17 February 2026 - Ordinary

Thanks for your attendance and the gallery . Hawkesbury City Council acknowledges the Darug and Dharugung people as the traditional custodians of the land of the Hawkesbury. We pay respect to all Elders past, present and emerging and acknowledge all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders as first people of the country. General Manager.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Members of the public attending the meeting are advised that in the event of an emergency, you'll be asked to proceed in an orderly manner to the nearest exit following the guidance of our warden. I'd like to advise that in accordance with clause 5.34 of the Code of Meeting Practice, meetings of the Council are recorded. In the terms of the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act, this may involve the recording of personal information provided at the time of the meeting. The recordings are made to assist staff in compiling the minutes of the meeting and to enable the podcasting and live stream of Council meetings. The provision of any information that is recorded is voluntary and if any person does not wish to be recorded, they should not address a request to address the meeting.

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Thank you. Thank you, General Manager. We have apologies and the appropriate approval for leave for Councillor Cottis. Would someone like to move that way?

Yes, I will do that.

Councillor Reardon. Councillor Veigel. Those in favour? Against? It's carried. Declarations of interest, Councillors. Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Item 7.1.1 and item 9.2.1. Thank you.

Could you repeat those numbers, please?

Sure. 7.1.1, the Mayoral Minute.

Yep.

And 9.2.1.

9.2.1. Six-monthly

Progress report.

Yep

Councillor Wheeler.

Item 9.2.1.

9.2.1.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councillors.

We've got confirmation of the minutes of the 3rd of February.

I'll move those.

Councillor Reardon.

Councillor Creed.

Those in favour?

Against? It's carried. That's Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Creed, Councillor Cotless, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Djuric. Sorry, Councillor Cotless is absent. Councillor Ryan, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno, and Councillor Sheather. The motion's passed. Right.

There is no condolences. There's a Mayoral Minute, Councillors.

And it's in relation to 7.1.1. Councillor McMahon, you declared interest in that matter. Yes,

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'll be declaring a pecuniary interest as I am the subject of the Mayoral Minute, and I will leave the room accordingly. Thank you.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Councillors, I'll ask the GM to give you a brief on the document that's before us this evening.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Councillors, you have before you a late supplementary Mayoral Minute, and apologies for the timing of the delivery of that Mayoral Minute. However, you will see from the correspondence, we did receive a late request from the Sydney Hills Business Chamber requesting that a member of Council, in this particular instance the Deputy Mayor, attend with a number of delegates to attend effectively a trade and tourism delegation to the state of Kerala in India. The substance of the request is outlined in your papers. Effectively, in this particular instance, the flights, accommodation and meals are being funded by—well, are not required to be funded by Council in this instance.

And I can advise that over the back end of last week and the first couple of days of this week, Council has undertaken the necessary governance and risk assessments required for such a trip. Hence, before you have a recommendation from the Mayor noting the request and recommending that Council formally endorse Councillor McMahon's participation in the trade delegation.

Thanks, General Manager.

Opportunities like this don't come around very often, I don't think, and at no cost to Council. Well, there's a minor cost to Council, I think it's $400 within the guidelines there of an airport tax. But to go with the delegation, to be invited to go with the delegation to travel to India, and it's set out in the document the areas that they're going to discuss within that group. And for our Deputy Mayor to be asked to attend, I think is an asset to our Council and hopefully what comes out of it a benefit to our community. Councillor Reardon.

Thank you. I'd like to endorse your Mayoral Minute, Mr Mayor. I think it'll be a benefit to technology, trade, agriculture, tourism, and I'm supportive of it.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I support this Mayoral Minute. I agree that the opportunities like this are very few and far between. I'm just wondering what mechanism Councillor McMahon could perhaps move, you know, undertake prior to going to get any local people who may have any specific interest in what she's doing, either the Chamber of Commerce, I guess, or particularly around agribusiness, if she could perhaps be equipped with some relevant things to the Hawkesbury for when she actually goes, so that rather than going and seeing what they've got and coming back, using it as an exchange of going there and being able to offer something up front

Thank you, Councillor. As far as I'm aware already, Councillor Barnes is involved with the Chamber of Commerce, and I know she attends some of the tourism meetings. I know with the issues up around your way and further up into Bilpin, she's heavily involved in that ag infrastructure and stuff. I haven't spoken to her about it. This has come on pretty quick. Well, when I say I haven't spoken to her about it, I haven't been in detail about it. But I suspect that she will take every opportunity she can, and I'll discuss that matter with her, Councillor Zamprogno.

I don't support this, and for me it's a question of principle. Free trips are never free. I'm expressing this as a philosophical point. Free trips are never free. There is always a quid pro quo, the assumption of a favourable report back to this chamber. The Deputy Mayor is asking for our imprimatur, because most certainly she is not being asked to go in her person, because of her extensive experience in international trade, particularly trade with India. She's being asked to go as the Deputy Mayor of the City of Hawkesbury. And, you know, for us to give our imprimatur, I would want to know in what sense are we delegating her, with our imprimatur, to go and discuss matters of international trade with another country.

There are two potential beneficial outcomes. One is that the Deputy Mayor is charged by this chamber to go and increase Australia or the Hawkesbury's investment in India. Or that she's going over to seek greater investment from India in the Hawkesbury. And it's a shame that the Deputy Mayor is not here to make a defence or a justification for why this imprimatur should be given. It's certainly not clear in the very late and very thin documentation that we've been given. And in an abundance of caution, I don't think that it would be appropriate. For what it's worth, I wouldn't endorse any member of this chamber to go on a trip like this with such a thin justification, and nor would I, in public office, ever, ever accept the offer of free international travel,

Because I know that there's no such thing as free. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. I'll just make a further comment. We didn't choose the Deputy Mayor in this position. Somebody else felt it appropriate, and the experience that she had to fill that seat and to take it. If we discussed it around this chamber, I doubt very much there'd be any support for it at all. But we've got a business group who's seen someone in our city being the Deputy Mayor that would be appropriate to take that position, which I think is a great honour. I understand the sentiments of Councillor Zamprogno, and as I said, if we discussed it around this chamber, it probably wouldn't get a guernsey at all. But that's not the case. It was chosen from outside here for appropriate people to go, and she was the one chosen. I'll leave it to you, Councillors. Further debate? Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I'll speak in favour of the motion. I do agree with Councillor Zamprogno that there always needs to be a view that you never get something for nothing. I think in this instance, though, the risk is not borne by this council; the risk is borne by the Deputy Mayor. Further, this isn't a solicited offer from council, nor is there any other offer on the table for this council to have further development, for example.

And I think that it's quite clear then there is a limited cost to council, but it's clear too, I think, that any future offers that came off the back of this, there would be a conflict of interest on the Deputy Mayor's part. That would be for her to manage, and for this chamber to be aware of going forward. The fact that this is coming to council means that that is clear and transparent. If it wasn't coming to council, if this was just a personal arrangement, we would have no knowledge, and so far better that this council gives its approval so that it can manage any ongoing further risks. Kerala is a fascinating part of the world. It's an incredibly sustainable region of the globe. It's one of the few parts of the world that meets the One Planet goals.

It's an area that meets most of its requirements for water, transport and food, something that we could learn a great deal from. It's also a really fascinating transition region as it moves from what has been fairly Fairly much localised agriculture to an area that now provides some quite, from very high-level technology , particularly around information technology and education, something that Australia has been picking the, or reaping the benefits of for the last decade as we siphon off people educated in this area of India at a cost to the Indian government and at no cost to Australia as they come here. And I could go off on a nice rant about how we should actually be training some Australians rather than picking off the well-trained residents of other countries, but I'll save that for another day.

I think there's lots to be learnt from this region, and I hope that we can get some of that information back. One of the points that I will make, though, is that the Indian culture has a number of cultural sensitivities that I think we probably should make sure Councillor McMahon is well equipped to deal with. One of those sensitivities is that it's a strong gifting culture, so people who go to places, people who visit, regardless of whether it's the neighbour or another town, are expected to bring things with them, and we should make sure then that the Hawkesbury region's excellent produce is well represented in those gifts, even if it means a little bit of an extra baggage charge. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I've just got a couple of questions through you to the General Manager. In the General Manager's speech just before, you mentioned that you received this quite late. And you can see from the email attachment, but in the email attachment all dates have been cut out of the actual email. I can't actually see when you received this email, given that they're saying that it's been in planning since October 2025. It just seems a bit strange. Is that we're getting this as a late supplementary Mayoral minute right before the council meeting, and it's due to fly out next week. Can you just let me know when we've actually got this?

Thank you, through you, Mr Mayor. We received the email from Mr Owen on Wednesday the 11th of February, so just last week. Okay

Thank you, General Manager. I have to— I've got concerns about this, and I have to say that I probably won't be supporting the mayoral minute tonight. I think some of the comments that Councillor Zampronha has raised are

Well within the rights of us in this chamber to ask, given the fact that if it had have come up a while ago, I'm sure the chamber could have had discussions about it. But I've got concerns that we're doing this on the run, right at the last minute, and we're due— if this is passed tonight, she's due to fly out, the Deputy Mayor, next week, in a week and a half. And I understand what Councillor Lyons-Buckett is asking, same with Councillor Wheeler. I think we're leaving this— like, I understand these opportunities, but we're leaving this very late for any sort of much benefit for the Hawkesbury to receive from this trip. Actually, just another question. In the email it notes that you've got, they've invited Hawkesbury Chamber of Commerce and Hills Shire Council to attend. Do we know if anyone from those organisations have actually accepted the offer?

Through you, Mr Mayor, I can't speak to whether a member of the Hawkesbury Chamber of Commerce has accepted. The Hills Shire Council were offered a delegate and had declined that. Okay,

Thank you. My other concern is that this organisation, the Sydney Hills Business Chamber, is to do with the Hills, and I understand that they've extended the invitation to the Deputy Mayor of Hawkesbury. But my concern is I'm just trying to work out, in the very small amount of information I have here, what benefit the Hawkesbury is actually getting out of this with the Chamber. I'm just—I mean, there's just more questions than anything, and I'm normally happy to try and support this sort of stuff, but I've just got more questions than really anything. And given the fact that we have committees around this table like the Sister City Association, we don't send councillors to America, to Japan, yet we're heavily involved.

We don't seem to have any involvement as a council, as far as I'm aware, unless something's changed, with the Sydney Hills Business Chamber. It's from another local government area, and I understand it's very nice that they've invited the Deputy Mayor. For international stuff, I would have thought we would send the Mayor, but I'm not going to be supporting it.

Further debate. Councillor Ryan. Thank you, Mr Mayor. Look, I will support this because I think the more we can get the Hawkesbury out and our brand out there, the better for us, especially in relation to Long Lease Lines. One thing I would ask is, when the Deputy Mayor does return, could we get some sort of a report on what has happened, what has transpired, and what she can see are the benefits of doing these sorts of things? Because it could be very good in the future where we have a foundation to build upon. Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Thank you, Councillor. I expect our Deputy Mayor would be— Anxious to tell us what was happening out there, but in the recommendation that I put forward here, part five is the request the report be provided to Council following the delegation outlining outcomes and identify opportunities for Hawkesbury City Council.

Any further debate?

Thank you, Councillors. I think you'll know where I stand on it. We'll vote. The recommendation is on page 6711. Those in favour?

Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor and Deputy Mayor absent, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Ryan, Councillor Mary Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zambronov, Councillor Fogno, and Councillor Sheather. Those opposed is Councillor Zambronov and Councillor Creed. The motion's carried. Thank you, Councillors. Councillors

There was another Mayoral Minute distributed around the table that I've got a decline to table. And the advice I've had and the lateness of which I presented it, I believe it's not in the best interest of Council to present it tonight.

In saying that,

We will go on to the next item of business, which is 9.1.1, the planning proposal.

Councillor Brogdon. I'll move the recommendation in the business paper.

I'll second it, Mr Mayor.

Thank you, Councillor Brogdon. Councillor Reardon.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'm prepared to advance the recommendation because it says that we shouldn't approve this and that at the most we should write back to the applicant and ask them to have another go at making their application more compliant. This has resonance for me. Oh, sorry, I should be standing up, shouldn't I? If you hadn't noticed, I'd have kept sitting.

I don't mis-mote, Councillor.

This was one of the first things that I dealt with when I came onto this council in 2016. For those of us who were there at that time, the Johnston Property Group wanted to carve up the western portion of that allotment into three residential blocks. And it came to this chamber twice, and we knocked it back twice. It then went to the Sydney West Planning Panel, where they unanimously blocked it. And our business paper doesn't include the full wording. So if you go to page 21 of our business paper, 9 March 2017, Sydney West Planning Panel considered the pre-gateway request and said that it should not proceed. What they said— Was that this land had high environmental value of state and Commonwealth significance because of the presence of remnant Cumberland Shale Woodland and a number of endangered and, what's the level below endangered?

