MAYOR PATTISON: Hello and welcome, everybody.
It&apos;s just turned 6 o&apos;clock, so welcome to our June Council meeting.
I&apos;m Mayor Liz Pattison and it&apos;s a pleasure to welcome members of the community
into the Chambers tonight.
This meeting is being live streamed, so a big welcome to those tuning
in online, and of course welcome to my fellow Councillors.
Live captioning will accompany the live stream
of this meeting and we hope that this assists those
that may have hearing difficulties.
The Surf Coast Shire local government area spans the traditional lands
of the Wadawurrung people and the Gulidjan and Gadubanud peoples of the Maar nation.
I would like to acknowledge that here in Torquay at the main Council office
we are meeting on the Wadawurrung lands, Wadawurrung country, and I pay my respects
to Elders past, present and emerging.
The Wadawurrung people have nurtured and protected these lands and waterways
for thousands of generations and I am so grateful for the opportunity
to live and work in such a beautiful part of the world.
We also wish to acknowledge the traditional owners
of the lands on which each person is attending
and acknowledge any Aboriginal people viewing the meeting tonight.
I&apos;m really pleased to be able to congratulate my fellow Councillor Rose
Hodge, who received a Medal of the Order of Australia in recognition
of her extraordinary community devotion across the Shire.
Councillor Hodge was named among recipients in the King&apos;s Birthday honours
acknowledging her distinguished service to the Council and our community.
She has served as Councillor since 2004, which is an amazingly long time
and she&apos;s just as committed now as she was in 2004, and she was Mayor 2005
to 2007, 2013 to 2014, 2015 to 2016 and 2018 to 2020.
So thank you so much, Rose, for your commitment
over the years (applause).
She&apos;s been a great mentor and role model for many of us.
On another note, NAIDOC week will take place between July 2 and July 9
and an exhibition from Yorta Yorta/Baraparapa
artist Dr Jenny Murray-Jones will be opened
at the Winchelsea Shire Hall on Thursday, 6 July from 6 to 8 and it will continue
from 7 July until 11 July and be open between 10am and 4pm
and I really encourage our community to attend the exhibition and the event
if you can make it.
I met with Jenny today for a photo out in the foyer and it was really great
to hear some of her stories and I&apos;m sure that Harriet and Jenny
will have a great conversation on that evening exploring the themes
of her work.
The CEO and I also recently attended the ALGWA,
the Australian Local Government Association national conference,
up in Canberra and it&apos;s a great opportunity for CEOs
and Mayors from across the country to come together.
During the conference we met with councils facing similar challenges
around Airbnb and short-stay rentals and the impact that&apos;s having
on tourist communities and towns around Australia and we also linked
in around different peri-urban councils and how we can come together as a nation
to share our learnings.
So they&apos;re two great things that came from that conference and I just wanted
to share those learnings and how grateful I was
for the opportunity to attend.
And now to get on with our agenda.
So I&apos;ll just go through some of the process.
Council meetings operate according to our adopted Governance Rules,
which include the following procedures.
During the meeting, the mover of a motion or an amendment may speak
for a maximum of 5 minutes to open the debate
and then a further 2 minutes to make a closing statement.
Any other Councillor, including the seconder, may speak
to a motion for no more than 3 minutes.
I ask that members of the gallery avoid using mobile phones
during the meeting as this can be distracting for Councillors
as well as other members of the gallery.
I also note that any unauthorised recording of the meeting is prohibited
under our Governance Rules.
However, you can access a copy of the official recordings on our website
after the meeting.
I would now like to recite the Pledge as a sign of our commitment.
As Councillors, we carry out our responsibilities with diligence
and integrity and make fair decisions of lasting value for the wellbeing
of our community and environment.
- we have an apology from Councillor Allen for tonight&apos;s meeting.
Can I please have a mover and a seconder?
Councillor Stapleton and Councillor Bodsworth.
All those in favour.
And the motion is carried.
We now move on to confirmation of minutes.
Can I please have a mover and a seconder to confirm the minutes
of the Council meeting held on Tuesday, 23 May and the Special Council Meetings
for Hearing Submissions held on 16 May and 30 May?
Can I have a mover?
Thank you, Councillor Schonfelder.
And a seconder?
Councillor Bodsworth.
All those in favour.
And the motion is carried.
And do we have any leave of absence requests?
No.
Declarations of conflict of interest.
If a Councillor or an officer has a conflict of interest,
they must declare it now and do so again just prior
to the item being discussed.
The Councillor or officer will be requested to leave the Chambers
and then we&apos;ll come back when that item has passed.
Are there any declarations of conflicts of interest in relation
to tonight&apos;s agenda?
No?
Great.
- Councillor Hodge, we have a presentation from you tonight?
CR HODGE: Yes, thank you, Mayor.
I&apos;d just like to let the community know of two fantastic community events
that have just taken place.
On 16 June I attended at Lorne for the Lorne Men&apos;s Shed
and District 10th-year anniversary and it was a great night with
over 120 people celebrating the 10th anniversary.
It was fabulous because the Mayor at the time, Margot Smith, was there
as well and also Clive Goldsworthy, who was a Deputy Mayor of the Surf Coast
and he was one of the major drivers behind that.
But what was really good about the celebration,
the men actually wrote a book on it and it&apos;s a warts and all book
on their journey of getting the shed up and running and it talks about protesters,
it talks about their real drive of the projects they&apos;re doing
and it&apos;s a really good learning for Council too because they wrote
about how they worked with Council and there were things that we can improve
on.
So this book is written by one of the Men&apos;s Shed, Gary Fenton,
and Alan Wells was one of the main drivers as well.
I can&apos;t name all the men, but an exceedingly great community shed.
So if you&apos;re ever down that way, have a look at it because it would be one
of the best sheds in Victoria due to these men
- really, really hard work and they had a lot of support
from their wives, which they acknowledged on the night.
So that was absolutely fabulous.
And then on 22 June I attended the Lion&apos;s Club
of Torquay changeover dinner.
That saw Colin Bellis finish his year up and Brian Keane start his year and Brian
is well known to us, he used to be our Audit Chair, and so he&apos;s
now the President.
But what these volunteers did, and I know you see their barbecues around,
but they actually raised in one year over $96,616 and that all went back
into community and just some of the things they gave money to was the Foundation 61,
which has now got a women&apos;s shelter.
They gave Art of the Minds, which is on mental health, over $12,500,
to many play groups, the surf clubs, the SES, but also they raised over $41,000
in about four days for the Royal Children&apos;s Hospital Appeal.
So this is extraordinary from men and women that are usually retired,
but it was a fantastic dinner at the Lions Village
and I congratulate both Colin and Brian and the club for doing such a great job
and putting money back in our community.
Thank you.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thank you, Councillor Hodge.
Councillor Schonfelder?
CR SCHONFELDER: Thank you, Mayor.
I&apos;d like to pay tribute to Jennifer McConachy, nee Governs,
sadly who died last Tuesday and a tireless volunteer in the Winchelsea
area.
I noticed there was a tribute from a member of the Winchelsea Bowls Club
by the name of Julie Johnson, who wrote this:
&quot;The Winchelsea Bowls Club has lost a wonderful, hard-working
member whose courage living life, devotion to family and farm was matched only
by her tenacity on the green&quot;
- and I&apos;m sorry that Councillor Allen is not here tonight because
he knows the McConachys well and he&apos;s also a very good lawn bowler
- &quot;Jenny has admirably fulfilled many positions essentially
to the smooth running of the club and competitions within it.
She will be sorely missed by our members and across the Corangamite Bowls Division.
&quot;On behalf of Council, I&apos;d like express our deepest sympathy
to her husband, Peter, and her children and grandchildren.
Rest in peace, Jen, who was affectionately known as Mrs Mac,
and including myself, everyone loved Mrs Mac.
Thank you, Mayor.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thank you.
If we now move on, we have no submissions for tonight and the next item
is our public question time.
Members of the public who wish to ask a question to Council are able
to submit their written question in accordance
with Council&apos;s Governance Rules and we had one community member
submit a question.
Bo Carter, did you want to come up and read your question?
BO CARTER: My question just
- can you hear me?
MAYOR PATTISON: Yes, we can, thanks, Bo.
MR BO CARTER: Is regarding the Community Amenity Local Law:
&quot;Thank you for your email response dated 15th
of June that stated the Gender Impact Assessment will be attached
to the Council report and will be publicly accessible.
Could you please provide all supporting documentation that was used
in determining the Gender Impact Assessment
as neither the Gender Equality Act 2020 or Regulations state how the Gender Impact
Assessment is to be done.
&quot;MAYOR PATTISON: Thanks, Bo.
As this is an operational matter and it&apos;s coming to Council
at a future time, I&apos;m going to get our CEO to respond to that one.
MS ROBYN SEYMOUR: Bo, thanks for your question and you&apos;re right,
we will be attaching the Gender Impact Assessment to the Council report when
the Local Law comes before Council.
But to give you some reassurance, the document will include all the links to
all the resources used in the development of the Gender Impact Assessment
recommendations.
Council is required under the Gender Equality Act of 2020
to complete a Gender Impact Assessment on every new project, policy or service
along with any that are due for review, so moving forward that&apos;s what we&apos;ll be
doing.
The Commission for Gender Equality provides guidance
on what assessments must consider.
The Commission has an online Gender Impact Assessment Hub which provides a lot
of information and resources to help organisations develop their Gender
Impact Assessment process, so you might want to have a look
at that ahead of the Council report to get a bit of a feel for the process
and the resources available to guide those Gender Impact Assessments.
MR BO CARTER: Yes, thank you.
And I guess my second question was were any members of the community invited
to partake and if not, why not?
So I guess it is will they be invited to be, to partake?
MS ROBYN SEYMOUR: So consistently with other sort of technical studies that
we do at Council, the Gender Impact Assessment is completed
by someone with expertise in the subject, so these early technical assessments then
inform the broader sort of project
- any project that we&apos;re doing.
Once that technical assessment has been done, a proposal is then developed
in draft form and then we seek community feedback
at that point.
So, in this case, the local law was placed on exhibition for four weeks and Council
will next hold a hearing of submissions meeting on Tuesday,
4 July where we will hear from community and we have received a range
of community submissions as part of the feedback we&apos;ve sought.
And I really appreciate your interest in the topic and thank you again
for your questions, Bo.
MR BO CARTER: Thank you.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thanks, Bo.
We now move on to petitions and we have received one petition
for this meeting and it&apos;s a Petition to the Surf Coast Shire
to Leave the Local Law on Men&apos;s and Women&apos;s Facilities Alone.
I just want to note that this item has been presented
for us to receive and note and we will consider it
at a future Council meeting.
As this petition also relates to proposed amendments to our Local Law,
which will be considered at a future Council meeting, if you wish
to make any comments, please make sure that you keep them
to the scope of the recommendation to avoid pre-empting
any future decisions that we need to make around the Local Law.
So do we have a mover of a motion?
Rose?
And is that as per the recommendation
- CR HODGE: Yes.
MAYOR PATTISON:-
- that Council receives and notes the petition
and refers the petition to the General Manager Strategy
and Effectiveness for consideration and requires the petition
to be considered in a report at a future Council meeting?
CR HODGE: Correct.
MAYOR PATTISON: Correct.
Do we have a seconder?
Councillor Barker.
Councillor Hodge, would you like to speak.
CR HODGE: Just very quickly.
Thank you for the petition, it&apos;s always good to get feedback,
and I just note that two people on that have contacted me
and I&apos;ve just said to them
- on our web page, Surf Coast web page, there&apos;s a question and answer on that
as well and that&apos;s cleared up a few people&apos;s minds as well.
So don&apos;t forget there&apos;s other tools to get information as well and our website
is one of them.
Thank you.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thanks, Councillor Hodge.
Councillor Barker?
CR BARKER: I think it was only a handful of days that the numbers were attracted
for the petition, so in time it will be interesting
to see how much more comes as a result.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thank you.
Do any other Councillors wish to speak to the motion?
CR SCHONFELDER: Mayor, I just wanted to thank the people who signed
the petition for their participation and their interest in this subject.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thank you.
We&apos;ll now put the matter to the vote.
All those in favour.
And the motion is carried unanimously.
We now move on to our reports for the night and the first report
is the adoption of our Budget Report for the 2023-24 year.
The purpose of this report is to present the Budget Report to Council
for adoption and to declare the rates and charges for the 23-24 financial year
and set the 23-24 fees and charges.
Do I have a mover of a motion?
Councillor Bodsworth.
Is that as per the recommendation?
CR BODSWORTH: Yes, thanks, Mayor.
MAYOR PATTISON: And a seconder?
Councillor Stapleton.
Did you want to speak to the motion?
CR BODSWORTH: I will, thanks, Mayor.
So there are nine parts to the recommendation,
so I would urge Councillors to pass those as recommended.
So the things that are in the recommendation,
so to note 16 public submissions and to thank submitters for those; to consider
all those submissions; to adopt the Budget Report 2023-24;
to approve the fees and charges, which are set out in the recommendation;
and a number of other recommendations, nine in total.
So there are a few headline items that I want to cover in talking
to the Budget.
It&apos;s obvious in the Budget that there&apos;s a large emphasis on pools.
So we have the Torquay Aquatic and Health Centre
as a headline item in the Budget and I think we&apos;d all be grateful
for the work that&apos;s gone into getting it to this point
- a huge amount of work on the community side of things
and running for many years of advocacy for a Torquay aquatic centre
and also a large amount of work in this organisation as well,
so I pay my respect to all the people involved on both sides
of that.
