Large council area
West Daly has got a lot to offer. We are relatively small compared to other shires – we have about 4000 people, but spread across a big area.
My favourite part of the Shire is Peppimenarti; I grew up here and it has been a big part of my life. It is not too far from the coast – about 40 kilometres inland.
I am a fulltime mayor and I have been in local government for about ten years. I was with a smaller Shire before amalgamations in 2008. Amalgamations took a lot out of us as councillors. I have been mayor at West Daly for about three years now. As part of my role as mayor, I enjoy talking to people on the ground to ask them what kind of services they would like and whether they are happy with what the Shire is doing for them.
Funding challenges
When funding community services your dollar has got to stretch. The Shire’s only got a limited amount of money to spend on services and programs. A conversation that’s on the table at the moment is to consider whether the Shire should not concentrate on programs – instead just run basic services like rubbish, parks and gardens and roads. Once we start to take on too much responsibility for not enough money, we’ll start to go broke.
Government organisations that fund these programs – like sports and recreation, which are good programs – need to think about the extra burden and cost it puts on the Shire.
Something else that the community needs is more housing and more renovations. We have a lot of young families coming up and nowhere for them to go.
Working in local government gives me a chance to contribute to the community and try to fight for these services. It’s hard for us to offer things that a lot of other people take for granted. It’s pretty hard out here in the bush, particularly when you are indigenous; the figures are stacked against us.
A conversation a lot of people have in the community is about how to keep local kids in school. If they can’t get the grades, we need to look at other ways of supporting these kids, like on-the-job training. As a Council, our role is to listen to what people in the community are saying – not just my community, but also other communities and organisations – and to make good decisions with the information that is in front of us.
Into the future
West Daly’s building the platform to do bigger and better things. In the future I’d like to see sustainability for the community. I’d like to see the community more involved and participating and doing something to get involved in building the North. We want to try to tap into the Asian market. Whether that’s as small businesses or in tourism, it could open the doors to a lot of possibilities.
I’m proud of me and my council and what we’ve done since we amalgamated. We’re trying to build a foundation at the moment, so whoever comes along in the future has got something to stand on.
