12 May 2026 - Ordinary

Welcome to the meeting tonight. Hawkesbury City Council acknowledges the Darug and Dharug people of 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 people as First Peoples of this country. General Manager.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Members of the public attending the meeting are advised that in the event of an emergency, you will be asked to proceed in an orderly manner to the nearest exit following the guidance of our warden. I would also like to advise that in accordance with Clause 5.34 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.

If any person does not wish to be recorded, they should not address or request to address the meeting. The gallery can be seen in the live stream video. If you do not wish to be recorded in the live stream, please move to the foyer and we will turn the foyer speakers on for you. The recordings may be made available to other persons where such access is in accordance with the relevant regulations. The recordings are stored on Council's record management system and uploaded to Council's website. Meetings of the Council may be separately recorded with the prior authority of Council. Finally, it is also requested that if any person participating in or attending the meeting has a mobile phone, that they either turn it off or turn it to silent.

Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Thank you. Excuse me. While we don't have any official visitors here, we do have a former Councillor, Councillor Christine Payne, recognised her presence here this evening. There is no apologies. Declarations of interest. Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I have interests, a significant non-pecuniary interest in item 9.3.1, a less than significant non-pecuniary interest in 11.1.1, and a significant non-pecuniary interest in 11.1.2.

Thank you, Councillor Ryan. Yeah, Mr Mayor, thank you. I have a less than significant non-pecuniary interest in 11.1.2. I will be remaining in the chamber. Thank you.

Mr Mayor, I have a less than significant non-pecuniary interest in 11.1.1 and a significant non-pecuniary interest in 11.1.2. Thanks. Thank you.

Deputy Mayor.

Thank you. I have a less than significant non-pecuniary interest in 9.4.6, which is on block and will need to be pulled out. And I have a pecuniary interest and a significant non-pecuniary interest in 9.3.5, which is also on block and will need to be pulled out. Thank you.

The last one, Councillor, was 9.4.5, was it?

9.3.5 and 9.4.6.

Thank you, Councillors.

Councillor Wheeler.

I have a significant non-pecuniary interest in 11.1.2.

Thank you.

If we're done with declarations of interest, I'd like to proceed with the motion. Not quite

No , I've got a declaration in relation to 11.1.2, which is an electoral donation in relation to associated business in the above item, and I'll be leaving the chamber at that time.

Councillor

Mr Mayor, I'd like to move a couple of procedural motions, if I may. One is, given the commentary that Kevin Conolly made during the public forum, I would also like to request that we pull item 9.4.5 from the on-block part of the meeting so that we can treat that separately.

Thank you. And I'd also like to request that for the sake of people who are in the gallery, that we move all of those items for which we had public speakers in the public forum and which are otherwise not otherwise on block, and that we move them to the top of the agenda and deal with them first.

Councillor Veigel.

Thank you. And my third question is

Is it related to this?

It is, sir In relation to the number of councillors that have declared a potential conflict of interest, and for the sake of the people in the gallery, could we do a quick calculation about whether at that time that would leave the chamber without a quorum?

It won't, Councillor. It's been done. Okay,

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any debate on the motion? Those in favour?

It's unanimous. Those against? It's carried. Excuse me. It's Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Lyons-Buckett , Councillor Ryan, Councillor Djuric, Councillor McMahon, Kotlash, Creed, Veigel, Reardon and Sheather. The motion is carried.

If we're going as per the motion, the first item is...

We need to do the minutes first, councillors. It's the minutes of the meeting of the 14th of April. There's a matter I need to clarify. It's in relation to a vote that was taken. It's been printed twice. Councillor Creed, it's clear that you voted against the motion.

Yes, Mr Mayor. In relation to 9.1.2, it's listed me in the minutes as voting for the motion and against the motion. I was against the motion.

Mr Mayor?

Is there any debate on that, councillors?

I have an additional, erratum. I'm dissatisfied with the reportage of my vote on item 7.1.2 at the previous meeting, and I'd like the minutes to be amended to reflect that I also voted against that motion at that time. 7.1.

2

Correct. In the confidential session of the meeting, Mr Mayor.

What page are you on, Councillor?

I'm on the page 41

20 seconds

I got it.

It's the late supplementary Mayoral minute you're referring to, and you said

You've had— I was against that, Mr Mayor, and I'd prefer the minutes reflect that accurately. Mr Mayor, I was under the impression that was unanimous. I'd written unanimous down when that happened.

Oh , it was unanimous.

Mr Mayor, I'd like to express my dissatisfaction with the way that that vote was taken in that portion of the meeting, so I'm sticking to my request.

Okay, Councillor. It's recorded, Councillors, recorded as unanimous. What I will do is undertake to review the video of the meeting.

There is no video, sir.

It isn't.

And no recording. There you go.

If it's all too hard, Mr Mayor, I'm just happy for my objection to be noted.

Thank you for that, Councillor.

Would someone like to move the minutes with the changes in relation to Councillor Creed?

Yes, I do.

Councillor Reardon. Councillor Creed. Those in favour?

Against?

Those in favour, Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Councillor Ryan, Councillor Djuric, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Creek, Councillor Veigel,

Councillor Reardon, Councillor Shea, those against? Was Councillor Brogno, Councillor Wheeler, and Councillor Kotlash. The motion is carried.

Okay.

Right.

You got the... I know what it is.

The first item that was discussed tonight, it was 9.3.5.

I've got a declaration, Mr Mayor.

Councillor McMahon.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I have a pecuniary interest and a significant non-pecuniary interest, as people I have interactions with are involved in DA0060/26, and I will need to leave the room. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor.

Councillor, the recommendations on page 71. Would someone like to move something? Councillor Creek, you move the recommendation. A seconder? Councillor Veigel. Any discussion?

No discussion. Those in favour?

Those against? It's carried. Yes, please. It's Councillor Zembrodno, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Ryan, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Kotlash, Creed, Veigel, Reardon and Sheather. Those against? The motion's carried.

Thank you, councillors.

The next item is 9.4.5.

Councillor Zembrodno. Yeah,

I've pulled it from on block given the perceptive remarks that were made by Mr Conolly, and I'd like to move to defer this item pending further consultation with stakeholders on the form of words in the terms of reference. Thank you, Councillor.

I'll

Second that, Mr Mayor.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Creed.

Discussion? I'll speak to it, but very briefly. I think what Kevin said was very good in the sense that we've wrestled with how we deal with these advisory committees, and it was always my view that although we give these committees their marching orders, I don't want that to unduly constrain them from offering advice if they feel strongly, and I think we— I think we limit ourselves in ways that we don't want to limit ourselves if we are overly restrictive in terms of the way that these committees, who give of their time and skill on a voluntary basis, and as I've said on many occasions, if we had to pay these people for the expertise and passion that they bring to the Chamber, we couldn't afford it.

And generally, they offer that to us free of charge because they're good citizens. Well, I think there's a little bit more work that we could do, given the remarks that were made, to refine the terms of reference that we reconstitute these bodies with so that they feel that they have confidence in being able to raise matters. They're not going to go rogue on us, but we are giving them that gesture of trust that we can ask them to give us frank advice that's both conveyed from the Chamber, but also voluntarily . Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. My only concern, I'm happy to do that because I do agree with what Mr Conolly said. I had also noted that difference in the words between consider and advise, along with another couple of things. But my only concern is that we're moving very close to be able to have our Access and Inclusion Committee starting up, so I wouldn't want a delay going too far before we get this back. So can we have perhaps a time frame on how long it would take before we could have this returned to Council? Or otherwise, I might move an amendment to— no, I won't, because it is to the general terms of reference, so I won't do that. But I'd just like a time frame, please.

Thank you. Through you, Mr Mayor, we can have that report back for the next meeting.

That would be wonderful. I would welcome that very much. I think there's some wonderful work being done in this. I like the various things such as agreeing that the live streaming of heritage meetings. Not to continue because it was, in some instances, constraining debate within that committee. There's often references to individuals within those committees, and I think that that's a better solution. Obviously, we can't have some committees that are broadcast and some that are not. So I liked that decision. The Cultural Advisory Committee suggested is a wonderful idea. I'll be very pleased to see that come into operation after we have our cultural plan, which has been adopted. There's so much potential in that, and it broadens the scope of what the Enhancing the Arts Committee, the Enhancing the Arts Working Group, actually had.

So I was sorry to see that one stall, so I'll be very pleased to see that return. Just when we do this review, the other thing I had raised was I didn't think it was clear enough within the terms of reference how we will be dictating to these committees how we will really get that flow of the two-way things going, whether by council resolution, because we only have one meeting a month and the committees meet every, you know, in different ways. I would like to be able to have something more firmed up about how things actually get on the agenda of the committees. The Access and Inclusion Committee, I'm assuming that is pretty much ready to go when that comes back if the terms of reference are adopted, and to see that audiovisual is provided as a means of participation in that committee is very good to see, given we can't always use that anymore.

There were a couple of other points. I can probably bring those up next time, but they were things like making sure the lift is available after 5 p.m. for people who may want to come to a committee. It might not be on after 5 p.m., it might be on in business time, but just little things like that to ensure that the committee lives up to its name and that there is adequate access that everybody can, you know, participate in that. So I'm happy to see it come back to the next meeting with some minor changes. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillors. I certainly agree with the attitude of the speakers. With the previous Access Committee we had in the past that dealt with DAs before Council in some cases in relation to development in our streets, access to our shops, our car parks for a variety of disabilities. And while our planners are good in that regard, the people who do walk the streets and see the indifference sometimes of engineering feats or the like is either supported or otherwise by the very people who sit on those committees, and that advice is absolutely terrific. You know, so, and Mr Conolly was generous in relation to one item he picked up. He's picked up quite a few along with a couple of other people on that committee in relation to matters that would seemingly be otherwise dealt with.

One was a pipe system in Richmond that reflected on our floodplain management plans as being a one in a hundred year event and was actually, excuse me, in a position it was 23 metres. It flooded simply because the pipe wasn't big enough, and so it indicated an evacuation route that could not be used at a certain level, and it wasn't because of riverine flooding. It was because of rain events that would cause it. So there's things like that that do get missed in plans, and these people who offer their time to review the plans and the likes and speak openly at meetings and the likes, and that's one of the things that we spoke about, and I see there's a comment within the Business paper about the live stream of the Heritage Committee.

With the floodplain committee, I know that we would not have The ability to have the government bodies on there to speak as freely as they did if they felt that they were going to be under public scrutiny with everything that they said, where we can challenge it, we can ask for further information, all in the confines of a meeting with a common purpose. So, Councillors, I commend the motion.

Any further discussion? Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I'm happy to see this deferred for a bit of wordsmithing on those terms of reference. It's something that in the Heritage Committee we've got around at the Chair's discretion through general business. I think it's useful for the terms of reference to allow that or a similar approach to exist. It improves goodwill amongst the committee. It also allows for a free flow of information from people who just may be across things that we cannot cover, or that we don't have, particularly, say, in the area of heritage where we simply don't have the staff to be across all of the issues, across all of the heritage items in the LGA. So having that capacity for people to raise things that are of concern.

Glasgow House, which you'll see coming in the Heritage Committee minutes later, was one of those items raised in general business by a member of the committee because the awning had come off and all of a sudden this extraordinary stonework was revealed. If I didn't have discretion as the Chair to say, sure, we can talk about that, it would have just drifted off. So I think it is important, and I thank Mr Conolly for raising it. I'm happy that it will be back in the next meeting, though, because I agree with Councillor Lyons-Buckett, we do need to get on with this, particularly for the Access and Inclusion Committee. Can I also raise with that committee that the Derubbin Centre may be a better alternative venue for that committee.

I know it's a nuisance to shift our staff up there, particularly for minute taking, but it does have much better accessibility. I think it also has access to a hearing loop, which I'm not sure we have in this chamber, which has really lousy acoustics for anyone who's hearing impaired. I also just want to make the point that these committees are only as good as the consultation with them. Projects need to go to them early, particularly speaking of the Access and Inclusion Committee and the Heritage Committee here, and there needs to be a free flow of information through the life of that project, because otherwise we end up in a mess like we did with the Windsor Mall stuff, where the Heritage Committee were really concerned about some of the heritage impacts of some of that work, and it took quite a long time, and then there were delays as a result.

So that communication needs to be maintained. People give freely of their time and expertise. Allowing a free flow of communication is part of respecting that relationship.

Any further discussion, Councillors?

No further discussion. I put the motion. It's on the screen, on our screen. Those in favour?

Against? Carried unanimously.

Councillor Brogdon, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Broin, Djuric, McMahon, Kotlash, Creed, Weigel, Reardon and Sheather. The motion is carried. The next item

Is 9.5.1.

Councillor Creed. Sorry

Did you say 9.5.1? Yep. Mr Mayor, there's a late item with that. Yes, I've just got some slightly changed wordings to the recommendation that was in the supplementary, which I've sent through to the staff.

I'll second it too. Thank you

Councillor Veigel

Just quickly, it's not that much difference to what the recommendation is in the paper except to remove point 2, and

It becomes point 2A, removal of commercial rides and salute fireworks allowing only low-rise fireworks. Point B is the same. Point C is the same. Point D is changed to a maximum noise level of 85 decibel, which is what's in the business paper at residential boundaries. Point E is no use of sporting fields for rides, food trucks, some fireworks or potential heavy infrastructure. And then point F is at the end of it, if it's deemed too wet within reason. And I would just point out that point 2 does still say, would consider. It doesn't actually tie us to this. It's just about trying to get on with it and give the organisers some sort of clarity on what Council expects. So I hope the Chamber can support this.

I've got a question to the general manager. In the documents that relates to, in the management plans, it relates to the lights out at 8.30, and also says that we can't change that in relation to the management plan structure as a resolution of Council. Is that black and white, or is there ways to rectify that?

Through you, Mr Mayor, there is a method available to Council to modify the plan of management as outlined in the business paper, either for recurrent events or for a one-off. So that is available, but it would have to be pursued relatively quickly to give certainty

Could I ask for appropriate wording that may assist with that in case the lights are required, and perhaps not only in that park, if we're going to review it, that we look at it on the basis that any park may be considered for a one-off event

Through you, Mr Mayor, we can certainly get on with that as staff. We don't need a resolution to commence that process. It will come back to the chamber by virtue of the statutory requirements. I would probably counsel against lumping in any others at this time, given the time pressures with respect to Peel Park and wanting to get this progressed for a specific purpose. We can review as a housekeeping arrangement for the other plans of management as and when they're required. Thank you.

Councillor Buckett.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I just have some questions. You just said for a one-off event. I was just speaking to the gentleman who spoke outside, and they sort of were alluding to it being a regular event at that location. They said if there were issues this year, they would try and fix them for next year. So I assumed that they are anticipating there would be some issue with the bridge construction, etc. that would be ongoing. Is it intended to be a regular event or a one-off event? General Manager. Through you

Mr Mayor, my understanding is that the indications from Transport for New South Wales are that construction is going to take approximately three years. So I would anticipate that there's going to be a requirement to hold the carols at an alternative venue for the next three years

Yep. Will this come back where the motion is saying that Council would consider, is that council staff or is that us? Would we consider if certain— I mean, how

Is this going to be ascertained? Is there a plan or is there another application to come in? How would we actually get to know what the final outcome of this proposal actually was? Through you, Mr Mayor, there's a couple of opportunities. The first is that Council could consider an additional point, which would delegate the authority to the General Manager and require notification of Councillors on the outcome of a successful agreement. And it could also be wrapped up through the matter of revising the POM for Peel Park.

Personally, I'd rather see it come back because I think there's a number of questions around it in this point two. One of them, another question I would have is it says D, a maximum noise level. I mean, who's going to measure that or ascertain that without a noise management plan being done?

Through you, Mr Mayor, it certainly sets the guidance for the sound engineers that were alluded to in the first gentleman's address to Council during the public forum, that they engage sound engineers to set up their sound equipment. We could look, and I'm not too sure, might have to take this on notice, at what acoustic equipment we may have within our— Regulatory Services Branch, but it would be important to maintain that for guidance to their sound engineers.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Thank you for those answers. I'll speak to it, Mr Mayor. I am a supporter of this event. I regularly attend it. I think it's a wonderful event when it's been in Hanna Park. My concerns around the alternate venue are the density of housing within that area and the proximity to a reasonably sensitive environmental corridor along Redbank Creek. I think that there's a lot of—this will be summertime—there's a lot of vegetation around there. I'm not keen on fireworks being used at all. I don't think that that's suitable in that location. All the other aspects of the event I have no problem with, if the noise can be limited to that.

I'm also a little— I'm a little bit concerned about the traffic going into that vicinity. It's a little bit of a rabbit warren getting into North Richmond. I don't know if there'd be consideration of having an alternate parking area where people could, you know, maybe access it some other way. That's a lot of people. I know you have people go there for sporting events, but I'm imagining this event is normally in its hundreds, if not thousands. So I don't know how limited it would be by not having food trucks and things. I'm still anticipating at that time of year on a fine Christmasy night, many people will want to go, and understandably so. So I've just got a few concerns. I'm happy to support it going forward so that the organisers can investigate things along this line.

But I will reiterate my concern around fireworks. I would like some— we've never finished our fireworks policy, but I would like some controls around that, given that should it be one of our really hot days, if the weather conditions were not, you know, conducive to having any sort of fireworks undertaken at that time, that that could be dealt with. But I do want to support it and I do want to see it go ahead. I would still hope if there were any other locations, that would be good, given it's pretty much within the Redbank precinct, and I assume Redbank is a sponsor of it anyway, but maybe they could assist with some of these. I did suggest maybe they'd like to pay for a laser show so we didn't have to have the fireworks, but I'm not sure.