The Winchelsea pool is up for a major renewal project, so that&apos;s a
like for like renewal, and I also think it&apos;s fantastic that we&apos;re
able to cover that in the Budget.
There are a few other items.
We have a proposed rate rise of 3.5%, consistent with the State-imposed
rate cap, which I&apos;d note is about half the current inflation rate,
and in noting that, I&apos;d like to extend my sympathy
to people in the community who are doing it tough
because they&apos;re difficult financial circumstances,
and for our Council as well the ability for us to afford the work that we&apos;re doing
, our asset renewal, our capital works, our maintenance works and all
of our operations is increasingly difficult.
We have a document called the Long-term Financial Plan that sets that out
in detail and I&apos;d encourage people to look at that and there&apos;s Our Financial Story
too, a really succinct and powerful piece of work around our financial context.
Rates are by far the Surf Coast Shire Council&apos;s
largest revenue source, so a number of Councils make a lot of money
from parking, for example.
Rates are extremely important to us for our revenue and we don&apos;t have a couple
of other large revenue sources that other Councils have.
I want to cover a couple of other headline items.
So the State Government Fair Go Rates system imposes a rate cap, which
is probably good for a lot of people but it certainly constrains our ability
to fund the work that we do.
We also have had incredible escalation of material and service costs
and construction costs, so all of those projects that we&apos;ve got under way
at any given time have been increasing in price,
as have the prices been increasing out in the community and for businesses.
Growing asset renewal demand and of course we&apos;ve had population growth
and also increases in community expectation
for service quality and also quantity.
We have a number of other headlines which is a budgeted net deficit for the 23-24
year of $18.3 million, which is driven largely by a transfer of assets
to the relatively new Great Ocean Road Coast and Parks Authority, which
is an accounting for a large amount of assets which are gradually being
transferred to that authority.
We have a number of other items set out in the report, which I won&apos;t dwell on.
We&apos;ve been grateful to receive a number of submissions.
So we received a submission regarding a public art register
and allocation and I&apos;m pleased that our Creative Places
strategy will pick up a lot of that work and also our operational budget
in relation to maintenance.
We had a submission from the Anglesea and District Historical Society and I&apos;d
like to thank them for their patience because this
is not the first submission seeking funding to pursue their aspirations
regarding the fantastic Anglesea History House.
We&apos;ve had a submission regarding Council&apos;s Audit
and Risk Committee remuneration.
I strongly support their request there.
That will be looked at in future by Council.
And I won&apos;t go on.
I&apos;ll let other Councillors take over.
Thanks.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thank you.
Councillor Stapleton?
CR STAPLETON: Thank you, Mayor.
So developing the budget is a real challenge
as we really do always want to do more than our financial situation allows.
In the current economic climate, with cost of living pressures and high inflation,
I know it&apos;s a challenging time for many in the community,
but Council also has to manage these financial pressures and,
you know, as Councillor Bodsworth referred to, with significant increases in costs,
it does make it harder to deliver important projects that
we know our community needs.
We do operate in a rate capped environment , which means that although CPI inflation
is around 7%, Council can only increase rates by 3.5%,
so in effect, our financial capacity to deliver essential services programs
and infrastructure for a fast-growing population is severely hampered.
Even still, a 3.5% rate increase does add to the growing costs that our residents
must bear and we also understand that many residents are
experiencing financial pressure, so please do reach out to us if you are.
We do have a rates payment plan in place to help support those that need it.
The good news is that Council is currently in a financially sustainable
position and our highest financial priority is
to remain so in the future and our Budget is always developed with that in mind.
We are committed to living within our means and we&apos;re always looking
for ways to make genuine savings.
One of our key ongoing financial challenges
and needs is asset renewal and for those who do look
at our long-term financial plan, you&apos;ll see that it shows a focus
to maintain our commitment to this by growing our annual allocation
by approximately 9% and this will ensure that Council has got the funds
that it needs to maintain its growing and ageing asset base well
into the future.
As Councillor Bodsworth mentioned, the community has also had an opportunity
to review the draft Budget and Council received 16 community
submissions.
There&apos;s a really great summary outlined in the agenda report,
so I encourage people to have a read through that, and also just
to read the Budget for a deeper understanding of the breadth
of Council&apos;s work and the priorities that are earmarked
for the next 12 months.
There is a lot to read, so if you don&apos;t get to all of it,
I encourage you to turn to the back pages, where you&apos;ll find a really great summary
of the highlights around the wards and obviously I can&apos;t go through all
of them, but a couple I&apos;d like to point out is the ongoing resource allocation
for the really important strategic work that Council is doing
to address the housing crisis in our coastal communities;
critical drainage works in Anglesea and Aireys Inlet;
Painkalac Creek estuary flood mitigation works; ongoing funds
for the Anglesea arts space.
They&apos;re some that I particularly wanted to highlight just being in the Anglesea
ward.
And I&apos;ll leave it at that.
Thank you.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thank you.
Would any other Councillors like to speak?
Councillor Hodge.
CR HODGE: Thank you, Mayor.
Like all budgets, we all look at what&apos;s in it for me
and Councillor Stapleton mentioned it too, what&apos;s in it for our area that you live
in.
It&apos;s on page 138 and it does break it down into what&apos;s going to happen
and the projects in your ward and so you know where your rate money is going
to.
It also breaks it down to not only what Council has funded,
but how our officers have worked behind the scenes to get external funding
because a lot of these projects are very expensive,
so we&apos;ve been very successful in getting external funding as well
and that breaks this down so you can see where we&apos;re getting
the extra funding from.
But of course in the Torquay ward, as Councillor Bodsworth said, the pool
of course, but the Karaaf Wetlands has been
in the news lately and we&apos;re doing work on that.
Torquay North Open Space Pathways, Torquay North Traffic Improvements,
we&apos;ve seen the amount of growth that&apos;s gone into Torquay North
and the houses that are being finished.
So we&apos;ve got to make sure that the infrastructure
is trying to keep up with it, upgrades, road safety programs and renewal projects
and that&apos;s more, as Councillor Stapleton said,
where there&apos;s water-sensitive urban design because we&apos;ve got to look at that because
of the rainfall and how it&apos;s changing and how when we do get these
heavy rainfalls now, how the old systems just didn&apos;t work.
So we&apos;ve got to be really looking at things like that.
We&apos;ve also
- what I really like about the Bob Pettitt if you&apos;re from Jan Juc
is it&apos;s a great walking space, but not a lot of seating.
So as I&apos;m ageing and do a walk around that, seating is really,
really important.
So I&apos;m really glad that our pathways, our pathways
and our park furniture renewals are listed as well because it really
is important that accessibility for people of all walking types can at least go
and enjoy these beautiful environmental spots and watch sport at a lot of them
as well.
So I&apos;m really pleased that the officers have really even crunched it down
to where they&apos;re going.
So please look at the Budget and what&apos;s in it for you and I think that
in your area you should be pleased at how much is going in and we tried
to spread it across the shire in an equitable manner.
Thank you, Mayor.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thank you any other Councillors?
Councillor Schonfelder.
CR SCHONFELDER: Thank you, Mayor.
The Local Government Act 2020 requires Councils to prepare a Budget
for each financial year and the three subsequent years.
The Budget is a short-term plan which specifies the resources
required to fund Council&apos;s services
and initiatives.
I&apos;d like to highlight part of the Budget which
is the road maintenance and renewal program for this year and what
is in the Draft Budget for 2023-2024.
With unsealed roads, it&apos;s $1.7 million, which includes $600,000
from a local roads grant from the Federal Government
and also a sealed road rehabilitation, which is $1.4 million,
so that totals $3.1 million.
In addition to the works committed, the Draft Budget includes a project
to renew our unsealed road management.
This project, in combination with our condition audit data, is intended
to provide really important guidance and advice on how to maximise the benefit
of the Budget allocation and ensure we are prioritising the
right program of works on our unsealed road network.
The Budget breakdown of the $4.8 million is as follows.
It&apos;s $2.1 million on unsealed roads and with the sealed road renewal,
it&apos;s a Budget of $1 million.
We were able to deliver our program of works well within our allocated Budget
with savings of $350,000.
We are seeking to leverage this saving to attract Sustainability Victoria Grant
funding for sustainable road renewal that will involve recycling
asphalt for road base,using glass from the shire within the asphalt
and setting up a recycling asphalt stockpile
within our depot.
I find this really encouraging and exciting because I feel
as though it&apos;s got more to do not just with the bottom line and finances,
but trying to be more of a sustainable society
and have less waste, so that&apos;s a great point there.
The sealed road rehab budget of $1.7 million includes the Horseshoe
Bend Road project and that hopefully will be starting on 3 July and that
is very exciting.
I&apos;d also like to comment on the renewal of the Winchelsea pool.
I think it&apos;s fantastic and it&apos;s a community building project and
along with other Councillors, Councillor Hodge, Councillor Wellington,
Councillor Stapleton, and Councillor Allen and the CEO, Robyn Seymour,
attended the 60th birthday party and one local said to me,
&quot;Councillor Schonfelder, why aren&apos;t you swimming in the pool today
?&quot;,
and also said, &quot;Where are your budgie smugglers?&quot;
And I said, &quot;Well, when the new pool is built&quot;
- CR HODGE: Please don&apos;t.
CR SCHONFELDER:-
- &quot;I shall attend, I shall attend with my budgie smugglers on.&quot;
I will ignore Councillor Hodge&apos;s interjection.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thanks, Councillor Schonfelder.
Would any other Councillors like to speak?
Councillor Barker.
CR BARKER: Thanks, Mayor.
$140,000 for speed humps, that&apos;s a hell of a lot
of potholes that could be repaired.
Not limiting the rate increase to 3% as requested but increasing the rates
by 3.5%.
Christmas decorations
- now, where&apos;s the allocation for installing decorations paid for
by local businesses on to street poles, as has been done in the past?
Now, Coombes Road roadworks
- actually, a quick question.
With the variety of works currently being undertaken
and scoped in the vicinity of Coombes Road and Surf Coast Highway,
has there been any opportunity to combine elements of these works
to save money?
MAYOR PATTISON: I&apos;ll pass that one on to our CEO.
MS ROBYN SEYMOUR: We have been looking at that, Councillor Barker, so part
of the scheduling of the works that we&apos;re currently doing
at Coombes Road, it was delayed because of the work that was happening
by Barwon Water.
So whenever we&apos;re looking at our infrastructure projects,
we always look to see if we can get some efficiencies
in that space.
So yes, we&apos;re always looking for that.
CR BARKER: Excellent, thank you.
The Winchelsea pool continues to become more expensive.
You&apos;ll see that later on.
Fees and charges are up by 4%.
Now, due to Local Government Act 2020, if this Budget doesn&apos;t pass tonight,
we&apos;ll be in contravention of that Act.
I have serious doubts that the community submissions would have been welcomed
by officers given the amount of work that happens behind the scenes
to get this Budget prepared.
This is all the result from electing a largely left, woke,
progressive or whatever you want to call them Council that I think either
have no understanding of economics or are acutely aware
of the financial stress
- MAYOR PATTISON: I&apos;ll just keep you to
- SPEAKER: Point of order.
MAYOR PATTISON: Point of order.
Councillor Barker, can you please keep it to context.
Criticising other Councillors and their political views or opinions
is not part of addressing the Budget, so can you please keep it to the Budget.
CR BARKER: It results in the Budget that we&apos;re looking at now.
MAYOR PATTISON: I&apos;ll just ask you to keep to the comments around the Budget.
CR WELLINGTON: Point of order, Madam Mayor.
MAYOR PATTISON: There&apos;s been a couple already called,
Councillor Wellington.
Is it in relation to what already has been called around
- CR WELLINGTON: I would like to make a point of order.
I didn&apos;t hear Councillor Barker criticising Councillors.
He talked about the Council.
We&apos;re supposed to be able to engage in fair debate,
including political debate.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thank you, Councillor Wellington.
I&apos;ll reserve my comments that I already made for Councillor Barker to please keep
to the topic around the Budget and not commenting
on political persuasions of other Councillors, thank you.
CR BARKER: It&apos;s entirely relevant, Mayor.
MAYOR PATTISON: Please uphold what I&apos;ve asked, thank you.
CR BARKER: Or they&apos;re acutely aware of the financial stress this Budget places
on individuals and I have to push on.
I hope those of you who endorse this Budget are happy
when it pushes local staff in Surf Coast businesses to leave,
resulting in reduced capacity of those businesses
to service the residents and visitors of this municipality.
Front cover alone is enough to highlight stepping
outside what I think our remit should be.
It&apos;s connected to Indigenous reconciliation,
a space that I think is a federal matter as Councils don&apos;t have the appropriate
skills or resources to adequately take on this responsibility.
It&apos;s clear to me that the total amount of money this organisation takes
from residents and ratepayers is only limited by state legislation,
as has been highlighted, and I&apos;m sure if those hurdles weren&apos;t there, rates,
fees and charges would be much higher.
And with this money taken from residents and ratepayers,
I see little concern for the value of this expenditure.
Every time we step outside of what I think the remit of Council is
in roads, rubbish and reducing rates, I think it&apos;s pissing people&apos;s money away.
Understanding economics has taught me this: long-term
benefits typically come with short-term costs, and vice versa.
This and previous Budgets show me that
for short-term political popularity, current and previous Surf Coast Councils
have been prepared to trade off sound asset renewal budgets,
narrowly scope spending targeted on essential services and reduction
of staff to only the most crucial elements,
resulting in generally poor roads, patchworks of footpaths
- any of you walking around the shire will see that
- with many trip hazards, a plethora of cracked gutters,
graffiti that continues to spread and continual rate rises that
will aid state and federal measures to increase inflation.
