FORMER politician Tony Windsor has told Walcha residents they should stand up and keep fighting the proposed Fit for the Future council amalgamation plan because he believes they can win the battle.
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The one-time state and federal MP has come out fighting for the shire, which is under threat of being merged with with Tamworth Regional Council under the IPART recommendations for a raft of NSW local government mergers.
The former independent, now retired to life on the farm at Werris Creek, described Walcha as the best local council body he’d ever dealt with in his 23-year political career.
“They never played games and obviously had their differences in the council chamber, but it never spread onto the street,” he said.
“They did what councils were supposed to do – leading the charge on issues, like the gorge country. And the best test, in my view, is when a community stands up, and I have never seen other communities do it like they do it at Walcha. They’ve done it on a number of occasions. I remember the last time they were threatened with amalgamation and at one meeting, all the town was there, and it was off the back of a truck and they beat the thing to death.”
Mr Windsor, who was the New England MP for 12 years until late 2013 and a member of the NSW Parliament for more than 10 years before that, said rural councils had basically been caught up in what was a state government plan to “eradicate all the voices in the suburbs”.
“Local government down there is full of politics and they’re running this under the covenant of all over the state,” he said.
Mr Windsor was also critical of Tamworth Regional Council’s perceived public ambivalence to the Walcha merger, saying TRC seemed quite happy to sit back and let the plan take its course, rather than lend a supporting hand to Walcha.
Mr Windsor said while TRC stood apart from the fight, it needed to be mindful of a danger that in the future it could get swallowed up by a bigger local government body itself.
He likened the TRC stance as standing by silently while a mate was in trouble – and he suggested the future could see TRC in danger of being swallowed by a bigger entity, like Newcastle, for example.
But despite the plans, he said the Walcha merger wasn’t a fait accompli.
“This is highly winnable,” he said.
“I think they can beat it.”
And in a letter to The Leader, Mr Windsor called on local MPs Kevin Anderson and Armidale-based Adam Marshall to lend more than just supportive words to the two northern merger plans and the councils opposed to them.
“They should be out there fighting. They are both saying they’ll support their communities, but it’s sentiment, not action; just a jumble of words,” he said.
“They need to get on their bikes and get to work.”
On a wider note, Mr Windsor said there was a danger ahead for regional councils into the future.
“In terms of a country voice, local government needs to be pretty careful,” he said.