Maybe they would. I don't know. I think that would be much better, innovative and very cutting edge for the area. But when you look at the map and you see the density of housing around it and the bushland, that's where my concerns emerge from, and how you can see the access into that area of North Richmond is quite restricted as well. But I'm happy to support this so that it proceeds to the next stage. I wouldn't just like to delegate it to the general manager to finalise. I would like— I would like it to come back to the chamber. Thank you.

I’d just ask Councillor Creed first, in relation to, did you want to consider whether it be brought back to the chamber or the general manager before the debate goes on, or otherwise we’re going to go all through it again?

Can I just actually ask a question through you, Mr Mayor, to the acting GM? Is there—would there be time constraints? Would there be time constraints if it had to come back, given that we only meet once a month now? Like, is there a— I’m just trying to work out with planning and stuff, is it better to do the delegated authority, or

I’d imagine that we’d be able to turn this around. Look, I place the caveat that we’re but one party, and of course it’s going to require the organisers to come to the table and agree, which I’m sure they will. But I can only speak to our own resourcing, that I’d imagine we can get this back to Council by the second June Council meeting. So that’s not the first one in June; we’ve got two in June. Seventeenth,

Is it?

Something like that.

Or at the latest July. So as part of this, they’d have to do their TMP and TCP. That would have to go to the local transport forum as well. Yeah. So we only meet once a month, so I’m assuming that this is more likely

Yeah, and

It would

Also depend exactly what Council wants to, in effect, determine. Yeah. All of these staff have delegation to approve. Okay. So ordinarily, there’s not one thing here except for the local traffic forum that would ordinarily go to Council for a decision. Yeah. So if Council, if it was the appetite of Council to retain control of approving the whole thing, then it would have to wait until the local traffic forum had been — Carried through, which would put it back further. What impact that has on the certainty for the organisers, I can't comment on that.

Mr

Mayor, may I withdraw what I said before and change it to the delegation. I don't want to cause delay, and I understand that the Traffic Committee likes to have , you know, a number of months, normally five or six months, to consider it. What I would just ask for, without having to put that in writing, is that we are advised or have another discussion with councillors around what is being finalised and what's being decided upon.

Thanks for that clarification, Councillor, appreciate it.

Councillor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor.

I'm just a bit perplexed by the fact that in the original business paper, there was a big emphasis, I thought, on encouraging the event organisers to find an alternative venue, mostly because of the fireworks and the rides. Now I think that the rides, I think they're comfortable with not going ahead with, but I can't understand why there seems to have been a flip to allow the low-rise fireworks. The reason I say that is that when we were debating, excuse me, the fireworks issues that we had, Before, which was a few years ago, and we resolved to produce a fireworks policy. There was a lot of difference in opinions about the impacts of, what do they call them, salute , the big fireworks and the low fireworks.

Now, I don't think it's, I think probably there is an issue, even with low-rise fireworks in that sort of close, heavily urbanised area with the bushland at the north that Councillor Lyons-Buckett was referring to before. I'm quite kind of quite concerned about that area of bushland as well. Can we have, when we, even if the staff deliberate this and it's on delegation, can we just get a little bit more

Commentary around the real differences between salute fireworks and the low rise? Because I'm not really that happy with that. I was

And I note that Councillor Lyons-Buckett said, A laser show. Well, I thought there could be a drone show, so my technology beats yours. We have, no, but it's really funny. We were talking about this last time. Technology flies along. I was actually trying to ask the speaker that before. Is there any other things that they can maybe explore for this three-year period, which is a bit of a, well, we're calling it a one-off of three years, which is okay. We might be able to get interest people in , people who are doing new sorts of technology to use it as a bit of a test case or something. But I'd really, really like some more information on the differences in these fireworks. Thanks.

Thank you, Councillor. The difference in the fireworks are those explosive high ones that make a noise that have every dog barking from here to Bourke. From my belief, the lighter ones don't make those explosions to the degree to create that problem. And I'm sure they'd love to have laser. The problem is we're trying to minimise the amount of people that go there to have a good time, and I'm sure laser would bring half our country there. With what's been said taken on board, there's people in the gallery that's taken on board the comments that we'll be working with the staff to deal with these matters. The purpose of the night is carols in the park , and the rest is entertainment to fulfil an enjoyable night.

I'm sure that the organisers will work with Council to do whatever they can for the people who wish to take their children along to listen to carols in the park to achieve that outcome. But the comments, I'm sure, are noted by the speakers, not in relation to what we don't want to happen, that the activity will be better without them.

Councillor Zamprogno. Thank you, Mr Mayor. I share the concerns that have been voiced. I, too, would be happier if the organisers were prepared to consider another venue. I accept that they declare an affinity with the North Richmond community, but if they are the Hawkesbury Carols community, they should consider other venues. I have the very fondest of memories in being associated with the organisation of large carols events at the behest of what was then the Hawkesbury Ministers Fraternal, so not merely one church but a confederation of churches, and they were grand affairs, and we had them at McQuade Park and Richmond Oval and even at the showground. I'm loath to put this in as a clause, but I imagine that it would be very wise advice to the organisers to ask them to letterbox the street or the surrounds in the lead-up to this to say there's going to be an event of some scale and please be aware, just as a courtesy, I suspect, because I think it is also a warrant, and if there are any difficulties with access and, heaven forbid, emergency services access at a critical moment, I don't want the blame to be left at our doorstep because we weren't firmer in saying this probably isn't the best venue.

Thank you, Councillor.

General Manager, when something like this happens, is there normally a request to notify the public, like with a street sign or something like that?

Through you, Mr Mayor, it's typical in the traffic management plan that there's notifications, at least for the local area, given the scale of the event, yes. Would that suffice you, Councillor?

I'm satisfied, thank you. Thank you . Deputy Mayor . Sorry

Just quickly, I did just turn around and ask that question, and they already do do that for the fireworks purposes. Thank you.

Thanks very much. Any further debate? Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Just a question, I don't know if the staff are aware, was Turnbull Oval considered for this event?

Yes, it was.

And it's not a goer?

No. And it's likely, there's parking problems associated with that as well, and there's works being done in that area both by Sydney Water and the traffic, and it would only be for this year because it looked like Turnbull's were going to be closed for other purposes down the track. And some of that even could happen before Christmas. So there's a variety of reasons, and it was looked at, I believe, by our staff as well, and it wasn't satisfactory.

Thank you. I appreciate their desire to stay west of the river, and I also thought of Collaroy Soccer Fields. Obviously it's privately owned. They're perfectly within their rights to not want it on their site. You've just highlighted the issues with Turnbull Oval. I do have real concerns with it being at Peel Park, particularly around traffic. That's quite a difficult park to access if there's a number of people there, and I wouldn't like to see this event, which has been really well supported by the community and does function as the speaker said in the public forum, as a real community event. This is a really good event. It's very well attended. It's very busy. They work very hard at making sure people have access and are able to freely move around on the site.

And I think it's going to be very hard to achieve a similar thing at Peel Park with a similar display of community organisations, the Scouts, the RFS, that sort of thing. So I think using Peel Park will reduce quite a lot of capacity. But I think too, one of my concerns is that I don't want it to be an event that only the people who can easily walk there can get to. People who need to, people who come in with small children, with access issues, people who live further away and need to drive, are going to struggle to get to Peel Park just because of the way the roads are structured. This is not a park that was ever designed in a location for a large event. Perhaps either Redbank or the organisers could consider some sort of shuttle with parking elsewhere to get around that.

I know previously they've done wonders with organising food delivery where the food trucks weren't enough to feed everybody, so that people weren't driving back and forth and coming and going. So I'm hoping they can be as creative. I do have real concerns about the fireworks. That is a wildlife corridor there, as well as some quite significant bushland along Redbank Creek, and there will be big impacts on pets from any fireworks as well. I'm not sure that they will be able to keep much more than the— Sort of the low-rise crackle below the decibel limits, below that 85 decibel limit for fireworks. Most fireworks exceed 120 decibels. I'm pleased to see that salutes won't be allowed. They're the loud noise and the flash, and they're usually high in the air.

They are just not suitable for this area. And you're right, Mr Mayor, they are the ones that set the dogs off, but they're also the ones that terrify wildlife. And we really need to be mindful of that in the site that's proposed. I would prefer that there were no fireworks. I would prefer that there were no fireworks at all, frankly. There's far better uses for gunpowder and far better means of a light show these days. I also am not in favour of a permanent change to the plan of management. This is a stop-gap event in a residential park, and I wouldn't like to see this become a habit. I don't think it provides reasonable access, particularly for traffic, and I think its impacts on both Peel Park, the bushland and the residents around it are far too onerous for this to be something that is baked into the plan of management.

Thanks. Yeah,

Thank you, Councillor. With my comments about any changes to plan of management, I'd expect that to be taken into account. Of all our parks that we've got, Peel Park is probably the worst access to it. But the organisers are working with Redbank, who is part of that development there, and with staff to accommodate those comments that you made, which are quite right. Any further debate?

Right of reply.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Only just to say that the issues that have been raised, I think the whole point of this is so that Council staff can meet with the organisation organisers and actually nut all of this out. So I do appreciate the concerns that have been raised by councillors, and that's it. Thanks

Thank you, Councillor. I'll put the vote. It's on the screen in front of you. Those in favour?

That's unanimous. Those against? It's carried. Councillor Brogden, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Bryan, Djuric, McMahon, Kotlash, Creed, Weigel, Riden and Sheather. The motion is carried.

The next item is item 11.1.1. Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I have a less than significant non-pecuniary interest. I

Have loose affiliations with various media organisations. The reason for no further action is that

The motion relates to the review of a policy and does not specify any information relative to any individual or organisation.

Before we go any further, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, you are proposing to change your notice of motion?

Yes, Mr Mayor. Today I sent to all councillors and staff, as well as published on my Facebook page, an alternative notice of motion.

Thank you. I just need to clarify that in relation to— To those who were proposing to declare an interest, Councillor.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I want to declare a less than significant pecuniary interest, only in that the person who spoke on the matter is part of a group that edited a video that I used, and the reason I'm staying is that I don't think it has anything to do with this matter. Thanks. Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I've brought this motion. I think it's fairly apparent to absolutely everybody, probably in wider Sydney, if not New South Wales by now, that— You want a seconder? Oh , yes, I need a seconder.

I'm sorry, Councillor Scottlash.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I've brought this motion in an attempt to be able to review our council media policy, to be able to iron out some of the issues that seem to have been circulating around in recent times around how we best disseminate to our community factual information about the council, how we distinguish fact from opinion, and how we ensure that we protect the confidential information that councillors are privy to, and also that we review our policy in the sense that we need to consider and update the emerging technologies and the new way that media or information is filtered into the community. So we know in the advent of artificial intelligence being one of them, we also know that technically anybody can call themselves media.

I could start the Currajong Herald, and I could just write about everybody, and there'd be nothing to stop me. So we really need to review our media policy. I imagine it's one of the policies that has to be reviewed within this term of council anyway, and I've suggested, in light of the various contradictions and contrary information that's been put in the press recently, in the Sydney press I'm referring to, or on the ABC, that we should have this done in a workshop to be facilitated by an experienced external facilitator to remove any perception that there's any bias involved in how we are reviewing this policy, and how we are coming up with a document that both allows us to have the requisite Accountability and information given to our public about what we do, while at the same time ensuring that we adhere to our obligations around privacy, around confidentiality, and around to best reflect contemporary media practices.

I imagine it would be a cost. I didn't have, because I only put this in today, I didn't have time to ask for costing. I'm sure it won't be that expensive to have someone facilitate a session, but I think that's a worthy expenditure of money because that would eliminate the potential accusations from people that it was an internal move to have a policy that was in line with any individual's thoughts. It would be a councillor workshop where the 12, sorry 11 councillors could all give their points of view and contribute. It's a media policy that covers many things already, but as with many things in this day and age, things are evolving so fast, things change so fast with the advent of the digital technology world.

We see that the laws and often the regulations don't necessarily keep up with the evolving space, and we can be on the forefront of that so that we can work together. And working together is something that I really think that it's time we did. If anything, much of the feedback I've received from the public around all of this recent sort of You know, outbursts on all sides has been that people want us to actually get on with our job. They want us to come in here and do the things that we've got the obligations to do, and that's what I'd like to see us do. We haven't got time for distractions. What we want is we want to see— I've got no issue with any information going out to the public, so long as it's not restricted by law or to protect people's private information.

I'm a long-term advocate of that in many ways. So I don't like to see our community in a divided state. It's not healthy for our community. We're still a community that is healing from the natural disasters. We're a community that needs to come together as we face many things coming up in the future that are going to challenge us, whether that be more disasters, whether it's the changing demographic, whether it's the changing evolution of what our landscape looks like, the proposals to develop in certain ways. There's many things that we will have to confront, and we need to do it as a united body. That's why we were elected. That's our job, to comply with the laws and to review our policies so they're fitting to give our public the best that we should be giving them.

Thank you, Councillor.

Any further debate?

Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I will certainly be supporting this motion tonight. I think that it is quite timely with the distraction that's going on outside of this chamber right now with certain individuals and— Certain groups hell-bent on causing harm and disunity in our community. And Councillor Lyons' bucket was correct in saying that the focus for all of us in here should be doing our jobs and focusing on the decisions that we need to make in the best interest of this community. However, as I just touched on, there is a significant distraction right now where people are trying to deflect our time and our energy from our elected purpose. And the reason that that is happening is because this organisation and our staff and our councillors are being significantly defamed on repeat.

And therefore, I just wanted to touch on Councillor Lyons' bucket. You said that the issue was local and potentially across the state. Well, it's gone national tonight with an A Current Affair story that has my phone flashing up constantly, including my mother in tears. So it's gone national tonight. So that's an interesting aspect that I'll deal with tomorrow. But what is more timely is that we, as a council, come together. We have an independent arbitrator adjudicate a workshop so that we can tighten the policy that we have to ensure that when decisions are made to either exclude people from this chamber, we have definitions that support those decisions. Further, I believe and support the insertion of ensuring that that policy is as tight as it can be around confidential information.

There is a systemic leak in this council of certain councillors leaking confidential information outside of this chamber. I, for one, will be happy to go on the public record and say it is not me. I am not the one leaking information. However, when there are 11 of us sitting in this room and a story is run the next day about something that was said only amongst the 11 of us, we know someone in this room is breaching their elected duty and breaking the law for their own political and self-gain. That is why it is important to support this motion tonight. I have a whole raft of other things I want to say, but I think it's better for me to say it in the next notice of motion. That doesn't raise a conflict for people to have to leave the room if I raise it now.

So I'll keep this one short and keep my more substantive comments for the next notice of motion. However, I do support this motion on the board right now because tightening our policy, tidying up our definitions around what is media and how we can respond as an organisation to best protect our staff and our community is essential. Thank you.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Councillor Kotlash.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Yes, I'd like to put on the public record that I'm not the leak in this gang of 11. I also want to put on the public record that I would welcome much more media scrutiny than we have at the moment. I think our problem is that we don't have enough media scrutiny. Because what happens at the moment is that— And why I think we have a quite unhappy community , or there is a perception that our community are unhappy, is because they're fed a constant stream of almost subtle messages about how council is not transparent, we're not inclusive. There's a whole, you know, there's a whole range of things that get bandied about. And because I'm in the position of being a councillor and being one of the people that need to guide this ship, I sometimes sit back and think, why is this happening?

We've got this, this, this, and that's really good, and we've improved that, and I go through, in my mind, I go through all of the things that we work really hard on, and we're terribly mindful about getting right. And in my experience in this council, our staff and my fellow councillors, we're all pretty committed . to getting the very best for our community. That's why we're here. Even if I don't agree with some of my fellow councillors' methods, they're still here for the right reasons. But we don't seem to be getting the message across that we're here for a purpose. We're elected for a purpose, and we do that in good faith, more or less. So why do we have such— why do we have an organisation, two organisations, that constantly berate us?

That perplexes me, and that's why I think, let's get some more press chairs. Let's get as much press as we can get. That's what I welcome. So out there in social media land, if anybody, you know, goes on about me hating the press, well it isn't true. I know I'm not going to wear that. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Feigel. Yeah, thank you, Mr Mayor. I get somewhat perplexed to suggest that this council is not transparent. The very reason we're being podcast tonight is another technology that it's open to all. If you want to sit over in London, you can take this as a stream, I suppose, probably better entertained maybe what's going on at the moment. But I am supporting this motion and I welcome it. But hopefully something might come out of it. We might get some journalists that— Abide by the ethics of journalism within Australia, and report accurately and without opinion. And that's all right to have an opinion, I get that, but just say it's my opinion and it's not coming back by a fact. That's all I'm saying. So I'll leave that very briefly so I can get to other debate on the motion. Thank you.

Councillor Sam Brogner. Thank you, Mr Mayor. Fun fact for Council of Eygel: I stood at that podium easily a decade, maybe even 15 years before I was elected for the first time, and told this chamber that there was this new technology called webcasting, and it would be an innovation for democracy if we did precisely that. There was no obligation on the part of the state government to force councils to do that. Everybody around this table at that time voted no, because they didn't see that that was the kind of accountability that they wanted. I'm glad that times have changed. Council's media policy was updated in December 2023, barely two and a half years ago, and after a robust debate on precisely the issues before us now.

Our media policy undoubtedly follows a template given to us by the Office of Local Government. I invite you to read it. Do you know what its purpose is? Its purpose is to define the appropriate conduct of Council as it relates to what Council and its staff and representatives say. It only concerns itself with whether Council's commentary to media organisations is accurate and clear, fair and balanced, respects privacy and avoidance of harm, and represents integrity and transparency. It does not appear to be the function of a media policy. The OLG did not intend media policies to be a way to provide, you know, new or punitive mechanisms for punishing media organisations when a Council simply doesn't like the tone of the reportage that other organisations make.

