Mayor calls for community’s vision of the future

 

Mayor Mathew Hatcher is asking Eurobodalla residents to help shape the shire’s future.

“People will shortly start to see and hear our ‘Towards 2042’ advertising around the place, asking the Eurobodalla community to provide input to our Community Strategic Plan. We want everyone to have their say before March 15,” he said.

Community strategic plans are reviewed and updated before each new term of Council, and Mayor Hatcher said it’s important to check in and make sure the plan is on track with the community’s priorities and aspirations.

“Council has a custodial role to initiate and prepare a Community Strategic Plan – making sure it’s an accurate representation of our future, so the whole community is working towards a shared vision,” Mayor Hatcher said

“It’s a long-term plan and we’re asking everyone to envision the next 10 years – what makes Eurobodalla a great place to live and what challenges are there?

“Answers to these questions will highlight what our community wants to see Council achieve in the next 10 years and beyond.”

“That plan then feeds the Council’s four-year delivery program and annual operational plans.”

Over the next six weeks, Council staff will collect feedback from residents, businesses and community groups through an online survey and pop-up sessions.

“It takes about six minutes to complete the online survey, but if you’re not up for that, Council staff will be at pop-up sessions across the shire to write down your thoughts for our future,” Mayor Hatcher said.

“They’ll also send a discussion guide to community groups and give out drawing sheets to kids for their big ideas too.”

Feedback from engagement efforts will be used to draft a revised plan in time for the next elected Council to set their agenda. 

Mayor Hatcher said the review of the Community Strategic Plan was “a little different” this time. 

“We are using the same engagement tools and questions as other councils in the region,” Mayor Hatcher said.

“This means we will be able to update our own Community Strategic Plan while also contributing to a regional plan with our neighbouring shires on common matters.”

To get involved and complete the survey, visit www.oureurobodalla.esc.nsw.gov.au/towards2042

 

Eurobodalla ‘Towards 2042’ Community Strategic Plan pop-ups

 

• Moruya Country Market – Riverside Park Moruya, 10 February, 8am-12pm
• Batemans Bay Village Centre – Perry Street Batemans Bay, 16 February, 9am-4pm
• South Broulee Beach, 18 February, 9.30am-12.30pm
• Narooma Rotary Markets – NATA Oval Narooma, 25 February, 8.30am-1pm
• Bodalla Dairy Shed – Princes Highway Bodalla, 1 March, 10am-1pm

Council Stance Betrays Community

SAVE CUTTAGEE BRIDGE

Far South Coast community disillusioned by what looks like complete disregard for due process. Cuttagee Bridge is one of NSW South Coast’s iconic timber bridges.

In March, 2021, some 14,000 people signed a petition supporting repair and restoration work to this heritage-listed bridge, whilst expressing overwhelming opposition to its demolition and replacement with a concrete bridge.

 In 2023, the NSW State Government, through local member Dr Michael Holland, committed $15m towards “the restoration of Cuttagee Bridge”. This funding commitment was widely celebrated as an example of government listening to the wishes of local people and others who love the Bega Valley.

 Since then, Transport for NSW (TfNSW) has been working with Bega Valley Shire Council to prepare a Deed of Agreement, including options for this work, whilst the community has waited patiently for the public consultation process to begin. We are utterly shocked, therefore, by what took place at the Council meeting held on 31 January.

Mayor Fitzpatrick moved a motion to accept the $15 million funding but proposed that it should be dedicated only to the demolition and replacement of Cuttagee Bridge and the construction of a two-lane concrete bridge in its place.

In an extraordinary further development, the motion delegated the Chief Executive Officer, Anthony McMahon, to unilaterally re-negotiate the options within the Deed of Agreement with TfNSW.

Mayor Fitzpatrick’s motion was presented to the meeting without notice to the community and to the obvious surprise of some of the councillors. Nonetheless, five councillors, including David Porter and Liz Seckold, who have previously made public commitments to restoring the Bridge, voted in favour of this motion.

We applaud the three councillors who kept the faith with our community and voted against: Helen O’Neil, Cathy Griff and Karen Wright.

 Councillor Joy Robin was absent. Our community, and others who visit this region, can rightfully be very disillusioned by what looks like complete disregard for due process. It is now clear that the Council refuses to consider making Cuttagee Bridge safe and fit for purpose whilst preserving its heritage values, despite plentiful professional evidence that this can be achieved. Timber bridges have been recently constructed by NSW councils with great success, for example, the Runnyford Bridge in Eurobodalla and the South Arm Bridge in Byron Shire.

