"For those who don’t know me, my name is Hamish McLaren and I live at Yarrowitch and I am a current member of the New England North West Regional Advisory Committee for the Westpac Helicopter.
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I’m not telling anyone anything new here, but as a community (and a stand-alone-shire), we consistently hold our own, Walcha Shire Council is well managed, and we as a community are well serviced.
Why can’t this continue? Why can’t we be allowed to choose who runs our own town?
I speak from personal experience to make my point that Walcha can hold its own very nicely thank you. and I speak of my involvement with the Westpac Rescue Helicopter service.
In the last 15 years more than $700,000 has been raised solely from the Walcha community.
I speak from personal experience to make my point that Walcha can hold its own very nicely thank you. and I speak of my involvement with the Westpac Rescue Helicopter service.
- Hamish McLaren
It’s also very interesting to note that the Walcha Shire Council is the only council that has given cash donations to the service every year since its inception which now totals nearly $100,000.
Our council is also a major sponsor of the highly successful Walcha Mountain Bike Challenge which is also not included in those previous figures.
I live about 60 km from Walcha and our council services are very good. When we need our gravel road graded we can go through the right channels to get it done. If it doesn’t we ring a councilor or the General Manager and talk to them individually. Personal service.
I live 170 km from Tamworth (and I have neighbors on the same road that are a lot further.) Can you tell me that we are going to get anywhere near that same service from Tamworth Regional Council.
Personally I think it’s extremely unfair that we continue to have to lose control over our lives and over our ability to have choices in rural areas when as a community and as rural producers and rural business people, we contribute substantially to the national wealth!
I urge Mr Toole and the Chief Executive of the Office of Local Government to look at the passion this community has here today for their viable, successful stand alone local council and reverse their decision today."