Working hard for the Hawkesbury community

Recently I was saddened to hear of the passing of Brett Wild, Chairman of the Taskforce Veteran organisation and a tireless advocate for the restoration of the Scheyville Military Precinct at Scheyville National Park.

Recently I was honoured to host the inaugural TEDxHawkesbury event at the Richmond School Of Arts. All the videos from the presenters are now online through the TEDx Global YouTube Channel and if you weren't able to attend the event, I commend them to you. Included in this post are my introductory remarks.

There have been many important developments on the question of permitting Dual Occupancy in the Hawkesbury, and I promised you an update.

Do you know how much debt Council is in? No? Would you even know where to look?
With so much recent discussion around Council's financial management, I've managed to score a win for some transparency in the way we report this.

Recently, Hawkesbury Council came to some very unwelcome national attention when the Mayor and the General Manager acted unilaterally to ban all 'representatives, volunteers or agents' of the Hawkesbury Gazette and of Hawkesbury Radio from attending Council meetings. I was appalled by this move.

Richmond pool is at the end of its life, and few would argue that an upgrade is not needed. A recent visit taught Councillors that the main pool is leaking 15,000L of water a day.
But Council has a duty to manage its finances wisely. Any proposed improvement can't be rubber-stamped "at any price".

The business paper just published for next week’s Council meeting contains a significant update for those in the Oakville community. I have been fighting for upgrades to the footpaths, parking, traffic and pedestrian safety around Oakville Public School for many years. I am pleased to report is that detailed costings and engineering plans have finally been completed in an effort to make the project “shovel ready”, but the program is only partially funded.

Happy birthday, Hawkesbury! Recently we celebrated the 215th anniversary of Governor Lachlan Macquarie proclaiming the names and locations of what we now know as the "Five Macquarie Towns".

Shaun Williams, presenter at the "Common Point" program at Hawkesbury Radio told me we were overdue for a chat. I thought this was a good opportunity to recap the year on Council. We covered a lot of territory! I'll be breaking this up in to more digestable fragments over the Christmas / January break.

At its November 2025 meeting Hawkesbury Council decided in an 7:4 vote to hike everyone's rates by 39.4% over four years. I voted against it. Here's what you need to know.

I've spent time this week at the Australian Local Government Association National Government Assembly down in Canberra.
It's a great opportunity to hear speakers and trade ideas about what works in Local Government. I was grateful for some release from my teaching work to go down and take place.
The highlight for me was being able to confront the Federal Minister for Local Government, Kristy McBain about the growing shortfall of funding Local Governments are facing and how this has deteriorated over the years.

I recently took the opportunity to walk through the whole of the refurbished Windsor Mall. Now the work is substantially done, I have to say it's looking amazing. New sandstone flagstones greatly exceeds the original sandstone; the sponsored pavers are now proudly on display. The garden beds are now being planted with a range of attractive species.