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"Welcome everyone. Let's dive right in. Our first question is broad: What makes a good candidate for council, and how do we support good people running?" - Bryn Davies, Really Local
We're a small group of locals interested in connecting community and government in Mount Alexander Shire. We believe that open, respectful dialogue between community, elected representatives, and people working in government is key to bettering communities for its people.
[00:00:00] Bryn Davies, Really Local: When I say good people running, the first question I usually get is what do you mean by good? And I just want to dispel a few myths. We don't have a particular agenda that we're trying to push. We're not a political party. We think good means that people who engage well with their community, who take their job seriously, who are maybe open to changing their mind on issues, who can work well with their fellow councillors, are the kinds of things that make a good candidate.
[00:00:27] Bryn Davies, Really Local: So we're almost the opposite of a political party. We want everyone to be part of it and to get involved. So let's stick around afterwards and chat about how you can do that. So it's about the council election but it's not only about that. Because the council is of course an extension of our community in many ways.
[00:00:43] Bryn Davies, Really Local: It reflects our community. And so how our community engages with council really matters too. There's obviously a direct relationship between community and council. Thanks, people. From our community and of our community. The staff, the staff council is also part of our community, [00:01:00] obviously. But it's also, in many ways, we get the council that we deserve.
[00:01:04] Bryn Davies, Really Local: The council that reflects us and how we want to engage with it. So I want you to keep that in mind as we work through tonight. We're creating an environment where good people will be involved. We might get better soon or worse. So I'm going to throw you a panel and then we'll do a few questions. We'll have some opportunities to ask questions, play a bit by ear and see how it goes.
[00:01:26] Bryn Davies, Really Local: But first I'm going to start asking each of our panel members to talk a bit about what they love about where they live, and what inspired them to get involved in community work, and in Rosie Matz's case, in front of Council. Rosie, would you like to go first? What do you love about where you live, and what inspired you to get involved with Council?
[00:01:45] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: Hiya. I was, I was born there. I was born at the old hospital. Which to some makes me a true local, and to some, I'm still not, you know, I haven't lived here for enough generations to be true local, so it was a, that's one that I put aside pretty early. [00:02:00] Suffice to say that I've lived most of my life here. It was, you know, it's a nice place to grow up.
[00:02:05] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: I think my teen years were pretty tricky and I really didn't like it here very much. So as soon as I could, I went overseas, which was fun, I'm really glad I did that. Came back home, had my two beautiful kids, and just kept on actually, I fell in love with living here again, because I really didn't like it when I was a teenager.
[00:02:24] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: It was kind of like, I'm never coming back. Except I did come back. And, I came back, you know, I kind of left when I was 19, and back when I was 21 ish. And that 18 months overseas, you know, I grew up a lot. And I went back and had my kids, and I really realise what a beautiful place it is to have young kids, and I've loved raising them here.
[00:02:46] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: They're kind of approaching the dreaded teen years themselves now, but things have changed a lot. I bang on about it a lot, but I always talk about how much I just like the feel of the place, dare I say the vibe. I talk a lot about the vibe of [00:03:00] things, and as much as I can say that I like the vibe of the place, it's, you know, it's not a, it's not a vibe of the space, it's something customising and surrounding.
[00:03:08] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: It's very different from the place that I grew up in. And I like it. I think the influx of people, you know, not from here has brought great life into our area and that growth should be celebrated. What was the second question? Sorry, I've had a really long day. What
[00:03:27] Bryn Davies, Really Local: inspired you to get involved in this?
[00:03:29] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: I think I've always just knew. Thank you. Bye. Grazie. And I didn't, you know, I didn't know a heap about council, like neither of my parents were councilors or anything, but my parents were both at jobs which would occasionally kind of bump up against council. I'd get to go to meetings sometimes and it was one of the little councils in the town hall where I had, you know, I had these really, really strong memories of being there with my dad, sitting around the table, looking up at these beautiful ceilings.
[00:03:57] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: And it's still there. You can [00:04:00] kind of hear the ceilings like that. When I first walked back into the town hall, and looked at those ceilings, I had this real moment of this is where I'm meant to be. I didn't think about it very much when I did it, I just did it. I didn't come in to tell you why, I just felt like it was the right time for me.
[00:04:18] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: And obviously, I think I just needed to do something to give back to my community. After a long time, really, I don't know, I was a teenager, I'm not really terribly young at all, I've been in quite a few minutes. And then, you know, just being a bit dismissive about what it takes to hold a community together.
[00:04:38] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: And I thought, you know what? The best thing I can possibly do to give back is to run for council. And I hope that helps. very much. Thanks. Apparently we're only going to be able to
[00:04:49] Bryn Davies, Really Local: double the feedback on the last one. So we might need to turn the mics off for a while so you can speak in. We'll open this up again.
[00:04:59] Bryn Davies, Really Local: Okay. Does it [00:05:00] work with those mics? Maybe. Okay. So Matt, tell us about, what do you love about where you live? What inspired you to be
[00:05:06] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: involved in council? Thanks for being the first one. I'd like to thank Simon and Bryn and the Chair table for this honour. It's really important that we get events like this.
[00:05:14] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: I moved up to the area about 35 years ago. I went to a school, a primary school in Garden Mile that owned the the Friarstown camp there. When I was a kid, I just liked the landscape, like the chasing lizards and snakes and, and, and got involved. It was a different vision for me. So we moved up as I said, with the kids a little.
[00:05:34] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: I wanted them to have a I went through a heavy stage and sent my kids to a starter school and I wanted them to have a free, a free life and I didn't want them to be products of both my, that was my wife and I, just wanted to do their thing. So we come up here and I just loved it. I got involved in the community.
[00:05:52] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: I'm a road carer. I'm on the board work space. I was a soccer coach for a little while. And [00:06:00] things like that. I like the fact that they're not all one people. They're all different people. The diversity I really appreciate. I might not always agree with people, but they might not constantly still be respectful with each other.
[00:06:17] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: It's really important. I joined the board, sorry, I joined the council because I was watching council decisions made from afar. And and my politics is I sort of call myself a capitalist with a social conscience. And I don't make decisions before I read the pages. And I felt, over the last few councils, that people make decisions on party lines.
[00:06:43] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: And I don't think that should happen to local government. The decisions that are made at the time. And, you know, the people, what's happening. I'm used to reading papers. I'm a professional non exec director. I'm So I have flexibility and I felt that I could contribute. I put my [00:07:00] hand up and up and I voted.
[00:07:01] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: And I've actually thoroughly enjoyed it. I've voted a lot more than I initially thought I would. In particular I've enjoyed the Mayor role a lot. Because it's, it's brought me out. Everybody wants the Mayor to open this and to go to that. Which is fantastic. There's a lot of groups and a lot of activities that I didn't know existed.
[00:07:19] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: And I really appreciate that. I've enjoyed it.
[00:07:21] Bryn Davies, Really Local: Jacqueline, tell us a bit about why aren't you on council is probably the question.
[00:07:25] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: I'll firstly tell you a little bit about my history. I do have a family in the Tewton Cemetery, or they're from Tewton and they're in, I think, Castlemaine Cemetery. I think, you're not a blow in if you've got bones in the ground.
[00:07:38] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: But I did move here 22 years ago from Sydney. I grew up in Capernaum, so I do know the country, but I've been eight years in Sydney. And when I was in Elphinstone, I was still working in Melbourne, had a newborn, and it was really easy in that part of the Shire to, you know, do you do Castlemaine or do you do Kyneton?
[00:07:59] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: And I was [00:08:00] catching the train into Melbourne from Marnsbury, so I didn't engage with Castlemaine. And I'll never forget the first time I really had my eyes open to this place. And I had offered to volunteer. For the newly formed, brand new, Mount Alexander Sustainability Group. And they were doing a carbon audit of the Castlemaine Community House Spring Ball.
[00:08:21] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: And here I was, I caught the train to Castlemaine. I went to the Town Hall and I stood outside.
[00:08:26] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: This town, I believe, very strongly, is the centre of the universe. The convergence of so many amazing things and thoughts and people and places, as well as our incredible history, both colonial and, more importantly, our Indigenous First Nations history, it's such an incredible rich place. The reason that I've actually gone to Council twice.
[00:08:53] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: I will talk here and in Melbourne. I'll talk about that separately. But in 2007, I took on a role with [00:09:00] Council. I had been working as a volunteer coordinator, again, in Melbourne, with the Choir of Helps, which was the beginning of my journey into community development. And I took a role with Council from 2007 to 2009 researching how to support volunteers in our community.
[00:09:16] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: And I'm incredibly, incredibly passionate about volunteering. As what I call the best and most effective way to exercise your civic muscle. And I can see a room full of volunteers here. There's so many ways and forms and presentations of volunteering. But what that did that, that project and the subsequent n Alexander Volunteer Network that I established we worked with 180 community groups in this, in this town in Shire.
[00:09:45] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: We raised. millions of dollars in both grants and fundraising and I had to deal with council in very different myriad of forms. The good, the bad, [00:10:00] the rather ugly and the really beautiful and enabling. I, I did end up with having to go to counselling after my experience at council. It was quite a traumatising experience but they paid for it. Yeah, look, I think it's a really interesting beast. These are our counselors. These are not beasts. I think how we deal with respond, engage and participate is is on on us. So I, I think that we do need good people with good motives and a commitment to a very broad and very diverse community.
[00:10:35] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: We will
[00:10:39] Bryn Davies, Really Local: dig into some of the good and the bad and the ugly as we get through tonight's session. We, we want to get stuck into some of the challenging things about council and about the engagement between council and community. And to get to that, I I dropped a post on Castlevania to see what people said.
[00:10:55] Bryn Davies, Really Local: And so I'm, I'm going to talk to that and and hear a bit of reflection, particularly from Matt and [00:11:00] Rosie, who Often at the receiving end of various commentary from the community all the time. A bit about what goes on in Council and some of the things that were raised. But I'm just also going to plant a seed in your minds that in a moment, I'll open up and ask you to raise an idea, a question you might have about something that's kind of, you're kind of curious or perplexed to you about how Council may have the best one and we'll offer it to the panel as well.
[00:11:26] Bryn Davies, Really Local: I'll put on Castlevania. What do you put best in?
[00:11:29] Bryn Davies, Really Local: That I've found at Mt. Alexander to be pretty good. The best, working with the Housing Affordable Housing Solutions Program. No other council has this role, she's done a brilliant job. , amazing support for cultural events. The generous space at the market building. Beautiful, ongoing, dedicated work at the Botanic Gardens, which I also appreciate on regular walks.
[00:11:54] Bryn Davies, Really Local: Good consultation and communication. The cat curfew was raised as a, as a [00:12:00] positive. Tiny homes policy, and there were quite a few other examples. And then there were negatives. There was, there was four that were deleted by the IRAs. I didn't get a copy of them. They weren't as bad as you might think, but they basically said overpaid bureaucrats and don't get me started and mostly unhelpful things.
[00:12:16] Bryn Davies, Really Local: Nothing particularly offensive. But the kinds of things I'm sure you're familiar with. And the ones that were a little bit more substantive when you've talked about roads. Roads, of course. Roads always comes up. What about them? The roads of the Chewed Springs are in a falling state.
