Chris Oldfield, Naracoorte Community News
Mayor Erika Vickery was in Canberra when a crowd thirsty for information met at the Naracoorte Football Club to learn about a proposal for the North Parklands.
“I flew out to Canberra on the Sunday (June) the 18th,” Mrs Vickery said in a verbal report to the June 28 meeting.
She said there was a board meeting planned for that day and then the Sunday was a regional forum with the theme – Regions Rediscovered.
“I actually chaired one of the sessions – Regional Tourism post pandemic,” Mrs Vickery said.
“That included discussions about regional housing, population challenges, resilience to fires and floods.”
Mrs Vickery indicated those topics involved the whole day.
“So it was very topical to regional councils all over Australia,” she said.
“There was a presentation on the Outback way, which is a road that runs from Laverton in Western Australia through the centre to Alice Springs and on to Winton (in Queensland).”
“This was an example of a sealing of a road and it has taken 25 years of advocacy and push to get the funds and they have nearly completed it.
“So it was really an example of persistence, persistence and more persistence. That is a major connection road.”
“The National General Assembly – that was run from Monday to the Wednesday.
“There were over 1000 people there from all over Australia.”
Mrs Vickery said the day before the council meeting she was in Adelaide for “a housing workshop”.
“That was attended by nine regional councils,” Mrs Vickery said.
Some representatives for three government departments were also present.
“Again they are working on some projects that we can put together from an LGA point of view to really try to identify and access funding sources both state and federal.
“So I very much hope some of these things come to fruition very soon.”
In her written report Mrs Vickery said the theme of the National General Assembly was Partners in Progress.
“The program included sessions on building stronger communities and population, housing and workforce skills.”
This article appeared in the Naracoorte Community News.
