Every Tuesday morning as we catch up with Mayor Teresa Harding for the latest updates from Ipswich City Council. Celebrate Ipswich’s booming economy, now surpassing $13 billion in gross regional product, and learn about the new Ipswich Medicare Mental Health Centre offering free mental health support. Mayor Harding discusses ongoing advocacy for better public transport and infrastructure, recent community feedback on council services, and her efforts to ensure the mayor chairs the local disaster management group.
00:00
It is a Tuesday here on the Breakkie show and it is time for us to catch up with Mayor Teresa Harding and find out how the week in council has been going. Good morning, Teresa. Good morning, Damo. Good morning to all the listeners. It is good to talk to you. Well, there’s good news for the Ipswich economy. It smashed through the 13 billion mark for the first time, according to the latest data. Yes, so the second successive year, our city’s gross regional product.
00:26
which measures the value of goods and services, has risen sharply. So to see it hit the $3 billion mark is really incredible. And it’s quite almost a $2 billion increase in over the last two years. So look, it’s great to see that this is happening. We are growing and businesses are growing and more businesses are coming to Ipswich. Which is fantastic news. And of course we are seeing a lot of growth in healthcare and social assistance as well. And lots of different areas of the community too.
00:54
It is and these latest economic figures show that Council’s ongoing advocacy for more public transport for that if central or Springfield central train line and transport really needs to happen so people can move around so they can get to work or their business or to study. And I do know that you attended the Council of Mayors and the Local Government Association and
01:18
We’re advocating very hard for transport infrastructure and also things like the odor issue and all those sorts of things. Last week, the Southeast Queensland mayors went to Queensland Parliament. And we spoke with many of the cabinet ministers and shadow ministers, especially with the election coming up in a few months time, it was really important. But obviously, transport infrastructure, Southeast Queensland is growing so quickly. The transport infrastructure is not keeping up. So certainly for Ipswich, we spoke a lot about the fact that
01:48
which is the sixth largest council in Queensland by population, yet from the Department of Transport and Main Roads we only rank 19 when it comes to the level of funding that we get for our population. So it’s very disproportionate and we also had a reduction in bus services as well. So it’s really important that we have better public transport and better transport infrastructure. Yeah it certainly is and of course as we look at we mentioned the health sector in its growth.
02:15
We just saw a new health centre open in Nicholas Street. It’s really great, a brand new service and it’s called the Ipswich Medicare Mental Health Centre. That’s a bit of a mouthful but it’s a free mental health care and support for residents. So it’s free, you can make appointments, you can drop in, they’ll be able to provide this is for adults, they can access free mental health information, services.
02:41
They can also coordinate support and referral elsewhere. It’s open Monday to Fridays at the moment. It’s just above the dumpling place. I think it’s gonna be a really good resource for people. You don’t have to sort of make a time to see your GP and have a mental health plan. It’s an ability to drop in there, have a chat, see some professionals and seek support. And I’m really pleased that this has come to Ipswich.
03:06
And of course with that new centre now in Nicholas Street, meaning more foot traffic going through, you know, the area for local business too. Yeah, more foot traffic. You know, we’ll be handing over the, you know, practical completion or the two hosts to do their fit out very soon and same with Hotel Commonwealth. So it’s exciting times. Yes, I did see that. And you and Marnie Doyle in the high vis, it looked very fetching, let me tell you.
03:33
Customer service, a priority. Last week, council held a customer service community panel. What was the outcomes of that? Yes, we started a process a couple of years ago in how to improve customer service and the customer experience for people when they ring council, contact council, or how council does services. So we’ve made many changes, and this was a time to get in touch with the community panel, let them know we were at, but also to receive feedback on how they’d like to contact council.
04:02
how they would like council to operate and provide services. So really thank the people of Ipswich who came forward and provided that information to us. Fantastic. And that’s what it’s all about, is getting that feedback from the community and then implementing those ideas, isn’t it? Absolutely. That’s our job. That’s what people pay their rates and their charges for. So it’s really important to know that what we’re doing well and make sure we maintain and what we can improve on. Now, there’s a few panels that the council engages with. So if people listening,
04:31
would like to join one of those, they could just contact council I guess. They can. We also if you go to shap and look for community panels and you will see that you just log in there and there’s a wide variety of them from governance to economic development to sport to resource recovery. There’s a whole range there and every time we have a policy or a strategy that council’s looking at we always sort of touch base with those groups to see what’s happening. One thing we did the end of last year for instance will be.
05:00
building a new resource recovery centre or a new big tip with an animal pound out at Red Bank Plains new chum area. So we actually offered it up to all the members of that resource recovery panel to go on a bit of a bus trip and we took them around there took them around the site so they could give us feedback on the plans that we were doing. So it’s really important we do get that feedback from residents. Yeah before we let you go I know last Thursday was a tough day you brought forward a mayoral minute.
05:27
in response to community feedback over the chair of the local disaster management group. That was defeated. Once again, as I said, a tough day. Look, we had a that’s about longest council meeting we ever had. It went for over six hours and we went through we got through over 30 items there. One of them was my mayoral minutes that I brought forward.
05:47
The community have been very firm with me and they would like to see that during a disaster that their mayor is in charge of the local disaster management group. So I put forward a mayoral motion to make sure that the mayor would always be chairing of the local disaster management group. It was unsuccessful for a second time. It was democratically elected. But I guess what really upset residents was the fact that not only do they expect their mayor to be there to do that, but there was no reasons given.
06:17
So it’s quite, I think the community feel very frustrated and confused as to what the reasons are. Yeah, and that was defeated six to three, wasn’t it? It was, it was. And certainly some of the community think it was politically motivated. You know, I have written to the Minister, Nikki Boyd, who’s the Minister for Emergency Management, and I’ve written to her asking her to change the, for her to consider changing the Disaster Management Regulations, Section 10.
06:45
to remove the politics from these type of decisions to having that regulation that the mayor or their delegate is the chair of the local disaster management group. Yeah, well, good luck with that fight and we wish you all the very best. Thank you so much for joining us this morning and we’ll catch up again next week. Thanks so much, see you next week. There we go, Mayor Teresa Harding, joining us there.
More Posts for Show: The Breakky Club
0 Comments