TRINA THOMSON
CR TRINA Thomson has nominated for the 2024 Local Government elections in September after two and a half years serving as Deputy Mayor since the December 2021 elections.
“In doing so I acknowledge the next two terms of council will be beyond challenging as the council will be faced with significant financial issues that will require the new council to make some incredibly difficult decisions as to how to make genuine savings over the coming years in an effort to enable either one remaining merged council, or two demerged entities, to be financially viable,” Cr Thomson said.
“As an Emeritus Mayor of the former Tumut Shire Council, I fully appreciate the governance and community aspects of being an elected representative. I also understand that no matter what decisions are made there will be people quick to criticise, so the following questions are very relevant for all potential candidates, myself included.”
1. What skills, qualities or experience do you believe are needed to be an effective councillor?
First and foremost is to have the interest of the whole of Snowy Valleys Council (all 9000sq kms) as their priority and not focus on individual communities, personalities or issues. Being on council should not be seen as a front seat to push personal agendas or projects.
The beauty of a democracy is that all candidates have individual skills that can contribute to diverse opinions, ideas and decision making. It’s about making informed decisions, not emotional ones. Popular decisions are easy, the right decisions not always so.
A councillor must have the willingness and ability to understand the values embedded in Council’s Code of Conduct and Code of Meeting Practice and realise decisions won’t always go their way and they need to manage that.
At the end of the day, it is vital to understand maths, as motions of council will require a half plus one vote of councillors present to be carried.
As for experience, every councillor started without experience in their first term so it’s their individual skills and a desire to learn the procedural side of governance that will enable them to be effective councillors.
2. What are the biggest challenges facing our incoming council?
Finance, finance, finance, and the unresolved demerger issue.
There are a number of outstanding significant infrastructure projects, the appointment of a new General Manager and if demerger does not happen, a review of the organisational structure within the first 12 months.
Also if demerger is not a reality, the next term of council needs to make a serious effort to harmonise the communities, villages and towns across the Snowy Valleys and work towards better community engagement and planning. The revised budget following the rejected SRV application is only stage one of reducing expenditure and sadly there is around $800,000 in staff so those are real people, real jobs and associated services gone.
If there is a demerger approved, the challenges will be more that I can list here.
3. How do you balance the needs of various areas of Snowy Valleys Council against those of the whole shire?
For me, I honestly look at every decision based on its merit and not the individual community, maybe with the exception of Talbingo. For its size and significance regarding tourism and industry (Snowy Hydro), Talbingo receives very little from council overall in comparison to other SVC communities.
It’s important to put into perspective that council can’t fund the same levels of service in every community and at the same time ensure there is access to what each community needs, even if not at the level they want.
There is also the challenge of making decisions for the future, deciding which generation should be responsible for paying for it and at the same time realising that often the larger communities are required to subsidise smaller ones in relation to essential services that are not commercially viable because of population.
4. What’s the most rewarding part of being a councillor?
Growing up in a family with wonderful role model parents who were both greatly respected, passionate about the community and contributed enormously to it, I find it enormously rewarding to have the privilege to represent the wider community at ‘the table’ in decision making.
I also personally had the honour to proceed over a number of citizenship ceremonies. It is so rewarding to be a part of making new residents’ dreams come true to become Australian citizens.
Overall, the reward for being a councillor is not about ‘you’, it’s about what you do for the short, medium and long term of the wider community and the people who choose to live, work, visit or invest here.