I will not be supporting this Budget and I suggest that
if you too can see the writing on the wall, you run
for Council next year.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thank you, Councillor Barker.
Would any other Councillors like to speak to the motion?
Councillor Wellington?
CR WELLINGTON: Thank you very much.
A couple of questions to start with.
Growing Winchelsea put in a submission on the Budget and asked a couple
of questions.
One was about the industrial estate and they were seeking a timeframe
for that critical project to progress.
They got an answer that didn&apos;t really tell them.
It just said the exact timeframe is subject
to external or current deliberations.
I don&apos;t think they&apos;re looking, you know, for a timeframe in terms
of days or weeks even, but surely we can give them some
indication of time, whether it be weeks or months or years
before we expect that this land will be freed up.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thanks for that question, Councillor Wellington.
I&apos;ll just move that on to our CEO.
MS ROBYN SEYMOUR: Thanks, Councillor Wellington.
There is some work actively happening in that space and perhaps we can take
that back to the team and look to see if we can be more specific
around timeframes and get back to Growing Winchelsea about that.
CR WELLINGTON: Thank you very much.
I&apos;ve also got a question about the Gherang Gravel Pits.
(Inaudible) revenue from that and I just wondered if that&apos;s from
- I presume it&apos;s from external sales the way it&apos;s presented
in the Budget.
I just wondered what the lifetime
- the life expectancy of the pits is.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thank you.
I&apos;ll put that through to our CEO.
MS ROBYN SEYMOUR: Thank you, Councillor Wellington, for the question.
I&apos;m trying to think what the life expectancy is.
I might just check with our General Manager of Place Making
and Environment to see if he has a clearer knowledge of that.
MR CHRIS PIKE: I&apos;d really like to take that on notice to check
with the team.
We certainly have pits in different states of kind of the extraction
of the material and so a length of life and there&apos;s also untapped resources there
too, so there might be decisions in front of Council in the future as to whether
to extend its current extraction activities.
But in terms of precise timeframes, yes, I&apos;d prefer to take it on notice.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thank you.
Did you want to speak to the motion, Councillor Wellington?
CR WELLINGTON: There&apos;s also a couple of questions.
There&apos;s a reference to the Mud Hut Learnings (inaudible) I
presume you mean, problems that we had with the Mud Hut project which were quite
substantial and it&apos;s advised in the Budget that there will be a review prepared
and that it will be
- that lessons will be learnt, but I was just wondering
is that a formal review with anything written or I just wondered
- MAYOR PATTISON: I&apos;ll put that question to the CEO.
MS ROBYN SEYMOUR: So Councillor Wellington , after the completion of any project,
particularly a significant project, we do go through a review process
with everyone involved in that project and we then take the learnings from that
and they are documented so that they can be considered
in future projects and ensuring
- with that continual improvement process to ensure that we&apos;re improving our
delivery of our projects.
CR WELLINGTON: Thank you.
So presumably the community will be able to access that
- MAYOR PATTISON: It&apos;s not a Q&amp;A, Councillor Wellington, so the CEO
- CR WELLINGTON: Can I just ask that question,
will that report be available for the community?
MS ROBYN SEYMOUR: I&apos;m not sure about that at this point, Councillor Wellington.
We&apos;d need to consider that.
But to reassure you, we go through that process with every project,
significant project that&apos;s delivered within the shire,
to make sure that we learn from anything where we could do better
and try to ensure that we apply that in future projects.
CR WELLINGTON: Thank you.
And one final question before I speak.
The Budget
- and this is a serious question and I can probably see
all the eye rolling, but anyway
- the Budget talks about staff numbers in terms of women, men
and persons of self-described gender and I just wondered
- they&apos;re not defined terms in the Budget and I just wondered where
that terminology comes from.
So that&apos;s in our sort of statistics about
- I think it&apos;s in equity statistics.
We do talk about women and men and we have another category
self-described and I wondered does that cover
all possible genders that people do attribute to themselves and
is it discriminatory and has it been subject
to a gender advisory equity review?
MS ROBYN SEYMOUR: So it does cover the breadth of our staff represented.
In terms of how it was managed through our gender equity assessment
process, I might check with our General Manager of Strategy
and Effectiveness and how we represent that in the Budget.
OFFICER: Yes, I think the term that Councillor
- and thank you for the question
- is asking about is seeking to be inclusive and trying to account
for how our staff would seek to describe what gender they are.
The Budget itself hasn&apos;t undergone a full gender equity assessment.
It&apos;s one of the documents that we hadn&apos;t quite got
to having on our schedule of having those assessments,
so the document in its entirety hasn&apos;t undergone
that assessment.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thank you.
We&apos;ll now move on.
Councillor Wellington, would you like to speak to the motion?
CR WELLINGTON: Yes, I would like to speak.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thank you.
CR WELLINGTON: I will support the Budget.
I share many of Councillor Barker&apos;s concerns.
In particular, I think
- and a couple of Councillors have spoken about the burden on the community
and then more or less moved on and said that we&apos;ve got a burden
and we have to deal with it by raising rates.
I think people in the community just wish they had some way of dealing
with their mortgage increases by somehow raising something that somebody
else pays them, but they can&apos;t.
I don&apos;t find that very helpful discussion.
I actually think we should have made much bigger effort to tighten our belts
and rein in the things we&apos;re spending our money on and I can think
of numerous times that people in the community would say, &quot;Why on earth
is Council doing that?&quot;,
and I agree with that and I agree with some
of the things that Councillor Barker said as well along those lines.
I think we complain about the state giving us extra
responsibilities and we complain about, you know, the cost of living for us,
but I don&apos;t believe that we ever seriously look at what we&apos;re doing and
whether we stick within the scope of being a good local government
delivering service to the community.
So I&apos;m not
- but it&apos;s pointless in this Council I feel to be bothering
about raising those things, but I explain my position
to the community.
We have got a huge asset renewal gap.
We&apos;re continuing with a big gap, an increasing gap for some years
and while we might say oh, we&apos;re spending X million dollars
on road renewals, the reality is that that gap is going to get bigger
and the people in the Winchelsea Ward are the ones who suffer most from that because
they are the ones who have most of the unsealed roads and
they are depending on those roads not only for their lives and their community,
but (inaudible).
So I&apos;m really concerned about the consequence
of the asset renewal gap on unsealed roads.
I&apos;ve always said we can&apos;t afford the aquatic pool
- the aquatic centre and I continue to believe that.
I think regarding that rates policy, I had a close look at that.
I think we hand out lollies a bit with that and we ought
to be much more robust in thinking about what is the residual impact
for the community.
Is this a one-off party, are we helping somebody
with a celebration, in which case I would say that probably
should be the community doing itself, or are we putting in grants?
We do both, but I think we could be much tighter
with the way we do that.
I think we&apos;re doubling our investment in project delivery management.
I don&apos;t know if that&apos;s a real doubling.
I hope it is because I think we have had a significant problem
with project management and that&apos;s been shown with the mud hut
and various other projects in my ward and so I would like
to think that we are going to put investment
into that (inaudible) ask the CEO with that question whether that
is an actual new investment in that project management.
MAYOR PATTISON: I&apos;ll pass that on to our CEO.
MS ROBYN SEYMOUR: Councillor Wellington, we are increasing our project management
capacity commensurate with our big program that we&apos;ve got
to deliver.
MAYOR PATTISON: And I think that was the end of your time anyway when
you asked that question, we were at 1 second.
So thank you.
Does any other Councillor wish to speak?
Councillor Gazzard.
CR GAZZARD: Thank you.
I&apos;m really proud of this Budget and I thank all the Council staff for
all the work that&apos;s gone into it.
I disagree that Council&apos;s role is just rates, roads and rubbish.
I think it&apos;s evolved over time and what I see the Council&apos;s role is
is what you see when you step outside your front door,
whether you can ride your bike safely on trails, whether your kids can get
to school, if your community are healthy and happy and safe.
And that came from our Council plan which was developed by the community.
The large proportion of rates goes to having a healthy connected community
and one of those things is active and healthy people like being able
to have swimming lessons and go to the school, go to swim schools,
for maternal child health nurse appointments so that our mothers
and babies are healthy and safe in the community.
So I&apos;m really proud of this Budget and I think the financial pressures are
evident for everyone, but we need to make sure that we are supporting all
of our community members and particularly around the health.
Thank you.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thank you.
Did you have any closing remarks, Councillor Bodsworth?
CR BODSWORTH: I do, thanks, Mayor.
There are a couple of things that I forgot to mention that I&apos;d like to mention
in closing which is really mostly about waste.
So the waste charges are quite a significant part of the overall charges.
I&apos;d just like to share a couple of figures around waste, around the value
for money that&apos;s good for people to understand about that waste charge,
which is increasing waste charges have been largely related
to new EPA Act requirements where particularly our Council operates
a landfill at Anglesea, where there&apos;s been a really major
escalation in the costs that are involved in managing that landfill in compliance
with EPA requirements.
But I want to share with you a few figures about the Council&apos;s waste picture.
So currently diversion of landfill is sitting at 73%, which is items
of waste that don&apos;t have to go into landfill, like recyclables
and now the organic waste that can go in the green bins.
Currently 73% of that has been diverted, which is a great result,
and we are gunning for an 80% rate of diverse, so I want to put the call out
to our community to help increase that rate
of diversion of non-landfill items from their waste bins so that we can get
to at least 80%.
Part of that as well is that currently there are 53%
of unrecovered resources in general waste bins, which
is the red lid bins, so 53%, on average, of the content of those bins can be
in either the green bins, the yellow bins, or the glass bins, which
is a huge percentage.
And just to give a picture on that, so the landfill bins are the most
expensive ones for us to handle and dispose of,
so the more we can make inroads into reducing or
to increasing diversion from landfill, the more the Council can save
on waste costs.
I&apos;m running out of time.
And I just share with you that we&apos;re currently collecting
less land fill waste, red bin waste, in 22-23 than we were 20 years ago.
MAYOR PATTISON: I&apos;m going to have to get you to finish there,
Councillor Bodsworth.
Thank you.
CR BODSWORTH: So a great result for the community and helping
with the waste diversion from landfill.
Thanks, Mayor.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thanks for summing that up now.
Can I please
- all those in favour of this motion.
And opposed?
And the motion is carried 7-1.
We now move on to 4.2, Climate Emergency Response
and Action Plan Updates.
The purpose of this report is to approve minor updates
to Council&apos;s Climate Emergency Response Plan 2021-2031
and endorse the 2023-2025 Climate Emergency Action Plan
for public exhibition.
Do I have a mover of a motion?
Councillor Stapleton.
Is that as per the recommendation?
CR STAPLETON: It is, thanks, Mayor.
MAYOR PATTISON: And a seconder?
Councillor Gazzard.
Councillor Stapleton, did you wish to speak to the motion?
CR STAPLETON: I do, thank you.
So after declaring a climate emergency in 2019,
the Climate Emergency Response Plan was adopted by Council in June 2021,
which details Council&apos;s 10-year commitment to climate action.
This plan is Council&apos;s primary vehicle to drive coordinated climate action
across the organisation, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt
to the changing climate.
The Climate Emergency Response Plan focuses on three key response areas: 1
is mitigation by reducing greenhouse gas emissions; 2,
adaptation, reducing our vulnerability to unavoidable climate impacts;
and 3 is mobilisation, empowering Council staff
and the community to act.
The plan is supported by an action plan every two years
and we&apos;ve just come to the end of our first two-year period.
During that time, Council has achieved many significant
milestones, including a 41% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions not associated
with the landfill; installation of solar and battery storage across many
of Council&apos;s facilities; transition to 100% renewable electricity;
savings of over $80,000 in reduced utility bills, and that&apos;s just
from the first year of the action plan; attracting nearly $1.5 million
in external funding to further progress Council&apos;s climate&apos;s
action; and achieving climate-active carbon neutral standard certification.
So a full report on the achievements of the past two-year action plan will come
to Council for consideration in August.
Tonight&apos;s agenda focuses on updating the overall Climate Emergency
Response Plan and also endorsing the next two-year
action plan for 2023-2025, which will go out on public exhibition for three weeks
if Council endorses it tonight.
So while Council has made significant progress
in addressing the climate emergency, of course there is still much more to do.
As we&apos;ve all experienced in the past couple of years,
there&apos;s been an increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather
and Council recognises that there needs to be an enhanced focus
on our climate adaptation response to build resilience to the impacts
of climate change.
The three consecutive La Ninas and a series
of storm events have been significant for Council, particularly
for the management of Council&apos;s roads and stormwater drainage networks.
So to further support Council&apos;s mitigation and adaptation efforts,
it is proposed that we update the overall Climate Emergency Response Plan
to include two key strategic pieces of work.
One is an emissions reduction target and roadmap, which was adapted by Council
in April 2022, and the second is a climate adaptation planning framework
, which has been developed to better inform and coordinate Council&apos;s adaptation
response.
Council officers have also drafted the 2023-2025
Climate Emergency Action Plan to demonstrate how the organisation
will progress in delivering the overall goals
of the Climate Emergency Response Plan.
So over the next two years this plan would see Council&apos;s climate response become more
embedded across the organisation and also includes an enhanced focus
on community outcomes for stronger alignment
with Council-planned strategies that seek emissions reduction
and adaptation responses across the municipality rather than just
focusing on Council&apos;s corporate operations.
And whilst environmental motives to address climate change as a matter
of urgency are clear, the economic imperative to act is just
as strong.
