August a busy month so far

August has been busy so far. After a week in Parliament, it was back on the road for committee hearings in the Far West, then back to Sydney for events there. Next week I am headed for an important meeting in Wee Waa, part of the process of moving toward restoring the hospital there to full operational hours, but there will be a few stops in between.

Wee Waa Hospital

Things are moving on the issue of Wee Waa Hospital. During the sitting week there was a bit of discussion of Wee Waa Hospital in the chamber, there was also a temporary return to 24 hour operations at the hospital during the recent flood and last week members of the Committee on Community Services held hearings in Narrabri for its inquiry into my Health Services Amendment (Splitting of the Hunter New England Health District) Bill 2025.

During the sitting week I also asked the Health Minister, Ryan Park, during question time if he could provide an update on the progress of restoring the Wee Waa Health Service to a 24 hour, fully functioning hospital with access to an onsite doctor. In his answer he specified that at the core of the independent review recommendations was that the hospital would return to 24-hour operations and establish a “community health committee that will help drive the implementation of those recommendations.” A couple of days later, in answer to another question about the government closing the Wee Waa emergency department he said, “the problem with the question is that it infers that the government is shutting the emergency department, but no decision has been made in relation to that.” He stressed that there would be a community meeting on August 25 to work on the process of building on those recommendations.

There are people spreading fear and misinformation about the recommendations. This is all part of a process of restoring services to the hospital, which will involve community consultation at every step of the way.

Public Service job losses in regional areas

Over the last month we have heard news about job cuts to the public service in the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development and in WaterNSW, which will mean job losses in regional areas.

During the sitting week I delivered a notice of motion focusing on the impact of these job losses.

In it I called on the house to “object to the announced job losses in regional government departments.”

I also asked that they note that well-paid government jobs help drought-proof communities in dry times. The money paid to public servants based in country towns helps support local businesses.

The notice also said that the government also needs to “consider the impact on good policy development when local voices are lost from regional departments.”

It asked the government to acknowledge the losses of public servants based in the bush “reduced capacity to respond to significant events in remote, rural and regional communities.”

The last point of my notice was to urge the government “to maintain overall full-time equivalent employment to protect regional communities.”

Private Members Statement on Civics

During the sitting week I delivered a private members statement talking about the importance of civics. I spoke about how the secondary students who come to visit parliament every year for the Student Leadership Program are generally well informed about civics, but they also get a bit of a better understanding of how our state government works as part of that program. But not everyone is as well informed. Studies have shown that knowledge of civics is declining, which is a serious threat to democracy – if you don’t understand the way the government works it makes it easier for people to manipulate opinion against our democratic institutions.

If you aren’t familiar with the word, civics is a knowledge and understanding of the levels of government – local, state, federal and even global – how they operate, as well as the rights and duties of a citizen. It also takes in the legal frameworks we work within and the ways that we can become active community members within our democratic system and in the wider world. To some it might sound a bit dry, but a knowledge of civics can go a long way toward helping a person understand the way the world works, what things they need to be doing, and what they are allowed to do, as citizens and what they can be doing to advocate for change in society.

A working knowledge of our three-tiered system of government makes it easier for people to find the right person to deal with their issues at a local, state or federal level and makes the processes of interacting with government much more comprehensible. If the government is more comprehensible and accessible people are more inclined to trust its processes. That lack of trust in government is eroding the foundations of our democracy.

From this week on, in this newsletter I will offer some basic facts about all levels of government and how they operate that will help build a knowledge of civics. The first is a basic overview of the local level of government – councils.

Civics: Three levels of government in Australia – councils

Australia has three levels of government – shire councils, state parliament and the federal parliament. At the local level in NSW there are 128 councils, with councillors elected every four years, each council is presided over by a mayor elected by the councillors.

Councillors are usually prominent community members, businesspeople, activists, or people who in community organisations, elected to represent the views and interests of people living in the council area. They participate at council meetings and help to shape council policy. They do not work full-time for the council and are paid an annual fee not a salary to compensate them for the time they spend working on council business, the general manager and council staff are responsible for the daily operation and delivery of services.

Councils have responsibility for a range of things like waste management, local roads, planning and development, community services and managing the local environment. Councils can also make and enforce local regulations or “by-laws” regarding some of their areas of responsibility such as development, pet ownership, waste management, and parking. These by-laws are subordinate to state and federal laws.

The number of council members varies in each council depending on the population size and the structure of its electoral divisions or wards. Councils derive money for operation and services they provide primarily from rates collected from every registered voter in the council’s area, but in areas that are more sparsely populated the council’s rates are supplemented by state and federal government funding, including grants.

Councils are regulated by the Office of Local Government, which sits under the Minister for Local Government, in the state government.