Month: June 2024

When I first became Mayor I asked the staff what were we going to do support our athletes during the Paris Olympics.

One of their ideas was Ku-ring-gai’s inaugural Kids Olympics, which we will be running these school holidays with other sporting groups.

Our kids will have the opportunity to try out different sports like triathlon, tennis, football, and table tennis. We wanted to do this to promote awareness of sporting opportunities in the leadup to Paris.

More information is available at krg.nsw.gov.au/kidsolympics

Glad to attend the Ku-ring-gai and Hills Police Area Command 2024 Awards Ceremony, where 37 police officers and members of the public were recognised for their contributions to the community.

This was my second time attending such a ceremony and it was encouraging to hear about the bravery of the officers and civilians who have served us.

Last night as part of our Arts and Cultural Festival I attended the opening of a two week exhibit of Ku-ring-gai Artists at the Grace Cossington Smith Gallery at Abbotsleigh.

On display are works by Eva Barry, Annarie Hildebrand and Alan Tracey. It was good to chat to each of them afterwards to understand what inspired their works.

These works are on display for the next two weeks and they are also on sale. For more information visit

https://www.abbotsleigh.nsw.edu.au/grace-cossington-smith-gallery/current-exhibition/

As part of Refugee Week we listened to the stories of recent migrants as they shared about hardships in their homeland, their journeys to Australia, the challenges of getting refugee status, and their desire to be productive citizens in society.

The event was held at Gordon Baptist and organised by various organisations under the umbrella of the Hornsby Ku-ring-gai Multicultural Network Interagency.

We found this video to be helpful in introducing some of the issues. https://youtu.be/25bwiSikRsI

Apparently it was Make Music Day today so we had a quartet from the Kuringai Youth Orchestra perform at the Lindfield Village Green from 3-4pm.

I only found out about it this week so we weren’t able to widely promote, and we’ll make sure it has a greater profile next year.

Councillor Barbara Ward and I popped by to take a look and it ended up being a good opportunity to talk to local residents… topics that they asked about included the Transport Oriented Development, Heritage Items, and the Lindfield Village Hub.

This week I joined “Happy Helen” to visit the South Turramurra Girl Guides . Helen helped the guides with a sewing lesson and I was there to talk about the role of government and civil service.

Some questions included:

What does council do? How big is Ku-ring-gai?

Favourite part of being a councillor / mayor?

What are those round things on your neck? Are they heavy?

How old are you? Did you plan to do this when growing up? [I didn’t plan on becoming a councillor… I thought I’d end up serving the community at a church… The scouts and guides tend to prepare their people for community service]

How come you chose to join scouts? (Instead of guides) [I grew up with a scout hall across the road so it was an easy choice]

I am at Bonjour Patisserie for the next two hours, working on Council emails. Feel free to reach out and chat.

🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺We welcomed 65 or so new Australian Citizens last night.

It’s great to have them join our wonderful country, and I’m also glad that we’ve finally worked through our Covid-backlog (previously been doing 160 citizens each month).

As part of Ku-ring-gai’s inaugural Net Zero Communities Grant (funded by our Environmental Levy) we sponsored EnergyZE to hold a community event where like-minded people shared tips on how reducing our carbon footprint.

Presentations were made by:

Dr Kate Wilson, a St Ives resident who previously worked as Executive Director for Climate Change and Sustainability under the former NSW Government; Kristen McDonald, a former Roseville Public School student (from my year) who now works as the Mobilisation and Engagement Manager at Rewiring Australia; and

Myself as the Mayor, sharing about Ku-ring-gai’s sustainability initiatives.

Afterwards we answered questions as a panel.

I think Kate and Kristen’s presentations will become available later on the EnergyZE website, and mine is available in the link below.

https://t.ly/jZD6Q

#NetZeroKuringgai 🏠⚡☀️👩‍👩‍👧‍👦

On Friday night we attended the opening of Judith Franklin’s “Country Connection” exhibition at the Ku-ring-gai Art Centre.

Through Art, Judith expresses her culture and life experiences through a range of traditional and contemporary mediums. Her exhibit goes on through to 28 June on weekdays and some of her work is also up for sale. We are also looking into making the exhibit open to public next weekend as well.

