Letters to the editor

Learn lessons from Our Place

A RARE, full public gallery was present at the council meeting on September 20 to hear the rural city finally, publicly admit that they cannot build Our Place on the lawn area inside the Pioneer Settlement.

Annoying that attendees could hardly hear as the council chamber doesn’t seem to have microphones, and the directors had their backs to the gallery. Cr Stuart King read a well-prepared statement, shame it was so inaccurate, spiteful and full of sour grapes.

As councillors, they can take full credit for voting for the wrong location and ignoring all the warnings.

Perhaps that’s why he got so irate, because the buck stops with him and other “for” voters.

Any lost grant funding should be blamed on those who did not do their due diligence on the heritage issues, and dismissed the many highly credible people and thousands of residents saying, “No, not there”.

Trying to blame the community by calling it a “small minority” is both condescending and disrespectful.

No doubt a tactic to distract any light away from themselves. It’s easy to build a big edifice in a town, harder to get the location and social licence right. And it’s a “fail” for this council, director and former CEO.

The gross removal of over 20 large trees on the site, obvious preparation works for Our Place, can only be seen as premature, unwise and arrogant.

The continued closure of Spoons*, which was used as a threat during the consultation, all seems part of the convoluted “Our mess” of this project (*COVID staff shortages).

It will be sad if lessons are not learned from this saga, particularly on listening to the community.

Even sadder if the animosity and division created is perpetuated and not resolved.

Dr Jacquie Kelly

Swan Hill

---

A pity Oz breakfast over

HAVING been actively involved in the planning and conduct of the Swan Hill Australia Day Breakfast for the 40 years in which it was held, I am extremely disappointed that it has come to an end due to budget and policy changes made by the Swan Hill Rural City Council.

A media release issued by the Acting Mayor, Bill Moar, indicated that the Australia Day Breakfast Committee, which was made up of representatives from each of the participating organisations plus a few individuals, had advised they would not be involved in the organisation of the 2023 Australia Day event in Swan Hill, or any future event.

I believe the community deserves an explanation of why this decision was made.

Following the 40th anniversary celebration of the breakfast in 2020, we were faced with the COVID pandemic, and no breakfast was held in 2021. During 2021, council convened a meeting with the committee to discuss plans for a breakfast in 2022, keeping in mind the protocols required to run a COVID-Safe event. Following several meetings, a very much scaled back breakfast plan was made which was subsequently cancelled at the 11th hour due to the rapid spread of COVID in our community.

In May this year, council officers convened a further meeting with the committee to discuss what the Australia Day celebrations in 2023 might look like. The committee members were very enthusiastic and unanimous in their response that they would like to organise the breakfast in the same, very successful format as in previous years, and if council approved this plan, they would appoint a new co-ordinator.

At a meeting in July, the council officer reported that council did not accept this plan, that the budget for Australia Day events had been cut and that council was prepared to make available a grant of $15,000 to an incorporated body to auspice an unspecified Australia Day event. Committee members were requested to take this grant offer back to their respective organisations to ascertain if any one of them was prepared to apply, keeping in mind this grant money was insufficient to meet the operational costs of running the traditional breakfast.

The final meeting between council officers and the Australia Day Breakfast Committee was held in August at which representatives of the only three incorporated organisations who qualified, reported they were not prepared to apply for the $15,000 grant to auspice an unspecified event which had not been determined by council.

It became clear that there was no choice but to dissolve the committee very reluctantly. Council have now announced it intends to run an expression of interest process to identify organisations willing to partner it in the staging of the 2023 Swan Hill Australia Day event based on a format to be determined by council.

I would like to extend my personal thanks to the hundreds of volunteers who, with the support of council, provided 40 wonderful Australia Day breakfasts, initially in Campbell Street then in Riverside Park in the form of an outdoor restaurant, which were open to all who wished to attend with no requirement to purchase a breakfast.

The breakfast also offered the community the opportunity to acknowledge and celebrate the achievements of Citizens of the Year, Young Citizens, many of our district school students, and special events.

Over the years, the volunteers enthusiastically performed a multitude of tasks including arriving at 4.30am to decorate the tables and fire up the barbecues, ordering and preparing the food, cooking, ticket sales, tea, coffee and orange juice service, parking control, blowing up balloons, leading the arrival of the VIPs, conducting the flag raising ceremony, first aid, master of ceremonies, entertainment, provision of some barbecues, tables, marquees and vehicles, fresh stone fruit etc. On many occasions, the visiting Australia Day ambassador commented on the uniqueness of the breakfast run by a “well-oiled machine”.

Each of the hundreds of volunteers can hold their head high and be extremely proud of what they achieved, not only for our community, but for the many visitors who attended the breakfast.

My thanks also go to the community for embracing the event by attending in such large numbers each year. We all have a lot of great memories.

Marie Schlemme OAM

Swan Hill