As I mentioned earlier, Council&apos;s energy transition work, coupled
with the switch to 100% renewable electricity,
has saved Council over $80,000 in bills in the first year,
but it&apos;s also important to note that the financial impact
from recent storm events, particularly on Council&apos;s road network,
has been more than $380,000.
That&apos;s from four significant storm events from October 21 to October 22.
The action plan has 6 goals and 26 actions, such as developing a waste
and circular economy action plan; establishing a community carbon offset
site at Lake Modewarre; transitioning Council&apos;s fleet
to electric vehicles; increasing public EV charging stations;
prioritising climate risk in the management
of Council&apos;s stormwater infrastructure; continuing Council&apos;s street tree program
to reduce urban heat effect; and supporting traditional owner healthy
country plan priorities.
There are actions around transport and planning and advocacy
and supporting the community to also take action.
I don&apos;t have time to list them all now, but I do encourage residents
to have a read during the consultation period
and please let us know if you have any feedback.
Thank you.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thank you.
Councillor Gazzard?
CR GAZZARD: Thank you.
Thank you, Councillor Stapleton.
The climate emergency is more urgent than ever.
We&apos;ve found in the International Panel of Climate Change Report that global
greenhouse gas emissions in 2030 implied by the nationally determined contributions
make it likely that warming will exceed the critical 1.5 degree mark
during this 21st century and make it harder to limit warming
below 2 degrees Celsius, which will put the Torres Strait Islands
and the Pacific Islands at risk or the low-level
- the low islands at risk of sea level rises will lose
not only their livelihoods, their homes and their way of life, but be unable
- they will be displaced.
So Australia federally, state and local government levels, it&apos;s our duty
to act on climate change and save those vulnerable communities
who have historically contributed the least to climate change,
but are disproportionately the most affected.
So I endorse this Climate Emergency Action Plan and I encourage my fellow Councillors
to do the same.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thank you, Councillor Gazzard.
Do I have any other Councillors that would like to speak to this motion?
CR BARKER: A few questions.
MAYOR PATTISON: Questions, yes, certainly.
CR BARKER: Is it correct that we are addressing carbon dioxide emission
reductions with this plan?
MAYOR PATTISON: I&apos;ll pass that on to our CEO.
MS ROBYN SEYMOUR: So thanks for the question, Councillor Barker.
We will address carbon dioxide in the context
of things like tree plantings and various elements of the plan.
CR BARKER: Yes.
What&apos;s the cost per annum to address this through this plan?
MS ROBYN SEYMOUR: I don&apos;t have the costings with me tonight,
Councillor Barker.
I&apos;d need to take that on notice.
CR BARKER: That&apos;s alright.
MAYOR PATTISON: I&apos;d also, seeing as the question initially came via me,
point out that we&apos;re actually making a lot of savings with this plan.
Even if we just look at the VECO electricity changes
with the multiple Councils coming together to get renewable energy,
I think that&apos;s saved us already 80,000 and it will be an ongoing saving.
So I think once again it will be great if we can get those figures,
but there&apos;s a lot of savings that are coming out of this
as well.
Did you want to
- MS ROBYN SEYMOUR: Sorry, if you don&apos;t mind, Mayor,
the other thing that will be coming to Council in coming months
is actually the evaluation of the first two years which will look
at things like what is the benefits, which will include some
of that information, Councillor Barker.
So if you&apos;re willing to wait for the evaluation of the first two years,
that might help answer some of those questions for you.
CR BARKER: Thank you.
What percentage of the atmosphere is carbon dioxide?
MAYOR PATTISON: I think that&apos;s not really a question for this corporate
- our climate response.
CR BARKER: If an issue has been identified , we need
to know what the impact our actions are going to have.
MAYOR PATTISON: I think you or I can Google that.
I don&apos;t know that that&apos;s a question for our officers.
Would you like to speak to the motion?
CR BARKER: You don&apos;t think it&apos;s a relevant question?
MAYOR PATTISON: It&apos;s a relevant question, but I think we could Google it.
I don&apos;t know that our officers necessarily need to answer that question.
Would you like to speak to the motion, Councillor Barker?
CR BARKER: What percentage of the Surf Coast is responsible
for our percentage of global emissions?
We&apos;re spending other people&apos;s money
- MAYOR PATTISON: Would you like
- is that another question that you&apos;d like to
- I can pass on your question around the
- CR BARKER: So we won&apos;t answer questions.
What&apos;s the cost to the individual ratepayer per annum
for this plan?
MAYOR PATTISON: I just want to point out, we are happy to take questions.
In our Governance Rules it does stipulate that questions can&apos;t be there
to draw officers into a conversation and debate around a motion.
So if you have some clarifying questions in relation to the item, I&apos;m happy
to take those, but really this is a time for Councillors to discuss motions
and make those decisions as a Councillor group.
So if there&apos;s questions specific to the motion
and the content that&apos;s in the agenda, that&apos;s great, but
if it&apos;s just a list of questions, I think I would like to move on
with the motion.
CR BARKER: Okay.
I can move on, but we don&apos;t know what the issue is,
we don&apos;t know what our contribution is, we don&apos;t know what it&apos;s going to cost.
We&apos;ve got decades of alarmism around the climate.
Weather continues to change.
The sun and oceans are a huge part of that.
It is entirely arrogant to think that we can impact the sun
and the ocean which are huge weather factors.
And with these decades of alarmism, look into the history of Dr Roger Revelle,
one of the leading early climate scientists.
You&apos;ll soon find out that you&apos;re just going
down a path that&apos;s going to waste people&apos;s money, drive up fear
for what outcome?
I&apos;ve planted plenty of trees in my life.
I don&apos;t know how many I&apos;ve planted.
I reduce the amount of energy that I consume as much
as possible, and I&apos;m sure most people do.
But if we don&apos;t know what we&apos;re doing, what the issue is,
how much we&apos;re spending, I&apos;m not going to be supporting it.
If you want to support it, go for it, I&apos;m sure you will, but
- the frustration of just going down a path where you don&apos;t know
where you&apos;re heading is beyond belief for me.
You can see that when I first came into this chamber I was quite jovial,
happy, but seeing what&apos;s happening, you&apos;ve lost me completely.
Do whatever you want.
(Applause).
MAYOR PATTISON: Would any other Councillors like to speak
to the motion?
Councillor Wellington.
CR WELLINGTON: Yes, thanks very much.
I&apos;m really sorry, Councillor Barker, and I&apos;m very sorry that you feel that way
and it is frustrating when you&apos;ve got (inaudible)
Look, I do have an alternate view, but you and I know we respect each other&apos;s
view very much.
I do believe in climate change very much and I think, you know,
we as a corporation (inaudible) need to be doing absolutely everything we can
to reduce our emissions and reduce our effect on the environment,
reduce all those sorts of things.
I wouldn&apos;t support declaration of an emergency.
I think it is signalling
- I think there is emergencies about other things like the state
of our roads or, you know, there&apos;s lots of other emergencies that really are
within our scope, but having said that, I think the information that we get
out of these reports is really useful and interesting.
When I look at the graph on page 188 of the agenda, I see that we&apos;ve got quite
a significant drop in our emissions where we took on renewable energy and, frankly,
I think we were quite lucky that there was sort of a partnership kind
of collective approach amongst local government to purchase bulk electricity
and we got the benefit of that, which was good.
It was good that we were part of it, but it wasn&apos;t really our initiative,
as far as I&apos;m aware anyway.
We&apos;ve then got pretty much stable emissions through until 2027-28,
when we&apos;re replacing our light vehicle fleet.
If this was a genuine emergency, we would have replaced that fleet
on day one, not five years later or actually almost
ten years later if that&apos;s when it was declared.
And then by 2030 we have to be
- we&apos;re saying we&apos;ll be down to zero (inaudible) emissions.
We&apos;ve still got a major problem with our landfill.
So I just can&apos;t really see the big changes that we&apos;re making.
I can see we&apos;re doing good things and I&apos;d like to see much bigger changes consistent
with an emergency.
I work in health, emergency services really, I suppose,
and we certainly don&apos;t wait 10 years, I think Councillor Gazzard would agree
with that.
So I think, you know, this is nice and I&apos;m happy to note it,
but really I don&apos;t see the urgency consistent with a declaration
of an emergency that was made.
I do think that the Karaaf is our most significant environmental
issue.
It&apos;s an incredible part of the city that we&apos;ve got on our doorstep
and we&apos;re sort of destroying it because honestly we accepted assets
that weren&apos;t fit for purpose, we didn&apos;t maintain them,
we didn&apos;t require developers to maintain them and I&apos;m really not sure
that we&apos;ve made a lot of improvement in that regard.
We&apos;ll see when the figures come out over time.
So, you know, (inaudible) but I&apos;m not quite in the position
Councillor Barker is in.
(Inaudible).
Thank you.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thank you.
Would any other Councillors like to speak to the motion?
Councillor Bodsworth.
CR BODSWORTH: Thanks, Mayor.
So I support the motion.
Half the motion is about putting a document out
for public review, so I certainly encourage people
to review that and give us their views no matter where
they sit on the spectrum.
With regard to some of the comments about Councillors feeling they&apos;re not
being listened to, that other Councillors don&apos;t care or
are being woke, you know, I respect Councillors&apos; right
to put those views, but as a Councillor, I find those views offensive.
It would be completely contrary to our responsibilities
under the Local Government Act to not listen, to not listen
with equal courtesy and open-mindedness to each other.
I certainly listen open-mindedly to all of my fellow Councillors
and obviously we don&apos;t want to confuse not being agreed with
with not being listened to.
It&apos;s quite possible to listen to somebody but not to agree with them.
As far as any of us just doing what we want, it&apos;s not what we&apos;re here for.
We&apos;re here to represent the municipal community
and my understanding of the municipal community
from my own life and role as a Councillor is that there&apos;s a huge degree of concern
about all of these issues that are set out in these documents.
And in answer to some of Councillor Barker&apos;s questions,
some of the answers are within the material in the report.
With regard to climate change, I&apos;m dismayed that we&apos;re still having
conversation about the reality.
I&apos;ve read the IPCC assessment report 6, the most recent one, Summary
for Policymakers, which I&apos;d highly recommend
all Councillors to read.
It&apos;s 32 pages.
It&apos;s not a huge read.
It&apos;s extremely well presented.
It&apos;s extremely well evidence based.
It&apos;s backed by over 99% of the world&apos;s climate scientists,
so if you don&apos;t want to believe me or if you don&apos;t want to believe any
of us Councillors, I&apos;d urge you to believe 99 plus percent
of the world&apos;s climate scientists and they say from the report:
&quot;It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land.
Widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere,
ocean, cryosphere and biosphere have occurred.
With every additional increment of global warming, changes
in extremes become larger, including heat waves,
heavy precipitation and droughts&quot;, and we know what that means
for us here in a highly bushfire-prone area.
We&apos;ll also have by 2100, on current emissions,
1 in 100 year storm surge events likely to increase to one per one year,
so that has enormous implications for our local communities
and I completely reject any notion of alarmism in the light
of the IPCC report.
Thanks, Councillors.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thank you.
Would any other Councillors like to speak to the motion?
Do you have any closing remarks, Councillor Stapleton?
CR STAPLETON: Just a few, thanks, Mayor.
I completely support everything Councillor Bodsworth just stated and I would like
to add that environmental leadership is one of those activities that Council
undertakes that sees us operating beyond the traditional services of roads,
rates and rubbish and not only is it ethically and morally important that
we do that, Council also has legislated obligations
to take action on climate change.
The Climate Emergency Response Plan specifically relates to section 9(2)(c)
of the Local Government Act 2020 that the economic, social
and environmental sustainability of the municipal district,
including mitigation and planning for climate change risks,
is to be promoted.
This Climate Emergency Response Plan is Council&apos;s key strategy to deliver
on this obligation.
Local governments have roles and responsibilities to take action
on climate change under Victoria&apos;s Climate Change Act 2017.
The Climate Emergency Response Plan and the proposed updates enable Council
to deliver on these responsibilities and they align with and help
to progress objectives in Victoria&apos;s Climate Change Strategy
and the Barwon South West Regional Climate Adaptation Strategy.
Thank you.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thank you.
We&apos;ll now put the motion to the vote.
All those in favour.
And opposed.
And the motion is carried 7-1.
We now move on to the Draft Torquay Wayfinding Signage
Strategy and Design Guidelines.
The purpose of this item is to seek Council&apos;s endorsement
of the Draft Torquay Wayfinding Signage Strategy and Design Guidelines
for the purpose of public exhibition.
Do I have a mover of a motion?
Councillor Hodge.
And a seconder?
Councillor Schonfelder.
CR HODGE: And as per the recommendation.
MAYOR PATTISON: As per the recommendation and did you wish to speak?
CR HODGE: Yes, I don&apos;t know if I like the word wayfinding,
I think it&apos;s signage, it&apos;s still the word signage,
and this strategy will form development for greater connectivity in a certain area
in Torquay and the precinct is Surf City, Baines Court, Bell Street,
the Torquay North, Foreshore, Gilbert and Torquay township.
So it&apos;s a really good precinct to start off on how do we get rid of
all the excess signage, how do we do a good, attractive,
conformative lot of signage and this is what the people can feed back on us
and how we do it.
It&apos;s going to be in two stages.
It&apos;s the strategy and design and then it&apos;s the manufacture
and installation.
So we really want to make sure that we do this well
to make sure that people have got
- know where they&apos;re going, not just locals but also a lot of tourists that come
down that they can get on and actually see where they are in a good,
connective, clear way.
