KING Island Mayor Julie Arnold is leaving the island and won’t recontest the council election in October.
Ms Arnold and her husband Charles have sold their property and will be leaving the island within weeks, before her term on the council expires. However, it won’t be forever as Ms Arnold says they plan on returning to King Island in the future.
“We’re going to a property we own in South Australia for the next six to eight months,” she said. “One of the major reasons for leaving is the delays and costs of building on King Island. “At our age, waiting for a builder for 18 months to two years and then waiting for a house to be built for another two years is just not doable.”
During their time in South Australia, they will be looking at King Island building alternatives such as pods, transportable homes, and container houses. It is hoped that by closely looking at building alternatives they will save building time. The couple also want to take the opportunity to see other parts of Australia. Ms Arnold will see out her term which ends in about 10 weeks.
Deputy Mayor Vernon Philby will chair the council meetings, and Mrs Arnold will attend the council meetings, workshops and work counsellor working groups by Zoom and other activities via email and telephone.
Nominations for council will close on September 19 and then the elections by postal ballot will be held from October 3 to October 25.
“We don’t have anything so urgent that it can’t wait for the incoming council,” said Ms Arnold. “There’ll be work being done with planning the next seven-year cycle,” she said. Elected to the council in 2018 and appointed Deputy Mayor, Mrs Arnold was elected Mayor unopposed in a by-election in April 2019. She is the first woman to serve as Mayor on King Island. Mr Arnold OAM also served as a councillor and was Mayor for two terms. She said during her time the council had worked through its issues and now had a strategic plan.
“The long-term financial plan is being looked at as well as the asset management plan. “They are important documents and are compliance documents needed by legislation. “This and the last council groups have worked hard on a lot of those issues. “We’ve had the $5m hub and the $1m gym that have soaked up so much time.”
Mrs Arnold praised all councillors for their commitment, hard work and achievements over the past few years. “If the councillors, had not been prepared to put the time in, those things would have just lapsed again.” She acknowledged it had been a difficult term, and much had happened. She said incoming councillors would still need to work hard, and probably more so than if they were part of a larger council. “And of course, we had to stand up emergency committees for Covid and deal with people who had never been on the island. “The disruptions, all of it clearly for very good reasons, the whole process, was not suited to the island at all, but we had to do it and we did it.
“The general manager and the staff were bombarded with these things as well. “Residents would remember when we were asking for specific circumstances be applied to King Island. “All of that took a lot of time and effort: it was emotionally draining. “There were two years when there was this major exercise going on all the time, apart from all the rest of the council work that needed to be done.” As current councillors decide on their future the Mayor has encouraged people put to run for council. “Four years ago, it wasn’t the easiest start and different personalities played a part, but this settled, and each councillor performed and worked with their strengths and interests.
Ms Arnold said the fallout from changes to shipping services on the island had soured her feeling about how the island was listened to. “We don’t need people to just listen. We need people to help work with us for a solution, and I don’t have the impression that that is happening at the moment. “Deputy Premier Michael Ferguson recently came to the island, and he listened. “But, listening is not necessarily what we want. We want buy-in to accept that things need to change, that it can’t stay the way it currently is – that the impost on the island is quite large and it’s putting a break on the economy.’’
Mrs Arnold is disappointed that the local planning, local provision schedules, within the statewide planning policy have not been finished during her four years in office. “It’s important that there is no break for our economy on our community through planning and planning is so important for our tourism, for our own residents to be able to build and grow families where they want. “So, the local planning provision is the one area that I am disappointed that at the moment . “I really see the possibility of the overburden from the mine as a one-off opportunity to solve our shipping problem. “And that is what I would like to see for action.
“It would be lovely to see a wharf that could take RORO ships and with a direct route to Victoria. “Maybe small cruise ships coming in and those cruise ships could come in for three or four days rather than just a short bus ride around the island. “And that would be my best for King Island. “I think we’re going to have a successful mine. I think that’s already happening. I hope that the telecommunications project where the council has committed $830,000 of residents’ money gets started.”