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| Ballina Shire Council IMAGE: NBN News 19.06.23 |
Ballina Shire Local Government Area has an estimated resident population of approx. 46,850 men, women & children (.iD Community:demographic resources, 2022), with a population density of 96.47 persons per square km across its total area of 485.6 sq. km – give or take what the sea hasn’t taken at the last high tide.
It is ‘managed’ by a Council comprised of nine councillors elected to represent three wards and a popularly elected mayor. Bringing the mix of often competing interest to ten local politicians, as well as a non-political council administration and staff running at around 336 permanent full time, part time and temporary staff (excluding casual staff).
Ballina Shire Council is blessed or bedevilled by at least 11 standing committees, at least one reference group and. sits on at last glance 11 other regional organisations including Rous Water and the Northern Rivers Joint Organisation.
That works out to be one elected politician and administrative employee for every 135 Ballina residents/ratepayers, operating within an annual budget that doesn’t appear to fudge its numbers.
So, in 2023 the shire should be running like a well-oiled machine. However this is regional local government we are looking at and, it can be as dysfunctional as the other two tiers of government.
The Echo online newspaper discusses Ballina Shire Council....
30 October 2023
Many people assume that in a civilised country like Australia, electoral boundaries are all taken care of by impartial officials, but in Ballina, it turns out councillors have some say in deciding their own ward boundaries within the shire.
As the local population changes, this has led to an ongoing kerfuffle, with the latest chapter occupying much of the latest Ballina Council meeting.
Defying staff suggestions, Cr Rod Bruem and his allies are continuing to push for a new boundary adjustment which they say is based on common sense geographical boundaries.
This includes moving North Ballina to A Ward, moving Cumbalum to A Ward, moving areas of Newrybar west of the motorway to C Ward, and moving areas of East Ballina (north and north-east of the Richmond River) to B Ward.
After the latest period of public consultation, there were a grand total of two submissions in support of this idea and 55 objections, for reasons including; perceived councillor disadvantage, too many people being impacted, little benefit, high cost, poor forward planning, perceived political interference, and the fact that there is greater variance between the population of wards under the Bruem approach than via the original staff proposal (flying in the face of the whole reason for boundary adjustments).
In the meeting, Cr Bruem blamed the ‘green left Echo newspaper’ for stoking misunderstandings about his proposal among the general public.
He said accusations from critics that his new boundaries amounted to gerrymandering were ridiculous and unfounded, later claiming that he was actually correcting earlier gerrymandering by the 2007 council. He described the current ward division in Ballina as being like the way Berlin was carved up during the Cold War.
Cr Bruem said that residents had tried to have him thrown out of the recent Cumbalum Residents Meeting (this is one of the main areas to be affected by the proposed change) and he had to be rescued by Cr Kiri Dicker.
Cr Bruem claimed he was simply acting based on electoral commission principles, and reducing confusion, by seeking to follow easy to understand geographical boundaries in his proposed ward boundary adjustments. If there were going to be unfortunate political ramifications for his opponents, such as Cr Jeff Johnson (Cr Bruem denied this), then that was nothing to do with him.
Cr Johnson called on councillors to follow their previous unanimous decision to accept staff-suggested ward boundaries back in February, as had already been supported by the electoral commission. He said Cr Bruem’s last minute change was ‘politically motivated’, and a waste of council resources and ratepayers’ money.
New low
He said the recent majority decision to proceed with the Bruem changes was ‘a new low for this council’ in his fifteen years there.
‘It may seem trivial, but I believe that for a councillor or a group of councillors to overturn a unanimous decision and to draw up a different electoral boundary is not the precedent that we want to set,’ said Cr Johnson.
‘It compromises this council as a whole. That is not why we’re here.’
He went on to say that far from simplifying things, the proposed changed would lead to greater confusion, as well as increasing the population differential between wards, from 4.85 per cent to 7.68 per cent, meaning the whole issue would likely have to be revisited again in the near future…..
In the end, Mayor Cadwallader again used her casting vote to decide the issue in Cr Bruem’s favour, with Crs Dicker, Johnson, Meehan, Chate and Johnston voting against.
27 October 2023
Fireworks over C Zone debate in Ballina
Yesterday’s Ballina Shire Council meeting saw accusations and insults hurled across the chamber as councillors split down the middle on the contentious issue of conservation zones.
The question boils down to whether rural landowners should be able to decide for themselves if there are C zones on their properties, (‘opting in’), or whether these areas should be identified in collaboration with council staff on the basis of evidence and negotiation, as part of the modernisation and integration of rural zones.
Progressive councillors brought on a rescission motion in an attempt to undo the previous (very tight) decision to support opt in C zones, noting that council staff and the Department of Planning and Environment have expressed concerns about Ballina Council’s direction on the issue.
Conservation or conservation zones?
There was a surprising deputation from koala activist Maria Matthes, who said, ‘I almost can’t believe that I am speaking against conservation zones, but this is about conservation and not conservation zones.’ She suggested that inconsistencies in the application of conservation zones risked alienating landholders, with potentially negative implications for wildlife corridors, especially when weedy areas are identified as holding conservation value.
‘I would like to see Ballina Council go back to where it should have been 11 years ago, with the new biodiversity strategy in hand, and bring landholders along for the biodiversity conservation journey,’ she said.
During the following debate, Cr Jeff Johnson said he’d seen some bad decisions on council over his last fifteen years, ‘but the proposal to make a major decision on property zoning classifications before the end of an extensive public consultation period, or reporting back to council, has to be one of the worst.’
He said the recent feedback from the state government indicated that the new approach failed every test. ‘I’m shocked at the way this final process has been hijacked; that proper process isn’t being allowed to be followed.’
Cr Johnson said council staff had already alleviated concerns about C zones from Cr Eva Ramsey and others, when they made it clear ‘that no existing farming practices or areas would be impacted, or would be proposed to be impacted by the zoning review.’…..
Mayor Cadwallader later defended her use of the casting vote [in favour of opt-in C Zones], declaring she was supporting the status quo and would ‘vote for common sense every day of the week.’…..
26 October 2023
Country mayors call for regional crime inquiry
Ballina Mayor Sharon Cadwallader will use a mayoral minute in today’s Ballina Shire Council meeting to call for a parliamentary inquiry into crime, law and order in regional NSW, in line with a recent report from the Country Mayors Association.
Supported by the Police Association of NSW, the report also calls for an increase in funding, to enhance front line policing in regional communities in need….
Mayor Sharon Cadwallader will this morning be asking her colleagues to endorse the recommendations of the Country Mayors Association report, and requesting member for Ballina Tamara Smith to consider supporting the establishment of a parliamentary inquiry into rural crime….
Mayor Sharon Cadwallader will this morning be asking her colleagues to endorse the recommendations of the Country Mayors Association report, and requesting member for Ballina Tamara Smith to consider supporting the establishment of a parliamentary inquiry into rural crime.
The first point of the mayoral motion of 26.10.23 was as follows:
That, Council calls on all members of the NSW Parliament to commit to bipartisan support to establish a Parliamentary Inquiry into and report on the rate of crime in all categories reported on by the Bureau of Crime Statistical and Research (BOCSAR) in Regional, Rural and Remote New South Wales, specifically focussing on the inequity between Metro and Regional Local Government areas.
Happy to provide busy work for the NSW Parliament in duplicating the detailed crime demographics produced by BOSCAR up to June 2023 covering every local government area in the state at both metro, regional and local level, Ballina Shire councillors found something they could all agree on.
FOR VOTE - All Councillors voted unanimously.
ABSENT. DID NOT VOTE - Cr Rodney Bruem
