As you would be aware by now, the results of the December 2021 election have now been confirmed, and we have all been sworn in at our first meeting, held on January 11.

At this meeting we voted on the mayor and deputy mayor, and I was honoured to be voted by my colleagues for the role of Mayor until September 2023. It is true that this was a tightly contested election, and I would like to commend Cr Kirk for the work he has done in the past five years as mayor.

I have publicised a number of areas I would like to focus on in the coming years, including revisiting Wakefield Park's development application, construction of a community centre and a permanent home for Riding for Disabled. In the Tarago area we as a council have taken a strong stance in opposition to the proposed Veolia Incinerator and will be working closely with the community to fight this project.

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At the end of the day however, our council must work as a team to achieve great things for our region. I am excited by the opportunity to work with colleagues new and old, and am sure we will be able to continue the positive trend in Goulburn Mulwaree.

The newly elected councillors are as follows:

Their email address and phone numbers are all publicly available on our website, and I would encourage you to reach out to them if you have questions, ideas or concerns.

Australia Day Celebrations

Australia Day in Goulburn and Marulan will be a day to reflect, respect and celebrate.

Goulburn's festivities will begin at 7.30am in Victoria Park with a free barbecue breakfast for the first 500 people, as well as a junior cricket match taking place on Seiffert Oval.

The organising committee have arranged an extravaganza of activities and entertainment which will take place at the Goulburn Historic Waterworks from 9am. We will have live entertainment, food stalls, markets, historic cars and water based activities including stand up paddle boards, kayaks and pedal boats. Bookings for water activities will be taken on the day with all equipment provided.

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A member of the Aboriginal community will be running an Indigenous Art and Culture Expo, which will feature dedicated market stalls and workshops.

An official ceremony will commence at 10am, which will be opened with an Acknowledgement of Country in First Nations language and a Traditional Smoking Ceremony, as well as Dinawan's Connection Aboriginal dance performance.

This will be followed by the presentation of Australia Day Awards to the winners of: Citizen of the Year, Young Citizen of the Year and Community Event of the Year.

I would like to acknowledge the nominees for these nominations for this year; seven nominations were received for Citizen of the Year for 2022 being Sylvana Aliffi, Maggie Paterson, Ian Radford, Geoffery Shepherd, Irene Turner, Heather West and Gary Worboys.

Three nominations were received for Event of the Year, being the Goulburn Show, 2580 Business Awards and Convoy for Kids Mystery Drive.

Anabarasan Mitchell has been nominated for the Young Citizen of the Year Award.

The first Citizenship Ceremony of the year will also be held as part of the official proceedings, and is always a wonderful part of the day.

Shuttle buses will run from the Victoria Park entrance on Faithfull Street to the Goulburn Historic Waterworks from 9am to 2pm, approximately every 15 minutes. Due to limited onsite parking at the Waterworks, attendees are encouraged to park at Victoria Park and utilise the shuttle buses.

Marulan's Australia Day Celebrations will be held at the soccer fields, and will feature a range of exciting entertainment and activities. From 4pm attendees can enjoy live entertainment, a petting zoo, fire twirlers, jumping castles, food trucks and more. The celebrations will conclude with a fireworks show at 8:30pm.

Regional Hockey Complex

As most of the community would now be aware, we have laid the new water based turf on the second field at the Goulburn Regional Hockey Complex, and it looks absolutely outstanding.

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However unfortunately within the first week we have had birds move into the area, who are damaging this turf quite significantly. In the short term to prevent damage to the field we have installed a gas gun, which needs to go off at regular intervals during daylight hours to scare the birds away. I acknowledge this is very inconvenient to residents in South Goulburn but want to stress that this is only a short-term solution.

We are exploring other avenues including an ultrasonic bird repelling system, and this has been ordered and will be installed as soon as possible.

In the meantime we do apologise to residents in this area, and hope you will understand that this is essential to protect the new field and will be changed over to the new system as soon as we receive this.

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