Our Shire has officially been declared water deficient.
Farmers have recently completed surveys indicating what supplies they have and what is needed to keep their stock watered.
An online article about the Shire's declaration has been published on the Perth Now website.
Disturbingly, there are some derogatory comments aimed at farmers following the article. Many of these show terrible ignorance and discrimination.
The water situation is one that will not go away. It may be eased by rain and by the carting of water in to the Shire, but the fact remains that the infrastructure needs urgent attention.
The pipeline, built with volunteer labour from the local farmers, is now 20 years old. It wasn't large enough in the first place and this is the reason our shire is running out of water.
In times of low rainfall, more water is drawn from the pipeline as town dams run out. The pipeline simply can't cope with such demand, so we're running out of water.
Farming is an industry which uses water, just like any other industry. Farmers build dams to maximise their water resources, but if it doesn't rain, dams are useless.
Farmers provide food and export dollars for our nation. They need to be able to rely on proper services such as any other industry would expect.
The Department of Water along with the Water Corporation must start making some vital decisions to ensure the long term availability of this basic service. Our State Government must look at investing Royalties for Regions funding into building better water infrastructure. The provision of water is a basic right. If we were a Third World country, the government would be donating millions of dollars to improve water infrastructure.
Water Defiency Declaration
Meeting with Troy Pickard
Council had the opportunity to meet with the President of WALGA recently at the Shire Offices. Only four councillors were available for the discussion, Cr's Crosby, Stephens, Featherstone and myself.
The discussion proved very fruitful and allowed us to gain a deeper insight into the workings of the ministerial office and how WALGA are continuing to advocate for country councils at State level.
Some of the topics discussed included the need for upgraded water infrastructure and water shortage situations, Multi Peril Insurance, Amalgamations, Royalties for Regions regional component percentage and TIRES funding.
Mayor Pickard outlined his vision for local government into the future. Though his vision is regional, it still ensures that small local governments like ours continue to remain as we are, but are more involved with the decision making processes affecting our region.
We must ensure that if we continue to decline the option to amalgamate, that we have a viable alternative to offer to the Minister.
Forced Amalgamation: How Big is the Threat?
This was the title of a breakfast meeting that CEO Peter Bentley and Cr's Stephens, Crosby and I attended in Perth last week.
Lawyers from the company, Kott Gunning gave the presentation. Before joining Kott Gunning, Anne Wood, one of the presenters, was the Policy Advisor for a number of local government Ministers.
The analysis was based on some of the 25 recommendations in the Local Government Advisory Board. The recommendations dealing with legislative change to the 'forced amalgamation provisions' are the ones that were analysed.
These recommendations deal with changing legislation ie. The Local Government Act 1995, to empower the Minister to to target those Local Governments which either did not want to amalgamate, eg. Kent, Narrogin, Bassendean or, those that did, but couldn't find partners - eg. Katanning, Bunbury.
It appears at first glance, that the Local Government Advisory Board consists of 5 members, with only two being nominated by the Minister.. However, the other three people are still chosen by the Minister, from a list submitted by WALGA (WA Local Govt Association which represents councillors) or LGMA (Local Govt Managers Association which represents Senior Staff).
So, in essence, they are handpicked by the Minister.
Rather than go through all the horribly boring details of the Act and it's meaning for us, suffice to say,
WALGA are fighting on behalf of local governments against the changes the Minister wants to make to the Act.
Strategic Plan
I have been remiss in not keeping this blog up to date. My apologies to readers who like to keep up with Shire of Kent happenings.
There are regular newsletters in our local newsletters for local people to keep informed, but for those outside of the Shire, I will attempt to be more consistent with my blog entries.
The Shire has undertaken a major revision of the Strategic Plan. Council employed the services of Darren Long to engage the community through a workshop in each town. Council then had a series of workshops with Mr Long which resulted in the Draft Strategic Plan for 2010 to 2015.
It was an interesting process which took us through 7 Key Focus areas - Organisational Development & Governance, Technology, Economy, Business and Land Use, Infrastructure Development, Community and Social and Environment. Each area has a number of objectives which we will aim to achieve within the timeframe of the plan.
Much of Council's own observations and desires for the Shire reflected those of the community, which Mr Long found surprisingly refreshing. It shows that Council is on the right track and is moving forward in the direction that their community wishes them to.
The Strategic Plan will be available for public comment. It's a very readable document and I urge you to take the time to pick up a copy from the Shire Office in Richmond St, Nyabing and read it. Council are keen to hear what the public feel about the Draft Strategic Plan.
Local Government Convention 2010 Day Four
The final day of the convention included presentations to of the Long and Loyal Service and the Distinguished Service Honour Awards.
Mr Terry Gray was presented with the Long and Loyal Service Award for his services on the Shire of Kent.
Following the awards, our keynote speaker came to the podium and held the audience in the palm of her delicate hand for the next 45 minutes. I've never know such a hush to be held over the entire auditorium as there was when Gill Hicks spoke to the delegates.
Gill Hicks was severely injured in the 2005 London bombing and is a passionate advocate of inter-community relations and peace, worldwide. She is Ambassador for Peace Direct, an international peace initiative.
Gill's story was one of incredible survival, humanity, kindness and strength. Her near death experience led her to 'sign' a contract to stay alive and work towards making our world a more tolerant and peaceful place. She lost both legs below the knee and now uses artificial limbs and a working stick.