For those interested, Judith is also hosting Aboriginal Dot Art Classes these next two Wednesdays. For more information, visit https://www.krg.nsw.gov.au/Things-to-do/Events-and-festivals/Gai-mariagal-Festival

Last year, the Australian Electoral Commission said that electoral boundaries had to be redrawn – with NSW losing one seat to WA – to ensure approximately equal representation across Australia (178,000 residents per electorate).

The upcoming ‘redistribution’ triggered really strange proposals from political parties and political aspirants. Each party looked to maximise their own chances of forming government by splitting the seats of their opposition, then assimilating the most favourable polling booths to strengthen their own position.

But these proposals were disappointing because they put their political ambitions before the needs of the people.

In my own submission, I suggested that it made sense for each Local Government Area to be represented by ONE Member of Parliament, rather than for an LGA to be split apart like rags among two or three members. The problem with having multiple MPs for an LGA is that their constituents never get a good deal… they end up with MPs whose attention is divided and who do not have the opportunity to give them the attention they deserve.

So I was very pleased to see the independent committee’s proposed redistribution boundaries when they became publicly available yesterday. The boundaries have been adjusted to now mostly follow LGA boundary lines, and it provides certainty and improved service for (most of) the residents of our eight Northern Sydney Councils.

1️⃣ All Hornsby Council residents are now proposed for the federal seat of Berowra.

2️⃣ The entirety of Ku-ring-gai Council plus the vast majority of Willoughby Council are now proposed for the federal seat of Bradfield.

3️⃣ The entirety of Ryde, Hunters Hill and Lane Cove Council as well as a small sliver of Willoughby are now proposed for the federal seat of Bennelong.

4️⃣ The entirety of North Sydney and Mosman Council are now proposed for the federal seat of Warringah.

Of course, it’s also sad to see that NSW’s slower population growth has led to the loss of one seat (North Sydney) but I am of the view that with population growth we will get it back again next decade.

Boundaries and MPs will continue to change with the seasons, but it’s important to recognise the contribution of each of our local MPs. I have a great deal of respect for each of the incumbents regardless of Liberal, Labor or Teal.

I haven’t been active on social media this week because we have multiple sick family members. What started as a restful long weekend up the coast (my first break since January) ended up being a trip to and long wait at Gosford Hospital ED for the little one, and I’ve had to be more hands on with the kids this week.

I understand that half our councillors have been sick this fortnight as well!

As for what’s been happening, we had a well-attended public forum on Tuesday night where we had 16 registered speeches.

On Wednesday I attended the 70th Anniversary and changeover for the Ku-ring-gai Lions as well as the initiation of the Leo Club of Ku-ring-gai. It was encouraging to see so many people prepared to serve their community.

On Thursday I had a meeting with the NSW Local Government Grants Commission where they shared about the process and outcomes of their latest distribution of federal grants across each LGA. I’ll share more about this in a separate post. We also had our quarterly Audit, Risk and Improvement Committee.

Today I briefly presented at a briefing for the Sydney North Planning Panel and tonight we have the opening of Judith Franklin’s Country Connections solo exhibition at the Ku-ring-gai Art Centre, 5:30-7:30pm. This is part of the Gai-mariagal Festival, celebrating the culture and heritage of First Nations people across this month.

I’ve been trying to keep up with the emails but there’s a bit of a backlog right now. Hoping to sort it out in the coming week.

Last month my wife and I had a quiet morning at Pure Brew Co. Gordon. It’s a great place to stop for a drink or a meal, or to study. They even had the UNSW and USYD academic timetables posted on the wall… I’m glad that I’m finished with all that study!

I’m glad that last night’s council meeting didn’t go too long. I was able to make it home for storytime.

Popped by Northside Radio 99.3 to speak to Richard Bell. I enjoyed the relaxed pace of the program.

Great to have Dr Zeny Edwards OAM as guest speaker earlier this week at an event hosted by Council and the Ku-ring-gai Historical Society.

Zeny Edwards was previously the president of the National Trust and a Chair of the UN Women NSW Chapter. She has made various contributions to heritage, peacekeeping, and other social cohesion initiatives so it was good to have her with us.

Thanks also to Cr Barbara Ward who played a part in pulling this together.