and that, along with some other stuff, has been depleted. So if there's any work to be done on Beaumont Street, it'll come in the works program or through a notice of motion. Any other councillors? Councillor Buckman.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Obviously, I've made my declaration of interest, so I want to put that first and foremost there, that any comments are not about the fact that my son plays footy there, because, as I've said previous times, he could change his mind tomorrow. These projects, I understand the councillors' concerns because it was almost $100 million of state government money leading up to a state election, and yes, we will bear those ongoing costs moving forward. And yes, we have to somehow find money when it comes to a cost escalation, and Richmond Pool is the most concerning one for me, and I think it is for all of us. That one just blows my mind. I can't even comprehend the figures that we're asking, that we're discussing in that one.

However, I think back when this debate was occurring about whether we had a decision before us that we throw in some extra funds or we explained to the community how we gave away $4 million, and that's a really difficult decision that I don't think we'll ever have to make again. And I would struggle to say to the community we gave away $4 million at that time. I would struggle to the users of that facility. And it's not just a sporting ground, and I want to make that point very, very clear. It's a sporting ground, it's a recreational ground, it's both active and passive recreation . It's not just the footy players or the cricket players. It is those residents who live there, the elderly residents, the other residents who go walking around that oval, and I see them constantly.

I'm constantly down there, constantly a panthers, I was just going to say, but that doesn't sound very good either. They have good food and a good cocktail bar. But, you know, we have to make these tough decisions to invest in our area. And while we have to find those extra funds to put into these projects, we wouldn't even be having this debate if we didn't have that almost $100 million funding in the first place. So I know it comes with consequences. I know it comes with us having to decide how we do things. I struggle with the fact it's going to cost us extra money, but holistically, we are getting an upgrade not just to Turnbull, but to Fernadell, to Woodbury , to so many different facilities across the LGA that we would never have had the funds to do on our own.

We just never, ever would have had it. And the planning process frustrates the hell out of me. The amount of money we spend before we've even put a shovel in the ground blows my mind. But such is the red tape that comes with local government. I mean, we shouldn't just excuse that. We should find ways to change it because we know the private sector could deliver these projects at probably half or a third of the cost, and that's really annoying to find that out. But we're going through this process. The train has well and truly left the station. We can't turn the train around to go back. So I think we just have to get on with it and make the best of it. And I think by now, with Turnbull, the user groups, it's gone so far with the user groups that I think to then say to them now that you're not getting anything would be a bit of a kick in the teeth.

And I do want to express my disappointment that the design has changed so significantly from what it was meant to be, in terms of a mini grandstand sort of concept. But if anyone has used the toilets, let me say at Turnbull, you'll understand why we need some new facilities there. And again, it's not just the other sports; it's also the training facilities for netballers. It's new play equipment for the children. The car parking is 100% an issue, as the Mayor has touched on. There needs to be more car parking. And I think moving forward, when we do these kinds of projects, I think parking needs to be pretty much at the top of the list for anything that we do, because without car parking, you're not going to have users.

So they're just the points that I wish to make on the record. But I look forward to the community feedback. I hope that we get a lot of feedback from this, from those user groups, and then we can make an informed decision. Thank you.

Councillor. Councillor Zamprogno. Thank you, Mr Mayor. A question for staff first, if I may, and I do apologise if this is in the documentation, but I'm looking but can't find it. What are the funds that we've expended to date on this project?

While the General Manager is digging, I can make some remarks prior to acquiring that figure. I am terribly conflicted about this. I am so close to pulling the plug on the whole thing and saying we can't afford this. I know that on a number of occasions, including as far back as our Community Strategic... Weekend at the beginning of this term, we were looking at the scope of these projects and saying, I don't know that we can afford to do all of those. I'd like to sacrifice one of them and then reallocate the funds. It turns out now that advice from staff tells us that the funding provider is not amenable to that idea. So we would be salvaging back the quantum that we've pledged towards it, but we would be losing what the state has pledged, and that would be a great shame.

Nevertheless, I'm looking at Council's broader financial position and the fact that over the next 12 to 18 months, several things are going to happen. The remaining funds that we have in our budget and in our works program for build back and flood recovery and bushfire recovery and all the rest of it will evaporate, and then Council's true financial position will be revealed. At around the same time, the agitation will begin for us to go to the people and then to IPART to ask for another special rate variation, and we will have to account for the fact that we have spent a lot of money on boondoggles. Does the General Manager have that number yet?

Through you, Mr Mayor, as at the 31st of May, the actuals plus commitments were $490,000.

All right then. So there's that as well. I've never been more acutely aware of this term in economics, the sunk cost fallacy, throwing good money after bad. I regret that, you know, we've spent that money before there's a shovel in the ground. I take Councillor McMahon's points on board. I mean, I've been to the old folks' home that's near Panthers. They talked to me about the state of their footpaths, and I think there would be a general lift to the area and some additional opportunities for passive recreation for them and many others, which is why I feel so conflicted. It's a wonderful— It's a wonderful resource asset that the council might have, but I am trying to justify this in the broader context of our financial position now and the financial position we're likely to face before the expiry of this term.