Her account of the struggle to live and all that took place during her recovery was one that brought tears to the eyes of many in the audience. One gentleman asked if she would marry him, during the Q & A session afterwards.
Her gentle demeanour and humble attitude had us all in love with her.
The WALGA AGM was held in the afternoon. Cr Crosby and I attended as delegates in order to vote on the numerous motions.
Councillors then joined the Broomehill/Tambellup crew at dinner that evening.
Overall, I'm not happy with the convention program this year. I've suggested in the feedback on the white board provided that concurrent sessions be held in future to cater for the huge diversity of the shires in our state, including rural, remote and indigenous councils.
Local Government Convention 2010 Day Three
Dr Karl Kruszelnicki led the opening session on Friday 6th August. His fast-paced rapid-fire presentation left us all feeling a little dizzy. His topics included and eclectic range of ideas, facts and figures such as Moore's law:
Transistors shrink in size every 18 months.
So, the silicon chip will soon be almost invisible!
If you cover your roof with solar panels and feed back into the grid, you will have an energy payback time (the time it takes to create enough power savings to payback the cost of purchasing and installing the system) is only 19 to 40 months. The systems should have a life of 30 years.
My ears pricked up when Dr Karl discussed the lack of government funding for alternative energy research and promotion. That's something I find untenable, given the issue of climate change that dominates the political landscape. But, what really made me mad was hearing him state, "Fossil fuel companies have received around $9billion worth of subsidies." I'm not sure of the length of time being discussed here, but it makes any climate change policy that either political party spruiks sound pretty lame...
The Danes have the largest alternative energy system in the world with their Wind Energy industry. Why isn't Australia tapping in to the most abundant form of energy in our land?
My belief? Developing a Solar Energy Industry should be a major policy for any government serious about doing something to help stop the use of fossil fuel for energy purposes.
Following on from Dr Karl's energetic presentation, Laurel Papworth, a social networking expert held my attention. If you click here, you can go to a slide show of the presentation which she offered. Her topic centred around the clever use of social media - eg, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc. She advocated the use of these various applications for local governments to connect with their rate payers on a more personal level.
One Council went as far as to put up their budget online and allowed community input into the development of the budget for the coming year.
If you look to the side of my blog and down a little, you'll see a real time Social Media Count. This shows the incredible reach and power of social media sites.
An interesting snippet from Laurel showed that Facebook is being used by a huge number of over 50's people to keep in touch with family members. I find that so encouraging and think it's a great positive in reconnecting the GenX and Y to those born up to fifty years before!
I now have a Twitter account which I use to keep up with Laurel, Dr Karl, ABC Q & A, ABC News and various other Twits.
The next session was entitled "A Ministerial Dialogue". We endured incredibly boring speeches from Minister Castrilli, Minister Day and a reasonable one from Eric Ripper, Leader of the Opposition.
Following that was a presentation by Lord Mayor of Perth, Lisa Scaffidi, which should have been entitled, "Look at me, aren't I gorgeous". I did enjoy the light entertainment prior to this, an enactment by Edith Cowan's grand niece, playing her grand aunt. What an amazing woman she was!
I then chose one of the concurrent sessions being run and that was Laurel Papworth's. I was a little disappointed as she really didn't address the issue that most of the audience seemed to want and that was, the 'how' part of getting into social networking. Laurel focussed on the 'why' part, reasons we should be involved.
After joining Twitter and trying to find out more information, I now realise that it wasn't necessary to provide the answers as to how to get started as all that info is already available on Twitter sites. Laurel explains carefully how to start using social networking sites like Twitter here.
Local Government Convention 2010 Day Two
The first session of the Convention that I attended was entitled, Better Governance, From Good to Great and was presented by Cr David Parsons from the UK and Prof Graham Sansom, Director of the Australian Centre of Excellence for Local Government.
I didn't take any notes during this presentation as it held little interest for me being not particularly relevant to small country shires. Aside from the fact that our little bags we received on registering at the convention held no pads or pens!!
The next session was far more interesting. This time I was able to take notes since I'd snaffled a pad and pen from the Census Booth at morning tea.
Richard Hill from the MindScience Institute discussed management approaches which can generate positive attitudes in the workplace. Though interesting, this session was predominantly for CEO's and Senior Staff. As a councillor, I have no input into how our office runs, how it is designed or how senior staff and administration staff work together.
The main topic of his talk was about change. His theory is that for good change and growth, people need to be creative, adaptive, flexible and engaged. Richard has a book out called "How the Real World is Driving us Crazy".
As I was taking notes, Cr Crosby wrote this word in my notepad:
Yes, I agreed with her
I thoroughly enjoyed listening to Dr Linda Friedland from the Health and Media Institute who introduced us to a new health issue affecting working people in Japan. It's called Karoshi and means death from overwork!
Her presentation focussed on mental health and the ability to cope with stress.
She emphasized the need for resilience and the ability to adapt and change - there we go again, change.....meaning get yourselves ready for amalgamation, or am I just being paranoid?
The final session of the day held little of interest to us, but we enjoyed listening to three young migrants tell their stories of life in their adopted country. Then our Local Government Minister launched a new government initiative, "Implementing the Principles of Multiculturalism Locally."
Good to hear that Katanning had input into this initiative with the Senior Finance Officer, Carl Beck being on the working committee during the formation of the booklet.
All in all, not a huge amount gained on our first full day. We hope for a better outcome tomorrow.
