The 23 candidates for the December 4 Narrabri Shire Council elections were invited to give a brief presentation at a Meet the Candidates Forum on Wednesday last week.
The forum was chaired by Narrabri Chamber of Commerce president Russell Stewart.
“Five candidates Ron Campbell, John Tully, Lloyd Finlay, Cameron Staines and Ron Campey were unable to attend due to prior commitments including community meetings and harvest and tendered their apologies,” Mr Stewart said.
He said the forum was an initiative by the Chamber of Commerce, reminding the audience that the chamber’s role extended beyond advocacy for local businesses and into the realms of wider community concerns.
“The chamber traditionally works with many local organisations.
“We are often a first point of contact for new businesses interested in coming to Narrabri and we advocate for community groups and individuals on a wide range of issues.
“For example, in recent times, the chamber was instrumental in securing chemotherapy capability at Narrabri hospital to reduce the need for many people to regularly travel to other centres for treatment, and played a significant role in obtaining a new, state-of-the-art CT scanner for the hospital.”
In the context of its community role, Mr Stewart said the chamber was pleased to facilitate the candidates’ forum.
He said community feedback indicated that the chamber’s initiative was appreciated.
“The chamber has been congratulated for presenting this opportunity and thanked for hosting it”.
“Clearly these kinds of public events are much required and the chamber, I believe, is the ideal organisation to facilitate them.”
After each five minute presentation, in addition to audience questions, candidates were asked their views on the relationship between the council and Chamber of Commerce.
“All emphasised they saw council engagement with the chamber as very important and supported close interaction,” Mr Stewart said.
The forum presentations and audience questions were captured on video by Jamie Condon and will be available on the Chamber of Commerce website soon.
Candidates who were unable to attend the forum were invited to have their presentation included in the video, Mr Stewart said.
“I have asked candidates to contact me so we can set it up.”
Candidates drew numbers to establish the speaking order.
There were several recurring themes articulated by candidates and raised in audience questions.
They included the need for more focus on facilities for young people, the need for the council to ensure ‘every corner of the shire was looked after, not just Narrabri’, the need for the ‘community to come first’, concerns about what several speakers and audience members said was a high turnover of staff at the council, claims that the council’s workers’ compensation premiums were much higher than equivalent councils, the need to ‘identify cost savings, with the funds to be re-invested locally’, cut backs to waste, and accompanying efficiency in council’s operations, a policy to focus on achieving ‘net zero’ emissions locally, and the need for the council to ‘listen to the chamber’ and local organisations.
Several speakers called for more ‘openness and transparency’ from council and pledged to ‘tell the truth.’
The median strip in Maitland Street was criticised as a barrier to pedestrians crossing, the inadequacy of street lighting was a danger to pedestrians, particularly the elderly.
The perennial roads maintenance and upgrade needs were highlighted.
The proposed route of the Inland Rail adjacent to Narrabri and its potential impact drew strong criticism from the floor.
Several candidates spoke of the ‘big picture’ future of Narrabri Shire as a regional hub, building on the ‘good work already done’, and the importance of planning as the key to growth.
The area’s future potential as the North West’s renewable energy hub, with significant projects on the horizon, was foreshadowed.
The above is necessarily only a snapshot of some of the issues brought forward – candidates’ addresses and responses to questions can be seen in full when the video is edited and posted on to the Narrabri Chamber of Commerce website, probably on Thursday.
See more on the local government elections:
- Candidates’ forum video a digital-age ‘first’ for Narrabri Shire
- Huge election interest in the Narrabri Shire
- Chamber of Commerce to host council candidate community forum
