Horsham Rural City Council passes 2021-22 budget after lost motion

Held in front of a small public gallery on Monday, June 28, passionate protests and disorder marred the meeting.

After a heated debate between councillors, the adopted motion was initially lost. Councillors Ian Ross, Les Power, Claudia Haenel and Di Bell voted against passing the draft budget.

Several councillors cited a lack of support for farmers, disagreeing with the increase of rates for farming land.

Cr Claudia Haenel said she was "conflicted".

"There are some amazing things in the budget. But the farming rural sector are gravely aggrieved," she said.

PROTEST: "Bleeding the farmer": Rates increase forces farmers to take a stand

In a unconventional move, councillors paused standing orders and left the room to negotiate after the lost motion.

Ten minutes later, the councillors returned with Cr Bell and Cr Power changing their votes to pass the budget.

Cr Bell said she wanted to put the municipality first.

Cr Power said he believed more work needed to be done about rates and charges, but the budget required to go through for the benefit of Horsham.

A small cohort of farmers in the gallery was vocally furious, with one wanting to speak during the meeting outside of the allocated time.

The feverous break of protocol by the protestors forced an unplanned break; Cr Guilline reprimanded the group, saying they had no right to speak out of turn.

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The mayor said the budget legally had to be passed despite issues raised by other councillors.

"Councillors had varying concerns about elements of the budget," Cr Gulline said.

"Because it went up as one motion that lead to the result. Legally we have to have the budget passed by June 30. That was the discussion, we had no choice but to pass it."

Cr Gulline said for the next budget, the council want to make changes such as bringing public consultation forward in the process.

"It's too difficult to make wholesale changes at then end, it needs to be done much earlier in the process," she said.

Cr Gulline said fairness and equity means different things to different people.

"As a council, we support all members of the community," she said.

Cr Gulline said the impact of COVID-19 and lockdowns continue, and businesses are struggling to pay staff, rent, bills and cannot simply get a loan from a bank.

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The budget included a three year forward budget, rates and charges for 2021-22 and the revenue and rating plan for 2021-2024.

There were 10 submissions from the public during the public submission period. This was another issue brought up by Cr Bell.

She expressed concern about the lack of changes from public submissions.

Three projects were greenlighted to be included in the budget but were considered "immaterial in nature" and have not been included in the budget document but will be added later.

These include $10,000 to assist with planning costs for a serenity garden for women impacted by family violence, $20,000 to assist with community planning at Natimuk concerning economic development and the impact of changes at Mount Arapiles.

The final project is $66,000 to improve the train station garden and surroundings.

Overall, Cr Gulline said she was happy with the budget and seeing Horsham moving forward.

"We're trying to develop our regional city," she said.

"We need to make ourselves more attractive to people who are already living here, so they want to stay and more attractive to people thinking about coming here.

"We're trying to build things that are raising the standard of the facilities we've already got and meet the needs of our residents now but make us more attractive to new residents that we really need to attract."

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