[00:12:31] Bryn Davies, Really Local: Two, two of our roads are in Chewed, and I'm not quite sure what's what's going on there. And planning of course came up. Planning always comes up. And a little bit about some historical consultation. People not liking the street trees, the way things are being Roads are being improved, so that kind of thing.
[00:12:52] Bryn Davies, Really Local: So I just wanted to sort of put to, to Rosie and Matt, you know, tell us a little bit about, like, how council goes about [00:13:00] deciding things, like which roads it's going to fix and which ones it isn't. How do you go about prioritising things? How do you respond to those sorts of questions when they come to you?
[00:13:08] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: I can't go on Castlemania anymore because it's it's very triggering for me and I'm, I'm not overstating how much it is. It can set me up when, you know, it's very intrusive, I guess what I, what I try and tell people about being a councillor. It's just really nice bits, and there's a lot of it that I really love, and I speak quite a lot about what I love about being a councillor.
[00:13:30] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: Yeah, the downside is that it's really, really it can be really overwhelming with people's expectations of you, and how sometimes unreasonable those expectations can be, and both the expectations and the people. Sorry. Council decisions are not as easy as we're seeing from the outside. There's a lot more that goes into it that probably isn't seen. A lot more of us doing the background work of the officers getting prepared, of the officers doing all the bits and pieces they [00:14:00] need to do to get us to a point where we're ready to make a decision.
[00:14:03] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: Because at the end of the day, we're not planners, we're not engineers, we don't work in aged care, we don't, you know, do communications. We have our own jobs, but When we're in this role, we leave that other job, as much as we can behind, you know, some gets figured in, because it's helpful, but, when we sit around that table, we're representing our community.
[00:14:25] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: And that means making a lot of decisions that make people really angry, because no matter what you do, there will always be a group of people feeling like they have seen, or that you just haven't done what they wanted to. And it's just one of quite a few ways that this is very difficult for me. I don't like everyone having the time.
[00:14:44] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: And you cannot, Council, you cannot make everyone happy because it's, it's really tricky, Council. It's a really archaic, purified system in lots of ways. We are working within very small parameters. A [00:15:00] lot of the things that people get most upset about are things that we're being told to do by other levels of government.
[00:15:05] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: There is a lot of there is a lot of hate on Council that is not deserved. There is some hate on Council that is deserved. But I think A lot of the time what happens though is because everyone hates council so much already, when we do stuff up and do something wrong, which, you know, we're not perfect people.
[00:15:20] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: No, none of us are. Sometimes we all make mistakes. Sometimes things might be communicated in ways that people want, or not at the right time, or, you know, through the wrong channels. There's just so many different ways to upset people, which is fine. The treatment that I've received as a councillor has been shithouse, if I can be frank.
[00:15:40] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: And so I just don't think we're much better than that. So as much as yes, I am all for community collaborating with council, what I would pose to you to really think about is if you do want good people elected to council, think about the way that you are going to be able to treat those people and talk to them because I understand that you might not know something very, very much and it might make [00:16:00] all the sense in the world, but if you come to me, I might be able to see the problems at a more strategic level.
[00:16:04] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: Not because I am smothering you by any means. I am so stressed about council most of the time, but I live and breathe it. I read everything, I'm always trying to get on top of it. So I've gone off topic a bit. Look, it was always going to happen, it's been a long day. My my, my takeaway would be, not even being able to remember the question, that decisions that we make, they're not easy.
[00:16:26] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: Even when it seems like we've made a really easy decision, we wrestle over those decisions. And that's a special demand. We do not take them lightly. We are not in there making our, you know, making our decisions up before we've read all our papers and met people and listened to everything. We're not doing that.
[00:16:43] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: We're, we're functioning really well but we're still being treated like we're terrible people. And until that changes, you are not going to get more and more good people running for council because it is a really frightening place to be sometimes. And it can make you feel very alone. [00:17:00] Which is the exact opposite of what I was going for.
[00:17:04] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: I would love to
[00:17:06] Bryn Davies, Really Local: unpack a lot of
[00:17:08] Bryn Davies, Really Local: that as we go through the night. And also to hear from all of you. What do you think it would take to change that approach and that feeling that Rosie was talking about here, the way that you engage with people. Matt, your thoughts about, you know, the sorts of complaints you get on roads and planning and how council actually goes about making decisions.
[00:17:29] Bryn Davies, Really Local: And Rosie touched on something you might want to touch on. I want to speak to as well, that some things aren't actually the Council's decisions. They're either State Government or they're Council officers decisions. Do you want to talk a little bit about that?
[00:17:42] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: Yeah, they're not Council officers decisions.
[00:17:44] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: They do the work and they put it up to Council. I view it as as democracy, to a degree. We have seven Councillors, and I don't see that they do stuff like decisions. The process is, the, the buildings and the homework's done by the officers. That's what I recommend Council members do. Councilors [00:18:00] can always go either way.
[00:18:01] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: We debate and we have discussions in house and then in the open area. So then that decision is made. In my situation, I, I try and divorce myself from my own thoughts and often I, I make decisions that I might not agree with and what I'm trying to achieve is to try and say what are the people telling you that they like and I can assist you with that.
[00:18:27] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: So I try and do that. So often I've made a decision on the night, which is not necessarily my decision, because I don't think it's about me, it's about you. Walking around the street, I haven't had any, I've had one person in my four years who could get a crack at me, and I'm very comfortable having a crack back.
[00:18:46] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: So I don't have that issue. Social media is a problem. But you know, I'm, I'm the, the one that would avoid it rather than engage it. I don't, I don't do that. I do read and have a look, but I would not engage. I don't know if that's good or bad, but [00:19:00] that's, that's what works for me. I'm very happy to talk to anyone face to face, because they just don't, they usually don't agree.
[00:19:10] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: We might disagree, and that's fine, but if you could do it. I'll disagree with you, and I'll get across with you. All, all hearty, as long as you're respectful for me and I'm inside of here, I think I can achieve that. So what, why it's a process is that because we've got seven elected people making those decisions between things in the best interest of the community.
[00:19:33] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: And if it's planning, then a lot of our issues are planning in terms of what goes, who don't do that. That's the, that's how it works, and I'm very comfortable with that. I believe in democracy. It's the best thing we've got at the moment. You know, it's certainly explored, but it is what it is. And that's the process going forward.
[00:19:52] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: So that's, that's what works for me. And I, I'm a lot older than, you know, I'm older than other councillors. And so [00:20:00] that, that stuff, the, the banning, which you do get, it doesn't bother me that too much, too much. But it does, it can get, get to you. What else do you want to talk about? I don't know, I can see Jack can stand a couple of minutes.
[00:20:15] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: Thank you. I just
[00:20:16] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: want to and I think I speak on behalf of most people in this room, in fact all people, I want to acknowledge Rosie. Can we It's shocking that you should be treated like that, and I apologise for the guilt of the woman's treatment. And I think it's, I think we can call it for what it is.
[00:20:34] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: It's, it's misogyny, it is, it's a form of sexism that you've been targeted as a woman, but also because you've been targeted as a young woman. So there's an ageist quality to it as well. And a modern person who, not to say you're old fashioned or antiquated but it's, it's absolutely unacceptable. When I ran for council, now I never ran with the intention of being elected, and I'm pretty sure that that's against the rules, and so therefore I'm disqualified for ever [00:21:00] doing it again.
[00:21:01] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: But I ran to support another candidate. And when I ran, I received an appalling amount of harassment. It was mainly targeted by one person. But I received an email that said I was the spawn of Satan, and that there were names for people like you, and they all work in brothels. It's kind of fun as a T shirt, I'm sure, but This person also rang the police on me to allege that I'd broken into my own home, and I work at 2am in the morning to find police officers at the end of my day, because they had reported me as breaking and entering my own home.
[00:21:38] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: And they reported me to the Electoral Commission and said that I was abusing the electoral role because as a council candidate who provided access to the electoral role. It was just an awful experience and I'm a pretty tough cookie, kind of, sort of. But it's just not what people should be subjected to.
[00:21:59] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: So [00:22:00] the mirror has to be turned back onto community and onto And we actually have to be calling this behavior out. We have to. If we see trolls badmouthing, belittling, or just shooting off without substance, and without real grounds, and most of it doesn't have any grounds, then it's actually incumbent on all of us to call that out.
[00:22:22] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: I mean, that sounds like harassment
[00:22:25] Bryn Davies, Really Local: to me, so this sort of idea is unacceptable in any situation.
[00:22:32] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: It's easier for him, we put our hands up for the job and that's part of the job, that's what I get told. So I
[00:22:41] Bryn Davies, Really Local: did say we'd go to some examples and I will come to that, but does anyone want to offer, having gone right into the depths of some of the challenges and what the community can be like, who has some thoughts they'd like to share with us about how to change that approach?
[00:22:56] Crowd: I'm just wondering, are you wearing apple baskets [00:23:00] today?
[00:23:00] Bryn Davies, Really Local: Anyone with a question today want to respond to that comment?
[00:23:16] Bryn Davies, Really Local: I'm just going to repeat that because I was just acknowledging that you're both strong and wearing beautiful dresses. At
[00:23:24] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: the same time, it literally doesn't matter what I'm wearing. I'm actually just pretty good Great.
[00:23:36] Bryn Davies, Really Local: That's a very specific question. So the question was how do you make a distinction between conflict of interest and perceived conflict of interest.
[00:23:45] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: Council's it's front and centre conflict of interest. In terms of, I think the Councillors that we have are very, very, conflict themselves out a lot.
[00:23:57] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: Would you give advice? If there's a particular [00:24:00] governance team, so if there's a particular matter, say, your, your, your sister or your neighbour lives in an area where there's some sort of decision made, then if you, if you're, if you can't make that decision, because at the end of the day the conflict of interest is up to the councillor, it's up to the councillor to declare a conflict of interest.
[00:24:23] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: Sorry. But if it's borderline, I don't know, my sister lives in that house and they're going to rezone that area, I don't know what to do. We have some advice to look at that. But at the end of the day, it's up to the Council. And I honestly think all our sitting Councillors now take their conflict of interest strongly.
[00:24:45] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: I guess I'll just add to that in terms of, you know, we do get advice from our government's team. If, you know, we'll kind of go, I think I've got a conflict of interest here, you know, does it, what do you reckon? And they will always give me the same advice. They will say, [00:25:00] look Rosie, it's actually up to you.
[00:25:01] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: And I'm like that's not very helpful. But then they say, would, you know, would an average person walking down the street view you making this decision and see a conflict of interest there? Would they, would they think, oh, Rosie shouldn't be part of that decision? So I always just think that yes, in this town, probably somebody, not in general.
[00:25:20] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: Probably yes, somebody would think that I have a conflict of interest with this thing. If I thought of it, someone else would probably think of it. I would say that we generally err on the side of caution. So even if there's there's been a couple for me where I'm like, Look, I'm not sure, but erring on the side of caution, I'm going to step out of the room.
[00:25:37] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: Just so that no yeah, perceived conflict occurs. And so that I can say, you know, hand to my heart, I wasn't in there for that decision. Regardless of how conflicted I felt, I felt like there was a perceived conflict of interest. Thanks. Now,
[00:25:50] Bryn Davies, Really Local: does everyone have a suggestion? To go back to the first, the previous question, which was, How do we build a, a stronger, more coherent community that [00:26:00] can engage well with council?