I am glad that Councillor Lyons Buckett has chosen to amend the form of the motion that she was intending to bring tonight. I assume that her desire is still to bring something by way of a change that conforms to the form of words that was published in the business paper. In its earlier guise, it appeared to me that there was a suggestion that we should alter our media policy in such a way that certain media organisations would no longer qualify, meaning, I presume, that they could be regarded as persona non grata by Council, and that Council would then be obviated from the need to answer any questions posed by those media organisations. In fact, in the original form of words, and I acknowledge that we’ve moved on from this, but it said that in the opinion of Council, that if they don’t demonstrate adherence to these standards, an arbitrary standard, then they will not be recognised as media organisations for the purposes of this policy.

So for those people who have been going on tonight saying, of course these media organisations can still report; they don’t have to be in the chamber, there has been a stated desire published in our business paper to hobble media organisations in precisely that way, so that if they send in a media request, it doesn’t need to be answered. I will pass over the fact that the person who was most likely to be affected by this change in the definition of a media organisation is a family member of the Councillor that moved it, and I’m grateful that— Point of order, Mr Mayor

I’m

Walking it back

Immediately.

Point of order, Mr Mayor. Mr Mayor, my point of order is I have made a declaration of interest, unlike some people, and the thing is that I put this forward. This is relevance. It’s about relevance to what is being said. In addition, there is no public-facing information of who owns the Hawkesbury Gazette, I might add.

Thank you , thank you, Councillor. Councillor, there's three or four of us that have got to leave the room if you remain on that line.

I appreciate that, Mr Mayor. I'll reclaim my time.

Thank you.

And I am grateful for Councillor Lyons Buckett acknowledgement. Our current media policy says in its preamble that the media landscape is rapidly evolving and fragmenting. I certainly wish that we still lived in a world where regional newspapers were a going concern. In 2017, the Hawkesbury Gazette posted a photo of its staff Christmas party, and there were 15 people named in the caption of that photo. Clearly, we no longer live in that world. Councillor

I need to leave the chamber.

If I can resume my remarks after you've— if you're making that decision, I'll respect it, Mr Mayor, but my time has not expired.

Well, if you're going to persist with anything in relation to a particular organisation that you have, I've got to leave the chamber.

So should he.

I believe that. Is that yes or no? I believe you're in no further danger if I can conclude my remarks, Mr Mayor.

Today, we see the rise of citizen journalism, the blogger, the volunteer with a social media platform, or an email newsletter. That's how Hawkesbury matters evolved into that bastion of investigative journalism, the Hawkesbury Post, which some of us miss very much, others somewhat less so. But globally, citizen journalism broke reportage about the Arab Spring, the poisoning of Alexei Navalny, the downing of MH17 by Russia. I believe this motion, in which I sense the desire of some to make our media policy do something which it was not intended to do, is misguided. I would remind the chamber that our own general manager, in remarks made to the ABC Radio only last week, explained that it was not intended that a media ban was intended to limit the reportage that those media organisations might make.

It would appear that there was a stated desire to change our media policy to limit reportage, made possible by disfavoured media organisations by claiming that they are not genuine media organisations at all.

Point of order, Mr— Point of order, Mr Mayor.

I'm nearly done, Mr Mayor. Well,

It's a pity you're not sticking to— sorry, Mr Mayor. I believe Councillor Zanprogno is not talking to the subject of this item.

Thank you. Nearly done, Mr Mayor. You've got about two seconds, Councillor.

I think I've got longer

Than that.

Points taken, Councillor. Okay, you're right. I think that anybody that's foolish enough to trot out an argument in public that these media organisations are not media organisations are on a hiding to nothing. I think it sounds pretty sus, and I think it sounds pretty sus to

Most people listening

To this debate

Point of order, Mr Mayor. We're not talking about media organisations

We're talking about the formulation of a policy. You're changing it.

Point of order, Mr Mayor. Councillor Zanprogno has just made an allegation about me, which at the start of the meeting we read out is not allowed to happen in this chamber. That is directed at me, and everyone in this room will agree that is directed at me, about not defining a particular media organisation as a media organisation, and he called me sus twice. You've let him before get away with telling me to F off. I think you need to call him to account for his continued behaviour in this chamber that's bringing the chamber into disrepute.

Thank you. Thank you, Councillor. We will have a discussion at a later date, Councillor,

And I take on board your comments, Deputy Mayor.

Any further discussion? Right of reply. Sorry, Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Look, I have been a vocal critic of Council's media policy in the past, and I

Will quite comfortably state that transparency is a core component of a healthy democracy. But that's not quite what we're discussing here, and I appreciate Councillor Feigel's point that this Council makes genuine efforts towards transparency. We have podcast and live streamed our meeting long before it was a requirement of the code. We started doing it in response. We have always kept a copy. You could always request a copy of the Council meeting to listen to. It might have been clunky. It was on one of those ancient pieces of gadgetry called a disc that you had to load into another gadget that everyone has buried in their bottom drawer or chucked in the e-waste long since. But you could always listen to a Council meeting.

We have always prided ourselves, since I was elected in 2016, we have maintained a culture in this chamber of debating things openly in the chamber. We don't rush decision making here, and I note that then that's frequently criticised by the media who think that we should all knock off at 10 o'clock. We do not do the quick flick that some of our neighbouring councils pride themselves on, where everything is over in 10 minutes. We allow open debate in this chamber. So that the community is well aware of how we have reached our decisions. This isn't

I applaud the use of an external facilitator, and I'll also make the point that this isn't about stymying council's media access via a change to council's media policy. If you read the words of the motion on the board, it clearly states that we are resolving to hold a workshop with an experienced external facilitator to review council's media policy. Now, if we come out with something that does decide who council engages with, that will still have to come back to the chamber as a policy. It will still be open for debate. That's not the intention of this motion at this point. But we do need to have a robust discussion about how we deal with confidential information, and further how we deal with media training and with disinformation.

This is not, as stated by Councillor Zampronia, about tone. It's about the ethical standards of media organisations that, and I quote from the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance Journalist Code of Ethics, the ethical standards are crucial to establishing trust, providing accurate information to the public, protecting individual rights, and minimising harms. This is about ethical reporting, truthful, accurate, fair, objective, that minimises harm, is independent, has integrity and is accountable. That's what journalism should look like. And that's what we as elected members and the staff of this organisation, all 420 plus of them, should expect from an organisation that seeks to hold influence in our community.

It is not unreasonable to ask that the decisions of this chamber are treated with some degree of integrity and fair and unbiased reporting. Media used to pride itself on that. Yeah, I can remember my father watching three versions of the news at night and being really bloody angry if there was grand deviation because someone was pushing a personal or political barrow. News reporting, reporting of council events shouldn't be about opinion unless it's an editorial piece. That's not what we're seeing currently. Disinformation is damaging, and I'll refer to the disinformation in the City Response Playbook from the Melbourne Centre for Cities. Disinformation impacts cities globally. This has individual, organisational and societal consequences.

Cities must acknowledge and address all three for effective response. In cities, disinformation manifests in physical events, including protests and disruptions. It also has individual impacts for political, organisational and community leaders. It affects the functioning of city administrations and elected bodies, impacting governance, policy making and the city's workforce. And it impacts communities, reducing trust and increasing division and polarisation. This is what we now need to deal with. We, as an elected body, need to really deal with the evolving media space. We need a policy that functions with the modern media landscape, and then we need the training and the capacity to enact that policy.

Thanks.

No further debate. Councillor Lyons-Buckett, right of reply.

Thank you, Mr Mayor, and thank you for the contribution to the debate. I think the point here, Mr Mayor, is that we do know that any vlogger can go out and have an opinion, but there's a real difference here. Look, I've got no hesitation in stating that anyone wanting to be a journalist should be happy to stick to certain standards that are attributed to that profession. Journalistic standards exist for a reason, and that includes knowing who within an organisation takes responsibility for the content that is put out to the public. In the absence of that, that is not what we expect from the media. You don't go to the ABC and there's not a head of a department that takes responsibility for what's said.

I've got no issue of scrutiny of the decisions I make in here. I regularly engage. I'm happy to justify any decision I make, and I regularly do. I think the accusations that have been levelled of us as trying to somehow hide things in here is absolutely absurd. But that's beside the point. If we can hold a workshop like mature adults and get into looking at any issues that that policy may be deficient in to enable us to perform at a better level, I think that is going to be a good thing. Regardless of what we think individually about what sort of information should be going to the public, councillors have legal and governance obligations under the Local Government Act, under the Code of Conduct, and under our oath of office that on occasions do not allow us— To deliver to the public what happens in a confidential session in here.

And there's a reason for that, and the reason centres on privacy, personnel matters, and everything that is prescribed in the Local Government Act that prevents us from disclosing what may happen in that meeting. The fact that we have a councillor or councillors in here who regularly put that out to whip up a frenzy is absolutely disgusting. I'm really ashamed that that is how this chamber thinks that operating is a good idea. It's appalling. It's unnecessary. It does not further the Hawkesbury to be a better place. It detracts from what we should be doing. It interferes with the progress we should be making in delivering what we need to deliver. The fact that we can have an online absolute basket case of an attack on this place just because somebody cannot stick to the obligations that we were elected to uphold is an appalling state.

I'm ashamed of it. I've been speaking to the local government minister about this sort of issue. He's not doing— the reporting that we're being investigated, that's also inaccurate. Maybe someone's made some inquiries, but the disinformation within our community has simply got to stop. We have got to do what we were elected to do. We are the voice of the people. The 11 of us who sit here are the people that make the decisions, and we abide by the rules. I'm not a big lover of rules. I was quite rebellious when I was young, you'll be surprised to know. But the thing is that we have to stick to them when we have responsibilities for other people. We can't pick and choose when we decide that we'll be good councillors, but we have got to stop having this leaking out of here that is done for people, either people— People's vested interests who sit outside this council, but wish they were within, or it is done for people's individual reasons.

It's just not good. We like to be transparent. We are transparent. Any member of the public can ask questions of the council. We are regularly, and we've got another item coming up where we will speak about the engagement between councillors and staff, and that will allow us to go through the process where we can take any question from the public and we can seek the information to clarify it from our staff or from a decision made in council. So there are avenues to find out that information, and there are also lines that should not be crossed when it comes to people's personal information. There are privacy laws for reasons. They don't just exist for the fun of it. And just to respond to Councillor Zamprogno's glorification of him being asking for webcasting, former and late Councillor Paul Rasmussen was raising this in here for over 20 years.

He pushed and he pushed, and it was because of his pushing that we started it before it was a thing. He was a great believer in advanced technology and in getting on the front foot with doing things, and that is why we had early webcasting. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor.

Councillors, that is the right reply. The motion is on the screen in front of you. Those in favour?

Those against? Those in favour of Councillor Wheeler, Lyons, Buckett, Ryan, Djuric, McMahon, Kotlash, Creed, Veigel, Reardon and Sheather, and those against was Councillor Zamprogno. The motion is carried.

Councillors, the next item is 11.1.2. Councillor Wheeler.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Councillor Wheeler. You can, Councillor Wheeler,

After me. I've got a significant non-pecuniary interest in item 11.1.2 because of the consistent unbalanced and disproportionate representation of me and my opinion by the Hawkesbury Gazette. A reasonable person might conclude that I am unable to be objective and professionally detached when I am considering this item, and therefore I'll leave the room.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I have a significant non-pecuniary interest and a less than significant non-pecuniary interest in this item. The item relates to a ban on two organisations that publish material about Council. With the Hawkesbury Gazette, I have a relative of my husband's connected to that who reportedly own it, and I have been in the past affiliated with Hawkesbury Radio, having been a member in the past and having been on their board about five years ago. Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Thank you. Councillor Ryan. Thank you, Mr Mayor. I have a less than significant non-pecuniary interest in this. I was at one stage a member of the Hawkesbury Radio. I am no longer a member and I will be remaining in the chamber.

Thank you. Councillors, I've got a pecuniary interest. It relates to electoral donation, and I'm sure during the debate there'll be a connection in relation to that, and I'll leave the chamber, Deputy Mayor, if you can take— All right.

Thank you

Councillors. I will now be chairing this item of the meeting in the Mayor's absence due to his declaration. Please forgive me for not having any prior notice or being prepared.

Madam Deputy Mayor, if you don't mind.

You've got an interest to declare, please

I do want to upgrade my interest due to Mr Bamford speaking. I've come to recognise another connection, and I won't be remaining in the meeting. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Any other declarations of interest?

Okay. Thank you, everybody. Let's proceed with item notice of motion. I'll just turn the page. 11.1.2. Do I have a mover of that motion?

Yep.

Councillor Creed, seconder? Councillors Emprogno. Councillor Creed.

Thank you. I've got a number of questions. I was going to ask the Mayor and Acting GM, so I'll need to ask the Acting GM, if that's okay.

With regards to this item and the letter that was sent out, if the allegations related to specific individuals that were alleged, why were the entire organisations banned rather than dealing with those individuals directly?

Through you, Mr Mayor, it wasn't always apparent what individuals were involved with what organisations, and so for the avoidance of doubt and taking a reasonably practicable measure and a proportionate measure, noting that there was an opportunity for both of those organisations to lodge a review within 14 days to make the ban on the basis of organisations rather than individuals.

Okay. So I'm under the understanding that there was incidents reported. So were formal incident reports created during the— With regards to the alleged behaviour that was alleged to have occurred.

Through you, Madam Mayor. I almost slipped up there. Deputy Mayor, sorry. I'd have to take that on notice. No , that's fine. Maybe

If you need to take any of these on notice, I'm just asking some of these questions. With regards to this, was SafeWork New South Wales, a workcover, notified of the alleged workplace health and safety risk?

Through you, Madam Deputy Mayor, no, none of the incidents, to my knowledge, breached the threshold for reportable incidents. So

Just to confirm, no formal investigation commenced or is currently underway?

Could you please be more specific? There's been a number of references to investigations. So

With regards to the allegations that were made to the two organisations, was there a formal investigation that was commenced or is there one that's currently underway? I'm not asking for details or anything. I'm just asking if it was a yes or no. No. Okay. Given that we've now said that it's a workplace work health and safety issue, was a formal risk assessment undertaken before implementing the ban?

Through you, Madam Deputy Mayor, not a formal one, no. Okay.

Sorry, I've got a number of questions and I'm just basing on what I ask on your answers. So I did have a question for the Mayor, but given that he stepped out, I might have to get you to take this one on notice. Were all councillors informed or consulted before this decision was implemented, or was it just purely you and the Mayor, or were some councillors informed or I would have to take that on notice, Councillor. And just with regards to the specific legal advice that you relied on for the ban, was that through internal or external legal advice? Through internal legal advice. Thank you. Was the blanket ban, organisational ban, considered proportionate instead of potentially were any other less severe measures investigated first before we went down this path?

Through you, Mr Mayor, to my knowledge there were no other options explored, given that a physical presence is really a binary issue. You're either in the building or you're not. Okay.

And just a couple more, and I apologise for so many. And as I said, you need to take on notice, that's fine. Have similar workplace safety concerns raised by councillors themselves previously resulted in the same level of response or investigation?

Could you be more specific in terms of which previous concerns

So even just in the last six months, if any councillors raised any issues, and were they investigated or responded to about

Through you, Mr Mayor, through you, Madam Deputy Mayor, I'm not aware. And in my substantive position as Director, I wouldn't have been

Made aware. No, no, I

Understand that, and thank you for that. And just last one, just in regards to safeguards, what safeguards are in place to ensure decisions like this are not influenced by—and again, this may be out of your area because it was meant to be for the Mayor—influenced by personal grievances, political disagreements, or perceived vendettas? And I'm happy for that to be taken on notice. So, can you repeat that question? So what safeguards are in place to ensure decisions like this, because we need to be transparent, are not influenced by personal grievances, political disagreements, or perceived vendettas?

I'd have to take that

One on notice. That's fine. It was more directed to the Mayor, so I appreciate you taking that on notice.

So,

I've moved this motion tonight because I am concerned by the decision to ban the Gazette and the Hawkesbury Radio, not just from the council chambers. According to the letter, it is all Hawkesbury City Council premises. In that aspect, it's not a decision that I support. I was quite surprised when I saw the letters come through because, to me, whether you agree with what they write or how they put it out, and I should actually be quite blunt with this, I'm not here defending the Hawkesbury Gazette or the Hawkesbury Radio. I do not always agree with what they write or what they put out into the public. But at the end of the day, it's not my position to determine what they do when it comes to stories they put out.

My concern— Is that this letter was sent to the organisations under the Section 19 of the Work Health and Safety Act of 2011 and claims their intentions poses an unacceptable risk to councillors and staff. And, like, to me, that's a really serious claim. And I think if councils relying—relying on the WHS legislation to justify the decision, then I believe the community deserves to know what the transparency is regarding the process and evidence that made you to come to that decision. This isn't about—to me, this is not about the media stuff. It's just about how the decision was made and why it was made and the processes we have in place to make sure that it's not getting overtaken by other issues.

So, I mean, at the end of the day, this concerns me because it's setting a precedent that this could potentially have a future impact on other organisations that potentially, you know, we decide we're not happy with, the Hawkesbury Environment Network. We don't like what they're putting out on Facebook. We, you know, local sporting clubs, if we turn around and say that, no, you're not getting a certain type of facility or an amount of money or something like that. This is, as I said, I'm not here trying to defend these two particular organisations. My biggest concern is about the transparency around how we come to this decision, the precedent that I think it is setting, and I think it is a dangerous precedent that future councils could turn around and use this and go, well, they banned them, so we can now ban these organisations we don't like.

