TAMWORTH mayor Col Murray says refusing an all-expenses paid trip to China next month could cause irreparable damage to the relationship between council and Everich Corporation.
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Councillors will vote tonight on the merits of accepting an offer from the Chinese company for Cr Murray and general manager Paul Bennett to attend its annual general meeting in Shenzhen.
Everich, which purchased the new Woolworths-Dan Murphy’s retail complex for $30 million earlier this year, has signalled its intention to invest significantly in the local agriculture industry.
But questions have been raised over the appropriateness of having the logistics company pay many thousands of dollars for Cr Murray and Mr Bennett to attend the AGM on January 11.
Chief among the concerns is the perception the trip could take on should Everich ever tender for land on which to build its planned five-star hotel or lodge a development application with council.
However, Cr Murray said that as Tamworth Regional Council was not engaged in any business with Everich – and the trip would be declared as a gift on the council’s register – he could see no issues.
“I don’t think there’s anything sinister and there’s certainly nothing to hide about this,” he said.
“We might have some members of our community wondering why council would be supporting a (trip) like this, but I believe it’s certainly in the best interests of our future.
“I would suggest it would (damage the relationship) very seriously (if we did not attend). They thought it was very important to the relationship for us to attend.”
Cr Murray, who has met with Everich representatives on a number of occasions, said critics must be cognisant of the cultural differences between Australia and the world’s most populous country.
“We’ve been advised by NSW Trade and Investment that Chinese business is very different to our normal mode of business,” he said.
“The Chinese, and in fact most Asians, appear to put an awful lot of effort into building a relationship before the business really starts to happen. As China reaches out to the world’s trading partners to provide it with food into the next few generations, I would say it would be almost unreasonable for council not to take up what opportunities are out there.”
Tamworth Ratepayers’ and Residents’ Association president Bob Murray said that if the trip was approved, the group would be looking very closely at what benefits it would have for the community.