[00:26:02] Crowd 4: As a suggestion, I, I find it's really helpful to change our language. I really would like to say it's them, in relation to council, because it's us. And that's the, that's something I'm encouraging. And I think it's important for everyone to do is start using that when we start talking about our council.
[00:26:18] Crowd 4: We talk about us in relation to decisions, what's going on. I find that's a huge tip because we can go, that's our problem. So that, I suppose that's my suggestion and my encouragement to everyone to kind of go how do we put us in that, in that box and bucket. And I suppose it'd be interesting
[00:26:43] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: It's, it's a tricky one because I think, yes, we get, we get othered as part of Council, as do our Council officers, who, you know, really receive quite a lot of appalling treatment as well.
[00:26:53] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: And they, I don't know, it's really tricky. I get very protective of Council now, particularly the officers, because because literally [00:27:00] everyone I've met at Council is, is a nice human being. And, and Council is not just this big, faceless, you know, gong star. It's actually just made up of people. I'm a time of pretty decent people working really, really, really hard.
[00:27:13] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: Harder than they do at some of our surrounding councils. Getting paid less, and they're getting abused in the street on their way home as well. I think the language that we use when we talk about, you know, we're always talking about our community, our community. And when I went into council, I think I thought there would be a lot more Oh, we're a team, you know, council and community, we can do anything.
[00:27:35] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: It's not like that. We're enemies, and And I kind of understand why, but at the same time I'm like, surely this is not the point. Surely, if we just, I don't know, actually I don't know what it would take, but if we just somethinged, and we could work together as a team a bit more. Because I've had times where I can't leave my house because I'm like, I'm too anxious about running into anybody.
[00:27:55] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: Because, you know, this is my home too. We all live here. We're really nice to each [00:28:00] other. And I just think that by othering each other, I don't want to feel shitty about my community. I If I, you know, have back to back to back to back to back unpleasant experiences, I'm going to be like, I hate everybody.
[00:28:13] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: And it's really, really hard for me when I get stuck down in that negative place because I don't want to feel like that. I literally got into this job, this role to try and make things better. And yeah, I don't know. Do you feel that way?
[00:28:26] Bryn Davies, Really Local: I have a suggestion on the us. I might just repeat myself while I stream quickly here.
[00:28:31] Bryn Davies, Really Local: The suggestion was that we change our language. We're going to talk about it later. We'll talk about it after.
[00:28:35] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: Yeah, I think that's a good idea because, you know, as Rosie said, we're all community members too. But we, I think I naively, I'm not political, I think naively when I went into it I thought I could do a lot more.
[00:28:48] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: And, and I felt I wanted to, people to, because I feel as if I'm approachable, come to me, I have an issue, can you help me? And, and I, I take that. I [00:29:00] do that strongly, but then I get to the situation and say okay I want this to be fixed. Often that can't be done for whatever reasons. It's the process, it's, it's and I thought, you know, I thought I'd be a man breaker above the magic wand and fix everybody's problems.
[00:29:15] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: That's not the case. Not only is it democracy working because other councils in my field don't agree with me, because local councils wouldn't agree. You've got the federal government and you've got the state government. You've got all these laws in place, because they give us the money. I know we've got a race, but they give us money and there's hooks in that money.
[00:29:38] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: And there's lots of issues that So education is a really important thing, and I think something like tonight is really good, because you don't know. You only look at it from the outside. It's not until you actually get in there and work in there that you actually realise, you know, you're not sitting on paper.
[00:29:58] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: Normal, but you know, lovely people [00:30:00] trying to do the best they can. And you don't see that from the outside. And there's a whole bunch of machinations there for reasons. And there's a lot of bureaucracy and as a councillor I try and, I try and break that down and I notice that the councillor does, but sometimes you can't. You know, that's, that's my take on it.
[00:30:20] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: I'm curious that you've been to so many meetings and I'm wondering, Is it okay if we get a show of hands of people who have been to a council meeting before? Okay, so there's
[00:30:30] Bryn Davies, Really Local: still
[00:30:31] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: people that haven't. And I
[00:30:33] Bryn Davies, Really Local: remember There's a of them. Yeah,
[00:30:35] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: I remember when the meetings used to move from community to community, from township.
[00:30:40] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: And I actually think that took council out of the people. I absolutely 100 percent understand corporatisation. It's kind of, you know, we validate, we do validate corporations when people have got fancy uniforms and You know, zippy little logos and when the IT is really good, and the council [00:31:00] chambers are quite flash, much better than they were in the community house, and I had an office there, but I understand that that stuff is important, because we validate and respect institutions when they have all those trappings, but I wonder if the corporatisation is actually, has been part of that othering, because you no longer I remember hosting council at a meeting at Elphinstone at the Community Hall when I was on the Elphinstone Progress Association.
[00:31:28] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: And it was something we took real pride in. We actually were like, ooh, the council's coming to our town and we wanted to make sure we had, you know, scones and tea and we all, and people in our community came. It was kind of social because it was in our own backyard and I just wondered if that's how we share, you know, Democracy by taking it out to people.
[00:31:47] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: I also do remember that when the decision to sell the office made jail was delivered, it was delivered out in Sutton Grange where nobody lived. So that's a, that's a
[00:31:56] Bryn Davies, Really Local: very political. It's a pluses and [00:32:00] minuses. Nikki, you have
[00:32:03] Crowd 5: a question? Yeah thanks to you all. Local Government Act was where there was a strong emphasis on community engagement.
[00:32:17] Crowd 5: More citizens assemblies, more participatory democracy decisions. I read recently about basically put the decision around the abortion debate into a citizens assembly. Because it was going to be too polarized to keep it in the political arena. And I wonder whether that's a good thing anyway, in that it's, it brings in a much wider breadth.
[00:32:46] Crowd 5: of participation decisions
[00:32:48] Crowd 5: where there is a lot of tension could actually be put to the community in that way or some foundational policy stuff could be put to the community in that way I, [00:33:00] I think that would, I think that could bring up something that is much more diverse but it could also take some of the pressure off, off council so I'd I just want to
[00:33:14] Bryn Davies, Really Local: summarize for the live stream.
[00:33:17] Bryn Davies, Really Local: The question was really about the 2020 Local Government Act, which requires the democracy to be part of the council's, a range of council's work, and whether citizens assemblies are a model we could be using here. You've also recently adopted a community engagement strategy. I did see I don't want to signal it out too much, but I did see Ed, Ed walk in the door.
[00:33:38] Bryn Davies, Really Local: for your time. He registered under his personal email address, and I think he's not here as a council employee, but Ed leads the community engagement team, and I want to say thank you, Ed, and we might get you to chip in on the community engagement strategy. Do you want to talk to that, other ways to engage your
[00:33:51] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: community?
[00:33:51] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: Thanks, man. Thanks for the question. Every single councillor, in my opinion, wants, wants the, wants to be transparent [00:34:00] and push it back to the, the people in our shire. Every major decision, we Most of the major decisions that's not planned, we do that. And the problem, the problem is, is that it's, it's a little bit shaped, we call it shaped online focus, I think to a great extent.
[00:34:21] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: But we have this thing called deliberative engagement where we're supposed to go, the local government, go out there and say, OK, this decision will, these groups may, may, need to understand this or have something to influence this decision. So I go out, deliberately engage in that particular group and say, do you know that we're doing this? Apathy is the biggest issue in my opinion. I would like every single decision, apart from planning maybe, to go out to the community and say, hey listen everybody, this is, we're about to make a decision, what do you think? The problem is when we do that, we get [00:35:00] 40 answers out of 20, 000 people.
[00:35:03] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: Occasionally, I think the biggest one was, what was the biggest one? Tiny houses. You know, we've got 1, 200, or maybe 1, 400 out of 20, 000 people, which is great, but that, that's the problem. If there was a mechanism to say, you know, everyone had a little clicker, or whatever, it would be fantastic, because we always bang on about it, Ed bangs on about it all the what other people want.
[00:35:32] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: Because at the day, I'm making my decision, and people have to be communicating with me. But that might only be 15, 20 people. If it was a thousand people, it's a lot more. Can I
[00:35:44] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: add to that? My answer, I guess, would be to why, you know, we don't do more deliberative democracy in terms of citizens assemblies and stuff.
[00:35:58] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: Consultation is a bit of a double [00:36:00] edged sword for Council, I think. In that, yes, we absolutely want everyone to be engaged, but there is a difference between being engaged and making a decision, I guess is what I'm trying to say. We can get lots and lots of engagement that says, do this thing, do this thing, do this thing, but we might still make a decision not to do that thing based on all the information we have.
[00:36:24] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: And then all those people who took the time to, to be consulted with in whichever way they decided, because it really isn't opt in at the moment. They go, you didn't listen to me, I'm angry at you, I will never engage ever, a councillor's dead to me. And that's a really hard one to balance as well, because we get, you know, we get a good amount of consultation compared to some of our, I don't, I haven't seen a lot of size councillors.
[00:36:46] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: The state platform has kicked things up next level. We do We've tried to offer a really wide range of places where we can connect with people, so that it's not just online. Because, you know, we've got an aging community and lots of people like to be met where they are. We know [00:37:00] that about people.
[00:37:01] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: But, at the end of the day, it always comes down to, you didn't do what I want, and therefore I feel not heard. And I can have heard that person really clearly, but still not be able to do what they want because of XYZ. The other, the other thing I guess I'll say on trying to to share our load a little bit more, which is a way that we do try and share the load, both council lords and council officers, to really get interested community members into the rooms, advising on strategies and plans and everything.
[00:37:35] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: But again, at the end of the day, only council, made up of the seven of us, can make that decision. And if we don't do what somebody wants, It can feel really really not good. And like they haven't been heard and haven't been listened to. But we have to make a decision and it's not always going to be the one people want.
[00:37:54] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: So I think that by, I think it would be a great idea. And I know that we're, it's [00:38:00] still definitely something they're thinking about. The only things that we're legislating to do under the Act, in terms of deliberative democracy, deliberative engagement, are the council plan and the community vision. So everything else we don't have to. Basically have to do delivery and consultation on. But we are going a lot deeper with consultation and doing a lot more of it than we ever have because it's helping. And if we ask people right at the start, right here, before we've managed to do anything wrong, if we can ask them right here, what, what do you want and what do you not want?
[00:38:31] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: It means that when we come back and ask them here there are a lot less, the expectations have been set in in a place that's achievable for all of us because they know what to expect So, we're getting better, but I still absolutely think that there's room for more interesting things. Yeah.
[00:38:49] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: Sorry, can I just add to that?
[00:38:51] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: With my patients, a lot of them have Newstep. Newstep have an organisation called Newstep 2021. But they [00:39:00] engage their own community, their own little packs, about issues that are important to them. They would, I mean, 800 people in Newstep, maybe a little bit more. Yeah. What happened? But they're engaged, it's okay and I have a, I have a meeting with them often, and they come with me and say, here's the top six or the top four issues that we've already spoken to our community about this.
[00:39:25] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: And they make my life so much easier. Now if we had more, more of those type scenarios where you've actually gone out to the community and say, this is what we're after. It makes the council's role a lot easier because we've done a lot of the work that we, that's the report.
[00:39:43] Bryn Davies, Really Local: Yeah, that's great. And you both touched on a couple of points which I think relate to, I guess, the maturity of the community.