Threatened species. Well, yeah, threatened, threatened species. So if it was good enough for a planning panel with their subject expertise to knock back a request for three dwellings, then it is thoroughly inappropriate for the applicant to come back and to ask for five, six in fact, include the one at the other end. Furthermore, one justification given is that the western end of this block is fairly denuded of vegetation. Well, in 2017, the owner of that land put a cyclone fence around it illegally and mowed it mercilessly to prevent it from regenerating. I have the documentation here. There are emails that were being sent by the Pitt Town Progress Association in November of 2017 to say we are concerned about recent clearing of 43 Bootles Lane.

Contractors and machinery have cleared an area approximately 20 metres across the full width of the lot between Bootles Lane and Vermont Avenue. This was an illegal clearing of that land and that fence was an illegal fence because I asked a question at the meeting of May 2017 where I said, is the fencing around that lot at Bootles Lane, did it require permission? And the staff member replied the fence was erected for security purpose, but as it is not a temporary fence. And there are no works being undertaken, it will require Council's approval. In the nearly nine years that have elapsed since I raised that concern, that approval has never been given and no enforcement action has ever occurred against that applicant.

This applicant has an exceptionally poor track record environmentally and in delivering value to the people of Pitt Town. And I am not going to, again, play a part in entertaining a proposal that is worse than the proposal that came to us eight years ago for three dwellings and then entertain an application for five. It's a terrible idea. It hasn't merely been knocked by us in that brief and progressive window that the Council had in 2016 and 2017. It was knocked back by the Land and Environment Court. It was knocked back by the Sydney West Planning Panel. And it doesn't have any additional merit today. Thank you.

Councillor..

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'll speak against the motion and I'll possibly move an amendment. The reason I'm speaking against the motion is I largely agree. I oppose this development principally on the issues around flooding and the capacity to evacuate people out of that area, which I think that we simply don't have and it's just too dangerous. Later we'll be looking at the new plan for Sydney, which, you know, gives us quite a bit of advice around flooding and how we should be thinking about development into the future. However, the reason I will not support what Councillor Zambrano has put forward is that I think sending it back to the applicant to do it again with that message implies some sort of support for it in principle.

And I think that that would be a mistake. We've got to remember that this particular block of land was Originally, it was an offset. I'm just trying to find the actual wording of it, but in the first subdivision of Pitt Town, it was a specific offset against the subdivision that occurred in Pitt Town. It remains a protected area in our DCP, in Part E of the DCP. It's a protected area. It has critically endangered ecological community on there, and we have been advised through various mechanisms, as Councillor Zampragno just alluded to, whether that be the Sydney West Regional Planning Panel or the Land and Environment Court, of the importance and the need to maintain that critically endangered community on that site, which is extremely important.

And, of course, this is an area that's outside the original Pitt Town development, so it's not a part of it from what was there originally. So, to me, I don't see the value of proceeding to say to the applicant—the Planning Panel clearly had a lot of questions. So, on that basis, Mr Mayor, I wish to move an amendment, which I have sent through to the staff. Which is somewhat reflective, may I say, of the local government minister's refusal to allow us to have briefings because we have not had a briefing on this after the planning panel, and therefore we've not been able to have questions addressed around these things. What I would like to see is to have quite a bit more information come to councillors first, and then to have it come back to see whether we want the applicant to have another go after he has had several goes for that site.

In asking for that, I think that we should— I need clarification. I have a question for staff. The planning panel has referred to various things around the voluntary planning agreement. The timeline history of the DA applications says that on the 14th of November last year, the applicant retracted his offer to have a voluntary planning agreement, but there seems to be something on the table. I would appreciate if we could have some information around this. This is the problem with our inability to have these briefings and to work through this. We have to come into this chamber, and then we're asking these questions. So I would like to see this form of information go to councillors before we even make the decision that is in the recommendation of this business paper tonight, Mr Mayor, and that is my amendment.

I've still got a minute. What will I say about it? There's so much I could say about this. I think that I will concentrate on flooding because I am incredibly aware that at 16.3 metres, Pitt Town becomes a flood island, and we know we need to be calling on the state government to deliver for us the appropriate evacuation routes that we need to safely get our people out, and they haven't done that. We, as a chamber—not myself personally, but others in here—have not adopted the planning controls that were recommended to us, and this is a prime example of where those controls could have been really implemented in a meaningful way because— The Sydney Plan reflects it as well, that we really have to be looking at what sort of development.

We're putting in these precarious locations, and I think that for this proposal—I know it's a rezoning proposal, it's not a DA—but I don't think that we should be proceeding with it until we've got a full understanding, also around the cost. What is the cost of this to the Council, and what alternative ways could this land be managed? We would be up for a lot of money if we've got to do plan of management, we've got to manage it all, got to do all the fencing and the signage, we've got to carry the liability and the insurance. We're a council that's strapped for, you know, funding to be doing additional things. This, in a sense, would be taking on a cost burden while a developer is making a profit from other things, and I don't think that's tenable in this current economy.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you, Councillor. A couple of questions. First to the staff, General Manager, is there any entitlement to any block on that, house block on that land to start with? And there's a proposal, as seen in the business paper, that there's three being bought from another site, in the sense that the blocks have been moved, so there's already contributions and stuff already allocated for that. So we're getting down to possibly the likelihood of one block being allowed there, and so we're looking at one additional block. And if there's entitlement there, with that, would the process be any different in the sense of what's been discussed tonight? And is there an issue in relation to coming to some agreement about the voluntary agreement?

Through you, Mr. Mayor. The answer to the simple question there is that the allotment is entitled, as I believe, to an entitlement for one dwelling house at the moment. I might, if I may, defer to the Manager of Strategic Planning to unpack the answers to some of those other questions, if that's okay. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. So I guess your question is about the voluntary planning agreement. So the amended planning proposal that we received post the local planning panel removed the offer in terms of a voluntary planning agreement. There's been more recent discussions with the applicant in regard to a potential voluntary planning agreement, and they've actually provided written confirmation today that they are, or overnight, that they are willing to continue those negotiations in terms of a voluntary planning agreement to deliver infrastructure within the Pitt Town area.

Thank you. Mr Brogner. Mr Mayor, I might be able to assist you. I greatly prefer Councillor Lyons-Buckett's form of words. I'm prepared to withdraw my motion and have that stand as the motion, rather than have this as an amendment. Does that suit you?

Does the seconder agree? Yes.

Yes . Okay. I withdraw my motion, and I'm prepared to let Councillor Lyons-Buckett's wording stand as the motion.

And you're prepared to second that? That's what's on the screen here now.

Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Okay, we've got a motion before us that's been submitted by Councillor Lyons-Buckett and been seconded by Councillor van Brogner. That is the motion before us at the moment. Further debate?

Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Look, I'm speaking in support of the motion. I have serious concerns with this planning proposal and a lot of questions, some of which are covered by the motion. I think some of the—I mean, it's a shame, in fact, that the applicant isn't here, because some of the questions I think would be best put to the applicant. For example, what happened to the first lot of developer contributions that were supposed to deliver things to the people of Pitt Town? These are contributions that residents of Pitt Town

Paid

In good faith.

Council, this is the separate submission.

I'm aware of that, Mr Mayor, except that it says in the submission that we could have a VPA to deliver a boat ramp, but the boat ramp was supposed to be delivered in the first lot of contributions, so I'm not sure how many further planning proposals are required to get a boat ramp at Pitt Town. And we know what happened to the last lot of contributions; they were given back to the developer by the state government. My biggest concerns, my greatest concerns with this proposal are twofold. One is the impact on biodiversity, and if you read the planning proposal in detail, it states that there will be a loss of 1,000 square metres of shale transition forest. Now, shale transition forest is critically endangered.

It occurs on the edge of the Cumberland Plain, and it's rapidly dwindled, and will dwindle further with development at Marsden Park and Vineyard. We stand to lose these critically endangered areas , and there will be nothing left, nothing. You can't offset this. You can't load the biodiversity contained in these pockets into the back of a truck and shift them down the street. Biodiversity doesn't work like that. So this, in order to get five dwellings onto this block, there will be further loss of biodiversity, largely for asset protection zones. Councillor Zamproni is right. If this site was given a good leaving alone, the rest of the site would revegetate, and we've seen that from our own land at Woodlands, where that was ignored basically for 12 years.

That wasn't even high quality site, and there are three critically endangered ecological communities on that with a good leaving alone. It's not viable, particularly as community land for recreation either, because of the impacts on biodiversity. So where much of the planning proposal leaves council carrying the can for a block of—to maintain the biodiversity, that the developer received an offset benefit from initially.

My other concern, and it's a big one, is flood levels. Now, it came to this chamber that we should be increasing our flood planning height to the one in 200. It's very clear in the draft Sydney Plan. It has been very clear in all the minister's guidelines that councils are to stop approving development, that planning panels are to stop approving development on the floodplain.

This is land on the floodplain. It may be on a flood island, but if you look at the flood maps, it's completely landlocked in times of flood. There is one inadequate evacuation route to get all of the people of Pitt Town out, and that is covered in water. With this area left as a little flood island, as a member of the Department of Planning said, Pitt Town, it's you and the snakes. So this is just further reducing the runoff area, packing more people in, at least 20 people if there's five lots. There are probably three to four-bedroom houses. There will be at least 20 people. There's potential for further subdivision of the corner lots under the minimum lot size in Pitt Town. So that's packing a few more people in.

The minister's guidelines are clear. The floodplain planning principles state that we must avoid intensification of development. On the floodplain, particularly where that adversely impacts risks to the existing community, and I think this development does exactly that. Further to that, it increases costs and risks to Council.

Thank you, Councillor. Any further debate? Councillor Creed.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I just want to ask a question through you to the staff. Sorry, can we just scroll down again? Sorry.

So I just wanted to ask a question: if the Chamber decides to follow the NOW motion rather than the recommendation in the business paper, what happens then? Like, we've got here in the recommendation that they have to go back and renegotiate , do all their different things, or like, is this just it? We're saying no, we're not going ahead with it, or no, we're not? I'm just asking, if we say no tonight or we do the NOW motion rather than the recommendation, will this go—could they take this to the state government or the Department of Planning?

Thank you, Councillor.

Through you, Mr Mayor, regardless of tonight's decision, there is a statutory right to approach the department, given the lapse of time or the passing of time in making a decision in relation to the planning proposal, to seek a review of the planning proposal itself. The department will thereafter refer it to an external body who will review the material, review the planning proposal, and make a decision as to gateway determination or otherwise.

Thank you for that. In regards to the voluntary planning agreement, if they did that— Does the council have any sort of negotiating space at the table, or is it all done through— if that went through that way, would we have any say in any of the VPA, the voluntary planning agreements, or would it be a department or a state government?

Through you, Mr. Mayor. The voluntary planning agreement process is one whereby the parties reach an agreement. So yes, the answer to your question is yes, council would have some say in relation to the terms of that planning agreement. In the absence of an agreement being reached, there is no agreement. Okay

Sorry, I did promise I wasn't going to hopefully make you stand up too much tonight. And in saying that, if an agreement's not reached, what happens then? So if councils can't reach an agreement with the developer and the Department of Planning, can the Department of Planning just take over and just go, This is what you're doing, this is what you're getting, and council just has to deal with it? Is that my recollection of potentially what could

Happen? Through you, Mr. Mayor. As I understand the process, the department will not ultimately make a decision in relation to the voluntary planning agreement aspect of the planning proposal. I would expect the department would make a determination that would be conditional upon the parties reaching agreement pursuant to that voluntary planning agreement process. Okay

Thank you . Mr. Mayor, thank you to the staff for answering those questions. I would like to move an amendment. I'd like to move the recommendation that's in the business paper.

Do we have a seconder?

Councillor Creed

Thank you.

Yes, councillor. Councillor Veigel, do you second that?

Councillors, I'd make some comments here. The property has had, I remember when it first come to Council 30, 40 years ago, and it was viewed that that would be a good piece of ground to keep in Pitt Town for lots of reasons. One of it was the fence line, actually. And since then, it's been mowed, it's been bike ridden on, it's been burnt out. Just about everything that can happen there, it still survives. And what's been proposed within, with Council now to negotiate a long term, how we look after that in the future and the like, that's been discussed. Part of the problem is the agreement, and without the discussions that we were allowed to have that Councilor Lyons-Buckett referred to, we get the opportunity to ask questions here, and that's pretty well the end of it because we only got the information on Thursday in relation to the documents here.

