Mount Isa Mayor Joyce McCulloch says she is setting the record straight about election promises made by her opposing candidates, 10 days before locals head to the polls.
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The North West Star sat down with Cr McCulloch on Monday March 17, to get her take on what opposition candidates were promising to the Mount Isa community, including free pet registration, after hours Council meetings and live streaming and public forums at Council meetings.
When asked about free pet registration for seniors and veterans, Cr McCulloch said Mount Isa City Council already offered 50 per cent discount for all community members.
"What this does is it encourages people to register their pets, which is a lot more important to have every pet in Mount Isa registered," she said.
"We do have a big dog issue in Mount Isa, so if we could have all pets registered it makes pet ownership more responsible.
"It would be a little bit hard to police with just seniors and veterans.
"By taking that further discount, others are going to have to pay for that. But at the moment everyone gets a fair price with 50 per cent off."
Cr McCulloch said the 50 per cent off registration for everyone also assists with rehoming from the pound.
"When buying from the pound all factors are contributed into a low cost," she said.
"I got a kitten from there and it cost $256 and that was to purchase the pet, have it microchipped, registered and desexed. The team are always working toward better outcomes for the community."
On the topic of moving Council meetings to after hours, Cr McCulloch said there was not enough interest and it is another cost.
"It's very difficult in a mining community when we have shift workers anyway," she said.
"After hours meetings has been tried throughout a number of different Councils throughout Australia and they have found that they have no more people presenting at meetings, because the last thing that people want to do after work is to go to a Council meeting. And a lot of people in town are tied up with external activities anyway, so with our current lunch time meetings it give people the opportunity to come.
"Also if you hold them outside Council office hours it will increase the cost of the Council meetings, simply because you need to keep Council officers after hours to address any of councillors queries about written reports presented in Council meetings."
Cr McCulloch said Mount Isa City Council was already in the process of providing live streaming to the community.
"We had been waiting for two things to happen before we live stream our meetings; to make our Council Chambers user friendly and have cameras installed, and we also had to wait for the final roll out of the Belcarra legislation to make sure our meetings are being run to legislative requirements," she said.
"Council has done up a plan to remodel the Council Chambers to be more user friendly for people coming to council and host live streamed Council meetings.
"As for public forums being held, this is no different to our public gallery being heard in our ordinary council meetings."
Cr McCulloch was concerned that candidates were making promises they couldn't deliver on.
"I think that one needs to be careful of making promises because 99 per cent of councillors when they get elected, want to change the world and then find out they can't," she said.
"When I was elected, I partially found this out. But I also already had my head around the governance side of things as well.
"You are not going to be able to deliver them (promises) so you need to understand what you can change before you go and make those promises, because you're setting up the community for failure, not just yourself."
Cr McCulloch's team 'Progress Mount Isa' has been out on the streets talking to locals, which Cr McCulloch said was receiving great feedback.
"We are chatting to people about their queries and they want to know what we plan to do in the future.
"A lot of people like that we are out and about in the community to be accessible and not just on social media.
"I am excited about the election, you don't know what is going to happen until the day. It's a bit like a horse race really.
"I think we are running a very positive campaign about what we have achieved and what we would like to further achieve in our community. So we are happy with how we are rolling the campaign out."
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Samantha Campbell
Samantha Campbell (nee Walton) has worked for regional and rural publications across New South Wales, Queensland and the Northern Territory. She is currently writing for the North Queensland Register based in North West Queensland. Email: samantha.campbell@austcommunitymedia.com.au
Samantha Campbell (nee Walton) has worked for regional and rural publications across New South Wales, Queensland and the Northern Territory. She is currently writing for the North Queensland Register based in North West Queensland. Email: samantha.campbell@austcommunitymedia.com.au