Council’s decision denies the community the opportunity to consider and comment on the other options, as included in this Deed of Agreement, and imposes only one possible outcome: a two-lane concrete replacement.

Throwing out the other options makes a mockery of community consultation and may imperil the $15m funding – and what future then for Cuttagee Bridge?

The community and Save Cuttagee Bridge Group demand that options be reinstated and thoroughly and fairly assessed, and the community must be properly consulted if the Council is to keep faith with its community and demonstrate its commitment to good governance.

OPINION 

Dr Michael Holland MP, Member for Bega

 

I turned 18 in 1975, the year your older sibling, Medibank, was delivered by the Whitlam Labor government after a long and bitter ideological struggle against the coalition opposition.

 

The concept of providing the basic right of protection against the financial impact of health care on the most disadvantaged of our society introduced me to a life-long career in medicine.

 

Its principles of universality, equity, and choice, which apply to our other social determinants of health including the foundations of education, shelter, transport, and a protected environment formed my political perspective.

 

By my intern year in 1981, and after 5 major policy changes, the liberal national government had finally killed Medibank off.

 

I was a Postgraduate year 4 doctor when you were born on 1^st February 1984, and the same founding principles determined my future career in women’s health.

 

In the words of Bob Hawke, “with this historic initiative, all Australians now have a new, simpler, and fairer health insurance system.”

 

You have given us a system of medical benefits which provides our out-of-hospital medical services, our diagnostic blood tests and imaging, as well as selected dental and allied health care.

 

You guarantee free treatment for public patients in public hospitals and support the cost of medical services for private patients in public and private hospitals.

 

You are complemented by the wonderful pharmaceutical benefits scheme which subsidises a wide range of pharmaceuticals.

 

Our lives change over forty years. and society changes.

 

Our population is ageing.

 

It is more diverse in demographics of ethnicity.

 

Women have won great change in the fight for their reproductive rights but still have not fully achieved universality, equity, and choice.

 

Others continue to fight for equity of healthcare in sexuality and gender.

 

We have the options of palliative care and voluntary assisted dying.

 

Our health problems are more complex and the difficulty of getting timely and affordable primary care leads to increased demands on our emergency departments and hospital wards and surgical services.

 

Demands, costs, and expectations increase.

 

There is a maldistribution of healthcare services in remote, rural, and regional areas compared to our metropolitan compatriots.

 

So, what can you get for your birthday?

 

It is not time for a mid-life crisis.

 

Primary health services are being supported by the Federal Labor government by increasing the incentives for bulk billing particularly in rural and remote areas.

 

The indexation of Medicare rebates have been increased by a historically large amount.

 

Improvements to primary health care include improved networking of individualised, comprehensive, multidisciplinary care as well as telehealth services.

 

Our local state health services need a strong, supported primary health care system.

 

Local emergency departments and hospital wards face the increased numbers of people whose medical problems have become more complex through the lack of access to general practitioners.

 

Apart from increasing rebates, governments need to examine new models of care which can work beside the transactional fee for service system.

 

This includes block funding for general practices and the successful model of bulk billed urgent care clinics which provide health services to the 55 per percent of individuals who do not need to be in an emergency department waiting room.

 

This has already started locally with federal-state cooperation at the Batemans Bay urgent care clinic.

 

The Bega electorate is fortunate to have excellent services at the South-East Regional Hospital, Bega.

 

The combined clinical services of the former Bega and Pambula district hospitals now gives the Bega valley residents a higher level of clinical care and reduces the outflow to Canberra and beyond.

 

The Eurobodalla community will be served by an increase in the number, breadth, and quality of clinical services provided locally when the single level 4 Eurobodalla hospital is completed.

 

With more than 26,000 emergency department presentations, nearly 1,500 surgical cases, over 11,000 admissions, and nearly 320 births per year, the combined clinical activity of Batemans Bay and Moruya district hospitals will exceed that of south-east regional and Goulburn district hospitals.

 

It will reduce the 44 per cent insufficiency in current local health services.

 

A single level 4 Eurobodalla regional hospital will provide an emergency department with onsite specialty assessment, onsite intensive care, access to acute surgery and a full range of emergency procedures and an emergency short stay unit.

 

These services will be provided by emergency medicine specialists available 24/7, as well as advanced skills clinical nurses.

 

The achievement of and commitment to these excellent local health services are the result of the establishment and support of Medicare by former and current Australian Labor governments.

 

As the member for Bega, I am proud to be able to work with the Minns NSW Labor government and my federal colleagues in the electorates of Eden-Monaro and Gilmore and provide these essential primary and hospital service to our community.