WAKOOL cereal and sheep famer Dennis Gleeson says a fair share for rural ratepayers is a priority after being returned uncontested on Murray River Council.
First elected in 2022 through a by-election in the Greater Wakool Ward, councillor-elect Gleeson felt he “didn’t do the job justice but managed to get through”.
Managing 12 workers across 40,000 acres on two properties, Mr Gleeson said when he first became a councillor, he managed a property on behalf of Melburnians.
“It was for sale, so I felt I could take the council job on, but the day I went on council the sale fell through,” he said.
“We had 20,000 acres of our own … it all snowballed on me.”
Mr Gleeson’s family left Wycheproof in the 1960s to dairy farm in the Riverina. He’s since been involved in the local footy club, which had since folded, and irrigation bodies.
“I really enjoy council because we have a group that is fantastic to work with and rarely any problems,” he said.
“We can speak our minds.
“When we had the parks issue this year and council wanted to sell a few off, I favoured to sell them.
“I felt we had about 100 parks to maintain, and that money would be handy to spend on roads.
“For me to go to a council meeting, I travel 27km on a dirt road.
“Sometimes we do feel like the second cousins.”
The Murray-Darling Basin Plan was also an important issue impacting landholders in the ward.
“I have a reasonable relationship with the Environmental Water Holder and basin authority having been involved in the connecting rivers project and also involved in the constraints issue,” Mr Gleeson said.
“We have to get the constraints thing sorted because the government wants to keep buying our water and we need to fix the constraints so we don’t hold water up in the dams and cause massive floods.”
Mr Gleeson said he was reluctant to re-stand for the council, but a lack of candidates made him reconsider.
“I’d hoped we would get someone else and a few more to stand from Moulamein, Tooleybuc, Barham and even Wakool for that matter,” he said.
“I had good peopled lined up but, in the end, they didn’t have the time.
“I don’t believe it takes up a lot of time, certainly takes some, but you can usually work it in with what you’re doing.
“The beauty with it is that the other councillors have been good, you can ring them anytime and see what they think on a particular issue or decision going forward.”
Keeping rates affordable was also top of the next council’s agenda, as it tries to remain financially sustainable amid soaring costs and increased service expectations.
“A lot of the issue is government cost-shifting and pushing things onto local government to pay which has to then be passed onto ratepayers,” Mr Gleeson said.
“You must tick so many boxes these days, sift through the red tape. It’s over the top.
“You need to provide soil samples just to build a demountable home – nothing would have been built had you had to do this years ago.
“A lot of people don’t realise that 50 per cent of council’s income comes from rural landholders, not just from Moama and town residents.
“We are spending a lot of money in Moama, which I’m not against, but we also seem to be focused a lot on tourism.
“It’s all very well to spend on tourism but they only go to Moama, they don’t drive to Wakool because it’s dirt road to get there.”
Mr Gleeson voted against applying for a rate variation in the previous council term.
“We have to have a go at seeing what costs we can cut before we up the rates,” he said.
“No doubt we will need to raise them a bit more, but we need to factor in things like smaller towns don’t have tips anymore. I don’t understand why they cost so much to maintain,
“People need to take rubbish with them to another town … going shopping towing a trailer to places like Moama or Barham.”
Counting continued in the Greater Murray Ward and Moama Ward with distribution of votes yet to begin, however first preference votes laid out the frontrunners.
There are three positions available for each ward.
Greater Wakool Ward residents didn’t vote as the number of candidates (three) was equal to the number of positions. Joining Mr Gleeson are fellow incumbent Neil Gorey and first-time councillor-elect Gary Pappin.
In Greater Murray Ward, Geoff Wise, Kylie Berryman and Joy Lorraine Allan led the race, and John Harvie, Gen Campbell and Biance Hurn were in front in Moama Ward.
Follow the vote count at vtr.elections.nsw.gov.au/LG2401/murray-river/results.