With the boat ramp, the panel asked about that. The staff have been negotiating with the applicant in relation to a voluntary agreement or contribution. With the voluntary agreement that was agreed to with the main subdivision many, many years ago, and the boat ramp was included in that, but we're looking now at one unit that's allowed on that piece of land with another proposal, and three that have been moved that have been involved in the contribution in the past. Now, if we can build a boat ramp out of contributions from two houses, we're going to have our community gate ballistic. That's not the sort of contributions they pay, to that amount, I mean. So the negotiations with the staff is happening in that regard.

In relation to the appropriateness of five blocks on the land, there is five blocks opposite, and it makes sense in relation to evacuation. Where these houses are proposed here, if it goes ahead, guess who's going to be first out? Because they're first in line. They're right at the end of the road, and they're down the track. So when it comes to evacuation, that whole, as Councillor Lyons-Buckett appropriately pointed out about evacuation, it's important that anybody who's building or proposing to build or subdivide or whatever there is aware of it. They're made aware of exactly those things. But it'll be the SES who say you need to get out, and at that time they need to get out.

So, Councillors, I support the amendment because the negotiations need to— Happened. We've been told by the staff that it goes to other places, and not only does it go to other places, but there's appeals and the likes. It's a costly exercise. The staff are dealing with it, and it's got to come back to us anyway. And I would suggest that we leave it in the hands of the staff, like recommendations proposed, to come back and see what comes out of it. And that doesn't contradict the movers or seconder of the motion, but we may get a clearer understanding of exactly what's proposed there and the background to it. Councillor Ryan.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. And you're very well aware that I have been involved in this process, and one thing I must correct you on there, I've lived there all my life and there's never been a fire through that section of that land. So please discount that. My main concern is for the residents there. I'm getting a lot of people speaking to me in relation to it, and they want some confidence that this can be resolved and resolved in a proper and respectful way for the community and for the environment. Many of them are not concerned in relation to the developer's outcomes here, but they are very keen to know what is the best outcome that we can get for that block of ground in the long term. They also want to know what it's going to cost them in the long term because, as you know, we are hamstrung with money, and to put another thing onto their bill, I don't think it's acceptable unless.

Unless it has a great outcome for us. So I would like to make this very clear to the people of Pitt Town and the people living around there, that this motion by Councillor Lyons-Buckett is asking a lot of questions. And I will be informing them of those questions when they're answered, because I think they really do have some skin in the game. A lot of them have increased the BAL rating for bushfires on their homes, especially along Pittsmoor Street, and now to find that that was not necessary if these houses go ahead. The land was, from the report, legally cleared for a detention pit and a sales office, which it was, and I was under the impression that the original section 60 original agreement in 2008, that any trees to be removed were to be replaced with at least four trees and brought up to maturity.

I haven't seen that happen. I do keep a reasonably good eye on the area, and I think for the people of Pitt Town and for, realistically, for transparency, we must go through this motion by Councillor Lyons-Buckett and bring it to the people so that they know where they stand. They know exactly what's going to transpire, so that we cannot go down another path where there's insecurity within the community and there's, as soon as one story starts, it will become a pit of stories, and I don't need that to happen in this community again. So could we please everyone concentrate, especially on Councillor Lyons-Buckett's motion, but think about the people who are affected, directly affected. They want to know what's happening with that land and what can be the best result for them.

Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Ryan.

Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'll speak against the amendment.

Mr Mayor, the amendment bypasses the very crucial step of gathering additional information that will help us inform our decision. I think that when we look at this situation, which has quite a history, we often see in this chamber, or we've often heard in this chamber when planning proposals are here, that when voluntary planning agreements are being suggested, we do not want to repeat the mistakes of Pitt Town. We know that we have many issues that arose from that, and that is in the past. And I'm not saying a new voluntary planning agreement could not be formulated that would be more satisfactory. However, I think that not just the people of Pitt Town, but the people of the Hawkesbury would say, what guarantee is there a boat ramp will ever be built?

Because we have heard this before, boat ramp wasn't built. So, and other various infrastructure that was promised did not materialise. So you can understand why people are sceptical. I think more to the point, though, is that we would be missing the very valid step of understanding at what cost this rezoning comes to our council with. And that means that we don't understand the cost of the long-term management of that, and we fail to explore any other opportunities that may be another mechanism for having that land managed. Perhaps the national parks, with Sky Village in quite close proximity and doing a wonderful job there, could manage that land along with the national parks. It could be utilised for cool burning for various practices.

It could also be utilised by various bush care or other groups. And I think that to do that, we need some exploration around it. We can't just say that by rezoning this, Council will get this piece of land, with no framework around it about how—what—how does that land come to us? What are we going to do with it? The people don't understand how it could be utilised. You know, some people think if we get land, it's going to be a park they can ride their bikes in or do whatever. We need to have a better understanding. We've not been able to have that depth of understanding. And I think that I can't understand why we would basically say to the developer, Look, you just come up with what the planning panel said, and basically we're saying we would endorse that.

Whereas I think there's a lot more issues around it that need to be clarified, and I think for a responsible way forward, we could do a much more thorough job of getting that information and trying to come out with a good result for Pitt Town. You said yourself, Mr Mayor, that around evacuation, they'd be the first people out. Well, that's really shooting yourself in the foot, because the point that the Sydney Plan is making is we should not be putting development where we're putting existing communities at further risk. And that would mean they might be the first one out. We'd feel pretty bad if five houses down the road didn't ever get out, wouldn't we? So we need to understand what is happening with the evacuation situation at Pitt Town.

And I just think that in this era where we're being sidelined a bit from having these frank discussions in the forum we were used to, that we have to use the tool we're given, which is to come into this chamber, ask the questions, go away, examine the information we get, and then come back again. So I oppose the amendment because it bypasses those crucial steps. Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Councillor Zamprogno. Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'll also speak against the amendment, and I'll start by dissenting with your depiction of the land as somehow degraded or burnt out. It is true that young people got into there at some point, building, you know, bike ramps and dragging in lounges and setting up small encampments and so forth, but that's just what young people do. I would point your attention towards the environmental assessment that the applicant submitted as part of their documentation, that says there were 153 species of flora, 15 regionally vulnerable species, remnant vegetation that was likely to meet the criteria for the Cumberland Plain Shale Woodlands Shale Gravel Transition Forest, which is a critically endangered ecological community.

That's one study. Another study that was conducted seven years later confirmed the presence of Acacia pubescens, which is an endangered species, the Cumberland land snail, which is a threatened species, and again confirms that the land represents a rare and contiguous and reasonably intact example of Cumberland Shale Woodland, and to place five dwellings on a piece of the land that the applicant has deliberately kept in a degraded state by placing cyclone fencing around it and slashing it and preventing that natural regeneration from taking place should not give them the ability to then say, well, that end of the site is degraded, therefore it would be more appropriate to place five dwellings there.

I remember back in the day when this was, you know, coming around in 2017, I was getting phone calls. From Frank Sartor, the former planning minister, who , long since retired from politics, was now acting as a freelancer to try and convince me of the merits of the applicant's claims, when Mr Sartor was himself the person who allowed this applicant to cry poor and then effectively get out of the financial contributions that he had otherwise pledged to the Pitt Town community as the sweetener for all of these developments. It's been swindle after swindle. So I don't support the amendment. I will support Councillor Lyons-Buckett's motion.

Councillor, further debate?

Councillor Whelan.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I'll speak against the amendment. The role of the planning panel is to provide advice to us. Our role — they're an unelected body that are not there in place to represent the LGA. We are. Our role is to act in the best interests of the Hawkesbury LGA. So just swallowing the advice from the planning panel around a VPA doesn't complete our task in this space. We can't just carry on with whatever the applicant has asked for and fill in a few blanks that the planning panel has suggested. I thank Councillor Zamprogno for outlining the biodiversity that's at risk on this site. All of that biodiversity put at risk for the promise of a boat ramp that was supposed to be delivered by the same applicant under a previous agreement.

Is that what we're asking for? Is that what we're willing to accept, with a whole lot of unknown costs to this council that has just voted for—well, for some of us, have voted for a rates rise. So no means of meeting the costs, but happy to take a planning application that will load costs onto council, because that's what this amendment effectively does. It says to the applicant, There's a few things missing. Go away and fill in the blanks. Carry on. Because if I've heard it once, I've heard it a hundred times in this chamber, Oh, the poor applicant, he's spent so much money. He's done everything we've asked for. And so we should just pass it through. I'm not willing to pass this through. I am not willing to put one more household into the flood island that is Pitt Town.

That has been my position since I was elected in 2016, and it will be my position until I leave this council.

The draft Sydney Plan that we will pass a submission to, hopefully, this evening, says in Appendix I, under the flood planning principles, Principle 4, to limit flood risk, identify and then, if required, apply flood-related development controls on land between the 1% AEP flood level and the probable maximum flood level, particularly for evacuation considerations, shelter in place and sensitive development. Principle 1 talks about avoiding the intensification of development in those areas to ensure no adverse cumulative impacts.

Have a good hard look at the flood plan for this site. Have a good hard look at where that evacuation route is, and think back to when we were given the flood risk management plan for this council, which many of you refused to adopt in full, when the person who wrote that, an eminent expert in flood planning, told this council that no matter how they tweak the modelling, they cannot get everyone off the floodplain safely. That all they can do is change who drowns first. And then you tell me, Mr Mayor, that it's okay to put five more lots into Pitt Town.

Thank you, Councillor.

Any further debate?

I shall put the amendment.

Have we got the amendment on the screen?

The amendment's in the business paper as it is, that was moved by Councillor Creed. Those in favour?

As Councillor Creed, Councillor Veigel, Councillors Sheather. Those against is Councillor Reardon, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Djuric . Councillor, we'll get it in a second. We go Councillor Ryan, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler and Councillor Zembrog now against. The motion is lost. The. Amendment is lost. The motion is, it was put by Councillor Wheeler.

Councillor Lyons-Buckett it was. Bad night. Thank you, Mr Mayor. Is there any further debate? Right of reply.

Mr Mayor, just briefly, I think that this is a good way forward. I hope we'll use this exercise as a sort of almost a little pilot to see how we go about getting additional information on situations such as this, and how we bring that back into the chamber and deal with it after we've received that. So I thank the councillors for supporting this because I do think that this is a thorough and responsible way to approach this matter. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor.

The motion is on the screen before you. Those in favour?

It's unanimous. Those against? It's carried. It's Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Creed, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Ryan, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Sheather. Councillors, the next item is 9.

2.3. It's being called up by Councillor Wheeler. Yeah, it's not

Called up, that's all. Because the [unclear]

Block

We don't have any [unclear] block.

No, I think—

I've got stuff in here. I haven't. I haven't

Done anything. Councillor Wheeler, the 9.2.1.

Mr Mayor, I have a less than significant non-pecuniary interest in item 9.2.1, in that I'm a member of Hawkesbury Communications Brigade NSW RFS. The reason for no further action is that it's below the threshold for significance.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor McMahon.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'm declaring a less than significant non-pecuniary interest. The Hawkesbury Fire Control Centre is discussed in this item, and I'm a member of the NSW RFS Hawkesbury Communications Brigade, and there is no pecuniary interest. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor.

Do we have someone that

Wants to move that way?

Councillor Reardon.

Councillor Veigel.

The six monthly progress report. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I've got a number of questions, if I may.

Could we have some feedback about the budget allocation for the fire control centre? So my understanding, and as is laid out in the report, council is proceeding with our end of the deal, and that is proceeding as planned. We did have a meeting with the commissioner where he outlined the budgetary process for that. Could we get on the public record where we are now relative to—I mean, I know council's work is fine and up to date. What are we waiting on from the state government?

Thank you, Councillor.

General Manager

Through you, Mr Mayor. So the New South Wales State Government has committed a sum — I don't have the exact number, but it's in the order of $2-plus million — for the development of the project of the fire control centre and early works for this current financial year. The remainder of the funding for the project would be going through the normal and the typical state government budget procedures in the build-up to the release of the 2026-2027 state government budget.

Thank you.

Thank you. Some further questions. Could we have — I notice in the report that it mentions that there's been some heatwave management discussions amongst the emergency management team. Could we have that information filtered down to councillors as well? Could we have perhaps a discussion about — it's not something that's likely to come to the chamber — so perhaps we will be permitted to discuss that. Otherwise, we could have it discussed, for example, at an emergency management committee meeting, lest we have a discussion that everybody isn't privy to and upset the minister. The next question I've got is where are we up to with setting up an access and inclusion committee?

Thank you, Councillor. First question's noted, and the second one, General Manager.

Through you, there is a report coming to the next council meeting, Councillor, that sort of outlines the Access and Inclusion Committee as part of a broader councillor committee framework.

Thank you. That's excellent news. I've got two more questions. The — one's a comment, sorry. The Hawkesbury Sports Council third party review is listed in here as being complete. I think that's probably an error. It's not — I don't think it can be complete until all the actions are complete, and given that we haven't settled on the service level review, I think we probably need to have that still parked until then. And the final question is the Reconciliation Action Plan we discussed cultural training for councillors. Has that proceeded?

