March 18, 2016
This Saturday Cr Deb Palmer will be heading to the ballot box to cast her vote alongside everyone else in Division 2.
But this election is special.
Deb will be helping to choose someone to fill the shoes that she and her father, the late Kevin Allery, have ably filled for the Timbertowns for almost 37 years.
Deb is stepping down from the South Burnett Regional Council on Saturday after serving two terms as Councillor for Division 2 – an area that stretches from Taromeo out to Maidenwell and up to South Nanango.
Deb was first elected in 2008 when the South Burnett Regional Council was formed, and went through the difficult first four years with Mayor David Carter, helping to merge the former Murgon, Wondai, Kingaroy and Nanango Shire Councils together as well as deal with the disaster of the 2011 floods.
Then during her most recent four year term, when she was returned unopposed, she served as chair of the SBRC’s Property and Human Resources portfolio with Mayor Wayne Kratzmann during a period that saw the biggest spend on infrastructure seen in the region for decades, along with the devastating 2013 floods and the $100 million recovery works that followed.
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Along the way, Deb also helped secure a $15.4 million slice of Council spending for her Division’s residents to make her own mark on the town.
Headline projects included a $1.2 million upgrade to Blackbutt’s waste water treatment plant; $1 million in upgrades to the Blackbutt-Benarkin water supply; the current $3 million upgrade to fix Blackbutt CBD’s long-standing drainage and flooding problems; and a whopping $9.4 million spend on the Division’s roads, including a $548,000 contribution from the Road Levy.
But there have been many other smaller wins along the way too.
Such as modern new toilet blocks in Les Muller Park and Benarkin; the levelling and upgrading of the Maidenwell Sports Field; the reconstruction of the historic Taromeo Stone Wall Cemetery after the floods; getting a solar thermal blanket for the Blackbutt Swimming Pool; and modernising the Coomba Falls Walking Track.
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Deb said she was motivated to throw her hat in the ring in 2008 because of her father, who had served on Nanango Shire Council for 29 years prior to his death in 2005 at the age of 78.
“Because my dad was a Councillor, I knew what the issues in this area were and I had some idea about how Councils worked. So I wanted to get in and keep on fighting for our Division,” Deb said.
“But as it turned out, when I got in I soon found out I only knew about 25 per cent of what I really needed to know. So I had to pick up the rest on the job.”
One of the first things she discovered was that residents can sometimes be annoying.
“I remember the time I had a phone call at 3:00am from someone complaining that the goats in their neighbour’s property were making too much noise,” Deb laughed.
“When I asked what they would like me to do about it, it turned out they hadn’t thought quite that far and they hung up. I guess they just wanted a sympathetic ear. But 3:00am in the morning?”
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Another thing she found out, once she’d settled into the job, was that Councils are like families. And like any family, they have fights from time to time.
Budget negotiations always saw the biggest fights as Deb and her follow Councillors carved up each year’s spending amongst the six Divisions.
There was often a bit of horse trading going on, but sometimes she simply had to dig in her heels and insist that things she knew were critical get done.
And there were fights at other times, too.
Such as the decision to borrow $3 million to fix long-standing drainage problems in Blackbutt’s CBD area that have bedeviled the town for decades.
Some Councillors agreed with Deb that it was better to take a loan, do the work now and pay it off, while others thought Council should set money aside for several years and pay for the project when they’d saved up enough.
Deb ultimately won the fight to do it now. But there was a lot of heated discussion behind closed doors in the lead-up to that decision.
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Does she have any regrets?
“Yes, I’m sorry that we haven’t finished Frank’s Road yet. And I really wanted to get Benarkin’s main road fixed right up to the school. Both of those will happen in the next term, I’m sure.”
What’s she most pleased about?
“Apart from fixing the CBD flooding and drainage problems, the thing I’m most excited about is getting a supermarket for Blackbutt. I think it will do wonders for the town, lift everyone’s property values and really make the place boom.”
What does she think of Divisions?
“I’m in favour of them, because locals know their Division best and can see the problems quickly and clearly. A whole-of-shire system could see, say, six Councillors elected from Proston. No disrepect to Proston, but how well do you think they’d know a place like Maidenwell or Taromeo?”
How about the Portfolio system?
“I hope the next Council retain it. It encourages Councillors to work closely with the staff and it helps give them a whole-of-region view that I think is essential to providing good governance for everybody.”
What will you do after Council?
“I plan to spend as much time as I can with my family, and will keep on running my businesses in Blackbutt. I’m still going to be around and I’m always open for a chat if you think I can help with a Council problem.”
Any advice for her replacement?
“Yes. Always listen to your community. You’re there to represent them, and to do that well you have to know what’s important to them, what they want you to do.”
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Deb said she decided to step down after losing her brother during her second term, because she thought it was time to stop awhile, smell the roses and spend more time with the people she loves most.
But after a very bleak personal time in the last few years, she’s had an unexpected bonus: floods of calls from locals once it became known she didn’t intend to re-stand, all begging her to reconsider and stay on.
“I can’t tell you how much I was touched by that,” Deb said, tears suddenly welling in her eyes.
“Sometimes when you do this job you think you’re the only person out there going for it and no-one else supports what you’re doing.
“And you get criticised by all sorts of people, sometimes for things that are completely out of your control. So eventually you start to think your support has evaporated and you’re all alone.
“That’s why it was so wonderful to find that all the people who’d voted to put me on Council in 2008 were still out there, backing me.
“That was the absolute best retirement gift I could ever get.
“Thank you, everyone!”