[00:39:49] Bryn Davies, Really Local: So there's, you've both been on a journey, I think. You've said, coming to Council and realising there's seven people making a decision and you're not always going to get the decision you want. [00:40:00] And, and I think the way you're talking about it, Rosie, that's kind of a response that you'd like the people in the community to have as well.
[00:40:06] Bryn Davies, Really Local: And Matt, you're a point that an organised community that is able to, you know, Get together, discuss what matters and then communicate to the council that's gonna be more effective. You've got a question over there?
[00:40:22] Crowd 2: Just to raise this point, does council publish a list of reasons for decisions and is there someone on council that offers a counterpoint to that which might address some of the concerns those people have and not be listened to?
[00:40:37] Crowd 2: So the
[00:40:37] Bryn Davies, Really Local: question was, does council publish reasons for decisions including the counterpoints that may have been Yes,
[00:40:45] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: is the short answer. So in every so we only make decisions at meetings of council. And there's always a recommendation that goes with every item. And the recommendation will be a motion that lays out in a different voice.
[00:40:57] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: If it's planning, if it's planning things, we [00:41:00] go on to the planning pages and pages of conditions. And we, you know, we've been briefed on that. I'm just not sure to find it. It's fresh in my mind. So we've been briefed on the planning matter. We have met with the applicant and objectives. We have gone out and done a side visit if we want.
[00:41:15] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: We've talked to our officers. We've talked to each other. We've got, all right, we've got enough information to bring this to the meeting. Comes to the meeting, we can still decide to chuck up an alternate motion. It's not great to do it on the fly, like we just experienced at the last meeting, but it can be done.
[00:41:31] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: The motion will be published in full in the minutes. Always in the officer's report as well. They're really good to us, honestly. They are trying to set us up for success because there is always their recommendation which is right at the front. And then right near the end, you've got to read all of it together.
[00:41:47] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: There are alternate options. So they're things that they're not recommending first. And you can kind of tell when you read them. If it's a real option or not. You know, there's some that say, look, we, we, we really suggest you do not do [00:42:00] this. This is not a good idea. But, you could if you wanted to. I probably wouldn't take that one out.
[00:42:05] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: But, you know, others, others are there to kind of say, look, if you, if you want to pursue this, this is an option. So they'll always say, and the other thing is in meetings. There's times when we're not all on the same side. So we'll be having quite a good debate. Which is also recorded, it's edited, not by itself, but the record of it is there.
[00:42:26] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: So there's quite a lot of information, if you're interested in finding it, I guess. And we're trying to be really transparent. It's also, these
[00:42:34] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: things don't come out of the blue. I mean, planning is something that's flagged. It's in the paper, it's published. Most people Locations will have a planning permit, a notification of that permit, and you have 21 days to respond.
[00:42:48] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: These are not things that are being hidden under the table, they're not being pushed through. And I had the extreme experience of being on both sides of a planning permit when a festival was planned throughout an Elphingston [00:43:00] and like I have Elphingston I don't want a festival in Elphingston, and I supported the people that were opposed to it because, you know, it was impacting on a wildlife shelter.
[00:43:11] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: It was, there was all sorts of reasons why it was wrong. And then, funnily enough, the applicant came to me and said, we'd really like your help in finding another location. And so I supported them to go out to Newstead. And council supported them too. And everybody was making everything happen for this, but the community out there did not support it.
[00:43:31] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: So it got knocked back. So we tried again, and we went out to Harcourt. And again, it was It's very interesting to, you know, see so many aspects and, you know, I've, I've tried really bloody hard but, you know, there's a process and there's a reason there's a process.
[00:43:47] Bryn Davies, Really Local: So I really like the nature of that question digging into what's challenging and how the council goes about making decisions.
[00:43:52] Bryn Davies, Really Local: And I did say before, something that kind of perplexes you or makes you wonder about how that decision was made, does anyone [00:44:00] have a question like that they'd like to throw it I'm
[00:44:03] Crowd 6: very responsible, I'm very responsible
[00:44:07] Crowd 6: over the
[00:44:09] Crowd 6: things that don't actually come to council, to the councillors. I spent three and a half years on the council in Melbourne, in the East until Sir Kennedy and Sir Geoffrey sort of fell off. And I think local government is quite a different, less robust beast than it was back then, for residents and, and councillors.
[00:44:29] Crowd 6: That's my opinion and, But, we've got an issue where we've spent years working with the Diamond Gully structure plan, and the issue at the moment that I don't, I don't think it's going to tender, but we cannot get information. The Pyrenees Highway at They're huge trees, and [00:45:00] we've been told over the years that they will be retained, and that there will be a left out of Diamond Valley Road and a left in, and a roundabout further down.
[00:45:10] Crowd 6: Not big, the trees will be retained. And now, we've just got wind of the fact that they're going to be removed. So one of the I think you got the gist of the question, and I don't think I could hear you
[00:45:21] Bryn Davies, Really Local: with a microphone anyway, so I might have to hang on to it now. The question was about the Diamond Valley Structure Plan.
[00:45:28] Bryn Davies, Really Local: You had And insight as to how that's been considered by council, and particularly the how it's been implemented. Any, any update on that? No, I
[00:45:36] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: don't have a problem with that, but I'm happy to look into it. The
[00:45:40] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: best, the best thing you can ever do when you've got concerns like this is to email your local council.
[00:45:45] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: Really, really, really, we, we, that's what, that's what we're here for. So be, be polite, I'm sure you will. But but yeah, just send us an email because I think there's another, a bit of a misconception sometimes we're not across absolutely everything that's going on in Council all the [00:46:00] time. We are gripped on stuff that is coming to the upcoming meeting, stuff that is really important and time sensitive.
[00:46:07] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: We don't know everything because that's impossible, I would say, to know the breadth of it all. If you don't tell us, we won't know to follow up. very
[00:46:16] Bryn Davies, Really Local: much.
[00:46:17] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: Okay,
[00:46:24] Bryn Davies, Really Local: so I think there's
[00:46:28] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: a question over
[00:46:38] Bryn Davies, Really Local: here, I think we've had enough goes at that, thanks.
[00:46:45] Bryn Davies, Really Local: So the question was going to eight wards next time, which I was going to mention at the end of that. We have seven councils at the moment, eight in the new council from October, single member wards rather than three in Castlemaine. How is that going to affect the balance of council, particularly representing the whole of Sheffield?
[00:46:58] Bryn Davies, Really Local: And
[00:46:58] Crowd 8: also, how does it [00:47:00] work for you as a ward representative? There's a
[00:47:02] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: couple of questions there. The first question is, first of all, we as councillors and the executive discussed these changes, and we wrote to the state government or the minister. So this is what we feel, which wasn't what happened.
[00:47:16] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: Okay, so they ignored that. But we
[00:47:18] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: worked more than once. They said, did we get it right? And we said, no, no, no, don't do that. Please do this. And they said, tell us more. And we said, you didn't get it right. Please don't do this. Yeah
[00:47:29] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: I think that's a big, I think they've made a mistake there, but that's that.
[00:47:33] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: But it's a
[00:47:34] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: state trend anyway. That's right. So that's the first thing, and I mentioned before, I've been on a lot of boards before. Even number, it's going to put a lot of pressure, an even number of councillor, whoever the mayor is, is going to put a lot of pressure on that mayor at the time to make a casting vote.
[00:47:48] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: Now, I don't like making a casting vote, it shouldn't be, it shouldn't happen if you don't want to do it, if you don't have to, because you want, you know, you want to, there's just an odd number, seven or nine, and seven works for us. [00:48:00] Which is sensible, and we,
[00:48:01] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: and regardless, we still have casting votes, I've bloody made that case twice already, I mean, and why is this casting vote going to happen to you?
[00:48:09] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: I wasn't even the mayor, I was on the supermarket. So imagine how bad that would be. I used my casting vote to knock back a supermarket that I knew many, many in our community would benefit from. That was awful. I stayed up, you know, lost sleep over that.
[00:48:24] Bryn Davies, Really Local: That's a really good example. That's a decision that was very tricky.
[00:48:29] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: Tell us a bit about
[00:48:30] Bryn Davies, Really Local: how you went about making that decision and arriving where you arrived at, Rosie.
[00:48:35] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: I'm just going to finish up on, can I just add to your question before I finish? I think what we, what we do really well, So there's, at the moment, there's three of us in Castlemaine, And then we've got a councillor out in,
[00:48:48] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: Yeah, and then Christine is out she's kind of Elphinstone, And Tarradale, and then beside of June Metcalfe, Don't forget Metcalfe, Langley, Lots of the beautiful small communities, Matt, [00:49:00] where are you?
[00:49:01] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: New Stead, Guildford, Markleford.
[00:49:02] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: Absolutely, and we've got Stephen out in Maldon and Is there another one in Maldon?
[00:49:08] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: Oh, fair enough, And then we've got three of us who do Castlemaine, Campbells Creek, and kind of half of Tewkin, and most of Wesley Hill. We're going from that, which is seven of us Bill, Gary and I represent Castlemaine together, and the rest are a single ward in the Bells. But as much as we, you know, we love our spot, and we stand up for our spot, especially when it comes to fighting for things that we know our community wants, we do a really good job of taking a shire wide approach to things, I would say.
[00:49:37] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: You know, and it's to the extent where, I don't know that much about Rowland, and I don't know that much about Harcourt, but I'm not gonna, you know, not talk about it. We've got a lot of resources available to support a playground, or a fence, or a what are you, what's that name for you? If
[00:49:51] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: fiduciary duties change, you're right, I get voted in by the 2, 200 people in my little area, but when I'm at the decision making, [00:50:00] it's not, it's not for my area, it's for the whole lot, and I think our councillors do a good job at the, I'm about divorcing themself in that area for that.
[00:50:08] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: But I think bringing in this new structure, which really comes down to the Castle Main Ward, so apparently You know, the most populous bit of our shire is being split into four wards. I think it is a terrible idea. I'm really, I was so against it. And I think one of the reasons why it bothers me so much is that at the moment, the structure we have for Castle Main, at least for Castle Main, meant that there was preferential votes.
[00:50:37] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: And some of them would get elected first, second, and third. It is often very hard for a diverse person of any kind to get elected first in a ward. By doing this, we are making it harder for anyone who doesn't fit the mould. Look, I could be wrong. I'm so hoping I'm wrong and we're just all great and vote for diverse people anyway.
[00:50:57] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: But I know from history that [00:51:00] that's not the case often. And I think it's going to make it harder for people like me to be elected to council. If there's not, you know, that kind of flow down where you're like, Oh, I didn't get first, but I got second. Also, it's really nice to share the load with someone.
[00:51:14] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: I know you don't have it out in the Underwoods, but, between Gary and Bill and I, if there's an event that I can't make, you know, someone's got my back. And you know, if I, often I need a bit of support, if I'm going to meet someone out in the bush somewhere, and I'm like, I don't think I should go on my own.
[00:51:29] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: You know, someone will come with me. And I, I really like that collegiate network. I'm not sure that's a word. Collegian. Yeah, collegiality. Collegiality.
[00:51:39] Bryn Davies, Really Local: Rosie I'm going to probably let you off the suit in my question, but you didn't
[00:51:42] Crowd: hit me right.
[00:51:44] Bryn Davies, Really Local: You you just touched on something there, because you and Phil and Gary are very different people with very different backgrounds.