And I'm having great difficulty in justifying it, and I could go either way. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Any further debate?

Councillor Creed, would reply.

Just briefly, Mr Mayor, I take on board all the councillors' points. Just to clarify what the General Manager said, that money that we have currently spent to date, that is council money so far. That's not the grant money, is it? Or is it a bit.. .? Look, I don't need an answer now. I'm happy to take it on notice if that's okay. But, you know, we're in a Catch-22 situation here, and we are charged with looking after council facilities, whether it's ovals, parks, footpaths, roads. We need to find the money to get these things fixed and reinvigorated and all this sort of stuff. My concern is, is that if we don't utilise the funds that the state government has allocated to us, would we have ever had the funds to then turn around and actually look at maintaining or reinvigorating , revitalising, whatever you want to call it, these facilities?

I just... The other thing is, I think if we put it off and put it off and put it off, we have seen what happens when you end up with inflation and all sorts of cost rises, and then we get 10 years down the track and go, crap, we should have done this 10 years ago, but we thought it was too expensive then, but now it's potentially even double the cost 10 years later and it's even in worse condition. I mean, we've seen that with other particular items that I'm sure we're going to discuss later on down the track this evening. And this is why I ask the question, that what is the out here? If we decide that it comes back and it's going to be way too expensive and we just cannot justify the cost to ratepayers, do we have the option of pulling out without actually having a cost towards ratepayers?

And that's why I was happy with the answer that I got from the general manager. But I think we need to at least, we've come this far, put it out for public consultation and get the community comment, whether it's the residents, the users, even if they just go and walk their dog around the place. I think we need to at least speak with the community, find out what their position is, and then I think once we do that, we can get a better idea of the funds it's going to cost, where we're actually situated. Because , as I said, I wasn't on council when you guys all put this through, and so I'm, and Councillor Ryan's the same, we have to come in this towards the end of it, or essentially the end of the process when you've already started, and sit here and try and get a hand around all of this information and then sit there and go, okay, and I understand some councillors right from the beginning were against it, some were for it, but for the two of us, we have to sit here and go..

. Right. What is the best option? We're halfway through it now.

Yeah,

I just... and that's why I'm happy to put it out for public consultation, and then I'll have to continue making up my mind later on. But at the end of the day, we have to weigh up that whether we do it now with the funds, some of the funds from the state government, or potentially leave it. Ten years down the track, we go, oh my God, and leave it for future generations when it's going to cost even more, with no support from the state government or the federal government. I just, yeah, I'm just trying to get my head around all of that sort of stuff. So that's why I said I'm happy to move this tonight to put it through, but I'll be taking further closer looks at these projects into the future.

Thank you, Councillor.

The motion is on page 55, councillors.

Those in favour?

Those in favour, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Creed, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Reardon, Councillor Sheather

Those against? Councillor Kotlash, sorry. Those against? Councillor Brogden, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Ryan, Councillor Djuric, and Councillor Dogramaci. Six. The motion is lost.

Yeah. Yeah, the motion's lost

I just ask what happens now then? There'll be a report. There'll be a report to council.

Sorry?

Perhaps, Mr Mayor, if you could just clarify how you're intending to exercise your casting vote. Are you using your casting vote

To vote no?

Yeah, I'm not going to use a casting vote to vote yes. In not voting, I'm in the negative and the motion is lost.

Sorry, can you just give me a bit of point of clarification here? Now that that's lost with this project, does this mean that we don't go ahead with it? Is that my understanding from that?

I'm not sure

Where we stand with it, what happens now.

So does that mean that project's done and dusted and Council have voted it down and it's finished?

That's a good question. So there's a couple of different options. We may well— staff may well come back to you. It would be appreciated from a staff perspective if you have voted down the concept plan because there are aspects of the concept plan that you are concerned with. That is different from we have a fundamental concern with the project and we don't wish to proceed at all with any renewal at Turnbull Oval. That's quite a separate thing. So it would be appreciated if the Chamber could give us some feedback on that, but that doesn't necessarily have to be tonight. That could be through some other means.

Can we put it on the agenda for the fortnight? A week.

No, Mr Mayor, that agenda has been finalised and would go into print first thing tomorrow morning.

As a mayoral minute, again.

Yeah, can come back as a mayoral minute.

Mr Mayor, if I could provide some guidance. I mean,

For those who have the view that this kills the project dead, I'd like to suggest that a strong signal from this chamber that's now been given might re-energise the question that we take up with the funding authority about the reallocation of the state funds that had been given to this project.

We need a motion. We need a motion.

If that's a question, the general manager is

Indicating— Okay, if that was in the form of a question, Councillor, the general manager has indicated that the money can't be moved. So the repercussions will come back. The staff— I'll put up a mayoral minute. The staff will come back with something that will address this situation, and we will certainly have some discussions between now and then in how we move forward with this, or not.

Could I ask one question about funding? That money we've allocated, the 3.76, is that already allocated or was allocated over multiple years ahead?

Over years.

