Canning Wello's Aus Day gets short shrift from councillors

Long-held fears of Wellington ratepayers about their town being subsumed by its larger neighbour were reignited by a council proposal to can the community's traditional Australian Day ceremonies for a joint event with Dubbo.

This proposal followed a recent council workshop on the issue, held after objections from many locals to this year's move to hold events on January 25 for both Wellington and Dubbo, approved by council in 2025.

The workshop, attended by most councillors, suggested that Dubbo and Wellington alternate between the January 25 evening and January 26 morning events on a two-year basis. However, a report that was presented to last Tuesday's council meeting from the executive proposed bilking Wello altogether for a centralised event at Dubbo. Councillors spoken to by Dubbo Photo News, however, were not happy with the proposal.

"Absolutely, this was not what we discussed at the workshops and it has not been brought to our attention either; it's not good community spirit to carpet Wellington," Cr Shibli Chowdhury said.

"My view at the workshops was that both Wellington and Dubbo should have them held on the 26th, that is Australia Day, it's a celebration of Australia, and that's when everyone wants it to be on," he added.

Long-time Wellington councillor, Richard Ivey, was also surprised by the proposal.

"I know nothing about it, it came out of the blue. Our recommendation from the workshop was that we alternate the evening of the 25th and the morning of the 26th between Dubbo and Wellington," he told Dubbo Photo News.

"But now we're going to punt Wellington altogether? Wellington will lose its autonomy," he added.

He said the report is an example of executive overreach in a system where policy proposals and council direction should be driven by the people's representatives, not by council staff.

"It's extraordinarily disappointing, councillors are supposed to be the democratically elected officials and it's buggered them. Councillors will now have to say that we oppose it," Cr Ivey observed.

"But this was put up by the staff to the councillors who now have to say 'no'. I haven't spoken to the other Wellington councillors, and I presume they will oppose it also," he concluded.

Fellow Wellingtonian, Cr Adam Ryan, also gave the idea little chance of being adopted.

"That definitely won't happen. If they did that, they would be turning their back on Wellington," Cr Ryan argued.

"That's why a lot of us locals ran, so that Wellington would be represented. They can't make that decision, it'll be defeated, 100 per cent," he said assuredly.

Former mayor, Cr Mathew Dickerson, said that the proposal not only denies Wellington an Australia Day ceremony, but also its own Australia Day award categories.

"That motion to cut Australia Day altogether had nothing to do with what we discussed at the workshop. It's a different motion to what we agreed," Cr Dickerson said.

"I'll be opposing it, and though I haven't spoken to them, I would think that all of the Wellington councillors would also oppose it," he added.

Another Wellington councillor, Lukas Butler, said that the single-event proposal was another step in the denigration of local culture and history by unelected elites.

"I think Wellington needs to have its own ceremony, our heritage is worth celebrating and remembering. What is the alternative, North Korea?" he asked.

"The West has become like a cut flower, beautiful, but it withers without the roots and branches of history and culture and society to sustain it," he added.

Cr Butler believes the move is emblematic of a pattern of slow neglect of key cultural institutions like Australia Day.

"Who's attacking western democracy, and who's sustaining it? These type of decisions are an attack on western democracy that gave us things like science and equality before the law, reason, and equality of opportunity," Cr Butler said.

"We're neglecting what we've been given, but I believe in our culture and events like Australia Day, and that's why we should support them," he concluded.

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Call for LGA to fight for local voice on state projects

Talking of grassroots democracy, Cr Butler also put up a motion asking that the Local Government NSW Conference in November lobby the state to restore individual councils' ability to object to such things as renewable projects in their local government area.

Previously, if a council opposed a wind farm or battery project designated as being of "State Significant Development", that would trigger an Independent Planning Commission assessment of that project. Yet, Cr Butler said that Minister for Planning and Public Spaces, Paul Scully, had unilaterally removed that power earlier this year, effectively shutting local communities out of the process.

"We spent a lot of time opposing projects like Hampton Park and Boree, but now the minister has moved the goal-posts saying that council doesn't count anymore and their objections are out of the process," Cr Butler said.

"It's a bit heavy-handed. He's not a king, he needs to engage with the community, not ignore them. It's very concerning; he's also doubled the number of genuine objections needed from the community that can also trigger an assessment from 50 to 100," he added.

Sleight of hand punts reports into the long grass. On the subject of Hampton Park, keen environmentalist Cr Dickerson also had a proposal up regarding council punting a "scoping proposal" on the project into the never-never based on theoretical "future savings" on council's budget.

"Council hasn't agreed to go ahead with the scoping proposal, they said that they will re-look at the project based on future savings, but I've been told that that's unlikely to be successful," Cr Dickerson, a supporter of renewable projects in the region, said.

"These future savings decisions are often a way of just putting something off that they don't want to vote on into a future theoretical decision," he added.

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Healthy teeth finally on the way…

Following last week's article on the reintroduction of fluoridation into Dubbo's water supply after a near eight-year break, Cr Dickerson got onto council's technical staff to ask why the August-September deadline he had been given was no longer valid.

His "Questions on Notice" elicited a rather lengthy response, with the upshot being that council's current target for fluoride dosing to recommence is in fact early November, as a council spokesperson had previously informed Dubbo Photo News.

"Evolution, the principal contractor, has provided its latest program, which schedules commissioning and site-specific operator training from November 3 and formal commissioning and handover by November 10," council staff wrote to Cr Dickerson.

"This is a programmed target rather than an unconditional guarantee; before dosing can begin, testing and commissioning must confirm the accuracy of the water flow signal and the correct operation of the dosing equipment, instrumentation, and safety interlocks," the answer went on, not very satisfactorily, by Cr Dickerson's reckoning.

"It's taking a lot longer and, every day, more time seems to be added to it, I don't know why it's taking so long," he told Dubbo Photo News.

"We awarded the contract, but Public Works took over the work so it's out of our hands," he added.

Fluoride, a "negatively charged ion of the chemical element fluorine", is actually a waste product from the phosphate fertiliser industry that has been added to town water for 70 years because of its believed benefits to dental health.