I received a call during the week. It was from a person who receives their TV signal from either the 150kW Mount Cenn Cruaich transmission site near Coonabarabran or the 350kW Mount Canobolas transmission site near Orange but not the 2kW transmitter on Buninyong Hill in Dubbo. The caller wasn’t happy with their TV reception and wanted me to help improve the reception.
During the gripping first half of the NRL Grand Final last month with the Rabbitohs up 4-0 and 4.65 million people across the nation tuned in, I received a phone call from someone wanting to know the phone number of a specific business in Dubbo.
Several months ago a resident rang and said that a light bulb in her house was blown and she wasn’t sure how to change it so she asked if I could come over and change it for her.
Recently a fellow Mayor in a nearby town told me he had received a call from a resident early on a Sunday morning inviting the Mayor to visit his business to view the front window that had been smashed overnight and advise how he should deal with this.
I don’t tell you these true stories from the last few months by way of complaint. I mention these merely to demonstrate where Local Government sits in the minds of residents of a community.
Even though these examples are quite obviously outside the areas of direct responsibility of Councils across the State, residents don’t care. Residents typically see their Council as the potential solution to all of their problems. The message was particularly driven home to me at the recent Local Government Conference in Coffs Harbour.
Most of the Councils from across the State were in attendance and I had the chance to discuss Local Government issues with Councillors and staff from across the State. If I had to use a single word to describe the general ‘vibe’ from those conversations the word would be passion. Each and every Councillor and staff member I spoke with was very passionate about their city, town or region. In the main, they are all trying to do the best they can for their Local Government Area (LGA). The main thrust was not whether to amalgamate or stand alone, it was focused on making the area that they represented better for their involvement.
Possibly the greatest frustration that many have is linked to the anecdotes I mentioned at the beginning of this article. Councils want to enhance their LGA but are not in full control of all aspects within the LGA. As much as Councils would love to have more control over all aspects in their area, our powers are somewhat limited. Keep in mind that Local Governments are but a whim of State Government and we don’t actually exist in the Constitution.
This can lead to frustration from the sector in accessing capital for expenditure on major items of infrastructure (think major sporting or cultural facilities) or in building infrastructure that spans multiple LGAs (think Very Fast Trains or major tunnels) or in improving access to health facilities (think hospitals) or in improving educational outcomes (think of school funding) or in aspects involving law and order (think laws; Police; sentencing; prisons). When a resident calls their local Council, the last thing they want to hear is, “that is not an area that we have control over, please ring a different department and have a nice day – click.” Council staff and Councillors are always keen to ty and help develop a solution for a resident but many of the areas that impact our residents on a day to day basis are controlled by the State Government.
The best a local Council can hope to achieve is to bring problem areas to the attention of the State Government and hope to start conversations in the community to allow problems to be addressed. The last thing a community should do is to ignore areas of concern. The first step to solving a problem is to firstly admit there is a problem and then start the process of working towards a solution. We are very lucky in Australia to have such an open and free democracy where we are not vilified for having an opinion (although sometimes during the footy season I do feel vilified when I admit I follow the Sea Eagles) and we are not imprisoned for exercising our rights to Freedom of Speech. Even today, there are still many countries in the world where to speak out against a government would equate to imprisonment – or worse.
Having just returned from a trip to Minokamo, our sister-city in Japan, I witnessed an example of a Council area with different levels of control. The schools within Minokamo, for example, are controlled by the Minokamo Council not the Gifu Prefecture. On the one hand, I think having Councils in control of more items in their local community is a good thing but for areas such as schooling, a higher level of government should be able to deliver more consistency across a larger area. There is no absolute right and wrong answer with different models being employed across the world but we have our current system in place and Councils across this State will continue to represent the views of their local communities and work hard to further enhance their LGAs.
Tell me one additional area you would like to see Councils in charge of at mayor@dubbo.nsw.gov.au.