Following their re-elections as Deputy Mayor and Mayor in September last year, Crs Steve Ruddell (left) and Peter Walker faced the ire of the people over a proposed rates hike. Cr Walker has decided to step down next month. Photo: Goulburn Mulwaree Council.
As campaigning begins for next month’s elections to fill the nine vacancies on Goulburn Mulwaree Council, unexpected twists have already surfaced.
Earlier this year, Goulburn’s Deputy Mayor Steve Ruddell said he wouldn’t be re-standing but now he is. Mayor Peter Walker said he would be standing again, but now he isn’t.
What happened between April and now? A proposed rates hike of 51.2 per cent put forward by the council, and wound back to 22.5 per cent after further scrutiny from the Independent Pricing And Regulatory Tribunal, has triggered the about-face.
Cr Walker’s decision not to face the people at the 14 September poll is disappointing. The more so given his comments to Region Media in April.
“I’ll go down fighting and not have to look at cutting services or cutting staff,” Cr Walker said then when asked whether he was re-standing.
“These were our options: spread the cost between everybody, or on the other side of the ledger, cut services. I’m not prepared to do that as one councillor.”
First elected as Mayor in January 2022, Cr Walker’s elevation was followed in March that year by the general manager Warwick Bennett’s premature departure and no explanation. Since then a majority of Cr Walker’s fellow councillors have continued re-electing him as Mayor.
Following his decision not to run again, Cr Walker told the Goulburn Post he remained 100 per cent behind the need for a special rate variation. He said he was yet to see any of the candidates say how they’d address the council’s financial challenges.
At least one candidate, Adrian Beresford-Wylie, had done just that in writing to the council, suggesting employee and IT expenses, fleet vehicle replacement, property management and rescheduling work as areas for potential savings. He then attended an open meeting in June and addressed the council on his submission.
Meanwhile, Cr Ruddell’s change of mind to seek re-election after all, will be welcomed by ratepayers aware of his track record for community service.
People in Goulburn and the villages of Towrang, Marulan, Tallong, Bungonia and Tarago will have a diverse choice of 22 candidates on 14 September.
These include two candidates who have aligned themselves with political parties: Cr Andy Wood (Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party) and Jason Shepherd (Australian Labor Party), who is running on a ticket with four other candidates.
Cr Walker and Cr Peter Banfield are stepping down, while Crs Ruddell, Shepherd, Wood, Bob Kirk, Carol James, Daniel Strickland and Michael Prevedello are putting their hands up again.
New candidates are Sam Ross, Shaun Allen, Adrian Beresford-Wylie, Richard Orchard, Caitlin Flint and Matthew Kane.
As well, two groups are running on tickets. They are Nina Dillon’s ticket, which also comprises Christopher O’Mahony, Keith Smith, Chloe Hurley and Paul Kemp; and Labor’s ticket, which comprises Mr Shepherd, Liz McKeon, Danielle Marsden-Ballard, Anna Crawford and Jim Corbett.
The new candidates’ challenge is their lack of profile, and the high profiles of the current councillors renominating. Some voters, although angry about the rates hike, will probably stick with the ‘’devil they know’’ – the incumbents – as they have in past elections.
But ratepayers will remember the courage and energy earlier this year of Ms Dillon, who served on the council from 2008 to 2012, to give ratepayers a good public platform to oppose the special rate variation.
Aside from the rates hike, ratepayers are puzzled about why the council has suddenly decided to establish a new trust to address a shortage of affordable housing.
Little detail has accompanied this decision, aside from the council citing a residential vacancy rate of 1.8 per cent to justify its decision.
Once established, the proposed housing trust would be dedicated to the development, ownership and management of housing projects in the Goulburn Mulwaree local government area, with a focus on affordable and key-worker accommodation.
The NSW Government has added 34 social homes in Goulburn since 2022.
Wading into an issue that the state and federal governments are struggling to resolve seems extraordinary because part of the council’s rationale for a rates hike earlier this year was the State Government ”cost-shifting” and putting more financial responsibility on local government. As well, the council said it could not count on state and federal grants continuing.
The incoming council will have enough of a challenge maintaining the ongoing costs of the relatively new Goulburn Performing Arts Centre and heated Aquatic and Leisure Centre. Marulan’s rate of growth, which is outstripping Goulburn’s, will add to that pressure.
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