Through you, Mr Mayor, the cultural sensitivity and awareness training is being scheduled as part of a broader suite of ongoing training for councillors over the next six months. I would have to come back to councillors on the exact timing of that, but rest assured it's on the program.

Further discussion?

Right of reply, Councillor Creed.

No, it was Councillor Reardon who moved it.

Councillor Reardon, sorry.

Thank you. Councillor, recommendations in the business paper, those in favour?

Against is carried. It's unanimous. It's Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Creed, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Ryan, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno and Councillor Sheather.

Council, we'll just go down the page as we're going. 9.2.2, National General Assembly.

I'll move that way, Mr Mayor. Councillor Wheeler. I'll second. Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. So this is a really useful conference. It's a useful networking conference. It's a particularly useful conference for access to other levels of government. And I think it's prudent that as many councillors go as possible. There's, I think there's two motions in the business paper. One of them is mine regarding—

State government interference in local government, very hard to fix, given that we sit under state government legislation. But really, enough is enough in New South Wales. It makes me wonder really why we bother. They've reduced our powers to such an extent that we no longer meet community expectations. Similar thing happened in Queensland with the giant amalgamations that occurred there. Frankly, the only good thing that came out of that was that councillors were paid a living wage. I don't think it did any good for the communities that those councillors were seeking to represent. And you can see that in the levels of disaffection, I think, from across communities. We've seen the same with amalgamation, which we narrowly avoided in New South Wales.

I agonised over how to word this so that it might have broad appeal across the nation, because it's a national conference, but also managed to be even vaguely effective. And apart from a slap over the wrist with a wet noodle from the states from the federal minister, I'm not sure that it's going to do a great deal beyond making our presence or our disaffection noted. Certainly constitutional recognition is a long overdue, remains ALGA policy, but I don't think anything's been done for quite some time, so maybe it will give them a push. The other motion is Councillor Ashes around CDCs, so cooperative development centres or the large research organisations, particularly relevant to the Hawkesbury given that we have a university on site and now a hospital with a different university's medical school on site as well.

CDCs remain underfunded and undervalued outside the scientific community, with increasing climate disruption, disease burden and increased far-right science denial. It's really essential to get good evidence-based information for policy and program development if we're to have any hope of maintaining quality of life for Australians. So I think this is a good means of alerting local government to the benefits of CDCs for local government. Thanks.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I support this motion and thank the two councillors who got their motions in that we will be taking those. I was going to do one, but in the end, when I looked through the past policies, it was around financial sustainability. There is already so much, and I think it was probably more state-based. They're quite particular about it being federally based at this particular conference. I think that these are good motions. They're probably, I mean, they're sort of things we should probably discuss as councillors as well, because I think they're really interesting to get everyone's point of view. But it certainly will be interesting to hear any discussion that's had on the level of interference of state governments in local government.

We all know that is a bit of overreach, state government overreaching on a few things lately. And I think that Councillor Cotlash's motion is really good. I think it's really interesting. I found it really interesting and would love to see those areas explored and to really understand how local government could tap into that. So I think that's a really positive motion to put on the table. I've not seen anything like it at the conference before, so I hope that if Councillor Kotlash doesn't go, that one of us can raise that on her behalf to speak to that at the conference. Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Thank you, Councillor. And for the two councillors that did put in the motions, thanks very much. Councillor Wheeler, if the state government was to adopt Councillor Wheeler's motion, some of those issues that Councillor Lyons-Buckett spoke of, we wouldn't have. Councillor

Creed. Thank you, Mr Mayor. I just wanted to confirm with the staff, looking at the 25-26 budget for delegate conference expenses, am I right in assuming that we're already over budget on conferences for this financial year?

Sorry? Sorry

Sorry, you, Mr Mayor. Yes, that's correct, and what we're suggesting is an adjustment that can be made at the quarterly budget review. In looking at and trying to identify areas within the broader council budget and identifying opportunities for savings, it is noted that we do have a saving through the non-payment of Councillor Dogramachi's salary. That has sort of been obviously held off since his suspension from civic office, so there is a potential save there that could be forwarded to the council conference budget. Okay,

Thank you.

Sorry, I'm just trying to find the total for the delegate. I will actually use this moment. I'll pull out of the Floodplain Management Australia National Conference, so hopefully that will give some money back into the budget. So take that as official. If you need me to send an email, I will. But I think we just need to be, you know, we're already at that peak, and I just don't want us to go too much over with, and I know that Councillor Wheeler suggests as many councillors, but I think we just have to be a little bit mindful of the cost of the budget already. So thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Thanks, Mr Mayor. I'd like to thank the council for putting the motions up too, especially motion one, recognition of the local government. I sit here with, um , wonder why so many of the benches on Macquarie Street could be sat on by ex-councillors, but yet they get Macquarie Street, they soon forget where their roots are. But yet they shackle us for a lot of the things we have to do, but still make us accountable for just about everything else, every dollar spent, every decision made. If they don't like it, well, they can suspend us and put us into administration. That's the law that this council doesn't want to minister. And I think, in part, most of us councillors may respectfully disagree on some occasions, but we can still get along to agree and just make sure of the wellbeing of the community.

So go for it and get it on the record on that motion about our local councils, because it should be brought up next year and the year after that, and the year after that we may get some traction. Obviously there is some sympathy out there because there's been a couple of referendums in Coffs and a few others to try and recognise council and also to fund. and the independent funding of Council too. So again, thank you and good luck. Thank you, Councillor. I just

Make a point with some of the comments that Councillor Worley indicated within the support of motion, that there's been councillors resign because of the frustration and most recent legislation that's been changed to prohibit the activity of councils and their activities in council. I think we all share that frustration. Sorry, three. I think we all share that frustration. It's really hard, and we're trying to find ways to work through that, that the communication and relationships has to be and needs to be workable. And the most recent legislation really prohibits that. We meet once a month for a couple of hours and sit around, which is not good enough to represent a community. And I know we all work outside of that, but the fact of the matter is that we need to work together, and this is the only time under the new legislation that we get to do that in a fashion where we can really knuckle down on the sort of things that Councillor Lyons-Buckett spoke of earlier in relation to Pitt Town, which is really important.

Thank you, Councillor Zamprogno. Yeah

I've always often availed myself of the opportunity to go down to ALGA. I find it an excellent opportunity to hear and advocate on these larger issues. My soapbox, my common soapbox is that the federal government's funding to the local government sector has dropped from one cent in the taxation dollar to less than one half of one cent in the taxation dollar, and there are always encouraging noises, but, you know, nothing ever seems to happen, and we've just got to keep chipping away at that. That was something that we, on the Board of Local Government NSW, went on about. I hope that Councillor Creed is able to take that fight up, and eventually we will get there. As far as the trimmings and saving some money, I have long since… ceased going to the gala dinner.

There's a gala dinner on one of the evenings. It's a complete wank. Don't go to the dinner. It's an extra expense you don't need to go. I'm there to hear the sessions. I'm here to vote on the motions, and small ways like that we can save some money. Thank you, Councillor.

Any further debate?

Right of reply, Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Just really quickly, I misspoke regarding the, regarding Councillor Kotlash's motion. They're cooperative research centres. I'm not quite sure what I called them, but it wasn't that. Sorry. So, and Councillor Zamprongno is right. I think there are ways that we can economise. Councillor Lyons-Buckett and I always travel down together, which cuts that cost in half. Yes, the dinner, look, food is dreadful. You have to queue up in the cold for ages so that you can get through security. Really not worth going. I don't think any of us paid to go last year because our experiences have not been grand. Frankly, you're better to go up the pub. Councillor Lyons-Buckett and I had a lovely evening with Drag King Trivia one night that didn't cost council anything.

I think there may have been a frozen pizza involved. We could probably also economise a bit on the hotels. Never before have I had such an uncomfortable bed as the probably quite expensive hotel in Canberra last year. I must say I got a better sleep at the Nepean Shores Caravan Park last year. So I don't know that that's money well spent either. But otherwise, look, I hope some of us go and can. It's a good opportunity as a small council that is further away from a lot of our neighbours, our inner-city neighbours. It's a good opportunity for us to put our case, particularly that case about peri-urban councils in an... In a space where there are other people like us, particularly from Victoria, South Australia and Queensland, where we can make those cases for better funding arrangements and better infrastructure provision.

Thanks.

Thank

You, Councillor. The motion's before us on page 59. Those in favour?

It's unanimous. Those against? Carried. It's Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Creed, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Ryan, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zembrodna, Councillor Sheather.

Didn't we do that before?

We did floodplain before.

Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Would someone like to move nominees to go? Councillor Zembrodna

You're nominating to go? Yes. Councillor Wheeler. Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Councillor Ryan.

Councillor McMahon.

And myself.

I don't know if Councillor Kotlash wanted to go, but generally someone with a motion in may want to speak to it

Would someone like to nominate Councillor Kotlash, and if she— Yeah

Nominator.

Thank you. Councillor Kotlash.

Okay, everyone clear on that? Thank you, councillors. Would someone like to move that way? Councillor Zabrogna.

Councillor Wheeler.

Just to speak on that, and I take on board the comments of Councillor Creed and Mintygo,

But with conferences, all too often when we see them on TV or read in the newspaper, it's someone down on the beach or a swimming pool or something like that. The councillors that I've been away with over 20 years, I've never seen them on the beach. Not that I've been to the beach. I've never seen them in a situation where they don't attend. And because of the workload to get through, and with motions and documents, there's a breakup of how that happens. You get to meet ministers, including prime ministers, that come and address those functions. It's a national conference. We don't speak about the everyday life things that's happened. This is a national conference, and it's motions like we spoke about earlier that get discussed.

And it's really important for councillors to be part of that. And I know some people oppose it, saying that, you know, it's a waste of money and all the like. It's important when you make decisions sitting around this table that you're informed and you understand. The consequences of your decisions and the outcomes, and you won't find a better place or hear the debate nationally from people who get up to speak of how people conduct themselves and how governments react to motions like the two that have been put forward this evening.

Councillor Veigel.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Can I make a recommendation that perhaps the operational plan going on to the next financial budget that you budget more for this, because we've just gone to $25,000 on a conference from $14,000 when we discussed this a week or two ago

Thank you, Councillor. That will be noted.

Okay. Right of reply, Councillor Zenbrogno.

Right of reply?

Okay, those in favour? That's for those councillors for the conference.

Sorry, can you keep your hands up?

Councillor Marn, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Ryan, Councillor Lines-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zenbrogno, Councillor Sheather. Those against? It is Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Creed. The motion is carried. Thanks, councillors. The next item is 9.2.3, the WestRock change the local government procurement process.

Do I have a mover? Councillor Creed.

No, sorry, Mr Mayor, I just had a question. I wasn't

Moving it. Yes, Councillor Creed, the question.

Do we need to move it first before I ask a question?

Yes. Question, no. A question?

Yeah, I'm happy to wait until we move it and

Debate it. Okay. If someone can move the recommendation, the business paper, I might ask to be adjusted in relation to the commentary that comes out of it, because we're asked to make a decision whether or not we give back or keep the procurement process funding that's proposed here.

Just a question through you to the staff, Mr Mayor. I just wanted to know, it's been a while since I've been an actual member of WESROC as a voting delegate on behalf of the council. I just wanted to know how many councils are actually left in WESROC. I understand a number have left over the last decade. I'm just unsure about how many councils are actually members of the organisation. I'll get the general manager

Yeah, thank you. Through you, Mr Mayor, the remaining councils are Hawkesbury, Blacktown, Cumberland, Liverpool and Blue Mountains. Four

Would someone like to move the recommendation at this stage?

Mr Mayor, I've got an amendment that I'm largely still working on

We haven't got a motion yet, Councillor,

So

I'll move a motion. Mr Mayor, that I'm still completing the words for before I send it to the staff.

It's around deferring the motion for consideration of the value that Council receives from Wesrock and any conditions pertaining to the rebates and the future of Wesrock, which, as I understand—sorry, my email has just decided that it wants to be updated before I'm allowed to send anything to anywhere. So I'll just read it out, that Council defer consideration of this matter until it receives further information on the value Council receives, any conditions pertaining to rebates, and the future of Wesrock.

Second that , Mr Mayor. Thank you. Councillor [unclear].

Carry on, Councillor.

Thank you. My apologies to the staff for the Microsoft-inspired glitch. I think this is a matter where the lack of briefing is clearly evident, where this is something that we would have discussed, we would have spoken to our councillors who are on Wesrock, and I think one of the other things that this highlights is that those of us who act on delegation to other bodies—Wesrock, the Sports Council, the Western Sydney Weeds Authority—don't have a reporting mechanism back to Council. Perhaps that's something that we can now add into our Tuesday nights, because we can't have a briefing. That's always been a PACT space that we haven't been able to fit these things into. But I think this may be a relevant thing to bring back to councils, particularly where they don't come to a council decision.

