Here is part of that interview.

HOW do you rate the Bega Valley Shire Council and its staff in terms of efficiency, effectiveness, viability?

BEGA Valley Shire Council is severely constrained through lack of human and other resources, however the shire continues to meet its statutory requirements through a commitment from staff and councillors that is largely ignored by those external to council.

The few resources available to council are used effectively and efficiently. They will, however, never be able to accommodate all the expectations of a small community that doesn't have the capacity to afford ongoing maintenance and replacement of the infrastructure which has been put in place over decades and which is now deteriorating.

The ongoing viability of the shire will continue to be under threat from the processes of cost shifting and rate pegging, possibly culminating in the formation of larger, regionally-based councils and the loss of control and representation at the local level.

The heavy reliance by Bega Valley Shire on "grants income" as a significant proportion of its revenue base and its current level of borrowing is a risk that needs to be alleviated.

Perhaps the greatest threat to the viability of the shire is the continuation of divisions that have existed and continue to exist within the community and that are regularly reported in the media.

YOU instigated a staffing restructure last November and the senior positions are now filled. Will the new structure bring about the improvements the community is expecting?

THE staffing structure agreed by council has been put in place and all senior positions have been filled. The process has resulted in gross savings to council of approximately $810,000, with $500,000 quarantined in reserve for potential application to infrastructure works. Annual award increases, however, approximate $500,000 so Council has simply "bought time" as it considers the options available to it.

In adopting the staffing structure, council recognised the need for the shire to attract and continue to retain employees with a significant and relevant knowledge base, in recognition of the challenges the shire faces.

It is now widely recognised that knowledge-based industries are going to be the employment and profit generators of the future and that those that survive this transition will only do so by ensuring that knowledgeable employee assets are available to them.

This holds true for private and public sectors and is considered in a context where globalisation and communication technology have impacted on the Australian economy significantly, reducing our manufacturing and service-based industries which have been traditionally relied upon to generate employment wealth.

Tangible evidence of this process can be seen in the demise of coastal industries and the transfer of traditional manufacturing and service based industries offshore (Mitsubishi and call centres generally).

HOW is the staff coping with the restructure and with the extra workloads caused by the loss of some 20 jobs? Which areas are suffering most?

STAFF never complain directly regarding the impositions placed upon them in council's current financial environment, but it is obvious to all that they are suffering increasing stress, while continuing to take on more and more duties.

The resilience and commitment of the staff was never more apparent than during the recent restructuring process as they accepted more duties and responsibilities as the organisation reduced its employee complement by 29 positions.

The organisation was under-resourced prior to the restructure but, having no other option, council cut back in the only areas that it could to free up funds for infrastructure works.

While the imposition is across all areas of council, as natural attrition was used whenever the vacancy occurred, those areas that continue to suffer the most are those with a high level of public and customer contact such as Planning, Building Services and Customer Services.

FROM a small rate base, Bega Valley Shire Council has a large amount of infrastructure to maintain and administer - roads, bridges, halls, swimming pools, libraries, tips, cemeteries etc. Can council continue to support this amount of infrastructure, particularly with rate pegging?

COUNCIL cannot continue to support infrastructure maintenance and renewal to the levels previously expected by ratepayers or council under the current rate pegging regime.

There is a need for a review of the rate pegging mechanism such that economic and financial aspects are considered ahead of the political consideration that continues to dominate rate pegging policy.

What specific impact does rate pegging have on the financial sustainability of council?

Unfortunately for NSW, rate pegging has:

*Distorted the fundamental financial equation necessary for infrastructure upkeep.

*In so far as it has applied across NSW and only in NSW, reduced NSW, comparable to other States, to the "State of Decay".

*Destroyed decentralised local government which was the antithesis of globalisation forces that facilitate concentration and regionalisation to attain economies of scale. In fundamental terms, decentralised local government facilitated economic financial multipliers in regional areas of the state, permitting the opportunity for innovation in areas that had no other economic support base.

Decentralised local government was a proactive pathfinder for regional development in NSW but has now been overtaken by forces reactive to globalisation.

Specifically, rate pegging constrains growth in the revenue base without any comparable constraints in council's costs.

CHANGES to the management and promotion of tourism in the shire were initiated before you arrived. Do you think those changes are the correct way to go for an industry many see as the mainstay of the local economy?

Tourism is the shire's greatest business asset but it is also a poorly performing asset, with great risk attached to the shire's reliance upon it in the absence of any other commercial/industrial or service growth opportunities.

The prolonged infighting among local tourism operators, particularly in Merimbula, has in my view held the industry back for many years, making it that much more difficult to compete with competitors that have far more developed tourism product to offer.

