Tanya Cullen and Adrian Cameron
I’m Tanya Cullen and I’ve made Binalong my home and Yass Valley my community. As an active volunteer with groups like YassFM, Red Cross, the Historical Society and Progress Associations, I know the passion our community has for the area and its future.
I’m standing alongside Greens Councillor Adrian Cameron because I believe it’s time Yass Valley Council started actively listening to residents and working to protect what is special about our community and area.
My working life has been spent in town and transport planning, heritage and archaeology. For more than 20 years I worked for, and with, local councils and communities helping to identify and protect their valued spaces and places. I believe that local councils are best-placed to improve the everyday lives of communities. I understand the many competing priorities councils face, but I also know the opportunities councils have to make a difference to people’s lives and to our environment. On my weekly radio show on YassFM – Live and Local – I talk about the issues I think are important to Yass Valley and I highlight the positive outcomes that so many other councils across Australia are achieving.
The current Council has sleepwalked its way into a huge debt burden that can’t be serviced and that we’ll carry for a very long time. Key Council decisions and reports have been closed to the public and there has been no information provided on the $50m Crago Mill project since November 2023. The water treatment plant can’t cope. Some 50% of its own buildings have been reported by Council as poor to unusable. Waste fees and volumes are increasing. Community groups are being charged rates for the first time in 100 years. And we’ve been promised a rail trail and a main street up-grade – as soon as a grant comes along. Meanwhile Council plans to put 10 000 additional people in Murrumbateman, based on an expectation that the ACT will provide a water pipeline from Canberra at no cost. The community has lost its trust in Council.
Now, more than ever, we need Councillors who will ask the hard questions, think differently about how Council operates and bring it into the 21st century. We need more, better and different services for our growing rates and charges. Charging more for the same, or less, simply has to stop.
We have many advantages to build on. We have a solid rates base, high median incomes and high levels of tertiary educated residents; flourishing businesses; a growing population; and proximity to the ACT and the services and resources it offers.
This valuable base of expertise and goodwill in our local businesses, community groups, towns and villages has been ignored and kept out for far too long. If Council is to regain the community’s trust, it must make the first move to fully engage with the community, better support local business and community groups, improve our facilities and protect what is special about our community.
I will work for a more open, transparent, engaged and responsive Council that supports its staff in serving the community. For financial accountability. For services that the community has long wanted like a green waste collection service to reduce the cost burden on households and our greenhouse emissions. For Council fees and charges that are fair and equitable. For better support of our community groups, ensuring they’re not hit with rates notices because Council needs cash. For a balanced approach to development, driven by sustainability in all its forms. For more and more open communication and information sharing.
Adrian Cameron has been representing your interests on Council since 2021 and he’s done a great job, always putting your interests and concerns first. Together, Adrian and I will continue that work and hold Council and its senior management to account when necessary. We have practical ideas to improve the transparency of Council and we’ll harness the skills and expertise of willing members of our community to plan for a strong and sustainable future.
Yass Valley Council must change and it must start to work with all residents and community groups to get better outcomes and opportunities for everyone.
I want to be more than part of real change; I will work hard to make sure that change occurs.
This editorial piece is being paid for as part of an advertising package offered to all candidates.