But for this one, this is something that I think we would have all benefited from a discussion about what we're getting out of Wesrock currently, where Wesrock is placed, because I really don't know. I don't know enough to vote on whether it's even appropriate for us to receive those rebates directly or for us to allocate them back to Wesrock as we previously have. So I can't support the— The recommendation in the business paper, because I simply don't know whether it's valid or not. I think they're questions that can certainly be answered, but I don't expect the staff to answer them on the spot this evening.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Creed.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I have to concur with Councillor Wheeler. That's actually what I was going to move if someone had moved the recommendation. Since my time and my involvement with ResROC, the last time I was on council when I was the junior vice president, a lot of, by the sounds of it, that answer to my question, a lot of Western Sydney councils have actually left ResROC. I started looking into this and thinking, well, what are we actually getting for our residents here when it comes to dollar value? Are we still getting— The same sort of savings that they would normally get involved in, the way they used to bulk buy and do all that sort of stuff. With the limited amount of councils that are now actually a member of WESROC, I did start to question what value we were actually getting out of this organisation, given the fees we pay and all that sort of stuff.

So I'm glad that Councillor Wheeler has moved for deferment until we get some more information on this. But I'm starting to genuinely question our involvement with WESROC, given that numerous Western Sydney councils, like a lot, have withdrawn from WESROC. So I think we need to sort of have a look at it ourselves and determine whether this is best for our organisation and our community to stay within this organisation in future. Yeah,

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I support the deferral. I think in the—I am a delegate on WesROC. I was the treasurer of WesROC, and I didn't stand again for that position at this time in this last round. I wish Councillor Kotlash was here because I know she would have a lot to say. She's got a longer history with WesROC than I do. She's been a delegate on there for quite some time. I think deferring is good, that we can look at this overall. There are a number of things going on. There was, of course, last year the sad passing of the CEO of WesROC, which was very sad and, of course, led to some changes within the organisation. There's various—Councillor Kotlash had asked some questions around the future membership of WesROC, and I'm not sure what sort of an answer she got to that.

And there's also potential changes around the transition of what people essentially want the voice of Western Sydney councils to look like. There's the Parkland Authority, of course, which is the Parkland councils, and then there's WesROC. There's also whatever MACROC, I think it is, if that still exists, of the southwestern Sydney councils. And I think that really, if we're putting money into all of this, as Councillor Creed was saying on the last item, you know, we've got to look at what we're spending our money on, and we've got to think if we see value in all going to a conference, which I think is very valuable, are we getting the same sort of value in putting into something like this?

I'd be happy to simply retain the rebate ourselves. That's my inkling of it, not to give it back to WesROC, but I'm also certainly up for a much bigger conversation around it and, you know, in whatever forum. Maybe we can all just pass in the corridor and have a conversation in a non-briefing style about that.

Thank you, Councillor. The motion is probably prudent. There's been some discussion. I think since I've been Mayor, there's been three attempts to set up structures within Western Sydney where part of the Parks, which I think is great value, and there's been a lot of discussion between WesROC and the Parks to see how they might work into the future. The Blue Mountains, the staff have put up recommendations to opt out of there twice in the past that has been rejected by the councillors. So I think it's prudent that, and there's certainly discussions going on with a lot of people to look at the best outcome because the discussions that have taken place here about value for money and the role that they play and the like has certainly been discussed by WesROC itself and with councils that are associated with it.

So it's prudent that I think that the general manager brings back a report in that regard and to inform us in a more appropriate position, if not only our position but other councils. Councillor Zamprogno.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I was our council's WesROC representative, or one of them, for a period of five years, and in that era at least, I was always convinced that it did represent a value proposition. And this question is perennial. We've asked questions of the value we get out of WesROC, we've asked questions about the value we get out of our association with the Hawkesbury River County Council, now the Wards Authority. And I don't mind the question being asked. Whenever we ask that question as part of our due diligence, we get Charles to come in and talk to us about that. And I deeply lament Charles Casuscelli's passing because he was a very—he was a great, very compelling advocate for the value of WestROC.

If we were to leave, my concern is that we would be without a broader voice. It's not an acceptable substitute for us to go to a roundtable convened by the Western Parkland City, where we're expected to sit there nicely and eat our play lunch and be on our best behaviour, because that's set up by the state government to effectively feed us fait accompli. WestROC was always independent enough to say, well, representing the councils that are part of our membership, we think that the state government policy should be changed or should be improved. And I rather suspect that the state government would like nothing better than to keep shuffling the chairs about what grouping we should think of ourselves as being a member of.

Where we're part of the Western Parkland City? No, no, no. Now we're part of the Greater Sydney Plan. Well, I mean, where do we have a seat at the table where we can speak with a collective voice and bring these issues to state and federal government, mostly the state government? Without WestROC, I don't know if we would be a member of any such forum. So I'm happy for us to address this question, and I'm happy to support the motion that's on the screen. But there are more than just financially tangible outcomes here. There was a financial quid pro quo. We paid our membership due, and we were part of schemes that allowed us to access procurement and also the environmental programs like the replacement of LED street lighting and so forth.

We had significant economies of scale when we participated in schemes like that through WestROC. And, you know, if that case is still there, good. If that case is now marginal, think of the other intangible benefits of having a collective voice. Thank you.

Thank you. Just touching on some comments that Councillor Brogden made. We are part of the parks. It's not set up by the government. It's come out of a structure that was set up, and I don't know what they call it now. It's a few years back. It's chaired by Todd Carney, the mayor of Penrith, and as hard as it is on Thursday, I think it is, we sit with some ministers to discuss matters of Western Sydney. So it's progressive. It's very directional at the moment because of the airport, and most of the stuff we talk about is corridors, whether it be taxis or cars or the like, to make sure that that's right. There's other things too, but for the first organisation that I've been in, and I don't know the politics of the organisation, but all the councils that are involved have been cohesive.

There's been no politicking at all within the structure, and the cohesiveness and working together is something that I'm glad we're part of. But that doesn't take away from Westrock, what they've done in the past. I've sat on Westrock many years ago, but times have changed since I was there, and — I know we talk about it, but it's off the cuff, I guess, and we talk about particular issues that's been dealt with. It'd be interesting to get a report to see exactly where things are up to. Any further discussion? Councillor Wheel. Right reply

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Look, I think it's important to point out that this isn't signalling a withdrawal from WesROC. This is about, this is to answer exactly those things that are in the motion. If councillors have concerns about the value proposition of WesROC, then we need to get information about that value concern. If we believe that the value is worth staying in, then that's an easy decision. If we believe that the value isn't worth staying in, then we can either massage the organisation and our place in that organisation to get more value out of it, or we can talk about where else we could better use that money and that time and energy. Because there is a time cost to councillors, but there's a time cost to the staff.

It's often the general manager who attends, and so we need to make sure that this is a useful space. I think, too, it is a difficult space to negotiate the WesROC versus Parklands space, and I don't think that that was an accident, that they were set up almost as competing bodies, either. The same councils aren't on the Parklands that are on WesROC, Blacktown being the key council, and we saw several councils withdraw from WesROC when that Parklands Council system was set up, in part because it's just too onerous to be in all of those spaces at once. And so that divide and conquer thing is a really effective tool of state governments and their departments to further reduce the lobbying capacity of cash- and time-strapped local government.

I think, too, we are all cognisant that WesROC is currently readjusting to the loss of not just the CEO, but someone who was a driving force of that organisation and very difficult to replace. There's been some excellent work out of WesROC that we've benefited from, particularly the energy saving LED stuff. A number of councils who didn't sign on to that were then kicking themselves five years later because it well and truly paid for itself quite quickly. Also the work with respect to heat, to urban heat, which we have incorporated into our DCP, and which saved us the money and effort of writing that chapter. I think it's a useful joint lobbying space outside the Parklands grouping, but we also need to understand what we're voting on.

And again, around the rebates, it's not enough for us to get a recommendation from WesROC that it would be good for them. We need to make sure that it's A, legal and B, good for us. Thanks.

Thank you, Councillor. The motion's on the screen in front of you, Councillors. Those in favour? That's unanimous. Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Creed, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Ryan, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Sheather. Those against? The motion's carried.

Mr Mayor, given that it's past 8.30, could we have a five-minute recess?

Good idea, Councillor. We shall have a break for five minutes.

Thank you, Councillors. We'll resume the meeting. The item before us is 9.3.1, submission to the Draft Sydney Plan, Statewide Policy Industrial Land, and new approaches to strategic planning discussion paper.

It's on page 73.

I'll move that, Mr Mayor

Recommendations on page 74.

I'll second it , Mr Mayor.

Councillor Lyons-Buckett . And Councillor Reardon.

I've got notes.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I agree with this submission. I take on board the public speaker who came earlier, who spoke to us about the expansion and the notifying of the importance of Mulgrave as an industrial and employment land precinct. I know that is included in there. Whether we want to strengthen that a little, I do think he raised very valid points, and I think that there is a lot of scope for that to be developed in that regard.

I think reading through, I certainly agree with it being written in the submission about the absence of the state land use plan. Obviously this is a step in informing that, but without that, it also makes it a little bit of difficulty with so much uncertainty. My main issue with this particular plan is that I've seen these plans come and go for decades now. You know, they're often very good when they come out, but what I really look to is how we have the capability of actually implementing at a local level the various aspects of those plans that we end up taking on board in something like a new iteration of our local strategic planning statement, which we will be doing. I become very concerned with the amount of overreach the state government actually has, and the Premier himself has made the comment that he can override councils and he will.

And my concern is that so much work goes into this. When we go out and get the feedback from our community, where we feed into what we see our future as being, when we see what areas we want to see particular things happen in, we run the risk of having a state government that can override us at the drop of a hat. I find that very disappointing, but I do accept that it's a part of life. I like that the submission, the one that we have here in the business paper, has contained recognition of our value as an area offering open space and recreational opportunities. opportunities for people coming from our much denser areas of development within, you know, right on our doorstep. So we know people come out here to access our tourism.

They come out here to access just some fresh air, some space. We really want the government to consider that that is a really high value asset that we have in this area, as so much of it is lost on the rest of the fringe of Sydney. We've lost so many of those opportunities from other areas that have been highly developed. The one particular priority that I found interesting was, in particular, was Priority 5, Resilient is its heading. It's really important and, in fact, very urgent that the government finalise the DAP, the Disaster Adaptation Plan. Without that, I think we're in sort of quite uncertain territory. We really have no certainty around how we should be moving in that area of disaster planning around disasters.

That goes to the various principles in Appendix I around flooding. On page 36 in the document, under Resilience to Natural Hazard, it states that overland flooding affects areas across the urban footprint, creating challenges to development in some areas. I believe that we need to take particular notice of that statement, along with the information in Appendix I, because in Appendix I it says— Which is the chapter on flood principles. It says these principles apply to strategic planning, assessment of planning proposals and local and regional development applications prior to the DAP being released. So they are, as well as flood policies and ministerial directions. So these principles that are included in there are what we should be using to inform our assessment of planning proposals and development applications.

And it's really important because the principles, and Councillor Wheeler alluded to a couple of them before in a previous debate, but they are really important in ensuring that things such as avoiding cut and fill, which of course is something we should always be doing, not putting cut and fill in the floodplain, but avoiding cut and fill which will impact flood behaviour that adversely can impact existing communities. We think the state government's probably missed that particular principle in approving Marsden Park North, but it's something we should take on board when we're seeing these various planning proposals and development applications coming before us. We've got to avoid development intensification on land below the one in 100, and there's a number of other things around limiting flood risk and ensuring in that space between the PMF and the one in 100 that we should be requiring development to be at the one in 100 plus freeboard plus allowance for climate change.

We don't have that as a flood control here because it wasn't voted for in this chamber, but we should still be really mindful of that when we're making decisions around flooding because that's best practice. It's very good to see the new approach to strategic planning. I believe simplifying things is always a good way to go. I support the new framework, although it's not, as I said before, it's not really dissimilar to the new bold ideas we've seen before. But hopefully, when we get to doing our local strategic planning statement, we can do that with a wonderful new approach. Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Thank you, Councillor. Yeah

Thanks, Councillors. With the changes to the submission that was put in, it's certainly an additional two pages after our discussion last Tuesday about it, and the

Comments that were made in that regard, that where Councilor Lyons-Buckett has frustrated as a lot of us are sometimes, one would hope with the papers that I've read recently, both within this document and the Marsden Park one, that our staff's pretty well on top of the sort of things that we discussed around here. Well, not sort of on top of it, they are on top of it. And the changes that were made to the document that's going to be sent off are big changes and reflect very much the attitudes of what was spoken about the other night. Yeah, and I take on board the comments of Councillor Lyons-Buckett. I wish it was cut and fill on the floodplain for the Marsden Park, but it's not, it's fill.

