I am constantly amazed at the amount kids drink these days – a dozen schooners in a sitting is considered quite normal. Add to this the perils of mixing the drug ice and alcohol together, and no wonder we have mounting social and safety problems.
Well, suburban Canberra was downright boring by comparison at Easter. But on came a news item featuring a DVD on teen binge drinking. Gee it was an earthy, quality effort, and it transpired that the City of Melville in Western Australia was the producer of the video.
Intrigued at how a council is absolutely on the pace here, I did some googling and located Janet Armarego, Health and Wellbeing Coordinator, who explained that the DVD, called The Gathering, highlights a typical adolescent gathering which spirals out of control due to an over supply of alcohol and the arrival of gatecrashers.
The hard hitting themes in the 26 minute video include sexual assault, violence, glassing and alcohol poisoning. Mayor Russell Aubrey said that the script was written with the input of 150 teenagers who described the real and dangerous situations in which they find themselves.
Janet Armarego explained that the cost to poduce the DVD was around $130,000, and that it had taken three years to organise the funding. In the end, she found partners in LotteryWest ($48k), Healthwise ($30k), Rockingham Council ($10k) and City of Perth ($10k). The City of Melville provided the balance.
I was still flummoxed at how a suburban council could pull this off, so Janet explained that there were three success factors:
- the progressive philosophy of the organisation
- strong community need, uch as 11 high schools and strong engagement, which led to an accurate reflection of community factors
- cost effective delivery.
I checked further and her analysis rings true because Melville has won other awards in the same field, including one in 2008 for a DVD about the consequences for six local lads of drink driving. And the funding partnership was certainly cost-effective. The DVD (with resource material) is being provided free to all senior schools in the area, and sold to outsiders for $60.
Well I got to thinking. Here is a council that clearly doing best practice work for the public benefit. The issue is big and everywhere. Wouldn’t it be great if the Federal Government could now swing in and to take it national? We are helping Janet to connect the dots. Her contact details are janet.armarego@melville.wa.gov.au or telephone 1300 635 845.
Community Cabinet
The Prime Ministers Department has advised that these meetings have been wound back to six a year, and that ministerial attendance is now limited, that is in line with requests for mini meetings with individual ministers.
This means 12 to 14 ministers, compared with double that in the past. This is sensible, because many were spending the night staring at the ceiling. Councils should get on the front foot, and use the ten minute one on one sessions with individual ministers to set up a deeper dialogue.
The next meeting is in Modbury South Australia.The previous meeting was in Fremantle, where coincidentally we prepared the submission for Fremantle City Council. My betting is that Horsham and Wagga will get up soon because I know they made quality submissions. On the other hand, they are not in marginal seats.
RDA Fund – only for the serious
Councils seeking to position themselves for this funding should note that it is a competitive process – thus if you are not committed to a quality submission, don’t even think about it. The reason is that Minister Crean wants projects that stack up in terms of economic and social performance, leaving him to handle any political fall out. Remember the ill considered Tumby Creek project that brought down the Howard Government’s Regional Development program.
Related points to note are firstly Crean’s Department is building to around 200 officers, and probably 35 to 40 per cent of them will be assessing project applications or administering the outcomes; secondly, Crean will leave the decisions to his Department based on its assessment of which projects best meet the criteria; lastly the Department has no funding for scoping up projects to meet the criteria.
To explain, there are five criteria – funding leveraged from other sources; contribution to sustainable regional growth and/or community benefit; ongoing viability; capability of managing the project; level of support to regional communities (for the not for profit projects). The most important criterion is the ‘contribution to sustainable regional growth and/or community benefit’ because if you can’t nail this, everything else is irrelevant.
In this regard, I strongly advise councils to focus on projects that conform with your regional competitive advantage and are capable of generating widespread community and funding support.
We therefore specialise in preparing scoping papers that explain the what, why, how, when, who and how much. However neither the RDA portfolio nor its 55 committees will fund scoping studies or provide advice due to the competitive neutrality requirement. My suggestion is thus that councils partner with their relevant State Regional Development agency to fund this work.
Finally, councils might look at establishing networks and clusters, because they could be very helpful in developing and pitching for grants under the RDA Fund.
Get feedback on sorry letters, says Crean
You may have caught the Q&A program, televised from Albury-Wodonga in early May. Apart from the fact that 700 to 800 people turned up in a reasonable mood, it was instructive on other levels.The key independent Tony Windsor and Simon Crean (Minister for Regional Australia) obviously get on, and the leads being given to Windsor from Labor place him in an influential position. And Tony Winsdor was dropping hints that the Parliamentary Inquiry (which he heads) will successfully revamp the water allocation policy for the Murray-Darling system.
Crean is a fan of the Evocities campaign which encourages capital city residents to make the move to an Evocity and invest in the many opportunities these regional cities have to offer. Crean rattled off the seven NSW Evocities in as style reminiscent of his erstwhile leader.
In announcing $65 million for Albury-Wodonga’s long awaited cancer clinic, Crean explained that the bid was made last year, but was unsuccessful. He then added with some emphasis, “They took advice sensibly about why it didn’t succeed, revamped their proposal and it has now been approved.” In other words, he reinforced the need for punters to be persistent and to chase up decent feedback when getting the four line sorry letter from the Feds!
Jumps racing – it’s breaking hearts!
Surely jumps racing has to go. The case in point was the Oakbank Easter carnival, with the sad death of Java Star at the last hurdle in front of a capacity crowd. The cause was reportedly due to a heart attack from overexhaustion.
Thoroughbred Racing SA chairwoman Frances Nelson QC said the death of Java Star was a ‘tragic incident’ but her authority’s support for jumps racing was unaffected. She said it’s an integral part of the racing industry, and that because Oakbank is one of the State’s great icons, her organisation will continue to give the carnival every support. She inferred that the large crowd justified the practice.
Then on 3 May another death at the Warrnambool meeting. It was also reportedly due to a heart attack. The Racing Victoria Limited (RVL) CEO said the death of the horse and injury to the jockey ‘concerns and saddens us’ but confirmed RVL’s continuing commitment to the sport.
Victoria’s Racing Minister Denis Napthine said “The Government fully supports RVL’s decision. Any fall is disappointing. I’m sure the circumstances will be thoroughly investigated.”Well this gets more bizarre by the minute. Minister Napthine knows a lot about horses (he is a highly qualified vet), is the local member for Warrnambool and a former Liberal Opposition leader. So he figures he can weather this storm.
Whoa, let’s take stock.Jumps racing is a dare devil sport and the chief reason why the Oakbank and Warrnambool carnivals are so popular. And local business booms during these carnivals. On the other hand, jumps racing is a blight. It is cruel, very dangerous both horse and jockey, and it simply doesn’t fit the image of otherwise progressive places like the Adelaide Hills and Warrnambool. The sport is also a marginal, localised industry with few jobs and no growth prospects.
Next month, I’d like to suggest a strategy for moving on.
*Rod Brown is a Canberra-based consultant specialising in industry/regional development, investment attraction, clusters and accessing Federal grants. He also runs the Cockatoo Network. He can be contacted at apdcockatoo@iprimus.com.au or phone
(02) 6231 7261.
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