We budgeted this in a former budget and it was about $170,000,
but our officers have worked behind the scenes as well too
and we were very successful in getting an application
of matching that money through the Growing Suburbs Fund
from the State Government.
So we&apos;re able to spend that money on really concentrating on this area.
It will be an overarching style, so it won&apos;t be like higgledy-piggledy
hopefully, it will be a good design and if the design and the people like it,
it can be spread out through the shire.
So we&apos;re now ready for the community consultation stage,
which is really good, and it will be a consistent layout of a hierarchy
and to achieve a really well-connected community and that&apos;s what we&apos;re after.
So I recommend this report and it goes out and I really look forward
to people feeding in what they want in signage, and remember too we&apos;ve got
to work in with VicRoads as a different entity that we&apos;ve got
to work with, but if we can
- and GORCAPA along the coast, but if we can get this right,
it will really get rid of the signs we don&apos;t need,
proper signage that people can read well and wayfind themselves
through that signage clearly.
Thank you.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thank you.
Councillor Schonfelder?
CR SCHONFELDER: Mayor, I concur with the sentiments expressed
from Councillor Hodge and like other colleagues here tonight,
I&apos;m sorry that Councillor Allen is not present
because he&apos;s very enthusiastic about signs and I know public safety
is also an important factor and I&apos;m a very strong advocate for that
and I know that following on from our last item,
there are times when we might not always agree on certain issues,
but I think there&apos;s strength in diversity and it&apos;s beneficial hearing
different viewpoints and I look forward to hearing from the community
about the wayfinding signage strategy and design guidelines.
I also would like to mention that I often go to Albert Park
and Middle Park and I&apos;ve noticed there that they have modified the signage
they have there and to me it appears to be a wayfinding-type model also,
which I think is very helpful, as Councillor Hodge mentioned,
for tourists and even family members visiting
other family members wanting to go for a walk or to go for a cycle
on your bike and explore a different area.
My favourite app is Google Maps, but sometimes the internet may not work or
your battery might be flat, so I think there&apos;s a practical element
to this and I&apos;d like to also say that if there&apos;s Braille included
for those who are visually impaired, that would be something that I
would also encourage.
So I&apos;d like to congratulate the Council on this strategy.
I find it really encouraging and I&apos;m really excited about it.
Thank you.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thank you.
Would any other Councillors like to speak?
Councillor Barker.
CR BARKER: Thanks, Mayor.
I&apos;d first like to thank all Victorian taxpayers for contributing
about 5 cents each towards this strategy, as has been highlighted
by Councillor Hodge.
Secondly, I&apos;m certain that Councillor Allen,
as Councillor Schonfelder points out, will appreciate this,
that officers recognise that we live in an overcluttered signage landscape.
I&apos;d rather we focus on this element first before we go adding to this clutter.
Next, I&apos;m pretty flabbergasted that again the one in this room who failed year 10
English has to highlight that it is in fact Bell Street, not Bells Street.
To those of you with tertiary degrees in this organisation who let this slip
through, why do you continue to do so?
That&apos;s point 13, for those following at home.
I&apos;ll support this going to exhibition, but unless this strategy takes a stronger
proactive step to reducing the existing clutter
and can get locality names correct, I&apos;ll likely not support this endorsement
when it comes through this chamber next.
MAYOR PATTISON: Would any other Councillors like to speak
to the motion?
Councillor Bodsworth.
CR BODSWORTH: Just briefly, thanks, Mayor, and just carrying on
from Councillor Barker, I totally agree on the clutter.
To me, even the document is cluttered and signing and sign planning
and sign system development is something I&apos;ve had a bit to do
with in the past and it&apos;s extremely complicated
and I think the biggest
- this is to endorse a draft for exhibition,
so I hope there are some people out there who want to put some time
into this and think it through.
But for me personally, when I have further input on this,
which I intend to do, I&apos;ll be encouraging us to try
to do a few things well rather than try and cover all bases because
if you&apos;re trying to use signs to cover all bases,
things just get extremely complicated and I totally agree with the notion
of doing some auditing and culling of signs.
You know, this kind of signage to help people work out where they are
and how to get around, particularly on foot and on bikes, is super important.
So I strongly support the notion of doing it.
I just think it&apos;s
- yeah, less is more and also it&apos;s important
to be really focused on what people really need to know.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thank you.
Councillor Wellington?
I think you&apos;re still on mute, Councillor Wellington.
CR WELLINGTON: Sorry.
I just wanted to (inaudible) signs in Torquay able to be replaced
with $350,000.
Do we have a sense of whether we&apos;re going to be able
to do wholesale replacement or replacement in one area or part replacement?
MAYOR PATTISON: I&apos;ll pass that question on to our CEO.
MS ROBYN SEYMOUR: Thank you, Councillor Wellington.
I think we have to determine what the signage would look
like and then we&apos;ll need to see how much of the signage we can actually deliver
with the remaining budget, we&apos;re not sure of that yet, but we&apos;ll be looking
to prioritise the high-use areas first and look
to see how we can then further deliver signage in broader Torquay and potentially
across the shire in the future.
CR WELLINGTON: Thank you.
I&apos;ll make a couple of comments, if I may.
I&apos;m quite happy with the report going out for public consultation.
I think that the report is pretty dense and hopefully people can find their way
to the relevant parts.
There&apos;s good graphics in it, so that&apos;s helpful.
I think what happens with these strategies is that every so often we think
we&apos;re going to have (inaudible) and put in a new signage, end up
with what we&apos;ve got which is several iterations
of strategies that have come out at different times where different signs
have been put in, you know, that you get that terrible clutter
and inconsistency and hopefully we won&apos;t just do that
with this because I don&apos;t think $350,000
- well, from my knowledge of what things cost,
(inaudible) wholesale replacement or renovation of signs around the district.
So it will be interesting to see what comes out of that
and the modelling.
I would have thought we&apos;d model that before we sort of did this kind of work.
Presumably we&apos;ve paid a consultant to do the report.
So I would have hoped we&apos;d have done it.
Anyway, I&apos;ll be interested to see what comes out.
I hope we don&apos;t get another version added to the existing clutter that we&apos;ve got.
But I quite like some of the designs but (inaudible).
Thank you.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thank you, Councillor Wellington.
I&apos;ll just note that the report says that it&apos;s scoped
to budget and so it&apos;s identified that this will inform the volume that can reflect
the budget that&apos;s remained and it&apos;s about a strategy moving forward
and a direction for signage, so just to clarify that point.
CR WELLINGTON: That wasn&apos;t my issue at all, actually, but thank you.
MAYOR PATTISON: Do any other Councillors wish to speak to the motion?
Councillor Hodge, do you have any closing remarks?
CR HODGE: Oh, look, just even in the initial findings
under eligible environment, it was noted that there&apos;s a cluttered feel
, so there are going to be removal of signs because it&apos;s already in the findings.
So it will be really good when we see good connective signage,
a sense of identity, and to meet the growing needs of
not only local people but also the tourists that come into town.
So I recommend it going out and seeing what comes back
and hopefully we can make that area.
I take Councillor Barker&apos;s point, there was a misspelling, an extra &quot;s&quot;,
but I think people realise that it&apos;s actually Bell Street and I&apos;d like
to thank the Council.
Council staff are sometimes under pressure and put out a lot of reports and an &quot;s&quot;
in the wrong place, I think we all know that it&apos;s Bell Street.
So I look forward to this coming back from the feedback we get
from the community.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thank you.
Well now put the motion to the vote.
All those in favour.
And the motion is carried unanimously.
We now move on to item 4.4, the Place Naming Policy Incorporating
Plaques and Memorials Review.
The purpose of this report is to present the reviewed Surf Coast Shire
004 Place Naming Policy Incorporating Plaque Names and Memorials
to Council for adoption.
Do I have a mover of a motion?
Councillor Gazzard.
Is that as per the motion?
And a seconder?
Councillor Schonfelder.
Councillor Gazzard, would you like to speak?
CR GAZZARD: Thank you.
This is the combining of two policies, so Council&apos;s Place Naming Policy
and the Plaques and Memorials Policy, which are both currently due for review.
So they&apos;ve been consolidated into a single document and the idea is
to streamline the approval process for place naming and for plaques
and memorials processes.
This review has also been specifically done with the consideration
of traditional owners and gender equity.
The policy aligns with the principles within the State Government&apos;s statutory
guidelines of naming rules for places in Victoria 2022 and complies
with the Gender Equality Act 2020.
There was a gender and equity impact assessment undertaken
as part of the review and the document was endorsed
at the March meeting and then went out for community consultation.
There were 16 public submissions received in that four-week time.
Now we have the revised document, which the main changes are the principles
- so principles A through to M, and I&apos;ll just highlight that
gender equality is one of those, so name places across the shire
to reflect our community&apos;s gender
- previously there&apos;s been an inequality with way more places being named after men
- and a lean towards using traditional owners&apos; words and language
and dual names in the area, so things like Djarrk as well as Bells beach.
So I endorse the policy and encourage my fellow Councillors
to do the same.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thank you.
Councillor Schonfelder.
CR SCHONFELDER: Mayor, I completely agree with what Councillor Gazzard has said
and I know that as a male, perhaps I haven&apos;t understood so much
in the past that most statues and most names have been of men
and I think it&apos;s really important to recognise the contributions made
by women in our society and by First Nations people and also
by people from a non-English speaking background.
I don&apos;t think there are any statues at all in our municipality, which is interesting.
I know that in Paris there&apos;s a very impressive statue
of Joan of Arc and I know that Councillor Bodsworth would
probably be familiar with that, having a French wife, and that&apos;s
near the Louvre and it&apos;s very impressive indeed.
It&apos;s an equestrian statue, actually.
But I&apos;ve had people contact me about this policy and said, &quot;Will
all the names change?&quot;,
and I said, &quot;No&quot;.
And as Councillor Gazzard has purported, there are areas within our municipality
where there are also First Nations names of locations and I think it&apos;s really
important to recognise that and also to note that there are many places,
including Gnarwarre, Barrabool, Modewarre, lovely areas
with existing First Nations names.
So I think we should be very proud of that.
And I&apos;d also like to say Elizabeth Austin, who made a large donation for a hospital
to be built and was a real pioneer to be recognised and also
with Marjorie Lawrence as well and I&apos;d even say that
with First Nations Elders as well, the contributions they&apos;re making I think
should be recognised and I look forward to that happening.
Thank you.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thank you.
Would any other Councillors like to speak to the motion?
Councillor Wellington?
CR WELLINGTON: I have a question just before I speak.
On page 214 there&apos;s four dot points at the bottom under the heading &quot;Naming&quot;.
The fourth one is &quot;When assessing proposals
to commemorate a deceased person or family group&quot;,
of course we have numerous streets and places that are named
after people who are deceased and have made great contributions
to our community that people consider various things about them,
but also adherence to the policy principles,
including the pursuit of gender equality.
(Inaudible) that I&apos;m just wanting to clarify the usage
of traditional owner languages, which is unqualified there and implied in that,
I believe, is that every place name has to be using traditional owner languages
provided traditional owners agree with that.
So I just want to ask if that&apos;s the intent or not.
MAYOR PATTISON: I&apos;ll just pass that question on to our CEO.
Thank you.
MS ROBYN SEYMOUR: Sorry, Councillor Wellington, I&apos;m just looking
at what
- CR WELLINGTON: It&apos;s on page 214.
MS ROBYN SEYMOUR: So I&apos;ll get our General Manager of Placemaking
and Environment to confirm, but our intention in terms
of our future township names and things like that is that
as we would renew our signage, we would include both the First Nations
language name for that town as well as the current towns that we have.
Is that what you were meaning by your question?
CR WELLINGTON: No, not really, no, no.
Just to be clear, so what this dot point seems to say
is that Council will consider adherence to a policy principle of the use
of Traditional Owner languages.
Now, I know in some circumstances we will do that and obviously we should,
but I think there&apos;s a risk that that will be interpreted that unless
you use Traditional Owner languages, it&apos;s not
- MAYOR PATTISON: I think I can answer that question,
Councillor Wellington, because we did have quite a significant
briefing on this one.
So my understanding of that dot point, and from the briefings that we had,
it&apos;s talking about adherence to these policy principles,
all of which are principles, none of them have to be followed,
but exclusively, it&apos;s looking at gender equality, looking at the use
of Traditional Owner languages and ensuring that names are not
offensive or discriminatory.
There are all things that are considered.
It&apos;s not saying that all signage will be Traditional Owner languages.
So thank you for your question.
Would you like to speak to the motion?
CR WELLINGTON: I would, thank you.
It&apos;s good to have a policy on naming.
I think it&apos;s a very good idea not to name things after people who are living
because we&apos;ve all seen what can happen with that (inaudible), but certainly
for deceased people who&apos;ve made a tremendous contribution
to our communities and to Indigenous people where there&apos;s
agreement to use of their names, I think that&apos;s extremely appropriate,
and it&apos;s amazing particularly walking around Winchelsea,
where you do see the street names of people who&apos;ve made multigenerational
family contributions to the development of their communities.
I think that&apos;s a really important thing that we should not lose.
I would like to
- it&apos;s not very useful in the future when someone (inaudible)
to think what does that mean by that?
We really need to make sure these policies are very clear
and that we&apos;re not reliant on what somebody said in a briefing
because the community is not present in briefings.
I have had people in my community
- I know there&apos;s one developer who&apos;s trying to negotiate place names with Council
at the moment and he&apos;s having all sorts of difficulties
and I think that this policy might have been in error applied in advance.