[00:51:50] Bryn Davies, Really Local: But you, these are words you said, you got each other's back. Can you tell us a bit more about that? It's like working with councillors. I
[00:51:56] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: met, I met Gary for the first time on the day World Bank elected. [00:52:00] And we're both loitering around outside the right field room. Honestly, both of us just looking a bit terrified.
[00:52:05] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: And I said, are you here for the vote? And he said, yes. And I said, me too. And he said, shall we go again? And I said, alright. And we went in. And we both got elected, along with Neil. Who I knew, you know, a little bit, because he's, he's old school local. He's, he's true local. And he, you know, has been around.
[00:52:21] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: And I looked at both of these men, and I went, oh my god. My men are gods. Now, why have you been on longest? No, but why have you all It's been fine, it's been nice. They're she gets to know people, you're not so different. Like even Matt and I, you know, we're not similar people in lots of ways. But we get along pretty well, and we'll have a bit of a laugh.
[00:52:45] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: And you find that common ground. And I think, you know, I've got such nice friendships with all my colleagues now. Which is really unexpected because we would not be friends. If they hadn't shoved us all together, we'd still have some of this footage. But we, we [00:53:00] might never even have met each other. And I've learned such a lot from, from my colleagues.
[00:53:03] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: And I don't, you know, I was coming into it fresh, fresher than a lot of them. And it took me a while to catch up on some of the things like, finance is what I should say. You know, I'm not great, not great looking at a budget. But Matt is really good at it. So Matt, I think, initially was the one who came and talked me through a budget sheet.
[00:53:21] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: But then it was me going, oh hang on, I'm not used to, you know, I'm not used to, I've got things to offer as well, and I've had, I've managed to have it's been reciprocal, I guess. So we learn from each other, we work with each other, and I sure as hell know that if I am upset by something that has happened, then I bring it into that room and go, look, this, this person said this to me, and it's made me feel like that.
[00:53:41] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: My colleagues will be the first ones to think like that is unacceptable. Do you want me to do something like this?
[00:53:49] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: Just on that decision of what Rosie was referring to, decision making and the studies of this, the diversity in the room is really, really important. [00:54:00] Because there's still, you know, and I'm older than Rosie, and I think definitely, which she's mentioned, but there's things that she, that I've thought, And I thought I'll do this and then all of a sudden out of left field, Rosie and others would bring this up and I, I just didn't, what didn't even enter my head.
[00:54:18] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: Now that's a really good point and then we consider it and often just the discussion has changed and a different decision is made because I just didn't enter my universe and I think that's really important. So diversity within, you know, boards or, and, and councils. This is really, really important and it's not just male, female, old, young, it's a whole bunch of different diversity, because there's aspects that, that, that, that, that's different to that, that.
[00:54:52] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: I think also being able to agree to disagree is really important. We have had councils in the, in the past where if a councillor didn't [00:55:00] get their way, they'd storm out. There, there's been meetings, that I'm aware of, that I've attended, where half the councillors aren't present to make a vote, because It was my way or the highway, and that's really unacceptable.
[00:55:12] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: And I want to you know, give a lot of credit to just the current council, because there are people who are really diverse. And, and I've had disagreements. You know, their community campaign against council was stop selling the old Castlemaine jail. Didn't win the fight. And one of the, you know, purchases is actually on council, and one of the most, you know, generous and and affable people that you, you come across.
[00:55:35] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: I guess that's the other thing is we do tend to demonise, you know, real estate agents and property developers and business in general. You know, if you're coming from a community perspective, we tend to write these evil, evil people off. And then you have, and also think that they have no place on local government.
[00:55:53] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: If we are talking about diversity, we have to recognise that these are still people coming from a really good place. And I want to acknowledge [00:56:00] also Bill, you do have something in common with Bill, Let's see who's 26. The first time around that Phil Mulby was elected to council, he was actually Mayor of New Australia.
[00:56:07] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: And the youngest councillor, the youngest councillor and Mayor.
[00:56:11] Crowd 2: There's a pizza here, we don't know who it belongs to. A pizza for Mal and a soup for Rosie. Soup for Rosie? Thanks so much for asking. Soup for
[00:56:23] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: Rosie. There you go. To respect, you know. We're going to have more respect. Are we able to agree, disagree, do it, you know, politely You know, take our our anger and our frustrations out.
[00:56:37] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: Some don't
[00:56:37] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: ask, they're not on each other. Can I, I just might add, because Jack said something that I wasn't up on, and I'm already forgetting him. Alright, we've got a
[00:56:45] Bryn Davies, Really Local: couple of people wanting to chip in, so you've been waiting patiently, and then we'll go over to the back here. Are you ready to ask them anything?
[00:56:51] Bryn Davies, Really Local: I'd
[00:56:52] Crowd 7: like to
[00:56:52] Crowd: say
[00:56:53] Crowd 7: that in 24 years I've been in this show, I've done something that I'm not sure that much [00:57:00] of.
[00:57:00] Crowd 7: to do with actually picking people. We all talk to people. We are very happy with the program. We're delighted with the people. They do regard us. We're all very happy about it. And we do deserve it. I want to say that That makes me
[00:57:20] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: so happy. And thank you for sharing that. One, because we don't get a lot of compliments. We really don't. Every compliment we ever get is And we go, we go through our briefings and we go, guess what? I got two compliments from that council this week, and this is what they are, and then our directors give them to their team.
[00:57:36] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: We're going to go back and tell everyone about this, and they're going to be We, we made the decision to
[00:57:47] Bryn Davies, Really Local: stay in aged care when nobody else did. Yay! The support that council provides with the community. Over the back here, isn't it? [00:58:00] If
[00:58:00] Crowd 9: you'll stand up. Okay just making a few points here. I think what we're seeing and what we're hearing is that we do have a diverse council.
[00:58:09] Crowd 9: We're a bit drawn together in the functional to a community that actually respects and hears each other's perspectives. And it's not just about its own kind of To me, that's the vital thing about how do we get
[00:58:24] Crowd 9: You know, what council
[00:58:35] Bryn Davies, Really Local: get back if they're living in communities. Community is also listening, respecting, and not just about their own. Great, thanks. The the comment was that the council's actually demonstrating quite a lot of collegiality, I think is your term, Rosie, and diversity working well together. And there are lessons to take from that into how the community works effectively together as a diversity.
[00:58:50] Bryn Davies, Really Local: Does anyone want to share a really positive example? Is that the Council positive story? I
[00:58:56] Crowd 10: think that the process from the [00:59:00] the declaration of climate emergency was very amazing. I think that the community was extraordinary. It was well over thousands and the meeting that was held at the town hall was really amazing.
[00:59:13] Crowd 10: I think that that was really very example of democracy and community at work in a really important way.
[00:59:21] Bryn Davies, Really Local: So the example was the declaration of a climate emergency and the large number of people involved. And the Housing
[00:59:28] Crowd: Trust that's happening now too, so that's fantastic with the public promotion officer. so sometimes it seems like the louder voice is the aggressive voice, that you might find that there's quite a lot of people who are grateful for the work that they're doing, We can do, rather than and it seems like the negative voices, the voice that the algorithms definitely promote these days, and I don't know, sometimes I'd just like to say [01:00:00] thanks again from all of us, actually, for the work you do, too.
[01:00:03] Crowd: Yeah.
[01:00:04] Bryn Davies, Really Local: Great. Let's give him a round of applause for that one. I think the, the comment was that a lot of the loud voices, what they've heard, and, and the, what gets heard, and the don't so much. And now I can't remember the previous one. Oh, the housing trust. Do you guys wanna talk a bit about that?
[01:00:21] Bryn Davies, Really Local: It's a recent decision of council, Matt. Yeah, sure.
[01:00:23] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: So when we all got elected elected, we sat down, we had a strategy, couple of strategy days, and we sort of sat down as a councilors and said, okay, what, what are the things that we want to look at? And one of the overwhelming things was affordable housing, social housing.
[01:00:41] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: We, as a group said, this is important. So then, then we said, okay, how can we do this? Now, unfortunately, sometimes how things work at Council is, is you need to spend some money on it. And we actually put a person on it. We said, okay, we have to, in the budget, in the first [01:01:00] year's budget, we said, here's an added amount of money for a person to look at that.
[01:01:03] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: Because that person then goes out and looks at it. And we, we lucked out there with Claire, she does a great job. She then did a whole bunch of home due diligence talking, went to all different groups and really got herself involved. And came back to Council and said, OK, this is what I've done, this is what we're thinking.
[01:01:24] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: And then we discussed that a couple of times and said, OK, this one looks OK, this looks good. as you know, the tiny house, tiny homes, and this trust came out, and, and we sort of grabbed that and said, we like this, we could do this it, it sounds good. And then the, we discussed at the budget we felt that my background's capital markets and raising capital, and I've always felt that if there's an under, and I'm the qualities.
[01:01:55] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: Organization said, okay, here's the first meeting, or whatever. It, it just helped things along. So [01:02:00] we said as a, as a council, we need to make aion. And that's how that, that it was all, because we discussed it, we all were on the same page. And this has come about and I think it'll be something in 10, 20 years time, which is really important.
[01:02:17] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: I think, again, you know. Council is very different from the outside. I really didn't know much about it. And I don't know how much you can know. And to me, you kind of are in there and just going, Oh my God, there's so much going on. How are we going to, how are we going to do anything? And what really did help, I think, with this especially, is that when we did sit down for one of our first kind of strategy meetings, every one of us said housing, affordable housing, special housing.
[01:02:43] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: We were already on it. We didn't need to fight about it. So we're already ahead of the game. I think, add to that that, you know, we've got a pretty incredible executive team who aren't afraid of taking risks. And, and this could have been a huge risk, honestly. I mean, not, not huge. We, you know, it could [01:03:00] have not worked.
[01:03:00] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: That's how risky it could have been. It could have not worked. We couldn't have come up with any good ideas about housing. And it would have been a bit like, oh, you know. But what, what has happened is we have put on our housing solutions broker. And. It's been amazing. And, you know, housing doesn't stick with local government.
[01:03:16] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: Again, this is what people forget. Local government doesn't do housing. It's not our area. But, we also know that no one else is gladly doing it. So we have to step in there while we can, while we're in a position to be able to get in there and do something. But it's not, it's not us. What we're also doing is trying to lobby the people who are actually meant to be providing social and affordable housing.
[01:03:38] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: And we can't keep doing this. We can't keep doing homelessness services. We can't keep doing housing. Because we don't have any money. It's really, it's really a challenging conversation to have. But, I think the Housing Trust, I didn't think we would get to this point. I thought, it was, it was scary.
[01:03:54] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: Because, you know, it's called the Trust. And that's all very, very well. But, it actually takes a [01:04:00] lot of trust for us to do this. Because Council, you know, When it has a project, it's not very good at letting go. You know, this is our, this is our thing. And to do something this big, and then go, pretty much give convoy control of it away to someone, like OSDs and an advisory group, and trust that they will, you know, they will keep it going in the, the vein that we started in.
[01:04:23] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: You know, that's, that's challenging.
[01:04:25] Bryn Davies, Really Local: But we've done it. We did it. It's amazing. Which is really great which goes beyond the sort of statutory role of council we haven't really talked about the strategic role yet, but we can come to that There's also a kind of leadership role which is council picking up an issue that they care about whether or not it is directly in your responsibility alone, but driving that.