What I'd like to do is bring council back those figures. I wanted to understand how much of that 490,000 that has been expended has been ours. It may well have needed to be an apportionment, so almost a 50-50 split. So some of that money may well have been ours. And then what would have happened is our money was probably phased out over the life of that project over several financial years, I'm imagining, so that our council's funding was being spent concurrently with the New South Wales Government funding.

I need to clarify the voting pattern for that. Those in favour were Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Creed, Councillor McMahon and Councillor Sheather. Those against was Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Ryan, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler and Councillor Zembrzno. In declining— sorry, Councillor Kotlash was in support of the motion. It come down to a casting vote. I choose not to vote. Me not voting on the matter is a negative and gave the majority against the motion.

It's right. We're up to 12.1.2.

Councillor Zamprogno.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'd like to bring the wording that's in the business paper with a small amendment that I have foreshadowed to staff, but I'll now read out explicitly. So it will be, as in the business paper, that all scoping proposals upon receipt by Council be made public on Council's website within seven days, along with any Council or agency reports that follow, comma,

When they reach the threshold of proposals generating requests for agency comment. So my aim in adding these words, and this was after discussion with the Mayor, was to impose a threshold condition for their publication so that we can distinguish between informal , over a coffee type conversations and things that are of a more substantive character. That now being my wording, I'll seek a seconder.

Is there a seconder?

A seconder.

We're just waiting to see it. Sorry?

We're just waiting to see it.

Okay.

Threshold of the proposal generating requests for agency comment.

I'll second it for the purpose of debate, Mr Mayor.

Thank you, Councillor Wheeler. Thank you, Councillor, and thank you, Mr Mayor. The problem is easily stated. It's a bedrock principle of the accountability of our government that when we receive a DA or a planning proposal, as that it is, made public, and we have mechanisms that facilitate that. DAs go on the DA tracker, planning proposals go on the planning portal, and so forth. This new creature that was created some time ago by the Department of Planning was designed with a noble intent, and I'll read from the relevant guidance document: to resolve planning issues upfront, to enable a more streamlined LEP making process, or to provide early feedback to proponents and councils, in particular about the strategic and site-specific merits of a proposal.

I'm in favour of all of that. What I'm becoming concerned about is the fact that there's a layer of secrecy in this process that I think is open to abuse and perhaps may already be being abused. We are way beyond the kind of have a casual coffee with our planning staff to evaluate what the site strategic merit of a proposal is. Again, don't object to that, but in looking over the scoping proposals that have reached our inboxes of late, and I'm referring to about six scoping proposals over the last four months alone, these are very elaborate documents . I mean, I'll pick just one out, and of course I can't mention the content or purpose of these scoping proposals precisely because that information was given to us on a confidential basis and I had to ask specifically for it.

But one of these scoping proposals ran to 65 pages. And like many of these, generate requests for input or comment from a variety of agencies. That information is requested, it comes back, it gets collated into a report, and it's all secret. And of those six scoping proposals that Council has received in only the last four months, all of them are profoundly of public interest, without divulging the details. You know, one relates to the carve-up of an extremely historic site into over a hundred house lots. One relates to the subdivision of 899 lots. One of them extends what is currently open and free land at Vineyard to further extend Vineyard Stage 1.

Point of order, Mr Mayor.

Beyond scopes that were otherwise proposed.

If these are confidential items, is the Councillor allowed to be saying the detail, even though he's skimming over proponents and locations?

I'm being very specifically generic, Councillor. Well , he

Just mentioned— I think it's gone beyond confidential.

Thank you, Councillor. Well, I'd take the advice for the staff in that regard.

I'm choosing my words.

My personal view is I'm satisfied that the line that Councillor Zamprogno is sort of treading is a fine one, but I don't see any real issue with it at this point in time.

Thank you, General Manager. I appreciate that. Thank you, Councillor. The Deputy Mayor is entitled to her opinion. Another one relates to a subdivision of 3,000 lots, and another one is of similar scope in another suburb. Clearly, the public would want to know about these. And I fear that developers are cottoning on to the fact that they can use staff resources. I'm now aware that these applicants pay $5,000 to Council, which clearly implies that Council resources are being consumed to advance these proposals to a more advanced degree before they then have to formally lodge an application in the traditional way, which is subject to public disclosure. It bears remembering that these scoping proposals are amenable to GIPA applications.

But what I would say is, how could a concerned member of the public , a neighbour to one of these proposals, or a member of the press ask for that GIPA if they didn't know about it in advance? It's the classic chicken and egg type situation. And I want to frame this against the broader background of the fact that the State Government have just closed public comment on a proposal to literally halve the time that members of the public have to comment on a variety of developments, SEPP developments, state strategic type developments. They're proposing to cut the time that the public can comment from 28 days down to only 14 days. So I think it would be appropriate for us to place some governance around scoping proposals.

The guidance document says that they're not a legislative requirement, which means that we are open to place some governance around this. Thank you.

Councillor

Buckman.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Just some questions before I say anything in terms of my remarks. The last comments by Councillors and Progno about placing some governance on it,

Is that something

We can do as an individual council, or is this governed by the state government?