I think that that person was being more or less tried
to be convinced that only Traditional Owner names or flora
and fauna names would be acceptable and I don&apos;t think that&apos;s what this policy
says.
I think it&apos;s not good practice for us to be applying policies that haven&apos;t
actually been passed by Council if that&apos;s what&apos;s happened.
I would like to move an amendment to that fourth dot point
to make sure that it is really clear that it is not
- MAYOR PATTISON: Can you please outline your amendment, please,
the wording, so that we can put it on the screen?
CR WELLINGTON: I think it&apos;s there available to be put on the screen.
MAYOR PATTISON: We&apos;ll just wait a moment for Governance to put that
on the screen so we know what&apos;s being considered for the amendment.
CR WELLINGTON: Just while we&apos;re doing that, I think the point is that
- MAYOR PATTISON: If you just allow people to have a think about that first, please,
Councillor Wellington, and then we&apos;ll move through the process of an amendment.
CR WELLINGTON: (Inaudible).
MAYOR PATTISON: No, no, it&apos;s stopped because you&apos;ve now put forward
an amendment.
Now, we&apos;ll need to
- because the debate has already commenced, it will need to go to the vote
around taking on that amendment.
But first up I&apos;d like to ask if there is a seconder for this amendment.
Sorry, Governance?
OFFICER: Sorry, through you, Mayor, if you accept it as an amendment,
the first step would be to check with the mover and seconder
whether they&apos;re happy to accept it as an amendment or not.
If they are, it will just become
- MAYOR PATTISON: No, no, sorry, we already clarified this
at the last meeting.
Once the debate has started, regardless of the mover and seconder&apos;s accepting it,
it needs to go to the vote because the motion has already begun
commencing.
It&apos;s in the Governance Rules.
OFFICER: Copy that.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thanks.
So we&apos;ll continue with that process.
Do we have a seconder for the amendment?
Thank you, Councillor Barker.
We will now
- CR WELLINGTON: Will there be an opportunity to speak to it?
MAYOR PATTISON: Yes, we now have an opportunity to speak
to that.
As mover, you have an opportunity to speak, Councillor Wellington.
CR WELLINGTON: Thank you.
How much time do I have to speak, Mayor Pattison?
MAYOR PATTISON: You have 3 minutes
- is that right, governance?
3 minutes.
CR WELLINGTON: Thank you.
I can&apos;t see the clock, but anyway.
MAYOR PATTISON: Sorry, it&apos;s 5 minutes, Councillor Wellington.
CR WELLINGTON: Thank you.
Sometimes things get a life of their own and people will read policies 12 months
down the track and they can misinterpret them and then,
you know, we start to get kind of a rule across the shire that unless you&apos;ve got
an Indigenous name or it&apos;s a woman, you can&apos;t sort
of have a street name or something in a new development
and this can be very significant for Winchelsea and Torquay mainly,
but it&apos;s a general principle.
So it seems to me
- I have absolutely no difficulty with a policy that says we should consider
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander names
where appropriate and that&apos;s what this policy says,
but it then sort of interprets the policy in a way
that reads as though (inaudible).
I want to clarify that.
So what I think we&apos;re intending to say is the policy principles are ensuring
that names are not offensive or discriminatory, that&apos;s fair enough,
considering Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander names
when that&apos;s appropriate, and that&apos;s fair enough,
and pursuing gender equity
- I think what we&apos;re rapidly being told is that isn&apos;t discretionary,
but that&apos;s mandatory and we&apos;ll be told whether or not something is offensive
to the (inaudible).
Certainly for the other two I think the policy
is (inaudible) there&apos;s no discretionary and should be considered and
of course that should relate to whether it&apos;s been named
after a deceased person or a family group in the same way it should relate
to any other name or place name or street name around the shire.
So I would not like to see all of our streets, our new streets
in Winchelsea, being constrained to be named only
after Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander names, although I think we definitely
will have a very good representation of them
and I think that&apos;s really appropriate.
So I&apos;m happy with the rest of the policy, but that&apos;s the amendment that I would like
to put forward.
I know Councillors have been briefed on all this and we understand it
and it won&apos;t be read that way, but you know, from my experience
in drafting rules and reading rules, there is a risk that this fourth dot point
is misapplied in the future by overzealous officers.
I did ask also what was the composition of the Place Naming Advisory Committee,
I think it&apos;s called, because it&apos;s repeated that this has been
to the advisory committee and it sounded like it was (inaudible), but it
is actually a committee of officers, so it&apos;s no more advisory council than
the reports from officers and I think we need to not blur the line
on that because it&apos;s officers&apos; opinion, as is the report we&apos;ve got,
that there should be no change to the policy.
But I note also when people commented on the policy, there was comment on
they didn&apos;t want just to have Indigenous names
and the officers advised that they&apos;d advised Council not to change the policy.
I just don&apos;t agree with that.
Actually, before I finish, I think it was 16 or 18 submissions
we got.
How many raised that issue of not relying solely on Indigenous names
- can I ask that, please?
MAYOR PATTISON: I&apos;ll put that question to our CEO.
MS ROBYN SEYMOUR: Councillor Wellington, I don&apos;t have that with me.
I&apos;ll ask
- and neither does the GM of Placemaking and Environment.
We would have to take that on notice and get back to you on that.
CR WELLINGTON: Sorry, can I just ask was it a significant point
from the community or was it just somebody with an offhand remark?
Somebody should know that, surely.
MS ROBYN SEYMOUR: I&apos;m not aware that it was an overarching, you know,
coming through the vast majority of the submissions, Councillor Wellington,
if that&apos;s the kind of general sphere that you were looking for a response in.
Anything more detailed we&apos;d have to go back to the submissions and look
at that in detail.
CR WELLINGTON: Thank you.
Look, I know that Council is, just to finish off, very, very passionate
and committed about Indigenous reconciliation and
at times I think there&apos;s a view in the community that it&apos;s overtaking
a bit of commonsense really and I think we&apos;re all passionate,
we&apos;re all committed to Indigenous reconciliation,
but it doesn&apos;t mean that everything has to be named Indigenous or, you know,
reflective of this and I hope that&apos;s not what this policy means.
I think I&apos;m being told it doesn&apos;t, but I do think we need to be clear
about that, we need to reassure the community,
because obviously someone in the community or some people have picked up this issue
and for whatever reason our officers have said no, don&apos;t bother to change it.
Perhaps they saw the same dot point I did and thought what does that mean,
that&apos;s inconsistent.
At one point it says it doesn&apos;t have to be traditional language all the time
and at the other point it implies that it does.
So I would encourage Councillors (inaudible) about issues being raised
after the briefings, that&apos;s what debate is for.
Please look at it on its merits and consider whether it&apos;s reasonable
to allow future provision for non-Indigenous language in a mix
of Indigenous and non-Indigenous naming.
Thank you.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thank you.
Councillor Barker, did you wish to speak?
CR BARKER: No, thanks.
MAYOR PATTISON: Did any other Councillors wish to speak in relation
to this amendment specifically?
Can we have the amendment back on the screen, please, Governance?
CR WELLINGTON: I&apos;m happy to move that we suspend standing orders.
MAYOR PATTISON: No, no need for that.
CR WELLINGTON: Some Councillors might have need to ask a question.
MAYOR PATTISON: Do any other Councillors wish to speak to the motion?
I&apos;ll just give everyone a couple of minutes to read it,
given it wasn&apos;t circulated prior to the meeting.
So people can read it.
CR GAZZARD: Can I just ask
- it&apos;s just not clear to me where
- like who the agreement is by.
MAYOR PATTISON: I think if there&apos;s concerns or questions,
you know, we do have an existing policy which has gone to consultation
and been reviewed.
So if you have concerns, you can speak to the motion or we&apos;ll further consider
because I guess we&apos;re not workshopping amendments at the meeting tonight.
CR WELLINGTON: Perhaps if I can just make one brief comment that
the points there that I&apos;ve included about gender equality, offensiveness
and considering Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander language names
are effectively reproductions of the principles that are identified
- MAYOR PATTISON: Thanks, Councillor Wellington.
I note you&apos;ve had 5 minutes to speak on this, so I think you&apos;ve portrayed that
in your time allotted.
So thank you.
We&apos;ll just give Councillors one more minute to consider and then we&apos;ll put it
to the vote.
CR GAZZARD: Can I speak?
MAYOR PATTISON: Yes, sure, if you&apos;d like to speak.
CR GAZZARD: I think it&apos;s an appropriate clarification and it would be appropriate
for the naming to go to the traditional owners
and the registered Aboriginal parties.
The only part I have an issue with is the agreement on the name
because there won&apos;t necessarily always be agreement throughout the shire,
so do you mean agreement from the traditional owners or the
- CR WELLINGTON: That&apos;s reflecting the requirement (inaudible) names
to be used, but there needs to be agreement
by the traditional owners that that person&apos;s name is used.
So I think that&apos;s kind of an existing policy amongst Indigenous
First Nations people that you shouldn&apos;t speak of deceased people
and the policy itself recognises that.
I think
- MAYOR PATTISON: Thanks, Councillor Wellington.
Once again, you&apos;ve had your five minutes to speak on this.
If it&apos;s not clear
- CR WELLINGTON: (Inaudible).
MAYOR PATTISON: Excuse me, I&apos;m speaking.
You can wait until I finish, please, Councillor Wellington.
The amendments that you&apos;ve made to the policy should be self-explanatory.
That&apos;s why you&apos;re changing the other policy
because it could be misinterpreted.
So if Councillors can&apos;t understand the amendment clearly when reading it,
that also brings into question the concern as to
whether it&apos;s an appropriate amendment.
So please, if you could refrain from speaking, we will now put the motion
to the vote.
CR WELLINGTON: Can I move that standing orders be suspended, please?
MAYOR PATTISON: I don&apos;t
- what purpose is that for, Councillor Wellington?
CR WELLINGTON: So Councillors can ask any questions about this.
MAYOR PATTISON: So when we suspend standing orders in relation
to a matter for discussion, we are not supposed to be talking
about that.
When we suspend it, part of our Governance Rules
is that we don&apos;t go and discuss a matter that&apos;s for debate
at that time.
CR WELLINGTON: (Inaudible) questions could be asked, Mayor Pattison.
I don&apos;t think there&apos;s prohibition in the Governance Rules to that, surely.
MAYOR PATTISON: I think it states that we don&apos;t talk
- suspension of standing orders, we&apos;re not to talk about matters that are currently
under consideration in the Governance Rules.
CR WELLINGTON: May I ask which?
MAYOR PATTISON: Yes, we&apos;ll just have a quick squiz.
SPEAKER: 41.2.
MAYOR PATTISON: It&apos;s 41.2, &quot;During suspension of standing orders,
Councillors are not to discuss the issues or seek
to reach agreement outside of formal debate.&quot;
Therefore if we go into suspension of standing orders,
we will not be discussing this matter.
Therefore, there is no point in suspending standing orders.
We&apos;ll continue with the debate.
Councillor Bodsworth, did you want to speak to the motion?
CR BODSWORTH: I&apos;d like to speak to the amendment, please
- MAYOR PATTISON: Oh, the amendment.
Thanks for clarifying.
CR BODSWORTH:-
- which is to say that I find the existing
draft clear enough.
I also note that further up the existing text, under naming,
it says &quot;Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander
language names may be adopted where these names are appropriate to the area,
provided that consultation occurs with the relevant Registered Aboriginal
Party or Traditional Owner group, and there is agreement
to the proposed name.&quot;
So to me that adequately covers that aspect of the proposed amendment.
And as far as the other aspects of the proposed amendment,
I appreciate Councillor Wellington&apos;s concern for its longer-term
comprehensibility, I guess you&apos;d say, and application, but
to me the existing draft is clear enough.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thank you.
We&apos;ll now put the motion to the vote.
All those in favour.
Sorry, we&apos;ll now put the amendment
- sorry, I do apologise to everybody.
We now put the amendment to the vote.
All those in favour of the amendment that&apos;s proposed
by Councillor Wellington.
All those opposed.
Thank you.
We will now move back to the substantive
- CR WELLINGTON: Can I ask what the vote was, please?
MAYOR PATTISON: Yes, it was two for
- two in favour of the amendment and six opposed to the amendment.
We now move back to the substantive motion and just in relation to that,
Councillor Wellington, you haven&apos;t spoken to that.
Did you wish to speak to the motion?
CR WELLINGTON: I do, thanks, yes.
Thank you.
So I&apos;m not going to vote for the motion on that basis.
It does seem to me
- just again Councillor Bodsworth pointed out the section which I was referring
to earlier which is the section that sets the policy,
but what happens later on in the policy is that that section is abbreviated
to a point where it doesn&apos;t say the same thing and that&apos;s the concern
that I have with it.
I don&apos;t think it&apos;s good drafting.
I&apos;m very concerned that the report that I&apos;ve had from developers
in my area that they&apos;ve been pushed to adopt Indigenous names now regardless
of the preferences around the estate and I think again it reflects
- I&apos;m sure that what we&apos;re going to hear from developers everywhere is that
they won&apos;t be able to get names through reflecting the people who&apos;ve made
more recent contributions to our community.
As I said, in my area
- and I presume in other people&apos;s areas
- there are generations of families that have made
massive contributions to (inaudible) where they donated land for the CFA and,
you know, the reserve is named after them and what have you.
I&apos;d just hate to see that opportunity lost.
I think (inaudible) by this policy.