I understand.

That some councillors, you know, potentially may have made some complaints, and I completely understand that. But I have to ask, where do we stop? Do we start banning councillors from chambers because of code of conduct complaints or complaints made against them based on their behaviour? Because I think once we move into that territory of exclusions and bans, and I just think we're walking down a very dark path. And I'm okay with if councillors don't agree with it, and that's fine. It's just my own opinion on this action. I do want to just talk about the fact that

I was trying to work out whether I would actually mention this. I have concerns about the fact that some complaints have been actioned extremely quickly and with this severity, yet I have raised concerns about the abuse, the intimidation and the threats that have been made towards me by those in this chamber, and there has been little to no acknowledgement of what I have been going through. Yet all of a sudden I get this thing coming through saying, We're going to ban these because we've had some complaints from councillors. Yet I sent you and the mayor issues that I was dealing with that completely screwed up my PTSD, and

For me personally, in this last month, since that last meeting.

I was..

I fell into one of the darkest holes I've fallen into because of the stuff that has happened to me in here.

I was thankful for people like Councillor Veigel that checked on me

I have not dealt with this since I was, and I apologise, I know I've gone over. I haven't dealt with this sort of stuff since I went through my court case, and in this last month, because of the abuse I've received in here and the threats and the intimidation, because I'm not voting certain ways, my depression has..

I wanted to top myself in the last month because of the way..

Just because I might have a different opinion to people, or I vote differently, I don't agree with something, you can't turn around and abuse people and beat them down

I'm sorry. I

Need a break.

Thank you, Councillor.

Is there anyone else wishing to make any comments this evening? Councillors Improgno. Thank you

Madam Deputy Mayor. Can I just say I stand in complete solidarity with Councillor Creed, and what he said is very brave.

Section 10 of the Local Government Act says, who is entitled... To attend meetings. Everyone is entitled to attend a meeting of the council and those of its committees. Where it sets exceptions, it is specific. A person may be expelled from the meeting only by a resolution of the chamber, or if the person presiding at the meeting has, by resolution, been authorised to exercise the power of expulsion. That has not happened. The ban only relates to the named person, not an organisation. It only relates to the one meeting in question, and it only relates to somebody who has, and the definition is specific, engaged in disorderly conduct at a meeting. What somebody writes in their newspaper or says on the radio is not disorderly conduct.

What third-party commenters put on social media posts is not disorderly conduct. There is no remit in legislation for us to ban an entire organisation or to ban it until further notice. And there is no authority for us to have done so without a debate within this chamber.

Point of order. Madam— Thank you, Councillor. What's your point of order ? I have to stop Councillor Zamprogno going on because what he is saying, I think, is not factual. And I think instead of, you know, going for five minutes hearing this, which will go out on the public record and people might be confused, could we just get it cleared up that there is a legislatively legislation that allows the General Manager and the Mayor to do exactly what they did? Could we just have this cleared up?

Thank you, I'll accept

Your point of order. Thank you very

Much. Continue, Councillor Zamprogno.

I'd like to reclaim my time because the counter was ticking down throughout that entire interjection. I was watching carefully.

It was not on the screen that I saw, Councillor. I

Would like to express my disappointment that if it hadn't been for the motion standing in the name of myself, Councillor Creed and Councillor Jurek, this matter would not even be debated tonight. I'd like to express my disappointment that the Mayor declined my invitation to bring this as a Mayoral Minute, so that our organisation could not be open to the accusation that we were prepared to ban two media organisations without any ratification from this chamber. I say this as somebody who has at times also been disappointed about the quality and accuracy of local journalism. However, I would put the case that if our issue was with the accuracy or fairness of commentary, then the appropriate remedy is to engage these organisations, not ban them.

The commentary that's been floating around on Facebook over the last week about the circumstances of the resurrection of the Gazette, as tawdry or as biased as it might be, might be true. In fact, is probably true. And yet, it would still not give us a right to ban these media organisations from being present in the chamber when what they're seeking to do is journalism. It is rare and rather invigorating to be presented with an issue where it's possible to make a principled stand backed by long tradition in our own society, permitting a free press, even when we disagree vehemently about what the press chooses to say. There is a social accord that says that this is the price that we gladly pay to live in an open and pluralistic society.

We do not live in Viktor Orban's Hungary. We do not live in Vladimir Putin's Russia. We do not live in Donald Trump's America. No one, and least of all governments, get to suppress journalism by picking winners and losers, by suppressing their ability to report the activities of elected representatives. It occasions much disappointment in the people that I speak to that this principle is not obvious and upheld in this chamber. This is categorically not about the accuracy of stories or an unwillingness to moderate unkind comments that appear online. Those advocating to uphold this ban must demonstrate that it relates to the misconduct of those banned people inside this room. That's the only legislative right that we have.

I think that there will be many other irrelevant arguments put forward, and I just want to remind people what this really ought to be about. I would be happier if my colleagues around this table were prepared to just admit that the reason that they are prepared to associate their name with this ban is because they don't like the way that those two organisations report on their personal and professional conduct. Council, stop speaking and

Please respect the rules of this chamber. When you are called to order by someone sitting in this chair, you cease speaking immediately. And what you're going to do is stop talking about your colleagues the way that you do. And every time you turn that light on, you are belittling your colleagues, and it needs to stop.

Can I also raise a point of order that Councillor Zamprogno said that his colleagues were happy to have our names associated with this. That is misinformation. None of the people around, no councillor was involved or put their name to this other than the mayor. So what you have just said, Councillors and [unclear], is untrue. So , you know, that is just untrue. It wasn't. Nobody put their name to it. I didn't put my name to it. Thank you, Councillor. Continue.

Thank you for running live commentary, Councillor Kotlash. This is my last sentence.

Councillor, I'm going to call you to account again because under the code of meeting practice, a councillor has a right to a point of order and to be heard on that point of order. Stop belittling your colleagues.

My last sentence is this. I think that it is entirely dishonourable for councillors to hide behind confected outrage about commentary that is not—

Point of order. I'm calling— I'm telling you to stop now. Your time is up. Stop speaking. You are belittling your colleagues again for your own personal grievances. You need to stop this pattern of abuse, Councillor. It's not okay anymore. No, you're stopping. No, you're stopping. You're stopping. You're stopping. And I'll call the gallery to account, or I can eject you from the chamber. No more, Councillor. You've been heard. Any other councillor wishing to have any commentary? There's rules in this chamber. Please cease speaking. Any other commentary, councillors? Councillor Veigel,

Thank you. Thank you,

Madam Deputy Mayor. The overriding fact I see with— let's go back in history in this chamber before my time. There's been bullying and harassment of certain councillors for a long, long time. There are people around this room and outside this room have been threatened outside the chamber on common ground

To a point where nobody stood up. All right.

At the end of the day is, this place has a duty of care. It has a duty of care for everybody that's around this chamber, the officers behind me, and us. The overriding factor I see in this argument is the duty of care. Now, when you delegate your responsibilities to the general manager, acting general manager in this, and/or the mayor, if they have anybody that comes and says, I am concerned about my safety or welfare, they have a duty of care to protect them. I've been in business for far too long to know where I stood, and it's got a whole lot harder over the years, knowing that if I didn't act and if something happened, I would be accountable with workplace manslaughter or heavily fined.

And I can assure you, when you work in a corporate company, they ain't going to back you because it's your fine, you own it. And I want at most to go and protect those that are above me, and especially to the side of me and below me. So it comes down to where it comes to, whether it be psychological or physical. Well, I'm not going to walk in the shoes of the people who made the complaint and be highly arrogant of me to do so. I don't know how it impacts a different person. I know I've worked with sociopaths before and they're absolutely nutters, but some people can deal with it and other people can't. I just happen to be one of those people that can deal with it because you can argue the point against them and they usually collapse.

I don't like this ban any more than anybody else, but you have to put the stake in the ground and say enough is enough. Now, I welcome there's a dialogue that these people come back and say, okay, we'll agree to agree and have some type of account. But at the end of the day, it's opinion. Now I get questions asked me all the time. I yell, that's your opinion. I've had it on the wastewater, you know, with just about everything. Under the sun, yeah, that's your opinion. I don't necessarily have to agree. Guess what? Some of the opinions I would agree with. You'd all be now, you all have.

Nobody can sit here and assume what I'm thinking and what I'm going to say. It's just highly arrogant. I wouldn't do it to anybody here. I wouldn't expect anybody to do it. Although I welcome the discussion, right, and that's what this chamber is about, to have this discourse, to work for discussion. Who's looking on the podcast tonight, I wonder? Probably media or outside of this area thinking, where do we all stand by? Come back down to an ethical code of conduct for journalism and start from there. So if you have an opinion, state it. But if you think your opinion is fact and it's not fact, well, it's just BS, isn't it? And it hurts too many people. In fact, this chamber's heard—you're going to hear it for the third or fourth time now, and let me bore you all, okay?

Out of the 10,000 things that this council does, what do you hear about? The one or two things that people don't agree, and I'll go out and embellish the truth of it, and saying, oh, and then it becomes fact on social media because it's just a pile-on. That's how I see it, so I'll leave it at that. But I will be voting this up as a... but I urge, I urge that within six months it comes back and we might be able to relinquish the ban and we can all move on and be mature about it, especially those who are outside. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Councillor. Councillor Kotlash. Thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor.

Before I start to talk to what I think is one of the most cowardly and out-of-order notices of motion I've ever read, I just wanted to thank a glitch at the ABC for making me the poster girl for this issue. I was a bit surprised to find that Councillor Zamprogno had shared the yarn article from the ABC, frantically shared it to all over the district, to every community group you could think of. And what it did, which I don't think Councillor Zamprogno had intended it to do, is that it made many people, many, I think we bracket many these days, many people contact me and ask me what was going on. So not only did it give me the opportunity to explain to people one-on-one about what the issue was about, it was good because I got to explain that it wasn't about curtailing press freedom or censorship. It wasn't about that. It was about protecting people from harm.

We've got to realise that that is what this is about. So not only did I get to explain that, I got the opportunity to show people how Councillor Zamprogno operates.

Point of order, Madam Deputy Mayor.

What is your point of order?

If it is inappropriate. For me to name another councillor in almost any fashion, surely what Councillor Kotlash is doing and is intending to continue with is equally out of order. Are you going to apply the same standard?

First of all, you've made an assumption that you are pulled to account simply for naming councillors. You're incorrect there. Councillor Kotlash, I'll ask you to continue. Thank you. Thank you,

Madam Deputy Mayor. This is the modus operandi, I have to throw that in,

While I'm speaking up. One, first thing, divert attention away from the real issue. Number two, make emotional statements about, This is un-Australian. We're not in Putin's Russia, where they ban media.

Point of order, Madam Deputy Mayor.

Number three— Sorry, Councillor, Council— sorry, what is your point of order?

Councillor Kotlash is now disparaging me by name and imputing comments to me that I have not made. I'm inviting you again to apply the same standard that you did to my remarks.

Councillor, I think stretching that she mentioned your name in that last point since I pulled up the point of order is incorrect. No, no, no, no, the chair has the call. And I understand that you like to embellish, but what I'm going to do, Councillor Kotlash, is just get you to stick to the motion. Thank you very much.

What can happen is people put on social media

And they put explanations about how we've arrived at the situation we're in. And how they do that is that, one, they divert attention away from the real issue. Number two, they make emotional statements that make everybody think that, for God's sake, we're un-Australian. They make statements that infers that it's like Russia's regime, which bans media. Then they blame others for it. Sometimes they might say things like a couple of scandal-prone councillors were behind all this. And then they might throw in some dodgy, misleading examples. You know, they might say things like, the Local Government Act requires a decision by council to ban anybody from the chamber

Point of order, Madam Deputy Mayor.

Sorry, Councillor Kotlash. Sorry, thank you. What is your point of order?

Councillor Kotlash, replacing the words councillors and pronia with some people does nothing to alter the very painfully obvious fact that she's referring to me.

How do we know she's referring to you?

Madam Deputy Mayor, you are stretching credulity to its limits.

Councillor, how do we know she's referring to you? I don't know where she's quoting from.

She's continuing with the remarks that she had prepared and simply substituting a single word.

Thank you, Councillor. Your remarks are noted. Councillor, please continue in the vein of the motion before you.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor. I just, because I was trying to figure out why we were in such a mess of misinformation, I actually studied how this pans out. Now, it's not exclusive to the one that can't be named. This is how this stuff happens. People, this is how it happens. So please, it's what happens. You know, people claim to know what the legislation is. That is not the case in this particular case.

The other thing that happens is that media organisations, it's said that, you know, oh, we're not responsible for what people put on our comments. It doesn't hurt anybody. If we don't say it, it won't hurt anybody. It's not us. That's not accurate either. Then there's no discussion about good journalism or what we should expect good journalism to be. This is how it pans out. So, I mean, I'm really desperately, as a councillor and a leader in this community, to try to stop this sort of— it's an outrageous tidal wave of misinformation. And I'm afraid to say that it happens and it's perpetrated by people that should know better.

Look, this is just not about press freedom . Let me explain. Sometimes in court proceedings, when somebody has been hurt or is a victim of some sort of crime or whatever , is that sometimes a court will make provision for that person to not have to see the perpetrators. I'm not going to say anything more than that, but there is a reason that they do that, and it is— Time is up, Councillor. Sorry, please wind up. Thank you. Thanks. Look, I think we have to— Be very mindful of psychosocial risk. We've identified it, and we need to do something about it. Thank you very much, Councillor.

Councillor Ryan .

Thank you, Mr Mayor—sorry, Deputy Mayor. I do like to stand. Oh,

He likes to stand.

I am a standing person. Announced, sorry. To me, this is something I was taught very early in life: respect. You respect everyone, and you fear no one. And that's something I carry through all my life. You may dislike them, you may get angry, you may absolutely get furious with them, but you always respect. And what I've seen on these social media pages is disrespect. People do not know how to control themselves. Our council—mate's inquiries, I was going to ask our acting general manager a couple of questions, but I'll answer them now. In the last four years, our council has not delivered balanced budgets. Over the last four years, we haven't been investigated in relation to the governance of this by the Office of Local Government.

Over the last four years, we haven't been classed as a dysfunctional council. And over the last four years, have we been investigated by the Office of Local Government or the ICA about matters of—you know— investigated by serious matters of corruption? No, we have not. We are a proper functioning council, and part of our obligation is to protect our staff. Our staff do not need to be subject— From , oh, from words, from disgusting things. I saw one the other day, Hawkesbury Council's on crack. Disgusting. Every one of these people here that work for us will take that on board and say, why isn't someone defending them? And this is the first step to defending them. Now, I comment Mr Barton on his radio show the other day, and put it in a nutshell.

We have to look after our people because they are our most precious resource we have in this council. Yes. We cannot look after them any better than we should look after them absolutely perfectly, because we will lose a great staff member. What does this cost that organisation? It costs us the training, their ideas. They're great people. I came in here thinking probably pretty much what's going on in council. I've been educated, 70 years old. I've been educated on what council is. They are a well-functioning, well-meaning group here and organisation. And okay, there is some problems. And as Councillor Kotlash said, we do so many great things, but they just come in and cherry-pick the problems.

We are here to deliver for our council, for our people, for the people of the Hawkesbury. And I went and read what I swore to February last year, and I'm sticking to that. I may get a bit angry because I don't believe people are going down the right track, but we have to be here for the people, not just today, but in the future. And what sort of legacy are we going to leave these people if we let be standover by these people from media to put false information out about us? I took personal, absolutely personal offence. To , a bloke called Mr Ruddick. He's in our parliament. And he said, We are fascists. I spent 24 years of my life defending this, New South Wales, and to call me a fascist, to say that the staff in here are fascists, I think that is an absolute insult, and that is a man that does not have respect.

And these people now, that we're calling them out, calling them out in their media, hello, we're changing it all around now, aren't we? We are the poor victims because we're being called out. No, it's not good enough. I'll stand, and I'm telling you, I will not support this motion in any way whatsoever. I'll support the staff, I'll support our community, and I'll support us getting on and getting the job done properly. I thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr Ryan. That was a very strong argument, and I will take this opportunity to thank you for your service to this state. That's not going to go unnoticed. Any other councillors wishing to speak? No? Thank you. Well, I will add my remarks. Our community is hurting. And it's not just our staff in this building, who I'll touch on in a minute, and our obligation and our duty of care to their wellbeing, but our community is hurting. Prior to being the deputy mayor, I was the mayor where we had successive natural disasters, and a councillor prior to that during those disasters. I have seen and dealt with the trauma in this community that has come from those disasters. From that, what would be helpful in our area is if we had people who had a platform to communicate to our residents, to use it for good.

Instead , the platforms that are discussed tonight in this notice of motion have not been used for good. They have been used to cause hurt to people, to cause harm to people, and the risk that was identified by both the acting general manager and the mayor to the continual psychosocial damage being done to people in this building or who work for this organisation was too. Great to ignore. And to me, moving a motion to overturn that ban is a complete and utter disregard to the staff who turn up every day and mow the parks and empty your garbage bins and do all of those things that make a community function. And it is saying to those people, you don't matter. The damage being done to you doesn't matter.

And tonight, not supporting the two leaders of our community, the mayor and the acting general manager, both from a political stream and an organisational stream, not supporting a decision that they made to protect people is not okay. And I am so happy to go on the record over and over again to the continued abuse that I get, and I do not want this to be about me, but I will let you know the abuse that I have copped, which as I've, my phone's blown up since the current affair was on tonight. My mother's in tears, as I said a minute ago. My sisters are outraged. My best friends are absolutely distraught. What the Gazette did tonight by going on A Current Affair at the exact same time that our council meeting was being live streamed was deliberate, and it was intended to cause more harm and hurt.