Through you, Mr Mayor. So the entirety of the LEP plan-making process in New South Wales is heavily structured and governed by both legislation and practice notes and guidance from the Department of Planning, in its various names and iterations. What the motion you have before you, in my view, isn't necessarily actually about governance. It's actually about community engagement and, for want of a better word, transparency around the nature of the workload that our strategic planning team have before them. So that would probably be how I would characterise it. I

Was just using his own words, but my point is, do we have the ability to say what scoping proposals Hawkesbury receives, we're putting public, or does the state government have that decision across the state

We would have that ability should we wish to do so. I think that would be within our remit. Okay,

Thank you. That was my first question. The second one: what is an average time frame between us as the elected body being informed of a scoping proposal and the DA lodgement, if that's the trigger that it becomes public information? Average .

Through you, Mr Mayor. I don't think we've got one. I'm not even sure we've actually seen a scoping proposal through to its conclusion as yet, because it's a relatively new process. So, to the best of my knowledge, unlike the planning proposal process, where there are certain time frames and things that Council must meet on a proponent-led planning proposal, that sort of regulation, I don't think exists under a scoping proposal. Because

It's all relatively new and I don't feel like I've got enough information. Hence why I don't really ever ask questions in this chamber, but I feel like I do not have enough information to be able to make a decision tonight. I don't understand why this is a new thing to do this scoping proposal. The elected body can know about it, the staff can know about it, but the community can't. I'm wondering if that's because there may be people who put in these larger scale developments that maybe then don't go ahead with the DA and don't want to have the outrage or community. I don't know because I don't know enough about this. It's all brand new. I'm concerned that, I mean, I'm always about accountability and transparency 100% .

That's why I want more information about what a scoping proposal is compared to the DA submission. Why this state government has deemed this to be a necessary new step in something, because I'm concerned that

Without that extra knowledge, is this just about being able to go on your Facebook page and say, hey, guess what community, you get 8,000 homes and I want you all to come onto my Facebook page and I want you all to come and show me how outraged you are and I'm going to run this as an elected councillor, this community outrage, because if it's about a Facebook post, that's the wrong angle that we're taking here. And so without that information, I'm not supporting this tonight. Thank you

Councillors, Councillor Zambotka, we discussed this during the week and the like, and my concern was where does it cut in and, you know, do we put it out there the next day or whatever. But I've approached some planners, our planners here and consultants and the like from up and down the coast over the last few days. The thing that concerned me, and why I chased it up, is that there's a thing called business confidence and the like. When you're looking at borrowing money, having negotiation, and we've had a good example of a poor outcome if we go to Pitt Town with the Johnson Group and the activities out there and the sale of property that we've got a problem with out there now. These things need to be sorted out.

The staff have discussions in relation to confidence with these proposals. So I don't believe, and the comments that I've, and I've asked the staff and the people I spoke to, that not one of them had indicated that it was to keep anything from the public or the like. It was more to test the water of proposals that could have an opportunity in relation to a business deal and the like. And it is fairly new happening, but when it's appropriate that it goes public and there's submission, you know, the application that put in. The other problem that I had, and it's called state significance, and the sort of thing, the vineyard situation, and most of the scoping proposals that Council of Zamprogno spoke of was across the river.

If that's an example of state significance and rushing into a proposal without the contribution of us and the Council, and when I say the Council, the staff, in... Pursuing the direction of this body , and they go straight to state significance, and that's the outcome , we're going to get lynched for allowing that to happen. And if we make things difficult for those people who want to have the discussions, test the water, for the want of a word , in relation to proposals that they might have, the staff can indicate to them, and the information they get from state agencies is that this is not going to happen, or if you want to test the water, test it, and that's when the public get to hear about it.

So I understand what Councillor Zamprogno is proposing, but I think the outcome at the end of the day, if we put things in place , and the proposals that we know about now, I've spoken with our staff with them, and all of them have said that they prefer to go through council in that regard, which, you know, is something that we can't afford them not to do. Because when we don't have a say in it, we will get the Windsor Road, Blacktown Roads and boundary roads . Our staff is bound by the decisions of the government, where if it comes through this body, they're governed on decisions that This councillor has made prior to their applications and the like. So, councillors, like I said, with what Councillor Zamprogno's put up, I understand what he's on about, and about transparency.

I don't think anybody in this room wants to get away from that. But I think the outcome at the end of the day is that the consequences could backfire on us that I'm not prepared to take. Councillor

Mr Mayor, I have an amendment that I just sent in just previously to Patricia. I think she, hopefully she got it. I can read it out. It's changed. It would read that Council, one, publish planning proposals at the time they are lodged with Council. This could involve either linking them through the DA tracker or providing an alternative method to alert the public to the lodgement of planning proposals; and two, publish details of scoping proposals which have been submitted to the Housing Development Authority through their expression of interest process, seeking declaration of state significant development and the results of that assessment. And that has come up. And Mr Mayor, I'll speak to that why I think I do see what I think Councillor Zamprogno was trying to do, but I think in this way I've got concerns with publishing the scoping proposals when they come in for the things that have been mentioned, as they are a preliminary part of the planning process.