I don&apos;t think the policy
- I think the policy is going to be misapplied
and I do think that underpinning all this are, yes, real issues
about drafting of policies and rules in Council, unfortunately,
and as a lawyer it&apos;s not possible for me to read them and work out
whether (inaudible) because that&apos;s what I&apos;ve done many times
throughout my life.
I&apos;m very sorry that Councillors don&apos;t have the willingness or understanding
of the importance or ability to see the differences
between this drafting.
I&apos;m really sorry about that and I&apos;m sorry that they&apos;re unable
to support the amendment that I put up.
I will just vote against the motion.
That&apos;s fine.
I&apos;ve done my best and I&apos;ll be holding people&apos;s hand when
they can&apos;t get streets named after people that are important
to our community.
Thank you.
MAYOR PATTISON: Would any other Councillors
- Councillor Barker?
CR BARKER: Thanks, Mayor.
You can see what&apos;s happened just here that driving towards a particular agenda
without having a clear understanding of definitions is going to result
in confusion in the future, but this is just another example
of why I think Councils should be abolished.
There&apos;s overarching legislation on this topic that requires us
to be compliant with said legislation.
This helicopter style of governance is ridiculous.
Either give us autonomy to run the organisation
and our community how we see fit or just scrap us.
There&apos;s a push within the broader regional communities
to do just this.
The term used is rexit, regional exit from the State Government
of Melbourne that is controlling and causing all this friction
within the community now.
But I digress.
Key points raised through the community feedback are
summarised as following: names should be easy to understand and pronounce
- we&apos;ve got a few that err on the line of that; names should be reflective of
all Australian history, not just First Nations but also
of non-indigenous Australians, which I think we&apos;ve talked
about quite recently; Council should not look
at significantly renaming existing streets and/or facilities
- hopefully that maintains true; and
they generally support the proposed policy changes.
Now, officers identified that this policy supports Council&apos;s commitment
to First Nations reconciliation as per the Council plan.
This policy I think is disrespectful and virtue signalling at its finest.
If you truly want to reconcile with someone, you&apos;d best develop tangible,
practical solutions.
To simply place a name on something largely requires no effort
and doesn&apos;t physically address any of the problems.
Society will thrive when governments do less.
This policy is just another nail in the coffin
of widespread prosperity by placing another piece of straw
on the camel&apos;s back.
If this goes through with the ambiguity that there is,
I can guarantee that there&apos;s going to be conflict when it comes
to place naming or street naming or anything that is a result
of following this policy.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thank you.
Would any other Councillors like to speak to the motion?
No?
Councillor Gazzard, do you have any closing remarks?
CR GAZZARD: Yes, thank you.
I think names are important and the 60,000 years of history
of the First Nations people is worth recognising.
I don&apos;t think it&apos;s virtue signalling to name something by its historical name
that has been gone by for 60,000 years and that
is a step towards reconciliation by acknowledging what&apos;s important
to their culture, so like calling Uluru Uluru,
which it&apos;s been for a lot longer than it was
before it was Ayers Rock.
I think that&apos;s respectful and shows empathy and understanding.
It would be I think ignorant to only want names that are easy
to pronounce for us.
I think it shows respect to other cultures and languages by trying
- even if you don&apos;t get it right every time , but trying to use correct names
and terminology.
So I acknowledge the community feedback on this, but I think we can all try harder
to show respect, particularly to our First Nations people.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thank you.
We&apos;ll now put the motion to the vote.
All those in favour.
All those opposed.
And the motion is carried 6-2.
We now move on to Surf Coast Shire 016, investment Policy Review.
The purpose of our next report is to present the reviewed Surf Coast Shire
016 Investment Policy to Council for adoption.
Do I have a mover of a motion?
Councillor Stapleton.
Is that as per the recommendation?
CR STAPLETON: It is, thanks, Mayor.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thank you.
And do I have a seconder?
Councillor Bodsworth.
Councillor Stapleton, would you like to speak to the motion?
CR STAPLETON: Yes, just quickly.
Look, this policy was actually implemented in June 2021 and this is simply an update
- a general tidy-up and clarification of the document.
There&apos;s a couple of process changes, but essentially it&apos;s just improving
the version that we had.
But I would like to just draw attention to the fact that one of the sort
of sustainability considerations for our investment policy
is that in the event that officers are considering multiple investment options,
it will stack up equally, ones where there
isn&apos;t investment in non-renewable energy sources is not as favoured
as the other.
So essentially we choose the more environmentally sustainable option.
And that&apos;s about it from me.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thank you.
Councillor Bodsworth, would you like to speak?
CR BODSWORTH: I just add that the Audit and Risk Committee provided some valuable
input on this one and so I&apos;d acknowledge that work that they&apos;ve done and
all the other work that they do to help us get things like this right
and part of their contribution they made to this is seen in the tighter definitions
that are contained in the reviewed policy.
Thanks.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thank you.
Would any other Councillors like to speak?
Councillor Barker.
CR BARKER: Scrap Council investments, scrap Council borrowings
and we&apos;ll be in a far better financial position in the future.
MAYOR PATTISON: Do any other Councillors wish to speak?
Councillor Stapleton, do you have any closing remarks?
CR STAPLETON: No.
MAYOR PATTISON: We now put the motion to the vote.
All those in favour.
All those opposed.
And the motion is carried 7-1.
We now move on to 4.6, Torquay Jan Juc Development Contributions
Plan Payment of Works in Kind Credit.
The purpose of this report is to seek approval
for additional financial allocation and authorise the Chief Executive Officer
to pay developers for works in kind towards items in the Torquay Jan
Juc Development Contributions Plan.
Do we have a mover of a motion?
CR HODGE: I&apos;m happy to move.
MAYOR PATTISON: Councillor Hodge.
Is that as per the recommendation?
CR HODGE: Yes, thank you.
MAYOR PATTISON: And a seconder?
Councillor Schonfelder.
Councillor Hodge, would you like to speak?
CR HODGE: Yes, thank you very much.
The purpose of this report is to seek approval
of the extra additional financial allocation and to authorise the CEO
to pay the developers for the work that they&apos;ve done and in
all that works, and I don&apos;t know if anyone has seen it,
but it&apos;s a great area
- Rosser Boulevard and Buckland Crescent, which is down this way,
and the other area close by too is Smith Way to Coombes Road
and that&apos;s a very important area too.
It&apos;s been a developing area, there&apos;s a lot of foot traffic around there,
and we noticed there was a shortfall to finish off a footpath.
As we&apos;ve been talking before, footpaths are very important
for connectivity, especially around this area
to make sure that kids can cycle or people can walk safely.
So it would be remiss of us not to add that extra little bit of money
to get that footpath done.
So I would certainly hope Councillors will allocate that money and allow the CEO
to make the payments to the developers in kind
and get these two places completely finished so the community
around there can enjoy it.
Thank you.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thank you.
Councillor Schonfelder?
CR SCHONFELDER: I reserve my right.
MAYOR PATTISON: Okay.
Would any other Councillors?
Councillor Barker.
CR BARKER: I don&apos;t have any issue with point 2 of the recommendation,
but why was the 430 metre pathway not fully budgeted for?
MAYOR PATTISON: Is that a question?
CR BARKER: Yes.
MAYOR PATTISON: I&apos;ll pass that on to our CEO.
MS ROBYN SEYMOUR: Thank you, Councillor Barker.
My understanding is it&apos;s cost escalations in the project,
but I&apos;ll check with our General Manager of Place Making and Environment.
OFFICER: Yes, that&apos;s correct.
MAYOR PATTISON: So it&apos;s associated with cost escalations.
Did you want to speak to the motion, Councillor Barker?
CR BARKER: Nearly $50,000 cost escalation?
MAYOR PATTISON: That&apos;s right.
CR BARKER: If we can break it down into two parts, I&apos;d be happy to vote
on that.
I&apos;ll foreshadow if this motion doesn&apos;t pass, we break it
down into point 1 and point 2.
MAYOR PATTISON: You&apos;re foreshadowing two separate motions?
CR BARKER: Yes.
MAYOR PATTISON: Would any other Councillors like to speak?
No.
Councillor Hodge, do you have any
- oh, Councillor Wellington, would you like to speak to the motion?
CR WELLINGTON: Well, I&apos;d just like to support what Councillor Barker actually
said.
I think the practice of putting forward, you know, multiple dot points, only two
in this, but quite significant amounts of money, to support one
and not the other you would have to vote against it or (inaudible).
I think that&apos;s going to be a problem with the local law.
(Inaudible) that comes back to Council at the next meeting omnibus proposals
that look at multiple things and it&apos;s been very much criticised,
that practice has been very much criticised by the Ombudsman in the past
and it shouldn&apos;t happen.
It&apos;s not good governance at all and it&apos;s quite simple
to split these things up.
The only other thing I would say about this, I read this
as the footpath had already been developed and we were paying retrospectively.
Is that correct or not?
MAYOR PATTISON: It&apos;s to fund a budget shortfall
for a 430 metre length.
CR WELLINGTON: So the pathway has been already done, isn&apos;t it?
MS ROBYN SEYMOUR: Yes.
CR WELLINGTON: Yes.
That&apos;s what I thought.
I suppose my only comment about that is my other experience of what I&apos;ve seen
of the contributions of developers contributing works
in kind has been
- I don&apos;t know what our process is for assessing
and I won&apos;t make any comments about the quality of this in particular,
but I think that&apos;s where we&apos;re going to solve the problems with the Karaaf,
that we accepted a design that wasn&apos;t suitable, but accepted works
in kind that weren&apos;t in some cases appropriately completed.
So I just make that as a comment.
But I hope we&apos;ve got a proper process in place to actually validate the money
is being spent on something that&apos;s being properly
constructed and that we don&apos;t accept these assets
until we are sure that they&apos;re properly constructed and we won&apos;t have
to redo them (inaudible).
MAYOR PATTISON: Thank you.
Councillor Hodge, did you have any closing remarks?
CR HODGE: No, thank you.
MAYOR PATTISON: We&apos;ll now put the motion to the vote.
All those in favour.
All those opposed.
And the motion is carried 7-1.
We now move on to 4.7, Award of Contract T23-037 Design
and Construct Winchelsea Pool.
Governance, were you going to put the revised motion up for people
to see?
The public motion, for anyone watching, had redacted details around the value
and who the contract is being awarded to and we will now show that in full.
This process enables us to have items that would previously have
been done in confidential, bring them into the public meeting space.
Can we just
- oh, no, people can see that.
That&apos;s fine.
So the purpose of this report is to seek Council&apos;s approval
for the award of Contract T23-037 Winchelsea Pool Design and Construct.
As this recommendation was redacted, it&apos;s now up on the screen for you.
Do we have a mover?
Councillor Schonfelder.
And do I have a seconder?
Councillor Bodsworth.
And I&apos;m assuming, Councillor
- sorry, Councillor Schonfelder, I didn&apos;t clarify, that&apos;s
as per the recommendation?
Great.
And would you like to speak to that?
CR SCHONFELDER: Yes, please.
I&apos;d like to say that I am extremely excited
about the new Winchelsea pool and delighted along
with the community that we are now awarding a contract to build the pool.
It&apos;s important to note that almost all municipalities have pools
and provide pools to communities and we&apos;re rebuilding and renewing an asset
that has been a very valued part of the Winchelsea town.
This in effect is facilitating the provision
of social infrastructure and open space to enable healthy lifestyles,
improving access to local services and programs that support people
to be healthy and well and it&apos;s also enabling communities
to strengthen their social connections and participate in community life,
and as someone who has swum a lot, I know that not just the physical health
benefits but the mental health benefits are so
important.
I would encourage other Councillors to support this item and
in effect get the ball rolling on this project, and I&apos;d like
to congratulate the Council as well for the work
- and the officers in particular
- for the work that they have done in relation to this
under trying circumstances with COVID.
I do think
- I&apos;ve always advocated and I&apos;m aware that there are two doctors
on our Council and I&apos;ve always advocated that preventative health measures are more
important than trying to rectify health problems afterwards,
after one becomes perhaps, for lack of a better word, unhealthy.
I also saw recently that in England in many of the primary schools there now
the students are doing physical education in the afternoon.
They&apos;re actually in classrooms in the morning
and in the afternoon they&apos;re doing physical education.
So it&apos;s very interesting how our mindsets and how our priorities are changing
and we are realising the importance of physical activity and swimming as well
as such an important activity.
So I commend the Council once again and recommend this item for adoption.
Thank you, Mayor.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thank you.
Councillor Bodsworth, did you wish to speak to the motion?
CR BODSWORTH: Only to add that I&apos;m also excited about this
- us receiving a tender that&apos;s within budget
and it&apos;s a huge renewal project.
Interesting report outlining the design construct approach to the contract and,
no, I have no concerns about awarding this contract.
MAYOR PATTISON: Would any other Councillors like to speak
to the motion?
Councillor Wellington.
CR WELLINGTON: Thank you very much.
The Winchelsea community actually recognised the value
of a pool 60 years ago, I think we celebrated the 60th anniversary
recently and they built it
- I think it was built by community effort at the time.
It&apos;s done a really good job of lasting for 60 years.
(Inaudible).
Look, you know, it is all about health and wellbeing,
but it&apos;s basically about fun for kids that&apos;s healthy and fresh air and
for families and they do
- it&apos;s just fun and it&apos;s so important for that pool to be part of that community
and I think there&apos;s a great deal of nervousness.
Every time people see it close, they think of the (inaudible) and they think
of the mud hut and they think of the Globe Theatre and they think of
all these other projects and that&apos;s why I was quite interested
to see in the budget that there&apos;s more being allocated to project management
and I sincerely hope that it is allocated to
- there&apos;s adequate project management allocated to this project.