And they didn't just touch on me, they touched on our staff. There are very real consequences to the damage that is being done. This was calculated, and this was malicious, and it has already had exceptional damage after being aired tonight. And as I said, it's not about me, but I'm going to touch on one thing. The last person you want to cross is a victim of domestic violence. And when you plaster my face tonight on television.

So that you can have a goddamn win over me, you have hit rock bottom. You have hit the absolute gutter in proving your point tonight, and that is why my mother is in tears, and how dare you. Let me go on to say that sitting here tonight, after 10 years in this chamber, and I'm not going to name councillors nor belittle them, but having the most obvious conflict of interest in this room that I have ever seen not being declared has blown my mind. And I know how that works after we leave this chamber here tonight. But to have that happen because there is influence that is being exercised that I don't think is right is almost unbelievable that it's happening. Let me just touch on the fact that after all of this, the organisations that we are talking about, and I keep referring to them as organisations because they are not media.

People who want to operate or call themselves journalists do so with ethics, with standards. They are balanced and they are unbiased. If you want to go out there and have your opinion, you're absolutely entitled to, but don't hide behind a banner that this community has trusted since 1888 and pretend that you are following the standards that the previous owners of that journalistic brand followed. When you saw the Sydney Morning Herald, a national newspaper, stand up for the point that this council is making tonight, it was an absolute sigh of relief. They highlighted that the stories by the Gazette do not have bylines. There is no ownership to the words being written. And what was the defence of the owners?

Well, if we put bylines, we're going to get attacked. Can the irony not be seen here? You're attacking us, but you won't put your name to it because you're fearful of an attack. Well, maybe don't attack in the first place. Secondly, and I will just continue the benefit of being in the chair for a moment, there is no membership of a journalistic body who monitors standards and ethics of that organisation. Therefore, without being monitored by a body who is taking into account your behaviour, there is no accountability for what you are writing. We all know, and I know I've been guilty of it, words cause damage. And when you have been asked for almost a year, this Gazette, to please stop doing what you are doing, please stop hurting people.

I have seen people, grown men and women, crying on my shoulder from the damage being done in this community, not just to this council, but other organisations, volunteers in the RFS, people who work for other organisations. And sorry if the Richmond Club gets angry at me, but the way they were belittled and criticised over protecting one of their residents was also not okay. There has been so much damage done to people and organisations throughout this community, and I need to ask why. After all the trauma we've been through with floods and with fires and a pandemic and eight floods as it was, why are we hurting each other? Why are there people out there so hell bent on destroying the mental health of other people and getting a kick out of it?

It is sick. It has to stop. I'm telling you now, if you're listening and watching this live stream, it has to stop. Stop it now. We have all had enough. Everybody is hurting. My family is hurting. People's families are hurting. Staff are losing their jobs. Staff are choosing not to work here. Because of what's being said about them online, you lose, as Councillor Ryan said, that institutional knowledge, that history that comes with knowing how this place operates. That's walked out the door and said, Goodbye, I can't handle the abuse anymore. That's not journalism. That is two people who have bought an existing platform for a personal vendetta, and it is no longer okay in this community. And I thank the councillors tonight who have stood up for that.

I disregard the councillors tonight who don't back our community, back our mayor, or back our acting general manager. And as I said before, this has to stop, and it has to stop now. Thank you, everybody.

Is there any further comments by councillors? Right of reply, Councillor Creed.

Honestly,

Given what I just heard, I don't think there's any—

There's no point apart from some

Of the stuff that I've just listened to coming from people.

It's just a joke.

Your comments are noted. We'll put the motion to a vote. All those in favour, please raise your hand.

The favour. The motion is to overturn the ban. Your own motion. Those in favour? A councillors M. Progno and Councillor Creed. Those against, the motion, please raise your hand. Councillor Ryan, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Reardon and Councillor McMahon. I declare the motion lost. I will now go and get the mayor to return to the chair, and I'll return to my chair as well. Thank you, councillors.

Yeah . Councillors , we're going

To have

A five-minute

Break .

Thank you, councillors. We'll

Resume

The meeting. The next item is the Meryl minutes, 7.1.1. I move the

Recommendation on page 11.

Discussion?

No discussion?

Councillor Wheeler

Just an inquiry, Mr Mayor, are you intending to have a discussion amongst the councillors regarding the position description and focus prior to going out to the recruiter?

Sorry?

A discussion regarding the position description and focus.

For the position of general manager? Yes.

Yes. Will that be a discussion had with the councillors or just amongst the panel?

No.

The panel will have a discussion. I was proposing to have an informal discussion with the councillors, with that panel person either live or online from Office of Local Government, with two staff, to look at the roles and responsibilities that are there, plus the discussion that had been done by other councillors, and how we proceed in that matter. That'll be short-listed and brought back to councillors to go on to the independent assessor to shortlist a list of... Applicants.

Thank you, and I'll just note that we've had several offers from members of the community to take on the role of general manager. Several offer made a discount rate should we choose to take them up. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor.

Any further discussion, councillors? Thank you, councillors. Other than to say this is just not a recommendation. There's been a lot of debate amongst a lot of us. This outcome, I think, is a good one. I suggested Councillor Lyons-Buckett, along the lines that not only she's been involved with council, but outside of council in relation to other matters in this regard. And the Deputy Mayor and myself suggested within the Department of Local Government that we're on the panel. The selection of the second party was done through a process, and it's the Office of Local Government who will offer that support, that you'll either meet online or in person before any decision is made. Okay, councillors, those in favour of the recommendation.

It's unanimous. Those against? It's carried. Councillor Mbrogno, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Ryan, Djuric, McMahon, Kotlash, Creed, Veigel, Reardon and Sheather. Thank you, councillors. The motion is carried. Excuse me, we have items in block, which is items 9.2.2. 9.3.1, 9.3.2.

Mr Mayor, I have a conflict in 9.3.1. I think that'll have to come out.

9.3.1 is out. Thank you, Councillor. 9.4.3,

10.1.1, and 10.1.3.

Mr

Mayor, I think you've got it correct. Can I just confirm you've taken out 9.3.1? Yep, taken that out.

9.3.1? Yep, has been taken out.

Thank you. 9.3.5?

9.3.5 is taken out.

Yep. 9.4.5?

Is out too.

And 9.4.6 should be out too.

I've just circled all the things that need to be taken out. Okay . Yeah, because I'm 9.4.6, so that's still got to be taken out.

Would someone like to move that?

I'll do that. I'll do that.

Thanks, Councillor Reardon. Councillor Wheeler. Any debate?

No right of reply. Those in favour? Against?

It's carried unanimously. Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zembrogno, Lyons-Buckett, Ryan, Djuric, McMahon, Kotlash, Creed, Weigel, Reardon and Sheather.

The next item, excuse me, is 9. Point 2.1, Westrock. Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'd like to move the recommendation in the business paper with option one as the way forward. The numbering in the business paper is a little unusual , and so it's basically the recommendation would be that Council number one, receive and note the correspondence from Westrock, and number two. That we would consider the information provided in this report, and that we would go with

Option one, which is pass through the LGP rebate to Wesrock for the financial year 2025-26.

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

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I think this is a bit of a strange situation, I suppose you would say. It's one of those things around timing and when things happen. I think leaving it as it is and reviewing it perhaps next year when we have more information about the future of Westrock and any other various things that are happening in that space of advocacy and representation in Western Sydney . In this case, we hadn't expected to receive this money. We hadn't included it as income in our budget, but Westrock had included it in their budget. So I think going forward, the best way is to just go with what Option 1 suggests . Next week, Mr Mayor, as you know yourself and Councillor Kotlash and I, who are the Westrock delegates, will be meeting with the recently appointed interim CEO, Ms Francine Bins.

I'm very keen for this, as it gives us an opportunity to raise some of the issues around the future of Westrock, and we're keen to hear what proposals there are. I'm also keen, Mr Mayor, to hear from you the updates around the other proposed forums for advocacy in Western Sydney. I think there's a lot of things changing around having the new airport there, and I think it's really good that we can have an opportunity to discuss where best our opportunities to participate and to be a part of those things are. So I sort of foreshadow a debate at some point around the future of Westrock. With regard to this, to just explain it, we were told about this not that recently, but reasonably recently, that the local government procurement rebate model is to be changed.

So whereas— As the amount of money, which I think in this case is around $20,000 or so, would normally go directly to Westrock. There's been a change in the regulation or in the directive around that, that it would then go directly to councils. But as I said before, we hadn't budgeted for it, and Westrock had, and so at this point, I'm happy to go with option one . There's no specific point in there saying that we will review that . However, I think that given the changing landscape around, you know, what's happening in the Western Sydney space, we can maybe just let this pass now, and we'll have another conversation about any changes coming up. Thank you.

Thanks, Councillor. Just in relation to the comment you made, it would be prudent to leave any comment for me to after we have the discussion with Westrock and see what their proposal is for their direction with the new CEO, and then offer councillors some direction or advice in that regard later.

Councillor Veigel.

Yeah, thanks, Mr. Mayor. Yeah, look, I'm happy to support option one of the motion, considering nothing's changing from us, and as you said, and as Councillor

As we said, we'll just work that one through anyway to see what comes out after you meet with them anyway, and take the recommendations when you come back. With your colleagues. Thank you.

Any further debate?

You need a right of reply, Councillor?

Not necessary.

Thank you. All those in favour?

Against? It's carried unanimously. Councillor Brogno, Wheeler, Lyons-Buckett, Ryan, Djuric, McMahon, Kotlash, Creed, Veigel, Reardon and Sheather. The motion's carried. The next item is 9.3.1. Councillor Lyons-Buckett, you declared.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I have a significant non-pecuniary interest. The nature of the interest is that we are the owners of the property adjacent to 9, 11 Tea Tree Place. I'll leave the room. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor.

Would someone like— Councillor Creed. Councillor

Veigel.

Any discussion, Councillor Creed? Not necessary. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I'm just a bit concerned. There's comments in the report that the fire safety report may be misleading. Is there a need to do some spot checks? Do we have a number of other reports from that person who, or that business who's done that investigation? Is there a need to follow up just to make sure that we don't have ongoing compliance issues elsewhere?

Through you, Mr Mayor. Council officers actually visited the site on Thursday last week, and they've had discussions with the owner, who is in the process of making arrangements for the rectification works. So we'll continue to monitor the site and associated documents.

Thanks. My issue actually isn't with this site particularly. We seem to be across that. My issue is this systemic problem with this investigator or this certifier, and should we be doing some spot checks of other properties just to make sure we don't have a broader problem?

Yeah, we can take that on notice and look into that. Thank you.

Councillor Veigel. Yeah, thanks. Just a question on annual fire safety certificates. Required by law to do them 12-monthly, all businesses are under that. Do we monitor them, and if they're not compliant, do we fine them? Most other councils give you not much leeway. If you don't get them in on time, they'll fine you considerably, especially when the building managers are, you know, you're leasing a building where the building managers are always harping on you. You pay the costs of getting it fixed, but can somebody just answer that one, please? Yes, Councillor

Through you, Mr Mayor, yes, that is a customary practice that Council does monitor annual fire safety certificates. And I'm new here, but I'll ensure that we are following up those when they're due annually .

Just on that, do we fine them if they're not compliant, though?

Through you, Mr Mayor, yes, that is correct. We can fine them if they haven't submitted it on time. We can issue them with a fine.

Any further debate? Councillor Creed, right of reply? Not required. Thank you, Councillors.

The recommendations in the business paper, those in favour?

Those against? It's carried. Councillor Zembrogno, Wheeler, Ryan, Djuric, McMahon, Kotlash, Creed, Veigel, Reardon and Sheather. The motion's carried.

The next item is 9.3.3. Councillor Wheeler.

I'll move the recommendation in the business paper, Mr Mayor, with an additional point that I've sent through to the staff. So points one and two are as per the current business paper. Sorry, I'm just finding my notes.

And we've got a seconder.

And with an additional point that Council contact the Minister for Emergency Services, the Honourable Mr Gihad Dib, requesting that the Hawkesbury Local Government Area be immediately withdrawn from the areas covered by the Rural Boundary Clearing Code. So the koala plan of management— sorry, I'll just wait for a seconder. I'll

Second that, Mr Mayor.

Councillor Kotlash.

So the Council got started really on koala plan of management because there was a move to bring in the Rural Boundary Clearing Code, and we didn't have the required protections for vegetation to prevent unauthorised clearing of koala habitat with the code in place. We are the only LGA that has opted in to the Rural Boundary Clearing Code. We're in metropolitan Sydney. No other council was, in my opinion, foolish enough to jump into this code. We were advised by the RFS at the time that the code wouldn't work in an area without topography, with our fire type, and that it would actually be detrimental to the work of the RFS in Bilpin. We have seen a lot of clearing, particularly around Bilpin and Kurrajong Heights, of land using the Rural Boundary Clearing Code habitat that should never have been touched, that has largely facilitated increased development, and that is, we will never get that habitat back.

I'm really, really pleased to see the… The Koala Plan of Management moving to this point, and with the fine scale vegetation mapping done, it's a really important piece of work. It has implications not just for the protection of habitat, it's also some of it's very useful for rescue organisations who are often looking for trees that they can harvest to use for animals in care, so that's an additional benefit. And just a reminder that one of the reasons that we map koala habitat, and we map koalas, which is the next phase in this, is that they are one of those apex species, so that if we protect koalas, we protect the rest of the sensitive ecosystem around them. Just a couple of questions, if I may.

I think we broadly know the answers to these questions, but they're questions that the general public would like to know and have been sent through to me from the Hawkesbury Environment Network. If I could just get a response. How is the fine scale vegetation mapping being used by Council, and is it publicly available at this point?

We might have to get Mr. Kearns up from his...

He thought he was going to get away with it. He

Did.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. So, in terms of the fine scale mapping, it's obviously a core mapping as part of the whole koala management strategy process. Basically, it's a process that we're following that builds on different layers. So the fine scale mapping was the first part of that, and now we've undertaken this next body of work, which has combined that fine scale mapping with this further work and then progresses that. It's used for our development assessment team, basically using that mapping to look at sites and understand potential implications associated with that. The actual, other than on the Council business papers where the mapping was presented, it isn't formally available on Council's website as yet, but we're looking at ways we can potentially make that available, yeah.

So table 1 in the report on page 61 basically identifies the process that we basically have to undertake in chronological order. We've obviously completed the first three parts of that, and the next stage is moving into the koala occupancy planning and the actual koala occupancy survey. So that's basically the biggest part, both in terms of timing and resources for this whole process. So there's a lot of planning that needs an engagement with property owners in terms of that process, and it's also one that is really highly dependent on seasonal variation. So obviously springtime is the prime time to be undertaking the survey. So the next four items on that table basically will be undertaken as one body of work, and we're undertaking requests for quotations to undertake that with the view that the actual survey will be undertaken in next spring.

Right, so not this coming spring, the one after?

No, this coming spring. This

Coming spring, great. That's really good news, thank you. And it's a good reminder to people who are interested in this space and who live in areas where there are koalas or potentially koalas that if they hear or see anything, to get onto one of the websites, iNaturalist, SEED, I can't remember the others off the top of my head. iSpy Koala, I think, is one of the really easy ones to use to download onto your phone. It is really important that people report because much of this mapping relies on what people have seen and sighted. Thank you.

Councillor Linesbucket.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'd just like to echo that, and I certainly support the inclusion of requesting that the Rural Boundary Clearing Code, that we withdraw from that if there's a mechanism possible for that. That would be very good. We have seen that misused and the clearing of habitat in places where it shouldn't have occurred. What I really like about seeing this in the business paper is to see the amount of work that has been completed, even though we've still got a lot to do. It shows how far we've come from not having anything to having bits completed. I was quite fascinated reading the priority food tree list when we received that. It's a very interesting methodology for how that is arrived at.

It's something that makes you, when we have the advantage, I guess, of reading all these things, when you're out and about and you're looking around, you can see these additional sort of species of trees. And as we know, some of us live near—well, nearby me there are koalas. So it's a really good tool for the community, not just for when we implement this as part of our planning strategies, but just for general information of people understanding the actual environment we live in here and how precious it is and how wonderfully diverse and how much of it needs protection. So I'm really pleased to see this progressing and thank all the people who've been involved, including those local groups like Science for Wildlife and Blue Mountains Koalas, etcetera, for their contributions to it.

Thank you.

Any further debate? Councillor Vigel.

Yeah, thanks

No problem with one and two. Great. Now, what I don't know, this comes down to this, we can't have briefings anymore. It would have been nice to get some more information. I don't know whether that... I voted this up last term. We had the debate. For every one RFS captain that was here, another one said they liked it and another one wanted it. So it was kind of neutral anyway. But having said that, I don't know if that's working or not . I know it's there and it was a document that was brought to the communities in New South Wales by the RFS after the bushfires to give local landowners some authority to mitigate without having to come back and ask for it. I think it was 25 metres of the boundary .

I accept that there could be some people out there that could be abusing it, but there are other people that probably aren't. So that's where I'm at with point three. So I'm having difficulty saying, well, yeah, okay, let's rescind that and just move it on and just...

There we are. So if you've got any more information for me to get me over that line, then I'd greatly appreciate it.

Thank you , Councillor. Just before we go to Councillor Kotlash, I too remember the debate. The general manager ,

For us to support that with what the community interest in the past. What process would we normally go through if we're going to do that, if we're going to rescind that? Through you, Mr Mayor, I refer that to the Director of City Planning.

