Candidates vie for your vote

Ways to help Council out of its difficulties?

Dr Tonia Gray, The Greens Council services and operations have been impacted by regulation and compliance pressures, cost shifting and declining revenue from State and Federal grants. NSW is the only state to implement rate pegging which further places unreasonable pressure on the ability of Council to provide the services we expect.

Past Councils generated income through investment in Holiday Parks, Blue Haven self-care units and land development. This proactive approach to offset rising costs should be encouraged.

I will lobby for increased State and Federal grants to fix our roads, infrastructure and aged care services and ensure they are based on need rather than politics.

Gareth Ward, Independent

Whilst I work closely with Kiama Council, I also believe in transparency and accountability.

The community has every right to expect that public money is accounted for and I believe the community needs a detailed explanation about how council has arrived at its present financial position.

Financial sustainability is important for all levels of government.

I have supported council grant applications to the NSW Government and have assisted them in securing funding for everything from the proposed Hindmarsh Park upgrade, the Minnamurra Pump track, and upgrades to local sporting and community facilities through to fixing local roads across the region.

Katelin McInnerney, Labor

The current government has been implicit in underfunding local councils across NSW. I believe we need to have a full and frank discussion about how we fund our local councils, especially if we are to rebuild the partnerships between these two levels of government.

Programs like our Emergency Road Repair Fund will help council to maintain and improve our local roads, so they can focus on delivering services for our community. I will always fight to make sure that all of our local councils get their fair share of funding, so our community isn’t left behind.

Dr Tonia Gray, The Greens Protecting Kiama’s unique environment. The combination of mountains, valleys, farmlands, beaches and forests forms a beautiful landscape making Kiama special. It’s the reason most people choose to live here.

Saddleback Mountain supports the largest subtropical rainforest in southern NSW. Seven Mile Beach has rare vegetation, including Coomonderry Swamp which is the largest coastal freshwater wetland in NSW. Our well-watered volcanic soils support some of the most valuable farmlands in the state.

All this is threatened. Minnamurra and Seven Mile Beach are threatened by sand mining and our farmlands targeted for development. The Greens have always worked to protect these values.

Gareth Ward, Independent

It’s no accident that Kiama has been recognised as the best town in Australia not just because of its character and environment – but the warmth, generosity and

Top 3 issues and how to address them?

from p 5

This is as a direct result of the current government’s deliberate underfunding of our public schools.

Our kids are facing merged classes, or worse, classes with no teacher out the front at all. 40% of teachers in the our electorate are employed on rolling temporary contracts, making it impossible to put down roots locally Only a new Labor government will rebuild our local schools by:

• Making 10,000 existing temp teachers permanent.

• Reducing the administrative burden on teachers by 5 hours a week - restoring teaching time.

• Building new schools in fast-growing areas and fully funding existing ones.

• Paying our teachers properly.

Repairing our health system: Whether I’m speaking to exhausted workers doing extra shifts due to chronic staff shortages, or to locals who waited hours to be seen by in our EDs only to leave in frustration - it is clear that our health system is in deep crisis.

I am proud that Labor has a plan to repair our hospital system by:

• Hiring 1200 additional nurses

• Hiring 500 additional rural and regional paramedics

• Waiving HECS debt for health workers

• Mandate safe staffing levels in our hospitals. Fixing local roads: In 2019, inclusivity of its people.

The character and local environment of the Kiama Municipality is unique. I worked hard to ensure village character was recognised in the Illawarra-Shoalhaven Regional Plan.

The reason why so many tourists love visiting our area each year is because they are extremely jealous of what we have. It’s worth fighting to preserve and protect the unspoilt and unique character of our community because we love it.

Katelin McInnerney, Labor the current government promised to reclassify and transfer 15,000 km of roads from local councils to the state government. In the four years since then, they have not taken over a single kilometer of regional roads and have broken the promise they made to our community.

Our people – first and foremost we need to make sure our schools and hospitals are back to being world class and that we can rely on our local roads to get home safely. We need to make sure our region is properly supported, so communities either side of the Princes Highway aren’t left behind and our views are heard on the floor of the parliament.

I believe that if we work together, we can build a better future for our region and have the fresh start we deserve here in Kiama.

A new Labor government will create an Emergency Road Repair Fund and invest $670 million to make sure the local roads we rely on every day are up to scratch.