If operational, it&apos;s the Chief
Executive Officer&apos;s responsibility, but if this project
for whatever reason goes off the rails, it is quite difficult at the moment
with the cost of consumables and what have you increasing,
(inaudible) the importance of the contract which is part of this
and we haven&apos;t seen the contract.
We&apos;re also execution of contractual documents on behalf
of Council for $8 million or so.
I&apos;m in two minds about that.
(Inaudible) would be looking at those contracts
and making sure they&apos;ve been signed off legally
and making sure there was appropriate contingency.
So I&apos;m a bit (inaudible) we&apos;re doing that well above delegation,
but I have confidence in the Chief Executive Officer and I&apos;m happy
to support it because I&apos;m thrilled that this is being funded,
that this community is not going to lose this incredible valuable asset.
So I hope that we can get an on-time, on budget and beautifully constructed pool
which isn&apos;t for maintenance problems or poor
construction, or whatever, but I&apos;m very much leaving that hopefully
in the hands of capable project managers.
Thank you.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thank you.
I just wanted to note for those watching that there
is a confidential paper associated with the contract,
so Councillors are making their decision around awarding this $8 million contract
on much more information than was provided publicly.
So full details of the tender process, the assessment, et cetera,
is provided confidentially to Councillors, just to allay concerns around the level
of detail that Councillors are making their decisions based on.
Do we have any further
- yes, Councillor Barker.
CR BARKER: Thanks, Mayor.
I don&apos;t have any issue with the design or what not, but point 3,
what&apos;s $100,000?
Nothing, a lot?
What are budgets, guidelines or fiscally accurate forecasts?
I&apos;m not supporting this recommendation not due to the community benefit that may be
achieved as a result of the spend but because I think it&apos;s essential that
we have a voice that highlights how all these little budget blowouts all add
up to one unsustainable financial position at the end.
It&apos;s likely to go ahead, but please just realise that just
because you bury your head in the sand when it comes to the fiscal reality
of what&apos;s going to happen in the future, it doesn&apos;t mean that it isn&apos;t going
to bite us later down the track.
CR WELLINGTON: Can I ask a question, please?
I can&apos;t at the moment access the portal.
It seems to be offline
- on my computer anyway.
I didn&apos;t see the contract.
Have Councillors had access to the full contract?
MAYOR PATTISON: It&apos;s not the full contract , it&apos;s the tender process.
CR WELLINGTON: Thank you.
I understand the tender process, that wasn&apos;t my point.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thank you.
Councillor Schonfelder, did you have any closing remarks?
CR SCHONFELDER: No, thank you.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thank you.
I&apos;ll now put the motion to the vote.
All those in favour.
And opposed?
And the motion is carried 7-1.
We now move on to Award of Contract T23-030 Construction
of Cell 3e liner and Stage 4 Cap Anglesea Landfill.
The purpose of the next report is to seek Council&apos;s approval
to award contract as I&apos;ve just stated the name there.
As this recommendation was redacted, we&apos;ll now get Governance to pop that
on the screen for us so the public can see the value and who the contract is awarded
to.
Do I have a mover of a motion?
Councillor Bodsworth.
As per the recommendation?
CR BODSWORTH: Yes, thanks, Mayor.
MAYOR PATTISON: And a seconder?
Councillor Stapleton.
Would you like to speak to the motion, Councillor Bodsworth?
CR BODSWORTH: Thanks, Mayor.
So as the report outlines, this contract combines the construction
of the fourth cell liner
- sorry, 3e cell liner and stage 4 cap at Anglesea landfill,
so basically two pieces of civil work combined into one contract
to achieve some economies and efficiencies around doing the two things together.
So a few notable things about this.
The preferred tenderer had the highest score and the lowest price, which
is reassuring.
Interestingly, the contractor is to use existing stockpiled material
in the works on site, which is a good reuse gesture.
We have sufficient budget available to award this contract.
The tender represents good value for money.
And finally, I&apos;d like to note that this is the last cell before closure
of the Anglesea landfill, and as I mentioned earlier on in relation
to the Budget, the reduction in waste to landfill has been quite dramatic
over the last several years and we&apos;re now putting less waste
to landfill than we were 20 years ago, which is pretty impressive given
the population growth in the shire.
So again, a callout to people out in communities to keep up the good work
with their waste sorting and diverting waste from landfill
to recyclable and organics and glass because those things
will further extend the life of the landfill and also, as I mentioned
before, it will reduce our waste disposal costs.
So the transfer station
- after the landfill closes, the transfer station will remain open
at the Anglesea site, but planning for its future use is a work in progress,
and as is our general efforts around waste and the circular economy,
where Council officers are doing some fantastic work.
So yes, I have no hesitation in recommending the award
of this contract.
Thank you.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thank you.
Councillor Stapleton?
CR STAPLETON: Yes, I think Councillor Bodsworth has covered
it all.
I just add that this contract is required as part of our EPA licence conditions
and the projects have been designed in accordance with EPA best practice
to ensure the risk to the environment is minimised,
and obviously it&apos;s a really important contract just
to ensure we continue to use the Anglesea landfill and continue
to put waste there up until its proposed closure in 2027 due
to space constraints.
So yes, that&apos;s it.
Thank you.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thank you.
Would any other Councillors like to speak to it?
Councillor Barker.
CR BARKER: Thanks, Mayor.
The civil construction sector is currently facing many resourcing
challenges as State Government projects pay
disproportionately high wages, taking many workers away
from projects such as this.
Even though this tender appears to be acceptable, the concern that I have
is the time to complete this project may not be
adequate.
I will vote for the recommendation, but just want
to highlight that the timeliness of completion will need a high level
of consideration to economic factors influencing staffing
of this work.
MAYOR PATTISON: Councillor Bodsworth, did you have any closing remarks?
CR BODSWORTH: No, thanks, Mayor.
MAYOR PATTISON: We&apos;ll now put the motion to the vote.
All those in favour.
And the motion is carried unanimously.
We now move on to 4.9, Award of Contract T23-032 Dry Plant
and Equipment Hire Services.
The purpose of this report is to seek Council&apos;s approval
to award the contract and can we please have the unredacted
version on the screen.
Thank you.
Do we have a mover of a motion?
Councillor Hodge.
Is that as per the recommendation?
And a seconder?
Councillor Schonfelder.
Councillor Hodge, would you like to speak?
CR HODGE: Just very quickly.
Look, over the years when I&apos;ve been on Council there&apos;s only been usually three
or four suppliers, so it&apos;s really interesting
to see now there&apos;s 11 suppliers that submitted tenders for the contract,
so there&apos;s a bigger choice of businesses, and I see that the three picked
is Brooks Hire, Coates Hire and Porter Excavations, so I look forward
to seeing them.
They&apos;ve got an extremely busy schedule, no doubt about it, ahead of them.
Their contract is to help out with the dry plant equipment
and contractors that support our road construction road maintenance
and other works.
So as we&apos;ve said and heard in our Budget, we&apos;ve put more money towards our
roads and unsealed, so hopefully these three can really have
the weather and have everything working for them
to make sure that we have our roads up to a higher standard.
Thank you.
MAYOR PATTISON: Councillor Schonfelder?
CR SCHONFELDER: No, thank you.
MAYOR PATTISON: Would any other Councillors like to speak
to the motion?
Councillor Barker.
CR BARKER: A lot of what
- just about every topic that goes through this chamber forms part
of Councillor briefings.
I just want to find out why this didn&apos;t fill that.
So point number 23.
MS ROBYN SEYMOUR: In the Council report, you&apos;re talking about
- CR BARKER: Page 256.
MAYOR PATTISON: This item was not required to be discussed at Councillor briefings.
MS ROBYN SEYMOUR: Thank you for your question, Councillor Barker.
In terms of the process around doing the tender assessment
and providing the reports, we didn&apos;t think that it was necessary
to bring this to a briefing for Councillors.
We felt that we
- we followed the proper tender and procurement process.
We&apos;ve documented the evaluation.
We&apos;ve provided a report and advice to Councillors which we feel puts
you in a good position to be able to make a decision.
CR BARKER: Thank you.
MAYOR PATTISON: Would you like to speak to the motion?
No.
Any closing remarks, Councillor Hodge?
We&apos;ll now put the motion to the vote.
All those in favour.
And the motion is carried unanimously.
We now move on to 4.10, Award of Contract T23-045
Microsoft Enterprise Software Agreement.
The purpose of this report is to seek approval to award a contract
for the renewal of Council&apos;s Microsoft
Enterprise Software Licences.
We&apos;ve now got the unredacted motion on the screen.
Do I have a mover of a motion?
Councillor Schonfelder.
Is that as per the recommendation?
CR SCHONFELDER: As per the recommendation.
MAYOR PATTISON: And do I have a seconder?
Councillor Gazzard.
Councillor Schonfelder, would you like to speak?
CR SCHONFELDER: I&apos;ll just briefly say that IT is so important
and we&apos;ve had improvements made with digitalisation even prior
to COVID which have been commendable and have created greater financial
efficiencies for our organisation.
And the second point I&apos;d like to mention is the Prime Minister has said recently
in the last few days for people with their devices, such as their
- like a laptop, a tablet and also a mobile phone to turn it
off every day for five minutes in case of hacking and that&apos;s a risk that
we sadly are subject to and the same with what has happened recently.
I&apos;m not sure of the details with the Commonwealth Bank,
but there was online banking unavailable to people.
So IT is so important and a growing area, so I commend this recommendation.
Thank you, Mayor.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thank you.
Councillor Gazzard, did you wish to speak?
CR GAZZARD: Thank you, just to add there&apos;s an increased cost sector
wide, but that&apos;s been
- it&apos;s within the approved operational budget for this service.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thank you.
Do any other Councillors wish to speak?
Councillor Barker.
CR BARKER: I dislike the way Microsoft and other companies have moved
from a process where you could buy the piece of software to now it&apos;s
on a subscription model.
I think it&apos;s just extracting more money out of consumers than is needed
and I won&apos;t be supporting it based on that.
MAYOR PATTISON: Did you have any closing remarks, Councillor Schonfelder?
CR SCHONFELDER: No, thank you.
MAYOR PATTISON: We&apos;ll now put the motion to the vote.
All those in favour.
And all those opposed.
And the motion is carried 7-1.
We now move to 4.11, Project Budget Adjustments
and Cash Reserve Transfers
- June 2023.
This report is presented for Council ratification and approval
of proposed project budget adjustments and cash reserve transfers
relating to the 2022-23 financial year.
Do I have a mover of a motion?
Councillor Bodsworth.
And a seconder?
Councillor Stapleton.
Councillor Bodsworth, would you like to speak to the motion?
CR BODSWORTH: Thanks, Mayor.
So as per the recommendation, just
- sorry, I&apos;m just scrolling through it and I&apos;ve lost my place.
Oh, there I am.
I would particularly like to note that the report sets out an amount
of money representing artist sales from the Anglesea arts space, which
is a space that Council supports through paying the rental for that space
and it&apos;s a really important space particularly
for emerging artists in the Anglesea area, Anglesea/Aireys Inlet, and lots of parts
of the municipality, Winchelsea as well.
Lots of fantastic exhibitions there and as we can see from this report,
quite a lot of sales.
So we have an amount close to $30,000 there worth of artist sales, which
is a really
- and that&apos;s over a month, a busy month of great exhibitions.
So that&apos;s a fantastic result for those artists and apart
from the monetary value that it represents , it also represents a fantastic sort
of interaction in the artistic community and a great pathway or great sort
of stepping stone for artists to begin to exhibit in more I guess highly reputed
and exclusive spaces.
So I particularly wanted to highlight that.
Thanks.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thank you.
Councillor Stapleton, would you like to speak to the motion?
CR STAPLETON: Oh, look, not a lot more to add.
Just I guess it&apos;s good to point out that the main purpose of this report
is to provide transparency for the community to understand how money
is moving between budgets and obviously to keep Councillors informed
as the report contributes to Council&apos;s financial management
principles recording the allocations and movement of project funds.
Thank you.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thank you.
Would any other Councillors wish to speak?
Councillor Bodsworth, did you have any closing remarks?
CR BODSWORTH: No, thanks, Mayor.
MAYOR PATTISON: No.
We&apos;ll put the motion to the vote.
All those in favour.
And the motion is carried unanimously.
We now move to 4.12, Conflict of Interest Records.
The purpose of this report is to present conflict
of interest records received since the previous Council meeting.
Do I have a mover of a motion?
Councillor Hodge.
And a seconder?
Councillor Gazzard.
As per the recommendation, Councillor Hodge?
CR HODGE: Absolutely, and it&apos;s publication of these records is required in accordance
with the Local Government Act, so they are presented
for anyone&apos;s perusal.
MAYOR PATTISON: Thank you.
Councillor Gazzard?
No.
Any other Councillors?
No.
I now put the motion to the vote.
All those in favour.
And the motion is carried unanimously.
There are no urgent business items for tonight&apos;s meeting.
We have two confidential items to consider, so we will now say goodbye
to those that are here in the gallery with us and to those watching online.
Thank you for joining us.
We appreciate you staying for our Council meeting.
Thank you very much.
We will suspend standing orders for 10 minutes.
CR SCHONFELDER: Do you want to move a motion to
- do you have to move a motion?
MAYOR PATTISON: Yes, I&apos;ll seek a motion from Councillor Hodge and seconded
by Councillor
- thanks, Alex
- and seconded by Councillor Schonfelder to suspend standing orders for 10 minutes.
So we&apos;ll come back at 8.30 to continue with our last two confidential items.
Thank you.