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Rex Mooney

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“A town like Alice”

Alice Springs Town Council would like to advise that the draft Alice Springs Town Council Strategic Plan 2013-2016 has now been placed on public display.

Copies of this document are available from the Civic Centre or downloadable from www.alicesprings.nt.gov.au.

Written comments are invited by COB Tuesday, 5 November 2013 and should be addressed to:

5IF�$IJFG�&YFDVUJWF�0GkDFS�PO Box 1071, Alice Springs, NT 0871

or email astc@astc.nt.gov.au

For further information please contact Rex Mooney on (08) 8950 0525.

Alice Springs Town Council Draft Strategic Plan 2013-2016

COMMUNITY

CONSULTATION

NEWS

Boothhonest:MelkyCorey Sinclair

GEOFF Booth’s decision toput the community in frontof his personal and politicalposition was the right thingto do, says Councillor EliMelky.

Mr Melky believes theissue with Mr Booth was amatter of transparency.

‘‘I’ve always maintainedonce you’ve become anelected member, you need tobe up front with the people,’’he said.

‘‘You need to say look I’min this business and they sayno problem but if you’vecome in under one provisoand then changed your pos-ition, people are going tojudge you on that. And as acouncillor, you must alwaysput the community beforeyourself.’’

Mr Melky the council’sintegrity had to be pro-tected.

‘‘It did bring the council’sintegrity, in my opinion, intoquestion,’’ he said.

‘‘We’re all tarred with thesame brush and this is asensitive issue. If the statusquo remained, the council,its employees and electedmembers would have beenthe butt of all jokes.

‘‘That would have been ashame and Geoff did theright thing by the commun-ity and made sure thatdidn’t happen.

He dismissed the idea thatMr Booth was not fulfillingcouncil requirements by liv-ing part time in Perth.

‘‘The act only has to havehim registered on the roll –that’s all he had to do,’’ MrMelky said.

‘‘That’s the legal positionon it. The fact that he livedin Western Australia andtravelled to Alice Springs . . .he wasn’t hiding anything.

‘‘He apologised on manymeetings and he told every-one he had bought busi-nesses in Western Austra-lia.

‘‘He has considerable in-terests in the town and hasinvested a lot of moneywhich is worth something.’’

When asked if he thinksthe public overreacted, MrMelky said he believeseveryone is entitled to theirown opinion.

‘‘My initial reaction was Ididn’t believe the story be-cause I had never heard of itbefore.’’

Nuna 7 from Nuon Solar Team of the Delft University of Technology was yesterday running first in the World Solar Challenge Picture: SUPPLIED

Solar stars racing at light speedCorey Sinclair

A 3000km stretch of Stuart Highwayhas been overtaken by 38spacecraft-like cars as part of the2013 Bridgestone World SolarChallenge.

Competitors from round the globedeparted from Parliament House in

Darwin on Sunday morning andwill travel through Alice Springsthis morning, bound for Adelaide.

Media crews from round theworld mixed with large internat-ional support teams from countriesas diverse as China, Japan, Chile,New Zealand, Belgium, Turkey andIndonesia at the start of the race.

Teams from the Netherlands con-tinued to dominate into day two inboth the Challenger and CruiserClasses.

At 10am, Nuon Solar Team fromthe Netherlands in their car Nuna 7was still leading the charge approx-imately 45 kilometres south of Elliot.

If the leading teams continued at

their pace of around 80 km per hour,they could reach the outskirts ofAlice Springs before their 5pm dailycurfew.

The teams will race down theStuart Highway to Adelaide.

The first to reach a timing pointat Angle Vale north of Adelaide willbe declared the winner.

Operation Firangi takesaim at crime in the BarklyTHE NT Government haspraised police for their worktackling property and viol-ent crime as well as anti-social behaviour in theBarkly through OperationFirangi.

Chief minister AdamGiles there was a significantcrime decrease in TennantCreek and surroundingareas during the two-monthoperation.

He visited Tennant Creekon Thursday to thank andcongratulate officers fortheir efforts.

‘‘A key part of this oper-ation has been having ahighly visible police pres-ence in the town throughpatrols to deter anti-socialbehaviour (and) it has beenhugely effective,’’ Mr Gilessaid. ‘‘Since Operation

Firangi began on August 1,police have made 46 arrestsin relation to 98 chargesincluding 21 domestic viol-ence matters, 14 unlawfulentries, eight breaches ofbail and four assaults.

‘‘This is yet another exam-ple of police targeting theirefforts to great success.

‘‘Under this operation, of-ficers had a special focus onillegal drug and alcohol act-ivity in the region.

‘‘While this operation hasnow come to an end, policewill continue to target thistype of offending in Tenn-ant Creek and the Barklyregion.’’

Mr Giles said his govern-ment will also invest insocial advancement and de-velop a platform for econ-omic growth in the Barkly.

Council opens its booksCorey Sinclair

CONFIDENTIAL council information such asemployee wages will become public knowledgefrom this month.

Alice Springs Town Council provided a reportasking that certain financial reports be open forpublic disclosure.

Director of Finance Paul Della said that underthe Local Government Act, each council was freeto report its financial information in a mannerapproved by the council.

‘‘Previously, council had determined that allfinancial reports would be in-confidential buthave now determined that the balance sheet, themonthly payments listing, the debtors analysisand the investment report will appear in open

from October,’’ Mr Della said. The reports willreveal the day-to-day operational spend, mattersthat have already been approved, who owesmoney and how much employees earn.

Councillor Eli Melky said all of its electedmembers were happy to provide the information.

‘‘It’s an excellent thing in terms of the publicbeing able to see financial transparency,’’ MrMelky said.

‘‘It shows there is nothing to hide. In the past,people have had questions about what happensin our finances and we simply weren’t allowed totalk about it, but now we can talk about it.

‘‘People will see it is quite ordinary and notunusual. Sometimes things in the shadows seemsinister.’’

Mr Melky said previous council members hadnot been hiding anything by keeping financialreports confidential.

‘‘As times move on and things evolve, council-lors need to be moving with the times,’’ he said.

He said the main reason the financial reportswere not released in the past was to not prejudicethe councillors, businesses or members of thepublic.

‘‘If someone owes you money, you don’t reallywant to publicise that,’’ he said. ‘‘If you tender,you don’t want to publicise that.

‘‘There are a lot more items that will remain in-confidential but I hope we will identify thingsthat can be open items.’’