And, and, and no, I don't know anyone that supports that sort of stuff to that degree when you look at the diagrams and stuff involved. So where we do have, say, with documents like this and the staff have discussions with the Department of Planning and the like, I'm sure that considering the submission that was put in in relation to Marsden Park by our staff, that they make strong represent on our behalf that we don't agree in that regard. Yeah, so I think the documentation we send off is an excellent representation of the comments that were made.

Councillor Creed.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I just want to ask staff a couple of questions, if that's all right through you. In the draft Sydney Plan document on page 45, we've got implement Sydney housing targets. Western Sydney is the purple area, Hawkesbury is number five, and it says for the 24 to 29 target, it's 1,300. Is this current, what our housing target is, or is this what they're

Planning? It's been our current target.

Through you, that is the current target, yes.

So

They're not

Increasing that on us at all. Okay, good. Just another question. In regards to Mr Andrew Thomas's submission that he sent to us earlier, and we have it printed out here and he spoke this evening, the recommendations that he's put forward that Councillor Lyons-Buckett briefly mentioned and touched on. Is there any possibility for these to be looked at as part of the draft, or is it set in stone and we'd have to amend to add some of these if we wanted to?

If the staff haven't seen it, and I think they have, I'll make sure they get a copy of it. To what degree? No

I'm just asking if the staff had seen it, and we decided to, would we have to amend the motion to add those, or are the staff happy to have a look at it? And is whatever we put forward tonight is what's going to the—

I don't think it's limited to that, but I'll have the general manager.

Thank you. Through you, Mr Mayor, if Council's wish to include those points raised in the written submission from Mr Thomas, they should resolve to incorporate those. If I may provide, by way of a commentary in terms of the five recommendations. Thank you. Recommendations one through four are broadly consistent with Council's adopted industrial lands planning and our planning framework more broadly. What I would think is that it would not be prudent to include point five around the inclusion of a specific property. I don't think that's appropriate when we are addressing a regional plan of this nature. No

Thank you. I did actually, that was my next question about point five, given it was a specific property. I'll just quickly touch on, I actually am— can I just say well done to the staff on providing this to us tonight. It is a good submission. I will just touch on what Councillor Lyons-Buckett said about the Premier running roughshod over the Council, saying that he could do it and will do it. He actually said that he's already been doing it pretty much since he's been elected, and running roughshod over councils for the last three years. Councils have a very strategic role in planning for the local area. These sorts of documents, whilst they look good, Council Online's bucket is right. We have seen these sorts of plans come from the state government for years and years and years, and then we have to try and drill down into the very detail about what is actually going to work for our local area.

Not everybody is going to agree on those minute details, but those details actually do have a huge effect on the community that live in the Hawkesbury. Whether it's your mum and dad trying to build a house or a first home buyer trying to build a house, there's always something that will end up coming back to something that we've done locally. And we have to make sure that when this comes back and it's been approved by the state government, that when we put this together, that we do take that into consideration. That any of the sort of detailed minutiae that we have to then turn around and implement here in the Hawkesbury is that we just keep them in mind. But well done to the staff. It's a good submission, and I'm more than happy to support it.

Thank you, Councillor.

Councillor Brogden Thank you, Mr Mayor. This really does smack of a new government just trying to demolish the structure that was put in place by the previous government to kind of wrongfoot us and to keep us endlessly guessing. I don't see much that is structural that is an improvement on the previous plan that gave us a degree of certainty, or at least it did for the time that it took effect. I'm concerned about the woolly language in the Sydney plan about the metropolitan rural area. I mean, we had a fairly clear idea that the metropolitan rural area was defined in such a way as that we had some certainty that the state government would have our back, is that if we saw some ambit claim to develop a piece of greenfield land, is that we could say, this is working agricultural land, this is working equine land, this is land that provides amenity to not only the Hawkesbury but to broader Sydney, and therefore we expect that the state government would have our back.

That wording now seems to be much woollier. On page 64 of the Sydney Plan, it says, the rural and conservation areas outside Sydney's urban footprint, formerly known as the metropolitan rural area, contain productive uses that play important roles for the region, including agriculture, logistics, tourism and critical infrastructure. These lands are not waiting for urban development, blah, blah, blah. Most zoned rural land is used for productive rural purposes and should be protected from fragmentation and urban encroachment. Some rural lands could transition to other productive uses if existing uses are no longer viable and if land can be serviced and development ready. I'm concerned about that woolliness of language because it opens the door to abandon the protections that were conferred to large areas of the Hawkesbury under the MRA definition.

And of course, this is in service to the state government's overriding ambition to create more housing. And I think we should be prescriptive. I think we should be very specific in our submission. And if the staff will take this on board as comment and maybe rework this into our submission, I think we need to say more about the definition of the metropolitan rural area. And if, as the document says, formerly known as the metropolitan rural area, well, what definitional term now applies? And what is the definition of this new term, if we're going to be marking certain land and seeing its innate value for amenity, or for E1, or for agricultural purposes? If there is no such definition anymore, where are we left?

And I think that we should, in our submission, be specific about mentioning particular areas that are before us as feeling the crunch of a decision. I do worry, like Councillor Wheeler, that merely by mentioning this to the State Government, we plant the seed of an idea and then it becomes a fait accompli. Nevertheless, it is the resolved position of this Chamber is that we have a conversation about the future of Oakville. Well, we all know that the map that accompanied the enabling SEPP for the North West Growth Sector, particularly those parts of the North West Growth Sector that overlap into our LGA and gave us everything that we see south of Commercial Road and Menin Road, encompassed a much larger area.

So clearly, even years ago, there was an idea that all those acreage properties that are close to Windsor Road, close to services, sewerage, potentially rail and bus connections, that aren't subject to the same kinds of flood evacuation risks, they may be in the sights, you know, in the future. And I think that unless we are very specific and ask those questions about how this plan affects our own discussion, to give those residents and landowners in those parts of the Werriwa some sense of agency, and that we can step into the breach and come up with some kind of compromise, you know, is detached dual occupancy the answer? Is a larger lot style of subdivision the answer? Something that ends up, you know, yielding blocks that are similar in size to Windsor Downs?

Well, we don't know, and we won't know what the impact of this will be on us unless we ask those questions. And I would exhort staff to be mindful of those questions when they finalise our submission. Thank you,

Councillor.

Councillor Creed. Oh, sorry.

Councillor Wheeler. Thanks

Mr Mayor. I think this is a really... A really solid application—sorry, submission—that was actually a pleasure to read. It's very well written. I'm not sure which staff member wrote it, but it shouldn't be I, I think. Right, it's extremely well put together, deliberately not looking at me. I can see him there.

It was a good read. I think it puts our position forward well, particularly as a peri-urban council. And I think the point is particularly well made that there's a lot of focus still on the centre of Sydney and on infrastructure and resource provision for the eastern suburbs and for the inner west of Sydney, and not very much for the areas out here that are bearing the burden of a rapidly expanding Sydney. I do feel a bit like everyone else in that this is yet another set of new clothes for the emperor, and I hope that this will only be as good as the Department of Planning makes it, and that will require them to adhere to it. But it also requires us to adhere to the principles of it as well, and that's in part where the metropolitan-rural lands theory broke down.

That's only as good as our willingness to hold off against spot rezonings when they come to us as planning proposals. We can't bemoan that those lands are being stripped away and the Hawkesbury is losing its— It's identity when we keep passing spot rezonings and little planning proposals here and there, and, oh, it's just a few more, or it's just on the edge of such and such already, that that is how we will, that death of a thousand cuts is how we lose the identity of the Hawkesbury. There's some really useful stuff in here, I think. The metropolitan rural lands is now known as the area outside the urban footprint. So it's inclusion by exclusion, I suppose. And Appendix J, I think, is fairly clear.

The Hawkesbury is not in it. We are not in the urban footprint apart from three developments, most of which are well underway: Redbank, Jacaranda and Vineyard. And outside that, that's it. So mostly the Hawkesbury is national park and rural and conservation land, and it's our job as councillors to keep it that way if that's what particularly our residents tell us. And it's pretty clear from the conversations online that it's that identity that the vast majority of people in the Hawkesbury want to see maintained. There's a clear signal from the state government that the Hawkesbury is not open to endless development. So if the state government, the Department of Planning and the Minister stand firm, then we're probably in the clear.

If they don't, this chapter, the chapter Appendix J, and the whole plan really aren't worth the paper that they're written on. I think that there's some very important pieces in here around the flooding principles in Appendix I. There are some There is an emphasis on the delivery of housing, not on the quality and diversity of housing. And I know our plans, Council's plans, reflect the need for greater diversity, especially smaller dwellings. We have a lot of larger freestanding dwellings that are no longer affordable for people starting out. And it's that diversity of housing stock that we really need to be concentrating on next: one- to two-bedroom studios, and potentially duplexes, and some low-density

Smaller housing. There's also, I think, still this idea that delivery equals affordability, which has proven to be untrue, especially this far out from the CBD when jobs and transport aren't here. And that brings me to the other point that I think is particularly well made around the commitment to infrastructure. Transport has always been the last consideration in Sydney, and probably Greater New South Wales, and you need to look no further than the lack of connection, the missing 3.8 kilometres between Tallawong and Schofields. I don't know how we ended up with two pieces of major infrastructure that don't join together. The flood planning stuff, I think, is a particularly relevant point, and I note the Member for Hawkesbury having a good old rant in Parliament about development on the floodplain.

It's a shame she didn't feel the same when her government was approving all the development running into the floodplain in the previous term.

Thanks, Councillor.

Thanks, Councillors. Just to make comment on the document, and it is frustrating because there's been a lot of them around for a long time.

And, and it's a role of things that it seems to be we've got to do a new one. But lots of times they're not properly followed through, or they're hardly ever followed through before something else is put in place. But the other day when I mentioned, the other night when I mentioned when we had our workshop, all the comments, and I take nothing away from the importance of what the councillors said around this room, but something that I brought up was active playing fields. In all those documents, in all those books, active playing fields wasn't mentioned once. Where the word recreation was used, they were talking about cycle tracks, walkways, kiddies' playgrounds. Now, if we want our younger generation to grow up and feel good about themselves and hopefully be good people in our community, whether it's recreation in a paddock or on a dance floor, if we don't provide those facilities, down the track, we're got a lot to answer for.

There's discussion tonight, and with the motion that's a bit later, the necessity to have those, that infrastructure and get it right. So while we've made comment on the stuff that's in the paper, I'm glad that the submission talks about stuff that's not in the goddamn paper at all. So, and again I say I don't take anything away from the discussion. All those points were made, and to a large degree the staff dealt with a lot, well, to the degree you can. I mean, how much can you put in a submission? We're talking about books that are, or documents that are hundreds of pages thick. And I think our submission was about nine pages. It's pretty hard to put it all together. But again, I thank the staff for that.

Any further discussion?

Councillor , reply.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'll just touch briefly on a couple of things that were said. Councillor Creed raised about the points that Mr Thomas had brought up. I did look at those and saw they were largely in the submission anyway. And I do agree not mentioning a specific property is appropriate. I think that I'd just like to say for a moment here that I think the public forum format is working very well. I expect someone like him would have spoken anyway on this item. But I do think that, just while I'm up on my feet, I'll say that, that I think that having the people come in and raise other issues with us is a very productive way to hear from members of our public. Councillor Wheeler touched on how we are sometimes not mentioned very much in there, and we're not.

There's whole sections of the plan, which I guess is a Sydney plan, so we're only a small part of that. But it's almost like we're the poor cousin in many respects. We've sort of got all the bits around us are mentioned, and it's just not us. So I think that's a message to us that we have to forge forward and sort of do a bit of our own thing. I think we've really got to stand fast now that we've got this sort of a document, that when we come up and submit our various plans that will be part of this sort of suite of documents, that we really have to identify, promote the unique identity of the Hawkesbury, and really identify what our people see as the future, rather than falling into that big pool, which quite clearly they don't consider we're a part of anyway.

So I think this gives us a really good opportunity to show the state government who the Hawkesbury really is. And because it's largely based around strategic planning, we know that that is basically our only element of power left to councillors to be doing strategic planning for. We don't do DAs anymore; we do do planning proposals. But getting our strategic documents in place is really, really important for the future of the Hawkesbury. We've got to hold the government to account on this. It's no good them just putting out these things. I hope they read the submissions; I'm assuming they do, and I think ours is a strong, very valid and truly representative submission of both what the councillors think, but also of what we know that our people in the area think.