And of course we're talking about things here that are changing, proposed changes to our LEP. They're not a DA, they're a planning proposal. So of course, if we had a functioning—our LEP was up to date, we would maybe have more confidence in our strategic direction. But I think what is really lacking is the publishing of planning proposals at the time they're lodged. We don't hear about a planning proposal until it's ready to go to Gateway. So that isn't public knowledge. In terms of transparency, it's paramount. Councillors need to know what's in the pipeline. I think we should know. I don't think there's any real benefit in publishing these early meetings because we have no avenue for input.

There's no avenue for people to input when somebody puts in a scoping proposal. It's not open for consultation. It's just something that is being dealt with and seeking agency input for its strategic, you know, to see if it's got strategic merit. And then often I assume what happens is it would come back in the form of a planning proposal. And it's that point that I think we're not seeing, and it's that point that I think we should be made aware of what changes to our LEP are being proposed in a planning proposal and what is being submitted and lodged at that particular time. There is the potential, as Councillor McMahon just mentioned before, that if every scoping proposal was public, there could whip up a frenzy in some areas and people could make decisions based on that.

And as we know, that there is an avenue for people to go directly to the state government at the moment, to the Housing Development Authority, and to lodge, to seek a declaration. And if they do that, we're out of the picture anyway. But we know that some of those have been rejected. So that would mean perhaps those people may come back with a planning proposal that's quite different, based on feedback, and we wouldn't have gained anything by having put that out publicly in the first instance if it comes back as something else. I think we know there's proposals coming in all over the place. A representative from Transport for New South Wales told me they'd never seen as many proposals coming in in this area.

So we know that there's interest in the area, and we know that people have that avenue to go straight to the state government, and people are already doing that too. That's another matter of how we overcome that. But I think what we really need is transparency around actual planning proposals, so they're not publicly available on our website until they go out to exhibition, where they're not on the DA tracker or they're not things that we know about until they're given to us maybe in a briefing a week or so before we have to make that determination. It's really important that we do know about that before we make a decision whether they go to gateway or not. The public deserve to know of any changes that are being made to our LEP, that any planning proposals seeking to change, and we really do need to know.

The fact that we can't input to the scoping proposal just really makes me think, I don't know the benefit in why we would do that. But, you know, I think often we hear in here that— That people's property rights should trump everything else, and I think that, you know, I do think people have a right to put something forward to test the water. But, you know, as everybody knows, I'm the most documented person around inappropriate development here. But I still think that we're not going to gain anything by doing that. I think spot rezoning and failure to implement structure planning in this area has not served us well. We live with the impacts of that having occurred. And in 2014, in fact, I brought a notice of motion about having planning panels planning proposals published, but unfortunately that was lost.

In 2017, we were receiving notifications as soon as a planning proposal went in, but we no longer receive those as soon as they go in. We only get them when they're ready to be determined. So I think this amendment guarantees transparency at the right stage, leaving proponents to make their preliminary investigations. And, of course, once we have our updated planning documents, we can have more confidence that decisions around aligning with our strategic direction can be complied with. Thank

You, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Councillor. Before we go any further, we've got 11 o'clock. We've only got a couple of items to go. I'll

Move that we extend, Mr. Mayor.

Do you have a time extension to deal with the matters before us? To deal with the matters before us. We're close to the end. Thank you. Councillor. I second it.

And then I have a question.

Those in favour?

Against. It's carried

Sorry, Councillor, if you'll indulge me, I might be able to assist the Chamber by being persuaded that this should just become the motion. But I've just got a question for Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Before we go any further, we need a seconder for the proposed amendment.

That's all right, we just need a seconder for now. We can deal with that.

All right then, the sole question that I would need answered to just make this the motion would be to ask Councillor Lyons-Buckett, this is commendable because it broadens the scope in one sense but narrows it in another. What of scoping proposals that have been received by Council but not submitted to the Housing Development Authority? I was trying to capture those. You've excluded those on

Purpose? It needs to be a question, Councillor.

I'm much more concerned with what comes in as a planning proposal. The ones that go, we need to know about these.

We need to know whether it's a motion or an amendment. Are you withdrawing, Councillor?

I'm just in the process of clarifying that. My sole concern is getting something workable through the chamber. I'm reading the room. I'm happy to accept that as the motion.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Wheeler as a seconder. Thank you.

And Councillor Lyons-Buckett, you now have a motion before you. No, I just...

Thank you. I've just spoken. Would you like me

To repeat? No, you have spoken for it. You did right.

Yeah.

Councillor Creed. Thank you, Mr Mayor. Can I just clarify, maybe through the staff, point one, the published planning proposals at the time they lodged with Council.

So I'm just trying to get in my head. So when you publish, when the planning proposal is lodged with Council, has it already been assessed by staff or even looked at staff? Because I'm just concerned that if we publish when they lodge, it's not like there's no— I just, I know, sorry, I'm just— it's 11 o'clock at night. I'm struggling to get my head around words. I'm just a bit concerned with just lodging. It's almost the same, and I get what Councillor Lyons-Buckett is trying to do, but is this not the same thing as— sorry, I'm just trying

To get— because that's the aim of the scoping proposal, is to speak to the agencies first. So when a planning proposal comes in, presumably— and I'm just, I am not a planner, I'm just going out here with this— but I'm assuming that that has had any amendments that would make it more aligned with the strategic documents, and therefore somebody would be submitting it at that point.