Through you, Mr Mayor, a request to be exempt from the Rural Boundary Clearing Code by a council has to be made in writing to the Commissioner of the New South Wales Rural Fire Service. Point 3 of the recommendation up there references the Minister for Emergency Services, and that is to whom the Commissioner of the New South Wales Rural Fire Service reports to. So, if Council has an appetite to request to be exempt, then the process is to write either to the Commissioner, or you could do it to the Minister.

Is there any other responsibilities that Council have in relation to our community with advertising or requests for support or otherwise?

No, not that we're aware of. Okay,

Thank you. Councillor Kotlash. Oh

Thank you, Mr Mayor.

I think that it's probably a good idea that we ask the Minister, can we bail out of this? I didn't vote for it in the first place, even though it was reported in the media that I heard.

I didn't vote for it because it was an inappropriate tool for our landscape.

My understanding is that the code, we can't opt out of this code, and the reason being is that it's, it's the code is for all of New South Wales, and it is working in some areas that it was designed to, that it was really designed to work in. So I think that it will be knocked back. I'm just wondering, and I'm just responding to Councillor Veigel's legitimate , legitimate comments. You know, it works in some places and it doesn't work in some places, even within our town. But we have other mechanisms. We have a very strong rural fire service. We have lots of really experienced volunteers. And whilst they might differ in opinion on these broad issues, my experience has been that they, they're always quite good at working out what has to be done in their patch, and they have that sort of, they have that experience and history working in their own patch.

So I think that there's other mechanisms that each of the brigades and areas can use to get us to where

They thought we'd get to with the rural boundary clearing code. So

Maybe this will just spark a conversation. Maybe we could add that they review it if they don't let us out of it. That could be that they review the zonings that are applicable to... To the code, because that's the other strange thing, that you can, if you're in a different zone, you have a different, you know, it's not allowed in some zones, even zones that have got lots of, that are bush areas. So there's a lot of, I mean, you know, basically there were a lot of problems with it when it started, but it works out, you know, out in the west with grasslands and that sort of thing.

So, no, look, I think we just need to leave it as it is, and we'll see what the minister says. And I have a suspicion that there's no mechanism to opt out.

So this might be long and protracted unless the mover of the motion wants to add some other things like,

You know, if we can't opt out, give us options for review that suits our landscape better or something to that effect. Thanks.

Okay. Councillors, I supported the boundary clearing when it happened, and it's like most things, when we have disasters then we decide to talk about it, and it was after fires and the like, so that's exactly what happened. Not all decisions are good ones when you make them on the run in relation to being under pressure in that regard. And there was quite a lot of community expectations, I guess, from both sides. I suspect that anyone that wanted to clear their property took advantage of that straight away. It's been, what, five years or so since we did it, and I know there was strong community both for and against it at the time. I'm not in favour of changes to things like this on the run a bit at all, but if councillors—I'm happy to support if councillors aren't firmly against it, because I suspect, as Mayor, I'll be asked and spoken about in different places, and I want to defend a letter to the Minister if that's the case.

Is there any councillors that strongly oppose the removal of rural boundary clearing?

Councillor Zembrogna. Well

I oppose deleting clause 3, if that's what you're asking. Sorry? I oppose deleting clause 3 from this motion, and I'm prepared to speak to it. Do I have the call? You do.

You have the floor, Councillor .

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Lovely to have you back, by the way.

I think it's way past time that we ditch the rural boundary clearing code. When we introduced it, and by the way, Mr Mayor, it was October 2021 that we introduced this, so you're right, it is about nearly five years. The RFS wise heads were telling us that it didn't fit with their fire control methodologies because they had a much more elaborate strategy based on ridge lines and fire trails and so forth, and they said this is well-intentioned and is an understandable knee-jerk reaction to— The devastation that the community was confronting the aftermath of, but it didn't fit. And all of the wise RFS heads that I've spoken to about this since reiterate that. I would dissent from somebody who says, Look, some RFS people are in favour of it and some are against it.

Every RFS person that I've spoken to said it's an odd duck. When they're at their most generous, they say, We understand why, but it doesn't improve safety in the way that we would seek because we have a methodology that's more sophisticated. And I accept that. I also agree with Councillor Wheeler that it created a lot of illegal —well, it was effectively legalised, but inappropriate clearing, and that those people probably did so almost straight away, including developers, so that they could, you know, have their way. And that's a great shame. I said at the time, and I repeat now, what we can't measure, we can't establish the full impact of. What we have is a great deal of anecdote now that says that huge swathes have been cleared for dubious improvements to fire safety, and I'm happy to endorse clause 3 because clearly it's not going to end with that.

It's not as though we send a letter to G. Hardib and he says, All right then, you're out. Councillor Kotlash thinks that it might not even be possible. No, it's the beginning of a conversation. If you're prepared to support this, understand that it's the beginning of a conversation that first of all establishes, as Councillor Kotlash muses, might be something that we've got to wiggle out of. There'll be a discussion with the RFS. There'll be a discussion with the department and the minister, and it will come back to us, hopefully with better data about what the experience of other LGAs have been as well. I don't believe that we can't withdraw from this. Any legislative instrument can be reversed, and I think it's past time that we did.

Thank you, Councillor.

Any further discussion? Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. And I was thinking what to do about this situation with some of the thoughts and things about what's happened. And you actually articulated my thoughts perfectly, so I didn't need to really reiterate that, is the fact that I supported this way back when, but has it had a measurable effect to our community in the way that it was proposed it would? I don't think so. Can I just ask the staff, do they have information on hand, or would it have to be provided on notice about how much land has been cleared under that code in our LGA? Or even an estimate, just a guess? Through you, Mr Mayor, we'd have to take that on notice. I thought so. It would have been good to have a bit of data to see that.

But in the absence of that, and in the fact that after we had that very heated discussion at the time, it's sort of become a— it hasn't ever come back to me. It's never come back to me as something that people care about or are passionate about . And I think, therefore, Mr Mayor, I would support your view on the Rural Boundary Clearing Code. Thank you.

Thank you. Any further discussion ? Councillor Creed. Yeah, sorry, I did have it up.

As someone that wasn't on the chamber when this was discussed, I don't have a lot of information about this. I would, I mean, if possible, I'm happy with one and two, but if possible would— I mean, it's only me, I guess, but I would prefer this to come back as a notice of motion point three, just so I can actually get some more information before I make a decision. I mean, I understand the majority of the councillors in here are the ones that voted either for or against this, but as someone who doesn't have a lot of information on it, I would prefer to have some information before I did anything on point three. But I understand if they want to go through with it, but I... I can't vote for it if I don't know what the information that

I'm looking for, that's

All. Thank you, Councillor. It'd be extremely hard for the staff to give a quantum of what land was cleared because you didn't need approval for it.

Sorry, just to clarify, it's not even that. It's just I want some more background information of why it was brought in and all that sort of stuff. In the first place? Yeah. That's why I was just saying that to have the—I understand what they're doing, but I wasn't here, and neither was Councillor Ryan. Councillor Ryan might know more about it, but I don't, and I'm just being honest. I would prefer to get some more information, that's all, on the background and why it was brought in and all that sort of stuff. I don't have access to RFS reports. I don't have— Would you like the staff to respond to that now, or you take— Well, I don't know whether you're going to be able to respond with all that information now, but I'm just saying if this goes ahead tonight, I won't support it.

But if it came back as a notice of motion, it'd give me time to actually look more into it and then make a more balanced decision, that's all. It's fine if they want to vote it through, but I'm just saying my position is I don't know much about point three, so I can't support it. I think that I don't know anything about it, that's all. Councillor Michael.

Yeah, thanks through you, Mr Mayor. Just a question. Is it possible to vote on this in seriatim on the three points separately?

There can be an amendment, if it's

Agreed to, because I don't really want to restrict one and two. I don't want to come back to it. You know, like if I've got a bit more information on number three, I could well probably say, yeah, okay, let's take it to the minister. But

It's, you know, like it's up to the chamber to decide that. Well, the floor's up to you, Councillor. You can do it that way or move an amendment, whatever you like, if you feel that way inclined.

Well then I'll ask for a procedural motion to the chamber whether we can vote on this in seriatim on the points, please.

There's a motion being put in relation to a procedural motion that we deal with the items one at a time. Those in favour?

Against? That's carried unanimously.

Any further debate?

Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Look, in hopes of filling in some of the blanks for Councillor Creed, and I do appreciate that I didn't flag this coming into the meeting,

A bit of a potted history of the Rural Boundary Clearing Code. It was brought in at the behest of Andrew Constance following the 2019-2020 fires as a hope of doing something, you know, and I think, you know, the— The person who referred to this as being a fairly reactionary piece of legislation is correct. There is really no scientific evidence for the Rural Boundary Clearing Code. It's designed to function in grassland and allow farmers to clear their fence lines so that it was thought to be easier to create firebreaks and to get grass fires under control. The advice that we received at the time when this came to Council was that it would do very little to hold back fire in the Hawkesbury, predominantly because of our topography and also because of our vegetation.

You know, if you think of a fire like Gospers, it was a crowning fire. It jumped across ridgelines. Twenty-five metres was certainly going to do nothing. And, you know, for those firefighters who spent months on the fireground were all at pains to tell us that this would do nothing to help with the fires in our LGA, even down on the lowlands where we have more grasslands. This is not the sort of measure that does anything. And what we knew at the time was that it put acres and acres of habitat at risk where we had no mapping. We were well behind. We should never have brought this code in. In my opinion, and certainly in the opinion of the environmental groups that addressed us at the time, because we didn't have the— the code relies on the individual landowner to check online to see if their property is clear of vegetation constraints before they clear.

It's self-policed, effectively. Code leaves lots of room for error. And once you've taken out a tree, you can— once you've taken out, you know, once you've cleared 25 metres along your boundary, and let's be clear, you can clear 25 metres along your boundary, and your next-door neighbour can clear 25 metres along their boundary, and you've got a 50 metre hole. And then you can also use the 1080... The— sorry , the 10.50, 10.80 is another thing entirely. The 10.50 legislation to clear around your asset protection zone, and then you want nothing left. You know, we have— and we have properties that literally have nothing left as the result of this code. Acres and acres of habitat put at risk for a really ill thought out reactionary measure after Gospers.

The Labor Party said that they would review it when they voted for it in Parliament. They said that they would put in a review if they came to power. They haven't. I'm just eyeballing the legislation at the moment, and it's a funny old piece of legislation, which is what happens when you write something on the hop. But it says that the minister has the power to amend or repeal the code if he consults with the Minister for Planning and Public Spaces, the Minister for Energy and Environment, and the Minister for Agriculture and Western New South Wales. Now, I'm sure the Minister for Western New South Wales would be very interested in what's going on of Kurrajong. But such is life. So I think within here there probably is enough wriggle room for the minister to do something.

But we are the only council that has opted in. So rural councils were automatically included. Metropolitan councils were not. And Hawkesbury— that happened at the behest of Philip Ruddock, who was livid when this was brought in. He was the mayor then of Hornsby and felt that this would have a really deleterious effect on Hornsby's property values, Hornsby's general views and vistas, and the way people perceived that LGA. And he requested that metropolitan councils be excised from the legislation and be allowed to opt in if they wanted to. And Hawkesbury is the only metropolitan council in New South Wales who has opted into this legislation, and nobody else has spontaneously combusted, I note, without the benefit of the rural boundary clearing code.

The time has come, I think, to say to the state government— Fix this. This wasn't well thought out. There is no science behind this. There is no evidence for this code. Fix it or review it, but do something, because we are rapidly losing habitat. And that is something that we simply cannot replace. The koala colony in the Hawkesbury is incredibly significant. It has the most diverse genetics of any koala colony in the country, and that's really important with increasing habitat loss and with increasing species pressure. That it's very important from a genetic perspective that populations are genetically diverse. There's a lesson in that for everyone. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor.

The recommendations in front of you, we'll deal with one at a time. Number one, note the progress as is written. Those in favour?

It's unanimous. It's Councillor Zamprogno, Wheeler, Lyons-Buckett, Ryan, Djuric, McMahon, Kotlash, Creed, Veigel, Reardon and Sheather. Those against? The motion's carried. Number two, the adoption of the Hawkesbury priority koala. Those in favour?

It's unanimous. It's

Councillor Zamprogno, Wheeler, Lyons-Buckett, Ryan, Djuric, McMahon, Kotlash, Creed, Veigel, Reardon and Sheather. Those against? The motion's carried. Point three, contact with the Minister in Emergency Services as is written. Those in favour? It is Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Ryan, Councillor Djuric, McMahon, Kotlash, Anne Reardon and Sheather. Those against? Is Councillor Veigel and Councillor Creed. The motion's carried. Thank you, councillors.

The next item is 9.3.4, Community Sponsorship Program. Councillor Wheeler, you're a busy lady.

I am. Sorry. This is what happens when you call all the things up and you haven't got your papers in order, Mr Mayor. Just quickly, I'm just a bit concerned that we've left the— that the guides have scored so poorly on the funding application here, and I think if we— I'm really not satisfied. Oh, sorry. I haven't really moved anything sensible yet. I was just having a rant. Sorry. You're right. Shall I move something? I'll move that the funding application for the Girl Guides is also— for the Girl Guides First Aid is also accepted.

I'll second that, Mr Mayor.

So, I know we've reviewed the guidelines for this. We're in the process of reviewing the guidelines for this. I think it's a really worthy project, and I think— look, I've done what I think is a reasonable tally-up of their points, and I think they've hit 30 and some more. This is really important. It's a really important thing for the LGA, and for everybody, frankly, that people have first aid training in an area with reduced access to emergency services, where people can wait. We know—we heard the case of Diane Finch, who waited for 40 minutes for an ambulance. We've heard recent— you know, we had someone recently saying they waited in Richmond for an ambulance for 25 minutes. The more people we have with first aid qualifications, the better, particularly— and I'm a big...

I'm a big advocate for starting early. If you start first aid training with teenagers or younger people, first aid becomes second nature, and it becomes a reaction By way of background, I was a guide. It was very daggy. Everyone laughed at me. I didn't care. I did it anyway. I loved it. It's where I started learning about first aid. I went on to be an army reserve medic. The skills that I learnt from guides were skills that I carried over into that career. I've used them outside, both within and outside the army. I have saved lives with the skills that I learnt as a 12-year-old guide. These skills are really important, and the faster you teach them to young people, particularly women and girls, the more you empower them and the more you ensure the safety of the community around them.

I think this is money well spent. We're giving some money to Wentworth, which is basically a different level of government's responsibility, and we're still giving them a couple of grand. I think we can stump up some money for the guides. So I hope people are willing to support this. We do have some money left in the budget. This money will come out of the round three funding. Thanks.

Councillor Kotlash.

Thank you, Mr Mayor.

I don't like this sort of decision-making. I've just heard what Councillor Wheeler has said, and it all sounds fair enough, straightforward. What she says has merit, but the thing about the way we do this assessment is we have this matrix, we have this scoring system, which we have endorsed. But yet, when it doesn't suit us, we go, Oh no, I think they're more worthy. Let's just change the scoring system if things that we think are falling through the cracks. Let's not do this kind of fix-up on the hop. I mean, I kind of agree with you, Councillor Willer, but I just, this is not good process. It's not good governance to have a system that you, when you see the results of it, you're not happy with.

Having said that, I should have asked this question before. How far off under the threshold were the guides?

One point.

One point. Sorry, I didn't get to read that. Okay. One point. What was the other, the Hawkesbury City Netball Association? You can tell I've really, too many numbers.

So

The threshold is—what was the threshold? Twenty-five.

Sorry.

There's something wrong there. I'll get that answered for you.

Through you, Mr Mayor, the threshold to qualify was scoring 30 on the matrix. The Girl Guides scored 24 and the Hawkesbury Netball Association scored 26.

Okay, so Mr Mayor, you were wrong. It's not one. I

Was.

Yeah, never mind. No, I'll go back to that's still. I mean, if it was one, I'd probably twist my arm, but no. I think we should stick with this. It's been well thought out. We can revisit the matrix if we don't think it's getting essential , you know, and really important things over the line. I think that's a discussion for another day, but I think we should stick to the process that we have agreed to. Thanks.

Councillor Lyons Buckett.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I do support this. I hear what Councillor Kotlash says, and I think that what we really need to do is to take these instances where the matrix hasn't enabled this and put them back into how better we can translate that. But I do think that this is a really worthy thing, and I think that this is one of those examples where our discretionary role, where we can change a decision or we can step a bit outside to give some money for a worthy cause, is very justified. I think in particular... The proposal for the guides for 14 plus girls is a really crucial time in their life where this would be a great benefit. Not only are they likely to be in situations where they may need to exercise first aid, many of them are carers or have caring duties to perform.

They can also be around other children who are having incidences of things like asthma, anaphylaxis. I did renew my first aid, and I started when I was nine, but I did renew my first aid last year, or earlier this year. No, last year. And I was very pleased to see it's been much updated to cater for many more things. So they do deal a lot with anaphylaxis. I have an anaphylactic daughter, so I know what it's like and how important it is to know what to do with an EpiPen and so on. And I think for these, I would actually think that first aid should be taught in schools. That's the first thing. But I know that there's liability issues around doing that, and not everyone does it. But I think this is a worthy thing.

The Girl Guides are learning leadership issues, and I think that that's really good that they would get to do it. I do think they could have scored somehow some points in the section, a healthy community, because I think having people trained in first aid has to contribute to a more healthy community in terms of having people prepared to assist others when in need. So I'm happy to support it. I'm also happy to see periodically as we do a review of the matrix of the scoring to reflect better how we might capture perhaps projects that are designed to equip youth and individuals with skills that are lifelong skills, that are skills that they carry forward and they can use in the community.

