Being a councillor
I came into Council in December 2009, when the council was in administration. I had never been in local government before, decided that I really didn’t like the way things were heading and thought I would put my hand up. Prior to administration, things weren’t running that smoothly, and a lot of the same people were putting their hands up, and I thought I had to either put up or shut up.
Between my wife and myself we own a travel agency, a 31-room motel with a 55-seat restaurant, a tour operating company that runs six buses and conducts 20 day and half-day tours a week, and I also have the lease for another restaurant in town which features the miners’ memorial in Broken Hill. I think having business interests in Broken Hill gives me a great passion to make sure that our economic sustainability going into the future is paramount on everybody’s minds. Having a mining industry is very volatile, it’s coming to the end of its life. Trying to look at diversification of industries in Broken Hill and how to make us self-sustainable going into the future has been born out of owning businesses for the last 25 years.
To be a good councillor you have to have determination, you have to have a passion for the community you’re working for, and I believe having common sense is a requisite. If you get caught up in single visions without understanding the big picture, I don’t believe you have a handle on it.
A unique area
It’s a very isolated area. Our nearest major city is Mildura which is 300km away. It’s been our strength for many years because in the early days we were so isolated, it made us innovative, it made us reliant on our own skills, and this made us a great, unique city.
I love Broken Hill. Unique is a word that is used too much these days, but I believe Broken Hill is truly unique. I’m a fourth generation local, my great grandfather was born in this area on the property where Charles Rasp was the boundary rider when he discovered Broken Hill. So my family history is here, I have a passion for the area.
I believe it’s one of those cities that when you come to it you immediately know it has a soul, it has essence.
Innovation
I don’t think there are many other councils in Australia that would own a film studio. About three years ago Mad Max 4 was going to be made in Broken Hill, and there was a huge old derelict power station that the council approached the owner, a mining company. We were able to have the building and the whole precinct changed over to our ownership for a dollar. We invested $1 million, which was matched by the state government, to redevelop a portion of that for a film studio for Mad Max 4 to be produced in. Unfortunately we had probably three years’ of rain in about six months, the outlying area became too green for Mad Max to be filmed, and they went to Namibia to film it instead.
The challenge for us now is to attract more films to the area. We have an application to the Federal Government for $15 million for a redevelopment of the whole site to hopefully change it into a technology hub as well as a studio. So that will be a challenge and exciting. Completely different to any other council in NSW we’ll have a film studio, a technology hub, and we could have accommodation for students out there as well so it’s a multi-faceted complex we’re planning and we’re hoping that will change and diversify Broken Hill from mining into the technology age.
