At the river mouth
George Town and the East Tamar region in Tasmania are uniquely located to offer exciting opportunities to invest, live and visit. The region has a mild temperate climate and has direct frontage to the Tamar River Estuary and the ocean via Bass Strait. Coastal and river environments are held in high regard by many people across Australia and internationally who are looking for attractive investment and life style options. The George Town municipal area provides this in combination with many other attractive features: we have a rich mixture of heavy industry, ports and shipping as well as agriculture, viticulture and tourism enterprises, making for a great place to live.
I particularly love our beautiful coastlines and beaches. We are fortunate to have river and ocean access right on our doorstep.
Bringing balance
I was first elected as a councillor in 2009; I was relatively new to the area and I thought it would be a great way to get to know people, and to have a say in shaping our community into the future.
Outside of Council, I assist my husband in the operation of our family farm and am mother of five children. I enjoy spending time with my family and enjoying the great environment of our area with them.
I believe I bring some business knowledge to the role of Councillor, and importantly, I feel I bring some balance to what is still traditionally a male-dominated field.
Developing the economy
The key challenges facing our Council are predominately around economic development. We aim to support our existing industries as well as attracting new industries and promoting our area as a vibrant place to live, invest and visit.
Council is actively involved in fostering economic development opportunities in partnerships with the State Government and local industries. We recently completed a prospectus document for our industrial area at Bell Bay which has been actively promoted in trade missions to Asia and we are currently engaged in formulating a Structure Plan for the same area with a view to identifying the challenges and opportunities the area has for developers.
I am particularly proud of our Strategic Priority Projects document. A “wishlist” of projects of strategic importance to our community with costings that we were able to give to all political leaders. Prior to the last federal election, both sides of politics made commitments to our area directly from that document, so it was a very worthwhile exercise.
Future thinking
My favourite part of being a Councillor is the opportunity to communicate with many diverse people and groups and to collaborate with others to achieve positive outcomes. The worst part of Council is never having enough resources to do everything you would like to do.
Into the future I hope I can continue to contribute to improving our community and I hope that I can encourage more people, particularly women and young people, to stand for election.