Sorry,

Is that correct? The point being that we need to know.

Yeah, no, I get

What you're trying to do. I'm just trying not to—

Yeah ,

I just don't want to put the cart before the horse. We're not going to beat across the— I asked the staff if they've got issues with the wording of it and if there is how we might pursue it.

So firstly, if I can answer Councillor Creed's question. Look, ideally a proponent has been through a scoping proposal before they lodge a planning proposal. That is not necessarily always the case, but ideally that would have occurred at that particular point in time. So upon lodgement of a planning proposal, give or take a week for us to do all the paperwork, we would upload something of that nature to our website, and it's then at that point that would become obviously public information at that particular point in time. So I think that— That deals with point one of the motion. I would note with point two, so I'm not sure if the intent is to publish them on Council's website. They are published by the Housing Development Authority at the completion of that process.

They are treated confidentially up until the point where the HDA has made their decision about whether to take that project on or not. I guess there could be some sort of a cross-reference link back off our website or something similar. Sorry

I meant to say that I did have it written here that it could perhaps be just a link. I don't expect all the, because I know the documents wouldn't be available.

It's effectively not our record to share.

Okay, so sorry, just to clarify point one, you essentially do that, the week, that's all it's saying, is just within the week or so of lodging the planning proposal, Council put it up on their website, because you haven't put a timeline or anything, because I think Nathan had a seven-day thing, but I just wanted to clarify that's what you meant, and that's what you meant. Sorry, I'm a bit tired.

Thank you. Through you, Mr Mayor, ideally we would allow our strategic planning staff a period, if somebody has not been through a scoping proposal, to actually get all the information up and have considered that and said, accepted it, and we've got all the information we require. That's not going to be possible if we publish it, if we publish it straight away. But it's open. It's a matter for the chamber as to how you want to weigh that up.

You're

Light, Councillor. Sorry, I'm just worried that if we do— That , without what the general manager just said about if they haven't done a scoping proposal and we publish it pretty much straight away, without the strategic engineer coming back and saying, No, you need this bit, bit. I just don't want to muck it up, and I want to make sure that we're clear on what we're actually asking people

To do outside of

The council and the staff, that's all

It's really a request to know what proposed changes to our LEP are being submitted before, you know, to enable people to be aware of what's going on. I would imagine if it were, it would be similar to a DA that has outstanding information that doesn't have all the details on the tracking website. I think that's correct until everything's complete, so I imagine it would work in the same fashion. But presumably if they want this process to be working where people go through the steps, they're encouraging people to speak beforehand and to find things out.

Thank you, Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor.

Patience.

I thought I could just have a chat across the chamber like everybody else, but never mind. No,

We're not going to do that.

Well, we have. Can I just ask for those playing at home who have absolutely no idea what we're talking about, because we have just drifted deeply into jargon, could we just have someone define what a scoping proposal is? This is quite a new thing, and what the HDA, or the Housing Development Authority, is so that people understand what we're talking about.

The process, yep. General Manager.

If I can really simplify this down, I would call a scoping proposal a pre-DA for planning proposals. Okay, so it's the opportunity for a proponent to come to Council, flesh out any key issues, and for preliminary feedback to be provided on a planning proposal. That is what I would... Going that loosely. What was the second question ? So the Housing Development Authority are a relatively new entity, and I don't have their formation date on hand, but I would suggest they've probably been in existence for somewhere between three and six months. They are an authority effectively made up of three very senior bureaucrats of the New South Wales Government who effectively accept proposals into the State Significant Development regime , and effectively taking them out of the normal DA or planning proposal path, moves them into that scheme, where they might not have ordinarily have been, that path may not have ordinarily have been available to them.

So obviously the overarching objective of the HDAA is to accelerate housing delivery in New South Wales, and they have been regularly reporting on, and I don't have the figures, of the numbers of dwelling approvals that they have done in their short couple of months in existence.

Thanks, General Manager. I think that's important because the ground has shifted again, and what I think those of us who've been in this chamber for more than a couple of terms now have seen this gradual eroding, really, of the community's capacity to have a say in what their communities look like. It began with the loss of planning powers to councils, and this is a further acceleration. And it is supposed to be about delivering more and more affordable housing to communities. What we're actually seeing is that it's delivering yet again windfall gains to developers at the expense of community and community consultation. And so we've got this clear problem with the New South Wales planning system where developers are placed above communities and councils are blamed for a lack of housing supply, which is actually repeatedly shown to be incorrect.

A whole lot of these big-picture plans that successive state governments have come up with are predicated on the notion that councils are too slow to pass DAs. And where we may be slower than many applicants want us to be on particular and more complex DAs, it has been repeatedly shown that actually supply is not being held up by land release by local councils, that it is in fact being held up by investment in actually building. It's not about approval, it's about delivery. Scoping proposals are supposed to provide a due diligence step for planning proposal applicants, but what they've done is leave councils to provide and resource high-level support for applications through scoping agency input and, in principle, support.