So thank you, Mr Mayor.

Thank you, Councillor. The recommendation or the motion is on page 74. Councillors those in favour?

Against? That's carried unanimously. Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Creed, Councillor McMans, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Ryan, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zm Brogno, Councillor Sheather. Councillors, the next item is 9.4.1, the quarterly budget review.

Do I have a mover?

Can I move the recommendation?

Councillor Reardon.

Councillor Veigel.

Is there any discussion?

Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I don't have a lot to say on any specifics. The reason I called this up was that I really like how this has been presented, and what I would like is I'd really like the public, urge the public, to read through when we get something like a quarterly budget review. There's so much misinformation out and about around council and what we do. It is an element of letting people see how things can change so dramatically within a quarter. So we see with the favourable and unfavourable adjustments just how things can so rapidly have changed in the millions to be something different. And of course, it gives us the updates on the various projects and the grant works that are going on. So I just wanted to take my little time to say, as I so often do, that the public should probably get off Facebook and read this document so that they know what's really going on. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor.

Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Just some questions, if I may. It states that the rates and charges income is down. I can understand why charges income, given that their user pays largely, would be down. Is it rates income that's down as well, and why has that happened?

He's been through it today, Councillor, so he knows exactly what you're talking about.

Through you, Mr Mayor. Yes, it is an adjustment in the quarter. There was actually a favourable adjustment in the first quarter, and this is an adjustment. It is a revision to the estimate, and we are going to be looking at that again when we do our permissible income. But yes, that's an adjustment.

Thank you. Could I confirm that the easement on the side of the women's cottage has now been extinguished?

Through you, Mr Mayor, I'd have to take that on notice.

Thank you.

And could we also, and I'm happy to take this on notice as well, get some more information about the black spot works that are mentioned in the report as well? Obviously not a briefing, because that would be wrong. And I just wanted to add, there's some information in this report about staffing. I think largely the changes in staffing, or the increases in staffing, appear to be, to me, the , oh, I've forgotten what it's called, something start apprenticeship program. So no one panic. We're not running out hiring endless staff. There's also an excellent piece of news in this, which is the Aboriginal Cultural Interpretation Strategy grant. The Heritage Committee a few meetings ago discussed whether we should apply for that.

There was unanimous support from the committee, who felt that this was a foundational piece. It flows on from the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Study, which is, if you haven't read it, I urge everyone to read that. It's an outstanding document that goes right back to the formation of the landforms that make the Hawkesbury. It really is a beautiful piece of work. And this interpretation strategy, I think, will be a building block for Council, both within its own right as a really important piece of work, but also then a stepping-off point for that quite now rare and very important first contact period on into colonial heritage, so well represented here as well. Thank you.

Thank you. Any further discussion? Councillor Creed.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Just a couple of questions through you to the staff or the relevant officer. I've just lost my spot there because I had to stand up. I just wanted to ask about grants, additional works and program. The 5.6 million. So we've got a number of things: the Black Spot Program, the Caring for Country, Hawkesbury Aboriginal Cultural Interpretation Strategy. We've got, on the next page— sorry, it's actually under the reserve funded adjustments. I just wanted to get an update on the works at Turnbull Oval. There's an increase of just over half a million dollars there. Can I get an update on when that's coming back to Council with regards to public exhibition and whether

We actually go forward with it or not, given that funding?

I'm happy for you to take it on notice.

Sorry, Councillor, where are you referring to?

So it is in Attachment 1, page 7. We've got 0

5 reserve funded adjustments, and— Sorry

It's page 7 in Attachment 1, under 0.5 reserve funded adjustments, and it says multi-year reserve, increased timing of works for Turnbull Oval, $522,000. And I was asking—

Shane, do you want those, Councillor?

I'm very— Trying to distract me.

Sorry, Councillor .

That's all right. I was just asking, can we get an update on, given that it went out to public exhibition and I'm assuming that's now finished, when that will be coming back to Council? And I'm happy for that to get taken on notice. Just thank you.

Yeah, through you, Mr Mayor. You're exactly right. The timing is to place those funds back in the multi-year reserve as we continue with the development of the design, so that's just a timing issue. The— Exhibition of the concept plans, I think is shortly closed and we're going through that, and we're also dealing with stakeholders directly. We're yet to map out the next stages that will be dependent on the feedback that we have received as to when exactly that comes back to Council.

Any further discussion, Councillors? Sorry, I had one more question through you, Mr Mayor, to the staff. On page 21 of the attachment, supplementary report, consultancy and legal expenses budget review statement, I was just trying to, I had a look through the document. You've got contract budget review statement on the previous page. I was just trying to find, is there a breakdown for the consultancies for the expenses? And I understand that, I see the definition and all that sort of stuff, and I'm just curious. Page 21 in attachment one of the document, if there was a breakdown.

Through you, Mr Mayor, there isn't a breakdown within this document. There's natural accounts there that those consultancy costs would be expended back to a number of those different natural accounts. So we would have to go away and get that information for you. Yeah,

Thank you, that'd be great.

Thank you. Any further discussion?

Councillor ... my reply.

The recommendations on page 79, Councillors, those in favour?

Against. It's carried unanimously. Councillor Bearden, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Creed, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Ryan, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Stenbrogdo and Councillor Sheila. The motion is carried. The next item, Councillors, is notice of motion, Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'll move the motion in the business paper.

I'll second, Mr Mayor.

Thank you. I did just have two questions before I speak on it. The first question was who would usually review the user guide of the Sports Council? Is that our role or is that—

Sports Council has done that in the past.

So, Sports Council, do they do it regularly?

Yes.

Okay. Thank you. The other thing was an update on the mention in note by management around the second part of the — where is it now? Regarding the changes to the Code of Meeting Practices, officers are reviewing the structure of the meeting referred to. I just wondered if there was anything to update that before I speak to the motion.

In short, not really, Councillor. We're still trying to work out how to do that.

Thank you, General Manager. Thank you, Mr Mayor. I've brought this motion, Mr Mayor, to get some clarity around a few things. One of our advantages of having the public speakers come is to raise issues within the community that they may have issues with. The information that is sought in part one of this motion is something that I think is really important. It's information that should be in the public domain, and I know it's information that exists, but it's not readily available. I've looked for it. I can't see it. I think that it should be. It's something that we should understand exists. I'll say right up front, I know we're not the people allocating who plays on which ground. I get that.

But it's information that we should understand because we shouldn't have clubs feeling they don't have sufficient facilities if they are feeling like that. We have to do something about that. So I think there's a couple of points. The first thing is we have to revisit our strategy, which says we have surplus fields. We need to check that against the needs of our community and factor in things such as the current availability, the future availability, and we need to be able to join those things together so that we don't have issues. And because that is a decision we make around the strategy, it's really important that we understand what we've got, how they're utilised, where they are, etc. The second thing is ensuring that the public money allocated to the Sports Council is utilised fairly and equitably in distributing the facilities and the availability.

So that would be part of one thing. The second part of the motion is about the meeting that last August there was a deferral of the service level agreement, which was brought to Council, which had been underway for some time between the Sports Council, and it was deferred pending a meeting between councillors and the Sports Council. So the councillors that voted for deferring that basically based it on the rationale for needing the meeting for the councillors to sit down with the Sports Council. But it seems that the Sports Council— Obviously didn't want to do that, or didn't feel that they should sit down and speak with us. So it's gone ahead with further negotiations, from what I can gather.

I'm just going to add in here that deferring matters in here shouldn't be seen as a mechanism to avoid decisions that we're tasked with actually making. And with decisions such as that, which we had a resolution that we were going to implement the findings, the recommendations from the third party review, and I think it's really important that if we're deferring on the basis we're going to have a meeting and then we don't have that meeting, I have a little bit of a problem with that. Obviously deferring things is fine when there's a reason, but we were told by councillors in here that we owe the Sports Council the courtesy of sitting down with them collectively so that we could all go through this.

That all parties need to believe it's beneficial, that we're protecting our obligations and good governance by doing that, and I just think that has derailed somewhat. I didn't think we needed the meeting at the time. I was happy to go ahead with the service level agreement because, of course, we had the element of it that was a working document that enabled us to work with that and change things as it went along. However, I'm looking forward to receiving, as the note of management says, there's a reviewed service level agreement and annexure returning to council. So I guess we're just not really required to sit down and have any further engagement, although we were apparently last August that was a very important part of what had to happen.

I'd appreciate the update. I hope people will support getting this information into the public domain. I think our community would be, apart from anything else, apart from the allocation of the sporting fields, I think people would be interested to know where we have, how many teams we have doing things. I don't think it's a huge amount of work because I'm sure the Sports Council just simply has it all and they can provide it and we can put it into the public domain here . And Then we'll see where we go from there. But I'm just thinking about the matter that was made by, raised by former Mayor Conolly around the review of that user guide, Mr Mayor. You may be able to elaborate on that and the issue around the allocation of Sportsfield and that single sentence that was dictating that.

Thank you. Yeah

Thanks, Councillor. Councillor, first, I commend your motion. The issues that you've asked to be addressed here is some of them been concerning, as you're well aware of my comments for some time. The information that you asked for is available, and the council staff will work with the sports council to get that. In relation to the meeting, I was asked by staff to organise a meeting with the councillors, and when I spoke to the sports council about it, and it was my view that there was still some areas of negotiation that need to happen. And I was of the view that when they did speak to councillors, that everyone would be on the same page, and there could be, I guess, the resolve on some issues that have been difficult.

So that's why it hasn't happened. They've been keen to progress it as it is. So if there's any blame, it's certainly on me that there hasn't been a meeting. In saying that, there has still been some frustration in relation to some of the matters that they're not prepared to sign something without being comfortable with it, and it's that comfortable bit that they've got a problem with. And while it's a working document, there's stuff that's in there that has worked for nearly 40 years that's been put to the test without—when I say put to the test, changes that's been made. And code of conduct is one of them. They're an incorporated organisation in their own right, and while they're still a committee of council, so there's certainly obligations in relation to how they conduct themselves and the like, and we're responsible to make sure that happens.

But some of the things that happen in this chamber, and one of the processes is that they adopt council policies. Some of those policies are going to be hard to work with in relation to how we deal with it as an organisation here. So they're the things that have been worked through. They're keen, and I think most recently they've had discussions with the staff to come to some conclusion about addressing council and the like. So that's where that's up to in relation to allocation of fields and the like . The sports council can contribute as much into sport a year as council puts into it, and more. Actually , one of the issues we've had over the years has been able to assess the value of that because it's voluntary work as well as sponsorship and in-kind money.

But that contribution that comes from them is more than council put in. There's nobody else in this country that put in over a million dollars into council's assets every year and have done for 40 years. There's issues there on how we move forward dealing with that. We've got a volunteer policy and how that may be implemented in relation to volunteers, and that's just not the sports council, that's the people who use our grounds. So there's some issues to work through . The allocation of grounds where there's fees that have been paid at the end of the season and that's when they're due, that the grounds are usually allocated to the following year to the same sports. Now, that's not the case with all sports because things like netball, they're not the only ones that use it, but they're the main users there and it's not used for many other purposes.

But where we've got football, cricket and soccer, it's negotiated with the- With the associations as well, and in some cases they allocate grounds, and that's part of the frustration that Mr Conolly spoke of today. So the Sports Council allocates to the association who nominate the grounds, which are usually the same grounds every year. So, and the only reason that they wouldn't get the grounds the following year is if they didn't pay their bill. That's happened once in 35 years, and there was a negotiation sort of worked through, that over the next 12 months they pay that bill off. So that's where it's at, councillors. In relation to money spent and the like, the priority is about playing on the field the next week.

So that's the priority of the Sports Council. The kids get on the paddock. And how we go about that depends on whether, availability of contractors, whether they can support, because the two- and five-year plans they're asked for, they're asked for a financial commitment, which they always honour. The clubs that can't, we look for grants. So that's how it works. And in all those years, councillors never got a letter from any spectator or any competitor or any club there's been an issue with any of those matters. So , and so there's a little bit of frustration that we're changing things, and like with most things with this, we don't have the time, often enough, to sit down and discuss the matters at length.

And so we read into things, things perhaps that aren't meant to be what they are, and there's frustration there. So, Councillors, that's where it's at. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Could I ask through you that if the mover of the motion is willing to add a couple of things to her motion, if not, I'll seek to move an amendment. Point B, include as well as a list, a map of the playing fields in Hawkesbury, so that we can get some visual indication of their distribution, and note those managed by the Sports Council, so that would be a change to 1B. Yes.

And an addition of point 3, consider a review of the allocation system or the allocation guide used by Hawkesbury Sports Council.

The user guide.

The user guide.

Did you say a review of that?

Yes, potentially. It's a consideration, it's not a definite. Yeah

No, that's fine.