[01:04:52] Bryn Davies, Really Local: If you've had to set some boundaries on that I don't know, council set some things that you wan't to make decisions on You don't want to put things to the officers that they don't have the [01:05:00] power to listen to. to investigate. That sounds like a mature decision but, you've also led some areas, housing's one.
[01:05:07] Bryn Davies, Really Local: And Jacqueline, I know you've talked before about some of the roundtabers that have been set up. Do you want Yeah, and
[01:05:11] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: I think that that housing wouldn't be as powerful and effective as it is and hopefully is going to continue to be if it wasn't for the partnerships with community. And this is where I really want to acknowledge the work that Del Qaia and Kez Nelson and the My Home Network have done, And it's just been an extraordinary time that collectively as a community we've been working in this space and Council's been prepared to back that by employing a housing officer and committing to the trust.
[01:05:39] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: And this leadership has actually been demonstrated over quite a number of years. We do tend to write local government off as a pretty conservative beast and we do focus on, you know, You know, the roads, the rakes, the rubbish, but really the imprint that Council, our local Council have made on the culture of this community has been, and [01:06:00] reflecting, you know, both ways it's come from, but it's also been enabled by our local people.
[01:06:05] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: The two things that have really stood out for me are And then really continuing to play out in a really big, strong, positive way is the roundtable that Council facilitated with our First Nations community. And it's thanks to that, and that's quite a number of years ago, I want to say a decade ago that we, we now have a really powerful and meaningful survival day.
[01:06:29] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: Which coincides with Australia Day, or Invasion Day as others know it. But we've got about an island where we call it Survival Day. And we have a really beautiful coming together of First Nations people. We've re and they are placed fore and centre on that day. But alongside, you know, more conservative, traditional celebrations like, you know, What do you call that?
[01:06:49] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: Citizenship and pipe bands and rotary sausage chisels. So that's a really beautiful and successful illustration. But the other is and I saw it a lot of us saw it and [01:07:00] experienced it and grieved the process, which was after the marriage equality plebiscite, and how devastating that was for our community and for our rainbow community in particular.
[01:07:10] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: But in response, Council actually said, we We're going to form a roundtable. We're, you know, we're not skilled. We're not knowledgeable. We're out of, we're out of touch. So we're going to convene a roundtable and actually have stakeholders advise us. So not an advisory group, but a sitting down together and, and going on a journey together.
[01:07:30] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: And I'm sorry, but this town is so much richer for that process. And I see, you know, this fantastic, and the Rainbow Families and the success of our Pride Festival as being such a testament. And I actually want to credit Council for facilitating that and putting those thumbprints out there on our community that enabled these things to grow.
[01:07:54] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: Thank you. APPLAUSE
[01:07:59] Bryn Davies, Really Local: One thing we've heard [01:08:00] in having some of the conversations around what Rear Local is trying to do is that old and new together makes us better. And I think that's come through really strongly, that a lot of the ground tables are not just one part of the community, but libraries there, and other big groups are involved, and it's cutting across the whole community.
[01:08:15] Bryn Davies, Really Local: I think you had a question at the back, did you? No? Yes?
[01:08:19] Crowd 11: Yeah, it's just, I wanted to get an insight on, kind of, the day to day of being a councillor, and if you had any thoughts on the accessibility of being a councillor. If you have caring duties, or you're on a very low income, and pay your rent, whether that excludes some people the role of being a councillor.
[01:08:40] Crowd 11: And just a second quick question that came to my mind before is, whether councillors have a role in advocating to states and federal government on behalf of their community. So with housing thinking about our tax system and the role of that jacking up housing prices.
[01:08:57] Bryn Davies, Really Local: Great, so I'll just repeat that.
[01:08:58] Bryn Davies, Really Local: It's in my [01:09:00] history. And I'm, I'm, I'm speaking along lines, so the second one was, is council's role in advocacy, which you've touched on. the first one was about. Sort of structural barriers to being a counselor. So is it accessible to everyone? Lowering care, responsibilities, that kind of thing. Who'd like to jump in?
[01:09:15] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: I'm gonna jump in on this one. I'm gonna speak to the second one first, so don't forget. So in terms of our advocacy due statement, federal you get the most done when you are the mayor. So I was mayor last year and that was my deputy, and now that's the mayor, and I'm his deputy. Last year I went, and this year Matt is going to the National General Assembly in Canberra, where you go with the CEO, and you hang out with all the other mayors and CEOs, and it's quite fun, actually.
[01:09:39] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: I had a good time at the Prime Minister but also you have meetings with federal politicians, and you go there to sell your towns. You sell them, what is so great about you, and you say, But! We don't have enough money for this and this is why we need it. This is the benefit of the dream. So we have a list always of projects that are ready but we don't have funding for.
[01:09:59] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: [01:10:00] These are big things that will require state and federal money and so we go and we do advocacy and as well as that the mayor will meet the state member regularly, the federal member regularly, other members of, yeah, and we do. If we want to do advocacy work we will either be able to do it or we'll do it quickly.
[01:10:22] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: So it's, there's quite a It's not as much as you think, maybe. I thought there'd be a lot more of it, perhaps, but it's also not really my vibe. I'm not a huge, I find state and federal politicians, I'm a little, I'm not so much anymore, but I was a little bit scared of them. And it was never in me to kind of go straight up and to be like, hey, let me tell you about Castlemaine.
[01:10:42] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: Whereas I think Matt is a lot better at going and seizing the moment, whereas I look around. First question yes, there are huge barriers, I think, to equality. I don't have very much money. I'm a single parent who share cares my children. I have a range of interesting [01:11:00] things going on in my brain, which can, you know, make it really difficult for me to be in the room sometimes, or want to do anything. But yeah, money is the one. My CEO and I talk about this quite a lot.
[01:11:14] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: How do we get more, how do we get more young people? Can I go home and cook? How do you want to talk about it? It's not, it's not a living wage, so you do have to work that side. I I, so the, the base wage for a council wage is a stipend. Sorry, it's a stipend. The base stipend for a councillor in our council, we're a council, okay?
[01:11:36] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: We're the, we're the smallest category. It's about 21, 000. When you're deputy mayor, it's more. When you're, when you're the mayor, it's double what deputy mayor's is. It does go up, but that base wage is not enough to live on, so you do have to pick up part time work. It is even more hard when you're balancing family commitments.
[01:11:57] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: My little one was just starting school, like [01:12:00] in the February. I was elected in the November. And, yeah, you know, that was our little one. Now they're getting big, and I miss them. But, there's something really great about doing shared care as well, which is that sometimes you don't have a choice. Kids.
[01:12:12] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: And so I, which isn't, it's not great because you don't have them. It's great because you can smush all of your work. So I try and smush all my counselor work into the days I don't have my kids. And then when I have my kids, I do more kids stuff. They do know obviously. And when I was there I had to sit down and go, look, if I do this, if I run for mayor, if I get a left mayor, there will be more.
[01:12:31] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: There will be more. More of that. And less time for you is, you know, is that okay? I have to talk to my parents who are like, you know, they're my best support people. And go, you know, can you help me financially and, you know, emotionally and with childcare, all of the things, can you help me so that I can go on this journey for four years?
[01:12:50] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: And they looked at me and just went, of course, Rosie. When have we ever gotten in your way? But, what I can tell you is that it is hard, it is. And sometimes I look at my life and I'm just like, why [01:13:00] am I doing this? But, it's worth it. You just need so much support. You just need to.
[01:13:06] Bryn Davies, Really Local: And I do want to, I'm just going to continue on that and we'll come back to it. I know you've been asking for a while, but Jacqueline, we're not promoting any candidates and Jacqueline's not running, but you've been asking more than anyone apparently if you're going to run for councillor and you've said no.
[01:13:18] Bryn Davies, Really Local: So why don't you tell us what, what prevents you from doing it? What are the barriers that would stop you from running for councillor?
[01:13:24] Crowd 11: Hello? Okay.
[01:13:26] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: Okay, next question. Yeah, this if I could see the calculations, there was a point. Because if you didn't know, we're expanding the business, we're moving, tripling the size of the operations, we're moving into a new venue.
[01:13:37] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: And there was a point where finance was looking a little bit dodgy, and Doug said, You know, we could just stay here and not move. And I went, if we don't move, I'm running for finance.
[01:13:47] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: So yeah, I've got, I've got a big project. I'm also starting in my fourth year of a, what, a ten year criminology degree. It's taking me forever.
[01:13:56] Bryn Davies, Really Local: Yeah, so they're actually unable to, not to take up with a bunch of money. So you've been working very [01:14:00] patiently, sir. Thank you.
[01:14:00] Crowd 12: They don't have a QR code yet. They contracted a company.
[01:14:05] Crowd 12: This is, we
[01:14:07] Crowd 12: have an over age society.
[01:14:09] Bryn Davies, Really Local: I'm just conscious of the live stream I've had to hear all of this, and I'm trying to summarize, but I might get the details of your event, so that there's a group here who's advocating for a safer Castlemaine for business cyclists in particular, and there's an event on next week, did you say? Council consultation on road safety.
[01:14:28] Bryn Davies, Really Local: Is this the active transport strategy, or different? Road safety. But
[01:14:33] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: there's a good opportunity for you to join the Active Transport Reference group too.
[01:14:37] Crowd 12: Don't even confirmation when you start. Yeah. We were a bit
[01:14:43] Crowd: surprised that we didn't get a notification after we applied for that group. So no one, so there's
[01:14:47] Bryn Davies, Really Local: a couple of things going on.
[01:14:49] Bryn Davies, Really Local: One is that Road Safety Consultation next week, and the active Transport strategy is looking for reference group members at the moment via the Shape Now and site as well. So [01:15:00]
[01:15:00] Crowd 12: find
[01:15:01] Crowd 12: consultation
[01:15:02] Bryn Davies, Really Local: till the 31st of. Thanks for, thanks for raising this topic, I think that was a comment. We are getting close to the end, another sort of 15 or 20 minutes left. Lots of, lots of questions and ideas we haven't got to yet. But I did want to circle back on, on that point about the challenges of getting people to run.
[01:15:22] Bryn Davies, Really Local: And I, and a moment ago there was reference to the new wards in Castlevanes in Mallorytown, Shire. There will be eight wards, rather than seven Castlevanes So one more councillor than there currently is. And Rosie talked about some of the challenges that that raises, that Council was concerned about.
[01:15:40] Bryn Davies, Really Local: The, the sorts of the difficulty of having diverse councillors on board. But the only antidote to that is having, is having good people put up their hands. Really interested to hear from the, the room here. What does it take to have a community that's engaged? The people that aren't here as well, these guys.
[01:15:58] Bryn Davies, Really Local: People here, most of whom have [01:16:00] been to a council meeting before, and I imagine there's 10, 000 outside this room who haven't. What does it take to engage a wider community in this, and to get great people to run councils? I'm happy to throw it before
[01:16:13] Bryn Davies, Really Local: you.
[01:16:13] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: As Rachel alluded to, the money's not fantastic. And you need flexibility too. You know, it's really hard, I think, to be a council if you have a full time big nine. We had a very few days. On Tuesdays, council meetings on Tuesday night that that could change from council to council. So you can the new group come in and say, each year we say, what, what the Tuesdays worth for us.