The council's decision to establish the administrative structure for the tourism industry at arm's length both from council and vested tourism interests, while made before my commencement with council, is appropriate and mirrors the successful models seen in Cairns and the Queensland Coast generally.

The independence of the governing Board for the Tourism industry is an absolute necessity to ensure objective decision-making based on substantial research analysed by parties who do not have a conflict of interest between what's good for the industry as a whole and their more specific daily business interests.

While the establishment of an independent administrative structure has been determined, there is a role for council in the provision of tourism related infrastructure in its own right and the facilitation of tourism-related infrastructure built by the private sector.

Additionally, council should consider entering into a partnership arrangement with the industry representative body for purposes of funding promotional campaigns, perhaps on a strictly dollar for dollar basis.

Neither council nor the tourism industry participants should lose sight of the need to establish and diversify the commercial base of the shire to add to economic growth, and employment and to further underwrite the existing tourism base.

Our tourism markets will always be subject to market fluctuations arising from competition generally, and more recently, oil price increases, interest rate increases and disposable income levels of those holiday makers that comprise the particular markets for our tourism sector.

COUNCIL has been in negotiations with Woolworths regarding a major development in Bega which involves the sale of some council-owned assets to the company. How are these negotiations progressing?

DETAILED negotiations with Woolworths have been ongoing now for some months, made complicated in part because there are other parties independent of council that are also negotiating their respective positions.

AGREEMENT on the price was reached late last year. When do you expect a

DA to be submitted?

PRIOR to any detailed commitment by council, an independent economic study is to be undertaken at Woolworths' cost, examining the likely commercial impact of the proposed development on the existing business activity within the CBD.

Until such a study is undertaken, and the results known and accepted, it may be premature to either lodge or consider any DA lodged.

WILL council be looking to restrict the number of speciality shops in the development?

Yes

THE new hospital is another big proposal for Bega. Do you think that will have an impact on the way the town develops?

THE new hospital will have an impact on the way the whole shire develops, not just the township of Bega.

There is no doubt that the advent of the new hospital will bring a suite of shire-wide medical services but one should not underestimate the expenditure multipliers associated with hospital employees' wages and salaries that will certainly have effect in all townships in the shire.

If Bega Valley Shire Council employees are anything to go by, while they may work in Bega, they commute on a daily basis from Bermagui, Tathra, Tura Beach, Merimbula, Pambula, Candelo, Wolumla and Eden and spend a portion, if not all of their wages and salaries in those respective areas. The new hospital will introduce a similar phenomenon, with multiplier effects, which will be felt and welcomed shire-wide.

THERE is a history going back nearly 30 years of divisiveness between communities in the shire - the north-south divide. Do you believe this is healthy parochialism?

THE history of nearly 30 years of divisiveness between communities in the shire is not a healthy parochialism and I believe has held back commercial development in the shire considerably, with the subsequent absence of employment opportunities one has come to expect from a diversified regional economic base.

The in-fighting over the siting of the new hospital was one of the most unfortunate debates I have witnessed in recent times.

Having recently lived in Western Sydney, with over a million and a half inhabitants, the under-resourcing of the health system was well recognised by all, with travelling times for my family and the majority of inhabitants to either Nepean Base Hospital or Westmead, well over an hour through urban metropolitan Sydney.

In this context an argument concerning unencumbered driving times of 20 minutes to a state of the art hospital from most areas of the shire defies belief, yet the argument dominated our media for weeks.

In my view, we were entirely fortunate that the funding for the hospital was not lost entirely to arguably more 'topical' areas such as North Sydney. Clearly in this debate, we did nothing to help ourselves and, unfortunately, the divisions that exist in this debate will, I fear, continue into the future.

WHAT are you most pleased about during your time with the Bega Valley Shire?

IT HAS been an extremely positive experience working with the councillors of the Bega Valley Shire Council, more so than any other council that I have had the opportunity to work for.

I have been fortunate to have strong and amiable relationships with each one and, to their credit and my benefit, they have pursued their particular interests mindful of the need for the administration to maintain its independence throughout.

I will miss the interaction with this particular group of councillors who, in no small way have been in my view responsible for positioning the Bega Valley Shire Council to take on some significant challenges in a context of a very divisive and unstable community environment.

ANY regrets?

YES, I would have preferred to have been able to stay longer to achieve the economic and commercial objectives that are required for the shire to grow.

The particular problems that face the shire have accumulated over some 15 to 20 years and cannot be solved in 12 months. I would have preferred to have been judged on my achievements in this context after my term of five years.