Wagga Council hopefuls make their case at lively Community Forum

With 61 candidates standing for Wagga’s local government elections in September, the Residents and Ratepayers Association (WRRA) took on the challenging task of staging a community forum to hear from as many as possible.

A crowd of about 180 people gathered at Wagga’s RSL to hear leading candidates deliver a short pitch for their ticket before an hour-long Q and A session.

WRRA President Chris Roche said it was great to see the public engaging directly with the candidates and serving councillors.

“I think it’s so important that all the voters of the Wagga area get the ability to learn about each candidate and therefore make an informed choice when they come to voting,” he said.

“It’s really important that instead of just ticking and flicking, they’re actually thinking about who they want to represent them for the next four years in council.”

Topics ranged from development applications and roads to views on the potential privatisation of the Wagga Airport and to more challenging topics like domestic violence and reproductive rights.

“One of the big things to come out of the community forum was hearing the knowledge of the current councillors on procedures and you could see that they really understood how council works,” Mr Roche said, recognising the seven councillors seeking reelection.

“Instead of just sitting on the outside and making comments, which is easy to do, we want them to be listening to us and speaking on our behalf when it comes to council meetings.

“It was also good to hear from the new candidates standing up and sharing their passion for Wagga, and to see them as an alternative to the current councillors, and some of these new candidates were really exciting and presented their arguments well.”

Occasionally through the night, questions veered into specific council matters and Chris said that it was helpful to understand the process and regulations that restrict councillors’ ability to influence some decisions.

“That was an interesting one for me and it sort of showed how councillors’ rights can be a bit restricted,” he said.

A question on the controversial placement of a mobile phone tower highlighted a situation where two councillors had consulted with community members and were then excluded from voting due to a conflict of interest.

Cr Tim Koschel said it was something the current council had been working to resolve.

“It’s one of the biggest privileges as a councillor to come and sit in someone’s lounge room, look at your issue, and it’s one of our biggest concerns that we actually can’t then stay in the room and vote for it,” he said.

“So that’s something that we’re working on with the general manager. It’s something that needs to be fixed.”

Deputy Mayor Amelia Parkins agreed, explaining that there was currently one way to avoid this situation.

“My one word of advice to anyone with development application issues, the one way that we can get around that is if you ask for a site visit where you can address all of the councillors with a council staff member there, then we can all hear the same advice, and then there is no issue, and there’s no conflict of interest,” she said.

Roads and services in the villages were also discussed with councillors and candidates alike agreeing that balancing the budget and finding new revenue streams to address a financial deficit was vital.

There were a few heated moments over questions related to solar farms on “prime agricultural land” and on reproductive rights when incoming candidates were asked to indicate whether they would abide by council’s plan to advocate for increased access to abortions. The question received support from several candidates and a terse response from Australian Christians candidate Paul McCausland who referenced babies being “destroyed”.

The full community forum including the broad-ranging Q and A session is available to watch on Facebook and provides a unique opportunity to get to know many of the individual candidates.

Region has also spoken to each of the nominated tickets and you can find stories on each via the politics category on our website.