[01:16:37] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: But you do need flexibility. You should, you are, you're allowed to attend council meetings and, and the briefings remotely. So that, that's, that's a new rule which is being passed. Which is, which is great, but it does
[01:16:50] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: kind of suck. Yeah. Like it's not, it's not as good as being in the room. We have a, we have express.
[01:16:55] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: Everyone make it to the room when they can, because it's such a, yeah, [01:17:00] you just miss stuff don't
[01:17:01] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: you? Absolutely, and it's much easier. You need, you need a little bit of thick skin, I think. Which is a shame, but you do. And you need support from your family. And a couple of old friends.
[01:17:17] Bryn Davies, Really Local: So the question was, does that exclude people? I think the point that was raised before was that there are some barriers. We don't have a perfect system that makes it really easy for everyone. And support networks are part of it. But I think you're just talking through what other challenges can happen over time.
[01:17:32] Bryn Davies, Really Local: If you're,
[01:17:33] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: if you're, if you're single, I mean, you get, we're not, it's fine. I'm saying you need the flexibility if you have kids and things. And I think that's a reason why is. There's a history of older males there because they've made me financially better off, so they've got that flexibility. You don't do this gig for the money.
[01:17:57] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: You do it because you're trying to help out. Now, I don't [01:18:00] know how to change that, but that's, you know, I didn't make my decisions until I thought I was comfortable enough. And I give, and I have flexibility, fantastic support in family, and my role in life. It's flexible, in terms of my position. I think that's really important.
[01:18:21] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: You should have, to be a councillor, I think it's in the Local Government Act that you actually, you have these code of conducts which you have to be able to compromise, you have to be able to negotiate, and you have to see the other people's point of view. It's incumbent that we actually get on. And that's why we have a record amount of time.
[01:18:43] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: Thank you. in the administration and we've monitored it because, you know, it's not, it is not negotiating when I have my stance here and that's it. I don't negotiate, that's not important. But, and I think that's important. [01:19:00] Yeah.
[01:19:00] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: I've always been a bit nervous about the idea of educating the enemy, and I don't mean the enemy, but the people I do think we need civic education.
[01:19:10] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: I think we may, people need to understand how I'm here to talk about how council actually works, how decision making works, how advocacy and action for change works. And I mean my worry is that then the people that want to change the things that I don't want to see changed will know how to do it. But, you know, you ask me why I won't run for council, stupidity.
[01:19:29] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: I just don't think I could, I'm not my own, I just don't think I could cope with the level of stupidity in the broader community of people not understanding how it works and not educating themselves. So I think we need to educate people how local government works, and how civic participation works.
[01:19:49] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: Starts with participating. That's
[01:19:50] Bryn Davies, Really Local: what we're here about tonight,
[01:19:51] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: when I so I sat on this panel a couple of similar to this, I sat on a panel for Bendigo last week similar thing. Except most of the people in here, unless you're all [01:20:00] intending to run for council, which would be very exciting.
[01:20:02] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: But the people who were at the attendance of this other panel, what people do a lot on this panel. Tell me all about it. And a couple of couple, couple of the med came up to me afterwards and said, what's all of those weird conversations where I was like, what is, what's happening here? And they said are you married?
[01:20:16] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: And I said, no, I'm not married. And they said, but you've got a partner. And I said, no, I don't. And they said, okay. And then I was like, what's happening here then? And they said, oh my, my, both of them said to me, they said, my, my wife doesn't want me to run.
[01:20:31] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: You can't run for council if your wife doesn't want you to. It's a conversation between you two. Why are you asking me? We've never met before. It's a very strange conversation, but I will say, if you are, one of the biggest things I was told by a previous councillor and mayor, she said, Rosie, it's going to be harder for you because you're single.
[01:20:49] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: And I said, everything's harder for me because I'm single, thank you very much. It's not, it's it's pretty good most of the time. But she said, there's no one, one of the big things that you need, I don't know if you do. This with [01:21:00] Mel. Just go home and have a bit of a, just like out a little bit. It's something that I very much need as a person and council has actually up to here and my poor mother, after every briefing I'm on the phone.
[01:21:11] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: I, you know, I'm not sharing intimate details about council, but I'm just talking about the weight of it and how it makes me feel. And I do think you don't, it doesn't need to be a partner. It doesn't need to be a parent. It doesn't need to be a family, but you've gotta have that support around you. It can just be a community.
[01:21:28] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: The biggest thing, this guy on the panel, the one, I was sitting with a guy he's the monitor for a couple of shives that are under a minister being a councillor, and I'm trying to guess it, and he says, it starts with R, and I'm trying to guess it, and he says, and if you turn to XML with the local government app, you will read that word, and I was like, he's not going to tell us what the word is, but he did, the word was respect, and it resonated with me very much because, if I think back on all of the, the little things that, you know, have hurt me a bit, and the times that I've, I've felt very, very overwhelmed, It has been about disrespect at its [01:22:00] core.
[01:22:01] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: Disrespect of me as a person, disrespect of me in the role that I'm doing. Yeah, it doesn't make you feel good. And I think there is, there is a tendency to disrespect council. It's a bit of a, it's a bit of a sport. We bash on government, like that's what we do. We're politicians now. I have to say local government is so far from, being a politician in so many ways.
[01:22:25] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: Like we're not, we're not in there playing politics, we're in there trying to get a bloody bridge built half the time, which is practically impossible. And I just Yeah, so I would say respect, please be respectful. Respect goes, goes all ways. And there was this, there was this comment really early on to me that, you know, back in the day people would be saying, And you know, we deserve that respect.
[01:22:48] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: And I thought about it and I went, Alright, if we want respect, we need to act respectably, right? Because it is a two way street, how do you get respect? I'm fucking sorry, internet. It does not just get given [01:23:00] to you. And it was a real moment for me where I was like, People have lost trust in government, generally, let's be honest.
[01:23:08] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: And local government is part of that, it's literally in the name. And we, I think what we've been doing as a council is working very hard to try and win back some of that trust to show that we are, one, listening. We do, we do really try. Listening does not always mean we'll do what you want, though. We just can't.
[01:23:24] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: But we will listen to you. We might do the exact opposite, but we're listening. Two, we're heading out there more, aren't we? We're really trying to make people where they are. And we're just trying to do things a bit differently. And I think if I can offer the biggest advice that is just don't think, don't think of a council law as this one thing.
[01:23:47] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: There is no kind of perfect council law. It is not this, yeah, it's not oh, you'd be a great council law. We could all potentially, I think, be good council laws. If we put in the effort. It's not always easy. [01:24:00] Sometimes I'm sitting there and I don't want to be there. It's tiring. We get tired. We were in council for a really long time today.
[01:24:06] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: And then we came straight here. Bye. It's exhausting, but we respect the staff, we respect each other, we respect community, even when they're not respectful towards us, we have to be better. And that feels very unfair to me, because sometimes, I like to be able to say what I think, but I, sometimes I do, I always say it in a very nice way.
[01:24:27] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: I think that about thickening your skin, I don't have very thick skin, I'm a, I'm a not thick skinned person. I have talked about that a lot, but, I'm not going to get much tougher than this. This is about as far as I can go. Council makes me cry, and it's not it's not council stuff. It's, it's community.
[01:24:44] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: It's community that makes me cry more often than not. And it's, it's tiring. I I want to keep doing this, but I get, I'm really tired. It's been four years. Just be, not you, you're all, you're all, you're all being lovely. But you know, if you see someone being [01:25:00] unpleasant to anybody, regardless of if they're a councillor or not, come and see me.
[01:25:03] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: Just, just tell them to stop. It's not okay. They need to do better. And, you won't get good people on council if you treat them like shit. You just won't. They will not want to do it. And I won't want to do it.
[01:25:15] Bryn Davies, Really Local: I feel like that was almost your summing up speech. That was very good, And thank you for sharing so honestly too.
[01:25:25] Bryn Davies, Really Local: You can do this every time you come here. I really appreciate it. We've got time for probably two more questions. And then we'll give the panel a chance to say their last thoughts. Just to end with a bit of a conversation about what next. What can we do with this really local thing that we've started and how can we keep these conversations going.
[01:25:44] Crowd 2: I know it's
[01:25:44] Bryn Davies, Really Local: a comment
[01:25:45] Crowd 2: and,
[01:25:45] Bryn Davies, Really Local: you
[01:25:45] Crowd 2: know,
[01:25:47] Crowd 2: diversity's been thrown around a lot in diverse communities in
[01:25:51] Crowd 2: Australia. I had this room to take a poll on a bunch of metrics and climates used heavily in one particular direction. [01:26:00] That's not a bad thing. A lot of those reasons are why I moved here ten years ago. But just directly a As a fellow Catalyst for Socialist Tendencies, do you feel like these sort of forums are being held with the other vast section of the community that are represented here tonight?
[01:26:19] Crowd 2: Maybe by other Councillors, maybe by yourself? Look, I think tonight, things
[01:26:24] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: like tonight's excellent in terms of getting that, but once again, it's up to you. You guys are engaged and that's why you've come here. This, this Lots of other people who aren't here, and I mean, I hold regular listening posts, and as Rosie said before, we are holding more of those.
[01:26:42] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: I, I very much enjoy them, you know, sometimes I call them a bit of a whinge fest, but, but most of the time it's, it's, it's people coming to me, asking for help or suggestions, and I think that's really, really important. And I, I think we're diverse, I think we've got a [01:27:00] strong, diverse community. And it's, it'd be great if we had more people on council from from more diversity than we have at the moment.
[01:27:14] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: But, you know, I mean, you have the opportunity, people have the opportunity to put their hand, I know there's obstacles in there, but some of those obstacles, if you, you know, you can work with your wife or with, with some support. Council itself is very supportive, in my opinion. The CEO, the staff, other councillors, this particular councillor, are supportive.
[01:27:41] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: And often members have had issues and I feel as if they're supportive. And we talk about it, I mean, often Rosie and I think differently. But we talk about it and often we discuss things by ourselves together. Thank you. And I'm sure I, it's [01:28:00] happened to me with other councils too, and that works. I think you just have to respect it's really important, you just have to open up and, and also enjoy that diversity.
[01:28:09] Bryn Davies, Really Local: What about the second part of that question, which was I think challenging is that there's a, you know, I wouldn't say we are all of one mind, but we have an engaged community here tonight and having a council that is diverse and representative means that we'll have people on, who we may, is a reflection of the wider community.
[01:28:29] Bryn Davies, Really Local: Totally. To engage in a wider section of our shire in this kind of conversation in any council agenda
[01:28:38] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: We know I mean, what we know a lot is that getting people to come to us is not going to work we've got to do and what we are trying to do better at is meeting people where they are So for me, you know I'm interested in particular demographics And I guess, perhaps diversity is the wrong word for what I'm trying to say You know, while our [01:29:00] community is not diverse in some particular ways, and has never been there are a lot of individual differences, and lots of different groups of people with, you know, with their own, with their own things going on, and they all matter equally, I guess.
[01:29:13] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: But, there are groups who are more engaged, like you guys, who are going to come along to an evening like this. And then there's all the people who don't want to come, didn't know about it, don't care, you know, whatever. I can't, it's too hard, it's too cold, they don't have enough money for petrol. But we also know that we don't capture a lot of the people that we're missing by the traditional methods.
