At the June 2024 Council Meeting, we adopted the 2024/2025 annual budget document. The task of presenting a balanced budget is becoming increasingly harder due to many factors. This year, the government set the rate cap at 2.75 percent, this means total rates and charges (excluding waste charges) can only be increased by 2.75% within the shire. This is not per household but as a total pool of funds which for Hindmarsh totaled around an extra $180,000 in revenue to our Shire. Given the increasing costs of insurances, raw materials, plant and equipment, this is making the financial sustainability of councils extremely challenging, whilst also recognising that increasing rates continually is not the way forward either. Local government is in desperate need of solid, guaranteed streams of funding from both the State and Federal Governments.
We recently honoured Men’s Health Week with a screening in Nhill of the movie "Just a Farmer", a locally made movie near Ararat about the serious impact and challenges to mental health that the industry may have on our farmers. This was attended by around 100 people with the Shire and West Wimmera Health Services providing speakers and professional groups in the industry that people could approach whilst enjoying a supper after the movie. It was interesting to see all the varied age demographics who took an interest in this subject.
We also were happy to have the breakfast team from 101.3 MIXXFM come and do a live breakfast program from the forecourt of the Dimboola Hub on a chilly morning. We had the opportunity to present quite a few local identities to talk about the area and promote our region as a place to come and visit. This radio station has very broad coverage and was a great opportunity to “sell" our shire to the outside world. It is interesting to note for instance that 50 percent of people living in Melbourne have never travelled to rural Victoria.
I also had the pleasure of playing in the Nhill King’s Birthday golf tournament recently in a field of 140 people. This was a great day and as with all events held there, was very well organised and run. We are very lucky to have such a high-quality golf course in our shire and I have been playing golf a very long time and would rate this course very highly when it comes to public golf courses throughout Victoria. Congratulations to Shane (curator) and his very hard-working committee in the way you continually present the course.
I also attended the presentation day for the Dimboola Ski Club as a finale to the Peter Taylor Memorial Barefoot Water-Skiing event in February. This involved awarding a couple of very large financial donations to the Rural Outreach Program and Wimmera Against Cancer in Kids (WACK) groups from the specifically sold goods and services auction held during the event. I would also like to congratulate Darren and his committee for their tireless efforts.