Thank you, Councillor. Just make a comment. We split up into three roles during the year, and we have got a matrix in relation to how we deal with that, to even the money out across the year for the people who put in. The other one that misses out is the Indigenous netball players, and they've got a higher score. And I'd suggest, well, they would certainly feel that they've got a higher score and should be more eligible for it, because, again, we're talking about young people getting on in life and helping them in that regard. While the Girl Guides and the comments have been made about the Guides and what that does for young ladies in their early ages to better themselves in life and to help other people is, you know, needs rewarding.

The matrix, when we set this up some years ago, was for a purpose so we could be fair to the community who put applications in. And as worthwhile as they might be to be funded, the point is that we've got other rounds of funding that it'll be depleted, and other people would be just as eligible to receive it if they pass the criteria. And if there's more, then we've got to reduce the amount we give each one of them. So I can't support it, Councillors, as much as I'd like to. I think we've got to— The protocol we've got to follow and be fair to the next round of applicants, which they can put in for it again. The girl guides aren't going away if they meet the criteria, and I'm sure our staff will indicate to them if there's an opportunity in that regard to put in for the next one.

Training at any time is good. It just means that they might not qualify this time, but it doesn't mean to say they can't put in again. Any further debate, councillors?

No debate.

Righto. Sorry, Mr Mayor, can I just in case, can I foreshadow a motion? Foreshadow a motion? If this doesn't get up, I'm just concerned we leave it in limbo. Can I foreshadow, or should I move an amendment for the original? Sorry.

Oh , we don't need to? Okay , all right, thanks. You're proposing to move the business paper. Yeah, I just— It can be an amendment, Councillor.

Okay, I'll move the amendment that's in the business paper. I'm just— I was worried that if this didn't go through, then it's in limbo. That's all. Do we have a seconder?

Councillor Kotlash.

Further debate. Right of reply, Councillor Wheeler . Sorry.

Can we vote on the amendment?

We've got an amendment.

No, I want to speak on the amendment.

Yep. We've got an amendment. If there's no further debate, the amendment is the recommendation in the business paper. Those in favour?

That's Councillor Zembrodno, Councillor Ryan, Councillor Djuric, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Creed, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Reardon, Councillor Sheather. Those against?

There's Councillor Wheeler and Councillor Lyons-Buckett. The motion is carried.

The amendment's carried. It now becomes the motion. Right of reply, Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Look, I think that's quite disappointing. There's a— why do we bring this back to the Chamber if councillors can't have any input into it? You know, I get that there's a matrix. I don't actually think that the matrix has been applied effectively to this, in this instance. And I think that the reason that it comes to us is so that we have some discretion in adjusting the results of that matrix. I think this is regrettable. I think this is a really worthy cause. And I think if we've got a matrix that allows us to give $ 2,200 to Link Wentworth, which is a state government service, and no money to kids in our own community to teach them life-saving skills for the rest of their lives, there's a problem with our matrix and there's a problem with our decision-making.

Thank you, Councillor. The motion is in the business paper, Councillor. Those in favour?

There's

Councillor Djuric, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Creed, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Reardon, Councillor Sheather, and Councillor Kotlash. Those against is Councillor Zambrogna, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Lyons-Buckett and Councillor Ryan. The motion is carried.

9.4.1, Councillor Corrid.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Sorry, I know this probably should have gone on block. I'll move it as it is, just with the added exception in page five of the document, the draft document—sorry, the make-up version. I've spoken with staff yesterday. It was just something that I noticed in the tabling, the authorised officer, general manager, and it's got forward slash mayor crossed out. My concern with this, it was about reporting any allegations of fraud or corruption to the relevant authority and/or conducting investigations as required. Have you

Got some wording there, Councillor?

Oh no, it was just a suggestion. The staff know what it was.

Okay. Have a seconder

Are you seconding the fraud and corruption thing for me?

Yeah, I'll second it. Councillor Veigel.

It was just to add, not have the mayor on the same line, and the staff have come back with saying, just so councillors are aware, that there's an extra line that says mayor or administrator if it's about the general manager, just because that paragraph in 5.6 didn't quite line up with the authorised officer and the responsibilities. And the staff have said they'll fix it up to add the extra line. So the mayor, whoever that is, still has an obligation to report any fraud or corruption when it comes to the general manager. That's all. Thanks. And that's it.

Do we have it on the...

Through you, Mr Mayor, I'm not sure what Councillor Creed's moving. Is he moving the recommendation or is he moving... Yeah, moving

The recommendation with those slight changes in with the extra line that I spoke to the staff about yesterday.

Have you passed that information on, Councillor, or is it...? Yes. Yep. They came back to me with the added line

I should clarify, I sought the staff's advice on the question I had, and they said, Yep, we can re-add that extra line. Just

Clarifying

The wording,

Councillors .

Is that your motion, Councillor?

Thank you.

Any debate, councillors?

Councillor Kotlash.

Sorry to be painful, but I don't understand that change. Are we saying that the role and responsibility, there needs to be an additional line put in that first part of the table on page five that says that the role and responsibility of the mayor is , and there is no mention of what role and responsibility the mayor has, or is it equivalent to the— It can't be equivalent to the role of the general manager. So it says that the general manager's role is to report any allegations of fraud and corruption to the relevant authorities and/or conduct investigations as required. Was the point that Councillor Creed was making is that the mayor needs to have the— the mayor has a role if the allegations are about the general manager. Is that what we're saying? Yeah

So it was— the staff came back to me and said that it was to add the line in that box that the mayor or administrator report any allegations of fraud or corruption. I'll have the staff clarify that. General manager.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. The idea is to add to that table one for the mayor under position. The roles and responsibility would be something along the lines of report any allegations of fraud or corruption against the general manager to the relevant authority and/or conduct investigations as required.

Yeah, and I think the staff just said to me— Because of 5.6, it says the mayor or administrator, so just to clarify that in the box, that's all. Not just the mayor, it's the mayor or administrator if it happens to be one. That's all. Sorry.

Thank you, Councillor.

Any debate on the matter?

Can I just ask another question? So should the thing where it says general manager be general manager or the administrator, or is the administrator take the role of mayor? Okay, thanks.

Are we clear?

Right of reply, councillor. Just to say quickly thank you to the staff, because that particular staff member knows I'm very painy about the staff, so thank you.

The motion's in front of us on the tablet. Those in favour?

It's unanimous. It's Councillor Brogdon, Councillor Weir, Lyons, Buckett, Ryan, Djuric, McMahon, Kotlash, Creed, Veigel, Reardon and Sheather. Those against? The motion is carried.

Then 9.4.2, Councillor Wheeler.

Second. Thank you, Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Sorry. I'll just quickly raise the matter of the proportion

Of Council's investment portfolio that falls into the environmentally and socially responsible governance, that the non-fossil fuel lending amount has continued to fall. We were up around 80%. We're now down to 51%. We are parking more and more investments in fossil fuel lending institutions , which is against the principles of our investment policy. The policy states that we will go with responsible investors where the interest rate or the return is similar or better from socially and environmentally responsible institutions . I find it a bit hard to believe that in the middle of yet another oil war, fossil fuel lending organisations are looking like a better financial bet. So if we could just perhaps keep that in mind with our investments going forward, that would be more consistent with the rest of our policies around environmental action and And climate . Thanks.

Through you, Mr Mayor, I can assure councillors that all investments that are made are made in accordance with Council's policy, and that policy indicates that Council invests with environmental, social and governance investing, where they are offering equivalent investment returns at the same credit rating, and that's what occurs every time we make an investment. So if a socially responsible institution offers the equivalent investment rate and same credit rating as the others, then we invest with them. Otherwise, we invest with the other institutions.

Thank you. I'll just make a comment. We get some public scrutiny from time to time about how unfinancial we are. If people took the time to look at about 10 pages of that investment report, and one down the page a bit further, which is the quarterly budget review and the effort that goes into that, to see how unbroke we are and the effort that the staff go into keep it that way, we might not get the criticism that happens around the place sometimes. Our budget's doubled over the last couple of years because of government subsidies in the likes of our employees. There's 363 on the books at the moment. We're down five from two months ago. And with a double in budget, one would expect that our internal costs would skyrocket.

They did go up a little bit, and there was comments in the paper about that. And there's over 11 percent of cost increase directly related to ongoing costs that we're obligated to pay. But our staff have not increased to that degree. Someone made a comment the other day, I seen that we've doubled our staff. So I made some inquiries. It's over 20 years ago, and at that time we were still nowhere near what was reported. So it's easy and cheap to make allegations. All that information, if people want to make comment, and most of it's reflected in other parts of the meeting tonight. We don't shy away from people that want to comment on things we do. It's appropriate. But if we're going to make comments, all this information is available and easy to get at.

And I would guarantee that if our staff were required to assist someone with some relevant information in relation to certain aspects, it would be made available. So I just make those comments because the comments are unjustified from time to time and undeserved. Councillor Kotlash.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I think that what Councillor Wheeler was trying to get at, and forgive me if I'm wrong, Councillor Wheeler, is that we have the opportunity to start to transition our investments to, you know, to non... Fossil fuel lending. We discussed this, gosh, I think it was almost when we first started Council 10 years ago. If that isn't satisfying some of us, and we think that maybe we're dropping the ball on that and it's not going in the right direction, that's not a criticism. I think that's just an observation that we possibly have to, when we review the investment policy again, we , and I take Mr. Mifsud's point that staff follow our investment policy, and that's right. That's what we had determined was the way forward on this.

It's not a matter of saying that, it's not an allegation. It's just, I think Councillor Wheeler was making the point that we might need to look at the direction of our investments and our lending. Now that's a completely reasonable thing to do. And if we can do that, if we can dictate that we , I don't know how it will work, I haven't read the investment policy for a while,

But if we want to tweak that, there might be some way that we say if a non-fossil fuel lending organisation has, you know, almost, you know, 2%, I don't know, I mean, I'm making this up, whatever, however the mechanism. So the staff know that if it's offering, you know, 1% less than another company, we still go with that, so that we are able to go in the right direction. That's, I think, the message that we need to. To debate next time we look at our investment policy. So I don't think it was a criticism, just think it was an observation that it's going in the wrong direction. Thanks.

Thank you, councillors. My comments weren't criticising. I hope she didn't take any offence to the comments I made, but the non-fossil fuels is 51% to the fossil fuels is 40% in relation to where our information is provided here. Enough of that. Any further debate?

Councillor Wheeler, right of reply.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Look, I thank Councillor Kotlash for trying to soften my blow. I apologise if I was harsh. I didn't mean it as an accusation, but I do think it probably did come out as one, and so I apologise. Divestment is a really important signal to financial institutions that we want them to make clean decisions with their investment, and that doesn't include investing in weapons, in any form of weapons manufacture or arms , and it doesn't include fossil fuel projects, including oil and gas. And I think as a council that's been repeatedly impacted by climate change, it behoves us to make sure that our ratepayers' money isn't being used to fund those industries that are biting us down the track as well.

Maybe we do need to review the investment policy, as is quite conservative, firstly because we don't have buckets of money to gamble on system change, but also that's because that's what the chamber would accept at the time. If there's Will, I'm more than happy to bring a greater divestment motion to the chamber. Let me know. I'm happy to go down that path.

Just a couple of other things that are worth noting that you've alluded to, Mr Mayor, is the unrestricted funds. There's been some comment online that Council doesn't need an SRV because we have $118 million socked away in the bank to spend on anything. I wish. This is not the case. If people have a look at the table on the page that I now can't find—sorry, getting there, getting there.

No , I've lost it again. Page

82

82, 84? 82. Sorry.

87C. Lies, all of you.

On

Page 87, you'll see that the vast majority of our funds is taken up by restrictions of some degree. So the only restrictions that Council is capable of adjusting are the internal restrictions of $38 million, and many of those we can't touch either because they relate to staff entitlements like superannuation and leave. So Council has unrestricted funds of $ 2.5 million, which isn't really going to get us all to—apparently Bali. Apparently we're all going to Bali. So maybe we'll all get to Bali. Who knows? We mightn't come back. It's bloody appealing. Mr Mayor, you're correct. Having a little look at this information that we put out every month about Council's finances actually could.. . Knock on the head that some of these discussions about Council's supposed financial position.

You'll also note in here that there is no mention of the massive debt that Council is apparently carrying, because it doesn't exist. The information is in the document. If you don't understand it, give someone a call and ask. Give a councillor a call. Ask on social media how to read these documents and what it actually means. This is your money. Please ask for more clarification if you don't understand it. Local government finance is complex. It's not like the finances of a small business. If you've run a small business, that doesn't mean that you will be able to run a large organisation of the scale of Council with 400-plus employees and several hundred million dollars turnover every year.

That isn't making me Zen, that noise, but I'll just carry on. The other thing that's really useful in this document, and that I really urge people to have a look at if they've got any money to invest, and I know that we do have quite a few people in the community who are now at that stage, there's a really, really good investment report at the bottom of this that tells you what you should do with your money that Council follows. So if you want advice on term deposits or playing the short-term money market, please have a read. It's free. Well, it's not free. Your rates have paid for it. Get on it. Thanks.

That was my reply. I put the motion. Those in favour?

It's unanimous. Those against? It's carried. Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Weir, Lyons-Buckett, Ryan, Djuric, McMahon, Kotlash, Creed, Veigel, Reardon and Sheather. The motion's carried.

Mr Mayor, it's 11 o'clock. How could you believe it. I'll move that we go past 11. I second that, Mr Mayor.

Thank you. Those in favour?

The motion is carried. Thank you. Thank you for that, Councillor. 9.4.4, Council staff interaction policy. Mr Mayor,

I'll move that.

Three people have called that up, Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

I'll move the recommendation in the business paper. I'll second it.

So who was that, Councillor Wheeler?

Councillor Wheeler. Mr Mayor, I support this going on public exhibition. It's a very important document. The first thing I just wanted to raise, I don't know if we need to add it to the motion. It's not really connected to it going on public exhibition, but there's a Schedule 1 in there that outlines the directory of staff that we can contact, and we are yet to ever receive those actual details. I'm just wondering if councillors can be provided with that schedule with the actual email and phone addresses. I think the thing is that not all councillors know which roles people are in. It might say the manager of something or other, but not everybody knows who that is or what their phone number is.

I think the only thing that I have an issue with around this policy, and I'm not sure how staff get to actually be instructed about it. I understand it's more from a councillor perspective, but I'm very mindful that many of our staff live and work within our local community, and I don't like the feeling that they often approach us and say they can't speak to us. Now, I understand obviously we can't discuss council matters, we can't discuss operational or internal matters, but it's a little bit sad to think that they think that we're at an event they can't come and actually just have a chat with us about either the event or their life. Or many of them live in the same sort of village or town we live in, and I think, I don't know, somewhere along the line I think they've been told that they can't speak to us.

But I think that I'm sure that both parties involved would know the boundaries of what can and can't be discussed. I think this policy outlines that quite clearly. Regarding the councillor request process, it does work quite well, and I really appreciate how both comprehensive and timely many of the responses we get are. I just think sometimes at times it fails to provide—there's not a mechanism built in for following up. For example, if the action is to send a letter, perhaps to a minister or something like that, or to send some—get some information, and that might come, it might not ever get a response, and there's no sort of mechanism for the follow-up within there. I just think that's something that seems to go into limbo.

But anyway , I am pleased to see in this policy the outlining of the responsibilities around confidential information, which was already touched on tonight.

I know that many people in the public think certain information should be made public, but when the law prescribes differently, that's what we must abide for. I've already been over that tonight. We must be mindful of those provisions, and I think the really important thing in this document of what it says is that it needs to be read in conjunction with the Code of Conduct, so they come as a sort of a double act. It does give a comprehensive outline of the ways we can seek information, but my main thing really in reading it was to see if we can get that contact list in a format that we can have readily accessible so that we know which staff to approach and what their contact details are.

Thank you, Councillor. We got the list, just didn't get the numbers with it. Yeah, sorry.

Yeah, we got the list. A name with them would be nice too

Yeah. Now, your comments are noted, Councillor. In the past, perhaps not with this council, with some, the separation to the degree that we have to put up with today, the staff are just as frustrated, I guess, sometimes when they're dealing with issues and there's particular views of councillors, or they're trying to put a document together that's follow-on a resolution of a particular councillor or whatever, and it's a picket-a-poke that they got it right, you know, so it cuts both ways. But in saying that, the staff are aware, and I'm sure that where there's an opportunity to have interaction to deal with particular aspects of our work, they'll do their best to achieve that.

Councillor Kotlash.

Thanks, Mr. Mayor. I was under the understanding that we wouldn't be allowed to put people's numbers or names against this. I mean, this has to go out for public. No, I mean for the councillors to be provided with it. Yeah. Okay, so we need to have some sort of thing to say that, you know, there's an appendix that can be changed as staff changes, because otherwise we'd be changing this every time somebody's phone number changes. Oh no, that wasn't part of what the recommendation was. I was just asking. Okay. Sorry, I thought I was a bit confused.

Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr. Mayor. I just want to bring up Clause 7.4, which appears to be a new clause regarding the information given to councillors in response to a councillor request. So it appears now that, I think we were, I have been operating under the understanding that if I was given a response to a request about a particular matter, that that information was sent to, if it was information regarding a request made by a resident , that that was in a form that I could then pass on to the resident. Does this mark a change to that? So I was in the habit of just saying, Are you fine for me to send this through? if I was concerned that it might be sensitive. It does 7.4 signal a change to that? I don't quite understand where 7.4 fits into the grand scheme.

Through you, Mr. Mayor, there's two aspects. That this seeks to clear up. So the first is that, to make it abundantly clear about what is confidential information. But secondly, councillors generally aren't authorised to release information, full stop. So this is intended to act more for staff as a reminder, as a requirement, to make it abundantly clear to councillors when it is okay to disclose information. There have been instances in the past where, you know, with all the good intention in the world, both on staff's part and councillors' part, information has been released which hadn't been intended to be released. This simply seeks to put it beyond all doubt and give confidence to councillors about what can be disclosed and what shouldn't be disclosed or can't be disclosed.