[01:29:33] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: So the best thing we come up with is meeting them where they are. And this is things like holding listening posts, popping up in a playground, or we popped up at Zynda festival, doing a listening post. And I've had some of the most beautiful conversations at Zynda with people I knew and with people I didn't know.
[01:29:49] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: but I wouldn't have had those conversations otherwise. I think a lot of what we do as councilors is kind of seize every moment we can with a resident who, [01:30:00] what, who is expressing interest in being engaged and seize that moment and try and have a respectful kind of interaction with them so that next time, you know, it kind of builds from there.
[01:30:11] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: And if you do that with every single person you meet, that's, you know, my hope is that that will, that will ripple out. I don't think that has been heard. That is what I would like it to be, that every, every time we have a chat with someone, we might not be able to give them what they want. It's I don't know, it's like connection, I guess.
[01:30:30] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: We're trying to, we're trying to make connection just as much as the rest of the staff. Great, do
[01:30:35] Crowd 4: you have one, time for one more question? Yeah my question is around, in a lot of the work that I do, I come I interact with council staff, and there's this tendency for the council staff It feels like there's a tendency for council staff to feel like they have to be the experts in the field.
[01:30:56] Crowd 4: And actually, often, the community's actually coming [01:31:00] with far more expertise. Not, not in that, in that traditional sense, but actually knowing what might work in our place and what is working already. And I'm wondering whether there might be some, some way, or is this happening, or might there be some ways of breaking down some of those The, the paid experts, and us just being the people coming hand in hand, where we might actually have a bit more fluidity in that space.
[01:31:29] Crowd 4: Because that's, I think that's one of the greatest frustrations for, for people. And sometimes, sometimes people with genuine expertise, as in professional expertise, are above those people that redirect you. So it's, it's this really tricky space. Sometimes where we're banging up against stuff that just doesn't, it feels like it's not.
[01:31:49] Crowd 4: There's not, there's the give, I think, in the attitude.
[01:31:53] Bryn Davies, Really Local: So I think the summary is returning power to the community and not just law enforcement.
[01:31:57] Crowd 4: Is there an openness to that? Do you feel that? [01:32:00] Or do you feel like there's a gap on that? I can't
[01:32:02] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: talk for staff, but that's not for me, because I'm not an expert in anything. Yeah, I haven't experienced that. But I really, I know that you're very correct in terms of, to me, there's lots of experts, lots of people who know more than me, or us, in different areas, and don't know how to answer that, to be honest except I'm not experienced in that.
[01:32:23] Crowd: I
[01:32:24] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: can
[01:32:24] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: think of a couple of examples, I think maybe a couple that you might be thinking of too. Oh,
[01:32:31] Crowd 3: what
[01:32:31] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: do I
[01:32:32] Crowd 3: think?
[01:32:33] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: I think yes, look, to some extent, I think some of it, some of that, Frustration might occur because even if the officers say, I'm really excited about what you're saying. Maybe they know that we're never gonna be able to afford it, and or maybe they know that they're gonna be told no at a higher level.
[01:32:50] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: I don't know. But I would say a lot of the time they're just like, this is this. We know that for whatever reason. I don't know if [01:33:00] that's what's happening, but I think a lot of it is to do with the fact that as a small rural council, we really. We don't have a lot of money. And, I mean, it's not. We obviously do.
[01:33:10] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: If you look at our budget and see, you know, it's millions of dollars and that's a huge amount of money. But everything also costs so much. And then we need to pay the people to do it all. And at the end of the day, there's not much money for any of the extra stuff that would actually make community care much nicer.
[01:33:27] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: And I think about Active transport, pedestrians, all of that safety stuff like that. Obviously we need that. We all know we need that. But it's, it's, it's, you know, it's so bloody expensive. I just I guess, I don't know, sometimes use, we have a great, we have great tools at, that we're kind of, we can sometimes be a really good person to talk to in between, not, you know, if you go to an officer, you call it, Some of them have a very negative attitude towards people.
[01:33:56] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: People just exhaust everyone and then eventually get to us. We still can't do anything. And they're still angry. [01:34:00] But often if you come to us initially and we can kind of get involved. Sometimes we can ask some of those questions for you and get some answers. Whereas, and look, I don't know why Council is the one to sign this stuff.
[01:34:12] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: My assumption, I'm pretty sure that's right, is that most officers are really quite traumatised by some experiences. And they might not even hear from this Council but they're protecting themselves. And I think they're told to protect themselves. community because, you know, some bad stuff goes down at council.
[01:34:31] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: It really can be, I was shocked. I was shocked by some of the stuff. I'm sorry that that's your experience. I kind of get what you're saying. But I think there's hope. We just need to work on that trust. Because that trust goes both ways, do you know
[01:34:43] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: what I mean? Yeah, I've dealt with so many council officers and there's some real lame, you know, A lot of seat warning going on.
[01:34:52] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: But I also have seen how, I've also seen how abused they are. [01:35:00] And yes, the defensiveness, of course they're going to, you know, and they protect each other. And I absolutely understand why they would do that, because it's really unacceptable the way that some of the staff are spoken to. And, you know, we have public campaigns about not speaking to retail staff.
[01:35:15] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: And yet these, these people are being abused, and they're being you know, campaigns against them on social media, and it's just not acceptable. Our officers
[01:35:23] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: get their threats, not infrequently. And I'm thinking particularly planning and local laws, these are our two high emotion places, but our officers in those roles, many of whom are quite young women, get treated horrendously, and we protect them as an organisation, and I'd be proud of that.
[01:35:42] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: I'm not sure. I'm not sure. We'll talk more later.
[01:35:45] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: And it's also bureaucracy. It's really, I, my general manager has come out of local government and it's really interesting he'll pull the staff up on all sorts of things and will say, never do that, local government. And there's this level of accountability.
[01:35:59] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: You know, we might [01:36:00] cash up the amount, alright, putting money out here, a bit of that. No, this is about a bureaucracy and I think that limits the ability to do that. you know, community operators would do, then it'd be a little bit more organic, just want to get the job done. These guys have got reports to write, they've got all these levels of accountability, I mean, yeah, it's not a fast job.
[01:36:19] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: I didn't enjoy, I was traumatised by two years of
[01:36:22] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: working for the local council. Nothing about a council decision, nothing from the very beginning of it, and all the work that needs to be done, nothing about it is easy. I think all the works that, you know, It is, it's bureaucratic. Everything is in, within a framework, within a strategy, within a policy, within an act.
[01:36:40] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: And, at the end of the day, you're still trying to make it fit your specific community and specific circumstance. But, it's just hard work. Every, you know, I went on a bit of, with Matt, a bit of, with Greg, just being like, oh, you know, shh. Why? Why? Why? What was I thinking? When they, when they, when they showed me the [01:37:00] cost, I was like, if I make people pay this, they will, I will never get to live here again.
[01:37:06] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: It's hard. For me, it's a real learning journey of just being like, yes, we want all these things, but then being like, oh no, the reality. I think it needs to change because some of these things we actually need. And not having enough money is not a good enough excuse. So I don't know. Yeah,
[01:37:21] Bryn Davies, Really Local: I think one of the themes of tonight has been, just reminding us that councillors and council staff are also human and, and working within different environments.
[01:37:30] Bryn Davies, Really Local: And there's no batteries on there. This keeps happening on my. And, and in, with, with limitations, you know, budget, rules, time, and the experiences they've been through. And I particularly want to thank our panel for being so honest and open about their own experience and what it's, and what it's like. We are getting close to time.
[01:37:54] Bryn Davies, Really Local: I just wanted to talk a little bit about what we can do next. We are up running [01:38:00] some more of these events. We're also keen if people want to get involved or run some in their own communities to get in touch with us. You can do that through our website. You're all on our email list now that you've signed up for this group.
[01:38:13] Bryn Davies, Really Local: We're running an event in Malden towards the end of July. 21st. 21st of July. Thanks, thanks Rosie. Rosie and Paul and others from Malden put up their hand and said let's do one here. And that's what we're doing. We're kind of finding communities who want to have these sort of conversations, who want to get involved.
[01:38:29] Bryn Davies, Really Local: And we're helping support those sort of events. We've promised to go back to Wesley Hill as well following up the session they had around the community center up there. So we'll have an event there. But come and get in touch with us. The council is only as good as the people in it, whether it's the staff or the council lords.
[01:38:46] Bryn Davies, Really Local: And we've heard today they are human, but if we have a good community that's well engaged then we might get even better councillors oh, you, one last thing, yep. [01:39:00] But come and see us, let's talk about how we do this together, from here, and, and make the community in Calgary even better than it is now.
[01:39:08] Bryn Davies, Really Local: It's pretty good right now. Last thoughts from the panel, I'll hand back the microphone.
[01:39:13] Crowd: I
[01:39:13] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: just wanted
[01:39:13] Bryn Davies, Really Local: to say, as
[01:39:14] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: So my, my line to pretty much everyone I met recently who's, you know, expressed any interest in council is, have you considered running for council? So my challenge is, go and ask that.
[01:39:26] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: I might never have thought about it. I, I, as much as I have thought about it, I hadn't really, really thought about it until it was the right time. So it might just not have been the right time because, and I always say this, but I, I really think that most people, if they want to, and if they put in the work, could be fairly decent counsellors.
[01:39:43] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: It's just about remembering, and I said this at the Medigo one as well, and everyone hated it, but it's not really about you. It is about you to some extent, but when you get in that room, It's not, what does Rosie want, what does Matt want? We're literally there representing our communities. And if we're not doing that, we're not doing a good job.
[01:39:59] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: I would [01:40:00] also like to say, Matt and I and our CEO Darren, are doing one on ones with anyone who's interested in being a candidate. So if that's something you're interested in, if you want to think about money for council, if you want to have a one on one and talk to either of us or our CEO about, you know, hours, time, we'd Any, anything really.
[01:40:20] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: Just reach out. You can find our emails and our numbers on the internet very, very easily. We're all really responsive and friendly. And Matt and I have been doing a bunch of these and they've been really lovely. So we're happy to keep, keep doing that because we want another really great council.
[01:40:33] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: We know that some of our colleagues potentially may not run. I think I'm probably going in.
[01:40:40] Rosie Annear, Counillor, Deputy Mayor: I mean, I made it sound awful, I know, but there's really good bits. There's really good bits too. Amazing bits.
[01:40:47] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: Yeah I'm contactable. I'll have a coffee with you, have a chat about it. I encourage everybody to run, except in London, because I'll be fired in two tomorrow. But that's another story. I've really enjoyed tonight.
[01:40:59] Matthew Driscoll, Councillor, Mayor: very [01:41:00] much. I think councillors are approachable. I'm approachable. I hope you keep in touch. Thank you.
[01:41:10] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: My motivation for encouraging you this evening is because I am so extraordinarily dismayed at what I see going on in the United States and the extreme polarisation where that country is really on the brink of civil war.
[01:41:25] Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, Managing Director, Shedshaker: And, and I just, I just don't want us to ever go down that path. We emanate so many things coming out of the USA and that little of political division is something I just do not, I suppose, ever go down, so I do actually want people engaged in civic discourse. Fantastic. And
[01:41:43] Bryn Davies, Really Local: you've all demonstrated tonight some of those qualities of respect, openness, trust.
[01:41:48] Bryn Davies, Really Local: We disagree with us in a way that does permit that polarization allows us to work well together.