MAYOR CR KEVIN BEATTY
CABONNE COUNCILĀ
CABONNE Council recently celebrated Local Government Week, recognising the dedicated staff who deliver essential services across our communities and highlighting projects underway throughout the region.
As part of the week, Council partnered with Envirocom to deliver its annual waste education program to students at Yeoval, Cumnock and Manildra Public Schools.
Through interactive workshops, students learned about recycling, composting, worm farming and waste reduction, while gaining an understanding of the future Food Organics and Garden Organics (FOGO) service being introduced in 2028.
At the recent National General Assembly in Canberra, councils from across Australia united to advocate for fairer and more sustainable funding arrangements.
Councils are facing rising costs, ageing infrastructure, increasing community expectations and growing responsibilities, while funding has not kept pace.
A welcome announcement was the Federal Government’s commitment to increase Financial Assistance Grants for local councils. While details are still being worked through, these grants are critical for supporting local government, particularly in rural and regional Australia.
Many residents may not realise that Financial Assistance Grants were frozen between 2014 and 2017.
While funding resumed, it has never returned to previous levels as a share of the economy.
Historically, these grants represented around one per cent of Australia’s Gross Domestic Product, but today that figure has fallen to less than 0.6 per cent.
The solution cannot simply be asking ratepayers to pay more.
Local government needs a larger and fairer share of federal and state taxation revenue to support the roads, bridges, parks, community facilities, waste services and other infrastructure our communities rely on every day.
These challenges are one of the reasons council launched Future Ready Cabonne.
Like many councils across Australia, we are feeling the financial pressures created by the lasting impacts of COVID-19, increasing recovery and infrastructure costs, and ongoing global economic uncertainty driven by international conflicts and rising fuel prices.
Through this initiative, we are inviting residents to complete the Future Ready Cabonne Community Survey and help shape Council’s priorities for the future.
If you have not yet completed the survey, I encourage you to take part. It takes around 10 minutes and closes on Monday 31 August.
Visit Have Your Say Cabonne and help shape the future of our region.
While in Canberra last week, council general manager Bradley Byrnes and I also met with Kristy McBain, Minister for Regional Development, to discuss the importance of maintaining essential funding for council-operated childcare services and the vital role these services play in our communities.