Candidates meet with council

STRATHBOGIE Shire Council is meeting with all candidates in the federal seats of Indi and Nicholls to ensure they are clear on our region's need for infrastructure improvements and funding support. Council Mayor Laura Binks said they are seeing strong development in Nagambie and Euroa, and this is matched by demand as people look to relocate to the beautiful region. "To ensure we can support this growth – both business and residential – council is advocating to state and federal governments for funding support. "We are using the opportunity to advocate strongly for a range of different issues and projects." Equitable digital and telecommunications infrastructure were a centrepoint raised with candidates. The struggle for internet speed, reliability and phone coverage in Strathbogie Shire's municipality is unacceptable. Slow speeds, dropouts, congestion at peak usage times and no mobile signal are causing dissatisfaction and disparity. Council believes telecommunications infrastructure is just as important as road, waste and utility services and the lack of this infrastructure and service providers makes rural districts uncompetitive in attracting commercial and residential investment, and at a disadvantage. "We need to ensure shire residents, businesses and visitors receive the same level of connectivity capacity and service reliability as those in metropolitan Melbourne and our larger regional centres," Cr Binks said. Nationals candidate Liz Fisher said she agrees with Mayor Laura Binks that unreliable internet connectivity and mobile service is unacceptable. "The independents are a referral service: they refer the bureaucrats to where mobile towers are needed," Mrs Fisher said. "They do not decide how much money is put aside to fix telecommunications black spots, this concerns me." Council is asking for improved infrastructure and service delivery through secured funding to meet community service expectations and needs that metropolitan–based residents enjoy as a right. Building mobile phone towers in Mitchelton and Boho South, providing fibre connections to the towns of Avenel and Violet Town and eliminating mobile black spots in the shire are on council's bucket list. Regarding reliable power supply infrastructure which are a common occurrence throughout the shire, Cr Binks said these repeated outages result in economic loss to retail and local industry providers and cause severe inconvenience and hardship for our residents and vulnerable citizens. "The lack of energy security is one of the most significant barriers to attracting new small to medium businesses to Strathbogie Shire," she said. "Council is keen to work with our communities with the view to implementing micro–grids (with battery storage and generator backup) as a sustainable means for energy security. "We are seeking funding to develop the feasibility and business case to work towards building a net zero renewable and resilient energy future over a three–stage project. "This will ensure energy independence and island–able capacity for townships on the Benalla AusNet line and the Seymour AusNet line. "