And the problem—we're not talking about people wanting to subdivide off their backyard. We're talking about really big proposals that are quite expensive and require consultation with agencies, and scoping proposals are pushing that responsibility back onto local councils and away from the people who will profit from these developments. They are, by their very nature, untransparent and undemocratic, and they are a form of cost shifting. And they come from a legislative and policy mindset that says any development is probably good development if we tweak it early and often. And what we've seen here is that that is not the case for the communities, particularly on the peri-urban fringe, where we have absorbed more than our fair share of development without the infrastructure that goes with it.

We desperately need greater transparency around this, and we shouldn't be paying for this analysis of these proposals. I'm happier with the amendment than with what has become this motion. I did have some concerns around the legality and the confidentiality and whether Council was going to get ourselves into hot water. I reject the idea that we'll spook developers who will go straight to the Housing Development Authority. They're going there anyway because they see it's an easy fast track. Why would they come to us and jump through all of our hoops when they can simply go to the Housing Development Authority and get a pass or fail to start with? They've still got the option of coming back to the slow lane and go, or what they perceive to be the slow lane, and coming through Council anyway if the HDA bumps them off.

I don't love the DA tracker, as in point one. The DA tracker is really cumbersome. It doesn't run on all search engines. It doesn't run on any of the common search engines that I use. I have to deliberately go to a search engine that allows me to search on it, Chrome.

But it also requires vigilance. It requires members of the public to continually look to see if there's something new. And that's bad enough when it's in your neighbourhood, but it's particularly problematic if you come from a group like the Hawkesbury Environment Network who want to keep track of what's happening to biodiversity in the region, or to other organisations who are trying to work out what sort of facilities that they provide over the next five or ten years for larger developments. I would much rather see us producing this list on an easily accessible page on our website, for example, or , as I suggested with changes to the code of meeting practice, in the council business paper so that they're clearly there for everybody to see.

I think forcing people to go searching through the DA tracker in the hope that you might get a hit, I don't think provides the transparency that we request. So I'd ask the mover to remove that section, if he's willing.

Well, this entire text is now—

It's Councillor Lyons-Buckett's motion. But

You took it as your motion, so it's yours, and I'm the seconder. Oh

All right then. So you're asking for

What do you want removed? The DA tracker could involve— should involve

A method to alert the public to the lodgement of planning proposals. We just take that section, that middle bit that mentions the DA tracker.

Councillor, so I don't know where we're going with this, but Councillor Zembok withdrew his motion. No, I

Accepted this form of wording as the motion.

Okay.

Button. If I perceive Councillor Wheeler's intent, she wants the language changed so that instead of using the clunky DA tracker, is that we're providing a more publicly accessible method of making this information public. Is that correct? Yes.

Can I ask a question about that? Because on the DA tracker, there's a number of various functions, not only the one where you search. There's a number of other things on that portal. If it is possible, could it have its own bit? Like there's certain things like DAs lodged last week, whatever. Could there be a planning panel section?

Yeah, through you, I don't think that the functionality is there for that. What we would do is , if we don't have it already, we would certainly build a planning proposal its own application type so that you can search by that. But I suspect the tracker in itself, some of those criteria are somewhat fixed, so I don't know that you'd be able to do it that way

It is what it is. Thank you. Councillor McMahon.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I know I've spoken, but I would like to just say a couple of extra things because what's on the board now is like literally a 180 of what the original motion was. It's completely different. We're now voting on something that is completely different, and the public even haven't had notice of. I support you, don't worry, Mary. But the point is comments need to be made now because this is not what was on the notice in the business paper. It needs a whole new debate. It should have been an amendment. Anyway, that ship sailed.

I disagree. So do I. Thank you.

Planning proposals and when they're... that was not even in the notice of motion.

It's completely different.

If I may, Mr Mayor, the intent was to bring on a debate about maximising the transparency of things that are otherwise obscure relating to our planning processes.

The intent was to use scoping proposals as a prequel weapon so that you could

Bring fear into our planning... Deputy Mayor, you can't speak to my intent. Thank you.

That's my opinion. No.

Okay. Councillors. Further discussion?

Before we have right of reply, I'll just make a comment that our staff are aware of the issues involving what Council has proposed and here. You may have—there's an email, I think, today in relation to letters that our staff had sent to the Minister in this regard, in the way that the State's proposing to change legislation to minimise, I guess, access to the like. So the staff certainly, on top of it, they're talking to the bureaucracy of government. They're aware of Council's position in relation to these matters. In relation to access and the like, I know that Councillors have mentioned it's difficult. I find it impossible, and so I drive them mad with questions. But, Councillors, if you're not happy with this, this is not something that needs to happen overnight.

If you want further information and the like, don't support this. If you think this is going far enough, that the work that's been done by the Councillors, support it. It doesn't have to go away if it's lost tonight. So, right of reply, Councillor Zamprogno.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Firstly, I'm not proposing to end scoping proposals. They're a legitimate mechanism that does provide some efficiencies or expediencies in the planning process. Despite what the General Manager says about this being very heavily legislated or regulated, the guidance from the Planning Department says pre-lodgement is not a legislative requirement, which is what prompted me to say, well, maybe we can speak into this space and provide some accountability. The contention that if we do not provide a conducive and cosy and private way of allowing developers to advance their proposals is that we are effectively incentivising them, we're driving them from our arms and into the arms of the Housing Development Authority, I think doesn't sustain scrutiny.

