What do you love about the Tweed region?
I love its unique environment from coastal to hinterland, its diversity from primary producing, to small business to high level manufacturing and global exporting. I love the family feel our beautiful scenery
Why are you putting your hand up for the Tweed Council?
I believe that there’s room for improvement the governance and management of the Tweed. I believe we have an opportunity to get in front of the progress and development that is coming to the region and design and shape the future. At present we are on a collision course with it and we will lose what makes us uniquely Tweed if we don’t shape our future.
What relevant skills or experience do you bring to the position?
I have qualifications in Leadership and Business Management and a high level skill set in Change management. I have nearly three decades of working in the Not For Profit sector and my life has been around how we can support and build better communities for children and families.
How would you address the local housing crisis?
I believe the housing infrastructure in the Tweed is 8 -10 years behind were it should be and we need to take steps to rectify this. Unfortunately due to the “Crisis” state it is not a quick fix. There are common sense solutions that we can start immediately, secondary dwellings on rural farm land – supports our local farmers and helps to produce income and increase primary produce production.
We need to look at what is holding up the D/A processes for our region as we are currently 115 days on average for approvals, this is nearly triple the state average for approvals, these delays are impacting our residents with extra build costs and adding further to supply and demand issues as those who are looking to build require rentals until they can build.
Do you think there is a role for local councillors beyond roads, rates and rubbish? If so, what is it?
Absolutely, I look at the Councillor role as similar to a “Board” member position, we are responsible for Culture, Leadership, Strategy, Governance and Fiscal responsibility. We are not there for operational day to day, this is the role of those we employ to deliver.
There are over 20,000 approvals in place for residential and business development lots yet there is significant delay in activating these sites. What will you do to change that if you are elected?
We need to develop collaborative and cooperative approaches to solving these delays. We need to work with state based authorities to improve systems for development applications. We need to support Council staff by respecting the knowledge and skills they have developed and not fighting them on decisions.
We need to look at Zombie D/As and how we expedite these processes with possible timelines for delivery of the project.
How do you balance the pressure of more people and the need to protect the environment which is attracting the people?
We need to be environmentally responsible, there are guidelines and codes that already exist to assist in this balance. We need to be ahead of the game and providing leadership that helps us address the issue using the knowledge of those best equipped. I believe I have an environmentally responsible approach without being an environmental alarmist.
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