Are you happy with that?

Yes.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I think what this does is give us, we've got last year's social infrastructure strategy that says that we have a surplus of sports fields, and yet we have the Sports Council who've been telling us for some time, and end users who've been telling us for some time that they have a deficit. This is an opportunity to put some data behind that, to look at distribution, to look at who's playing where, and to actually have some figures that we can rely on when we allocate funds to provide , to upgrade, to manage into the future. Because these spaces do change. You know, rugby was, I'm sure, rugby used to be really popular as the demographic changes. League has taken over. And then we have other sports that have come to the fore, and that will continue to change, I think.

The other issue that we have is a lack of facilities in the northwest growth sector that's continually pushing towards us. And we see this with people coming from the hills, with people joining our teams because they have better, or better access to facilities, even though they don't necessarily live in the Hawkesbury. We also see that the same thing with our swimming pools, where councils like Parramatta , who lost their pool, Hills, who really haven't kept up with the infrastructure demands of their growing city. And I note that this week, clearing, despite a court not making its decision, a clearing of endangered ecological communities is about to begin at Fred Caterson Reserve in the Hills Shire Council, not for Hills residents, but for the exclusive use of a rugby club.

So where do Hills residents end up? They end up in our LGA. And we see this happening all around us. And it's that discussion that we had regarding the Greater Sydney Plan, that here we are on the floodplain, not eligible for a whole lot of development, but eligible to be everybody's backyard. And that's great, but the backyard needs resourcing, and it needs upkeep, and we need to be on top of exactly how much resourcing needs to be chucked at it. So I think we're at least getting some background data. We have the possibility of considering a review, as requested by Mr Conolly when he spoke at the public forum. And I think this is at least some way forward. I would like to meet with the Sports Council.

I know we have met with representatives of the Sports Council in the past, but I think it's part of an ongoing relationship with those who manage our facilities. This isn't a witch hunt. This isn't a gotcha. This is about making sure that the people who are managing our city's resources feel like they have an open relationship with their elected representatives. Thanks.

Thank you, Councillor. I'd just like to clarify something and ask you not to be too harsh on our neighbouring councils. With the floods that we had, we had 19 grounds under nine buildings. And when the grounds were open generally, all our sports played, and not on the 19 that were underwater. They played in our neighbouring councils. Sports have boundaries too, but they don't necessarily follow the boundaries of local government. And the interaction between Penrith, Blacktown and the Hills is something that we do every week. We do it with the schools, we do it with the sports and the likes, and they don't see themselves as being the Hillsites or Hawkesbury or Blacktownites or that. If they're playing on a team here, they're Hawkesbury and defend it.

So just be mindful that they have and do kick the tin, as we do for them, when they use our facilities, and not just sport. There's other things that they're involved in, but I particularly know what happens with sport. Thank you. Councillor Creed.

Thank you, Mr Mayor.

I have a serious issue with what has just been said by you, Mr Mayor. We had a resolution of this Council seven months ago. It was said endorsement of the draft service level agreement be deferred until a meeting is held between the Hawkesbury City Councilors and the Hawkesbury Sports Council and a report come back to Council. Now, you've just said it wasn't the staff, there's been no delay from the staff, from the Hawkesbury Sports Council. You have tried to negotiate or something. This was a resolution of Council. We're now into a period that we had five months before the new code of meeting practice kicked in that we could have had this meeting with councillors and the Hawkesbury Sports Council.

We could have come to some resolution. We could have heard them out and then it could have already come back to it. Now, because it's seven months later and we have a new code of meeting practice, the staff are saying that potentially we may not be able to have this meeting. I'm not sure what authority you had to delay this. My concern now is because of this particular resolution at Council that the endorsement of the DSL agreement be deferred until a meeting is held between Hawkesbury City Council's councillors and the Hawkesbury Sports Council. So until that meeting happens, because of this resolution, the DSL will not come back to Council. Yet in the business paper, I'm seeing that the staff are saying, Oh, it will eventually come back to Council.

This is a resolution at Council. It cannot come back to Council until councillors have had the meeting with the Hawkesbury Sports Council. So I'm a little bit confused as to why we haven't had this meeting. It's seven months. It was a meeting. We could have had this done by now. It could have been before Council. We could have been getting on with it. I'm just not sure what authority we... There was, to defer this. And now it's potentially that we've got a resolution of council that we can't even fulfil ourselves. So I need to ask this question through you, Mr Mayor, to probably the general manager. Given this was a resolution of council and there's potential that we can no longer have this meeting due to the change of meeting code practice, will we need to put a motion into, a rescission motion in to rescind this motion?

No.

Yeah , Councillor, I've already apologised. Well, if that wasn't made clear, I do apologise. But if there had been a meeting prior,

The outcome, I don't believe, would be in the best interests of our community or council for that to happen. I was trying to help the staff, and I wasn't involved in those meetings, it was between our staff and the Sports Council, and it's still happening. Councillor Zamprogno. I

Share the concerns of all the previous speakers, but I just want to make this one remark. If one of the effects of our new code of meeting practice is to actively prevent us from sitting down with stakeholders in our own community, then this law is broken. And it is best ignored, because bad laws are begging to be bent in this way. I will not be told by a minister that, you know, if there's a community group that is itself a voluntary body of this council that we devolve some function to, is that we do not have the right to sit down with them as stakeholders and have a meeting to try and sort out an equitable solution that everybody's going to be happy with. And, you know, when I read in the note by management on Council Alliance bucket motion, that in light of the changes to the Code of Meeting Practice officers are reviewing the structure of the meeting to ensure it complies with the updated Code of Meeting Practice, could I just get staff to actually just clarify, was there an apprehension that we would not be able to have any kind of meeting, or that if we have a meeting that we have to couch it in a certain framing to make sure that it's compliant with the new rule?

Go for it.

I'm not sure what the— I missed the first part of the question, but the latter was where we were more heading, was that we are intending at this stage, Councillors, to have that meeting. What we are trying to do, as we've indicated in the note from management, is to do that in such a way that it is not a briefing and more of a potentially collaborative discussion with Councillors where we don't necessarily have a recommendation set, that there is ways that we are trying to work that through.

Thank you.

Councillor Wheeler, do you have your light on?

Just briefly in clarification to the code, if I may, Mr Mayor, I realise I've already spoken. The prohibition is on pre-meeting briefing sessions. It's not on meetings. From my reading, is not on meetings with— With groups like the Sports Council, with groups with delegated authority. But it's always possible for Council to have meetings that items that are on the business paper and for Council to move into the Committee of the Whole and have a meeting like that in a Council meeting or in a Committee meeting as a Committee of the Whole. The only change to the requirements is that that meeting is public, and so it could take place in the Chamber with the Sports Council. It's not as comfortable for people, particularly people who are not used to speaking in Council under the Code of Meeting Practice.

But under our Committee's rules, the Heritage Committee has coped with that change. I think it's possible for other meetings where the pre-meeting briefing prohibition exists for those to take place. If perhaps we need to discuss whether we need further information about how to utilise that function.

Yeah, Councillor, we might go on a bus trip and view all the grounds, and you're quite welcome to come.

Councillor... Yeah,

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Just a quick question. The Wolves sit on the Sports Council. They volunteer their time, and I've got a representative there.

We have had —there's two delegates from each organisation, from each... No, specifically the Wolves. There was a delegate about three years ago that sat on... And now? There isn't now, no. Okay.

Through you. Most of the problem seems to be we have fields, but they're not lit. I mean, when it comes to winter sports, there's simply not enough fields to accommodate everybody. There are some fields I believe they're playing week games now, or week competition, where the associations allow. That'll come out on this when we vote on this, which I'll be supporting, by the way. The more data we'll... Got the transparency we've got, we can come informed and try and work this one through. But to be frank, I don't think there are enough fields. In the daytime, sure. Between the hours of, what, sunrise and sunset, they're vacant unless they're having a sports carnival, which I tend to think that Turnbull's pretty active in a few other fields around the place.

But they need an upgrade and we need to have a look at that. Now, where do you get the money from that? I can only talk from experience that, in kind, that AFL paid for a dollar for dollar for the lights down there on Benson 2 when they upgraded the lux level. And we looked at taking Benson 3 up as well, I think from memory, Mr Mayor. But AFL also irrigated Benson 3, contributed considerably to the electronic scoreboards down there on Benson 2, as did cricket for their fields there. So that comes back to the community, that's what I'm saying on a voluntary basis.

And they're quite willing to do it. But what I can never, and you can remember the argument I had, is the cricket fields when they close down very late, well, very, when I say late, late, nearly into the autumn, that there's a reticence to play on those fields because of the amount of money that's gone into the turf wickets, especially with cricket. And they contribute now $20,000 a year for the maintenance of those, I think from memory. Fifteen

Fifteen.

Not $20,000? Something like that. We asked. We asked. They suggested $20,000 four years ago. But look, put it that way, there's a, I know people want to play locally, but there's simply not enough fields. We had a sporting group that came out from Pitt Town and they went all the way over to Templer, I think. Or was it... Templer. Templer, wasn't it? And they didn't like it as well. We also bought lights, I think, from memory in my term there, which were taken out with the floods, and I don't think they were replaced as well. So at the end of the day is, right, we need an infrastructure improvement. All our fields, we can get lights and we can move on. Then we might be able to move forward. But I don't know where they're going to come from.

If somebody's got a wand and a bucket of money somewhere, well maybe we can look at that, but I just don't know where we're going to get the facilities from. Thanks. Yeah

Thank you, Councillor. I could go on for a week, but you'll get the information that Councillor Lyons-Buckett's asked for that'll clarify some of the discussions I've had with you.

Any further discussion? Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Thank you. I'm sorry to hear there's still a level of discomfort. It was the discomfort, I believe, was what was why we wanted the meeting, to speak with councillors who may have had concerns or who may have been representing people within the community with the concerns. So I'm just a little concerned. I understand the process and I understand that things have worked for 40 years and people don't want to change that, but I think that we have to progress this forward. I know it says it's coming in March or April, but it's really important that we don't keep delaying things just on the basis that some people might not want change when that change is something that we've already committed to.

in a council resolution, and that we should move forward with. I just have concerns around that, that it was a council resolution and you've taken responsibility for, you know, not delivering that as such by having the sports council meet with staff again. I accept that that is okay, but I'm a little bit concerned that when we have resolutions like that, that we need to implement them. We cannot have one thing on paper and another thing going on behind the scenes. I'm not alleging there's anything wrong with what's going on behind the scenes, but it's really important that when we're pushing things down the track, saying it's because we're going to have a council, a meeting with councillors, and then that never eventuates, that does concern me.

However, I look forward to getting the information and working forward. I take it from how it's been framed that we will be having a conversation after the discomfort is sorted somewhat, and in that case, I'm not really quite sure why we will be meeting. But anyway, I'll go with the flow. I'll really look forward to a bus trip if that's what we're having, and looking at those various places. I thank Councillor Wheeler for the addition there of having the user guide reviewed. I did have a quick look at it. I would think if there's only a single sentence around allocation of fields, and given that we seem to be hearing that there's sort of quite a bit of competing interest around that, and mechanisms like lighting, that we need to ensure we have enough, that that probably could do with a bit of a review.

Thanks, Councillor. The motion is, excuse me, on the screen, the slight modification to the one in the business paper, so it's the one on the screen, Councillors. Those in favour?

It's unanimous. Those against? It's carried. Councillor Reardon, Councillor Weigl, Councillor Creed, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Ryan, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Ambrogio, Councillor Sheehy. The motion's carried.

The information in relation to questions with notice,

No discussion.

Councillors, before I close the meeting, there's two things. One has been a sad day for Council yesterday and today. We lost a staff member, and it's had a big effect on our staff. The other is that, I hope most of you have seen it, but at Christmas time, with the DA process, we were number one in the state—sorry, in Greater Sydney—dealing, in 43 days, applications. Twelve months ago we were at 79 , I think it was, and so just before Christmas we were down to six in the state, and we've averaged over the last six months has been fifth. No, but I think the staff should. When I spoke to the general manager about trying to get down there, I don't know, probably 10 months ago, I think she said I'd rocks in your head, and we were competing against Wollondilly.

So I don't know what she's done or what this bloke has done, but whatever it is is good stuff. And I know that there's people with views that there's about manipulation. We didn't manipulate those figures. Other people have done it and put in a book for us. And so I'd like to congratulate the staff on behalf of all of you for the effort and work that's gone into it. And I'm sure the—well, I know the community's appreciate it because I'm rang some of them to find out just how they've felt about the process and some of the discussion that I've had with some of them are words that they would never use in favour of our staff in many, many years that they've commented extremely well. So, general manager, thank you.

Councillors, that's the end of the meeting tonight. Thanks for your attendance.