My own view is that a developer that goes to the Housing Development Authority is acting in bad faith. It's a legitimate or legal mechanism, but it clearly indicates that the developer wants an outcome and cares less for what the community's needs are or what the community wants. My point is that a scoping proposal is a currently private process that we can fix. If we drive them into the arms of the Housing Development Authority, it's still private, it's still secret in a way that acts against community interest, but that's something that we can't fix because it's up there at the state level. I was happy to accept Councillor Lyons-Buckett's proposed changes to this motion because if my motion wasn't going to get up, I was interested in ensuring that there was something that moves the needle on public accountability.

There are developments swirling that we hear of or rumours of that the public are entitled to know about, including the ones that I hinted at darkly earlier. They, at the moment, will remain secret. And it will be some time hence that they will see the light of the day because they will be turned into a formal application, and the public can get their dander up then and only then, whereas they could have known now if I'd prevailed in this chamber. So I commend this form of the motion to the chamber.

Thank you, Councillor. Those in favour? The motion's on your tablet.

Councillor Brogden, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Lines-Buckett, Councillor Ryan, Councillor Djuric. Those opposed?

Councillor Creed, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Regan, and myself, and Councillor Kotlash. Yes, he voted

In favour

Yeah

It's a casting vote, and I will support the way I voted against it. The vote taken was Councillor Dogramaci for the motion, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Ryan, Councillor Lines-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno. Those against was Councillor Sheather, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Creed, Councillor Veigel, and Councillor Redden. The motion's lost.

The next item is 14.1.1. It's questions without notice.

And the last item, the last items is...

The next item is 14.1.1. It's questions without notice.

And the last item, the last items is

Expressions of interest in the mall and outcome of investigation into Rising Main C. We need to go— Sorry, is there— we don't need a motion for that. Is there questions in relation to the questions?

What might that be?

Nothing. Thank you, councillors. Okay, we need a motion to

Sorry, Councillor Creed.

Councillor McMahon.

To move into confidential, and Councillor Creed.

All those in favour?

Against? Carried.

Councillor Brogdon, did— did we, you vote? Thank you. That was unanimous. Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Creed, Councillor Colt, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Ryan, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Brogdon, and Councillor Sheather.

Was the General Manager read out the recommendation in closed meeting.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. In regards to item 15.3.1, Expressions of Interest, Windsor Mall Market, whilst in closed session the Council resolved on the motion of Councillor Veigel, seconded by Councillor Djuric — I think that's right — that: one, the Expression of Interest submitted by AMA Event Management to operate the Sunday markets in Windsor Mall for a five-year period be endorsed. Two, Council enter into an agreement with AMA Event Management to operate the Sunday markets in Windsor Mall under section 139 of the Roads Act 1993 for a period of five years as outlined in the report. Three, authority be given for the agreement and any documentation relating to this matter to be executed under the seal of Council.

Four, details of Council's resolution be conveyed to AMA Event Management, together with the advice that Council is not and will not be bound by the terms of this resolution until such time as the appropriate legal documentation to put such resolution into effect has been agreed to and executed by all parties. Five, the companies of the unsuccessful submissions be advised of the outcome of this Expression of Interest and thanked for their submissions. For the motion were Councillors Zamprogno, Wheeler, Lyons-Buckett, Ryan, Djuric, McMahon, Kotlash, Creed, Veigel, Reardon, and Dogramaci and Sheather. That was carried unanimously. In respect of item 15.4.1, outcome of investigation to Rising Main C, whilst in closed session the Council resolved on the motion of Councillor Reardon, seconded by Councillor Kotlash.

That Council: 1. receive and note the report on the outcome of the investigation into Rising Main C. 2. note the findings of the independent investigation into the failure and repair of Rising Main C as undertaken by Centium Pty Ltd, including : a. that the primary cause of the failure of the rising main was structural overstressing due to flood-induced loads. b. there was no relevant preventative maintenance that could have been undertaken prior to the failure to reduce the risk of failure. c. the council staff acted expeditiously to sort appropriate contractors to undertake the repairs of the failed rising main, and the actions undertaken met the requirements of Council's procurement, operational management standard and the Local Government Act for emergency works.

d. that at no time during the extended period of repairs would it have made sense to in-source the sewage cartage activities. and e. that the major impacts of the cost escalation of the project were due to factors outside of the control of either Council or the contractor. and c. outcomes and learnings from the project and investigation should be used for training purposes and ongoing professional development of staff in Council's project delivery team. For the motion were Councillors Zamprogno, Wheeler, Lyons-Buckett, Ryan, Djuric, McMahon, Kotlash, Creed, Veigel, Reardon and Sheather. Against the motion was Councillor Dogramaci.

Thank you, General Manager. That concludes the meeting, councillors. Thanks for your attendance tonight

Thank you, Councillors