Council Takes Top Prize at the NSW Local Government Excellence Awards - Shoalhaven City Council - Media Release

 

7 June 2021

Shoalhaven City Council’s efforts in Disaster Recovery and Emergency Response Management has been recognised by taking out the top prize in the category for a population of over 100,000 in the 2021 NSW Local Government Excellence Awards held in Sydney last week.  

The Award recongises a local government who demonstrated leadership in the provision of community disaster resilience, preparedness and response, a whole of council and community approach to disaster recovery, restoring communities through coordinated cross agency activity and maintaining service delivery through disaster and recovery.  

The NSW Local Government Excellence Awards, held annually, celebrate outstanding achievements across Local Government that promote innovation and improvement within the community.  

Shoalhaven City Council Mayor Amanda Findley was delighted to receive the news.  

“I can’t even begin to tell you how immensely proud I am of the Council staff who were part of the disaster recovery and emergency response following the summer bushfires in 2019/2020.  

“Their compassion, determination and clear leadership played a vital role in helping the region get back on its feet. Council remains committed to helping to support those on their recovery journey. Recovery takes time and we’re here to help”, Clr Findley said.  

“Our efforts during the emergency and following has enabled Council to begin to shift our focus from recovery to resilience building projects, which will help us to be better prepared in the event of a future natural disaster”, Clr Findley said. 
 

 Council was also nominated as finalists in the following categories in this years’ Awards: 

·         Community Partnerships – Shoalhaven City Council’s Walking on Country  

·         Connected Communities and Regions – Incident Reporting System 

·         Customer Experience – Libraries in Lockdown COVID-19 Program 

·         Innovative Leadership – COVID Safe South Coast Campaign.  

For more information about the Awards visit the NSW Local Government Excellence Awards website: http://www.lgprofessionals.com.au/LG_Professionals_NSW/Sector_Wide/Awards/LGProfessionals/Sector_Wide/Awards/Management_Excellence_Awards/2021/2021_Finalists.aspx?hkey=cac701d3-f3ba-4a2c-8aa7-1ff43d64ba6d.  

For information on Council’s Bushfire Recovery efforts visit: https://getinvolved.shoalhaven.nsw.

Left to right, Byron Austin, Robin Sharpe, Jane Lewis, Director City Lifestyle, Councillor Patricia White, Margaret Simmoes, Anna Gillen, Trevor Dando, Vince DiPietro (kneeling) 

gov.au/BushfireRecoveryShoalhaven

Fact Sheet - Local Government discount rate - August 2020 - NSW IPART

 

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Response From Prime Minister On LGA's being classified as 'Energency Srrvices'

Prime Minister of Australia via Prime Minister of Australia <webservices@pmc.gov.au>	22:15 (1 hour ago)
to me

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Submitted on Friday, 27 March, 2020 - 22:06


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I've Written An Email To Our Prime Minister: TO Ensure Our LGA's Are Classified as "Essential Services'

Good Evening Prime Minister,

We all understand what pressures you are under: first, the drought, fires, flood and now Coronavirus COVID-19. 

My aim here is to see if you  make you consider  Local Governments as Essential Services, who provide the essential services to each LGA on a daily basis - can there be a rush of funds to all LGA's to prevent loss of employment or vital services.Click here for my post sent to many people in Western Sydney and Shoal haven: https://myblogaboutanythingeverything.blogspot.com/2020/03/shouldnt-local-government-be-classified.html

Cheers

John Svoboda

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Message received after sending the email:

Thank you for contacting the PM.

Shouldn't Local Government Be Classified as "Essential Services" Besides Businesses?

Whilst we have  the Coronavirus COVID-19 and the Australian Government, through our Prime Minister, Hon. Scott Morrison MP has provided press releases that are changing our community and the way we live everyday to ensure that everyone has been given the opportunity to not being effected with this global virus.

It is a society that we haven't lived before, a virus war is upon us. Simple very day things we have to do,  personally for prevention of it: not touch any part of your face, every time you touch something wipe it down, cleaning hands at least 20 seconds and properly wipe them off.  Self-isolate at home, if possibly affected or come into contact into contact with someone who may have been affected and so on.

The hard decisions being made by our Prime Minister, Hon. Scott Morrison are definitely hard decisions that should not be taken lightly. Each decision may be placing more people on the unemployment queue, more businesses to be inoperable anymore. In saying this, there are businesses that are necessary to operate for our community and then we forget there are Governments that are necessary to provide local services to our community, which may be affected as well.

Who are they? They are the staff of our Local Government Areas.
Councilors are elected for a four year term, at each local government election, so they are safe until the elections of September 2020, which has been postponed to September 2021.

We all know how Local Government Areas are the pivotal point to communities growing with the times and they provide important accessible and necessary services to the wider communities. 

One Local Government Area, we will take as an example is amongst the 126 Councils within NSW and the 2nd highest population within NSW.: Blacktown.

On the news, we only hear of Councils, if there is complaints about growth in an area or even of the Council itself. The big news items generally derive from NSW and Australian Governments.

Blacktown LGA has strong leaders in Mayor, Councilor Tony Bleasedale, who has been in Council for a long period of time. He has a great understanding of how people feel in this situation, especially with an estimated population (2018) of 366,534 in an area of 1,364.77km square. You would hope that during this Coronavirus COVID-19 time, actually we all hope that Council Officers job will maintain. 

Without their services, roads can't be clean, rubbish removal cannot be done and many other  jobs that are conduct by our local area governments. So, what I'm saying here is that Local Governments, all Local Governments should be treated as essential services to the community, when choices are made by the Federal Government.

In Wikipedia, it claims that 'Essential Services may refer to a class of occupations that have been legislated by a government to have labour actions such as not being allowed to legally strike.

Here the list of essential Services from Wikipedia


So does Local Government fit into "Essential Services"?

 My answer is 'yes' they are nd I have stated above what important services they provide. What's your answer

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Interactive Chart: What Drove Your Local Economy In 2018/19? - .Id

This is an interesting analysis  as to how each Local Government Area has performed in our current economic era. It would be good to use this tool to compare LGA to another LGA and see the comparisons.

Congratulations to .Id The population Experts that have come up with report and user friendly research.

Please let us know what you think?

Click here for details

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