Macarthur women high achievers but there’s more to come

♦ March 8 is International Women’s Day and it will be celebrated locally at numerous events, including a high tea at the Campbelltown civic centre.

Organisers at these events won’t have a shortage of speakers because Macarthur truly is awash with women achievers.

From artists to mumpreneurs, in politics and in business, our local women are excelling like never before.

For example Campbelltown business chamber director Polly Grundy recently became the first woman ever appointed to the board of Ingleburn RSL.

Until recently three of our business chambers had women presidents and two still do, Greater Narellan (Maria Scattergood) and the Camden chamber (Maryann Strickling).

Incredibly, women outnumber the men on Camden Council five to four.

Campbelltown Council has a female general manager, Lindy Deitz, the first woman to hold down that position, but on the council itself there are just three women out of 15 positions.

It gets worse when you go further south, at Wollondilly Council, where the mayor, Judy Hannan, is on her Pat Malone in the nine seat chamber.

Here at the Voice, over the past four years we have featured more successful business women than men, that’s for sure.

But it is true that while there will be plenty of progress to celebrate on March 8, there’s still a way to go before women have full equal representation.

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♦ A very reliable source has whispered in our ear that last week’s Land and Environment Court decision to reject Liverpool Council’s appeal against plans for a recycling facility along the Georges River could have been avoided.

Before council decided to appeal the approval, it was offered the option of a residential development instead of the recycling facility going on the site.

But our sources tell us council did not want to touch the proposal with a barge pole.

Council opted to go ahead with the appeal, which has now failed.

The court also ordered council to pay the legal costs of the appeal, but as far as Moorebank residents are concerned they now have to cop a recycling plant in their backyard.

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♦ Speaking of councils, they start to return to meetings from Tuesday night, February 13.

But plenty of councillors are wondering how they will pass the time because they have lost their approval powers for most things.

New Independent Hearing and Assessment Panels (IHAP) are coming into operation this year to decide applications between $5 million and $30 million.

Anything over that now goes to the Greater Sydney Commission, so in essence it really is back to roads, rates and rubbish for our elected representatives.

[social_quote duplicate=”no” align=”default”]“You do wonder what the point of us being there is anymore,’’ a veteran councillor told me this morning.[/social_quote]

Indeed.

We will certainly keep an eye on the body language of councillors at Campbelltown Council’s first 2018 meeting tomorrow night.

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♦ Campbelltown identity Roy Warby has been on the Wests Leagues board for 23 years, including a long stint as chairman.

His long service to the club will be recognised on Sunday, March 25 at the club’s annual general meeting when Warby will have life membership bestowed on him.

The initiative of fellow director and councillor Paul Lake, life membership for Warby is expected to receive strong support at the meeting.

The Warby name has been in Campbelltown for a long time and even has a street named after it.

An accountant by profession, Roy Warby also played rugby league for the legendary Campbelltown City Kangaroos and Parramatta, but we’ll forgive him the latter.

Congratulations on the life membership, Roy.