My Ramble

There are so many questions that need to be asked when looking at someone who nominates to represent the people of a Ward in the Local Council.

I will do my best to answer those here, however, if you have any questions, please feel free to contact me via my contact details and I will endeavour to answer those for you. 

I have lived in Mannum for the last 20 years and have raised my six children and one stepson both in town and on a small property we had on the outskirts.  At the time we moved here, I was working as a Lecturer at Noarlunga TAFE in the Information Technology field and then was hired by Broadband Anywhere, later to be bought out by Aussie Broadband, and assisted in bringing wireless broadband to the area well before the NBN rollout. 

I also ran the video and computer store called The Virtual Hub until technology brought an end to the DVD hire industry. I still service computers on a part-time basis from home.

Over the last 20 years while in Mannum I have been an employee, a business owner and a farmer, and sometimes doing all three at once. 

I believe this gives me a good understanding of the requirements for a councillor in the Mid Murray council or at least a solid base to start with. The job of a councillor is to represent the people who live in or have property in the council district.  The key word here is represent! I would see it as my job to be the person who represents the wishes of the majority of the community, even if I don’t agree with their decision.

I am by nature a logical person and I am always looking for solutions to problems and therefore do not mind getting into a good debate on subjects that need to be explored. But there are times when logic is not the right answer and you need to fall back to what is right by moral standards. Now that’s a whole other discussion, but the basics are to treat people with respect and fairly, assist where you can, put other people ahead of yourself and always pay it forward where you can. 

The last 4 years have had some disastrous consequences for the community with people losing jobs and incomes, and businesses being hampered by certain rules and regulations. A lot of which were outside the control of the council. However, it is the council that now needs to help the community to grow and prosper.  To do this it needs people who are willing to stand up and represent and assist the people, businesses, volunteer organisations, farmers, basically everyone it can in the council area.

I ran as an independent in the last Federal Election and during that campaign, I started to realise that if you want to make a change to help your community and the country it needs to start from the bottom up and not the top down. However, for that to happen you need to have someone to act as the funnel for the community someone strong enough to stand up and say what is required by the people, able to take the criticism from those who don’t agree and continue to move forward for the betterment of the community.

Over my 63 years of life, the one thing I have developed is a thick skin, I am happy with who I am and how I treat other people, I have a giving nature, sometimes to my detriment.

I also understand that becoming a councillor is not a position of power but the exact opposite it is a position of servitude.  You are elected to serve the people who live and/or run businesses in the council area.  I, like so many other people have just accepted the council as a matter of fact and have not really concerned myself with what the council does. But the council is the basis of our community and if we want our lives to be better then this is one of the areas that we need to work on and with. 

Oh! That is another trait that I have and is both good and bad, I tend to be brutally honest and call things as I see them.  Sometimes that means I also have to humble myself and apologise when I get it wrong.

I had a lot of people ask me if I was interested in running for this vacant position and after some serious thought and discussion, I decided that I would stand up again and be a representative of the people. 

I am not a politician just an ordinary person who is looking to leave a better future for my children and hopefully my grandchildren and in doing so make it better for every member of the community. 

Again feel free to ask around about me, I am sure you get some feedback, hopefully mostly positive.  You can also contact me directly if you wish.  Thank you for reading this rant.  The decision is now yours