Mayor Charlotte Baines, Monash City Council, Victoria
Q. How long have you been on Council?
I was elected to Monash City Council in November 2005 as a representative of the Mulgrave Ward. In 2009, I served as Deputy Mayor before being elected as Mayor last year.
Q. What is your favourite thing about the Monash Council area?
One of my favourite attractions in Monash is our yearly calendar of community festivals, which play a pivotal role in promoting diversity.
Q. Why did you become involved in Local Government?
When I was an undergraduate student at Monash University, I was inspired by a quote from Sir John Monash on a plaque along a walkway which read: ‘Adopt as your fundamental creed that you will equip yourself for life, not solely for your own benefit, but for the benefit of the whole community.’
Perhaps that, along with a deep passion for multiculturalism, youth involvement with government and the arts, inspired my desire to serve the community. I channelled that into local politics in my early twenties when I realised that Local Government could play a significant role in helping the marginalised and disadvantaged.
Q. Tell us about your law degree and role as a lecturer at Monash University.
I have completed a Bachelor of Arts with first class honours and a Bachelor of Law at Monash University. Since then, I have lectured and tutored in the sociology of religion. Lecturing and tutoring has allowed me to ground my Local Government experiences with past research findings and theoretical analyses.
Q. You have recently been in the US and Canada as part of your PhD. Tell us about it.
I was selected to be part of a religion and diversity project that is being run by the University of Ottawa over the next seven years. It is a multinational project that seeks to develop collaborative relationships and projects on religion and diversity throughout Australia, Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom.
We have a large multicultural population at Monash. Around 40 per cent of residents were born overseas and follow over 30 different religions. The diversity in our community is our greatest strength and it is important that as a Councillor,
I play a leadership role in providing opportunities for building and strengthening relationships between individuals and communities of different faiths and cultural backgrounds.
Q. What advice can you offer other women trying to balance a career with being a Councillor?
Balancing a career with being a Councillor is not easy. However, it can be managed with a good support system in place and understanding workplaces.
Q. Tell us about a specific success you have had in Local Government.
I have thoroughly enjoyed being involved in helping to develop Council’s youth advisory committee and empowering young people to lead our City into the future. I wish to continue to inspire youth with the value of believing that they can and will make a difference to the community that surrounds them.
Councillor Michael Tudball, Moorabool
Shire Council, Victoria
Q. How long have you been on Council?
I was first elected in 2004. I thoroughly enjoyed my first four years, so I decided to renominate in 2008 and was fortunate enough to be re-elected by the people of East Moorabool, and then elected by my peers as Mayor in 2008/2009.
I am currently in my seventh year as a Councillor.
Q. Why did you become involved in Local Government?
It was a last minute decision after some serious lobbying from local Bacchus Marsh community members seeking somewhat of a change.
I was also leveraging off a local initiative that I led involving the entire community in the planning, development and construction of a community built adventure playground located in Bacchus Marsh.
Q. Tell us about your Local Government area?
Moorabool Shire Council covers over 2,000 square kilometres in between two growth areas – Melton Shire Council and the Regional City of Ballarat.
We are a large rural shire, but quite unique as a peri urban council presenting unique challenges and opportunities in growth, while maintaining significant areas of rural farmland, horticulture and agriculture and a country town feel in our major townships of Bacchus Marsh, Ballan and Gordon.
We have over 65 townships, localities and individual communities with strengths in their uniqueness and individual identity.
Q. What are they key challenges facing Council?
Like most large rural shires, it is keeping pace with the natural growth in population and then providing services and infrastructure for that population, such as roads, footpaths, community and sporting facilities.
Retaining a rural ambience, while providing lifestyle choices for our existing and new community members compounds this challenge.
Our planning for the future and continued emphasis on economic development are key to the future of Moorabool Shire.
Q. What innovative projects or policies is Council working on?
Moorabool Shire is an identified area in the Victorian Wind Atlas for Wind Energy Facilities (WEF). The Victorian Government recently approved four WEFs in Moorabool Shire that will provide significant employment, income generation and contribution to renewable energy for Victoria. However, Council has been advocating to address community concerns in relation to the development of the WEFs and has gone through a detailed policy development process that has been adopted by Council and supported by the community.
Our challenge is to have such policy documents accepted into our Planning Scheme and adopted by State planning authorities.
Q. What issues are important to you?
Community participation, transparency and respect are probably the most important issues to me personally. I take every opportunity to talk with, and listen to community members concerns and aspirations, and I value their input into my decision making processes on their behalf.
It is hard to balance everyone’s interests and not everyone is happy with decisions we make. As a minimum, we should make people feel they have really been listened to, their concerns heard and hopefully addressed, and then ultimately any decision should be communicated to the community.
Q. Tell us about a memorable moment or your greatest achievement on Council?
In the early days on Council, much community discussion was occurring regarding community members hardship – whether that related to paying of municipal rates or other financial pressures. We were able to develop and approve a hardship policy that supported community members who were doing it tough.
In my first weeks as Mayor, we also introduced electronic Council meetings. All Councillors and officers now view agendas on laptop computers, while the community has access to a ‘big screen’. At the very first Council meeting in December 2008, we saved over 11,000 A4 pages by reducing the number of printed copies of the Council Agenda.