Thank you.

Councillor. Thank you, Mr Mayor. I just wanted to raise the 7.2, staff will inform councillors of any confidentiality requirements for information they provide by marking confidential information appropriately. For example, use of confidential watermarks so councillors can have the information appropriately. On boards and other organisations I'm a part of, I always did find it strange that there's not even a watermark on any of our confidential documents. In LG New South Wales, we have all of our board papers, confidential items and everything is actually watermarked with the individual's name blazoned across it. We cannot get it in paper form. You cannot download it off the hub. You cannot even take a screenshot of it.

I would actually be more than happy to see Council go down that path and, like— There's no reason. We've got confidential, the tiny little things. There's no reason why that can't just stay on the hub and no paper form, unless there's some sort of disability access. We do have someone on the board that actually needs a paper copy of everything because they can't read it on a computer screen because of an issue with the eyes. But I'm more than happy to really strengthen what councillors receive, and I would actually prefer to have everybody's individual names watermarked over every single page of any confidential

Item that we receive. And I don't think we should get it in paper form. I don't think you should be able to download it off the hub. And I think that it should have a highly restricted access that you can't even screenshot it. And, I mean, you're not going to stop someone from trying to take a photo, but at least the watermark's on it, you know. But at least this way , you know, all the allegations of leaking, this will be as tight as you can possibly get it. I would actually much prefer that than allegations. I mean, I've been accused of leaking confidential information. I can categorically say I've never leaked anything in my life. I've had some of the highest security clearances in this country and dealt with some of the most significant documents in this country.

I have never leaked anything in my life, and I would be more than happy to support, like, intense scrutiny and strengthening of the confidential documents and the stuff that we deal with, just to take on board as a thought for the GM.

Thank you, Councillor. I guess whatever we do in relation to the comments that were just made by Councillor Creed, loose lips sink ships. And I don't know of any documents that I've seen floating around that are a copy of anything that's been distributed by Council. That doesn't mean to say they're not out there. I certainly haven't seen them. So we can go to all the trouble. If it's like, we're old enough to understand what confidentiality is. Most of us have dealt with it in different parts of our life, all through our life. And to restrict or tighten opportunities for councillors to get the information they need and the likes on the basis that it's hard to pass on, I'd suggest most of the stuff is in just loose talk, and we need to be mindful of that.

Any further discussion? Councillor Wheeler. Councillor Lyons-Buckett, sorry, by reply.

Not necessary, Mr Mayor.

Thank you.

The documents before you, councillors, all in favour?

Those against? That's unanimous. Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Wheeler, Lyons-Buckett, Ryan, Djuric, McMahon, Kweitway, Screed, Veigel, Reardon and Sheather. The motion is carried.

The budget review, I think, 9.4.6.

Councillor McMahon.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I have a less than significant non-pecuniary interest in this item. Turnbull Oval is mentioned, and my son plays for Hawkesbury Hawks, except for the next six to nine weeks because he broke his arm. Based at Turnbull Oval, there is no pecuniary interest with my son simply playing for this football team. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. That was unblocked, Councillors. It was pulled out because of the declaration of interest. Move it. Councillor Creed. Councillor Wheeler. Any discussion? Not. Those in favour?

Those against? It's carried unanimously. Councillor Zamprogno, Wheeler, Lyons-Buckett, Ryan, Djuric, McMahon, Kotlash, Creed, Veigel, Reardon, and Sheather. The motion is carried.

Audit, Risk and Improvement Committee. Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

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

And Councillor Veigel

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I just think, just following on from the theme of when you were just speaking about the investment report, documents such as these that come to Council are really important for the public to be both aware of and to actually read. I think that if you were to read the minutes of the Audit Committee, it would give a really good insight into all the, you know, Council operations and what's going on. The auditors on the Audit Committee are highly experienced people who raised some really pertinent points, which are checking on why certain actions are either incomplete or asking questions about something, and it does give a really good overview of what's being looked at. An upcoming in the Internal Audit Program, an upcoming audit on incoming grants—well, that's happening, I think that's the 26-27, but it's listed as number one.

One auditor commented about the need to have the right internal processes and to closely audit to avoid grants being rejected due to the scope of works not being followed correctly. She says she's witnessed this happening in many other councils, and the Chair also agreed that he had also seen that. So I think that this is something that needs to be brought to the attention of the Chamber, that these audits are being done because, of course, we do see in the public a lot of misinformation and a lot of misunderstanding around the grant program, so around the WSIG and other grants. So obviously looking at adherence to the process, the internal processes around these grants is something that will be done.

We can only correct what we see on social media and so on. If we get the information that it's been looked at and then we can put that out to the public to stop the accusations and allegations that are flying around. I think I would ask our delegate on the ARIC Committee, which is Councillor Creed, to advocate for a thorough look into that when the audit is done, that, you know, it's keep an eye on what exactly is being done so that the truth of the matter can be conveyed back to the public. It's important to note on page 13 of the minutes the references to the current global crisis. Obviously, for everyone, the impacts will be varied and managed accordingly. I think the explanations that are given by the staff around that are very good.

There were no questions raised about the financial reports, and yet we're slammed publicly about our financial reports all the time. The external audit scope for September '26 is put there with the list of key focus areas, which are listed on page 15 of the minutes. That includes valuations of the stormwater assets, the investment properties, the Capital Works Program, restricted cash, accounting implications, and the sewer divestment. I think, again, that's something that we should all be aware of is going on. These are things that we really have a responsibility to be aware of. I'm not sure everyone understands that, but we need to know these things so that we can make sure that both that we're raising anything in concerns around them, but also that we have the correct information to tell people.

The quarterly update on cybersecurity is going well, which I think is our council does very well on that, with an AI policy to come and then an AI strategy, which is something, of course, that we have to— To be across and be ahead of the game. We were luckily, we don't use WhatsApp or Signal apps in Council, I'm pleased to hear that. So we weren't caught up in the breach that some other councils were. And the other thing that was raised was around the Sports Council service level agreement, which was very slow progressing, is what the audit committee said. And the risk profile of that has not been lowered, as we don't have that agreement in place. And hopefully that will be coming up soon, I would imagine, Mr Mayor, to be dealt with.

So even though the meetings are held some time ago and the minutes are a bit slow coming, it's very interesting to keep abreast of what is actually happening in that committee. It's got a lot of reading and a lot of work, but it actually has hidden within it many of the answers to things that people raise in the community about Council operations. Thank you.

Well said, Councillor. Any further discussion?

Just quickly, I have to say, since going on this committee as the Council rep, and which Councillor Lyons-Buckett encouraged me to do at the time, and I felt that at first I thought it was a punishment, but I have to say I don't have any voting rights on it, but it is so fascinating to listen to these experts in the way that they look at different things that, I guess, laymen, you know, normal people would not necessarily look at. And I think that's probably where... Probably the staff, and why I've been picking up these little things, and might not matter to others, but it's just I've been learning a lot, so thank you.

Thank you, Councillor.

Any further discussion?

Can I ask just a quick question?

I didn't read the terms of reference for the audit committee before I read the business paper, so I don't know the answer. I could have looked it up, but I didn't . Does the audit committee have any scope to help us to assess our risk potential, our risk appetite, when it comes to external things like we've been discussing tonight that can impact on our staff , be it their health or morale? I mean, I note that they have in the minutes a section on ethical behaviour, and I just wondered whether that was something that we could—I'm not suggesting we need help on it, but I just wondered whether it went to that.

Sorry, that too hard a question.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. So the ARIC, or the Audit, Risk and Improvement Committee looks at a number of things, and one of those things is around ethical behaviour, but that is around Council reporting back to the committee around what it is doing. Around trying to manage ethical behaviour.

Along with a million other things, I might add.

No, I appreciate that, and I wouldn't be surprised if you said, No, no, that's because it's based on staff, and it is, I can imagine, quite a complex area. I wouldn't be surprised if you said no, but just a thought. Thank you.

Any further discussion?

Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Just briefly on that point that Councillor Kotlash just raised, it's a statutory committee and of course one of the roles of councillors in there is to raise any issues like that. I do believe the chair, from having been the delegate on the previous four years, the chair of the audit committee, Mr Quirk, is very open to councillors raising any issues at all, either through the delegate or directly with him. So ,

Thank you, Councillor. The motion is before you, councillors. Those in favour? Against? It's carried unanimously. It's Councillors Zambrogna,

Councillor Wheeler, Lyons-Buckett, Ryan, Djuric, McMahon, Kotlash, Creed, Weigel, Reardon and Sheather. The motion is carried. The next item, councillors, 10.1.4, Pub Pain Management Committee

Councillor Wheeler.

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

Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I just wanted to use this opportunity to just talk about a few of the things that we— Picked up at the last floodplain risk management conference, which was, as usual, really helpful. One of the really interesting things that came out very early in the conference was the Floodplain Risk Management Australia New South Wales delegate spoke to the loss of briefings for councils and talked about how difficult that made things for floodplain management consultants in trying to help councils understand flood risk and ways of managing flood risk in a space that allowed them to have a discussion that wasn't in public view, without the political performance that often comes around risk management recommendations.

And so it would seem that that lack of briefing is making things extremely difficult. A few stats that came out: Sue Ribbons, who many of you will know from the Floodplain Risk Management Association and previously our Floodplain Risk Management Committee as the Department of Planning rep, a third of people living in high flood risk areas also live below the poverty line now, which means that they can't afford insurance, which means that there are really big knock-on consequences for communities like ours where many people are flood affected. And if you've got a huge slab of those people without insurance, you have really big resilience implications for communities. Twenty-five percent of housing stock now will be uninsurable in 25 years, given that the life of a building is about 70 years.

Yeah, flood planning needs to be a longer-term idea. The other comment that Sue Ribbons made was that too many good floodplain risk management strategies are put in the bottom drawer and considered to be too alarmist to implement. And I have to say that was a continuing discussion as Councillor Lyons-Buckett and I moved about the meeting with anybody who realised that we were from Hawkesbury Council and had failed to implement the floor height ratio that was recommended in our flood study. People used to laugh at us in that uncomfortable way that you laugh at people where you know that something terrible is going to happen to them. When we said we were from Hawkesbury, people were openly angry at us at this conference.

There was an excellent presentation from Barbara Norman from the ANU talking about housing delivery, mitigating climate and flood risk, and something that I think we are very aware of here in the Hawkesbury, the increasing conflict and competing issues around housing delivery, and so pushing housing delivery and mitigating flood risk. And she talked about the limits to adaptation, that incremental change is no longer good enough. One of the things that was really troubling throughout the conference , and this was a point made by a number of speakers, was that the planning system allows and enables building on high risk areas. And we certainly see that here in the Hawkesbury. I think we have whole towns that are fine examples of that housing pressure allowing housing in high risk areas.

What was really troubling to watch a number of presentations from government staff members talking about management of the South Creek catchment, which is apparently just going to magically evaporate when it hits the boundary of that catchment. None of it's going to flow into the Hawkesbury Nepean, you'll be pleased to know, and none of it will have knock-on impacts for the flooding within the Hawkesbury Nepean catchment. Not quite sure what's going to happen, but— The water's going to magically disappear. There is a real push from the way those areas are being designed to get the water off that South Creek catchment as fast as possible, which is lovely from the South Creek catchment, but disastrous if in the Hawkesbury Nepean catchment, because one lands firmly in the other.

Really interesting stuff that I'd love to have a discussion about around nature-based solutions. Also, a really good discussion about shelter in place. People shouldn't be sheltering in place if they can't get out after 12 hours. They should have power if they're required to shelter in place, and they should have evacuation route reliability. These are key things that we should be considering when we approve anything, any form of subdivision in the Hawkesbury. We can't guarantee any of those three things here, and yet we are allowing planning proposals on flood islands. And the final thing that came out that I think it's worth noting is that the DAP upon which we were basing all our hopes for the flood planning level is at least 12 months away.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillors , on page 197, in the last paragraph, it is the resignation of Dr Stephen Yeo, New South Wales Reconstruction Authority. He's not resigning from the authority. He's been the go-to guy, I guess, in all the studies and stuff that's been done around here for decades, probably 40 years, I'd say. He's probably the person that knows the most about certainly our predicaments that we have here. He hasn't resigned. He's been relocated to the north coast, and the committee resolved that we write to him and thank you for his contribution over the years, which we certainly intend to do. And thanks for those comments, Councillor Wheeler.

Any further discussion?

Mr Mayor, I just wish to add a couple more things to what Councillor Wheeler said, just to echo what she said and also to just raise attention of a couple of other things that were actually raised, which are really quite relevant and perhaps can be filtered back into the Floodplain Committee or into general discussions. And that was mainly around some of the statistics that things like 92% of councils in New South Wales have active flood studies that they've implemented, 84% of those have flood management plans, and they're acting on, like totally adopted, not missing bits, and they're totally acting on those. I do echo what Councillor Wheeler said, that people who were perhaps involved in our study, etc., were quite horrified that it hadn't all been implemented as, after all the work that had been done.

The other issues were around studies that have been done on a cumulative basis, so for example in the Lower Hunter, where they've done all the catchments coming in so that when they do their land use planning, that can be done in areas where they know the full impacts of what sort of water collection is likely to come from flooding. That's something that we've long called for. And as Councillor Wheeler said, the work being done around South Creek seems to have very peculiar boundaries that just stop in the middle of nowhere, and we're not really ever, from what I can see or from the information that I've seen, getting the full picture of what impacts, for example, the development at Marsden Park North.

We'll have downstream and Windsor on the people down there. So as we're looking at potential grant opportunities for further studies or to feed into more regional planning, there are various things that we could do. One of the interesting things that I went to was around, it was quite technical, so I sort of was getting it but not getting 100% of it, was about the various modelling and things, and particularly how they're feeding climate change in and the need that these sort of things are forever being adjusted and adapted because of the changes and the anomalies that can arise when there's just a blanket use of data for developing things such as stormwater piping sizes and things like that.

So that was very, very interesting. I don't know, maybe Councillor Wheeler and I are just, you know, really boring or something, but we really enjoy all of this. The New South Wales SES also did some really great presentations. I'm not going to go through all of mine. And of course the New Zealanders, who at the time we were there were suffering some really bad flooding in New Zealand at that time, but they did give a really, really good example, and I didn't get time to ask the question, but they did a massive project in Lower Hutt, and it sort of spanned a number of governments, and it didn't seem to change in all that time. We seem to have this problem here where every government changes everything that goes on.

But it was a really, really interesting project of how they did it in stages without having to move a whole sewer plant and to have to do a lot of things. I think there's a lot to be learnt from the casual laid-back style of the New Zealanders, to be quite honest. They seem to get it all right. But I won't. I won't go on, but I do hope at some point, Mr Mayor, that when we write up our reports for the General Manager, that we could perhaps deliver some material at some point to the Floodplain Committee, if that's a possibility, because there really is some great information captured. And I echo your well wishes, I guess, to Stephen Yeo. I ran into him in a lift and, yeah, he'll be a great loss feeding into the information that we have here.

Thank you, Councillor. Any further discussion?

The recommendation is on page 194 and 195, Councillors. Those in favour?

Against? It's carried.

Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Ryan, Councillor Djuric, Councillor McMahon, Cotter, Creed, Wiggel, Breen and Sheather. Item 12 is questions with notice.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'd just like to thank for that outstanding question. Outstanding as in wasn't there before, not so much it was an outstanding question, seeing I asked it, but it was about the employment levels. Thank you for that. That gives an explanation on that. I'm assuming that the balance of cost in employment is simply an increase in staff on a needs basis. Is that correct? Thank you. Yes, I did assume that.

I did. I had that with the finance officers today and he explained it to you right now.

Okay. All right. Go

Go. So obviously, when we've answered the question, we've answered it in those two parts. The disaster and recovery works has generally gone to capital expenditure, so that is not part of that cost there. There might be some minor costs involved in that, but the majority of it is around, what, 7.2 million of that increase is around award increases, superannuation guarantees, and some workers' compensation as well

Thank you, Councillor. I don't need a resolution for that. And the last item is confidential, Councillors. We need to go into session. Yeah.

Move we go into confidential.

Thank you, Councillor Creed. Second, Councillor Wheeler.

Okay, Councillors, in closed session, we dealt with the document 14.3.1. The general manager will read out the response.

Second.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Whilst in closed session, the Council resolved on the motion of Councillor Mike Creed, seconded by Councillor Wheeler—my apologies, wrong motion—on the moved— I'll start that again. Whilst in closed session, the Council resolved on the motion of Councillor Zamprogno, seconded by Councillor Reardon, that Council agree to enter into a lease with Hobartville Long Day Preschool Incorporated, incorporated number Y0403801, for part of the property known as 24 Lawrence Street, Hobartville, being part of Lot 1 in Deposited Plan 586207 and part of Lot 3 in Deposited Plan 556640, as outlined in this report. Authority be given for the lease and any other documentation in association with this matter to be executed under the seal of Council, and three, details of Council's resolution be conveyed to the proposed lessee together with the advice that Council is not and will not be bound by the terms of its resolution until such time as appropriate legal documentation to put such a resolution into effect has been agreed to and executed by all parties.

For the motion were Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Djuric, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Cree, Councillor Veigel and Councillor Reardon, and against the motion were Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Alliance-Buckett and Councillor Ryan. Thank you, Mr Mayor. And for— my apologies, it was Councillor Sheather.

Thank you, Councillors. That concludes the meeting, and thanks for your attendance.

Meeting closed.