From Port Phillip Council minutes – 5th December 2011

ADDRESS BY THE NEWLY ELECTED MAYOR OF THE PORT PHILLIP CITY COUNCIL

The Mayor, Cr Powning assumed the Chair, and addressed the gallery as follows:

Good evening all and thank you for coming along tonight. I’d like to acknowledge the presence of parliamentary representative Sue Pennicuik.

Thank you Councillors for your support.

So we now find ourselves in the last year of our four year term, feeling weary no doubt. And though we have achieved much over the past 3 years, I know you all have a strong desire to achieve much more and of course faster.

But on this occasion I think it’s important that we pause and look at what we have achieved over the past year, which is a great deal. We have continued with our commitment to the principles of good governance – maximum transparency (no confidential matters), extensive consultation (so much time and energy, but of course worth it) and have encouraged local participation through our numerous reference committees, again which take enormous amounts of councillor time and energy but so important.

We entered the year with a new State government to work with, and in the interests of Council and our community as a whole, we have struck a respectful and I hope effective working relationship with this new State government, despite some clear differences at times on our respective views of the world.

This has been much supported by a number of our Liberal local members, and we have been impressed by their professionalism and keenness to work with us to achieve the best for our communities.

At this point I must also comment on the vigour and passion shown by Martin Foley in his new role as Labor opposition member – Martin has made the transition from government to opposition with the greatest of skill, and I can only imagine it must be a very difficult transition to make. Your commitment to achieving the best for our community and your long term vision for Albert Park is as clear as ever.

Councillors this third year of our term has seen us achieve some significant milestones, and though its tempting to read through them all, but for the benefit of you and the gallery, I will resist and focus on the highlights.

This year has seen Council adopt a Responsible Gambling Policy and a Social Justice Charter for the first time ever. These critical pieces of policy express this Council’s long standing and fundamental support for the principles of social equity, and also our willingness to challenge those social factors which we know create disadvantage and injustice.

We have made some real progress in the area of climate change, and have adopted several important strategies, which will drive our response to this critical issue, including the Walk Plan, the Cycling Plan and our Greenhouse Action Plan.

Our last budget saw us increase our expenditure on climate change to $8.5 million. Although there is more we can and will do Councillors, money talks and we are now starting to shout.

2011 also saw Council continue down the path with many critical infrastructure projects, including the development of our two children’s hubs in St Kilda and Port Melbourne, and when completed these centres will mean new childcare places for hundreds of our local families.

We have also achieved much in Emerald Hill, with the Emerald Hill Vision project, and as early as next week we hope to be ready to start the detailed design of the new Emerald Hill Library and Heritage Centre.

We are of course all excited by the possibility of a skatepark for Port Phillip being finished in 2012, and we have made more progress on the Triangle with the release of a new vision and principles document, which reflects what our community want for this important site.

We will soon see the design process for a new aged care facility in Port Phillip, again a great outcome for our community and one which Council has made a significant contribution to.

Next week we will release the draft urban design framework for the critically important Port Melbourne precinct, and of course I can’t resist gloating about our advocacy skills Councillors which resulted in the bi-partisan commitment to fund the upgrade of the Balaclava Station – which was a real win for this community.

There’s so much more I would like to highlight Councillors, not because it’s a chance to brag, but because I think it’s so important that all here understand how hard you have all worked to achieve these things on their behalf. Being a councillor at Port Phillip is a really very tough job, often unacknowledged, and I have been consistently impressed by the level of energy and enthusiasm each councillor has brought to their role, it is a fortunate community indeed which has this level of dedication from its local representatives. We are a great Council and we are doing great things.

Over this final year of our term, we will work hard to continue to deliver our vision for Port Phillip as detailed in our four year plan.

Naturally we will be presented with new challenges as we head into the election year – we will be subject to more criticism than usual, especially from potential candidates, as we all know one doesn’t get elected to council by saying what a great job the current council is doing.

So during the year ahead Councillors I urge you to continue to treat one another with the respect of which I have been so impressed again and again. The local government model of governing means we can only be effective if we work together – not one of us can achieve anything much alone.

And speaking of working together, I would like to acknowledge the dedication of our CEO Kay Rundle and Council’s executive management team. We Councillors know that you all put in a huge amount of time and energy to your roles, and I think I speak for all when I say we have been impressed by the unfailing respect you have shown us as the elected representatives of this fine municipality.

To my good friends, some of you here tonight, – can I ask you to hang in there – hopefully one day I’ll be able to go out and just have fun again for a change, instead of just inviting you to events where I give yet another wretched speech.

And in closing can I thank my family for their unfailing support. To Michael and Bridget, I know that you are both proud of my work but it doesn’t make it any easier when I am out for four nights of the week, or working all day on the weekends. Without your encouragement of course I wouldn’t be able to do this job. And by this time next year our new little Tommy rocket will be running around this chamber and creating total chaos at home, so plenty more challenges ahead.

But as one political leader once said, life wasn’t meant to be easy, (we all know who that was), and as another said more recently, when presented with 2 paths to choose from, always take the more challenging – (which is what we’ve done for sure). I’ll buy a drink for the first person to guess who said that.

Thank you.